What Is Spiritual Disease

Soul loss, ancestor spirits, tame domestic spirits, wild forest spirits, malicious spirits, or shaman spirits are some of the illnesses attributed to supernatural forces, although they can also be attributed to magical meddling by humans in the form of curses. As ancestors may be made upset by activities performed or not performed by humans, illnesses caused by ancestral spirits are frequently a way of communication.

Spiritual therapies must be used to repair these deeds, otherwise the illnesses will continue and lead to death. Spirits can even be blamed for catastrophic accidents and poor luck.

When one or more souls split from the physical body, spiritual ailments can ensue. Separation can take place in a variety of ways. A soul may be “frightened away,” stolen by a malignant spirit, disturbed by an ancestral spirit, or just unsatisfied with the earthly body and seek reincarnation.

The severity of the illness is determined by the number of souls lost, the time of departure from the body, the distance between the soul and the body, the spirit's influence over the soul, and the specific conditions surrounding soul loss. Traditional healers, such as soul callers and shamans, are commonly consulted to cure spiritual disorders when natural home remedies have failed.

What are spiritual problems?

• Over the last 30 years, psychological study on a number of spiritual issues has been done. Spiritual problems are one spiritual issue that has garnered a lot of attention.
• People are affected not only psychologically, socially, and physically by major life challenges, but also spiritually.
• Natural disasters, accidents, sicknesses, and other stressful circumstances can put people's spiritual lives in jeopardy or cause them to struggle spiritually.
• Spiritual coping problems are attempts to protect or transform people's relationships with whatever they consider precious, such as their connection to God/Higher Power, spiritual identity, and religious community connections.
• Terminology. Many studies on spiritual difficulty use the phrase “negative religious coping,” but we and other researchers have started to use the term “spiritual/religious problems.” Why?
• Spiritual conflicts can be watershed moments in human development or “forks in the path.”
• According to several research, persons who are able to resolve spiritual conflicts over time gain and grow from them.
• Others may choose to temporarily or permanently withdraw from spiritual challenges.
• Others who are stuck in their troubles emotionally and physically deteriorate.
• Even atheists and non-religious people may deal with spiritual issues such as feeling distanced from, unhappy with, angry with, or abandoned by God.
• See Constructs/Our Measures for more broad background information on spiritual problems.
• Spiritual conflicts refer to disagreements with God/Higher Power, oneself, and others over spiritual topics. Distressing feelings and doubts about one's spiritual journey in life arise as a result of these tensions.
• Internal/intrapsychic spiritual conflicts—inner conflict about spirituality or religion
• Spiritual conflicts with other family members, friends, clergy, community members, or the greater culture concerning spirituality or religion are interpersonal/communal spiritual challenges.
• The 7-item Negative Religious Coping subscale from the Brief RCOPE is most typically used to assess spiritual problems (Pargament, Feuille, & Burdzy, 2011). For the entire Brief RCOPE and lengthier scales to more fully examine spiritual problems, go to Constructs/Our Measures.
• For additional information on how we define these two overlapping concepts, see Defining Religion & Spirituality.

What comprehensive empirical research on Spiritual Struggles in Coping with Marital Problems has been conducted?

• Despite substantial research on spiritual issues in other areas, there has been essentially no systematic research on spiritual struggles in marriage. Nonetheless, the Relational Spirituality Framework emphasizes that serious or persistent marital issues, such as infidelity, can lead to private or communal spiritual challenges with God.
• Prior research on spirituality and marital problems has relied on indirect indicators to determine if people feel spiritual struggles as a result of marital problems, such as frequency of religious attendance or overall value of religion in everyday life. We employ definitions and measurements of spiritual challenges established in past research on non-marital stressors to stimulate more in-depth study on spiritual struggles with marital problems (e.g., natural diasters, health problems).
• In practice, we have concentrated our research on Divine Spiritual Struggles rather than Internal or Interpersonal Spiritual Struggles in relation to marital issues.
• When it comes to interpreting and reacting to marital problems, we characterize Divine Spiritual Struggles with Marital Problems as having a confrontation with God. It's helpful to define conflict before delving into this definition. We define conflict as an individual's internal or external conflicts over his or her life goals and/or paths to achieving those goals. When troubles emerge, humans can be in conflict with God, just as they might have internal or interpersonal conflict. Problems in marriage can jeopardize life ambitions. An individual may have a disagreement with God about why marital difficulties have arisen and what should be done to resolve them. These conflicts with God might lead to negative feelings and thoughts regarding one's relationship with God.

For psychological research, how do we measure Divine Struggles in Coping with Marital Problems?

• We used the following three sub-scales (three items each) from Pargament's R-COPE to assess divine spiritual struggles with marital troubles in our transition to parenting study. These nine items were mixed in with R-COPE sub-scale items from other sub-scales. For additional information on the history and development of the R-COPE and Spiritual Struggles Sub-scales, see Constructs/Our Measures.
• Instructions for dealing with marital troubles include the following: The sentences that follow outline particular ways that people might manage with the inevitable marital problems that arise from time to time. When you think about the challenges you've had in your marriage, how much do you use each of the following to deal with them? When I'm having marital issues, I…

How might Divine Spiritual Struggles in Coping with Marital Problems benefit or hinder a marriage or couple relationship?

• To the best of our knowledge, our study on the transition to parenthood is the first attempt to investigate how much married couples experience spiritual struggles as a result of marital difficulties, and what impact these divine spiritual struggles have on the marriage and each spouse's psychological or spiritual well-being. We are presently doing analyses and will report back when we have more information.

What spirituality means?

Spirituality is defined as the awareness of a feeling, sense, or belief that there is something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater total of which we are a part is cosmic or divine in nature. True spirituality necessitates the opening of one's heart.

What is the meaning of spiritual distress?

When anything is physically wrong with you, your body is quite good at letting you know. When your emotions and ideas get pressured and out of balance, it's typically easy to see. Did you realize that your spirit can be distressed as well? Years of experience working in spiritual care have taught me that life can toss us curve balls that put our bodies, minds, and spirits under stress. My research has also proven that people live their best lives when their bodies, minds, and spirits are in good shape.

Your spirit is the part of you that is responsible for your beliefs and worldview. Spiritual distress, according to Betty Ferrell and Christina Puchalski's book Making Health Care Whole, refers to a person's “impaired ability to experience and integrate meaning and purpose in life through connectedness with self, other, art, music, literature, nature, and/or power greater than oneself through connectedness with self, other, art, music, literature, nature, and/or power greater than oneself through connectedness with self, other, art, music, literature, nature, and/or power greater than

It can be difficult to tell if what you're thinking and feeling is normal processing of a stressful event or if it's something deeper in your spirit that's adding to your stress, such as when you or a loved one is facing a significant medical crisis.

What is psycho spiritual stress?

Given that stress has been related to 95 percent of all disease processes, learning to properly manage stress is a pillar of holistic, alternative health and healing. This learning process begins with recognizing or identifying four distinct types of stress that are influencing you, as well as how these stressors (i.e., what demands a change from you) are presenting themselves in your life as symptoms.

Physical stress, psychological stress, psychosocial stress, and psychospiritual stress are the four forms or categories of stress.

Trauma (injury, infection, surgery), strenuous physical labor/over-exertion, environmental pollution (pesticides, herbicides, toxins, heavy metals, insufficient light, radiation, noise, electromagnetic fields), illness (viral, bacterial, or fungal agents), fatigue, insufficient oxygen supply, hypoglycemia I (low blood sugar), hormonal and/or biochemical imbalances, dietary stress (nutritional deficiencies, food allergies and sensitivities, unhealthy eating habits

Emotional stress (resentments, fears, frustration, sadness, anger, grief/bereavement), cognitive stress (information overload, accelerated sense of time, worry, guilt, shame, jealousy, resistance, attachments, self-criticism, self-loathing, unworkable perfectionism, anxiety, panic attacks, not feeling like yourself, not feeling like things are real, and a sense of being out of control/not being in control), perceptual stress (not feeling like yourself, not feeling like (beliefs, roles, stories, attitudes, world view).

Relationship/marriage issues (partner, siblings, children, family, employer, coworkers, employer), lack of social support, insufficient resources for adequate survival, loss of employment/investments/savings, loss of loved ones, bankruptcy, home foreclosure, and isolation are all examples of psychosocial stress.

A crisis of values, meaning, and purpose; joyless striving (instead of productive, enjoyable, meaningful, and rewarding employment); and a mismatch with one's underlying spiritual convictions are all symptoms of psycho-spiritual stress.

In general, poorly or ineffectively managed stress has a negative impact on the body. Psychosomatic or psychogenic illness occurs when stress-related feelings, moods, and emotions are pushed into the body, the soma. Symptoms include headaches, heart palpitations, physical/cognitive/emotional pain and suffering, constricted throat and shallow, constricted breathing, clammy palms, fatigue, nausea, anxiety, allergies, asthma, autoimmune syndromes related to an ineffective immune system, hypertension (high blood pressure), and gastroid syndrome.

Long-term stress can impair immune function and make you more susceptible to infectious and immunological-related disorders, as well as cancer. Emotional stress can also cause hormone imbalances (adrenal, pituitary, thyroid, and so on) that wreak havoc on the immune system.

Anxious thoughts, frightened anticipation, poor attention, memory problems are all examples of cognitive issues.

Tension, irritation, restlessness, anxieties, inability to relax, and depression are among emotional symptoms.

Behavioral: Task avoidance; sleep issues; difficulties completing job projects; fidgeting; tremors; strained face; clenched fists; sobbing; changes in drinking, eating, or smoking habits

Physiological: Stiff or tense muscles, grinding teeth, sweating, tension headaches, faint feelings, choking sensations, difficulty swallowing, stomachache, nausea, vomiting, loosening of bowels, constipation, frequency and urgency of urination, loss of interest in sex, tiredness, shakiness or tremors, weight loss or gain, awareness of heartbeat

Social: Some people seek out others to be around when they are stressed. When faced with a stressful situation, some people withdraw. When a person is stressed, the quality of their relationships might also change.

(From Kenneth R. Pelletier, Ph.D., Between Mind and Body: Stress, Emotions, and Health in Mind-Body Medicine, Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., and Joel Gurin, Eds., Consumer Reports Books, Consumer Union: Yonkers, New York, 1993, 19-38, citation: 24.)

How do I take care of my spirit?

Visualization. Close your eyes, relax, and envision yourself in a quiet environment, such as a forest. Hear the cracking leaves, smell the damp soil, and feel the breeze with all of your senses engaged.

It's like reciting a mantra. Select any meaningful or relaxing word, phrase, or sound while sitting silently. The mantra can be said vocally or silently. According to experts, the repetition induces a state of physical calm.

Deep inhalation. Comfortably sit or lie down. Place your hands on your stomach and relax. Count to four slowly while inhaling deeply through your nose. Feel the increase in your gut. Take a deep breath and hold it for a second. Exhale slowly while counting to four, preferably through pursed lips to keep the breath under control. Slowly, your stomach will sink. Rep a couple times more.

What is spiritual malaise?

Spiritual malaise, in my opinion, is a form of burnout that robs us of the energy we need to live the life we want. It is a deep sense of discomfort and irritation with daily existence, marked by a lack of self-connection and engagement, rather than a grounded experience or phenomenon. It's less anxious than anxiety and more uncertain than depression. It does not reveal itself or spread quickly; instead, it sits, like smog, destroying the oxygen in the environment. In some ways, it's a modern-day affliction. We barely have enough time to examine the things that make life worthwhile with so many everyday distractions, from cell phones to job competitiveness to family and relationship pressures.

What is anxiety spiritually?

Anxiety is a universal characteristic of all living things, even the tiniest animals whose lives center around survival. However, these species suffer from reality anxiety, a fear of survival-related events such as dog bites or surviving a severe winter, as described by Sigmund Freud. Reality anxiety affects humans as well, but our brains have developed to allow us to reason—a capacity that causes worry on a different level, stemming from deeper existential issues about the nature of our existence.

This level of worry is referred to as sacred anxiety by Robert Gerzon, an author and holistic psychotherapist. Gerson's approach to holy anxiety reflects the concerns raised by persons going on spiritual journeys, whether religious or not. “Sacred anxiety characterizes our experience with the ultimate, the fear of death, and the wonder of existence,” he stated. “This is existential concern about our place in the universe on a cosmic scale.”

The understanding that, at the end of the day, each of us is alone within our head, viewing the world differently from others while simultaneously inhabiting it. The feeling of dread that comes over you when you worry what happens when you die, if you'll be able to see your loved ones again “You will either continue to exist in some manner or will fade away into another realm of existence. Sacred anxiety incorporates both of these worries, and although Gerzon compares it to a fear of the unknown, it is a fear of the unknown “Regardless of our religious views, our uniquely human ability to reason has the potential to lead us into deeper anxieties.

What are the 3 elements of spirituality?

In their eternal wisdom, all shamans, healers, sages, and wisdom keepers of all centuries, continents, and peoples claim that human spirituality is made up of three aspects: connections, values, and life purpose. These three components are so strongly linked that it may be difficult to tell them apart. Take a minute to ponder on each facet of human spirituality to determine the state of your spiritual well-being if this is possible. This will be a three-part monthly series, starting with relationships.

Internal (your domestic policy)—how you deal with yourself, how you nurture the relationship with yourself and your higher self—and external (your foreign policy)—how you relate, support, and interact with those people (and all living entities) in your environment—are the two categories of relationships.

What criteria would you use to assess your internal relationship, and what steps could you take to improve it?

How would you assess your external relationships, shifting from the perspective of domestic policy to international policy?