When Love and Light Aren’t Enough: What Spiritual Bypassing Taught Me About Real Healing

By Nitya, The Nitya Now

I used to think healing meant rising above.
Smiling through the pain. Choosing “love and light.” Detaching from my anger, my grief, my body.

And for a while, I thought I was doing it right. I read the books. I said the mantras. I mastered the positive affirmations.

But I still felt hollow. Disconnected. Floating above my life but not living it.

Then came a deeper Yoga.
Not as a performance. Not as fitness. But as a sacred doorway - back into my breath, my body, my inner world.

And once I dropped back in, the truth surfaced:
The body was where the feelings lived.
The pain I’d tried to spiritually bypass hadn’t gone anywhere - it had just gone inward.

And that’s where real healing began.
Not in skipping the hard parts.
Not in pretending I was “above it.”

But in feeling.
In truth-telling.
In breathing with it, not running from it.

This is the kind of space I hold now.
Not performance. Not perfection.
But sacred returning – over and over and over again.

This is the path of practice, the returning to yourself every time you realize you’ve turned away.

The following is my response to the principal points of Spiritual Bypassing…

“Love and light” as avoidance:

While love and light are sacred realities, we also live in a world marked by harm, hurt, and grief. The spiritual path is a journey of remembering the Love and Light we are in essence - but we cannot bypass the truth of our wounding.

We were raised within systems that do not honor this sacred journey, and because of that, we suffer. We experience trauma. We grieve for the “lost home of our soul.”

So yes, it is vital to know where we are headed - the remembering of our eternal self - and just as vital to recognize the soul-wounds we carry. These wounds live in the body, not in the intellect, and they await safe space, presence, and time to be seen, felt, and healed.

True healing doesn’t skip the pain. It walks with it - gently, honestly - toward serenity and return.

“Everything happens for a reason” as dismissal:

I’ve said this phrase to others. I’ve said it to myself. Because at a soul level, I believe it’s true. But truth doesn’t cancel experience. When we are in pain, we don’t need a philosophy - we need presence.

I said those words as a lifeline, not as bypassing. I clung to them when no one else was there to hold space for me. But healing, I’ve learned, is not a shortcut. It’s a process.

Emotion is energy that must be felt to be released. The body stores what we’re not ready to face. But eventually, we must return - in presence - to the places we were hurt, so that we can unwind the wound and make space again for peace.

Meditation as escape rather than integration:

Meditation is a sacred tool - one that stills the mind and opens gateways to the soul. But if we use it to avoid emotion, rather than feel and process, its power is reduced to a mental practice alone.

This is why Yoga and Ayurveda are so profound. They don’t separate the emotional from the spiritual - they integrate the whole self.

Yoga is a path of union: of the body, the breath, the mind, and the Divine. Meditation prepares the mind for this union. But emotional release is part of the path. To rise, we must feel. To heal, we must stay. This is spiritual work.

“We are all one” used to avoid boundaries:

Yes, we share One Soul across lifetimes and forms. Yes, duality dissolves in the deepest truth. But in this lived experience, we are still individuals navigating relationships, systems, and human complexity.

Boundaries are sacred. They protect ecosystems, people, and energy. They create the space where Love - real Love - can flourish. To claim “oneness” while ignoring personal boundaries is not spirituality - it is disconnection disguised as enlightenment.

True ahimsa begins with honoring the whole self, which includes honoring our “no,” our needs, and our right to rest.

Labeling emotions “low vibe” to suppress them:

Emotions exist on a vibrational spectrum. Some feel expansive. Others feel heavy. But none are wrong.

Emotions below 200 on the vibrational scale (like shame, guilt, grief) are not problems to be avoided. They’re invitations. These lower-frequency emotions arise to be felt, acknowledged, understood, and released. The body knows what to do - but it needs our presence. Calling them “low vibe” and trying to skip over them bypasses the very alchemy that makes healing real.

Emotional energy is meant to move. When we allow it, we rise - not just into higher frequency, but into deeper wholeness.

What I Know Now

Healing isn’t about bypassing pain.
It’s about walking with it - honestly, gently, and with sacred self-trust.

You don’t need to fix yourself.
You don’t need to escape your feelings.
You need a space where it’s safe to feel, to release, and to remember who you are beneath it all.

That’s what I offer.
That’s what The Nitya Now is here for.
To walk with you - not above you - as you return to yourself.

Want to keep walking together?

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You already hold the wisdom. I’m just here to help you remember it.

With heart,
Nitya