Summary: Would you like to be able to listen to an audio version of this post and all future long-form posts from Becoming Who You Are on your podcast app or pod-catcher? This is one of the many perks available to Patreon supporters! Pledge your support from just $1+ a month today, and start catching up on BWYA posts on the go. Find out more about this and other rewards here. ________________________________________________________ This week, I want to talk about something that is a plague—yes, that bad!—on the personal growth world: spiritual bypassing. If you’re not familiar with the term (I only recently discovered there was a name for this), here’s a couple of examples: - Millicent and Violet are talking about Millicent’s uncle, who is homophobic and hostile towards Millicent about her sexuality. Millicent is unsure whether to attend a family barbecue her uncle will also be attending because she finds his behaviour unpleasant and upsetting. Violet claims her uncle is in her life to teach Millicent her greatest lessons in patience and tolerance. She says going to the barbecue and engaging with him will be good for her personal growth. As she reminds Millicent: “The fact his behaviour bothers you is about you, not about him.” - Debra’s husband dies in a car accident at the age of 32. While visiting her a few weeks later, one of her friends tells her to have hope for the future because “this is all part of God’s plan.” If you’ve been around the personal growth world any amount of time, you’ll have seen these kinds of responses delivered and even encouraged. I’ve been thinking about this lately because, although it’s a behaviour I find annoying in other people, I’ve noticed my own susceptibility to doing it too (the saying that the things we find most annoying in others are things we do ourselves? So true). And I don’t want to be that person. I don't want to respond uncomfortable feelings or experiences by dismissing them with a faux-enlightened platitude. Nor do I want to be swayed from my own feelings by other people attempting to do the same. What is spiritual bypassing? Psychotherapist Robert Masters describes spiritual bypassing as “The use of spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with our painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs.” As Dr Masters explains, “Aspects of spiritual bypassing include exaggerated detachment, emotional numbing and repression, overemphasis on the positive, anger-phobia, blind or overly tolerant compassion, weak or too porous boundaries, lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead of emotional and moral intelligence), debilitating judgment about one’s negativity or shadow elements, devaluation of the personal relative to the spiritual, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being.” Psychologist Ingrid Clayton emphasises spiritual bypassing is a subtle but effective defence mechanism. She writes, “Spiritual bypass shields us from the truth, it disconnects us from our feelings, and helps us avoid the big picture. It is more about checking out than checking in—and the difference is so subtle that we usually don't even know we are doing it.” These explanations ring true. Even though I have almost a decade’s experience working with emotional support (or, despite knowing better, because of this), I hear someone talk about a challenge or issue and I want to help. I want them to feel better, partly for them but partly because seeing them in pain feels uncomfortable for me. At these times, I have to bite my tongue to stop myself coming out with one of the pithy platitudes that annoy me when I hear them from other people. Witnessing someone else’s pain requires a vulnerability that can be uncomfortable at times and part of ...
