7 Vulnerabilities Self-Serving Spiritual Leaders Exploit
Part 2 of this series is about our wounded aspects and how this make us vulnerable to leaders with self-serving agendas.
Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash
Our admiration is activated when we see someone standing in their power. We want to be like them. And when they tell us that we absolutely can, that what’s standing in the way of our greatness is our own self-beliefs, we say YES.
But when that admiration and longing comes from scarcity consciousness, we’re ripe and ready to fall into a trap. Here are the 7 vulnerabilities that cause us to part with our power.
- Wounded by Religion
Spirituality has become a haven for people wounded by the religion they were raised in. I’m not religious; I’m spiritual is a common New Age chant. When spiritual leaders promise transformation using phrases like You’re divine and Your true nature is love it can sound really seductive.
Especially if you grew up convinced that you were born a sinner and any minor act of deviancy could send you to the burning fires. The flavor of spirituality that such leaders peddle feels expansive and liberal and freeing. Eager for the magic of transformation we jump into these groups and communities without even questioning their foundational principles.
- The Longing for Belonging
A human being’s basic survival needs include food, water, shelter, love. And belonging. A place to call home. With more and more questioning the religion they were raised in and incurring the wrath of families they were born into, a feeling of rootlessness has taken hold. There’s tremendous pain and isolation in feeling No one understands me, I’m the black sheep here, Everyone thinks I’m weird—and maybe I am. This self-recognition of I’m different and don’t belong with these people can be intensely alienating. As terrifying as being cast out of a tribe.
So the search for Where do I belong? continues. Until we find ourselves in the midst of a spiritual community (or worse, a cult) where everyone “gets” us, no one thinks we’re weird, and what’s so cool is, they believe in the same things we believe in. To find that sense of belonging feels like a homecoming—a family away from one’s dysfunctional biological family.
- The Good Girl Syndrome
If you grew up experiencing a wounded relationship with your mother, or some degree of neglect and a fierce need to be loved, you quickly learned to manipulate your behavior to “earn” that love. Taking care of others, managing their emotions, meeting their needs, and generally being who they wanted you to be brought you plenty of love. You’re an excellent caretaker except when it comes to your own care.
Good girls don’t speak up.
They stuff down the words that might provoke others’ disapproval or, worse, anger. When such girls become women who join spiritual communities and notice things that don’t feel quite right—red flags—their fear of disapproval kicks in and shuts them down again. They cannot, will not, risk losing the love of the community or community leader.
- The Belief of Not-Enoughness
When we join a community because we’re attached to the idea of who we will become (as a result of what that community has to offer us), it is not-enoughness that drives our decision.
The belief of I’m not enough convinces us that someone else knows more, has the answers to our dilemma/confusion and we give our power over to them. This is how indoctrination begins. Now, we trust the guru or leader or coach.
Often, trust in these groups implies unquestioning obedience. This kind of obedience distances us further and further from our inner guidance, the only guidance we’re meant to trust and follow.
- Outsourcing Love
Most of the world didn’t grow up with the message You’re worthy. Love yourself. On the contrary, many grew up in families where self-condemnation was a more familiar idea, especially if frequent put-downs and insults came their everyday reality. “Insatiable love hunger” as Elizabeth Gilbert calls it, is an epidemic as rampant as loneliness and disconnection. When we’re ferociously hungry, even morsels feel like a satisfying meal.
Leaders who abuse power play on our need to be loved. It’s called “grooming” where they get their followers to a place of dependency on their approval, attention, and affection.
When you’re loved in a way your family was never able to love you, it satisfies a deep craving which makes you beholden to the group and the one who leads the group.
- Absence of Self-Trust
Love is the sacred medicine a child needs to grow into a person who trusts herself. When we grow up with an emotionally unavailable mother (or a critical/angry/narcissistic/unpredictable one), we grow up with a gaping hole in the middle of our chest.
It is a mother’s loving gaze and attention that lets us know we’re loved, we’re enough, we’re safe, and that love teaches us to trust ourselves. She’s the mirror we look into, to know who we are. A wounded mother-child relationship destroys one’s ability to trust oneself. When you don’t know who you are (Am I lovable? Am I worthy? Am I enough? Is it okay to trust myself and others?), you can’t trust what you don’t know.
We wander the world looking for someone we can trust (or we trust no one). Often the search lands us in a community and we outsource our trust to the leader. When we trust, we obey. If we don’t follow the trust-and-obey dictum, the lifeline of love is yanked away as punishment—and the pain of that is more than we can bear.
- Unexplored grief, guilt, shame
When we’re walking around wounded and along comes someone who promises to heal and deliver us from the emotions that have defined us forever, we fall for it. The more seductive the sales pitch, the harder we fall.
These leaders are constantly painting a tempting picture of what life on the other side of your brokenness looks, feels, and smells like. You can almost touch it. You want that life. We just want to feel better about ourselves, so when someone offers to take away the brokenness we’re willing to do anything to make that happen.
Sadly, a number of women (and men) outsource trust and love—and pay a steep price for it. The only place you’re constantly being invited to return, the only place you can call home is inside you.
I’m curious to hear from you. Have you experienced any of the above (whether or not it happened within a group or community)