Personal Development, Spirituality and the Thing Both Are Missing

Religious people have called my work demonic.

Personal development people have called my relationship with God brainwash.

I don't fully belong to either box. And that's exactly why I need to share this.

Most men are doing personal development work. A lot of men are doing spiritual development work. Very few are doing maturity work.

And without maturation — there's no fruit.

In this episode José Alejandro breaks down the ceiling both personal development and spiritual development hit when they operate without initiation. Why a man can name every wound and still be living for himself. Why a man can have deep spiritual experiences and still be completely unaware of his patterns. And what the third thing actually is — the maturity work that neither world teaches.

You don't know a tree is mature by its size or its divinity. You know it by the fruit it bears.

This episode is for you if:

• You've been doing the work and still feel stuck
• You're spiritually open but struggling to materialize your gift
• You're personally developed but something still feels missing
• You're tired of ceilings and ready for fruit

"You know a tree by its fruit. Not its size. Not its divinity. Its fruit."

Free Leadership Quiz: josealejandro.co/leadership-quiz

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alright, welcome back. It's been a minute since I dropped an episode, and I'm very inspired to share this one. I'm also very nervous. There's some things I'm going to be talking about, sharing that are personal about my own spiritual journey and just my relationship with my work. So let's get right to it. Yeah, I made a post about this yesterday, and it was very edgy to talk about. It was very edgy to share. But I've been really inspired by some people in my life that I that I love and the way they've they've been able to share this in their own on their own platform. So I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna share it on here because uh I I love yapping and I love uh being able to just go a little bit into more depth on this platform. Um yeah, I mean, you know, some some religious people have called my work demonic. Let's just start with that. Um, even recently, uh posted some content about a latest retreat, and there were some religious people that said it was new age and demonic, and some personal development and spiritual people uh or people in the spiritual space will call my relationship with God and and more specifically, um you know what I'm gonna share in this episode as maybe brainwash. First and foremost, I don't belong in in either of those boxes, and that's exactly why I need to share this. So today's episode is about personal development, spirituality, and the thing that both are missing. Uh because I think both worlds are missing something, something that actually matters, something that most men never get to, uh, most women as well, just in general, individuals who are going on this journey. But I'm speaking to men on this podcast because that's where I am most immersed and who I'm supporting the most. So no matter how much we develop, no matter how much our spiritual, how deep we go into our spiritual life, most men might be doing their personal development work, most men, a lot of men might be doing their spiritual development work, but not many are actually doing the maturity work. And without maturation, there's no purpose, there's no fruit, there's no um really realization of all the work that we've done. I'm Jose Alejandro, and this is the initiated path. So let me take you through where I come from on this because I can't talk about these frameworks honestly without being real about my own journey through both of these worlds. So I was raised Catholic, I was an altar boy as a kid for a good amount of time, baptism, first communion, confirmation, Catholic elementary school, and then I believe it was Pentecostal, Christian, non-denominational as well for a good amount of time. This is like my mom uh deciding to pivot just because she was born in the Catholic Church. She wanted a space where she could um sing, where she could feel activated energetically, just nourished. And you know, with that being said, I also had my grandparents who had a different relationship with God. So my grandfather always talked about relationship over religion. Whenever I visited Puerto Rico over the summers, um I just remember him having a little altar in his shed where he played prayed every morning. He still has an altar in his shed where he prays every morning. And he was never a churchgoer, but he was always talking about how he went to church every day through prayer. And his Bible, I remember, had really scruffed up edges and folded pages and just sticky notes sticking out of it. Like you could tell he had a relationship with this Bible and and he took his prayer seriously, and that stayed with me. But for most of my teenage years, into my early 20s, I would consider myself an atheist. So I felt disconnected from the church, I felt manipulation, I felt the judgment, and I felt a serious lack of personal responsibility from a lot of people that um, and just like uh the community, the religious community, um, even with from people who had a relationship with God, um, I just felt a lack of personal responsibility. Even from my grandfather, there were some ways and some behaviors that I've shared in a previous episode of just the man who came before me, I think was the name of that episode. Um, but there were just some patterns that I felt like, you know, no matter how much you pray, there's some personal responsibility that has that is not being taken by people who are in the church. And I dove deep into religion, into history and in philosophy classes in college, and the more I learned, the more I saw how much damage religion had caused in the world, how much men have and continue to use it to control others. And even with all the benefits that it carried, that I did see in people that I love who did have a relationship with religion, a relationship with God, um, that part was hard to ignore, you know, and and fast forward, I'm not gonna talk about my my entire story, but just 2016, after years of having my bachelor's in psychology, about seven years, six, seven years in corporate, um I just hit a wall. You can call it an initiation. There was some deep challenges in my relationship, in my work, in my health. Um, you know, there was some autoimmune stuff that I had since I was 17 that created an impact in my body uh that I was still kind of ignoring and not taking care of the way that I should. And my psychology degree and all this information wasn't being embodied. I was still projecting a lot of my wounds. And this is really the catalyst for the work that I started diving into. So I dove into therapy, I dove into men's groups, I dove into coaching, I dove into trauma healing, into embodiment, um, into you know, that led me to psychedelics, to you know, month in Bali, uh Amazon jungle a couple times, a lot of beautiful indigenous experiences and different spiritual texts and practices that I still hold dear to this day, and I definitely feel have helped me connect closer to God. But going back to the therapy, the men's groups, the coaching, the trauma healing, all of these things that I like to call the cleanup work, right? It helped me feel empowered, and it helped me, um, you know, and the other stuff, the spiritual stuff, helped me really start feeling an authentic relationship with spirituality. And I still hold, like I said, a lot of these experiences dear because they helped me shape my own individual personal experience with God. And, you know, but it wasn't until my rite of passage in 2020 that I actually felt deeply connected to God. Um, I felt a complete and total collapse of everything I knew, a physical, mental, emotional breakdown that brought me to my knees and really forced me to surrender my identity up to that point. But even since then, I recently realized that when the pressure is on, I still have a tendency. I still have a tendency to place all of the fucking weight on myself, to put all the pressure on myself. And to be honest, it's something that the personal development world often reinforces, consciously and unconsciously. I think just because there's so many voices in the personal development space, but also, you know, it tends to be kind of like a line of thought in the personal development space, especially, you know, less the less practical space and the more uh new agey space. And I like to discern, and and we'll talk a little bit more about discernment, but sometimes in religious spheres or communities, there'll be this labeling of everything that's personal development as uh new age when that's not the case. I do think there's a place where personal development and spirituality kind of converge and become this unique new age-y kind of uh uh you know uh space and world, but I do like to discern and separate modalities and really authentic or genuinely transformative exercises, modalities, and tools from New Age, right? So New Age tends to be more of a it can often be very bypassy and ignore that there is good and evil. Um, there can be a lot of spiritual bypass in that space. But what I'm talking about is personal development. Oftentimes, it is true, personal development can be this trap where it's less about the industry, but more about the ego getting caught up in just doing more and more work, and that is what I want to talk about today. It's one of the pieces is separating just the level of maturity that is expressed in the or experienced in the personal development space from personal development as a whole and what is missing. So let's dive into the trap that I've seen in both the spiritual and the personal development world. So I've noticed something across years of being in these spaces, um, that the personal development and like I said, spirituality worlds sometimes merge into something unique, and it tends to feed this narrative that everything is your responsibility, you are the creator of your reality, um, which is partly true, but there's this overemphasis on doing the work, doing more work. Or on the spiritual side, there's this perpetual uh, and I mean spirituality without necessarily any uh boundaries or direction, oftentimes the new agey spirituality, where there's this uh perpetual invitation to open, open, open to everything that's spiritual without any discernment. And both of these tend to often get people exhausted, and both of these are currently feeding what's been known as the new age to Christianity pipeline, where people burn out on endless self-work and endless openness and swing to the other extreme looking for structure and certainty within a religion. Now, before I go deeper into both of these worlds, I want to be honest about something. So the reason I don't talk much about my personal spiritual beliefs in my content is because I truly don't I don't believe that God can be reached or taught through the mind. Um I believe that God and relationship with God is a very personal experience that happens through your heart and soul. And once we try to um you know really get uh technical about it and put frameworks into it, whether it's in religion or in spirituality, um like general spirituality, whatever you know, beliefs you hold, you start to you start to really um move away from relationship, right? So we don't see God through the mind. Whatever beliefs I present here, whatever I share, I will be sharing something today, will only be interpreted by the ego or whatever beliefs you already hold. I'd rather dedicate my work to helping men connect to their hearts, heal the wounds that they're block that are blocking them from their fullest expression, getting out of their own way so that they can and cross their inner threshold so that they can really fully express and become the leader that their vision requires. There's cleanup work, which is the healing and personal development. There's waking up work, which is the spiritual development, and I feel like that's unique to every man. And then there's the growing up, which is the is the maturity, maturation, and initiatory work. I focus on the cleanup and the growing up, and I really just allow men to follow their own spiritual path. That said, I do believe the spiritual dimension, spiritual relationship with God does matter, and I believe most men are missing something that neither personal development yeah, that that personal development alone uh can't give them, right? So what's that that's really what this episode is about. Now, I want to talk about the ceiling in both personal development and spiritual development. So let's start with personal development, the mind, the body, uh therapy, heartwork, the gym, discipline, books, emotional awareness, maturity, uh, emotional maturity, becoming a quote unquote better individual. Um, or just an individual that is authentically expressing himself, herself. This work is real, it matters. Like I said, it's the cleanup work of getting out of your own way. And I've lived it, I continue to live it. I see the change and the impact that it makes in men's lives, but starting the journey does not mean you've arrived, and there's levels to this, right? Um, and and there's also uh, you know, uh there isn't a destination, right? So, what ends up happening though is that a lot of men stop at insight and call it growth. That is true. There's a lot of content out there about personal development, a lot of content that leads men to understanding their attachment style, to naming their wounds, they know their patterns, they have done the subconscious uh work, maybe the the self-reflection. They maybe have even done the somatic practices, and they're still and the and the the the transformative experiences, but they're still living for themselves. I see this a lot. I've felt it, you know, because personal development on its own, when it's not connected to something greater, sometimes becomes a more sophisticated ego. And it's all about the self, the my healing, my growth, my potential, my vision. I heard one of my mentors the other day, Terry Real, who's an incredible relationship coach, he just shares how narcissistic the personal development space often is. It's all personal, personal, personal, me, me, me. And there's a lack of community development and relational development. Right? So a man can name every wound, he can understand every pattern, and still have nothing greater than his own selfish desires to serve. He's maybe spiritually bankrupt, willing his way towards his vision instead of actually surrendering to something that that's just it's to what's out of his control and carries pressure that never feels like enough. Right. And there's also that lack of maturity, right, or lack of initiation, which really helps you like fall to your knees and surrender and recognize that not everything is in your control. Personal development, ultimately, personal development without maturity is just more self-aware boy. Um, and without spirituality, without uh really awaking up to something greater than you, it can be just the ego attaching itself to another line of work, even if it is developing your skills as a human being, right? Now I want to talk about spiritual development and how that has a ceiling too. So now on the other side, spiritual development, we could think of it as prayer, spiritual text, we could think of scripture, um, we could think of uh meditation, right? We could think of really transcending the ego and building a relationship with God or something greater. I'm not gonna get into specific of what that should or shouldn't look like because it's personal for every person. Um, but you know, there's this could be spiritual development within a religion or within your own structure. But but here's what I want to be clear about. Um, I'm what I'm really talking about is a real felt relationship with something beyond yourself. That relationship is real and it deeply matters, but a spiritual awakening on its own is not transformation. So, in fact, for many men, it's just as selfish as personal development alone, even within a religion. I see this often. This is why so many people feel like anything is possible and they're praying and they're um you know just feeling deeply supported, but they remain completely stagnant, right? Um, I do believe that spiritual, really a spiritual relationship is the foundation. Uh instead of like the Maslow's hierarchy of needs that lands on spiritual uh enlightenment. I actually believe that it is the foundation, not the end goal, and it could support us in manifesting everything on the bottom to the top of that pyramid. However, there are a lot of people who are spiritually enlightened but completely stagnant. They can't manifest their vision. Um, they maybe feel God, but they can't materialize their gift and their mission, their vision, their purpose. Um, they're not interacting with the world, right? Again, whether it's through a religion or through uh individualized spiritual journey. A man can be deeply spiritual and still completely unaware of his trauma and his patterns. That's why so many men bring their wounds into the church, into community, into sacred spaces, not because they're bad men, but because spiritual experience without personal work is bypassing. And I'll stand on I'll stand on that. It is bypassing. We think that if we focus on the spiritual, everything else gets handled, but it doesn't. It doesn't take care of your nervous system, doesn't take care of your health, you still have to go to the gym, even if you found uh Jesus, right? You still uh have to address your relationship patterns, you still have to address, you know, uh everything that is currently standing in your way, of being a clear vessel for your purpose, for your deepest truth, for God. It doesn't heal what you haven't faced. And unfortunately, a lot of religious communities look at life through a black and white lens as well, where they dismiss anything outside of their belief system. Modalities like therapy, like mental and emotional well-being practice practices, and legitimate tools for transformation. I've also realized though, how much of my own power I've given away over the years to spiritual experiences, how much I've opened myself to experiences I thought were feeding me, that were actually taking my power away, not because the modality was bad, but because I lacked discernment. And here's the thing in response to a life of closure, we can end up over-emphasizing becoming open without always discerning what we're opening to. This is the part that I do believe religion gets right, right? They're a lot clearer about what is good and evil, right? Sometimes it's very binary, that's another thing, right? We go into extremes, but there is a lot more structure and a lot more clarity and discernment. But just because something is spiritual doesn't mean it's good for you. That's the ultimate point I'm trying to make. And likewise, just because something claims to develop you doesn't mean it's empowering. And just because someone is religious does not mean that they have a true relationship with God. So spiritual development without maturity is just a more transcendent boy. Now I want to be clear about something. We shouldn't throw the baby out with a bathwater on either of these sides of the spectrum, on the personal development side or on the spiritual development side, because understanding your subconscious is not demonic. Breath work, meditation, um, you know, these different tools aren't uh dangerous just because they open you up. Personal development is an ego inflation. We just have to learn to discern everything we engage with in life in both worlds. Both worlds have real gifts, both have real traps. The work is learning to take what serves and leave what doesn't, and with enough maturity to know the difference, right? Enough maturity to own to really know the difference and build an authentic, real and powerful foundation for yourself. So here's where I want to land with this. Both personal development and spiritual development matter, both have changed my life. I'm not dismissing either one. I'm actually advocating for both the cleanup work, the waking up work, but both have a ceiling. And the ceiling is the same. The maturity, the growing up work. Neither one on its own creates maturity. They do mature us, but maturity work is initiation. It's recognizing that a part of you has to die for you to step into the next stage of your life. It's acknowledging and embracing responsibility, which men often avoid, whether they're spiritual or personally developed, because the ego likes to attach to both. Here's how I think about it: you don't know a tree is mature by its size. You know, you know, a tree can be massive and still incredibly young. You don't know that it's mature by its divinity. A tree can be beautiful, sacred as it is, and still stunted by its environment and the journey that it's been on. And might need new soil, might need tending to, might need a new environment. It could be God's creation is still incredibly stunted based on its worldly experience. You know a tree by it is mature by one thing, the fruit that it bears. Same thing goes for men. So that's the question I want every man listening to to sit with is what fruit are you bearing? Not what do you know, not what you've experienced, not what you are religious to, or not what uh relationship you have with God, not with not how you but what you believe or how open you are or how disciplined you are, what is actually showing up in your relationships, in your leadership, in the lives of the people around you, in your health, in the integrity that you hold when no one's watching. That is the test. Are you leading with truth, with integrity, with love, with compassion, with empathy, with kindness, with patience? That that is the test. And this lack of initiation oftentimes creates a traffic jam where we are stuck, whether we are in a spiritual journey or a personal development journey, whether a man is personally developed, spiritually developed, or both, the test is the fruit that his journey bears and the continuing process of initiation? Has he faced the initiation that brings his deepest gift to life? Has he allowed the parts of himself that maybe put a personal development teacher or a spiritual teacher or a religion on a pedestal or a person, a relationship on a pedestal? Can he allow that to die in order to truly create a relationship with God and to get out of his own way and to bear fruit? This past year I went through a really difficult life experience that brought me to my knees. It wasn't a rite of passage like the one I did in 2020 or guide other men through. It was an initiation that humbled me in the deepest way. I won't go into the details, but while my opening to God started years ago, this deepened my relationship with a faith that I've avoided for so long in a completely new way, not towards religion, but towards a deeper relationship with Christ. And it also led me to a deeper conviction about the importance of both personal development and spiritual development and the work that makes, that bridges and deepens the two on a personal level for every man. Initiation. Because a lot more personal responsibility should be brought to religion, a lot more God should be brought to personal responsibility, a lot more maturity and discernment should be brought to both. Personal development does give you the tools and self-awareness. It is the cleanup work. Spiritual development gives you the relationship with something greater than yourself and the capacity to surrender and be supported and held. And that's the waking up work and maturity work, the growing up work, the initiation is what makes it fruit. And I don't share any of this to make you feel like you're doing anything wrong. I share it because I think most men are genuinely trying, they're genuinely doing the work, they're showing up, they're investing in themselves regardless of what they're leaning into. But oftentimes they're missing the third thing that allows them to create a genuine, authentic individual relationship. The death has to happen so the next version of you can emerge. The personal development alone won't get you there, the spiritual development alone won't get you there. It's the integration of the two and the third. So grounded in real relationship with God, honest self-awareness, and the willingness to be initiated into maturity and the next stage of responsibility that produces a man who can actually lead, who can actually love, who can actually serve, who can live a higher purpose, who can become the version of himself that his vision requires, who can genuinely just serve a higher purpose and bear fruit. That's what this podcast is about. That's what the initiated path is about. That's what this episode is about. So if this landed, share it. Because the man who needs to hear this is probably calling himself spiritual or personally developed or on that journey and wondering why nothing's actually changing. Um you can put this in front of him. So remember, you know the tree by its fruit, not its size, not its divinity, not its age by its fruit. And you don't become initiated by accident, you become initiated by choice. See you next week.