I no longer see my desires as the goal, but as invitations, showing me the bridges I might have to cross.
If, like me, you follow many spiritual teachers related to desire-oriented spirituality and manifesting your dream life, you might think that the best thing that could happen to you is to skip the period of waiting, working, or dealing with things you are afraid of, and get right to your desires as quickly as possible.
It sounds like a dream, but in reality, what we are wishing for is spiritual bypassing. We want to avoid the growth that is often needed, and the part that stands between our desires and ourselves.
Yes, the things that we want can drive us to cross the bridges we need to cross on our way to becoming more, but the desires are just the carrots we want to reach. They were never the main thing. Crossing the bridge is.
You might have watched an online “guru” with a special technique to manifest love, money, or the house that you want, and think that this is the secret formula you were looking for.
Maybe your favorite spiritual teacher said something that gave you hope that the thing you wanted so badly might just land on your doorstep if you do this meditation or ritual.
I don’t mean to dismiss any of those techniques or rituals, because they can help people, but I don’t see them as the engine that makes things happen. I see them as tools that can sometimes be helpful.
If nothing substantial stands between us and our desired life, maybe all we really need is to focus or tune ourselves. But what if we have some fear, belief, or trauma that stands between us and our desire?
Throughout my life, I have had many experiences, some good and some magnificent, some hard and some painful beyond measure. I’ve been studying spirituality and different philosophies for years, in an attempt to find my personal truth.
And now I have, at least for now. The one sentence that can sum it up is: “As above, so below.”
It means that the outside mirrors the inside.
We might have luck on our side. We might have resources. But if deep inside we feel unworthy, afraid to express ourselves, and afraid to stand out, then the best we can hope to achieve is something that reflects those qualities.
If we want to get something different, we have to become different.
Related to that is the tendency to see ourselves as flawed or broken, or to wish we were different, maybe more confident, free of fear, and complete.
Maybe you don’t think you see yourself that way, but you might see others that way and judge them. Judging others is often a projection of self-judgment, and it is usually unconscious to the person doing the judging.
I no longer see fears and limiting beliefs as flaws or imperfections, but as missions we came here to work on in this lifetime.
It also means abandoning self-judgment and the perception of human beings as “imperfect” or “flawed.”
I’ve learned to accept the way things are, and also to respect the process and the time it sometimes takes to make changes and experience growth.
So, in many ways, when we know ourselves better, what we are afraid of, and what we believe, we actually have more clarity about the things we might want to focus on and work on.
It is my belief that we come here to experience personal growth and evolution, to become different versions of ourselves. And we do that through life’s experiences. Those experiences usually revolve, in one way or another, around our beliefs, worldviews, and fears.
So, dare to wish and dream about the life that you want, but also dare to believe that you have what it takes to cross the bridges that lead to those things, because you do.
And most importantly, don’t forget to be kind to yourself, to give yourself the time, space, and support you need.
We are here to evolve. This is our goal, even if our desires are what drive us to take the next step.
