The importance of Spirituality versus Religion for living a Legendary Life?

by Chad E Cooper

In many studies over the past 10 years it has been proven that spiritual people flourish faster. Spirituality is linked to many important aspects of human behavior; spiritual people have positive relationships, higher self-esteem, are more optimistic, and follow a strong purpose in life. Psychology has demonstrated that expressing gratitude for what we have is associated with many positive emotions such as optimism, being generous with time and resources, and overall vitality. When we walk our talk through our actions and behavior as a spiritual person, we affirm these vital emotions correspond to being truly successful.

However, I am often having a conversation about the difficulty of living a spiritual vs. religious life, and what that means in the 21st century. Today’s world is very different than it was even in the 20th century. We were trained in the past that we went to school or some type of skills training to do a job for life. People worked an extended number of decades until retiring and at that point they could look forward to enjoying the rest of their life. Do you remember your parents saying things like: “When we retire, we will travel, go fishing, or relax”? We used to have a generic nine to five job and when we left our work environment, we didn’t necessarily bring that work home. That is not true in today’s world. We are inundated with multiple forms of communication with the extended use of smartphones and computers. And we know statistically that people would rather turn around to retrieve a forgotten smartphone than their wallet. Technology has changed our environment forever.

We now live globally. We usually have several email accounts and we often have multiple forms of social media interaction. We are living in a 24/7 global society that never seems to shut down, kind of like Las Vegas. Eventually you’re going to collapse because you didn’t take time to take a break and nourish your body, mind, and spirit. Many religions would suggest you take a day of rest each week to manage this bombardment. Instead, we may take stimulants to keep going, eat our feelings, or use alcohol all the while ignoring the dimming of our spiritual light. Others of us may buy shiny objects to stave off the lingering voice in the back of our head that keeps saying, “Where’s all this going? That’s your spirit trying to communicate with your ego. Tell me there has to be something more.” Eventually we crash because there is no balance, no rest, no spirit.

Through my extensive work with entrepreneurs, C-level executives, and elite athletes, I have found that in our drive to achieve, we have let our spiritual health flatline. This leads to a lack of fulfilment and even physical/mental illness. Religion is the guidebook or map that prevents this from happening. Religions can be the process used to take people beyond ‘doing’ spiritual but are often criticized because people confuse the humanness of man with the values of religion. Buddha once said, “The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.” This can be interpreted as just because a person is a bad Christian, Jew, Islam, Hindu, etc. doesn’t mean the religion is bad. Their spirit is bad, not necessarily the religion. We must understand this in order to understand how to be spiritual in all areas of life.

In today’s world we see many people verbally addressing spirituality because it is the new chic thing. Yet, so many people still experience a soul where their light has gone dark, or empty because they’re only going through the motions; because they’re incongruent in their behavior. Let’s take the example of when we feel we have been oppressed or unrepresented and act out against perceived injustices by exhibiting the same behaviors we fight against and those methods. We are behaving contrary to the values we preach should be used towards ourselves. Perhaps we say that we’re all-inclusive and everyone should be treated with dignity and respect, but our actions do not relate to others what we would ask for ourselves.

Today we often see people who claim the title of being a spiritual person, but they’re falling prey to the very same tactics as those they view as oppressors. Creating more separation of groups is not the answer to being more human. A truly spiritual approach is to accept that we are all different but are all part of the same human experience. If we each took the approach of allowing diversity to drive and empower our world instead of chipping away from it, we would be demonstrating our spiritual truth.

We need to stop creating a disparity of identities such as race, age, sexual definition, and religious belief. A higher power is not going to just magically come down and give us behaviors that match our words. Give yourself the opportunity to build your experiences and create spiritual awareness. One of our human commonalities is that we can choose to let go of those things that don’t work and continue to embrace and support those that do.

Being spiritual is the belief in something bigger than what is seen or can be explained; something that we might call God, Goddess, Buddha, the Great Spirit or a myriad of other titles.

Religion, however, is in part the practice of labeling… This is my God and is labeled by this name, it looks like this, it says that I believe this and these are the rules on how I must act. That concept can actually create more human separation and can get us to draw away from truly being spiritual with all others. A highly exclusive belief system can leave no room for anyone else’s human experience and tends to be unbending to diversity and acceptance. Humans fall short when we forget the fragile nature and the imperfections of humanity.

What’s the difference between being spiritual and religious? If you suddenly got a terminal disease, or a loved one did, would you pray? That’s spirituality without labels. Who you pray to is religion? It’s specific rules like 10 Commandments, don’t eat cow, how you bury and put to rest a deceased body. A spiritual life is all-inclusive and allows respect of all others to live their life on an equal basis. If you need prayer, it is not withheld because you look different or worship differently. Spirituality removes all the labels that separate us. Without labels we are no longer rejecting a portion of ourselves. We no longer are affected or influenced by the judgment of others. We understand that others, or their beliefs, do not define our self-worth because as individuals, we alone hold that responsibility.

In today’s workplace we must step outside restrictive labels and understand that others have different beliefs that are equally as important to them as our personal beliefs are to us. It’s important to respect that there is no right or wrong way to spirit. Respect leads to successfully coming together with temperament thus permitting a civilization that can achieve a common goal.

This is where I find too many Life Coaches falling short. They look at just three of four quadrants when working with people. The physical, logical, and emotional is where 99% of coaches live in their practice. But I don’t believe you can be a Master Coach until you acknowledge the spiritual, that spirit inside of each and every one of us. If you’re to be legendary, you can’t be missing a major ingredient. Let’s say you’re making a batch of cookies and you chose to leave out the sugar, it’s not going to taste sweet, right? We need the full recipe to be our best. Denying something as integral as a person’s spiritual core will hinder the ability to reach a level of true success. Each of us all has a right to be complete, fulfilled, successful, happy, and spiritually sound!

Chad is so confident that his coaching can change your life that he is offering a complimentary one on one call. “Let’s have a real conversation about what you want, what you need and what’s actually been getting in your way.” https://chadecooper.com