I’m Fine – Really, I am.
This past weekend I attended a retreat with a well-known author and teacher. There was numerous conversations and references to the unfortunate presence of spiritual bypassing throughout metaphysical communities. While I am in complete agreement with the necessity to be on the lookout for spiritual bypass, I believe that it's important that we look at all sides of this subject.
Let me see if I can break this down for you in a really straightforward way. Yes, it's gonna feel like I am measuring individuals, but I am not doing this with any sense of being superior or making anyone inferior. The measurement is really the reflection of the length of time one has invested in their spiritual and metaphysical practices and the rewards that they are reaping.
Let's first look at spiritual bypass in a very down and dirty way. Spiritual bypass is when we try to experience a sense of fulfillment and or enlightenment without looking at our shadow or a pain and trauma. We often do this with ourselves but sometimes when we are not being responsible, we also do this to other individuals. This is a very important thing for practitioners, ministers, coaches, and healers to pay attention to. We want to be people that encourage others to affirm themselves but first be able to look at the ugly of our own humanity.
I have no illusions about the path that I've walked to get where I am. I feel confident about myself as a coach and a teacher. I am clear that I have walked through much pain and suffering, while having also been a perpetrator of pain and suffering. I never attempt to delude myself of this reality. I don't want to hide from it and I don't want to pretend it wasn't part of who I am.
Here is the point I want to leave you with – and you, and only you must decide where you are along the continuum of spiritual and emotional maturity – when an individual is a neophyte and they are asked, “How are you?” often they can feel obligated to say they are ‘fine’ while really not being fine - spiritual bypass. Telling someone who has just lost a loved one that the loved one is in a better place, so they don’t have to fret – spiritual bypass for sure – and cruel. But when one has spent years in a metaphysical and spiritual community and they come to understand that they have a body, but they are not their body, that they have a mind, but they are not their mind, and they feel completely grounded in the Unity of all that is, things mature. When you ask an individual who has basked in this work for decades, if they are okay, even when they might be feeling off, they might still answer you in the affirmative because they know that while they aren’t feeling 100%, they are still okay, still fine.
This can be quite confusing to one looking in, and unless we really know the individual with whom we are speaking, we must trust their answer. Here is the point, the very same answer FINE, can be bypass or can be truth – the difference, where is the person coming from who answered. FINE can be true or not true, it can be real or be spiritual bypass, but it totally depends on your level of experience.
Let’s wake up, practice some radical honesty, and be authentic in who we are.
#livelifegloriously #MichelleWadleigh.com #PlannedHappinessInstitute.com
Photo credit: Anastasiya Gepp
