If your ideas about spirituality came from what you saw on Instagram, you’d probably think being spiritual was all about sparkly unicorns, chilled-out Buddhas and pink-hued quotes about manifestation. All of those things can be part of spirituality, but this pretty picture isn’t the whole truth. True spirituality has a much deeper, much grittier side. Being on a spiritual journey involves delving into difficult emotions and uncomfortable truths. It may lead you to change your stance, cut ties with certain people and cry profusely. It also even force you to realise that you might have been a bit of a dick in certain situations (d’oh!).
That last part – being accountable for your actions – is a big part of a spiritual journey. That doesn’t mean you have to go around apologising for every crappy thing you’ve ever done – please don’t do this; it isn’t much fun for the other people involved – it just means understanding why you did what you did, and learning from it. Trouble is, lots of people are doing the exact opposite – they use spirituality to actually avoid accountability and the change and growth that go with it. This is ‘spiritual bypassing’, which means using the veil of spiritual beliefs to avoid the truth or to dodge accountability. Remember the word ‘bypassing’ means going around something, while true spirituality is all about going into something in order to heal it.
Here are four ways I’ve noticed spiritual bypassing showing up:
1. Burying unpleasant emotions with toxic positivity
In case no one has told you this, it is simply not possible to be positive all the time. If you are hurting, frustrated or sad, you are 100 per cent entitled to those feelings and you are under no obligation to move through them quickly. Feeling these emotions does not mean you are a negative person or a whinger, it just means you are a human doing the best you can in an often complicated world. You do not have to put on a fake smile to make other people more comfortable. If you have ever tried to express difficult emotions and been told ‘you should be more positive!’ or ‘you have nothing to complain about!’, you will know exactly how dismissive toxic positivity can be. Toxic positivity is effectively trying to wallpaper over a mouldy wall. Problems do not go away when we pretend to be happy and ignore the difficult or unpleasant aspects of life. Research shows that denying your feelings makes them grow bigger and can lead to destructive behaviours, so you’re much better off sharing your feelings (with people who are receptive and respectful) and working through them in a healthy way. Talk to an expert, such as a therapist or energy healer, if you are struggling with this.
2. Rushing to forgive someone without fully processing events
(Photo by Nick Owuor (astro.nic.visuals) on Unsplash)
Many spiritual traditions advocate forgiveness as being the best path to healing, but in my experience, it’s not always helpful nor effective to forgive someone for the way they treated you. If you are rushing to forgive someone, whether or not they have apologised, you are trying to stick a Band-Aid on an emotional hurt. The only way to heal from that is to sit in the pain of what happened, identify your feelings, understand why they’re there, take an honest look at your role (for example, the ways you might have inadvertently enabled the other person) and learning the lessons so it doesn’t happen again. If it’s a particularly deep hurt you will probably need a spiritual healer to help you.
As psychologist and relationship expert Dr Alexander Solomon says, rushing to forgive is a common response among people who ‘learned early in life that their feelings are less important than other people’s comfort’. That’s bypassing right there. Read more about my stance on forgiveness here.
3. Calling people negative instead of taking accountability
(Photo by Christopher Beddies on Unsplash)
This is a big one. Have you ever told someone that their actions were hurting you, only to be told that you were being ‘too negative’? Maybe they even doubled down by saying they would ‘pray for you’ or were ‘sending you love and light’ (ugh). This is classic spiritual bypassing. Not only is the person not acknowledging your pain or taking responsibility for their actions, they’re shifting the problem back onto you, all under the guise of spirituality. But that’s not what spirituality looks like at all. Spirituality is supposed to be a vehicle for growth and transformation, not for escaping the truth.
When we are told that our actions are hurting people, we cannot simply send them love and light, or thoughts and prayers. We must take an honest look at our actions and commit to doing better. (Unless we’re dealing with a narcissist, of course, but that’s a whole other story.)
4. Handing over all your power to spirit
I once went to a spiritual workshop where the facilitator told us all that drinking coffee would adversely affect our connection to spirit, but we could “easily” quit if we simply asked Archangel Michael to cut the cord between ourselves and caffeine. Guess what? It didn’t work. Firstly, I was doing it for the wrong reasons – i.e. because someone told me to. (I did end up quitting coffee many years later, but only because it felt right for me. For the record, I know many powerful spiritual healers who drink coffee with no adverse effects, so you certainly don’t have to give it up.) Secondly, if you want to make a change in your life, you can’t just ask the angels to take care of it then hope for the best.
(Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash)
When you are dealing with a problem or challenge, the Universe is there to support you, reassure you and work with you to bring through a solution. The Universe is not there to fix things for you. Unfortunately some corners of spirituality will tell you that all you need to do is ‘put it out to the Universe’ or ‘pray to God’ and you’ll get whatever you want or need. But that’s not how spirituality works – that’s handing over all your power instead of taking charge of the situation yourself. It’s bypassing the work you need to do. Yes, it’s very important to talk to your guardian angels, spirit guides or whatever higher level power you feel connected to, and ask for help – but you still need to make decisions yourself then take all the necessary action steps. The form of spirituality I espouse is one which empowers people to work in active partnership with the Universe, not to be a passive servant.
If you’d like to work with me to heal any of the issues in this article, you can book energy healing sessions here. More information about how I work is available here.