[Podcast] Signs Of Spiritual Bypassing (Fascinating...)

What is spiritual bypassing?

What are the signs of spiritual bypassing?

How can we recognize it,

Become aware,

And become more integrated and whole embodied spiritual beings?

Is it possible to be spiritual bypassing without realizing it?

I am Arielle and I'm here with our host,

Michael McIntosh.

So today we'll be exploring how spiritual bypassing affects our lives,

Even if we are not aware of it,

And especially if we are not aware of it and the way that it affects our lives.

On every level,

Our health,

Our wealth,

Relationships,

Environment,

Wellbeing,

Our homes,

Families,

It can impact every aspect of our lives.

And we'll be exploring how we can recognize spiritual bypassing,

Even bypassing in general to some extent,

And become more integrated,

Whole,

Happy,

Peaceful human beings.

What a beautiful topic.

So let's start with a few gentle breaths.

And as we breathe,

Just allow yourself to let go.

And I wanna ask some questions.

Are you willing to experience all parts of your being?

Are you willing to feel whole in yourself?

And are you willing to do what it takes to create the most beautiful life that you can?

So today we're talking about spiritual bypassing,

Which is a huge topic.

And many things have been written about this.

Originally,

This term came from somebody who is called.

.

.

John Wellward.

John Wellward.

So he's a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist.

And we've put a link to an article he wrote about this in the description.

So I recommend you read it.

And we'll reference that a little bit.

Basically,

He was a Buddhist monk,

And you know,

Not a monk,

But he's like a Buddhist practitioner,

Psychotherapist.

And he was seeing that people in the Buddhist practice,

Whoever they were,

I'm not sure the exact details,

But he was noticing people were bypassing their issues,

Their emotional issues,

Or their needs for certain things through spiritual practice.

And someone might be in the practice for many,

Many years,

Maybe even 40 years,

30 years,

And they've still got all these problems in themselves and in their life.

And you know,

We've seen this in ourselves,

We've seen this in others.

We can have a wonderful practice and all these divine things,

These elevated insights about how we're eternal beings and how life is destined and magical,

But at the same time,

Everything can be a complete disaster.

So spiritual bypassing is a way of avoiding our own stuff and avoiding dealing with what is going on.

And you know,

It comes up in various different ways.

I'm gonna just read a quick quote from John Wellward,

So give it a sense of what he thinks about this.

"'Spiritual bypassing' is a term I coined to describe a process I saw happening in the Buddhist community I was in and also in myself.

Although most of us were sincerely trying to work on ourselves,

I noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues,

Psychological wounds,

And unfinished developmental tasks.

When we are spiritually bypassing,

We often use the goal of awakening or liberation to rationalize what I call premature transcendence,

Trying to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we've fully faced and made peace with it.

And then we tend to use absolute truth to disparage or dismiss relative human needs,

Feelings,

Psychological problems,

Relational difficulties,

And developmental defects.

I see this as an occupational hazard on the spiritual path in that spirituality does involve a vision of going beyond our karmic situation.

" And he goes on from there and talks about lots of other things.

So the problem with spiritual bypassing is that basically it can ruin our lives by cutting us off from our human parts and from each other.

We can kind of be living in this theoretical altered reality based on ideas we have that we haven't actually embodied in our lives.

And we can use this to feel better than other people to think that we haven't got problems that we have got to justify our issues rather than dealing with them.

And it can have enormous negative effect on our lives.

So we're gonna talk about what effects it can have and what we can do to make it better.

And it's really about coming to this wholeness that,

Yes,

We are spiritual beings and we're in human bodies.

We're in this physical world.

And so it's when our spirituality is an escape mechanism or coping mechanism sometimes to avoid what truly needs to be faced.

It's when that happens that we disconnect from ourselves.

And whenever that occurs,

Ultimately life is going to bring about situations anyway to bring us back to wholeness.

So it only makes the journey more painful.

And so we'll be exploring spiritual bypassing and how can we embrace the wholeness of our beings and everything that needs to be looked at,

Needs to be faced,

Needs to be given attention.

And to start to realize that this is part of the spiritual path and to release that compartmentalization where it's here's my practice and here's my life,

How can we bring them together with this sense of wholeness?

Yes,

What a wonderful topic.

So of course,

Just to mention this whole thing about bypassing our emotions is hardly only for spiritual people.

In fact,

Spiritual people in general are more likely to face themselves than people who are not on a spiritual path because a lot of people nowadays,

If someone feels discomfort or anxiety,

Then massive numbers of people will reach for their phone immediately.

And I've heard this from lots of spiritual people or they might reach for some other thing,

Drugs,

Alcohol,

Distraction,

Entertainment.

So what we're talking about here is an issue that is a worldwide global issue where whenever we feel discomfort,

There is a tendency to avoid it.

We don't like pain,

So we wanna get rid of it.

And distracting ourselves is a very effective temporary solution.

So if I feel bad and I can just look at the phone and scroll through Instagram or something,

Then I'm temporarily distracted from my feelings.

Spiritual people can do the same thing except they try and use meditation as a way of doing it.

Exactly.

And that being said,

I'm just gonna add in a little note here that's helpful to keep in mind is sometimes,

Depending on what's arising or what's going on in our lives,

Sometimes consciously,

Conscious distraction has a place.

Unconscious,

Constant distraction is very harmful,

But consciously sometimes you might need to get space from something.

So sometimes going into a meditation practice,

Consciously aware that you've put something on the side that you're going to be facing and looking at after can have its benefits.

So I just wanna throw that in there too as we're discussing this to make sure and throughout this whole discussion that it isn't black and white,

There's times and places.

It's all about context and we really wanna look at eliminating the unconscious bypassing that dominates in our world,

In our society.

That's right.

So we're of course big fans of meditation obviously and we believe that meditation can be used as a means to solve problems actually.

And that's how we think about it personally.

It can also be used in the wrong way.

So of course,

A lot of things like a knife can be used to cut a tomato and make some food or it can be used to kill somebody.

So it's how you use it,

Right?

So what we're gonna talk about is what are the things that we can think about that can backfire on us?

So meditation and spiritual practice,

We often hear things like,

It's all good or there's benefit in everything or everything is destined or nothing really matters in the end because we're just spiritual beings.

And in some spiritual paths,

They say things like,

The soul is immune to the effect of action.

So it doesn't matter what you do.

It doesn't make any difference.

And all we can say,

The inner state is all that matters.

And we can basically have all sorts of spiritual sayings and statements that can justify us staying in a negative state.

So I remember,

We started thinking about this years ago.

I remember when I was in a situation many years ago where I had been doing meditation for a long time and I was emotionally disturbed,

Unable to pay my bills.

Didn't know what I was doing with my life.

Had negative relationships that were unpleasant to me.

And quite frankly,

Most things in my life were a disaster.

And I remember telling myself that I am an eternal spiritual being.

So on one hand,

Here I am saying I'm unlimited,

Divine light.

And on the other hand,

House is a mess.

Everything's a disaster.

Bank account is negative.

And there's obviously a discrepancy there,

Right?

Between this statement that I am unlimited eternal being and the fact that my current situation at that time was a complete disaster.

So I was basically just avoiding doing what I needed to do with my physical life and justifying my situation with nice ideas in my head.

And life has a wonderful way of forcing us to face ourselves anyway.

This is the wonderful thing about life.

Life doesn't let us get away with this stuff in the long run.

So after enough pain,

And let's be honest,

Pain is a great teacher.

I wish we didn't have to have it,

But it does help us a lot of the time.

We normally change more when we're under serious pain than we would in any other situation.

So I was at one point in such a terrible state of anxiety and agony,

Lying on the floor in my bedroom,

Curled up in a ball in a fetus position,

Just in absolute emotional distress.

And I went to the park to try and get some help,

Some relief,

Lay down on the ground.

And I asked God for help,

Please help me.

And someone might say that was spiritual bypassing,

Some people who take this to the extreme.

But I was,

No,

I was saying that I need help from a higher power here because I can't handle this on my own.

And I sincerely and genuinely told myself,

I am willing to do whatever it takes to get it together.

I don't mind what it is,

And I'm just gonna receive whatever help I need.

And when I had that shift and I really let go,

I felt all this divine power coming into me.

And I had the energy and I stood up and I jumped up and I said,

Right,

I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna start sorting out my life practically.

And within a few months,

I'd completely changed my entire life on a number of levels,

Starting with that one inspiration.

Because when I was willing to physically change things and have those hard conversations with people in my life and physically move away and physically do different things,

When I was willing to take the practical actions and also acknowledge my own inner wounds and emotional issues,

Then I could make wonderful progress.

And as a result of that,

My life has been significantly better.

Now,

I'm not saying that there hasn't been any spiritual bypassing since then.

And I am not saying that my life has been perfect all the way through,

But what I am saying is that deciding to look at these things directly really allowed me to overcome stuff that was literally destroying me from the inside out and from the outside in.

And R and I,

We used to,

When we were in Hawaii,

We had a board in our kitchen,

A little mini whiteboard.

And we wrote on that board,

It's easier to do the things that we're putting off than it is to put them off,

Or something like that.

It was a bit more nicely written.

But basically the point was that we realized that many things in our life needed looking at,

And the energy it took to avoid them,

To ignore them,

To shove them under the rug,

To lock them away in the cupboard,

Right?

The energy that it took to suppress this stuff was significantly more than the energy it took to actually get on with it.

And so we had that on the board to remind us of these things.

So if you have money issues,

Trying to ignore money issues is actually quite hard because they're there.

Actually getting a job and doing some work,

It's easier,

You know,

And then you can relax about it.

So what we wanna do is to use spiritual practice as a means to improve our lives,

Not as a means of escaping our lives.

Exactly,

It's like in Michael's story when he wasn't maybe willing yet,

He was resisting actually facing the physical things.

There wasn't a wholeness with his spirituality and his life.

Once he had that willingness,

Then everything changed.

So it's not either or.

I think some people might learn about spiritual bypassing and kind of poo-poo spirituality,

Throw the baby out with the bathwater and get a bit confused about the whole thing.

So it's more about coming to this wholeness,

This yes and healing occurs on all three levels,

Physical,

Emotional,

Mental,

And spiritual.

It is and this plus this plus this.

It is not ever going to be just one level.

We're very dynamic beings who have these levels of ourselves.

So it's always going to be on all of the levels.

I have so much experience with this,

With spiritual bypassing and just I could share so many stories and examples and some that dominate,

I guess,

One that comes to my awareness is the journey I've just had with my health and my healing and my wellbeing.

And when I was in my early 20s,

I was very interested in spirituality.

I was interested in healing.

I was fascinated.

I went to Costa Rica on workshops on this.

I studied it in school and I would see different practitioners,

But there was something glaringly wrong.

I was walking around at five foot four and under 80 pounds.

So I looked like a walking skeleton.

That was the elephant in the room that is all about love and going to these spiritual centers.

And it must be a spiritual problem,

An inability to receive,

A lack of wanting to be here.

And those things were true,

But it wasn't on the whole picture.

There is a glaringly obvious ignoring of the physical.

Right?

So that's a classic example until it got to a point where I had to face that physical.

And what was interesting then was that then the focus was just on eating and nourishing and physical,

But the mental,

Emotional,

Spiritual is kind of thrown out the window,

Right?

So we don't want to swing to these different ends.

We want to find a way of,

Okay,

Healing our growth.

It happens on every level of life,

Spiritual,

Mental,

Emotional,

Physical.

It's such an interesting kind of continuation of this on my journey in recent years,

Was just experiencing a lot of very challenging symptoms.

And I would go see all sorts of practitioners and they would say,

Oh,

It's,

You just have a very sensitive nervous system.

You're just an angelic being.

It's just prana,

All this tingling you're feeling.

And there's some element of some of us being more sensitive,

That's true.

So I'm not just gonna throw that out and pretend it's not part of the picture,

But the real thing was realizing,

Okay,

You have a neurological condition that also that needs looking at and they're connected.

It's not one or the other,

But I feel like sometimes in the spiritual community,

We have this tendency to poo poo and ignore the physical when there often are real physical issues,

Whether that's with our health,

Whether that's with our finances is quite a physical thing.

Maybe it's with our environment.

And when we come to this,

I'd say spiritual maturity more and more on our path,

We recognize it's all multifaceted and let me embrace all of it.

Let me be open and willing to heal on every level.

Yeah,

It's beautiful.

I remember when I was in England years ago and I was teaching meditation at the meditation center.

And so I teach a class and then afterwards I'd say,

Does anyone have any questions?

Do you wanna share anything?

And very often people would say things like,

Thanks for the class and I've got this health problem or I've got this relationship problem or I'm having a problem with my work or they'd tell me about physical issues that they were having or emotional issues.

And it became apparent to me that meditation of course is very helpful,

But it wasn't fixing these physical things in their life.

And that's actually set me on a journey the last 15 years or so,

Really looking into these other areas because there's eight levels of life.

Spiritual,

Which is our consciousness and our spiritual awareness.

And then there's mental,

Which is our thinking power,

Thinking and deciding.

Then there's emotional,

Our heart and our feeling.

Then there's our relationships,

Relational,

Connecting with other people,

Connecting with animals.

Then there's our dharma,

Which you could say is our behavior,

Our lifestyle,

Right?

What do we do physically?

Then there's our relationships with people we mentioned and then environment,

Where do you live?

And then your finances.

So we have all these different levels of life and all of them affect us.

All of them affect us.

So someone might be very spiritual,

But they're living in a place which has got cockroaches running around everywhere and it's dirty and it's loud and it's noisy and there's a construction.

It's not gonna be a good situation to be in.

And they can say,

Oh,

It doesn't matter,

It doesn't matter.

I'm just a spiritual being.

But no,

No,

You gotta fix the house,

It's a problem.

So what we're encouraging you to do is think about these things,

That in what areas of your life are not working out.

And don't just think,

Oh,

It doesn't matter.

Don't use spirituality to ignore these things.

Use spirituality as a way of empowering yourself.

So for example,

I got up this morning about four o'clock,

Had wonderful meditation,

Which was very inspiring.

I'm not avoiding anything.

I'm having a spiritual charge,

A spiritual recharge,

Right?

Then I went out for an epic hike up into the mountains and had more meditation.

And all these things give me energy,

Give me good vibrations,

Give me insights to actually come home and do things to make life better.

It could be making the house better or coming up with things for this podcast or whatever else we're up to.

So we can use spirituality as a way to,

On the one hand,

Feel divinely blessed in our heart and in our mind.

And then also to use the energy that we have to actually make our life better.

Recently,

Just give an example about why we need to be charged.

Recently,

I was noticing that our car,

The key in our car wasn't working properly.

And I was like,

What is wrong with it?

Because it pressed the button and it didn't make any beeping noises and I had to use the key on the side of the car.

And I'd go on a walk and then somehow it worked when I got back and I was like,

This is just weird.

And I didn't realize that it actually just needed a new battery in the key.

And as soon as I put a new battery in,

You could open and close the car from a long distance away.

It had all this extra power.

And it really made me remember that that extra power in the battery gives all these new opportunities physically.

But we're the same,

We have a battery within us.

And the more power we have,

Spiritual energy in our being,

The more we can use that in a beautiful way in our lives.

So the more charge you have,

The more you can actually avoid spiritual bypassing.

Yeah,

That's such a beautiful example.

And I think it's just really also about being honest and grounded with your life and what makes sense.

Like a classic example I've heard of spiritual bypassing is like the baby's screaming and the kid's gonna help with their homework and the house is a disaster and the pets are running around wild and the parents are going on a meditation retreat.

It's like,

That's really out of context,

Right?

It isn't that they don't need to recharge spiritually.

I'm sure they do.

But there's a way of being honest and meeting our life where it is and taking care of what needs to be taken care of from a state of contemplation actually.

We can bring that spirituality into what we're doing and to find a suitable place and to find a suitable,

Grounded,

Realistic time for that spiritual recharge.

And for a lot of people,

It is really early in the morning because they have that space before there's the genuine and honest responsibilities of life.

Yeah,

So when we realize we are spiritual beings,

We are here,

And one of the things that actually helped me the most over the years is to realize through spirituality that we are connected to this world.

We're connected to the world.

We're attached to the world actually.

There's in this article from John who wrote about spiritual bypassing,

He was saying that there's healthy attachment and unhealthy attachment.

And he was giving the example that your hand,

For your hand to work,

It has to be attached to your arm,

Doesn't it?

I mean,

What good would the hand do if it wasn't attached to your arm?

So we are actually connected to life.

And not only are we connected to it,

We're eternally connected to life.

And a lot of spiritual paths preach mukti,

This word mukti,

Which means liberation.

And there's also another word moksha,

Moksha,

Which means eternal liberation,

Where you're completely out of this whole thing,

Completely.

One thing I've learned in spiritual practice is that we can't have moksha,

But we can have mukti,

We can have liberation,

But we are connected to this world.

When I realize that I can't escape the world,

Then my energy went from escapism to how to make life beautiful.

You know,

Like when I was giving that story earlier,

I wasn't,

I was having an emotional issue because I had a breakup.

And I was sort of in denial that I wanted to be in a relationship.

And now I'm here with this lovely Ariel,

There she is,

Look,

So she's so sweet.

And I didn't think at the time,

I remember saying to someone,

I'll never be in a relationship.

I'm not going to be into that.

I'm too spiritual for that sort of thing.

But I realized,

No,

No,

It is actually meaningful to have someone in your life who you love and care about and connect with.

So I was in denial of that.

But I realized it's beneficial and you learn a lot in relationships.

So when we realize we can't avoid anything,

Then we can use our spiritual practice to actually improve things.

It's such a,

I think this is such a healing topic.

There can be so much like fragmentation and spiritual paths,

Spiritual communities and so much kind of denial and repression.

And it can be so wounding to that sweet,

Innocent,

The sweet,

Innocent beings that we are and that sweet,

Innocent,

Like human child within,

You know,

That we all have a need for love and for bonding and for connection and for meaning,

For well-being,

Healthy environment,

For purpose,

Do things that we love,

Meaning in our hearts.

All of these facets are so important.

And if we shut down any of them,

Which can happen for so many different reasons and in so many different ways,

Then that wound really only grows until it gets to a point where it refuses to be ignored,

Some sort of major crisis.

So it's so lovely to share on this topic today because I think this topic really understood well,

Has the potential to just bring so much healing into our own lives and into our spiritual communities and into our world.

So the big question,

The big question is to really think about how are we spiritual bypassing?

In what ways does it come up?

Just so you can think about this.

So with money issues,

If you have financial problems,

We could use spiritual bypassing as a way of saying,

It doesn't matter.

The only thing that matters is spiritual riches,

Which is,

You know,

On some ways,

Yeah,

You should be happy without money,

But how are you going to eat?

So that's a problem right there.

Health issues,

We could say,

Oh,

It doesn't matter that I'm sick because I'm just a spiritual being.

But it does matter that you're sick because you're feeling pain.

You need to get healthy and go to a doctor,

You know,

And go to see somebody who can help you.

Relationships,

We can say,

If I hurt someone,

Then it's all their stuff and it's got nothing to do with me.

Everything's just a projection and nothing is real.

This is how people can really screw things up in relationships.

It doesn't make any difference.

In our environment,

We can say,

Yeah,

Sure,

My environment's a mess,

But what does it matter?

I need to be peaceful no matter what.

So we can use spirituality against ourselves potentially.

With emotional stuff,

We can say,

I'm not really feeling bad.

It's someone else's energy.

It's not mine.

This is a classic example.

I've heard this quite a lot from people where they say,

Yeah,

I feel this weird energy,

But it's not my energy.

It's these other people,

Which,

And then they're basically blaming their feelings on somebody else.

Rather than saying,

I am feeling weird,

What can I do to shift the energy?

Or even just accepting it for what it is.

Sometimes we can use spirituality to avoid acknowledging how we're feeling at all.

And oftentimes our feelings are there for a reason.

So for example,

In the emotional realm,

Anger is often seen as a bad thing in spirituality.

And Arundel and I have had conversations about this previously where sometimes things are really off.

They really are a complete disaster.

And one of us might get,

And I'll have to put my hand up,

I sometimes get a bit annoyed about certain things.

What the hell is going on here?

Because it is a problem.

And we don't want to be saying,

Oh,

You shouldn't be angry.

That's not right.

Do you know what I mean?

We should say,

All right,

Okay,

So something's not right.

What are we going to do about it?

Exactly.

There's meaning behind that feeling.

There's something,

There's a message.

And there are so many details in business.

Michael and I do have a lot of business details in our lives.

And business as a spiritual practice has been something we have had to continuously bring to light.

And it's like there are things that go wrong and there are things that need to be said and there are things that sometimes need to be said more firmly.

And that's another area I think that if we have a spiritual practice,

We,

I'll speak for ourselves,

Can want to or lean towards spiritual bypassing because,

Well,

We love everyone we work with and we love everyone,

You know,

We really do.

But to be genuine and real about what does need to be said.

And there's always a way of doing it with love.

Something so beautiful to remember is this balance of law and love,

Love and law.

That the law is there is this physical reality.

There is a reality to business,

To life,

To every aspect of our experience.

And there's a law and order.

There's a dharma,

In a way dharma,

It's righteousness,

It's divine law,

Truth,

That those highest principles are upheld.

And so to stay committed to that and honest with that in every area of our lives with love,

With so much love.

But whenever we veer too much towards law and there isn't love,

I mean,

I think we see that in a lot in our world.

I think it's quite present in corporate world where there's so much law and there's so much constriction and restriction rules and there isn't any love.

So that doesn't work.

As spiritual people we can,

And in spiritual communities,

Maybe we can tend to veer only to the love,

But there isn't the structure of the law.

And then that also falls apart and can get messy.

Yeah,

So what we're feeling,

Acknowledge it and have that balance.

So what we're saying essentially if you tune into the essence of all these things is bringing it all together instead of chopping life into pieces and denying most of it.

It's all here,

It's all part of the one experience and let's embrace it and uplift it.

And the same thing with the political bypass.

We can say,

Oh,

It doesn't matter what they do,

It's none of my business,

It doesn't affect me.

But it does,

The political structures that we have.

For example,

If you went from a capitalist society to a communist society,

You'd lose most of your freedoms and end up in a very bad place.

So don't think these things don't matter.

And so we can do the same thing with mental.

Sure,

I can't think straight,

But my mind is just an annoying distraction and has no value.

Many people just think the mind is just an annoying thing,

That you should just ignore it.

The mind is our friend,

We're here to make peace with our mind,

Use the mind.

The mind is actually extremely useful.

It's trying to help us,

So it's not just some annoying thing to put up with,

It's there for a reason.

So all of our life,

There's so many different things,

They're all here.

And then of course,

The spiritual world,

We can say nothing matters except the spiritual world because nothing else is real.

But that's again,

Another deluded way of thinking.

So,

Yeah,

So what can we do about this,

Right?

So we've talked about how spiritual bypassing works.

We're using spirituality and spiritual ideas and terms and statements as a way of avoiding how we feel and what is going on in our lives.

So what are we going to do about it?

Well,

I think we've talked about that to some extent so far.

I think the first step is really acknowledging,

Becoming aware,

Being willing to be aware.

You can ask yourself,

Am I spiritual bypassing?

Are there any areas of my life I'm avoiding?

Is there anything that needs my attention and love?

What do I need to face?

Sometimes it might be so unconscious that we're just really not aware.

That often does happen,

Genuinely.

So calling it forth,

Being willing and open to seeing what needs to be seen,

Realizing what needs to be realized,

And healing what needs to be healed.

Our openness and our willingness,

Our awareness that we can have a tendency to bypass,

To spiritual bypass,

Simply having consciousness around these things goes a long way.

And having our spiritual practice as a support for our entire lives,

Paying attention that we're not using it as a way to escape,

But as a way to empower us,

To recharge us,

To give us strength,

So that we can be fully present for our lives and show up in the world.

I think self-compassion is another essential ingredient to our journeys.

It's going to be very difficult,

Ugly,

Hard,

Things that arise for all of us,

And that's part of the journey.

It's part of the healing.

There is so much,

So much that is collected in our own psyche,

In the collective consciousness,

That is messed up,

That is fragmented,

That is distorted.

And I think when we can embrace that,

That's part of the journey.

Storms will come.

And it's about anchoring in with the Divine,

Recharging ourselves spiritually,

So we can weather those storms and face them,

And bring light genuinely to every area of our lives.

So this is a little prayer for myself and for all of us,

That we may face our lives fully with courage and with love,

Humility and compassion.

These are really the main ingredients.

It's not necessarily a clear-cut process or path we can give you.

It's always going to look a little bit different,

But to keep these things with you.

Yeah,

That's so beautiful.

And you can ask yourself just a simple question,

Am I willing to face myself?

Am I willing to do what I need to do,

To change my life,

Heal?

Because when we're willing,

We open the door to newness,

To healing,

To transformation.

And like we were sharing earlier,

It's actually easier to face things and deal with them,

Than it is to deny and suppress them.

Because when we actually start facing our life and taking the next step forward,

We actually start making things better,

And we start having relief,

And we start having psychic relief,

Mental and emotional relief that we're no longer in denial.

So if you're having financial issues,

Then face it,

Get help,

Do something about it.

If you're having emotional issues,

Acknowledge it.

If you're having mental problems,

Be honest about it,

Create mantras,

What can you do to get your mind better?

If there's physical issues,

Who can help you with your health?

And if you have a health practitioner and it isn't working,

You need another one,

Or you need some other help that's going to be more effective.

So when we're willing to take the next step,

It actually empowers us,

And it allows us to feel peace.

And I think Michael just touched on such an important element that I'm so glad he just mentioned about receive help,

Receive help.

Sometimes spiritual bypassing is this idea,

I have to do it all on my own,

All by myself.

I don't need anyone.

I don't need any help.

Receive help.

Allow yourself to be supported and willing to do whatever it takes to bring wholeness to your life.

So when we really embrace this,

Then we can start making our life so much better,

So much more beautiful.

We are here in this world.

We do have a body,

And we're designed to be happy.

We have such potential.

And so we might not be able to achieve everything we want in life immediately.

In fact,

It's very unlikely.

Some of our ideas about what is possible might not ever even happen,

If we're honest.

But what can we do to feel a little bit better today?

What can we do to heal a little bit more right now?

What can we do to feel a little bit healthier and a little bit stronger?

So this is the invitation today,

And we'll love to hear from you,

Your own experience,

Your thoughts,

Your journey,

Any other questions or topics that arise from this one.

And in our own experience in working with a lot of people,

There is so much beauty and so much benefit to acknowledging the tendency to spiritual bypass and being willing to lovingly face our lives,

Have so much energy returning to us as we've been talking about,

Feel much more empowered and strong,

And finally make progress in areas of your life that may be have felt stagnant.

So much healing that comes,

So much inspiration as well,

And more.

So a blessing for you today is may you be here now,

Present and whole.

May you accept what is going on in your life and face,

Find solutions to any problems,

And achieve success with ease and grace.

It is our deepest honour and joy to be with you.

Thank you for your presence.

Much love,

And may you feel complete and whole in yourself.

Many blessings.