I’m Not Religious, I’m Spiritual

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” —A.W. Tozer

We all like to put ourselves in little boxes especially when it comes to compartmentalizing who we are and most importantly, who we want people think we are.

When I first read this quote, I saw the word God and was ready to move on. I am not religious, only consider myself spiritual but nevertheless am intuitively intrigued about what different people think it means to live a good life.

When I think of my God I think of a connection to a higher power that some would describe as light or the good. Without this there is no point of human existence. The light or the good to me isn’t fleeting moments of joy, it’s the feeling when it all makes sense. When you’re in a group of friends and you and that person look at each other and you are both thinking the same thing. The moments where things cannot be explained into words.

When I think of the role of religion in my life I can remember giggling on a pew in the Catholic church with my best friend and not taking it seriously. That week the priest had told me I was going to hell because I stopped going to church on Sundays. I thought it was all a hoax and to me growing up with my Italian side of the family, family dinners were spiritual and food was our only religion. In church I just felt fear, confusion and no real connection to the light or to higher existence.

For me it was the times in my life where shit really hit the fan that I felt the connection to the universe. The lows made me gain strength from some sort of ultimate power that I would soon find out to be was within myself. To take pain and turn it into something beautiful and find the strength within yourself to move on. This is what spirituality means to me. To connect with yourself and heal yourself in order to heal others.

Religion is based on a belief system that starts when we are young. We grow up and our told what to believe, analyze it and develop our own set standards on what it means to live a good life. It’s almost as if we reach and age and get to be like wait we can do whatever we want? We question the meaning of our life and for me it was, do I have control over any of this?

I sit here in a tiny New York City apartment and ask myself how I got back to the one place I thought I was gone forever from. Was I in control of this outcome of my life? Every little move I made or time I tried something new, it was leading me to where I am today. I thought I was in control but maybe destiny or fate was.

I think part of developing your value system is making the mistakes that shake the ground underneath you and make you question yourself. It is during these times where our belief systems truly put’s us to the test. Just how far will you go? What will you choose? How do you pick yourself up again? Who you think your God is and what is the framework you choose to live by?

What is God to me? I’ve been searching for it my whole life. I’ve tried to find God through other people. But to put faith into just another human being is where things get messy. I think to search for the light or God in another person is one of the most dangerous things you can ever do. It’s basically like you get your God, you put him on a little golden pedestal and eventually you will find he is just another mortal being flaws and all.

I think at the end of the day people just want to be comforted in a confusing world and told everything is going to be okay. They search for something to hold onto in a world where things and people are seemingly replaceable. They want a belief system to fall back on or something that they can know will “save” them.

I think wanting to make sense of it all goes back to religion even in ancient times when you look up at the stars and feel small and wonder, what is my purpose here? But the pieces to put the bigger puzzle of life together and answer the big questions are changing rapidly. Instead of figuring out what we want for ourselves we are told what to buy to fulfill a need, how to act, how to portray ourselves. Put on a face for the world.

Very recently I gratefully stumbled upon fellow empath and NYC native and intuitive healer, David Sauvage. He explores the idea of empathy and society and in one of his latest posts he examines:

“We Americans tend to cover up our feelings by pretending to be okay, or happy, or doing well. We have few socially acceptable outlets for anger or grief, fewer still for sadness, and virtually none at all for misery or, incredibly, joy. Our strategy for hiding these emotions is to project a false self who is empowered, confident and clear. We’ve got it covered. That’s our story.” David Sauvage

But, to me the ability to think for ourselves or show emotion in the desensitized world is the ultimate act of rebellion and the only thing that can truly save us. #preach