There is a trend that I'm noticing in the healing/mental health industry where people are being infantilized. What does this mean?

Treating humans like infants instead of whole people, who are children of God, with free will, and incredible possibilities living inside of them.

I believe that a part of this infantilizing is a pushback on the way it used to be for many of us in the past couple of generations: lots of repression, suppression, and spiritual bypassing (using spirituality to bypass our real feelings). The pendulum has swung, and now there is a lot of honoring of trauma and feelings (mostly, thank God, it was about time!...)

But/and there is still something that can make all of this a little more whole.

Because while focusing on spirituality and bypassing real trauma is incredibly damaging, I see real fragmentation in just focusing on trauma... and bypassing the soul.

I call this soul bypassing, an equal and opposite fragmentation, with very real side effects.

When we bypass the soul, we only move into a certain amount of healing. After that, things begin to get stagnant. At a certain point, every human needs to reckon with the fact that they are on a soul's journey, that they chose this journey, that they are a child of God, and that they hold an immense amount of light, energy, gifts, presence, power, and medicine inside of them.

Emotional maturity lies in the integration of these 2 parts. Both spiritually bypassing and bypassing the soul are damaging to the spirit and psyche.

When you descend into the underbelly of your unconscious to do your healing work, when you work with the medicine of your soma, integrate your soul into the process. Your heart and body will thank you.

Let no parts be left behind in the integration of the whole.

And it's okay if you've forgotten your trauma or your soul for a bit in your journey of healing the other. That is this journey: we forget, we remember, we expand. We fall down, we get back up. It's all part of it. There is no right or wrong way, only lessons, love, growth, faith, and real feelings. Just keep returning to the land of your body and soul, where the present moment meets you in her embrace.

And as I tell my clients, we will honor your trauma. Maybe with the most space and compassion it has ever seen before... and, we will also choose to honor your soul, even just a little bit more than that.

Our bodies are here for this lifetime. We must reckon with our experiences, darkness, real life, and soul themes. Let's not lose the plot, though, on what this is all for:

To bask in the glory of Hashem/the Shechina/God

To bring together the parts of the whole, to love and live and believe a little more, to become more connected and coherent, and to bring about an individual and collective cohesion and redemption. Amen!