6 Signs You Are Caught on the Spiritual Treadmill
A few months ago, I began intentionally retreating from the ‘spiritual’ communities. I stayed quiet in the process for the most part as I wanted to understand my experience. Not have it painted with another’s view.
My intuition had been guiding me to some time ago pull out. I stayed as perhaps I needed to understand the gaps to speak to this very thing that I’ve since since birth in the west. I began to notice how culturally limited the communities were. And how narrow the lens appeared in the ‘way’ things ought to be done. How righteous people in the ‘work’ were openly becoming.
I have mostly ever had one foot in but it was become increasingly apparent to me how I was perpetuating separateness by participating in ‘growth’ this way.
Sure, we are all called to grow and heal. I’m so glad I did my circles to meet my full light after surrendering completely and uterally while getting lost on a mountain. That was the point of no return. I could not go back to my limited self after that experience.
Since then, it’s been primarily integration for me. Yep, years of it. I somehow tried on the new age spiritual persona for a bit to get our parenting message out in the world and felt uncomfortable and disconnected the whole time. It wasn’t my path forward. I didn’t resonate with conscious parenting which Eckhart Tolle coined in his book ‘The New Earth.’ It felt to be missing the human factor for me. Big time.
In my roller coaster of integrating back into life, I was connecting to many who were like I once was, grasping for an escape from reality. Clothes and the ‘right’ jewelry, symbols and tattoos. The moment one walked into a group of spiritual seekers, the ‘status’ seemed clear. More ability to explain concepts, the better. Yet their relationships at home? Utter chaos.
Judging others for not ‘getting it.’ Uck. How jarring it that felt to be a part of. All while many put me on a pedestal for how much I ‘knew and the way I spoke when I channeled. I continued to feel the disconnect within. This wasn’t me.
Ego. Ego. Ego. Silent, but present. It served me beautifully as I was able to observe myself in it. And then be able to see it in others, with more acceptance than had I not experienced those very feelings.
New age spirituality is often ungrounded and its effects have limited change on the planet. Because it is inherently rooted in fear, and a divisive energy. It is for those who can afford high priced programs or for those who are willing to give up ‘everything.’
The perpetual aversion to our humanity and its realities has come from deep early wounding that isn’t resolved. Have you ever heard — ‘I only talk to people like me. I am better than people who don’t do this sort of stuff.’ If fear ever had a language, that would be it.
But often, acquiring knowledge around spiritual concepts and pretending that one is above the human journey is the only way to maintain distance from one’s most tender, yet rich, dance of light and dark. An unwillingness to be beautiful and accepting of all sides of oneself also compromises the ability to share one’s gifts. Because the connection to the human self hasn’t been made. It limits the compassion we can have for another as we aren’t yet there with ourselves.
This applies equally to the relationship with kids. They, most of anyone, are fully integrated. They don’t need the concepts. The headiness or the intensity. Deep down, they despise pushy parents who put their need for growth and acceptance on the child through meditation techniques and personal development training. Because the message they receive is ‘I am not good enough, yet. They don’t love me as I am — similar to the main way of the personal growth world.
So, children succumb. As they may already be conditioned to feel that the love from their parents is dependent on that too.
My kids say no to all of the above. They don’t need it, truthfully. They are already IT. As is every kid on the planet. None of this is specific to my children. From birth, they are all immensely creative beings fully tapped in by way of their own hearts. So we dance instead. We turn the music up, bake yummy food, play in parks and tell silly stories until we can’t keep our eyes open anymore.
Children don’t need add-on spiritual programs at school that take them through the motions. They don’t need to tag along for the healing their parents drag them along to. And they certainly don’t need to be told they are ‘bad’ for doing normal, human things like expressing themselves fully.
They most simply need someone to see them. Play with them. Let them be the guide. But if this critical part of development is missed, of course, there may be a need for intervention down the line.
Inevitably, tremendous relief came about for myself and the children when I dropped the spiritual outwardness. An integrated version has been in my bones since childhood and through the lineage I come from, one which reminds me that the messiness is normal, and life that doesn’t require the constant running away or recluse.
When my therapy school teacher shared a few years ago what I perceived as trigger, I sensed it must be for good reason that I didn’t yet understand. ‘You don’t need to pull back from class and be all spiritual,’ she said. I didn’t even know I was trying to be that. But I probably should have known based on the exhaustion and seriousness that I felt. It’s a lot of work to play into ‘separation.’
Over time, great freedom ensued for all of us when I finally gave up the façade.
With that, I share 6 signs that you may be caught on the spiritual treadmill -
1. You have A LOT to say about others and their behavior. More than you have to say about yourself. What comes up is lack of self responsibility. We turn it into blame and less than for being human, while painting it with a stroke of ‘love and light.’ Yet this is rarely applied to self.
2. An inability to face your human responsibilities and emotions. You defy money, schedules, structures, and the very messiness that makes the human path so rich.
3. You are always looking for the next course or guru to offer you their knowledge. In other words, you aren’t quite ready to think for yourself and claim your own authority.
4. You are very particular about what and who you expose yourself too. Under all this control, you may just be terrified of facing your life head on. You may believe that if you keep yourself from your pain being mirrored back on the outside, that it will somehow dissolve. The cocooning stage is important where you love yourself into being, yes. But don’t get stuck there. Re integration into real life is the next stage.
5. You swing by end to end of the poles. You’re either blissed out or super angry. Probably a good sign that vulnerability is difficult for you. Yet, its necessary for growth.
6. You have super strict diets, know that you and your life should look like one day and abstain from life pleasures. When did life on the planet become so awful that we had to punish ourselves until death?
None of our life process can be forced by the mind. This is where the greatest flaw in new age spirituality and personal growth appears from my lens, after having seen it since childhood. And witnessing how naturally aligned we were all born before we got into conceptualizing our lives.
Let it be. Live fully and integrate back into society as it is in your realness once you have touched your full essence. Accepting yourself on the everyday chaos around you is the peak of not only the human experience, but also the radically freeing outcome of the authentic parenting journey we speak about.
Else you may too be unknowingly dividing humanity further.
We welcome you to open to reconnect to your true nature, and theirs from the start. It doesn’t need any fancy labels or understanding. Just a whole lot of acceptance.
I leave you with this contemplation -
Your ability to accept all aspects of your humanness may just reflect your willingness to love.
How deeply are you willing to love yourself first?
