Unexpected Spiritual Development

Sometimes our spiritual growth comes from where it's least expected.

Spirituality has been a huge part of my life for almost as long as I can remember. I was a self-motivated spiritual seeker from the age of 7, when I took it upon myself to run to the front of the sanctuary during our church’s revival-esque service. My parents were somewhat shocked when I asked them to move so I could squeeze past them in their movie theater style seats. Since then, my spiritual journey has always been of importance to me, and I’ve spent the better part of the last 15 years explicitly focused on my spiritual growth. I attended a church for several years when I first moved to Austin whose mission was to be a place to help people develop God-Devotion at the center of their lives, and while my definition of “God” has shifted and changed drastically over the years, it feels clear to me that “God-Devotion” has always been my aim.

My yoga practice was revolutionary in this spiritual journey, as was discovering Centering Prayer, and then shifting my focus to yoga therapy. And while it felt like a complete overhaul to my “walk with God” (please forgive the cheesy, evangelical language, I just hate repeating “spiritual journey” a thousand times), it wasn’t really a surprise. It made sense. Put energy into a “spiritual” thing, and you’ll get spiritual energy back. Just like putting energy into something artistic would clearly further your artistic journey.

As I’ve grown, though, I’ve found more and more spiritual insight in less and less spiritual places. Sex, marriage, getting my financial shit together have all been entry points to immense personal and spiritual growth. Looking back on the past year, it’s clear that I’ve been in a profound season of growth and expansion that has had much to do with showing up more fully as a spouse and a parent as well as “getting my financial shit together,” but the thing that has been the greatest catalyst and facilitator for the most growth this past year is something even more unexpected:

Bike Commuting.

Photo by Andrew Gook on Unsplash

I knew that I wanted to drive less, and my wife and I had been preparing for well over a year for me to give my truck back to the dealer (it was leased) and do most if not all of my life by bike. I figured it would be better for my physical and mental/emotional health, since I had already experienced big shifts in those areas since first getting into cycling as a hobby. I even figured it would be good for me financially since automobiles are WILDLY expensive. What I wasn’t expecting was how much this change would open me spiritually.

For this to make sense and be even remotely articulable, I think I should attempt to define what I mean by spiritual (as if that isn’t a Herculean task, but whatever). I could describe my spiritual experience as a sense or a feeling of “being connected to something bigger than myself,” but a sense or a feeling isn’t something constant, so that’s only part of the growth here. I have certainly felt MUCH more connected to that Bigger Thing these last many months, but something even more profound has been happening. The other piece of spiritual growth that feels important to me is my ability to say yes to, or fully accept and embrace what happening around me.

Now, this takes, first of all, a deeper awareness of what’s going on around me. It my ability to be aware of my experience is the first step, and then accepting and embracing what I’m aware of is the next. I feel as though for the last many years, I’ve developed an incredible ability to be aware of what’s going on around me, but very little capacity to accept it if it wasn’t something I liked. One of the biggest areas of growth I’ve experienced this year is in my ability to be with and feel the world and myself, even the painful parts. I’ve allowed myself to be affected by the world around me, instead of constantly being armored against it. And I know that a big part of this is because I ditched the car for my bike.

That’s a big statement, so how did it happen?

Photo by Erika Fletcher on Unsplash

The path of growth for an enneagram 8 is often described as one of embracing and cultivating vulnerability, to which most who identify as 8’s completely balk at. What does that even mean? Doesn’t that mean I’ll just get hurt? Why would anyone do that? I can’t really argue with the logic there, because most days I still think and feel the same things when I’m running on autopilot. Even beyond words, there is this internal hardening that I can feel whenever the “going gets tough.” This armoring is, at its core, a “NO” to what the Universe is offering us through the experiences of our lives. In order to grow spiritually, I must drop the armor and say yes to what’s here.

Over the years cars and trucks have been engineered to keep us from feeling the world around us. First was windshields, then enclosing the cabin, adding suspension, air conditioning and heating systems, stereos, soundproofing, and now “info-tainment screens,” all so you aren’t the slightest bit uncomfortable or, god forbid, bored as you’re barreling down the freeway at speeds orders of magnitude faster than the average person’s visual reaction time. All of this built into vehicles that are getting taller, wider, longer, and heavier every year because it makes them “safer” (safer for whom is a question automakers are reluctant to answer).

The way cars have been engineered almost directly mirrors the ways in which my personality has been structured to prevent me from feeling even the slightest discomfort or pain. And similarly to the cars, the “safety” my 8-ness provides comes at a cost I rarely take the time to factor into my everyday existence. I go around assuming this is just the way it is, and there’s no alternative, so why cause myself problems by thinking about the downsides? When I gave myself another option, things really started to open up.

This outer armoring of our vehicles can be seen as a metaphor for how we armor ourselves with our identities, personality structures, and coping mechanisms, but like all good metaphors, it’s more than just a metaphor. The fact that we are so cut off from our senses and the world around us when we drive literally cuts us off from the best parts of ourselves. Studies have shown that we become the worst versions of ourselves behind the wheel of a car. Terms like windshield bias, car-brain, and motonormativity have all been used to describe how our car-centric culture and lives shape our actions in ways that align more closely with deeply held unconscious biases, and not what we say we believe. When we are constantly in an environment that facilitates the worst of ourselves, even the most dedicated spiritual practices are simply arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Through this lens it makes perfect sense that if I, as an enneagram 8, want to experience the joy of moving through life less defended and allow myself to be more vulnerable, I should literally move through the world in a less defended way. On a bike I can feel the wind in my face, I can see things around me (there are no blind spots on a bike!), I can hear the people, birds, dogs, cars, everything around me. I can even smell when people are doing laundry or cooking in their houses. I am not just deeply aware of my surroundings, I am a part of them, and they are a part of me. On my bike, I am interwoven with my environment.

But beyond that, and maybe at the true heart of the spiritual experience of bike commuting: I am vulnerable—in almost every sense of the word. When it’s hot outside, I’m hot. When it’s cold, I’m cold. When it’s raining, I’m wet. I am radically unprotected, the giant steel cage I’ve spent my life moving through the world in is gone.

I have relinquished my armor.

Photo by Jaime Spaniol on Unsplash

And you know what? It’s fucking terrifying.

My wife and I have regular conversations about the risk I’m taking by moving through the world without this armor. As any cyclist knows, the longer you ride, the more likely it is you’re hit by a car. I get why the armor is enticing. Literally all it takes is one jerk in a Cybertruck to be distracted by his info-tainment screen for my life to be over. And that’s being generous. If there’s so much as a Camry being driven by someone having a bad day who wants to take it out on me, there’s nothing I can do.

Most folks would read that last paragraph and vow to never leave their armor. But what most folks don’t understand is that the only thing causing folks to be so distracted or so easily angered is the armor itself. It’s the armor that makes us so uncomfortable. It’s the armor that’s making us numb, making us afraid, making us angry. It cuts us off from the threat of the world, yes, but also from the joys of life. The things we are using to stave off death are in the same breath making our lives not worth living. I think this is why Jesus taught to turn the other cheek. Could we be hit again? Yeah, maybe. But being slapped in the face is better than living your entire life in a Cold War with the Universe.

Does bike commuting mean I have to consider my own mortality more than the average person? Yes. But I don’t know that there is anything more spiritual than contemplating the fact that you’re going to die. Plus, that’s vulnerability in a nutshell. It may not always have to do with actual life and death situations, but being vulnerable is about being affected by the world, for better or worse. It’s a risk, and you might get hurt—but it’s also the only way to truly live. This process of living my life by bike has stripped me of the distractions and diversions that have kept me from being fully alive. Large parts of my day are spent in a visceral practice of vulnerability—in the deep practice of real living.

I invite you to consider the ways you can literally lay down the armor in your life. For some of you, it will be driving less. For others it will be getting off social media (yes, online personas can certainly be armor). For some, it will be wearing less or no makeup, or wearing more comfortable clothing. The practice of vulnerability isn’t just therapy speak for sharing your feelings, it is about the very real, literal ways we move through the world on a day to day basis. The armor is heavy, and you’ll feel so much more free once you set it down. Come on in, the water’s fine.