"Spiritual bypassing" — discussed at Metafilter, here.
From the first link:
Spiritual bypassing can sometimes be difficult to spot because it is often very subtle. However, looking at examples can help make this phenomenon more apparent:
- Following the death of a loved one, people tell surviving relatives that the deceased is “in a better place” and that it was “all part of God’s plan.”
- A woman is angry and upset about something that someone else has done. When she tries to share her feelings, her friends tell her to stop being so negative.
- A relative regularly crosses boundaries and behaves in ways that are hurtful to other family members. Rather than confront this behavior, those who have been harmed feel that they need to repress their anger and remain overly tolerant.
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22 comments:
Examples two and three are the same.
Of course this culture should see nihilism and despair as virtues.
In fact, they are the greatest of evils.
Sometimes we all find ourselves in darkness. But some prefer the darkness and they refuse to come to the light or they run from the light.
And of course that some others should adopt a symbol of horrific suffering (the Roman execution method of the cross) to believe in and promote as good news to the world the highest good (new and eternal life) is totally foreign and a mystery to the former.
I was in such bad shape that my metaphysician ordered a triple spiritual bypass ,,,
You know what also doesn't perpetuate toxic positivity and permanent optimism?
Telling someone who lectures you about spiritual bypassing when you're dealing with the loss of a loved one to go fuck themselves.
The infotainment superhighway profits from enabling neurotics.
In fact, if, eventually, you are not able to rise above negativity, you will not be well. Except perhaps in the opinion of people who think going through life with a permaggrieved attitude is healthy.
It may take a civilization-destroying catastrophe to free us from a certain class of people who have way too much time on their hands and are using it to undermine this life of convenience our ancestors left for us. Is that enough of a rejection of positivity and optimism?
Then again, that may be playing right into their hands. It's probably hard to spiritually bypass the end of civilization.
In the view of a hard materialist, isn't all all spirituality spiritual bypassing? "Religion is the opiate of the people." (As opposed to our enlightened modern society, in which opiates are the true opiates of the people.)
Here is another one:
A co-worker regularly crosses boundaries and behaves in ways that fail to acknowledge their privilege as a white, white-adjacent, or heretical black person. Rather than confront this behavior, those who have been harmed feel that they need to repress their anger and remain overly tolerant, but they overcome these vestigial emotions and complain to human resources about the co-worker, who is shamed on social media and immediately terminated in the face of raising tuition payments for their three college-age children. Those who have been harmed offer to take their former co-worker for coffee.
There is power in naming. It creates a metaphor and humans only see through metaphors. So when someone coins “spiritual bypassing”, all who are thinking about it begin to see the world this way. But when you chase down the rabbit hole you find nothing new. That said, it can be helpful to shake the box and see things a different way. If spiritual bypassing is helpful to some people in this way, then it’s a contribution. If it becomes more than just a useful concept, then it deceives people into a another over-hyped new idea.
This amused me: Below the byline runs the credit "Fact checked by Adah Chung on December 06, 2020"
Your sign of quality.
As for the article, it's very silly. One of the signs of spiritual bypassing is feeling detached. Isn't a tenet of Buddahism to encourage this?
Saying "thoughts and prayers" is also spiritual bypassing? I guess Christians are engaging in SP as well.
This is what happens when you make up your doctrine on the fly.
Wellness culture, like anything else done by we imperfect human vessels, can be misused with undesirable consequences. However, so can a hammer be misused, hitting a carpenter's finger instead of the nail. We don't toss the hammer for the misuse that led to pain, and we should not condemn a very useful method of improving oneself for its unfortunate, but inevitable, ability to be abused.
There are ways to stop the abuse of wellness culture without tossing the baby out with the bathwater. Bob Boyd mentioned one obvious clarifying action. When told to stop being negative, responding that I am positive the other person should get stuffed also works. And family need not be handled with kid gloves, if you can be the relative who needs to be so handled instead of cranky Aunt Millie, for fear of your positively sharp tongue.
Is this like EST?
Fuck Joe Biden.
Too negative?
The hurtful relative can be confronted, but to no end. It's their personality. Explaining why telling people they're always wrong is not such a good idea won't help. Those people NEED telling, plus it's satisfying which is why the hurtful relative does it in the first place.
"Wellness" seems to be getting it from all sides this week.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/17/eva-wiseman-conspirituality-the-dark-side-of-wellness-how-it-all-got-so-toxic
It's probably hard to spiritually bypass the end of civilization.
No, not really that hard, so long as you do not put your trust in humans, but put your trust in something - Someone - higher.
I guess Christians are engaging in SP as well.
Well, that's the whole point of the exercise in criticizing "wellness culture," isn't it? The Gospel (which translates as "good news," as in "Good news! Thing don't have to suck; things can and will get better.") is the ultimate in "wellness culture" and a living faith in the Redeemer Jesus Christ the ultimate in spiritual bypassing of this fallen world and the human condition. So, of course this ultimate in counter culture, this "sign of contradiction," must be eliminated.
So, Sister Monica Joan witnesses a birth (it has been a while) and has the time to really see when she is examining the placenta afterward. And in that wonder, she regains her faith. Her dark night is over.
why not use the old and tried (not tired) lacks empathy?
why coin neologism
It annoys the crap out of me when people say that the departed are "in a better place". No they are not. They are dead. Their soul is separated from their body. That is plainly and ontologically a "worse place". The whole Christian religion is predicated on the fact that being dead sucks, and wouldn't it be nice to be resurrected instead? It's not good to be dead. Why would Jesus weep at the death of Lazarus if he was "in a better place"? Because death is bad, and needs to be faced and grieved.
I'm knee deep in eldercare (vascular dementia), infinite patience required and we're only getting started. Spritual Bypassing is my best friend.
The whole Christian religion is predicated on the fact that this world and this life is not the be all and end all. And it was never meant to be.
We were never meant to be on this earth, in these bodies, for hundreds and thousands and millennia of years. An existence above and beyond was always the plan.
Jesus weeps at the gathering after Lazarus' death because in His compassion, He feels the suffering of the mourners.
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