CARE.CHECK*: That decision to ignore what they said, that choice to go with the flow, that overruling of a judgy thought, that compulsive will to “forgive”.
Is it acceptance or is it numbing? Is it authenticity or is it a Waoh-it-looks-good-on-paper story?
Ask yourself: Am I trying to come alive or am I really trying to survive?
Is it a spiritual response? OR is it spiritual bypassing?
For context, support and definition, keep reading.
[In case this letter gets cut in the email, you can click HERE to read the full post now :)]
IF YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO THIS INSTEAD, Rick discovered Speechify, an app through which this Care.Check letter can be read to you by AI Gwyneth Paltrow :)
Hi Care.Friend!
Home at last.
In the sanctuary of this page, which leads me to the sanctuary of my heart… where I get to meet you IF it pleases you—and I love that it’s your choice. That I get to invite you, thanks to the amazing
spirits, and that you get to decide whether the invitation feels warm or not.So how have you been? How was this last week, this last day or even this last minute for and—within—you? Do you know? Sometimes we don’t, and that’s okay.
Sometimes we don’t and I find that both fascinating and so important to recognize: “We don’t always know how we’re doing!”
And when we don’t, we get to slow down, pause and give ourselves the necessary time, space and love to find out.
We’re not always the best caretakers for ourselves. We’re not often the best caretakers for ourselves… and that’s our responsibility to change that! But that’s not our fault it’s like that.
I’ve been changed at a very deep layer by Audre Lorde’s words: “I have no creative use for guilt”.
To me, creativity is spiritual. Creativity IS spirituality embodied.
It’s the human way of bringing Spririt’s Magic into what we call Life. I believe it’s our divine assignment, and maybe even why we exist—assuming there's a reason.
So if there’s no creative use for guilt, guilt cannot be spiritual.
God knows I believe that Anger and Grief are sacred misunderstood forms of Love, but more and more I realize that Guilt and Shame are on the opposite spectrum: they’re proof of a LACK of Love.
And so as usual where Love is not the foundation, Love is the antidote.
“I have no creative use for guilt.”
Audre Lorde
Today I want to write about Spiritual Bypassing.
Which means misusing spiritual principles or practices and turning them into inner gaslighting.
Because it is so easy to confuse the realm of unconditional Love and heart-led, embodied acceptance with the fallacy of people-pleasing, of numbing, of a story driven by a nervous system in Dorsal Shutdown.
It is so paramount to understand that our journey from dysregulation to regulation (and from regulation to dysregulation) happens on a LADDER—that regulation doesn’t live in the center of our fight and flight activation vs fawn, freeze, flow dorsal shutdown. Regulation is where the ladder is meant to lead us back to (or drive us away from).
Natasha Wilson’s infographic is such a helpful reminder of that:
* Where Love is not the foundation, Love is the antidote.*
I wrote about Polyvagal Theory more extensively HERE, but here’s a reminder:
** ABOUT THE SYMPATHETIC ACTIVATION (POLYVAGAL THEORY)
At first, when we register cues of danger, our wonderful nervous system takes us either into fight or flight: “I need to fight this” OR “I need to run away”. Another way to phrase that is “I need to overpower this immediately or I need to fix it right now.”
Fight energy comes out through blame, judgment, black & white thinking or physical attacks.
Unconscious fight activation gets us and everyone around us into trouble, while unconscious flight activation draws us into overwork and perfectionism.
But let’s not vilify any of this: Because no one is asking us to live an unconscious life. On the contrary, our presence is the magic that will heal the world from our flaws.
Presence ignites our humanity when unconsciousness traps us into a reflexive humanness. When humanity meets humanness, that’s when we can bring the light we were meant to embody into the dark but fertile soil that we call Earth.
Indeed, when this anger or outrage fueled by our Fight energy is presented to our heart for alchemy, it turns into gold and the fiercest form of love. It allows us to lift the burning car entrapping our children—and that can be read literally or as a metaphor.
And flight energy will allow us to outrun any danger, to walk on a broken ankle if that’s the only way out of the wilderness we got lost into. It will give us the focus and drive to face any circumstance and look for the solution, no matter how far from reach that solution appears to be at the moment. Flight energy comes out through racing thoughts, obsessive thinking, an incapability to take a break and relax. BUT, if brought to the wisdom of our heart, those will turn into the ideas and creations that changed our world.
The harmony of Love will allow us to understand our anger and use it in a way that serves us (and therefore everyone else)—instead of being a danger to our surroundings.
The harmony of Love will allow us to pause and rest so that our flight based inspiration can build and contribute—instead of ruining our health and making everyone around us miserable.
* No one is asking us to live an unconscious life.*
** ABOUT SPIRITUALITY AND POLYVAGAL THEORY
In many ways, the secret of a Life of Love & Service lies in our ability to go from regulation and into Fight or Flight, multiple times a day. So that we can use our Fight or Flight mode, while staying anchored in Ventral regulation.
That’s the Beauty of our spiritual practices.
They allow us to stay rooted and inspired by the divine, by the mystery, by “something” so much greater than us. By “something” who loves us more that we could ever fathom—“Something” we are a precious, extraordinary, worthy and needed part of.
They remind us that we’re not alone and that our little part is only meant to be part of the whole. That it does not all lay on our shoulders! BUT that we do matter and that we do have a role to play.
That role has been in-scripted in our hearts, and our only job is to listen... To listen to that dream that lies dormant beneath our skin, until we’re ready to let it take form and become our reality.
Spiritual practices allow us to feel lack without ever forgetting that abundance is our only true reality. This way, we can find the Fight and Flight energy we need to bridge the gap between what is, what is not yet, what feels threatening and what we know is meant to be.
Spiritual practices help us release the hook of blamy thoughts or the curse of overthinking. We can surrender our point of focus, so that we gain back our perspective. We can access our compassion, clarity and sense of connectedness, to understand that this conflict or that argument serves no one—and that we can tend to the wounds they just put salt on, instead of running after them and try to get them to stop throwing salt into the world! Spiritual practices allow us to realize that throwing salt is exhausting and mostly draining THEM from their own love… They also lead us to witness that when there is no wound left, salt on our skins doesn’t hurt anymore.
* Our presence is the magic that will heal the world from our flaws.*
We’re not meant to live in regulation, because we live in a somewhat dangerous world—and sometimes we need our survival modes to survive! It’s as simple as that.
However we don’t need our survival modes quite this much… and we NEVER need them for as long as we keep them on.
That person who hurt you ten years ago has no power over you anymore. Those nightmares that wake me up every night are unresolved trauma, not recent assaults. We get to free our minds from those who feel like intruders or abusers. And they cannot leave our minds for us. No, because even though it doesn’t feel this way, WE are the ones in charge of that sacred inner dorm.
SO THOSE are the goals of our spiritual practices, of our inner work, of our commitment to Love and to our light. Those are the calling and rewards from somatic work, self-development, the awakening journey, talk-therapy, coaching, healing and spirituality.
* When there is no wound left, salt on our skins doesn’t hurt anymore.*
The goal is NOT unconditional acceptance, immunity to abuse, constant bliss and peace of mind. Interestingly, they are byproducts of the true path to our center. Someone who’s truly enlightened, grounded in their hearts, connected to their intuition and to the divine, will experience this kind of truly unconditional love, but most of us are not there yet—and most of us will not get there in this lifetime! And that is OKAY.
We don’t NEED to be happy, kind, loving, human beings at all times (we’re just meant to do no harm). We don’t NEED to stand for peace and embody love all day long (doing our best is all we’re ever asked to do). We don’t NEED to make our dreams come true and then share them with the entire world (we only GET to). We don’t NEED enlightenment, to be worthy, deserving, precious or loved (we already are). We don’t NEED to change to be the stewards of our light and unique blend of magic or beauty (we. JUST. are).
What we need is only a constant connection with our heart and bodies, and to make sure that our minds are nourished and inspired by them—not by our egoic ways and egoic culture.
By egoic, I mean unconscious and not egomaniacal. The ego is only that false sense of identity that comes from our unexamined thoughts. It is a bundle of adorable inner children scripted in roles that are often hurtful to ourselves and others—because they stem from our defensive reactions and not our loving responses. There is nothing diabolical in our egos. It’s only a product of an immature nervous system, socialized to fit in and survive, and that needs tending, nurturance and LOVE, to mature into the radiant loving soul we’re all here to embody.
** ABOUT THE DORSAL VAGAL BREAK (Polyvagal Theory)
So back to the dysregulation ladder, what happens when the cues of danger keep on coming while we’re overflown with Fight or Flight energy? and what if we don’t have the inner spaciousness, the tools or skills—aka the capacity—to come back in regulation? If we can’t access our heart-centered courage and clarity… or our sense of connectedness to find help (and I did write HELP, not to find a savior) while we navigate our challenges?
We go down the ladder even more. We release the sympathetic drive, and turn on the dorsal vagal break. We fawn, we freeze, we flop, we faint, we shutdown.
And, once again, those behaviors can SAVE our lives. Learning how to say a disembodied yes, to appease, to caretake, when you’re a child surrounded by deeply dysregulated adults, is the only way you will make it through the fist fights, the ugly words, the sexual abuse or the neglect.
And without looking at extremes, we do not understand children well as a society, and we don’t realize how dangerous the world can seem to them—even if on paper they are actually perfectly safe. How many unmet needs they carry around their hearts until those turn into walls they’ll spend their entire adulthood carrying or (hopefully) breaking down.
Here’s another example of how this can serve: if someone has a gun to your head, freezing or fawning are often FAR better options than fighting back or fleeing the scene. Those would most probably get us killed.
Fawning is when we caretake, appease, seduce, become submissive, agree, shapeshift, overadapt. Fawning is what a lot of us call people-pleasing. Fawning feels necessary for so many of us who’ve been raised into a system that constantly explained to us that we’re taking too much space, that we’re less worthy than others, than “If we don’t achieve? We don’t matter”.
Fawning is also highly rewarded socially. Because when we fawn, we go with the flow… We don’t make waves! We don’t ask questions. When we fawn, we don’t “make” others uncomfortable, we don’t talk about what’s wrong with the ways we’ve inherited from a culture that is LITERALLY killing the world. When we fawn, we’re nice.
But niceness is not kindness, and niceness is NOT unconditional love!
* Fawning is also highly rewarded socially.*
Freezing can happen in two different ways depending on our level of dysregulation.
More and more, the term freeze is used only for what used to called Functional Freeze:
You are full of fight and flight impulses but it would be way too dangerous (or it FEELS too dangerous) to let it out. So we ALSO turn on our dorsal vagal break—and we do, do, do but through an autopilot mode, through numbness. We just get on with the day, with the tasks, with the 57 emails, with that next item on the never ending to-do list, without feeling anything, without really thinking beyond the minimum needed for the task at end. We become a robot.
Which can feel like such a relief! and THAT’s the trap.
Suddenly there’s no anger, no anxiety, no resistance… it looks like acceptance, but it’s anything but.
Acceptance requires the willingness to deeply connect to what is and accept that this is what is now. Acceptance requires courage and humility (which has nothing to do with modesty). Acceptance requires a soulful recognition of truth.
Acceptance is not giving up. Acceptance is not numbness, it’s the opposite. Acceptance is a deeply embodied and soulful way to live our lives.
Functional freeze is, at its core, a complete tuning out. We just do. Mindlessly, soullessly, heartlessly. It seems like “it has to be done”, so we don’t question, we react. We perform. We do not feel anything, because we’ve forgotten how to care—not because we’re “so spiritual”.
No change, no creativity, no love comes from a state of functional freeze. So, in more ways than not, functional freeze is indeed the opposite of acceptance.
That’s what Buddhists call a near enemy: We believe we came closer to peace and unconditional love, when we’ve actually moved so far away from them, they’re not even accessible anymore.
* Niceness is not kindness, and niceness is NOT unconditional love!*
Flop and faint are what a lot people simply call dorsal shutdown. We’re just drained of any energy or inspiration. A lot of people also call it depression. We’re just numb—and this time to the point of inaction. We only feel hopelessness and despair. We’re paralyzed. We don’t just feel stuck, we’re convinced we’re stuck—beyond help, beyond hope, beyond redemption.
Once again, amidst the darkest kind of danger, those reactions can save our lives! But we’re not meant to stay there for a second longer that is required to survive.
Unfortunately, if we believe that anger, self-trust, confidence or the will to change our circumstance are sinful, selfish, arrogant or pointless, we’re screwed! Because the only way out of those is to FEEL our way up the ladder and to turn our depression into expression. The only way off the ladder is up and therefore through the Fight and Flight mode.
So if we tame our impulses to connect with our anger, with our agency, with our ability to find our way out, if we drink, overeat, medicate, overwork, overexercise, overanalyze, overjustify our way out of connecting to what is true for us at the soul level, we will not only remain in dorsal shutdown, we will also sink lower and lower on the ladder—until we’re so far gone and so disconnected from ourselves, we forget to even ask ourselves if there could be a way back… We simply give up.
** ABOUT SPIRITUAL BYPASSING
And that’s where understanding the concept of spiritual bypassing can be life-changing and, more to the point, life-SAVING.
Because that’s when we suddenly understand the differences between using spiritual practices to tame or numb ourselves OR to connect to the spiritual essence that breathes our lungs and beats our hearts, to come alive even more.
I used to work alongside a very abusive man that we’ll call Bob. Every time that man would send an email to the team, I would witness
from half the team members: either outrage or over-analysis of “how could he POSSIBLY think it was a good idea to write that” f (sympathetic mode ON)
from each and every other team member: a sheer conviction that the email was secretly meant for them—to shame them or to call them out (aka dorsal shutdown).
I would personally oscillate between those two survival options: Fight/Flight reactions or Fawn/Freeze impulses.
I also remember vividly how resistant I was to meet him to discuss the next steps of one of our shared projects... I confided to a friend how enraged I was feeling towards him and shared that I felt it was a very bad idea for us both to be in the same room… The mansplaining, the arrogance, the demeaning and belittling behaviors was sure to send me on the battlefield, where I would attack him and start a war I would be the first to pay for.
[Not completely sure of the nuance between demeaning and belittling, but whenever I think about Bob, my ego explains to me the importance of being very dramatic and to throw as many words as I can towards HIS ego… so please bare with me]
In hindsight, I would have needed to create a safe outlet for my deeply justified anger. I would have needed to validate all that I was observing that was INDEED unacceptable in his behaviors. I would have needed to start making plans for leaving that job... I would have needed to support myself SO. MUCH. MORE.
The answer was to shower myself with love and acceptance—while remembering that I had my own back, because I had my heart’s strength and guidance.
But back then I lived beneath regulation 100% of the time. I couldn’t recognize my survival mode because I hadn’t stepped out of it since I was born! I didn’t know anything else. I didn’t have contrast. And without contrast, we cannot know any better.
So I let my friend remind me that “Bob” really liked me, that he valued me deeply even if he had weird and abusive ways to show it… that he meant well and that this was just “the way it works” and that it wasn’t really his fault, because “he was just under so much pressure, he was just so exhausted”… and of course that “it could be so much worse somewhere else”! That [insert the rest of the pep talk here]—because we all know that script.
I held on to my friend’s dysregulated nervous system until I could be guided into numbness, down the ladder, where I would find the perfect blend of fawning and functional freeze to show up at that meeting as I was supposed to: with a smile on my face and full of gratitude for all the opportunities I had suddenly convinced myself I was getting thanks to him (and “of course not” through my big heart and hard work).
I was left wondering why the heck I had been so angry and worried the day before? I mean, after all, all was indeed well in Abuse Land! (and I was, again, a willing participant, so it was probably all of fault anyway.)
Of course, the next day I also had a debilitating back spasm and my sleep was interrupted for weeks by itchy rashes and nightmarish literal wake-up calls that I proceeded to numb through even more work (or more netflix & wine on my day offs).
* The answer was to shower myself with love and acceptance,
while remembering that I had my own back
because I had my heart’s strength and guidance.*
** ABOUT THE GOAL
So all of that to say my friends, that there is nothing spiritual in spiritual bypassing.
The goal of our shadow work is not to put a golden clock onto it, it’s to turn it into light.
The goal is not to throw away the key from the basement of our fears, grief, longing and trauma. The goal is to turn that basement into the foundation for a temple of fierce, embodied, brave, kind and healing love.
The goal is not to like everyone, to tolerate abuse, to enable toxic behaviors or to deprive each other of our inner power or right to be held accountable for all the ways that prove our lack of inner alignment!
The goal is to love ourselves and others so fiercely that we’re willing to burn in the fire of our anger to be reborn as advocates for peace.
The goal is to love ourselves and others so fiercely that we’re willing to drown into our grief until we can learn how to breathe underwater through the power of love only—and therefore learn that we can jump safely in the ocean of tears that our Earth needs us to witness in order to finally heal.
The goal is to love ourselves and others so fiercely that we’re willing to melt into joy, no matter how vulnerable it feels, so that we can shine more brightly than any stars, and be a bottomless well of joy for others to drink from.
The goal is to love ourselves and others so fiercely that we can recognize both the abundance and the impermanence of all that is, and relinquish our need to control or our terror of scarcity.
The goal is to love ourselves and others so fiercely that we surrender ourselves to the sacredness that brought us here and let the God of our understanding show us who we’re meant to be.
The goal is love.
And love doesn’t stem from denial, niceness, overdoing or numbness. Love comes from being. Being with all of it, being through all of it, being in all of it. BEING.
* There is nothing spiritual in spiritual bypassing.*
You do not have to say it “"all” to everyone. Nor do you have to fix, save, change or solve anything. But you do have to tell yourself the truth about what you truly think and feel.
And you know you’re actually doing the work when you let yourself think and feel what you believe you shouldn’t think and feel. If not, you’re not on a spiritual journey, you’re spiritually bypassing.
AND that’s completely okay if your goal is to numb and survive!
You are free to make that choice. You might need that choice for now.
That’s completely okay, as long as you’re not doing it while on a quest for unconditional love or out of a will to come alive.
THAT would be a problem—because you would be running in the opposite direction from where you’re trying to arrive…
So you GET to ask yourself this question as often as you wish:
Am I being authentically loving and understanding?
OR am I spiritually bypassing…
* THE GOAL IS LOVE *
With kindness, love and light—because I truly believe they’re our most sacred offering to this world.
Always,
leo