I have seen several posts about spiritual bypass over the last few days and felt encouraged to write one myself.

Spiritual bypass can be described as using spirituality to cover up what we need to work on at other levels, such as psychological, emotional, and interpersonal issues.

It means denying or bypassing our own (or other people’s) deeper issues, wounds, or problematic behaviors on those levels in the name of spirituality.

When someone bypasses their issues this way, they may use spiritual concepts to explain their experiences, emotions, and behaviors instead of looking at and working on them.

So, instead of allowing the teachings to help them heal old wounds, become aware of and work on old patterns, or go through a deep transformation that frees them from old baggage, they use spiritual concepts to cover it up.

Spiritual bypass is a way of denying certain aspects of reality.

But learning spiritual concepts and having spiritual experiences will only free us from our egos and old pain if we are also willing to see reality and work on what we need to work on.

We may know a lot intellectually (many people do), but unless we also do the work to embody that knowledge, we have only scratched the surface.

Some people stay there. For different reasons, they learn concepts and make them their new reality. And it’s understandable because awakening is sometimes difficult, and not everyone is ready to go deep.

But it can become problematic when people who only stay on the surface or in the spiritual realms begin to lead others in the same direction. For example, I recently heard about someone telling a person to get over their trauma – as if it was something they could just get over. And that’s unhealthy.

I have also heard people say we don’t need to pay attention to our emotions “because it’s all an illusion anyway.”

There is also a difference between healthy emotions and old emotional patterns. And we can learn the difference as we work through our old issues and free ourselves.