“Religion is belief in someone elseโs experience. Spirituality is having your own experience.โ ย ~Deepak Chopra
I attended Catholic school from first through eighth grade. Some years, we were taught by lay teachers. Others, by nuns. And while I tried to make sense of the lessons of Jesusโlove, compassion, forgivenessโthe lived experience was often the opposite.
The harsh treatment of the nuns left me disheartened. It created a deep disconnect between the teachings of a spiritual master and the rigid, punitive way those lessons were delivered. Growing up in an already unforgiving environment, what we needed most was gentleness. Kindness. A reason to believe in something greater than our surroundings. But that wasnโt what we were given.
In time, this disillusionment became a quiet catalyst for my own path.
As I grew older, I turned inward. I began to study. To question. To unlearn.
And what I discovered through that self-study is what I now understand as universal truth:
You donโt have to be religious to be spiritual.
And being religious doesnโt necessarily make someone spiritual.
Religious institutions can offer structure, belonging, traditionโand for some, they provide a genuine connection to the divine. But they can also become rigid, dogmatic, and disconnected from the essence of Spirit itself.
Spirituality is different.
Itโs not confined to rules or rituals.
It lives in breath, in compassion, in presence.
It is how we treat one another. How we return to love.
I honor the teachings of many traditionsโfrom Jesus to the Buddha, from the divine feminine to the sacred breath that lives in all of us. For me, spirituality is woven from many threads. Itโs alive. It moves. It reveals itself in stillness, in connection, and in the choice to soften when it would be easier to close.
So when I say Iโm a spiritual personโnot a religious oneโit isnโt rejection.
Itโs reclamation.
Itโs choosing the sacred over the strict.
The eternal over the institutional.
And itโs a path Iโll keep walking, breath by breath.
Ask yourself today: where do you feel closest to the sacred? In silence? In nature? In kindness? Let that be your altar.