by Elizabeth Spannuth

I have a new age-type friend that loves to tell me what to do. It is always under the guise of love and “divine guidance,” but it still feels like it did when my older sister would boss me around as a kid. She speaks with such absolute authority that her opinion is the only valid one that sometimes I get swept up in it, just as I used to do with my older sister. Yes! Eating ground hemp seed and spiralina is the only way to eat. Yes! I should start my shamanic training. Yes! I should learn to communicate telepathically with dogs.

Then at a certain point in the conversation, I usually realize that irony has reared its mischievous head; she is proving that she is more like “mainstream” people than she likes to think. Conservatives, liberals, and anarchists alike are all fond of thinking that their perspective is the only valid one. She is very focused on her relationship with “Spirit” and her spiritual guides, who she refers to as the “Committee.” Last night, she told me that I needed to “let go of my poverty consciousness and find out what old energy needs to be cleared out”. Translation: quit my job and get my tarot read or my chart done. According to her there could very well be loads of things that I need to work through that I am totally unaware of.

Great…just when I thought things couldn’t get any more complicated, I am being told that they are infinitely more complicated! There might be some trauma from one of my ancestors that I have been blissfully unaware of that I must heal in order to move on. There may be something I experienced in utero that I have to deal with. I may have fractured my soul and not even know it! If there are things that I need to “clear” then why would “Spirit” make them a secret? Am I truly hearing my spirit guides? How can I be sure that I have all the pieces of my soul?!

Just as I was working myself up into lather, I remembered this simple truth: we all make our own experience and my perspective is just as valid as hers. If I feel as though I am guided to go on a soul retrieval journey in the jungles of Borneo, then so be it. If I feel as though I am guided to sit around and eat pizza, while watching porn, who’s to say that my spirit guides haven’t directed me there? This is when I felt my own “Committee” guide me to step out of this spiritual conundrum. They told me to go home; this time would be better spent working on those telepathy skills with my dog than going any further down the rabbit hole. Thanks guys!

Elizabeth Spannuthbelieves in love as a driving force in our lives. She is continually amazed by the humor at work in the universe and approaches things with a wry witticism. She firmly believes that love takes many forms as she herself has had many different kinds of meaningful, relationships.  She has said “I do” and signed “I don’t” and thanks the powers that be for giving her the grace learn from every experience. She has a varied professional background that includes performing arts training, event planning, sales and marketing planning and execution and serving as a whipping girl in corporate America. She is currently the Love Evangelist at Good Clean Love.