Many people find that their natural instinct is to turn to their spiritual foundation or religious beliefs when life finds them frazzled. Most of us believe that at our core is a spiritual essence or soul. Admittedly, when you have a day that sounds sort of like the following, you need something: You wake at 5:30 a.m., pack three lunches for each of your kids, fight over the shower schedule, your spouse takes one kid to daycare and two catch the bus. Before you are down the block starting your commute, your oldest child calls you on your cell phone and begs you to drop off her homework assignment at school so she doesn't flunk biology. You do this, followed by a one-hour commute in stop-and-go traffic, get to work to find an immediate crisis over a management report, wolf down lunch at your desk, get a call at 3:00 that the preschooler is throwing up at daycare, and call your spouse to fight over who is leaving work early to handle the situation. You flip a coin and lose. So, you go to daycare, bringing home a briefcase of work, and then you get your child settled on the couch with a video. You work from home until the dinner hour. Your spouse is taking your middle child to soccer. You eat take-out—and yours is cold because your sick child throws up in the middle of you trying to eat it. Laundry. Homework supervision. Baths for children. Check email. Another crisis looming at work. Vaguely kiss your spouse's cheek before passing out. Start whole thing all over again . . . Sound familiar?
It's not always fun being a grown-up. There . . . we said it. In fact, if anyone told us when we were kids what it's really like to be an adult, most of us would have opted to stay children forever. Maybe Peter Pan had the right idea. The aforementioned out-of-breath scenario doesn't even take into account some of the more common “big issue” problems such as the following.
Being part of the “sandwich” generation, meaning you have both young children and aging parents to care for. Kathy's mother lived with her for a number of years and she had to contend with falls and medical crises. Both of us have young children ranging in age from 5 to 13.
Financial pressures. The dollar doesn't go as far as it used to and the old ideal of being able to live on one salary has gone the same way as the fantasy of being able to live on Social Security after retirement.
Company downsizing and layoffs mean departments have to get by with fewer people doing the work of more.
Any kind of illness in yourself, friends, or family members.
Lugging around emotional baggage (see Chapter 6).
Parenting issues.
Is it any wonder that the majority of Americans believe in God . . . and angels . . . and the power of prayer? We need all the help we can get (including positive friends to buoy us—check out Chapter 9!).
Add to this the fact that with middle age comes the clarion call of mortality. You may find yourself thinking about your spirituality more than ever before. In addition, as you and your friends and siblings age, it becomes increasingly difficult to find anyone without serious crises in his or her life. What do we mean? In Erica's small circle of friends and family, she has had two of her best friends face breast cancer, has a parent who is going blind, and has seen a number of marriages in serious trouble from everything from infidelity to simply serious unhappiness leading to divorce. She has friends who have struggled with depression and friends whose parents have died suddenly after short illnesses. She has seen years in which she has attended way too many wakes and funerals and spent far too many hours in the Hallmark aisle struggling to find the right card to send to friends facing deep personal trials. (They don't exactly make a card for “Life sucks, but buck up!”) Aging and adulthood carry with them the challenge of serious struggles as well as mankind's lifelong quest to make sense of senseless things.
God on the 'Net
Plug in the word “God” on the Google search engine and you'll get (at least in July of 2003) 41,600,003 sites. That's a lot of God in cyberspace!
Making sense of the senseless is the challenge of answering the childlike questions of faith and spirituality. What do we mean? Children have a faith that is far more upfront. When adults attend the funeral of a young person whose life was cut short tragically, they often mumble things like “such a shame” or “what a tragedy.” Children say “Why did God have to let little Johnny die? WHY?” And we don't have an answer now as adults any more than we had an answer when we were 12.
So spirituality, often, has two roles in our lives. We may be looking for strength as we face suffering and pain or the difficulties of “being a grown-up” and we may long for spirituality to ease the stress of modern-day living. However, you may not feel as if you have enough time to seek spirituality, a higher power, or whatever you wish to call your God. You may be an Easter and High Holy Days kind of Christian or Jew, or you may have never stepped into the doorway of a house of faith. Yet, you may need faith and belief to give you some balance and strength in light of stress, crises, and the storms of life. It is important to seek solace from your religious faith, or, if you prefer, to get out into nature and hug a tree and make time to develop this side of your life. But can you seek spirituality? Can you make the same kind of balancing steps we have advocated in the rest of the book? Indeed, you can.
Instead of Fuzzy Thinking | Think Clearly |
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I want to have God more present in my life.→ | I will find 10 to 15 minutes a day to be quiet and to pray or meditate. |
I will go to church more often.→ | I will strive to make time for my spiritual and religious belief but will understand if life events keep me from my highest ideals. I will aspire to do the best I can. |
The idea of fuzzy versus clear thinking, again, is to take some measurable action. It isn't enough to “want” to be rid of something or to “want” something as vague and open ended as “faith.” It also isn't helpful to have broad goals and agendas. You want to start with a manageable goal so that you can see for yourself that you are making progress. Making time for your spirituality is a good place to start. As busy people, for instance, you may feel as if this quest is frivolous, especially if you are a high achiever. It's not frivolous. This quest is as old as humanity, and it's an important element in the search for balance. Again, that clarion call of the soul is there for us, whether you try to drown it out with your cellphone, beeper, and Road Warrior ways or not.
You may have been raised in a particular faith or religion. For some of us, returning to that faith is a source of comfort. Some of us may have never left it. However, for others, our childhood faith was a source of pain or guilt. In the quest for spirituality, you can give yourself permission to explore faith options that are different from those in which you were raised. Instead, you can think of this as a quest for balance, a quest for a spirituality to provide you with a foundation that will give you a sense of peace during those inevitable moments of exhaustion or crisis. It is also possible, when “writing your own map,” to have goals. We don't think of having spirituality goals. A goal is seen as something to accomplish and something to achieve, like an “A” on a test or a salary raise. But it is entirely sensible to have a goal as far as your spirituality is concerned. Maybe that goal might be to purchase a book on Buddhism or some faith other than your own to gain insight into what that religion might have to offer you. Perhaps your goal might be to go back to your childhood faith by attending services with your family. You might want to “church shop” if you haven't been attending services regularly to find a church, synagogue, or mosque in your community that you might wish to attend.
What are your goals as far as a quest for spirituality? (Remember to be specific and measurable.) What issues would you like your spirituality to help you resolve?
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Imagine for a moment that you have accomplished everything on your spirituality list. Answer this question:
What will your life be like when you have a newfound spirituality? How will it help you face the stresses and pressures of your life?
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If spirituality has not been a part of your life, and this quest is a new one for you, think about the following question. If, however, spirituality is already a part of your life and you are seeking to make it a stronger part of your life, think of the goals you just wrote down as you reference this question.
What will be the smallest sign that you are moving in the right direction and that you are moving toward spirituality or increasing your existing faith and spirituality? You want to list this sign so that you can see your progress and recognize it.
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When there is a positive change in one area, other positive changes will occur somewhere else. If you think of life as walking that tightrope, the balancing act is an art form unto itself. Without strong spirituality, you may feel as if life's problems leave you completely depleted. Spirituality can be the element of life that fills you with renewed energy when life gets you down.
For some people, the quest for spirituality is as natural as breathing. Great thinkers, including Albert Einstein for instance, have believed that humankind's quest for spirituality is hardwired into our very humanness. Great thinkers believe we need spirituality.
Others, however (in particular those who have left a childhood faith), may believe “the roof will cave in” if they return to a church, synagogue, or mosque. They have a long-standing aversion to organized religion and have gotten along “fine” without it. This may well be for them. However, spirituality encompasses more than attending services in one of the world's major religions. Many people's faiths are a “hodgepodge” of beliefs and practices culled from everything from the world's major religions to some New Age theories to 12-step programs. We know people who haven't attended a church service in 20 years who still believe fiercely in guardian angels, for instance. So the quest for spirituality can take many forms.
One thing we do believe, however, is that if you are looking for balance and order in your life, spirituality can help you. If you have shut your mind to that idea, perhaps it's time to open yourself up to the possibility. This doesn't mean you are going to sell all your belongings and join a Trappist monastery. It simply means you recognize that spirituality can add something to your life. Let's list five problems or crises you are facing that a spiritual foundation might help you with.
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Now it is time to be open to what spirituality can bring to your life.
Spirituality doesn't make everything “all better.” You can't go to God with a laundry list of things you'd like him to fix. That was how we often prayed as children. God was sort of like Santa Claus. You could pray for world peace, to watch over Mom and Dad . . . and while you're at it, God, could you bring me a pony.
We wish that spirituality would mean you don't have days in which all hell breaks loose. You won't ever lose your job; your mother-in-law will stop her evil ways; you won't ever have to say good-bye to someone you love; illness will never happen to anyone in your family. But that's impossible because we live in the real world with real problems. Spirituality is more like a Band-aid. It doesn't fix everything. Just like the body heals itself from a cut and the Band-aid is just there to protect the injury until you can heal. Spirituality gives you a sense of peace and balance until the elements of time and your own heart healing can make the pain of modern-day life and crises lessen.
Now it's time to balance your world with clear ideas of your goals in the spiritual arena.
List your top five goals toward spirituality:
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Now ask yourself this question:
On a scale ranging from 1 to 10, with 1 being “the worst” and 10 being “great,” how well would you say you are taking care of your spirituality right now?
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If you answered with a 9 or 10, that's great. Feel good about this issue in your life. As we've said before, the fun part is that there is always more to learn. Remember that life has a way of throwing you a curve ball just when you think everything is terrific.
How have you managed to maintain your sense of balance in this area so far? What is working for you? (Give yourself some well-deserved credit!)
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What could you do to bring your score up half a notch, say to a 9½? If you gave yourself a 10, what can you continue to do to keep your score at a ten?
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If you feel like you wouldn't step into the door of a church and you haven't prayed since you asked God for that pony, you could still examine your spirituality:
What kinds of things have you been doing that keep your score at a two or five? Think about it—you didn't give yourself a zero so you must be doing a few things correctly. What are you doing that's right?
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If you are thinking that there simply couldn't be anything positive in a score that low, you're wrong. If you didn't give yourself a flat zero it is because in some small ways you are doing a few positive things to be spiritual. It may feel small or inconsequential but change is built on tiny, but well-thought-out, steps. Just one step in the right direction is powerful because it takes you closer to your goals. You watch as your young child sleeps and have a sense—some still, small sense—that indeed there are some miracles in this life.
What is one more thing you can do to find balance in your spiritual life and bring your score up a point?
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What will you do to ensure that you keep doing that one small thing?
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How will your life be different when you manage to get your score up a few points?
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What will you be doing that you are not doing now?
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Who will be the most surprised about these positive changes?
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Spirituality can help you walk the tightrope of life. But life will inevitably throw you some headwinds that can knock you clear off the wire. That's when spirituality can act like a net.
Time and time again, people who have come through life's darkest trials did so through some philosophy or spiritual belief that got them through it. That was their net. They may not have even realized they landed in the net until years later when they came out the other side. One of the most famous examples of this is Viktor Frankl, author of many books, but perhaps most famous for Man's Search for Meaning (2000). Frankl lived through the Holocaust and lost his wife and family. He also witnessed atrocities, suffered starvation, and witnessed the insanity and evilness that was the Nazi regime. Yet, through his suffering, he spawned an entire philosophical movement called logotherapy. His philosophy is not a religion in the traditional sense, but it did help him and countless others, since his book was published, make sense of the senseless. While it's hard to describe in a nutshell, and far be it from us to paraphrase a genius, at its heart it is about our humanity—and that the essence and grace of our humanity cannot be taken from us unless we give it away. He tried to walk through this world with that grace and with forgiveness.
Our spirituality can be our net in our quest for balance. It can help us on those days when we look upward and say, “God help me.” He may not send a miracle to you—like always putting you in the lane that moves the fastest on your commute—but spirituality can be a breath of peace to help you in your trials.