THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUALITY

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Spirituality is about discovering the inner awareness. It can best be described by psychological growth, creativity, consciousness and emotional maturation. It involves learning and practicing the fundamentals of life, like - forgiveness, moving away from the material, kindness, sympathy and much more. According to a Spiritual Psychology professor, a person can either be spiritually good or spiritually evil. In the modern world, spirituality is increasingly accepted as an integral part of mental and physical growth. 

A branch of Spiritual Psychology has emerged from the works of Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow and Stanislav Grof, that examines man in his integrity, as a complex system consisting of the mind, soul and body. 

I, personally, am both pro-science and pro-spirituality. Science helps me understand the workings of the physical universe, and spirituality helps me understand the workings of the internal universe. I believe that Psychology and Spirituality blend pretty well together. Many of the brilliant scientists of all times believed openly in religion and spirituality, like, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, Francis Collins, etc. 

THE SCIENCE OF SPIRITUALITY

Carl Jung was the first to notice that many of his clients' problems were religious in nature, requiring the development of their own personal spiritual perspective, during the healing process. This is also the reason why many psychologists believe that understanding the spiritual self is important to psychotherapy. 

Science have shown that there are certain benefits associated with religious belief:

- longer life span; someone with strong spiritual beliefs is expected to live about ten years more than someone with no such beliefs. 
- better psychological health
- better emotional regulation
- better emotional intelligence 

These aren't for those who just adhere to attending churches, temples, etc. but for those who actually have faith in a higher power.

It has been shown that most of the people that are believers of God, are mostly those who are:

- highly sympathetic 

- kind 

- smart

- better listeners

Also, most believers of God identify to all forms of humanity and are more prone to openly accept all kinds of races.

WAYS TO STRENGTHEN OUR SPIRITUALITY

1. Increasing your faith: This is about improving oneself, and having faith in humanity and in the world. What is faith?. It is believing something that hasn't been seen. Faith knows no doubt.

2. Being willing to change: When we are faced with a problem, we mostly tend to blame someone else and point out their flaws and mistakes instead of finding out what we did wrong. Ask yourself if you're really willing to accept your wrong.

3. Doing the work: Any process takes a certain amount of dedication and commitment. Spirituality involves a lot of work, like, meditating, praying, practicing silence and shadow work i.e finding out the true dark sides of ourselves and preparing ourselves to grow from them.

THE BOTTOM LINE

I strongly believe that there is a possibility that there is a much higher power that created the Universe. Through this article, I haven't tried to convince any body to be religious or spiritual, but, I suggest to be open. It is good to be open enough to understand what it means to be human.

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