You know that old adage that if you have to tell someone you are something they you’re probably not? You know, like the politicians that tell us their honest or the person who says they are open minded while being judgmental in their next breath? That kinda thing. Well spiritual circles aren’t immune. From time to time I come across someone in the community who is completely tone deaf to what they are saying and how it affects other people and it’s usually this type of message.
I have students who shake their heads because their children just can’t deal with them. It must be because the student is so spiritual and they aren’t interested in hiding it any more. When we look a little deeper the children aren’t necessarily reacting to the spirituality as much as they are reacting to the student changing their relationship without warning, not listening to anything the children have to say about it, discounting their feelings and needs as less than spiritual, then proselytizing in passive aggressive or not so passive ways about how spirituality in general and theirs in particular is the way to enlightenment. Gee! Why wouldn’t any of us be on board with having all of that dumped in our laps unceremoniously???!!! Saying that your spiritual and then using spirituality as a club is proving that old adage right.
I have clients who live their spirituality in their private lives, but live very differently out in the world. Not radically different, they just put on a “normal” suit when they step out the door. If someone asks them about themselves they will trot out the fact that they are spiritual in some form or other like others say they are Baptist or Buddhist or Catholic, etc. But they don’t let their spirituality get in the way of their work or their friends or their choice of activities. It’s like being part of a political party. You are, but it doesn’t really matter until it’s time to vote, right? Otherwise life has no real connection to that. It’s just a fact on a sheet. There’s a huge difference between saying you are something and actually being that thing. If you have to say that you are, then you’re not being it. If you’re being it, then it won’t even cross your mind that you need to say it, even to yourself. It will be…self-evident. You therefore won’t have to say it to others, it will be evident to them as well.
Are there places in your life where you’re claiming to be something instead of being it?