Hello Again!
In case you missed them, you can read:
Today we are going to focus on the trap of spiritual self help - that wheel of constantly trying to ‘fix’ and ‘improve’ ourselves, thinking that once we finally become ‘holy’ enough we will be happy.
Let’s talk about why we can get caught in spiritual self help, why it’s not going to give us the results we’re looking for, and what WILL help us feel better.
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The Never Ending Loop Of Spiritual Self Help
Others are trapped in spiritual self-help. We live in a world again, that is full of complexity and that is often going to involve experiencing pain, loss, setback and other struggles that we can’t control or that we don’t immediately understand.
We’ve all had experiences that have shaped the way we see ourselves and the world, and that have distorted our ability to see things clearly and to then adequately solve. We’ve all faced circumstances where pain and suffering was involved - and there wasn’t anything we could actually DO to make that pain better.
We’ve all been hurt and harmed in ways that have left scars or open wounds and many of us are in situations currently where we are being harmed and we don’t have a clear understanding of why or how to make things better.
We all experience emotional flux based on the natural experience of being alive and from our perceptions of reality and what we are making things ‘mean’ about ourselves and oftentimes we don’t actually know how to embrace these emotions and move through them.
Many of us have patterns and habits of self destruction that we don’t understand, that we see as being the ‘cause’ of our pain, that we believe to be evidence of our flawed nature and that we are trying to fix in ourselves.
We all have existential awareness to some degree - and this is a really challenging part of human life to grapple with. That awareness of our own vulnerability and mortality as well as the vulnerability and mortality of everyone we love is a hard thing to look at and process - and it’s something that most of us know only to run from in any way we can. And society provides a million and one ways to run - everything from sex, money and rock and roll to meditation retreats and plant medicine ceremonies - anything to help us divorce ourselves from the pain or to find some ‘ultimate answer’ to ‘it all’ that we can then go to bed at night with feeling that warm hug of security in the fact that we ‘know.’
Again we live in a culture that tells us that our pain is a reflection of our moral failing, that we can and should be able to function within society fully without any struggle - and that if we ARE struggling on any level that this is the result of us doing something wrong.
We are trained to believe that there is a simple, consumable solution to all problems - and that that solution is always going to be rooted in the SELF in some way. That there is a way to be happy all the time and that everything in our lives is ‘because of us’ so this means it’s only natural that we fall into the idea that all problems can be solved via the avenue of fixing ourselves.
Which is where self help spirituality comes in.
The self help/spirituality industry is FILLED with teachers and teachings that all promise to deliver the same thing - a transcendence of the human experience via the perfecting of the self.
We are taught that if we can dissociate from our minds enough that we will stop suffering.
That if we learn to accept reality for how it is enough that we will then find perfect bliss.
That if we can heal our past traumas enough that this will lead to permanent calm.
We are taught that if we take enough plant medicine, get self honest enough, discover our purpose and passion and learn to express our true nature adequately, THIS will bring everlasting satisfaction.
We are told that we need to clear our past karma and learn our life lessons in this life as quickly as possible - and in finding that we are doing this we will be liberated from our suffering.
We are taught that if we ‘live right’ by whatever doctrine we’re following - whether that be old school religion or new wave spirituality - that THIS will mean we are finally set free from whatever lower aspects of being alive are harming us.
We are taught that if we find the perfect relationship, get our bodies clean and pure enough, declutter our spaces and become zen, do enough physical practices, become disciplined or free enough that in so doing we will finally realize ‘truth’ and in realizing this truth we will never want for anything ever again.
We are told that we can get rid of our personalities, our desires, our ‘ego’s’ or our individuality and that when we finally do, we will never suffer again.
There are SO many different ways we are told to fix ourselves - all with the promise that when we do we will finally have all that we’ve ever wanted and that we will attain everlasting peace.
What we have to recognize here again is that all of this is playing on our insecurities.
All of this is playing on our very real vulnerabilities - both natural and inherent and socially created.
All of this is playing on the fact that most of us don’t have real problem solving tools, many of us don’t know how to handle our emotions, many of us feel deeply insecure and like we’re going to be left out and that this is the worst thing that could happen to us. It’s playing on the fact that there are many things we ultimately have no control over and have no answers about - and that we can’t ever get control over or find a satisfying answer.
People Are Building Careers Off Of Our Pain
The reality here is again, this is an incredibly profitable industry to be involved in.
Most popular self help/spirituality teachers are leaning into the insecurities and pain that we all have in our systems and in life in general - and rather than offering REAL solutions - they are offering this self help spirituality instread.
They are offering more and more of the SYSTEM back to us - that if we aren’t happy, if we aren’t ‘thriving’ in the system, if we aren’t ‘happy’ all the time, if we feel any existential pain or again if we are struggling with any habits of way of life that don’t seem to be ‘serving us’ that this means we are broken, shameful, wrong, bad and in need of being rescued or fixed.
They tell us that our initial assessment of our issues is the correct assessment - we hurt because WE are doing something wrong, and thus there is something we can fix about ourselves that will make the pain go away.
This is incredibly profitable because:
A) We want to believe that our pain is rooted within us because we all believe that we are the one thing we have control over. If our pain is our fault, if our pain is a personal failing, if our pain is a reflection of our weakness - then we can FIX that. If our pain is a result of something outside of us or due to a larger issue - we may not be able to fix that and that’s scary.
B) It's a self perpetuating loop that creates endless consumers. Because the reality is our pain is NOT due to a personal flaw - even if there is something we CAN do about what’s hurting us, what we can do is NEVER going to be ‘fixing’ ourselves. It’s going to be UNDERSTANDING ourselves and learning to SUPPORT ourselves in new ways, while also addressing the systemic, familial, relational and work issues that are ALSO a part of what’s happening for us. This means that when we are SOLELY focused on trying to make our lives better via self improvement, we are NEVER going to ‘get there.’ But when we think that the only solution IS MORE SELF IMPROVEMENT - the more what we are taught to do doesn’t work, the MORE we buy! The more we are convinced that it is US failing to ‘do it right’ when our spiritual techniques of self improvement don’t bring relief, the more we are apt to come BACK for the next workshop, book, program and coaching call - rather than being able to see that we aren’t feeling better because the solutions we’re being handed don’t actually work.
It’s a snake eating its own tail - the more we get into spiritual self improvement, the less we can see the bigger picture of what’s actually causing us pain, the less we feel better, the more we think we are failing, the more self help spirituality we consume.
It’s SO important that we see this.
Remember again, I’m not saying that there are no internal spiritual techniques that work, or that will help us.
Learning to question our thoughts, learning to be with and process our emotions, learning to communicate, learning to regulate, learning to see our own patterns, learning to connect with ‘God’ in our way - this is ALL going to benefit most of us.
But it’s not everything, and it’s not going to make our lives perfect.
There needs to be a balance of internal and external work in order for us to feel better, and in order for us to be able to connect to spirituality BEYOND just trying to feel better in life/fix ourselves.
The more we are caught in navel gazing, the more we are going to be missing the deeper aspects of spirituality that are available for us.
We don’t want to deny our pain, and we do want to look for solutions - we just want to be careful we’re not doing this in a way where we get trapped in the lie that we are broken - a lie that we can never transcend because pain will always be present. And so long as we believe pain is only ever happening because WE are doing something wrong, we will be stuck in self improvement forever.
We want those answers.
We want to feel good.
But there’s something deeper that can provide this for us than self help spirituality.
We want to transcend our pain and we are deeply conditioned to believe the solutions MUST be available through self modification - and thus a lot of our spirituality is rooted in this ‘self help’ realm - a realm that leaves a lot of people in a state of constant striving and never arriving - because in real reality, we aren’t going to transcend suffering in this life. We are only going to learn how to reasonably manage/change what we can, and then process and look for support for getting through what we can’t.
Which can open the door to what I consider to be *true spirituality*.
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Alright, let’s take one more break here, and come back next week for a look at what spirituality beyond materialism and self improvement can look like.
<3
