OUR STRUGGLE WITH INSIGnificance

One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life, is the issue of how we deal with the existential and sense of purpose of our lives. We have all grown up in a culture which is focused on being a success, on achieving, and somehow becoming famous, of being recognised, ultimately being known.

A lot of us carry the wounds of our childhood and adolescence. These can in effect become deeply felt as if there is something wrong with us, that we are not good enough, and this becomes toxic when it is combined with these need to achieve, and can as was in my case lead to anxiety and other mental health issues which are deeply painful and can lead to the desire for spiritual relief and escape.

The contemplatives and mystics tell us that this ultimately the beginning of the spiritual journey, in the stage often named as purgation. Where we literally feel a deep sense of pain and things and we are not alright, and that often our attachment to wanting to be a success to be recognised become forms of attachment that hurt us. Ultimately then we have to surrender, to let go of this desire, which requires to trust that there is a loving higher power who loves us and seeks to support our journey into health and wholeness. So we learn spiritual prayer practices and life practices that help us shift from the stages of purgation to illumination, which becomes a journey where, as 12 step fellowships have said so well, we have to learn to trust a higher power, a God and that this God loves us to support our path from purgation into illumination through to union with God where we learn to seek our significance in this God and not in egoic desire for things that do not bring any spiritual relief or healthy sense of self. This is the contemplative path of seeking our significance in God.