Building Spiritual Health

Spiritual Health - Part of overall wellbeing

We all want to be well.

Wellness includes every aspect of our lives. When any one aspect is out of whack, our attention shifts and we loose balance, often neglecting other key parts of our lives. Anyone who has focused on their career at the expense of their family or spent time socializing rather than studying (or studying rather than socializing) knows the cost of losing balance.

One part of our health that we often neglect is our spiritual health. Our spiritual health includes our sense of purpose or meaning and connection to something greater than ourselves. Whether that connection is grounded in a religious tradition or not, spiritual wellness is a key part to everyone’s wellbeing. Neglecting our spiritual health can result in feelings of futility or meaninglessness even when things appear to be going great.

Attending to your spiritual health opens your heart to joy and peace as well as clarifying your sense of meaning and purpose. Research also shows that walking the spiritual path also improves physical, mental and social health.

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How to improve your spiritual health

Like every other area of life, improving your spiritual health takes intentionality and effort. The great news is that people around the world have been intentionally developing their spiritual health for thousands of years through a variety of spiritual practices.

Everyone’s path toward spiritual wellness is unique and often framed by their culture and religious beliefs. However there are common milestones across religious and cultural traditions and a variety of practices designed to help you move through each milestone.

As a spiritual guide, I can teach you about the spiritual journey and help you forge your own path forward toward a more meaningful and joyful life. This is not something we do alone, but something that is done in collaboration with the Spirit. I will accompany you, helping you navigate the spiritual path. God is the true spiritual director. My role is to help you learn to hear God’s voice and open yourself to God’s direction.

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Additional Devotional Resources

This, That and the Other: Devotions written by Pr. Fred Castor about the Spiritual Journey

Fredrick Buechner was an American author and preacher. His style is as deep as it is conversational. It has a way of reaching deep into your soul. A website dedicated to sharing his work is here.

Resources

Use Meditation tools like prayer beads , prayer boards and icons.

Revealing the Spirit Through Nature by Pr. Michael TeKrony shares beautiful slideshows using photographs he’s taken with music and text for meditation. Michael also teaches courses in using Photography as a Spiritual Practice.

Writing on Spirituality and the Spiritual Journey

Pr. Fred Castor writes short, easy to follow lessons about our relationship with God.

What We Can Learn From Research

Vital Congregations: Comparing what it means to be vital across 10 faith traditions

What does a congregation mean when they describe themselves as spiritually vital? How does a congregation become vital? What is the relationship between vitality and sustainability? Does the answer depend on the faith tradition?

This study asked leaders from 10 different faith traditions to answer these questions. We found remarkable similarities across all traditions while also discovering the unique perspectives of each. Their answers illustrate distinct understandings about the way people interact with God and different perspectives of God’s promise of hope for the world.

Spirituality & Health

Considerable research has demonstrated a strong positive relationship between spirituality/religion and physical and mental health. Here are a few resources that summarize findings.

Faith Formation, Spiritual Growth and Faith in Action: Findings from the Congregational Vitality Survey

Vital congregations help create people who live out their faith in the world, right?

This study analyzes data from 30,000 individuals from over 490 congregations nation-wide to discover the surprisingly weak relationship between a congregation’s vitality and people’s spiritual growth. Yet even though strong congregations don’t necessarily create spiritual growth, the study shows that spiritual growth matters in how people live out their faith in daily life.