Did you realize this is actually a bad habit?!

All my life I thought my fortitude and inner strength was an asset. I thought my ability to compartmentalize and bypass my emotions was a different type of intelligence. I could always find the bright side of any situation whether it was in the form of a lesson or as part of connecting the dots of "well if that didn't happen then I wouldn't have met so and so". It is only in these last couple of years that I learned what I was doing has a name and it was a form of spiritual bypassing.

For me, this all started as a child. When I was in the third grade, my teacher asked me why I had missed school and I told her my father was in the hospital with brain cancer. She immediately started crying. Until that moment, I hadn't truly understood the weight of that diagnosis. When I got home from school I was upset with my parents for not explaining everything to me. I remember my mom sat me down on my bed and told me that if I wanted to know more then I had to be strong for everyone else and I couldn't be emotional. Well, I was a young child and took that to the extreme as a rule to live by for the rest of my life.

I think we all tend to learn to bypass and compartmentalize our emotions so that we can continue functioning in the world. It is what most of us have been taught and it has been passed down from generation to generation. It is a strength because it helps us survive on some level but it isn't truly in our best interest as a human. It actually keeps our emotions stuck within us on a deep subconscious level and as the saying goes "feelings buried alive never die".

Our society doesn't accept that our emotional well-being is important. Your mother can die and you are expected to be at work on Monday and have a death certificate in hand for why you missed work on Friday. We suppress our feelings because we are forced to get back to normal as quickly as possible. This isn't just death, it is miscarriages, rape, breakups, divorce, illness, domestic violence, abuse, and more.

On top of that, we aren't taught or educated on how to grieve or process our emotions. There are over 3,000 words in the English language to define emotions but we are clueless on what to do with them. If they are positive it is easy and acceptable to let them out, but if they are negative it is shameful and something you are encouraged to keep inside.

Spiritual bypassing by definition is a "tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks".

I honestly never saw my own habit as a spiritual practice. It was simply a coping mechanism. I would block off my emotions and try to outsmart them with my rational and logical mind. I would look for something positive that came from the trauma and then keep moving forward. I could always put a positive spin on anything that came up in my life story. I know this still probably sounds like a strength, right?

Spiritual bypassing isn't a strength though. When you bypass you actually push part of you down into the subconscious, many people refer to this as our shadow side. It is a side that goes unseen to the people around us but it does affect how we see, process, and respond to the world around us.

The bigger the shadow becomes, the more healing work you have to do. It creates denser energy within you. Part of your overall vitality is weighed down because you are using your vital energy to suppress your emotions on a deep unconscious level. This shadow becomes an anchor and weighs you down. How can you experience truly immense joy and happiness if there is always a part of you that is suppressed and heavy underneath it all?

I have found that the bigger the shadow becomes, the more you try to outrun it. You tend to overwork, people-please, and escape. You may become chronically ill or develop an autoimmune condition. You may binge on Netflix or you have to drink after work, you get high to numb your pain, you turn to casual sex, you eat your emotions, or whatever your choice of escapism is - that thing you are avoiding and running from is your own healing. You are only holding yourself back.

I'm still very curious why we are all so scared of dealing with our emotions and facing our past. Most of my clients say they just don't know how to deal with them or what to do about them so avoidance and pretending like everything is fine feels like the only option. I can understand that because we have never been taught how to heal our spirit but why not get curious? We tend to avoid unless a life-changing event occurs that rattles us to the core and forces us to face ourselves.

For me, that was a five-year journey with "chronic" illness. I thought it was chronic by all definitions but in reality, my physical body was merely a reflection of my spirit. When I healed the past and let go of everything I had been suppressing, my body healed too.

So, how do we heal our spirit? What are we supposed to do with all of these events and emotions that we have suppressed for so long? Sometimes we have been clinging to these stories for so long that it can be scary to confront because we don't know who we would be without them. I have three tips to help you get started.

First, we have to shed some light on the shadows. We have to understand what we have been suppressing and how it has shaped and molded us. I like to do this work with my clients by focusing on each of the seven energy centers of the body. This helps us address a whole variety of questions that can shed light on the past and on different ages of our development. Often times we have been suppressing things so deeply we have blocked them out from our memory. Thinking about phases of your life you can't remember can also shed a light on where to begin.

Everyone processes in different ways. I think journaling is one of the best activities to do, especially if you have some helpful journal prompts to guide you. For others, it is easier to engage in dialogue like therapy or spiritual life coaching. Doing somatic breathwork or deep guided relaxations can also help healing occur without even focusing on any specific event. Our tissues are holding the issues so these practices can allow us to let go on a more physical level too.

Secondly, it is important to reframe your understanding of emotions. There are no bad and good emotions. We are human, we are supposed to experience them all. You are not a robot that was meant to just work and fulfill obligations in life. Embrace your humanity. Facing the heavy emotions you have locked up inside you will liberate you to feel happiness and joy more fully too. It will also help you stop self-sabotaging, develop more compassion, gain clarity and insight, and improve your relationships.

Emotions are a type of energy in motion. They only tend to last about a minute. If you were to allow yourself to fully and deeply feel your emotions then the energy would keep moving through you. If you choose to block them out then you suppress the energy and it gets locked inside you. Anything more than 60 seconds tends to be you feeding into the emotions with your own thoughts and energy.

I encourage you to test this out the next time something difficult happens. Fully allow yourself to feel it without feeding into it and see just how long it lasts. This doesn't mean the emotion won't arise again but if you take the same approach, you should find much less emotional turmoil.

Third, notice your triggers. Anytime you are triggered with a big emotional reaction it is a sign that you have healing work to do. Ask yourself if your best friend, coworker, or brother would respond in the same way. Then you can reflect on what happened in the past that makes you get triggered by that situation, conversation, topic, or response.

I hope this has helped shed some light on how you may be spiritually bypassing and holding yourself back from being the fullest version of yourself or what could be contributing to your autoimmune disease or chronic illness.

Facing our fears, addressing the past, dealing with our triggers, and truly healing our wounds are crucially important in healing the mind, body, and spirit. Feel free to share the article with friends that may connect with it too and subscribe if you want to keep learning more.