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described understanding the role of spirituality in their own lives (4.2.2 Understandings and models of spirituality).

4.2.1 Social development influences

“Where do you learn your faith? Where do you learn the understanding of who you are? It doesn’t emerge naturally”

Brendan

This sub-theme describes how participants’ own life experience particularly in childhood influenced their personal understanding of spirituality. Although I did not ask specifically about their personal background it appeared to be a natural starting point for many of the participants and contextualised their current position in relation to spirituality. Participants perceived various influences from their past as being significant. Both family and wider social networks when growing up were discussed in this regard. For example, Harry described his family as Roman Catholic and this was described as a significant influence in childhood.

“We went to church because that was the done thing. We didn’t know any other way. Easter….Being a Catholic and going to Catholic school, there’s never any other option,

we were all the same. I don’t know any other way so I’ve nothing to compare it to. I was raised, I was conditioned growing up. This is me now and it’s probably because I

was raised this way.”

Harry

Some participants described how they had, as adults, chosen to reject their family’s religion. For example, Joe described his rigid Methodist upbringing and its impact on

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the development of his own understanding of spirituality. Joe described the resentment he felt towards the Methodist faith when talking about his parents who both died when he was young and the fear and anxiety he felt as a young boy:

“Where did that (their faith) get them? The last place my mother went before she died was bloody chapel to play the piano even though she was dying at that point…..What I

was brought up with was basically all about fear, it would about earning your way to heaven and if you didn’t you ended up in hell. Fear, death and dying. Yeah, Extreme fear. When you are very much at risk or your frightened of the unknown. That is when your spirituality is tested. The common denominator is fear of one thing or the other and

that’s where spirituality can give you strength or helping someone with their spirituality to give them strength. Because dying and staying alive might seem one and the same

thing to some people in great distress” Joe

He went on to describe how he rebelled against the rigid structure of what he perceived as a restricted Methodist life to join the “Hells Angels” motorcycle gang and dabble in occultism:

“I got involved with a bit of witchcraft, not black magic spells or anything like that but I found it fascinating. I was trying to find a belief system that was right for me because what I was brought up with was basically about fear and anxiety. It was about earning

your way into heaven and if you didn’t you ended up in hell”

Joe

Eleven out of the seventeen participants described themselves as having a Catholic upbringing but did not identify themselves as Catholic at time of interview, despite drawing on this when describing their current spiritual beliefs. Like Joe above, participants with a Catholic upbringing who now identified themselves as ‘lapsed’ discussed what they perceived as the restrictive nature of their upbringing:

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“I’ve got my pragmatic side which says [of spiritual belief] not a lot of it makes sense. But my spiritual side, if you want to call it that, doesn’t make sense but it makes it easier

for me to get through life. Maybe if I’d been brought up different? If you do bad things you will go to hell and bad things happen to you and maybe I’d be a psychopath. Maybe

I am a psychopath and the only reason I’m behaving like this is because I’m worried about going to hell or retribution”

Harry

“It wasn’t until I became a free thinker I began to question. I wouldn’t say I was force fed, err well I suppose Catholic school is a lot of pressure. That was quite difficult”

Nick

This notion of ‘beginning to question’ introduced here by Nick was common across participants. No participants reported that they fully identified with all prescribed aspects of a particular established religion. Often, participants described how they might still draw on elements of the religion with which they identified as a child, but as adults, felt more able to use those elements they found helpful and discard those that did not appeal. For example, Rachael described herself as Catholic but her outright belief in Catholic doctrine had changed: she said that she now “picks and chooses” elements of the religion she felt fitted in with her life now and was selective about what she taught her children in relation to spirituality.

“I have my own beliefs, my own things. I believe there is a God but I don’t’ believe that it’s always the way it is when you go to church and what’s shoved down your neck”

Rachael

This eclectic approach and choosing to pick and choose elements of established religion was also referred to by participants who had not been affiliated to a particular traditional religion in childhood:

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“My beliefs are a pick and mix of everyone else’s that I’ve grown up with. But I don’t subscribe to a fixed set of anybody’s I don’t think. I’ve come across lots of different

religions and belief systems but I don’t subscribe to a fixed set of anybody’s”. Lisa

“From Christianity and Buddhism and stuff, I take what I think I need, make up my own and carry on. I just take little snippets of what I like and create my own. I love the fact that I can carry some sort of spirituality and I’m still trying to find out exactly what that is because I’m only twenty one, I’m still young and that makes me happy as well. I’ve a lot

to find out about myself and that makes me excited.” Freya

“After her diagnosis my mum would grab on to all these religious ideas and take them for her own and kinda mixed them up. I worked for her and I went with it and I was

grateful for that because it helped her in a way that I couldn’t” Isabel

There was a clear sense amongst participants that ‘whatever works’ is more important than adhering to a particular set of religious practices or beliefs. Despite this, it was evident that experiences of and beliefs about particular ‘traditional’ organised religions were described as having a significant impact on participants’ current understandings of spirituality. Participants reported taking elements they found useful from religious belief and practice, but they also described past experiences as useful in providing something against which to (in Joe’s words) ‘rebel’. By questioning generic beliefs and practices, participants were able to come up with their own individual and unique understandings which worked for them, and in the next section, I will move on to discuss how participants described these: their own personal models and understandings of spirituality.

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