The Ultimate Spiritual Bypass
Have you heard of the term “spiritual bypass”?
The term was introduced in the early 1980s by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist. Basically, a spiritual bypass is a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks”. (Wikipedia)
We have all probably engaged occasionally in some form of dismissive handwave with sayings like “It’s all good”, “It’s all love and light” or “Whatever” — so we don’t have to deal with difficult feelings. After all, who wants to feel shitty?
On the other hand, many people in the personal development community insist that you must feel the full depth of anger, sadness, depression, etc. to heal and free yourself completely from its grip on you. Failure to do so would amount to a spiritual bypass in their eyes.
While there is nothing “wrong” with any feeling, be it contracted or expansive, it doesn’t necessarily mean that “you got to go through hell before you get to heaven!” (sorry, Steve Miller!) In fact, in many cases, the “hell” of despair, self-loathing and rage may be related directly to The Ultimate Spiritual Bypass!
Both science and spirituality point to the same thing — that everything is energy and interconnected as such… whether it’s called God, Spirit, Source, the Universe, the Unified Field of Consciousness, Energy, or Uncle Charlie! Whatever we name it, we are all aspects, inseparable from and interconnected by this ultimate truth.
Failure to acknowledge this reality is The Ultimate Spiritual Bypass. If you don’t pay much attention to this underlying reality, be gentle with yourself. Most people don’t. That’s what Einstein meant when he mused about the consensus worldview: “Reality is an illusion, albeit a rather persistent one.”
When I get angry, upset, disappointed, frustrated or hurt — and I do, believe me! — I notice that I am paying attention to my attachments to a script I thought would be my life and related judgments… not to my being connected to Source.
Here’s a real-life example: my beloved ends our relationship against my will. Ouch!!! I am deeply upset, sad and grieving. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is healthy to authentically “feel the feels.”
However, it can be easy for me to get caught in an extended loop of contraction and sadness/anger — and even to play the victim card and want revenge or focus on a belief that “I’m not lovable” or “there’s something wrong with me”. If I continue to indulge that depressed feeling, I am doing The Ultimate Spiritual Bypass in failing to re-cognize that I am a loving being and an aspect of something infinite… and that it is both a miracle and blessing that I get to exist at all!
Here’s the great news! I have choice as to where I place my attention — we all do, thank goodness… and whatever I/we pay attention to expands. The more we choose to pay attention to our being part of a unified field of consciousness, the more we appreciate life, our ability to love and the greater our resiliency from those inevitable moments of contraction. Oh, and we make healthier choices too!
Again, life is full of energetic ups and downs. Disappointment, frustration, anger, sadness, sorrow and grief may always be part of our human experience. Yet who’s to say to what depth or for how long one must engage in that emotional state to become healed and whole?
For many of us, being in a prolonged state of denser energy is simply a familiar habit. Call it “the comfort zone of discomfort.” Thus, the nervous system could be accustomed to conducting energy at that frequency so often that we believe that’s who we are. And we define ourselves accordingly.
Please consider that those feelings may simply be like old clothes that don’t fit anymore. As we place more attention on our capacity for choice, starting with the foundational worldview that we are all energy beings with infinite capacities, we can exercise greater influence over a more joyful and loving life experience.
Many of us need not incur as much hardship going forward as we perceived. Just like, if we want to drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, we can take the freeway and not limit ourselves to the drawn-out meandering through side streets. That’s not a bypass, it’s a conscious (and wise) decision.
The choice is ours.
Stu Zimmerman aka Stu Z is the Co-Creator and Transmissionary Extraordinaire of Better Than Sex! TV — tune in and turn up your vibe at https://www.youtube.com/c/BetterThanSexTV
