Who are we, Really?
"You are not a human being having a spiritual experience.
You are a Spiritual Being having a human experience."
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The perspective I'm about to describe is the map I hold as a therapist. I didn't invent it, but with study, practice, and personal experience, it has come to guide my understanding of people and my approach to therapy. You don't need to share these beliefs to benefit from our work together. I simply invite you to explore this with me.
We are each a Whole Being
Many spiritual traditions suggest that as whole beings we have many levels of being, and these support and interact with each other.
The physical body is a remarkable structure of organs, tissues, nerves and fluids, all working together to carry us through life. We support health and vitality with rest, movement, nutrition, and medical help when needed. A healthy body supports positive emotions, calm mind. And clear flowing energy, positive thoughts and emotions support physical health.
The energy body inter penetrates and supports the physical body. People who can see such things see energy centres, or chakras; meridians or energy flow pathways through the body; and a surrounding aura of light. This is not abstract, but the level at which practices like acupuncture and EFT tapping work.
The emotional level is where we can feel happiness, joy, compassion, connection, and relationship with others and with ourselves. It’s also the home of arising fear, sadness, and anger. Some people know that they are particularly prone to feel emotions of others around them.
At the mental level are the mind and its contents. The mind is a powerful tool. Intention, thought, and imagination are genuinely creative and shape our inner experience and outer reality. And we have thoughts and beliefs learned from childhood and from people and the environment around us, and can also receive thoughts from higher levels. Thoughts and beliefs operate at both conscious and unconscious levels, and much of what drives our feelings and behaviour lives below everyday awareness, in the subconscious.
Soul is the deeper, timeless aspect of ourselves that holds wisdom and purpose, and our continuing journey of growth across lifetimes.
Divine Self is the deepest and highest level of our being. The Divine Self is eternally alive formless, timeless pure love and light, an individuated part of God. Aligning with our own Divine Self and increasing this connection is deeply healing. We can receive vitality as well as positive emotions and creative thought and divine ideas from spiritual levels.
We live in the physical world and beyond
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We live in a physical world of bodies, relationships, and events. But many spiritual traditions also speak of other levels:
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Physical – This is the realm of normal ordinary reality and daily experiences. The nature of this world has good and bad, duality in many ways.
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Energetic / astral – Beyond the physical world is an unseen energetic aspect of reality. Many traditions describe this as including both uplifting, life-giving levels and denser, more challenging levels that affect our experience in ways we don’t always recognize.
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Divine – Beyond the energetic aspects of reality lie increasingly pure levels of love, wisdom, light, and creative presence. The Divine level is the source from which life arises and to which we remain eternally connected.
Whether we think of these as dimensions, planes of consciousness or simply mystery, they remind us that life is richer than what we experience though out physical senses alone.
These are not separate worlds that we travel between but different aspects of reality that are influencing us all the time. Our awareness naturally rests in the physical world, yet we are influenced by the unseen and higher levels. Moments of intuition, inspiration, deep prayer or inner knowing remind us that life extends beyond what we ordinarily perceive.
We did not come here alone
From the moment we are born, we exist in relationship – with our families, other people, the natural world and the circumstances of our lives. These relationships shape us in profound ways.
From a spiritual perspective, our connections extend even further. We are connected to something greater than ourselves and are never completely alone. Many people experience this through prayer, meditation, nature, moments of deep peace, or a quiet sense of guidance and love that seems to come from beyond the everyday.
Why it matters
This understanding shapes the way I practice psychotherapy. Rather than seeing people simply through their symptoms or diagnoses, I see each person as a whole being whose mind, body, emotions, relationships, and spiritual nature all deserve attention.
When we begin to see ourselves more fully, we often discover that our struggles are only one part of our story. This understanding doesn’t change the difficulties we face, but it changes how we meet them and offers hope that, whatever life has brought, we are always more than our struggles.