Spiritual People, please stop naming and blaming the Universe.

Today as I lay with my leg up in a moon boot after breaking the base of my fibula, I am starting to count the number of times people call upon the Universe to explain the unexplained. This week alone in response to my broken bone, I have heard some variation of it four times (and I have hardly seen a soul). “Maybe the Universe is telling you to slow down”. “I know I said I would come, but you know (gasp) the Universe has other plans”. Sense check: When people’s distant hands type their messages from the Universe or their eyes wander into the recesses of Father Sky as they declare, “The Universe must be sending you a message”, I feel both isolated and also desire to run off to where I cannot hear the next truly unhelpful thought.

After seventeen years of working in the wellness world, I have heard “Universal Truths” laid upon many people’s cold realities like an itchy wool blanket. Thanks, but no thanks. “The Universe” has become code for many things like blame, shame, avoidance of responsibility, spiritual bypassing, and self appointed credentials. The poor Universe tends to be responsible for everyone’s procrastination, tardiness, and throwing up of the hands at the sight of catastrophe. The Universe is also seemingly awarding the more enlightened with their greater material fortunes by law of attraction. It’s usually a full stop…