I was once told that I raised myself, but that wasn’t true. I was reared by authors and activists, poets and lyricists — by the words, hopes, dreams and wisdom of public figures — who often seemed to be speaking directly to me:

 Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

 In equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap. – Toni Morrison

 Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. – John F. Kennedy

 When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. – Jimi Hendrix

 ‘God’s plan’ is often a front for men’s plans and a cover for inadequacy, ignorance, and evil. – Mary Daly

I imagined that there could be a heaven on Earth. A place where the highest ideas and thoughts were lived out loud. Where fears didn’t undo knowledge and apathy didn’t strip the good from intentions. Where the poor and poor of heart weren’t suspicious of ideals, and the rich and rich in opportunity didn’t perpetuate myths from rarefied pedestals.

Van Gogh's Potato Eaters

Ah, but then there were The Potato Eaters. So many of them in them in my midst. The people that broke and steeled my heart at turns. They were both the realest of the real and hunchbacked, sorrow-eyed caricatures of God’s own creation, yet I was rooted among them, my vines entwined with theirs, my nourishment taken from their spare and hard-sown crops.

They were rough and adamant. This is the way it’s always been, nothing’s ever gonna change . . . you better get used to it . . . don’t go around thinking you’re somebody, because you’re not.

I fought. I bucked spiritual apathy and hoarded my youthful ideals. I memorized long, promising passages and hundreds of beautiful songs. I wrote poetry to keep my hopeful heart above the grimness of low rent spaces and factory work.

And I thought to myself — how horrible it must be for a girl who lacks imagination. She’ll grow up with a boot on her back and her eyes peeled toward the heavens, learning to turn suffering into spirituality, a strong back into a sense of pride, and pain into a promise of redemption. She’ll drink the bitter and pray for the sweet, and when her own children come to her one day, eyes lit up with hopes bigger than she remembers ever having, she’ll tell them in no uncertain terms to stop dreaming and get back to work. Don’t be a fool, she’ll say, this is the way it’s always been . . .

I wasn’t going to be like that. My imagination was going to save me. My dreams were going to come true. I was going to be happy.

I chose to see the world as a place of infinite possibility. A banquet of second chances, new beginnings and bountiful opportunities. I had a particular fondness for against-all-odds, underdog, or phoenix-like stories — for tales of rugged individualists who beat the status quo and forged their own paths. I wanted to be one of them. I imagined I could be.

I fought against believing too little and instead believed strongly in anything that felt like redemption. It started early, with a red-nosed reindeer who saved Christmas and a cinder-sweeper who became a princess. It grew into folk songs about peace and the brotherhood of man; poetry about love; stories of obstacles overcome; and speeches about justice. With so many beautiful ideals lying just beyond my reach, I grew restless and disenchanted with the painful, long-suffering, gray world I lived in. The world was out there, waiting for me to join in.

It wasn’t long before I’d compiled a list of autodidactic school dropouts, including Jack London, Rod McKuen, William Faulkner, Anais Nin and even Shakespeare. (I hated school . . . the boredom, the cliques, the senseless study of algebra when one could be reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings). There was room for everybody in the world, I reasoned, from the giggling girls who got together for Friday night slumber parties to those who cried alone while listening to At Seventeen by Janis Ian. That’s what my heroes and all their many stories and songs taught me. To everything – turn, turn, turn / There is a season – turn, turn, turn / And a time for every purpose under heaven . . .

I don’t have to tell you how the rest of that story goes. I became a high-reaching potato eater, spending my time in the field dreaming about everything else. The empty space between idealism and reality gnawed at me from the inside out, but I couldn’t stop making promises to myself. Work whatever job you have to, but don’t let it define you. Keep learning. Live as closely to your ideals as possible, even if sometimes it can only be in your heart. Never give up.

Self-wired from nearly toddlerhood to believe in Great Big Beautiful Amazing Things, I couldn’t stop wishing for better — from myself, from others, from the world at large — and the more I wished, the wider the chasm grew. Over decades, the insufficiencies piled up. There was just so much ugliness and injustice in the news . . . genocide, rape, broken systems, hatred, torture, murder, inequality, poverty, starvation . . . and there seemed to be so little that was precious and innocent left in the balance. My own life was precarious and susceptible to even the slightest change in winds. In response, I prayed harder, spoke out more loudly and believed more. I vacillated between short bursts of profound discouragement and long periods of hope-filled willfulness that insisted on creating new dreams when old ones withered.

Of course my day would come. Of course there’d be a happy ending. Everything that I held so close to my heart — all those stories and songs and all of my own bright, stubborn dreams  — foretold it. All I had to do was keep striving, keep working, keep stoking the fires of my own hopes and passions. Something or someone would come along. All that I’d known, experienced and dreamed about would find a higher reason and a purpose. A Great Big Beautiful Amazing Thing would happen . . . it was just around the corner, waiting for the right time and place.

What I’m saying is that when it comes to the power of positive thinking and mind over matter — think it and be it, keep your heart focused on the good and your eyes on the future — I was one of its biggest adherents. Nothing was going to get me down or keep me down for long.

And the thing is, I’m still that person. It was only a couple of months ago that I found reason to let another would-be Great Big Beautiful Amazing Thing steep in my consciousness and fill my heart with the joy of possibility. The thing didn’t happen. The words that sounded believable weren’t true. The price of not being able to differentiate between polite lip-service and sincerity is paid by false hopes. I’ve willingly emptied out my pockets thousands of times just for the chance to believe. I imagine that some part of me always will. It’s harder to kill an idealistic heart, perhaps, than one that beats for more practical reasons.

 * * *

So I come to you from this imperfect, messy place, where there are still times the empty cupboards are seen as a reflection of a life that needs and wants for less . . . where broken hopes are used to create new, colorful mosaics . . . and oh, good god . . . sometimes I just felt so much that I wish my heart was like a well that could be taken from instead of like a reservoir that keeps filling itself up.

I come to you alone. Because in reality sometimes there are no second chances. Because sometimes all the trying, wishing, hard work, hoping and praying in the world doesn’t make Great Big Beautiful Amazing Things happen.

Part of me wishes I could keep this between us — one idealistic potato eater to another — just to avoid the wrath of the contentedly self-righteous, but you know how that goes. Disgust tends to spring up whenever the harshest truths of life are laid bare, especially when that life is a woman’s and the cinder-sweeper is still in rags at the end. The self-righteous like a convenient ending, but if they can’t have one, they’ll drag the dreaded word “victim” out as a contrivance. You and I know better, though. We’ve hardly laid down and played dead. We’ve dreamed of the best, lived through the worst, and kept our spirits up and thriving. When it comes to resiliency and strength of heart, we are victors.

Yet . . . we are also vulnerable. Particularly when it comes to the social machinations and cultural attitudes of a world in which we’re already derided for not being gifted enough, savvy enough, smart enough, well-connected enough or beautiful enough to escape the barren field of poverty.

* * *

 Enter the spiritual gurus.

EVERYTHING in your life you have attracted . . . accept that . . .it is true. You are the only one that creates your reality. – Rhonda Byrne

Everything that happens to you is a reflection of what you believe about yourself.  – Iyanla Vanzant

What we believe about ourselves and about life becomes true for us. – Louise Hay

Nothing comes ahead of its time, and nothing has ever happened that didn’t need to happen. – Byron Katie

Under the guise of self-help and positivity, today’s spiritual gurus are selling the self-immolation of truth. They are deepening the divide between the have’s and have not’s. By creating false gods of Self, they are killing off the ideals of empathy, awareness and understanding. They are pouring the poison of self-hatred and blame on the heads of the less than privileged, while ginning up indifference and entitlement among the upper middle-class and wealthy.

Whether the spiritual gurus are perpetrating the myth of self-as-god, or the concept of divine, universal preordination — in which every human experience is the intention and will of some higher power — one thing they all have in common is this: A blinding disregard and lack of compassion for the objective realities of others.

There are no social evils, systemic failures, or bad acts that can’t be quickly done away with under the law-of-attraction or higher power umbrella. Whatever ill someone else experiences, whether by way of a political and social system, or directly at the hands of someone else, is something they brought upon themselves. The poor are poor simply because they wish or expect to be. The woman who was raped must have believed herself unworthy of non-violence. The child who was abused needed to be for some cosmic reason.

If I were to believe that I attracted brutality or grueling circumstances onto myself, why wouldn’t I feel self-loathing? If I believed that a loving God / Higher Power /Universe decided I should suffer, why wouldn’t I turn on myself as undeserving? I dislike poverty, violence and despair — but the spiritual gurus would have me believe that despite my best efforts to avoid them, my psyche was secretly desirous of them all. I can’t think of a more crazy-making set-up for depression and confusion, much less the building of false hopes. (I wonder how many poor women read books like The Secret and tried to imagine themselves into prosperity?)

Most people would consider it outrageous to tell women in crises to seek her answers through an Ouji board or tarot cards, but somehow it’s become acceptable to tell them that their minds, in conjunction with an unknowable mystic entity, hold all the power in the world and that whatever reality they face hinges upon their thoughts and beliefs alone. Want a million dollars? Write yourself a check and believe it into reality. Want to be healthy? Dream it into existence. Wish you weren’t so sensitive to the bad news and painful abuses in your world? All you have to do is believe that everything that happens needs to happen for some higher reason. And if none of that works? The spiritual gurus have a readymade out: You just didn’t believe enough. You must have not been ready for the blessings you sought. You must have needed to learn a lesson.

So who do these self-as-god, will of the Universe beliefs really serve?

They serve those who are already privileged. They feed into the moral superiority of the upper middle-class (I am deserving of every privilege I have, while lesser others are not) and the ethical apathy of the rich (no new taxes, my coffers can never be full enough, let them eat cake).

A self-as-god, will of the Universe spirituality serves the egos of the self-absorbed, who wish not to be bothered by any circumstantial reality that is not their own. Instead of having to consider the lives of others, they have the convenience of believing that all is fair, just, and as it should be . . . perhaps even preordained. If others suffer, it’s because God wants them to or they brought it upon themselves. So why spare any empathy, consideration, or deeper thought? Why bother with idealistic concepts like justice, fairness and equality, when it’s lesser others who are responsible for their own lack of opportunities, disparities, suffering and tragedies?

In the last few years, in the midst of economic turmoil and increasing fears, I’ve seen a rise in the type of uncompassionate, unthinking charges that spiritual guruism creates. Stories that are not positive or redemptive in nature are often met with scorn. The homeless are assailed for seeking sympathy when they really just need to get a job. The freshly wounded are commanded to stop wallowing. Those who are hurting, fractured in spirit, confused, sick and despairing are sternly reminded that they have no one but themselves to blame. It’s difficult for anyone to openly talk about their own personally grim reality without provoking charges of undue pity-seeking — and very often from those who claim to be loving, spiritual beings. In a world where compassion is viewed as currency, lines will always be drawn over who is deserving and who is not. As the nation’s purse strings tighten, so it seems do our hearts — yet we continue to buy snake oil instead of contributing to solutions.

Whereas a truly positive spirituality would seek to reflect the highest ideals we know in all situations, for all people, a self-as-god spirituality seeks only what is best (most convenient, gratifying or affirmative) for one’s self.

I’ve told the story before of a wealthy man I worked for who turned away a pleasant and well-qualified job applicant for a job as a receptionist because she had crooked teeth. “If she can’t take care of her teeth, how can I trust her to take care of my business?” Bob said. I was young then, but soon came to appreciate just how often people are marginalized, shut-out, and turned away for all sorts of shallow, small-minded, self-serving, irrational, judgmental, prejudicial — and wholly human — reasons. The reality, proven by it’s own tangibility, isn’t that some divine Universe orders up this kind of ugliness. People do that. If men like Bob feel disdain over other people’s genetic makeup or other perceived flaws or differences (like skin color, gender, sexuality, general attractiveness or background), it’s not because others attracted their ill-will — it’s because men like Bob just don’t feel any obligation to be decent, fair or kind. They have no qualms about using their power to advance their own bigoted agendas or to harm other people.

The most positive thing that can be said about the woman who didn’t get the job is “well, at least she was spared from working for Bob.” I’d go along with that, but if I was thinking in terms of a divine Universe that constantly tests its subjects and doles out favors for passing, I could also say that the woman with the crooked teeth was presented to Bob as an opportunity to correct his prejudices. However, Bob suffered no tangible consequences for failing the test while the woman remained unemployed, which leaves the Universe theory rather impotent.

Many people — and I believe most of the idealists who have been quoted through hundreds of generations — would agree: As a society and as individuals, we know better than our actions would generally show.

This is the truth that I believe today’s spiritual gurus aren’t only avoiding, but attempting to subvert. In promoting the falsehood that each person has the god-like power to control their own circumstances, opportunities, reality and destiny — that each person attracts nothing except what is right or self-determined — the actions, behaviors, and beliefs of others no longer matter. Community no longer matters. We no longer have to strive toward ideals of social equity, more level playing fields, empathy, understanding or awareness — we just have to believe that “everything happens for a reason” and that whatever people believe about themselves becomes true and that everyone creates their own reality, for better or worse.  Instead of being brothers and sisters in a shared world, we’re each the gods of our own.

I’d ask you again — who does this type of self-absorbed spirituality really serve?

No matter how self-sufficient we may be or strive to become, none of us live in a bubble. We are born to others and spend almost all of our lives engaged with others, affected by others, dependent upon, or interdependent with others in some way. Our lives are determined in part by the society we live in, the systems we create and the social and political climates.

It isn’t antithetical to spirituality to believe that people, together and individually, make the world what it is. What if we acted upon that belief? What if we acted like everything we said, invested in, believed in, loved, voted for, promoted and acted upon actually mattered? What if, instead of helping perpetuate myths about who suffers and why, we actually worked toward ending needless suffering?  What if, instead of creating and re-creating the myth of a finite pie, we created a reality of infinite possibilities?

We wouldn’t need spiritual gurus to fill the vacuum between what we know and what we see with false beliefs. We wouldn’t need to escape into the straw sanctuaries offered by mysticism. Instead of looking to change only ourselves, we might try actually changing the world we live in — the one that right now we continue to try to invent cosmic excuses for.

 This is the third of a three-part series. Part one is here and part two is here. 

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Several years ago, a well-connected woman in the literary world sent me an email after a friend of hers shared something I’d written. She told me she thought my story was insightful and my voice was unique. I felt honored and we began to exchange emails in which we shared thoughts about our work and our personal lives. Her letters to me were filled with ideas about inclusiveness, diversity and equality. Then I heard, through another source, that she was editing an anthology of stories that seemed like a good fit for me. I asked her if I could submit a piece. My new friend, who had highly praised my writing, skirted the issue. I was taken aback by her reluctance and kept digging until I finally got the truth. In less gracious terms than she put it, she would be embarrassed to include one of my stories in her book. I had no real credentials. The writers she planned on choosing were either established or on their way up, while I was not.

The truth hurt, but at least it let me know who I was in her eyes. I was always going to be the backroom girl to her, at least until someone else took a chance and published my work. She wasn’t going to be the first, though. It was just too risky. (Later, she tried to placate my hurt feelings by making my “outsider” status a cause for celebration. “It’s really where you’re at that makes your work so moving,” she told me. “You don’t want to give up that powerful element up for the sake of being like everyone else.” In other words, I should have felt privileged by her rejection instead of hurt).

At about that time, there was a new show on television called “Starting Over”, which featured women trying to improve their lives with the help of life coaches. I’m usually not much of a television watcher, but the show’s premise fell right in line with what I felt I needed in my life — a complete life makeover. I didn’t want to be the backroom girl forever. I didn’t want my past or my work to be viewed as a source of embarrassment to others. How could I reframe my past in order to create a brighter future? I was hoping “Starting Over” might provide some ideas. I followed the program into its second season, intrigued by some of the women and their stories. That was the last time I saw “life coach” Iyanla Vanzant until I watched an episode of Oprah’s Lifeclass last Friday night.

(As an aside, I was excited when I heard that Oprah Winfrey was going to create her own network. I imagined that OWN might fill the gaping space between slanted news shows (FOX) and ignorance as entertainment (Jersey Shore). I have no idea what’s planned for the future on OWN — I’ve only seen a small portion of “The Rosie Show” — but I wish it every success. The criticism I’m about to share isn’t meant to criticize Oprah or the network, just the contents of this one show I did watch. Besides, I have mad respect for the kind and generous Sheri Salata and want her to succeed).

Back to Lifeclass. I didn’t remember Vanzant as being quite so far out there with her spiritual beliefs in her “Starting Over” days so I was stunned when, during Oprah’s program, she authoritatively advanced such cosmic gems as “children choose their own parents” and insisted that even abusive, neglectful parents must be honored.

Vanzant’s opinions are hers and she’s certainly entitled to them, but what was disturbing to me was that there was no challenge to even the wildest, most far-fetched of her opinions. At a certain point I thought, ‘Oh, Oprah’s going to argue with that’, but she didn’t. It felt like Oprah, who’s supposed to be the head teacher of Lifeclass, let the substitute run the course without question. I was surprised by that, but then perhaps the show served its purpose after all. Hearing Vanzant impart her beliefs as if they were gospel, the only truth and way, stoked several ‘aha’ moments for me . . . which are really less about Vanzant herself and more about spiritual guruism in general and my own, long road to healing.

Aha Moment #1 - Intellect is not the enemy of spirituality. Applying intelligence to a spiritual concept should not weaken it but — if it’s a reasonable concept — make it stronger.

You can, for example, choose to believe as Vanzant does — with absolutely no proof whatsoever — that through billions of people, chance meetings, sperm and eggs, you chose your parents. You can believe that whatever experience you had with them, including abuse, was some sort of preordained spiritual lesson you had to learn, but let’s not couch our language. Essentially, this philosophy holds even the youngest victim responsible for whatever befalls them in life. If they chose it, then they had a hand in their abuse (or whatever else they may have suffered). If they chose to be tortured, beaten, raped, physically disabled, or emotionally scarred, then it was essentially for their own good — to teach them some lesson they needed to learn.

Even putting aside the (very rational) question of why human beings might need lessons in sexual, physical or emotional abuse, this “spiritual concept” is not only devoid of reason, but also lacks anything approaching compassion or empathy, even for oneself.

It’s not much of a philosophical jump to believe that if a pre-born soul had the power to choose their parents, then they also made choices about other major events in their lives. Therefore, the murder victim might have pre-chosen a violent end in order to become a better person in the afterlife. The murderer might have chosen to kill to teach himself a spiritual lesson. The child born to warmth and love chose her path, as did the child born to cold and neglect. If everything is pre-destined, there’s no such thing as random luck or chance, or even perverse human will. Everything that happens was meant to happen, even when it appears to be less godly than rooted in a corrupt human system. Kim Kardashian receives $17M in payment for a marriage, Troy Davis is executed, and Snooki becomes a published author — all for the benefit of their (and perhaps our) spiritual growth.

Under this umbrella of nonsensical thought, where God / The Universe / A Higher Power is ultimately responsible for all things, human beings become nothing more than pawns in a rough and never-ending game of enlightenment. As pawns, tied to the heavenly will and dictates of a universe beyond their reach, the belief would appear to be that people are essentially powerless to become more like the Most-High they claim to have faith in — peaceful, wise and loving — without endlessly repeating and perpetuating illogical, unwise and unloving experiences. And apparently, although God is perfect and infallible, he created billions of slow learners.

Perhaps you believe that and feel comforted by the thought that there’s a Bigger Plan out there. One that you can’t possibly know the true meaning of because you are, after all, only human. Now that you’re flesh and blood, the great power of choice you had as a pre-born being (when you got to choose your parents and therefore a significant part of your destiny) has been transformed into the mortal choice of feelings. You don’t remember choosing abuse (or whatever tragic thing happened) but you must have, your beliefs say, because it happened. Now, your spiritual lesson here on Earth is to struggle through a morass of emotional hell and ultimately choose the feelings that will make you feel like it was all part of a big cosmic plan meant for your enlightenment.

This line of spiritual belief is so preposterous — it makes such a game out of human suffering and consequences — that I have a hard time contemplating how any thinking being would consider it possible, much less desirable or healing on any level.

When I wrote Elephant Girl, I talked about straw sanctuaries — the beliefs we hold, often mystical in nature, that make us feel better about a situation, at least temporarily. A belief like “there are no accidents” gives seeming reason to everything under the sun, from betrayal and rejection to violence and death. The tangible and physical truth, though, is that accidents do happen. Often and every single day. A parent turns their head for just a few seconds . . . a skier crashes into a tree . . . someone leaves their wallet in the restroom. We can and do learn lessons from accidents, but most often they are wholly human. We learn to be more conscious and aware of our surroundings. We learn regret and remorse. We learn to grieve and heal. We learn humanity through our own accidents, tragedies and mistakes as well as those of other people. This is affirming in itself. We don’t need to believe that God (whom we imagine should love us) — decided to drown our child, paralyze our friend, or make us lose our rent money in order to teach us a lesson.

We aren’t expressing much love for our own God or higher power when we choose to make them the bearer of all that’s bad, irrational and painful in the world. What we’re really doing is turning away from the concept of God as a loving, accepting, beautiful entity and remaking him (she or it) into an emotional abuser.  We’re either creating God in our own, human image or calling up a punishing, Old Testament God who would lay a child upon a rock to be killed as an act of faith or wipe out a nation for the sins of a few.

And if this is what you believe — that God, the Universe or some higher power puts people through hell to test their faith or teach them a lesson — then that’s your right, but please, let’s not call it enlightenment. It’s a belief as old as the Bible itself and it is steeped in fear. Fear that we or others won’t do the right thing without a punishing parent in the wings — fear that our hearts are not as clean or pure as they could be — fear that we can’t or won’t evolve on our own.

It’s possible to be a spiritual being who believes in a God/higher power/Universe that is above wanting to hurt you, or anyone else in the world. It’s possible to have faith in a most-high spirituality that does not seek to perpetuate, redeem, or justify the bad acts of human beings.

You can believe logically — because there’s plenty of evidence to prove it — that human beings are at the center of most social/world/personal problems . . . Or you can believe that a perfect, loving and powerful God views us as children that need to suffer for our own betterment.

The difference between the two beliefs is that we can do so much more with the first one. If we know, for instance, the kind of human experiences that lead others down a path of violence, we can work toward prevention. If we know that children born in poverty have a higher incidence of permanent brain damage (and we do), then we might be motivated to help change their circumstances out of compassion. If, however, even on some small level, we hold the belief that people choose their fate — that even the worst circumstances are somehow God’s will — than we’re also going to question our own power (and rightness) in interfering. When we make God the scapegoat for all tragic human events and suffering we not only lessen the concept of God, but our own power to empathize, feel compassion, and affect the world around us.

I choose to hold my higher power above myself. I do believe there’s something almighty, supremely intelligent, and beautifully soulful in the world. I feel it in the very best part of myself and other people. I feel it when I look out upon a star-filled summer sky or see the grace in which an animal moves in its natural habitat. I feel it in moments of perfect, quiet communion and spontaneous bursts of pure joy. I just don’t believe that such a powerful entity as God — such a perfect and transcendent being — wrestles in the mud of everyday humanity. I think it’s more likely that it’s been left to us, in all of our imperfect but knowing humanness (and we do know so much better than we let on), to take care of and solve our own failings. I believe this is our task. We are charged, as individuals, to learn as much as we can; to give the world the best we’ve got; to help others fulfill their potential; and to love with the full and considerable power of our own, human hearts.

I believe this is the part of God, the power and strength of God, that exists within us most tangibly and powerfully.

Aha Moment #2 – We perpetrate spiritual violence when we cannibalize our intellect and ability to reason.

During Lifeclass, Iyanla Vanzant said that picking up a cell phone while speaking in person with someone else was an act of “spiritual violence”. It was, she said, dismissive of another human being’s spirit. I’d agree that it’s rude and inconsiderate. However, I’d also suggest that Vanzant isn’t aware of her own contradictions. Could there possibly be a more spiritually violent belief than one that holds that children, particularly those who are abused or neglected, chose their own parents? That actually promotes that concept as an advanced (I think she referred to it as ‘level 403’) belief? What could possibly be more dismissive of another human being than saying that they chose, in their pre-born life, to be beaten, choked, starved, raped, or left to die in a cage?

Applying “an intellectual construct to a spiritual concept” is something Vanzant called someone out for during the show. On the contrary, I would say that failure to apply our intelligence to spiritual beliefs is what causes, in the larger scheme of things, catastrophes like Jonestown and Waco. In an individual realm, it leads people down spiritual rabbit holes which may appear enlightening at first, but that really end up nowhere and serving no one except the rabbit in any real, tangible manner.

Whether you believe in God or a higher power — or you don’t — you can’t reasonably deny that the mind is a large part of who we are. We have the ability to reason . . . for a reason. The intellect is not anti-spiritual. If it were, there’d be no Mahatma Gandhi, Confucious, Buddha, or even the Bible. Our souls are not mindless or devoid of rationality. To divide the soul from our minds is to make enemies of ourselves, which is a form of spiritual violence with far greater consequences than answering a cell phone while at lunch with a friend.

Aha Moment #3 – There are many roads that lead to healing. Some are short and don’t last in the long-term, but provide needed temporary relief.  Others are long, winding roads that eventually take you where you need to be. However, when someone tells you that you must take road A or B in order to really heal, they are stating their opinion, not a fact.

The fact is that there is no one perfect, correct and one-size-fits-all way to heal. Those who promote such a way are only stating their opinion, based upon their own thoughts, experience and, in Vanzant’s case, their religious beliefs. If your belief system is similar to that of the person giving advice, you might find what they say helpful. If it is not, taking their advice may cause more pain and confusion, and may even be damaging.

One of the most common (and in my opinion) harmful fallacies in abuse recovery is that of forgiveness. Therapists and spiritual gurus go so far as to redefine the actual meaning of the word in order to cajole their clients and adherents into accepting the false premise that forgiveness is necessary to heal. I’ve written about this subject extensively before, but it bears repeating: You don’t have to forgive someone who hurt you in order to heal your pain. Forgiveness may not be merited, you may not feel compelled to give it, but you can still heal. I would encourage anyone who believes otherwise to read this very articulate piece  by renowned psychologist and true child abuse expert Alice Miller.  Just one line from Miller speaks to the experience of thousands of survivors who, like me, found it far more healing to reject than to forgive:

“It was my experience that it was precisely the opposite of forgiveness – namely, rebellion against mistreatment suffered, the recognition and condemnation of my parents’ misleading opinions and actions, and the articulation of my own needs – that ultimately freed me from the past.”

Neither Miller’s spirit or mine — or the spirits of thousands of others — were damned by our decision to reject the concept of forgiving of our abusers. Instead, we forgave ourselves for those horrible times we questioned whether we did something to deserve being beaten, choked, or raped.

We rationally looked at the behavior and actions of those who abused us and said no, forgiving you is not a genuine want or need of mine. At that moment and forever after we unchained our spirits from our abusers. We put our own desires — our own ethics, feelings and thoughts — above those who harmed us. We removed ourselves from the cycle of abuse by rejecting our abusers and their actions wholly and without regret. Once we were out of the cycle, we didn’t have to hate or fear our abusers — we also didn’t have to try to love, understand or accept them. We could move on with our own lives, untie our morality from theirs, disconnect our hearts from theirs, and thus take them out of the equation of our healing. Free from the socially enforced and religious “good child” mandate of forgiveness, many survivors, myself included, found an inner peace and calmness that they couldn’t access before.

That’s not to suggest that forgiveness is unhealthy or wrong, only that if it’s in a person’s heart to forgive and they find it helps them heal, then they’ll do it and they won’t need to be talked into it or convinced that it’s the right thing to do. They’ll know. Just as others know when it’s not right or wouldn’t be healing for them.

In short, there are no hard and fast rules to healing. There’s no one way, because we’re all individuals. You may choose to forgive a parent who abused you because it makes you feel better, but it does not mean that someone else is wrong, immoral, or less spiritually evolved than you for choosing not to do the same. Our experiences as individuals are  uniquely our own, as are our spirits.

Aha Moment #4 – Spiritual gurus (and so many others) deny judgment at the same time they’re pronouncing their beliefs to be superior.

Anyone with any amount of life experience judges others. A five year-old entering a kindergarten classroom judges the teacher to be nice or mean and judges which of her peers will make the best playmates. If  you’re out walking late at night and cross the street because you see someone who looks dangerous coming your way, you’re judging. We judge our surroundings and other people every day. Judgment is built into our DNA and it’s not a shameful thing unless it’s used consistently poorly or to harm or denigrate others.

Many spiritual gurus deny that they judge while at the same time making broad, sweeping judgments. Vanzant did this during Oprah’s Lifeclass, when she insisted that a woman who was abandoned by her father must honor him because, after all, he lent his body to God in order to create her. To not honor him, no matter what kind of person he was or what he’d done, was to dishonor herself. Vanzant used her religious beliefs to shame a woman who, probably after years of consideration and painful experience, decided her father wasn’t worthy of honor. Vanzant then briefly tried to reframe the definition of honor to make it a more palatable concept. (I’ve noticed that many spiritual gurus seem to develop an “anything it takes to get someone to go along” attitude when it comes to promoting their personal beliefs. Forgiveness, then, doesn’t have to mean to absolve or pardon, and honor doesn’t have to mean to hold in great respect or high esteem if adherents balk too much at those definitions. Words can take on different or situational meanings, as long as the language fits with the overall program being promoted).

My life has given me several opportunities to interact with spiritual gurus. My sense of realism has often butted up against mystical concepts like “write yourself a check for a million dollars, believe it, and it will happen”. However, the only time I’ve ever felt personally affected by someone else’s beliefs is when they were used to belittle, invalidate, or dismiss my experiences. Most recently, this happened when a “life and wellness coach” told me that God hadn’t financially blessed me because I wasn’t through learning all the lessons of poverty. No matter how hard I worked or what I did, she said, God would keep me poor until I was “ready to receive” blessings. Talk about a judgment. She not only invalidated my work, but also presumed to speak for God and soothsay my future. She used her religious belief system to irrationally speak to and justify a life experience that was not her own.

Over the years, spiritual gurus have told cancer victims that they caused their own disease by repressing their emotions. They’ve suggested that those who died didn’t pray hard enough or have a positive enough attitude, while those who survived did. They’ve suggested that the rich are rich and the poor are poor because of Karma or destiny, and that God has a wise, unknowable hand in all tragic events, including genocide and starvation.

This is what happens when we separate our intellect from our spirituality: We insist on a certain type of perpetually struggling ignorance that has us chasing after cosmic reasons from God while the obvious reasons are often right in front of our faces. We turn humanity — God’s own creation — into a blind and dumb species that can’t grasp simple concepts like accidents, randomness or cause and effect, but that presumes it’s wise enough to know God’s intentions. We turn God into a petty, punishing buffoon who not only preordains or oversees the details of billions of lives, but who keeps reinventing the same human predicaments for his own, humanly unfathomable reasons.

I believe most of us truly know better than this. We’re wiser and more knowing than the spiritual gurus would have us believe.

This is part two of a three part series. Part one is here. Part three is here.

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When I was a child, I felt the presence of something that felt like potential. That’s a human word and one that doesn’t quite express the great, big, beautiful simplicity of what I felt, but it comes close. I felt all the “could-be’s” and possibilities in the world. I knew, in my child’s heart, how very easy it could be to change the world . . . to better all the lives in that world. All we had to do was Stop and Start. Stop arguing, stop lying, stop being mean, greedy, illogical, unjust and unfair. Start agreeing, telling the truth, start being authentically kind, generous, rational, just and fair. I could hardly wait to grow up and meet the thousands of people I was convinced must feel the same way. I mean, my world was small and unpleasant — my mother was full of rage, her husband wasn’t loving, my sisters and I were fairly disconnected — but then there was the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon every year and how loving and generous was that? There were all those thousands of people who packed television churches on Sunday, looking for kindness and agreement, and there was the soul-stirring speech of Martin Luther King, Jr., which was played over and over again until, by the age of 12, I nearly had it memorized.

My child’s heart felt that the source of my mother’s bitter anger was her lies. If only she’d tell the truth, I thought — if only she didn’t have to keep running from it, hiding it, denying it, making up more lies to cover the original ones — she might feel lighter. She’d have more space in her heart for the good things in life, like happiness and love. (I spent years trying to convince my mother of this, in sideways fashion as a child and head-on as an adult, but she clung to her lies until the end, as if they were life preservers).

I grew up determined to be a truth-teller. I didn’t want ugly things in my life. Most of all, I didn’t want to do anything to perpetuate ugliness. I wanted to be the highest “could-be” I sensed within myself. I really wanted it more than I wanted anything else.

When I left home at 16, I was scarred and frightened, but also filled with hope. I won’t repeat my life story here — I wrote a book about it already and touched on this subject there — but as a teenager I was hungry for guidance. I read self-help book after self-help book, not only to heal my wounds but to help me carve out the kind of happy, authentic, loving future I envisioned. I was willing to try anything, from Dale Carnegie’s enthusiastic positivity to the self-emptying premises of Buddhist philosophy.  At various times, I fasted, prayed, meditated, chanted and screamed. I kept journals, created life plans and visualized my dreams coming true.

And then life hit. I discovered that many of my “could-be’s” needed other people. I couldn’t go to college, for instance, without the consent of my parents or the college system. I couldn’t create the feeling of safety and security I wanted without a job that paid decent wages, which meant that I needed someone, somewhere to give me a chance to prove myself. I couldn’t bring about or foster a mutual love without someone else’s consent or desire. I couldn’t be the writer I dreamed of being if there was no accessible ladder for me to climb. I could only keep hoping for any of it — trying to make myself the most improved person I could be, a person that other people might want to help — while trying to keep my head above water.

Without any real guidance, though — only my own naïve mind and the bromides of self-help books — I made a lot of mistakes, some of them critical. I made poor decisions with long-term consequences and then spent desperate years trying to mitigate the damages. Yet, on some level, I was still invested in what the spiritual gurus of self-help had all but promised me: Your thoughts create your reality. If you can dream it, you can become it. If you believe in yourself, other people will believe in you. Even in the worst and most desperate of times, I stoked these beliefs. I filled my mind and heart with the happiest dreams I could conceive of and convinced myself that there was something beautiful, perhaps even miraculous, waiting for me in the wings.

Flash forward 30+ years later to a deflated mess of a woman who had learned too many lessons the hard way. We live in a shared reality. You can dream all you want, but you’re going to need talent, tools, and other people to bring your dreams to life. Believing in yourself is crucial, but unless you have something to offer that other people want, belief isn’t going to pay the bills.

Hundreds of hardscrabble life experiences and empty hopes later, here’s what I wish, in a nutshell, the self-help experts had told me: It’s just not going to be that easy, kid.

Today, I have a strong appreciation for the battles I’ve fought, the lessons I’ve learned and a healthy skepticism of spiritual gurus — those who make their living telling others what to think, what to believe, how to feel and how to succeed. My skepticism isn’t so much for my benefit anymore, but because I know that people who are seeking answers are often wounded, in pain, confused and looking for answers that will leave them hopeful. I don’t want others to slip on the same snake oil that I did.

Spiritual gurus are not always wrong, but it pays to keep in mind that even the worst guessers are right sometimes. Besides, it’s hard to argue with a tenet like, “thinking positive thoughts will make you happier.” Of course they will, but like anything else, there’s a flip side. Thinking about what upsets you can give you the motivation to change a situation. Thinking about what makes you sad can help you define what’s missing in your life. There’s a reason for the diversity of feelings that human beings have and they all have their place and purpose. I think it’s a natural part of the human spirit to reach for the best within us, even if getting there is sometimes a winding, rocky, frustrating road.

I don’t know anyone that strives for negativity as a lifestyle, but I do know quite a few who feel obligated to force positivity into every situation, and who suffer guilt when they can’t or don’t. They feel like they’re not being the compliant, “good”, uncomplaining people they’ve been taught they’re supposed to be in order to be accepted, loved and valued. Many of these same people, under the imagined gun of positivity, begin to fear not just the expanse of their own emotions, but those of others. Coming face-to-face with someone who’s upset, frustrated, sad or hurt, they tend to take it personally. After all, if they repressed their own emotions in the name of positivity — if they cared that much about being a “better person” — one who’s accepted, loved and valued — then this person should, too. Maybe this upset-frustrated-sad-hurt person isn’t such a good person after all, they begin to think, at least not as good as I am.

I’ve seen this behavior up close and personal. I’ve witnessed a few newly knighted “positive thinkers” cut a swath through their relationships, refusing to have a thing to do with friends going through the crisis of a divorce, cancer or other trauma — unless those friends were willing to put a happy, positive spin on events. It seems to me that the positive thinker’s lack of empathy stemmed from a fear that they would lose their own superimposed but heavily enforced emotional bearings.  Their positivity was so weak that it could not stand up in the real world, yet they promoted it to others as if it truly did make them better, kinder, wiser people.

Life can be hard. I think we make it harder for ourselves and each other when we impose or try to abide by unnecessary “rules” that attempt to dismiss or subvert large parts of the human experience, including our own natures and the realties we face everyday. And this is at the heart of my complaint about spiritual gurus in general. They create and promote unnecessary “rules” that don’t keep the wholeness of human beings and their experiences in mind. They divide too much. They seek to remove intellect from soul and spirituality from reality. They give false and unequal weight to the power of Self, while ignoring the power and impact of Others.

So why do we need spiritual gurus? Why do we listen to their programs, buy their books and tell all of our friends?

It’s obvious that we want answers . . . but do we even ask the right questions? Is it possible that perhaps we already know what the answers are — that we’ve always known — yet we just feel too powerless to bring about change on our own?

This is part one of a three-part series. Part two is here. Part three is here.

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