A Sceptical Spiritualist; An Introduction

An introduction from Claire:

Like many people in today's world, particularly as I'm getting older (at the ripe old age of 45), I find myself on a voyage of self discovery, recognising that life is about more than the daily toil and making enough money to survive and trying to find a balance to ensure mental and energetic survival. I've never really felt that this is all there is but I've struggled to identify with any religious beliefs, finding so much contradiction and hypocrisy in the world, and I find I come away from the standard belief systems. So I thought it might be interesting to start blogging about my personal journey, thoughts and experiences and hopefully connect with others who have shared experiences and might like to come along with me for the ride.

There are so many of us, particularly of my generation, who are struggling to find the balance between self care, a term and concept which didn't even exist when we were growing up, and the general necessities of life. How do you find the time to prioritise your self care as a busy woman in the modern world and what does that look like? How do we put ourselves first as modern women juggling careers, care giving and the additional responsibilities which so often fall to women rather than men? I hear wonderful stories of people who have had awakening experiences and have found their pathways but, when I listen to them talk, I discover that many of them, if not all of them, appear to have no major responsibilities or ties, nobody else that relies on them, and they're free to make their own decisions, do what they want and go where they want, without it impacting on anyone else. If you have responsibilities and ties, what does this voyage of self discovery look like then?

My life in recent years has taken me into a spiritual world which I hadn't really engaged with previously, and certainly wasn't looking to be part of. I've been on the periphery perhaps, always feeling there is something more than just the physical body and mind, but I've never been able to identify what that is for me. I rejected religion at quite a young age, having been raised a Catholic, and as I have gone through life I've been drawn to natural connections, I became interested in crystals, my Dad (the Catholic) found Paganism and I became interested in the teachings of Pagans and Buddhism as a philosophy, although again, they never fully connected with me, there always seem to be elements in religious teachings that make me go 'whoa! what??'. My mum tells me that the reason for this is that any teachings will naturally contain the teacher's own perspective on a concept and that we should therefore aim to allow ourselves to connect with what sits comfortably within our own selves and interpret things in our own way. I love this explanation and it does help to allow me to continue to follow a system that I find flawed in some ways. This however, goes someway to explaining the creation of extremism and cults and I struggle to then come back to a philosophy or system that isn't all encompassing and allows me to pretty much just make it up to fit my needs. However, my mum would respond to say "what are these belief systems for, other than to fulfil our needs?". Touché!

I believe there is value in my questioning mind, as this scepticism prevents me from being swept up in the latest conspiracy theory or fad, and it also prevents me from believing everything I see or hear online or through the media, however I wonder whether it is preventing me from connecting me with my 'Dharma' (our inner compass that when identified and followed makes life feel more meaningful and whole), whatever that looks like for me.

Energy is a huge thing in my life now, in fact it has been for quite sometime, even before I started looking at practising energy healing or anything like that, energy became the thing I can rely on, it's the one thing I know for a fact runs through and connects every element of our lives. Reiki came into my life when I needed mental health support during my IVF journey and I'm not sure what that journey would have looked like without it. However, I listen to a lot of people online talking about energy and I often find myself saying 'hmm, yeah ok, whatever'. I find myself feeling that there is an expectation that I take on yet another thing which is going to absorb my time, which is already in very short supply. So how do you have wonderful enlightening, awakening experiences when our lives are so noisy and busy and consumed by responsibilities that we don't seem able to find 10 mins a day to spend meditating or connecting with energy, never mind the hours a day it apparently takes to achieve these so called awakenings? And as for attuning ourselves to hear our energetic guides?! As much as I acknowledge and embrace the universal life force of energy and delight in an ability to connect with this flow, do I believe it has a voice which will tell me to sell my house or buy a car...'hmm, yeah ok, whatever'...here we go again.

An introduction from Marion (Claire's mum):

I’m Marion; Claire’s Mum. I too seem to have been looking for a spiritual path on and off for most of my life. I say on and off because, like Claire I found that for many years 'life' got in the way and my own spiritual reflections took a back seat. Looking back (I’m now 75) I’m not sure that was as much of a disaster as I thought at the time because I was still learning about what brought me joy and what disturbed me, and how to understand that. I was brought up in a time when church was a normal part of life and I took it for granted there was a god. As a teenager I got sucked into more evangelical forms of Christianity, which eventually put me off Christianity all together as I started to experience them as self righteous and as a feminist their attitude to women didn’t sit well with me. I then drifted away and started to explore Eastern religions. This was quite fashionable at the time as everyone (except me) was going to India to find their guru. I did my exploration with books and whatever I could find in London, where I lived. This was mostly yogic practices of various kinds, which included meditation and ideas about spiritual energy. Then I married a Catholic. Discussing religion with Claire’s Dad was good for both of us as our views and experiences were so different and it made us both think about what we really believed, if anything. We both still enjoy discussing religion with people from all kinds of faith backgrounds so we can learn more.

In my training and work as a psychotherapist I have had the privilege to meet many people at an intimate level as they shared their innermost thoughts and fears with me. I thought I was doing a great job making slick interventions which “cured” them. Now I realise what was far more valuable was giving them a space to reflect on what was missing in their lives, and even if they didn’t actually verbalise it that way, it was normally that sense of their own spirit.

I love having conversations with my daughter, when we get time, and I love her idea of putting some of the thoughts which come out of those conversations into a blog.

So this blog will be an exploration of this journey, guided by our own experiences both as practitioners in spiritual and psychological fields and as women trying to navigate life. We will be delving into the concept of self care - what this means, how we can embrace it and how to avoid allowing it to add another layer of pressure - what the escalating 'wellness industry' means to modern women, and what can a spiritual journey look like if you just want to feel at peace with yourself and the world around you! We would love it if you would like to come with us on this journey of discovery. Lets see if we can figure this out together, or perhaps you already have and would like to help us out!

With love,

Claire & Marion x

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