This episode is in response to an email I received a few weeks ago from a listener in Western Australia asking if I would address the topic of spiritual bypassing. I responded that I had never heard the term. So this listener replied with a definition from Wikipedia: Spiritual bypassing is a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks."
The email went on to explain “It occurs when one is unconscious of the ego having "shapeshifted" itself to take on a spiritual identity of sorts. For e.g. "I am not addicted to gambling because there is no self who is addicted. I am not the doer, I am not the gambler. Gambling is happening!" Of course, there are much subtler examples of this type of bypassing where people use spirituality to live in denial of mental, emotional or physical issues. Using God as a crutch or a scapegoat so to speak.”
I came across the term again recently. I was reading a 2020 book by Matthew Fox about the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich. In the Preface Mirabai Starr describes spiritual bypass as a term from contemporary Buddhist psychology and says it is “the impulse to check out of painful experiences by means of religious platitudes and practices.” In this episode I explore this topic and how Christian nonduality addresses it.
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