Are You Using Spirituality To Hide From Yourself? You Might Be Spiritual Bypassing!

What Is Spiritual Bypassing?

Spiritual bypassing is a phenomenon that can be defined as an unconscious avoidance of difficult issues and emotions through the use of your spiritual practices and beliefs.

With some compassion and curiosity, we can explore the possibility that we may be bypassing our triggers by hyper focusing on our spirituality and overlooking being human.

Join me for this discussion about spiritual bypassing to learn how our suffering can be used to unlock a new level of growth and consciousness expansion.

Instead of trying to meditate away your problems, you can use the power of your spiritual practice to take responsibility and look deeply into yourself with curiosity and compassion.

Discover how approaching rather than avoiding pain could lead to remarkable healing!

Watch the video below for more insights about spiritual bypassing.

-Kim

Learn about spiritual bypassing, what it is and how to work with it from Kim Burris, Holistic Psychotherapist.

THE TRANSCRIPT:

 Hello, beautiful people. Today I want to talk about spiritual bypassing.

It's a subject that's near and dear to my heart, and I think commonly misunderstood. So I'm gonna try to make it quick and easy, and give you some tidbits to think about.

So first and foremost, spiritual bypassing is when we are using our spirituality and our spiritual practices to avoid our personal growth, our human growth, or hoping that we don't have to do that work of looking at our relationships in a particular way... So an example being: you're fighting with your partner, your relationship is feeling really hard, you're struggling with your kids o… people, I think that's a good place to start.

Because most of us are struggling with other people in some way, because being human is hard. So if we're struggling in our relationship, we can say things like, if we're spiritually bypassing…say things like, well, if I just meditated enough or, you know, read more spiritual teachers or did more yoga, then I wouldn't be upset about these things.

So yes, on one hand, of course our spirituality, our spiritual practices are grounding and nourishing, are gonna provide an increase in our capacity to do deep spiritual work. But spiritual bypassing is when we say, if I just did more meditation, if I did more mantras, if I just prayed more, then I wouldn't be upset or mad at this person. I wouldn't be struggling anymore.

And if you can see the subtlety there, it's that we miss the opportunity to grow. So we miss the opportunity to use being human and use our psychology. Like what our inner child wounding is, what our attachment wounding is, what our subtle or not so subtle traumas are that are keeping us from being at our full capacity, which includes our spiritual capacity and evolution.

But we can use the idea of spirituality: If I was just more spiritual, then I wouldn't be upset about…you know, my husband or my child or whatever, I wouldn't be jealous. I wouldn't be insecure. So the invitation here is to really just check in with yourself, using your spirituality for the deepest and highest level of growth and evolution that you can, and just be checking in to see, am I saying things like this to myself?

Oh, if only I were more spiritual than I wouldn't be upset. Whatever it is, that's usually a great place to go deeper into your spirituality, get some support for looking at where can I grow and evolve here by using my humanness, using my struggles, not just using my spiritual practices to not have struggles.

Cuz you're human, you're gonna struggle. Being human is a wild, wacky ride.

Those are my thoughts. I hope that feels helpful for you. If you have any questions, shoot me a message. And if you want more support in this realm, working with a spiritual therapist to look at some of your deeper programming, some of your childhood woundings that might still be showing up and interrupting, interfering with you being your best self, send me a message. and book an appointment below.

Me and my team are here. We work with clients all across California and would love to support you. All right, take care. Talk soon. Bye.

-Kim

Integrative Psychotherapy at The Holistic Counseling Center

I hope this post gave you a better understanding of how to identify if and where you might be spiritually bypassing and sabotaging your own growth! If you’re looking for support on your healing journey, our team of qualified, licensed therapists would be honored to support you. We can help you access your higher self, tune into your intuition, heal from your past and help you create a life you love.

If this article resonated with you, and you're ready to be supported, you can book a complimentary consultation call today to chat with one of our experienced holistic therapists. After we chat, we'll match you with one of our awesome therapists, and if it feels like a good fit, you can schedule your first appointment!

We are accepting new clients for in-person counseling in our El Dorado Hills location, and offer virtual therapy for anyone in California.

Find out more about our team HERE and more about our fees HERE.

We truly look forward to working with you and supporting you!

-Kim

Meet Kim

Kim Burris is a licensed holistic psychotherapist, founder of The Holistic Counseling Center, and author of ‘The First 90 Days After Birth.’

She honors the mind, body, spirit connection and offers evidence-based treatment with a heart centered approach, integrating the depth of western psychology with the heart and soul of eastern mysticism.

Kim and her team currently offer holistic counseling to individuals in El Dorado Hills, CA and online. Click HERE to book a no-cost consultation call.