Teal Swan and JP Sears: “Avoid the Shadow Side of Spirituality”
Teal Swan and JP Sears are both pioneers and New Age thought leaders of our time.
Teal is a renowned spiritual teacher, best-selling Hay House author, and international speaker with over 400,000 YouTube subscribers on her Ask Teal channel. She shares incredible wisdom through her developed healing processes, interviews, and art. JP is a transformational teacher, comedian, and incredible spiritual teacher who is best known for his YouTube channel Awaken With JP. His channel has over half a million subscribers, and he hosts powerful retreats worldwide to help people embrace the highest version of themselves.
These two game-changers combined made for an incredible interview where we discussed the shadow side of spirituality, and how we become aware of what pitfalls we might run into after our initial stages of awakening. When I had the opportunity to ask questions about what we need to know after our initial awakening, I was surprised to learn just how much the ego tries to sneak in the back door, and how we can become more aware. How is this possible!? In JP’s words, there are different forms of meditation, and different motives fueling our need to meditate. Let’s say that you’re upset by a circumstance in your life. You might meditate as a form of escapism, attempting to detach from your emotions. This would be different from the healthier alternative, which is to sit in silence and go inward so you may connect to your emotions and properly process the experience. 2. Non-reactivity can be a very bad thing! How could this be!? In Teal’s words, there is a difference between “a reaction vs. an action inspired by a reaction.” Our reaction is our humanness, and our emotions that arise naturally are always valid experiences.
They are never meant to be supressed or ignored. On the other hand, if we lashed out at someone after experiencing anger, this would be an action inspired by a reaction. In other words, the reaction is the anger, but the action inspired by the anger (reaction) is lashing out. Until we stop confusing these two very important differences, we might fall into the trap of trying to emotionally repress ourselves, which can wreak long-term havoc on both our mind and body! 3. Our human experience is just as important as our spiritual experience. ...But I thought we were “spiritual beings having a human experience”? Yes. But we are here for a reason and we are meant to work through the lessons in both paradigms. Teal discusses something she calls the “And Consciousness” to refer to this paradox, and encourages us to learn to value both equally. When we can merge these two realities together and learn how to not sacrifice one for the other, we are able to thrive as a human being. Any form of avoiding one in favour of the other comes with an automatic shadow side. You’ll see where you get stuck on your spiritual journey. After the initial awakening, we often become attached to our spiritual identity, not realizing this is another form of ego. This will help you to see further into yourself and continue your expansion. .
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