Mega-Thread Of Every Trap Within Self-Help & Spirituality

[flyingguitarist]

Too much obsessed with self help , spirituality ,ignoring normie life,

Looking at your friends as lower than you spiritual narcissism

Lack of mainstream science understanding, installing magical beliefs ,no rationality 

Spreading self-help, spiritual info with no embodiment and reflection

Doing it Half-ass ,no discipline 

 

 

 

 

[How to be wise]

Chasing things that won’t make you happy.

Dabbling with different meditation techniques.

Not working hard enough; laziness.

Abandoning meditation.

Getting distracted by the external world.

[Mondsee]

Traps in spirituality:

• Feeling superior than others / being arrogant because you are following a certain practice.
• Related: believing that a spiritual practice will make you "special" - no, it won't make you anything... if you're lucky it will end you.
• Being convinced that you're following "the right practice", and looking at other paths as inferiors (judging others).
• Underestimating the amount of work and level of seriousness required to be a sincere seeker.
• Turning spirituality into your identity, ie. picking only the superficial "cliché" type of behaviours (changing diets, outfits, ways of speaking - but no serious practice)
• Related: Going into spirituality to belong to a social group.
• Taking on a serious spiritual practice when you're too emotionally unstable, or don't have your basic needs in life figured out.
• Failing to question even your favourite teachers and gurus.
• Related: failing to seriously consider the advice you receive from teachers and gurus.
• Believing that a small progress on your path is the end of it.
• Imagining progress.
• Getting derailed in entertaining occult practices.
• Failing to recognise ego backlash for what it is. The devil is sneaky, and it will often convince you that you need a break from your practice.
• Related: overdoing things, brute-forcing whatever practice to the point that is damaging in whatever way.
• Half-assing any practice: being convinced that by reading a tiny bit on it or watching a YouTube video you totally know what to do.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Mondsee

[mavelezm]

Many times the root cause of suffering is not your mind, is your body. Heal the body.

[Thought Art]

1. Dwelling on your past

2. Letting your mind be ruled by distraction

3. Only listening to people, gurus, teachers that you like

4. Not allowing in confusion or paradox into your world view

5. Needing something to be true or false

6. Abusing psychedelics (including over use and eyeballing, and improper environment and setting, thinking what a dose does for you will do to another, pulling others into your trips, causing harm etc,)

7. Demonizing others for there mistakes

8. Not being able to find the balance between being the ultimate authority and the need to learn from others, books perspectives etc

9. Needing to be recognized for your spiritual achievements

10. Thinking that seeing the "bad" in yourself is a "bad" thing. 

11. Not realizing that being a human is more radical than being a unicorn

12. Thinking you need to be like anyone else but you

13. Not realizing you are the greatest miracle in the world

14. Anything that isn't aligning yourself with the highest, truth, health and love and integrity

15. Not fully accepting your sexuality and figuring out how to express it healithy and in a non-abusive way that promote maximum health, beauty and alignment

16. Thinking that one teacher, book, method, skill, or technique is enough

17. Not realizing that gnosis don't buy you the groceries 

18. Trying to change others

19. Giving others advice, psychedelics, etc when you aren't really aware of their mental health or education

20. Giving up too early

21. Not learning from past mistakes (we all make mistakes on this journey... and have many may of the mistakes in this thread)

22. Listening to a spiritual Guru for hours and hours and hours but never sitting down to contemplate, meditate, Qigong/ yoga, Trip etc on your own

23. Poisoning the body or lungs 

24. Buy books and not reading them

25. Not socializing enough

26. Thinking everyone else is the same

27. Failing to apply realizations of absolute love, forgiveness, peace and understanding to everyday life 

28. Not loving yourself for any reason

29. Not being in integrity with your highest values

30. Thinking that just because you have had awakenings and realizations and love that other people will forgive or ignore your bad behaviour of the present, past or future

31. Confusing your minds mental constructions as reality

32. Not developing a system of habits that balance both your survival pursuits and social life with your spirituality

33. Thinking that spirituality will end all suffering without taking care of your survival needs

34. Impatience when it comes to understanding God, Love and awakening

35. Going full Spiritual new age woowoo without proper reading of science, epistemology and systems thinking 

36. Thinking there will be some grand END or FINISH where everything is perfect

37. NOT going META enough!

38. Not taking all spiritual groups, epistemologies, teachings, teachers, gurus, practices, tools etc as aspects of your own mind

39. Not gaining direct experience in spiritual things and instead collecting beliefs and creating and identity

40. Getting caught up in petty human gossip, behaviour, fighting, spiritual dick jousting etc

41. Not being patient with how reality tends to recontextualize over time

42. Demonizing the thinking process

43. Demonizing certain feelings, thoughts or sensations because you identify with being healed, when you are not

44. Needing to teach, profit from, or be known for any spiritual achievement 

45. Not seeing everyone and everything as your teacher

46. Letting your own egoic fantasies distort teachings

47. Thinking that teachers or Gurus need to be perfect in their personal lives 

48. Abusing others or letting others abuse you 

49. Not petting a dog or smell a rose or crying when the sun sets

50. Not taking a gram of mushrooms and rolling around in laughter in a field of grass on a warm and safe summers day for all of humanity and eternity. 

51. Not being in love with all peoples, cultures and countries

52. Becoming a cult leader or creating a cult

53. Trying to create your own spiritual teaching without a proper foundation 

 

I feel like I have more

They say it fades if you let it
Love was made to forget it
I carved your name across my eyelids
You pray for rain, I pray for blindness

If you still want me, please forgive me
The crown of love has fallen from me
If you still want me, please forgive me
Because the spark is not within me

I snuffed it out before my mom walked in my bedroom

The only thing that you keep changin'
Is your name, my love keeps growin'
Still the same, just like a cancer
And you won't give me a straight answer

If you still want me, please forgive me
The crown of love has fallen from me
If you still want me, please forgive me
Because your hands are not upon me

I shrugged them off before my mom walked in my bedroom

The pains of love, and they keep blowin'
In my heart, there's flowers growin'
On the grave of our old love
Since you gave me a straight answer

If you still want me, please forgive me
The crown of love is not upon me
If you still want me, please forgive me
'Cause the spark is not within me
It's not within me, it's not within me

You gotta be the one
You gotta be the way
Your name is the only word that I can say

You gotta be the one
You gotta be the way
Your name is the only word
The only word that I can say

Only word that I can say
No, no, no, no, no
No, no, no, no

 

 

Edited June 21, 2022 by Thought Art

[StarStruck]

Not organizing your journey but just doing trail and error 

Taking psychedelics for many days in a row 

Not having enough metaphysical foundation before taking psychedelics 

Taking psychedelics while having traumatic youth 

Only watching videos and not taking notes  

Not doing astral projection

 

[Flint]

• I would say being stuck in a certain stage of development (looking at you stage orange) and not seeing beyond it and interpreting all of existence according to your current level of development without leaving any alternatives.
• Interpreting a certain teaching not for itself but trough a biaised certain lens, such as learning buddhism trough a scientific paradigm instead of learning buddhism or any other teaching trough, or the opposite, learning a practical stage orange teaching trough a green spiral dynamic lens.

I see this most often with people stuck in stage orange not able to see trough the limitations and the opportunities of the higher stages.

[Space]

Mistaking the map for the territory. Or mistaking the map for something other than the map.

Giving too much attention to conceptual mind stuff. 

[puporing]

Accepting where people are developmentally and not needing them to be anywhere else.

Accepting major challenges and seeing them as a source of growth, not letting them put you into depression and nihilism.

Failing to integrate spirituality into baseline consciousness/life in the finite form.

Not pushing yourself hard enough to love every situation.

Edited June 21, 2022 by puporing

[Sobanya]

• Going half-way into nihilism
• Believing that suffering or pain is the biggest evil in life
• Underestimating experience
• Believing in me-life duality
• Making mistake of thinking that there exists such a state or a place as death where ego can escape to

[TheAlchemist]

 

• Going too deep into stage theories - specifically using them to judge people, categorize life and put those categories into a hierarchy, in order to feel a subtle sense of being "above" other expressions of life. Confusing the map for the territory. 

[ZenSwift]

The Trap of "Busy": telling yourself you're too busy to work on your life purpose because you're too overwhelmed with wage slavery, when in reality you could make it so you have at least an hour a day. 

[kamwalker]

Being unaware of what is stemming from different levels of ego and misinterpreting it as truth 

[Thought Art]

Doing too much self help, and not taking tangible courses and developing hard skills

[Soullee]

-  convincing my self that I'm not taking what this guru says as belief. But more like something i will prove in my direct experience.or it is just something i know it's the truth. But if someone attacks that guru or what he says i feel threatened . So it shows me that I'm creating an ideology about .... unconsciously. And i use this to detect my ideology making. 

-  also i could open my mind for many ideas.  Perspectives. Worldviews. Ideologies. And habits. In sake of open mindedness and curiosity exploring them. But then my naive unconscious self get me trapped mentally in some toxic traps. 
Each toxic trap. has it way of surviving in me. It leaves hooks that keeps me coming back for more. It leaves print inside me and brainwash my identity with that print. So the least i do is check from time to time for that print to keep it intact. Then I get invested. and if i go fully all the way with it. then maybe  one day i decided i want out of it. It's not gonna be easy. Not after i went all the way. Even during the whole experience I'm telling my self I'm just trying out this thing then I'm back to normal. The process out of these ideology or bad habits  will waist a lot of time i don't have. That same time i could've used for more growth. 

All these reality toxic traps feed on you like 
Cordyceps feed on ants. Because when  you in it. you think you don't have the power out .but i have it.  i managed to leave many toxic traps behind. For good. The process to just leave. Dont feed it. Im creating it now. When it pop up perceive it differently chosing love for life as it was before i put my self in this close dark loop.

Or even better. And actually be greatful on how much matured I've became. Even after i dragged my self all the way down i chose to go 180. And before you know it im different person and i sincerely consciousnessly won't go back there. Even if you pay me for it. i can't say that for all toxic traps. Because i feel like now i have the switch. And some of them they still feel fresh. And I know the pathways into it. so the line is so thin between black and white. So it is a continuous work. I try for the best but i know I'm full of bullshit. But for sure I'm more mature when i chose consciousnessly not trap my self. Also The difference i see between me and others i encountered during the experience for me. Is that's pretty much life for them. So basically i can count 4 teams. The ones that never even thought about it. It's not their identity. The ones that got hooked. The relapsing ones. And the transcendent ones. Maybe i can add the ones that wise enough to see end result and decide consciousnessly not engage. And propably i can add  the ones don't get phased by none of this toxic traps. 

-all of this shows me the power of my mind  in creating reality positively and negatively. My mind is very sacred place and i shouldn't play around with mind viruses And expect everything to be okay. Although i feel like at same time i should build  like immune system against them. And it won't happen if throw blind eye toward them. So the question i guess how much i can handle. Specially when life test you. And  i feel powerless and its all doom and gloom. 

[Michael Jackson]

10 hours ago, JoeVolcano said:

• Spirituality
• Self-help

@JoeVolcano Good one.

[Razard86]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

This is a big one!

I'm working on a new video topic about traps in life and traps in this work. I will present a long list of traps in that video when it releases but I would like to crowd-source this a bit because there are so many traps that I can't think of them all.

So here's your chance to contribute.

Examples of traps:

• Studying only one teacher or perspective
• Using theory as a distraction from taking action
• Sleeping with your guru
• Eyeballing psychedelic dosages
• Controlling and manipulating people for your happiness
• Using chemicals to make yourself happy
• Arguing and debating
• Staying in a verbally abusive relationship
• Pursuing get-rich-quick schemes
• Calling people or other perspectives "evil", demonization
• Expecting your guru to be morally perfect

Telling someone there perspective makes you want to vomit in your mouth.

Just kidding!!

Ignoring the dangers of spirituality. Analysis Paralysis outside of action. One of your favorites Leo: Mistaking achievement for growth.

Thinking you got everything figured out. Thinking morality is the key to aspiring to be unconditionally loving. Making promises to yourself and never keeping them. Refusing to self-reflect and instead engaging in projection. Giving your authority away and forgetting that you are the ultimate authority in your reality. Suicidal Ideation. Victim mentality. Learned Helplessness. Living Vicariously through others. Codependency. Imposter syndrome. Pedestalization of Gurus. Cyberstalking. Cyber Bullying. Poor Mental and Physical Diet. Becoming a hermit and not satisfying social desires to connect with others.  

[BetweenTwo]

The trap of thinking we can define consciousness… too often I see absolutists in their beliefs and it’s isolating 

[TheOneReborn]

Using spirituality to "check out" of real life instead of engaging in it fully and surrendering to it

Working on enlightenment strictly mentally instead of physically as well and working on your chakras

 

[khalifa]

( i do have some sort of autism/asperger on the spectrum)

 

law of attraction / manifesting expecting the universe to spawn/yield  experiences/crap out of my/your field of sight you based on my/your thinking ( i literally thought i could spawn people or opportunities or things out of thin air if they weren't in my sight)

 

I've been deluded in this trap for years, it had serious consequences on my health, academic performance, relationships, money etc

 

examples

 

I kept over trusting the universe as me, giving me whatever i want/need at the moment, kept trusting people, would tell them anything i ask without censoring self as i thought of them as me and i would be given whatever i want back as i have my shields down and i let go and it's all good/alright. all is well

 

Over trusted synchronicity making up a lot of meaning of them in my head that it's all working and good

Whether it's a video or someone said, or time or hearing a story, i'd make some random story in my head as it's a sign even though it was obviously meaningless and it's all in my head

 

I used to walk down the street thinking i am god and nothing could harm me, luckily i didnt get hit many times..

I used to think everything was meant to be, i didn't even study for my exams and used to attend uni without studying thinking i can pass them for a whole year, i failed all year, it was absolute madness and i used to delude myself i just had to think more positively and keep my vibration higher i am gaining momentum by this and it's not going to affect me

I lost ridiculous amounts of inheritance wealth on gains that i kept gambling over and over in investing thinking i could manipulate the market to moon for me

I kept trusting ponzi  schemes as they came as i thought i lost money for this even better boat/moment that is coming to meet this person only to keep getting rugged over and over again

I neglected my ex, thinking i could fix some situations or bad behavior from her side or mine by thinking more positive without communicating, i told her to love herself and manifest for us she broke up and has become even crazier than me uh..

I gained a lot of weight eating whatever i want and kept thinking i could just gain muscle by visualizing my self as fit and rip'd but yeah i lost my lean physique instead (gained aprox 35lbs)

neglected my nutrition / health check ups, i kept thinking i could heal anything by my mind

 

 

It slapped me over i just woke up recently, it's kinda sad but i've been asleep since 2018 with abraham hicks, took me 4 years of this lifestyle to wake up from that crazy delusion

maybe i'm just dumb i guess, but yeah i'm pretty deluded as they come took me awhile to finally go back to actual logic practicality again with discipline

 

Got C-PTSD  from eyeballing my 5meo dmt while kept trusting people lost free will but kept getting abused over and over, even by my ex (seems like GAD/chronic anxiety at my chest/heart/throat there is this uneasyness that cycles between them and never goes away)

Not to be a victim here but, i should've taken more responsibility over me, the fault is in me for that level of desperation of wanting life to be magical, poor sloppy thinking on my side

 

https://youtu.be/OHz4slbIRyE

part 1 and 2 of that video did help a lot from really staying away from loa in that kind of cult manner

 

cringe

 

Edited June 22, 2022 by khalifa