Empower Your Soul

Gatekeeping in Spiritual Practices

• Medium Nicole • Season 1 • Episode 105

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Ever felt like someone was holding the keys to spiritual knowledge just out of your reach? In this candid exploration of spiritual gatekeeping, I dive into the surprisingly restrictive world of some spiritual modalities and why certain teachers seem determined to control access to spiritual growth.

Responding to a thought-provoking question from a listener named Sarah, I examine how gatekeeping manifests in practices, where practitioners must follow rigid guidelines, charge minimum fees, and even seek permission before discussing the modality publicly. Drawing from my experience as a certified master teacher in multiple modalities, I reveal the strange disconnect between spiritual principles of openness and the reality of tightly controlled knowledge.

What's particularly fascinating is the pattern I've noticed: heavily gatekept modalities often originate from practitioners with more masculine, process-driven approaches. This raises important questions about the intersection of gender energy, control, and spiritual teaching. While structure certainly has value, does excessive control actually limit the reach and evolution of these healing practices? The evidence suggests it might—many strictly regulated modalities remain relatively unknown despite existing for decades.

For anyone navigating their spiritual journey, this episode offers crucial guidance on identifying true teachers versus controllers. The spiritual guides worth following are those who empower rather than restrict, who build your confidence instead of dependency, who encourage your unique expression instead of demanding rigid adherence to their way. Remember that you're meant to bring your authentic self to your spiritual practice, not simply replicate what's been done before. Trust your intuition, honor your unique path, and recognize that true spiritual growth rarely comes with a rulebook.

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Speaker 1:

Hello there, welcome to Empower your Soul. This is gonna be a quick little episode, but there was a really great question asked by Sarah over on Instagram when I was asking and probing who has anything they want me to cover on the podcast, and her question or response was can you talk about gatekeeping in the spiritual modalities, the spiritual community? And I think this is such an interesting topic and I don't know, honestly, how much I have to say about this. But I think with every industry there is gatekeeping, with some of these amazing specialized knowledge Right, and I and I think that with gatekeeping you know you have experts that do this, that do this well, that find their own way to do it. You know you might. I'm just thinking about my hairstylist friends that going to learn how to do like extensions and they have to sign an NDA on how they the method of installing these extensions in people's hair right, and so she can't go and teach anybody else because she's literally signed an NDA that says she can't do that. So it's just interesting to me this idea of gatekeeping, because I think it's rampant. I think it's rampant everywhere and gatekeeping comes from having a special way to do things that is a differentiator and or a competitive advantage that allows you to essentially own the method so that you make the money when you do this. So I don't think that spirituality, or spiritual modalities, is really any different than other industries when it comes to having secretive ways to do things to retain money for the people who create these ideas and these methodologies.

Speaker 1:

So, specifically, what comes to mind and I'm not even supposed to talk about this is IET. Okay, so I'm not, like I'm right now. This is how strict they are. Don't don't report me, please, but you're supposed to get approval to even talk about this methodology Before I talk about it on this podcast, like I'm supposed to write a letter to the IET organization before I even have this conversation. And so it's just interesting to me because IET is a method of healing. It's very similar I'm going to say it's similar to Reiki. It is different in its modality because you're actually using energy healing on your physical body, like past, present.

Speaker 1:

You go through all these different things. I went through all the levels. I'm a master, not a teacher. I'm a master. I think, yeah, no, I'm a master teacher, so I've done all these modalities, but it's freaking gatekept right. Um, all of all of the book.

Speaker 1:

I, my process engineer brain, says hats off to them, but my, my spiritual brain says I don't like this at all, because what they did is they made it so that this is the program, like it is this modality, and they have specific training books, they have specific ways to do this. It's like if you've ever, like, been a mom that has led girls on the run girl, girl Scouts, boy Scouts you're going to know what I'm talking about, because they literally give you the book of what to do, what not to do. Follow this exactly. That's IET. And so if you want to become an IET, iet teacher and teach this to other people, they tell you your class has to be in person, it has to be seven hours long, you have to charge at least 265 per student, like they literally tell you all this stuff, you have to buy the books, you have to do it this way, you have to do it that way, right, they tell you everything about it. And then, obviously, because I have to buy their books and all these things, right, I have to put my name on their website, right, like all this stuff comes with it. And so they're literally gatekeeping this modality.

Speaker 1:

And what is so interesting to me is, I think it's to a detriment to that modality. Have you heard of it? Have you heard of IET? How many of you can say you've actually gone to an IET practitioner or got an IET session? Yeah, and this is what I think the problem with gatekeeping is is that probably not many of you have even heard of this modality, and that's because it is gatekept. Right, there's so few people. This actually started quite a while ago that I believe it was the 80s. Many people know this modality because it's gatekept, and so I think there's a component of that, sarah, that really hinders the growth of some of these modalities.

Speaker 1:

And when things are not gatekept and I'm thinking in my head, I'm thinking like Linda Howe's Akashic Records right, she will tell you how to do it right, and then you can go out and get another book from another author about how to do it their way and how to do it the other way, and so it's. It's so interesting to me because I think there's this weird dichotomy between, like, gatekeeping and not gatekeeping. I don't even know where this is going, sarah, because I think when it's gatekept in the spiritual world, it's not good, because you're essentially telling people what you can do with it, what you can't do with it and you're being secretive about it and you're owning it under the guise of doing it one certain way and like for for process people like me. It's maintaining the integrity of the modality and thinking like it's like Reiki, right, the modality is you, like you're, you're learning this specific modality, you're supposed to do it a certain way for it to be the most impactful, but at the same time they don't give you different ways to make it yours and I. It's just interesting, and maybe, maybe the big thing here, sarah, is for someone that's been in corporate and been in this process driven background, I can understand why people put process around these things.

Speaker 1:

Right, and if you look, oh, if you look at all of those modalities that are gatekept, a lot of them are men who created it Interesting, right, and I think the IT guy's an engineer. Interesting right, and I think the IT guy's an engineer. And so why wouldn't? Why wouldn't they follow I'm going to say sorry for the stereotype here why wouldn't they follow the traditional masculine way of do it my way Let me show you and here's the book on it rather than an intuitive approach? So I wonder, I wonder, from a modality perspective this is my hypothesis I wonder if a lot of these and um, I Reiki was from a man, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, reiki? Yeah, madusaka, I can't remember. It's been a while, sorry. You can tell how much I do Reiki. I'm also Reiki master teacher certified. I don't use it very often, but I think that was also from a male too.

Speaker 1:

So, think so, like I wonder, I wonder if it's just a function of the person who created the modality being like more masculine energy or more feminine energy, which is more intuitive. Do it your own way, I don't know, I don't know. So I'm going to put the modalities aside and I'm just going to talk. To talk about teachers now and the gatekeeping that teachers do. This tends to come from an ego centered perspective of don't be better than me, because any teachers that gatekeep and say oh, that's the problem with my shamanism. Teacher, sorry, fuck, cause he's a man and he says you have to do it this way, which is interesting, cause he's a very intuitive man, but you have to do it this way. Interesting, um, okay, anyway, I digress.

Speaker 1:

So, in terms of the spiritual leaders, then, anyone that gatekeeps is coming from an ego centered perspective of needing to either control or needing to maintain this appearance of better than now, so that they can have money for differentiating and doing things differently. And I say this and I'm probably going to revisit this episode in 10 years from now and kick my own ass about this, but I think for modalities where people can learn them, that makes like. I think that's your red flag. Anyone that's trying to gatekeep any of the spiritual work. That's a red flag for me and that's that, um, that's why I won't go on and teach it, because I don't trust.

Speaker 1:

I don't think that's the way you can approach some of this work, and so I guess you have to use your own intuition on what you're okay with. Are you okay with teachers saying you have to do it a certain way, or I'm not going to teach you that you're not ready. I don't know. I don't know how to, how to answer. You're going to have to come up to your own approach and how to answer that.

Speaker 1:

Sarah and other other people listening out here that that resonates with, and just go with the practitioners who make the most sense for you, who make you feel good, who make you feel like you're capable and confident and able to do this work, even if you're still learning it like, even if you don't have all the all the things pulled together, even if it doesn't make complete sense, are they at least giving you the confidence and letting you know, like, where you're at is fantastic, you're going to get to where you need to go, but where you're at is fantastic, great job. Those are the teachers that you need and I've said this a million times, so I'm not going to go there again. No-transcript me, I'm doing it wrong and to do it their way. But just be careful.

Speaker 1:

As a beginner Again, we all need to find our own way with all these modalities, and so honor yourself and honor your learning journey and honor your team that you're supposed to be doing things your way and a little bit differently than maybe what you've been taught. And a lot of people don't want to be perfectionist and we come from this good girl, good boy background where we want to do what the person in charge says, and so gatekeeping is a way to keep us in control and doing things the way that it's always been done. But we're not supposed to do things the way things always have been done in the spiritual. We're supposed to be new and creative and event and do things differently, and so I'm going to encourage you, sarah, to do this, and everyone else that's listening to this podcast.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I went down the rabbit hole a little bit, so I'm going to end it, but thank you so, so much for this question, sarah. It was such a good question. If there's any other follow-ups you have, you know where to find me. I just wanted to thank you all for being here today. I hope you all have a wonderful day. Take care.

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