Spiritual Bypassing

<p>In college I had a friend who, whenever I was relaying something challenging in my life, she would say, “Don’t worry. It’s all good!” And then she’d glide away on her rollerblades with a big smile on her face. I <strong>loved </strong>that damned girl, and I know she had good intentions, but when she said that it would totally piss me off and I’d want to shake her and be like, “It is NOT ALL GOOD!”</p><p><strong>Spiritual bypassing</strong> is a tendency to use <strong>spiritual </strong>ideas, explanations, and practices to sidestep or avoid complex psychological experiences.</p><p> </p><p>Spirituality can be a force that helps <strong>enhance </strong>our well-being, but engaging in spiritual bypassing as a way to <strong>avoid </strong>complicated feelings or issues can ultimately stifle our growth.</p><p>Some people argue that applied mindfulness, mindset work, thoughtwork and the tools I teach are a type of spiritual bypassing. But actually, to me that interpretation tells me there’s likely a misunderstanding of this work.</p><p> </p><p>I think this happens when people think it’s all about always changing a thought so you can be <strong>happy </strong>all the time. Or that there is nothing “real” outside of our thoughts that can influence our experience of life.</p><p>The point of this work is NOT to be happy all the time. That’s not even the point of LIFE.</p><p>We’re not supposed to be in <strong>any </strong>emotional or physical state all the time. They don’t last forever and are impermanent</p><p>We have this idea that we’d love to be happy all the time, but then we realize if we <strong>were </strong>happy all the time we wouldn't <strong>appreciate </strong>it. The contrast - the opposite - of happiness is what makes happiness a thing we even <strong>desire</strong>.</p><p> </p><p>We need negative emotion to understand and appreciate positive emotion. Being present with challenging emotions help prevent them from having control over us and us simply reacting to them instead of responding to them in