In this week’s LOVE SCHOOL, one of our students raised her hand and asked for help letting go of the rage she felt towards her ex. She’d been looping stories of how she’d been victimized by her ex and was terrified of even thinking of getting into another relationship. When she told me her story, I asked what she’d done to pursue justice for her hurt parts. A light bulb went off, not just in her, but in others who responded in the chat. “OMG, that’s why I can’t let go and move on. There’s been no justice.”
Sometimes we try to get justice, and it eludes us. Maybe we try to hold someone accountable in hopes that they will confess to wrongdoing and participate in relational repair, but they only gaslight us and hurt us more, rather than making apologies and amends. Maybe we seek help from law enforcement or lawyers, but those systems fail to restore justice for our parts. Or maybe we allow religious or spiritual teachings to suppress justice-seeking impulses, which causes us to either enable ongoing abuse or interferes with healing, letting go, and moving on.
We’ll be unpacking what to do when you can’t let go because you haven’t gotten justice in my new Internal Family Systems course The Path To Inner Justice. It’s for anyone who either hasn’t tried to get relational justice because they don’t know how, or you can’t let go of harm done by an unjust relationship because the perpetrator will never cooperate with pursuing justice, or you tried to get justice and justice failed to happen and now you don’t know what to do. If you can’t let go, if healing, letting go, and moving on forever evades you, if you’re still hung up on someone who hurt you ages ago, if you’re still looping your story, no matter how much therapy you’ve done, this course will support your IFS parts work in very practical ways.
Learn more and register for The Path To Inner Justice here.
Spiritual teachings often get in the way of pursuing justice. They teach us to forgive and forget, to let God handle justice, to trust that karma will handle things, that it’s a sin not to extend compassion to those who hurt you. I suspect whoever thought up these teachings did so to make sure faithful followers of corrupt religious leaders or New Age cult leaders never sought justice with their abusive spiritual leaders. But you don’t have to carry those beliefs with you forever. Once you see how religious and spiritual belief systems lock in oppression and interfere with self-protection for oppressed victims, you’ll never be able to unsee it again.
Until we go deeper in the six week Zoom workshop, let’s unpack the kinds of belief systems that may interfere with justice-seeking parts and how religious or spiritual teachings can get in the way of protecting your parts and helping them restore justice.
Both traditional religious texts and many New Age teachings can discourage faithful followers from pursuing justice when they are harmed, often under the guise of spiritual maturity, surrender, forgiveness, karma, or transcendence. While these teachings may be well-intentioned or aimed at cultivating peace, they can have the unintended effect of silencing legitimate anger, bypassing trauma, enabling abuse, and suppressing justice-seeking parts.
New Age Spiritual Teachings That Discourage Pursuing Justice
-”Get out of your victim story”
Shaming victims who have not gotten justice, experienced accountability, or participated in relational repair with their perpetrators is just plain mean and utterly lacking in empathy. While there is a time for letting go and moving on, shaming someone for not being ready yet is just cruel.
-Toxic positivity
The emphasis on “love and light,” high vibrations, and “staying positive” often dismisses anger, grief, and righteous indignation as “low vibe” or unenlightened.
-Law of Attraction
Victims may be blamed for “attracting” harm through negative thinking, fear, or unconscious beliefs, rather than holding perpetrators accountable. “You create your own reality” can shift the burden onto the victim to fix their inner state, often invalidating the systemic or interpersonal harm done to them.
-“Everything happens for a reason” or “Your soul chose this”
These beliefs can suggest that suffering is spiritually orchestrated or preordained, which may dissuade people from resisting or seeking justice, excusing perpetrators because they’ve believed to be soul family recruited to teach life lessons.
-Focus on forgiveness as healing
While forgiveness can be freeing, it’s often presented as a prerequisite to healing, even when the wound is still open or the perpetrator unrepentant.
-Guru worship and authoritarianism
In some spiritual communities, challenging the leader is considered egoic, polarizing, “not non-dual,” unfaithful, or spiritually regressive, which silences whistleblowers and protects abusers.
-Peace as the highest goal
Conflict is often seen as spiritual failure, leading to suppression of necessary anger and avoidance of justice-seeking behaviors.
-“Don’t judge” or “everyone is doing their best”
These seemingly compassionate teachings can erase accountability, discourage discernment, and allow patterns of abuse to continue unchecked.
-Shaming of boundaries as “That’s your ego” or “You’re being divisive”
New Age circles sometimes spiritualize permeability and glorify porous boundarylessness, discouraging healthy boundaries as being “in the ego” or “not open-hearted.”
Organized Religious Teachings That Discourage Pursuing Justice
It’s not just New Age spirituality that discourages justice.
Many religions, including Christianity, often discourage the pursuit of justice and instead promote spiritualizing conflict avoidance and martyrdom as noble. Teachings of oneness and non-duality can sometimes invalidate the experiences of victims, minimizing their trauma and discouraging them from taking action. Similarly, scriptures like “turn the other cheek” and “vengeance is mine” can be interpreted in ways that discourage victims from seeking justice and accountability. The glorification of suffering and martyrdom in Christianity can romanticize enduring injustice rather than confronting it. Additionally, beliefs in karma and cosmic justice may lead victims to wait for universal balance rather than taking necessary legal or social action. The emphasis on forgiveness as a moral duty can place undue burden on victims, rather than on perpetrators to make amends. Furthermore, patriarchal religious structures may discourage victims from challenging authority or seeking legal recourse. Overall, seeking justice can be a crucial step in the healing process for victims, and it is important to consider ways to address injustices while also prioritizing self-care and healing. The following statement needs to be rewritten.