I thought, “What am I? Am I a gangster? No! But I am a troublemaker. I’m more like a hooligan. I break the spiritual rules. I challenge the cultural status quo. I don’t believe in the dogma or follow the conventions. I believe in oneness and that disrupts most traditional types.”
I called up my now-wife, Kristen (she lived in Seattle at the time) and I said, “I am a Spiritual Hooligan.” She laughed and said, “Yes you are!”
It stuck.
Since 2011, I’ve hosted a mastermind of people who identify themselves as Spiritual Hooligans. So I asked them, how do you know if you are a Spiritual Hooligan?
They had a lot to say about it.
I’ve compiled a list below to help you see if you are one of us.
• You seek Enlightened Prosperity.
• Enlightenment is the context that all is well. If you are a newbie to spirituality, then you think prosperity refers to money. But a Spiritual Hooligan knows that it means you are doing well. So essentially you seek to know that all is well and you are doing well.
• You recognize that you are a fringe dweller or an outlier. You don’t feel bad about it. You know that other people are doing the best they can to try to survive by fitting in. That doesn’t interest you.
• You question everything and don’t follow the spiritual traditions or cultural dogma just because you’re “supposed to.” You are open. You don’t judge. You don’t need to be right about anything.
• You are extremely curious. Rather than pretending to “know” things. You seek to understand.
• You seek inner knowing. The survival mind wants to organize the outer world. The enlightened mind wants to organize the inner world.
• You meditate, contemplate and keep a quiet mind.
• Your intuition is strong.
• You intend to be in the flow. Most people feel like they have to “deal” with life. You seek to understand and be harmonious with it.
• You are intentionally non-resistant.
• You are “unoffendable.” When you know who you are, you don’t need external validation. People can way what ever they want and it doesn’t effect you.
• You know that the rules don’t apply to you. You don’t harm people or be intentionally disruptive but, you don’t follow the made up rules about how to be a good person either.
• You play outside the lines. You know that you are an infinite being and don’t let arbitrary standards stop you from expressing yourself.
You are devoted to integrity and workability even when it disrupts the status quo. Most people don’t care about integrity. When you work to restore it, it’s disruptive to the other people in your life.
• You aren’t afraid of destruction and happily blow up anything that doesn’t work in your life. You thrive in chaos.
• You know that breakdown is the beginning of a breakthrough.
• You find stability when everyone else is unstable. When your mind is quiet and you know that all is well, nothing takes you off your center.
• You gracefully create results even when it seems improbable to the people around you.
• You are satisfied and yet, you are eager for more.
• You decline activities that are done out of guilt or obligation.
• You are unconcerned with impressing anyone.
• You are unconcerned with offending anyone.
• You are committed and completely unattached to the results.
• You trust that all is well.
• Magic happens around you.
• You are in awe and wonder.
• Your presence is experienced as a gift because you don’t play by the rules and you give people the freedom to be themselves.
• You laugh, you giggle, you chuckle and you play all day.
• While others struggle with the drama, you have fun with it.
• You are extremely flexible and can activate new habits, ways of beings, and outlooks…almost at will.
• You have fun releasing lifelong beliefs at the drop of a hat.
If this speaks to you, then you are a Spiritual Hooligan!
Recently, I received this comment on facebook and thought it would help you to see my response.
Comment: “Hooligan googled = a violent young troublemaker typically of a gang —— I’m Not violent not young don’t make trouble don’t belong to any group/gang I guess the answer is no.”
My Response: “Thanks for making me clarify this. We think of ourselves and spiritual trouble makers for sure. But certainly not violent. It’s a metaphor for being a spiritual type who can cross all the spiritual platforms and accept everyone as whole complete and perfect.
For most spiritual types, that is very disruptive!! The status quo is to be closed, judgmental, arrogant and convinced that your way is the right way.
Being a Spiritual Hooligan disrupts the status quo with being kind, considerate, non-judgmental and flexible and open to all beliefs.
The ‘hooligan part’ is just a play on words, a metaphor. We aren’t super spiritual whoo-whoo types. And we aren’t conventional religious types. We are not for or against anything. We are committed to the recognition that all is well.”
In my book, that's what being a Spiritual Hooligan is all about.
