Belief directly affects spiritual growth and development.

Yes. BELIEFS stand in the way of the perception, and therefore experience of truth. Ironically, it isn't a matter of "growth", although this is how we humans perceive matters. It's actually a process of "shedding" that quite simply returns us to our natural state of awareness. Dropping the baggage is all that's necessary. As the saying goes, "the truth shall set you free". Thus, "beliefs" are not truths. They're not falsehoods either. They're neither. Now if only more could see this simple reasoning....

Spiritual growth and development impact on one's ability to process difficulty and pain.

Yes, in reverse once again. The unwillingness to "process" difficult life situations is the cause of all dis-ease, decay and ultimately death. We have been indoctrinated into "holding onto it". Men get the stoic/macho indoctrination. Women get the "bury emotions" indoctrination. When we don't "process" the e-motion (energy in motion), the energy gets stored in the body, where it doesn't belong.

The issue is age-old, and the solutions are still in the process of emerging to popular consciousness.

Indeed, however said solutions have been around since time immemorial. Ancient yoga (asanas/stretching) and meditation (silent sitting) were designed for just this purpose; to allow the processing of, and therefore liberation from the stuck energies.

But of course, like all other truths, these things have been twisted and distorted beyond recognition. Today, yoga is seen as a method for "looking/feeling good" and meditation, especially "guided meditation" is just something "trendy to do". Almost all popular renditions of both miss the mark completely today.

The problem comes down to BELIEFS as always. Most of my family are mainstream Christians. Because there's no apparent guidance in the bible for either of these tools, they generally think it's just a bunch of Indian hocus pocus nonsense. And there ain't no winning 'em over any time soon it appears. While I count the Christians as far ahead of the leftists/materialists/atheists on most matters, they're still mightily ensnared in the popular dogma which has enough stealthily crafted deception, mixed with truths, to leave them in a continued state of ignorance on many topics. The example I give here is the worst of it -> "If it ain't in the bible, matching the popular interpretation of the words and what most people agree the words mean, then I'm going to ignore it.".... sigh...

C'est la vie. We've all got our lessons to learn. We wouldn't be here otherwise!

Belief directly affects spiritual growth and development.

Yes. BELIEFS stand in the way of the perception, and therefore experience of truth. Ironically, it isn't a matter of "growth", although this is how we humans perceive matters. It's actually a process of "shedding" that quite simply returns us to our natural state of awareness. Dropping the baggage is all that's necessary. As the saying goes, "the truth shall set you free". Thus, "beliefs" are truths. They're not falsehoods either. They're neither. Now if only more could see this simple reasoning....

Spiritual growth and development impact on one's ability to process difficulty and pain.

Yes, in reverse once again. The unwillingness to "process" difficult life situations is the cause of all dis-ease, decay and ultimately death. We have been indoctrinated into "holding onto it". Men get the stoic/macho indoctrination. Women get the "bury emotions" indoctrination. When we don't "process" the e-motion (energy in motion), the energy gets stored in the body, where it doesn't belong.

The issue is age-old, and the solutions are still in the process of emerging to popular consciousness.

Indeed, however said solutions have been around since time immemorial. Ancient yoga (asanas/stretching) and meditation (silent sitting) were designed for just this purpose; to allow the processing of, and therefore liberation from the stuck energies.

But of course, like all other truths, these things have been twisted and distorted beyond recognition. Today, yoga is seen as a method for "looking/feeling good" and meditation, especially "guided meditation" is just something "trendy to do". Almost all popular renditions of both miss the mark completely today.

The problem comes down to BELIEFS as always. Most of my family are mainstream Christians. Because there's no apparent guidance in the bible for either of these tools, they generally think it's just a bunch of Indian hocus pocus nonsense. And there ain't no winning 'em over any time soon it appears. While I count the Christians as far ahead of the leftists/materialists/atheists on most matters, they're still mightily ensnared in the popular dogma which has enough stealthily crafted deception, mixed with truths, to leave them in a continued state of ignorance on many topics. The example I give here is the worst of it -> "If it ain't in the bible, matching the popular interpretation of the words and what most people agree the words mean, then I'm going to ignore it.".... sigh...

C'est la vie. We've all got our lessons to learn. We wouldn't be here otherwise!