Navigating the Murky Waters Without Bypassing a Thing

Jessica Salonna
5 days ago
7 min read

Because what we don’t feel doesn’t disappear. It waits.

I wrote this with my heart wide open after a conversation that hit me deep. After studying, practicing, and consistently embodying this work while coaching women in it, I’m still human. This was not a 1:1 client session, it was a gathering of like minded souls with big questions and feelings. I spoke before I grounded. I reacted from that part of me that rushes to help, and I worried I was doing a disservice. Sometimes the medicine is to pause and wait. So I came here to gather what spilled out, to weave my questions and what I have learned into something that might serve you and also me. Take what resonates and leave the rest. We are living in confusing, heavy, beautiful, messy times. The collective field is charged. The news is a roller coaster. Our bodies are holding far more than most of us realize. In the middle of it all, spirituality can be a lifeline… and, as some argue, a slick way to avoid the hard stuff. “Spiritual bypassing” is the label that gets tossed around.

Here is my take: you cannot truly bypass anything. You can postpone it, numb it, intellectualize it, or dress it up in sage smoke and crystals, but unfelt energy nests in the body. Unprocessed emotion eventually asks to be felt, heard, and released.

If we ignore it, it simply resurfaces in another form at another time. Bessel van der Kolk calls it plainly: the body keeps the score. Peter Levine reminds us that trapped survival energy wants completion, not a mantra on top. Resmaa Menakem points out that trauma lives not only in individual bodies but in communities and cultures.

So how do we walk this line together? How do we honor the very real pain in the world while also holding a higher frequency, trusting love, and choosing hope?

How do we reconcile free will with circumstances that seem wildly out of our control?

Let’s explore.

What “Spiritual Bypass” Really Means

Spiritual bypassing is using spiritual ideas or practices to sidestep unresolved wounds, accountability, or uncomfortable truths. Think toxic positivity, detachment that is actually dissociation, or “love and light” that never acknowledges grief, rage, or injustice. As Pema Chödrön teaches, the work is to stay with the discomfort, not leapfrog over it.

Healthy spirituality does the opposite. It invites all of you to the table. It lets the body tremble, the tears flow, the anger move, and the heart soften. It roots you in something bigger while you feel what is here. It is not a ladder out of humanity. It is a bridge deeper into it. Tara Brach calls this radical acceptance: seeing clearly and holding it with compassion. Wayne Dyer loved to remind us we are spiritual beings having a human experience, so the work is to feel it all, not float above it.

Sidebar: Wayne Dyer, My First Lighthouse

His words were the spark that pulled me onto this path. “We are spiritual beings having a human experience” helped me soften into feeling instead of fleeing. “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” invited me to choose a kinder lens, again and again. If my work has supported you, know that his wisdom sits at the roots.

Duality... We Came For Both

Earth is a realm of contrast. Light and dark. Expansion and contraction. Joy and grief. Some souls may be here to anchor a higher frequency, to stabilize chaos, to be quiet pillars of coherence. Others may be here to learn through intensity, to transform through fire, to dance with shadow until they remember who they are. Most of us do a bit of both.

Duality is not a punishment. It is a curriculum. The question is not “How do I escape the dark?” but “How do I meet it without losing myself?” Eckhart Tolle points to presence as the way through. And as bell hooks reminds us, love is an active practice of freedom inside that curriculum.

Free Will and Forces Bigger Than Us

Yes, choice matters. We choose how we breathe, what we consume, where we place attention, how we respond, and how we care for our nervous systems. Choice builds momentum and opens doors.

And still, people are born into war zones, famine, systemic oppression, and trauma not of their making. To say they “attracted” that reality because of their thoughts is both inaccurate and harmful. Reality is shaped by layers: personal vibration, ancestral imprints, collective consciousness, historical forces, and the simple fact that life is unpredictable. Thomas Hübl speaks of the invisible architecture of collective trauma that we all move within. Viktor Frankl reminds us that even when choice is stripped away, meaning can still be forged in the fire.

You can hold personal responsibility and still honor that context exists. It is never either/or. It is always both/and.

Surrender vs. Self-Preservation

When life strips us bare, surrender often arrives. Sometimes it is a holy opening. Sometimes it is survival mode. Sometimes it is both. Letting go can be a conscious spiritual act. It can also be the body’s last-ditch effort to stay alive.

Self-preservation is not the opposite of surrender. It can be the doorway to it. Taking care of your basic needs, setting boundaries, or detaching from a harmful situation is not bypassing. It is wisdom. Audre Lorde said self-care is an act of political warfare. True surrender is never about abandoning yourself. It is about releasing what you cannot control while fiercely tending what you can.

“What You Focus On, You Attract”… Yes and No

Focus matters; where focus goes, energy flows, as Wayne Dyer loved to say. Attention is creative. But the statement is incomplete without nuance. A child in a war zone did not magnetize bullets with their thoughts. A woman living under oppressive laws did not “manifest” that constraint.

Personal focus influences your internal state and the opportunities you notice. Collective focus influences the field we all swim in. When a region’s collective nervous system is flooded with fear and trauma, even the most hopeful individuals can feel swept under. This is why community healing matters. And it is why tending your own frequency is not selfish; it feeds the field around you. When we loop the same story again and again, our nervous system can stay stuck and drained. It does not nourish you or anyone else. Let it be felt, then let it soften and move. The balance is in both. Joe Dispenza talks about the electromagnetic field of the heart and brain. Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory explains why safety and connection regulate the system so we can actually access higher states.

How To Hold It All Without Numbing Out

1. Feel it in your body. Sensation is truth. Let grief shake you. Let anger move through your limbs. Let breath soften the armor. Emotions metabolize through presence, not analysis.

“Trauma is not what happened to you, it is what happened inside you,”

says Gabor Maté. Go inside with gentleness.

2. Let your practices be bridges, not exits. Meditation, prayer, breathwork,

ritual… use them to meet what is here, not to avoid it.

Ask: “Is this helping me feel and integrate or helping me float away?”

3. Choose your lane for the day. Some days you are the activist, the donor,

the voice. Some days you are the anchor, the quiet holder of light. Some days you are the one on the floor shaking and receiving. All roles are sacred. Rotate as needed.

4. Tend your nervous system. Regulation is revolutionary. Breathwork, grounding, time in nature, shaking, creative expression, trauma-informed movement… these are not luxuries. They are how we stay resourced enough to keep showing up.

Jessica Jane and Deb Dana remind us that befriending the nervous system is how we find our way home.

5. Engage with the world. Compassion is a verb. Vote, volunteer, share resources, amplify marginalized voices, build community. Spirituality that never touches the ground is incomplete.

6. Honor complexity. Let’s resist the urge to fix it fast, and also not linger in it forever. Give the messiness enough breath to soften, then move what needs moving. Life is a paradox. We can hold hope and heartbreak in the same breath.

Reflection Questions To Explore

Where do I use spirituality to numb rather than feel?
What emotions or truths am I avoiding right now?
When do I feel called to hold light for the collective?
When do I need others to hold light for me?
How do I experience surrender?
What does self-preservation look like in my life?
What actions can I take this week that align my values with the world I want to help create?
How can I support my body in releasing what it is holding?

Bringing It Together

We are not here to transcend our humanity. We are here to embody it with love. To breathe with what hurts until it softens. To celebrate what is beautiful without apologizing. To choose, again and again, to participate in healing our own hearts and, through that, contribute to healing the wider world.

No bypass. Just presence. Just breathe. Just feel into the next honest step.

It all begins with a single breath and a whisper from within that says… it is time.

Ready to see how you were built to hold all of this?

In this piece I wrote that some souls came to anchor light while others came to transform through fire, and most of us carry a bit of both. Your SoulMap shows you which is yours. It weaves your astrology, Human Design, and Gene Keys into one personal reading: when to act, when to pause, and where your gifts are hiding inside your shadows.

If you felt the pull while reading this, that is your whisper from within.

Discover Your SoulMap