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What ‘being spiritual’ actually means is subjective. For the purposes of this article I’d love to discuss the concepts of Spiritual Authenticity and Spiritual Hubris – the deeper meanings and how these differences manifest into real life behaviour.

So, what does ‘being spiritual’ mean?

Is it an interest in the deeper mysteries of life? A greater understanding of our place in the world? Or is it much more than just these things?

A lot of people claim to be ‘spiritual’. Many people have been in relationships with ‘spiritual’ people who turned out to do very unspiritual things, or even be narcissists. This is very distressing and disturbing if you believe spiritual people can’t be anything other than genuine.

The truth is self-proclaimed ‘spiritual people’ are like all people – ranging from wonderful to despicable, and from conscious to deeply unconscious. It’s important to know the difference.

 

Purported Spirituality

Let’s be very clear: anyone can say whatever they want, yet their real-life behaviour is another thing altogether.

I’ve discovered that when a person themself CLAIMS they are spiritual, and claims to be the fount of all knowledge, the very opposite is likely.

People accomplished in anything, who are in healthy self-acceptance, don’t need to telegraph it.

There are two main reasons why someone does need to do this. Either they don’t feel ‘whole’ enough to simply be themselves and are trying to bolster their self-esteem, or they are using their purported spiritual position to gain power over someone for their own benefit.

This is especially likely when they are NOT humble or real enough to discuss their own vulnerabilities, human skirmishes, wounds and growth path whilst applying spirituality. This is key!

Learning something out of a book and keeping it at head level is not a congruent embodiment – which brings us to the Spiritual Hubris part of this article.

 

 

What is Spiritual Hubris?

I believe it is “listen to what I say, but pay no attention to what I do.”

Those with spiritual hubris will use spiritual terms and ideologies to lecture you about your life. Yet, who are they to do that? It’s a set of rules “for thee but not for me”.

Their spiritual ideas could be wholesome, and this person simply isn’t living up to them themselves. Alternatively, their ideas could be downright twisted to suit their own desires and enable them to carry out their agenda. They are not congruent with being awake, aware, accountable and activating their own spiritual growth.

Let me give you some crazy examples:

• “My guides tell me smoking is good for me.”
Whilst refusing to address and heal the inner trauma keeping them addicted to self-medicating with a health-threatening toxic substance.

• “Multiple sexual partners means engaging in True Love; love without jealousy or possessiveness.”
Whilst indulging in sexual promiscuity without thought of consequences for self and others.

• “Expressing my anger is me having a voice and honouring myself.”
Whilst continually raging and blaming another without looking deeply at self.

• “I know this person is my Twin Flame.”
Whilst holding on to someone who hasn’t seen them for years, or clearly doesn’t want to be in a relationship with them, rather than doing the inner work on their own trauma bonds.

• “I want to experience this part of my self – my shadow side.”
Whilst have sex with married people, taking illicit drugs or engaging in other destructive behaviours.

• “It’s my spiritual duty to hold others to account for my wounds.”
Whilst powerlessly requiring this outside condition to heal, instead of just healing themselves.

The list goes on and on.

When you hear someone say these things, your inner being recoils.

You feel that it is out of alignment with the truth of spirituality, which is wholesomeness, truth, Oneness, sanity and growth.

You KNOW it is garbage.

Your inner GPS (God Protection System), your intuition, lets you know this. Please note: listening to, and trusting your intuition is a HUGE part of being authentically spiritual.

If you challenge these false assertions, those in spiritual hubris will justify their position and righteously defend it. That’s their position and that is that.

Interestingly, this spiritual ‘excuse’ is the very stronghold that is holding this person separated from the personal growth that they espouse to be living.

Let’s look at what this true personal growth would look like…

 

What is Spiritual Authenticity?

This has nothing to do with being perfect in either your outcome as a person, or the growth you have achieved.

It has all to do with applying spirituality to take down the defences of hubris. This means being humble and vulnerable enough to meet yourself, life and others at a level of realness.

Those in spiritual hubris would view this as supreme weakness, yet it is the greatest power-full-ness of all.

It is this spirituality – understanding and embodying “I am a spirit in a human encasement having an experience for the purpose of my soul evolution” – that grants true meaning, purpose, wisdom, freedom and real fulfilment in life.

Let’s check out some examples about an imperfect human undertaking an authentic spiritual path.

• “I know smoking is an act of self-harm and avoiding my unhealed inner trauma. It’s time to face and heal this.”

• “I know I am promiscuous because I fear intimacy and commitment. I really do want healthy, real love with a Soul Mate one day. I want to heal my fears and change this.”

• “I am triggered and angry today, because of my unhealed childhood trauma – those times when I felt powerless and abused. It’s time to set myself and everyone around me free from this.”

• “I want to discover and heal why I stay in love with people who are unavailable, instead of loving myself and creating a healthy life for me.”

• “It’s time to face and heal the ways I self-destruct and self-sabotage with dangerous and destructive acts. I don’t want my life to be like this anymore!”

Spiritual Authenticity is being able to admit “I’m imperfect, I have wounds, and I am accessing a deeper, Higher level of learning and healing in order to raise myself from who I was being to Who I Can Be.”

It is being prepared to genuinely face, assess and do whatever is required to activate the Oneness, Unity Consciousness and true ideals of spirituality. These inspire, ignite and lift self and others to know the truth – that the Source of All Things and Love is WHO we are all a part of.

We are all capable of being so much more than we think we are when stuck in our defences, guardedness and lack of realness.

 

In Conclusion

Those is spiritual hubris won’t admit the truth to themselves, let alone others. They are in denial and delusion.

Please know I’m not saying this from a position of righteousness, but rather from the place of communicating what does work and what doesn’t work in relation to where you would like to travel.

Spiritual Hubris is Wrong Town – it doesn’t bring spiritual growth. It equals being stuck, and doomed to repeat the same painful spiritual lessons until enough pain and disaster has broken down the egoic defences for the grand spiritual awakening to happen.

This awakening is: “I am the generative source of my experience. There is no ‘outside’, no excuses and no ‘one’ to blame. Until I can be real and honest with myself, and heal me, these areas of my life won’t heal and change”.

Spiritual authenticity means taking your power back in order to breakthrough spectacularly in your life.

As a sidenote, spiritual authenticity is also incredibly sexy. It is real, approachable, beautifully transparent, stands in courage and strength rather than excuses and victimisation, is wise and conscious, and leads by example.

Spiritual authenticity grants others permission to be real and authentically love themselves – warts and all. It also enables us to accept others lovingly and co-create mutual growth, realness and grand expansion together – beyond previous limited cycles.

What is there NOT to like?

Spiritual authenticity also means being tough when needed – speaking truth, laying boundaries and not doing the ridiculous spiritual bypass (that many ‘spiritual’ people do) which is practicing ‘Love and Light’ to try to be liked by everyone, and then getting disturbed when it doesn’t work.

Of course you can’t just click your fingers to get to spiritual authenticity. It takes inner healing and development. We have all suffered layers and layers of programming that has primed us – from the collective society, our forebears, teachers, caretakers and painful experiences – to default to spiritual hubris, rather than move into spiritual authenticity.

Which feels better?

Your soul knows…

Does this article relate to people you know? Maybe this describes individuals you had in your family or were in intimate relationships with.

Are there parts of yourself, honestly, that fall into spiritual hubris?

Do you want to break free, to be able to have authentic, honest and real relationships with others, as well as the freedom to be FULLY yourself?

If so, I’d love you to come into two special on-line events I have coming up, that I am inspired about and so excited to finally release.

They have both been created with epic authentic spiritual growth in mind!

The old paradigms of healing take years, if not decades, of long, painful, expensive work for very little reward. No wonder people haven’t wanted to do inner work. In comparison, the results of inner work at a Quantum level are unbelievably fast and effective, so with my processes you will start to love it!

You can read all about these events and claim your spots here:

Click here for the Manifesting 5D Love Relationships Event

Click Here for the Freedom From Relationship Trauma and Toxic People Workshop

I look forward to your comments below!

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Commments (19) + Leave a comments

19 thoughts on “Is it Spiritual Authenticity Or Hubris?

  1. Yep, anyone can say anything. Words are just words. Leaning on words alone can result in extremely expensive lessons. Test everything in the spirit, intuition, internal GPS, in the heart space. Ye shall know them by their fruits.

    There’s been such a needed societal revolution in collectively learning about narcissism in the last decade in common parlance, but there is still so much practical healing work to be done to really shift the patterns. Keep on NARPing… at least, I know I will be!

    1. Hi Emmaus,

      love what you have shared here!

      Its very true that work on shifting the patterns is key – information is information, and wisdom is knowledge applied.

      There is a big difference!

      Much Love

      Mel 🙏💞🦋

  2. Wonderful, Beautiful Article Mel!
    I knew this was going to be a ‘juicy’ one when I saw the Title. I think the ‘power over others’ one has been a huge one (of spiritual hubris), usually followed by some scandal due to not loving or accepting those parts and trying to keep the ‘do’ part of “as I say, not as i do” hidden.
    Also, usually very critical, judging and condemning, shaming others. Cancelling – so much of that going on now.
    “It has all to do with applying spirituality to take down the defences of hubris. This means being humble and vulnerable enough to meet yourself, life and others at a level of realness.” – Beautiful, I do Believe that this Surrender has EVERYTHING to do with Authentic Siritualility and HEALING 🙂
    With Love and Gratitude
    Kondwani

  3. Hi Melanie!
    This topic concerns me!

    For years I have gone to my synagogue and participated in all sorts of celebrations, the High Holy Days and just everything or anything offered….

    I’ve also spent considerable time at ashrams and gone to and participated in many eastern religion/philosophical organizations.

    It was never that there wasn’t something fundamentally there that was useful in terms of my own particular interests or that I might be able to “extrapolate” something but what I saw, it seemed, everywhere were multitudes of people giving simple “lip service” to ideas and “practices”….

    I often thought that so many of the members of these different groups and organization seemed quite “asleep” especially when it came to espousing or advocating spiritual ideas and in particular when it came to the actual practice of and living simply an idea or practice there was NO semblance of Spirituality or spiritual development in many of them including the so called leaders….

    I would cringe when I heard words coming out of their mouths and when I saw how they were behaving as human beings on this earth I was horrified…

    The things that went on there were often horrible! People were violating the sacred vows of marriage by cheating and there were people who were hustling money and so on and so on and so on! It was actually quite nightmarish!

    Looking back it seemed that these organizations were congested with narcissistic type people from the top on down.

    It was so disappointing!

    But, that was then and now is now! I understand much better how this kind of crap goes on all over this earth!

    As I mentioned earlier this topic about spirituality concerns me! I don’t know how people can behave the way they behave and call themselves “spiritual beings”…

    Personally I’ve had enough of that. I have other issues to be concerned with and certainly if I don’t clean up these issues I know I will never be able to evolve spiritually….

    As you know I’m in the process of recovering from years of narcissistic abuse and serious past trauma and all the work I have done over the years with these various religious/spiritual organizations has not helped me with these quite serious issues….

    With that said, I am so grateful to be here and doing the work with NARP that so many of us here are engaged in and with the “alchemy” of NARP I believe that I am getting closer to a life that has the potential for spiritual growth and evolution as I understand or wish it to be….

    I don’t know if my ramblings are on topic or off topic, Melanie….but I do know that following your guidance and NARP I feel much better about myself and when I’m feeling better about myself I feel good about life and often in those moments I might actually experience “AWE” and/or amazement about this mysterious life in this mysterious universe….Maybe that’s my way of understanding or experiencing something spiritual! Who knows?

    This was another wonderful topic, Melanie! Thank you so much!

    This particular topic helped/showed me how to become more determined about the direction that my life is going now….a life that includes using NARP as a fundamental “North Star”….

    Thanks so much, again, for your wonderfully marvelous way of explaining things!

    Sending to you continued love and gratitude for YOU and many thanks for everything that you help so many of us on this earth with!

    Much love! ❤️🦋❤️

    1. Hi Peter,

      exactly … words are only words, expressed ways of living are completely another matter. In relation to “words” anyone can call themselves anything, however, us blindly believing and then being dismayed about it is on us.

      The world is the way it is because of blind allegiance and handing over our power to “authority figures”. As Thrivers we are determinedly taking our power and lifeforce back, with critical thinking, allowing time for the truth to emerge and having our allegiance to Source and our own inner GPS.

      Yes “spirituality” is your experience with Life and Source – BINGO! I Love that! Can any of us speak for others – not really – only ourselves.

      Much Love to you Peter

      Mel 🙏💞🦋

  4. This hit home with me and made me realize that the ways I have been trying to heal have not been working or ‘real’ so to speak. I tried the bypass method trying to wisen up informationally and read everything trying to think my way out of my trauma but I was only spinning my wheels further. Then tried to journal my way out of it and cried and cried and cried writing my storyline out – no healing there. I have used forgiveness to cut cords and give love and light – but resentment actually got worse. I see some narcissistic parts or shadows in my own self but they have only been generated by defenses due to abuse and childhood trauma and I played ‘nice’ to appease everyone – only made me more angry and reactive. It’s hard to be in ones body and live from that experience when you have so much trauma and related symptoms how do you live from your body when your not living in it? You’ve hit some home truths Mel so thank you for the wake up call.

    1. Hi Amber,

      It’s so great you see the difference between logically spinning your wheels, and all the things you have tried, compared with the inner soul work.

      Amber have you worked with NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp

      It is THE way to Let Go of the traumas, go free from the pain and start to completely transform your inner and outer worlds.

      Easily and fast – truly. Your search for the answer can stop here – because it IS here.

      It’s your time to heal!

      Mel 🙏💞🦋

  5. Bravo Melanie!

    The only people practicing “Unconditional Love” are us (me in recovery!) people pleasers/ co-dependants…

    God does not love us “Unconditionally”…if we disobey…if we don’t do a thing He Asks…If we don’t “repent”…In The Big Toaster for us…
    He Has His Boundaries as Well as His Promises…
    Unconditional Trust…is the same…misnomer or deep, deep trouble…

    If anyone ever gave “Unconditional Love” it was Jesus…He Died “for us” while never having “sinned”…
    (All others pay cash? hehe)

    I had trouble with telling when or if…people were lying to me…so much “narcissistic abuse” throughout my entire life…sad…right?

    People who “don’t lie…actually…do what they say… how hard is that?

    Love is a “choice”…and for intimate relationships…a thoughtful and thorough consideration of consequences is necessary…

    Spirituality=Quantum…simply another realm…and we do have access…it really just takes…”Emptying out the Negative” admitting we were wrong…something we humans adamantly dislike…hehe again…

    I don’t feel sorry for myself anymore…which creates a beautiful space for me…not to feel sorry for others…the way I used to…

    “You” created “your own mess” don’t expect me to clean it up or pay for it…
    I don’t mind “helping”…I can lead the way…just not going to enable another to continue the way they have been…without consequences…

    I owned mine…your’s are your problems…
    I am healed and live in exceptional Peace…which is actually a Gift…for which I am only His/God/Source…Steward…

    I don’t mind…I make so many mistakes…I can be such an idiot…I need guidance too…Wisdom is also “Totally Available”…for the asking…
    I did…careful what we pray for…comes to mind…

    We must self-deceive first…the mug in “The mirror” is the first person “we Must” deceive…lying is possible then…

    When people say…”I don’t Lie”…expect a doozie! We all lie..then pretend we didn’t? Rationalizations and Justifications show up…as we spiral down…if we say it enough times…we believe it is “ok”?

    Or…we repent, choose a new way of Be-Ing… apologize, make amends…

    Nope…I did that…I own that…won’t happen again…I see how it affected you, I see how it affects me…my bad…then move on…

    James

    1. Hi James,

      “The Big Toaster” cracked me up! Off to the Big Toaster for you!” And yes “cash” hahaha … you are on a roll today!

      Everything you have said here is brilliant – and I TOTALLY agree!

      Mel 🙏💞🦋

  6. The part about promiscuity and multiple sex partners didn’t sit right with me. Felt like it was an opinion being pushed as fact.

    1. Elle Vee:

      Maybe you are simply not experienced enough yet to comprehend this “fact” yet. As you mature and look back over time and everything you see unfold, it is likely you will agree that it is more of a fact than an opinion. After all, many times “facts” are simply a majority opinion if you really take a deep dive into anything at all. And these are Melanie’s opinions about everything…you don’t have to agree with everything she says…you are allowed to have your own opinions…about everything in fact :). God Bless to you Elle Vee from an old lady with lots and lots of life expereince.

    2. Hi Elle,

      I can understand how it feels like that. From myself its a statement regarding “what does” and “what doesn’t” work in relation to what people really want.

      I have seen, over the years people many employ multiple partners as a spiritual “truth” yet with every case rather than produce the spiritual results of Higher Consciousness, freedom, love, elation, inspiration, well-being and true ignited soul purpose, I have seen only pain, drama and mayhem from these choices.

      It turned out they were clearly not congruent (for whatever reason) with positive spiritual growth.

      That’s my behind-the-scenes observation, in a community of hundreds of thousands, for 15 years – not judgment.

      Mel 🙏💞🦋

  7. This was eye opening! I’m def aligning with authenticity & healing as we speak. But I keep allowing the wrong people in & not trusting my gut then being upset when they push my buttons. I need to focus more on healing my childhood wounds. I’ve been procrastinating more than I should. Thank u for the inspiration!

  8. I have an example of spiritual hubris. I dated an ‘enlightened narcissist’ that genuinely thinks he’s some kind of guru/buddha, putting things on his social media like ‘you can find me meditating on my lotus leaf’ but its a show for everyone to see, he actually is a bully behind closed doors. He isn’t the ‘calm hippie’ that everyone on social media thinks he is, its only the women he has relationships with that find this out via the slow introduction of gaslighting, excuses, refusing to take responsibility for himself, cheating, lying and devaluation. Like in your article he always has some enlightened excuse for his toxicity.
    He cheated on his ex wife with 4 different women, he cheated on the next 2 women after that, then he cheated on me, yet he offers ‘relationship coaching’ to couples having difficulties.
    He actually offers ‘life coaching’ sessions to possibly vulnerable people. He did an online course on it but in my country you don’t need qualifications to be a life coach, now he swans around like he has a degree in psychotherapy. He even listed ‘ptsd trauma from narcissistic/relationship abuse’ as one of the things he can heal. He is just a complete hypocrite.
    In another twist of ironicism I asked him if we could go to couples counselling and he point blank refused.

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