Spiritual Toxicity

This week’s topic is something that I have noticed over the years in my coaching business that I wanted to share with you, and it's the idea of spiritual toxicity.

I’ve had a client whom I’ve done everything with – from health coaching to energy healing – and she requested to talk about this kind of emergence. It appears like online coaching, specifically in the areas of spirituality. I myself have taken a step back from calling myself a spiritual coach just because I've seen and witnessed outside of me, and I've also had clients come to me that have had previous bad experiences. And I'm going to tell you that it happens every once in a while. I guess I should say that healers and coaches step into this space to heal themselves.

I've been coaching for twelve years now and that’s probably how I entered this space. I began health coaching because I had had so many amazing results in my own health crisis and that of my daughter and my family that I really need to share this. But, it’s different when you’ve been coaching long enough and when you’re certified for what you’re doing. When you actually have the skills and you've been trained in some way and you've had the practice, you realize that it is not about you anymore. It is about your community.

And what I'm finding is that there’s a lot of coaches or people calling themselves “coaches” that are really influencers in the online world that are in the space because they're still healing themselves. And so if you happen to be a coach or a healer in this space and you're listening to this, it's really important for you to keep whatever it is that you're healing sacred until you're through it. You don't want to ever share from a place of when you're totally in that wounded place. And it's important for us as coaches and healers to find that support so that when we show up in groups to speak in or in a coaching session, we are completely grounded and open and ready to hold the space and facilitate transformation, healing and guidance for our clients.

And so we're going to cover spiritual toxicity today, and it's really geared towards also the space of coaching in general. This blog may even bring up some business coaching and life coaching because I'm starting to see this trend in the online coaching business that really started blowing up even more since the pandemic because a lot of people are realizing that we can work from home.

Many people are really wanting to step away from the corporate world because they feel a lack of trust in structures and organizations. And I just want to say to those people, if you are a person considering doing that, just know that it's important to find yourself a good, solid coach and mentor and also have compassion and patience in that space.

I have a lot of women that come to me that feel or believe or want to just know that you can just magically build an online business and attract clients and replace your current income overnight. But it doesn't work like that. And if it does, it's probably not sustainable. So, not to sound like the negative Nellie, I am just being the realist here. And this is what I'm going to talk about today in spiritual toxicity.

So the number one thing I want to talk about is spiritual bypassing. If we can all show up from a place of recognizing our own triggers and activations rather than projecting onto other people, then we can have much healthier communication with one another. When we can show up in a conversation and be really honest about where we're coming from and how we're feeling and what we need, it shifts everything. One of the tools I love is the four-step process of nonviolent communication. And this is not only in our conversations with other people, but most especially our conversations with ourselves. It's checking in with the facts, not the emotions. Checking in with the feeling that you're having the sensation, which is not a projection of what somebody else is doing and identifying our need, and then from there, making a request. It's a really amazing, simple, four-step process that you can complete in a matter of seconds. And I would say that I practice it daily with myself. I practice it in conversations with myself, but then it also works really well in my conversations with other people.

So what is spiritual bypassing? Spiritual bypassing is avoiding the shitty stuff in the world because it's there. We’re human and we will all go through the not-so-good stuff. A good example of spiritual bypassing is, let’s say you have a friend who claims she is a spiritual person, but then when you have something that you're really struggling with and you're really needing support in navigating that, she disappears because she can't handle it.

And so find a coach or a mentor that can hold all of that for you, even the shitty stuff in the world, because what a coach and a mentor does is they hear that and they help you move forward. A coach or a mentor is different from a therapist, where you may spend a lot of time in the story of the past and really try to navigate what that trauma response is. With a coach or a mentor, you may dip your toe in that and then they help to move you forward.

However, in the spiritual community, and this is based on feedback that women have come to me with previous coaches, is that this space just wasn't held for them.And it was traumatic for them because they believed when they were entering that relationship that they were going to get the results they wanted, but they didn't have the tools or the guidance to work through the really challenging things that will come up before you grow and expand in your life.

It's just like giving birth. There's always a contraction before an expansion. It's the cycle of life. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm willing to be wrong. It's my belief. In my opinion, everything is in a cycle of contraction and expansion. And if you're willing to go into the contraction and be present with it, breathing into it, then the expansion on the other side, you will get to relax into it with ease and just welcome all that's coming to.

But when you resist the contraction, it's really painful. So to my ladies here that have given natural or vaginal birth, you know what I'm talking about. And that is the cycle of life. It's like the seasons that we have, it's the moon phases that we have. It's empowering to be in the space where you can be with all of the uncomfortable stuff, and it's wonderful to have a coach that will hold that space for you where you feel safe, where you can trust.

So spiritual bypassing is extremely unhealthy. It looks like pretending like everything is rainbows and unicorns. It’s pretending like everything's really awesome and only talking about the positive stuff, but not willing to hold the space for difficult conversations.

The second thing I want to talk about is the concept of the law of attraction, although I love many parts of it. I do believe in reframing things to shift your perception to welcome in more of what you want in your life. I do believe in the power of our mindset and then shifting energetically into a new perception that creates a new reality which is shifting our consciousness. And I do believe that the experiences that happen in our life are there to reflect back to us parts of ourselves. But that doesn't mean that we're broken. It doesn't mean that we need to be healed. It doesn't mean that we're wrong. As a matter of fact, I don't even think anybody's ever really healed. I think that we're all transmuting and shifting in “healing” in the present moment. Meaning, we're really just shifting it. You're just in it. We're just in the flow. It's a state of presence. It's a state of being that when we have conversations with people, every conversation in our life is an opportunity to notice and learn something about ourselves. It's also an opportunity to learn about that person. But we may notice sensations in our body that we might feel a little triggered or activated. We don't have to judge it, we don't have to label it, but just lean into it and be curious about it.

When something happens and you notice that you’re feeling some kind of emotion towards it, either anger or sadness or resentful, you can ask yourself, “What is that about?” But, don’t make anybody else, including yourself, wrong. Just be open to the curiosity of relationships rather than having to label or identify or project anything.

Talking about the law of attraction, I sometimes hear coaches say, “Well, if this happened to you, look at what you did to attract this.” Ouch, right? Nobody who's in a place of feeling vulnerable ever wants to hear that. Now, in my opinion, it's an opportunity to become curious. There's a difference in the energy. Rather than saying, “what did you do to attract this?”, be curious about the entire experience, the way that it felt for the other person, the way that you felt in that experience. Because maybe there's something to lean into and to gather and to learn from. Maybe not. There are times where people are just jerks, 100%. There are going to be those times where maybe you did attract an unhealthy relationship. That happens. But that doesn't make it okay for people to be total jerks. And there are a lot of manipulative people, especially in the spiritual and coaching space. And I don't want to say that to sound negative, but we think that when we enter this space, it's going to be safe and sacred, and it should be. It 100% should be, and it can be. 

In the future, I will also share with you ways to empower you to interview a coach and a mentor that you want to hire. Because I think that's what's missing right now. I think that we're in a space of online coaching. It's like we get an image through social media and we don't really know what to trust or believe because sometimes, it doesn't feel authentic, and sometimes it's not because influencers might not be coaches.

Sometimes, we enter marriages that are unhealthy. We enter friendships and partnerships or business partnerships that are unhealthy. Or we may even have a neighbor, or somebody in the community that we don't jive with. And sometimes, something comes up and somebody says something and it hurts. Sometimes, somebody might be projecting something onto you or you're projecting something onto somebody else.  So when people say, “what did you do to attract this?” I don't like that. That doesn't sit well with me. I do believe that we can shift things. I think we can gather information in an empowering way and that we can shift what's our energy so that we can show up differently in it.

See, the difference is taking the experience as an empowering way to move forward. I do believe that. And a good coach or mentor should hold the space for that. And not the space of, “if this terrible thing happened to you, then maybe you should take a look at where you're misaligned.” That doesn't feel good for people who are showing up vulnerable.

The third thing that comes through that can be a little bit toxic is the word manifestation. Manifestation requires a line to action. It requires a shift in the consciousness. But, there is this element sometimes in the spiritual community of just calling it in and it will happen. And yes, that's part of it if you believe it, if you can shift it. But, it's also about what aligned action you can take to bring this into human form.

We are not here to ascend out of the body. We are here to embody spirit as humans. And that is the difference between ascension and embodiment. And so spiritual bypassing sometimes can be like the avoidance of the pain and difficulty in the human experience. And the reason I get this is because about five years ago, when I was new on a different level on my spiritual path, I was doing this. I was meditating for 20 minutes a morning and it was almost like an out of body experience for me and I struggled to come back in and face reality. I shared this with one of my mentors and she told me to try and meditate with my eyes open. I tried it so I could stay more present, and it became very clear to me that we are here to have this experience and we don't have to have the experience in pain. We can have a lot of joy. We can have all of it. That's what the human experience is.

The fourth thing to be aware of that I would consider spiritual toxicity is manipulation. I've talked about spiritual narcissism. When I talk about the space of healers and coaches entering the space because they need to be healed, be really cautious and mindful as you navigate conversations with people and notice when you're in that. Always remember that coaches and healers are human, too. They're perfectly imperfect. But, if there's a consistent feeling that they're not providing the space and showing up for you, then maybe have that conversation with them and let them know how it feels. If they're holding the space for a coaching session and you're asking questions and they aren't really willing to dive into what's not working for you, they're not really willing to have those difficult conversations. They might just be coming from a place of wanting to attract the right community and relating to them like we do both of this. When you're in that actual sacred space of one on one coaching session or a group session, it should, from a coach's perspective, be very much a 100% all about the client and the healers as well.

If you're an intuitive healer or an energy healer – and I've done this work so I know – you really got to clear yourself first before you can hold space for anybody else. You have to give yourself permission to have that time before the session to clear anything from any previous session to clear yourself first. Commitment to that clarity is important before you hold the space for somebody else.

Manipulation has been showing up, interestingly, in the online community. And from my perspective, all of this is my opinion, what people have shared with me, and I need to speak about it because I myself have invested in coaches that didn't really have coaching skills. So I get that there are so many people out there that you could choose to spend your resources with – your time and money, and I’m not just talking about coaches and healers, but even your friends.

If somebody is not willing to show up for you when you're really struggling, that is not a true friend, that is not a true coach. That is not a sacred space, in my opinion. I think it's really important to make sure that you're there and to step up and really show up as a friend or a coach or a mentor. That's when you really need to step in but without enabling. There should be a balance between truth and compassion. Too much truth can be harsh. Too much compassion can be enabling. So, from that perspective, make sure that the relationship is mutually giving and receiving 100%, because sometimes there are those people that are really too much all into their story.

Manipulation can show up when, especially with online coaches where they're just really focused on results. So if you hear somebody saying that they can promise you you're going to make this amount of money or you're going to find this soulmate or you're going to lose this much weight, I don't know how that's possible. I don't know how anybody can promise results like that.

Now, they can share with you client results, which I think is great. But if you notice, there's a lot of people showing up online that are business coaches, because I'm looking to hire a business coach right now. I've had a couple of business coaches. I've had one every year since 2018. I'm looking for a new business coach. I don't want to hear about how much my business coach is making. I want to hear about the structure and the strategies that they share that have helped their clients. I've also witnessed some coaches showing up and going all-in at this law of attraction where they believe that you have to spend more money to make more money kind-of-thing.

Now, I firmly believe that it’s an invitation to lean into trust when you invest in yourself, in a coach and in co-creating with a coach. But I can tell you from all the different mastermind or coaching programs I've been in, that I've always had higher results than anybody else, and it had nothing to really completely do with the coach. There was guidance there, but it had to do with my willingness to show up, to be accountable and my commitment. So even though I'm a coach, I'm telling you that we do all take self responsibility for our experiences. Nobody's here to save us. Nobody's here to fix us. Nobody's here to completely magically change everything in our life. Somebody can be there to guide you and to show you the way, but ultimately, it comes down to you and me and us to co-create our experience and to show up. And that's the truth – nobody's coming to save you, nobody's coming to fix you, not even your husband or your wife. It's all on you.

Now manipulation shows up more in broken promises. And I think social media makes it really easy for people to show up unauthentically. You might have to do a little research on this aspect, but nowadays it's really easy for social media influencers to sell the idea of something that we wish we had, but are they really living it?

If you're going to hire a business mentor or life coach, take a look at everything that they share online. How are they? What is the rest of their life like? Based on your values, be curious about the person that you're thinking about hiring because coaches these days are charging a whole lot of money for coaching packages because they are offering transformation and because transformation will take you so much farther. And it's actually a beautiful way to offer transformation when it's done right.

And so in order to avoid this feeling of being manipulated, which people have shared with me, they have felt the unauthenticity from some business mentors or life coaches . I invite you to be really present. First of all, don't spend a lot of time on social media. If there's somebody that you're thinking about hiring, you need to connect with that person on the phone. Don't ever hire a person without connecting on the phone and really understanding their energy. I’m going to share with you tips in the future on how you can equip yourself with some empowering questions to basically qualify your coach or your mentor. So it's really important that you also enter that space from a place of being really grounded and understanding what it is that you need. Because if you enter a relationship, any relationship, from a trauma response, it's already unhealthy, in my opinion. So when we can enter from a really grounded place and feel really centered and understand what is coming up for us and what we need, we can enter that relationship in a healthy way. We can communicate more openly, we can speak our truth, but it really takes commitment and practice to understand how we're feeling and what we need. And many of us have become disconnected. We have a heart wall up. And that's because we've become disconnected because it's been uncomfortable to be connected. We feel sensitive. We feel. Maybe you can identify as an empath and notice that it's challenging. I will tell you, as an empowered empath myself, that it is an invitation for self work.

As a recap, we talked about spiritual bypassing, the law of attraction, manifestation, and manipulation. So I want you to really take away that if you're going through something challenging right now, you didn't do anything wrong. You don't deserve that. You didn't attract that. It's information that you can use to learn from it and to take the next step forward. If you're in something really, really difficult right now, give yourself compassion for where you are. You didn't do anything wrong to attract this. You are not broken.

You do not need to be fixed. You don't need to be healed. Remember that everything is a process and a journey and to keep taking that next step forward. People will show up in your life at the right time. And so it is your choice if you're willing to accept that support or not. It will happen randomly. Somebody will send a podcast to you, or you hear a name three times in two days or a post shows up and be curious about those coincidences.

Finally, the fifth and last point I want to share is scarcity. Scarcity is a lack of trust, in my opinion, period. How is scarcity spiritual at all? If we're going to wrap this in the spiritual context, everyone was born and created from unconditional love by God. You can call it source energy, the divine, or the universe. And so there is nothing you have to do. There is nothing you have to do to earn love. Nothing. Every single person on this planet, no matter how crappy they are, no matter what they've done, is born and created from the unconditional love of God.

Now, I know it's hard to have compassion for people who've done horrible things, but they're hurting in some way. They may have been doing horrible things for so long, they don't even know anymore. But at some point in time, that person was a child. That person was a baby that came into this world with needs, probably to be loved by mom. The first need an infant has is food, right? And so mom provides that to be loved and nurtured, and by dad, too. But I'm thinking more in the sense of what we need for survival. We need food. We need love. So scarcity, to me, is not spiritual. If people are using negative words, if people are using harsh words, if people are not taking self responsibility for the way that they show up, if people are blaming or projecting, if people are speaking in terms of manipulation, at the end of the day, we're all responsible for our own experience. I'm talking about trusting in yourself, trusting in God, trusting in the overall experience.

There are broken pieces. There are broken people in every form of human expression on this planet. And people make mistakes. But that doesn't mean that it's okay for people to act a certain way. You have to be mindful when you hear people talk in an angry and resentful voice, and when they talk in terms of scarcity or too much lack of trust and notice for yourself, because I think that there's a really delicate fine line to walk in that space. I myself don't think that I have mastered it. 

It takes a special kind of person to be able to come from a place of having a passion to create change without letting their own internal anger sort of cross the boundary or their own internal scarcity or lack of trust. It's a fine line to walk. I think it's a really delicate space, the space between scarcity and trust or lack and moving into what I like to call prosperity consciousness. There is a shadow to living in that consciousness of trust, too, because it's really all about trusting yourself and your connection to grace. That's really what it's about. But so many of us have become disconnected from that feeling or sensation.

I want to encourage you to know that there are a lot of really good, heartfelt, beautiful people out there willing to hold space for your transformation and also in spiritual communities. And just know that everybody in those communities is also human. And so we're all navigating and we all make mistakes. I've made a lot of mistakes and I'm willing to talk about them. I'm also willing to lean in, learn and grow from them. And there are beautiful communities where it’s a really beautiful space for transformation to invite trust in for growth, for healers and coaches and women, mothers, or corporate women.

If you've had a bad experience in the past, I hope that something that I shared with you can help you and give you the confidence to move forward and be supported in some type of tribe or community or sisterhood that feels really good for you. And to my brothers out there, you as well. I happen to just create space for women. I've held space for men healing at retreats, and it was just absolutely beautiful. So I'm sending you all love as well, because without you, we won't be uplifted in the way that we can be. So you all matter, too.

P.S.

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Jen Mons is an author, speaker, mentor and coach for high achieving purpose driven ready to shift the paradigm of feminine leadership and redefine excellence and wealth through 5 Element Wellth, Prosperity, Journaling and Soul Wisdom Imprinting.