From “Love and Light” to Real Life: Calling BS on Bypassing
It starts with a mantra. It ends with a mess.
Once a sacred phrase rooted in deep spiritual resonance, “Love and Light” has been reduced to a performance—an aestheticized catchphrase used to mask discomfort, spiritualize avoidance, and opt out of hard conversations. In today’s commodified wellness culture, the phrase floats through yoga studios, Instagram captions, and retreat brochures like synthetic incense: pleasant, perfumed, and utterly incapable of clearing real toxicity.
“Spiritual bypassing” is not just a casual phenomenon—it’s a deeply embedded defense mechanism coined by psychotherapist John Welwood in the 1980s. It refers to the tendency to use spiritual practices or beliefs to avoid facing unresolved emotional wounds, psychological patterns, and systemic injustices.
In other words, while we chant for peace, we’re often skipping the work required to make it real.
The Cult of Bypassing in the Age of Influence
In the post-2016 wellness boom, the “spiritual-industrial complex” has grown into a $4.5 trillion dollar market globally . Influencers now rival elders, and “healers” often function as lifestyle brands. The result? Spirituality has become so commodified that it frequently mirrors the very systems it claims to dismantle.
Enter toxic positivity: a cultural fixation on relentless optimism that dismisses valid emotional pain as a sign of weakness or spiritual immaturity. A 2020 study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that participants who were encouraged to suppress negative emotions reported lower emotional resilience and increased anxiety over time .
This is not healing. This is harm.
Instead of learning to metabolize anger, grief, and trauma, seekers are often told to “vibrate higher.” Instead of engaging with the systemic roots of suffering—racism, capitalism, patriarchy—we’re taught to focus on personal manifestation. As if your inability to attract love or security is a mindset problem, not the result of generational trauma, housing discrimination, or wage inequality.
When Spirituality Becomes PR
Bypassing isn’t just a misstep—it’s a social performance.
Take a quick scroll through Instagram: curated vulnerability is rewarded with likes, while rage and grief are buried under pastel Canva quotes. Terms like “boundaries,” “alignment,” and “shadow work” are tossed around with such frequency and vagueness that they’ve lost meaning, often deployed not to deepen dialogue but to shut it down.
The phrase “everything happens for a reason” becomes a weapon of deflection—a fast-pass out of empathy.
A 2022 survey by The Harris Poll showed that over 65% of Americans feel that online wellness advice often lacks nuance or accountability, yet it continues to thrive due to the pressures of performative positivity and social media vitality .
Real Healing Is Messy—And Necessary
Here’s the truth: real healing is not clean. It’s not quiet. And it does not look good in a curated grid.
Healing smells like sweat and tears. It sounds like hard conversations, broken silence, and boundaries drawn in the middle of old wounds. It demands community, context, and sometimes, confrontation.
Anger is not low vibration. Rage is not inherently toxic. Grief is not failure. These are emotional intelligences—not obstacles to transcend but invitations to engage.
To quote bell hooks:
“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.”
