Why We Need to Spiritually Bypass

Mystical Healing from the Deeper Source

Perhaps you’ve heard the warnings. Maybe you’ve given or received them yourself. Beware of spiritually bypassing! Or maybe the term is new to you, though I’m pretty sure you’ll recognize the concept.

“Spiritual bypassing,” according to transpersonal psychologist John Welwood (who coined the term) is a process by which people use “spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal, emotional, ‘unfinished business’ to shore up a shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental tasks.”

Essentially, using spirituality—usually overtly positive forms—as a mostly unconscious method of avoidance or repression. It’s not uncommon, and often can be psychologically unhealthy.

On the other hand, especially in times like these, with so much chaos and uncertainty in the world right now, many people turn to their spiritual life to take refuge and find some relief or release from the weight of it all.

Is this bypassing? Is this a bad thing? Am I just repressing or avoiding reality?

First of all, there can be a lot of guilt around this concept, as it really taps into our superegos. You can hear it in the shoulds and shouldn’ts, either internally or through another’s advice (often laced with subtle criticism). It’s important to hold a great deal of compassion for ourselves and others around this concept.

We all want to be healthy—both emotionally and spiritually. And heck if there weren’t a whole lot going on that we need a little relief from!

It just may be that we need a little spiritual bypassing in our lives, not just for a break from suffering and in support of our general wellbeing in the moment—though that may be a worthwhile reason as well—but also to discover a better and deeper place from which to address our “unfinished business.”

This is a journey of going beyond our normal emotional experiences, into our inner spiritual depths, which is how we might discover mystical healing from the source. And getting there might just take a little “spiritual bypassing!” 

But to allow ourselves that permission, we might first need to unbutton our bonnets a little bit.

Don’t put your Puritanical spirit on me!

In the hall of Christian shame, right up there with the Crusades and the Inquisition, are the Puritans. Fairly or unfairly, they’ve come to symbolize legalistic, chastity-belt morality and religious, witch-burning fervor. In general, they are looked upon mostly with disgust and aversion as the epitome of self-righteous religiosity.

But you know who is just like the Puritans? Us.

Well, maybe not all of us. Not you certainly. Not me. We’ll leave ourselves out of this, at least for the moment.

When it comes to spirituality, you may be surprised to recognize the large number of approaches and teachings that employ the very same attitude, the very same puritanical approach to God. And it’s certainly not exclusive to Puritans, either in the past or now. The “holiness” pattern of implying present separation with necessary cleanliness rituals to become “pure” is rampant—and not just in tradition, conservative forms of religion. It is present even among very progressive forms of spiritual teaching and practice, though just with different rituals.

Let’s take a little closer look at this rather unfortunate, destructive religious pattern that still very much endures.

The Religion of the Unclean

In “holiness” religion, there is a common pattern. That God is separate, and to reach God one must do something to cleanse away the unholiness in order to come into the pure presence of a pristine Divinity. If you do ______, then you are now holy too and can be with God. 

Usually these purgation acts are performed with as little joy as possible, relying more on self-abnegation and shame. They are also continuously cyclical, requiring the same rituals done over and over, creating dependency and regular self-abasement. Even if it’s a simple confession or prayer, you still have to keep doing it over and over to gain access to the divine. Is God really so finicky?

And yet, we still employ this same unconscious, underlying pattern much more often than we’d like to admit.

Instead of sin that must be washed away, it is our pain and our trauma. These are considered the primary reality, and the inner experience is completely defined by them. You must deal with and work through your wounding. Don’t just avoid the pain, but face your emotional issues through shadow work or therapy. The subtle underlying message is: If you do the work to “clean up,” then you can go to a place of spiritual depth and joy—otherwise you’re just spiritually bypassing.

In this way, our wounding becomes a barrier to God within. It becomes the stain that must be cleansed before we can go into the holy of holies.

And in true “religious spirit”, we’re very likely to take on the internal shame of this woundedness, either looking for an external divine savior, or projecting it out onto others to avoid any self-implication.

What requirements do you hold on yourself before you can be with God? Before you can be in the place you “need” to be? In what ways do you unconsciously see yourself as unworthy or unclean?

Healthy Spiritual Bypassing

Personal and emotional issues are not a barrier to healthy spirituality. This is a relapse into the “holiness” attitude. Everyone has wounds, pain, fears.

The wisdom warning for spiritual bypassing is that we should not altogether avoid these emotions, permanently taking refuge in artificial or contrived positive feelings brought on by spiritual experiences. Yes, healthy spirituality is not about permanent avoidance.

But that doesn’t mean that our only option is to force ourselves to stay with our pain, with our fear, with our emotion on the level of everyday consciousness.

If we constantly center on how we are “damaged,” focusing on the pain or scarring that we feel from the lumps of life, we won’t find any healing. Yes, many of these wounds are very serious and have greatly impacted our lives. This is not to be denied or trivialized.

Our trauma can be so pervasive that it simply must be addressed and healed before we can “move on” to anything else. Pain can have one of the most powerful grips on our consciousness, in the face of which we seek any method of coping we can find—and there must be at least some healing before we can go any further.

But if we feel that we must wait until we are healed before we can go further, if we feel that our personal and emotional issues are a barrier to moving into the deeper spaces within, into the source of divine presence and love within—then we will very likely remain stuck in our sensitive self. For there will always be more work to be done, another barrier to cross. This attitude and approach is actually keeping us bound to a cyclical process that becomes a new cleansing ritual. We “do the work” over and over, usually making slow progress if we’re fortunate.

Perhaps we don’t have to painfully and steadily chip away at the rock from the outside. Barriers are always harder to dismantle from the outside. What would it look like to meet them from within?

Yes, we need healing—that is not to be avoided. But it is not a prerequisite to accessing our deeper spiritual consciousness. What if we go to the core of our deepest identity and being first? Underneath the pain and scars. Is it possible to tap into our depths without having to go through the wounds? If we can, in a sense, bypass the damage, moving to the deeper centers within ourselves, then we can tap into greater resources. From there we can experience the flow of love and vitality again, springing from our divine source within.  

And it just may be from the depths of our innermost being, from a deeper, more holistic consciousness that we will find our true healing. The divine healer within.

Mystical Healing

While there are necessary and important distinctions in spiritual and psychological work, they are not completely separate processes. And both are vast fields with wide varieties of approaches, so not to over-caricaturize, but very often a key difference is found in the place from which we start the work.  

Healing work can certainly be done from ordinary consciousness, from processing and working through our stuff. Reflection and understanding can go a long way to helping us release attachments and recognizing shadow elements that we couldn’t see before.

But mystical healing is a process by which we go beyond our ordinary consciousness, beyond our usual experience of the self and our individual perspective. This is found not from an ascending escape out of ourselves, but a descent to our deepest divine identity within, to the wellspring at our very source.

This is the movement of healing from the place of a new consciousness, from the divine source.

It is when we return to our wounding and hurts, when we face our shadow with the light of our deepest being, that we are not “spiritually bypassing” as it’s commonly understood—because we are not ultimately seeking avoidance. But rather we are retrieving a deeper energy, courage, and consciousness with which to face them. This time with divine guidance, awakened consciousness, and the powerful divine holding that we sometimes find dissolves the blockages and brings healing on a deeper level than we are be able to understand with words or concepts. It might not “make sense,” but it will be real.

The pain and feelings will still be there. We allow for grief, for trauma, for wounding to arise. This time being held in the divine love from underneath and all around. We need not judge or impose ourselves upon them in any way. We just let them be held. We just let ourselves be held.

In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll be writing more and exploring mystical healing. So more to come.

In Your Being and Becoming

There are many paths finding healing in our lives. The discovery of mystical healing in co-participation with the divine within can be greatly liberating for us, because it accesses the divine healer within.

We can also experience the divine healer in a group as well, mutually holding one another from the WeSpace of deeper consciousness, filled with love and care. More to come on that in future writings as well.

But we’ll all do well to stop treating ourselves so Puritanically. To release the religious restrictions that we’ve had, the spiritual barriers we place before ourselves, the critical voice chastising those taking the easy way out and just spiritually bypassing.

Let us do the work of our healing, but not be held back by it, to not let it be a barrier in the form of “holiness” spirituality, a cleansing ritual that becomes an imposed precursor to accessing our own interior depth and divine source. Instead, we seek our healing and we don’t let it hold us back from life in divine participation and inner presence.

God is present within you now, in the midst of your being and becoming.

There is nothing that is withholding you from the present divine reality in your life. Nothing.

Not your wounding. Not your trauma. Not your failures. Not your shame.

You don’t have to fix all those things before you can reach to the depths of God within. The divine healer is there, in the source of your very being, ready to invite you into the flow of healing and nurture.

The Gospel – I – God by Chris Powers