The S-word is spirituality.
What is spirituality?
Everyone uses the S-word differently, so I'll clarify.
To me, spirituality has two facets. One is the act of making meaning of things. We do this continuously—telling stories, devising models, naming truths. We do it unconsciously in our sensory perception, and often just as unconsciously in our egos spinning the tales of our identities and life stories and the fate of the universe, as well as consciously in our analytical activities. Everything we can experience is fair game. The most literal, rational among us who are not comfortable using the S-word, their science gives them a place in the universe and fills the role. The other aspect is mysticism, the feeling of nexus and connection and awe, the sublimation of boundary between self and other, the feeling of resonance of a truth deep in our bones, that special sympathetic sense that turns hypothetical meanings into living ones.
I do not believe in mind-over-matter. Our spiritual configuration does not change the world outside of our minds. Spirituality is purely an aspect of our cognitive function. I find there is enough present in secular spirituality to meet my needs without adding beliefs.
Why is spirituality important?
The fact that spirituality is merely a cognitive function is usually held in opposition to taking it seriously, especially in modernity. However, and I rarely say things of such sweeping generality, all of psychology affirms that it is just as real to our experience as our bare, measurable, physical sensations are. It even has the upper hand, as our physical sensations are all interpreted through it. The classic Buddhist example is that pain is a physical sensation, but suffering is a state of existence; it is our meaning of the pain, namely our rejection of it, that makes it suffering.
One cannot escape the role spirituality plays in our cognition and in our experience of life. I agree with Viktor Frankl that we go on living in our circumstances because we find meaning somewhere in them. I believe that our thriving is predicated not only on our circumstances but also on having a spirituality that functions well for them. In the context of human wellbeing, mocking spirituality, or even pretending it is unimportant, is like disrespecting biology. Like our biology, we can study the human experience, how we make meaning in it, and how we feel connection with that meaning. Unlike our biology, we cannot externally measure it. But that hasn't stopped millennia of humans from paying close attention and learning about it.
Why does a basic human function need claiming?
In short, because of its symbiosis with religion, but more specifically:
Because of woo
Meaning has a slippery way of becoming belief, and it filters and shapes our reality. Mysticism allows us to feel connection with the imaginary. Spirituality, in the sense of a cognitive activity divorced from belief, isn't allotted much space in our history.
Because of exploitation
The ability to shape meaning entails the ability to shape received reality. Stimulating mystical feelings transforms people. Because of these facts, spirituality is often bent towards purposes. There is the egotistic urge to see others play out according to one's own ideas, leading leads to gaslighting, cults, megalomania, demagoguery, political movements, etc. The self-enrichment motive also stands out.
What are you claiming it for?
I'd like to claim it as normal, healthy process. I want us do it, to attend to it, reason about it, discuss it, without shame.
Once it is normal, we can make an art of it. We can study it and try to get good at it, whatever that means. We can try on and compare models. We can broaden ourselves; namely, broaden the experiences we include in our lives. We can root out what isn't working for us and amplify what is. We can be intentional about it.
Don't people already do this?
They do all the time and in many ways. Intentional spiritual practices occur in many religions, in therapy and self-help, in self-love and self-care, in singing in the shower, in making priority lists, in feeling connection with others or with aspects of oneself.
Many instances are exempted from the skepticism and criticism because they have avoided connection with the S-word, even if they fit (my, say) definition. I'd like to bring them into the fold and discuss them as spirituality per se.
I don't see what the fuss is, why we need a word here, or I don't want to use that word.
Totally your call. Peace.