Getting Real with Spiritual Bypass: Finding Your Path to Freedom

Getting Real with Spiritual Bypass: Finding Your Path to Freedom

Spiritual bypassing, a phenomenon that can hinder your physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental health, is often unknowingly encouraged on social media and even used as a marketing tool. However, it's important to understand that avoiding self-reflection and emotional processing can impede personal growth and well-being. By acknowledging and confronting your blind spots, fears, grief, and disappointments, you are not alone in your journey. You are supported and understood.  Getting real with spiritual bypass will reveal new paths for your life.

Let’s begin with a definition of spiritual bypass I find helpful from an article by Ingrid Clayton, Ph.D., in Psychology Today.

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How to Let Go of Anxiety (Allowing God to Shine Through You)

 How to Let Go of Anxiety (Allowing God to Shine Through You)

On a scale of one to ten, how much anxiety do you have, with one being no anxiety and ten being overwhelmed and incapacitated?

Many of us face anxiety that comes from trying to control things we have no control over. Do you worry about all the possible things that can go wrong and feel helpless to stop them?

Social media, television, and radio constantly remind us of the world's misfortunes, leaving us to wonder if we could be next.

Healing from anxiety takes time and spiritual work. The more you can connect with the holy within you, the more God can shine through you. Are you ready to let go of anxiety?

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Nine Ways to Recover from Burnout (Through the Lens of the Enneagram)

 Nine Ways to Recover from Burnout (Through the Lens of the Enneagram)

Are you feeling down, lacking energy, unmotivated, depressed and have feelings of hopelessness?  Maybe you are burnt out. 

Burnout gradually catches up with you when you fail to notice what is happening inside you. 

Maybe you are in a relationship where you feel like you are walking on eggshells.  Maybe you are in a job that under-uses your skills. Maybe you feel stuck in life and don’t know what to do.

Learning to face your reality while hard can be the critical step to move you towards healing. Learning the Enneagram can help you find your way to healing.

The Enneagram is a powerful spiritual tool to help you notice what is happening in your internal world. Through discerning your Enneagram type, you will discover what happens to you when you get stuck in the limitation of your ego.

Here are nine ways to begin your healing journey through the lens of the Enneagram.  We will begin with the wisdom of the body center. 

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Ten Steps to Beating Burnout: A Guide to a Better Life

Ten Steps to Beating Burnout: A Guide to a Better Life

We live in a chaotic world. It is hard to separate our work and business life because of smartphones, computers and social media. Beating burnout is a lifelong process.

People expect to hear back immediately when they text or email you. Organizations pressure their employees to produce and expect them to work overtime at home.

Churches put more pressure on their leaders to keep their doors open. As congregations decline, more expectations are put on their ministers.

How pressured do you feel to work on your days off and your holidays?  Do you fear losing your job if you don’t put in the extra hours?

More people realize that it is not a badge of honour to overwork.

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Finding God Within Ourselves

Finding God Within Ourselves

What is God

God is a big word. You and I have different images of God. When I refer to God, I am talking about an energy/force within and around you that connects everything, both animate and inanimate.

It is the higher power within us that speaks to us through our bodies (sensations), hearts (emotions) and heads (quiet mind).   

God is a loving force that seeks to bring out the best in each of us and sustain a world where all life has a chance to thrive.  

There is the spark of God in each of us. It is not something we earn. It is a gift given to us to be used wisely and with compassion.

The good news is that God is within all of us.

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9 Ways to Create an Amazing Life After Divorce

9 Ways to Create an Amazing Life After Divorce

Acceptance

You entered your marriage thinking it would last the rest of your life. You had dreams of what it would be like to grow older together. All these dreams have now come to an end. After the divorce, what kind of life do you want?

Grief Work

When you accept that your marriage is over, you can begin the grieving process. Grieving takes time; sometimes, you will need help from a professional if you feel stuck in your emotions.

After you have done the work to ready yourself for your new life, you can begin the next chapter of your life.

Learning through the Enneagram

A great tool to help you renew your life is the psychological-spiritual tool called the Enneagram. The Enneagram comprises nine personality types, and you have all nine types within you. Each of us has one type we go to when we are stressed, and this is our personality type. Your type reveals to you the lens through which you see the world.

If you want to create an amazing life after the divorce, you will benefit from accessing the gifts from the nine types.

Here is how each of the nine types can help us to find new life after divorce:

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The Ultimate Guide to Spirituality for Beginners

The Ultimate Guide to Spirituality for Beginners

Spirituality is a big word.

What does it mean for you? There are many different ways to be a spiritual person.

You can be a spiritual person in and outside of religion. Spirituality is about recognizing and experiencing the life force that connects you with everything animate and inanimate. It connects you with a greater power that humans have given many names.

If you are part of a faith community, you might refer to this power as God, Allah, Goddess, Mohammad, Jesus, Budah and many more.

Religion and Spirituality

The major religions of the world have much to teach us about spirituality. No religion is better than another; they are just different.

They all came into being to help people live joyful, meaningful and purposeful lives. People who inspired the great religions of the world saw a need to build more caring and just communities.

What does it mean for you to be a spiritual person?

Religion is a powerful Source

Religion has done great things, such as ending slavery, providing education for all, standing up for civil rights, bringing down the iron curtain and more.

Also, terrible things happen in the name of religion, such as the crusade, antisemitism, promotion of slavery, division, extremist ideology, Islamaphobia and Christian nationalism.

Learn your Faith Tradition if you have One

If you are part of a faith tradition, find a person who can help you to learn your tradition, letting go of what no longer serves you and practising traditions that give you life. Each religion has a different lens to experience spirituality.

In the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Islam and Christianity), a good guide would be to follow the great commandment to love God with all your heart, be kind to yourself and love your neighbour as yourself.

Moving into the Secular World

As much of the world has become more secular, spirituality has taken on a life beyond the world's religions. I am going to focus on finding spirituality outside of organized religion.

The irony is that many practices used in the secular world have origins in religion.

How would you describe your understanding of what it means to be a spiritual person to a friend?

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How Each Enneagram Type Can Build Healthy Habits

How Each Enneagram Type Can Build Healthy Habits

What is the Enneagram?

The Enneagram is a powerful tool for transformation. It can help you build healthy habits that will help you to be the best you can be.

Most people know the Enneagram as a personality typing system. Naming your personality type is a small part of what it is all about.

At its best, the Enneagram is a psychological-spiritual map to help you become self-aware, noticing the habits that no longer serve you and learning new ways of being that will bring you joy, purpose and the freedom to be your best self.

Your primary Type will never change—your levels of health shift which will impact how you show up in the world. As you get healthier in your Type, you will get stronger in all nine Enneagram types.

Want to Discover Your Enneagram Type? Click Here to Book your Free Enneagram Typing Session.

Learn to Observe Yourself in Action

With the help of the Enneagram and Coaching, you can learn how to observe yourself in action. Each Type will show you behaviours you need to watch out for and give clues on how you can make better choices that will help you create healthier habits.

This work is about creating new neural pathways that will get stronger every time you practice a new way of being that brings out the best in you. The stronger your neural pathways are, the easier it will be to build new habits that serve you.

Remember that you have all nine types within you so that you can learn from every Type.

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Choosing Change Can Be Hard and Scary, but It's Worth It

Choosing Change Can Be Hard and Scary, but It's Worth It

Feeling stuck in life is a hard place to be

You get trapped in old habits that no longer serve you. Navigating life transitions can help you to get the best out of life.

Every time you choose the "devil you know versus the devil you don't know," you move further and further away from living the life the universe desire you to live.

The challenge is to get over the feeling of hopelessness and feelings of being helpless. Your inner critic is getting in the way of you moving ahead.

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How To Stop Self Sabotaging Relationships?

How To Stop Self Sabotaging Relationships?

You hunger for relationships. It is so exciting when you find the right person. Yet you are scared because your relationships never last longer than two months.

When your relationship gets near the end of two months, your inner critic works hard to end your connection to prevent you from being hurt.

Becoming self-aware of your inner critic will help you to stop self-sabotaging relationships.

The good news is that you can have long-lasting relationships. With greater awareness, you will notice when you get caught in the old stories that get you into trouble in your relationships.

Here are 8 ways to stop self-sabotaging relationships:

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