One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned, and am learning still, is about spiritual ego.
I say “learning still,” because do we ever stop learning?
This is my first point. There are too many advertisements and posts out there that promise to provide exact solutions because “I’ve gone through it, conquered it, and now I’m ready to teach you how to replicate my success.”
The spiritual version is “I was sick, lost, confused, depressed, broke, in toxic relationships…(insert some condition), and now I’m the opposite. I’m happy. Want some of that?”
Even from a logical perspective, this makes very little sense. First of all, due to the rapid accelerated timelines we’re dealing with in this era, things are happening fast for everyone. The wheels of change and transformation are leaving no one behind. So, no one is the same person they were a year ago, half a year ago, or even one month ago. We could all write posts about transformation and overcoming specific obstacles in our lives. Actually, it’s highly encouraged! It’s great to see how far we’ve come.
But the subtlety comes when we imply that now we have no more problems. Seriously! Or at least not any that we’re willing to share. “I was depressed before, now I’m happy” is so black and white. The more realistic description is, “I was depressed about my high blood pressure before, now it’s been within the average for months, and I’m happy to have developed the habits to keep it there, although I still have to remain vigilant on a daily basis. Now I’m more concerned about my hip and back pain. That is where my attention and priority is at the moment. Also I used to worry about paying the mortgage when I’d lost my job, but now my attention is focused on how to get consistent income from flipping houses, and it’s still not quite where I want it to be yet, mainly because my goals and targets are constantly shifting, and that’s OK.”
Reading the above, I would say this person is still qualified to give advice on how they overcame high blood pressure or even guide others. It doesn’t make them lesser, it makes them more relatable. I love to hear stories of progress and success, but because targets are always moving, and new issues are always coming up (the Universe has a way of bringing up different things to our attention at different moments), it’s so refreshing to hear when someone acknowledges that they are still in the process.
This is tied to spiritual ego too, because too many sell themselves as enlightened. All problems gone. But…reality is it’s just been replaced by a “different” set of problems (it’s not really different, it’s just we weren’t aware of them before). Or a deeper layer of the original problems, like when I thought I had resolved a pattern and then I’m tested again by an interaction that requires even deeper discernment. It’s the same pattern, which I can say I had gotten over, but then there’s more, and more, and at some point we just realize life is an ever evolving learning experience. Have we made massive progress? Yes. Have we reached the end? No. As one cycle closes, another one opens, gently prodding us to go deeper.
Sometimes cycles are overlapped with cycles and there are bigger cycles that enclose smaller cycles. Non-circular. Nonlinear. All part of the process.
So the first sign of spiritual ego is not being forthcoming about still being in the process. These people have usually done some amount of work to have the awareness that they are very much in the process, but just don’t want to admit it. Usually cause they believe it’s “bad for reputation and business.”
And don’t get me started on the “replicate my success” tagline. I’ve written about it previously here. We preach individuality and unique-ness, and we know that we are comprised of different soul fragments, with different life paths and birth charts and gene keys, etc., so why do we think we need to be “replicating” anything? How about tapping into each of our own creativity and being original?
Learning is beautiful. Copying and replicating is not.
The next hallmark of spiritual ego is even more subtle. I see it in people who label themselves as “empaths” with pride.
“Empaths unite again narcissists!”
“Only empaths understand how tough life is!”
I love the word empathy. I cherish moments when I get to witness or experience the exhibition of empathy.
But I don’t love labels, and this one contains within it the subtle trappings of spiritual ego. Here’s why.
Most healers, energy workers, and lightworkers like to identify as Empaths. Why? Because they can see, hear, and especially FEEL more than the “average asleep” person in society. It’s these abilities, also called psychic abilities, or extra-sensory senses, that give these people the “credentials” to practice in the spiritual niche.
It’s fine to have credentials. We all have different skillsets. But why would this particular set of credentials around feeling make one superior over others? It doesn’t…and it goes back to the same reasons mentioned above. People who are on the numb-er side have a set of problems. And people who are more sensitive, have a whole other set of problems. No one is better than the other.
For someone on the numb-er side, they often have trouble making decisions from the heart. To stay mindful. To build soul-level connections. To feel the oneness with all that is. To believe life has higher purpose and meaning. To love oneself.
For someone on the sensitive side, they can get overly emotional or energetically attached that it prevents them from executing tasks in the 3D. Every one, every place, everything has the potential to drain them and siphon energy from them. They feel so strongly that they get caught in those feelings and can’t get out. They are often hermits because they don’t know how not to get taken advantage of or let other energies into their field. Enemies and danger are everywhere for them. There is no safety and security in life.
Such is the nature of duality.
When the numb-er side looks down on the sensitive side, it’s usually intellectual and money ego. When the sensitive side looks down on the numb-er side, it’s usually spiritual and pain ego. And yes, we can be all of the above. In every interaction, in every moment, we may be switching these up and taking different sides. To Person A, we may feel they’re too numb. While to Person B, we may feel they’re too logical and in their mind.
Life is like a swinging pendulum.
Finally, I’ll talk about one of the most damaging forms of spiritual ego, also known as spiritual gaslighting.
Please check out this article, which goes in-depth on the topic with some telling examples.
I do have personal experience with this, as whenever I pointed something out to someone, they’d say “no, that’s just your projection of your own wounds onto me.” They spoke with such conviction and confidence and finality, it made me seriously doubt myself and whether I would ever be good enough to continue down this path. Truth be told, I didn’t even know what spiritual gaslighting was at the time, and just thought 1) I’ve got to try harder cause I’m not measuring up, or 2) I should just quit cause I’ll never measure up.
We are not always ready to listen to and absorb hard views or negative feedback. And perhaps some of it is a projection of personal wounds. It’s all possible. However, villainizing the messenger and shutting them down, when one is in a position of “teacher” or “authority” or “experienced healer,” is not only unnecessary, but could create further internal wounding. If we’re not ready to hear or face something, just say it! “Hey I got your feedback, I’ll give it some thought moving forward.”
Another version of spiritual gaslighting, not mentioned in the article above, is the use of apologizing as a means of deflection. To be fair, the apology itself is sincere. It doesn’t come with all the “buts” and “ifs.” The person genuinely feels remorse in that moment. But as I’ve come to subtly notice, feeling sorry about what happened in the past is not equivalent to changing for the present or the future. One does not always lead to the other. You can definitely have one without the other, and that’s where I know many people (including myself) slip up. We think if a person is saying sorry in a sincere way, and we feel their sorriness, then it means they’re going to change. And when they don’t, we get frustrated and upset.
This is why I’ve always taken apologies with a grain of salt. Because some are done in a way that is unconsciously like taking a whiff of drugs. You don’t do it to make someone else feel better, you do it to make yourself feel better. Especially if the other party then proceeds to “forgive you.” To me, it’s then like, why play these games? Why don’t you apologize to yourself? It’s so much more straightforward. The gaslighting part then comes in when one doesn’t accept an apology - the apologizing party gets angry and resentful and vindictive sometimes. So it’s like there is no viable option. Either accept the apology or accept that you will then be made to feel guilt and shame about being “petty” and “unforgiving.” It’s gaslighting because you weren’t in the wrong, but you’re being made to feel awful and cornered a second time after being wronged. Double hits.
Because I know apologies aren’t necessarily tied to change, I usually respond with “no need to be sorry, just change.” Also, the best and real apologies come after, not before, the change. Announcing “I will change” with the apology and listing out steps A through Z is also not helpful. It’s still a projection into the future. But after you’ve shown considerable changes through action, and your entire energetic field has shifted, then it’s wonderful to go back and say, “I’m sorry for what happened, and what I did to you, and how I made you feel. These are the measures I’ve taken since then, and this won’t happen to yourself or anyone else again. I’m not asking anything of you, or that you give me your trust again, rather I thought you might want to know that I’ve learned my lessons from this experience.” Now that’s got the energetic weight behind it.
Why is feeling sorry and change two separate things? Because the nature of feelings stem from the unconscious. They come up and they are what they are. We get so many in a day without ever trying to get them. There’s no hard effort involved. As such, the effort is often in the opposite direction: to suppress the feelings! Also, we don’t act on most of our feelings and emotions. We let the majority of them pass.
But change is completely conscious and energy-driven. It requires enormous energy expenditure, even for “smaller” changes like going to bed an hour earlier. This is why there are people who truly feel pain, shame, sorry, guilt…but they simply have no energy to take inspired action. Even if they “go through the motions” once or twice or for one week or one month, eventually they don’t have the energy to sustain lasting changes. Hence the word relapse.
This is why while I don’t deny anyone feeling sorry, because their feelings are their feelings, and why deny anyone’s feelings…I also don’t like to attach expectations to someone’s feelings. Like if I know they feel sorry, then I can’t help but expect them to change. That puts both of us in a pressurized energetic state. Added weight and stress for what?
Long story short, apologies aren’t fake, they’re just not effective. As for what will transpire, best to leave it in the hands of Source.
I believe in karmic justice. It may take time, and it won’t make sense for a long time. But when it comes, it’s calmly satisfying. Just as Source would have it perfectly designed to be.
Also, in my personal interpretation, the two Tarot major arcana cards Justice and Judgement both represent karmic justice; Justice is a swifter turnaround, sometimes more personal, and happens throughout a cycle, or perhaps associated with smaller cycles. Judgement is often done at a collective scale, and occurs at the endings of cycles, usually pretty major ones.
Have you experienced or encountered spiritual ego on your journey? Have you gotten better at identifying it within yourself and others? Do you believe there is karmic justice being served for happenings in other dimensions that may leave no physical evidence in the 3D?