Debunking Modern "Spiritual" Practices

Spirituality, no matter the path, has been reimagined over and over again through time. That is why I have repeatedly said throughout this blog, “spirituality,” because I am talking about the overall tapestry. I have never meant to give any one motif or image laid into the tapestry more importance than any other. 

If I were writing a blog about Witchcraft then there would be a different context, a different mindset, and difference in views. Because even with all its gnarled and splintered roots, witchcraft as a core has certain principles. The same is said for Christianity and its many factions and denominations. 

But at the core of every practice needs to be the essence of Spirit. Even in a philosophically based practice such as Buddhism or Confucianism, there is a morality and ethical ideal to rally behind. Morality and ethics are not at home in the mind or body but within spirit. Because those are concepts that reach to the overall greater picture.

Individualized practices from ancient animistic views to modern new age movements are each attempts at explaining the greater mysteries. No one person can have all the answers. No one person can ever be truly right or wrong. There are practices that are more…limiting in personal development. But the structure those practices provide is sometimes exactly what someone needs to survive in this world. 

Let me give an example of what I mean. I spoke pretty heavily of the destruction wrought by the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. I didn’t go too heavy on the atrocities of the Protestants though. Some would think I would be more in favor of the Protestants over the Catholics because of that. Yet, in today’s day and age, because of the reformations of the Catholic Church I would be slightly more inclined towards their dogmas. Why is that? 

If I were to go about my life in “sin” under the Christian view, according to a…Baptist Church I would need only go and request a baptism service to wash away all my misdeeds. It’s a simple enough ceremony and based on ancient practices long before Christ came into being. Yet there is no accountability assigned with it. Sure you might meet with a Pastor or Deacon and have a short interview of why you want to be baptized. But ultimately, it is a way to mostly run from responsibility and feel unburdened lifting the weight of accountability. 

On the other hand, Catholicism makes you face accountability. You have to go to confession and tell a person standing as an auxiliary for God everything you feel guilty about. You don’t get to quietly wash it away. Accountability is a major component to overall spirituality yet modern practices, psychology, and even medicine want accountability to not exist. “My doctor said if I want to feel better I have to lose weight. They are just fat shaming me.” Shirking accountability on your body’s health and blaming your doctor for saying so is an all too common example of this. Another would be, “And how does that make you feel,” being asked in therapy. While it’s important to acknowledge your own feelings; another question therapists should be asking is, “And how did you respond or react?”

I can’t say I am perfect and there are a few people out there that have gotten heated reactionary tongue lashings from me. When I cool down I try to acknowledge my own wrongness. It doesn’t always soothe the other person but I can at least take the accountability. Very few can though. And that’s why I want to debunk other misconceptions about spirituality so you can better understand why I have said what is and is not healthy throughout the blog so far. This post is intended to instill an air of accountability and integrity within yourself. When you are accountable and living in integrity then you can better understand that sometimes anger is necessary. That to find your peace you have to experience conflicts. That being said, let’s dive in.

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice

The biggest misconception about spirituality is that you have to maintain positivity at all times. This idea is that you have to always find a silver lining. Rainbows, unicorns, sunshine, and daisies is the modus operandi. Basically when you say you are spiritual, people get this idea that you are like a Powerpuff Girl. Sugar, spice and everything nice with some superpower version of empathy, wisdom, or kindness. 

Even the happiest people in the world have bad days though. People die and there is loss and grieving. There are wrongs that happen. There is physical pain and emotional pain. Some people’s scars are so deep that you would never know because they hide it under layer after layer of “ideal spirituality.” Ideal spirituality is a modern concept that says, “If you ignore the pain and let time be the great healer it will go away. So just keep smiling and fake it till you make it.” It does not work. Until pain is expressed and processed it will never go away. It will only rear its head later and potentially more violently than before. 

When you find that spirituality is missing from your life and embark on a journey of seeking spirit things get real, real fast. People give up on spirituality because they have to come face to face with things they tried so hard to forget and cover up. Healthy spirituality will break you down because it wants to take all that crap you have hoarded and carried around as secret stones and finally utilize that stale energy as fertilizer for something new. 

Modern spiritual teachers say love and light all the time. That is a goal sure to be a source of those things. But what love are you putting out if you don’t deal with your own stuff first. The love turns to pity or enabling others to continue in their own destructive habits. The light turns to a game of flashlight hide and seek. Hoping you can run across someone else with a little light on so you don’t have to be alone in the dark anymore. Misery loves company but hates to be shared. So you come together and be miserable together but hide what’s really going on from each other at the same time. Because you are scared of being shamed by this other person who is also hiding their own miseries. A quicker way to explain this is with the poems Masks by Shel Silverstein.

She had blue skin,

And so did he.

He kept it hid,

And so did she.

They searched for blue

Their whole life through,

Then passed right by—

And never knew.

Love and light in healthy spirituality is always afraid but has the courage to still do what is needed. Love in healthy spirituality does not make excuses for behaviors of self or others. “Oh I know this hurt you and I screwed up, but I was going through this and it made me do it.” The apology is null and void because the reasons behind causing another person pain is more important to the speaker than the pain they inflicted. Love doesn’t do that in healthy spirituality. In healthy spirituality it is more, “You experienced pain because of me. I am sorry that I caused you to have that experience.” Love in healthy spirituality is about acknowledgement. 

I read The 5 Languages of Love, which is an amazing read by the way, and one thing really struck out to me across all five of the languages of love. Even in the chapters before the languages themselves and the chapters after. What stood out to me was that in order for any of it to work both parties had to be willing to acknowledge the other. If my partner’s language is Physical Touch and I am Quality Time then I have to love myself enough to admit what I need. I have to love my partner enough to admit what they need. I have had a long hard struggle with love in general and on more recent journeys of discovery I have learned that love is about acknowledgment, first and foremost. The 5 Languages of Love only work if acknowledgment is at the core of their love for each other. 

So when someone says, “You’re supposed to be spiritual, aren’t you supposed to be about love,” when I am in the middle of venting something that angered me or hurt me; my response would be, “I am about love, I love myself enough to acknowledge that this was not ok and I do not accept it.”

Light on the other hand is another story. I gave the example of flashlight hide and seek. We tend to have this idea that being spiritual means we have a tiny little light and we are supposed to be able to use that to navigate through the darkness we encounter. We live in darkness and there is no way out of it. Controversial to most in the spiritual community but still fact based on science and ancient teachings. There is no way to escape darkness and why would you want to? I already detailed this in Foundations so I won’t go into it again here. The point I am making is that being about light or a “light worker” as is a new buzzword that has come about is not about navigating the darkness. 

Being about light is to stand firmly and proudly as who you are. Your light will be a beacon for others to gravitate towards. The closer they get to you the more likely they are to be inspired to ignite their own light. We create a chain reaction of people being inspired to live and walk in their power. The key words here are, “being inspired.” Your light in spirituality is to be inspirational.  And, if I’m the first to say this to you then so be it, you can’t always be inspirational if you remain passive. 

Silence is not golden, it is permission. The more you remain silent to things going on around you then the more you are part of the problem. And you are not being a being of light. In fact you aren’t being much of anything by behaving that way. And when you refuse to speak out for things you believe in or against things you oppose you are not being “more spiritual.” You are in fact becoming a further obstacle against allowing spirit to move. 

Let’s think of Walmart for a second. How many times do you see people getting their receipts checked as they go through the doors? I am a white non-binary gay male. But I still present in a masculine cis-male way. I cannot tell you the amount of times I have watched a black man or woman get stopped and have their receipt studied before they have been allowed to leave. All of their purchases were bagged and everything. I walk up and go to hand my receipt and get waved on. I have made it my personal goal to make every door person at Walmart check my receipt fully before walking out the store. 

The first time I took a stand like this I watched a lady with her kids get stopped and have every item in every bag checked. The “greeter” literally pulled items out of the bags and then didn’t put them back. I watched in horror. The mother had to start rebagging her items in the entryway. I had a few items and some were not bagged at all. I got the wave that I was good to go. Nope. I walked up to their little table, slapped the receipt in their hands and dumped out my items. I held each item up and asked if they saw it on the receipt. They were shocked. The mother ahead of me was shocked. The most shocking thing of all was to come. After my little show of petty justice warrior, this little old white lady with a basket full behind me asked the employee, “Are you gonna check mine now?” The greeter promptly said, “No ma’am you’re good to go.” That sweet little lady replied, “Well we all watched what you did to that poor lady over there and that young man had the right idea. Here’s my receipt and this time you better put everything back exactly where you find it. If it’s your job with them it’s your job with me, get to checking’.” 

I’m not saying I was directly responsible for the older lady to follow along and hold the employee accountable. But it sure is nice to have gotten a kudos for my little outburst and to see someone else making sure that equal fair treatment was being done continually. And that is what the light part of being spiritual is all about. It’s about being an example to others and helping them to find the courage to step up. It is not always social justice warrior stuff though. Sometimes being a light is saying, “Hey, I haven’t been feeling right. I want to find a therapist or psychiatrist.” Then following through on that statement. Sometimes that can speak volumes to the people around you and get them to open up and say the same.

Being a light is about being the change you wish to see in the world. If you experience injustice of another and say nothing then you are permitting it. But if you stand against it you inspire others to do the same. If you are not well and want to make lasting changes in your life then you are inspiring others to seek ways to better themselves as well. When someone asks, “If you’re so spiritual why are you always causing scenes? Why can’t you just walk away,” my answer will always be because I will not give my permission to that which I don’t agree with. 

Love and light are important aspects of spirituality, but modern interpretations downplay them and try to convince people that it means being passive, permissive, and subdued. In healthy spirituality it is quite the opposite. 

Always Doing What’s Right

The second biggest misconception I hear is, “to be spiritual you must always strive to do the right thing.” And my question is, “who determines that?” What is right to you may not be right to me. Let’s go back to The 5 Love Languages for a second. If my love language is Quality Time and my partner spends time with me, according to this they are doing what is right. 

But if I add the context that my partner never asks me to do anything and just agrees to do things when I request it, is what they are doing still right for my love language to be fulfilled? 

Let’s take it further yet. If I tell my partner that I would like for them to reach out and invite me to do things for a change and they respond by saying, “I already spend time with you though. I never cancel. Why do I have to ask you to do things? I don’t turn you down when you ask so I don’t feel the need to initiate.” Are they still doing what is right?

According to them, they sure are. According to me they aren’t. Their friends might say they are. Some might disagree with them. My friends might agree with me and some might not. We could involve the whole world and the debate will never get settled because there is no right answer. Both my partner and I are right in this story. We are also both wrong. So always doing what is right is far too subjective a statement. 

It is literally The Trolley Problem. And thinking that spiritual people are always going to make the “right” choice is way too high an expectation. Spiritual people are still people at the end of the day. We are allowed to make mistakes. We are allowed to fail. People justify Jesus for losing control when he flipped tables, threw chairs, and chased people out of the temple with whips. They say he had justified or righteous anger. But when I do it I’m gonna get a pair of shiny bracelets and a night in a very uncomfortable hotel no matter how justified my anger may be. Accountability not excuses.

If a behavior is harmful to others, stop making excuses to continue it. If you want to continue a behavior because you don’t see it as “harmful” no matter what you’re told then the only excuse you can have is to excuse yourself from that person’s life.

I don’t strive to do what’s “right” anymore. I strive to do what’s necessary. What I did in that Walmart was a necessary moment of pettiness because there was no excuse besides blatant discrimination and racial profiling. It was harmful and would continue so long as no one stood up to it. I did what I felt necessary to make my feelings of the situation be known. 

I come across as blunt to people when I’m speaking. I was once told, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” What did I do with that statement? I became observant of others and when I come to them with critiques and criticism I list out examples of things they do that I have observed to be harmful behaviors. And I invite the people in my life to do that same for me. I can’t grow if I think everything I do is perfectly fine. I can’t change if I don’t have things to work on. Challenge me, please. But don’t get defensive and accuse me of attacking when I’m only telling you what I feel is necessary for you to know.

Doing what is right vs. doing what is necessary is taking the subjectivity out of it. I spoke before about the bubble of indifference and becoming neutral. This is what comes of that. You learn to step back and then step in. When you are wanting to do what’s “right” you can get swept up in bandwagon herd mentalities. When you do what is necessary though, you can determine what’s bullshit and what actually needs to have more voices raised for. That’s why I brought up cultural appropriation in an earlier post. Most of the claims for it are bullshit from historical, anthropological, sociological, and biological facts. But people still want to push the narrative that someone has to be right and someone has to be wrong. Yet Native Americans, South American Indigenous peoples, and African people are still under threat of home loss and destruction of culture. People who have never been fully initiated into those cultures want to claim the culture but not lift a single fucking finger to help fight against the destruction those people face to this day. You can continue lying to yourself that you are “doing what’s right by standing up against cultural appropriation,” but when will you admit you have not done one necessary thing to protect the culture you’re laying claim to? 

See now why I left this whole post for later. To kind of peel back to other things I’ve discussed and explain why those posts were as “negative” as they may have appeared because what’s necessary is not always pretty. I can’t do that. I have come to a place in my spirituality where saying the “pretty” words to avoid conflict hurts me more than if I just come out from the get go. It might make things tense for a moment but I prefer to get the conflict out of the way early. And that brings us to the third misconception.

Protecting my Peace

While the last two are the most stated misconceptions of spirituality; protecting my peace is without a doubt the most abused statement in spirituality and lately society in general.

This is the epitome of running from accountability today. And it comes from a misunderstanding of peace. I talked about peace briefly before when I was outlining harmony in the Foundations series. What is peace exactly? Peace is the absence of conflict. That’s all it is. If you want to achieve inner peace you must end the conflict within yourself. That means finding harmony in all that you are. You have to accept every part of yourself, the good and the bad. Strengths and weaknesses, unhealthy or destructive behaviors, and even accepting the good qualities you possess by not following the modality that you need to “stay humble” by belittling yourself. 

When you do those things and accept every part of you for what it is you stop the inner fight and struggle. In Native American culture there is a saying that goes roughly, “Within each of us are two wolves. One makes us weak and one makes us strong. So which wolf will you feed?” The first time I heard that I didn’t have an answer which was weird to the person who asked it. It was weirder still to the next person and I still did not have an answer. It took a while but I finally decided that I would feed both wolves. Because I am my strengths and my weaknesses. If I feed the wolf that makes me strong it will be stronger. If I feed the wolf that makes me weak it will leave me alone for a while. In each case, I am feeding the wolves by acknowledging them. If I starve the wolf that makes me weak that doesn’t mean it goes away. A starved predator is more dangerous than a satiated one. 

I have to be me. That is the only way I can protect my peace. If I am not being me, if I am not living accountable and with integrity in myself then I will always be in conflict with myself. And if I am in conflict with myself and not at peace with myself then how can I protect my peace from someone external? I have no peace to protect if I am in conflict with myself. 

And then when people tell others that they are going to distance themselves to “protect their peace,” because they were hurt by words or actions…how? You were hurt. You may even be valid in feeling hurt. But instead of facing the conflict with someone external head on you run? You hide away? That isn’t protecting your peace because you are not dealing with the issue. Does running in that moment mean the problem goes away? Sure you can choose to never speak or associate with that person again. The conflict still doesn’t go away from that choice either. You had to make a decision to end communication with someone because you couldn’t face the conflict head on and make peace with them. You didn’t protect your peace. You buried a part of yourself in hopes that it never resurfaces. But life is as life does and has a funny way of making it come back around. 

What happens when it comes from someone else? What happens when it’s someone even closer to you? Do you shut down on them too? Are you not hurt that you decided to end communication with the first person? If they were important enough to hurt you with what they said they were important enough to fight with and end the conflict. But instead you run, cut the relationship, and say you protected your peace. But you didn’t. The conflict remains no matter how many boxes and chains you wrap it in. Now matter how deep the ocean you toss it into is. The conflict still exists and therefore there is no peace to protect because, once again, peace is the absence of conflict. 

Too quick are people today to throw out that phrase but never even know what peace feels like. My inner peace comes from me knowing myself better than anyone else ever will. I know my flaws, I know my worst qualities, I know when I’m about to upset someone, and I know I don’t say things perfectly no matter how much I try to be careful with my words. I know my strengths, I know my convictions, I know my kindness, and I know my power with my words. I know these things because I have worked hard to be accountable to me and for me. I know these things because I love myself and I acknowledge myself. And, come sunshine or thunderstorms, the people close to me know that who I am around one person is exactly the same when I am around someone else because I have integrity with who I am. 

I have inner peace because I don’t have to sit and fight with myself about who I am. I have high anxiety and am seeking psychiatric treatment to help with it. I didn’t go that route because someone else told me I needed to. I went that route because I acknowledged that part of myself and said, “You know what…things are a bit overwhelming right now…I need help.” 

When I say I am protecting my peace to someone else I’m not up and running. When I say it, I am about to let loose on them. What I’ve felt, observed, experienced, etc. They are going to know where I stand. They can choose to run or stand and settle up with me. The ball is in their court. But I am going to relieve myself of the conflict I have with them. If they choose to NOT settle up then the conflict between them remains but I can return to my peace because I at least spoke my mind and expressed myself. I still stayed true to who I am. They can claim to “protect their peace,” running but if they come back guess what’s still there waiting when they get back. That’s right. The conflict. There is no peace so long as conflict exists. We need to stop saying we are “protecting our peace,” when what we are really doing is “cowering from conflict.” 

People fear conflict so much. Trauma responses, unhealed inner children, being unloved all leave people in so much conflict with who they are that they just cannot take external conflict. But on top of that they refuse to look within and solve their own inner conflicts. They point the finger at this person, that situation, these groups of people, the anecdotal experiences of their families, etc. etc. etc. No one wants to look within. No one wants to know the beast they truly are. “Don’t tear off my mask. Don’t see me for who I am.” And then when someone comes along who can see through the mask and call a duck a duck they’re run from in fear because how? How did they see through all the carefully layered masks and personas to see the real person hurting deep down. 

These people are villainized in so many stories because they call out the truths they see deep down. And because we refuse to look within and acknowledge these parts of ourselves we say, “You hurt me with what you said. Is that really how you feel about me? I need some time away from you because that felt like an attack.” When someone hits you with accountability  it always feels like an attack to a person who does not have any peace to protect. Stop saying you’re “protecting your peace,” as a way to avoid conflict. Say instead, “I don’t have the emotional maturity to acknowledge that about myself yet.” Cause that’s what you really mean when you say you’re protecting your peace.

But what is a way to “protect your peace,” while acknowledging conflict exists? Boundaries. Remember when I spoke of those in an earlier post? Boundaries can help to actually protect your peace. You can say, “hey that hurt, let me sit with it for a bit and then come back to you and discuss when I’m not so emotionally raw.” Boom this is peace protected for both. It acknowledges the other person’s statements and gives you time to grapple with it. But hold true to coming back and discussing it cause it doesn’t just go away because you chose to walk away in the moment. And when you do come back make sure you really take the time to resolve what was said because if you come back defensively the whole conflict can stretch out longer. And just cause you come back and talk about it once doesn’t necessarily mean the conflict is resolved instantly. Other issues can arise from the conversation that might be addressed or brought up later. Conflicts take time to be resolved but it can be done. And it’s better to confront it head on rather than put it off and just hope it goes away. So be mindful that you don’t switch from using “protecting my peace,” to “respect my boundaries,” as the next version of running from your problems. 

Sorry this post was not going to be a lighthearted romp through spiritual misconceptions. I came to cut deep with this one. Cause that’s what spirituality, TRUE HEALTHY SPIRITUALITY DOES! It cuts deep and breaks you down. You look at things differently. And that is the last misconception I want to cover.

Perspectives

This is the misconception that we are just going to have to live with. I really just want to, in practicing what I preach, acknowledge it. 

As I said earlier there are so many different paths to take. Each one is a tiny snippet of a greater picture. And because of that there are soooo many perspectives to take into account. What all I said above doesn’t come from one perspective or the other. It all comes from zooming out and looking at a much broader view. And even then, I can zoom out only so much and my own perspective will still be tiny in the overall grand scheme of things. But that is the point.

Back to what I said in the last post. We need to come together and discuss these different perspectives. We need to challenge each other. We need to have conflicts so we can grow. We can not all have the exact same perspective on spirituality. You cannot take a teacher’s word as law and then denounce every other person you come across. If you have a teacher that refuses to answer questions or be challenged then they are not a teacher to follow. They are attempting to be a modern cult leader. Sorry to say it so bluntly cause you might respect them. But if they refuse to be challenged and grow themselves then they are not someone to look up to. 

I have an example and an exercise to share about perspective before I wrap this post up.

The example is going to be Greek Mythology. No myth you read, the stories of the gods and monsters and heroes, is the actual myth from the Grecian period. What you are reading is the facsimile reconstruction of recovered artifacts pieced together. Which is why you can find the same myth told with multiple outcomes, beginnings, and even sometimes characters involved. Yet when in spiritual circles people who speak of the Greek gods speak so authoritatively of “how the gods behave,” because of these clouded representations. Which myth do I follow? Which one is the “right” one? Well, none of them really. And that is another reason why I say we need to take what we have and move forward to create a new way. 

The practice I have for you is actually quite simple but will require some time. Go to a paint or hardware store and get 14 sets of swatches of blue paint chips. Get multiples for each shade you choose. Get a box, preferably a lock box. Each day for 2 weeks go outside with a fresh set of paint chips and hold them to the sky. Write the date on the back of the card that matches and put it in the lock box. Throw the rest away or put them away. Always use a fresh set for each day. At the end of the 14 days, open the box and see how many times you picked different shades of blue for different days. It’s a very simple exercise but can help demonstrate that even your own perspective changes more frequently than you realize.

As always, thank you again for reading along. I have two more posts for the Pathworking series to do. The next will be just a quick overview of different pathways. Mainly lists and ideas for you to explore and try out. The second will be the wrap up and summary of the series. And then I can get into some really fun posts. I can start getting woo-woo with the blog and talk about the spirits themselves. Until then, have a great day.