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Leah Russell5 min

Habits That Break Your Connection to Your Higher Power (and What to Do Instead)

August 26, 2021

Dr Libby Adams shares the counterintuitive habits many of us may be performing that can weaken your connection to your Higher Power and may be disrupting your growth

I was sitting scrolling through my phone when I saw an advert on Instagram from a man selling a fitness program. He made me stop dead in my tracks because he had mentioned one of the reasons why women with my body type struggle to lose weight: it was because of too much cardio in their exercise routines.

My jaw dropped. The very thing that doctors, trainers, and other fitness professionals had been suggesting for years was the cause for so much anguish. In trying to resolve my problem and doing something that I thought was good for me, I was pushing my goals further and further away. I’m not unique in this. Part of the human experience is coming to terms with the idea that you can take all of the 'right' steps and inadvertently, with the best of intentions, compromise the results you want because what’s right for you may actually be counterintuitive. This core lesson runs so deep, it can even happen with your divine connection to your Higher Power. Here are the counterintuitive habits that break your connection and disrupt your life, as well as what you can do instead to strengthen that connection and get things back on track.

Counterintuitive habit #1: Meditating to disconnect

Meditating is a powerful form of healing, grounding, and can absolutely be used to strengthen your connection with your Higher Power. However, when you use meditation to escape this world and escape (not heal) your pain, you dislodge your divine connection. Escapism is one of the most dangerous things you can implement into your spiritual practice because the intention is to disconnect. The ability to escape our bodies exists for the purpose of saving us during horrific or traumatic events. But it’s not intended to be used regularly. Think about it like a piano going out of tune. Each key on a piano has three strings attached to it and in order for us to hear the proper sound, each of those strings must be in tune. When one of those strings loosens, the piano goes out of tune, and the brilliance of the song is compromised. The piano can no longer perform at the optimal level. This is what happens when meditation is used as escapism instead of as a deeper connection. When you disconnect from your body and experience, you loosen your connection to your groundedness. Your body is not just a house for your soul. Your body is like your personal piano string that anchors you between your divine expression and your earthly results. When that connection is out of tune, the results in your life aren’t in alignment with what you want (and what you’re capable of). To resolve this habit, get intentional with your meditation. When you meditate, take greater inventory of your body, deepen into your experience and feelings, and bring in both the awareness and awesomeness of your divine connection into your body. By focusing on enhancing your physical experience through your divine connection, you will experience greater results in your life.

Counterintuitive habit #2: Seeking spiritual counsel

Regardless of how you express and explore your spiritual connection, spiritual counsel is a vital part of a healthy life. Except for when spiritual counsel overrides your ability to hear or feel your Higher Power. There was an old belief that people couldn’t have a direct relationship with God (Creator, Spirit, or whatever name feels most true for you), and that in order for you to receive guidance or win favour, you had to go to some sort of spiritual intermediary (usually through a church). That’s not how humans are built. You have direct access to your Higher Power. That’s your right. It’s how you were created. You may not know how to hear or feel that connection yet, but it’s absolutely within you and can be cultivated. Likewise, there may be times in your life – and some of you will be nodding your heads while you read this – where your pain and suffering are so strong that it blots out everything else. That kind of pain is like when a house alarm goes off. It’s so loud that it’s completely disorienting and all you can hear is the sound of the sirens. Those are the moments when spiritual counsel becomes a non-negotiable. However, if you’ve been outsourcing your decision-making or the way you see the world to the spiritual counselors you meet with, you’re surrendering your connection with the divine in favor of someone else’s. As innocent and well-intentioned as this behavior is, the act of trusting someone else’s spiritual guidance over your own breaks down the relationship you have with your Higher Power and subconsciously programs you to mistrust the guidance you receive directly from your creator. This is so dangerous, and also so simply solved. If you find that you have a habit of doing this, it’s time to take a break and go within. When was the last time you spoke to your Higher Power? Just you and them? Not to ask for something or to pray for a miracle, but to just be in the presence of your divine connection and experience that relationship? When you intentionally check in with your Higher Power each day, just like you would work out, eat healthy food, or take a shower, you learn what it is to hear, feel, and experience that relationship clearly. There will still be points in your life where you need the help and guidance of spiritual counsel, especially during big life transitions, upgrades, or pivot points, but its function is to be a secondary source of divine connection for you — not the primary source.

Counterintuitive habit #3: Taking radical responsibility

You’re designed to constantly be growing on your path, all the way until the day you leave this earth for whatever comes next. And one of the ways that growth is facilitated is through the power of guilt. Guilt is an emotion that allows you to understand when you’ve taken actions that go against your values, your integrity, and take you away from who you truly are. It’s useful in that way because it helps you to align with the actions that you do want to take while warning you away from the ones that you don’t. The problem with taking radical responsibility is that people can feel more shame around their actions instead of guilt. Shame is an emotion that entrenches you in feeling that you, the person, are wrong instead of guilt, where you identify the action as wrong. To be clear, radical responsibility in and of itself is not wrong, but when this tool is applied incorrectly, it can create discord in your relationship with your Higher Power because shame is an emotion that sets off those emotional sirens again. When that pain is too loud, the connection is compromised. If you’re practicing radical responsibility, remember to also give yourself grace and compassion. You are a beautiful soul expressing itself, and you will make mistakes. But you are never the mistake yourself. Hold tight to your worth and forgive yourself.