Spiritual Healers & their Shadows: A Complete Guide

Everyone can take a lesson out of the spiritual principles of this organization. And although not everyone has a problem with drugs or alcohol, every person reading this right now is touched in varying degrees by some form of obsessiveness affecting them in very negative ways. As we look to the future, the potential for personalized spiritual interventions is particularly exciting.

With this realization, conviction in the Self grows, and the drive to “seek healing” falls away. The more faith and attention you give the Self—whether it’s your experiential reality at present or not—the faster self-healing can occur. To be successful with an external healer, there’s generally some level of projection involved. That is, we tend to project a powerful part of ourselves (“inner gold”) onto the healer. Other individuals are more intuitive and decide to study intensely on their own.

Be Still And Know That I AM God…

Using dialectical logic and everyday language to raise awareness on the topics of chemical dependency and spiritual maladies. Please respect the work I have done on this website, especially personal compositions, by siting this website as the origin of the information. Would you really heal by pretending that sore wasn’t yours or by making it someone else’s responsibility to look after? They will purport to have the power to “heal” all your issues and provide you with the “one true path” towards enlightenment, illumination, self-realization, or Oneness. Then, of course, you have the more sinister breed of spiritual teachers who appear divine and enlightened on the surface but are raging megalomaniacs underneath. But when does this getting and being more actually end?

How to Be a Spiritual Healer … For Yourself

spiritual malady explained

Helping others helps build a stronger spiritual foundation, counteracting selfishness and promoting a sense of connectedness and community. Spiritual illnesses remind you that you need a change in your life. What activities or habits have caused harm to my physical health? Many of us say that we have the right to do whatever we want to our own bodies. We somehow think this is freedom, but we’re really becoming a slave to our own desires. And—as many of us here in this room know—it’s not long until those desires are running our lives.

spiritual malady explained

Help from the body

Volunteering time and resources to help those Halfway house in need can build empathy and provide a sense of belonging and purpose, while also helping us understand our emotional natures. Addressing selfishness, self-centeredness, and self pity is crucial for overcoming spiritual malady. By fostering empathy and meaningful connections, we can break free from the isolation and find a path to recovery. When the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous was written and published in 1939, the times and language of those times was incredibly different than modern times.

As you grow in your sobriety and learn more about yourself, you may find that your concept of a Higher Power changes as well. The most important thing is that you keep an open mind and heart as you continue on your sobriety journey. One way to think of a Higher Power is simply as a force that is greater than yourself. This could be the power of nature, the universe, or even something as simple as your cats or dogs at home – perhaps their love for you and the fact that they need you to be sober is your Higher Power.

Spiritual Malady AA Big Book for Addicts and Alcoholics

Language is an attempt to capture experience and appearance of the Other, in a way that can be transmitted to the reader. On the one hand we have the subjective experience of the addict himself, on the other, the nihilistic background that supports or exacerbates the condition of addiction or rather is this condition. Most treatment approaches focus solely on the individual without attempts to reconnect this individual with the cultural conditions in which he is embedded. Of course, to do so would require the individual counselor to understand said culture and its historical antecedents.

To conclude, it’s not my body – my allergic reaction to alcohol – that’s going to take me back to drinking. It’s really not my mind – the mental obsession – that is the underlying root of what will take me back to  drinking. It’s the “spiritual malady”, as manifested by my EGO (selfishness—self-centeredness), that  can eventually lead me back to drinking or sometimes even suicide. Writes,  “For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for  others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead.

spiritual malady explained

This sense of meaninglessness can lead to a “dark knight of the soul,” triggering existential depression and chronic addictions. It represents a universal image and set of tendencies that extend throughout time and location. Sometimes it’s easier to admit our resentments against a stranger or co-worker than someone in our own family. So denial can be a pretty thick fog to break through in this area. It takes rigorous honesty, and it might require a lot of digging and peeling away of layers to start uncovering things. There is one decision that we make, that leads to a continuous unfolding of decision-less choices on the path of life.

alcoholicsguide

  • When “the spiritual malady is overcome,” this Higher Power is supposed to “restore us to sanity” and tidy up the physical, mental, and spiritual mess that booze has stirred up in our life.
  • Regardless of the name of the substance or vice, all bad habits stem from brokenness that is directly tied to the emotional energy spun out of a dark force called resentment.
  • The sense of emptiness and unrest that accompanies spiritual malady can lead us to seek solace in substances, perpetuating the cycle of addiction.
  • Finding a Higher Power is an essential part of Alcoholics Anonymous, but what if you don’t believe in God?

You are merely instructed to be open to the idea that you are not the end all be all, that there exists out in the universe something that is greater or more powerful than yourself. Whatever you designate that power to be is up to you. However, you choose to interact with that higher power is also up to you. Alcoholism is the only disease that is entirely capable of fighting back, of taking care of itself, and of https://softwarebazar.net/2022/03/09/addiction-definition-symptoms-traits-causes/ emerging in new places and new forms when it isn’t properly treated, whether we are drinking of not.

It is disturbing their lives and holding them back from full peace and security. Community-based organizations often offer support groups tailored to spiritual recovery, providing a network of individuals who understand the challenges and triumphs spiritual malady explained of the recovery journey. Finding the right support system can make a significant difference in maintaining sobriety and fostering spiritual growth.

  • Most treatment approaches focus solely on the individual without attempts to reconnect this individual with the cultural conditions in which he is embedded.
  • They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so.
  • Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind?
  • If you aren’t ready to get involved in your church, that’s your decision.

Alcohol Induced Dementia: Understanding the Emotional Impact

When dealing with the disease of alcoholism we are selfish and self-centered beings. We use everything and everyone, even when we stop using alcohol and drugs to cope with thesefeelings of being unsatisfied and uncomfortable in life. The more we focus less on ourselves we allow a god of our understanding to enter our minds and work in our lives.