Many of us have been harmed by spiritual bypassing within Christian (and other faith) communities. Yet we may be oblivious to the dynamic that aggravated our pain. Just as undiagnosed diabetes can harm our physical bodies, a persistent pattern of unrecognized spiritual bypassing can imperil our psychological wellbeing.

While faith can provide real support for Christians who suffer, on a spiritual bypass, we don’t acknowledge what we or others really feel. If we want to avoid this pitfall, we first need to understand what it is.

How do we define spiritual bypassing?

Described in the 1980’s by Psychotherapist John Welwood, spiritual bypassing includes using spiritual practices and beliefs to bypass emotional distress and psychological suffering. Spiritual practice becomes a way to avoid uncomfortable feelings, just like a beltway helps us avoid city traffic. But while one avoidance strategy saves time and improves a commute, the other stunts authentic care for very human pain. We will see how blind use of spiritual avoidance strategies risks harm to the wellbeing of ourselves and others.

Examples of Spiritual Bypasses and Their Effects

Spiritual bypasses  help us deal with uncomfortable emotions by turning the focus away from our experienced pain. These avoidance strategies can be subtle or blatant, and often appear wrapped in a kind of spiritual cloak.  Let’s explore a few potential examples.

Bypassing Grief

Disturbed by her teary state, church members remind a  grieving widow that her husband is in a better place, and his suffering is now over. They read scripture, pray and remind the widow that God has a plan for her life.  None of these statements or actions is wrong per se. But if this is all the help they offer, church members only provide the widow with a distraction from her very human distress. Since this spiritual bypass doesn’t help the widow process authentic feelings of loss, it actually exposes her to continued pain, as she navigates the ebb and flow of grief.

Bypassing Anger

A Christian ministry identifies anger as a negative emotion that results from some kind of expectation or  belief that is not spiritually supported. Rather than understand the anger of a man who was mistreated by his wife, the ministry challenges him to surrender any expectation of proper treatment.  A spiritual practice of surrender and forgiveness must override his anger. Any attempt to understand the man’s distress and discuss practical steps to protect himself is absent. So bypassing anger exposes this man to greater future harm.

Bypassing Fear or Insecurity

A young woman reaches out to her spiritual mentor, confessing difficulty with fear of God and insecurity in general. The mentor challenges the woman to trust God and quotes several verses which imply that lack of trust is spiritual failure. Additionally, the mentor claims that if the young woman will trust God, her fear and insecurity will melt away.  Yet the mentor has not, and does not, explore the woman’s past to understand the evolution of her fear and insecurity. On this spiritual bypass, the woman’s initial suffering expands to include self-condemnation for failure to trust God.

Bypassing Suffering

A man seeks support from his church due to immense stress from difficult financial and family circumstances.  A spiritual mentor reframes his suffering as having a purpose: he suffers in order to learn a spiritual lesson from God.  Absent is any exploration of the nature of his circumstances and the man’s reaction to them. This spiritual bypass does not distinguish his responsibility from responsibility that is out of his control. Without such distinction, the suffering man risks being either reduced to a victim or exalted to an irresponsible pedestal.

Steps to Avoid the pitfalls of Spiritual Bypassing

Please understand that I’m not promoting the abandonment of spiritual practices. Rather, I’m advocating for using our spiritual practices to reduce harm to ourselves and others. To this end, I suggest several steps or guidelines to help lessen our dependence on spiritual avoidance strategies.

1. Remove value judgments from feelings.

I think that spiritual bypassing thrives on so-called negative emotions. Yet I see emotions as neither positive or negative.  It seems that we label emotions as negative when they are uncomfortable to feel. Yet all sorts of emotions can give us important information. Fear is an appropriate response to danger. Anger is an appropriate response to injustice.  Grief is an appropriate response to loss.  Distress is an appropriate response to suffering. We need to allow ourselves and others to feel our feelings, and we need to learn a healthier way to respond to them without a bypass. Perhaps we can practice accepting our uncomfortable feelings (and the feelings of others) like we accept changes in weather. Rather than rely on a spiritual bypass to avoid so-called negative emotions,  Christian Counseling can help people of faith find healthier ways to process uncomfortable emotional content.

2. Meet ourselves and others with empathy.

The best way to meet any human in emotional distress is with empathy – that magical choice to understand and validate the emotional experience of another (or ourselves) without judging what we understand.  Rather than trying to change how someone feels, we practice being present with the one who is upset. Choosing to understand means we try to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Choosing to validate means allowing the other person to feel whatever they are experiencing. Empathy forges connection between humans and nurtures relationships. Because it doesn’t seek to bypass emotional distress, empathy enables us to avoid spiritual bypasses.

3. Adjust expectations of ourselves and others.

Expectations impact our vulnerability to spiritual bypassing. If we define spiritual success as experiencing consistent peace and joy, we will need many ways to bypass the broad range of feelings we experience as humans. Any expectations we have of ourselves or others needs to be congruent with our human contexts.  Think of the grieving widow, the angry man, the insecure woman, and the suffering man.  Healthy expectations will be unique to each human and their unique context. When we can accept our own human context, we can begin to meet others and ourselves without judgment in the emotionally messy parts of life.  To avoid spiritual bypasses, we need adjusted expectations that allow for emotionally messy moments throughout the life of faith.

A Suggested Goal for People of Faith

Let’s be wary of spiritual bypasses. At the intersection of spirituality and humanity, may our spiritual practices bring more genuine comfort and fewer spiritual bypasses to those who hurt.

Contact