It’s Time to Break Some Shit
Spiritual Bypassing, Suppressed Anger, and What It Really Means to Heal
Sometimes healing looks like meditation.
And sometimes it looks like taking a fucking crowbar to some shit.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve completely changed the way I think about healing—and what it actually means to be a spiritual person.
For a long time, I think I, like a lot of people, was stuck in a spiritual trap.
If we just meditate enough…
If we think the right thoughts…
If we stay positive enough…
If we get our energy right…
If we become enlightened and evolved enough…
somehow we can change our reality and avoid the really hard stuff.
There’s so much spiritual messaging out there telling us that we create our reality.
Watch my friend and me break some shit!
And listen, I absolutely believe we have enormous power in how we live our lives. Our choices matter. Our thoughts matter. Our patterns matter. The way we show up matters.
But somewhere along the way, that message can turn into this idea that if we’re spiritual enough, conscious enough, healed enough, or vibrating at the right fucking frequency, somehow we become immune to being human.
We won’t experience heartbreak.
We won’t get betrayed.
We won’t lose people we love.
We won’t get sick.
We won’t have relationships fall apart.
We won’t experience disappointment, grief, fear, anger, or circumstances we never asked for.
And if something terrible does happen?
Well, maybe we manifested it.
Maybe our vibration was too low.
Maybe we weren’t healed enough.
Maybe we somehow created it or deserved it.
Or we’re being punished.
I think that’s one of the biggest lies in modern spirituality.
Sometimes hard shit happens because we are human.
Being deeply spiritual doesn’t give you immunity from the human experience.
And as someone who has been through some really hard things—and through the training and work I’ve done over the years—I’ve come to believe that healing isn’t about creating a life where nothing painful ever happens.
It’s about learning how to be fully present for your life when it does.
Because the reality I’ve come to is this:
Being spiritual doesn’t mean rising above the messy parts of being human.
And it sure as hell doesn’t mean blaming yourself for your pain because you think you somehow manifested it, God is punishing you, you weren’t evolved enough, or did something wrong to deserve it.
And then there’s spiritual bypassing.
What Is Spiritual Bypassing?
Spiritual bypassing is when we use spiritual beliefs or practices to avoid dealing with painful emotions or difficult parts of our lives.
When the hard shit does happen, instead of allowing ourselves to actually feel it, we try to spiritually work our way out of it.
We try to think, meditate, pray, forgive, have gratitude, find the lesson, or “rise above” something we actually need to FEEL.
Hard shit is always happening in our lives.
Someone hurts us. We lose someone we love. We get sick. Someone we love gets sick. A relationship ends. We lose a job or a business venture doesn't work out.
And then there’s just the everyday shit of being human.
Our kids need something from us when we have absolutely nothing left to give. Our partners have needs and sometimes they can’t meet ours. Someone disappoints us. Someone says something that pisses us off. The house needs something, again. The car breaks down. The air conditioner stops working in the middle of a hot summer. We didn't get enough sleep cause our hormones are whack. There’s another bill we weren’t expecting. We’re running late and a guy cuts us off in traffic and we have to slam on the brakes.
And then we turn on the news and the whole world feels completely messed up. We see suffering and injustice everywhere. Politics makes us want to scream.
Life is constantly asking something of us.
And instead of letting ourselves actually feel any of it, we immediately try to get somewhere else.
We pray.
We meditate.
We look for the lesson.
We try to stay positive.
We try to have compassion.
We tell ourselves not to give our energy to it.
We try to “rise above” or say, “that’s in the past, I’m moving on.”
But understanding your pain isn’t the same as actually processing it.
You can understand the lesson and still be REALLY angry.
You can forgive someone and still be hurt.
You can be spiritual and still have shit you need to feel.
And we have a million ways of escaping what we feel:
Overworking.
Overfunctioning.
Overthinking.
People-pleasing.
Staying constantly busy.
Scrolling.
Drinking. Smoking. Comfort eating.
Shopping.
Always needing a relationship.
Meditating the feeling away.
Looking for the next healer, retreat, spiritual practice, guru or pastor who surely has THE answer.
Trying to get to some higher vibration, higher dimension, 5D version of yourself where life somehow doesn’t hurt anymore.
I think that’s a farce.
Your trauma doesn’t disappear because you meditate.
Your grief doesn’t disappear because you understand the lesson.
And no guru is going to do your healing for you.
Why Are We So Afraid of Anger?
We’re REALLY good at avoiding that one.
Especially as a woman in our culture, being angry can feel like breaking some unwritten rule.
I’ve swallowed it.
I’ve explained it away.
I’ve told myself to calm down.
I’ve tried to understand the person who pissed me off.
I’ve called it my ego.
I’ve tried to forgive before I’ve even admitted I was angry.
And sometimes I’ve just been afraid to show it.
Because what happens when a woman actually gets angry?
We worry we’ll be judged.
That we’re being dramatic.
Difficult.
Too much.
That we’re “that crazy lady.”
That someone will call us a Karen. Or label us a Bitch.
So we stay nice. We stay composed. We keep our mouths shut.
And meanwhile, we’re freaking furious.
What Happens When You Suppress Anger?
But anger has a purpose.
Anger is a mobilizing emotion.
When you’re angry, your nervous system prepares your body to DO something. Your heart rate can increase. Your blood pressure can rise. Your muscles tense. Your breathing changes. Stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol can kick in.
And here’s the part I find so interesting:
You can suppress the expression of anger and look completely fine on the outside while your body is still having a very real physiological response on the inside.
So while you’re busy trying to look like some calm, spiritually evolved person, your nervous system may be telling a completely different story.
Your jaw is clenched.
Your shoulders are tight.
Your heart is pounding.
Your stomach is in knots.
You can’t sleep.
You’re restless.
You’re irritable.
You’re exhausted.
You feel alone.
Because not expressing an emotion doesn’t necessarily mean your body has stopped responding to it.
You can convince your mind that you’re “over it” while your body is still reacting like you’re not.
And I think this is where my understanding of spirituality has changed the most.
I used to think the goal was to get above all of this.
Now I think the work is learning how to actually be IN it.
To be in your body.
To feel what you feel.
To stop trying to transcend every uncomfortable part of being human.
For me, that’s spiritual maturity.
Not escaping my humanity.
Being fully fucking HERE for it.
Because being human IS the adventure.
It’s beautiful.
It’s messy.
It will break your heart.
It will challenge the shit out of you.
So let me ask you:
What are YOU trying so hard not to feel?
What if the anger, grief, fear or pain you keep trying to get rid of isn’t getting in the way of your healing?
What if you actually let yourself feel it?
Yesterday, for my best friend’s birthday, I took us to a rage room.
Because honestly, I knew we both had some shit to let go of.
I’ve been feeling angry for months. More irritable. Less patient. And at times, I’ve caught myself inappropriately directing my anger at people and situations that weren’t really what I was angry about.
I knew it was time to release some of it.
And my friend, recently divorced and having been through some really hard things of her own, needed to let go too.
So instead of talking about it…
We broke shit.
We hit shit.
We threw shit.
We screamed.
We yelled.
We cursed.
And holy shit, I felt better.
That tight, pissed-off feeling I’ve had sitting in my chest for months?
Gone.
What’s Underneath the Anger?
And I also know what can be on the other side of anger.
Because anger is often the emotion that gets us to move. It also gives us energy. It tells us something isn’t okay. It gets us ready to DO something.
But when I’ve actually allowed myself to feel my anger instead of stuffing it down, there’s often something else underneath it.
Sadness.
Grief.
Disappointment.
Hurt.
The stuff that’s sometimes a hell of a lot harder to feel than anger.
And when I let myself feel that too—when I stop trying to analyze it, fix it, rise above it or make it go away—something else eventually becomes available.
Joy.
That’s the part of healing I don’t think we talk about enough.
When you’re no longer using so much energy trying to hold everything down, there’s more room inside of you.
You feel lighter.
More open.
More expanded.
More alive.
Things don’t feel quite so heavy or hard.
And maybe that’s what healing actually is. Not getting to a place where you never feel anger, grief, fear or pain again.
But becoming willing to feel all of it, so you don’t have to spend your life carrying it.
Sometimes you don’t need another freaking lesson.
Sometimes you just need to let yourself be angry.
And sometimes you need a crowbar.
You Don’t Have to Rise Above What You Feel
If you’ve spent years trying to stay positive, keep the peace, hold everything together, or talk yourself out of what you’re feeling, maybe the next step isn’t another lesson.
Maybe it’s learning how to actually be with yourself in the middle of it.
This is the work I do with women through The Coming Home Process—helping you recognize the patterns that keep you disconnected from yourself, learn to trust what you feel, and stop abandoning yourself in order to keep everyone else comfortable.
If you’re ready to come home to yourself, learn more about The Coming Home Process by clicking below:
About Jessica Sheaffer
Jessica Sheaffer has spent more than 25 years helping people come back into their bodies and reconnect with themselves.
Her work is rooted in a simple belief: you can’t think your way out of everything you feel. Sometimes healing means understanding your patterns. Sometimes it means setting a boundary, having the hard conversation, grieving what you lost, shaking, breathing, crying, getting angry…or apparently, taking a crowbar to a room full of breakable shit.
As a life coach, somatic embodiment guide, energy healer, and bodywork therapist in Austin, Jessica brings together nervous-system work, somatic practices, breathwork, coaching, intuitive healing, and decades of hands-on experience to help people move through what they’ve been carrying rather than continuing to stuff it down, explain it away, or spiritually bypass it.
Her work is ultimately about helping people feel more at home in themselves…lighter, freer, more connected, and more fully alive.
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