Doubt In Our Spiritual Lives

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What happens if we experience doubt in our spiritual lives? Living a spiritually balanced life is not as easy as some people make it seem.

Many times we are approached at the Irish Pagan School with a variety of questions which share an underlying challenge. The specifics of course vary from person to person, but this also shows that no matter our age, upbringing, spiritual experience or geographic location, every one of us experience some version of this same challenge. A challenge that may occur more than once in our growth.

Everyone of us knows doubt in our spiritual lives.

✨ Post by Jon O’Sullivan

The Benefit of Doubt

One of the downsides to the information age that we all live in now is that misinformation can travel as far and fast as accurate and authentic sources.

Some might even say that misinformation is more prevalent, given that it is never burdened with things like facts or citation and can be easily adopted as a comforting blanket of support to ignorance. Learning something new is a challenge because it compels us to overcome not just our ignorance but our bias and rarely can this be achieved without discomfort.

This is where we find our first benefit when it comes to doubt in our spiritual lives.

Doubt can help us be more discerning in our approach to our education. Allowing space for doubt in our lives can help us remain curious when we come across new information and take up the opportunity to learn more, or go deeper into the experiences that are presented to us.

Doubt in this capacity acts as a safeguard, ensuring that we are indeed engaging with the right sources, the correct energies, the real deities and our deeper and most authentic expression of self.

The Challenge of Doubt in our Spiritual Lives

Yet as with everything in our lives there is more than one side to consider. More than one aspect to doubt that can be less beneficial. That is when we allow doubt to hinder us from action, or doubt prevents us from reaching out, asking that burning question, or seeking connection in community.

The capacity for doubt to aid us in our growth is equally and inversely represented in its ability to hinder it. Instead of accepting the new information we have received, we push it away as unrealistic, unnecessary, or not for me specifically. This can be anything from dreams and visions to deity interactions upon guided journeys.

In this way when the doubt is applied internally we find ourselves caught up in self sabotage or recrimination where thoughts and emotions try to convince us that we are incorrect, when we know we have done the work. Or try to convince us that we are not worthy of the growth we are approaching, the knowledge and experience we are gaining, or the relationship with the God, Guide or Guardian which we are developing.

The challenge of doubt is in seeing it for its value as a tool of discernment, but also accepting that in some ways it has no value as a tool for self assessment.

The Choice and the Will to Live it

Doubt in our spiritual lives is normal and should be accepted as part of the process of healthy spiritual growth. Doubt cannot be denied for its benefit, nor ignored for its challenge without falling to traps such as self delusion, toxic positivity, or immobilising self esteem issues.

When we experience doubt we need to see it as an opportunity. As a chance to shift or change our perspective so that we may look at things in a new light to either gain new insight, or reaffirm our state of being in keeping with our best ideal for ourselves.

The way we address doubt in our lives, be it spiritual in nature or not, is with the twofold approach of knowledge and choice. Seeing doubt in our spiritual lives as a call to action, means that we can explore new information or our perspectives of old information. Yet once that exploration is progressing, be it complete or not, we must also choose how we will accept and implement this new knowledge or perspective.

Choice is a function of thought and though there are many things that influence our decisions we are always free to choose, if we are willing to accept the consequences of our decisions. Living to our choices without doubt becomes a function of will, or in other terms belief.

In my own story I experienced a spiritual shift with the Irish Goddess, the Morrigan. Yet it was by my will and choice that I declined her invitation.

🐦‍⬛IS THE MORRIGAN CALLING YOU – WHAT ARE THE SIGNS? – for access to our FREE Guide over at the Morrigan Academy

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Then as I grew in knowledge and experience with the Irish Gods, I was presented with many doubts. Even now almost a decade on from that first interaction with an Irish Goddess, I still have doubts, but I now see them as a new invitation to explore my chosen spiritual path.

There is no shame in uncertainty, as long as it drives us to be open and explore. There is no harm in hesitation when it encourages us to care for our well being.

We are all of us on a journey of spiritual growth and no matter what age, experience, upbringing, or geographic location, everyone of us experiences doubt in our spiritual lives.