Spirituality

Brochure from Craig Hospital in Colorado about spirituality after spinal cord injury.

Because spinal cord injury can be a life changing event, your whole way of life - including your spirituality -- is challenged. You may find yourself questioning your life goals, work, responsibilities to your spouse or children, parents and friends. While there are five dimensions that comprise good health - social, physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual - spirituality is the one dimension that is usually overlooked. It is probably the least talked about and addressed in hospitals and other health care settings. It is also the dimension that may be the most controversial and misunderstood.

Just What Do We Mean by Spiritual?
At birth, when you inhaled your first breath, you became a spiritual being. But, what does that mean?

The spiritual interacts with the other dimensions of life. It operates much like the traffic reports we get during rush hour. It senses what is going on within us. We can choose to ignore the "reports" it gives, or we can listen to them. More than that, just as a light needs electricity to work, so does the human body need the spirit to function.

Some people use the words "spiritual" and "religious" interchangeably, but spirituality is really a broad term; religious ideas and concerns are only a part of a much larger concept. So, while some people's spirituality is very much related to God or a higher power and might include worship in a church, synagogue, or mosque, for others spirituality may have nothing to do with religion and things like praying or going to church. Some examples of spiritual activities are meditation, traveling, reading, learning or doing something new, focusing on nature, and becoming deeply moved by music.

Click here for complete text.