Spiritual Bypassing as a Response to Relational Trauma

When we jump from trauma to spirituality, we often miss a very important step in our recovery and transformation. We transcend our darkness and move into light. We forgive ourselves and our perpetrators. We ‘wake up’ and relabel ourselves as ‘Conscious’, ‘Empath’, ‘Spiritual warrior’, ‘Self-healer’. And in the moment that we do this, we dis-identify with the wounded fragments of ourselves that have been screaming, raging, weeping and asking for a space to be heard. 

This is spiritual bypassing:

Spirituality is a very attractive alternative to our own pain. And to the intricate mess of fragments that are jostling inside our psyche, soma and soul.

Spirituality is a choice… but….

Spirituality is not so different to religion, except we choose it. It is not given to us. So when we choose spirituality, there is a feeling of great empowerment. And this decision to be a spiritual being can feel like ‘waking up’ and walking away from our traumatized self. For many of us who have experienced relational trauma, it may be the first time we have really chosen our reality. The choice feels like a lovely delicious drug. We do need to learn to choose. Empowerment and choice are a key ingredient in the recipe to trauma recovery. But in my experience, we need to choose to delve into our shadows and mess and follow the threads to the core of our pain. We need to reach into ourselves not reach out and beyond ourselves to an abstract god/source/light/love.  Reaching out to something higher can be a resource, a pit-stop. But it is not a final destination or a cure.

Spiritual Community provides belonging…but…

Another thing that spirituality offers is community and connection. And in the case of relational trauma, we are often craving this so very deeply. We are desperate for connection, family, co-regulation. We are often devoid of love. So the promise of being met by other ‘woke’ people is extremely enticing. Because it provides a sense of belonging. When we are recovering from trauma, we do need to find belonging. But in my experience, the belonging must come from people who are open to understanding the layers of our experience, not from people who are orienting, to yet another constructed external shell; in this case a spiritual shell. When we seek to belong from a façade, we will always be alone with our internal self.  What is interesting here, is that while we may find a sense of belonging, it may be triggering very deep organizing principles that tell us ‘I must behave a certain way in order to belong and receive love. The other parts of me are not welcome here, they are not good. So I better shut them up and stuff them down.’  This evokes a deep sense of shame, and the feeling that something is inherently wrong with us. So we better pretend otherwise. For anyone that has experienced any kind of abuse or neglect, this is often one of the core wounds at play. And in this way, spirituality serves to make it even more true. We abandon ourselves in favor of something that is more acceptable; more lovable. Love and acceptance are exactly what we are craving. We will do just about anything to get it.

Spirituality provides ways to self-regulate… but…

Many practices that are associated with spirituality help us gain a sense of control over our emotions and actions. Meditation brings us calm and peace. Yoga brings us mindfulness and the ability to ride and transform difficult sensations. While these tools are wonderful for self-regulation and managing ourselves, they may also help us avoid and disassociate from our emotions and the somatic signals that are trying to call us into our bodies for processing. Control is a key topic to explore here. Often we turn to spirituality in the first place because we feel out of control, and we need to find something to help us feel a little bit safer. Here, spirituality is like a beautiful warm safety blanket that we can wrap ourselves up and hide from the world in.  It is a self-regulating and coping mechanism. But perhaps the transformation we feel as we engage in spiritual practice is helping us disassociate from our trauma more and more… until a trigger comes a long that rips of the blanket and leaves naked and shivering alone in the big bad 3D world. When I consider the concept of hiding, managing and coping, there is a connection to suppression and lack of authentic voice. I see clients when the spiritual blankets have been rudely ripped off them. And they are terrified, because they can no longer hide from all the emotions that have been suppressed and hidden for so long.  They are spilling out and wreaking havoc; threatening their sense of spiritual self. There is always a need to connect in to them and allow the authentic voice to bellow out and be heard. There is often terror, anger, grief, shame and sometimes disgust, begging to have a space to be seen and heard.

Seen and heard. This is at the crux of a lot of it.

Ultimately, we all want to be seen and heard, but in the case of relational trauma it has not been safe to express. We have been afraid to be hurt, or abandoned, neglected or rejected. Or we have been terrified to cause distress to another. So we shut up, buck up and create a personality that is safe to interface with the world. I call this our ‘external shell’.

When it comes to jumping from trauma to spirituality, we often discard one shell for another, better shell. A spiritual shell. Nothing changes, except the external. Internally we are the same wounded animal, that needs to howl and writhe and be held and comforted.

In my treatment room, this is always, without fail, what emerges.

Spirituality moves us towards consciousness and allows us to dis-identify from ego…but…

There are so many ‘spiritual warriors’ online who invite us to acknowledge when we are moving from ego and shift into consciousness. This can be SO helpful for challenging and changing the way we behave in the world, particularly in our close relationships. But there is a deep bypass occurring here. This concept basically tells us: ‘Notice when you are triggered. Do not behave that way. It is bad. It is your ego. And your ego is your enemy. Don’t listen to it’.

Ego =  bad

Consciousness = good

Did you know that the ego is your psyche? That it is our human self, that has been constructed as a reaction to everything we have experienced. Do you know that it is an amalgam of all our childhood experiences; and in the case of relational trauma, it holds all the fragments of ourselves that have been harmed, neglected and told to shut up and that something is wrong with us?

When our ego starts acting out or wreaking havoc, it is almost always a triggered fragment hijacking our experience. There is a part of ourselves that is deeply distressed and needs to be seen and heard. This fragment is having a tantrum! So when we engage in the spiritual practice of acknowledging our reactions or ‘mis-behaviours’ as our bad ego, and switching to our conscious higher self, we are basically telling this traumatized part of ourselves to shut up. We are engraining the childhood experience that tells us we are bad, wrong and shameful. This practice is self-shaming avoids listening to our young traumatized selves. It is akin to telling a tantruming child to go sit alone in a corner and come back when they are ready to be a good boy or girl. Basically this practice tells up ‘shut up, shut up shut up!’.

When you tell a child to shut up often enough, one of two things will happen: 1) They will shut up eternally. They will shut down and disconnect. 2) They will rebel and rage and tantrum to make you hear them. Often response 1) is followed by response 2), later in life. (Response 2 may look like meltdowns or emotional outbursts, but it may look like engaging in risky behavior or it may look like a mid-life crisis or nervous breakdown, or the onset of some strange medical condition).

I find this experience can be repeated when we jump from trauma to spirituality. Response 1) is the shift into spirituality, where we find our good, graceful selves. Response 2) comes when the triggers break through the façade.

In my treatment room, we make a safe space to allow that breaking down to occur. For the spiritual oppression and the developmental oppression to be shattered.

There is often a feeling of being trapped at play. Once the shattering occurs, there can be feelings of freedom, liberty, relief…. For some it as if they are broken out from living in a black box or under water their whole lives. It is a very physical, embodied experience to no longer be hiding and holding, simply in order to survive in this world.

Our ego is not inherently bad. Our ego may be traumatized. 

Don’t get me wrong, we do need conscious awareness to identify our triggers and challenge our behaviors. But we also need to ask ‘why?’.

 ‘Why am I triggered?’ 

‘What happened to me to cause this reaction?’

‘What emotion is at play?’

‘What belief or organizing principle is at play?’

‘What have I not expressed that needs a space here?’

‘What is that I need and did not receive? Can I give that to myself now? If not, can I seek someone to provide it for me?’

These are the questions and processes that can be missed when jump from ego to consciousness.

These are the questions and processes that are fundamental to trauma recovery.

In my humble (or maybe not-so humble) opinion, in order to truly recover from relational trauma, we have to listen to these very difficult fragments of self. We have to find enough safety to feel wildly unsafe. Feel our pain. Understand the why. Move through the chaos. Allow our injured animal to be seen, held and accepted. Hopefully we can find a way to do this with support and safety, that allows an element of gentleness and grace to contain the experience. 

And that’s what I hold space for every day at the clinic.

Spirituality is a beautiful resource. It provides safety, hope and holding.

If you have read this far, I would like to offer a topic of self-inquiry to you:

Is there something more beneath the surface? Is there a split between your spiritual shell and your internal self?

If the answer is yes, then my invitation, is to start to listen to the places of dissonance. It may not feel great.  Because when you listen to them, you will have to feel them. You will return to all those fragments who have been calling you. Wrap them up in your self-loving arms. It is time to go a layer deeper into your recovery and transformation. Go gently.

If you have read this article and are feeling emotions and content coming up for processing, I invite you to reach out via social media to connect. I will always respond.  

With love,

Natalia Rachel