We don't often think about how we mix business and spirituality, mostly because the two don't seem to share any common bonds. Business is about driving revenue, boosting sales, and making money. Spirituality is about finding a moral center, a place in this world, and what we can do to elevate our own sense of inner peace. Yet it is important, especially within our modern fast-paced culture, to find a balance between business and spirituality.
This is not particularly surprising, since therapy and counseling tend to be concerned with the individual, while spiritual practices are concerned with higher matters. But it does lead the novices and beginners into a quandary where they are faced with the decision of what to do about personality. On the one hand, therapy could be an expensive, futile effort to better the personality, whereas, on the other hand, spiritual practice may offer an excuse to leave personal problems behind, with the justification that you are moving on to more lofty concerns.
Counselors could help clients consider how transition in one area of life may need a change in values and spirituality. Long-term therapy is complete for women when they can integrate a belief system based on their own individual understanding. In addition, women with eating disorders usually struggle with spiritual conflicts that can impede their recovery and healing. Research demonstrates that spirituality positively impact psychological and physiological outcomes. Yet, spirituality may also increase the impact of stressors. Increases in spirituality are positively related to PMS and stress endorsement. Spirituality serves as a partial mediator between stress and PMS. Strikingly, women with the highest levels of spiritual, existential and religious well-being have the highest levels of stress and the most severe premenstrual symptoms. One plausible explanation for these results is that women of faith are taught that God will tell them monthly that they can bear a child. As a person with a high powered and time demanding career engages in self-care behaviors to manage stress, then so too should women of faith. Studies suggest that women associate their faith with these psycho-physiological aspects of self in a way that faith or spiritual well-being calls a person of faith to greater self-care.
Spiritual exploration often occurs after the loss of a significant other or with the imminent death of oneself. Many women across cultures want to understand their place in the order of things, but not through organized religion. Most women share the following: a need to feel connected, spiritual questioning, existential anguish, thoughts about death, and reliance on organized religion. Research suggests that spiritual questioning, outside of organized religion, significant loss, or imminent death, is a natural aspect of aging. Women undertake spiritual exploration extensively. Women also have a profound need to feel connected with something greater than them. Women are generally more inter-relational. This connection need includes recognizing and communicating with something outside or beyond the self, connecting with unity, and finding meaning on earth. In other words, an important component of spiritual exploration is the understanding of the connection within, with others, and with something beyond the self. A sense of connection provides order, stability, and meaning in a stressful, challenging, conflicting, and possibly isolating life. However, a sense of connection does not necessarily provide answers to spiritual questions, nor does it always alleviate existential angst. Most women become spiritually ready and experience an awakening to look beyond the mundane to grasp the bigger picture of which they are a part. Women who rely on organized religion for spiritual guidance are, for the most part, African American, Latina, and lower class. There is a need to differentiate spirituality from religion theoretically and practically. There are women who are profoundly spiritual and eschew connections with formalized religion. Most aging baby boomers claim to be non-religious and spiritual. The Black church has been of secular and spiritual sustenance for Blacks since slavery. This is a longstanding tradition. It provides structure and meaning in lives that are marginalized by other institutions in the US society. Similarly, the century-old Catholic Church's presence in Latin America creates unconditional loyalty among Hispanic people. Spiritual questioning suggests a level of educational attainment. Many of the women who conduct spiritual quests are from middle and upper class. Christianity may not be the predominant religious influence in a multicultural society, the 2000 Census says. The women who focused on non-western and non-Christian practices speak of the interconnectedness of all living beings, the need for balance, and communion with nature. People know far more about the religious practices of church goers than they do about alternative practices. Some women allow time for reflection without an indelible crisis, impending death, or significant psychological imbalance, but as part of aging. They have the opportunity to ponder fundamental questions of existence that are thrust upon other people at less opportune times. Aging may prompt a search for meaning and a need for connection because death is closer than at earlier times in the life span. Women outlive men and often face old age alone. As life winds down, some women may embark on existential quests that reflect basic core values or new directions in their lives. There are countless ways older women cope with the unknowable. The relationship between spirituality and death fear, across race, class, and culture are normal in aging. Women's spiritual exploration and identity development requires a spiritually focused intervention or approach. There are benefits of groups for women and for mixed genders. The interest expressed in the women and spirituality groups on some university campuses and the positive outcomes of spiritual interventions suggest that a group focusing on spiritual exploration and identity development within the setting of a college counseling center may serve a need not being currently addressed by other services on college campuses.
Modern women in the US have high spiritual needs that are not met by mainstream religious traditions. Therefore, women are seeking elsewhere the spiritual truths that seem to be missing. Many women still practice the religion that they were raised in. Feeling disconnected from the familiar traditional spiritualists, however, they supplement them with spiritual practices from other faiths or spiritual gurus. This phenomenon could reflect a deepening of fundamental values rather than a rejection of traditional belief systems. Many ministers and theologians are surprised at the perceived inadequacy of mainline religions. Assuming that a male God is essentially neutral, many men are unaware of male religious power and how that power is held over and against women, denying them the right to preach or similar activities. It is difficult for many women to ground their beings in a male God that men have created in their own image. Most churchgoers are women, yet in most traditions the male hierarchy remains firmly in place at the top. This is especially the case when men are in the home and are spiritually/religiously connected. The Catholic Church that today advocates for preferential treatment of the poor still refers to its cardinals as the princes of the church. Moreover, in 2008, the pope set up a commission to study the orthodoxy of American women religious. When the Vatican first undertook such a project, in the 1980s, many religious women suggested that the authorities should study sexism in the church instead. That commission faded away in silence. At their best, religious images and rituals can carry transformative power and promote healing. When contemporary women cannot find such resources in mainstream traditions, many of them will seek out spiritual communities with more viable alternatives.
We also raise emotional and behavioural patterns out of the murky stratum of the unconscious, out of unawareness, and see just how much our life is lived automatically, as an automaton without real human response, emotional feeling, resonance, empathy or even awareness. The process of self-discovery involves witnessing, reliving and remembering, practicing awareness and releasing pent-up emotions, returning the bodymind, through self-regulating, self-healing and self-referral, to a natural state of balance, ease and relaxation, and opening to insight and experience. In the short-term the experience is enriching, enlivening and full of dramatic changes. In the long-term through achieving personal wholeness, soul nourishment and insights we reach a threshold, a bridge, a chasm - all variously transitional metaphors that signify a quantum leap, a fourth dimensional change that I have termed "the threshold of transformation".
Overall, women are more affirmative about their spirituality and feelings about community. Men identify with these experiences but not the terminology of spirituality. Men give more attention to work and to their struggles integrating work and religion. Women express excitement about learning whereas the men convey self-consciousness over their learning deficiencies. In religions like Judaism, there is a gendering of the terms spirituality and community and religious requirements. In addition, men experience a conflict between religion and their work role and feel driven to learn to remedy deficiencies in their knowledge. Women are less focused on work, experience less role conflict, and are more excited about learning. Both men and women talk about spirituality and community, but women embrace the terms whereas men endorse the concepts but are uncomfortable with the terms. Men dominate the public space of the synagogue or prayer groups, and women's marital and maternal roles are considered central. Both in the writings of sacred texts and in the norms of their respective religious communities, men's religious obligations are explicit. Because women are exempt from obligations, they can decide for themselves whether or not to observe certain Jewish religious practices. Women enthusiastically embrace the spaces that are available to them. Men identify more comfortably with Judaism but do not acknowledge their spirituality. There is also gendering of certain religious practices. Men emphasize some and women others. Some of the commandments are required of men. The gendering of religious practices may reflect such gendering in the non-Orthodox community. Women struggle with issues of covering their heads, refraining from singing in the presence of men, women not being counted in the religious obligations or prayer services, and the partition separating men and women in the synagogue. These facts are consistent with gender role expectations in the larger society, with men giving more prominence to their work identities than the women. Men seem conscious of social expectations that they support their families and achieve success at work. Women also try to integrate their religious and work roles and family roles. Men and women who work within religious communities are better able to avoid conflicts between their work and religious roles than those who work in secular contexts. During different phases of their careers, women give different emphases to being true to themselves, balancing family and career, and seeking challenges. Balancing family and career is salient for those working women who are married and have children at home. Only women speak about enjoying the social contexts in which their learning takes place. In contrast to men, women relish their educational activities. Women crave education and seek intellectual stimulation and growth. Women do not overtly find their gender roles limiting and they revel in community. Women are passionate for learning, men's self-consciousness, and men's and women's deep spiritual strivings. The spiritual practices that women offer open possibilities for society beyond short term concerns with self-interest and survival. In an increasingly threatened global environment and with a shrinking global future, women and women's spirituality are crucial to imaging an alternative, which resists trends of male domination. The social justice work of these women is able to challenge the policies of established elites. In conclusion, the women spiritual perspectives open opportunities for society beyond short term concerns with profit, or money making, having and spending, and may be essential for a civil and humane society.
This is not particularly surprising, since therapy and counseling tend to be concerned with the individual, while spiritual practices are concerned with higher matters. But it does lead the novices and beginners into a quandary where they are faced with the decision of what to do about personality. On the one hand, therapy could be an expensive, futile effort to better the personality, whereas, on the other hand, spiritual practice may offer an excuse to leave personal problems behind, with the justification that you are moving on to more lofty concerns.
Counselors could help clients consider how transition in one area of life may need a change in values and spirituality. Long-term therapy is complete for women when they can integrate a belief system based on their own individual understanding. In addition, women with eating disorders usually struggle with spiritual conflicts that can impede their recovery and healing. Research demonstrates that spirituality positively impact psychological and physiological outcomes. Yet, spirituality may also increase the impact of stressors. Increases in spirituality are positively related to PMS and stress endorsement. Spirituality serves as a partial mediator between stress and PMS. Strikingly, women with the highest levels of spiritual, existential and religious well-being have the highest levels of stress and the most severe premenstrual symptoms. One plausible explanation for these results is that women of faith are taught that God will tell them monthly that they can bear a child. As a person with a high powered and time demanding career engages in self-care behaviors to manage stress, then so too should women of faith. Studies suggest that women associate their faith with these psycho-physiological aspects of self in a way that faith or spiritual well-being calls a person of faith to greater self-care.
Spiritual exploration often occurs after the loss of a significant other or with the imminent death of oneself. Many women across cultures want to understand their place in the order of things, but not through organized religion. Most women share the following: a need to feel connected, spiritual questioning, existential anguish, thoughts about death, and reliance on organized religion. Research suggests that spiritual questioning, outside of organized religion, significant loss, or imminent death, is a natural aspect of aging. Women undertake spiritual exploration extensively. Women also have a profound need to feel connected with something greater than them. Women are generally more inter-relational. This connection need includes recognizing and communicating with something outside or beyond the self, connecting with unity, and finding meaning on earth. In other words, an important component of spiritual exploration is the understanding of the connection within, with others, and with something beyond the self. A sense of connection provides order, stability, and meaning in a stressful, challenging, conflicting, and possibly isolating life. However, a sense of connection does not necessarily provide answers to spiritual questions, nor does it always alleviate existential angst. Most women become spiritually ready and experience an awakening to look beyond the mundane to grasp the bigger picture of which they are a part. Women who rely on organized religion for spiritual guidance are, for the most part, African American, Latina, and lower class. There is a need to differentiate spirituality from religion theoretically and practically. There are women who are profoundly spiritual and eschew connections with formalized religion. Most aging baby boomers claim to be non-religious and spiritual. The Black church has been of secular and spiritual sustenance for Blacks since slavery. This is a longstanding tradition. It provides structure and meaning in lives that are marginalized by other institutions in the US society. Similarly, the century-old Catholic Church's presence in Latin America creates unconditional loyalty among Hispanic people. Spiritual questioning suggests a level of educational attainment. Many of the women who conduct spiritual quests are from middle and upper class. Christianity may not be the predominant religious influence in a multicultural society, the 2000 Census says. The women who focused on non-western and non-Christian practices speak of the interconnectedness of all living beings, the need for balance, and communion with nature. People know far more about the religious practices of church goers than they do about alternative practices. Some women allow time for reflection without an indelible crisis, impending death, or significant psychological imbalance, but as part of aging. They have the opportunity to ponder fundamental questions of existence that are thrust upon other people at less opportune times. Aging may prompt a search for meaning and a need for connection because death is closer than at earlier times in the life span. Women outlive men and often face old age alone. As life winds down, some women may embark on existential quests that reflect basic core values or new directions in their lives. There are countless ways older women cope with the unknowable. The relationship between spirituality and death fear, across race, class, and culture are normal in aging. Women's spiritual exploration and identity development requires a spiritually focused intervention or approach. There are benefits of groups for women and for mixed genders. The interest expressed in the women and spirituality groups on some university campuses and the positive outcomes of spiritual interventions suggest that a group focusing on spiritual exploration and identity development within the setting of a college counseling center may serve a need not being currently addressed by other services on college campuses.
Modern women in the US have high spiritual needs that are not met by mainstream religious traditions. Therefore, women are seeking elsewhere the spiritual truths that seem to be missing. Many women still practice the religion that they were raised in. Feeling disconnected from the familiar traditional spiritualists, however, they supplement them with spiritual practices from other faiths or spiritual gurus. This phenomenon could reflect a deepening of fundamental values rather than a rejection of traditional belief systems. Many ministers and theologians are surprised at the perceived inadequacy of mainline religions. Assuming that a male God is essentially neutral, many men are unaware of male religious power and how that power is held over and against women, denying them the right to preach or similar activities. It is difficult for many women to ground their beings in a male God that men have created in their own image. Most churchgoers are women, yet in most traditions the male hierarchy remains firmly in place at the top. This is especially the case when men are in the home and are spiritually/religiously connected. The Catholic Church that today advocates for preferential treatment of the poor still refers to its cardinals as the princes of the church. Moreover, in 2008, the pope set up a commission to study the orthodoxy of American women religious. When the Vatican first undertook such a project, in the 1980s, many religious women suggested that the authorities should study sexism in the church instead. That commission faded away in silence. At their best, religious images and rituals can carry transformative power and promote healing. When contemporary women cannot find such resources in mainstream traditions, many of them will seek out spiritual communities with more viable alternatives.
We also raise emotional and behavioural patterns out of the murky stratum of the unconscious, out of unawareness, and see just how much our life is lived automatically, as an automaton without real human response, emotional feeling, resonance, empathy or even awareness. The process of self-discovery involves witnessing, reliving and remembering, practicing awareness and releasing pent-up emotions, returning the bodymind, through self-regulating, self-healing and self-referral, to a natural state of balance, ease and relaxation, and opening to insight and experience. In the short-term the experience is enriching, enlivening and full of dramatic changes. In the long-term through achieving personal wholeness, soul nourishment and insights we reach a threshold, a bridge, a chasm - all variously transitional metaphors that signify a quantum leap, a fourth dimensional change that I have termed "the threshold of transformation".
Overall, women are more affirmative about their spirituality and feelings about community. Men identify with these experiences but not the terminology of spirituality. Men give more attention to work and to their struggles integrating work and religion. Women express excitement about learning whereas the men convey self-consciousness over their learning deficiencies. In religions like Judaism, there is a gendering of the terms spirituality and community and religious requirements. In addition, men experience a conflict between religion and their work role and feel driven to learn to remedy deficiencies in their knowledge. Women are less focused on work, experience less role conflict, and are more excited about learning. Both men and women talk about spirituality and community, but women embrace the terms whereas men endorse the concepts but are uncomfortable with the terms. Men dominate the public space of the synagogue or prayer groups, and women's marital and maternal roles are considered central. Both in the writings of sacred texts and in the norms of their respective religious communities, men's religious obligations are explicit. Because women are exempt from obligations, they can decide for themselves whether or not to observe certain Jewish religious practices. Women enthusiastically embrace the spaces that are available to them. Men identify more comfortably with Judaism but do not acknowledge their spirituality. There is also gendering of certain religious practices. Men emphasize some and women others. Some of the commandments are required of men. The gendering of religious practices may reflect such gendering in the non-Orthodox community. Women struggle with issues of covering their heads, refraining from singing in the presence of men, women not being counted in the religious obligations or prayer services, and the partition separating men and women in the synagogue. These facts are consistent with gender role expectations in the larger society, with men giving more prominence to their work identities than the women. Men seem conscious of social expectations that they support their families and achieve success at work. Women also try to integrate their religious and work roles and family roles. Men and women who work within religious communities are better able to avoid conflicts between their work and religious roles than those who work in secular contexts. During different phases of their careers, women give different emphases to being true to themselves, balancing family and career, and seeking challenges. Balancing family and career is salient for those working women who are married and have children at home. Only women speak about enjoying the social contexts in which their learning takes place. In contrast to men, women relish their educational activities. Women crave education and seek intellectual stimulation and growth. Women do not overtly find their gender roles limiting and they revel in community. Women are passionate for learning, men's self-consciousness, and men's and women's deep spiritual strivings. The spiritual practices that women offer open possibilities for society beyond short term concerns with self-interest and survival. In an increasingly threatened global environment and with a shrinking global future, women and women's spirituality are crucial to imaging an alternative, which resists trends of male domination. The social justice work of these women is able to challenge the policies of established elites. In conclusion, the women spiritual perspectives open opportunities for society beyond short term concerns with profit, or money making, having and spending, and may be essential for a civil and humane society.
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