Core Value #5: Spirituality

I wanted to be near water when I sat to write about spirituality, and because today is a rare day off school that I’m also kid-free—I get to do just that. I parked my car view a water view and pulled out my laptop.

The movement and forms of water have always wakened something inside me, as if something in my body senses the waves, ripples, flow, or rapids and begins to move as well. I feel the movement within my chest, my arms, my abdomen, and my legs—a quickening, so similar to those first flutters you feel in pregnancy. And also very different—because the specialness of feeling fetal movement comes from knowing you carry and nurture another whole life inside your womb. This is special because I know it is all Me. 

I am connected—truly, and in ways I don’t understand, that are difficult to describe—to the world outside my body. 

Are some of my cells still quantum entangled with cells out there? Or do I have receptors I’m unaware of receiving messages beyond language? Is it my bio-electromagnetic field interacting with other magnetic fields around me? Or does everything have a spirit, and our spirits can interact via a realm we cannot see or hear, but still we sense it?

Being near the water reminds me that I am more than physical. I am more than my productivity. I am Spirit. And my spirit, or my soul, is a big part of whatever sense of self I’m working to clarify and cultivate throughout this year-long writing project. 

I chose to write about my top five values in alphabetical order, so I wouldn’t have to tackle the impossible task of ranking them according to any other virtue. So I’m getting to spirituality last based simply on that choice, not because it’s the least important. Now that we’re here though, I am glad to end our core values series in this way. It feels right. 

Spirituality: appreciating the need to understand one’s inner self and its relationship with the world. 

For me, spirituality is this and more.

Personal Spirituality

My guess is that it’s pretty obvious to you I have a strong desire to understand my own inner Self. That’s what this entire effort is about. But navel-gazing isn’t enough on its own. The beauty—and the fruit—comes when a clarified understanding of self changes how I interact with and relate to everyone and everything around me. That shift is what I’ll be celebrating a year from now—and what I’ll use to map out my next season of life. 

Spirituality is more than an idea or framework for understanding—it is also a practice. I know the way to better understand my inner Self and then let that knowing refine my relationship to everything else. I return to water. I write. I notice beauty on purpose. I sit in silence. I imagine everything conspiring to bring about this exact moment, on purpose, for good, and then wonder—what am I meant to learn here? I know this. Now the work is consistency. 

Big Spirituality

Additionally, I do believe in a spiritual realm. I believe we were created with intention, and our souls are here on purpose. Whether that’s an ultimate Creator who can be personified and related with, or a more ambiguous creative force that can be felt, absorbed, and aligned with—I don’t know. And the really cool thing is, I’m not really stressed about figuring it out. I’m okay with the uncertainty and the mystery. 

I know enough and feel certain of enough that I’ve got good work to do to last a lifetime. I don’t need to know it all. 

As spiritual understanding and knowledge comes along, I’ll embrace it gratefully. When I feel parched or empty, I’ll return to what I already know—connect within myself to a source of love or beauty or hope—and be restored. That’s plenty for me.  

I’m so appreciative of your company this past month. We’ve covered a lot of ground together—identity mapping, needs, self actualization, our core values—and I trust that if you’re reading this, some strands of my personal process have been useful to you. 

Next month we’re moving on to all the personality tests! If you’ve ever taken the Meyer’s Briggs, you’re into the Enneagram, or have another profiling tool to share with me—this is gonna be a good time.