Why Spirituality Needs Psychology. As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin reminded us, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." How does one live in the conscious awareness of his or her spiritual nature?
"Many people get disillusioned on the spiritual path, and it is not because spiritual practices and approaches are not effective -- they are. If we sincerely engage spiritual disciplines -- whether meditation, contemplation, yoga or prayer -- our practices will bear fruits. We will have more experiences, insights, moments of connection with presence, oneness or divinity. The problem is not spiritual technologies and practices.
Spiritual teachers do not routinely fall into scandals around power and sexuality because the practices they engage and teach do not work. Spiritual students do not become disillusioned with spiritual life because they are not practicing sincerely enough. If we look closely, we see that these practices do work, and that part of our lives actually are improving.
So why isn't this making us ultimately happier? Improving our relationships? Diminishing our reactivity? Depression? Anxiety? Through working with hundreds of spiritual teachers and practitioners in the western world, I am convinced that spiritual work alone does not address many of our deepest psychological knots and traumas, nor does it provide tools to address our wounds in relationships that block us from fulfilling our deepest longings, dreams and spiritual possibilities.
We get stuck because we have not integrated the psychological wounds and traumas that live within our bodies and keep repeating themselves again and again through unfulfilling, if not self-destructive, behaviors and dramas in our lives. We engage in spiritual bypassing, hoping against our often-better judgment, that our spiritual practices will remove our unpleasant emotions or help us to transcend our relationship challenges. "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spirituality-and-psychology_b_923765.html
"I believe human growth and potential has no limit -- there is not a height, depth or sideways expansion that we get to and say, "Now I have arrived." My experience is that the deeper I dive both into myself and in connection with the world, the more I discover how vast and endless it all is. The sheer beauty of this is that it means, literally, that wherever we are is OK because we are one point on a spectrum of endlessness."
Why Spirituality Needs Psychology. "I also believe we all need help and companionship along the way, at times through professional support and always through friends on the path. Needing each other, and needing support on the path through life, is a sign of health, not deficiency. We are truly more powerful when we support each other than when we attempt to stand alone." This sums it up for me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spirituality-and-psychology_b_923765.html
"Many people get disillusioned on the spiritual path, and it is not because spiritual practices and approaches are not effective -- they are. If we sincerely engage spiritual disciplines -- whether meditation, contemplation, yoga or prayer -- our practices will bear fruits. We will have more experiences, insights, moments of connection with presence, oneness or divinity. The problem is not spiritual technologies and practices.
Spiritual teachers do not routinely fall into scandals around power and sexuality because the practices they engage and teach do not work. Spiritual students do not become disillusioned with spiritual life because they are not practicing sincerely enough. If we look closely, we see that these practices do work, and that part of our lives actually are improving.
So why isn't this making us ultimately happier? Improving our relationships? Diminishing our reactivity? Depression? Anxiety? Through working with hundreds of spiritual teachers and practitioners in the western world, I am convinced that spiritual work alone does not address many of our deepest psychological knots and traumas, nor does it provide tools to address our wounds in relationships that block us from fulfilling our deepest longings, dreams and spiritual possibilities.
We get stuck because we have not integrated the psychological wounds and traumas that live within our bodies and keep repeating themselves again and again through unfulfilling, if not self-destructive, behaviors and dramas in our lives. We engage in spiritual bypassing, hoping against our often-better judgment, that our spiritual practices will remove our unpleasant emotions or help us to transcend our relationship challenges. "
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spirituality-and-psychology_b_923765.html
"I believe human growth and potential has no limit -- there is not a height, depth or sideways expansion that we get to and say, "Now I have arrived." My experience is that the deeper I dive both into myself and in connection with the world, the more I discover how vast and endless it all is. The sheer beauty of this is that it means, literally, that wherever we are is OK because we are one point on a spectrum of endlessness."
Why Spirituality Needs Psychology. "I also believe we all need help and companionship along the way, at times through professional support and always through friends on the path. Needing each other, and needing support on the path through life, is a sign of health, not deficiency. We are truly more powerful when we support each other than when we attempt to stand alone." This sums it up for me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spirituality-and-psychology_b_923765.html
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