By: Logan Cohen, Professional Therapist & Online Life Coach - Balanced Man Plan
As anyone in this World learns before too long, you CAN have too much of “a good thing.” When it comes to over-exercising or over-working, this tends to be more obvious. There is pain in our Body and/or Mind that lets us know there has been “too much” and if we ignore this, we can REALLY hurt ourselves!
In the same vein, there are cases where People are hurt by religious or spiritual abuse. There are so many BEAUTIFUL aspects of Faith & Spirituality, which is why this is one of the “Support Areas” in our Balanced Man Plan online life coaching for Men (in addition to Sex/Intimacy, Professional/Financial Life, & Friendships). If at any point you would rather just dive in to the Self-Guided Coaching Plan for Faith & Spirituality, then feel free to do so here.
For all of those wonderful concepts in Faith & Spirituality, Spiritual Abuse is now beginning to be as common as Religious Abuse. It is easier to see how a “cult” is abusive to its followers by taking advantage of them and their resources with stories of fear and shame designed to make them scared of “the outside world.”
What if we told you that some of the recent “spiritual movements”, such as the Law of Attraction & Manifestation, can be also harm People with mental health issues if their unique symptoms are not taken into consideration?
We are going to break all of it down in this article to make sure your spiritual and faith-based practices are helping you get to your destination, rather than becoming part of the problem.
In case you have not heard of the concepts “Law of Attraction” and “Manifestation,” these are concepts made popular in a book called The Secret where the writer tells the reader that the answers to their deepest desires can be had in steps: ask, believe, and receive.
This is based on a quote from the Bible's book of Matthew 21:22 saying, "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."
That sure SOUNDS great, however this concept of asking The Cosmos for your desires, believing it will happen, then blindly expecting things to go your way is not much different from the point of view of a toddler who insists on buying candy every time you take them through the checkout aisle at the grocery store. They REALLY want that chocolate, so will ask for it and believe they should get it, but that has (or SHOULD have) very little impact on whether they actually DO get that candy!
As it is presented in most of the writings you will see around The Secret, Law of Attraction, and Manifestation, these concepts are good for ONE thing and one thing only - holding on to HOPE when times are hard. There are times that if you “stay the course,” then the fruits of your labor should come, but ONLY if everything ELSE is in balance as well!
If not, the Law of Attraction and Manifestation easily take the form of spiritual abuse that most People only attribute to organized religion, where someone is told that, “If they are still struggling, that just means they don’t have enough FAITH.”
THIS is the SAME old spiritual abuse that has been used to control vulnerable People since politics bled into religion - but this time it is cloaked in a different, less assuming form. You CAN meet your goals by BECOMING your intentions through regular practice of focused thoughts, feelings, behaviors. Between smart planning, the right mind-set, and supportive Loved Ones the online life coaching for Men from Balanced Man Plan is designed to help you BECOME the focus of your intention, and then will draw like-minded People to you who will support this “new vibe.” From here, momentum towards your goals can REALLY get going in a NEW way, but this is FAR more involved then just, “ask, believe, and receive.”
This article will describe 7 Shortcomings of the Law of Attraction and Manifestation that reflect Spiritual Abuse in the SAME ways that organized religion has practiced with the masses for centuries. In addition to this, you will find a description of the strategies used in the online life coaching for Men offered by the Balanced Man Plan that is designed to give you the results you have been looking for with evidence-based research (and maybe some balanced Faith - if you are into that sort of thing).
Law of Attraction & Manifestation as Spiritual Abuse
#1 Key from Balanced Man Plan Online Life Coaching for Men - Science
First, the Law of Attraction and Manifestation do NOT explain Anxiety and Depression symptoms well enough. If you are struggling with Anxiety or Depression symptoms and have tried to ask, believe, and receive, then you KNOW this is just ASKING TO GET STUCK. When we have Anxiety or Depression, this is NOT just “getting sad” OR “really worried.” This is about a chemical imbalance caused by a range of factors that keeps the Person with Anxiety or Depression symptoms STUCK in a loop of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that creates more of the same symptoms.
Anxiety symptoms create stimulation of our Central Nervous System that sends messages to our Mind & Body saying (really YELLING), “YOU ARE IN DANGER!” On the other hand, Depression symptoms do in the OPPOSITE direction. Depression symptoms deaden stimulation of our Central Nervous System that sends messages to our Mind & Body saying, “YOU HAVE NO ENERGY AND DON’T NEED TO ANYWAYS BECAUSE YOUR EFFORTS WOULD BE POINTLESS ANYWAYS.” Whether you deal with Anxiety symptoms, Depression symptoms, or a combo of BOTH, the Law of Attraction and Manifestation are NO MATCH for these issues. REGARDLESS of how much you might “ask and believe”, you CANNOT “receive” anything DIFFERENT because Anxiety & Depression symptoms keep People STUCK in these described loops above.
The online life coaching offered by the Balanced Man Plan is designed to take the helpful pieces (like self-visualization and creating HOPE), then combines evidence-based research from Psychology, Anthropology, and Social Sciences to help you get the results you are looking for.
Law of Attraction & Manifestation as Spiritual Abuse
#2 Key from Balanced Man Plan online life coaching for Men - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy concepts
As shown above, it is common to see the Law of Attraction & Manifestation telling People that if they just FOCUS and PRACTICE HARD ENOUGH, then the Anxiety and Depression symptoms will go away and if they DON’T, then this is because they aren’t trying hard enough OR don’t want it enough. This is largely borrowed from how organized religion views the concept of “Faith.”
In reality if someone has Anxiety or Depression symptoms, they CANNOT use the techniques from Law of Attraction and/or Manifestation as designed because the Anxiety and Depression loops will drag People back into those realities.
This is the SAME as telling someone they should be able to cure themselves of Anxiety or Depression by “just having Faith.”
If it were that simple, they would have DONE that by NOW!
The online life coaching for Men offered by the Balanced Man Plan uses some of the concepts found in Law of Attraction and Manifestation in order to visualize a NEW set of goals and a NEW path to get to that new location, but with the power of your OWN natural and healthy balance to get you to that new goal. Our Balanced Man Plan will help you consider your own natural strengths, weaknesses, and desires to help you create a PLAN to use the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in your daily Life to create the best balance for Self & Loved Ones from the privacy and comfort of Home.
Law of Attraction & Manifestation as Spiritual Abuse
#3 Key from Balanced Man Plan online life coaching for Men - Healthy Faith v. Spiritual Abuse
If someone has something chemical going on with Dopamine & Serotonin in their Body that is outside of their awareness or even immediate control, the concepts from the Law of Attraction & Manifestation will actually make their symptoms WORSE.
Remember how Anxiety symptoms trick our Mind & Body into believing there is a threat to safety in the immediate environment? This physical experience in our Body creates the FEELING that the threat is RIGHT there and when our Mind experiences this, our thoughts will follow suit with, “OMG this is SO dangerous right now!” As a result, we will second-guess our decisions and operate from a “scarcity bias”, where we believe we will NOT get the resources we need in order to feel safe.
If you ask someone to practice “believe, ask, and receive” in THIS space, then they will likely AVOID, which results in Anxiety symptoms going down. This decrease in Anxiety symptoms after we avoid the threat tells the Mind that our behavior WORKED to create safety, so we should CONTINUE being scared of the threat and running away from it, which is just MORE OF THE SAME.
Let’s take a look at how this plays out for Depression symptoms. When we struggle with Depression, this creates an impression that we have LOW energy and don’t CARE about what is happening in our environment - similar to the experience of “learned helplessness.” If we allow “believe, ask, and receive” from Law of Attraction and Manifestation to take hold, then the person with Depression symptoms will NEVER get started because it seems POINTLESS.
Our online life coaching for Men from the Balanced Man Plan helps you get brain chemicals like Dopamine, Serotonin, and of course TESTOSTERONE back into balance with NATURAL solutions using decisions available in daily Life. Our Self-Guided Coaching Plan on Healthy Faith & Spirituality can even help you figure out the elements of your faith-based spiritual practice that can help you achieve your goals with natural solutions, rather than getting stuck in the same old place(s).
Law of Attraction & Manifestation as Spiritual Abuse
#4 Key from Balanced Man Plan online life coaching for Men - Healthy Lifestyle & Nutrition
When it comes to Anxiety and Depression symptoms, there has been a lot of debate over the years regarding, “Nature versus Nurture.” Are Depression and Anxiety symptoms about an internal chemical imbalance? Or are these anxiety symptoms about something being “OFF” in our environment? Through years of study and trials in evidence-based research, scientists have realized that BOTH work TOGETHER in a process called Epigenetics.
Epigenetics is the study of how the environment and experiences in everyday Life CHANGE the cells in our Body through our DNA. If you consider for a moment the importance of evolution, this actually makes a LOT of sense because this is how the DNA in our Body (Nature) changes as the environment (Nurture) changes. Let’s take a moment to see how this is playing out with current nutritional practices in Modern Society.
Since Modern Society has moved farther and farther away from the farming communities of the Old World, the nutritional needs of Human Beings have suffered. Chronic health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases run RAMPANT in Modern Society and this is actually fairly NEW. These types of diseases were NOT common in the Old World for several reasons, and one of those is in our diet.
Due to the greed of politicians and corporate executives, the American Public has been lied to about our nutritional needs since at least the 1960s. If you would like a break-down of this history, the details can be found in this article. As far as this article is concerned, it is important to note that the American Diet has been AWFUL for a LONG time and this plays out in unhealthy gut biome, which houses most of the Dopamine & Serotonin in the Body.
If you are still operating by the old food pyramid, eating refined sugars, or consuming highly processed foods, chances are that your entire Body is struggling to battle general inflammation created by your gut biome. This has been directly connected to mental health issues like Anxiety & Depression symptoms and if you try to take the approaches suggested by the Law of Attraction and Manifestation, you will likely get more of the same because your Body doesn’t even have a chance.
A common result here is repeated failure until even MORE hope about the future is lost, commonly resulting in QUITTING and/or BURN-OUT.
The online life coaching for Men from Balanced Man Plan will help you address your unique nutritional needs for YOUR Body so that you can get the results you are looking for both in Mind AND Body.
Law of Attraction & Manifestation as Spiritual Abuse
#5 Key from Balanced Man Plan online life coaching for Men - Healthy Lifestyle & Exercise
Exercise is really important for Human Beings. We are the only mammal that walks around exclusively on two legs (“bipedal”) because we are designed for tracking game and hunting. Heck, the hair on the rest of our Body BARELY grows (when compared to other mammals) and we have sweat glands that pour cool water over the outside of our bare skin to cool our Body off and help us track/hunt game more efficiently over longer periods of time. Human Beings are DESIGNED to move and for long periods of time at that!
Modern Society is arranged in a way that makes it HARD to get the recommended amount of physical exercise and a common result is the development of Depression and/or Anxiety Symptoms. If you are ready to make sure your Body has everything your Mind needs to fight off those Anxiety and/or Depression symptoms, then read this article about how the online life coaching for Men offered by the Balanced Man Plan is designed to support Depression symptoms specifically. There is a lot more info about both Nutrition & Exercise in our Physical Health Self-Guided Coaching Plan - a Core Area of Balance in the Balanced Man Plan.
If you are operating by the Law of Attraction and Manifestation, you can THINK about those exercise goals as much as you want, but there are certain issues (like those related to MOTIVATION, CORTISOL, & TESTOSTERONE PRODUCTION) that MUST be addressed using evidence-based research if you are going to get DIFFERENT results, rather than “spinning your wheels” on the same old approach while expecting different results.
Law of Attraction & Manifestation as Spiritual Abuse
#6 Key from Balanced Man Plan online life coaching for Men - Healthy Lifestyle & Sleep
Another example of how Modern Society makes Human Beings sick as animals of the natural world is with lack of rest and quality sleep. Since Human Beings are designed to be awake during the day (“diurnal”), we are ALSO designed to sleep at night while it is dark outside. Human Beings rely heavily on a sense of sight to guide our judgement and decision-making, so it is clear WHY we are best suited for daytime activity.
It is during sleep that our Body can enter the deepest states of parasympathetic rest, where our immune system stays STRONG, our brain chemicals regenerate, and our whole neurological system can make sure it stays strong for “the long haul.” The Center for Disease Control has studied the current research and found that 1 in 3 Adults don’t get enough sleep. As a result, immune systems lag and brain chemicals can’t be replenished as stress hormones are dumped into our bloodstream at higher and higher rates.
If you don’t have the research about what YOUR Mind & Body needs in order to have enough rest, you can “believe, ask, and receive” ALL DAY without getting different results. In fact, Modern Society’s old saying that, “You can sleep when you are dead,” is ACTUALLY a part of what is making us SICK!
Many Medical Doctors are of the opinion that THIS is the main factor around autoimmune diseases being on such a SHARP rise in the last several years - EXHAUSTION. If you are interested in getting your sleeping habits under control, we have gathered all of the research on “Sleep Hygiene” information for you here.
Law of Attraction & Manifestation as Spiritual Abuse
#7 Key from Balanced Man Plan online life coaching for Men - Addiction
If you have read any of the other articles offered by the Balanced Man Plan, or even checked out one of our Self-Guided Coaching Plans, you know that we take Addiction seriously. This is because Modern Society moves SO quickly and there are almost ENDLESS opportunities to numb Self out with our preferred means of “escapism” - whether this is TV/technology, food, drugs, alcohol, or sex/porn.
It is easy to engage in these activities mindlessly until we consume more and MORE because they give our Mind a short-term “break” from the difficulties in our immediate reality. When and if this compulsive behavior continues long enough, People get ADDICTED, and our Brain believes this focus on escapism/numbing, is actually what is keeping stress in our Life to a manageable level. When this happens, our Brain “short-circuits” and the Body believe that the focus of escapism is essential to basic needs for daily Life - just like food, water, and shelter.
You can read more about addiction, how it impacts the Brain, and how the online life coaching for men offered by Balanced Man is designed to provide the results you have been looking for from the privacy and comfort of Home - with SCIENCE, rather than visualization and hope for an INTENSE up-hill battle. If you or your Loved Ones could HOPE your way out of addiction, don’t you think that would have happened by NOW?
My name is Logan Cohen and I am a Professional Therapist & Life Coach with over 10 years in the field of Counseling Psychology. I am a Clinical Supervisor for the American Association of Marriage & Family Therapy, as well as the founder of New Leaf Counseling Group, LLC in Charlotte, NC. After spending tens of thousands of clinical hours with my own clients, starting a successful group practice, as well as a beautiful Family, I “picked my head up from the grindstone” to check in on childhood Friends & Loved Ones.
I painfully discovered that more than a few of my childhood Friends passed away at a young age from preventable health conditions and decided that as a Man, Husband, Father, and Friend, I could no longer stand by as People suffered in silence and self-destructed rather than ask for help. It doesn’t have to be like that and the holistic healing methods offered by the Balanced Man Plan is designed to help People “get unstuck” and break free from old patterns that are the barriers between Self & quality of Life.
The Balanced Man Plan is a therapeutic digital experience delivered through Self-Guided Coaching Plans created by a Male Therapist with the common barriers & strengths of Men in mind. The Balanced Man Plan has the goal of introducing a natural Balance back to Life so it is sustainable for the optimal Health & Well-Being of Self and Loved Ones - and ALL from the privacy and comfort of Home. If you have enjoyed what you see so far, check out our Self Guided Coaching Plans!