By Dr. Noelle Sterne

Q: I follow a spiritual practice and was advised to pray about my dissertation. Is this wrong?
                 — Repentant? 

A: No, it’s not wrong or blasphemous, nor do you have to confess.

More students than we imagine use their spiritual practices for school. Yes, they seem contradictory. School requires your intellect; spirituality requires surrendering your intellect. School subsists on logic and realism; spirituality survives on faith.

I used to hold fiercely to these boundaries. Spirituality and school, I thought, were at opposite ends of the heavens, or at least unequivocally separate.

But I’ll confess: In my longtime academic practice of coaching and advising doctoral candidates completing their dissertations. I’ve often applied spirituality.  I’ve asked for guidance on a daunting project, forgiven an ornery client, let the right assuaging words flow through before a difficult meeting.

I hadn’t come across any public acknowledgment of spirituality and graduate school until I did research for my book, Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping With the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (2015).

In a provocative scholarly article, Sheryl Cozart (2010), examined her struggle between spirituality and academia. She wrote, “[As an academic and African American female], I acted as if spirituality was a third kind of consciousness rather than part of my merging double-consciousness into a better truer self” (p. 253).

Cozart (2010) came to a reconciling definition of spirituality: It is “inner submission to my God consciousness. This definition is not meant to refute other definitions . . . . I acknowledge that I cannot live within my own power but through the power of my God consciousness” (p. 257).

I admire Cozart for admitting, especially in a scholarly journal, reliance on her “God consciousness.” In my own work, I’ve found too that reliance on my own power does little good. Rather, especially when I’m stuck, turning to my “God consciousness,” which others have called among other names intuition, inner guide, voice, or inner light,  gives me answers that prove to be the best ones, and often, after I’ve asked or pleaded, with astounding speed.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Oh sure, I go to God for my health, for my brother-in-law’s cancer diagnosis, for money. But school? Never.” Well, give it a try. If you’re wrestling with a dissertation, or any other type of writing, I’ll help you here use your own God consciousness for a major issue many writers experience: the writing. Please keep an open mind.

Two Important Techniques

As you begin, two techniques are essential. These are meditation and affirmations (yes, I’ve talked about them before).

Meditation. Meditation was sanitized for the West by the courageous Harvard M.D. Herbert Benson with his 1975 groundbreaking and evidence-based book The Relaxation Response. Today meditation is widely accepted and even prescribed by enlightened physicians. You can meditate anywhere—at home, in the library, at the bus stop, on the checkout line, waiting for your major professor, even in church.

Books and articles on meditation continue to proliferate, but it’s really quite simple. Sit in a quiet place (park your tech appendages out of thumbs’ reach). Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. One method is simply to follow your breath: In. . . out . . . in . . . out. I like another method: Choose a word, phrase, or sentence that means something to you (“Peace,” “Ahhhh,” “All is in order,” “Chocolate”). Silently repeat your chosen word.

One of the most recommended stints is for 20 minutes, but I can never last that long. At about 4, my to-do lists start knocking at my head. I often set a timer (highly recommended) for 5 minutes and just about complete the session.

Be patient with yourself. All kinds of thoughts will intrude—they do with all of us, even with the most practiced meditator. But just keep coming back to your breath or word or phrase. At the end of the time, you’ll find your mind clearer, you’ll feel more rested, and you may even look forward to the writing session.

Affirmations. Popularized by Shakti Gawain (2002) and Louise Hay (1987), affirmations too have filtered into popular consciousness and many workshops. They’re positive statements for anything you desire, dream of, and don’t yet see in your present perspective.

A few rules: Create and repeat affirmations in the present tense. Declare them with fervor, describing clearly what you really want, as ridiculous or impossible as it may seem at the moment. Affirmations are based on the principle that as we change our thoughts, we change and fashion our experiences. When you try affirmations, and probably to your shock, your mood will actually lift.

Now to apply these two techniques to the writing you’ve been avoiding . . .

Meditate

First, recognize and admit your anxiety. Clients have blurted, “I can’t write a thing.” “Sure I knocked out those doctoral course papers—and got As. But now with starting the dissertation,  I’m paralyzed.” “I sit and stare. The time is flying, and my stomach is sinking.”

So, to meditate, go sit outside, or in a comfortable chair, away from your computer and phone. Take some deep breaths. Follow your breath or repeat that favorite word. Your anxiety should lessen.

In your meditation session, “ask” yourself where the best place is to begin writing your dissertation or chapter or section. Listen. You will receive answers.

Sometimes you’re frozen because you’re trying to plunge in at a tricky place, like the first chapter of the dissertation. Contrary to the King’s advice to the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, you don’t have to start at the beginning and keep going until you reach the end.

I often advise clients not to start at the beginning, that is, the first chapter. Why? This chapter demands a synthesis of the topic, something many students don’t know until they’re well into the work. No doctoral Divine Lightening will strike if you start in the middle, like with part of Chapter 3, the Methodology, maybe a straightforward description of your sample. Ask again. Listen inside. You will be told.

Affirm

In the calmer state during or right after your meditation, you’re ready for some affirmations. Here are a few.

• I have all the courage I need to plunge in.
• The answers are here.
• I did it before (remember that first frightening undergraduate paper or the latest doctoral paper A). I can do it again.
• I act as if I can do it (Hamlet, Act III, iv, 161).
• I listen to my Inner Mentor for perfect guidance.
• Every idea flows to me in perfect order.
• Every one of my sessions is productive.
• I ’m stronger than this stack of paper/notecards/journals/books/outlines/scribbled notes.
• I stick with it, I Stick With It, I STICK WITH IT.

And as you wish create your own.

When you develop the meditation-affirmation habit, it will get easier. The truths of your affirmations will seep into your mind, calm your nerves, and rebalance your stomach. The writing may become easier and your pages will mount. And you’ll feel good about what you’ve produced.

So spirituality and school are not inconsistent, counterintuitive, paradoxical, or oxymoronic. If you’re inclined, use spirituality in whatever ways feel right. You deserve all the help you can get, human and beyond-human, to reach the goal of your completed dissertation.

References

Benson, H. (1975). The relaxation response. HarperCollins.

Cozart, S. C. (2010). When the spirit shows up: An autoethnography of spiritual
reconciliation with the academy. Educational Studies, 46(2), 250-269. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131941003614929

Gawain, S. (2002). Creative visualization: Use the power of your imagination
to create what you want in your life. New World Library, Originally published 1978; anniversary issue 2016.

Hay, L. (1987). You can heal your life. Hay House.

Sterne, N. (2015). Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping With the Emotional,

Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles. Rowman & Littlefield Education.

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Dissertation coach, nurturer, bolsterer, handholder, and editor; scholarly and mainstream writing consultant; author of writing craft, spiritual, and academic articles; and spiritual and motivational counselor, Noelle Sterne has published many pieces in print and online venues, including Author Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children’s Book Insider, Graduate Schools Magazine, GradShare, InnerSelf, Inspire Me Today, Transformation Magazine, Unity Magazine, Women in Higher Education, Women on Writing, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. Noelle’s ninth story for Chicken Soup for the Soul appears in June 2025 in the volume Self-Care Isn’t Selfish. With a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Noelle has for 30 years helped doctoral candidates wrestle their dissertations to completion (finally). Based on her practice, her Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2015) addresses students’ often overlooked or ignored but crucial nonacademic difficulties that can seriously prolong their agony. See the PowerPoint teaser here. In Noelle`s Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), she draws examples from her academic consulting and other aspects of life to help readers release regrets and reach lifelong yearnings. Following one of her own, she is currently working on her third novel. Visit Noelle at www.trustyourlifenow.com