Welcome to Betrayal Trauma Recovery. This is Anne. We have a member of our community coming 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.

Her enthusiasm for these subjects has made her a sheero for other women women affected by betrayal trauma and she has given

countless hours of her time to support and mentor women on the journey to healing.

Tracy is a devoted mother to four children, a compassionate friend in an avid runner, and mountains and

lakes are her happy place.

Mountains and lakes are also my happy place.

So we have that in common.

Today we're going to talk about spiritual bypass

and a lot of women have never heard of this before.

So let's start with that.

What is spiritual bypass? And then after you answer that question can you go right into talking about how you became aware of this concept?

Yes, so spiritual bypass essentially is using spirituality or spiritual things to avoid feeling hard

feelings because we're ashamed or afraid of those feelings. It's a

psychological defense mechanism. John Wellwood, he termed spiritual bypass as

using spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal emotional unfinished business,

to shore up a shaky sense of self or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental

tasks all in the name of Enlightenment. And Ingrid Matthew describes it

is the shorthand for spiritual bypass is when a person wears a mask or

presents a false spiritual self that represents aspects of that person's true self.

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