Misusing Spiritual Truths-The BIG Picture

Lately I've been attracting some pretty spiritually savvy individuals into my coaching clientele. They come with lofty goals and quite a bit of spiritual knowledge, armed with words like choose, create, and manifest. They are aware of their chakras and their intentions; they are familiar with the Law of Attraction and the Law of Karma. They can sense the energy of others and are cognizant of their own vibrations. And I swear, they are harder on themselves than anyone else I work with. It is nothing short of amazing how they misuse the spiritual truths they've learned over the years to abuse themselves further.

The more I work with these clients, the more I love them. They remind me so very much of someone I know and love dearly. Someone who took years upon years of spiritual study and manipulated it to create an incredibly large amount of self-judgment and undeserved guilt. Someone who misunderstood the words of prophets and gurus and used their teachings for evidence of her lack of goodness. That someone would be me.

I feel so strongly about spiritual misunderstandings (they seem to be quite common with those committed to bettering themselves) that I have decided to write a book on this topic. Realistically, it may be several years before I can publish this book and I'd like to clear up at least some of these misunderstandings sooner rather than later. So for the next few weeks, I am devoting a series of blog entries to the spiritual truths I see being most misused by my clients and those around me. I hope this will shine some clarity on what I had to learn, and unlearn, to find my own spiritual path. I hope that this will save some of you beautiful and precious people the years of mental anguish I put my own self through.

Let's start at the beginning. Let's start at the purpose behind spiritual truths. Every solid spiritual truth has the same intention-to teach you to love both yourself and others. I'm sure one could argue that spiritual truths also teach you to empower yourself, to take responsibility for your creations and much more. I don't disagree, but for now, let's just keep it simple. Spiritual truths are meant to teach you love and compassion. You must include yourself in that love and compassion.


If you find yourself learning a spiritual truth and you are not inspired to love yourself when you embrace this truth, there are two possibilities. 1-You have misunderstood the spiritual truth. 2-It is not a spiritual truth. Most likely, number 1 is the culprit.

I have a feeling that at some point in time, we humans will realize all of our suffering is really just the result of misunderstandings. There is such an innocence to humanity and we have a tendency to misunderstand things a lot. (That is one of the reasons I think Footprints In the Sand is such a popular and moving poem-it illustrates our human tendency for misunderstanding).

If you learn a spiritual truth, and you find yourself creating more self-judgment, you are misunderstanding something. Self-judgment is the opposite of self-love. Notice that I did not say self-reflection or self-improvement was the opposite of self-love. I said self-judgment.

You can tell the difference between a reflection of yourself that inspires love (even if it means admitting you need to change something about yourself) and something that brings you more self-judgment. Self-reflection and self-improvement inspire a plan of action for change. Self-judgment inspires you to feel crappy about who you are. Self-improvement feels liberating; self-judgment feels imprisoning. Self-reflection and self-improvement help you realize your potential and your goodness. Self-judgment makes you feel like you are bad*.

Let me give you an example I will expound upon more in my next post. I come from a family of spiritual healers. Some of my best and closest friends are healers. Basically, I am surrounded by healers of all different types and I notice a tendency these wonderful people have. Whenever one of them gets sick, they act as if they did something wrong. As if their cancer or their cold or their broken arm is a result of a terrible spiritual mistake they made. As if they should be ashamed of their illness or sickness. They'll go into all of this self-judgment about how they didn't align their chakras well enough or they didn't pray enough or they strayed from the path of God. What a horrible mental story to add to the already difficult physical condition of being sick!

I always feel a sense of deep and aching sadness when this happens. I want to shake these people awake, into their own goodness. I want to tell them-No! Wait! You've misunderstood something! Every truth is here to teach us to love. When you go into your story of self-judgment, you are out of the story of self-love. When you go into judgment, you are out of love. This is my personal interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. I don’t believe Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge; I think they ate from the tree of judgment (and this self- judgment brought shame). Simply put, when you’re eating apples from the tree of judgment, you’re not able to stay in paradise.

If you notice yourself slipping into self-judgment when you learn a new spiritual truth, just pause for a second. More than likely you've misunderstood the clarity and love this truth was intended to bring you. Look closely at the truth. Look deeply to see if you can find the self-love it was meant to teach you. I have studied every major religion on this planet and have read hundreds of spiritual texts. I can find one common denominator in each of them, and that is the spiritual truth of love.

If you are trying to better yourself, and you are not learning self-love, you're missing the point. If you're not learning self-love, you won't learn to unconditionally love others. Without love for ourselves and others, what do we have?

Self-love is the foundation of a spiritually centered life. If you remember this, then learning the true meaning of spiritual truths will be much more pleasant. The spiritual truths will inspire love, not judgment. It will become easier and easier to love others and to put love into the world once you have set the foundation to love yourself.

This week, as you go throughout your day, see if you can feel your way into self-love. See if you can find small ways to be compassionate and loving to yourself. This is the beginning of understanding all the other spiritual truths. Put down those apples of self-judgment; you want to be in paradise. Start practicing love. Start practicing love first with the one person that you know will always be with you-yourself. Then watch what happens to how you feel and how you react to those around you.

*It seems to me that many religions have a tendency to inspire people into self-judgment, out of a lack of true understanding for what their prophets and founders were really preaching. The human tendency for misunderstandings is very, very common. If you remember that every true prophet teaches love and compassion for the self and others, you may begin to see religious teachings in a different way.