Can We Let Go of These 5 Spiritual Words in 2021?

They are easily co-opted by the ego

A call to abandon words? Perhaps I’m being melodramatic. But 5 words have become so commonplace in spiritual writing that I think we ought to pause and look at them with a discerning eye.

Why? They can unwittingly lead their speakers to reinforce their negative egos. Used without care, they operate like trojan horses, carrying within them the seeds of judgment and separation that spirituality is meant to heal.

I don’t mean to cast aspersions at writers who use them; I’ve used some of them myself. Consider this article a call for us all to be a bit more rigorous with our word usage. Language is, after all, a window into our consciousness, through which we can catch a glimpse of our shadows.

Ascension

I’ve begun to recoil from this word even though it appears in my own channeled writings. “Ascension” became the New Age replacement for enlightenment.

There’s something about it, though, that often suggests a kind of “elevation” — being “higher” than, and thus superior to, others. But “ascension” is not a means of measuring how you stack up against someone else. That comparative framework invites your ego to see yourself as superior, when in fact, it means you’re judging a fellow human being about where they are on their path.

The vertical orientation of the term also lends itself to a sense of upward progression, as if you were graduating from one school grade to the next (or worse, being lifted off the planet in some kind of “rapture”). “Ascension” isn’t that kind of process at all. It actually describes going inward more than upward, as you dive within to clear layers of false beliefs and unresolved emotional energy, a process that can, often does, last your lifetime.

Whenever “ascension” starts to take on these qualities, that’s your cue to step back and look for sparks of judgment of yourself and others.

5D

This phrase is often used as shorthand with “ascension” for describing a world of awakened beings who understand their divinity, and all the aspects that come with that connection — intuition, healing, and manifestation (another word that almost made this list). The “D” stands for dimension.

It is used by contrast with “3D,” which describes the dimension that the vast majority of humanity inhabits with a more conventional understanding of what it means to be human.

Whenever people use the terms 5D or 3D, I wonder if they can point to an original source for that information. All too often, it appears that people are regurgitating what they’ve heard from others on social media, accepting it at face value.

I also find that many people use it as a way to distance themselves from those who have not yet awakened, as if to say, They’re so 3D! This, in turn, leads to the bypassing of our current reality and speculation about what living in a 5D world looks like. People begin to wonder where they are on some “ascension” scale and fret that they’ve slipped back into 3D.

The truth is that none of us knows what an enlightened world looks like because we are still carrying with us concepts, constructs, and beliefs that are part of our current mass consciousness.

Whenever you start to get upset about dimensions, it’s a reminder to cultivate a sense of humility while continuing to spread more love and compassion in the world.

Vibrational Frequency

So much ink has been spilled on “vibrational frequency” that the phrase now makes me cringe. In part, that’s because some writers use it as if they had coined it and were revealing something new to the world.

Let’s clarify one premise that too often comes up with this phrase: We do not vibrate at a single frequency. Our chakras and bodies are filled with unresolved emotional energy, from this lifetime and past lifetimes. As you awaken and begin to heal, layers upon layers come up for resolution (see ascension, above). All of this emotion vibrates at different frequencies.

Where the phrase has real potency, though, as I discuss here, is to see how you’re relating to the present moment, especially when a new layer surfaces. Are you aligned with the present moment, fully accepting whatever is arising? Or are you judging it for its inadequacy, or worrying that you’re backsliding into a “low vibe”? In that way, you can see that what you call your “frequency” fluctuates all the time.

Whenever you start to fret about your frequency or judge others for theirs, it’s a reminder that each moment presents a choice (see sovereignty below) as to how to relate to the present moment.

Tribe

The word smacks of cultural appropriation from Native Americans (one of the spiritual world’s shadow sides). Using it colloquially betrays a lack of knowledge about the word’s origins and history.

This term also easily lends it to the kind of binary opposition, us vs. them, that is a hallmark of the ego.

Understandably, we all want to feel that we belong, and so we’re often in search of community. We want to connect with others who provide support, rather than criticism. We’re looking for some kind of validation and a shared outlook on life.

But spiritual writers often use “tribe” with a sense of exclusion, synonymous with “club,” that suggests that you’re either in or you’re out. Having a community is wonderful, but we should be cautious about drawing boundaries based on who we think belongs. Otherwise, we run the risk of recreating the very mechanism of exclusion we sought to escape by seeking a spiritual community.

On top of it all, it has become the most cliché of the words on this list, having been used by so many internet marketers. So whenever you feel inclined to use it, pause and consider that it might be time to embrace the diversity of our language and grab your thesaurus.

Sovereignty

This is the word du jour in spiritual circles.

It describes the truth that you are an aspect of God, you are the Divine made manifest in form. You have free will and are imbued with the creative power to shape your life. It emphasizes your inherent connection to the Divine, your power to manifest, and your ultimate power of choice in every moment.

Unfortunately, the claim “I am God” is easy for the ego to twist in a way that suggests you’re somehow more divine than the rest of the world. Sorry, but you’re not the only one who is sovereign. So is everybody else.

I’ve heard people use sovereignty as a way to justify their unskillful behavior toward others, reject all law and politics as mere illusions, or act as if they were independent of all other human beings. Used in that way, “sovereignty” becomes a form of bypass that sidesteps the truth that we are in co-creation with one another. Your freedom and capacity to create always involves other people’s freedom and capacity to create, and everyone serves as our mirror.

You are, of course, entitled to act that way. After all, the choice is yours. However, it doesn’t mean that every choice you make is divinely inspired. Sometimes it's your shadow acting out.

When sovereignty begins to take on these qualities, it’s a reminder to return to your heart so that you might see the divine everywhere you look.

I don’t mean to suggest we can’t use new terms or have any kind of specialized jargon. After all, our words are tools of creation. In creating new worlds, we look for new words. These terms reflect the desire to find a language for a world that recognizes each of us as divine.

But we should be wary that when we use them, we might be trying to mark ourselves as different, even special, from the rest of humanity. Let’s not recreate an old consciousness in new clothing. That's one way the shadow likes to cloak itself.

The risk is that we forget the ultimate truth: We are all one. So that person who you think is trapped in 3D, with a low vibrational frequency, who isn’t ascending and doesn’t understand sovereignty — they’re part of your “tribe” too, and they are just a moment away from awakening.

Thanks to 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊. for the prompt to write about shadows and clichés. It was the push I needed to polish this piece, which had been sitting in my draft folder, feeling a bit ignored, but touches on the prompts for all three days.