Spiritual Bypass
Contributor: Lacy Phillips
Photographer: Lacy Phillips
I've had quite a few people ask me my thoughts on spiritual bypass lately. Look, I spent A LOT of years drawn to all things spiritual bypass - especially in way of Manifestation. Why? Well, firstly because I have a lot of air and fire in my chart, which is sunny and masculine energy. Meaning I'm drawn to quick fixes, bypass over the root, shove it down, and be positive. No deep work needed, simply give me an affirmation, visualization, crystal, mantra, vision board, and be positive. But then...... nothing changed?
Like many, looking at the deeper root causes of why we project certain beliefs and shifting them takes deeper work, sometimes painful work, and it's just that, work. What exactly did all of this New Age "think positive, speak positive" rhetoric of the 80's, 90's and early 2000's actually do to us? Well, for one it created A LOT of superstition that's handicapped most of us, "If I constantly speak in lack, I'm attracting lack, right?" No, you're in lack because you were raised in a lack mindset or developed it from major setbacks and you haven't healed and expanded beyond it.
But what's the even deeper limiting thing that it did? The thing that keeps most people from ever actually manifesting the larger things they want in life? It created the perfect model for a prison in which we stay, our comfort zone. To move out of one's comfort zone means to make actionable movement through our fears, which opens us up to vulnerability, which means that we could possibly experience pain.
Read that paragraph again. Now once more. Why not a third time? If you sit around wondering why you haven't materialized the intentions you've set, it's because you are a victim of your own comfort zone or lack of expansion.
If your intentions haven't materialized, three things are at play. 1. You haven't shifted the limiting beliefs you are projecting into the world. 2. You are continuing to settle for less than you are worth in one or more aspects of your life. 3. And you haven't expanded your beliefs to align with what you're calling in. Shifting through limiting beliefs and finding EXPANDERS takes time and deep work. And each one of these can be the precise block keeping you from attracting the intentions on your list.
If you're looking for a quick fixes here, you won't find them. Manifesting take one being ruthlessly honest with themselves, their behaviors, beliefs, and where they are. There can't be any sense of disillusionment or lack of accountability. You're only fooling yourself and keeping yourself in your own comfort zone.
I will continue to say this until my last breath. Thoughts do not attract things to you, good or bad, nor do words. Beliefs do. Beliefs are something you develop - mostly in childhood - and limiting ones are a result of shame. Either you were shamed or watched others being rejected through shame. You can think your way into being a loving, positive, non-judgmental person all you want. But until you actual heal the root shames and resentments that have created your "judgements" - may they be lack, low self-worth, not good enough - you will continue to project and attract these same situations in over and over again. You can never utter another negative word again or think negatively again, but these same situation will continue to show up nonetheless.
The New Age rhetoric of the "positive movement" put people in fear of getting honest with themselves and looking at their negative thoughts, their judgements, their low self-worth, their pain, their true feelings for it "would" attract more of those. That's a beautiful model for staying in your comfort zone forever. It created the perfect recipe to never manifest things beyond where you're at. How do I know this? Because I was stuck in just that cycle for eight years manifesting nearly nothing before I got sick of it, tossed it out, and explored what was working for me: how, when, what and why.