The Trap of Spiritual Bypassing and the False Belief that Hope is Evil

How great truths can be twisted into falsehoods by fear.

Kaia Maeve
7 min readFeb 7, 2024

There is a concept that only NOW exists, and the idea that TOMORROW WILL BE BETTER is a trap for the unenlightened.

This is both true and also complete and utter bullshit.

It all depends on how you look at it.

What is a Spiritual Bypass?

Spiritual bypassing describes a tendency to use spiritual explanations to avoid complex psychological issues. Gabriela Picciotto

We are all both spiritual beings and also beings made of matter that operate on a human timeline.

It is the paradox of being human that we can choose to relate to both sides of ourselves. However, the tendency to relate ONLY to one side of ourselves leads to the phenomenon of spiritual bypassing.

This is where the idea that hope for a better future is a great evil is put in service to a self-defense mechanism used to avoid personal or relational growth.

Spiritual bypassing is also often used as a tool by people in power to ignore the struggles of people who have…

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Kaia Maeve

I teach corporate leaders how to keep their best people happy to come to work by building a healthier company culture.