What Is Spirituality?

Step 11: We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him (or Her), praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

I think step 11 sums up very well what spirituality is. It is a personal relationship with the Creator or the Spirit. It is a two-way relationship. That means listening to the Spirit and talking to the Spirit. You can find spirituality in religion, and you can find it outside of religion. You can also find religion without spirituality.

I think religion without spirituality relies mainly on dogma. These are things that others say about the Creator. Dogma is the set of rules in a religion that others have written down or say that God wants us to follow. I think dogma can really get in the way of having a personal relationship with our Creator. I think some use dogma as a shield to not have to talk to or listen to the Creator and what S/He says to us now. Some dogma is true, some is opinions, and some is outright false, I believe.

I saw on a sign outside of a church once which said, “Everything is spiritual.” I know what that means to me. My God is everywhere – in everything. My God talks to me in all kinds of ways – and I am there listening, which I think encourages God to talk to me more. There are so many opportunities anywhere you go to have spiritual experiences. I can talk to God and Goddess anywhere I go and there They are.

I love that recovery programs are not religious…. There is not a lot of writing about how to believe in God and/or how to live in order to please God. Nobody is the boss of my spirituality in recovery. I am free to develop my own relationship with the Creator. I am free to understand God the way I understand God. The step says, “God, as we understand Him.” Not God as some dumb guy understands him. Not God as is written in a book. We do not worship books in recovery as a general rule. There are no weird, or even sensible religious rituals or ceremonies in recovery. It is a come-as-you-are policy.

The Spirit to me is love, and that means unconditional love. I consider myself to be more spiritual then religious, because I don’t believe I have to do all sorts of bizarre and/or reasonable things to earn God’s love. God loves me no matter what I dress like. God loves me no matter what I do. I know that God loved me in my using days, because God and Goddess, both, found ways to communicate with me and let me know they were still there for me. I had food and often shelter, when it was available.

My impression of religions is that they seem to promote the idea that we must earn God’s love, or that somehow we are not worthy of our Creator’s love. I love me. I don’t know how to act as someone or something other then myself. I don’t do things that seem strange to me because someone else tells me that I should do them to find God’s love or grace. I can’t see the Creator any other way. Why shouldn’t God love me?

I think that is a primary change for me. I learned that I wasn’t really worthy of God’s love somehow as a child. I used to think that I was spiritual until I realized that a distant relationship with Someone who is always there is not really spiritual after all. There is no reason for that distance, and it was all my distance.

It is okay in recovery that I believe in a Goddess. It is okay in recovery that I believe in Jesus. I don’t have to go around annoying people and possibly burning bridges by preaching and trying to convert others. I know that God/dess is there for others. I know that God doesn’t expect us to always be right, or even understand what is going on. I will never understand everything about God, and I don’t even try. Some people’s hold on the God concept is fragile and my pushing my beliefs down someone else’s throat could loosen their hold or even provoke them to let go. There is usually a good reason for people having fragile relationships with the Creator.

I also don’t have to listen to people preaching or evangelizing to me. I don’t have to do things anyone else’s way. That is the freedom in spirituality – which is everywhere. Religion is not everywhere and no matter what some people think, it does not cover everything. Spirituality is all, to me….