The process of emotional sobriety requires you to understand your innermost desires and the emotions that fuel them. You will learn to deal with expectations of perfection, working through resistance to traumatic events in your life, and much more. This article explains the spiritual bypass process in great detail. Read on to learn more. If you’re struggling with emotional sobriety, read on to learn about the key aspects of this process.
Spiritual bypass
The spiritual bypass is a detour from the traditional path to emotional recovery. Bypassing the psychological process, people can bypass uncomfortable and painful aspects of the healing process. The philosophies of Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism have become popular in the West. In these traditions, people practice meditation and yoga as a way to heal themselves. But these practices don’t just work for emotional sobriety. Many people who have problems with addiction also use spirituality to cope.
The spiritual bypass is a form of sidestepping personal emotional issues, shoring up a fragile sense of self, or minimizing basic needs and developmental tasks. It may manifest itself in advice such as “all you need is love” or “yoga changed my life.”
The expectation of perfection
The expectation of perfectionism is a common barrier to emotional sobriety. When people are too anxious or too critical of themselves, they may relapse. People in recovery may expect their spouse to trust them immediately after recovery. This expectation is harmful because it can create resentment and conflict. People in recovery need love more than anything. Love makes them feel part of a community and like they belong.
When entering treatment, it’s crucial to recognize that it’s not a “magic pill” or “magic solution” that will transform your personality overnight. As with any new endeavor, you will likely experience setbacks and disappointment. However, your progress in treatment should be celebrated. Even the smallest victories are worth celebrating. If you are a perfectionist, thinking about your strengths is essential for channeling your natural tendencies in recovery. Also, remember to remain flexible, as progress will vary.
Working through resistance to life’s traumatic events
Survivors of traumatic events often demonstrate remarkable resilience. Before they reached therapy, they kept going with their lives, even after reliving traumatic experiences in the past. This resilience is evident in their persistence through therapy sessions and the reclaiming of energy and meaning. Despite their suffering, they continue to seek meaning in life. The key to emotional sobriety is to recognize and work through these barriers, so that the traumatic event no longer has any power over us.
The term “trauma” describes an emotional response to a threat, fear, or powerlessness. Trauma is often repeated and triggered in different ways, so there is no threshold for “bad” harm. These events may be immediate and simple, like a car accident, or ongoing and repeated over time, such as neglect or war. In some cases, the threat was physical or psychological. For many people, this is the point where they turn to drugs and alcohol as a way to cope.
The spiritual bypass process
The traditional road to recovery includes kicking the habit, attending meetings and 12-step programs, and engaging in a spiritual practice. But, for some people, spirituality is a roadblock on the way to recovery. This detour is a spiritual bypass, a practice that bypasses the psychological work needed to achieve emotional healing. Ingrid Mathieu, a psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher, explores the spiritual bypass process in her new book, Recovering Spirituality.
This spiritual bypassing process involves rephrasing events in a way that lets you off the hook. Bypassing the negative feelings and events, you avoid the uncomfortable feelings of cognitive dissonance – the discomfort that comes from having two conflicting beliefs and acting in contradiction to them. This is a common technique for emotional addiction recovery. Bypassing the negative feelings, the spirituality shield, is an effective way to overcome this problem.
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