• Josiane@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I’m not religious but always thought of myself as very spiritual… which I think is just living on a deeper level. I feel like I have my own custom-made religion, and I can borrow here and there from different religions if I want to. I especially like Buddhism, but I’m sure every religion must have some nice things to say. But I prefer learning about life from science, especially psychology, it seems more accurate.

    But lately I became accustomed with energy healing… and it’s making me wonder about life and my belief system. I started watching the Goop Lab on Netflix, which led to me wondering if there really are people with psychic powers, then I got curious about energy healing, tried it a few times and became convinced that no, it’s not just a placebo effect and it works from a distance. But it’s also not supported by science. It’s been boggling my mind for a few months… Then I start looking at what these people believe, these healers who practice energy healing. They all believe in an afterlife, in spirit guides, crystals, psychic powers, etc. I never believed in all this, always looked down on what I consider to be New Age (except for yoga, mindfulness and meditation), I always looked to science for answers. So, do I believe in all this? I wouldn’t say that (yet), but it did make me wonder. My thinking was, if there really are people with psychic powers, wouldn’t they know more about life than I do? My thinking prior to this was more along the lines of I don’t know what happens after death. But I also thought, it seems like a cold, cruel world, so there probably isn’t anything after death. And you’re just alive for a while, it’s a struggle and then it’s over.

    What’s interesting is that I started contemplating the way these energy healers and psychics make sense of the world, and I decided to sort of ‘try’ it. Because I like to learn about life and experiment. And it does ‘feel’ better, actually ‘much’ better. I always thought, I don’t want to be delusional and I’m one to try to get in touch with reality. But now I’m kind of enjoying this new way of thinking mostly because it feels better. It’s comforting, reassuring, it can really change how you feel about life and how you live it. So it’s been an interesting experiment. It’s also been making me wonder how this science-based way of thinking is affecting us and whether we’re missing out. Humans have always had spiritual practices (up until recently) and believed in an afterlife and a God and maybe there’s a good reason for that, maybe it’s something we need. But also seeing all the different beliefs and religions around the world it’s clear that there’s no consensus and what people believe has much to do with what they’ve been taught… But you also have to look at the similarities and how it must meet some of our needs.

    Then I’ve also been meditating for a long time, and now synchronicities happen much more often, they barely ever happened when I was younger. I also feel like more often I get ‘lucky’ or it seems like my intuition leads me in the right direction. This also makes me wonder what it is and how does this happen? Also, I’ve seen how much I’ve grown from practicing meditation, how it gives me insights, how it has improved my mental health and how it has changed me as a person. When I started practicing meditation, I didn’t readily believe what it claimed it could do, but I thought it would be interesting to see what happens, if anything. Everything they say about meditation actually is true. But whether someone can become enlightened, I don’t necessarily believe it… I think we’re always learning and growing. Even people that are put on a pedestal are nowhere near perfect once you get to know them. But there’s no doubt practicing meditation can help you grow as a person and reach a better balance.