How To Off Ramp From Spiritual Bypassing

What Woke Me Up From "Spiritual Bypassing" & How IFS Saved Me

"Let me be crystal clear: if you’ve faced a tragedy and someone tells you in any way, shape or form that your tragedy was meant to be, that it happened for a reason, that it will make you a better person, or that taking responsibility for it will fix it, you have every right to remove them from your life. Grief is brutally painful. Grief does not only occur when someone dies. When relationships fall apart, you grieve. When opportunities are shattered, you grieve. When dreams die, you grieve. When illnesses wreck you, you grieve.  So I’m going to repeat a few words I’ve uttered countless times; words so powerful and honest they tear at the hubris of every jackass who participates in the debasing of the grieving:  Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried."

-Tim Lawrence

During the pandemic, I noticed a concerning trend among “spiritual white women” in my online communities. People who had long identified as liberal, progressive people standing up for human rights suddenly swung far right and started quoting angel channelers who touted Trump as a “lightworker.” More so, they were using spiritual teachings and beliefs to justify making statements that flagrantly lacked empathy, were overtly or covertly white supremacist, and blamed the victim when others were getting oppressed.

As I watched in shock and horror as friends and colleagues got seduced by “pastel Q” QAnon- adjacent messaging and behaviors, I started teaching Spiritual Bypassing Recovery classes to help off ramp anyone who was ready to let go of these dangerous, harmful, oppressive, and self-harming beliefs and teachings. I also wrote a manuscript of a still unpublished book I called LOVE BIGGER: An Exploration of Spirituality Without Spiritual Bypassing, which I’ve decided to release in installments here on Substack for my paid subscribers.

My interest in this topic came from my own spiritual bypassing recovery journey. I too had dabbled in this way of thinking, only to realize with a dawn of awareness that hit me like a cannonball to my heart. I came to realize that my spiritual bypassing beliefs were not only enabling me to tolerate extremely abusive and narcissistic romantic partners and business colleagues in the name of “unconditional love” and a naive kind of “compassion.” They were also causing me to be abusive to others who were oppressed. I too was “blaming the victim,” not only in others, but in myself.

Instead of standing in solidarity with my oppressed sisters and brothers, I was parroting New Age spiritual teachers who were telling people to “get out of your victim story” and “take responsibility for everything that happens to you.” I was doing that to my own oppressed parts too, gaslighting myself and hurt other people, being unempathic and insensitive not only to others, but to myself, unwittingly but still abusively.

I had always considered myself a kind, good, and loving person. In fact, I inflated myself that way, thinking of myself as deserving a PhD in unconditional love, all because I had figured out how to love even the most monstrous individuals who did the most horrible things to me. What I wasn’t doing was unconditionally loving my own wounded parts. I wasn’t standing up for myself, and I wasn’t standing up for others who were oppressed. I was justifying my conflict avoidance and spiritualizing it, all the whole thinking I was all that.

And then the dawning awareness crashed down me and nearly floored me.

I consider myself very lucky that my cousin, a trauma therapist in San Diego named Rebecca Ching, introduced me to Internal Family Systems (IFS) only weeks after this horrifying wake up call. IFS turned out to be the perfect off ramp for my spiritual bypassing tendencies. It was the gentle exit out of a culty way of thinking that I had been at least partially indoctrinated into, and it was hurting me and causing me to hurt others.

That’s why I teamed up with IFS founder Dick Schwartz to teach Spirituality Without Bypassing, which you can sign up for her, and which also includes a copy of the LOVE BIGGER manuscript. I wanted to offer a gentle off ramp for anyone else who, like me, realized that they were using spiritual teachings and beliefs to cause self-harm and inadvertent harm to others.

The LOVE BIGGER book starts out with an embarrassing story of self-disclosure, wherein I out myself for my own bad behavior in the name of spouting abusive spiritual teachings. I’m ashamed to admit what I was guilty of doing, so I’ll put the story behind a paywall, only for my paid subscribers, just so it’s not Google searchable. I think it’s important as I teach this material that other people know I’m not putting myself on some high and mighty pedestal, as superior to those who I call out because of spiritual bypassing teachings. I’ve been there too. I’ve done this too. So here you go. Please be gentle with me as I hold myself accountable. And if you realize you might have been inadvertently causing harm to yourself or others, please be gentle with yourself too.

The reason I called the book LOVE BIGGER is because it takes a lot of love, a lot of BIG love, to off ramp from this kind of indoctrination. And it causes us to be far more loving, much more empathic, and kinder to ourselves and others. And isn’t that what spirituality is supposed to be about? Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater of spirituality. But let’s definitely throw out the bathwater. We’ll start here…with the wake up call that caused me to change my tune.