Is “becoming spiritual” a consolation prize? Are we settling for less when we give up on the pursuit of being somebody special? For me, like for a lot of us, it does feel like a consolation prize. It does feel like settling. It feels like all the effort I put into proving and improving got me nowhere, being nobody with nothing! WTF!!!
I try to do all the right things—meditate, pray, stretch myself into the postures, write the affirmation, visualize, journal, clear my chakras, burn the incense—and yet, something still feels… not right, not enough. What the HELL! Why?
Here’s why! Secretly, we’re hoping that doing all the right spiritual stuff will make us somebody special. And when it doesn’t, we feel like we’ve been handed a bill of goods along with “The Spiritual Participation Trophy: Thanks for trying, here’s your inner peace. WTF?!
Why Bother?
People come to me for coaching when they’re ready for an upleveling in life. They may not even know what that means—just that what they’ve been doing no longer works. It’s not necessarily a crisis. It’s more like a quiet longing for a new way of being—of seeing themselves, their lives, and their relationships more clearly, and experiencing more of themselves as themselves.
Rhonda has been in recovery for over 20 years. For all those years, she’s been on a path of self-exploration. A dedicated actor and writer, she’s chased success with everything she’s got—yet always feels like she’s falling short of her own expectations. And yet, through our conversations, like every one of my clients, Rhonda reveals a kind of exquisite elegance in the way she lives her life—without even knowing it.
Rhonda is one of those people who drops a truth bomb mid-conversation, and it blows my mind. The other day, she said something that left me breathless:
“Spirituality is the consolation prize. I have to settle for spiritual because I can’t make it to success.”
Wow!
It hit me how true this is for so many people. And it hit me too, because in some ways it’s still true for me now. WTF!!!
We often ignore our relationship with our spirit-self until it seems like every other door is closed. Whether it’s about health, wealth, power, or love—we push, we strive, we control. And when success doesn’t show up the way we think it should, and we feel powerless to do anything about it, only then do we reach for something —something beyond our own doing. It feels at first like we are settling for the consolation prize, spirituality, serenity, acceptance. And this is when it sucks!
When There’s Nowhere Else
A woman I know who worked in hospice once told me that most people make their greatest spiritual progress in the final weeks of life. When there’s nowhere else to go, spirituality is what’s left. “At least I can get spiritual?”
Dr. David Hawkins, a psychiatrist and very successful human being, who also battled with severe addiction, was close to death when he finally called out: “God, if you exist, let yourself be known.” That moment changed everything. His books are now among my go-to guides on spiritual understanding. Just sayin.’ He waited until near death before he reached for the consolation prize: “God, if you exist…”
So why is it that, for most of us, spirituality becomes the fallback plan? Even people immersed in religious communities often don’t know what spirituality is, or who they are as spiritual beings. I write about this stuff because I’m still figuring it out for myself. Most of what we’re taught about “being spiritual” isn’t actually true. And I’m not just trying to be spiritual—I want to know myself as spiritual. I want to know the experience of this and truly grok what this actually means.
“I Spiritualize the Crap Out of Everything!”
In our latest session, Rhonda was angry—disappointed. She said:
“Look how hard I’m working! I spiritualize the crap out of everything! I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing, spiritually—and nothing’s changing! WTF! No one works as hard as I do, and those MF’s have it good. Me? I’m still less-than-squat. WTF!!!”
We’ve come to believe that if we just do all the right spiritual stuff, then we’ll get the success we want. When that doesn’t happen, we get angry. Bitter. Resentful.
So, What’s My Point?
Most of us say we’re spiritual beings having a human experience. But how many of us actually have a relationship with the spiritual being that we are? Who of us are cultivating a real relationship with that aspect of ourselves that seems irrelevant to our work, money, family, and material desires? “What does spirituality have to do with success in any area of my life?”
We ignore, avoid, and distract ourselves from our spirit-self—the very essence of what keeps us alive in human form. How insane is that?
Nurturing the Soul, Maturing the Soul
For those raised in religious contexts, we inherit beliefs and practices. But these beliefs and practices don’t always nurture the soul or mature the soul. Most of us didn’t grow up in environments that supported a real, lived connection with our spirit-self. And so, we stay malnourished, disconnected, and in denial—until, like Rhonda, David, and me, we have to look somewhere else, even when it’s the last place on Earth we want to visit!
And even then—many people do spiritual practices not to nourish their soul, but to get results. To fix something. To prove something. To earn something. But the real point of spirituality, for me, is simple:
To cultivate a healthy relationship with your spirit-self—to Know God, As God, In God!
That’s it. That’s the foundation! WTF!!!
I want to know my spirit-self because I want to experience the fulfillment of my human-spirit, even though I have no clue what that is or what that means. I believe that within each of us is a vast, untapped well of possibility that never gets expressed because we neglect this sacred part of ourselves.
And let’s be real—most people’s spirit-self is in a state of depletion. Malnourished. Ignored. Shamed. Abused. My work is to support myself and others to begin acknowledging their spirit-self—not as a last resort, but as the first—through the everyday moments of life.
Building a new relationship with anyone is daunting. But building a relationship with your self—your spirit-self—can feel even more daunting. I know this. I’ve lived it. I continue to live it.
But I also know this: to experience the divine expression of my essential spirit-self is one of the most exquisite experiences life has to offer.
I know you’ve had these moments yourself—experiencing glimpses of your own light, your own truth. Maybe many, many times.
But what if you made that connection a focused intention?
What if spirituality wasn’t the consolation prize…
but the greatest expression of fulfillment you could ever know?
That’s the experiment I’m in.
And so, like Rhonda, here I am—doing all the right spiritual stuff, still occasionally feeling like crap, and realizing… maybe that’s not a problem. Maybe the real spiritual path begins after the disappointment. After the striving. After the illusion that being Somebody Special will make it all okay.
Because what’s left when all that falls away is something strangely radiant—something deeply, quietly, astonishingly me. Not the me who achieved, succeeded, or proved anything. Just the one who never stopped being.
Maybe Becoming Nobody Special is the real prize after all.
