The speaker discusses the decline of spirituality in post-industrial society and its impact on mental health. They highlight the loss of pluralistic religious voices and the resulting spiritual non-conversance. They argue that this has led to a decrease in personal spiritual life and family faith traditions, resulting in a rise in diseases of despair. However, they also suggest that we may be on the cusp of a spiritual renaissance, with young adults experiencing a surge in spiritual awakening.
The speaker identifies three bridges in life - emerging adulthood, midlife, and elderhood - where spiritual growth occurs. They emphasize the need for a shift from having the head guide the heart to allowing the heart to guide the head in discerning our direction in life. The speaker concludes by sharing a practice that cultivates an awareness of quest, suggesting that we may already have been on a quest in our lives and how we can be mindful of establishing a stance of quest in life's most unwanted, volatile, and dynamic moments.
1. 40 years ago, the United States and much of post-industrial culture attempted to be inclusive by removing religion from the public square, which led to a radical exclusivity.
2. This move resulted in the loss of the powerful voice of pluralism, where people could share about different religious celebrations.
3. The society has become spiritually non-conversant, with many young adults not having a strong spiritual core.
4. Many individuals, especially young adults, have never been asked to pray or meditate by a parent or grandparent, nor given the opportunity to read any sacred text from any tradition.
5. This has led to a misunderstanding of morality as cherry-picked or driven by hedonics, rather than derived from ultimate reality.
6. There has been a statistically related sharp increase in the diseases of despair with the sharp decline in personal spiritual life and family faith tradition.
7. There is a potential for a spiritual renaissance, with all of us waking up and a mass developmental depression being a knock at the door for a mass spiritual awakening.
8. Spiritual emergence in adolescence is considered a birthright, and young adults face a surge.
9. There are three bridges for spiritual growth: emerging adulthood, midlife, and crossing to elderhood.
10. At each of these bridges, individuals grow spiritually, their inner life hungers to expand, love more deeply, and make a footprint of contribution and meaning.
11. The culture that doesn't inform individuals about these stages often leaves them to figure it out on their own.
12. A three-generational study by Myrna Weissman has shown that spiritual awareness and depression go hand-in-hand.
13. Between the ages of 16 and 26, there is a time of confusion and true depression, which is a quest for ultimate purpose.
14. Depression is not lost time or downtime, but the trailhead of a quest: Why?
15. There's a spiritual response to suffering that becomes the new normal, leading to discovery into our own deeper nature and that of reality around us.
16. The heart guides the head in most wisdom traditions, but lately, it has been reversed, with the head guiding the heart.
17. The heart is the instrument of knowing what is true, discerning our direction, and the head has tactics, strategy, goals, and achievements.
18. Quest is when we can ask a question of our head and receive guidance through the knowing of the heart, through a mystical experience.
19. Combining logic and empiricism with mystical awareness and intuition leads to a more innovative, highly interconnected, and ultimately more successful brain.
20. We can cultivate an awareness of quest and establish a stance of quest even in life's most unwanted, volatile, and dynamic moments.