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Spiritual Bypassing

When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters

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Spiritual Bypassing

By: Robert Augustus Masters Ph.D.
Narrated by: Robert Augustus Masters Ph.D.
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About this listen

 “A wonderfully significant and important book.” —Ken Wilber, The Integral Vision
“A timely and penetrating analysis of spirituality’s shadow.” —Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism without Beliefs

A spiritual teacher and integral psychotherapist offers a first-of-its-kind study on how we use—and abuse—spiritual beliefs and practices, revealing how to identify and move beyond what holds us back from living life fully.

Spiritual bypassing—the use of spiritual beliefs to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs—is so pervasive that it goes largely unnoticed. The spiritual ideals of any tradition, whether Christian commandments or Buddhist precepts, can provide easy justification for practitioners to duck uncomfortable feelings in favor of more seemingly enlightened activity. When split off from fundamental psychological needs, such actions often do much more harm than good.

While other authors have touched on the subject, this is the first book fully devoted to spiritual bypassing. In the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa’s landmark Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Spiritual Bypassing provides an in-depth look at the unresolved or ignored psychological issues often masked as spirituality, including self-judgment, excessive niceness, and emotional dissociation. A longtime psychotherapist with an engaging writing style, Masters furthers the body of psychological insight into how we use (and abuse) religion in often unconscious ways. This book will hold particular appeal for those who grew up with an unstructured new-age spirituality now looking for a more mature spiritual practice, and for anyone seeking increased self-awareness and a more robust relationship with themselves and others. Buddhism Eastern Personal Development Personal Success Philosophy Spirituality
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A valuable and insightful text highlighting many things we have known to be true, yet rarely ever see addressed by someone who has both the relevant life experience and professional expertise to speak to the issues directly and with authority. Well structured, if a little dry at times, the explanations and unpacking is very easy to follow.

Great Clarity

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I love how much intention author put into this audio book as he recorded himself. Check out also all other books of his. They are all super good. Spiritual Bypassing gives you an idea how there is so many things we like to trick ourself into and thinking how we grown spiritually and dealt with things or outgrown them but in reality we are just distancing ourself away from reality and trauma that is still there. We use number of technic to distance ourself from a pain that is inside us instead facing it. Find out what kind of spiritual bypassing are you using in your life and what to do to face everything and get real.

This is the best book ever!

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