What Is Spiritual Growth?

It has taken me years of learning and self awareness to be at the place of spiritual growth that I am at today. So, what is spiritual growth?

I'm just becoming aware, maybe at a deeper level than I have been before, the pitfalls of what is often called a spiritual bypass. Spiritual bypass- the desire to go directly to spiritual feelings, explanations and thoughts without experiencing the feelings in between.  (Much prettier and less messy - like the picture to the left. It's even decorated with a flower.)

Here are some examples of how we do it to ourselves:

• We are so scared of feelings, we use something to keep us from having them. It might be a substance or might be just a way of clenching down and keeping them out.

• We decide we are so healed and have done so much work on ourselves and our past, we don't need to go there any more.

• Since we didn't have a very rough past, we think we aren't like those others who did and we don't really have any feelings much to deal with

I think that about covers it. (You know who you are.)

Anyway, that being said, I'm going to copy what I wrote just a bit ago:

"Nobody wants to let me talk about my fears of death or let me muddle my way into acceptance. I just looked up throat in Louise Hay. It says, 'avenue of expression. Channel of creativity.' So that's why my throat hurts and I feel like I've lost my creativity like a little cat who might be in the house somewhere under a bed hiding but also might be gone - even dead. So I've been enjoying editing what I've already written and being amazed that I wrote what I wrote and expressed it so well. Maybe this fear is what is holding back my flow. Not the fear so much, but the lack of expressing it. It feels like my faucet is almost closed.

So here goes:

I am afraid of dying. What if it hurts? What if there is nothing after? What if I'm not really spiritual, just afraid of dying? What if Bart's cold body is in our bed? Who would I call? What would I say? How would I call Anna? What if I become too needy and my kids don't want to be bothered? What if the pain of Bart's dying is so sharp it ruins me? What if death disrupts my life? What if he gets sick and can't work or is non-functioning? What if I do? What will happen? I feel like I'm up against a wall of water like the parting of the Red Sea and I'm running out of the steam to keep it at bay - my positive grateful attitude is wearing thin - gratitude with feeling is hard to find. Denial is gone. Mortality is here. I can't keep walking around it like the elephant in the living room. It's bigger. More unknown. Surprising. Maybe evil. Everyone who has died in my life seemed magically gone. I insulated myself from their pain or I rode or floated on top of it. I can't do that any more. I've never really felt grief and it scares me.

I want to feel up to facing whatever is and face it dead-on, face to face. I don't want to lose my highs and lows and yet I want to stay in a positive  place. Have I confused something here? Am I trying to give myself a spiritual bypass? Have Bart and I colluded in shutting out my feelings? We don't like anger. He doesn't like mine. I don't like his. Have we overdone it? I want to fully live the human experience. Feelings are part of it. The only way is through - not around. I feel so much better."

Everyone has a different way to grow spiritually. It is affected by so many aspects of life that it is ever changing from person to person.

What is spiritual growth for you?

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching