Ghosting Your Spiritual Teacher

Ghosting Your Spiritual Teacher

In the Eastern Traditions, one never leaves his/her Teacher. Pema Chodron stayed with her Teacher until his death, and then sought out another even though she was already a world renowned famous author and persona, and by the way, her Teachers were not. In other words, she was “better”, more famous even, then her Teachers yet she, gasp, stayed! In the USA, ambition tends to rule, not development and growth. And ambition often is translated into climbing onto the backs of others or even kicking down the ones that helped you, not always because of meanness and new-age ambition, sometimes from deep seated, even unconscious, insecurity. If you are insecure, you see threats and competition where there is none and like a frightened animal will lash out at others, causing harm, rather than seeing others as colleagues. Secure people trust their Path and Guidance and feel secure enough in the world to be able to communicate with others rather than blame or run away and stonewall. Many adolescents feel the need to rebel or act out against parents as a way to form a definition of self. They seek to prove what they are “not” when in fact they don’t know who they “are”. For an immature person, taking action against someone, lashing out or “punishing” the person by ghosting or stonewalling can produce a “high” which is used to subdue their fear and insecurities. The alternative to this dysfunctional choice is to move forward into the unknown future with support and communication with others. This also means you have to be willing to feel your feelings (and communicate them) which can be terrifying (which is why so many make the dysfunctional choice). Taking healthy steps forward and  keeping communications open means facing and taking responsibility for your next steps rather than seeking out the dysfunctional emotional rewards of lashing out against another to create an emotional diversion for yourself by blaming someone or making them bad in order to escape your own internal fears and insecurities.

A Spiritual Teacher is not someone who simply supports you with positive feedback or lectures telling you what to believe. Your Teacher challenges you so you can find your truth, your center, and teaches you to own your learning and knowledge. This is often referred to as the Socratic method of teaching. In a nutshell, the Socratic method is questioning a person or sometimes “turning the tables” to see if what one believes or believes s/he has learned can withstand scrutiny. While this can be done verbally, it is even more effective when your Teacher creates situations for you so that you have a challenge to work through. By working through a challenge, Students learn what is true for them. They learn to not only trust their Truth but to also become able to stand by their beliefs in strength rather than hide their secrets and insecurities in shame. When a person has unhealthy shame, s/he holds their beliefs (opinions, and choices) in secret, ashamed to admit to them or own them and instead of behaving honestly and in a straightforward manner, s/he engages in manipulative and ultimately hostile and even vindictive behaviors. In psychology this is termed passive aggressive behavior (look it up if you think this is you) and it is a bear to identify and overcome, even for a trained therapist. Spirituality is not just knowledge, it requires a practice.  Your practice will increase your intuition and also the Guidance you receive. Following Guidance takes strength. Therefore your Spiritual Teacher has an obligation to develop your strength so you can live your practice and keep up the discipline of your practice even when life is challenging you, or you just get bored and lazy. If you cannot even speak up to your Spiritual Teacher who Loves you and defend or explain your actions or choices, you are either still shame based or need more work to strengthen your Center and your connection to Self and Spirit.

If you leave your Teacher without a conversation about leaving, if you leave with silence or hostility, you can bet you are coming from shame, fear and hostility. Ghosting, like stonewalling, doesn’t work. Both of these feed shame and are ultimately hostile. When you feel good about your choice you have no problem expressing yourself without being defensive or hostile, and have no desire to force others to agree with or even support you. To be able to be “you”, to express yourself, and not feel threatened about reactions from others or opinions from others, to not hide your thoughts or choices in order to avoid conflict or look good, that is strength!  To be able to love and differentiate, love and hold different beliefs, love and tolerate differences, without feeling the need to hide or leave is not only the earmark of psychological maturity, it is an absolute necessity for any person who wishes to be “awakened” and on a Path, with a Practice. In fact, it is the honest strength needed for any intimate relationship be it a mate or dear friend and it is essential if one is to be intimate with the Self and therefore ­­Spirit.

If you have or had a Spiritual Teacher and left that Teacher ghosting or stonewalling instead of speaking and seeking closure about moving on and especially if you have done so while self-declaring yourself to now be a so-called teacher/healer/channeler etc., or you have decided you now know more than your Teacher and have “outgrown” him or her (after short period of study) you can count on being deep in a life lesson. To grow and evolve on a Spiritual Path never involves self-declaration of your “amazing-ness” (often called “a gift”) especially if you are succumbing to the adoration of  surrounding fans who are basically on the same level of development (or less) than you. This is in fact, a typical start up pattern of cults.  Self-declarations without the courage to speak about it to your Teacher can be considered a red flag not only regarding your ego desires running rampant, but a lack of integrity and personal strength.  Your choice to stonewall or ghost is an indicator of deep inner weaknesses and shame.  Spiritual growth and evolution is not just about pursuing a “career” or seeking out recognition as a “spiritual somebody”, it also means to look at and confront dysfunctional behaviors. If you don’t choose to look at your dysfunctional behaviors, believe this:  Life (and your Guides ) will definitely make you pay attention. You can only work with the level of Spiritual Energy you can handle. If you cannot face communicating with people who are or have been important to you in your Life, what makes you think you are strong enough to handle evolved Energies as opposed to lower Energetic Beings who are posing, looking for an easy feed off of people who live in fear.

Journey On

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