It started with a scroll.
A post by @madalenadragon crossed my feed—
“3 red flags of new age spirituality,” it read.

One phrase caught me right in the chest:
“Spiritual bypassing: the religion of avoidance.”

Something in me paused.
Part of me whispered yes, exactly, and another part winced—wait, but also…

That tension, that tug between resonance and resistance, became my entry point into this reflection. Because I realized—there’s a fine line between living in alignment with spiritual truth and quietly avoiding the very lessons that embodiment asks us to face.

What Is Spiritual Bypassing?



The term spiritual bypassing was first introduced by psychologist John Welwood to describe the tendency to use spiritual ideas or practices to sidestep unresolved emotional wounds or practical realities.

It’s the voice that says,

• “Money is just energy — I don’t need to think about budgeting or structure.”
• “I’m trusting the Universe — so I don’t need to take responsibility for this.”

The intention behind these beliefs might be pure — to stay aligned, to hold faith — but when used to avoid the human experience, they create imbalance.

As Verywell Mind defines it,

• “Spiritual bypassing is the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues.”

Research published in Frontiers in Psychology adds that it can foster magical thinking or an external locus of control — meaning we unconsciously give our power away to something outside of ourselves.

And as Teal Swan writes:

• “Spiritual bypassing is the cancer of the spiritual world — the misuse of spiritual tools.”

That line hit me too. Because even the “good” tools — gratitude, surrender, trust — can become avoidance if they’re not paired with grounded action.

Why It Resonated With Me

This realization didn’t come to me during meditation or a download — it came during something as ordinary (and as human) as balancing my bank accounts.

For a long time, I carried spiritual beliefs like money is energy — and I still believe that to be true. But what I hadn’t realized is that this truth still requires structure.

Recently, I built a new financial energetic structure that finally felt aligned:

Credit card: at zero balance

Line of credit: used strategically for large movements of energy (not emotion)

Chequing account: building to a stable baseline of $10,000

For the first time, I wasn’t chasing abundance — I was holding it.

I could feel the difference between the bypassing energy of “trust the Universe to provide” and the embodied energy of “I trust myself to create the structure that allows abundance to stay.”

Even my nervous system noticed the shift: no more panic refreshes of my balance, no more scarcity flares. Just peace.

That’s when I understood — spirituality isn’t meant to replace responsibility. It’s meant to infuse it with consciousness.

(For more on this idea, Mindvalley’s piece on Money as Energy beautifully echoes this principle of alignment through awareness.)

The Bridge — Embodied Spirituality

When we stop bypassing and start embodying, something profound happens: energy and action begin to collaborate.

This is what I call the bridge — where spiritual truth and human structure meet.

My structure became simple:

• Money flows with intention.
• Spending is grounded in self-trust.
• Expansion happens only when it’s felt in the body as safety, not scarcity.

That’s why when a healer I admired offered a discounted course, I paused. My old self might’ve justified the purchase as “an investment in my vibration.”

But my embodied self asked: Is this within my new energetic structure?
The answer was no.

And I realized — saying no wasn’t a limitation. It was expansion through integrity.

This is the art of embodied spirituality: living your spiritual truths through real, human frameworks.
(For a deep dive into this philosophy, see Tara Brach’s reflection on embodiment and spiritual bypassing).

What Happens Next — Signals & Synchronicities

When you shift your energetic structure, reality notices.

After I said no to that offer, another one appeared in my inbox the next day — from the same healer. This time, it was a self-paced course on sale. And again, I felt the tug: “Maybe this one?”

But the answer was still no.

Not because I didn’t want it — but because I knew that stretching beyond my new structure would be stepping out of integrity with my own frequency.

It felt like the Universe was asking, “Are you sure this is your new baseline?”
And I was.

That’s when I realized — these tests aren’t punishments; they’re reflections. They confirm your new energetic structure is stabilizing.

Invitation to the Reader

So I invite you to pause and ask:
Where in your life are you “trusting the Universe” while secretly avoiding human responsibility?

And where are you overcontrolling, forgetting that energy still needs space to move?

Both are expressions of imbalance.

What if your true power isn’t in bypassing or in overdoing — but in bridging?

You don’t need to abandon your spiritual truths to live responsibly. You just need to ground them in the material world, where your embodiment can hold them steady.

Conclusion

The blinking cursor — that quiet pulse between what is and what’s next — is always waiting.

The Universe is waiting to respond.
Not to your avoidance.
But to your clarity.

So ask yourself:
Are you waiting for divine intervention, or are you willing to become the divine participant?

When you feel the grapple — between trust and structure, spirit and self — know that’s where transformation begins.