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man sitting on a log at the beach contemplating- soul-searching and truth-seekingLorraine Nilon

Feet-on-the-Ground Spirituality

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4 minute read…

There are many pitfalls that often leave spiritual seekers, even those with the best intentions, to lose themselves to illusions. Illusions conjured by their desire to be spiritual, elite or an attempt to escape their internal turmoil. We have all fallen into them, and some are difficult to detect because they feed our spiritual ego.

It is important to recognise when we are spiritually bypassing our real issues and behaviours.

John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist, in the early 1980s first coined the term spiritual bypassing – “the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to side-step or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds and unfinished development tasks.” This beautifully sums up what many do, often unintentionally and yet with conviction.

It is easy to become lost in denial, especially when we run an internal narrative that feeds the illusion of transcendence or transformation, before we have even identified the truth of our emotional selves.

When we fool ourselves with spiritual beliefs and practices, it becomes easier to oppose being truthful. Life has a way of revealing the truth to us, and all spiritual journeys are fraught with crossroads of decisions that basically come down to either:

  • Acknowledge the rawness of our truth, while being willing to explore the truth with an open mind. Get real about it.

or

  • Cling to the story we want to believe, while protectively deflecting any evidence that proves we don’t understand our truth. Create a distraction that ensures we don’t even look.

We do the latter by ignoring and justifying any behaviour that exposes what is unresolved within or is used to shield us from having to face our own reality.

Spiritual bypassing is telling ourselves what we want to hear to justify our denial of our reality. It is attempting to remain in a performance derived from a spiritual illusion, to not only avoid facing the reality of our emotional issues and behaviours, but to also feel in control of our suppression of them.

Spiritual by-passing: Ignoring the reality of yourself, while clinging to a spiritual belief or illusion that distracts you from being honest. Using spiritual concepts, words and beliefs to deny self-responsibility and soul-accountability. (Sourced from glossary of Spirituality, Evolution & Awakened Consciousness)

Feet-on-the-ground spirituality means the opposite of spiritual bypassing. It means to get real, face our emotional issues and behaviours with honest self-observations. It is being prepared to acknowledge the truth of our unconsciousness and do the work required to resolve it.

Doing the work means to be truthful, acknowledge the emotions, feel the reality of them, develop an understanding through self-reflection and contemplation. And then use that information – awareness, to apply a conscious response to what was once an unconscious aspect of ourselves.

Feet-on-the-ground spirituality is to be spiritual in reality,
not to create an alternate reality to be spiritual in.

When we acknowledge part of any spiritual journey is learning the truth of our emotional reality, we become willing to confront what we have suppressed and hidden within with self-compassion.

Life is a rise and fall from grace journey. We can be operating extremely authentically and then stumble and fall into embodying the unconsciousness of our soul – some refer to it as the shadow-side.

Feet-on-the-ground spirituality means we are willing, sometimes reluctantly, to recognise and take self-responsibility for the energy of our unconsciousness. Spirituality is knowing that we are souls, and when exposed to the truth of our own energy, we accept that there is an opportunity to learn from ourselves. This requires truthfulness, which we all know at times is difficult to muster, as we compete against all the embedded beliefs, fears and triggered emotions that cause us to fall from grace.

Fall from grace is operating separated from our soul’s consciousness – the divinity within, our authenticity. This is, in contrast, to rise with grace, which is to operate in unification with our soul’s consciousness and truth. Spirituality is the journey of creating unity within. Spiritual bypassing is sustaining the separation while believing there is no separation, and filling the void created with spiritual illusions and performances.

Grace stems from our acceptance that it is truth, in all its forms that will aid us to be honestly present, willing to objectively observe ourselves as we endeavour to discover the truth of who we are, as we resolve what oppresses our soul-awareness.

Spirituality is the recognition that there is a continuum to our souls, and life is a part of that journey. When we are willing to resolve what is unresolved within, which is to heal.

Resolving what burdens our soul, enables us to evolve beyond the limitations of our unconsciousness, because we will no longer carry the energy that burdens our soul.

Feet-on-the-ground spirituality is honouring the consciousness of who we naturally are and of our origins, by being prepared to face, learn from and deal with what impedes our relationship with truth. It is then the practice of being truthful, especially to ourselves about ourselves. Applying what we learn to our day-to-day existence. This improves our relationship with ourselves – our souls, truth and our origins. It also enables our consciousness to flow freely, expanding our awareness of truth. This is evolution.

Feet-on-the-ground spirituality is to be conscious of your soul journey,
seeking what nurtures your soul, while respecting that life and
all the messy emotional adventures are positioning you to
discover the present reality of yourself.

I believe if you took the time to continue to read this to the end, you seek to be spiritually authentic.

Insight & Awareness Self-Help Books

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3.40 minute read…

Insight & Awareness books

do not sit comfortably in the tradition of ‘self-help’ books.

If you are only driven by achieving an outcome, fixated on “your wants”, seeking to manifest your will, or on the chase to control life, these books will irritate you. They are not manuals that tell you to follow specific instructions or adhere to the advice. They layout a landscape, remove the cloaks of camouflage so that you can journey through, building your awareness, while uncovering what you recognise.

They provide a map highlighting what to contemplate and supply a platform for you to become self-reflective. This starts with what is written and how it relates to you, from there you will become more aware of yourself.

Each book is an introspective journey, an expedition—a way of exploring your inner-self.

The books provide an opportunity to discover the inner obstacles to knowing and nurturing your soul. They work best when you accept and seek to find all that is carried, generated and emanated from your soul. These books create a junction of circumstances that provide an opportunity to understand your truth, to soul-search and to accept the complexity and simplicity of your reality. Your life experiences and the books insightful information as well as your curiosity combine, enabling you to intentionally participate in your evolutionary journey. 

Insight & Awareness books meet you where you are at, and

shows you to perspectives that are hidden within you.

You are already on a soul journey; it is called life, and life is a messy affair. You will experience regret, disappointment, grief, losses, failure and be shocked by the unexpected. You will also experience joy, excitement, love, successes and be pleasantly surprised by the unexpected. That’s life, one big bag of mixed emotions and events.

Learning from life is not a straightforward event nor is it neat and tidy; it is messy because we are attempting to deal with the irrationality of our emotions as we head towards the unknown. At times learning is a chaotic adventure and each exploration can highlight more than we bargained for; it is a dynamic multi-stranded journey.

Learning requires us to acknowledge ourselves and reality. Acknowledgement allows us to progress and to expand our awareness. Insight & Awareness books, unravel the complexities of life and present it to you, offering the opportunity to learn from what you have experienced.   

Life is walking a path,

the catch is learning how to look up and see the view.

Insight & Awareness books reveal the purpose of life and why you are here. They support you to acknowledge the meaningfulness of your experiences and highlight what matters. What you take notice of and resonate with depends on where you have set the binoculars. You can read the same information at different times and you’ll become aware of something new. (Have fun experimenting with this concept.) As your awareness increases, you’ll recognise a deeper layer to what you are reading.

Our life purpose is about realising we belong in consciousness. Knowing what that means takes a self-discovery journey, one that lasts a lifetime and beyond. Developing an honest relationship with ourselves, others, life, the truth and our origins, is an evolutionary endeavour—a continuous one.

Insight & Awareness books don’t ask you to get on a spiritual journey, they inform you that you are already on one. Living in all its forms is a spiritual journey. When you recognise this, it gives greater meaning to all you have experienced and are experiencing.

The information, stories and exercises enlighten you to the possibility of turning pain into insight. Trauma into resilience. Confusion into clarity and much more. They demonstrate why it is worth walking towards what was once ran from and instead of carrying what is suppressed, get it out, deal with it and allow yourself to grow. With a new perspective emotional and spiritual growth is inevitable.

Carrying our emotional baggage on a merry-go-round of soul oppression, sustains what we want to run from. So, deal with or don’t deal with the reality of yourself, it is a choice. These books reveal an often-hidden reality that we are constantly choosing either to deal with reality or to ignore it. The latter leaves us trapped in our own emotional prisons, stuck on the merry-go-round of repeat, repeat, miss the point, repeat, repeat, miss the point. 

Insight & Awareness books are thought-provoking, asking you to examine your beliefs, to feel your reactions and to listen to your soul. They are more than just books they are invitations, explorations and create opportunities to get honest. They assist the development of your clarity and expand your understanding of being a significant soul in a larger evolutionary story.

What resonates with your soul becomes illuminated; it may answer a question, open a door to more questions or enable you to recognise and appreciate yourself. Sometimes you’ll be confronted, staring down the barrel of what you wanted to ignore. Other times you’ll scratch your head, knowing there is something you want to grasp and it may take more time or another experience before you get it. Sometimes you’ll celebrate the pieces falling in place and other times it reaffirms what you already knew. 

Insight & Awareness are books for your soul!