Science has always fascinated me. Psychology, the structure and function of the brain, quantum physics, and also—due to my former profession—law, forensics, criminology, and sociology have been a source of constant curiosity and inspiration for me. However, it was science, with its materialistic approach, that pushed me away from spirituality, especially from the Catholic faith in which I was raised.
Of course, other factors also contributed to my drifting away from the Catholic Church, such as its involvement in politics or the way it swept various scandals under the rug. All of this made me lose trust in the institution, although Christian values—those universal ones, common to many religions—were always in the back of my mind.
Paradoxically, it was science, which once distanced me from spirituality, that guided me back to this path during a life crisis. It wasn’t a return to a faith tied to a specific religion, but rather my own spiritual search based on understanding myself, the world, and the relationship between them. Spirituality and science became tools for me, supporting not just my spiritual development, but also my emotional and intellectual growth—in a word, my personal growth.
In this article, I want to share my reflections on how science—psychology, neurobiology, and other fields—can support a healthy spirituality, help avoid escapism, and cultivate an authentic spiritual practice, and how combining them impacts our overall personal growth.
Why Spirituality Needs Science
Spirituality, when practiced without a solid foundation, can sometimes lead to escapism—a flight into spirituality to avoid emotions and problems—or become detached from reality. I went through a crisis myself, and I feel that when you turn to spirituality during a crisis, the risk of escapism, or superficial spirituality, is greatest. That’s why science is something that can make spirituality healthier and more authentic.
(And if you want to know what spirituality means to me and how I see it, you can also read “How I See Spirituality”.)
I think I was lucky to simultaneously seek both scientific and spiritual knowledge. From my own experience, I can say how valuable the tools and frameworks that science provides can be. They help us navigate our inner world with clarity and balance, ensuring that our spirituality remains authentic and grounded in self-awareness.
Avoiding Escapism
A common pitfall in spirituality is the tendency to use it as a way to escape difficult emotions or life challenges. Concepts like “higher vibrations” or “positive energy” can sometimes be misused to avoid confronting feelings like sadness, anger, or disappointment. These emotions, however uncomfortable, are a natural and essential part of the human experience.
Science, particularly psychology, teaches us that suppressing or avoiding emotions can lead to long-term harm, both mentally and physically. Instead, it encourages us to face and process these feelings in a healthy way. By integrating this understanding into our spiritual practice, we can ensure it becomes a tool for growth, not avoidance.
Building Authentic Spirituality
Science also helps us distinguish between genuine spiritual experiences and wishful thinking or fantasy. For example, psychology provides insight into how our minds work, including the ways we might deceive ourselves or fall into cognitive biases. Neurobiology, on the other hand, sheds light on how practices like meditation or mindfulness affect the brain, offering tangible evidence of their benefits.
By understanding the scientific basis of these practices, we can approach spirituality with curiosity and critical thinking. This not only deepens our connection to it but also ensures our spiritual development is grounded in reality, not led astray by illusions or unverified beliefs.
In this context, I can also recommend another of my posts, where I describe the fine line between spirituality and fantasizing: “Fantasy vs. Spirituality”.
How Science Supports Spirituality
I believe, because I feel I’ve benefited so much myself, that science doesn’t just coexist with spirituality—it actively enriches it. By providing evidence-based insights into the mind, body, and universe, it offers tools that can deepen our spiritual practices and make them more effective, grounded, and transformative. After all, aren’t our beliefs stronger and our motivation greater when there’s evidence to back them up?
Psychology: Understanding the Inner World
Psychology helped me navigate emotions and thoughts that were previously incomprehensible to me; it helped me understand my own and my wife’s behaviors. And many of these things are often key to spiritual development.
Emotions like grief, anger, or fear are a natural part of our lives, but we often try to push them away because they’re uncomfortable or painful. I tried to do that too, but diving into psychology made me realize that suppressing emotions can lead to problems like stress, burnout, or even psychosomatic illnesses—problems I had already experienced years ago from a demanding, mentally taxing job and countless other responsibilities. Instead, during my new crisis, psychology offered me:
- Recognizing emotions: The first step is to notice and name what we’re feeling. For example, “I feel angry because someone crossed my boundaries.”
- Accepting emotions: Instead of fighting our emotions, we learn to accept them as a natural reaction. This doesn’t mean we have to give in to them, but that we give ourselves permission to feel them.
- Expressing emotions healthily: Psychology offers techniques to express emotions constructively, such as through conversation, journaling, or relaxation techniques. I’ll mention here that this blog, in a way, is a form of therapy for me—something between a journal and a conversation.
I also learned about cognitive-behavioral techniques, which I encourage you to explore as well. They focus on the connection between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. They help with things like:
- Questioning limiting beliefs: For example, if you think, “I’m not good enough,” or “I’ve sinned again, I’ve strayed from my values,” cognitive-behavioral techniques teach you how to identify that thought, question its truth, and replace it with a more supportive one, like, “I’m making progress and learning every day.”
- Changing thought patterns: If you tend to catastrophize (e.g., “If something goes wrong, it will be the end of the world”), you can learn a more realistic approach, like, “If something goes wrong, I’ll handle it step by step.”
By integrating psychological principles and techniques with spirituality, you can better understand yourself and develop practices that promote emotional resilience and self-awareness. This will support your personal and spiritual growth and help you avoid the pitfalls of spirituality, which I write about in this article, among others: “Spiritual Growth Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them”.
Neurobiology: The Science of Transformation
In my opinion, neurobiology is an essential and incredibly fascinating field of science. Through it, I’ve learned (and am still learning) how spiritual practices like meditation, mindfulness, or prayer physically affect the brain. Some of the most interesting findings are that they can:
- Reduce stress by lowering cortisol levels.
- Improve focus and emotional regulation by strengthening neural pathways in the prefrontal cortex.
- Promote feelings of connection and compassion by activating areas of the brain associated with empathy.
Understanding these effects not only confirmed the value of spiritual practices for me, and in a way even encouraged me to pursue them, but it also motivates me to apply them more consistently, knowing they bring tangible benefits to my mental and physical health.
Mindfulness: A Bridge Between Science and Spirituality
For me, mindfulness is a perfect example of how science and spirituality intersect. It’s not a new technique; it’s practically as old as time. It’s only recently that it has become trendy and wrapped in a marketing bow. It was known in ancient spiritual traditions. It has been extensively studied and embraced by modern psychology and neurobiology. It teaches us to be present, observe our thoughts without judgment, and cultivate a sense of inner peace.
What convinced me most of all was that scientific research has shown that mindfulness can improve mental health, reduce anxiety, and even rewire the brain for greater resilience. This makes it a powerful tool for anyone looking to deepen their spiritual practice while sticking to evidence-based methods.
Benefits of Combining Spirituality and Science
In my opinion, combining spirituality and science opens the door to more balanced, conscious, and authentic development. These two fields, though seemingly different at first glance, complement each other, creating a holistic approach to self-improvement.
For me, it’s primarily about a holistic approach to growth, because science provides tools that help me better understand and work with my body, mind, and emotions. This makes spirituality more integrated into my daily life, rather than detached from reality.
For example, knowing about stress mechanisms like the “fight or flight” response helps me better handle spiritual pitfalls—like escaping into spirituality. Instead of running to it to avoid problems, I can use it as a tool to build inner strength and peace. Believing in a soul, I can try to find strength within it and a way to solve a problem, what direction to take to resolve it in line with my values. Instead of just praying and waiting for a miracle while the problem remains unsolved.
The science of neuroplasticity showed me that I can permanently change my thought and emotional habits, which supports personal and spiritual growth by consciously shaping my mind. What’s more, this knowledge gives me strength in moments of doubt because I’m aware that changes related to brain neuroplasticity and solidifying certain things take time.
A perfect example here is managing the ego. It’s responsible for things like envy, jealousy, and various fears. Of course, it’s not bad in itself; it’s actually essential for survival in the real world. But the point is to be aware of its existence and learn to manage it, to distinguish when it’s harming us and when it’s helping us live in line with our values. This is a topic studied by neurobiology; thanks to it, we know that there are areas responsible for our ego, and that techniques like mindfulness or meditation, whether as spiritual practices or just for relaxation, help control it.
What else does science give me? Critical thinking. I’ve never lacked that, given my former profession; in fact, I used to be a skeptic when it came to spirituality. By developing critical thinking, you can avoid the traps of excessive fantasizing, believing in unfounded theories (I would say, rather, putting them into practice), or escaping from reality.
Critical thinking was especially important for me during a marital crisis and allowed me to ask myself questions: Is what I believe based on my experience or on an illusion? Is my spiritual practice truly helping me grow, or is it just a form of escape from my problems?
Thanks to science, you can build a spirituality based on authentic experience, not on blind faith or completely unbelievable convictions. And combining spirituality with science provides an amazing foundation for even fuller personal growth.
Conclusion and Reflection
Combining spirituality and science is a path to more conscious, healthy, and balanced development. The way I see it, science provides tools that help me better understand myself, my emotions, and my operating mechanisms, while spirituality gives it all a deeper meaning and direction. Of course, that’s a simplification, because spirituality also gives me tools, and science also gives me direction. But my point is that together, they create a harmonious whole that allows me to grow in an authentic and balanced way.
For me, combining spirituality and science is a way to better understand myself and the world.
What about you? How could science enrich your spiritual practice? Do you see it as a tool that can help you better understand yourself and your place in the world?
Share your experiences in the comments—do you combine science with spirituality? What benefits have you noticed in your life?
If my writing has inspired or helped you, I would be grateful for your support.
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AI Disclosure
I see my thoughts as the essence, much like the soul, and AI helps me give them form. It supports me with research, translation, and organizing ideas, but every perspective is my own. Curious how I use AI? Read more here.
