Spiritual Bypassing

In episode 42, we talk about spiritual bypassing. Often, we fall into the trap of spiritual bypassing when we are in the thick of our messy, human process and we don’t love how it’s looking to others or to ourselves. We'd love to fast-forward through the discomfort and look spiritual while doing it. Unfortunately, this keeps us from growing.

Tune in as Pretty Spiritual Podcast discusses all the ways we try to sidestep our humanness and what tools help us love our way into outgrowing the bypass.

Transcript

Thanks for joining us here on Pretty Spiritual where we're attempting the unthinkable about how to navigate this messy,

Beautiful,

Imperfect life with spiritual tools,

What,

Principles,

And our own personal stories.

So we're not experts,

We're not religious,

We're definitely silly.

We're honest,

Real,

And willing to share.

So join us as we connect,

Bond,

And grow together.

Hello and welcome back to Pretty Spiritual.

Hey,

We are back.

We're back.

I am Ella.

To my left is my lovely friend Annie.

Hello.

And then my lovely friend Pony.

Hello I'm Lindsay Pony.

Hello.

And we're so glad to be back.

It's just a little goofy.

We're all feeling a little bit frisky.

We're all wearing colorful sweaters.

This is a nighttime session.

It's different from usual and it's getting us a little,

We're a little agitated.

Little zippy.

Little zippy.

We'll see what happens.

So today we're going to talk about something that has been an issue close to my heart for a while because I fall victim to it often.

It is spiritual bypassing.

And I learned in researching this topic,

It's a term I've heard before and in researching it,

I found out that it is a term that was originally coined by this guy,

John Wellwood,

Who is an American clinical psychologist.

And he first started using this term,

I think in 1984.

And this is his definition.

Spiritual bypassing is a term I coined to describe the process I saw happening in the Buddhist community I was in and also in myself.

Although most of us were sincerely trying to work on ourselves,

I noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues,

Psychological wounds,

And unfinished developmental tasks.

So spiritual bypass is a way of avoiding or circumventing the actual spiritual growth that is required in our lives.

And we get away with it because it sounds,

You know,

We're couching this bypass in spiritual terms.

So it sounds like we're really deep and we're really plugged in and we're working hard and we're vulnerable and we're doing the work.

But actually we're doing this spiritual dance to take the attention away from the fact that we're avoiding the really tender,

Sensitive parts that actually need our attention.

He went on to say this,

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.

It's this place where the messiness of the human process is something we've discarded in favor of a superficial kind of transcendence that doesn't actually bring us healing or relief.

It just looks good enough,

You know,

Maybe to the parts of ourselves that are in denial or maybe to other people in our spiritual community.

And he said,

We then tend to use absolute truth to disparage or dismiss relative human needs,

Feelings,

Psychological problems,

Relational difficulties,

And developmental deficits.

So a few episodes ago,

We were talking about the difference between the conceptual world or conceptual reality and ultimate reality.

So it's a place where we're using ultimate reality to totally wipe out and disregard conventional reality.

And I think that that,

I'll speak for myself,

For me,

That has been a very alluring trap in spiritual circles to just get around the awkward messiness of being a human and try to find a way to bypass it.

And when I'm stuck in this kind of bypass,

It is often spiritual pride that is keeping me stuck.

So I want my spirituality to look a certain way to me and other people.

And it's the pride of thinking it's supposed to look,

You know,

Very spiritual all the time that keeps me from really embracing my humanness.

So with that windy intro,

I think it is time for us to talk about and share our own experiences with spiritual bypassing.

So Miss Pony,

With that intro,

Could you take it away?

Tell us what spiritual bypass means to you and how it is coming up in your life today.

Okay.

Yes.

I will say yes.

Thank you.

This is what I have to say about spiritual bypass.

I have heard the word before and I was like,

Oh,

That is interesting.

And I remember one day having you explain it to me because I do not know what a spiritual bypass is or was.

I did not know.

I did research today.

Some of the things that I can add to about spiritual bypass and the many ways that it happens.

There are plenty of examples of this,

Like the Catholic confession,

The Christian unconditional love,

Like they'll love their spouse,

Even though it's just a false wish that they can learn to love them.

And then how even meditation can be a denial about personal feelings or wounds.

Meditation can actually reinforce detachment.

Also they were talking about overly positive focus is also a way of spiritual bypass.

And I just find it so interesting.

The act of using spiritual beliefs to avoid unmet needs,

Deep pain and unresolved wounds.

Some of the research that I looked into this was talking about how as humans,

We have a really low pain tolerance,

Like a really low tolerance for our own pain because of that,

Instead of doing the spiritual work,

Which is to really untangle these knots and get in and be with the messy part of healing,

Which is often really uncomfortable and very confronting.

It'd be much better to just take the quote unquote high road and I'm a spiritual person and this is all very clean and easy.

I was interested in this because I just find humans and myself so interesting and I can take anything to the extreme.

And so spirituality being kind of beautiful goalposts of where to point ourselves of how to be and how to become.

It's only natural for us to go to the extreme and be like,

Well,

I'm all loving kindness or I am completely tolerant.

I am 100% not judgmental.

And I think for me,

I have so much self-hatred and disgust.

It's just my own personal flavor.

I mean,

It's sad I'm working on it,

You know,

And that's part of my process here is getting to see that it's that and then be able to talk about it.

And it is unfortunate,

But just on the same flip side of the coin,

It's actually kind of fortunate because I don't,

I hope I don't,

But I don't see myself ever being like,

I am so great.

I am holier than now.

Of course,

I'm so spiritual.

I'll take the bypass road.

Most of the time I'm like,

I'm not doing good enough.

I am crap.

I've actually fallen to the self-deprecation,

Which is its own,

Its own kind of bypass really,

Because instead of looking at like what's here,

I'm just so used to being in the,

I'm terrible.

I'm not good enough.

Yeah.

So the initial bypass of noticing that I'm trying to bypass these really human sticky,

Messy emotions,

And then to be here with what is,

I guess that's what we'll get into the tools of how to make that switch instead of trying to bypass actually just being here with what is.

I will talk about that in the tools.

So awesome.

Thanks Pony.

Miss Annie,

Ready to take it away.

Thanks Ella for this topic and Pony for sharing.

And there are so many ways that I connect with this.

And the one that I especially do is what Pony pointed out about the overly positive approach and the way this really sticks out for me,

Or I have,

I'm sure spiritual bypass tools are in place in various parts of my life,

But the one that I've noticed in the last couple of years that I've been working on is around anger.

And essentially the opposite of spiritual bypass for me is I got to feel my feelings.

And for a long time I used a spiritual bypass approach to quote,

Not be angry.

There's this part of me where I thought being angry was bad and that if I was disturbed,

Read angry or upset by someone or something that something was,

Something's wrong with me.

And this is a really true kind of approach for life.

Yeah,

If there is something that disturbs me about somebody else or some situation that's external,

There is something wrong with me and I can always find my part to work and resolve it.

But I was taking that notion.

If I'm upset or angry or disturbed about something,

There's something wrong with me.

I was just taking that at face value and then saying,

Well then I should never be disturbed,

Upset,

Or angry.

You should just be happy all the time.

So that's just,

That's a spiritual bypass,

Right?

Like not having any room for this normal human reaction to life.

When those responses would come up,

When I got upset by something,

I would just quash it inside and force this like peaceful,

Harmonious,

It's all ease,

State of mind.

I'm fine.

This is fine.

What's the,

What's the,

Yeah,

What's the good here?

What can I find here?

How's this great?

Like immediately,

Immediately to gratitude.

I can rise above anything.

I can forgive.

I forget,

Forget.

I'm not ruffled.

And that is all wonderful.

But I picture this steamroller.

Steamroller.

It is what I do all the time.

I was just steamrolling over that part and just trying to get to the end outcome.

And yes,

I do believe that for me and my spiritual practice,

Getting to that end outcome is optimal of trying to get to a place where I can find some equilibrium.

But if I don't find the road in between there,

I'm losing my analogy here completely,

But the ground's going to be messed up.

So I just basically had no space for the human experience of being angry.

And it's been,

It's just been my ongoing practice.

And when we talk about the tools,

I will talk about some of the tools that I've started to use.

And this is specifically around using spiritual bypass to pretend that things don't bother me,

That I don't get angry and to just have a little room for that part of me that is normal to respond to if someone is aggressive to me,

If someone scares me,

If a situation upsets me,

That how to have an appropriate response to it so then I can move to the place of equilibrium instead of just pretending that that moment of upset,

However long it might last,

Didn't even happen.

You know,

Picture me in my little,

Whatever they were when they're driving a steamroller.

Do they have little steamroller captain hats?

Probably one of those like construction hard hats.

I think they require a hard hat.

Not a cap.

Yeah.

Okay,

I'm with you.

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's nice.

Falling debris and stuff.

I don't know.

Not a perky little fedora.

That would be cute.

I think you could pull that off.

This is your fantasy.

Fashion steamroller.

Thank you so much,

Andy.

That was really great.

And thanks,

Pony.

When I was thinking about this for myself,

One of the most obvious examples came up and I went through a period of,

Let's just call it promiscuity,

When I was experiencing my first heartbreak and I was,

You know,

For a couple years doing pretty much everything I could to not have feelings and escape being,

You know,

Heartbroken.

And then I stopped drinking.

And I had stopped drinking,

But I was still trying to carry these sex behaviors with me.

And I found out that I couldn't do that sober.

And I found out that if I tried to do that sober,

I'd probably drink because I felt so uncomfortable with how I was acting.

And it wasn't something I probably would have gotten to see if I didn't get sober.

So I feel really grateful for that.

In one of these experiments,

I had such a bad experience trying to carry that promiscuity with me sober,

That I decided I would be celibate.

And it so happened that I was living in a monastery at the time.

So it was really like,

It fit in with what I thought I was supposed to be doing.

I will say that it was really important for me to get to know myself in that way.

As somebody who'd been in and out of really non-functional romantic relationships,

It was really important and sweet time for me to get to like know and love myself.

But when I left the monastery,

I carried that celibacy with me.

And eventually one of my teachers called me out on it.

It was like three years later.

And she helped me see that I was actually using this,

You know,

Quote unquote spiritual principle of celibacy as a shield to protect myself from feelings and heartbreak and this whole messy world of love and romance and dating.

How I wanted it to look was I was so spiritually ascended that I didn't have any sex desire or impulse.

And it was just this kind of clean break where like now I was spiritual.

So none of that applied to me anymore.

But what I was actually doing was using it as a shield.

And I was just too afraid of how messy it would be.

This is my example of what it's like to use something that looks like a spiritual principle as a drug or a shield or a defense mechanism.

When I'm doing that,

I'm actually shielding myself from the true vulnerable work that needs my attention.

And the truth is that I learn so much being in a romantic relationship.

There's like a whole self I get access to that feels very far away when there's not someone who's really close to me to get to see all the intimate details.

I feel really grateful that I dove into that because there was so much more for me to learn about myself.

All this to say,

I have definitely fallen victim.

This is one of the most kind of really obvious examples I could think of.

So I wanted to share,

Hopefully to help clarify what that looks like in the different parts of our lives.

And thank goodness it's time for tools.

How are you guys doing?

Love and tools.

Okay.

Needing tools,

Love and tools.

Needing tools and love and tools.

So Pony,

What tools are you using right now or have you used to help make sense of spiritual bypass and find your way through it?

For me,

I was at such an extreme end already that spiritual bypass was a tool.

Totally.

It was actually incredibly useful.

Oh yeah.

To get me even toward like moving towards spirituality or spiritual principles.

So it was really a great thing to even have that to go towards generosity when I was just completely cranky and full of scarcity.

So I really,

I understand why spiritual bypass,

How that even became a thing.

It's useful.

I needed that.

And so I think for me,

The first part of the tools piece for when spiritual bypass bypassing no longer becomes a useful tool is to recognize the extremes.

Spiritual bypassing is no longer useful.

I think one of the things is to turn towards to is authenticity.

And to have a really be authentic in the moment,

Whatever that looks like.

To be brave enough to feel our feelings and to be honest with ourselves about what's going on.

Looking at the trajectory of where we've been before and where we want to go and being okay with where we are exactly as we are right here,

Right now.

That's what authenticity is about.

And I think it's more what we want rather than transcendence or enlightenment.

It's really just being authentic with exactly what it looks like right now.

Am I accepting life all parts of the spiritual and physical as messy and imperfect,

Acknowledging where we are and where we want to be,

Even if who we believe who we are right now is not okay.

And I think that's the really,

That's like the sneaky part of why I turn towards quote unquote spiritual bypass.

It's because who I am,

Where I am right now is not okay,

Is bad,

Is a problem.

So I'll just bypass all of that.

That's really the piece that I need to look at so that I can see that I'm human and to take the judgment piece out and that it is okay that I'm not my ideals right now.

I may never be my ideals,

But that is just a post for me to point myself towards so that instead of it,

That's where the extremes come in.

I'm not all bad.

It's not all wrong.

I'm not all self loathing and mistrusting of myself,

But to find that balance,

I point myself towards spiritual principles so that I can find myself somewhere in the middle,

Somewhere imperfect,

Somewhat kind of messy,

But totally human and it being okay.

And that's where I get to grow.

And if I bypass that part,

Then I actually bypass the growth.

So I highly recommend being brave and courageous and really sharing your messy parts that you really want to hide from everyone.

Pony,

I feel like you single handedly saved the episode.

I literally I'm like,

Thank you so much.

I just,

I got so much out of that.

And thank you also for reminding us that we do this stuff for a reason.

You know,

Like,

It's not bad that we're doing it.

Actually,

The guy who came up with these terms said that spiritual bypass is a necessary part of human spiritual development,

That it's not bad or wrong or something like that.

But it's just kind of like a,

It's going to be something that trips us up eventually.

And so let's look at it.

And if we can even if we are catching ourselves and having that type of awareness for like,

Oh,

Wow,

I see how I'm totally trying.

You're so on the path and great job.

Seriously,

My god.

So kudos.

If you need some high fives or cheerleading,

We've got you are here for that.

Annie,

Will you share your tool with us,

Please?

Yes.

And thank you so much,

Pony,

Because it when you shared that it unlocked this part in me of remembering that,

Yeah,

It is a real tool to do a spiritual bypass.

And sometimes it's because we just don't have the ability and what a gift to even know that we're at a point where we are overriding something because it means we have the ability to do the other the new thing.

What I'm calling spiritual bypass now was like,

Denial then and I love Melanie Beatty calls it the shock absorber of the soul.

Totally.

So it's like,

Oh,

I don't have.

I don't have the capacity yet to deal with anger or that part of myself.

I'm tired and I cry when I'm tired.

So now I am safer.

I'm in a safer part of my life.

So it is safe now to get angry.

And so now I can say,

Oh,

I was overriding that part of my system.

That's this really normal human response to life.

And I can see that I was doing it before I even see it.

I was just like,

Yeah,

I'm fine.

I don't never get angry.

Such a miracle.

I'm pretty uptight.

And there's people I might be resentful against are completely annoyed,

But I don't get angry.

Before a few years ago,

There was some areas in my life that I didn't know how to feel how I felt.

And now that I have different foundation,

It's safe to be angry.

I think a big part of this was having a meditation practice of just being in my body so I could start to occupy space.

And this is really kind of going into my thing with anger,

But it is how I relate to the spiritual bypass.

But it's like being angry to hook up too much space.

And it's not so it's not appropriate to take up space of that kind.

Like you can take up space if you're being funny or cute or sparkly.

But if you're taking up space with like negative stuff,

That's I had,

I just worked out this math in my mind.

So starting to have a meditation practice was like,

Oh,

I'm a person that takes up space.

And like both of these ladies have been sharing,

Talking to other people about what my feelings are besides just the fun ones,

You know,

Or just I had a problem and I figured it all out.

And now I'm going to tell you about it.

Instead of revealing like things are really messy and confusing.

So meditation helped me to be in my body and kind of learn that I can take up space in the universe.

And also with meditation,

I started to notice when I had resentments,

Because I would tell myself that I didn't.

So then when I started to be able to notice that things I was resentful at something,

Then I had this spiritual practice that you know,

I could work with like a spiritual mentor someone and get underneath of it of like,

Why,

Why am I resentful?

And usually underneath of it was like some unsaid thing that had upset me or made me angry.

But like pony said,

I didn't have the courage at that point,

To be able to stand up for myself.

So this is like,

So much deeper than what I was sharing just at the beginning.

But when pony started sharing that about,

Oh,

This spiritual bypass is a tool,

It's like,

Oh,

Yeah,

It was a tool because I didn't know how to say what I needed to say.

And I feel like the part really got unlocked for me in my present day relationship,

Because I was bringing like Ella was sharing,

She was bringing some old tools into her present life,

I was bringing these really old tools into my current relationship,

That's a safe space.

And I didn't need to not be,

There's room for me to be angry in my relationship,

Like have a healthy anger and a response,

But I didn't,

It felt really weird and uncharted.

So I would do that spiritual bypass thing.

But then with my meditation practice,

And just kind of having more awareness and tools from somatic therapy,

I was like,

Oh,

Me,

I sometimes I get angry.

Oh,

What's this feeling?

My spiritual mentor was like,

There was an event that happened,

There was a bicycle involved.

There was some frustration on my wife's part towards me.

And I just said,

Oh,

You're right.

And then a week later,

I was doing I was so mad.

And so I wrote out this thing,

And I shared it with the spiritual mentor.

And she's like,

You need to tell your wife that you're angry.

And I was like,

You can't just tell somebody you're angry at them.

It's not that's not allowed.

And it was this like big part of this.

It was the very first step in that relationship of me being honest with her in that way of like,

Sometimes stuff you do makes me mad.

She got mad when I told her.

Love when that happens.

It was like what I feared most,

And it was okay.

So it was just like,

Oh,

I get to practice this thing that I've been in denial about,

Right?

Like my spiritual bypass,

I get us practice with a safe person.

So even like in the structure of the safe relationship,

I can try out my baby steps of being angry.

It takes practice.

I think that's it.

It just takes practice and patience,

I guess.

And friends to practice with and be able to talk about it super helpful.

So it's not me thinking about me with my own brain.

And like Parnila said courage.

Oh my gosh,

It takes so much courage to not do the steamroller.

Thank you so much,

Annie.

That was so great.

I was thinking when you were talking about saying that you were angry to your wife,

How it was recently suggested to me that I could express anger without expressing it on or at the person.

I could really be mad and say that makes me mad,

Like really mad.

Say stuff like that,

Which is really like feeling the feeling,

But in a more responsible way than I've ever really been able to do it.

That it's actually in safe relationships,

It's really healthy to practice letting yourself be angry.

Just real quickly,

There is this Dharma teacher.

I've learned so much from her.

She's not alive anymore,

But her name is Darlene Cohen and she would practice expressing anger at people.

She had these kind of guidelines for herself so that she wouldn't cause harm.

So she would go to like,

You know,

The Macy's furniture department and find the like customer care specialist,

Like the person who's like paid to deal with fussy customers and like,

You know,

Outburst at them and like yell and be upset or she would get a parking ticket and she would throw it on the ground and stomp her feet and yell.

I love her so much.

Then she would say that it amused her to see the difference between like the equanimity she had access to inside and these like really kind of dramatic expressions of anger.

And I have always loved that.

So thanks.

I love that you were talking about that.

And Pony,

I love that you were talking about authenticity.

What a perfect tool.

It's like the thing for a different way to be if our habitual way is like turning off our humanness or trying to get away from how messy it is.

And I remember once asking a priest,

How,

What do you do if you want to be authentic?

And he was so great.

He said,

You first,

You have to find the kind of like borders of authenticity.

And I was like,

Well,

How do you do that?

And he said,

By being inauthentic.

And he was basically like,

It's all trial and error.

You don't actually get to find this nugget called authenticity without being inauthentic first like a thousand times.

And I was really disappointed that that's the answer I got,

But it has proven true in my life.

Now for my tools,

They're pretty simple.

If you've been listening to this podcast for a while,

One of the things I share most often in the tools section is a kind of a question or inquiry that helps me cut into the heart of whatever the spiritual principle is that I'm working toward.

And so the questions that I ask myself when I suspect I might be in the grips of a spiritual bypass are things like what action requires the most faith from me?

Or what action would be the most vulnerable thing I could do in a relationship?

When I ask myself those questions,

What happens is this space opens up for disparity that Darlene Cohen appreciated between,

You know,

Equanimity and anger.

If I can put the whole situation inside the bubble of a higher power,

Then all of a sudden there are more options than the one I had come up with,

Which is spiritual bypass.

There's more options than I'm unsafe,

I can only get safety by controlling,

How can I do that?

The kind of broadest way that I can ask that question,

That I can bring something into that plane is what would I do if I wasn't afraid?

What would I do if I really trusted that everything would work out and I would be okay and I would be totally taken care of?

When I feel into that,

It usually leads me into growth.

It usually leads me to take more responsibility for myself,

To look honestly at my actions,

To be willing to call myself out on spiritual pride,

Which is,

It's useful,

It definitely gets stuff done,

But it's a big thing I struggle with.

That is my simple,

Maybe,

Tool.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I've really enjoyed getting to talk with you ladies about spiritual bypassing and I hope we'll hear from some of our listeners.

You can message us through our website at prettyspiritualpodcast.

Com or on Instagram or Facebook at Pretty Spiritual Podcast.

Next week,

We're going to talk about bringing spiritual tools into our romantic relationships.

Oh boy.

Wow,

Annie.

Plot twist.

Thank you guys so much and join us next time.

I can't wait.

Love you,

Bye.

Bye.

Reviews

Wonderful, you ladies were just awesome. Really got a lot out of this. The honesty, the authenticity, vulnerable pieces of life shared. High fives and around :)

My fav podcast atm! Makes me so happy to hear you talk, but also the real and rawness brings me back home to that place within me that is a “messy” human. Knowing that is okay feels so peaceful and authentic. Thankyouu

This one resonated so deeply 🙏🏽 Thank you guys for always showing up in vulnerability and authenticity ✨ My partner and I both found different parts of this to shadow our own journeys, and were able to discuss our history with bypasses and healing mechanisms together afterward.

_____

PS. I realized we’re neighbors in the Bay ^_^ 🌁

Wow, what an interesting podcast, I've only just heard about this topic, so it was all new. Very interesting and definitely thought provoking... Thank you beautiful ladies for your frank openness and for sharing your truths. Love to you all 💙x

Fantastic Authentic dialog!!! Loved all what you brought to it and thank you for your willingness to share honestly and deeply!!!