What a relief!

This is SO important, I want everyone to listen to this first recording on Spiritual Bypassing, it's tremendous, thanks so much for putting it out there loud and clear for once.

I was in my early twenties when I first witnessed some extreme forms of 'spiritual bypassing' - actual cruelty inflicted on me from 'pseudo-spirituals', a typically opressive form of 'getting out of feeling one's pain' (do a nasty on someone else).   After having my attention drawn to this so poignantly, I could see it happening on others too, and yes it's very common.

And I am sad to say I have kept seeing that kind of stuff all over, but am grateful for these early 'inmunisations' for giving me the in-sight and awareness and am doubly grateful that it is being 'outed' so clearly here, now, in this series of talks.  I really hope it marks a coming of age of this particular type of spiritual movement.   

It really is no different from any other addiction, and in the 12 step movement they've always known about 'spiritual addiction', by the way (same thing as 'spiritual bypass' or 'doing a geographical') - and all addictions are just about trying to avoid emotional pain ... when it is the actual avoidance that makes it most painful.   Really cleanly releasing big emotion, no matter WHICH it is, is simply orgasmic.   And - ironically - it's our fear and judgement of some emotions being 'bad' that hurts us more than anything (or 'negative' and others are 'good' or 'positive' - big toxic pseudo-duality right there).

In this recent Beyond Awakening conversation I've been discussing the (for me very BIG and important) issue of the repression of emotion, and how incredibly institutionalised it is, from every angle, including the spiritual.    It's just chronic, in our culture, wherever you look.

I love this video by Isha, it's probably THE talk that clinched it: I've finally found my Guru (blogged about it on my guru-birthday here)

"... emotion is one of the beautiful experiences of being human, the capacity to feel.  It's wonderful to be human. ... you've created this experience, so enjoy it! "  

... so why is it so rare to find spiritual leaders who say this sane stuff??  Too simple?  Would make less people dependent on gurus fairly quickly, is my guess.

All the complicated talk about "how to deal with the shadow".. even that is about a kind of repression: analysing it all does NOT make it go away, so no wonder these 'masters' then say 'your shadow will always be with you', and 'you just get to learn to deal with it'.      I feel furious when I hear that!  It's a huge big fat lie!  And I hate that so many people then believe it.  It's a typical prophecy that then comes true.

I (and many others I know) have a completely different experience: I have witnessed big huge chunks of shadow melt away and leave no trace ... and quickly, all through simply liberating the emotions, as children do, by good old-fashoned crying, raging, shaking.. what our wonderful human bodies are DESIGNED to do.    It's really THAT simple.  (what isn't simple is setting up the relationships and safety where you can get to do that work, uninterrupted).  Sure you can learn to control it instead, but at what cost?

Am sure other 'release' methods can work too (like 'breathing it out' or going for a monthly scream to the football game, or a big laughter therapy at the comedians), but like any 'by-pass of nature's design', they're probably longer, messier and not as effective in the long run.  Just like everything else we've tried with other ecosystems, trying to be cleverer than Nature.

Most entrenched, strong emotional reactions you couldn't analyse if you tried anyway: much is pre-verbal - that's the deepest stuff, often and all you can do is just dump it.    I've had big sessions raging or crying desperately (safe in the arms of a counsellor, who just relaxedly loved me through it) about things I could never describe to anyone, nor understand myself ... some I don't even know where they came from, it just felt like the pits of hell, they could even be foetal experiences.  Some became as clear as day afterwards, all by themselves.  But the point is it doesn't matter: emotional release just works, it's simply 'garbage out', what we do naturally, it's DESIGNED to work ... if we don't interfere with the process.  

And if we don't endlessly drama about it.   Humans just get so dramatic!  A very un-romantic image comes to mind: a cat or a dog who needs to vomit just vomits quickly and moves on.   We normally feel compelled to do a big performance around it all, sometimes for hours, even days ...   And so on with every other type of discharge we need to get on with.  When you dump the expectation of it being long, complicated or messy, and with a bit of practice, it simply isn't.

We have a mania with adding things, when a lot of the time, all we need to do is just to take away, subtract (there's always a pill or therapy for everything, we need to 'take' something, even if it's just 'advice').     But all natural rhythms are like breathing - there is an in and there is an out.   Emotions are the out phase, it's very simple.  And we deeply screw up when we keep stuffing them and 'taking' something instead of letting them out, and Be.

I hope and pray for the day we just love our humanity enough to really accept it, and love ourselves enough to not buy that there is one hair out of place in our perfection: then life will be a lot simpler, a lot more passional, deep and true.