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As a therapist and Buddhist teacher, Welwood began to notice that people (including himself) often wielded spirituality as a shield or type ofdefense mechanism. Rather than working through hard emotions or confronting unresolved issues, people would simply dismiss them with spiritual explanations.
While it can be a way to protect the self from harm or to promote harmony between people, it doesn’t actually resolve the issue. Instead, it merely glosses over a problem, leaving it to fester without any true resolution.
Signs of Spiritual Bypassing
Examples
Recognizing Spiritual Bypassing
Before resorting to platitudes, ask yourself who the comment is really helping. Is it really giving someone comfort or insight, or is it just a way of dismissing a difficult situation so that you can feel better?
Causes
Anindividualistic culturethat promotes the idea that people must aim forself-actualizationin order to achieve true happiness also contributes to a tendency to avoid difficult or painful emotions. Rather than trying to solve problems in the environment that lead to pain, individualism teaches people that they alone are responsible for their destiny.
Impact
Spiritual narcissisminvolves using spiritual practices as a way to increase self-importance. It often involves using spirituality to build the individual up, while also wielding it as a weapon to tear others down.
Denying Difficult Emotions
Dismissing Other People’s Emotions
Is Someone Gaslighting You? Look Out For These Red Flags
Avoiding Responsibility
Judging Others
It’s okay to feel difficult emotions like anger, jealousy, and disappointment. The key is to deal with those emotionsin healthy ways.
Justifying Suffering
Such explanations make it easy to just accept things as they are and not focus on the steps that we can take to make a difference. Some situations may be outside of our control or we might face obstacles that make change difficult, but it is important to acknowledge and accept the responsibility for what wecando to make a situation better.
Bypassing also becomes a form ofvictim-blaming, especially in cases where people are experiencing the negative effects of various kinds of trauma. Telling people that they should just stop being negative in order to avoid exhaustion, anxiety, depression, and other physical and psychological manifestations of stress is essentially telling them that they are to blame for their own pain and suffering.
How It Hampers Growth
Tips and Tricks for Confronting the Urge to Spiritually Bypass
Studies have shown, for example, that people who engage in spiritual practices are less prone to depression, cope better with stress, experience better overall health, and have better psychological well-being.
A Word From Verywell
Spiritual Bypassing as a Defense Mechanism
4 Sources
Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Tricycle.Human nature, Buddha nature. An interview with John Welwood.
Akbari M, Hossaini SM.The relationship of spiritual health with quality of life, mental health, and burnout: The mediating role of emotional regulation.Iran J Psychiatry. 2018;13(1):22-31.
Wachholtz AB, Sambamthoori U.National trends in prayer use as a coping mechanism for depression: Changes from 2002 to 2007.J Relig Health. 2013;52(4):1356-68. doi:10.1007/s10943-012-9649-y
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