Spiritual Bypassing as a Block to Retreat Center Equity

Lorren Z. Buck and Arleen Peterson, Racial Healing Initiative team members, shared with participants an understanding spiritual bypassing, how it can show up in retreat center work, and collectively, how we can rise above spiritual bypassing. This blog is a high level summary of our time together. 

Spiritually bypassing, coined by John Welwood, is a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks."  Rather than working through hard emotions or confronting unresolved issues, people simply dismiss them with spiritual explanations. While spirituality can be a force that helps enhance an individual’s well-being, engaging in spiritual bypassing as a way to avoid complicated feelings or issues can ultimately stifle growth.

Unfortunately, just like the rest of the world, we are not immune, as retreat center staff and supporters, from perpetuating spiritual bypassing and the harm that can come from it. Correcting and countering spiritual bypassing is done individually and collectively within systems. Retreat centers do not operate absent of us as individuals, so we must participate in justice, equity, and healing work, including examining on our own actions and beliefs.

Countering spiritual bypassing, including disrupting old and harmful patterns, is just one way we can move towards equity. As a group, we started to interrogate questions that will be a continued thread in our commitment to be anti-racist. What is our commitment to justice and equity? How can we advance and support this work individually and collectively? 

Moving from inclusion to transformative belonging invites retreat centers to deconstruct the ways society has conflated numbness with spirituality in its attempt to suppress human expression. The conversations with the Racial Healing Initiative continues on Tuesday, May 10 as we present healing practices and perspectives. We will explore practical theories, not only for dismantling oppression, but also for regenerating new structures for sustainability. Together we will make commitments to strengthen our race equity consciousness as a strategy towards universal flourishing.