What is Spirituality to You?

Everyone these days throws around the word spirituality to describe everything from organized religion to yoga to appreciating nature. I even started to use this word to describe my meditation practice to my friends and family, and to be honest, I think it worried them because they didn't know exactly what I meant, which in turn conjured up images in their heads of me chanting around a fire with my fellow cult members. Truthfully, I used this word because I wasn't exactly sure myself what it meant, and I was too lazy (or afraid?) to analyze my new ways of thinking and to formulate the words to share with my friends and family exactly what kind of journey I was on.

One day, my best friend had had enough of this vagueness, and she flat out asked me, in an email, "What exactly is spirituality to you?" I was dumbfounded yet intrigued. I started to write back to her, and my response began to twist and wind around words like connection, happiness, and love. I asked my husband the same question, and his answer was completely different, revolving more around music and using lots of examples of feeling bliss in various situations.

I began to think, is Spirituality just a buzz word that sells books and workshop tickets, and makes people feel good? Does it actually mean something? Does it even matter?

So, I ask you, What is spirituality to you? Leave your answer in the comments section!

One-way Ticket Out of Town: A Reinvigoration of Life

Setting the Stage

I came from the high tech world of Silicon Valley, where people have good intentions and kind hearts, but long work days and unvaried work and high salaries result in people living for the weekend, and any free time is spent at the gym, or at the bar, or at the vintage shops. I spent money almost as fast as I earned it, with little to show for it besides a bangin' wardrobe, which I hoped looked less expensive than it was, and heaps of half-baked memories of so-called epic nights out, which if I was lucky, ended in canoodling with a stranger. If I wasn't lucky, those nights ended curled up in bed at 7am, mind still racing from too many vodka red bulls, dreading the next couple of days of coming down and feeling empty and depressed.

I lived like this for almost two years.

The Turn

Somewhere around the middle of that time, I started dreaming of travel and adventure. I felt that California, and even the entire continental US, just wasn't for me. I didn't analyze this feeling very much, but I do remember a surprisingly insightful comment that I made about a week before I left San Francisco.

I was with my best friend, seeing Alt-J at the Fillmore, and we both felt that this was our goodbye. As we watched the opening band close their set, it started to hit us that we were going to really fucking miss each other. We attracted many curious glances as we both started sobbing uncontrollably and loudly, above the music that played from the speakers in-between sets. As that music came to a stop and the crowd began clapping and cheering in anticipation, I half-yelled to my best friend, ''I feel like this place isn't for me. But, maybe it's just because I don't know yet how I fit in here. Maybe when I know better who I am and what I want, I'll be able to come back and be happy here.''

A New Direction

Whenever I'm speaking with people in Europe about anything alternative or spiritual, they say to me, ''Well, you must know all about this, being from San Francisco.'' And I have to admit to them, with my tail between my legs, that I wasn't involved in anything alternative or spiritual in San Francisco. But, every time this happens, I get more excited to move back to the Bay Area and explore this whole world that I didn't know existed. I find it amusing that it took me leaving the US for two years to discover where I fit in my own hometown. But I think it makes sense, and it must happen for many people.

The Lesson

It's nearly impossible to soul-search, I mean really soul-search, without leaving home. There's a freedom that comes along with getting far away from everyone who knows you. It gives you the space to step out of familiar patterns of activity, of conversation, of cuisine, of self care (or lack of), and it gives you the space to welcome new inspiration, to explore new passions, to find all sorts of hidden talents that you never knew you had.

And for me, it wasn't enough to do this once in my life (I lived in Australia for two years post-college), and I'm no psychic but I'd say I won't stop at twice. A one-way ticket out of town is so far the best reinvigoration of life that I know, and I recommend it to people of all backgrounds, of all ages, of all occupations, of all emotional states - if a reinvigoration of your life is what you're after!