What It Really Means to “Clear the Root” of a Spiritual Issue

By Michael Golzmane

We often hear phrases like “clear the root cause” or “resolve the spiritual root of the problem” in the world of healing and transformation. It’s a central promise of many spiritual practices, including my own: that by going to the root of an issue, we can truly resolve it.

But what does that really mean? And perhaps more importantly — what does it not mean? Misunderstandings about “root clearing” are common, and they can lead to disappointment or confusion about what spiritual work can (and cannot) do.

To understand what’s really happening when we “clear the root,” we need to step back and look more deeply at what healing itself truly is.

What Is Healing, Really?

At the simplest level, we often define healing as the cessation of a problem: the disappearance of pain, the resolution of a conflict, or the end of a symptom. If you’re physically sick, healing means feeling better. If you’re struggling financially, it might mean abundance. If a relationship is broken, healing might mean more love and connection.

But on a deeper, spiritual level, healing means revealing and embodying more of our true, divine nature — qualities like harmony, flow, love, abundance, and connection that are always present at the core of who we are. Problems arise when these qualities are blocked, obscured, or forgotten. Healing is the process of removing those obstructions so that what is already true of us can be experienced again.

The Four Levels of Our Being

To talk about “root causes,” we must understand the multi-layered nature of our being. While there are many models, one simple way to think about ourselves is as having four interrelated layers:

1. Physical Body – Our densest level, the visible and tangible body through which we act in the world.

2. Emotional Body – The field where feelings, memories, and emotional imprints reside.

3. Mental Body – The realm of thought, belief, perception, and interpretation.

4. Spiritual Body – The most subtle layer, where we are connected to the transcendent, the eternal soul, divine intelligence, and infinite consciousness.

From a soul perspective, the spiritual level is the part of us that endures beyond this lifetime. And it’s here — at the level of spirit — that the true root of any problem is found.

The True Root Cause: Separation from Spirit

At the deepest level, all problems share one common root: a sense of separation from our spiritual nature. This isn’t actual separation — because we can never be separate from Source — but rather a forgetfulness of who we truly are.

When we forget our divine nature, we experience fear instead of love, scarcity instead of abundance, disease instead of wholeness. As Wayne Dyer famously said, “There’s a spiritual solution to every problem.” At the root, every issue is spiritual.

This is why spiritual clearing work focuses on the subtle, often unconscious blockages that obscure our awareness of truth. It seeks to transmute karma, dissolve limiting patterns, and resolve spiritual distortions so that divine qualities can flow freely again.

Clearing Is Not the Same as Changing

However — and this is crucial — just because a block has been cleared at the spiritual level does not mean our physical life will instantly change.

Why? Because transformation must travel down through all four layers of our being. A shift at the spiritual level needs to be integrated mentally (as new beliefs and thought patterns), emotionally (as new responses and feelings), and physically (as new behaviors and choices). Without this integration, the clearing remains “stuck” at the higher levels and doesn’t manifest as concrete change.

For example:

• Food and Health: Suppose we clear karmic patterns of starvation or subconscious beliefs about unworthiness. That’s powerful work. But unless we physically choose nourishing foods and care for our bodies, the healing remains incomplete.

• Relationships: We can clear lifetimes of karmic entanglement with someone. But if we don’t actively practice forgiveness, open our hearts, or engage in new behaviors, the relationship may remain unchanged.

In other words: no one — not even the best healer — can transform your life in spite of you. Spiritual clearing is a catalyst, not a substitute, for your own conscious participation.

The Danger of Spiritual Bypassing

This misunderstanding is at the heart of what’s often called spiritual bypassing: using spiritual practices to avoid the harder emotional or practical work required for growth.

Meditation, for example, is a beautiful way to connect with the spiritual level. But meditation alone won’t resolve resentment, rewrite a limiting belief, or feed a hungry body. Likewise, clearing karma doesn’t absolve us of the need to make aligned choices.

Some teachings even go so far as to suggest that once we’re spiritually evolved enough, physical laws no longer apply — that diet, exercise, or material conditions cease to matter. This is misguided. We are incarnated beings. The physical realm always matters.

A Holistic Path: Working on All Four Levels

Real transformation is holistic. It involves work on all four levels:

• Spiritual: Clearing karmic patterns, resolving soul-level distortions, reconnecting with Source.

• Mental: Examining beliefs, shifting perceptions, cultivating new ways of thinking.

• Emotional: Releasing old wounds, embracing vulnerability, learning new emotional responses.

• Physical: Taking aligned action, making new choices, embodying change in daily life.

Each level influences and supports the others. Together, they form a complete and integrated path of healing.

Final Thoughts: The Root and the Fruit

Clearing the root is essential — but it’s only the beginning. Think of it like planting a seed. Spiritual clearing prepares the soil and plants the seed. But the fruit — the visible result — requires sunlight (new thoughts), water (emotional healing), and time and action (physical choices).

When we work consciously on all levels of our being, we align with the full power of Spirit. We stop waiting for miracles to “just happen” and instead become the conscious co-creators of those miracles.

So the next time you hear the phrase “clear the root,” remember: the root is only one part of the living, breathing tree that is your transformation. It’s vital — but so are the branches, the leaves, and the fruit.

If you’d like to explore this topic more deeply or experience spiritual clearing work firsthand, visit clearandconnect.com. I’d love to continue the conversation.

Why Spiritual Healing & Clearing Work May Not Seem to Be Working

Most of us reading this article may have experienced some form of "spiritual healing" or spiritual clearing in our lives.

This healing work may have been in the form of prayer, Reiki, Quantum Touch, karma clearing, other forms of hands-on healing, angelic healing, spiritual ascension activations, etc.

All of these forms (and many others) are very valuable, because they help us get to the spiritual root of any challenges we are facing.

The roots of our challenges in life always emerge from the non-physical parts of ourselves, eventually showing up in the physical world of experiences.

They emerge from our thoughts, our emotions, and from our unfinished soul business (our karma from this and past lives).

Spiritual healing and clearing work ultimately assumes that nothing is really ever happening "to us", but that we are creating and drawing all conditions to ourselves based on what our soul is subconsciously processing.

Some people do not notice any changes when they engage in spiritual healing and clearing work (at least initially), and this experience may cause them to doubt its helpfulness.

One reason for not feeling shifts may be because we do not understand what is meant by "shift".

We may come to spiritual healing and clearing work expecting it to fix our problems, rather than to change us from the inside.

So if we judge the helpfulness of the work by whether our external conditions immediately change, we are missing the whole point, and may doubt the work is effective at all.

Another reason why spiritual healing and clearing work may not seem to be working is that we have not sufficiently developed our inner sensitivity to energy.

If we do not have a spiritual practice, do not meditate consistently, are not in touch with our feelings, are generally unaware that our lives are being lived from our state of feeling as it projects outward into circumstances and conditions -- in other words, being in touch with the very basis of metaphysical healing principles -- we may not notice immediate shifts brought about by spiritual healing and clearing work.

The last major factor that may limit the effectiveness of spiritual healing work is that we may be so used to living life through our negative ego sense -- through stress, striving, forcing things to happen, struggle, and tension -- living life unconsciously operating from the perspective "life's a bitch and then you die", the world is unsafe, "the only sure things are death and taxes", there isn't enough, everyone's out to get me, etc., -- that we may have built up massive walls to our connection to our Infinite Potential.

Our negative ego sense believes we are limited, stuck, and defined by our past story and by our physical bodies. These types of beliefs are shared by most humans, and they explain why most humans do not fulfill their unique potentials.

When we are stuck in fear and limitation, we are denying the existence of God.

We are denying that there is something larger than us that we can plug into for Infinite Power to create Good.

All of our limitations are ultimately self-imposed by our ignorance of the Power of Spirit that is always available to us.

When we begin to open up to Spirit, to release, to "let go and let God", we actually start to let the Innate Goodness of Life heal us.

And as we allow ourselves to become healed by our connection to the Infinite, our circumstances become healed.

Practically-speaking, when we meditate, pray, chant, practice yoga, qigong, or dancing, hike, spend time in Nature, breathe deeply, practice mindfullness, eat high vibration foods and herbs, seek joy as an internal state of awareness -- when we do these things, we start to become available to the Things of Spirit, we get out of our own limited way, and we start to avail ourselves of the benefits of spiritual healing and clearing work.

God cannot go where we say "no". We limit God through our tension, our stress, our karma, and our limited beliefs.

But when we start to say "yes" through stretching, opening, releasing tension, affirming, lifting our consciousness into the high atmosphere of Spirit, consciously giving and sharing love with others, we open ourselves to our Infinite Potential.

Our lives become healed. Our relationships become healed. Our circumstances shift into a higher octave. Our problems dissolve in the Radiant Light of Spirit. We start allowing the spiritual healing work we've been doing to really penetrate deeply into our experience. We are truly allowing.

At that point, not only will the spiritual healing work we've been using start working better, but our whole life will start working better.