Psycho-spirituality is something I’ve been delving into over the last few months and it’s a term that I strongly relate to when it comes to my own spiritual practices and beliefs. I’m not a religious person, I don’t believe in a god or practice religious rituals, I just enjoy thinking about the bigger picture and wondering what else is out there that we don’t yet understand. What does it all mean and what questions can I ask to find more answers for myself?
Because I practice Witchcraft people tend to have pre-determined assumptions about me and my beliefs. The fact is Witchcraft is just a practice, it’s not a belief system. Witchcraft helps me to make internal thoughts, emotions or feelings that are tricky to grasp mentally, into something more tangible. My spirituality comes from the intention to better my mental wellbeing and that’s why psycho-spirituality aligns so perfectly with me and it could align with you too!
What does psycho-spirituality mean?
Psycho-spirituality is the merging of spirituality and psychology. It’s the perfect amalgamation of science and believing in the mysteries of the universe. The combination of these two things can help you to not only uncover the problems you battle mentally every day, but it can also help you better understand those things and find meaning or clarity around them.
Spirituality on its own can encourage things such as repression, avoidance or naivety as you are always thinking about the bigger picture and never about yourself personally. Instead of dealing with your issues head-on, you may find that you are always running away from your problems and chalking it up to living a more spiritual life. For example, a meditation on its own doesn’t do anything other than relax you temporarily. In high stress or anxious situations, that’s great, but on a deeper level, it’s like putting a band-aid on an open wound and expecting everything to be fine.
However, meditation with intention, with the knowledge gained from looking at things from a psychological perspective, will be much more beneficial to your long-term mental health and wellbeing. Spirituality is the medicine, but psychology is the diagnosis and you can’t pick the right medicine if you don’t know what’s wrong to begin with.
How can psychology work with spirituality?
I’ve been fascinated by psychology for years, there was a time when I seriously considered becoming a psychiatrist! Psychology is the science of the mind and gives us answers as to why we think and behave in certain ways. It is the study of both the conscious and subconscious mind, something I’ve delved even deeper into since becoming a tarot reader.
On its own, psychology can help us to dig out what is wrong or what is causing the issues we face on a conscious level. Just like we go to our local GP if we have pain or physical sickness, we go to a psychiatrist when we are struggling with our mental or emotional health. A psychiatrist then figures out the cause of your issues, showing you why you are the way you are and bringing clarity to why you think, feel or behave in the ways you do.
Journaling teamed with Tarot reading is the perfect way to expand your self-care routine. Get to know yourself better than ever with Tarot journaling.
However, when we only pay attention to our own psychology it can become overwhelming, as you will always be uncovering what’s wrong and not actually doing anything to treat those things. You’ll eventually end up with a huge pile of things you know need fixing but no actionable ways to do just that. That’s when you would introduce spirituality.
You can take your psychological findings and treat them with spirituality. Obviously, if things are very bad or serious mental illness rears its ugly head, then spirituality will only help you to cope and find meaning in your situation, it won’t be the cure. For example, I take anti-depressants to treat my anxiety disorder and clinical depression, which helps me keep my mood level and feeling like a normal functioning human being. I then use spirituality to help me understand the root of my problems and what role they play in the bigger picture of my life. It helps me to see the lessons I can learn from these negative beliefs or thoughts and how I can look at the present from a different perspective.
How to use psycho-spirituality in your daily life
The best way for me to help get you thinking about how you can use psycho-spirituality is by explaining how I use it in my own life.
I often make time to sit down and try and uncover the problems that lie deep within. I use things like meditation and more prominently, journalling, to do just that. I’ve had a few sessions of therapy on the NHS in the past few years and they always offered little tasks to work through, in order to uncover the truth of my anxiety or depression. I made a note of these and I still use them today.
Once I’ve identified these things, I get to work with my spirituality. I personally use Witchcraft to deal with these issues as I’ve found it the most effective for me personally. The main way I use it is when I’m going through a depressive episode, where my mood is very low or my energy levels are very unstable. I use a burning banishing spell to identify the main side-effects of my episode, writing them down on a piece of paper and then burning it. It works every time to set me back on the right path and I always notice my mood lifting day by day once I’ve done the ritual.
On the one hand, this acts as a psychological cleanse, where I’m subconsciously telling myself to let go of what I’m holding onto. However, it’s also a spiritual practice, as I tend to use herbs and the four elements to ground me in the present moment, connect me with the natural world and seek the energetic support of the universe, to help give me the energy to bring my intention to fruition.
Where to start with psycho-spirituality?
I would recommend starting by researching the most popular theories of psychology, especially the works of Carl Jung and Jungian Psychology. This is the branch of psychology I’ve found compliments the metaphysical and spiritual world best. Then you can start looking into how Jungian Psychology bleeds over into the world of spirituality. Tarot is a great example of how Jungian theories are used in divination, as it often uses Jung’s personality archetypes and his ideas around the ego, personal unconscious and collective unconscious.
