How to Create Boundaries With Challenging Family Members

(Or exit your birth family altogether)

Creating boundaries with challenging family members can be very difficult, but it’s essential for maintaining healthy relationships, preserving your wellbeing and creating a life path that is aligned with your authentic Self. 

When we learn to create appropriate boundaries with our family members, we can recalibrate old dynamics, uplift our other more aligned relationships, and heal oppressive patterns carried from prior lifetimes. 

While this is an important process that can help you empower yourself and heal old wounds, creating boundaries with family members can create a great deal of unnecessary guilt, shame, and regret – so you must tread this pursuit carefully and with great attention to your thoughts, feelings, and attitudes along the way.

Even more challenging is saying goodbye to family members who have proven their lack of respect and love for us. It’s with these relationships that we must begin to seek the deepest healing and the deepest forgiveness before we cut cords with them. 

Why it’s so difficult to create boundaries with family

Low Self-worth and Self-esteem, as well as a fear of conflict or rejection can make it difficult to express ourselves and to assert our needs in general. With family, it is even more difficult – often due to the following:

• Our conditioning around our cultures, families, society
• Our traumas and triggers
• Our projections and attitudes
• Our inability to release the past and forgive ourselves and others
• Our unwillingness to perform proper Self-inquiry toward our illumination

After all, family is merely a contrivance – a karmic engine that is neither required nor necessary for your healing, happiness, personal development, or liberation. In fact, your family might be what’s preventing you from fully healing in this lifetime.

While setting boundaries (and saying goodbye) can be uncomfortable, it is quite often essential to our growth and peacefulness. Boundaries are also helpful to everyone involved, including the family members that we confront, breaking all members of the unit out of ancestral conditioning, codependence, oppression, and dependencies on outdated and harmful temporary Self-identities.

Throughout this life and prior lives, we each develop personas around our roles in families. When we recalibrate the old identities and patterns, we help everyone grow beyond the limits of their outdated limited projections, beliefs, attitudes, and identities. 

Discover your boundaries

Begin your journey to better boundaries  by assessing your own feelings, emotions, projections, beliefs, attitudes, needs, values, and limits. Imagine your most healed Self and commit to protecting her for all time. Determine and conjure the boundaries necessary for your emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual health. After all, Self-realization can be quite difficult if you’re continually projecting and arguing with old versions of your Self.

Setting healthy boundaries begins with Self-inquiry – truly knowing your Self. 

This includes: 

• Sensing into and releasing trapped emotions
• Understanding your attributes and releasing those that are unworthy of a fully healed Self
• Focused attention on your will to forgive
• A resolute mind that seeks liberation
• Prayer and meditation
• Journal writing

Oftentimes, we drag ourselves into other people’s dramas and agendas because we enjoy this type of addiction and we simply refuse to focus on our own lives.  

Learn to stay present with your Self and focus on creating your life in a way that feels nourishing and satisfying to you. No one is coming to save you, so dig deep and decide who you want to be and what your life will one day include.

Allow and release your emotions

Seeking to improve your dynamics with family members can bring up difficult emotions stemming from old traumas. 

As children, we were dependent on our family for everything. If we grew up in toxic environments, we created a variety of coping patterns to help us accept and deal with the reality around us. 

Some of these mechanisms might have been conflict avoidance, passive aggressive communication, obsessions with our projections, desires around being liked and needing other people’s approval, needing to appear to be someone you are not, and a variety of other ways that involve pleasing those around you. When we seek to release these coping mechanisms in favor of honest Self-expression, it can trigger deep fears and open old wounds. 

Take the time to work with your emotions, Learn how to allow and release these emotions. You might want to explore my Connect & Let Go Process and The Sedona Method. Journal or do other practices. A therapist, intuitive coach, or healer might be helpful. 

Learn about healthy boundaries

Your family was your world when you were a child. Even as adults we can continue to be deeply involved with our families, not yet having created our own lives. And all of this projection around family might merely and solely be happening within our own minds. 

We need to venture beyond our minds’ obsessions and our family’s dogma to evolve. Learning about healthy relating, boundaries, and goodbyes can help you understand your Self and your family. 

Forgive

Forgiving family members can be difficult, but it is helpful and necessary to our healing and evolution. Doing deep inner work, we might also find the resolve within to release old dynamics and evolve. If we so choose, we can clear the slate and start anew. 

Forgiveness is challenging inner work that pushes us to see everything more clearly, including ourselves, and to take ownership for our lives. To be truly Self-reliant means that we take responsibility for everything in our lives. Once we do this, we can more easily forgive.

While you don’t need to forgive to set boundaries, choosing to do this deeper work can help you find more peace, resolve, healing, and illumination.

As an adult, you are responsible for your actions and wellbeing. No one can go back in time and undo what was done. And while some families are abusive and neglectful, other families are simply imperfect due to being…you know, human. 

Sometimes there is simply no blame to be laid at anyone’s feet, just a complex human experience that results in pain. Allow your Self to grieve and rage in healthy ways as you need, and commit to letting go of the past. 

In all things, lay your burdens at the feet of The Divine, and seek Her friendship. She is the only one who can walk with you for all time.

Have compassion and patience

Don’t be embarrassed if you find it difficult to express your boundaries – have compassion and patience for your Self. You don’t need to go anywhere guns blazing and be the strongest possible version of your Self. Just blurt them out, text them, send a letter – do whatever you need to communicate your boundaries to your satisfaction.

You can also take your time and make incremental changes. At times, you might be harsher than you wish you were – other times softer than you wish you were. It is perfectly normal to have a process – and none of it has to be perfect.

Start with love and escalate as needed

Setting boundaries does not mean that we need to be aggressive. Others don’t even necessarily need to know you are setting a boundary – it is enough that they experience it and the dynamic shifts in favor of your peacefulness and wellbeing. 

It is okay to express a boundary lovingly and peacefully. If you are met with aggression, manipulation or abuse, you can respond adequately.  As you express new boundaries, it is bound that some loved ones will be confused or worried by this change. They might need time to adjust, accept and integrate. After all, you are addressing habits that have been engrained for a long time. 

It is possible some family members will prove unloving and intolerant, unable to move beyond their perspective and seek to understand you. While this is painful and difficult to confront, it is also essential to be aware of the quality of our relationships.

Sometimes, no matter what we say or do, our family members will turn our requirements and declarations into dramatic events to appease their projections of what they believe family should be. They might love using you as their foil or antagonist so they can feel better about themselves and their desires and beliefs. We never know what dark and embedded projections, patterns, attitudes, and beliefs are brewing within the members of our families. After all, a family is nothing but a group of strangers fighting over limited resources.

You might find it helpful to write down your boundaries, and make a plan for what to say and when. You might need a strategy for certain dynamics. 

You might also write about who you feel each person is within your family. Explore their attributes and seek to understand them. It’s in this way we can learn to better understand ourselves.

If you work with a loving, intuitive coach or therapist, they can help you articulate your boundaries in ways that are healthy and correct for you.

Allow others their process

While we change the dynamics in our relationships through our own action and will, it can take others some time to adjust to new realities. Quite possibly, they never experienced healthy boundaries and might take your needs, disagreement, or exit as outright rejection. It is important to allow for their process to unfold as well. You need not be involved in what they project, need, feel, or do. That’s their business. Focus on your Self.

Those who love you and truly want you in their lives will choose to make adjustments even if it is difficult and it takes them some time. 

Most families will not make much of an adjustment, so prepare your Self for a deep, inner journey. If something positive emerges, consider it a gift from The Divine.

Be consistent

Consistency is key to enforcing boundaries. Don’t waiver on your boundaries unless you genuinely feel the need to adjust them for a valid reason. It is up to you to show others that your boundaries are important to you. 

Sometimes as we set boundaries with our family for the first time, we might need these to be more stringent. We might need time away to heal old wounds or might find it difficult to deal with specific aspects for a certain period. It is okay to do any of these things. We are not required to show up in a specific way.  

Meditate often and be focused

Be clear and focused on your intentions and plan. This will help you set boundaries. Meditate often because this will help you be more present to how you truly feel. Instead of reacting, you can respond firmly and clearly – because you are aware of your Self. Meditation gives us this gift.

Our conditioned patterns tend to take over when we engage family. After all, we have been engaged in these dynamics for a long time, and most likely amid many prior lives. If you want to truly and deeply honor yourself, you need to be focused, present, and aware. 

Meditation and other mindfulness practices will help you see your Self and others more clearly, and help you respond better. Even if you let something go in the moment, you can become more quickly aware of your emotional response following your interactions. 

Focus on your healing and wellbeing

When you focus on your healing and growing in self-love, you become more aware of what you need to reject and accept in your life. The more you are in touch with your light body, the more you will be clear about what belongs in your life and what does not. 

Reevaluate and adjust 

As your circumstances change or relationships evolve, revisit and adjust your boundaries accordingly. What worked in the past may need modification in the future. And never expect others to change. It’s their right to stay where they are. In fact, it might be necessary for their karma and other influencing energies and factors. Remain focused on your Self.

With more Self-inquiry, meditation, and healing, you might find you do not need your family in any way. Releasing them might be the best thing for your evolution. After all, Siddhartha left his wife and newborn child to seek liberation and become The Buddha. You can certainly evolve beyond needing a family if that is what you wish. 

That said, after substantial effort and inner work, you might feel more open to spending a bit of time with prior troubling family members. It’s quite possible that others might uplevel and meet you where you are. You might also find that over time, your needs change.

Remain focused within, releasing old emotions, beliefs, attitudes, and patterns to avail your Self to the path of awakening, illumination, and Self-realization. To be liberated, your life might unfold in ways you cannot predict at this time. 

Remember: Your contract is not with individuals, it is with The Universe and The Divine. 

The Sacred Storm: Embracing the Journey of Boundaries, Karma, and Devotion

The sutras are like keys to a locked door inside you – helping you find your way through pain and escape paradigms that no longer serve your soul. They awaken the sharpness of your discernment, showing you exactly where you stand, and perhaps more importantly, where you need to go. They don’t just introduce you to the concept of dharma – they pull you into it, asking you to call upon the Dharma Protector for guidance. They push you to confront your confusion, and in the process, they awaken you to the deep truth that this journey is yours, not anyone else’s.

This is why boundaries and detachment are crucial in every relationship – most especially romantic ones. Romantic entanglements have a special way of tangling your essence into another’s. But here’s the thing: to honor someone’s path, you must protect not only your karma but theirs as well. We have to know when to speak, when to act, when to step in. And you know what? It’s not that often. In all relationships, knowing when NOT to act is an act of love.

You are not here to solve anyone’s storm, just as they are not here to solve yours. Their karma, like yours, has work to do. To reach this place of spiritual maturity – this clarity – you have to articulate your own journey. You must confront the rawness of your experience. Let ALL the emotions surface, let the images that haunt you rise to consciousness. Every fragment, every hidden scar, has to be released. That’s the work. It’s your work.

And let’s get real for a second. What do you think Buddha and Jesus were doing in the desert? Talking to bunnies?Absolutely not. They were confronting every shadow, every wound, every attachment, across all dimensions of time and space. They allowed their karma to surface, shake them, and break them wide open. Their so-called solitude was a meeting with their storms – storms that had nothing to do with other people. They faced their own inner chaos, their own deep-rooted karma.

And you, too, have a storm within you. It’s not someone else’s storm. It’s yours, deeply personal, forged by your soul’s journey, influenced by the cosmos and your past actions, thoughts, and intentions. It’s your fucking storm. And just as you must face yours, you must allow others to face theirs.

So here’s where boundaries become sacred. Protect other people’s storms. Let them rage, let them unfold, so that they can learn to navigate their own inner turmoil and find their own light. You can nudge, you can love, you can suggest, you can nurture – but you CANNOT reduce their power by commanding their storm. You cannot take their lessons from them. To do so is to rob them of their own evolution.

This is where the true meaning of devotion comes in. Be devotional not just to the people you love, but to their process. Be devoted to your own process, to your own expansion. Your light will grow as you respect the boundaries of their soul’s path. And as your light grows, it doesn’t just illuminate your journey – it spreads across the universe, helping others in ways you can’t even perceive.

You must learn to become more spacious, more expanded, more free. This is done through the deep inner work, the kind that requires confronting the darkest corners of your being. Embrace the brightest frequency within you – honor the purest, most untouched version of yourself, the part that can protect you without needing shields. As you honor your own purity, you learn to protect others toward their own expansion. You become a lighthouse in the storm, not a boat pulling them out before they’ve learned how to swim.

To get here, you must embrace every raw, unfiltered piece of your soul. Every failure, every joy, every wound. As you release it all, you give room for your true self to breathe and expand. This isn’t a process of becoming someone else – it’s about returning to the essence of who you are. That version of you that is pure light, pure frequency, pure divine energy.

Boundaries, detachment, and love are the tools. They are the methods through which you protect others and protect yourself. Without them, you bleed into others’ journeys, smudging the sacred lines of karma and keeping both them and you trapped in cycles that aren’t meant to be shared. You must honor those lines. When you act out of love and detachment, you are allowing their karma to be theirs, while staying aligned with your own path.

We are all tasked with carrying out this deep spiritual work, not just in solitude but in the context of our relationships – romantic, familial, and otherwise. Relationships are where karma plays out the loudest, where we are tested the most. But relationships are not about completion or saving anyone else. They are mirrors to your own process. They reflect where you’re at in your soul’s journey, showing you what still needs to be addressed within yourself.

You cannot hide behind the illusion that love means rescuing or fixing. Love means honoring boundaries, stepping back, and letting others be. It means loving with full awareness that their path is theirs alone. You can love deeply without getting entangled in their storm.

And if you want to become truly free, to experience divine grace, then devote every action, every thought, every intention as worship. Worship not in the religious sense but in the sense of reverence – for yourself, for others, for this incredible journey we’re all on. This is how you expand your light and become an anchor for the universe. This is how you align with the dharma, how you honor the deeper truths that guide you.

So the next time you find yourself wanting to intervene, wanting to save, stop. Pause. Ask yourself: am I protecting their karma by stepping back? Am I honoring their journey by letting them face their storm? Am I acting out of detached love, or am I acting from fear of losing them or being rejected?

True spiritual expansion comes from recognizing that every person’s storm is sacred. Let your own storm rage when it must. Let their storms rage too. Protect the boundaries, honor the storms, and from this place of deep knowing, watch as the universe opens itself to you. This is the sacred path.

Embrace the storm, honor the journey, and become the light.

The Pitfalls of Spiritual Candy

“Spiritual Candy comprises the content and practices that over-validate your temporary Self-identity, suspicions, assumptions, conspiracies, past times, and ego. Spiritual Candy keeps you distracted and running in place rather than fortified and moving valiantly toward Self-reliance. Spirituality is not about angels and aliens; it’s not about crystals and feeling great all the time. It’s about diving deeply into your Self to heal the root causes of your pain so you can merge with The Divine and unveil and empower your purest and most authentic Self.” ~ Paul Wagner

A while back, I coined the term “Spiritual Candy,” referring to content and practices that, instead of nourishing one’s spiritual journey, often serve to over-validate the temporary self-identity, reinforce suspicions, indulge assumptions, delve into conspiracies, dwell on past experiences, and bolster the ego. Spiritual Candy is enticing but superficial, offering fleeting satisfaction while diverting us from genuine spiritual growth.

We’ve all been there, right? We crave validation and encouragement. We see the glitter and light in a post and feel temporarily peaceful or nourished. While Spiritual Candy can feel good – even timely, it can become addictive and eventually work against us.

Truly, we are called to know and do the deeper work. 

Are you ready?

Understanding Spiritual Candy:

My definition of Spiritual Candy emphasizes the allure of quick fixes and surface-level routines and practices. It’s the spiritual equivalent of indulging in sugary snacks – enjoyable in the moment but lacking in long-term sustenance. You don’t want to be a Spiritual Diabetic, right? Of course not. 

In today’s age of readily available information and instant gratification, the appeal of Spiritual Candy can be particularly strong.

Everybody is hurting or broken, or at the very least, feeling sad or anxious for more than an hour daily. 

We all need healing, but healing must come from our solo journey within.

Signs When Spiritual Candy is Not Helpful:

Distracting from Inner Work: One of the primary signs that Spiritual Candy is not aiding your spiritual journey is when it consistently keeps you distracted from delving deeply into your inner Self. Your personal Spiritual Candy might involve scrolling through validating images or taking empowerment workshops that thrill your senses and ego, offering little meat on the bones.

True spiritual growth often involves confronting and healing the root causes of your pain, which requires introspection leading to a deep and confronting Self-awareness. 

If your spiritual pursuits focus solely on external phenomena or fleeting pleasures, they might lead you astray. 

Over time, we become drunk on the fermented treats of influencers’ candy and lose sight of the deeper journey and our purest Selves.

Reinforcing Ego and Assumptions: Spiritual Candy tends to reinforce rather than challenge your ego and assumptions. It might tell you what you want to hear, validating your preconceived beliefs and desires. 

Authentic spirituality encourages questioning and personal growth, while Spiritual Candy only serves to maintain the status quo.

Spiritual Candy might also provoke you to want more than you actually need and the things that might be toxic to you.

Promoting Superficial Practices: Practices associated with Spiritual Candy may involve quick rituals, materialistic pursuits, trendy workshops, obsessions with angels, or overemphasis on external symbols (such as crystals or astrology). 

While these can have their place in spiritual exploration, they become problematic when they overshadow or distract from the deeper, more profound work of Self-discovery and intimately merging with The Divine.

Perpetuating Negativity: Spiritual Candy may fuel an obsession with conspiracies, mistrust, and negativity rather than promoting a positive and transformative spiritual journey. This constant focus on negativity can be draining and counterproductive. 

You can see these folks running around in the world – suspicious of everything, blaming science, religion, politics, and more to be the reason for their plight in life. 

These sad souls do not look deeply at their obsessive fantasies. Instead, they see their lives as graphic spy novels that aim to uncover false truths and bet their lives on them. 

Alarmingly, they see everyone as out to get them and want you to believe the same.

Preventing Forward Progress: The most telling sign of Spiritual Candy is that it keeps you running in place rather than moving valiantly forward in your spiritual journey. 

Your favorite Spiritual Candy may provide temporary relief or excitement, but ultimately, it lacks the substance needed for genuine, lasting growth and peacefulness.

You got this! You are always in control of what you consume and how you think. You can confront your tendencies in this area, reshape how you perceive your life, and find new pathways to engage your reality fully. 

The True Essence of Spirituality:

Spirituality is not about seeking external validation, indulging in superficial pleasures, or escaping reality. Instead, it’s about going deep within ourselves, confronting our pain, and healing from the inside out. Authentic spirituality empowers us to unveil our most genuine selves, helping us evolve and grow meaningfully.

Recognizing and avoiding Spiritual Candy is crucial for those seeking genuine spiritual growth. By understanding the signs that it is not helpful—such as distraction from inner work, ego reinforcement, superficial practices, negativity, and a lack of forward progress—we can refocus our spiritual journey on what truly matters: self-discovery, healing to the core, and profound personal transformation. 

True spirituality transcends the allure of temporary pleasures and instead leads us on a profound journey toward Self-realization. 

The Top 12 things you can do right now to redirect your attention away from Spiritual Candy:

Redirecting your attention away from Spiritual Candy and toward more meaningful and authentic spiritual practices can greatly enhance your personal growth and well-being. 

Here are 12 things you can do right now to help you make that shift:

Prayer: Praying from your heart can help you awaken. If we can find our heart’s tears when praying, we magnify our vibrations and merge with The Divine. Pray with deep intent and earnestness, and God Will Meet You In Your Heart!

Chanting: When we chant in Sanskrit, we awaken our bodies to their highest vibrational potential and open doorways to the purest and most beneficial frequencies. 

Chant even the simplest mantras, and you will open your heart’s ability to heal you to your core. Om Lokaha Sumastaha Sukhino Bhavantu means May All The Beings In All The Worlds Be Happy. Chant this mantra to connect with the purest love in all the Cosmos.

Mindful Breathing: Take a few minutes to practice deep, mindful breathing. This simple technique can help ground you in the present moment and calm your mind. You can also do Breath of Fire or The Makaara to help awaken your Kundalini and soothe your soul.

Journaling: Grab a notebook and jot down your thoughts and feelings. Reflect on your spiritual journey, goals, and any distractions or patterns you’ve noticed related to Spiritual Candy.

Meditation: Engage in a short meditation session to center yourself. Focus on your breath or use a guided meditation to explore deeper aspects of your consciousness.

Forgiveness: One of the purest and most beneficial practices we can invite into our lives is forgiveness. When we forgive ourselves and others, we release pockets of energies and emotions that limit us. 

Use The Ho’Oponopono practice to forgive everything throughout your life, internally and externally. Imagine your Self or someone else and say this to them: I love you, I’m sorry, Forgive me, Thank you. Repeat this 100 times, and you will begin to unwind the pain that binds you to a challenging idea, aspect, sense of Self, or person.

Nature Walk: Spend some time in nature. Go for a walk in the park, sit by a tree, or simply observe the beauty around you. Nature has a way of reconnecting us to our inner selves.

Disconnect from Distractions: Turn off your phone, computer, and other electronic devices for a set period. This digital detox can help you escape the constant bombardment of superficial spiritual content.

Read a Thoughtful Book: Choose a spiritual or philosophical book that challenges your thinking and encourages deeper self-reflection. Engaging with meaningful literature can be a powerful way to redirect your focus.

Practice Gratitude: Take a moment to express gratitude for the present moment and the opportunities for spiritual growth. Gratitude can shift your perspective toward the positive aspects of your journey.

Engage in Inner Dialogue: Have an open and honest conversation with yourself. Ask questions about your spiritual goals and intentions, and be willing to listen to your inner voice.

Connect with a Mentor or Guide: Seek out a mentor, spiritual teacher, or counselor who can guide and support your authentic spiritual journey. Their insights can help you stay on track.

Create a Spiritual Routine: Establish a daily or weekly spiritual routine that includes practices like meditation, prayer, or Self-reflection. Consistency can help you maintain focus on meaningful growth.

Redirecting your attention away from Spiritual Candy is a process that takes time and effort. 

Be patient with yourself and allow space for personal growth, Self-love, chanting, praying, and deep exploration. By incorporating these practices into your life, you can cultivate a deeper and more authentic spiritual journey.

Truly, you are born from love and loved for all time!

Check out The Shankara Oracle because it’s the most illumination oracle on Earth!

​​Why Your Manifestations Are Not Happening

In the digital age, where instant gratification is not just desired but expected, the allure of quick-fix solutions to life’s complex problems has never been stronger. 

This craving for the immediate has permeated into the realm of personal development and spirituality, where concepts like affirmations, The Law of Attraction, and the teachings of figures such as Dr. Joe Dispenza and the principles outlined in The Secret have gained massive popularity. However, many find themselves disillusioned when their manifestations do not materialize as promised.

This disenchantment often stems from a misunderstanding of the nature of manifesting desires, heavily influenced by the trendy yet shallow hyperbole and manipulative teachings of some influencers in this space.

At the heart of the issue is the oversimplification of profound spiritual and psychological principles. The Law of Attraction, for instance, suggests that by simply aligning one’s thoughts and energy with their desires, the universe will conspire to make those desires a reality. While positive thinking and maintaining a high vibrational frequency are beneficial practices, they represent only a fraction of the equation. 

Manifesting our desires often requires divine intervention, or what many would recognize as God’s grace, and the clearing of prior karma. These elements highlight the depth and complexity involved in the manifestation process, aspects often glossed over in popular discourse.

Moreover, the journey toward achieving our desires is typically not as straightforward as visualizing an outcome and waiting for it to appear. Proper planning, education, and a deep commitment to resourcefulness and diligent work are crucial. 

Realizing our dreams often demands a level of perseverance and resilience that can’t be encapsulated in a single affirmation or vision board. The reality is that manifestations are not often quick to emerge because there are far more mechanisms at work than many influencers would have us believe.

The narrative that one can simply ‘think’ their way to a life of abundance and fulfillment without facing the challenges of karma, personal growth, and hard work is not only misleading but potentially harmful. It can lead to a cycle of hope and disappointment, eroding faith in oneself and the larger process of spiritual development. The key to effective manifestation lies in a balanced approach that includes acknowledgment of the divine, understanding the role of karma, strategic planning, and a commitment to action.

In essence, the journey toward manifesting our desires is intricate, requiring a multifaceted approach that transcends the simplistic and often manipulative teachings found in some popular sources. It’s a path that involves grace, karma clearing, education, planning, and unwavering commitment. 

By recognizing the depth of what it truly takes to manifest our desires, we open ourselves to a more grounded, realistic, and ultimately fulfilling journey toward achieving our dreams.

The Challenges Of Trendy Spirituality

The rise of trendy and shallow spirituality, often characterized by the distillation of ancient teachings into overly simplified concepts, presents several challenges for individuals seeking genuine spiritual growth and understanding. While these modern interpretations can make spirituality more accessible to the general public, they often do so at the expense of depth, nuance, and authenticity. Here are some of the key challenges associated with this phenomenon:

Misinterpretation and Misapplication

One of the most significant issues is the risk of misinterpreting profound spiritual teachings. When ancient wisdom is condensed into catchy phrases or reduced to mere tools for manifesting material desires, the original context and purpose can be lost. This not only leads to misapplication of these teachings but also to disillusionment when the promised outcomes fail to materialize.

Lack of Depth

Trendy spirituality often lacks the depth and rigor found in traditional practices and teachings. Spirituality, at its core, involves profound transformations of consciousness and deep self-inquiry. When reduced to surface-level practices or beliefs, it fails to facilitate the deep inner work necessary for genuine spiritual growth, leading to a spirituality that is more about aesthetics and branding than actual transformation.

Overemphasis on Positive Thinking

While maintaining a positive outlook is beneficial, the overemphasis on positive thinking found in some contemporary spiritual teachings can lead to toxic positivity. This perspective discourages acknowledging and processing negative emotions, creating a false dichotomy between “good” and “bad” feelings and potentially leading to emotional repression and lack of genuine self-awareness.

Commercialization

The commercialization of spirituality has led to a market flooded with products, courses, and seminars that promise quick fixes and easy answers. This commodification not only dilutes the essence of spiritual practices but also shifts the focus from internal transformation to external consumption, suggesting that spirituality can be bought rather than cultivated.

Spiritual Bypassing

Trendy and shallow spirituality can encourage spiritual bypassing, a term coined by psychologist John Welwood. It refers to the use of spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid facing unresolved psychological issues, emotional challenges, and developmental tasks. This avoidance can hinder personal growth and lead to a lack of genuine emotional and spiritual maturity.

Disconnection from Tradition

By stripping ancient teachings of their cultural and historical contexts, there’s a risk of creating a disconnection from the rich traditions and communities that have preserved these wisdoms through centuries. This not only leads to a superficial understanding but also disrespects and appropriates the deep spiritual legacies of diverse cultures.

Over-simplification of Complex Concepts

The intricate philosophies and nuanced teachings of paths like Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, Sufism, and others are rich with complexity and require dedicated study and practice to understand fully. Reducing these teachings to simple formulas or quick techniques overlooks their depth and can mislead seekers away from the true essence of these paths.

While the accessibility of spirituality in the modern world has its benefits, the challenges posed by its trendiness and shallowness cannot be ignored. A balanced approach that respects the depth, complexity, and integrity of ancient teachings, while also making them accessible to contemporary seekers, is essential for fostering genuine spiritual growth and understanding.

Manifesting & The Advaita Vedanta (Ancient Teachings)

Advaita Vedanta, one of the classical Indian paths to spiritual realization, offers a profound perspective on the topic of manifestation and the attainment of desires. Central to Advaita Vedanta is the concept of non-dualism, the idea that the individual self (Atman) and the ultimate reality (Brahman) are one and the same. This philosophical foundation provides a unique lens through which the process of manifesting desires can be viewed, markedly different from the more contemporary, attraction-based approaches.

Non-Duality and Manifestation

In Advaita Vedanta, the emphasis is not on attracting external desires through thought or visualization but on realizing the inherent unity of the self with all that exists. This realization brings about a profound shift in perspective, where the distinctions between the desirer, the process of desiring, and the object of desire begin to dissolve. From this standpoint, the act of manifesting is not about bringing something external into one’s life but understanding that everything one seeks is already within, as all is Brahman.

The Role of Karma

Advaita Vedanta acknowledges the law of karma — actions and their effects — as an operative principle in the universe. However, it also teaches that the ultimate realization of non-duality transcends karma. Karma operates within the realm of duality (the perceived separation between the individual and the cosmos), while the realization of non-duality reveals a state beyond these dualistic distinctions, including the causal chains of action and reaction. 

Therefore, in the pursuit of desires, an understanding and resolution of one’s karma are seen as steps towards the higher goal of spiritual awakening, rather than ends in themselves.

The Importance of Inner Work

Rather than focusing solely on external manifestations, Advaita Vedanta places great importance on inner transformation. This involves practices like meditation, self-inquiry (Atma Vichara), and the cultivation of detachment (Vairagya) to overcome ignorance (Avidya) and realize the non-dual nature of reality. In this context, the fulfillment of desires is often viewed as a byproduct of spiritual growth rather than its primary objective.

God’s Grace

Advaita Vedanta does acknowledge the role of divine grace (Anugraha) in the realization process. However, it interprets grace not so much in terms of divine intervention to fulfill personal desires but as the ultimate realization of one’s true nature. Grace is what enables the individual to pierce through the veil of Maya (illusion) and recognize their non-dual identity with Brahman.

Conclusion

The Advaita Vedanta offers a deeply spiritual perspective on the topic of manifestation, diverging significantly from the material-centric views of many contemporary teachings. It teaches that the essence of manifestation is not about attracting external desires but realizing the ultimate unity of all things. This realization naturally leads to the fulfillment of deeper desires — not necessarily in the form of material acquisition, but as an inner state of peace, contentment, and oneness with the universe.

The journey to this realization involves a deep commitment to spiritual practice, the resolution of karma, and the grace that comes with the recognition of one’s true nature.

The Shankara Oracle is a profound tool to help you come to know yourself deeply.

Articulate Your Story To Finally Heal

I rarely talk about my childhood because regurgitating our stories is not very helpful, especially when you’re a spiritual guide and mentor like me. I share this today to help you articulate your own story so you can finally let it go. Mine was quite dramatic, so I’ll share a few key highlights and spare you the gory details. 

Why let your story go? It’s a remnant of the past and can no longer lead to healing. For a time, it was a doorway to self-understanding. But now, it’s a shackle. I’ll explain the process of releasing our stories in a minute.

The Field Of My Liberation

I grew up in a toxic feminist family obsessed with guilt and martyrdom. Though we “spiritually evolved” to become elitist Pentecostals and later festive new-agers, we were initially Brooklyn Catholics.

While my cruel father was the reason for my family’s hatred of men, it imbued our family with an intense paradigm focused on emasculation, which was enthusiastically practiced by the women in the family and aggressively impressed upon me.

My older sister, somewhat of a nun, constructed the religious ideology for our family and “trained” us. With a heavy moralistic hand, she tried to empower my abused mother while attempting to feminize me. If I used coarse language, expressed any measure of my masculinity, or did anything off-color, they either judged me or gaslit me into an explosive fit of rage and self-hatred. Without realizing it, they were projecting their hatred of my father onto me, not realizing its damaging effects on me.

It was always – “Paul, you’re angry; you need to do something about it” – when in fact, THEY were angry. Turns out, I’m quite peaceful and lovely.

It was never – “We were complicit in creating an intolerable and unjust environment for you.”

When I was a boy, my mother and nun-sister abandoned me, blissfully following my older professional prostitute sister to live in New Mexico. Without as much as a discussion or apology, they stone-cold left me alone with my monster father – to drown in a molten stew of shadow and emotion.

While all this drama could have killed me, it eventually broke my sense of reality and led to my liberation from religion, culture, family, and myriad other illusory constructs.

In many ways, my family’s insanity and darkness freed me.

Each of us comes into this life after having lived thousands of other lives, each entrenched in dizzying storms of addiction, passion, desire, and delusion. Because of this long, seemingly endless sojourn leading up to this life, we can barely blame the crazy people in our families. More importantly, we can scarcely blame ourselves.

Your personal and evolutionary work might start as story therapy, where you regurgitate your stories ad infinitum to a “therapist” for weeks, months, or years. It might include journaling, an intervention, or “setting some ground rules.” The “therapist” might truncate some parts of your story while emphasizing others – all to help you construct yet another temporary, illusory self and reality. 

If your therapist is not guiding you into your emotions (or using somatic practices), helping you acknowledge, allow, and release those emotions, their paradigm is just an intellectual fantasy. It’ll bind you rather than free you. 

At best, talk-therapy is a warm-fuzzy, egoistic trip into Candy Mountain, where you’re validated for every insight and extrapolation related to your stories. It would be wonderful if this type of experience sparked your interest in liberation – but that’s rarely the case – because therapists are seldom interested in breaking the chains of suffering; they’re mostly trying to help you tolerate them.

Therapy is a generally comfortable process where both the therapist and patient are locked in an outdated and limited paradigm, each addicted to their co-contrived, co-dependent relationship, as both participate to falsy identify and further cement the patient into a socially acceptable and productive persona.

In other words, you and your therapist are merely masturbating into the same jar to limited effect.

Try to move on from this candy-trip as quickly as possible. It eventually creates spiritual diabetes.

More profound healing is a much more intense, obsessive, and self-focused process: It requires articulating what happened to you and what you believe about yourself and life, releasing all oppressed emotions, releasing emotional energies connected to all mental and emotional imagery, and forgiving every aspect, experience, and person – most importantly your Self.

Along this spiritual warrior journey, you might declare your truth and set boundaries with those who judged, denied, harmed, or abandoned you. While you’ll unlikely win hearts and validation during this timeframe, you’ll come to know yourself profoundly and further define who you are.

When dealing with ancient systems of oppression and religious contrivance, it’s challenging to confront the related patterns of manipulation and dishonesty. I mean, who wants to admit to their reflections found in these systems?

Nowhere does The Divine say: “Your raw nature and genuine reaction to trauma should be judged into the ground.” But let’s face it, most people cannot handle even a tiny sprinkle of the truth.

If your family has turned against you in some way, here’s what you can do about it:

1. Articulate your feelings, which are often somewhat complex. Spell them out in no uncertain terms.
2. Articulate the most straightforward emotions you experienced.
3. Articulate the specific injustices, gaslighting, projection, and bullshit you experienced from your unconscious, judgmental, or hypocritical family.
4. Articulate a more straightforward list based on the above injustices so they are more quickly relatable.
5. Articulate the images embedded in your heart and mind that frustrate, trouble, hurt, and keep you up at night. 
6. Articulate the specific family members and outline in a few sentences how each hurt you, even if they did not intend to do so.
7. Articulate ways to give them the benefit of the doubt and forgive them.
8. Explore The Ho’Oponopono in pursuit of a loving forgiveness of yourself and others. If you can’t forgive them now, it’s okay. But you must find a pathway to forgive yourself.
9. Articulate why you refuse to participate in relating with them.
10. Should the opportunity to reengage them arise, outline your demands and boundaries.
11. List the people who genuinely love, respect, and appreciate you.
12. Articulate how you would like to feel when engaging with people you call “family.”
13. Create an affirmation for yourself that helps you feel peaceful when your family gaslights or denies you. This will help you remember who you are and the power you have.

The Blacksheep Identity

Many people who go through the first phase of this process – articulating and declaring the truth of their experience – might be labeled The Blacksheep. Some might later be manipulated into seeing themselves as The Prodigal Child who is “welcomed back” into the illusion of the contrived family. 

The best of The Blacksheep will enthusiastically embrace their newly minted title. After all, you deconstructed a complex reality – and called everybody out on their shit! This is wonderful – and you deserve to celebrate the title of The Blacksheep.

But that’s also an illusion.

Releasing the past and shedding The Blacksheep identity is never about abandoning your sense of Self or individuality, and it’s not about embracing those who hurt you. It’s about realizing that the stories, roles, and divisions you’ve carried are no longer necessary for your happiness and evolution. 

At this point in the process, you are releasing a helpful but no longer relevant crutch – and you’re stepping into your expansion.

So, dear Blacksheep, try this:

Validate your experience without drowning in it: Yes, you were gaslit, judged, hurt, and abandoned, but your healing won’t come from retelling the story at every cocktail party. Acknowledge the reality and impact of your experiences, then let them fuel your transcendence. You need not carry the weight. Releasing it, you create space and a pathway for your liberation.

You owe no one a round-trip ticket: You are not required to return to toxic or denying relationships or to “welcome” any person or experience back into your life just because you see them as part of the divine fabric. Forgive them energetically, but at every juncture, you must consciously choose who you allow in your space, heart, mind, and immediate field of consciousness.

Redefine your boundaries with spiritual clarity: Boundaries are sacred acts of love – stunning. You do this first for yourself, then for others. Setting clear limits for how you will experience reality creates a space where healing and growth can flourish. Meanwhile, you protect the peace in every area of your life.

Release the identity of separation: Being the Blacksheep, while once empowering (even intoxicating), becomes a prison over time. Release this identity to make way for a revised Self and a deeper truth – remembering there is no “other.” In fact, you are the “other!” Dear soul, you are part of the whole, but ONLY YOU will decide your engagement with it. Be bold and beautiful – and allow what is to come.

Forgiveness is for you, not for them. Forgive others – not to let them back in but to release the emotional charge that imprisons you. Through practices like The Ho’oponopono and The Sedona Method, you liberate your heart, mind, and entire being, creating space for new, vibrant aspects to emerge and fulfill you.

Honor your divine Self: Your ultimate task is to recognize The Divine in all people, aspects, events, and experiences without attaching to the identity, desires, pain, or projections inherent in them. Step into your Divine Wholeness! Choose peace, clarity, and a deep love of your eternal Self over your stories and living in the past.

Onward And Inward!

You’ve worn various identities like armor, protecting your soul and spirit from aggression, abuse, and refusal – while you navigated rejection, alienation, and misunderstanding. But once you’ve milked all the electrifying power from it all, you must finally decide to liberate yourself from every limiting aspect. 

At some point, your stories, emotions, projections, desires, roles, positions, and attachments can no longer serve your highest expression of self – your pure divinity. Soon, you’ll release the need to separate yourself through pain, demands, declarations, or defiance.

You’ll gently go within yourself to reclaim your wholeness, purity, and loveliness – beyond all constructs.

Dear soul, you are not obligated to invite any of the naysayers and abusers back into your life – simply because you now understand them to be manifestations of The Divine. The understanding is enough. The awareness is enough. YOU are enough.

Boundaries are sacred! They protect your essence – your eternal soul from penetration and corruption – while creating space for your transformation and transcendence. Boundaries are genuinely divine – and you need not carry any person, construct, or aspect who limits or unseats you.

You are not required to rejoin toxic dynamics at any time, but within your core Self, in the center of your Being, you must recognize the oneness of all consciousness throughout spacetime. 

Therefore, the actual task, the more profound journey – is to release the desire to feel separate from anything or anyone.

The Divine dances within every aspect of Creation – every object, every person, and all experiences – but your sovereignty lies in choosing how you engage with it. 

Going forward, your power, enjoyment of life, and effulgent self-expression depend on how you see and experience every moment.

Real liberation comes from seeing yourself as part of The Eternal And Universal Fabric Of Consciousness Throughout Spacetime, without EVER clinging to old stories, outdated identities, or the need to resist what once defined you.

While this can take some time and patience, it is your birthright – your soul’s potential – to rise into this awareness and state of Being.

Speaking Your Truth + Boundaries + Space + Gentle Detachment + Awareness = A Fulfilling Life.

You are everything you once were, everything you are, and everything you are yet to become. 

You are your mother, sister, and every “other” in your life.

YOU ARE ALL IT!

Relax, gently step forward, and seek to embody clarity, spaciousness, peacefulness, and the highest field of consciousness.