"Good vibes only!"

October 23, 2021 3:29 PM

What is spirtual bypassing. "Wellness culture, which often perpetuates ideas of toxic positivity and permanent optimism, is sometimes a driving force behind spiritual bypassing. It teaches people that they cannot be well or healthy unless they are able to rise above any negativity."

(via Conspirituality ep. 74)

posted by spamandkimchi (34 comments total)

I love this term. I’ve never heard it before. Thank you!
posted by heyitsgogi at 4:23 PM on October 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

See also; Grief Vampires, and Missing Stair.
posted by krisjohn at 4:32 PM on October 23, 2021

I use this term regularly (and the term 'toxic positivity') and am glad to see it becoming more well known.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:08 PM on October 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

Hey, I needed this link! My new haircutter used this phrase at my last trim and I meant to look it up and forgot. As someone who had to ghost a really good massage therapist after they started, uh, explaining all the spiritual energies they can see in their everyday life, I'm relieved to see that this is sort of... the opposite of woo? Seems like a useful grouping of interpersonal behaviors.
posted by deludingmyself at 5:26 PM on October 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I grew up with a lot of this. It's a lot to unpack as an adult - to give yourself permission to actually feel those bad feelings when it's appropriate.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:46 PM on October 23, 2021 [5 favorites]

I made up a word for at least a bit of this a while back:

Narcissizen (när′sĭ-sĭz'ən)

NOUN: 1. The enlightened and calm acceptance of the suffering of everyone around you. Narcissizen reaches its highest peak of perfection when the practicioner (see: sollipshartha) has the presence of mind to scold others for their failure to calmly accept their own misery.
posted by mph at 5:49 PM on October 23, 2021 [42 favorites]

This is a good term that I'll keep around as it is definitely a problem in cases where there is a practical solution that people are ignoring. I think this article is a bit harsh with its examples though. I don't think "Stop being so negative" is really a spiritual statement from 90% of people (for the actual Wellness Gurus it definitely is), it's just a normal interpersonal deflection and people aren't really thinking through how it is received.

I'm a big fan of addressing problems head on and trying to fully process emotions, but I actually think I've gone TOO far with it and I am now trying to back off of it and purposefully do more of what they call "spiritual bypassing". The reason people use religion to explain stuff like painful death is because our brains really want some sort of explanation to get a sense of resolution, but there often isn't one available in reality so we have to make one up. I would argue this is why we invented religion in the first place, and I don't think it's fair to try and shame everyone who attempts to deal with unresolvable emotions or impossible situations by deflecting them on to imaginary forces.

The cases where it is clearly a problem are when there is actually an available solution (therapy, leaving a relationship, activism, whatever) and the spiritual bypassing stops you from finding it. But if there isn't a good solution deflection can definitely be better than cynical defeatism
posted by JZig at 5:50 PM on October 23, 2021 [11 favorites]

As a hippie but negative person, it drives me nuts when people do this stuff on me. LA LA LA IGNORE IT ALL EVERYTHING POSITIVE POSITIVE--look, sometimes shit happens, and we have to acknowledge it. I've been trying to address this with an online hippie group I meet with and I feel like it's not getting that far. I'm the lone pessimist for whom things don't go easily and being told to just be cheerful and hopeful is difficult. It's why I like EFT/tapping because that is an actual hippie thing that DEALS with and acknowledges your bad feelings and moves through them rather than being all la la la denial.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:12 PM on October 23, 2021 [6 favorites]

Huh, wow, cool, I guess I'm lucky to be around a bunch of grouchy sourpusses ;-)

(which I'm allowed to say as I'm a full fledged member of that tribe, grump grump grump)
posted by sammyo at 6:58 PM on October 23, 2021 [7 favorites]

I think that’s why I loved Oscar the Grouch so much as a kid. Nobody could force him to pretend to be happy.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:11 PM on October 23, 2021 [37 favorites]

Why Spiritual Bypassing Is Not Just A Benign Narcotic Helping You Avoid Your Trauma; It’s A Social Justice Nightmare
posted by solotoro at 7:36 PM on October 23, 2021 [18 favorites]

I feel this thread in my goddamned bones

Also hustle culture is right around the corner from this
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:16 PM on October 23, 2021 [27 favorites]

I do wonder where the line gets drawn when some religions actively teach that what they call spiritual bypassing is good theological and spiritual practice. The idea that one should use negative emotions as motivation to perpetuate good works was something that was made very explicit to me as a little Catholic girl, for example. Religions aren't necessarily devised for and by the psychologically healthy, of course, but the question does raise itself.

I don't think avoidance of others' pain is necessarily evil in and of itself, but I do disagree that it's wrong to attempt to discourage people who do so by reflexively appealing to an essentially just world, whether or not they include an explicitly spiritual reasoning. I have been the person struggling who was told to just keep my chin up and not lose my positive attitude in the face of difficult circumstances. The effect, regardless of the intentions of the person who engages in this kind of spiritual bypass, is to blame anyone who is struggling for their own misfortunes without even stopping to consider once how much of the situation is truly within their control.

It is possible to retreat into mysticism and avoid deeply engaging with suffering without judging or blaming the people most affected by that suffering. Yet that's usually what people reflexively do.
posted by sciatrix at 8:23 PM on October 23, 2021 [10 favorites]

cool, I guess I'm lucky to be around a bunch of grouchy sourpusses ;-)
(which I'm allowed to say as I'm a full fledged member of that tribe, grump grump grump)

I must grimly remind you that showing happiness in public about one's membership in this group warrants 10 demerits as well as being the subject of a formal cavil at the next meeting.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:43 PM on October 23, 2021 [10 favorites]

There Is No Cavil.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:03 PM on October 23, 2021 [7 favorites]

Hobbesian hobgoblin hobbles holy howareyoudo's
posted by clavdivs at 11:25 PM on October 23, 2021 [4 favorites]

See, this is why I liked Oliver Burkeman's The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking: "[T]rying to let those [negative] feelings be and not always struggling to stamp them out is a more fruitful alternative."
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:50 AM on October 24, 2021 [5 favorites]

Spiritual bypassing also includes "God must have meant for this to happen" or similar framing, usually when it's an unplanned pregnancy and there are no fertility or health concerns.


This thread is helping me with a lot of the spiritual baggage handling I've had to do lately. The term "missing stair" especially - thanks, krisjohn - that's going on at my job right now, so as an aside, it's a workplace phenomenon, not just a social one.
posted by datawrangler at 5:29 AM on October 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

Is there an element of witchcraft/evil-eye thinking to this? You were the one who was thinking negative thoughts, therefore it was your malign influence which caused my failure/pain/injury?
posted by clawsoon at 5:50 AM on October 24, 2021 [3 favorites]

If somebody told me I was spiritually bypassing and I should deal with my current grief head on I'd probably never speak to them again so I would strongly advise people not to ever apply this kind of therapy talk to anybody other than themselves.
posted by srboisvert at 5:59 AM on October 24, 2021 [10 favorites]

I mean, I can see why some people do cling onto the "everything happens for a reason" or "suffering makes you stronger" adages - when I was going through some really tough stuff, that was a mindset I tried to keep in mind for myself, to keep myself going - because the alternatives, that either I was just needlessly suffering or that I deserved it - were even worse.

However, at the same time it is not what I would have wanted to hear from others. I would have preferred either someone saying "here, let me help you" (which was not gonna happen, since most of my woes were financial and no one else was in a position to help me) or someone else saying "Yeah, that sucks, that's not fair for you." I think both mindsets have their purpose - but the person going through stuff gets to decide which one they need at any given moment.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:22 AM on October 24, 2021 [8 favorites]

If you want spiritual meaning, helping out where you can is the best on offer.

Not exactly a shortage of injustice and suffering in this tired, sad, mean old world to tend to.

You don't even need to believe that some old dude in the sky or tree sprite in the forest or yeti-goose-creature from Tralfamadore told you to do it.

Choosing not to is the original sin. Choosing to look the other way is where evil starts.

Hence, I openly despise these bypassing spiritual blackhole worshipping fuckers.

That's my religion, and I'm a zealot.
posted by Pouteria at 6:31 AM on October 24, 2021 [3 favorites]

I would think that "spiritual bypassing" is not a bug of religion, but a feature, if it includes this:

"Believing in your own spiritual superiority as a way to hide from insecurities"
posted by eustatic at 7:12 AM on October 24, 2021

Boy this resonates:

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.

To me, shit like this verges on betrayal. In one of Brene Brown's books she talks about how sharing your troubles can help so much but you have to choose the person you share with very carefully. Some people, unfortunately, may have no one in their lives they can safely share their emotions with.

I'm glad to see the world is finally coming around a bit to the idea that the full range of human emotions, in and of themselves, are valid. I've noticed that "toxic positivity" mongers all seem to be very brittle people, seething just below the surface, molded in competitive environments. I think it would change their lives completely if they would just allow themselves to experience their emotions.
posted by Jess the Mess at 9:17 AM on October 24, 2021 [13 favorites]

There are a lot of studies about stress and what it does to living organisms. Some people are addicted to calamity, and the suite of feelings that go with it, people in perfectly safe environments, it is just their schtick. Some people live out of garbage dumps, and suffer through their lifetimes, and then their children's. The people who really suffer can't do anything but survive it by any means at their disposal, so their children may survive. Lots of times their survival pends on looking like they are happy. This is why exotification of poor peoples is so callous.

We are often our own worst enemies when it comes to punishing circumstance, and then building our house of cards, right on top of it. George Bernard Shaw once said, "Self sacrifice enables us to sacrifice others without blushing." I think that people who proffer these numbing statements, aren't suffering, and don't suffer, or else they would see the effects of it in others. If they were spiritually aware they would also be compassionate. Often religion has not one thing to do with compassion, only control of one gender over another, or one economic class, over another, one belief system tied to control, and gender; over another. La la la la, here, I will sing to the choir for a moment.

A big part of the deception of religion and spriituality is the flat out denial of reality, and the expectation that belief will overcome the reality of our unique biochemistry. ****WRONG****buzzer sounding. Our experience layers upon our nervous systems and more traumatic,( especially if it falls before our ability to speak about it,) passages in our lives dictate, dictate, responses, and defenses unless we take the time to understand and move beyond and reprogram to some extent. Denial, and demonizing the lack of happiness, that faith in a true God should be bringing, well, it is a little like getting slapped and being told to "Happy Up!"

I am sorry that people are in such need they fall for this stuff. Mumpf!
posted by Oyéah at 3:07 PM on October 24, 2021 [3 favorites]

Thank you for posting this and to everyone commiserating in this thread.

I had a version of this interaction with a good friend yesterday. For background, over the last 2 years, my health has completely fallen apart, every medical professional I see prescribes stuff that makes me worse until they throw up their hands and give up, my contract on the job of 6 years that I love ended and I'm too sick to get another job, and 2 of my 3 living relatives died. And of course, pandemic.

And then just in the last month, I had 3 ER visits in the span of 4 weeks - all for different, completely unexpected things. Then 1 week after my most recent ER visit, on the day I was scheduled to take the GRE, I had to rush my cat to the emergency vet when he got super sick (he's better now, thankfully). And then just to add insult to injury, in the span of 48 hours this past week, my keyboard broke, the heat/hot water in my apartment stopped working, and the kitchen sink developed a major leak.

It just starts to feel absurd at a certain point. I've already been so beaten down by everything that's happened in the last 2 years, but the past month it's like I can't even catch my breath before I'm blindsided by something else horrible happening. And all this is going on while I'm desperately trying to complete applications for grad school.

So I mentioned to my friend (who is aware of all this that's been going on) about how I feel like part of me is just waiting for the next disaster, and she kept telling me, "just stay positive". And I do consider this person a very good friend, but still...

I knew that I found a good fit for a therapist when his response to this same thing was basically like, "Normally I might try to challenge that kind of thinking, but yeah, it makes sense that you feel that way."

I have really appreciated the people in my life or are willing and able to just make space for me to be unhappy. Because I do work hard not to get caught up in negative ruminations, but you know what, sometimes I just need to spend an hour sobbing about how exhausted I am, and how I can't believe how all these things keep happening to me, and how sometimes I just feel like I've been completely broken by life.

I also think sometimes people just really don't know what to say. I wish more people understood that there can be a lot of power and a lot of comfort it just having someone really listen and hear you, and express genuine empathy and caring. Like, you don't have to say that much, but just seeing that someone else cares, and that they get what I'm saying, without them trying to challenge it or trying to push it aside, that's all I really want in those moments.
posted by litera scripta manet at 3:39 PM on October 24, 2021 [30 favorites]

Some people, unfortunately, may have no one in their lives they can safely share their emotions with.

Yep, that's my bingo card.
posted by datawrangler at 4:15 PM on October 24, 2021 [4 favorites]

Mandatory happiness: down it goes, blam blam blam. Nice job. Should be more of it.

Next on my shitlist: mandatory "personal growth".

It just starts to feel absurd at a certain point

Yes it does. That would be because it is. Sometimes life just turns into a fucking Wile E Coyote cartoon for no reason at all. It's not as if I even want a road runner.

you don't have to say that much, but just seeing that someone else cares, and that they get what I'm saying, without them trying to challenge it or trying to push it aside, that's all I really want in those moments

Internet hugs are on offer if they'd be of any use.
posted by flabdablet at 5:52 AM on October 25, 2021 [5 favorites]

The worst version of this, by the way, is when the person proffering it thinks it's a flavor of Buddhism and ladles on the orientalizing blandishments.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:09 AM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

I also think sometimes people just really don't know what to say.

Yeah, I think that's where a lot of the "cheer up, stay positive, things will get better," stuff comes from. Like "you are making me uncomfortable with your pain, please shut up now."
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:32 PM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

I frequently wish that people who just really don't know what to say would keep their mouths entirely shut until they do.

First, do no harm.
posted by flabdablet at 10:57 PM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

Interesting video which talks a bit about toxic positivity in multi-level marketing and some of the ways, similar to religious/spiritual toxic positivity, that it's reinforced with shame and a sense of transform-the-world mission. Why I quit the MLM industry at the top
posted by clawsoon at 4:16 AM on October 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

From Anabaptist World: Kate Bowler wants to take down the self-help enterprise "Atop a bookshelf in a room next to her office, Kate Bowler and her team have assembled a series of framed anti-self-help sayings. “The universe stabbed me in the back,” reads one. Another: “What doesn’t kill you might try again tomorrow.”"
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:05 PM on November 9, 2021

Demotivators
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:49 AM on November 10, 2021