Spirituality can be used as an attempt to avoid or compensate for discomfort.
That’s very understandable, and very human.
We experience pain and suffering, and see spirituality as a way to avoid it, find relief from it, or compensate for it.
And that’s true, in a way. We can use spirituality to try to avoid the pain for a while. We may try to land in bliss and peacefulness, to avoid feeling the pain and suffering.
We may wish for love, bliss, and peace to compensate for the parts of us that are in pain and suffering.
That may work for a while, but life doesn’t seem to allow us to do that for very long. Life want us to be more real. (Yes, I know life doesn’t really “want” anything, but we can put that story on it. Another way to say it is that life invites us to be more real.)
And what’s more real is to rest with the pain, suffering, discomfort and contractions. To notice and allow it. To meet it with love. To ask simple question to see more clearly what’s already there.
To see that what’s there is not what we thought it was. It’s not really scary. It’s innocent. It’s from deep caring. It’s from love. It is love. It’s awareness. It’s what I already am. It’s OK as it is. It doesn’t need to go away. (And yet it often does, when we arrive at this.)