Was it faith? Or Spiritual Bypassing?

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that spirituality was meant to make us calmer, quieter, more agreeable, more composed. We learned that peace was the absence of conflict, that maturity looked like emotional control, and that holiness meant being unbothered.

So we learned how to manage ourselves.

We smoothed over anger instead of listening to it. We rushed grief instead of letting it change us. We called fear discernment. We called collapse surrender. We called endurance faithfulness. We learned how to perform wholeness long before we knew how to inhabit it.

Most of us weren’t trying to avoid our lives. We were trying to be good. We were trying to be faithful. We were trying to do the right thing with the tools we were given.

There’s a name for this pattern: spiritual bypassing.

It’s what happens when spiritual language is used to move around reality instead of meeting it. When prayer replaces honesty. When healing becomes performance. When gratitude silences grief. When peace is prioritised over truth. It’s subtle, it’s often praised, and it can quietly fracture the self.

Over time, many people find themselves strangely disconnected from their own bodies, instincts, and inner lives. They’re doing all the right spiritual things, but something inside feels increasingly distant, muted, or exhausted. They begin to lose trust in their own knowing. They start to feel like a guest in their own life.

In my new Practice Co series, Spiritual Bypassing: Faith, Fear, and the Loss of Self, I explore what happens when spirituality trains us to be less honest rather than more whole.

We look at how fear-based faith shapes the nervous system, how obedience culture confuses collapse with devotion, how healing language pressures people to rush what needs time, and how spiritual connection is meant to help us face our lives with clarity and courage — not avoid them.

This isn’t a series about leaving faith behind.

It’s about reclaiming yourself within it.

If you’ve ever felt calmer on the outside but more fragmented on the inside, if you’ve ever sensed that your spirituality was costing you your voice, your instincts, or your capacity to feel, this series is for you.

You’re not failing at spirituality.

You might just be ready for a truer one.

You can read the first piece now inside The Practice Co.Always,

L xo