Understanding Spiritual Bypassing in Mental Health
The Depths & Nuances of Spirituality, Mental Health, & the Relationship Between the Two
I remember being verbally abused by a lady I worked with, for not knowing how to put an IV catheter into a cat—something that I had not been trained or even qualified to do. Afterwards, I experienced momentary feelings of absolute garbage, quickly pushing any ‘negative’ feelings or thoughts away. Instead, I told myself that it was fine, just think positively, focus on loving energy and nothing would be wrong. I ignored the feelings of hurt, shame, anger and frustration. This was a clear moment of spiritual bypassing for me.
May has been mental health awareness month.
Within parts of the spiritual community, I don’t often hear people talking about mental health, maybe because of love and light and all that.
Also, there is a lot of spiritual bypassing happening. If you don’t know what this is it's a term invented in the mid-1980s by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist. Here he has defined ‘Spiritual Bypassing’ as –
“Spiritual bypassing is a term I coined to describe a 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.”
It’s essentially dismissing or avoiding difficult emotions or situations – basically gaslighting yourself or others, contributing to an ableist attitude and mindset. This is what led me to gaslight myself…
“It’s all in your head, you just need to think positively.”
“You just need to meditate and do more yoga.”
“It’s just the planets making you feel this way, you’ll get over it.”
“Eat healthier non-processed vegan foods and then your mind will feel healthier.”
While these suggestions are helpful to some extent, they do not help when you are actually up against a real mental illness. Continuously telling yourself and others these things is straight-up gaslighting; it will only make it worse when you are trying your hardest.
If you are in a rut and positive thinking is not pulling you out of it, then please don’t beat yourself up about it. You are allowed to feel any emotion, even negative ones. You are a soul having a human experience. Humans experience an array of emotions, and sometimes we may need help to regulate or manage them.
When people get into a bad place, most of the time you don’t even know you are heading there. It is something that is realized when you are already in it, which is why it makes it that much harder to get out. At that point, positive thinking your way out of it doesn’t work, and you may need additional help and support.
Whoever needs to hear this—you can, and you will get out of that place.
And that is when you can use modalities such as healthy eating, yoga, meditation, journaling, affirmations, fitness, and supplements to maintain your mental well-being.
If you are prone to getting into a rut, then the maintenance of your mental health should be a number one priority in your life.
Mental health and spirituality aren’t often put together, but why not?
Because there’s an underlying message out there that you can’t be suffering at the neurons of your own mind AND be spiritual– this can challenge the spiritual beliefs that people cling to, either people who have never experienced mental health problems or those who have turned to spirituality amid their mental battles.
A lot of spiritual practices help immensely with improving mood and mental health. In my opinion, practices such as meditation, yoga, mindful breathing, journaling, and sound healing should be recommended to everyone.
But there’s a thin line between engaging in practices to improve mood and assist in your healing, and engaging in practices because you believe they will heal or cure you.
Mixed in with the outlook of hope for something so much grander than our human life on Earth, this can quickly lead to going down a rabbit hole, wrapping your entire identity up in this new way of living while unconsciously pushing down what was initially needed to heal.
Since the concept of spirituality is looking outside of yourself to spirit, it is quick to discard the human self within you—your mind. Some even say the mind is the ego and we should work to diminish such—but how is this healing for the mind?
How is disregarding the mind helping mental health? Should we not be working with it?
Once caught up in this new reality (is it reality though?), the idea that spirituality (I don’t even want to call it that because this behaviour isn’t truly Spiritual) is all you need is reinforced through being told things such as “think positive thoughts” because you’re upset over being bullied and harassed, “you’re just ascending” since you’re having panic attacks, “just meditate” because your ADHD has flared up.
It can also sound like blaming the planets, moon, or your astrology for a problem that was quite literally created on Earth.
Everyone means well, and it is all sound advice within appropriate contexts. But when it is said in response to a mental health problem, what you are hearing is spiritual bypassing—you are being gaslit by either yourself or others, and practical support is needed.
Spirituality is so vast and varied. Spirituality for one person may not be the same for another. It is as multidimensional as the world we can and cannot perceive, with more layers than the Earth's atmosphere.
Please always listen to your own intuition, and if you hear or see something that sounds a bit woo-woo or makes you feel off, then it probably is. It is so easy to be manipulated by anything, and I’m just mentioning a small dose of aspects within the Spiritual community.
Mental health is not a joke. Spirituality is not a quick-fix pill to take.
Even Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, silently meditating and suffering for seven weeks straight before reaching “enlightenment” and before that, he lived a more than decent life as a wealthy prince.
You’re allowed to take as long as needed to feel a sense of nirvana, even if that happens when you’re 90.
Learn to work with your mind and not against it. You are a human after all.
Psychologist John Welwood, who coined the term ‘spiritual bypassing,’ said in an interview with Tina Fossella:
"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."
So here’s to the raw and the messy side of being human!
Here’s to making peace with the human in you, shadow and all.
Have you had an experience of spiritual bypassing? How have you seen it play out? Would love to know in the comments! It is such a deep, taboo and nuanced topic and my chart ruler, Scorpio Mars in the 8th house is here for it!
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Cosmic Love,
Z
Currents —
Book - A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas ~ obsessed
Series - Baby Reindeer… I finished in a couple weeks ago but literally go watch it!
Podcast - Megan Fox on Call Her Daddy
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Music - The Tortured Poets Department
Graduating in less than 4 weeks!! Celebrating you lovely 🥳🤩💘⚡️