Beware the harm of spiritual bypassing

So many people have been harmed by Christians who have said something akin to, “Get over it,” with a spiritual spin given to it like, “God means it for your good not your harm,” or trotting out a Bible verse out of context.

The harm that is done is at least twofold: the person who is met with the spiritual bypass is harmed in that they’re not MET in their pain, AND that harm sets them back further, and their healing is even farther away.

In spiritually bypassing the pain we do not heal.  Pain is meant to be felt.  Pain never kills anyone, even though it can seem deathly.  To coin a Fred Rogers saying, “Everything that happens to us is mentionable, and because it is mentionable, it is manageable,” and indeed everything that is mentioned and held safely in context of the pain can be healed.

Much of the time what really needs to be healed is our trust, which is our confidence that we’re safe.  We feel safe when we’ve faced and transformed our hurt from a pain, and we can stand such a pain that no longer wields power over us.

As a counsellor and pastor, I cannot commend enough to people who have borne trauma to heal, which is a tender journey that often takes years not months but is worth very much all the effort and sacrifice required.

If we don’t heal, we don’t heal, and we’re robbed of the life we could otherwise have.

And in the healing, we receive the foretaste of what’s in store for us.  Entering the pain is very much about learning and practicing a better way of absorbing the traumas of life.

But if we arrogantly say, “No I refuse to feel the pain of this trauma because it’s unsafe,” and don’t trust the process that inevitably would work, we remain in a place where no healing can be done.

Now, connect the truth that if pain is the issue, then trust will be the sticking point.  Trust in a healing process helps us to rebuild our overall trust.

Beware the harm of spiritual bypassing.  Don’t allow such people to speak such caustic power into your life, no matter who they are.  Insist within yourself on living the power of facing one’s truth.

Only the truth can set us free.

To heal a truth, we must face the truth.

And if we don’t heal a truth, we extend that lack of healing and harm others also in the process.  This is letting fear win the day, not letting faith to chart for us a new course.