A mental model of the spiritual journey based on belonging, safety, and authenticity
The spiritual journey is often seen as a mysterious and intangible path, yet it can be mapped out through familiar human experiences: belonging, safety, and authenticity. Inspired by a powerful quote from The Art of Holding Space by Heather Plett — “Safety and belonging take precedence over an expression of unique identity” — this essay explores a mental model of the spiritual journey that aligns with these three fundamental forces. At its core, this model reveals a progression: we start in the overlap of safety and belonging, navigate societal rules and coping mechanisms, search for tribes that resonate with our true selves, and eventually cultivate the courage to embrace authenticity. However, the deeper phases of deprogramming and shadow work often require moments of crisis or profound realization to peel away layers of conditioning and fear.
So, I have this model of the spiritual journey that is based on this quote from the Art of Holding Space by Heather Plett: “Safety and belonging take precedence over an expression of unique identity.” This quote creates 3 forces that work in the system of our lives: belonging, safety, and authenticity (unique identity). If we plot these as circles that overlap, we get this diagram:
Start: safety from belonging
We start our lives with in the overlap between safety and belonging: we are born into safety from belonging. Our parents keep us safe from the moment we are born, otherwise we wouldn’t survive.
1. Moving into the world and learning the rules
After this initial state of safety from beloning, we move out into the world and learn the rules. We meet other people, we go to school, we make friends, we watch movies, we listen to songs, we get a job. We live in a system and to survive in that system, to find our place in that system, to belong, we need to know the rules and play by the rules of the system.
2. Developing coping mechanisms and patterns to protect ourselves
The systems we inhabit are not always in line with our desires, needs, character. If you have more fire in you than your parents can handle, they can tell you to keep a lid on it. If you are more creative than is useful to get good grades, your teachers can tell you to stay within the lines. If you get a job and there is a toxic work culture, you feel pressured into keeping your mouth shut. The list goes on and on. To survive in these groups, we develop coping mechanisms. We develop patterns of behaviors that make us feel safe and make us successful in social groups. We develop strategies to regulate our emotions. These coping mechanisms and behavioral patterns become part of who we are and create distance to our true authentic selves.
To find our place in the world and to keep ourselves safe, we learned to follow the program and developed behavioral patterns behind which we can feel safe.
3. Finding and choosing your tribe
The systems we are born into, the school our parents send us to are not chosen by us and can not be in line with what we feel inside. But as we grow older, we can chose where and what we study based on what resonates with us, we can chose where to work. The systems we inhabit will be more aligned to our unique identity. This can be a difficult journey if these tribes are a long way from where you are born. If you want to pursue a career in art and there are no artists in your family, this might be a struggle. But this struggle can result in finding systems that resonate more with who you are then the ones you are born into.
4. Developing the courage to be yourself despite the risk of getting hurt
You will have some idea of who you are and how that is different from your environment. You learned that being yourself is risky. You learned to put on a mask, a facade to hide your true self to stay safe and to not risk excommunication from the groups you belong to. So to be yourself takes courage. You risk excommunication. You risk people not liking you. But one step in the direction of authenticity is developing the courage to be yourself. Maybe this works but sometimes you will face the consequences of being yourself: people might be angry, surprised, offended. This is the price for being yourself.
Walking a difficult path to find your tribe and developing the courage to be yourself is the first part of the spiritual journey towards being authentic. You are finding your way. I wouldn’t perse label these steps as spiritual but they are the first steps on this journey. The last two steps are more difficult and more painful and usually require some sort of crisis or epiphany to kick start them. I would definitely label them as the spiritual part of the journey.
5. Deprogramming: letting go of conventions
To unlearn the programming from parents, teachers, peers, books, movies, songs, we need to first become aware of the fact that we are programmed, that our thoughts and emotions are not (entirely) our own. Becoming aware of the programming can come from curiosity. If you start questioning reality and learn systems thinking, this will lead you to the discovery of the programming. If you have seen the movie the Matrix, you see this depicted in the scene in the nightclub where Trinity tells Neo it is the question that drives us, it is the question that leads us to the discovery of the programming.
Once you are aware of the programming, you can start to see what is from you and what comes from your programming. You will find out that everything is a construct, that there is no good or bad, things have no inherent value and events have no inherent meaning. You will eventually find that the creation of reality as we see it is a construction in our consciousness, a virtual reality. You will find that your programming determines how you see the world and the world can be seen in radically different ways.
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things…”
— Steve Jobs
I found that to be the easy part. It’s almost a rational deconstruction of reality. The challenge here is that when everything loses its meaning, you have nothing to hold on to anymore. Life can seem empty and meaningless because you just lost all constructs of meaning that you have built your life on. That is disruptive and shocking but its not the hardest part of the journey.
6. Shadow work: heal your trauma’s, fears, and patterns
Letting go of the patterns you developed to keep yourself safe and to be successful in the groups you are part of is where the hard work is. This usually requires a shock, a fundamental crisis, a deep drama that triggers the need to go inside and look at your patterns, your triggers, your ego. This is a journey through the shadows inside of you. The things in the shadows inside of you are there for a reason. Fears. Coping mechanisms. Traumas. Generational traumas that you have no idea how they ended up inside of you. It all hides in you and clouds your vision, your vision of the world around you but also your vision of your self. The ego operates from the shadows. You have to surrender and take a jump to learn that the fears and traumas and patterns inside of you are not you and you can let them go.
You have fears for a reason. They protect you. But at some point, you will see you no longer need those fears and you can thank them and let them go. You have patterns for a reason. Some you inherited and some you developed yourself. They protect you. But you can also let them go. In this phase, you have to use each trigger as a sign that you need to go inside and see, embrace, and let go of the fear or pattern or trauma that causes the trigger in you. Some fears, patterns and traumas run deep. It’s like peeling the layers of an union. You go deeper and deeper into your shadown and arrive at deeper and deeper topics. This is painful. Letting go of a fear is scary. Releasing a pattern makes you vulnerable. Addressing the pain of a trauma is painful. The key is to sit with the pain and let it pass through you instead of pushing the pain away. Pushing pain away is what causes them to live in the shadows and trigger you. The more layers of the union you can peel off, the more authentic you become.
End: authenticity
One can have different ideas about what the end of a spiritual journey is. Buddhist think it’s nirvana, Yogis call it samadhi. It’s all about becoming one, one with yourself and with that one with the universe. The spiritual journey is a journey inward. On this journey inward you peel of the layers of pain that cloud your vision and arrive at inner peace. On this journey inward you learn about yourself and with that you learn about life. Science seeks to understand the universe by looking outward, spirituality seeks to understand the universe by looking inward. Once the layers of pain and the stacks of conventions have been released, you can see more clear and become more authentic.
That is my current mental model of the spiritual journey. It never ends, there seems to be always more layers to peel off. But with each trigger, each signal that you need to go inside, each layer you are able to peel off, you become more authentic and life starts to flow through you.
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