Anyone have a spiritual practice?

My first mania occurred during a Buddhist meditation retreat. I always get really spiritual/religious when I'm manic. In my "normal" or more balanced state, I'm more of an agnostic, though I still feel there is something to the universe beyond what science can tell us.

I resisted meds for a long time, largely because I enjoy my spiritual manias. Now that I've finally committed to taking meds, I wish very much that I could retain something meaningful from my manias, rather than viewing them as purely pathological.

Having doubts about the divine as I do, but still fascinated by matters of consciousness and the brain, I have been seeking a way to integrate the scientific description of my illness with a spiritual one. I've been looking at books like The Tao of Bipolar and Buddha's Brain to this end.

I feel like I've arrived at a pretty workable combination of "meditation plus medication" as a path to health. There is plenty of evidence that meds alone aren't usually enough, and that meditation does change the brain in ways that promote well-being. And mindfulness meditation doesn't require belief in deities or supernatural forces.

I don't think I can retain the everything-is-totally-meaningful! perspective that I have when I'm manic, but I think I'm at a point where I no longer need to.

Anyone else struggle with these issues?

I have periods of intense spiritual/religious fervor and insight, which I unfortunately do not know whether are due to mania or the Divine. Maybe it's a combination of the two. I'm hypomanic right now so this isn't my best time to figure this out.....thoughts are racing too fast and I want to give this a decent assessment.

I too am agnostic during normal periods but I find I can not drive by a statue of Mary without crossing myself and praying for her to watch over my kids, she is supposedly the Blessed Mother, and looks after the children. I'm not Catholic! And get this, some times I get a auditory hallucination of monks chanting in a Eastern Orthodox style. I'm not Orthodox! Some times the music on the radio seems to be directed directly to me personally with hidden messages from God! lol. I know how this sounds, but amazingly at times I believe it.

I go back and forth between really focusing on my relationship with God to not really caring. I don't prescribe to any one particular religion, although my beliefs most closely align with Christianity. I think God is bigger than religion and He understands my struggles and is patient with me. He's never let me down yet.

That was a beautiful thing to say AnxietyGirl. I believe that too, but if any one of us wanted to look for God in their own individual (I mean, completely individual) way perhaps there would be too much confusion. I think maybe religions are God's way of making things a little easier for us. Give us a general idea of how we can best communicate with Him. Anyway, I'm not going to start a religious argument.

I'm a Muslim myself and I can really relate to all that spiritual stuff. A couple of years ago I went through a.. perhaps not full-blown mania, but a severe hypomania I suppose. And it was an extremely spiritual experience for me. For a blissful six month period I was... I don't even know how to describe it. Everything was meaningful Everything happened for a reason. I was so unbelievably close to God. It was a most intimate relationship. I was full of love. Love for God, for people, for nature. I enjoyed all of my religious rituals which I normally treat as a tedious duty. But then I crashed. Depression followed. I started taking my meds again and oh how I hated them! How I hated the tameness of life if you know what I mean. But I suppose one needs balance in one's life.

Unfortunately I experience the same somewhat hot and not periods with my God. I'm so thankful to know that He doesn't do the same. He doesn't come and go, I do. So it's helpful at the worst of times to know what I believe about God and His love for me is still true, weather I'm all there or not.
Sounds like you worked it out and got a good thing going. I do relate to the intense excitement about it all when I'm feeling more hypo than not. Then again, at those times I feel more intense and excited about everything, so it holds relation.
It is of utmost importance for me to know that God didn't 'break' me but will 'fix' me. That healing is His plan and sickness is not His doing.
Good luck x
Hope is what it gives me and at helpless times, there is still a flicker of that hope.

I thought angels were telling me the secrets of the world when I was manic a month or so ago. I think that's just mania, not religion.

Tao of Bipolar - going on my must read list.