Walk into any yoga studio or meditation class, and you’re bound to notice one glaring fact: there are a lot more women than men in that space.
As alternative medicine and New Age spirituality have crept upward into the mainstream, there’s been a pretty pronounced stereotype that spirituality is more popular amongst women.
And it’s not all just stereotype. A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found 60% of women said religion and spirituality were important in their lives, compared to just 47% of men.
So what gives? Are men just not hardwired to be spiritual? Is it cultural? Or is something deeper going on here.
Given that just over one-third of all therapy patients in the U.S. are men, it’s not totally surprising that men aren’t opening up in sharing circles and angel meditations. There’s still a lot of stigma around men engaging with anything that’s challenged outdated notions of masculinity (i.e. having feelings).
But could part of the challenge be the way that we frame spirituality in the first place? Is it possible to have a thoughtful conversation about spirituality that makes room for men as we all unpack these tangled ideas of masculinity, fragility, and emotion?
From Oprah to Gwyneth Paltrow to Gabrielle Bernstein, the predominant images we see of mainstream spirituality have a very feminine bent. We talk about oracle cards and jade eggs and bubble bath self-care.
And, while the empowered feminism that’s risen from that space is incredible, long overdue, and definitely not exclusive to women, spirituality is about more than pulling a few cards or unrolling a yoga mat.
Spirituality is ultimately about purpose—the core questions we all have. Why are we here? What’s the purpose of all of this? Why do I feel or desire or experience what I do?
And purpose is a decidedly more concrete idea than we make it out to be.
We all have a purpose. Every moment has a purpose. Because all purpose implies is “the reason” or “the why.” It can be applied to something as esoteric as psychic readings and mediumship or something as mundane as the success of a relationship or a marketing strategy.
There’s a reason that I’m happy right now but was sad a few minutes ago. There’s a reason this marketing effort worked but that one didn’t. There’s a reason that relationship didn’t work out but this one feels easy.
That’s all purpose means. And we can explore that purpose any way we want—whether we’re watching TV or going to the gym or even having sex, we all have a reason, a why, for everything we do.
And the crazy thing is that as diverse as our individual experiences are, we each have a pretty narrow lens through which we experience life. They all boil down to a few innate themes of sensitivities.
Sensitivities are what we are most sensitive to. What we experience most strongly. If I’m sensitive to music, I can probably hear notes you can’t hear. So, if I’m sensitive to Vulnerability or Connection or Faith, I’m going to experience all of those things a little deeper.
I’m going to have higher highs and lower lows there. I’m going to have more gifts, stronger desires, and even more trauma there. It’s where I experience life most fully.
Even babies have certain unique sensitivities. It’s something we’re all born with. And those sensitivities will color a baby’s experience. A baby with a sensitive stomach will have a very different experience than a baby with sensitive ears.
So, we can use that—that purpose, those sensitivities—to start to make sense of the world around us.
I can see that, if my themes of sensitivities are around Freedom, I’m going to be able to sense more or split hairs around Freedom. I’m going to feel trapped more easily. I’m going to constantly be looking for opportunity to create Freedom. I make people feel Freer. Any relationship or job I have that doesn’t give me Freedom is going to fail. Any marketing effort I take to make people feel Free will be successful.
I can use it forward or backward—to understand why situations did or didn’t work out, or to predict what will work in the future.
And, that’s spirituality, too. In fact, isn’t the reason we’re engaging with the oracle cards or bubble bath to feel something? And we could pin it to those same somethings over and over again that you’re trying to feel all the time.
If we know our purpose, then everything is spiritual. Business is spiritual. Relationships are spiritual. Exercise is spiritual. Watching TV is spiritual.
Because we’re getting to the heart of the matter—the purpose, the why. And, regardless of gender constructs and social pressure, that’s something every single of us wants. We want to know the why so we can make better choices to be more successful and fulfilled.
That’s what spirituality is really about. It doesn’t matter what vehicle we use to get there. It’s about experiencing something deeply—experiencing who we actually are, our sensitivities, our purpose.
And we can cut through the bullshit to get to the purpose of it all. We can make room for all of us to have intelligent and thought-provoking conversations about spirituality outside of the tight constraints of gender normativity.
We can start a new conversation around spirituality—one that gets to the point.
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