1. Spiritual Bypassing.
Have you ever heard someone proudly proclaim they were stolen from, slandered or abused and “didn’t even get angry”. Or experienced a big hurt, relationship wound or a scary medical prognosis and give a spiritual cliche like “everything happens for a reason”. This is Spiritual Bypassing at work.
Anger is an adaptive emotion, it’s the energy that gives rise to your powerful ‘NO! That’s not okay’. Bypassing that feeling by pretending you are ‘too spiritual to feel’ keeps you away from the freedom of the now.
So too with pain, it’s okay to feel scared, hurt and alone sometimes. Humans are wired for connecting with others and to fear death. Pretending you don’t mind when these are compromised blocks you from the freedom that comes from experiencing deep pain and the true acceptance that lies on the other side.
2. Comparison
Determining your own worth based on how you stack up against others was an evolutionary mechanism motivating self-improvement. But in the world of instagram filters and Facebook posts- it leaves you feeling “less than” and “like you’ll never make it”. Freedom lies in knowing and living by your own unique values while celebrating your own and other’s success.
3. Numbing
Have you ever had a bad sunburn? You didn’t race home, take a really hot shower and scrub your skin with a loofah did you? Of course not, you avoided what you knew would cause more pain..
In the same way, when emotional pain arises- it’s tempting to numb it with food, alcohol or substances, scrolling social media or the myriad of other ways to dampen difficult feelings. Yet emotion is energy, once you’re aware of it, can experience and express it, it’s done. Numbing emotional pain leaves it unfinished to fester away. Freedom lies in going through, to the other side.
4. Conformity.
Doing what you think you ‘should’ do, or what someone (eg. school, parents, society) tells you that you ‘ought’ to do. Rather than that which has your soul doing a happy dance- is a direct path away from freedom.
With respect towards well-intentioned people that have your best interests at heart, sing your own song, dance your own dance and beat your own drum towards freedom.
5. Forgetting you are already free!
This is the cosmic joke and those who have had a spiritual awakening will have recognised the absurdity of the struggle. For Freedom is your very nature, and when you see the truth of this you will throw your head back and laugh at the sky.
That the unlimited reality has veiled itself into form of ‘you’. Has contracted into a limited sense of self that says “I Am” in order to experience itself rather than remain in formless, unbound, infinite freedom. Only to experience the joy of awakening to one’s true nature! As never seperate, never bound- only and ever free! Herein lies true Freedom.