The law of spiritual bypass states that there is no entry to the next level of growth if you have omitted or failed to complete any previous part of the spiritual path. The law of spiritual bypass means that you cannot skip over vital stages of life learning and expect to grow. Wherever you are is where you need to be to evolve. Sadness is often an emotion people are quick to bypass.

During graduate school, I was so eager to become a great healer. If my friends took a weekend workshop, I asked them to teach me the nuggets of the course. I would then immediately try to apply what they taught me to patients in the clinic at the Chinese medicine school or with my massage clients. The problem was that I didn’t understand the guiding principles behind the techniques I learned second-hand from my friends. I had a very superficial understanding, and as a result, the techniques had limited benefits. When I was in high school, I skipped Spanish IV to Advanced Placement Spanish. I was in way over my head. Most of the students were near fluent and I could barely understand a sentence of their quick-paced Spanish. In the past, I had relied heavily on my charisma and enthusiasm to fill in the gaps of my knowledge. When that caught up with me in high school, I learned to hunker down and study the basics.

You gotta crawl before you can walk. The temptation to try to skip ahead in life is a trap. One thing I’ve learned is to enjoy the ride. All lessons occur on their own time. Nothing that’s really worth learning happens without self-effort and Grace.

If you are uncomfortable with feeling sad, you will suppress it. Suppressed emotion creates somatization, the transference of emotional tension into physical tension. Tension restricts the flow of life force, blood, lymph, and all other metabolic processes, and creates a ripe internal ecosystem for disease. In order to heal, eventually you need to face your sadness with self-forgiveness and compassion. Compassion for self is sometimes even harder to access and extend than compassion for others. Be easy with yourself if it does not happen easily or quickly. This is tough stuff and worth doing for your complete healing.

If you have a tendency toward spiritual bypassing or find it hard to have compassion for yourself, let me help. I will hold space for you and help you gently and intuitively turn toward your sadness and any other emotion that you are feeling. You don’t have to walk through life’s lessons alone.

Give the office a call at 541-465-9642 to make an appointment or email Oriona at [email protected].

All Love, Luke