Are you wondering where spirituality fits into your life? Are you finding that sometimes you’re very focused on your spiritual journey, verging on obsessive, and then you are thrown off track? Or maybe you just can’t find the energy for it at all, even though you have an inner knowing that you should try and explore.
To work out where spirituality fits into our lives we can start with a very well known (mainstream) psychologist, Abraham Maslow.
He created a pyramid (it’s interesting that it should be a pyramid, but more on that in our workshops!) that identified the needs of humans. He theorised that humans, in general, ascended the pyramid, fulfilling our needs in a particular order, and that if lower levels weren’t fulfilled we wouldn’t be able to move on and ‘ascend’.
The pyramid is made up of five levels; physiological, safety, belonging & love, esteem, and finally self actualisation.
The main portion of your spiritual journey, and all of the purpose and mission part will, on the whole, happen when you’re in the self actualisation zone at the peak of the pyramid. You will have ‘ascended’ and be ready to pursue your purpose.
Let’s take a closer look at this pyramid, you may have run into it before, but perhaps you’ll see something new in it after this.
At the base of the pyramid is Physiological Needs. These are basic needs such as good health, food and water, sleep, clothes, shelter, and homeostasis. Homeostasis being when you are at zero point (not in fight or flight), your body mechanisms such as blood pressure and temperature are at the optimum. Bearing in mind you can’t self actualise while other needs are not met, it’s important you recognise when you’re not meeting your physiological needs and adjust accordingly.
Generally most of us who are not living in poverty and are able to fulfill our basic needs. Interestingly it’s often homeostasis that people struggle with most.
Why do some of us struggle with homeostasis?
The fight or flight response, which can lead to chronic anxiety, pushes the homeostatic mechanisms out of kilter. We feel fear, panic, and sometimes depression, and this leads to physical responses such as a higher temperature and higher blood pressure. You may feel knots in your stomach, and begin sweating or even shaking. We can’t mentally focus on self actualisation in this zone, we need to first heal what is causing the fight or flight and anxiety.
What causes fight or flight and anxiety? Past trauma is at the core of what causes anxiety, thereafter the body becomes addicted/used to the hormones that are emitted (adrenalin and cortisol) and this becomes your new normal. By releasing trauma and retraining the body, you can achieve homeostasis, or what we call zero point more often. Think of it as inner peace, peace of mind etc..
How do I release trauma and retrain my body?
There are many ways to do this, our favoured methods are; KCR/Body alignment for physical balancing and releasing trauma from the physical body. CBT/Coaching for releasing the mental and emotional trauma. Hypnotherapy for subconscious releasing and retraining (in certain cases). Meditation, mindfulness and sound therapy for retraining the body to maintain longer and longer periods of homeostasis without episodes of fight or flight and anxiety. You don’t need all these treatments, there may be one or two modalities that work best for you.
One more point on fulfilling basic physiological needs; we have been trained to consider ourselves always with a lack of abundance and so this can keep us like rats on a wheel – always pursuing what we already have, or putting what we want forever out of reach. When we are talking about basic needs, they are just that, it’s not fancy M&S food – it’s enough food to survive. It’s not the latest fashions, it’s basic clothes to cover your body.
Once you have achieved these basic physiological needs, as humans we will naturally move on to focus on Safety Needs.
The next level of the pyramid is Safety Needs. This can be broken down into four main areas and we’ll address each one in turn.
Personal Security; this is feeling safe in your surroundings and within yourself. An obvious example of a blockage in this area could be a domestic abuse situation. While there may be actual threats to your personal safety, it’s worth also exploring fear and perceived threats too as these are a lot more common and are just as big a barrier to what may be holding you back from ascending the pyramid.
Do you have a physical threat to your security? If the answer is yes you will want to address, seek help, or otherwise tackle the threat to your security. You cannot ascend the pyramid while you are fearing for your safety.
Do I have a perceived threat? That is, am I in fear for my personal safety at all? If the answer is yes you will need to address this perceived threat. Fears and false beliefs can be challenged and resolved through CBT/Coaching while a phobia can be addressed with hypnotherapy.
Emotional Security; arguably there is never an actual emotional threat to your security that you do not have power over. Thoughts create emotions, and we are in control of our thoughts. That’s not to say we do not experience such threats, one example is the ability of empaths to attract narcissists and the emotional consequences of this dynamic – manipulation, gaslighting etc. Once we awaken to what is happening, it is rare for us to put ourselves in the way of this dynamic again. Perceived emotional threats can be created by inner problems such as low confidence and low self esteem.
What causes low confidence and low self esteem? None of us was born with these issues so we can conclude that they stem from all the baggage we collect through our lives. Everything from being told off for being overly sensitive, to the kid who bullied you for being short or not having the right brand of jacket.
Threats to your emotional security can be addressed by removing yourself from toxic situations. Treatments such as CBT/Coaching and energy work will help to make peace with past traumas.
Financial Security; I’ll keep this brief as I think we all know what it is to feel our financial security is at threat. Once again there are a few factors here though.
Firstly there is living in poverty. Unfortunately despite what some people think, when you find yourself in a cycle of poverty it is very difficult to escape it. Seeking out someone who can help you with a step by step plan is probably our best advice on this.
There’s then the rest of us who fear losing the wealth that we have collected, or the standard of living to which we are accustomed. In our experience it takes loss to show you what’s important in life, so getting to a point where you don’t attach your worth to what you own is absolutely key.
Learn to live on less.
Decide whether your priority is self actualisation or buying the latest phone. Protecting our perceived financial security keeps us in a never ending cycle, you can break that cycle by simply learning to live below the amount of money you currently make.
Live simply.
When you do, you soon realise that this is where peace resides. We speak from experience, particularly this year when we have lost the major part of our livelihoods. Less truly is more.
Health & Wellbeing: it’s so important to get your health in order, if you don’t you will find yourself playing a game of snakes and ladders with this pyramid, as soon as you ascend, you will fall back down with every illness and ailment. It’s your choice what route you take to solve health problems. Naturally we would always favour alternative medicine, at least as a first port of call. Many issues can be solved quite simply when you take a holistic approach.
The third level of the pyramid is Love & Belonging.
This can be split into family, friendships, and intimacy.
We’re going to tackle this one from a spiritual angle. Connecting to like minded and like hearted souls helps to accelerate your ability to ascend the pyramid, we go into the energetics of this a lot in our workshops, but for now just trust us on this. If you don’t have the connected feeling with your current friends and instead feel you are often protecting yourself from then (if this is you, you will know straight away), then chances are you need to look to new groups for friends whom you can better resonate with.
“No man is an island” – John Donne
We are all interdependent, we cannot exist without each other. Finding souls who raise your vibration (getting a bit more spiritual here) is key to your advancement.
Families are unfortunately often at the centre of much of the trauma. When you get deeper into your spiritual journey you begin to understand why and thank them for the important part they play/ed. The key at this stage is to simply have some loving family members around you, to practise forgiveness for those you perceive to have wronged you, and to minimise any familial trauma you may be carrying.
Not wanting to get too graphic here, but intimacy is cited as being very important to the overall health and wellbeing of humans. I think to date much of the focus of this intimacy has been on a significant other. Spirituality would argue that intimacy with one’s self and indeed everything is the more important aspects on which to focus your attention. I guess what we’re saying is, intimacy has been construed as sexual activity, rather than intimacy in terms of love and connection which is far more powerful. In essence, build the love you feel for all things and you will be well on your way to fulfilling this need.
The fourth level of the pyramid is Self Esteem. Self esteem is mostly an issue of ego. When the connection to Source (getting on your spiritual path) is limited, we look elsewhere for that connection. This can be provided, at great cost, by things like recognition, status, and respect. Unfortunately we have been conditioned to give recognition, status, and respect based on the power and wealth that people wield, not on their spiritual gifts (not so long ago we were burning so called witches at the stake because we feared their power). Power and wealth became the standard to which we are all judged. These things feed the ego with a false sense of self esteem. I say false, because any loss in recognition, status, and respect will have us crumbling quicker than a hob nob dunked in a mug of tea. Connection or faith in there being a higher purpose gives us a sense of meaning, something else on which to focus our attention and gain self esteem, purely for being who you are.
You feel great when you’re helping a fellow being.
Spirituality is you helping every single thing on Earth, imagine how good that would feel?
You can feel like that every day, if you choose to.
“Choose Life” said Wham and Trainspotting, the message was to choose life over drugs and suicide.
The evolution of that is, ‘Choose Connection’. When you have connection, you have a purpose, and life becomes simpler to boot. If you’ve ever asked yourself ‘there must be more than this?’, connection is the this you’ve been missing.
The tip of a pyramid is called a Pyramidion. It’s symbolic that very few pyramidia have survived the ages, because the same is true for the pyramid that we explore today. Self actualised souls have been few and far between, but as we all begin to awaken from our sleep, we’re pleased to say that our numbers increase daily.
Self actualisation is the realisation of one’s full potential, or put another way, the realisation or awakening to one’s divine purpose.
That’s right, spirituality is written right into our mainstream accepted psychology.
It is the tip of our pyramid, the purpose of us ascending this very human of pyramids, is to reach the point where we can reconnect with our divine purpose.
How do I know what my purpose is?
When you get to this point and you have learned to quieten your mind and daily concerns, you create space for an old gift to re-emerge, the gift of intuition and wisdom. When you awaken your soul by ascending, your soul will remind you of the important thing you were meant to do. It will come at the perfect time. If it hasn’t come yet, you haven’t successfully ascended and may have more work to do. That’s ok. Be patient. It’s worth the wait, and the work.
In his latter years Maslow even explored a further dimension, Transcendence; a desire to reach the infinite. He said that transcendence was a quest to reach the highest levels of human consciousness. This theory is very prevalent in the spiritual world, the idea being that our energy would be as such that we would move to the very highest dimensions and become invisible on the lower dimensions. Maslow knew. He intuited the truth. It’s been there the whole time for us to see, and the more you awaken the more you start to understand. If you’re interested, go and look at the chakra system, look at how it mirrors this pyramid. Same principles presented in a different way in different times. The clues are there for eyes that are willing to see.
To conclude and answer our initial question, ‘Where does spirituality fit into my life?’
Spirituality doesn’t fit into your life, it’s your life’s purpose.
Your job right now is to meet your fellow beings on a plain (at a particular vibration) where you will recall and reconnect with your purpose and take up your place in evolution.
You are everything the world has been waiting for.
If you enjoyed this, we invite you to embark on the journey with us in our LifeHeal at Home online program where we will do a video on this and continue the journey.
Love and light always,
Sam & Erica