Blending the realms

Or how psychological and spiritual practises can work in tandem

Don’t panic, I’m not going to get all esoteric and woo-woo on you because I mentioned the words spiritual practise. I was thinking over the weekend about how it feels like there’s an intrinsic feedback loop between the sort of growth work that we do on ourselves from a psychological angle, and the philosophical work we do on ourselves from a spiritual bent.

As a therapist, I do a lot of work on myself to make sure that I’m not carrying around baggage that I’m going to project onto my clients. That’s my psychological practise.

As a Buddhist, I meditate a lot and read a lot of books written by Tibetans. That’s my spiritual side.

I want to talk about what I mean by spiritual practise before we go on, so we can get a bit of clarity in the mix. I don’t feel like it matters what religion you are, or if you have no religion at all. Whatever we choose to believe or not believe in, there’s still a personal philosophical tenet at the core of our being.

I’m also a big fan of a philosophy called Stoicism, which is entirely agnostic of faith, but still incorporates aspects of spirituality. There doesn’t have to be a god, or gods, or a divine power for us to consider things on a spiritual level. Spirituality is all about concerning ourselves with the part of us that is not of the material and of something larger than our self.

Even as an atheist where we wouldn’t believe in anything divine, we can consider ourselves part of the greater whole of human society and the natural world. That’s what I mean when I’m talking about spiritual practise.

I’ve tried to meditate myself out of traumatic experiences and found that it simply didn’t work. I then went to see a therapist instead, and it turned into a deeply useful and rewarding means of dealing with those experiences.

Oddly enough, having worked through that trauma in a therapeutic setting, when I came back to my meditation practise, there was a new level to it. Taking away the background noise of that trauma meant that my mind was in a much better state to meditate.

Looking back at this, it seems now almost common sense. The observer can’t observe itself, so how are we supposed to work through anything like this alone, where we are both the subject and the observer?

My therapist became a mirror, as all good therapists should. Reflecting back what I was saying and experiencing so that I could examine it myself in a new light. I was the subject, and they were the observer.

Once I’m aware of what’s going on for me internally, I can then take that into my spiritual practise. How is my behaviour impacting others? What’s impacting my ability to be compassionate, or preventing me from being vulnerable around people that I trust?

What I’ve also found interesting is that part of my spiritual practise can feed back into my psychological work. I see meditation as a means of self examination. It’s a tool for raising that self awareness. When I’m meditating, there are times that I’ll notice things come up and then I think ah, that’ll be good to explore with my therapist in our next session.

There becomes, then, an ontological feedback loop where one feeds the other which feeds it back in return. Each iteration leading to greater discoveries in ourselves and a constantly evolving sense of identity and self.

As both a therapist and a Buddhist, I always work with the idea that the self is not concrete, even though it can easily appear that way when we first begin to examine it. We’re a fluid entity, constantly evolving and changing through our experiences. All we can do is embrace the change.

Much love
David

---