Why the Uncomfortable Moments that Test What You Stand for Are Necessary
This week, I’m having a raw conversation with you that has been on my heart for a long time. It wasn’t until an experience I had recently that inspired me to sit down and have an important conversation with you. I want to talk about this eye-opening experience and how it reminded me of the importance of standing for your values and beliefs and being ready to take a stand for them. I want to encourage you to get uncomfortable so that you too can take a stand. Whatever your beliefs are. They don’t have to be the same as mine. I’m getting really honest about what The Good Space stands for and represents and encourage you to step up into what you believe.
This is not going to be an easy conversation. But is one I KNEW would happen at some point. A few weeks ago, a friend recommended a book to me that I’ve heard many people mention before. I bought it, was really enjoying it, and posted about it on Instagram. Someone later privately messaged me and said, “I'm not sure you know, but the author who wrote this book is an anti-vaxxer, a known QAnon support, and COVID conspiracist.
I literally froze. I messaged my friend and, sure enough, she also didn't know this about the author. She figured since the author had a medical degree it was ok. At that moment I realized most of us tend to trust people who are medical doctors or have PhDs and that’s enough to move forward. That’s how I’ve been most of my life.
I felt upset. This was a real moment of, “I say that I stand for certain beliefs. So is it right to continue reading the book, even though I know that this author stands for everything that I am actively against?” Part of me thought that people can write good books, even if they might not believe things that I believe. That it should be ok to still read them.
But as I looked at the book sitting on my coffee table, I couldn't bring myself to pick it up again and felt sick to my stomach imagining myself reading another word. That's when I started going into this spiral.
Deciding to Stand For What I Believe In
It brought me to want to talk to you about this because it's a deeper issue in the spiritual community and in the wellness community. And I knew someday I would have to have this conversation and make the distinction because I run a spiritual wellness brand called The Good Space. And I kind of made it clear, but not really, because I wanted to hold off this conversation for as long as possible. I made The Good Space with the intention of allowing spirituality and mindfulness to be accessible to high achievers and people who are “woo curious.” And that means they believe in intuition, and that there's a spiritual world outside of what we can tangibly see and feel.
But they don't really feel comfortable diving into the fringe things like crystals, or birth charts, or the really deep-diving. I didn't want that to stop people from experiencing the benefits of connecting to your intuition, of rewiring the heart-brain connection, of praying, of believing in spiritual things, because that can be a turnoff for a lot of people if they think they have to abandon the world as they know it just to embrace these values. So a lot of people think it's very extreme and black and white. You're either all science and reality in the real world, or you're all woo-woo with witchcraft stuff. And it's like, this polar opposite. I wanted to bring more of a center to it because I believe that you can have a healthy, balanced spiritual practice.
Going back to the story of the book, I started realizing, I can take a stand now, with this book and return it, so I did. I've returned it to Amazon and I also wrote a review on the book so that if other people who are interested in buying it would feel horrible supporting someone like this, then I hope that they can know too. And I say it with complete love. Like, I feel like there should be transparency in everything that we're supporting. And obviously, I could be better about that, in many ways. But I feel like this was an actual opportunity the universe presented to me to stand by my values.
I realized, if I can't return a book, and stand for what I believe in this way, then how could I possibly stand for something that's even harder, right? Because we're gonna always be faced with situations in our lives that challenge our values and challenge what we believe in, and it's up to us to decide if we're going to do the uncomfortable thing, the hard decision of still standing for what we believe in. And it gets harder when a group is involved or when social pressures are involved or people attacking you on social media. The stakes can get really real for people and so I can understand the temptation to stay quiet and to hide because no one wants that confrontation or to be judged or to be seen incorrectly than what they're actually meaning.
So I wanted to share this experience with you because I felt uncomfortable. First of all, telling my friend about this author, I felt uncomfortable returning the book, because I always want to have love and compassion for everyone no matter what. I'm an empath. And so I think I naturally want to resolve negative energy. And we could go into this so much deeper, but it can get me in trouble sometimes. And so it was uncomfortable. And even so I think I would feel more uncomfortable and guilty, not returning it.
What do You Value?
So I want you to start thinking about what are your values? What do you stand for? And is there anything in your life right now that is conflicting, or making you feel uncomfortable, because you realize your value isn't living up to how you're living? So for me, I knew the things that I do believe in wouldn't align with that book and knowing I supported that author would make me feel really uncomfortable, and it would clash with my values. I want you to remember we're in an age now where you have to stand for something, there is no hiding anymore. There's no like, being small, there's no just skating by. You actually have to stand for something and be brave enough to feel uncomfortable. And make sure that your actions and what you support, what you consume, support the values that you stand for. And be careful who you support.
I want people to come to The Good Space in good faith and comfort, knowing that everything we recommend has been vetted, and supports people that we believe and can stand behind. So I'm going to be way more careful about recommending something until I've actually vetted the person. I feel such a sense of responsibility, that by putting this content in the world, by having the programs and the books, I really feel responsible for giving something to you that you can trust and that you can feel safe within.
Because that's the whole point of The Good Space is to have a space where you can grow and feel good. But I also don't want to support people who are just way off the scale and way far from our values. Because I do stand for something and The Good Space does stand for something. I want to make sure that if you're on board with what we stand for, that we can all feel good in what we're learning. And if you don’t believe in what our space stands for that’s ok, too. You’re still welcome here and we respect your choice to believe what you want to believe.
I learned that just because someone has an “MD” or a “Ph.D.”, doesn't mean that they're reputable, doesn't mean that they actually believe in science, unfortunately. But lately, there's been a lot of people who go through these rigorous trainings, and no science and all these things, and they just go off the deep end. And of course, as with anything in any industry, there's always going to be a questionable area, right? There are always going to be improvements we can make in medicine, there are always improvements that we can make in psychology. I'm not saying that there's no room for questions. Of course, that's the whole point of science is you accept a certain standard until you can keep proving otherwise. I just think that we need to be more cautious. And, again, be okay with making the hard decisions. We're not going to be perfect, I'm not going to be perfect, and in our journey and our growing. But I want you to feel empowered to make decisions for yourself.
I think that's the biggest thing, look at these opportunities that you're faced with as a chance to become stronger than what you believe in, to know what you stand for more, to use it as an educational moment of like, hmm, that made me feel really uncomfortable, why? Oh, it's because I actually value this. You just learned something about yourself and you just took a stand. That's amazing. So yes, it's a hard decision. But if you look at it in that way, it becomes an empowering decision. And that means you're letting the ego become smaller, while your divine limitless self is becoming bigger if that makes sense. Because really, it's the ego that makes us feel uncomfortable when we're changing and growing.
The Spiritual Community
Another thing that this brought to the surface for me on a separate note is a lot of people are lost [edit after publication: we wanted to convey that a lot of people experience trauma and pain. That there are people in the spiritual community that prey on those people to get money or followers. We didn’t mean to trigger with saying people are ‘lost’.]. Especially in the spiritual community, I think people fall prey to things, ideas, and practices that others use to manipulate people. There's a lot of that going on. Because they know the people to manipulate. And they don't have a sense of grounding. So they're searching for it in these ungrounded, loose things, because they want to feel like they can find the answers for themselves, and that they can feel grounded again.
You have the power to be who you want to be. And I don't think that you need to do nearly as many things to feel that way and to feel connected and loved and whole, and guided. It makes me have even more of a fire, to use The Good Space to make that light clear. To clarify what's still rooted and grounded, and not just, fall prey to these trends and these fads.
I know that if you're reading this, and you're in The Good Space community, I know you're like that, where you may believe in intuition, and spiritual things and that spirits exist. But we’re also willing to be skeptical and willing to do the research and the prayer and the alignment needed to see if something's right. Not accepting blindly. And that's what I love about this community is you're my people. And we can always approach things with healthy skepticism.
With that, I also want to say, anytime you feel like you get caught up in the excitement of something take time to ask if it’s right. Pray about it. Think or journal on it. Remove yourself from the allure of groupthink or feeling like you have to belong somewhere, and just sit with yourself and see what feels right. Be honest with yourself about what feels right. And it doesn’t have to be the same thing as me or anyone else.
Release the eagerness to belong somewhere. Because you belong to God/Source/Universe, you belong to yourself, and we're all one. You don't need to validate yourself by feeling like you need to belong somewhere, because you already do. I don't want you to lose sight of what's grounded and real within you. And within everything you believe. I don't want you to feel like you have to throw reason or thinking out the window.
I just want to reinstate The Good Space’s mission and purpose because I feel like this has really sat on my heart as something I really need to do. I want The Good Space to help you high achievers who are woo curious, but not willing to blindly just jump into anything. I want to be able to simplify spirituality and mindfulness. But still without losing touch with science or reality. Without feeling like you have to pressure yourself to be something you're not or to accept a culture that you're not. It doesn't require all the trappings. I want to make sure you know you don't have to do all the crystals and the potions or the birth charts or whatever, to have a spiritual practice. You don't. It's much simpler than that. Way simpler than that. And so that's what's on my heart.
[added after publication: Also, it’s not wrong if you DO like the woo woo stuff. If it helps you then that’s amazing! There’s a wide continuum of what’s considered spiritual and what matters is you feel uplifted and loved. It doesn’t have to look the same for everyone]
If this resonates with you, please tell me in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you. Keep shining, keep being your best self, keep learning and growing.
Affirmation
I intend to live life in alignment with my deepest values and commit to taking aligned action even if it’s uncomfortable at first.
Writing Prompt
What are my deepest values? Is there anything in my life not aligned with those values? What does a perfectly aligned life look like?
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