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Addiction to Spirituality
The following article is offered for free use in your ezine, print publication or on your web site, so long as the author resource box at the end is included, with hyperlinks. Notification of publication would be appreciated.
For other articles which you are free to use, see http://www.innerbonding.com
Title: Addiction to Spirituality Author: Margaret Paul, Ph.D. E-mail: mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com Copyright: © 2005 by Margaret Paul URL: http://www.innerbonding.com Word Count: 745 Category: Self Improvement
Addiction to Spirituality Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
Lian had been meditating for many years before consulting with me for his depression. He had been part of a spiritual community that encouraged their members to turn to God through prayer and meditation whenever they were feeling any difficult or painful feelings such as anger, hurt, anxiety, or depression. He had been taught that Spirit would transmute his feelings for him and bring him the peace he sought.
Yet Lian was depressed. “I have faithfully practiced what I’ve had been taught, so why am I still depressed? What am I doing wrong?”
Lian was suffering from what is called “spiritual bypass.”
Spiritual bypass occurs when people use their spiritual practice as a way to avoid dealing with and taking responsibility for their feelings. Anything that is used to avoid feeling and taking responsibility for feelings becomes an addiction – whether it is alcohol, drugs, food, TV, work, gambling, spending, shopping, anger, withdrawal…and meditation. If, when a difficult or painful feeling comes up, you immediately go into meditation in the hopes of blissing out and getting rid of the feeling, you may be addicted to spirituality.
It all depends on what your intent is when you are meditating. People can meditate for two totally different reasons: to avoid pain or to learn about love.
If you are meditating to connect with yourself and your spiritual Guidance in order to learn more about loving yourself and others, then meditation is a good way to get out of your head and into your heart. It is a good way to connect with a loving part of yourself so that you can welcome and embrace your painful feelings and learn what you may be doing or thinking that is causing your own pain. When your intent is to be loving to yourself and take responsibility for your own feelings, then meditation can help you become centered and compassionate enough to do an inner exploration with your feeling self.
However, if you are using meditation to bliss out and avoid your pain, you are using your spirituality addictively. You are using your spirituality to bypass learning
about and taking responsibility for your feelings.
This is what Lian was doing. Because he was avoiding learning from his feelings, he was continuing to think and behave in ways toward himself and others that caused him to feel depressed. Then, instead of exploring what he was doing that was causing his feeling self, his inner child, to feel depressed, he was meditating to try to get rid of the feelings.
In his work with me, Lian discovered that he was constantly either ignoring his inner child – his feeling self – or he was in self-judgment. The combination of ignoring himself – which he did primarily through meditation – and judging himself resulted in his inner child feeling unloved, unimportant, and unseen. Lian saw that if he treated his actual children in the way he treated himself – ignoring their feelings and constantly judging them – they would also feel badly and maybe depressed. But Lian did attend to his actual children’s feelings and needs. It was his own that he was ignoring and judging.
Lian realized that he was treating himself the way his parents had treated him. He was a much better parent to his children than his parents had been with him, but he was parenting his own inner child in the way he had been parented. He was not only treating himself the way he had been treated, he was treating himself the way his parents had treated themselves. As a result, he was not being a good role model for his children of personal responsibility for his own feelings, just as his parents had been a poor role model for him.
In the course of working with me, Lian learned the Inner Bonding process that we teach. He learned to welcome his painful feelings during meditation. He learned to quiet the self-judgmental part of himself and to treat himself with caring and respect. He learned to take loving action in his own behalf so that his inner child no longer felt abandoned by him. It was the inner abandonment that was causing his depression. He discovered that his depression was actually a gift – a way his inner child was letting him know that he was not being loving to himself. With practice, Lian learned to take loving care of himself and his depression disappeared. Now his meditation practice was no longer a spiritual bypass.
About the Author
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?" She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or margaret@innerbonding.com.
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| Learning Meditation Home Page |
| Introduction to the basics of meditation and the reduction of stress. |
| www.learningmeditation.com |
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| Meditation Room |
| Choose freely and feel free to perform more than one meditation. ... Allow some time for your meditation. These meditations last from 3 - 10 minutes. ... |
| www.learningmeditation.com |
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| Meditation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| An introduction to different traditions, forms, techniques, and benefits. Includes links to other resources. |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| World Wide Online Meditation Center |
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| The Transcendental Meditation (TM) Program - Official website. How ... |
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| Vipassana Meditation Website |
| Homepage of the organization which offers Vipassana Meditation courses as taught by SN Goenka. |
| www.dhamma.org |
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| Welcome to Meditation Mount |
| Meditation training programs and group meditation as a service to humanity. Worldwide organization based in Ojai, California. |
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| Guided meditations on mindfulness, peace, the 23rd Psalm, the way ... |
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| www.beliefnet.com |
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| Meditation Station Presented By The Meditation Society Of America |
| Meditation Society of America's web site. Dedicated to sharing meditation techniques and concepts from all traditions. |
| www.meditationsociety.com |
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| Wildmind | Learn Meditation Online |
| Wildmind provides a complete guide to simple meditation techniques. |
| www.wildmind.org |
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| Meditation |
| An article By Dr Tom J. Chalko explaining the process and stressing the need for a spiritual teacher. |
| www.thiaoouba.com |
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| Free Learn to Meditate, online meditation - Meditation Australia. |
| Details of activities, events, and classes in Wollongong University, Australia. Also offer a free online Meditation course. |
| meditation.org.au |
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| Meditation, Home, what is meditation, types of meditation ... |
| Meditation Meditation is an alternative therapy. It can be broadly classified under the mind-body medicine. More and more doctors are prescribing meditation ... |
| 1stholistic.com |
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| Sivananda Yoga - Meditation |
| Introduction to the Official Web site of the Internationa Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers. Lots of information on Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga, ... |
| www.sivananda.org |
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| Stress Reducers: Articles index |
| yellow arrow button, Choose a Virtual Meditation Slide Show for Your ... yellow arrow button, Meditation and Relaxation: 20 Minutes A Day Can Make A ... |
| www.selfhelpmagazine.com |
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| Zen Mountain Monastery: Zen Meditation Instructions |
| Detailed instructions from Zen Mountain Monastery on how to practice Zen meditation. |
| www.mro.org |
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| Meditation and concentration |
| meditation concentration ability. ... Online fire meditation use it and develop concentration ability; Online flash meditation look at the screen and ajust ... |
| www.ababasoft.com |
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| Siddha Yoga path - Gurumayi - Swami Muktananda founder |
| Under the guidance and teachings of Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Siddha Yoga meditation students embrace the spiritual practices of yoga. |
| www.siddhayoga.org |
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| Meditation Handbook |
| Survey of seven meditation techniques for beginners. |
| home.att.net |
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| Healing Music|Meditation Music|Self Help products |
| Healing Products offers healing music for your Mind, Body & Soul at low prices. Use sound and music to heal and relax. |
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