Spiritual Bypass is Making You Ill
By Aurora Juliana Ariel, PhD
While the world is filled with a rich spiritual heritage, the subconscious body has been left out of the equation. Unaddressed, it leaves us with a shadowed wilderland that continues to undermine our best efforts.
Through spiritual practices, we may ascend on a spiral of energy to higher realms, becoming one with our true nature, and through that experience feel illumined and enlightened. We may believe we’ve finally reached that illustrious state attained only by a few masters, and then within days, find ourselves feeling sad, angry, or hurt again. This has been a mystery, which has baffled the most enlightened teachers who, in striving to set an exemplary example for their followers, could never stay in an “enlightened” state for long.
Contrary to planetary perception, enlightenment does not come with one touch from the guru’s hand, freeing us for eternity from the patterns of our past. While seekers throughout the planet have flocked to ashrams and engaged in meditations, silent reflection, and the chanting of thousands of mantras, their subconscious patterns live on. This is because you must direct the subconscious body directly, while chanting, affirmations, and visualizations work largely on our mental body. While the effect of these spiritual practices can be positive and uplifting, helping the aspirant to connect with their Authentic Self, understanding this difference is an important key to gaining self-mastery.
It is only by addressing your subconscious patterns directly that you will be able to overcome your challenging life conditions, personality dysfunctions, patterns, and addictions. Because most people have a hard time relating to personality afflictions, many tend to mentally or spiritually bypass their issues, rather than focusing on and dealing with them. They disconnect from their feelings, move into positive thinking or a “spiritual” consciousness, and believe that by not identifying with the problem it will disappear. They move away from the feelings that would put them in touch with the pattern creating their life challenge and so, the pattern is never healed.
Many people try to magically transform their challenging situations by using affirmations or visualizations. Some even believe they can mentally will their life circumstances to change. However uplifted you keep your mental state, there is a powerful subconscious component running your life below your conscious awareness, and this should not be ignored. Positive imaging helps you have a clear direction in life, and positive thinking is beneficial to mental health, but if you coerce yourself into “being positive” while ignoring how you really feel, you can get ill.
Many people religiously avoid upset, anger, sadness, or fear because they were labeled negative. This superstition is so prevalent in religious and spiritual communities that people feel they are committing a sin if they feel this way. Bad things will happen to them. Negative thinking will draw in negative circumstances. If you “check out” every time the going gets rough, affirming everything is okay when you know it is not, you abandon yourself. Instead of masterfully working on your issues, you are off in some inauthentic pretend reality that keeps you powerless to make positive changes.
What people fail to realize is where negative thinking comes from. It is always a sub-personality. If you simply change the channel, you disregard an important subconscious component. Dwelling in negative emotions is unhealthy, and negativity itself can make you ill. That is why it is important to address your issues quickly, getting to your healing process within 24 – 48 hours.
When you ignore your feelings, you are abandoning a subpersonality that is calling for attention and healing. These Inner Aspects are like lost children who need you to acknowledge them. They are crying out for your help and they do this through the emotions. When you don’t listen, their voices become louder. If you continue to ignore them, they will find a voice through a physical illness or other challenging condition.
You are the only one who can lead your sub-personalities out of the darkness to the light. Therefore, your conscious awareness and ministry are essential to the equation. Christiane Northrup, M.D. believes the subconscious is a significant key to restoring health. In her book, Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom she points out that" because our emotions often got stuck at the childhood level, a dichotomy formed in our nature. A person can have a PhD and, an emotional intelligence of a two year old."
Until you face your issues and deal constructively with your emotions, they will not go away and you will not know the inner peace that is available to you. You may be empowered in one area of your life, while wounded inner children rule another. You may have a positive attitude, but your life may be coming undone around you. I know this, because I used to ignore my feelings, a practice that led to the debilitating illness that almost took my life. At the time, it seemed like the highest path, the more loving way and yet, in retrospect I see that it was the only way available. No one was teaching a way of going into your emotions. The emphasis was on escaping them. So, having followed what I felt were some of the highest spiritual principles on the planet, I became a master at Spiritual Bypass.
Cruising in my ‘higher self’ much of the time, I felt a great sense of fulfillment and peace, but I had no mastery over my emotional self. I did not know how to adequately deal with it, nor did I realize my subconscious was busy creating distress in my life whether I paid attention to it or not. To deal with the level of heartbreak, upset, and betrayal I felt in my relationship, I threw myself completely into my work, focusing on the positive while largely ignoring the devastation I was feeling.
After a couple years of this, I became very ill. I had two heart attacks within six months and was told I had an incurable heart virus. Not ready to die and leave four small children whom I loved very much, I entered the healing journey I spoke of in my book, TheQuest: Heal Your Life, Change Your Destiny, which taught me a powerful lesson about emotions. When left unaddressed they can quickly become a debilitating illness.
If I had understood that this powerful part of me could create such a challenging condition, I would have listened to its voice of pain. By addressing the part of me in pain, it would have helped me avoid my illness by inspiring me to leave what had become a very destructive relationship. By listening to my heart, I would have been more able to protect it, but as so often happens, sometimes we need to learn things the hard way.
The vast body of knowledge I gained from these mistakes led me to my healing journey, and has been a tremendous help in my work with abused men, women, and children. I learned, first hand, the ramifications of bypassing emotions and this knowledge has helped to change and possibly even save lives. This body of knowledge is especially important for the spiritual community of the world, as it is essential that people today, more than ever, learn how to turn within and embrace their wounded selves without judgment, fear, or shame. When we are courageous enough to go right into the heart of our upsets, we can experience the profound healing and empowerment that occurs from addressing our issues on the deepest levels.
Depending on your level of mastery, you can accomplish this inner work in less than an hour. Tracing your emotional upset to the patterns below your conscious awareness, you are able to heal the darkest histories of your past and free yourself from an increment of human suffering. As each Inner Aspect heals, a transfiguration occurs. Your life has transformed from within. You come to a place of understanding and peace, where you experience your full authentic selfhood. Through this radiant indwelling presence, light fills your being, and you emerge illumined and joyous. You feel whole and complete.
You have “enlightened” an Inner Aspect that has lived in pain, misinterpreted an experience in your past, and taken on a pattern that played havoc in your life. You have set yourself free to explore your innate divinity. Illumined, you enter a creative mode, where you bring your higher awareness to areas in your life calling for attention.
You take clear action steps. Where you have lacked boundaries, now you enforce them effortlessly. In this higher state of consciousness, your creative expression flows into wonderful projects. You pour your loving into important relationships, and you dwell for a time in peace, knowing that whatever you may face or go through in the future, you will be able to handle it because you have powerful tools to see you through.
Any pattern you find playing out in your world can be healed, your insecurities, fears, and wounds transformed. You no longer need to live a fragmented life or have dysfunctional relationships.
D.J. Martinovich, a Physical Therapist from Palm Springs, California wrote of her experience with the Healing System I developed, (TheQuest™) saying, “The diminishment of the human condition is based on lack of self worth and esteem, and no amount of verbal affirmation will transform us. It has to come from an Alchemy within. In TheQuest™ sessions, the very molecules are rearranged, as cells not nourished are now nourished from within. We are truly cleansed from this inner work. This is like a soul clean up, or 50,000 mile check up for the inner being. The best part is that the changes are permanent.” A Christian evangelist, DJ had for years spiritually bypassed her own inner pain to stay in loving service to others. This resulted in her body debilitating to such a degree that she had lost her zest for life.
After a few sessions, she was so changed that she now says her life is divided into two parts, “Before Aurora” and “After Aurora.” Her health has returned and she has a new passion for life. Even her marriage transformed. She wrote, “I can’t believe how changed I am. People notice a calm and clarity. I have not reverted to the patterns since our last sessions. I cannot think of a better birthday gift than a chance to heal the inner soul of the grief and debris from our years before.”
This level of healing and self-mastery allows you to continually transform the challenging aspects of your life, changing it for the better. This is the power of TheQuest™ to change life conditions from within. This inner work sets you free to live from your higher nature, in harmony, loving and peace, as an enlightened inhabitant of this world, who in working towards a better future, brings that enlightened vision to the planet. Healing our patterns is a sacred offering to a world in transition.
If we courageously tend to our own inner kingdom of unhealed aspects, others will be inspired to do the same. When more people on earth heal the schisms in their psyches and change the patterning that has run down their family lives, they will live in harmony and peace. This is how we can heal the earth from within and set the stage for a more evolved future. We can manifest Heaven on Earth by creating Heaven in our own life experience. This is the level of mastery our world is calling for, the way to turn the tide on planetary challenges, birth a new more enlightened future, and create a New Earth.
About the Author
Aurora Juliana Ariel, PhD, Creator of TheQuest™ and Award Winning Author of the Earth 2012 series, is a pioneering doctor whose research and work have given her a profound understanding of the psyche and the tools to heal an ailing humanity. She holds over 35 certificates and degrees in advanced healing methods as well as a BA, MA, and PhD in psychology. See: http://www.AuroraJulianaAriel.com
Working with countless clients over many years with miraculous results, Dr. Ariel’s landmark discoveries led to the development of her breakthrough Healing System, TheQuest™. In 2000, she founded the Institute of Advanced Healing to bring out TheQuest worldwide and in 2009, launched TheQuest Global Outreach Program to place her groundbreaking book, TheQuest: Heal Your Life, Change Your Destiny in prisons, hospitals, rehab centers, addictions and youth at risk programs, safe houses, hospices, schools, libraries, and other programs around the world. See: http://www.IOAH.org
CEO and Founder of AEOS, a Hawaii based multimedia company, her love for translating her knowledge into healing, inspiring media productions led to her 2008 release of the award winning first book in her Earth 2012 series, Earth 2012: The Ultimate Quest and her first solo music CD, Renaissance of Grace. In 2009, she released Earth 2012: Time of the Awakening Soul, and Gypsy Soul, Heart of Passion music CD with Bruce BecVar, along with her 1st book in TheQuest Collection, TheQuest: Heal Your Life, Change Your Destiny. A host of exciting music, books, and films are soon to follow. See: http://www.AEOS.ws
Committed to positive world change, she founded the Earth Vision Foundation and the Earth Vision Alliance, to bring forth her vast humanitarian endeavor, the Earth Vision Center project, which is a living library of the advances of our time set within a pristine natural environment. See: http://www.LemuriaRising.com
Dr. Ariel is available for speaking engagements, to present her landmark work at global conferences and events, and to train people in TheQuest worldwide. ©2008 Aurora Juliana Ariel, PhD.
