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DIAGNOSIS OF THE SPIRIT

Assessing Your Current Spiritual Development

Now it’s time to integrate your balance of Seeking and Resistance and current Stage(s) of Spiritual Development into a practical approach for assessing your current spiritual development. We’ll go through this process in a step-by-step manner. Have your answers to Questions #1-6 of the Questionnaire ready.

Step #1: How important is spirituality to you?

Start by looking at your degree of Seeking (Question #1 of the Questionnaire). Seeking lets you know how important spirituality is to you, in general—how high a priority spirituality should be for you. The greater your Seeking, the more important it will be for you to devote adequate time, attention, and other resources to your spirituality.

Step #2: How important is spirituality to your health?

Next, look at your degree of Spiritual Satisfaction (Question #2)—it's the best indicator of your overall balance between Seeking and Resistance. The lower your Spiritual Satisfaction, the more likely it is that your Resistance relatively exceeds your Seeking and is blocking or holding back your spiritual development. Look at your sources of Resistance (Question #3), both External and Internal Resistance, and begin to think about how to address them.

Next, look at your degree of Spiritual Stress, from Question #4 of the Questionnaire (Spiritual Stress = Seeking – Spiritual Satisfaction). Spiritual Stress tells you how much spiritual matters are specifically affecting your health. The greater your Spiritual Stress, the more likely it is that spiritual matters are having a significant and negative impact on your overall stress and well-being.

Spiritual Stress must be seen in terms of both the priority you place on health and your current degrees of physical and psychological stress. It’s completely up to you to decide if and how much you want to address your Spiritual Stress.

Step #3: Where are you, spiritually?

Look at the types of spiritual experiences you’ve had, if any (Question #5) and your current Stage(s) of Spiritual Development (Question #6).

Your current Stage(s) of Spiritual Development lets you know where you are and what lies ahead—what spiritual milestones you would need to surmount in order to progress with your spiritual development.

Step #4: How much do you want to progress with your spiritual development?

Map of the Spirit shows you where you are spiritually and what lies ahead. But, it’s up to you to decide if and how much you want to move forward with your spiritual development. Whatever your current stage(s) of spiritual development, decide in Question #7 of the Questionnaire how much you want to progress to the next stage of spiritual development and note any specific ideas you may have for facilitating this transition.

7. How much do you want to progress to the next stage of spiritual development?

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

V. Low Low Moderate High V. High

If you decide you want to move forward with your spiritual development, the next section—Treatment of the Spirit—shows how Map of the Spirit can help guide and facilitate your efforts.