What Does it Mean to be Spiritual but Not Religious?
More and more people today identify as spiritual but not religious. In this blog, we explore and appreciate what spirituality is as human beings to increase our capacity for more spiritual experiences in our lives.
“Spirituality is an individual experience,” says Bruce Feldstein, MD, BCC, Head of Stanford Lifestyle Medicine’s Gratitude & Purpose pillar. “As a chaplain and professor providing and teaching spiritual care for the past 25 years, I’ve often encountered people who identify as spiritual but not religious. I’m always amazed by the wide variety of ways people experience and express their spirituality.”
What Do We Mean by Spirituality?
Dr. Feldstein draws from these descriptions of spirituality with his patients and students:
- “Spirituality is the way you find meaning, hope, comfort and inner peace in your life. Many people find spirituality through religion. Some find it through music, art, or a connection with nature. Others find it in their values and principles.” – American Academy of Family Physicians
- “Spirituality is the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment, to self, to others, to nature, and to the significant or sacred.” – Journal of Palliative Medicine
- Spirituality is a core dimension of our humanity. “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Discover What Spirituality Means for You
As a professor, Dr. Feldstein previously taught a course for Stanford medical students entitled “Spirituality and Meaning in Medicine.” With the intention of allowing students to discover and appreciate spirituality in their lives (both personally and professionally as medical students), he led them through this exercise:
First, he shared the descriptions of spirituality listed above and then invited them to explore what spirituality means for them from their personal experience.
Then, he said to the class: “Recall a time in your life you would call spiritual or deeply meaningful, whatever that means for you.” After this reflection, Dr. Feldstein gave the students these journal prompts:
- What was the situation? Were you alone or with others?
- What thoughts or emotions occurred during this time?
- What about this memory caused you to recognize it as spiritual or deeply meaningful?
“Every student had a story, and every story was unique,” says Dr. Feldstein. “Some were moments of awe or deep peace; others were stories of the kindness of strangers where they didn’t feel alone; others were ‘a-ha’ moments of guidance and realization. These spiritual experiences were all moments of spontaneous happening–it wasn’t on the calendar. Often, they took place outside of their everyday routines.”
Dr. Feldstein observed that this reflection exercise increased all the student’s capacity to recognize and cultivate spirituality in their lives.
“We all have this capacity for spiritual experiences, but many of us don’t recognize it,” says Dr. Feldstein. “Most of us are living in black and white, but recognition of these experiences can move us into technicolor.”
Activities that Can Allow for Spiritual Experience
Although we can’t control, predict, or anticipate these spiritual experiences, we can put ourselves in situations and states of mind that make them more likely.
In his class, Dr. Feldstein asked his students to share the situations or activities where they had spiritual or deeply meaningful experiences.
Here are some examples of what the students shared:
- Life-cycle moments, including births, deaths, weddings, or graduation days.
- While listening to music that brought a deep feeling of peace.
- While volunteering for a cause that was meaningful to them.
- While taking a walk in nature and pausing to admire the beauty of the trees.
- While offering or receiving kindness and compassion while in conversation.
- While connecting with others in book groups or reading meaningful books on their own.
- While singing, dancing, and/or praying.
- While visiting a loved one at the hospital.
- While cooking with friends and mindfully eating the food.
- While taking a yoga class and connecting to their breath.
- During a morning meditation when focusing on gratitude.
In pursuit of well-being, Dr. Feldstein invites us to choose a few daily activities that are spiritual and meaningful for us. This will help us to be more attuned to spiritual experiences when they spontaneously occur. And when they do, he invites us to pause and acknowledge them, savor them, and feel gratitude afterward.
“As human beings, we have the capacity for spiritual experiences because we are spiritual by nature,” says Dr. Feldstein. “Being spiritual is not something we need to ‘do’, it’s what we already are, so we just need to allow for it.”
