Since beginning the journey of adulthood, one of my primary goals has been to live in a way that is authentic to my soul– this isn’t as cheesy as it sounds, hang tight my friends. A big part of this authenticity means sharing what spirals through my brain by writing about it (why hello blog, I’ve missed you!). And one of those things that has been on my mind quite a bit lately is spirituality. I truly believe that human souls are the most powerful and extraordinary part of humankind, serving as the gatekeepers of our deepest desires, goodness, values, and truth.  When we are able to search within our tangible bodies to connect with our souls, and in turn connect our souls with others’, we manifest the most powerful network imaginable, one which can drive limitless good in this sometimes-dark world.

For me, it’s impossible to disentangle the concept of the soul from the subjects of faith and spirituality. I think these concepts are inseparable, but I’ve recently struggled to attach any specific religion to that mix. Religion is, as we all know, a very powerful and taboo subject. It has been the root of many wars, it has been used as an instrument of control, and has been the subject of contentious debates for centuries. I’m not here to argue about anyone’s beliefs, nor am I here to bolster or denounce any belief system or even to get you to change your beliefs. I think spiritual convictions are incredibly sacred and there’s a lot of beauty in them—I appreciate and respect those convictions. I am, however, encouraging you to open up your mind and heart, to consider that most humans, regardless of their religious beliefs, are all just trying to understand the same insurmountable concept of what the heck we’re doing here and how we should curate a good, productive life.

Every religion answers some of those questions for us, often in very similar ways, which is why it is sometimes perplexing to me that we tend to focus on our differences, rather than our similarities. Religion creates a foundation of morals and beliefs and creates a bigger meaning for the world. It gives people community, it gives people something to seek, it gives people comfort, and it gives the world purpose. Those are amazing things.

But I think we can go wrong when we become tunnel-visioned on our religious beliefs and refuse to open up our worldview to other possibilities.

I don’t want to go too deep into my own personal spiritual/religious beliefs, but I grew up in a big Catholic Italian family. I will say that I think that, like most anything in this world, there are some beautiful things about the Catholic faith, and there are also some major pitfalls. Regardless of my fluctuating relationship with the faith, I try to uphold the positive virtues that I learned from it while realizing that my belief in Jesus may, in fact, be but one paradigm of divinity. In other words, I don’t think that this belief is necessarily the only indisputable way of making sense of the world, and I don’t think that other good-hearted, selfless, hard-working people are doomed for not picking the “right” paradigm.

Religion treads a duplicitous line when people within a religion become too inflexible to be open to other people’s beliefs. I think a major downfall of most religions is failing to create the openness and humility towards the idea that belief systems beyond those indoctrinated walls are arguably valid just the same. After all, nobody really knows anything for sure, that’s why we call it faith. Religions too often maintain that if other individuals don’t follow the same religious path, they are not only unenlightened, but they are doomed to eternal damnation. That’s a little harsh, in my personal opinion, which is why I want to challenge myself and others to instead focus on the virtues of spirituality rather than getting wrapped up in the dogma.

I think so much good can come from opening our worldview a bit to focus on our spiritual commonalities, while empathetically realizing that most people are just trying to make sense of a mysterious world from the tools and information to which they’ve had access.

I think there is incredible merit to believing in a higher power, and I deeply cherish that belief in myself. I’ve come to realize that perhaps the important part of religion, and faith, and spirituality, is NOT who we idolize (God, Jesus, Allah, The Universe… insert capitalized pronoun here), but rather it is about the actual virtues that we idolize behind the who that represents their driving force: goodness above evil, love, selflessness, loving our neighbors above ourselves, gratitude, forgiveness, kindness, acceptance, charitability, a belief in divinity, a greater purpose for our lives in this world, and greater purpose of a system beyond this world. These are the virtues are available in all of our souls, and I think everyone has access to them no matter who they conceptualize as ‘The Big Mysterious Thing in the Sky” that perhaps created and epitomizes them. Any God that provides you a sense of comfort, divinity, and purpose for your life on this earth, and whom best embodies those virtues to YOU, while bringing YOU closer to manifesting those virtues in yourself, is as beautiful a belief system as any.