Why “Good Vibes Only” Gets a Bad Rap
Understanding Spiritual Bypassing
You’ve probably met someone who insists they’re “too evolved” for anger. Or maybe you’ve been told to “just focus on the positive” while going through something painful. At first, those words might sound uplifting. But if you’ve ever felt dismissed by them, you’ve brushed up against something called spiritual bypassing—the tendency to use spiritual ideas to avoid uncomfortable emotions or hard truths.
The phrase was coined by psychologist John Welwood in the 1980s, but the pattern is timeless. It happens when people lean on spiritual language or even practices not to deepen awareness, but to sidestep the messier parts of being human. Think of it as trying to skip the middle chapters of a healing process and jump straight to the euphoria of enlightenment.
Here are a few examples:
- Grief avoidance: Someone loses a loved one and immediately insists, “They’re in a better place,” without allowing themselves to cry or process the loss.
- Anger denial: A person who’s been wronged says, “I’m not angry; I’m above that,” even as their resentment leaks out in subtle ways.
- Toxic positivity: A friend insists, “Everything happens for a reason,” when what you really need is empathy, not explanation.
- Detachment as defense: Meditation or prayer becomes a way to escape reality rather than engage it—using serenity to suppress conflict or fear.
On the surface, these responses look calm and composed. Underneath, they often reflect avoidance. Real spiritual growth doesn’t mean bypassing pain; it means learning to sit with it—to understand what it’s teaching us, and to let it soften our defenses.
Spiritual bypassing gets a bad rap not because spirituality is harmful, but because it can disguise avoidance as awakening. It allows people to wear the language of light while remaining disconnected from their own darkness. The result isn’t peace—it’s repression dressed up as wisdom.
Authentic spirituality, by contrast, is inclusive. It makes space for grief and gratitude, joy and fear, stillness and struggle. It says, “Yes, I hurt—and I’m still here.” Growth happens when we integrate, not escape.
Finding Balance in Your Practice
At Inner Balance Daily, we believe that wholeness begins where avoidance ends. True balance isn’t the absence of difficulty—it’s the ability to stay present through it. When we honor our full emotional range, spirituality becomes not a shield, but a bridge: connecting the sacred with the human, the light with the shadow, and the heart with the world around us.