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Spirituality

Spiritual people tend to be happier, have better mental health, use fewer drugs and alcohol, have better coping skills, and live longer than those who do not consider themselves spiritual. However, it is not all roses and moonshine when it comes to the effect of spirituality on your health. Like all facets of life, your spiritual life has the potential to both thrill and relax. People for whom religion, for example, has feelings of guilt, shame, oppression and...fear accused of a punishing God are more likely to experience repeated stress reactions, resulting in poor health. So it's not just spiritual living that can heal you, it's the right kind of spiritual living, one that is aligned with the truth of what is sacred to you. (Rankin  2015)

Some positive emotions and activities in the field of spirituality:

 

  • Forgiveness (instead of guilt or bitterness)

  • Prayer / reflection

  • Mercy

  • Connection/community

  • Love for yourself, your neighbor and the world

  • Gratitude

  • Compassion / compassion

  • Seeing life and suffering in a bigger picture

  • Lent / Ramadan

Spirituality

Prayer/faith is an important resource. This can give you strength so that you can handle life better, so that you are more likely to experience something as a challenge instead of being overwhelmed by it. As a result, the body produces other hormones (including DHEA), hormones that ensure that the body recovers better. 

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Practical tips and links:

The longest journey is the journey within (Prayer of Dag Hammerskjold)

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I sit here before you Lord, 

upright and relaxed with a straight spine.  

I let my weight sink perpendicular through my body, to the ground I am sitting on.

I hold my spirit in my body.

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I resist the urge to go out the window to anywhere other than here

to give way, to escape the here and now.

Gently and firmly, I hold my spirit where my body is: here in this space.

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In this now, in this moment, I let go of all my plans, worries and fears.

I place them in your hands now Lord, I lat the grip with which I hold them is loose and

leave them to you. For the moment I entrust them to you.

 

I wait for You with great anticipation.                                                                                 

You come to me and I let you carry me.                                                        

I start the journey inward, I travel within me, to the innermost

core of my being, where you live.

 

In this deepest point of my being, You were always there, before I was there.                   

It is there where You create and make life and continuously strengthen my whole person.

 

God, You live, You are in me, You are here, You are here now, You are. You are the ground of my being.                                            I let go, I sink into You. You flood my being, You take possession of me.

 

I release my breath into this area of surrender to You.

My breath, my inhalation and exhalation is the expression of my entire being.                                            

I do it for You, with You, in You, we breathe together, with each other.

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