Spirituality: one way to break it down
There are a lot of misconceptions about spirituality and what it is and isn't, mainly that it's just about religion or believing in spirits or higher powers. Angel will begin this by saying there is no right and wrong way to describe spirituality and what is written here is just her way of framing it. While it is a useful framework for entering into the exploration spirituality, it is not the only nor the best. She gives you now a toolbox to get started, what you do with it and the path you choose to walk is yours.
She breaks spirituality down into four pieces: belief, understanding of self, philosophy and framework/modelling. These four concepts provide a rough coverage of the whole, and while some topics can fit into all or some of these categories, others fit into just one or even none. You will note in none of these pieces does she tell you what to believe or how, simply she provides 4 tools to break down those things for yourself.
The toolbox:
Belief
These are the things you believe as an individual. For those who are religious this may be your god/gods, for those who believe a higher power it may be that, for an atheist it may simply be the belief that they are real and the world follows logical rules laid out by physics. Belief is not bound to higher powers, simply believing in the way you view the world is a belief in and of itself. Spirituality provides us the means to explore, challenge and understand our beliefs regardless of what they are.
Understanding of self
While it's often easy to understand others and the world around us, understanding ourselves is often the hardest thing to achieve. By exploring and understand ourselves, we can become the best versions of ourselves, overcoming the barriers, negative patterns of thought (brain worms) and doubts that hold us back.
Philosophy
If belief is the way see in the world, and understanding of self is the way we see in ourselves, then philosophy provides us the lens to understand how and why we see those things and how and why we react as we do to them. It forms the foundation that all other aspects of spirituality build upon and the structure needed to understand and explore deeper. A deeper understanding of philosophy will always deepen our understanding of the rest of spirituality.
Framework and modelling
Just like philosophy is the lens we see through, we have a framework we use to interact with the world and ourselves and a model to predict the results of that interaction. Our framework is a complex set of rules and mental constructs which we use to determine how we perceive and respond to ourselves the world around us. Likewise, our mental models of us and the world around us take recommendations from that framework and provide us with the mental prediction of outcomes. This prediction can then feedback through our framework in order to optimise our actions. Learning to breakdown frameworks (both ours and others) and reconstitute the useful parts is a critical skill and a core part of spirituality work, while learning to create accurate models of both ourselves and others is a equally as useful skill.
Final notes
Now that angel has explained a few things she wants to make some things clear. This is a space where anyone is welcome regardless of beliefs (or lack there of). You can be a pagan witch, a devout Christian, a Buddhist monk, an atheist or a fragment of an archangel, but regardless you beliefs are valued and respected here without judgement, all she asks in return is that you do the same for others, even if their beliefs disagree with your own, and you go into the world with the same openness and acceptance she shows you. And finally, that you are willing to take a hard look at yourself and challenge your own beliefs and values, even if doing so might be terrifying, painful or difficult.
Once we take the first steps on this path, we forever walk it. Although that path might be unclear, we might change our minds on the direction or even turn back and try a different path, we all walk together.