I was doing just this one late afternoon sometime before dinner and well after lunch. I was with one of my fellow ES’s when a yoga group workshop broke for the afternoon. The participants came into the lodge for a break.
This group had been at Esalen for the week. The theme of the workshop was something about “existing in love and peace.” I remember being impressed with them because then (and now) I could barely do yoga for one hour. Let alone a whole week!
Anyways, several members of the workshop came into the Lodge. And one saw that the drink container of lavender lemonade was empty. And, when explained by a fellow ES of mine who was working in the lodge with me, that it wouldn’t be refilled until dinner, they angrily exploded and cursed at my friend for not having more available given how much they were paying for the workshop.
Watching this play out, I was stunned that this person who had signed up for a workshop on existing in love and peace for a whole week then lost their sh*t over lemonade being unavailable to them! Where the heck did all the love and peace go?
Talking it over later with a friend, a longer term Esalen staff member, she told me about the term spiritual bypass and described it as a concept where people use spiritual principles or ideas to avoid dealing with their unresolved emotional issues and their strong “negative feelings” and instead sidestep this work through following and espousing “more positive feelings” or concepts. She also said that sometimes when folks do this, their “negative feelings” might leak out sideways surprising them and others with their intensity. Like what happened in the Lodge with the yogi and the staff member.
In the years since as I went to grad school, trained, and became a licensed psychotherapist, I came to connect the concept of “spiritual bypassing” with several other key therapeutic concepts I learned about: psychological disintegration, the Shadow Self, and projection on others.
I also learned why it’s so important we work to heal “spiritual bypassing” and what to do about it.
Spiritual Bypassing As a Form of Psychological Disintegration and Projection.
As I mentioned, “Spiritual Bypassing” is a term I learned about informally in my early days in California. I then later came to connect it to core therapeutic concepts. Like psychological disintegration, The Shadow, and projection.
Psychological disintegration is, essentially, when we consciously or unconsciously disown or disavow certain aspects of ourselves – usually the parts of us that are the hardest and most painful to acknowledge and own. In doing so we become disintegrated, we become psychologically un-whole.
