How Spirituality Can Be a Potential Cure for Mental Disorders
Spiritualism”, no wonder you have heard this term several times in your life, but have you ever reflected upon its true meaning? If someone were to ask you to define spiritualism, how would you go about it? Do you see the flaw yet? If you can’t even define the term properly, how would you ever plan on harvesting the benefits that it has to offer?
In the simplest of terms, spirituality can be defined as a set of all activities and practices which are aimed at bringing you a step closer to understanding and connecting with your inner self. It’s unfortunate that there are a number of misconceptions associated with the concept of spirituality. For instance, you’d wide a lot of people who would use the term religion and spirituality as if they meant the same thing. So here’s the first shocker for you; religion and spirituality are two very different concepts. Another common misconception is that spirituality entails ancient yet beneficial practices like mindfulness, yoga, meditation, prayer, etc. While it may include such practices as well, it is not the case at all times. Depending on your circumstances, a random or even casual activity such as that of jogging, painting, playing a musical instrument, etc. anything can be a spiritual experience for you.
Among the far and wide benefits that spirituality has to offer, there is hardly one that is as prominent as its positive impact on your overall mental health. Our personal and professional lives are surrounded by stress and anxiety in the world of today. Spiritualism enlightens the path for you to effectively coping with it on a day to day basis. Don’t take our word for it, though. Let’s take a closer look at how spirituality can protect you against excessive stress and anxiety, and be a potential cure for mental illnesses.
More Practice, More Patience
Spirituality enables you to connect with your inner self and sheds some light on the higher meaning and purpose of your life. It makes you realize how you are a small part of something that is unfathomably bigger than yourself. Spiritual people are more likely to be free from all materialism that consumes the world and is focused on serving their purpose. Such are the people who have a better understanding of the fact that all of their experiences, regardless of how good or bad, are ultimately focused on pushing them closer to serving their ultimate purpose.
This enables a person to keep his calm and mental peace through the hardest of times. Instead of being overly stressed or anxious about the present or upcoming events in his life, spirituality makes him see that however negative experience may appear to be, it is ultimately putting into action a chain of events that will help him serve his greater purpose in life. With an ability to be patient and not open the doors for stress and anxiety to find residence inside one’s mind, spirituality can sustain mental health and protect it against such emotional hazards.
More Positive Mindset
A human mind that is being consumed by [restrict] negativity is evidently at a greater risk for mental illnesses like depression than the one that has learned to see the good in any given scenario. That’s the second route for spirituality to protect your mental health and keep the mental disorders at bay. The number of thoughts going through your mind at any given time is uncountable. Some, or at times, even most of these thoughts could be negative in a way that these disturb the natural symphony of your mind. A few of such thoughts have the potential to take over you and disable you from accomplishing your routine tasks.
Spirituality, however, is known to be effective in making such thoughts vanish in an attempt to provide you with mental clarity. It fills your head up with positivity and makes it a habit for yourself to express gratitude for the smaller things in life. Consequently, you learn to express your gratitude for everything that you have and not take anything for granted. This is how spirituality can uplift your mood, replenish positivity in your overall energy and vibe, and ultimately protect you against the harms of routine stress and anxiety which may take the form of mental disorders in the long run.
Build More Self-Confidence
As mentioned earlier, spirituality is the name of connecting with your inner self and putting an effort into understanding it better. Once you manage to establish this connection, you would no longer have to depend on external approval or opinions to make your choices and finalize your decisions. It will enable you to extract wisdom out of your own spiritual self that will help your odds of making the right decision at most if not all the time. Spirituality gives a louder voice to your intuition. Eventually, as you start to tune into what your gut feeling is trying to tell you, you will promote yourself to a whole new level of self-confidence and self-esteem.
Simply put, spirituality frees you of the panic of what other people will think of your choices or your decisions. As such, it is like one huge but unnecessary burden that is taken off your shoulders. Consequently, the reduced peer pressure will minimize the associated stress and anxiety that will play the role in sustaining your mental health.
More Motivation and Hope
Spirituality usually comes with an additional belief in the concept of divinity; an almighty that is omnipotent and has control over all affairs of the past, present, or the future. Some would call this divine power “time”, others would probably call it “destiny”. Cross it over with the religious concepts and you would also find the names like “Allah”, “Bhagwan”, “God” for this divine power. In all cases, what remains common is the belief that the almighty doesn’t write “all bad” for anyone. It highlights that ups and downs, good and bad, ease and adversity are a part of everyone’s life. As such, there is a concealed implication that after the darkest of nights, always comes the dawn.
This is what enables the spiritual people to be more hopeful. Instead of letting the depressive thoughts taking over them, clouding their judgment, and making them believe that things will never turn in their favor, it helps them to have an unshakable faith in “this too shall pass”. It creates a never-dying hope that it is only a matter of time that the adversity comes to an end. If that doesn’t restore your mental health and protect you against depression, what would?
More Support from Others
Lastly, the benefit of the misconception that spirituality is somehow related to religion is that just like the religious communities, people who believe in spirituality, are convinced of its benefits, and have an intention to practice it as a permanent part of their personalities have also created communities to help and support each other. Look around in your neighborhood and you would be able to find a similar social group. If not, you can search on the internet and be a part of a spiritual community that you deem suitable for yourself.
The accentuated benefit of being a part of such a social group is greater support through all the phases of your life. It connects you with people who are interested in listening to your life story and are genuinely concerned about solving your problems and promoting your well-being. Being surrounded by the spiritual people will, therefore, make it a little easier for you to cope with the daily stress as you would no longer feel alone and isolated in the puzzle of life. With greater support from the peers, it is unlikely that your mental health will be jeopardized or worsen without being noticed.
Conclusion
The truth of the matter is that the benefits of spirituality are innumerous to the extent that even an entire book won’t do justice in elaborating them. Spirituality is an increasingly deep concept that has an impact on almost all of the elements of your life. Working on being more spiritual and connecting with your inner self, therefore, is like a one-stop-shop if you would like the benefits to be disseminated through different domains of your life. The aim of this article was just to give you a brief overview of how spirituality can be a potential cure to the mental disorders which have been on a rise in this competitive age. The more you invest into being spiritual, the better it is for your mental health which essentially derives your performance in the realm of productivity, physique, creativity, cognition and what not.
The above mentioned are the benefits of spirituality which have made it an area of extensive research in the niche of psychology. Being a concept that’s larger than life, however, it is generally accepted that a transformation into a spiritual being requires a serious investment in terms of time. You are only going to accomplish the goal if you are persistent with your efforts. [/restrict]
