When victims of betrayal and emotional abuse are told things like, “If you have enough faith, God will change your husband.” Or, “You decide whether you are a victim.” These statements are a form of spiritual or new age bypass. What does spiritual bypass mean for victims of emotional abuse? Here’s what you need to know.
If you have heard this kind of messaging and need help getting out of the fog, we would love to see you in a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session.
Transcript: What Does Spiritual Bypass Mean? What You Need To Know
Anne: We have a member of our community on today’s podcast. Her name is Tracy, and she is a passionate advocate for betrayed wives. Discovering her husband’s addiction set her on a course of education about betrayal trauma, abuse, spirituality, and healing. Tracy is a devoted mother of four children, a compassionate friend, and an avid runner. Mountains and lakes are her happy place. Mountains and lakes are also my happy place, so we have that in common.
We’re going to start by talking about spiritual bypass. I think the main issue is abusers used spiritual bypass, clergy or even therapists to build up abusers and keep victims trapped.
Tracy: Absolutely. Okay. Wow. You’re jumping right into the meat of things. Spiritual bypass is such a complex topic.
Understanding What Spiritual Bypass Means
Anne: I’m interested in learning how spiritual concepts are used to abuse women. We’ll get to that a little later, but before we get to that, how can understanding what spiritual bypass means help those seeking to heal from trauma?
Tracy: I’ll just give an example for myself. So my first D-Day was a month after I married. It was very traumatic, very, very traumatic. I didn’t know that I was in trauma. I didn’t know anything about trauma. There was so much I didn’t know. I didn’t have any support system or any real education.
So basically, all I knew was that I was in so much pain, in such a place of darkness. The only way out, it took me two or three days, I don’t remember. Truly being in this dark, dark pit before I realized the only way out was God. And so I went to God in prayer and said, I cannot keep feeling this. I felt like it was going to kill me.
Thinking, “I need to forgive my husband, but don’t know how to forgive him?” I am incapable of forgiving him, but I want to forgive him. And I know you can help me, and it was incredible. I mean, it worked immediately. The darkness lifts, and I fill up with incredible comfort, warmth and peace. Now, I wasn’t healed from trauma. Of course, I didn’t understand trauma or what it meant to thoroughly heal from trauma.
Recognizing Reality and Spiritual Bypass Meaning Helps Victims of Betrayal and Abuse
Anne: My guess is, this was the first time you knew you were in the abuse cycle. But you found out more later. The other thing you didn’t know at the time was that your husband was abusive. So this to you felt like a miracle that you could move forward and forgive. You didn’t realize that you hadn’t healed from trauma, but also that you weren’t safe.
Tracy: Right, here’s where spiritual bypass can get tricky. Because while that worked for me at that time and helped me, ultimately it kept me stuck in the trauma. It didn’t help me to better understand it or to come to a better understanding of my situation.
Anne: Okay, that’s interesting. I can think of many examples of spiritual bypass. Something like I’m going to let Jesus solve this problem and ta da! It’s solved. Or other ways in which I’m going to turn to God. Mistaking that moment of feeling peace, which is a good thing. You needed to feel peace, and he gave you the gift of peace in that moment. But mistaking a moment of peace for the solution.
The Second D-Day
Tracy: Yeah, and I want to compare that now to my second D-Day, which was 15 years into marriage. I had very little idea that anything was going on between. I did have one small D-day, a year after the first, about a year into marriage. But again, I still did not realize what was going on.
About 15 years in, I found out that this was going on my entire marriage regularly. That obviously my husband had been lying constantly about it, and hiding it. Then all those pieces start to fit together. That explains so much of my experience in this marriage that I did not understand.
So the second one was incredibly traumatic. That happened on a Sunday night, I still remember it late at night. We were in bed talking. And as he began to disclose the reality, my situation started to descend upon me, as I came to terms with that.
Aftermath Of Second D-Day & Not Knowing What Spiritual Bypass Means
Tracy: I didn’t sleep that night. I think I fell asleep at 6 a.m. and slept for one hour.
And I said, I will not do this again. Because I realized I’d only been through one big cycle of this. I could see that handling it the way I did the first time wasn’t going to cut it. All that was going to do was set me up for more D-Days, and more D-Days, and more D-Days. And continuing to experience spiritual bypass over and over.
Anne: The other thing at the time, I’m guessing, was you did not take into account. That those 15 years you were psychologically abused continually. So you’re not just saying, I’m not going to stand for one more D-Day.
Tracy: Right, absolutely. And I didn’t know what spiritual bypass was at that point. I didn’t even stumble upon this concept until a year after that second D-Day. But this is something I knew inherently in that moment, that moment of truth, right? And so my whole approach to healing was different than that first time.
This was not going to be an event or an arrival. This was going to be a long process. I was going to let myself feel angry for as long as I needed to feel angry. And I start setting boundaries right away without even knowing what a boundary was. I was never introduced to the concept, it was something that I knew.
https://youtu.be/UoB4iw-pXAM
Why Are Spiritual Bypass & New Age Bypass Harmful To Victims Of Betrayal?
Tracy: The lesson I learned was actually good and true. From the first experience, God is real. So it actually did not help me in the context of my relationship. But it helped me personally strengthen my relationship with God. So there was good and truth that came out of that first experience for me personally.
Anne: Let’s talk about that for a minute. You did not feel betrayed by God then? You didn’t look back and say, Oh, he gave me the sense of peace. He gave me the ability to forgive, and that did me wrong.
Tracy: You know, it’s interesting because I felt more betrayed by God after the first D-Day than the second. I don’t know what it was, but something after that second D Day, I instinctively knew some truths right away. And one of them was that this isn’t God. God did not betray me here. My husband did. And I realized that many things started fitting into place quickly. One of those was God was there for me all along.
He was warning me. After that first D-day, I would pray for discernment. Oh, I would pray to know if my husband was honest with me or if he was lying to me. And I always thought that since I could never find evidence, or my husband would never admit anything, I guess that meant he was telling me the truth because God wasn’t putting something in my lap, right? So I guess the spiritual bypass was coming from me.
Protecting Myself From What Spiritual Bypass Means
Tracy: Like throwing the evidence out in front of me. But in reality, I felt that uneasiness. I knew in my gut that something was wrong for years. And I knew after that second D-day, God was talking to me all along. It’s not God’s fault. It’s my husband’s fault. It was realizing what gaslighting was, and again, before I understood what gaslighting was, my husband interfered with my relationship with God.
Anne: That’s super cool, because that’s exactly what happens. It’s an abusive situation. Where over and over again, someone is on purpose manipulating your reality to inhibit your relationship with God on purpose. They are using spiritual bypass to manipulate as well.
Tracy: Absolutely, yeah, and that’s what it did. I was a spiritual person before I married. I came to my spirituality as a kid. And strengthened it as a youth and that was always a strong point for me. It was strange for me that after I married my spirituality started to decline. And I started to feel more distant from God. And it was really weird to me because I couldn’t figure out why. Because I was doing all of the same things I’d always done.
My heart turned towards God. I wanted that relationship, but I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling so distant. And I would come up with reasons. Well, maybe it’s because I’ve had kids now and I don’t have the time to pray the same way I used to. I don’t have the time to spend as much time in the scriptures as I used to. So I guess I’m not prioritizing right. Because motherhood is difficult, but that wasn’t the reason.
Caution & Prayer
Anne: That’s fascinating. I had that same thing happen. I considered myself spiritual before I married. And then after I married, it was so difficult to feel that. And I’ve never thought about it in this context before. Is that one of the reasons you felt really betrayed the first time? Was because you had maybe prayed about it? Should I marry him?
And you got an answer, yes. And then you thought, why would you tell me to marry this guy? Or talk about why you felt really betrayed by God the first time?
Tracy: Yes and no, I didn’t actually get the answer, Yes. What happened was, I was careful and cautious about marrying. I didn’t want to just make a rash decision. And I was very prayerful about it. I studied the subject and ultimately I decided, okay, I love this guy. No, I’ve got to take a leap of faith, step into the darkness. So, you know, I said, yes.
Engagement Doubts & Red Flags
Tracy: Well, I started to feel uneasy during our engagement, like something was off. And it’s interesting, because there were various things that happened in a relatively short period during our engagement. That really moved me to confront my husband and ask if he had ever had any issues with pornography.
And he looked me in the eye and he said, no, never. And I may have asked one follow up question. He maintained, no, never. I didn’t push it. I just accepted his answer, but I still had these feelings of just uneasiness. My best friend, at the time, was also engaged.
She was also feeling kind of uneasy. We were like, is this normal? Is this just like engagement jitters? But we didn’t want to be like that crazy girl who likes to give back the ring, right? And changes her mind and goes back and forth. And so we made a pact with each other, me and my friend. That if we started to feel that uneasiness, we wouldn’t act on it unless it stayed with us for more than 24 hours.
Because it might just come and go, or whatever, just the butterflies. And actually, I also prayed about that. I said to God, I understand that this might be normal feelings of anxiety or whatever. So I’m not going to take them seriously unless they stay with me for more than 24 hours.
Then I hope that means this is serious. At one point, they did stay with me more than 24 hours, that length of time. But still, I didn’t have any reason why something should be off. I didn’t have anything to point to.
Dad, Marriage Decision & Spiritual Bypass
Tracy: So I went to my Dad, who I love and is a wonderful, wonderful man, full of lots of goodness and wisdom. He basically just talked me out of my feelings.
And basically convinced me that I was being silly and too emotional. He said, “Your fiance is a great guy.” He’s got great career ambitions. He’s going to take good care of you. And he loves you. There’s no reason not to marry him. Spiritual bypass again. After, I found out a month into marriage. Which, the way I found out, is because my husband lost his job. He was caught using it at work.
It was awful. But I did briefly, just very briefly, feel betrayed by God. I was like, I prayed about this, I asked about this. But again, through spiritual bypass, I let go of all those feelings. Well, after my second D-Day, 15 years in, when I tried to put all the pieces back together and make sense of it. I realized God answered my prayer.
Tracy: I knew in my gut that something was off. No, he didn’t tell me exactly what, but I knew something was off. I can trust my gut. And I can trust God. I realize my husband is the one lying to me. My Dad talked me out of my feelings when I went to him, saying I feel like something is off. I’m nervous.
I’ve never had to work through a intense or long lasting feeling of betrayal by God. I’ve realized he’s been with me. It’s people getting in the way.
Spiritual Bypass And Answers To Prayer
Anne: I think that’s a good way to look at it. I hope that women can get to that point and realize that, but it’s very, very difficult, especially if they haven’t had some of those experiences where they feel like a prayer was answered and maybe they ignored it. But I think that’s good to bring up. Thank you for sharing that part.
Tracy: I want to add one quick thing I would encourage women to consider is that sometimes we may get an answer, right? Maybe, this was not my experience. I did not get a definitive, yes, marry this guy. That was not my experience. But some women I have talked to say they have had that experience.
And so they feel betrayed when they find out. That’s understandable. What I would encourage them to think about is what did that yes actually mean? Like, sometimes we can get an answer to something, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the answer for the rest of our lives.
Things can change. People can still make choices that change circumstances. I like to think about life as not something totally planned out. Where God is pulling these puppet strings. But rather, there are those books I had as a kid. I forget what they’re called. It changes your ending books.
Choices Mean Endings Change & God Doesn’t Want Abuse
Tracy: I don’t know if you ever had any of those. But you would start to read the story, and then there was a choice that you would have to make. Then depending on that choice, you would skip to a certain point in the book. And then you’d come to another choice. So depending on the choices made, the ending of the story would change.
Things would play out. I think it’s helpful to think of life more that way. So, based on the circumstances of something right now, I can pray about something and get an answer that is good for me right now. But tomorrow, my husband can make a choice that changes circumstances, and my answer may then change if I pray again. Does that make sense?
Anne: It does. I think it also helps women to know, that because a lot of women are like, well, I need to set a boundary. And my boundary really does need to be separation right now. Because he’s so emotionally abusive that I cannot even be around him, let’s pretend. But then they’ll think back to that answer and be like, but I’m supposed to be with him.
So instead of saying, okay. I need to set this boundary, because I’m not safe. They think God wants me to be abused, which is a form of spiritual bypass. That’s never the answer. God never wants you to be abused, ever. So if you’re trying to sort that out. I’m telling you here, hopefully this is inspiration for you, that God does not want you to be abused regardless of what answers you had from prayers in the past.
The Logical Decision To Marry
Anne: I agree completely. For me, I never asked whether I should marry my ex-husband. But I definitely felt like it was the logical right decision. I’m very, very logical. So it seemed like the logical right decision, which I made happily. And now looking back, I don’t know if I would have received an answer, but I can see that my life’s work would not be possible without him.
He introduced me to everything I needed to know, to run Betrayal Trauma Recovery and to continue to run BTR. So I’m actually super grateful for the experiences. Because I would never do what I do now without the experiences he gave me. Which were all horrific, but also now I have a PhD in evil.
Spiritual Bypass Meaning In Abusive Behaviors
Anne: Let’s talk about how spiritual bypass is problematic for a man exhibiting abusive behaviors.
Tracy: So my husband, leading up to that second big D-Day, threw himself into spirituality. He was becoming involved in our church community, very service oriented. And was reading the scriptures for like a certain amount of time every day.
He was, on his commutes to work. He was listening to sermons and keeping track in his little calendar journal, of acting out points. And he convinced himself that this was all serving him well. Because he had longer periods of abstinence between acting out events than ever before in his life.
He was going a whole two weeks between acting out, for a period of months. And he was convincing himself, because he was doing all these things, that he was progressing. But did they actually help him progress? No.
He fooled himself into thinking he was making progress. But it was a two steps forward, three steps back. And he still lived in lies, secrecy, and abusing me. See, he told himself, no, this is good. Because I will tell what’s been going on after I’ve like six months or a year of sobriety under my belt. And it will be this awesome thing, and she’ll be so excited for me.
But the thing is, he was never going to get to six months or a year. He was just spiritual bypass and keeping me stuck in abuse.
Spiritual Bypass Means A False Sense Of Recovery
Tracy: In about the period of one to two years post that second D-Day, he was exhibiting another form of spiritual bypass. He was doing all of the right things on paper for recovery. He’d done a formal disclosure. He had gone to a 12-step group, and was still going to it. He’d done the repentance process through our ecclesiastical leader. He was doing all of these right things, but that was just it. He thought that he was done.
Like, that’s all taken care of, so can we just put a bow on it and lock it up in the closet and never talk about it again? This is just another example of how he used spiritual bypass. So addicts can even use “working recovery” as a form of bypass. Where they convince themselves that they’re doing so great, but they’re really not.
Anne: Instead of asking the question, am I emotionally safe? A lot of women are manipulated to ask, “Is he in recovery?” Because that answer can be manipulated to be yes with box checking. So victims are like, yeah he’s in recovery because he goes to his weekly 12-step meeting and he’s going to therapy every week.
The question: Is he currently safe? Has to be answered by what his character currently is. Which seems to be a much safer question for victims to ask than, “Is he in recovery?”
Emotional Safety vs. Recovery
Tracy: I agree, there is this false hope and a sense of safety, but it’s not genuine safety. It’s just a feeling of safety that we so desperately want.
Anne: I think it’s a hope of safety. Because if they’re attending a 12-step meeting and they’re attending therapy, then you’re not safe yet. But you’re hoping to be safe in soon. So instead of setting a boundary immediately and saying, okay, I need to get to safety now. And then watch from a safe distance to see if these abusive behaviors stop. You’re hoping that they’ll stop sometime in the future.
Tracy: Yeah, when we’re in that terrible trauma and we just want relief. It’s easy to latch on to the idea of there’s a cure or a fix or a place of arrival. Well, once my husband gets to this place, like this many years of recovery or whatever, then we’ll be good. This really will be all behind us.
Anne: Let’s say we’re not experiencing abusive behaviors. And because we haven’t been experiencing them for some time, he appears to be healthy and safe.
But we wouldn’t know unless it happened again. And at that point, you could look back and reframe what your current experience is. But until that happens, why not just enjoy the moment? And, hopefully, I’ll It never happens again, because this period of peace and safety is not a grooming period.
It’s actually that he’s changed his behaviors. I’m always concerned of these peaceful good times. How do we know if they’re another, maybe long and maybe better grooming period? Because he’s learned all this therapy speak, so he’s able to groom a little bit better than he has been before.
Can Spiritual Bypass Mean Manipulation?
Tracy: Right, exactly. And in the same kind of way, When I think about am I safe, it’s am I safe now? Am I safe to say, engage in this conversation? My question is not, am I safe to recommit to my husband that we’re going to be together forever, and divorce is never on the table? No, it’s am I safe right now to continue engaging in the relationship the way that I am right now?
Anne: Yeah, that makes much more sense. I love that. Let’s talk about some other examples. A man exhibiting abusive behaviors may use to manipulate his victim, in terms of spiritual bypass. It might be, “I used the atonement, Jesus took away my sins. What you don’t believe in Jesus?”
Tracy: Well, that’s spiritual abuse. Why haven’t you forgiven yet? Can’t you move on? Why are you being so un-Christ like? I mean, it’s just straight up spiritual abuse.
Anne: They’re parading what seems to be their devotion to their religious beliefs as legitimate. In this case is simply taking the name of God in vain.
Tracy: Right, Yeah. The day after my last D-Day, I was expressing how much pain I was in. He looked at me and said, I can’t tolerate this cruelty and walked away from me. Calling me cruel, suggesting that somehow I’m devoid of compassion, so I’m falling short of some spiritual standard. Me expressing my pain is actually a good healthy thing for me to be doing. It doesn’t mean I’m not compassionate.
Anne: That is a form of gaslighting. To say, You telling me how you feel about me abusing you is mean, is absolutely ridiculous. A comic on Facebook said, I’m so sad and depressed about how you’re talking about me abusing you.
Can Spiritual Bypass Mean Ecclesiastical Leaders Are Enabling Abuse?
Tracy: And this can happen with ecclesiastical leaders as well, both for the abuser and the victim. Bishops or pastors who tell men, well, you just need to pray this away using spiritual bypass. Praying alone is going to work. Or you need to immerse yourself in the scriptures, and then that will give you strength to overcome this. But not addressing the underlying psychological issues that are at play here, that need to be addressed.
Anne: Reminds me of Luke 18, where the unjust judge says, Pray and God will help you. But he actually has the ability to hold the offender accountable. In many ways, instead of holding the offender accountable. Perhaps putting him in jail or whatever other options that that judge has for that offender, instead of doing that, he tells the victim, Pray, God will help you. When he is actually refusing to be that help, shirking his duty as a judge.
Tracy: He could be the instrument in God’s hand to help. But he’s not. So this happens often to victims as well. Like, why haven’t you forgiven yet? You just need to forgive.
Anne: As if the forgiveness is the problem rather than the ongoing abuse.
Anne: So you’re telling a victim to basically tolerate abuse and that if she doesn’t, that she’s the problem rather than the abuse.
Tracy: And that’s why we need to separate ourselves to a degree or to several degrees. To get a level of safety, but asking someone who is literally living in abuse. And being currently and continually harmed to just forgive as if that’s going to make them not be affected by the abuse.
Embracing Difficult Emotions & Recognizing Spiritual Bypass
Tracy: My first D-Day and then my second D-Day. While it was a form of bypass that kept me stuck , I can look back on periods or instances where we recognize spiritual bypass, so we can have compassion on ourselves.
Like for example, there are times when we may be feeling just so heavy and we just really wanna break. It’s just too heavy tonight. It’s just too heavy.
I’m gonna go read my scriptures or say a prayer, ask for God to take this feeling away. Maybe listen to some uplifting music, recognizing that’s what I’m doing. It’s an intentional thing. because right now it’s just too heavy and I need this comfort. That’s not the kind of bypass that’s going to keep you stuck.
Anne: There’s never going to be anything wrong with asking God for comfort and for asking him for peace. The only thing is if you’re in an abusive situation, a moment of peace is not going to solve your problem. A moment of comfort isn’t going to solve your problem. So you can feel that comfort enough to move forward, to set a boundary, to know what you need to do.
And also for a break from the intense emotional pain. I remember I would jump up and down, like when I was praying and I would scream and yell and be like, why aren’t you doing anything about this? I was kind of thinking that there would be an instant where he Would solve it.
Feeling Comforted & Terrible
Anne: Most of the time, I wasn’t comforted, and I just felt terrible. My experience was like, God wasn’t even going to give me any moments of peace, because maybe he thought I would misinterpret them. So he was like, I’m going to let you be in total pain for a year and a half. And then finally the clouds lifted after I’d been separated from his physical presence for at least a year.
Many women do feel a lot of peace, even though the situation is terrible. We don’t ever have to think. Wait a minute, was that feeling of love real? Because it always is. He wants to comfort us and he wants us to feel his love. All right.
New Age Bypass & Victim Blaming
Anne: So now that we’ve covered spiritual bypass, let’s talk about new age bypass. Which is sort of this, despite your painful current circumstances, all you have to do is think differently.
Tracy: New Age teachings can go wrong, especially in healing from trauma or if you’re in a dangerous situation. There’s a lot of victim blaming that can go on in this kind of teaching. What you just said, the way we create our own reality, is a form of victim blaming. There is the teaching that everything we feel or experience originates with our own thoughts, so that we are creating our feelings with our thoughts. That nothing is happening to us from the outside.
That can be very victim blaming, and victim blaming is very dangerous because that will make it more difficult for them to find safety and heal.
So these are some common things you might hear. It happened for a reason. Nobody can hurt you without your consent. I wonder why you created this experience. It’s just your karma. There are no accidents, no victims. There are no mistakes. Don’t look back. What’s done is done. Don’t be a victim. Your feelings are an illusion. Be strong.
Anne: I think the biggest danger in that is that someone would think. Okay, well, if I can just think different thoughts then my reality will change without actually taking action to keep themselves safe. Have you seen that in your experience?
Tracy: Yes, let’s hit on this one.
Debunking “We Create Our Own Reality”
Tracy: We create our own reality. Okay, so we’re going to debunk that. Often victims will hear. We create our own reality, so you shouldn’t do that. You should not write or think about something so negative, or else you will draw negative things into your life. The faulty thinking is that somehow if our belief is strong enough, if our energy is high enough, like our vibration is high enough.
Then we will only attract good things, and we can somehow avoid attracting negative things that will bring us down. That’s magical thinking, because we exist within these human systems. And these natural systems that we don’t have control over everything within those systems. There are other people and forces around us.
There are all kinds of things that we can’t control. We can have the most positive thoughts, be kind, and take all kinds of precautions for our safety, and still be deceived, or still be victimized in another way.
Anne: We’re Jedi masters, you will not look at porn anymore. Oh I will not look at porn anymore, you will not hurt me anymore, or thinking this isn’t hurting me. When it is hurting you.
Tracy: Trauma symptoms are not the result of negative thoughts. New Age People think it happens like this. You have a negative thought, it leads to negative feelings and perceptions, which leads to bad things happening. But if I had been more skeptical and thought about negative potential consequences. It can help us do things within our power to help us stay safe. Recognizing that everything is not in our power, but there are some things that we can do to minimize risk.
Gratitude Doesn’t Keep You Safe From Abuse: Spiritual Bypass
Anne: This would be like if you feel anger, that’s a negative emotion, so you’re going to draw more anger to you. An idea like that. Rather than realizing anger is a gift to us that can help us take action to keep us safe.
Tracy: Absolutely. That’s at the core, recognizing that we’re human, recognizing that we have great power within our humanity and within ourselves. There’s so much light within us, and if we tap into that, there’s so much empowerment there. And that’s great, but that we also have limitations in our humanity.
And so with spiritual bypass, with this new age bypass especially, there’s this emphasis on how we can transcend it. We can transcend the human experience, basically. But that’s not the point. We’re not meant to transcend the human experience.
Anne: When you say transcend, what do you mean? Like, we don’t have to experience it. We can be above it.
Tracy: Basically float above it. Basically, get so good at disassociation is what it is. Learning to disassociate. And fooling ourselves into believing that’s transcendence. That we’re beyond pain.
Gratitude Is Not The Cure-All For Abuse: Understanding The Meaning
Anne: It reminds me of a lunch I went to with this lady. She was a gratitude coach, I think, something like this. And she wants to partner with BTR and at this lunch, she said, “Well, gratitude is the heart of everything.”
If I just learned that if you can be super grateful, then any experience you go through is beneficial to you, useful to you. And I was like, that’s not helpful for women, because if they’re stuck in this abusive situation, and all they’re trying to do is be grateful for their situation. And what it’s teaching them, rather than actually getting to safety, is that it’s not going to help them at all.
Right, so I told her this would never be a good fit for my audience. Although it’s good when you’re in trauma to see the things worth being grateful for. You know, you might want to say, Oh, I’m grateful that I have food today. I’m grateful that I don’t have to sleep on the street. I’m grateful that I have a blanket that I enjoy. You don’t have to say, I’m so grateful to be in this abusive situation.
Tracy: No. No, you don’t. In fact, there’s power in recognizing that you’re not grateful to be in that situation. Exactly. So there is truth in what she is teaching. But trying to apply that broad brush, yeah, that’s not going to help women stuck in an abusive situation. Or people who have just been victimized.
Toxic Positivity & Its Dangers
Tracy: So this gratitude coach you’re talking about. This is a common thing, is this toxic positivity, which is the excessive or ineffective overgeneralization of a happy and optimistic state all the time. Denial, minimization, and invalidation of genuine emotional human experience. So, that would manifest as hiding what we feel behind a positive front. Dismissing our emotions and feeling guilty for the negative emotions we feel. Minimizing other people’s experiences.
Trying to distract them from what they’re feeling, encouraging ourselves or others to reframe their experience. Which, that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes that can be very helpful, but we have to be mindful of timing. And then also shaming others for feeling negative emotions.
When I was in serious trauma. I had a major D-Day like a month before. And I was with family, and something triggered me. Mind you, I just found out about everything that had been going on in my marriage for 15 years a month before. So something triggers me, and I cry, and I left the room because I was with family. I was with extended family, my parents, and a sister and, you know, her family, and it was embarrassing.
I didn’t want to make them uncomfortable, so I left the room. But I could not stop crying, just sobbing. And my Mom followed me, and she said, You know Tracy, you just need to put a smile on your face for the sake of your children. And that was not helpful. Not only was it not helpful, it was also very shaming.
The Need For Safety & Stability
Tracy: I felt, now, okay, so now I’m a bad mom because I’m crying in front of my children? And I had no control over that trigger in that moment. The trauma was too fresh. It was too recent. Also, she told me in the same conversation, “You just need to put the past in the past and look to the future”.
Anne: A month after you don’t know if it really is in the past
Tracy: You’re still living it. Yeah, I was still not safe. She wanted me to skip healing. She wanted me to pretend nothing was wrong. Whereas what I needed was safety and stability. And after I’d found safety and stability, I need to go through the long, messy process of remembrance and grieving.
Which is that second stage of healing, and that’s a long process. We have to process what has happened. We have to go back to the past. And acknowledge it, validate it and feel what we need to feel. And oftentimes, we can learn great things from it.
But if we can’t we can’t or if we don’t, if that’s not part of our process, we shouldn’t shame ourselves for it. It takes a very long time, but you can’t even really make any progress in that second stage if you haven’t found safety and stability first. So, it’s basically just a, you’re making me uncomfortable with your difficult emotions, so I’m going to tell you to turn them off and pretend that, that nothing is wrong.
Pressure To Move On & By Using Spiritual Bypass
Anne: And move on, right? Many people say things like, it’s going to be okay. It’ll be fine. Things will work out, like, let’s skip right to, Oh, put on your happy, positive attitude about it and everything will be okay.
But if you keep crying, then it’s for sure not going to be okay. But that is another way of telling a victim it’s her fault.
Tracy: Exactly. It’s more victim blaming. We have this societal intolerance, this cultural intolerance for feelings of helplessness and loss of control, which leads to victim blaming. People who have an inability to tolerate their own difficult emotions are not capable of tolerating the pain and suffering in others.
So, they’re impatient for us to just move on, or just pretend everything’s fine. Victims remind us of our own vulnerability. If she was victimized, I could be victimized, and that’s scary. So I pretend she wasn’t victimized, she just made a bad choice, or she just put herself in a bad situation.
And so if I cannot make that same bad choice or put myself in that situation like she did, I won’t have to feel helpless.
Anne: Or that would never happen to me. Because I’ve asked the right questions, . A lot of women ask all the right questions, and they’re still victimized.
Victim Blaming & Self-Blame
Tracy: Victim blaming is a convenient way to avoid taking responsibility for our own actions if we have played a part. So often, abusers will do this, or people who have contributed to secondary trauma, exacerbated the trauma. They’ll continue to blame the victim because it’s a way to avoid taking responsibility for their own part and the victim’s pain or injuries.
And then also that there’s self-blame that happens oftentimes. Where we as victims desiring a sense of control, blame ourselves. Because then we’re like, well, if I had just done this, then that wouldn’t have happened. So, if I can change the way that I am or the things that I do going forward, then this won’t happen to me again.
And we see this oftentimes, I think, in a betrayal trauma community. They’re safety seeking behaviors, essentially. It’s, if I am just the perfect wife in all of these different ways, then he won’t betray me again.
Anne: In some 12-step circles, women are told you have to keep coming to 12-step meetings for the rest of your life or this will happen to you again.
Tracy: Yeah, as if doing that has any bearing whatsoever on his choices. Like it doesn’t.
Anne: I think it’s ironic because they talk out of both sides of their mouth. They’ll be like, you have no control over him, but this will happen to you again if you don’t keep coming to meetings the rest of your life. I’m like, what? You’re saying two opposite things at the same time.
Tracy: It’s just talking out of both sides, it doesn’t make sense. Like, you can’t have all of these things be absolutes at the same time.
Perception Vs. Reality
Anne: There’s a lot to be said on how you perceive things. Is this going to change your reality? In our case, what we’ve been perceiving incorrectly is we have been perceiving that we’re in a relationship with a really good guy. Who has a few small problems rather than the reality that he is an abusive person.
Rather than thinking, how can I change my inner thoughts so that I can change reality, I think if victims are most interested in truth. What is the truth? Is it true that these behaviors that I’m witnessing. Regardless of how he looks at church, regardless of how good of a provider he is. Regardless of this and this, are these behaviors that I’m experiencing abuse?
Tracy: Yes, exactly. I’m so glad that you brought that up.
Truthful Thinking vs Positive Thinking: Spiritual Bypass
Tracy: And I encounter this when, well, we just need to have, you know, positive thinking. We just need to change our outlook. I like to remind women that truthful thinking is more important than positive thinking. Sometimes, while positive thinking can be helpful, sometimes it can keep us in dangerous situations.
I know a woman who experienced incredible betrayal trauma. A very, very sad story. And a friend wanted to pass on some of this stuff that she thought would be helpful. Let me help you reframe this experience to just look for the positive, to imagine the good that can come of this. I’m like, no, that’s not going to be helpful. Please, no. That’s spiritual bypass.
That’s not what she needs right now. Because I knew enough about her situation that what she needed was safety. She was not safe. Immediately jumping to, what are the lessons? Or what are the blessings that could come from this? Or, well, let’s hope for this outcome. And just think about that, focus on that, and work towards that.
Worst Case Scenario: Abuse & Minimization
Anne: What some people call hopium, this hope that he will change or can change. When you say work for the outcome you want, all women I’ve talked to, I’ve never met a woman who doesn’t feel this way.
Everyone wants a happy, safe marriage. And so women have already been operating on that for years, where they’re like, okay, he can change. I will be patient as he changes. I will believe in Christ’s atonement. So they’re saying, I will be patient. Because I want this positive outcome, not the worst case scenario. But when it comes to abuse, the worst case scenario is not divorce.
You’re currently in the worst case scenario, abuse. And nothing will feel good. There’s nothing that’s going to feel peaceful. There’s nothing that’s going to feel right when it comes to abuse. Every effort you make to work towards safety will feel like, ugh, I don’t want to do this.
Tracy: Right, well, it’s also painful. Truthful thinking is often painful. The reality of our situations hurts. So, it is tempting to minimize the pain of it and pretend it’s not as bad as it is.
Anne: Yeah, it’s bad. I try to tell people how bad it is, and they don’t want to know how bad it is. In talking about these new age things, like spiritual bypass and new age bypass. Like it’s all for the best, or there’s no coincidences. There might be some overlap with something called post traumatic growth, although I think post traumatic growth is something completely different.
Post-Traumatic Growth Vs. Spiritual Bypass
Anne: So let’s talk about what post traumatic growth actually is. Like, just thinking, oh, this happened for a reason (spiritual bypass). There are lessons to be learned. What would post traumatic growth mean for a victim in an actual, meaningful, useful way?
Tracy: Post traumatic growth is first of all not an escape the way spiritual bypass is. Rather than an escape, it’s an embrace of ourselves. It’s genuine self compassion. It’s coming out the other side with a new appreciation for life. Healthier relationships with others, an optimistic view of new possibilities in life. We feel stronger, we feel genuinely changed.
Anne: For me, the post-traumatic growth has helped me feel more vulnerable and more human, I guess. Truly humbled me and broken me to the point where now I feel very like equal to my other fellow humans on this earth. How has that felt for you?
Embracing Self-Compassion
Tracy: I love what you said about broken. For me, allowing myself to feel as broken as I was, that’s a starting place. And then diving into learning to have more compassion for myself. And giving myself grace for the things I’d been through. Where I had been victimized, and then integrating the story. So it’s like I can think back on my story, even the story I’m in right now, still, and not feel ashamed of it.
Not feel this intense pain about it. It’s part of who I am now, and I wouldn’t be who I am now if I hadn’t been through that. So I’m at peace with it. And then just everything that you said, to this new humility. Where because I feel so much compassion for myself, it naturally extends to others.
I just feel compassion for all my fellow human beings, whatever struggles they’re going through. It’s changed my perspectives on almost everything. It affected basically every part of my life.
Using Spiritual Bypass Means Post Traumatic Growth Isn’t Possible
Anne: And I think the post traumatic growth isn’t possible, the growth part with spiritual bypass. Because spiritual bypass doesn’t lead to growth.
Tracy: Spiritual bypass leads to a temporary escape. It can feel like we’ve grown, because we feel different temporarily. But our circumstances don’t change, and things are still acting on us. For me, when the trauma was so bad, I realized I’m broken. Like I’m on the floor, helpless, hitting that kind of a low,
Anne: What would you say to women who have not yet felt that post traumatic growth, and they’re in the middle of the trauma? About what their future can look like as they take the time to heal and go through the stages of grief?
Tracy: For me, my belief is that self-compassion is really opening ourselves up to feel the love of God. It’s feeling a portion of his unmitigated love for us. Surround yourself with safe people who can be patient with you, who can see you up close and personal, and not turn away.
Anne: Also recognizing that you literally were a victim.
Anne: I think when women realize they were a victim, they can grow. But they don’t have to go to 12-step for the rest of their lives. There is no way to heal using spiritual bypass. There’s nothing they did or can do that would have avoided it. And then learning new skills, learning new things about themselves. This can be a reason to learn and grow more. Which can be exciting, but there are no shortcuts.
Trigger Warning: Positive Post
Tracy: Exactly. And it’s not a straight and narrow path. It’s a long, winding, loop de loop kind of path. I wrote something a couple years after a big D-day I put a trigger warning on it.
Tracy: And the trigger warning is a positive post. So I’ll just read this. When I was in deep trauma, it was difficult for me to hear overly positive reflections on betrayal trauma from people at the other end of the tunnel. It felt painful and unrealistically optimistic. Like I couldn’t trust that these women were actually at peace with all that had happened. And I resented they were not giving justice to the pain they had endured.
For me, for hope to feel legitimate, I have to hear and feel how dark it was before. If I just see an after picture, then I doubt the reality of the before picture. I have to see them side by side to fully appreciate and trust the miracle of the healing that has taken place.
So that’s why I put a trigger warning. Not everyone here knows my story, or is witness to the depths of the pain and trauma I have experienced. The hopelessness, fear, confusion, paralysis, anger, loneliness, anxiety, depression, and deep sorrow. I do not ever want to minimize the pain and trauma of anyone, by glossing over the struggle and only celebrating the healing.
Growth From Betrayal Trauma
Because the struggle is real, and it is hard. And I believe in honoring the moment we are in, and the emotions that we are feeling. Because doing that is a key part of finding genuine peace and healing. But it’s hard to accept and honor where we’re at from a place of self compassion and love if we feel that others are not honoring it with us.
Tracy: So, please know that I still hold a place for those of you in the depths of the struggle. It’s okay to struggle. It’s okay to feel whatever you are feeling. And I don’t judge you for any of it. I see you and I love you. So, after that lengthy disclaimer, I can finally say that I am grateful for my betrayal trauma.
I woke up at 5 a.m. after a disturbing dream and couldn’t go back to sleep. And I was lying in bed and realized that I am grateful for it. I never thought I’d get to this point. I wasn’t sure if I ever even wanted to get to this point. But I am here, and I am glad.
I am grateful for the person I am becoming because of what I have experienced. And I like me. I have learned things and grown in ways I am not sure I could have without experiencing the trauma of sexual betrayal. Does this mean I would go back and choose to do this again? I don’t know. I’m not sure.
Does it mean I would wish anyone else to be blessed with betrayal trauma? Hell no. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Does it mean God predestined me to be betrayed by my husband, assigning this trial to me? No, I don’t believe that for a second.
The Good & Bad Of Betrayal
Tracy: He hasn’t condemned me for missing those warnings. He has loved me and helped me learn from the experience. And through the experience, I have learned that he wants me to be safe and to know happiness, and I have learned how to trust and rely on him to keep me safe and at peace. And if I miss another warning and fall into darkness again, he will be there to lift me up and guide me back to light and healing.
None of the good that has resulted for me through this trauma takes away from the bad. I view them side by side. If I didn’t give full validation to the bad, I wouldn’t fully appreciate the good. Why would I want to cheat myself of greater joy by glossing over or denying the darkest parts of my journey?
I will do my best to honor whatever moment I am in, knowing that things can always be changing. And I am not defined by any one moment. I don’t have to feel sad, or lonely, or angry forever. Just as I don’t expect to feel happy and positive all the time for the rest of my life either. The beauty is in the flow.
Anne: That is so good. That’s how so many women feel. Although I, like I said with that lady at lunch, being grateful isn’t the solution per se, but now that I’m on the other side, I actually do feel grateful, but bypass wasn’t the solution. It’s how I feel now that I have space, that I have safety, and that I have security. I’ve been able to process things from a safe distance. Now I feel grateful.
Choosing To Be Safe Over Spiritual Bypass
Tracy: Right. And I think the gratitude and joy that we can feel if we allow it to come naturally, as opposed to chasing it is more genuine. That’s my experience. It was not helpful for me growing up as a child in a culture and family where I was constantly told I needed to choose to be happy. To choose not to let things bother me, and that I just needed to smile more. The ultimate spiritual bypass.
You know, all these things. It wasn’t helpful. It didn’t help me to be a happy kid. And in trauma, when I was legitimately a victim of a terrible thing, it was not helpful at all. It was re-traumatizing and therefore actually stunted me a little bit. Until I recognize what goes on and set boundaries around people who were not safe.
Anne: So both of us read the book, Jesus, feminist by Sarah Bessey. Betrayal Trauma Recovery is a women’s empowerment organization. And to me, that’s exactly what feminist simply means: that women have equal rights and are empowered to be independent. And live the lives that we choose, and we’re not oppressed or trapped. So let’s talk about that book, Jesus Feminist.
Jesus Feminist: Not Spiritual Bypass Or New Age Bypass To Overcome Abuse
Anne: What you thought and how feminist can help victims overcome spiritual bypass. And the ways people are trying to get victims to use spiritual bypass or new age bypass. And how can we avoid that? Especially because so many women, and many men, have a negative reaction to the word feminist.
For some reason, I haven’t quite figured that out, and maybe because of their religious upbringing or their political views. I don’t think that it’s a political word, but some people do.
Tracy: Yeah, it’s the radical idea that women are humans too. First of all, my own experience growing up was much what you just described.
It was an absolute aversion to the word, to the point that I never did any due diligence. And even learning about it, I accepted that feminism was a bad thing. I grew up hearing the word feminazi used by people close to me. Which is a really derogatory, mean thing to say.
Even in my adulthood, when I started opening myself up a little bit to some ideas in feminism, I thought, is there another term we can use? Is there another term? Is there another word we can use? But now, I have come to embrace and love the word. I consider myself a feminist. Not just a feminist, I consider myself a radical feminist.
Feminism Vs. Spiritual Bypass
Let’s see what Sarah Bessey says about it. She says, page 13 of her book, Feminism is complicated, and it varies for each person, much like Christianity. It’s not necessary to subscribe to all the diverse and contrary opinions within feminism to call oneself a feminist. Feminism gained popularity due to secular work and scholarship. But the line between sacred and secular is manmade, because God is the source of truth.
Christians can still thank God for the good works associated with feminism, such as the gaining of status for women as persons under the law. Voting, owning property, and defending themselves in a court of law against domestic violence and rape. As Canadian theologian John D. Stackhouse, Jr. says, Christian feminists can celebrate any sort of feminism that brings more justice and human flourishing to the world.
No matter who is bringing it, since we recognize the hand of God in all that is good. Modern Christian feminism is alive and well, from social justice movements to seminaries and churches to suburban living rooms worldwide.
The Radical Notion Of Equality
Tracy: At the core, feminism simply consists of the radical notion that women are people too.
Anne: I was talking to someone about it. They were uncomfortable about the word feminist. And they said, well, I just don’t want it to swing too far. And I said, the pendulum cannot swing too far on equality. Like what? That we always have to keep women a little below men. No, it can swing as far as it needs to swing. Currently speaking, women are not believed. Women are not taken seriously.
When they experience this extreme emotional and psychological abuse and oppression, they are blamed for it. If we talk about our experience, we shouldn’t talk about it in that way. And if we complain about it, we’re complaining too much about it. If we stay silent about it, we are in denial. There’s no way right now to appropriately protest it without being blamed in some way.
Tracy: Right. Because it sounds radical.
Anne: Yeah, it sounds extreme, right? Oh, she’s using this word abuse. It’s not that extreme. And you’re like, no, that’s actually what it is. And I’m not being extreme. Yeah, the pendulum can’t swing far enough. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think it can go too far when it comes to equality. So until women can be equally believed, as equally understood, as equally taken seriously. The pendulum has not swung far enough.
Tracy: I love what Sarah Bessey says, she names one of her chapters: “Jesus Made a Feminist Out of Me”
Feminism: Women Are Equal To Men
Tracy: This was part of the transformation, the post-traumatic growth. It was tapping into this truth. That society had been suppressing in me for most of my life leading up to that point. She also talks about that moment on page 111. She’s talking about a difficult experience for herself, which had to do with pregnancy, but for me, it was betrayal trauma.
And she says, but the truth remains, regardless of the circumstances unique to us. The voice of God has a habit of breaking through the noise of our lives, giving us a turning point. So that we mark the rest of our lives differently from that moment on. When we talk about these moments in our lives, we begin our stories with the words, and then everything changes.
And that was betrayal trauma. And I’m a feminist now. Jesus made a feminist out of me. That was a natural result of healing in my life. It was a result of stopping the spiritual bypass.
Anne: For women uncomfortable with this word feminist, I want you to think about why. I want you to consider the gas lighting that has taken place that would say feminists are bad. Who is telling you that feminists are bad? What is that about? Because I think if you think about it, you’ll realize this. This gas lighting effect by society in general and also men in general to try and say, no, women cannot be equal to men.
Tracy: It’s because it’s a disruption of the status quo. It infringes on power structures as they are. It’s a threat to patriarchy.
Patriarchy & Spiritual Bypass
Tracy: I agree, though, with Sarah when she says patriarchy is not God’s dream for humanity. It took me a while to come to that. For a while, even after I began to embrace feminism. I still was like, but is there a way they like to make it work within patriarchy?
Is there a way that patriarchy is still the right way and like, and we just have to tweak this or tweak that? And ultimately, no, I believe that patriarchy is the result of the fall, like that’s not how God intended men and women to interact.
Anne: And when you say patriarchy.
Tracy: The hierarchy, yeah. Men are legally in charge, they make the laws spiritually or religiously rather. And like, they’re the organizers of society. And for most of human history, women didn’t have much power. I mean, they weren’t counted, as you said before, as humans. You’re literally treated as property. Which is the ultimate spiritual bypass. You don’t have freedom because God made it that way.
You can’t vote, you have no say in how the laws are actually written that affect you. Results in a terrible, terrible experience for women and girls. But I would say it’s not healthy for boys and men either. Like, it’s not what God intended. It also sets these strict gender roles. I don’t think they’re helpful to men either.
Even though I believe they are a creation of men. I don’t think that’s helpful. It’s comfortable for them because it was made to be more comfortable for them, but it’s still not the way God intended it.
Can Spiritual Bypass Mean Oppressive Gender Roles?
Anne: So you’ve got the class in charge, men. And they can define these roles. And so they want to define the situation that is the most comfortable for them. Not for other people. And so they’re telling women, well, you would be most comfortable if you acted like this. And if you did this, rather than letting the women have a voice. The most logical way of doing it, let’s say in a partnership with a husband and wife, would be, okay, we’re going to marry. This is a form of spiritual bypass.
Let’s sit down and talk about each of our talents. What are the things we enjoy and what are the things we’re good at? So I might say, I’m good at yard work. I’m excellent at gardening. I love being outdoors. I’m not so good at cooking and organizing food. That’s just not one of my talents. It’s not something I’m interested in, right? And then he would say, okay, these are the things I like. I also like being outdoors. I also like doing yard work.
Great. We can do that together. And I also don’t like cooking. At that point where there’s this thing that’s like, huh, we both don’t like cooking, then the answer is not, well, you’re the girl. So you have to do it, right. The answer is, huh, interesting. Neither of us like it that much. How will we manage these household tasks that need to be done?
Protecting Women’s Choices For Their Lives
Anne: The other thing I’ve been thinking of lately is that you can work and be a mom. I’m not saying you should. Many women would prefer to stay at home. We want to protect women’s ability to choose the kind of life they want. And if you’re talking about household tasks, many people can hold a job, be a parent, and take a shower. And doing their laundry and eating.
So this idea that women must do basic household tasks. Like laundry, cooking, cleaning and stuff like that. Because a human isn’t capable of doing basic self care things. And having talents, exploring their talents, and doing anything else is ridiculous.
But everyone should be free to explore their own talents and what they’re good at. And what they’re interested in, and also be able to do regular household tasks. A person’s mission in life should not be just basic household tasks that everyone needs to know how to do.
Tracy: Right, and if both the husband and the wife approached marriage in that way. Approached life in that way, then they could work that out together and form some sort of equilibrium. But forcing people into these specific gender roles, there are plenty of men who don’t feel comfortable being shoehorned in that way either.
Anne: They don’t know how to fix the air conditioner. And so what do you do? You call an AC guy to fix your air conditioner. But then to say to a woman, well, you’re a woman, so you should be forced to cook.
Working Out Marital Tasks To Avoid Spiritual Bypass
Anne: It’s like, no, you’re not forcing me to fix the air conditioner. So what can we do to work this out? There are so many other options. If we’re willing to accept that God created each of us as individuals with talents to do his work. He hasn’t just said all women I created you with one job, domestic labor. Sorry, it’s your only option.
Tracy: Right, she has these traditional household duties. Once you move beyond, when her children are young and at home, women talk about feeling empty. Like, where’s my purpose anymore? How sad is that?
Anne: My Mom, she’s only worked outside the home for a very short time, but she’s very handy. She knows how to tile, she’s a kitchen designer, she does electrical and plumbing and all kinds of things. And she remodeled our house a ton. She’s helping me remodel my house right now. In fact, that is the construction you can hear in the background if you’ve heard any of it. My Mom is out hammering and finishing my basement right now.
So, has she fulfilled her own dreams, talents, and things she’s interested in? She’s interested in construction. She loves it. Is she the best person at making dinner every night? No, that’s not one of her talents. But that doesn’t make her a bad mom. She has ignored spiritual bypass that told her this is your role.
Deciding Our Own Role & “Biblical” Womanhood
Anne: She’s an excellent, amazing mom, and loves construction. I’m grateful that even if she didn’t work in the construction industry, she could explore her talents. Even not working outside the home. So I’m not trying to say that women have to do it in a certain way or a way that they feel uncomfortable with. But having a man look at you and say, well, you have to clean the toilet because you’re a woman. That’s your job, is crazy.
Anne: It can be anyone’s job.
Tracy: Yeah, she talks a lot about this in Chapter 6, Patron Saints, Spiritual Midwives, and “Biblical” Womanhood. She says, the phenomenon of being a stay at home mother is relatively new and unique to the prosperous. Right along with daycares to provide child care.
It’s a mark of our privilege to decide. Or to adjust our household budget to keep one parent at home full time with the children. I believe it is a worthy pursuit, good work, holy work. I hope so, it’s my own daily work. But it’s not the same thing as Biblical womanhood, is it?
If a woman can enjoy the title in Haiti, or even by the woman hailed in scripture. The same way it can be by a middle class woman in Canada, then Biblical womanhood must be more than this.
Anne: From your experience, what do you feel like is Biblical womanhood after studying this?
Tracy: It’s coming to an intimate relationship with God, with Christ, and standing in my own truth, honoring my own spiritual path.
Jesus Defends Women’s Choices & Spiritual Bypass
Tracy: I love the example she gives of Mary in the story of Mary and Martha. I had never read this story before, but first of all, Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus as a pupil. This is on page 19. She says the daughters had never had that spot. Even after Martha tried to remind her of her duties and responsibilities to their guests, Jesus defended her right to learn as his disciple.
He honored her choice as the better and said it will not be taken away from her. And what is she doing right there, but defying gender roles and cultural standards. Christ is honoring and encouraging her in that. So I never understood the story that way. Because in the church culture I grew up in, it was very much, no, to be a good woman, you do it this way. You fit this role, you think this way, you feel this way. You know spiritual bypass.
Then you’re not being the right kind of woman anymore. One more example is she talks about Mary, the mother of Jesus. On page 17, she quotes Rachel Held Evans here, but she says her worthiness is in her obedience not to a man, not to a culture, not even to a cause or religion, but to the creative work of a God who lifts up the humble and fills the hungry with good things.
Anne: This is similar to spiritual bypass and new age bypass. Religion and society tell women As a strong woman, you should bypass painful things, right, spiritual bypass.
Benevolent Patriarchy And Spiritual Bypass
Anne: If you’re a real, true, righteous woman, then your husband wouldn’t be looking at porn, because your prayers would be powerful enough, and he wouldn’t want to do that. If you had enough faith in Jesus, you can create miracles in your family. There’s this intersection here between spiritual bypass and feminism.
Tracy: That actually reminds me of benevolent patriarchy, which is what exists in my church organization. It’s a, we’re going to put women on a pedestal. We’re going to talk them up. We’re going to talk about how wonderful they are, how spiritual they are, how incredible they are, how they are more inclined to righteousness than men are.
They don’t have to work as hard for it. It just comes more naturally to them. But we don’t want to hear what they have to say. We don’t want their unique experiences. Because if their unique experiences contradict what we’re saying their experience should be, they’re not valuable anymore.
Anne: They’re more spiritual and better, but they can’t be trusted to lead. This is spiritual bypass
Tracy: Exactly. It doesn’t make sense. It’s very much a, as long as you’re falling in line and holding up this system, then your voice is valuable. And we will give you a pulpit, and we will let you speak, and we will applaud you, because it’s coming from the mouth of a woman, and she’s so spiritual.
But if that same woman says, well, this is my experience, and this is what God is teaching me. But it contradicts the status quo or infringes on the comfort of men. Then, suddenly, her voice is not valuable anymore. Suddenly, her access to the spirit must is impinged. The man has more authority, this is spiritual bypass.
Asking Too Much & Holding Men and Women To The Same Standard
Anne: Wonky, she’s gone off the deep end. She’s a little cray cray. When women get labeled crazy or gone too far, usually it’s when they’re saying something that is right in line with church doctrine. So for example, they complain they’re being abused and that no one is holding the abuser accountable.
That is something that is totally in line with most churches. Most churches say they do not tolerate abuse. They will not stand for abuse. Most societal people say that, right? Abuse is wrong. But then they’ll be like, well, this woman is making this up, or she’s being too loud, or she’s talking about it in a way that’s not the right way. It’s like, but what I’m saying is exactly in line with what you profess to believe.
Tracy: Stepping outside the church for a minute, just into a secular place. That reminds me that we had the first wave of feminists with suffragettes, getting the right to vote.
Then we had the second wave feminists in the sixties and seventies. And then we had the third wave feminists a few decades later, but the second wave referred to themselves as the radical feminists, and that’s who I actually identify with more. We’re really just saying, look, we want to hold men to the same standard that we’ve been held to all along.
All we want is to say, men, you need to live up to the same standard. It wasn’t, we think men are awful. It was, we expect more of you. And when men resisted that, when society resisted that, and labeled the feminists as a problem, as too extreme, as asking too much.
Women In The Workforce
Anne: Yeah, so I want to encourage women listening to start getting informed about feminist issues. And consider that the best thing you can do for women is get yourself to safety and security. On that note, I want to talk about women in the workforce for a second. So many women, when they divorce or are considering a job or something.
Many women think, okay, well, I want to be a therapist. Or they think, well, I’ll work at the library or at the school, or something that fits with, how can I be a mom? And I just want to shout out to women considering, how can you become more independent or use your talents better, or whatever you feel like you need to do. There are so many needs for women in politics, in policing or in law, like becoming lawyers, becoming judges.
I want women to open their minds to like, you can do anything, and you can help the world in so many ways. You can have a grownup career as an attorney or doctor. As an architect, whatever it is, just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you need to take a low wage job.
Pursuing Ambitions Despite Spiritual Bypass
Tracy: I mean, we see more women in these fields than we used to, which is good. I’m happy for that, but even still, like, I mean, I’m not even 40. As a kid, I had all those kinds of ambitions. I remember wanting to be a doctor, lawyer, teacher. I remember wanting to be an architect, like all these things you named, and I wanted to be a writer.
But when it came down to it, as I got older, I forgot about all of that. Because at my core, I believed that I couldn’t. There was limitation there. And because of the way it was talked about, it was the way it was modeled for me.
I was encouraged to go to college and get an education, and I appreciate that I did that. But still, the way it was talked about, I felt great limitation. I was told, yes, you need to go to college and get a degree, so that you can get a job if your husband gets hit by a truck someday. That’s literally what I was told. It wasn’t so that.
Anne: So that you can fill the measure of your creation.
Tracy: Exactly. It was always a backup plan. Like I had all these ambitions, and yet I felt these limitations made it very difficult to actually pursue any of that.
Spiritual Bypass And The Struggle For Independence
Tracy: And I ended up doing what my culture told me to do, which was get married young. I barely graduated from college before my first baby was born. This is also a form of spiritual bypass. And didn’t get any real work experience, so although I have a degree, it’s sad. I feel embarrassed even talking about it, because it feels like a worthless piece of paper to me. Because I’ve never used it, and I have no serious career work experience.
I’ve had little jobs here and there. But I was not set up to think about my life in terms of, oh yes, I could pursue a career. Because that could be a fulfilling thing for me. And beyond that, so many women in our community, for sure, feel so trapped. It’s just another layer to add to all of the difficulty of their situations.
Because it’s difficult to see a way out when they have been financially dependent for so many years. And then a time comes where they need a way out, they want a way out, and they feel so helpless. There are opportunities, and I love when women figure it out. But, oh, it adds so much more difficulty. It adds so much more difficulty in getting out.
Anne: Like, let’s say now at 40, you decided you would go to law school, you could do that, right? But then you’re 15 years behind the man who went to law school at 25. So that’s what makes it difficult, but that doesn’t make it impossible.
It’s Never Too Late
Anne: And that’s what I want to tell women is that you might think you have lost your chance to do that thing that you feel like in your heart, you always wanted to do. It could be that you want to be a painter, literally like paint people’s houses, not like an artist. It could be that you want to run a yard care business. I don’t know, whatever you enjoy, it is not too late.
Will you be behind your male counterparts, who started when they were 25? Yeah, but I want women to know that if they start now with whatever they want to do. If they want to go to med school and finally graduate when they were 60, they could still be a doctor for 20 years from when they’re 60 to 80. You know, there’s always options. And I want women to realize that it’s not too late for you.
Tracy: I see women go through the struggle because it’s a struggle. But then I see them do it, it’s incredible to see. Also, it says a wonderful example for your children.
Can Avoiding Spiritual Bypass Mean Honoring Choices?
Anne: Yeah, now that being said, so many women want to stay at home and I honor that choice as well.
I remember when I had my son and I was thinking about going back to work, because at the time my husband didn’t have a job. And I was the one that could get a job easier at that time. It was during the economic downturn in 2008. My son was nursing. And so just the thought of leaving him to work horrified me.
I did not want to do that. So I want to honor women who are like, no, no, I need to be with my children. This is what I need to do.
Supporting Women’s Choices
Anne: Because those things are important, and supporting women in their choices and what they feel they need to do in their lives. Our aim here at Betrayal Trauma Recovery is to support, validate, encourage, and be there for you regardless of what you choose.
We care about you and love you and validate you and want you to do what’s right for you, whatever that is.
Tracy: Yes, just another reminder for women unfamiliar or a little uncomfortable with the idea of feminism, that feminism is not a niche. It’s not a small or a catch all if they’re not all cut from the same clock.
You don’t have to align yourself politically with a particular brand of feminism to call yourself a feminist. There are pro-life feminists. It’s, you know, if that’s an issue for some women. Yeah, just don’t be afraid of the word. There’s no shame in the word.
Women Deserve Peace & Safety
Anne: As we embrace the term feminist, it can mean many things to many people, but the cool thing is you can define your own type of feminism. You can define the way you want to promote equal rights for yourself in your own life, and also for women throughout the world. It can help us overcome spiritual bypass.
This podcast more than anything is for women’s empowerment to help women come out of the fog of emotional and psychological abuse and sexual coercion. And be able to live lives of peace and safety.
That is what women deserve.
