You are not doing spirituality wrong if you have anxiety

Period.

There are lots of messages out there telling us that if we have anxiety, OCD, or any other kind of mental illness, we just aren’t meditating hard enough, praying hard enough, or thinking positively enough. That mentality is incredibly harmful. Of course, spiritual practice can help us process our emotions and experience more peace and relief in our lives. But, if your brain is chemically or genetically wired a certain way, or has been shaped that way by trauma, it can feel so much worse trying to focus on making it go away forever. For many of us, it won’t. For many of us, we still wouldn’t change who we are, even as we work at managing and neutralizing the parts of our lives that make it harder. None of that make us any less spiritual or divine.

I won’t demonize people who try to “love and light” this stuff away. There is a place for love, a place for light. We are those things too. But we are also our shadows and rough edges. I think people who engage in dismissal or spiritual bypassing are often suffering from a lack of acceptance themselves. Their concept of Spirit or God might be limited, caught in a binary that says things are either one way or another, you’re either totally healed or not trying hard enough. The truth is, we will always be healing, but we are also good enough and worthy of love and respect exactly as we are. We can even learn to find the gifts in our wounds, or the things that are tough for us, if we learn to accept them and love our way through them rather than suppress, ignore, or wish them away.

There is so much we don’t know, and we are so much more than what we know. I believe in holding space for all of it, learning to love and accept what is while working to change what we can’t accept. For me, it’s all part of the spiritual journey.

One of the Reiki Principles is “Just for today, I will not worry.” It’s a beautiful sentiment, a call to be present, to let go of the pain that causes worry. For many people, this is easier said than done. But it doesn’t mean we can’t try. It is in the trying, in the moments of being and knowing nothing is permanent, not our joy or our pain, that we may find peace. That might sound scary as shit. For a person with OCD, PTSD, anxiety and depression like myself, it can actually be paralyzing at times. But, then again, maybe that’s part of the gift—knowing you will absolutely have good days and bad days, good weeks and bad weeks. You yourself, though, are never all good or all bad. You are human, and you are also divine. That’s a paradox we may spend our whole lives trying to understand.

Maybe if we didn’t think of God as perfect we would see that all consciousness is perfect in its imperfection. The gods and goddesses and deities of many of the world’s religions have well-rounded personalities, hang ups and vices, cruelties and gifts, love and wisdom to share. Who made God perfect? My guess is the patriarchal forces that wanted to keep us in check to serve their narrow religions and governments. At the same time, I believe there is a Spirit, an energy, a consciousness beyond any conceptions or images of a higher power that is infinitely whole and complete. I believe this force loves us unconditionally and is always supporting us, no matter what our human experience may look like, no matter how removed from love and acceptance we may feel in any given moment.

There’s a lot to think about here. At the end of the day, we are all whole, loved, and perfect as we are, because we are love. You can be a healer and have OCD. You can be highly spiritual and highly anxious. Hopefully in accepting all of who you are, you will find peace and relief on more days than not. And if you need help remembering this, know you are not alone.

Be you. All of you. There is no greater gift you can offer the world.

- Lauren