Spiritual Bypassing — We Need to Hurt in Order to Heal

August 16th, 2017

By Lissa Rankin, MD

Guest writer for Wake Up World

Ten years ago, when I quit my job in the hospital, I had just been through a series of traumas and I was hurting so badly I didn’t know how to cope. That’s part of why I quit my job — because I was in and out of feeling suicidal and I just wanted to stop hurting. So many of the people I knew were obviously hurting too, but they were trying to cover it up with addictions, overworking, dissociating, and defense mechanisms like denial. I didn’t want to numb or otherwise avoid the painful feelings I was having, but it felt like feeling my pain was going to be a full-time job for a while. My grief was so consuming, and I had stuffed down a decade of past grief alongside it, that I was afraid I’d be flooded if I allowed myself to feel the torrent of grief I could sense was running like a current of rapids under my barely dressed up heart.

Like many do, I turned to the spiritual path to help me cope, experimenting with retreats at Esalen, walking the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral, pilgrimages to sacred sites, shamanic drumming, guided meditation, silent meditation retreats, yoga, prayer, indigenous spirituality, self-help books, spirituality conferences, cacao ceremonies, ecstatic dance, despacho ceremonies, and pretty much every other “spirituality-du-jour” experience one could have without trying drugs or plant medicines. I became a spiritual tourist, bliss-hunting for the next spiritual high…

Until I realized I had just found another way to bypass my pain.

I was using spirituality to avoid feeling not just my own personal pain, but the global pain I could feel in my own heart and body. (Fellow empaths, you know what I’m talking about here.)

CONTINUE READING:

Recommended articles by Lissa Rankin:

• The Unmistakable Link Between Unhealed Trauma and Physical Illness
• Satisfying Our Emotional Needs Without Being Codependent
• Relationships on the Spiritual Path
• How to Make Your Body Ripe for Miracles
• Are You “Spiritual But Not Religious?”
• 9 Practical Tips to Help You Find Your Calling
• 10 Fun Ways to Reduce Your Cortisol Levels
• 6 Stories To Make You Believe In The Power Of The Mind To Heal You
• 7 Tips For Finding Your Tribe
• Holding Space When Someone Is In Pain
• 10 Surprising Things That Trigger “Fight-Or-Flight”
• Medical Error is Still the #3 Cause of Death in the U.S. – Are We Really Okay With This?

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