Spiritual Bypassing
3 Shadow Sides of Spirituality That Holds You Back
Everything that has light casts a shadow
1. Superiority Complex
When we awaken, we do all these spiritual practices that ground and heal us. These practices allow us to see all of our old patterns and habits that weren't serving us and we shed them, past baggage, and old limiting beliefs. Spiritual awakening allows us to do so much work and healing on ourselves and suddenly we look at others and see ourselves as superior to them.
The awakened person starts to think that they’re better than an unawakened person. This is so detrimental because, as awakened people, we shouldn't be judging the lifestyle of others. Everybody is on their own unique journey and just because the path of another person is different doesn't mean it's not the right path.
It's important for the awakened to remember that they didn't awaken because they are special or hand-picked by God but because they weren't on the right path. Superiority complex is an ego that’s still in control even after awakening.
To be awakened is to have compassion for everybody, even the unawakened. When we go about judging others and the path they're on, it just shows that we aren't really in our heart's center. It means that we are still operating from our ego, which is on overdrive.
When you’re in your heart center, what you're going to feel for others isn't judgment or pity, it's going to be empathy and an understanding that people’s journeys are different and perfect for them even if to you it isn't. You're going to understand that everybody is doing the best they can, and it isn't up to you to point things out. That's the universe’s job. When you understand this, you will give people a break and realize that everybody is doing the best they can at the level of consciousness they're in.
It’s important to remember that you didn’t awaken because you’re better, special or hand-picked by God, but because you weren’t on the right path.
2. Chasing Bliss
There's often something the spiritually awakened focuses too intently on, and that's the pursuit of happiness. We chase after the initial bliss we felt at the beginning of the spiritual awakening journey, only to be terribly let down when we realize that there’s no special pot of gold for us at the end of the rainbow.
You may not recognize chasing bliss as a trap because it’s happiness and we all want it, but chasing bliss on the spiritual path can be a huge distraction. We chase and chase and we’re never okay with what we have and where we are on our journey. It’s the reason many people give up on their spiritual journey when they never get the prize they were expecting.
When you chase happiness, bliss, ecstasy, or enlightenment, you do so out of a place of escapism. If you're being honest, you'll see that you chase these things because you don't like where you currently are.
Happiness or bliss isn't something you need to chase. It's something you go deep within to uncover. It may be buried under a bunch of other emotions, but it's always there. You never get the things you chase, anyway. It eludes you, but when you stop chasing, it appears in front of you.
If you're chasing something on your spiritual journey and you notice this shadow, take a deep breath and ask yourself what's wrong. Ask why you're not okay with where you are and what you already have. If you're not okay now, you may never be because you create your future based on your present emotional state.
Chasing bliss is the reason many people give up on their spiritual journey when they never get the prize they were hoping for.
3. Toxic Positivity
Toxic positivity is focusing only on positive emotions and rejecting anything negative. It is when a person only acknowledges the positive things and aspects of themselves, turning a blind eye to the negative things.
When you bypass your negative emotions, they don’t disappear. They don’t evaporate out of you. You carry it around and it weighs you down. Emotions are energy in motion and energy can’t be destroyed. Emotions also aren’t negative or positive. They just are. We use positive or negative in regards to how positively or negatively they make us feel.
The only way you can get rid of an emotion is to feel and process it so it can be transformed into whatever emotion you choose.
As a human being, you are going to feel a huge array of emotions, from bliss to sadness to anger, and that's okay. There’s nothing wrong with feeling sad or angry.
Toxic positivity can cause a lot of pain and unhappiness because, at the end of the day, when you’re done pretending life is all sunshine and rainbows, you are left with yourself and your emotions. You’re not going to be authentic in your day-to-day because instead of healing what doesn’t feel good, you’re bypassing significant emotions that have something very important to teach you.
When you bypass an emotion, it doesn’t disappear. It doesn’t evaporate out of you. You carry it around.
One more — Dwelling on The Healing
When we go through an awakening, there’s a lot of stuff that comes to the surface to be healed. A lot of past trauma and pain bubbles up to the surface so we can look at it and then let it go for good which is good but sometimes we get too invested in digging deep to find things to heal that we don’t know when it’s done.
We get to the bottom of the pit and we don’t realize that we’re at the bottom so we keep digging and scratching and we wear ourselves out. We dwell on the healing and don’t realize that we may have done all the healing we need to do for the time being.
When you fall down and scrape your elbow, you go home and dress your wound and you give the wound time to heal. Even though it may still hurt, you don't rip the bandage off and pick at the scab. It’s not going to heal if you keep doing that.
There’s a fine line between digging to heal and digging to dwell. Know when you’ve reached the bottom of the pit and can’t dig any further. Know when you’ve done and healed what you need to do and heal. You don’t want to get stuck in the bottom of the pit for years trying to heal something you’ve already healed.
Read further:
📖 The Shadow Side of Your Higher Self 📖 3 Things to Understand When You Wake Up First 📖 The 6 Life-Altering Stages of a Spiritual Awakening 📖 The 3 Stages of the Spiritual Journey No One Talks About 📖 Shadow Work: A Simple Guide to Transcending The Darker Aspects of The Self
