Powerful! This is such an excellent, needed, spot on, and illuminating piece by Alison Rose Levy. I, too, can resonate deeply with what Alison speaks to, both personally and with what I witness collectively. We humans and life on Earth would not be facing the extreme crises and pervasive trauma that we are today if spiritual bypassing weren't so tragically prevalent in our society and beyond. The longer that I have been on my own path of waking up, of having tried on a variety of beliefs over many years now, the more that I can recognize in myself and others when there is an avoidance of the greater truths that are so essential for us to recognize, own, heal and transform, and act upon. Too often we're cutting ourselves off at the neck, as I once did, limiting ourselves to just seeking love and light rather than engaging deeply in the lifelong process of becoming a fully embodied human being. And growing into our greater wholeness does indeed necessitate shining light in an ongoing way on dark places within ourselves and in this beautiful hurting world that we share. May truth and courage, healing and empathy and compassion, and acting increasingly to lesson our complicity with that which causes so much harm be contagious. And in the process, may our circles of caring grow and grow. And more thanks and gratitude to Alison, my soulful friend, for again and again shining light on dark places. May we all be moved, informed, transformed, and inspired. ― Molly
By Alison Rose Levy
I've been awake to and frustrated by spiritual bypassing since the late 1990's when I covered and went on to study with psychologist John Welwood, who coined the term.
When Welwood wrote, "Spiritual bypassing is a term I coined to describe a process I saw happening in the Buddhist community I was in, and also in myself. Although most of us were sincerely trying to work on ourselves, I noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks."
He saw people attempting to "rationalize what I call premature transcendence: trying to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it."
Welwood pointed out that trying to dismiss relative human needs, feelings, psychological problems, relational difficulties, and developmental deficits, can be an “occupational hazard of the spiritual path."
Since Welwood coined the term in the 1980's, in our day it's become obvious that bypassing applies to more than spirituality, it applies to climate denial, it applies to a misplaced/fanciful/individualistic self-exemption from public health concerns. It has a larger social and global impact.
Now the practice of denying a problem and masking it with a positive attitude, or a moral benefit (it's a lesson) or an over-confident belief in one's own exemption (I'm immune) or an over-hyped defense (they hate our freedom) is so -so- so ubiquitous that over time I've come to see it as a widely adopted coping mechanism in late stage capitalism. And it's culturally imposed to boot.
Given the corruption of our system, a large segment of the population is ethically, morally, and indeed politically compromised. Many, many, many people sell out without noticing it because they learned in their families, communities, work (and through the media, religious/spiritual teachings, health care, food systems, and more) to suppress compassion or ignore a systemic view (as irrelevant to themselves).
Let's face it, this is not about personal choice. Although there are exceptions -- the people who have circumstances that allow them to opt out -- for the vast majority, in order to support their families, put a roof over their heads, and food on the table, participate in their communities, cope with physical/mental health concerns, and lead a "normal" life, people have limited options and are forced to participate, ignore the consequences, and don a smiley face as the ecological system collapses.
As a result, although "good people," are often caring to their own immediate circle, so many of us cannot extricate ourselves or even perceive our own participation/ contribution to these compounding national and global crises. And for good reason.
Many, many people either work for or provide services to the capitalist economic engines, or to those who profit from them. Those who are among the even more privileged segment of the population, or who gain their livelihoods from non-profit work are often directly or indirectly economically supported from trust fund/Wall Street investments. Other folks work for outright abusers and perpetrators, and enable them. In other words, in a capitalist context, most people directly or indirectly are forced to prostitute themselves -- or they bypass those hard choices due to privilege, which they then rationalize or cover with various self-chosen forms of atonement/philanthropy.
I say all of this to note that before we got to the "I won't wear a mask," "You must wear a mask," face-off that began in early 2020, this was our context. It still is, and is now playing in the pro- vs. anti-vax debate. On a FB local community I follow, and in other places, I see the two sides, locked in perpetual conflict like a bickering married couple. This is not to say that the two sides are morally equivalent, nor is it to say that efforts to persuade are entirely fruitless. Some are thankfully persuasive. As are the deadly results of the scientific experiment, known as "I'll expose myself and others with impunity," which has engendered death and health care overload and collapse. But when I take a high moral ground in unfriending an offensive person holding different views, this may be self-care for my own traumatic triggers, but it is far from addressing the systemic structures that produce all of it.
Yet we often resort to this because when we attempt to create an honest conversation within ourselves and with others, we will often encounter boatloads of denial-- papered over by the platitudes of spiritual bypassing. An honest accounting is rare. I'm thankful for people like Rupa Fish and Rowen White, who are modeling a community collaborative approach-- as well as economists who seek new structures that will permit reparations and restore equity.
Thanks to climate collapse and the pandemic, more and more people are directly encountering the dreadful consequences of this society's corruption, along with mortality -- our own and that of those whom we love. As grief, helplessness, and trauma tremble and rage within so many of us-- we attempt to enlist righteous behavior from fragmented, dissociated, and ethically compromised people. We hope, we pray, we express our sorrow at another's loss, we send blessings, we do the best we can. But in doing this, let's seek, learn to identify, and generate the support for the truth of our own complicity as well as our vulnerability to the dangerous conditions of a corrupted social order.
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