One of the most dangerous ideas in modern spirituality is that awakening automatically makes you a mature human being. It doesn't.

Altered states do not equal altered traits. I know this because I was a non-duality spiritual bypasser for years. And now that I know the difference, I will claim that spiritual bypassing - transcendent self-realization is vital to your growth. You just don’t want to stay there and cling to that. You have to develop the skill of both-and. Let me explain…

Women have slightly different physiologies during their menstrual, follicular, ovulatory, early or late luteal, or pre-menstrual phases which can affect their behavior, personality, and perceptions which can be optimized. So many women I’ve worked with have either an autoimmune, hormone imbalance, low omega-3 index, MCAS and POTS, or a metabolic disorder such as the MTHFR gene mutation causing them needless grief and suffering. Men can have most all that too long with a lack of the ability to feel their emotions, propensity for low-grade adrenal fatigue, dopamine dysregulation, and other neurotransmitter imbalances that will literally change your character from happy and easy-going into chronically angry, upset, and distracted and you will believe you are simply being yourself and it’s the world that has changed. I believe everyone owes it to themselves and to those around them to be well informed with recent data about their physiological balance or imbalance.

Codependency doesn’t always look unhealthy. Sometimes, it looks like the nicest person in the room.

Being around a skilled people-pleaser can feel wonderful to your ego. They anticipate what you want, avoid disagreement, and become whoever they believe they need to be.

But beneath that pleasant exterior, codependency can become deeply deceptive.

I know because I lived it.

I carried shame that had been placed upon me—and then became ashamed of the fact that I felt ashamed. Do you see the double wrapping? The layers that keep our wounds hidden and untouched by love?

I tried to force that shame out of existence by performing the perfect swan dive into everyone else’s expectations.

A codependent person is often so afraid of disappointing others that their entire personality becomes organized around preventing it. Their worth depends on appearing acceptable, pleasing, and good.

The post argues that narcissism is not merely a set of abusive behaviors, but a defensive inability to accept negative truths about oneself, take responsibility, and empathize with one’s impact on others. Everyone has the capacity for narcissistic defenses, especially when shame, humiliation, or an underdeveloped ego makes self-reflection feel threatening.

Healing begins by recognizing these tendencies rather than projecting them onto others. Through awareness, accountability, humility, atonement, and profound self-love, painful feedback can become a source of growth instead of something to avoid. The post presents love as an “ego-rehabilitating technology” that helps people integrate wounded parts of themselves.

Perhaps like you, I’ve spent years in therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy, neuro linguistic programming, EMDR, EFT, hypnotherapy, and even couples therapy all in an attempt to reform my beliefs and behaviors into more pro-relational shapes. These approaches, some more successful than others, helped me see that my beliefs and behaviors were mailable—changeable if enough effort was invested in my own improvement. Among all of them, hypnotherapy and EFT were the most effective but none of them had me approach my problems not as a chemical or behavioral problem but as an identity problem.

Growing up in an alcoholic, codependent, and narcissistically abusive environment created within me my own codependent and narcissistically dysfunctional structures. People pleasing, a deep fear of disappointing others, and to some extent, non-empathetic ways of relating dominated my nervous system's survival strategies. Through my 20's, I spent years in therapy, tried psychiatric drugs, and made some significant progress but I found that these pernicious structures still creeped around in my subconscious—waiting for just the right situation to trigger their dominance over my self-control. And though I really can't sing enough praise for the therapies I've received, especially those of the psychedelic persuasion, only via Tantric Yoga—what Relationship Yoga is founded upon—did I find a reliable post-therapy approach to manage the trauma responses I've carried since those early years.