SBNR

Over the past couple of months, and then again this week, I have read articles about two varying sides of a debate. The subject is people who define themselves as “spiritual, but not religious”, or SBNR for short!. To simplify it… It goes something like this: People who are religious, believe that people who claim to be spiritual, but who don’t belong to a particular religion, lack the fortitude and discipline it requires to follow the tenants, expectations and guidelines of religion. As a result they lack the guidance and structure to have a strong moral fiber… and as a result, can be easily thrown off course and succumb to earthly temptations! They end up doing bad things because they don’t have the structure of religious teachings behind them. On the other side of this debate about SBNR people are the atheists who believe that people develop their moral fabric through family, community and education. They believe the decisions made between right and wrong or good and evil are part of each individuals character. They have a notion that the person who describes themselves as SNBR, is an atheist who is afraid of social disapproval or is someone who wants the “theoretical benefits of faith, including hope of eternal life, without the obligations of actually practicing a religion”. There was even a recent study out of England that theorized that “People who have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework are vulnerable to mental disorder.” ( Michael King, a professor at University College London). WOW! Once again, I find myself in the middle of...

It’s All About the Reframe

Oh my goodness… What an interesting and introspective week! It has been all about “the reframe”! You see, sometimes we (okay “I”) get caught up in the circumstances of our life. We start linking events, promises, people, situations, desires, challenges and all kinds of stuff together and we start sending messages to ourselves and building a story. Sometimes it is a great story and it is perfectly aligned with what we want to create in our life (at least for awhile). Other times… Not so much! The problem is once we start telling ourselves these stories… They become real. We know they are real because we have already assembled all the evidence and proof! If you’re anything like me, then you also have this keen ability to associate this new story to old ones you have told in the past… And suddenly you not only have a current perspective.., you also have confirmed, you have a pattern! Maybe these pattern are a good thing, when they have a positive impact. Something like… “Things always work out perfectly when I put my mind to it” or “Wow, it is easy for me to attract exactly what I need!”. What happens when the message we are giving ourselves, doesn’t feel positive? “See… It is hard to stay focused, I never create what I want.” Or “this has always been a weak area for me, there is nothing I can do to change it,”. Or one of my favorites… “Everything I have done was wasted… I am back to square one!”. When we are telling ourselves these stories, it can be challenging...