I’ve been thinking about how much wellbeing and spiritual content is presented as instruction.
“You need to…”
“Stop…”
“Let go…”
“Raise your vibration…”
“Follow these steps…”
And I understand why. Knowledge, experience and professional expertise can be incredibly valuable. Sometimes guidance is exactly what we need.
But I keep wondering what gets lost when every human difficulty becomes another prescription.
When the focus is always on correcting, fixing or improving ourselves.
What happens to curiosity?
To possibility?
To simply being with a question for a while rather than rushing to answer it?
My background in person-centred therapy has probably shaped this more deeply than I realised. At its heart is something I still find quietly radical: trust in the person.
Not the assumption that someone else knows who you should become, but the belief that, given the right conditions, people often have a remarkable capacity to understand themselves, make meaning from their experience and find their own way forward.
Sometimes what enables change isn’t another instruction.
It’s being heard.
Being accepted.
Feeling safe enough to look honestly at what is there.
Having enough space to discover what something means for us, rather than being told what it should mean.
That doesn’t make expertise unimportant, and it certainly doesn’t mean we never need help.
Perhaps it simply changes the relationship.
The helper doesn’t always have to be the mechanic standing over a broken machine.
Sometimes they can be the person holding a light while someone begins to see their own way through.
And increasingly, that makes sense to me spiritually too.
I’m wary of certainty about what the universe wants from us, why everything happened, or what lesson we’re supposed to learn.
I’m much more interested in possibilities than prescriptions.
Not certainty, but openness.
Not instruction, but invitation.
Not correction, but curiosity.
Perhaps growth isn’t always about becoming a better version of ourselves.
Sometimes it might be about understanding the person who is already here, and creating enough space for them to discover what comes next.
Fellow traveller, not guru.
Curious, not certain.
Experienced, not expert.
Inviting, not instructing.
Free Spirit Now 🌿