Spiritual · Practice
Spiritual Bypassing Worksheet
Presence, not performance
Spiritual bypassing — John Welwood's term — is using spirituality to avoid unresolved emotional and psychological work. Common; well-meaning; costly.
Signs to watch for in myself
- 'Everything happens for a reason' as a way to skip grief
- Forgiveness urged before boundaries are set
- Positivity used to shut down real pain
- Detachment framed as enlightenment
- Anger seen as spiritually inferior
- Trauma reframed as 'the universe teaching me' before it's felt
Where I've been bypassing lately
What the un-bypassed version would look like
Feeling the feeling, naming the wrong, holding both the pain and the practice
Presence, not performance
Real spirituality includes rage, grief, doubt, and mess. A spirituality that requires you to be calm about everything is a spirituality of avoidance.