I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic of spiritual bypassing. The term and idea have not only come up in my personal spiritual journey, but also as a topic in our current political environment, where we see a backlash against what appears to be demands for positivity to the point where any criticism of current leadership is to be repressed as negative. Or as I’ve heard it phrased, a focus on “love and light, love and light.” One might be tempted to think, what’s wrong with focusing on the positives in life? If we are talking about true spiritual bypassing, then there are several problems with this type of denial and/or repression. First of all, it keeps us from dealing with the core issues of a real problem. Anything you repress or deny tends to build power over time. It’s like a sore that you haven’t treated which then festers into an infection. It can also be harmful to others when you refuse to acknowledge the reality of their pain or sorrow.
In my own journey this past year, I’ve continually bristled at a concept in Gurdjieff’s The Work, which is around the expression of “negative” emotions. The concept is nuanced, so you have to dig into the ideas to understand what’s truly meant by them. First of all, the term negative doesn’t mean what immediately comes to mind. Positive and negative in this context do not translate into “good” and “bad,” respectively. Positive and negative are simply about frequencies of energy, where positive increases and negative decreases. For the most part, the term is referring to the misplaced identification of an emotion to an experience that then gets stuck. So instead of experiencing the present moment of a situation as a unique event, you are re-experiencing the emotion that is applied to a past memory. For example, I grew up in a large family with toxic power dynamics and perpetual fighting. So instead of experiencing a group dynamic as a unique experience each time, I immediately start to feel the anxiety that I experienced in my family dynamic. I tense up and have an expectation that the group will be uncooperative. I feel a toxic power dynamic that may not even be present. This is an example of a negative emotion and if we think about it, we can have a few thousand of these wrongly applied emotions attached to past experiences. These stored emotions keep us from experiencing our life in the moment, as an unfolding series of unique events.
The reason I was struggling with this concept — and still struggling with it — is in the way it’s communicated in its simplified form. I’m quite new to The Work, but I had dug into the concept a bit and understood some of the nuances of this idea. But on its face, each time it was suggested we not “express negative emotions,” I immediately equated this to a repression of emotion. What is the opposite of expression after all but repression or oppression? As I looked around me, I also felt that this concept was being misinterpreted by more than a few people and some who had been practicing The Work for many years. I think what The Work is trying to accomplish is to put some space between the actual experience and our emotion of that experience. Otherwise, we won’t be able to transform the identification fully because the expression is so habitual. That makes some sense to me, but I’ve found this directive really hard to accomplish without some sort of repression of energy which turns inward and is harmful to the self. In my experience, I’ve been able to transform these areas more productively by the conscious observation and exploration of the emotion and what’s behind the emotion. How is this emotion trying to protect me? The Work does teach you to self-observe and non-identify which is key. I find I have to do this work with complete self-acceptance and unconditional self-love, which is similar to the term “self-remembering” in The Work. This exploration includes expression of the emotion through journaling, dramatizing, or other creative outlets. I believe that the only way to fully transform an emotion that has been misapplied is to fully release the energy that is stuck, which to me means expressing the energy.
When I first began struggling with this concept, struggling because I felt it was an attempt to tame my spirit rather than release my spirit to its natural state, I happened upon this book Taming the Wind of Desire. The book described Malay shamanic rituals that were focused on curing illnesses due to blockages of “Inner Winds.” The term “Inner Winds” is closely aligned to Western concepts of temperament or personality, but to me seems to more closely align to a person’s natural essence. In the book, the Malay culture is described as being emotionally repressive. Through elaborate theatrical rituals which the ill person takes an active part, they experience the emotional release that clears the blockage and in turn helps them get back in touch with their true spirit or essence. It was after reading this book that I felt more confident in the way I was approaching my healing.
As I’ve pondered this idea further, I’ve come to realize The Work concept is not really communicating that we repress our feelings. We need to let the energies pass through us anew in each moment. To do that we need to create some separation from our impulsive reactions. We still feel our feelings, we just don’t identify with them or get stuck in the emotion. Emotions are intelligent, but they can’t be useful unless we understand what’s at the core. We need to ride the wave of our emotions all the way through to make sure we understand what they are trying to tell us. It is then and only then can we make productive use of them. If we are always in reactive mode, our responses can be counterproductive and continue a cycle of negativity.
I write all of this to illustrate a few different things related to spiritual bypassing. First of all, I think some of this is about the misinterpretation of complex concepts. I think misinterpretations can stem both from the people relaying the information and the people receiving the information. I know there is a lot more complexity to the concept of negative emotions in The Work which I haven’t even uncovered yet. Yet, I also feel that it would help tremendously if some of the overview materially were explained more concisely, especially with the modernization of terms. On the other hand, my reactions to the communication of the concept may just be an illustration of what the concepts are trying to convey. It’s something to think about.
I think sometimes what people are witnessing in spiritual communities is indeed spiritual bypassing. But in some cases, it’s a conscious effort to see things as they are and choose to respond differently. If you have an overabundance of negative energy expressed in the world, then it can be even more important to counterbalance those energies by expressing something positive. It’s critical that this not be a mere attempt to ignore the reality of the situation, but rather, to acknowledge that reality and consciously choose to redirect some of the energy and to give positive energy equal force. Martin Luther King’s living example illustrates the tension between the obligation to “stand up for what’s right and … oppose [what’s] wrong” while understanding that “returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” The first and most important step to making the world a better place is the work we need to do on ourselves. It’s not easy to live in this tension that Martin Luther King’s life exemplified. His example was so powerful that people thought him dangerous enough to kill. We have such little control over others, but our example can change the world.
Originally published at https://thehigherfrequencylife.medium.com on January 19, 2021.
