How NOT to Spiritual Bypass: A Practical Guide to Avoid “Love and Light”
Following my critique of ‘love and light’ spirituality that has become so prevalent in New Age communities, I also wanted to offer some actionable suggestions.
Critiquing “love and light” doesn’t mean rejecting care. It means refusing sentimental shortcuts and committing to the full work: the luminous practices of compassion and clarity and the difficult, necessary labour of shadow work and death work. Shadow work asks us to notice what is hidden, such as rage, grief, structural harm, and to sit with it until it can be transformed. Death work teaches endings, ritual closure, and how to make space for what must be released. Both are essential if compassion is to be accountable and real.
These are behaviours and habits you can adopt personally, in groups, and in ritual spaces to make sure compassion isn’t merely performative.
1. Slow the sentiment; act the responsibility.
Before offering a platitude, ask: what concrete step can I take right now to address this harm or need? Say that first, and follow through. Feeling warm and fuzzy is not a substitute for labour.
Wait, Are We Talking About “Love and Light” Spirituality or White Supremacy?
“Love and light” pairs two shorthand ideas—love as compassion or goodwill toward others, and light as clarity, healing, or guiding energy—and is commonly used as a benediction in spiritual contexts. You’ll hear it in New Age and online spiritual communities, in ritual send-offs, in entire ideological tenets, and as a quick way to offer positive intent. Its true meaning depends on usage and user: for some it’s a sincere invocation, for others a polite, albeit vague phrase.
When the phrase turns from offering into an instruction or lacks concrete care or practice, it can function as an avoidance of reality, insisting on a performance of positivity that erases pain, shadow, imbalance, and systemic injustice. It becomes a tool of spiritual bypassing, often wielded by those with social advantage to shame or silence expressions of anger, grief, or truth: be high-vibe or be silent.
Qualities of McSpirituality, Its Bullshit and Its Dangers
McSpirituality justifies and even spiritualizes self-obsession, prioritizing one’s own emotions and individuality over the needs and realities of a group. McSpirituality misuses psychology terms like ‘trauma’, ‘trigger’, and ‘narcissist’ to describe ordinary discomfort and someone who holds a difference of opinion. McSpirituality confuses spiritual terms for the spiritual practice. McSpirituality confuses spiritual tools for the spiritual practice. McSpirituality looks to complex, intricate spiritual teachings, reduces them to decontextualized clear cut “truths”, and then sells them as tidy “answers” to complex, intricate life problems.
HOW ONE DOES ONE THING IS HOW ONE DOES EVERYTHING
And so when we make one choice, we make many.
12 AFFIRMATIONS + TRUTHS THAT ARE NOT EXTRACTIVE AND DO NOT BYPASS
1. While I most likely cannot be whoever I want, I can do something that weaves my interests with my abilities, to the best of my circumstances.
MONEY + SPIRITUAL BYPASSING
Many spiritual sayings and platitudes have been devised to negate responsibility and dissolve guilt around acquiring and possessing wealth, as well as the various forms of privileges money grants in general. These are to neutralize the politics of money, who possesses it, how it's generated, and the ethics around it all.
THERE ONCE WAS A WOMAN WHO SWALLOWED A FLY
Judging the title, you probably think I'm about to recite a nursery rhyme, but alas, there is nothing fictional about what I'm about to share, as I was the woman who once swallowed a fly— during a meeting when I was pitching to a prospective client while I was still working in the clean tech industry.
SPIRITUAL MYTHS ABOUT COVID-19
I don't subscribe to the various spiritual theories of why Covid-19 is happening.
I DON'T think Covid-19 is the way the Earth is "taking revenge".
I DON'T think the old paradigm is ending.
I DON'T think it's a global awakening.
I DON'T think it's happening FOR us.
I think we create these reasons because humans crave meaning. We crave meaning because we are spiritual creatures who need context to feel safe. But the virus exists for itself. Are we so self centered to think that everything exists for us (be it as a gift, as an act of revenge, or otherwise)?
THE SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE THAT MOST PEOPLE NEVER QUESTION – BUT SHOULD
Perhaps the most used word that ‘woke’ people use these days – whether they are in spiritual circles, wellness circles, or even personal development / business coaching circles – ‘manifesting’ is the ubiquitous buzz word and ever the dangling carrot for many.
THE DIVINE FEMININE AS A 'TREND'
We can all agree that patriarchy wants to silence, control, and exploit the Divine Feminine, but how about examining healing and the Divine Feminine as a “trend”?
When we dress or adorn ourself or our physical spaces in a certain ‘Priestess’ aesthetic are we attempting to silence and control, or exploit Her?