Lose the Box

Like it or not, we love the boxes we live in, don't we? Maybe we love them because they make us feel supported and safe. A boxed-in existence casts the outside world as the "other" while we "belong" in our box, which feels right, supported, and safe. The more people live in boxes, the more polarized we become.

I've written a couple of blogs about boxes. Othering and Belonging explores the process of othering as the shadow side of belonging. Best-selling author Toni Morrison, the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, introduced that concept. The Crossroad Boxes blog reveals our choices are crucial, and individual critical thinking isn't enough to help us make a better choice. We get boxed into crossroad thinking, or believing we must choose one side over the other.

I didn't choose my spiritual box. Maybe I did before I was born because I was a preacher's kid. I married a preacher from the same box, too, and stayed there for most of my life until I was a divorced, middle-aged mother of three. My spiritual box closed ranks, and I was not welcome anymore. Boxes rarely know what to do with events or people that make other box members uncomfortable.

In every spiritual box, there are extremists, fundamentalists, moderates, social connectors, and highlighters. The highlighters are those who just want the highlights of their spiritual practice, partaking in rituals for special holidays and events. The social connectors pay lip service to their practice and thrive on the comaraderie and connections in their boxes.

There are smaller categories in boxes, too, that might influence people to flock to a particular box. Maybe one has an amazing music team, or the leader of the box is a skilled teacher, gifted preacher, or exciting promoter. Another might have a location that suits you. A best friend invites you to their box and you decide to join them. You love that sense of belonging because you agree with those already in the box and feel the box gives you purpose and meaning.

Other spiritual boxes didn't work for me because they were missing something I couldn't define. Truthfully, I lacked self-awareness and needed to evolve, but didn't know it then. How does one evolve when the boxes couldn't address the inner transformation I was seeking? After many years of self-reflection, reading, attending courses, following self-help teachers, counselling and more, I realized I, alone, was responsible for my inner growth.

I've written at length about the many difficulties and unexpected successes while forging a clear path toward the transformation I was seeking. My story is about searching for inner spiritual growth and a soul-led life. Hear me when I say that our spiritual boxes promote growth, and I certainly grew more spiritual in my box. However, they promote their brand of growth.

Spiritual boxes of every kind have certain fundamental similarities, such as a central creator deity, prophets, ancient texts that teach us about our boxes, rules for living and dying, histories, relationships with wars from zealots to pacifists, stories of miracles, and about the end of the world and what happens when it ends. Interesting that all the boxes think they have the true way and the answer to all of human life's questions. They can't all be true, but what if all the boxes got together and acknowledged what was good, true, and honorable from every box?

That concept would be heresy for many of the boxes. My box certainly instilled in me that a "one world" spiritual solution would be catastrophic. I believe there is another step we've neglected that is key to finding our way. It's not usually addressed directly in spiritual boxes. The step is called growing up. It's being an adult. (Read more about being an adult in Adulthood and Evolution.)

How often do we consciously track our journey to adulthood from an initial understanding to practical implementation? Did we all research what stage of growth we might be stuck at, or how to deal with trauma in our lives? When those shameful memories haunt our dreams and we cry out for forgiveness, did we learn how to forgive ourselves and others? Did the shame disappear? To overcome blame, bitterness, or revenge, can we identify and heal the patterns running our lives? These are a few of the questions and actions that help us grow into adulthood and beyond.

A caveat—It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to do adulting work if we were living a life of survival because of war, oppression, lack of basic resources (food, clothing, shelter, healthcare), and major threats to our safety, (wild fires, floods, earthquakes, natural disasters, pandemics), etc. I know. I lived in survival mode, believing I'd never have enough money to feel safe until I realized money doesn't keep one safe and neither do the boxes.

As adults, what are our responsibilities to those living in survival mode? Maybe billionaires could hand out million dollar cheques to disaster zones, war relief efforts, or climate change clean ups. Some of them already donate to worthy causes, and some of them are adults, but if they got together as adults to fix one issue humanity is facing right now, what a difference they could make. Maybe they need to lose their billionaire boxes?

Here's the bottom line. We can become adults and live a responsible life, but we can't solve the world's problems alone. The same thing goes for our spiritual boxes. No one box has the entire answer, so it might behoove us to think about which boxes we put ourselves in and start reaching out to other adults in other boxes. Better still, lose the boxes. Celebrate when you find a common truth. Explore that truth together. Find another box and another common truth. Lose the boxes, celebrate, explore, reach out. Repeat.