Let’s Talk About Spiritual Bypassing
After meaningful conversations across spaces I frequent, I’ve compiled a list of examples of spiritual bypassing, patterns that we can all fall into, often driven by fear and ignorance.
Spiritual bypassing is the practice of consciously or subconsciously using spiritual beliefs and frameworks to avoid dealing with uncomfortable emotions, psychological challenges, systemic and societal issues.
It can manipulate or dismiss others’ experiences under the guise of “higher” love, compassion, enlightenment.
Spiritual bypassing is another expression of deeply ingrained human hierarchies and systems of oppression, often rooted in speciesism, patriarchy, and toxic masculinity.
In its subtle forms, it can create harm in personal relationships by invalidating emotions and perpetuating power imbalances. When taken to extremes, it becomes the foundation for cult-like dynamics, fostering abuse on grand scale.
My hope is that this post sparks reflection and encourages a more authentic, compassionate spiritual practice that includes our human experiences and struggles, so we can support ourselves and others in a truly transformative way 
1. Minimizing Pain or Struggles
Responding to someone’s pain with phrases like, “Everything happens for a reason” or “You just need to raise your vibration.”
Effect: Invalidates the person’s feelings, discourages them from processing their emotions, and creates guilt for not “being spiritual enough”
2. Toxic Positivity
Enforcing “peace and love”, dismissing difficult conversations as “negative, unhelpful,” or urging compassion for those who have knowingly caused harm without accountability.
Effect: Silences meaningful dialogue, promotes emotional suppression, and isolates those grappling with systemic oppression (e.g. women, LGBTQIA+, marginalized communities), creating an atmosphere of avoidance and blame rather than healing.
3. Avoiding Accountability
Using phrases like, “This is your karma” “You chose this on a past life”, “You’re projecting your own issues onto me,” to deflect blame or responsibility.
Effect: Prevents genuine resolution of conflicts and shifts blame onto the other person
4. Blaming the Victim
Suggesting or implying that someone’s suffering is their own fault due to “low vibration” or “negative thinking” or any other factors.
Effect: Causes shame and self-doubt, especially for individuals seeking support and understanding during challenging times, can create severe psychological damage.
5. Forcing Forgiveness
Directly or indirectly pressuring others to forgive or accept perpetrators, without allowing space for healthy boundaries or emotional processing, for the sake of “harmony/peace/love” using phrases like, “Nobody’s perfect” or “Let’s just move forward together”, “Aggressors are human beings too”
Effect: Enables ongoing harm in relationships or communities. Makes victims feel inadequate and “less loving” for being “incapable of forgiveness”. Prioritizes superficial niceties over genuine healing or accountability, silencing those who have been hurt.
6. Policing Emotions and Tone
Criticizing, dismissing and chastising someone’s anger or grief stemming from trauma with statements like:
“Don’t be so negative”, “Have more compassion, you shouldn’t speak too harshly about this/them”
Effect: Suppresses authentic emotional expression and hinders healing. It shifts attention to personal discomfort rather than acknowledging the issue or the victim’s experience, preventing a safe and supportive space for recovery.
7. Exploiting Hierarchies of “Enlightenment”
Claiming superior spiritual wisdom to dismiss others’ concerns or invalidate their perspectives. For example, “You wouldn’t understand, you’re not in my same level of spiritual evolution”
Effect: Creates an unhealthy power dynamic that silences others and fosters feelings of inadequacy.
8. Using Detachment as a Shield
Emphasizing concepts like “non-attachment” or “the illusion of the material world” to justify neglecting responsibilities or avoiding emotional intimacy
Effect: Creates distance in relationships and prevents solution of real-world issues.
9. Glossing Over Social Issues
Dismissing systemic problems (e.g., racism, sexism, transphobia, inequality) with spiritual platitudes like, “We’re all one,” or “This is just part of the divine plan”
Effect: Invalidates lived experiences and stalls meaningful social change.
10. Overemphasis on Self-Responsibility
Insisting that people are solely responsible for everything they experience (e.g., “You manifested this” “You are what you attract, so You attracted this toxic person”).
Effect: Can be severely harmful, discourages empathy and shifts the focus away from systemic and external factors.
11. Performative Spirituality
Creating an “image” of spiritual benevolence while hiding your struggles or “shadows”, because acknowledging it feels like either too painful or a threat to your spiritual persona.
Offering surface-level concern like, “Sending love and light,” without genuinely engaging with the affected person/community’s needs or struggles.
Effect: Can halt your own maturity, authentic healing and wholeness as a person. Can come across as self-serving, dismissive or insincere, leaving other people feeling unseen or unsupported.
