If spirituality seeks the sacred divine self by uncovering hidden wounds and deep unconscious programming, then spiritual bypassing is the thought of reaching enlightenment without hard work.

Origins of Spiritual Bypassing

Psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher John Welwood first introduced spiritual bypassing around the 1980s. Welwood explained that spiritual bypassing is the act of using spiritual ideas & practices to avoid dealing with our darker aspects of self, which only further suppresses what we need to heal to become whole.

The dark aspects of self that we tend to avoid mostly are our unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, unfinished developmental tasks, and even the dismissal of our own basic human needs for the goal of awakening and enlightenment.

Spiritual Bypassing Through Spiritual Tools

Images of spirituality resemble rainbows in a clear sky, birds chirping, and a pale white horse running through a field of flowers. Someone sitting in crisscross apple sauce, hearing their intuition and every angel in the heavens- it sounds nice, right?

Shoot! Spirituality takes work, and it’s painful at times; not everything is “love & light” and “positive vibes only,” hence why many of us avoid it, but the entire understanding of self is worth the darkness we undergo.

Some of the issues that we avoid uncovering and dealing with are fear, insecurity, trauma, relationship heartbreaks, emotional or mental disturbances, and other life-occurring problems. Facing these issues is uncomfortable because we don’t want to realize that there’s an actual problem, or we think we don’t have the power to meet them.

The tools we hide behind include astrology, where we enter the “this is how I am” mentality and do not look towards changing behaviors harming our relationships. We can also hide behind the “good vibes only” or the “no bad vibes” mantra and treat feelings and emotions as good or bad, positive or negative.

Not engaging in anything that seems negative or destructive and believing it will lower our vibration or make us less spiritual.

The same belief is applied when we see spirituality as only happiness and feel that if we are spiritual, then we must not feel anger & rage; instead, we must be all about kindness and compassion.

Unconscious Spiritual Bypassing

At the beginning of our spiritual journey, we may be unaware of how important it is to heal past trauma and conditioning to live a blissful life.

We begin our journey by seeking understanding outside of ourselves and fail. It is not until we realize the knowledge we seek is within us that we realize the knowledge we seek is within us. Skipping the discomfort and pain of healing is a defense mechanism, like not wanting to pull the band-aid.

Why is Spiritual Bypassing Self-Destructive?

Every time we bypass the needed healing, we feed our shadow self. We don’t want to acknowledge the aspects of ourselves.

Let’s think of it like sweeping it under the rug so no one else can see… we know it’s there, but right now, it’s hidden until your carpet now has a bulge and you keep stumbling on that rug, or it becomes apparent to someone else.

By bypassing what needs to be cleared, you are giving your power to your subconscious, allowing it to have more control over you, your emotions, and your actions.

Self-Destructive to the Mind

By Bypassing these healing opportunities, we feed ourselves, limiting beliefs that we cannot heal or face our pain; therefore, we don’t deal with them. Know that when you meet what needs healing with love and grace within you, you take on the challenge that your pain and discomfort will not hold you back.

Understand, beloved, you have all the power to face these discomforts and heal. The power and strength lie within you.

Self-Destructive to the body

The deeper the roots, the higher the elevation.

These lower aspects of ourselves are housed in our lower chakras. They hold the foundations and characteristics that define us as humans. These are emotional & physical stability, financial security, self-confidence, and sexual power.

When we bypass the healing of these aspects that fault one of our lower chakras, we essentially walk with a blocked, unhealthy energy center. We need the lower chakras of our physical self to be balanced and open to having proper energy flow through our body into our higher chakras; if not, we will feel ungrounded and unbalanced.

When there are energy blockages in our chakras, our body manifests that blockage as pain & illnesses.

Self-Destructive to the Soul

When using spiritual ideas and practices to bypass the healing our soul needs to grow and ascend, we still drag the baggage around (although you may think those are still “under the rug”).

Spiritual work is about embracing duality; when we spend more time in one polarity, we create imbalances. We are souls living a physical reality; we can have human emotions and learn from them. If you believe in reincarnation, you know that we relive the ignored challenges that were supposed to be lessons in our next lifetime.

Conclusion

Spiritual work is not about going up in the higher realms and sprinkling spiritual quotes to your friends. Spiritual work is about going within, reaching the depths of your soul, understanding yourself within this world, and assisting others to do it; only then can we heal as a collective.

We can’t skip steps, but I promise you will find how strong you are with every level reached. Schedule a session with me if you need help or clarity in your spiritual journey.

Ps. What have you learned through your spiritual journey? I would love to hear about it!

Love, Always
Mirtha

Spiritual Bypassing, Road To Self-Destruction & How To Avoid It