spirituality — Wisdom — Elizabeth Hayes

What New Age Spirituality Gets Right and What it Doesn’t

New Age spirituality isn’t really new anymore. In fact, it’s been around for a few decades, so these days it’s really just branded spirituality. Yet, ask anyone what spirituality or New Age spirituality really is, and the answers will likely be all over the place. New Age spirituality has given rise to so many different modalities, ideas, theories, truths/half-truths, pseudo-sciences, and feel-good totems, it’s become a kitchen sink of spirituality. From body and wellness to astrology, mindfulness and meditation, energy healing, channeling, chanting, sweating, Tarot, Angels, Star seeds, crystals and so on, there’s seemingly no end. With such an exhaustive list, it’s no wonder that New Age spirituality is difficult to really encapsulate, which feeds a common perception that it’s wishy-washy and lacks any true identity.

Into the Unknown

2020 is giving us one huge wake-up call after another. It’s telling us it’s time to confront our fears. As a society, we’ve become adept at not facing reality, seeking out virtual realities in order to escape the painful one and developing detrimental coping mechanisms. It had to be something big like the Coronavirus pandemic to shake us from the somnolence of our complacency.

Nevermindfulness

Mindfulness has recently emerged as a trendy modality. It’s almost impossible to go through the day without an article, a celebrity, a meditation studio or an Elephant Journal quote touting its effectiveness in bringing about personal peace and awareness while allowing for complete presence in this world. As a therapeutic concept that’s been around for several decades, mindfulness has provided a way to approach our very imperfect world and enabled people to make sense of their often tumultuous human experiences. However, as with many things born decades ago that were a good idea at the time (think moon shoes, crimping irons and creepy crawlers), it’s time for our own understanding to surpass the concept.

Elizabeth HayesAugust 16, 2019spirituality, meditation, mindfulness, spiritual growth, life lessons

Weeding Out the Root of All Fears: Realizing Our Self-Worth

The notion of not being enough constantly surrounds us, underpinning so many of our social and economic constructs. Buried beneath these are the many narratives we’ve been fed and internalized, negatively impacting our sense of self-worth.