Life has placed me on a path where most of my clients, colleagues, collaborators, and connections bring spirituality into their businesses. I’ve noticed a behaviour, labelled as spiritual bypassing, that we all resort to at times along our journey.
I haven’t yet been able to articulate effectively to the members of the Vibrational Marketing Institute how this shows up in our lives. It’s on the curriculum as a symptom of vibrational misalignment, and if I am unable to articulate it, how can I communicate it? How can we realign it when we notice it?
According to John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist, spiritual bypassing is “a tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds and unfinished development tasks.”
How spiritual bypassing may play out in our lives:
- Using spiritual beliefs to avoid dealing with personal issues.
- Overemphasis on positivity, neglecting negative emotions.
- Disconnection from reality and practical concerns.
- Justifying inaction or lack of responsibility through spiritual terms.
- Feelings of guilt, shame, or inadequacy when not living up to spiritual ideals.
Back to unmet expectations…
- We could blame the person, situation, or event that caused the disappointment: “It’s your fault!” We project.
- We could turn the blame inward: “If we create our own reality, I must be doing this wrong!” We dwell on the disappointment.
- Or we avoid the feeling of disappointment altogether and make it Spirit’s gift, like “divine timing” or “it’s meant to be.” We self-soothe.
All examples of vibrational misalignment, only the latter is an example of spiritual bypassing. It could lead to emotional avoidance, overthinking, and overdoing as we see playing out in marketing today.
To remain truly grounded in vibrational marketing practices, it is crucial to honour, in this case, the disappointment. Perhaps dig a little deeper to explore any unconscious self-limiting beliefs or unhealed trauma.
We are both human and divine; physical matter and energy. How do we merge instead of balance? Embrace as a whole instead of two halves?
As a topic on our to-be-discussed list, I look forward to learning as a group and collectively creating something new. If you’d like to check in with what some of the other Conscious Collaborators have to say about spiritual bypassing, here is the link:
https://conscious-collaborators-hub.com/Topics/spiritual-bypassing
Thank you for explaining this topic so clearly. When I reflect on the many groups I have been part of over the years I have seen this behaviour, time and time again but until now I didn’t know it had a name!
When things aren’t going as smoothly as we would like, it is so important to notice our behaviours. Are we looking externally for “reasonable reasons” as to why things are left unfinished, the family have needed me or the dog has been ill or do we look to spiritual bypassing for the explanation of our inaction? Are these really the reasons or is it as you say, something a bit deeper?
It can become a slippery slope, Louise. Being mindful of it is half the battle won, methinks.