5 Spiritual Myths That Are Blocking You From Living Fully
I love this myth.You know, there are some people on the planet who have one passion that transcends their entire lifespan.But imagine you’re like my friend Marie.She was passionate about sewing.
ng. She sewed new cushion covers for her entire office and home. She made hats for everybody’s Christmas gifts. She was so good and passionate about it that she said to all her friends “Finally—I’ve discovered my life’s purpose!” Only to be confronted 2 months later that she had an epiphany on her morning hike that she was now meant to teach yoga and it was time to enlist in a yoga teacher training. She followed that guidance and became a yoga teacher. She shared the yogic teachings for several years, until one day again while in a deep meditation she was met with a flash of knowing that it was time to share her gift of mediumship. As you can see, life is a delicious ride of twists and turns. Some people will find one passion for their entire lifetime. Others will find passion within a multitude of different modalities. Thinking that there is only one right passion in life can cause anxiety of “getting it wrong.” It’s impossible to get your passion wrong! Trust that what you’re in love with and that which flows with ease at this moment is divinely guided passion. When you practice staying present, you will know if your passion changes. I first heard this from a spiritual teacher of mine. When she told this to me I felt an instant hit of inner knowing that this was true, and that it was such a pervasive myth in spiritual circles. You see, in many spiritual circles you’re told that if you’re meant to be doing your [insert your soul-guided work here] then it will come easily to you.
The truth is, sometimes the form by which you will share your soul-work may look different than the image you had envisioned. Take my friend Nancy for example, she is a spiritual clairvoyant and a registered psychotherapist. For years she tried to make her clairvoyant-work be her main source of income. She thought to herself “Shouldn’t it come easy if I’ve been given these gifts? Shouldn’t it just work out if this is my path!?” She started to see that her gift of clairvoyance actually helped her patients in her psychotherapy path immensely. It ended up helping the people that normally would not have access to her gifts nor those who would not actively be searching out for a clairvoyant healer. It took many years but she started to see that the path you think will be easy isn’t always the road you will travel. Sometimes the form of how we share our gifts will be different than what we imagined. I’m all for positive psychology. However it’s a misleading conception that if you dare say any negative statement or feel a negative feeling that you’ll be damned.
The truth is that we’re here on the planet to feel the full range of emotions and to be honest with ourselves about it. If you feel like it’s wrong to “be sad” or wrong to “feel empty” or any other so-called negative emotion, we actually end up blocking ourselves from the present moment. When we resist the truth of our emotions we actually keep them around longer.
They end up getting buried and we’ll wonder why our positive psychology or that law of attraction isn’t working for us. Of course it’s good to be positive and it’s good to want to attract positive things into your life. However, it is safe to feel the truth of what you are feeling in all its richness and range. You need not censor your true emotions. By allowing the truth of your emotions to be what they are is the fastest way for the emotion to complete itself, which gives you more freedom to move forward in your life. Certainly there is a benefit in the practice of letting go—the sacred journey of surrender. However, detachment is often a form of “Spiritual Bypassing” which a phrase first coined by John Welwood. Spiritual bypassing is a form of hiding from the shadow of our honest emotions in order to maintain a “spiritual facade” of serenity. In our desire to be pure and loving we separate and create a barrier from acknowledging the truth of the moment. For example, Carrie would say “I’m detached about my husband’s infidelity. What he chooses to do on his spiritual path is his business.” And yet Carrie was actually in deep turmoil. She hid it for as long as she could until she spun out in a rage during one of their fights. When we bypass the truth of our emotions and bury the truth under “spirituality”, the truth does not disappear. Instead it festers until it rises out with rage—certainly not a healthy coping strategy.
The ability to face the truth and acknowledge our humanity through the range of ups and downs is the authenticity of a spiritual experience. It’s a good idea to release our judgement around what is deemed “righteous” or “spiritual.” The word Spiritual is just that—a word that attempts to convey a feeling of connection. Every human on the planet is born with this gift—all you need to do is connect to the truth that lives inside of you. Just because you have a glass of wine with a steak or cuss if you get rear-ended doesn’t mean that you’ve lost your connection to spirit. Grab your free copy of The 5 Keys to Start and Finish Your Projects and a meditation audio for clarity—Sign up at www.tovapayne.com .
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