Pragmatic animals we are, not all of us are spiritually inclined. Many of us are agnostic in our beliefs, others are die hard atheists. But did you know that having a strong spiritual belief system reduces the risk of dying? It’s true, people who believe in a supporting God as opposed to a retributive God fare better following diagnosis.
And, what’s more, history has supported the compatibility of the mind and spirituality for centuries. This bond extends beyond the physical body. Within the mental plane, spiritual beliefs grow neurological connections like tree branches, building up the gray matter that is needed to remove all of the fears we humans so aggressively cling to.
For many (if not all of us), Thanatophobia – fear of death – is high-up on our worry lists. This fear, like so many fears, reverses itself with spirituality. Spirituality, defined here as a belief in something higher and cyclic, teaches what comes “next” and what it means for you.
Author and recovery voice, Beverly Conyers, bleeds through rationality with a Zen koan, or what she calls the “cryptic question”. “What was your face before you were born?” she asks, in her work – Find Your Light: Practicing Mindfulness to Recover from Anything. The answer is eternity.
Ancient wisdom finds that time moves only toward eternity and repeats in this way forever. As Conyers puts it, there is no “judgement day” as we move beyond the run of the river. So beyond, in fact, that traces of stardust can be found in our DNA. We are one with the entire universe, never dying, only re-birthing.
Knowing that you are made of godliness, that you, physical, pragmatic, you, are supporting yourself with spirit running through your veins, demolishes fear of death and fosters belief in healing that may be otherwise unfounded.