Honoring the Late John Welwood, and Spiritual Bypassing
Suzanne Winters2019-01-27T19:50:44-07:00Recently, the great therapist and teacher John Welwood passed on. John was the wise mind who first coined the phrase “spiritual bypassing.” Spiritual bypassing is the art or unconscious movement of using spiritual concepts, teachings or experiences to deny, transcend or ignore our human life. If left unchecked, the art of spiritual bypassing leaves us deeply divided in our spiritual and human self. We may have great spiritual insights and experiences, but if we are proficient at spiritually bypassing our human lives, we just may become deeply unintegrated, detached and defended in our spiritual super ego. The more we spiritually bypass our human lives, the greater the chance our shadow will haunt us or cause trouble both in our human and spiritual experience.