How to Recognise Spiritual Bypassing

A Guide to Discernment on the Healing Path

Not every person who speaks the language of healing truly knows how to hold space.

Not every conversation that sounds spiritual is rooted in presence.

Sometimes, what’s offered as support is actually ego needing to be right.

Sometimes what’s offered as support is just ego needing to be right.

What Is Spiritual Bypassing?

Spiritual bypassing is when someone uses spiritual concepts to avoid real emotions, bypass responsibility, or shame others under the guise of insight.

It often sounds like:

• “You must have attracted this.”

• “Everything’s just a mirror.”

• “Maybe you needed that pain to learn something.”

These phrases may appear wise, but they often bypass the human need for compassion, understanding, and emotional processing. Instead of offering connection, they can leave the receiver feeling judged, dismissed, or emotionally unsafe.

Common Signs of Spiritual Bypassing

• Advice without empathy – quick spiritual conclusions that ignore the emotional experience

  
  

• Overuse of phrases like ‘everything happens for a reason’ to shut down grief or frustration

  
  

• Avoidance of discomfort – shifting conversations away from anything that feels too emotionally raw

  
  

• Confusion between spiritual truth and personal opinion

Discernment in the Spiritual Community

Just because someone uses words like energy, healing, angels, universal energy, spiritual guides, or even God, doesn’t mean they are spiritually grounded or safe.

It doesn’t mean they know how to hold your truth.

There is often confusion between universal energy and God’s energy, but they are not the same. Some will say it’s all just balance, that there is no good or evil. But when you walk with God, you come to recognise the difference.

There is good. There is evil. And there is a spiritual battle far deeper than duality. God’s light is not neutral. It is sovereign. And when you stand in it, you begin to see more clearly who is aligned, and who is not.

Some individuals explore powerful modalities like tantra or sexual energy work without anchoring in discernment. They may dismiss caution as “judgment” or reject spiritual protection as “religious.”

But true healing comes with humility, not superiority. If someone becomes defensive when questioned, or belittles another’s spiritual language, this is not an empowered guide. This is a warning sign.

Spirituality is not about always being positive. It’s about being real.

What You Can Do When You Feel Bypassed

• Trust yourself when your discernment speaks to you

• If it didn’t feel like support, it wasn’t support

• Set quiet boundaries with those who continually minimise your truth

• Speak your truth where it is safe and protect it where it is not

Final Thoughts

Discernment is not judgment. Discernment is love in motion.

It allows you to walk confidently in your spiritual path, without being swayed by voices that sound wise but lack rooted presence.

You are not too sensitive. You are not overreacting.

You are remembering how to recognise what’s real.

Laura Hanson, Energy Healer & Soul Guide at Universe’s Gifts