Stealth Mode

Do you have a personal “secret code” you’ve developed to use to tell whether it’s okay (and let’s be honest, here; by “okay,” I mean “safe”) to broach the topic of your spiritual life and Self with someone else?

Perhaps you first notice others’ choices in their physical adornments (e.g., styles of clothing, jewelry, tattoos, hairstyle). Though not necessarily the most reliable of indicators (lots of people wear crystals or have angel tattoos, after all), a person’s freely-chosen attire, hairstyle, or body decorations reveal—usually intentionally—something of their personality, self-image, and the image they want to show to the world.

Maybe you’ve adopted certain words, phrases, or references you drop into casual conversation to see what kind of response you get. Are your hints seemingly missed or ignored? Do they elicit a dismissive or critical response? Or (in the happiest scenario!) are they recognized as your intended invitations to connect on a more profound level?

The point is, many of us feel or have felt a need to keep the truth of our spiritual nature under wraps until we perceive it’s safe to uncover ourselves and attempt to make that awesome connection with another.

Why is it so darn hard to talk about spirituality in our society? I think there are three main factors: 1) safety; 2) relevance; 3) authority. This post is about only the first of these three: safety, meaning a feeling of protection from social, emotional, mental, or physical harm. Maybe I’ll talk about the other two factors in a future post.

Spiritual “Stealth Mode” makes a lot of sense if you think about it. After all, there hasn’t been a time in recorded human history that various people haven’t been–and still are being–harassed, ostracized, exiled, imprisoned, tortured, and even killed because of their religious or spiritual beliefs and practices! And if one had any sense of a memory–even a very deeply buried one–of being the victim of such persecution in another life… Well! that would be a difficult Soul-memory fear to forget.

Most of us aren’t consciously afraid of physical harm coming to us in those ways but we are understandably wary of being mentally and emotionally attacked through criticism, rejection, condemnation, or ridicule for our beliefs, questions, opinions, etc. concerning spirituality and/or religion.

Of course we can’t discount the “manners” thing that tells us it’s inappropriate to talk openly about such matters outside of sanctioned settings such as religious places of worship, prayer or meditation groups, classes or study groups convened for the express purpose of these topics, or socially-sanctioned roles pertaining to spirituality and/or religion. God/Goddess/Heaven/Allah/Spirit forbid we should be SO impolite!!

I suppose we’ll all continue to go into Stealth Mode from time to time, but I encourage you to develop and refine your spying-out skills and try them out more often; you just never know what wonderful Soul connections you may make!