Episode 13: Letting Go of Spiritual Overwhelm

We have access to an infinite amount of information available to us at any moment in time. We have the ability to make decisions on how we utilize our time in this lifetime. And how you utilize your time is going to either assist you in growing and having a self-discovery or how you utilize your time could be a detriment to your spiritual growth and evolution.

We utilize spiritual practices to assist us in growing, to assist us in evolving, to assist us in having a better life in this human experience at that particular moment in time. I have many students of mine, including myself, that get super excited about different spiritual practices and different spiritual tools and get excited about it. And then the excitement fizzles and they go into overwhelm with the amount of information that’s available to them on that particular practice or that particular tool.

And I’m here to tell you that you can let go of spiritual overwhelm and that it’s going to take some time to identify why you’re overwhelmed. But I want to talk about how you can identify why you’re overwhelmed and what to do next if you are overwhelmed when it comes to your spiritual practices, spirituality, and spiritual tools.

I remember when I first discovered meditation. I found a meditation teacher that taught me how to meditate. It was completely life-changing. I took the meditation course. I did a little research on it. I found the teacher that felt in alignment with me, and I took the course and I loved it. And I followed through on every single thing in this course, and I had meditated daily and consistently.

When it comes to spiritual practices, you want to make sure you’re consistent and that you’re doing them through the lens of it is simply a practice. And I was doing it. And then all of a sudden I went into avoidance mode, and I wasn’t wanting to practice, and I didn’t know why I wasn’t wanting to practice. I knew that I loved meditating, but I wasn’t doing it, and I was really disenchanted with the practice itself. And so I had to get really, really honest with myself about why I was in avoidance mode.

So any time you’re overwhelmed, you want to look at your actions and behaviors and see what those actions and behaviors are. Are you in avoidance mode? Are you freezing? Are you upset?
Are you not wanting to take action? Why are you not wanting to take action? A good question to ask is, why are you doing what you’re doing?

And I asked myself why I wasn’t meditating. And the reason why I wasn’t meditating was simply because of the rules that were around the meditation practice itself that my teacher taught me. Please note, that I’m not saying anything bad about my teacher. It was the expectations I put on myself and not having the flexibility that caused me to have a disenchantment with the practice itself. And I realized that the way that I was taught to meditate was first thing in the morning, you meditate for 30 minutes, you sit on a pillow on the floor up nice and tall, and that’s how you meditate it. Well, I realized my body was wanting to integrate information from spirit differently, and how it wanted to integrate the information was by laying down.

And so I hadn’t given myself “permission,” and I’m putting this in quotations, to break some rules around the practice on how it was taught to do it so I can let go of some of the rigidity based on the chapter I was in that moment in time. And to this day, I will either sit up, I will lie down, I will walk, I will have a moving meditation. I will check in daily to see how my meditation practice wants to be experienced in that particular moment. So I had to give myself permission to play with the practice itself.

And so if you’re in avoidance mode, check in. Is it because the practice itself has to evolve based on the chapter at that moment in time that you’re in. If it is, give yourself permission to allow the practice itself to be flexible. If you’re in avoidance mode because you’re afraid of what will come from doing the practice itself. That’s a totally different thing for us to look at. Sometimes we go into avoidance mode when it comes to our spiritual practices because we’re afraid of XYZ and you can fill that blank in. So sometimes I know for me, when it comes to the spiritual courses that I teach, my students will come to me and tell me like, hey, I’m not doing this practice and I’m not sure why. And the question I usually ask them is, what are you afraid of? What are you afraid of?

Because usually they sign up for the course because they’re super excited and they feel in alignment with the course. But what are you afraid of? Because sometimes we go into avoidance mode because we’re afraid of the change that can occur from actually doing the practice itself. Sometimes the fear is something completely different. We want to check in with why we’re in avoidance mode and what we’re afraid of if we actually do the very thing that we’re meant to be doing or we signed up to do that. That avoidance is also a signal that there’s growth and something for you to look at here.

So anytime you get super excited about doing something and you don’t follow through with it, ask why? Now, sometimes we’re in avoidance mode also because the practice isn’t in alignment with us, period. Sometimes we sign up for things or we start researching things because we’re curious about them. And sometimes people sign up for things or start researching things because they’re curious on the topic and then they feel like they have to follow through in order during the practice, but they find that they’re not actually following through on it. It could just be that you’re out of alignment. The practice isn’t for you, and that is perfectly okay. Sometimes you just signing up for that very thing and it could just be buying the book or researching it online or signing up for a course. It could be that’s what you were meant to get out of it. That’s the experience you were meant to get out of it.

Now sometimes people do start going into spiritual overwhelm and spiritual sampling because they have a fear of missing out on the very tool that they’re researching or interested in learning. We want to not sign up or start practices based on a fear of missing out on something. It’s not healthy. It’s not in alignment with you. It’s not in alignment with me. And I know for me that I will check in. I might be super excited about something, but it might not be in alignment with me and I will check in and I will simply just sit with am I supposed to do this? Does this feel in alignment with me? Am I connected with this? Is this part of my path? Is this part of my highest and best path? And if the answer is no, I thank the information for presenting itself to me, and then I let it go. And that is okay.

I know that sometimes I have a fear or I do things out of desperation because I really want that very thing, that tool or that person can help me with. But it’s not in alignment. And I noticed that any time that I say yes to something that I’m really supposed to say no to something, it never works out properly. And so trust your intuition. Check-in. If it’s in alignment with you, great. If it’s not in alignment with you, let go of the fear of missing out on something and know that it’s just not the right time. And when it is the right time, it will present itself to you again.

I teach a course on the Akashic Records, and I have crystal courses and other different spiritual courses, and I’ve had students that will come to me and say, I’ve been waiting to take this course for two years or three years. And I think it’s amazing that they waited to do it. Because once you say yes when you are in alignment to do it, everything just magically unfolds in a different way than you forcing yourself into that spiritual path or that spiritual tool or that spiritual practice before you’re ready to actually do it or before the teacher that you’re meant to do it with shows up. Because not every teacher, not every tool, not every practice you’re in alignment with at that moment in time. And it is perfectly okay. Not everybody is everybody’s cup of tea. And you want to make sure you’re in alignment with the tools, practices, and teachers that you’re learning from as well. That will also assist with letting go of the overwhelm and also limit the amount of sampling that you are doing.

Because if you’re sampling too many practices all at once or too many spiritual modalities or concepts, it can cause a lot of overwhelm. And when you take a moment to take a backseat and be very choosy and particular on what it is you’re spending your time on, you’re going to become more aware of your senses when things are in alignment and out of alignment. You’re also going to be utilizing your time in the highest and best way that you possibly can in that particular moment so your soul can evolve in the way that you want it to evolve.

Now, we all make mistakes, and we have to forgive our mistakes that we have made and let go of the decisions that we’ve made because sometimes people will hold on to different spiritual practices or spiritual tools because they’ve invested time, energy, money, and resources in it. But it’s okay to let them go because it will allow you to free yourself up, to give yourself permission to practice the things that are meant to be practiced based on your soul’s path and your soul’s evolution, the way you’re meant to be practicing them in that particular time. And with that being said, it’s really important for us to look at practices simply as a practice, and the way to utilize any of the tools, any of the practices, any of your spiritual teachings, is to be consistent with the teaching itself.

Sometimes people get so excited about all these different practices and all these different tools that they have access to, and they forget that the tools that they have access to already could be the thing that enriches their life or assists them in growing, and they’re not consistent with the practice itself. And so with any spiritual practice, if you practice it consistently, without breaks, you’re going to see a major difference in how that tool can be utilized for your spiritual growth.

It’s also really important to let go of instant gratification when it comes to spiritual practices and your spirituality. Everything takes time, and consciousness meets consciousness where it’s at. So when you first start utilizing the teachings and the tools that you are interested in, you’re going to understand them in one particular way. And as you deepen your practice, your consciousness will change, and that information that you first learned will shift and change into a different vibration and different understanding for you because your consciousness has risen. The way that you view things is different and you’re going to receive the information differently. And so any time you are wanting to enrich your life and deepen your practices and let go of spiritual overwhelm, I want to encourage you to actually revisit some of the teachings that you have access to that you have utilized in the past.

So for me, I’ve actually been revisiting teachings from my meditation course that I took a very long time ago. I’m revisiting teachings from my yoga teacher training because I’m very interested in revisiting the Yoga Sutras because the way that I understood these sutras many, many years ago was so different than the way that I understand them now. I love relistening to books. I’m a big audible person. I love listening to books, and I will revisit books throughout the year or I’ll revisit them once a year or once every other year or maybe even longer breaks. But I revisit the books to give myself permission to get access to the information and the teachings in a different way because I’m going to understand it differently because I’m in a different place than I was back then.

You have so much information that you have access to and you have the ability to decide how you utilize your time. I want to encourage you, no matter what it is that you’re doing, to utilize your time in a way that allows you to grow and allows you to stay out of overwhelm when it comes to your spiritual practices.

Now let’s just do a quick recap. One, ask yourself if you’re in avoidance. If you are in avoidance to the spiritual practice, why are you in avoidance? Two, you want to give yourself permission to be flexible in the way that the practice is. Let go of rigidity. Ask yourself any of the fears that you have around the practice. Revisit materials. Also, let go of any fear of missing out. It’s okay to say no to something if you’re not in alignment with it. It’s okay to also let go of teachings from the past that you thought you were in alignment with but are no longer in alignment with. Let them go. Make space for new things. Make space for the things that you’ve already enjoyed as well. Also want to encourage you to revisit old materials.

And most importantly, do not give your power away to any practice. You are in charge of your life. You are in control of your destiny. The tool is there to support you in evolving. It is not there to make your life decisions. It is not there to control your life in any way, shape, or form. You are ultimately in control. So utilize the practice and the tool in a way that supports you in growth and let go of the overwhelm that’s attached to any of the practices, tools or living a spiritual life in general. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Make sure you like and subscribe to the channel. Leave an honest review. It helps more than you know and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.