That Awkward Moment You Realize You're Censoring Yourself

A couple of days ago while I was popping around YouTube and Twitter something that I kept seeing had been bothering me and my natural sarcastic sense of humor took over and I was about to post something on Twitter about what was annoying me.  It was something that was silly {I'll explain in a second} but after typing up my {amusing to me} quip I decided to delete it and instead went to my personal Facebook page to say what was on my mind {after all, Facebook constantly seems to want to know what exactly you're thinking at any given moment}.  The point is it was an awkward moment where I realized I was censoring myself because I was worried about how something I would say might be seen as "unspiritual", for lack of a better term.I find it interesting how it seems that many people assume that if you are someone who is involved in spiritual work that you are above being human or that there is something off if your hobbies or interests stretch beyond the realms of reading Wayne Dyer books, meditating, and spreading love and light. 

[fontpress type="webfonts" name="Cabin" size="18px" lh="20px" color="#000000"]Secret Truth:

Nobody, not even the most spiritual zen monk, maintains a sense of spiritual balance all the time.[/fontpress]

We might have moments, little bits of time where we feel we are aligned and balanced completely, but these are always shorts periods and more often than not they're fleeting.  We all get angry, depressed, sad, frustrated, and sarcastic at times.  Some people keep it in while others let it fly without any kind of filter whatsoever.

During the course of my own spiritual journey, especially in the last 3 or 4 years, I've become much more conscious of what I verbalize and put out into the world.  Ideas and thoughts that I might know are energetically damaging and shouldn't be vocalized and given vibration or power still pop into my head.  It's all about learning how to understand the subtle power of our words and then neutralizing the things that are harmful.

While you might think to yourself, or even say out loud "I could kill you sometimes" to someone, chances are you're not actually going to kill anyone but you create a vibration that's less than positive that gets directed at the person.

For me it's a little tricky at times because, as I said, I've got this sarcastic and often inappropriate sense of humor that, I'm not gonna lie, I enjoy.  When I was in college I wanted to be a stand up comedian and later entertained a path as a comedy writer.  My favorite comedians are the kind of people that most spiritual people might run away {Dave Attell, Lisa Lampanelli, Patton Oswalt, Bob Saget, and of course one of my hero, George Carlin}.

But I guess that also begs the question...does someone who's spiritual have to be spiritual all the time?  Does a spiritual person have to only have interests, thoughts, and ideas that they express and share with the world that are explicitly of a higher, spiritual nature?

I say no because I think it's actually pretty phony   People who are "spiritual" but who never utter a curse word or get frustrated or angry and who are always woo-woo are kind of full of it in my opinion.

I've been meaning to do a movie review for the documentary "Decoding Deepak", a movie done by Deepak Chopra's son Gotham Chopra, where he follows his father around the world and back for a year and essentially exposes the very human, non-guru side of his dad.  It's a great look into who Deepak really is and how he isn't the superhero guru that the world often sees him as.  I've always been a fan of Deepak's and I fell in love with him even more after seeing the more human side of a guy who is very much a celebrity and who knows it.  Even when he goes off to become an ordained Buddhist monk he has a hard time parting with his Blackberry because he can't stand the thought of not having access to Twitter for the short time he's going to be there.

All of this just came from censoring a comment that was running in my head that I thought would look "unspiritual" and "negative" when posted on Twitter.  And what was I going to say?  I was going to say:

[fontpress type="webfonts" name="Cabin" size="18px" lh="20px" color="#000000"]"I kind of want to take every crying emo girl on YouTube that keeps posting about MCR breaking up and shake them." [/fontpress]

And that's what I posted on my private Facebook page rather than Twitter.  Basically the band My Chemical Romance, a favorite of mine, after being on a bit of a hiatus finally announced their break up this week and suddenly my YouTube recommendations were flooded with 14 year old emo girls crying and talking about how depressed they were that the band broke up.  It was driving me nuts because it was ridiculous.  And yes, it was a very silly thing to be annoyed about.

So is the way of being human.

This is when I decided I didn't want to censor myself anymore for fear of inadvertently giving off a misrepresentation of who I am, as someone who is high and mighty maybe or who never has a thought that isn't all love and light.  Because I definitely have my fair share of darker thoughts and moments, not to mention that I often curse like a sailor.  That doesn't change my ability to do what I do when it comes to spiritual work and it doesn't make me less of a spiritual person.

I often think the more spiritual you are the human you tend to be.

The lesson in the end:  Just be who you are, who you really are, all the time.  The good, the bad, the ugly, the flawed.  Because nobody is perfect and at some point even the most spiritual of us have had the most unspiritual of thoughts.  Some of us even express them.  That doesn't make you "less than" but only shows that you are truly embracing your human experience.