(5 minutes reading time)
When someone asks me if I am spiritual, I don’t know what to say anymore. The word ‘spiritual’ has become a tricky one.
Many followers of the spiritual scene enjoy wellness practices. Some sound healing, wearing crystals as a signal to express their beliefs, a bit of cacao, rapé or other substances, some mantra chanting and yoga postures …
Well, there is really nothing wrong with any of this. I also have two gongs at home, I sometimes work with crystals, and I drink lots of cacao. It can be valuable for our well-being, we should enjoy it, as we deserve to feel good!
But it has very little to do with walking the spiritual path.
Many of my friends don’t want to be anywhere near the spiritual scene. Some even find spiritual people often too selfish, even harmful or dangerous to be around, because they could turn against us at any time. Why is that?
When we follow our intuitive path and do the inner work, we will experience suffering. Lots of it. That’s what they don’t tell you when you buy the spiritual feel-good ticket.
Inner growth is often painful, because we learn very well when we suffer. We leave the many comfort zones, we walk through our fears, we observe, face and integrate our shadows.
Being on the path to our deepest LOVE and our highest light also means letting go, again and again. This too is often a painful process.
After experiencing the pain we get up again, perhaps we enjoy some wellness, we go through periods of integration. And then we work our way through the next topics that Gaia presents to us as her divine offerings.
Gaia is a good mother, she cares for us, but she will always give us the next big lessons to learn, no matter how much pain it may cause us. She wants us to become pure and whole.
We can walk quite far on this intuitive path to our inner selves. We can open our hearts wide, and raise our astral frequencies to the point that others around us begin to notice.
What happens then is that we become good mirrors for others.
At times, people who are currently working through their own challenges may unknowingly project their inner struggles onto this mirror surface.
This can make some souls afraid of us and others angry with us. Often they don’t even know why.
Some are still working through their conditioned ego traits. No matter how kind we are, they may not like it. Being used to a world of duality, they might look for the dark spots, point out our faults, even try to hurt us or tear us down because they can’t stand someone’s LOVE or light shining too brightly.
Some may tell us (or others) that we might have dark energies around us. They may suggest that there is something wrong with us, along with a helpful remedy, or they want to refer us to someone they know who can drive out evil spirits.
Remember the hunt for the early Christians? It was not just a political story.
Many of these shadow projections may come from envy or simply the fear of opening up so much, for our deepest fear is always that of our own inner light and awakening.
Wellness spirituality shields us from facing this fear, which can make the process even more difficult, as we suppress these feelings and push them into our shadow side.
We really can’t run away from our awakening, it’s coming! The fear of it is so deeply rooted in us that it can sometimes manifest as a strong trembling and intense discomfort in our bodies. It is difficult to work through, although we can always ask within and receive intuitive answers about what to do with it. (Try this: A Simple Emotional Release Exercise)
When I was working with my fears of opening up further, my shamanic guide introduced me to the fact that the deeper we go on our spiritual path, the more we may find ourselves spending time alone and only choosing to be around those souls who truly nurture our growth.
It can get more lonely on the path, as also only those souls whose energies resonate with our hearts and astral bodies will want to be around us.
So why should we walk this path? Why not just do the wellness part and just enjoy our lives?
As with all worldly delights, everything has its place. There comes a point when the simple joys are simply not fulfilling enough.
Then we take the first steps on the path to our deepest LOVE and highest light – and we just keep going. There is a point where this growth becomes almost automatic. There is no turning back. It becomes faster, more challenging.
There will certainly be more pain, although eventually we get much faster and more efficient at working through our inner processes. There will always be more to accept, more to let go.
And then there is the LOVE, the peace and the joy as each step brings us closer to our full awakening at the centre of our own personal universe.