What Is Spirituality?
As a wide notion, spirituality allows for a variety of viewpoints. It often entails a quest for purpose in life and, in general, involves a feeling of connection to something greater than ourselves. As a result, it is a shared human experience that affects everyone. A spiritual experience may be described as sacred, sublime, or sihttps://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/sites/default/files/breathing.JPGply as a profound sense of aliveness and connectivity.
Some people could discover that their affiliation with a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue is closely related to their spiritual life. Some could turn to prayer or find solace in a close personal connection with God or a higher power. Others look for significance in their relationships with nature or the arts. Your individual experiences and interpersonal relationships may cause your concept of spirituality to evolve over the course of your life, similar to how your sense of purpose does.
Experts’ definitions of spirituality
Christina Puchalski, MD, Director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health, contends that “spirituality is the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, and to the significant or sacred.”
According to Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’Leary, researchers and authors of The Spiritual Brain, “spirituality means any experience that is thought to bring the experiencer into contact with the divine (in other words, not just any experience that feels meaningful).”
Nurses Ruth Beckmann Murray and Judith Proctor Zenter write that “the spiritual dimension tries to be in harmony with the universe, and strives for answers about the infinite, and comes into focus when the person faces emotional stress, physical illness, or death.”
Spirituality versus emotional health
You will notice as you read on that many practices recommended for cultivating spirituality are similar to those recommended for improving emotional wellbeing. This is because there is a connection between the two—emotional and spiritual wellbeing influence one another and overlap, as do all aspects of wellbeing.
