What is Spiritual Bypassing—and—How It Can Cause Us to Miss Ourselves and Each Other

A reflection on a (sometimes) misguided way to be there for ourselves and others during this time of deep feeling & what we can do instead

Welcome to this tiny corner of the internet where an off-duty psychotherapist keeps the conversation going on how to make sense of this life thing we’re all doing. If you ever wondered what your therapist does off the clock—which, who among us hasn’t?—this is like that. Think of it as the adult equivalent of seeing your elementary school teacher at the grocery store picking out lemons. 🍋 Today we’ve got a potentially charged topic that we’re gonna look at head-on so we can hopefully stay connected to self and others more authentically. She’s long–and I’m super proud of all the words that made her so long.

One thing before we jump in, I show up very much as myself here. Myself first, and all my other labels are secondary. If a therapist speaking candidly feels like too much to your system, that is absolutely is OK and this may not be the best particular newsletter for you.

As is almost always the case, it’s not just the thing that happens that causes the most harm, but what happens after. Watching most of the world respond to the election results has been a BUMMER. So quickly, to avoid sitting in what is for just a moment, everyone launched into how we should (and shouldn’t) feel. How we should (and shouldn’t) react. The urgency to fix running wild. 

I get it. I feel that too, but and acting on urgency isn’t always the most attuned response.

One particular reaction that concerns me, mostly because of how convincing it can be as a “solution” –either for one’s own or someone else’s suffering– is spiritual bypassing.

I was inspired to write about this topic after happening upon a conversation

Naomi Gottlieb-Miller

was having on Substack Notes regarding a response she saw in a yoga teacher community board post-election: a lot of toxic positivity in response to people’s anger and heartbreak. She said,

“But pretending that spreading love and light will solve the very real problems we face in our country is the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing, “lalalalalala” at the top of your lungs. Something my kids do when they don’t want to hear what I have to say.

Love and light are not the answer right now friends.

Cultivating inner peace will not help when it comes to the loss of basic human rights.

You cannot spiritually bypass your way out of authoritarianism.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the term spiritual bypassing, it’s a defense mechanism where “spiritual ideas and practices [are utilized] to sidestep personal, emotional ‘unfinished business,’ to shore up a shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental tasks.”¹ 

Spiritual bypassing came blazing back into my psyche due to the post-election onslaught of people telling us how to feel, but this concept’s application goes far and wide beyond this moment in time. It can apply to most emotional suffering you can think of (e.g., experiences with discrimination, harassment, abuse and neglect, grieving with any kind of loss–death, illness, disability, heartbreak, etc.). 

If we can feel pain about it, someone’s likely tried to soar right above it through spiritual practices. 

This isn’t to suggest that spiritual practices cannot and do not bring us the necessary relief we need to function in our lives as they are. They most certainly do. Spirituality can provide immense value in giving us a framework for moving through life. I have many that I personally practice (e.g., yoga, meditation, and even my preferred therapeutic modality, Internal Family Systems (IFS) has a spiritual tilt to it).

However, as the psychotherapist and author in the transpersonal-psychology field, John Welwood who coined the term spiritual bypassing said, “When we are spiritually bypassing, we often use the goal of awakening or liberation to rationalize what I call premature transcendence: trying to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it.”²

Examples of spiritual bypassing are leaning heavily into beliefs and practices like:

• Positive vibes only

• Sending only thoughts and prayers after a tragedy

• Pray your pain away

• “Just go inward/meditate/do yoga, you’ll feel better” in response to legitimate needs being unmet, threatened, or lost.

• Everything happens for a reason, or every traumatic experience has a silver lining or a lesson

• Avoiding feelings of anger; always seeing it as something to “overcome”

• Just enjoy what you can

• People can, and should, respond to difficult circumstances and feelings with positive thinking

And this is the one that lands for me, particularly right now:

• Pretending everything is OK when it’s not 

You may read the above statements and think, “Shoot. I’ve done those. They don’t seem all bad.” 

You’re right—

And—

Same.

They’re not all bad. Like most defense mechanisms, these sentiments can be SO well-intentioned and can even bring relief in the short term. The problem is the repression it requires to execute when we do this in a prolonged and absolutist kind of way. If we haven’t fully looked the mess in the face and called it what it is, we may have a band-aid on a bullet wound kind of situation on our hands.

Ideally, spiritual practices are a companion to us as we work through pain, not catapulting us above it entirely. 

If you find yourself needing a break from this mess—whether that mess is global or intrapersonal—I’m not talking about that. If you find solace in how we are all connected and the calmness we can feel within, I’m not talking about that either. I’m referring to the pressure from oneself or others to accept or feel “good/better” about something you just don’t.

I see first-hand with my clients the impact of these types of approaches to pain. They seem to fall into two categories of harm. 

1. It prematurely and non-consensually limits a person’s expression of their experience; it completely bypasses part of a person’s experience and keeps their feelings about it exiled. “Nah. Nah. You shouldn’t look at it that way.”

2. It hoists all the responsibility for healing and well-being on the individual who is hurting. “You have within you the ability to feel better about this. You don’t need anyone else to change.” Or “If someone’s behavior bothers you, that’s entirely about you and not them.”

Also, not that this seems to stop people, it doesn’t even work. And by “work,” I mean bringing the people we care about–whether that’s ourselves or someone else–actual relief and healing.

Perhaps more articulately expressed here by Kendra Cherry, MSEd,

“At times, spiritual bypassing can be used as a tool to gaslight others into staying silent about things that have harmed them.

Rather than being allowed to express their pain, people who have been harmed are told by others that they are being a negative person.³ This tendency uses spirituality to reframe events in a way that lets people off the hook for the harm they may have caused.”  

Qualm #1: Limiting what is OK to express. 

Offering a spiritual “solution” to someone’s pain while they are deeply in it may inadvertently suggest that they need to heal quicker to appease us or that certain aspects of what they feel are unseemly. 

Whenever I receive these kinds of platitudes, I have a part of me that is so good at repressing. They perk up at the whiff of a task, “Let’s just pretend. Push it all down.” The problem with that for me, is pretending festers inside. Rot forms. Resentment and disconnection grow like weeds, reaching my lungs and heart, threatening to suffocate my life force.

And because of the work I do, I know I’m not alone there. Repression of how we feel can cause a whole slew of physical and mental health issues. 

I distinctly remember the feeling as a kid, and especially as a teenager, seeing the people around me put on a show, ignoring the emotional truth of the moment. Glossing over the sharp edges of life. “Everything is fine and should be fine.”

Except, of course, it’s not always fine. 

Qualm #2: The hoisting of all the responsibility for healing and well-being on the individual who is hurting

Accountability, Table for One.

This one is trickier for me as an individual therapist. I often only have one person in front of me. It’s tempting AF to lean into the “they have everything they need within them” mindset. If I’m honest, I personally wish this was the case. The vulnerability of needing to include others in my healing is harrowing at times. 

I do believe we have our own internal reservoir of wisdom, strength and comfort that can bring us peace even if nothing external changes. I do believe there is insight to be gleaned from exploring what about our own selves may be coming up when someone upsets us.

Unfortunately, our own internal peace and comprehension of an issue isn’t enough to set into motion the change this world–both micro and macro–so desperately needs. It likely won’t hurt to have a better sense of our own inner landscape. Hell, that’s a huge part of what I do with clients–but I wouldn’t suggest to them that is where the sidewalk ends.

In our individualist culture, spiritual bypassing can mail home the idea that we alone are responsible for how our lives turn out and for every feeling in our bodies. The myth is that we are all self-sustaining mechanisms who don’t truly need one another. 

The costly nature of lack of accountability

As is the way math works–or so I’m told–if one person takes all the responsibility for harm, that means there is zero left over for anyone else. 

This is one of the consequences of putting all the onus for healing on the individual in distress. The systems and people complicit in the harming are not held accountable, and the damaging patterns are thus allowed to continue at full speed. 

Whether this is about the state of the world or conflict within your family, sometimes confronting and, as I’ll get into later, naming things is a part of stopping, or at the very least slowing, cycles of harm. The idea is to create a bit of grit, a bit of resistance on the train tracks of these patterns.

One aspect of spiritual bypassing that I see in my work is the suggestion someone is negative, a downer, or “mean” when they express to someone they’ve been harmed or they are deeply upset about something. 

I’m sure a lot of us have been there. We gather enough courage to express directly to the person involved that we feel hurt, only to be met with how hurt they are–it hurts them to receive that they have hurt you.

There is no moral meaning behind feeling upset when you realize you’ve hurt someone. I would hope we all do to a certain extent. It makes sense. However, to immediately shift focus to your own hurt rather than making space for the harm you've been involved in—aka defensiveness—is the crux of most relationship issues.

My ability to love and be loved deeply is directly related to my ability to express places where I’ve been hurt and receive when I’ve been the one to hurt. In relationships where I can’t do that, the intimacy and connection will be limited. My love and hope for ALL of us lives right alongside my anger, disappointment and hurt. They don’t negate one another, they inform one another. I can’t really feel the full breadth of my love for or from someone if I can’t also allow for feelings of hurt. 

As my Substack friend,

Eliza Butler

recently shared in her piece about anger,

“Oh but my friend, when did we start believing in this false dichotomy where love and compassion are on one side, and anger is on the other?

Anger is not hate.

Anger is not explosive.

Anger is not a way to assert power and control.

We must disentangle hate from anger. We must learn how to be with our anger in a contained way; in a way where we can feel the expansiveness of its energy; in a way where we can receive its messages clearly and succinctly.

When we do this- when we begin to uncouple anger from hate - we actually see and feel that anger is not the opposite of love. Not at all.

Anger is the antidote to hate.

Anger is a form of love so pure that I think maybe part of the reason we’re afraid of it is because we’ve never before felt like that kind of love was possible. We were never shown how to feel love so unadulterated and honest. That kind of love can feel overwhelming in a world of conditions, hate, and division.” 

The power of naming

It’s been necessary for my own well-being to name abusive and harmful rhetoric as such. That is not name-calling, being hateful, or being negative. It describes what has been said. It has been so deeply hurtful and disheartening—damn near brain-breaking—to see that downplayed, or even denied, in the aftermath of this election.

If you’ve been on the receiving end of relational trauma, it can be incredibly painful to watch this denial of harm happening in real-time, on such a huge stage. 

There are individual reasons for being activated by this, for sure. Let’s slow down and be with those parts of us that are scared and hurt by how closely this may reflect previous experiences. But our own histories aren’t the only reason why this is deeply upsetting; it’s also because some of this shit is abusive and oppressive now. 

Like, look up the definitions of those words. It’s all right there.

As I hope I’ve made clear by now, it’s one thing to encourage people to get a sense of what is their own–what is triggering them and why–and work toward internal unburdening. It’s a whole other ballgame to suggest that everything they feel is completely in their own psyche and not a reaction (sometimes life-savingly so) to the dynamics and systems they live in.

If we want to be less in our silos, it’s going to be what we do in our actual lives, not just in our own bodies and minds, with these insights we gather that can lead to change and further connection.

So what can we do? 

This topic felt particularly useful to begin to unpack as many of us head into a time where we may be seeing more of our family. Our loved ones may feel differently than we do–about the election (even if you voted the same way, you may have different approaches for how to cope now), about how we were raised, about our life choices, about all sorts of things.

I’m going to offer some alternatives for how to respond on either side of spiritual bypassing.

I should mention, as weird as it may sound, if you’re the one trying to spiritually bypass with your own feelings, a lot of these statements can be applied to dialoguing with yourself, as well.

If you’re the one feeling compelled to offer spiritual bypassing:

First and foremost, a part of me gets this impulse. A lot of us have done this at some point in our lives.

We care about the people in our orbit. It’s hard to witness despair and pain. And these words of positivity can feel good rolling off our tongues, like an offering of hope and agency. And yet, if we want to connect, and for our people we love to feel loved, a lesson in positivity may not be the most accurate translation of that love.

I admit, it’s hard to know when to encourage more of a zoomed out perspective and when to let someone be with their feelings as they are, even when that someone is yourself. It’s messy. It’s anything but uniform. 

Sometimes these types of statements can feel like coming home to yourself–a deep exhale. Other times, they can feel like, “Who let this intruder in our house? Coming in here and telling me how to feel about my own pain.”

The good news is you don’t have to innately know. Instead, you could ask: “What kind of support would feel supportive to you right now?”

The wording of this question may seem redundant but it is worded exactly as it is for a reason. It’s attempting to marry intent with impact. “My intention is to support you, what would actually feel supportive right now?”

If you find yourself itching to offer some zooming out, as we all do sometimes, here are a few alternatives to slow down and stay connected:

1. “I’m noticing myself wanting to offer hope and relief because I can see how much you’re hurting. Would that be OK or do you need a different type of support right now?”

If they answer yes to the the latter, this is where you could ask that question: What kind of support would feel supportive to you right now?

A lot of us can have fears around how open-ended that question is—the paternalistic parts inside of us that have doubts about whether we actually know what we need. And listen, we’re not going to slam dunk it every time, but getting in the habit of asking that question helps develop a deeper self-trust and more respect in our relationships.

2. “I’m finding myself wanting to offer a different perspective, but I’m also aware that may be more about me than it is about you. Are you ready/wanting that?” 

If someone says they need space to be heard and you sense that is unavailable to you in the moment, that is OK. That happens to all of us. See if you can notice that. Take a breath. Offer this awareness, “I hear that you need more space to feel how you feel and I want to be able to offer that–because you deserve that–however I’m feeling myself stuck on wanting to change your perspective which I know will only make you feel less understood. I need to take a minute and come back.” 

If you’re the one receiving the spiritual bypassing:

Like with those on the other end of the spectrum, I feel you.

I’m well-acquainted with this experience–both personally and in holding space for my clients who experience this time and time again. 

Here are some possible scripts using Melissa Urban’s green, yellow, red framework around boundaries from her book, The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free⁴ you can play around with these in response to someone trying to offer spiritual solutions to your upset:

(GREEN) I sense the good intentions of what you’re saying.  You want me to be less torn up about this, which I understand. I’m just not there right now.

(YELLOW) I’ve mentioned to you before where I’m at with this. I’d like to be able to share space with you, however, I need to know it’s OK to feel upset and the support you’re choosing to offer is not conveying that.

(RED) If you won’t stop trying to put a positive spin on all this, I’ll need to leave.

If someone doesn’t respond well to your boundary setting, Urban offers⁵ some additional ways to respond. Here are a few of my favorites:

• “I know this is hard to hear, but not speaking up was making me resentful, so it’s better for our relationship that I do.”

• “This is uncomfortable for me, too, but I’m committed to communicating better and expressing my needs more clearly.”

• “I appreciate you wanting to help. The best way to do that right now is to be supportive of my decision.”

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I’ll be honest, I wrote all this because I needed it. Depending on the day, I feel like an exposed nerve. I don’t want this to cause me to retreat into myself entirely. I want to stay in connection with myself and the people around me.

In my experience, that requires a great deal of thoughtfulness, directness and grace. This conversation is ultimately about how we can stay connected through honoring each other’s experience and how we impact one another.

Further reading:

• On Spiritual Bypassing: What is Spiritual Bypassing; Spiritual Bypassing as a Defense Mechanism; Toward a Psychology of Awakening; On Spiritual Bypassing and Relationship; A phenomenology of spiritual bypass: Causes, consequences, and implications; Beware of Spiritual Bypass

• On Boundaries: The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free; Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself

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• Coming up:

  • Next week—another edition of say more— where I talk about TV, music, movies and things I’m loving—waiting in the wings.

  • Later in December, a piece about how I freak out every holiday break. Weee!!

  • I’m also working on IFS specific pieces (e.g., meditations, practices) for y’all in the paid subscription tier. The founder of IFS has a workbook coming out soon that is meant for non-clinicians. Once I get my hands on it and review it, I’d love to go through that with you—maybe in the new year!

• Shout-out: Shout out to my editing partner

  Allyson Marrs
  who helped me take a very messy piece and turn into something I was willing to put on the internet. Check out one of her most recent pieces, “What we’re expected to want.” Also a big thanks to my friend for looking at this when it was in even rougher shape.

• Disclaiming.You can find more info and my full disclaimer on my about page here. Abridged version: I’m a therapist, but not your therapist—even if you are a client of mine ~hi, dear one!~ this isn’t a session. I don’t think you could possibly confuse this newsletter with mental health treatment. Alas if that were to happen, let me say definitively, dialoguing is an entertainment and informational newsletter only, not a substitute for mental health treatment.

• Come say hi! Any comments, questions, suggestions, please feel free to email me at dialoguingsubstack@gmail.com—or if you’re reading this via email you can just hit reply and send me a message. Love hearing from you for any and all reasons!

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ICYMI:

• It’s not just anxiety, it’s rage

• do you ever have a day so bad you wonder if you’ve done something to deserve it? (and other spiral-esque conclusions)

• what's guiding me this winter and holiday season

• The Thing(s) I've Pretended to Love

• The Emotional Symphony of Letting Myself Down

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If you enjoy reading dialoguing, there are lots of ways to show that love: click that little “heart,” come hang in the comments, tell a friend (this is the ultimate compliment to me because I know we only send links of the highest caliber to our friends), or upgrade to a paid subscription. I’m so grateful for your support of any kind. 

1. As defined by John Welwood in Toward A Psychology of Awakening

2. (emphasis added by writer) from On Spiritual Bypassing and Relationship; A phenomenology of spiritual bypass: Causes, consequences, and implications)

3. I would add that most of us do this to ourselves, too, because that has been modeled to us throughout our lives. In IFS work, we often find there is almost always a part in our system that when in an exaggerated role will gaslight us—a misguided attempt to protect us from emotional pain.

4. The language I use in those examples is my own, but the framework is all Melissa’s. Here is more from an article about Melissa Urban’s book on boundaries, How to Set Boundaries — And Truly Make Them Stick, here are the levels explained: 

 “GREEN: Low risk, and the gentlest language. Assumes the other person wasn’t aware they were overstepping and wants to respect your limits. Your boundary language is clear, generous, and very kind. Leaves any potential consequences unsaid in the spirit of good faith. 

YELLOW: Elevated risk, and firmer language. Used as a follow-up if your Green boundary isn’t respected, or if historical interactions with this person indicate the threat is higher. Yellow may also include an intended consequence, if appropriate. 

RED: Severe risk, and your most direct language. At this point, your health, safety, and/or the relationship are in jeopardy, and your language must reflect the severity of the situation. It’s still kind, but this is their last reminder, and makes it clear that you are prepared to hold your limits. State the consequence plainly here and be ready to enforce it.”

5. All from The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free. I started re-reading this book for this newsletter and the scripts are SO helpful.

Thumbnail image: Shane Rounce on Unsplash