The EvoFaith Podcast

In our increasingly fast-paced world, many of us are struggling to keep up, maintain our health, and find time and energy to connect well with one another. And though we often feel that we cannot sustain the ongoing pressures of modern life, we’re not sure how to break free.

In this week’s episode of the EvoFaith Podcast, we explore how the power of the pause can lead us into slow living—a more sustainable quality of life that nourishes our health and empowers us to show up fully, authentically and courageously in our lives and relationships.

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So often we get so caught up in the chaos of life, the expectations of those around us, and the need to belong that we stop listening and hearing ourselves. And the result is often that we lose ourselves.

But if we can embrace the power of the pause in our lives, we can reconnect with ourselves, get to know ourselves better, and start to hear the voice within us that leads us into our fullest, most authentic, and most courageous lives.

This week the EvoFaith Podcast invites you to pause and listen to yourself. You’ll be so glad you did!

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Do you ever find yourself reacting to some event or situation or person in a way that feels out of your control? Do you ever get caught in a domino run effect, where one little thing sets off a chain reaction that carries you along—usually with less-than-great results?

Our lives can all too easily become defined by how we bounce between reactions to things that happen to us. But if we want to live more fully, authentically, and courageously, we need to learn to stop the dominoes in our lives and pause. And then we can choose our response from within, rather than be controlled by forces from without.

In this podcast, we explore how the power of the pause can help us to stop the dominoes and master the world within us so that we can master the world around us.

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Almost every spiritual tradition has some form of pause built into its spiritual practice. Whether it’s meditation, or some kind of preparation ritual, or just a moment of stillness, spirituality teaches us to pause regularly and intentionally throughout our lives in order to live more fully, mindfully, authentically, and vibrantly. And there is tremendous power in this pause when it becomes an integral part of our lives.

This week, in the EvoFaith Podcast, we explore the power of the pause and why it’s such an important part of any healthy and authentic spiritual practice.

Ultimately, if spirituality is just something we talk about and not something we do—or something we are—then it is a waste of time and energy.

But as we have seen, authentic and healthy spirituality is not about words, ideas, and concepts. It is about doing and becoming. It is about how we work, intentionally and practically, to become our best selves living our best lives.

And that’s why we all need an authentic and healthy spirituality in 2023. When we are intentional about our spiritual lives, we learn to connect more deeply with ourselves, others, the world, and God. And we become increasingly able to master our outer world through mastering our inner world. Because when we change our inner world, then everything changes in our outer world even if nothing changes.

We talk about spirituality all the time. But we seldom define what we mean by the term. What IS spirituality to you? Why does it matter that we know what it is? And what makes our spirituality healthy?

In this episode of the EvoFaith podcast, we explore what spirituality is, and what we can do to nurture a healthy and authentic spirituality.

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There are a lot of things in the world that present themselves as spirituality that really aren’t. And these things can become frustrating and painful detours on our spiritual journey. It’s so important to recognise what we’re really seeking for on our spiritual quest—and what we’re not looking for.

In this episode of the EvoFaith podcast, we explore what spirituality is NOT and why it's important to identify things that draw us away from the deep and rich life we seek.

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In a few days, we enter a new year. While most of us will want 2023 to be different from the last few years, the unfortunate reality is that, for many of us, the year ahead will be “the same procedure as every year, James” (quoting from Dinner for One).

But it doesn’t have to be this way. In this episode of the EvoFaith Podcast, we explore the one significant shift that can empower us to master the future that lies ahead of us in 2023, no matter what that future may be. And that shift is to move beyond living as just a Functioning Self and to embrace our Higher Selves so that we can master our inner world. Because when your inner world changes, everything changes in your outer world even if nothing changes.

I also want to let you know that we’ll be taking a break next week, so there won’t be a new podcast or meditation. But it’s only for one week and then we’ll be back.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for some inspiration for the New Year, I encourage you to check out some of our past posts. Even though they were written for previous New Years, they’re still just as relevant now.

In a few days, we celebrate Christmas again. Generally, our festivities are focussed on an unusual event that happened in the ancient past. Yes, it has meaning for us and, traditionally, guarantees the possibility of salvation and eternal life for humanity. But the problem with this version of Christmas is that it has little value or impact on our lives here and now. And that is a tragedy.

In this episode of the EvoFaith Podcast, we explore the central message of the Christmas story—that God is incarnated in humanity, including each one of us. And we are invited to experience ourselves as incarnations of the divine, which has the power to change how we show up in the world and how we treat one another. Because when you change your inner world—to recognise yourself as a divine incarnation—everything changes in your outer world even if nothing changes.

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At the heart of the Christmas story is a love that is often overlooked—that between Mary and Joseph. This ordinary and extraordinary love story has much to teach us about living in love. And it reveals how learning to love, fully and courageously, can significantly change our world. Because when you change your inner world, everything changes in your outer world when if nothing changes.

Of course, the truth is that we never really master love. Rather, we are mastered by it. This podcast explores why it’s a good idea to give ourselves over to love and how we can do that in our daily lives and relationships. Because when we change our inner world, everything changes in our outer world even if nothing changes.

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There is so much in our world that robs us of joy. But, if we care to look, there are so many more things that can bring us joy. Our capacity to notice and experience joy is not dependent on what is happening around us. It is dependent on what is happening within us. And the good news is that we have control over that.

In the EvoFaith Podcast this week, we’re talking about joy and how we can make the choice to live in joy even when our world is less than joyful. Because when we change our inner world, everything changes in our outer world even if nothing changes.

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We all long for peace but it can be frustratingly elusive, partly because peace is far more than just the absence of conflict. True and lasting peace stills the turmoil within us and leads us to a deep sense of well-being regardless of what may be happening around us. And true peace can also help us to deal more creatively and compassionately with the turbulence and hostility in the world around us. But the first step to finding this peace is to begin within before we even think about bringing peace into our world. Because when we change our inner world, everything changes in our outer world even if nothing changes.

In this second Advent episode of the EvoFaith podcast, we examine what peace really is and how we can access peace even when our world is anything but peaceful.

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How do we find calm in this crazy world?

We can’t do it without hope. As foolish as hope may seem, the alternative—despair—won’t help us. Hope motivates, empowers, heals, and stills us. When we can find even just one reason to cling to hope, it can change everything. Because when you change your inner world, everything changes in your outer world even when nothing changes.

In this first Advent episode of the EvoFaith Podcast, we take a closer look at hope. And I share the key reasons why I am not ready to give up on hope.

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The Church is generally thought of as an organisation that exists to help the world. But in the last few years it has become clear that is certainly not always the case. While there has been much good that has come out of the Church, many of the ways in which the Church has sought to serve people over the centuries has been not really been helpful at all. There is often a narcissistic streak in the Church’s message and mission and the Gospel, as many of us have been taught it, is not really good news!

So what does it mean to be a community that truly serves others, without the narcissism, judgment, and self-righteousness? And how can we each make a contribution to the world without taking on the baggage that can come with being part of a church?

This podcast explores the Church and its role of serving the world. And it invites us to participate in making the world more compassionate, connected and whole, regardless of whether we are part of a church or not.

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Every week, people go to churches—some for the first time—hoping to find a community where they can find belonging, meaning, purpose, and care. And every week, people walk away from Church—sometimes permanently—disappointed that the community they sought was nowhere to be found.

One of the qualities we expect of Church is that it should be a community. And yet most churches seem to have traded community for congregation and belonging for doctrinal purity. The quest for growth and influence in the world has shifted our focus away from community building and toward the ABCs of Church: attendances, buildings, and cash. And our world is poorer for it. 

But Church is not the only option when it comes to finding community. This episode of the EvoFaith Podcast explores alternatives to Church and how can build for ourselves the community we seek.

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For centuries, Christianity, Church and Christ have been almost synonymous. For many people even today, the idea that it could be possible to follow Jesus without being a member of the Christian religion and going to Church regularly is unthinkable. And yet, more and more people are doing exactly that.

At the heart of the Church’s life is worship. For many Christians attending worship services is the defining act of their faith. And, since we are often told that worship is a lifestyle, many believers make praying, singing or listening to worship songs, and listening to sermons a significant part of their daily lives. But I wonder whether this is what Jesus had in mind when he called his first followers and formed the small community that would eventually grow into the Church as we know it today. Personally, I doubt it very much.

In this podcast, I explore what happens when what we call Church doesn’t actually fulfil what the Scriptures say it should be, especially with regard to the act of worship. And I suggest that there may be gatherings and practices that are not usually recognised as Church or worship that may be much closer to what Jesus taught.

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How open do you feel the Bible is? Do you believe that everything God needs to say to human beings is contained in the pages of the Bible and no other divine revelation or communication is needed? Do you feel that nothing can or should be added to or taken away from the Bible? Is the Bible essentially closed and fixed and complete as it is? And is it the only thing you need to inform and equip your spirituality and life?

Or do you see the Bible as more open? Do you believe that God has continued to speak through the centuries after the Bible was written, compiled, and put into the canon? Do you place the Bible in conversations with other sources of wisdom and truth?

How you view and read the Bible will define the impact it has on your life. For some, the Bible is a closed book and so it protects, restricts, and directs us in how we should think, act, and believe. For me, however, the Bible is an open book that acts like a diving board to launch us into the depths of life, wonder, and joy.

This week the podcast explores what it could mean to read the Bible as an open book and as a diving board from which to dive into the mystery and beauty of life, God and the Cosmos. So what are you waiting for? Why not take a deep dive into freedom and joy as we bring our brief reflection on the Bible to a close?

There are many ways to read the Bible, but one of the most helpful, from a Christian perspective, is to keep the life and message of Jesus at the centre. This gives the Bible a metaphorical ‘hourglass’ shape with the Old Testament pointing toward Christ and the New Testament flowing out of Christ.

This episode of the EvoFaith Podcast explores what it means to read the Bible as an hourglass in this way, and how an ‘hourglass reading’ of Scripture can be part of an evolutionary approach to the Bible and to Christian spirituality.

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For most of us, the Bible is a book, a singular thing that we think of as unified and complete—like any other book we know. But when we actually read the Bible, we discover that it doesn’t have the unity and completeness that we might imagine. I’ve even been told by some people that reading the Bible all the way through has caused them to experience a crisis of faith.

It’s unfortunate that many of us were never told that the Bible is a library of books. It was written by many different authors over thousands of years, from different perspectives, in different circumstances, and with different understandings of God, humanity, and the world. There are many different genres of literature in the Bible and there are many different ways of readings it. Recognising these truths can make all the difference to how we experience Scripture and how it impacts our lives.

In this episode of the EvoFaith Podcast, we explore what it means that the Bible is a library, rather than a single book. And we investigate how treating the Bible as the library it is can be an integral part of an evolutionary approach to the Scriptures.

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Have you ever considered that the Bible evolved? It didn’t fall from heaven in the form which we now know. It had a long and complex history, passing through many hands and being influenced by many minds and circumstances. And this evolution is an integral part of its richness.

Because of its history, the Bible offers us a map of human history and of the human quest for authentic spirituality. It is not the only map—it is one among many. But it is a valuable map of the terrain that we must all navigate in our own personal spiritual journeys. And it speaks into pretty much every facet of our human experience, even though our world is now so different from that of the biblical writers.

This podcast explores the long and complicated journey that the Bible took to get to us in its present form. And it invites us to allow the evolving Bible to inspire and nurture our own evolution into our most sacred selves.

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What if prayer doesn’t really ‘work’? What if it was never meant to, or at least, not in the way we usually think? What if speaking prayers of supplication is just one small element of a much larger and more significant expression of prayer?

In this week’s episode of the EvoFaith Podcast, we tackle the last letter in the old prayer acronym, ACTS—the ’S’ for supplication. We explore why some of our traditional ideas about supplication aren’t helping us anymore, if they ever were. We go back to the Bible to recover some of what Jesus taught about the practice of spirituality, including prayer. And we are challenged to pray not just in words that ask for things, but in actions of service that change things.

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There is a lot that has been written about giving thanks. We are told to count our ‘blessings’ and we are sold ideas about thankfulness that would seem to make giving thanks the answer to all our problems. But perhaps you’ve struggled with thanksgiving as we’ve been navigating a whole combination of crises in our world. Or maybe you’ve experienced someone saying thank you in a way that didn’t feel truly grateful or appreciative. The truth is that not all thanksgiving is created equal. 

What does thanksgiving mean to you? What difference could a meaningful practice of thanksgiving make to your life and your world? And what does thanksgiving look like from an evolutionary perspective? This episode of the EvoFaith Podcast continues the conversation about evolutionary prayer and invites you to consider that thankfulness is only truly meaningful when it leads us to thoughtfulness and generosity. 

To sign up for the free weekly EvoFaith emails go to evofaith.com. 

Have you ever encountered a person who leaves hurt and destruction in their wake but refuses to acknowledge any need for change because they simply ask God for forgiveness? Have you ever been tempted to confess difficult issues in your life as a way to overcome the guilt and regret you feel without needing to actually do anything?

Confession and its partner, repentance, can be powerful practices for transformation and growth. But too often they are separated from each other and confession is used as a way to avoid any need for change. And that’s why, in an evolutionary approach to prayer, the practice of confession needs to shift from simply acknowledging our faults and asking for forgiveness to a process of real, practical healing change.

This podcast explores the problems of passive confession and invites us to embrace change so that we can grow toward our best, most sacred selves.

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When our view of God changes, it affects how and why we pray. One of the hardest parts of deconstructing our faith is that we lose the comfort and security that praying to an interventionist God can bring. And that can mean that we lose the gift of prayer altogether. But it doesn’t have to be this way. If we are willing to embrace an evolutionary approach to prayer, we can discover a whole new richness and power in a renewed prayer practice.

In this episode, I begin a new conversation about prayer from an evolutionary perspective. Beginning with a well-known acronym that guides millions of people in their prayer practice, I subvert some of our traditional ideas about prayer and invite you into a new of thinking about and experiencing prayer.

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You have to choose, or so we’re told. The stakes are high. There are eternal consequences riding on our decision. And there is no middle ground. On the one hand, there is the Bible, faith, and God. On the other, there is science, atheism, and rejecting God. But is this really the only way to frame the relationship between spirituality and the sciences? I don’t think so.

It is sad that people of faith have been pressured to reject the awe-inspiring discoveries of the sciences. And it is sad that people of science have been pictured as godless unbelievers who are seeking to lead the world astray. The antagonistic dualism between faith and science is false. There is no need to choose. Rather, these two paths to wisdom and truth are wonderful companions who, together, can enrich and inspire our lives.

As this podcast suggests, we do not have to reject the sciences to find our most sacred lives. Rather, it is when we allow scientists to teach us that we are able to make sense, in a much deeper way, of God, our universe, our world, and our place in it all.

We may be tempted to think of mystics as special, super-spiritual people who reach heights of devotion and ecstasy beyond anything that normal people like us could hope for. We may feel that there is little we can learn from mystics as we try to build a spiritual life in the midst of our chaotic world. But mysticism is nothing more than knowing God, Transcendence, or the More through our own personal experience. And this capacity for experiential knowing is in us all.

In this podcast, we explore why our spiritual experiences and states need to be interpreted, how to avoid becoming stuck in certain spiritual stages because of our spiritual experiences, and what the one essential thing is that we can all learn and experience from the mystics. And it’s something that can make all the difference when we’re seeking to live as our most sacred selves.

When you want to connect more deeply with God, when you want to learn more about God, where do you go? Most of us go to trusted and well-known spiritual teachers. We seek out those who fit into our own spiritual framework and with whom we share a similar set of beliefs. We look for those who will affirm our faith and lead us into a deeper confidence in what we already believe.

But what if being too focussed on those who think like us can lead to spiritual stagnation? What if exploring ideas that are radically different from our own can ignite new insights, growth, and more vibrant spirituality? What if we can learn a lot about sacred living from those we may think are anything but sacred?

I have found that those who reject faith—those we would label atheists—can teach us a lot about belief. It can be enlightening to explore the God that an atheist doesn’t believe in and then explore what they do believe in. And we may find that we have much more in common than we might expect.

That’s why this episode of the EvoFaith Podcast is all about what atheists can teach us about God and what it might mean to add what Peter Rollins calls ‘a/theism’ to our faith.

The word ‘fundamentalism’ is often associated with toxic religions and even religious terrorism. As a result, most of us would feel that fundamentalists have little or nothing to teach us about God. We may even be tempted to quote John Wesley’s famous words to George Whitefield: “Your God is my devil!”

But perhaps there are some important things to learn from these ‘true believers.’ Perhaps their view of God as sovereign and in control has something to teach us, even if we see God very differently.

In this episode of the EvoFaith Podcast, I’m going to invite you to explore some of what makes fundamentalism so appealing and what we can learn about God from the passion of ‘true believers.’

What can you teach me about God? And what might I be able to teach you? These questions have the power to lead us to see the divine in each other and to discover, in a deeper way, the sacredness in our lives.

In the last few months, we’ve explored three pillars of authentic spirituality: loving ourselves, loving others, and loving the world. Now we shift to the final pillar which is loving God. But to do this, we need to have some idea of who it is that we’re loving. We need to learn about God and develop a relationship with the Divine in some way. Inevitably, a lot of our learning comes from other people. We learn about God from one another and from what we see of the divine in each other.

In this episode of the EvoFaith Podcast, we explore how recognising the divine within us all can lead us to a greater awareness of our own sacred selves. And from that awareness, we can experience the richness of a truly sacred life.

We love what we value and we value what we love. And when we talk about loving the world, we are talking about valuing the world as sacred and learning to honour, protect, and respect that sacredness. It also means being aware of our deep connectedness with the Earth and learning to be more intentional about nurturing that connection. Because when we recognise and experience how intertwined our life and the world’s is, we feel more at home on our planet and we are awakened to the Life that thrives within us and around us.

In this episode of the EvoFaith Podcast we explore how loving the world calls us to be more aware of the Earth in our spirituality. We investigate ways to embrace an earth-based spirituality, regardless of our spiritual or religious background. And we seek to connect more deeply with creation as a way to deepen our own spirituality and experience life more fully.

It’s easy to express words of love. But, as we know, love is most powerfully expressed through action. When we love someone, we automatically act in the best interest of our beloved. We want to protect them, care for them, and do whatever we can to ensure that their life is as rich and full as possible.

If we claim to love the Earth, then that love too should be expressed in actions of care, protection, and enrichment. And one of the most basic ways we can love the world practically is through living more simply and consuming more mindfully. Simplicity and mindful consumerism ensure that we live lightly on the Earth. But these practices also free us from the clutter and materialism that so often rob us of peace and aliveness.

In this episode of the EvoFaith podcast, we explore what it means to love the world, and ourselves, by nurturing the spiritual practices of simplicity and mindful consumerism.

To truly love something or someone we have to get to know them. The same is true for loving our world. Until we get to know the Earth and the life that fills it, we can never really love it. But our increasingly technology-driven lives often keep us from a deep, loving connection with the natural world that sustains us.

One of the pillars of authentic spirituality is a deep and ever-growing connection with the world. And if we are to connect with and love the world, then we need to get to know it as deeply as we can. That’s why I consider diving deep into nature to be an important and life-giving spiritual practice.

This episode of the EvoFaith Podcast explores why learning to know our world is so important. And it offers some simple suggestions for connecting more deeply with nature in all its moods.

Authentic spirituality always leads us to be more deeply connected—with ourselves, others, the world, and God. In the last few weeks, we’ve talked about loving ourselves and others as an integral part of our spiritual practice. Now we focus on loving the world.

There is so much in our world that is magical, wonderful, and awe-inspiring. When we miss it, we don’t only lose our capacity to love the world. We lose our souls. This means that nurturing our capacity for awe is not just good for the Earth. It is good for us—for our bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits.

In this episode of the EvoFaith Podcast, we explore the power of awe, and some simple practices to increase our capacity for, and experience of, awe. All of which empowers us to connect with and love the world more deeply.

One of the primary things that cause conflict and pain in relationships is when communication breaks down. But when communication is strong and clear, it brings healing, connection, and alignment to our relationships. This means that one of the most loving things we can do for others is to be mindful and intentional about how we communicate.

We love others when we do the work to be aware of how communication works and to be proactive in each stage of the process. We love others when we take the initiative to make our communication as clear and helpful as possible. And we love others when we recognise the differences in our communication languages and work to accommodate one another. 

In this episode of the EvoFaith podcast, we focus on the spiritual practice of intentional communication and how it can be a profound act of love for those around us.

In our turbulent and busy world, we can easily fall into taking shortcuts in our relationships. We can get so busy, stressed, and rushed that we short-circuit our communications and end up connecting in shallow and cursory ways. And we leave each other feeling unheard, unimportant, and unloved.

It's essential that we learn to slow down and listen thoroughly to one another, bringing openness and curiosity into our interactions so that we can deepen our relationships. If we truly seek to love others, then listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give. And that's why learning to love listening and learning to listen as an act of loving are essential spiritual practices.

In this episode we continue exploring how we can be better at loving others. We look at how we can bring ourselves more thoroughly into our interactions and connections with others. And we will be focussing on the important role that listening—attentively and wholeheartedly—plays in our relationships. 

Sometimes the biggest challenge in loving others is when we don’t actually want to connect at all. Without a desire and a choice to connect, we can’t give or receive love in any real way. But how do we connect with others in ways that deepen our love? And how do we find a reason to connect with those we think of as destructive, unjust, or even enemies?

In this episode of the EvoFaith podcast, we explore what it means to connect with one another, how we can make the daily choice to connect, and what it means to connect with and seek to love our enemies.

Too often our relationships - with family, friends, neighbours, strangers, and even opponents - break down because we close our hearts and minds to one another. It is impossible to truly love another person with a closed heart. Learning to stay open is an essential spiritual practice if we are to be lovers of others. But in a world where things change constantly and rapidly, and where there is so much from which to protect ourselves, staying open isn't easy. It takes intentional, courageous work.

This episode of the EvoFaith Podcast explores some of the primary barriers to love and how we can overcome them. And it offers some clear, practical guidelines for nurturing openness so that we can love others more deeply and find the full and abundant life that deep connection brings.

When we face the struggle of a polarised world, a world at war, a world with huge gaps between rich and poor, we may think that Jesus was naive about putting so much emphasis on love. It can be tempting to believe that lovers get crushed under the violence of our world and that we have to be fighters if we are to survive. But I can’t let go of the conviction that our richest, best, most meaningful life can only be found in the realm of Love, with a capital ‘L’. Yes, you can survive without love, but you can’t live. Not fully. Not abundantly.

For the next few weeks, we’re going to explore what it means to love others. Not just family friends, and lovers. But neighbours, strangers, and even those we would think of as enemies. In this episode, we’re focussing on what we mean when we speak about loving others. And we’ll explore some foundations that can help us to become, in healthy and appropriate ways, more loving human beings. 

How well do you know your own mind? Do you have a good awareness of how your mind works and what helps it to function at its best? And how much do you love your mind as it is, with its thoughts, ideas, dreams, and imaginations? Or do you find yourself wishing that your mind was more like someone else's?

We’re often at war with our own minds. We speak of ‘not being in our right minds.’ We ask ourselves, ‘What were you thinking?’ We get ‘out of our minds’, our minds can ‘spin out’ and we can ‘overthink’ things. We all have times when we wish our minds would work ‘better’ but we seldom define for ourselves what ‘better’ means. 

But unless we love our minds we cannot function at our best and we cannot love ourselves.

In this episode, we’re exploring our minds—how to understand them and love them. And we’ll talk about how learning to embrace your mind’s unique way of processing, synthesising and interpreting data is an important and life-giving spiritual practice. 

The study in Science mentioned in this podcast is this one by Wilson, T. D. et al. Science 345, 75-77 (2014).

The Sam Harris quotes are from his book 'Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality without Religion'

How comfortable are you with emotions? Particularly your own emotions and especially those that we consider 'negative'? How much do you truly love your heart, your emotional self?

Most of us aren't really that great at loving our hearts. We resist, deny, hide, and repress the emotional responses that arise in our hearts. But how can we love ourselves if we can’t love our own hearts? And how can we fully and passionately love others if we’re constantly acting as a gatekeeper with our own hearts?

No emotion is more spiritual than any other, nor is any more healthy than any other. They can all be unhealthy when we can’t regulate or identify them and they can all be healthy when we give them the attention and care they need. The goal is to integrate our unique emotional range and repertoire into a life that embraces the whole of our human experience in positive, creative, and loving ways. And that means that learning to love our hearts is a spiritual task that requires intentional spiritual practice. 

In this episode, we’re exploring our hearts—our emotions and how to embrace them, express them in creative and healthy ways, and love them. And we’ll talk about how learning to regulate, label, and talk about our emotions is an important and life-giving spiritual practice.

The books I refer to in this podcast are:

How do you feel about your body? How much do you connect with your body and its unique appearance, abilities, and limitations? How do you connect your body and your spirituality? And how has your spirituality impacted your relationship with your body? When we speak about spirituality we often sound like our bodies are not really part of us, like they're just a temporary dwelling until our 'real selves' leave them behind to go to some otherworldly, disembodied bliss. And even our cultural obsession with physical beauty has done nothing but shame most of us for not reaching its standards. Most of us feel alienated from our bodies at least to some extent. And that can never lead us to love ourselves well or to live our best lives.

That's why, in this episode of the EvoFaith Podcast, we’re exploring how loving ourselves includes loving our bodies. We’ll talk about why most of us struggle with the body we have and long for a body that’s different. And we’ll see how a healthy relationship with our bodies fits into a healthy spirituality.

If we want to live fully and show up fully, courageously, and authentically in our lives and relationships, we need to be willing to get to know ourselves with all the good and bad, the light and darkness within us. We cannot love ourselves if we don't know ourselves, and we cannot love others if we don't love ourselves. Unfortunately, too many of us are strangers to ourselves, and our loves and relationships suffer as a result.

In this episode, we’re exploring something that is surprisingly often overlooked in spiritual and religious teachings—learning to know and love the stranger within us.

A central question we ask ourselves as human beings is this: What is a good life? We all want to live a life that feels meaningful and fulfilling. We all want to feel fully alive and to show up fully, authentically, and courageously in our lives and relationships. But how do we do that?

Every single day we are flooded with messages telling us how we can experience the good life. On our television sets and phones, on the internet and in our emails, on billboards and notice boards in every public space, we are given images of places, people, and things that represent the best possible human life. And we are told that we, too, can enjoy such a life if we just buy this product or follow this guru or sign up for this course or vote for this political party.

But is that really what the good life is about? Is that how you picture the good life? What do those three words mean to you: the good life?

In this episode, I want to talk about the ingredients we need if we are to create a good life for ourselves.

When we talk about the good life, we automatically end up in the realm of spirituality. And that’s because spirituality connects us with the basic tools and practices that have been tried and tested through the ages and that have been found by all sorts of people from different cultures and walks of life to be effective in helping us to find a good life. Essentially, spirituality can wake us up and lead us to our best life.

In this episode I want to talk about what I believe we all want, and what is at the heart of every spiritual quest: the good life. ‘The Good Life’ is the holy grail of human life and spirituality, but we don’t always know what a good life really is. We too easily get caught up chasing ‘bright shiny objects’ that we think will make our lives good, but that usually leave us disappointed or even broken. That’s why one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves is this: what is a truly good life for me? And in this episode, I want to explore what the answer to that question might be.

It is pretty common for us to think of some people as 'spiritual' and others as not. But we all seek to understand the big questions of our lives and world in some way - which means that we are all spiritual. We're just not all spiritual on purpose. We don't all practice an intentional spirituality and we don't all include spirituality as a significant feature of our lives. But when we realise that we need something to wake us up so that we can show up fully, authentically, and courageously in our lives and relationships, we inevitably and unavoidably find ourselves dealing with spirituality.

In this episode, I want to talk about why everyone is spiritual and why that matters. I also want to explore what you can do to be more mindful and intentional about your own inherently spiritual nature.

In this episode I want to talk about ‘spirituality’: What is it? How does it relate to religion? Is it still relevant or valuable? And why would you need spirituality or spiritual practice anyway?

And I’m hoping that the conversation today will inspire you to ask some questions about your own thoughts and experiences around spirituality. And that maybe those thoughts may help you be a little more intentional in your life. 

So what do I mean when I talk about spirituality? In this episode, I want to share a few thoughts as a kind of overview of how I define and experience spirituality. In the next few weeks, I’ll expand those ideas to give a more detailed big-picture view of spirituality. And then for the next few months,  I’ll be exploring the different elements in my view of spirituality in greater depth.

So firstly, for me spirituality is about—to use Sam Harris’ book title—waking up. I prefer to speak of showing up—fully, authentically, and courageously in our lives and relationships. And by this I mean, being fully and authentically present, and engaged with our own lives and the people in our lives. Spirituality is about being mindful, being aware, of what makes life more meaningful, rich, fulfilling, and deep. It’s also about transcending our obsession with ourselves, our perspectives, our needs, our preferences, and our lives. It’s about living fully and vibrantly. Or, to use a phrase that Jesus used in the Gospel of John, spirituality is about growing into an increasingly abundant life.

Do you find it hard to believe everything your church says you should believe and nothing that you shouldn't? Do you struggle with the lines of right and wrong, in and out, that are drawn in most religious communities? Do find yourself embracing ideas, questions, and beliefs that don't fit into the tight doctrinal boxes of your religion? Have you ever thought to yourself, "If they knew what I really think, they would label me a heretic"? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then maybe it's time to embrace your heretical self, and recognise that a heretic is really just someone who chooses for themselves.

Not everyone who follows their religion's doctrines has a good faith. And not everyone who chooses for themselves what to believe has a bad faith. Authentic, life-giving spirituality is not defined so much by what we believe as by how we believe.

In this week's podcast, we explore why everyone in the world is a heretic, how to get comfortable with your own heretical ways, and how to live as a heretic while ensuring that your spirituality is good and not bad.

It's strange that for so many people, faith and religion have become about answers, certainties, and attempts to make this unpredictable world predictable. That was not the faith that Jesus lived or taught. On the contrary, Jesus loved questions and mystery and constantly invited people into a life beyond answers and certainties.

In our world of conspiracy theories, fake news, and religious attempts to shape society according to their own self-serving values and practices, a scientific embrace of questioning and following the evidence is not just wise. It is a spiritual practice that leads us into fuller and more authentic life.

So what questions have been out of bounds for you? What questions have you been keen to ask but haven’t? When have you withheld a question for fear of judgement? And when, in your life, has a question opened up a whole new world for you? When has a new question led you to a richer, deeper, and more meaningful life?

This week's episode invites you to welcome questions - especially the ones you weren't supposed to ask - and allow them to lead you into a life and spirituality that is filled with wonder, awe, and new possibilities.

It's a tragic thing that religion, culture, and our families can all rob us of ourselves and our freedom to live fully, authentically, and courageously. We are told how to think, feel, and behave to such an extent that our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions are no longer our own.

But if we are to find our best, most vibrant, and most meaningful lives, we will need to do the work of finding ourselves again. We will need to reclaim our freedom and own our thoughts, feelings, and actions again. 

An authentic spirituality is one that empowers us to think for ourselves, feel and express our emotions honestly and healthily, and act in alignment with our personal values and priorities while contributing to the greater good. And only such an authentic spirituality can truly empower us to show up fully, authentically, and courageously in our lives and relationships.

If you want to reclaim your freedom and embrace your most authentic life, then this podcast will guide you on the journey.