The Space Between
Mindfulness in Times of Change
Change is one of the few constants in life. And one of the most disorienting. In my work and in my life, I’ve seen change show up in all kinds of ways. Sometimes it arrives as a welcome invitation: a new opportunity, a surprising windfall, a long-awaited shift. Other times, it crashes through like a storm, uninvited and unwelcome, tearing up the foundation of what once felt stable.
There are changes we choose: leaving a job, ending a relationship, moving across the country. And there are changes that choose us: a sudden death, a diagnosis, an unraveling of identity. Whether it arrives by choice or force, change throws us into what I call the gap-that in-between space where we’re no longer who we were, but not yet who we’re becoming. It’s raw, confusing, and often uncertain.
In that gap, many of us reach for something to hold on to. Understandably so. The discomfort of uncertainty can be unbearable. But in our efforts to find peace or clarity, we often grab for quick fixes, especially spiritual ones. It’s here that we meet a modern phenomenon known as spiritual bypassing, a term first coined by Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist John Welwood. It refers to the tendency to use spiritual beliefs or practices to avoid facing unresolved emotional wounds, painful truths, or the discomfort of our full humanity (Welwood, 1984)1. Psychotherapist Robert Augustus Masters (2010)2, who expanded on Welwood’s concept, describes spiritual bypassing as “avoidance in holy drag” (p. xv)- a compelling phrase that captures how easily spirituality can become a sophisticated form of denial.
On the surface, spiritual bypassing can resemble wisdom: calm tones, carefully chosen mantras, serene meditations, or comforting phrases like “everything happens for a reason.” These expressions often arise from a sincere desire to find peace or meaning in the midst of hardship. But beneath that polished surface, there can be a quiet struggle, a subtle form of denial or control that shields us from feeling what is hard.
In a culture that elevates positivity, composure, and effortless grace, it’s no wonder many of us turn to spiritual ideals as a refuge. These gestures are not failures; they are often the best strategies we’ve learned to manage overwhelming uncertainty. Yet, as Kornfield (2008)3 reminds us, “We expend enormous energy denying our insecurity, fighting pain, death, and loss” (p. 23). The cost of bypassing is not just avoidance. It’s disconnection from our own inner life and from the deeper healing that only honest presence can bring.
But here’s the truth: you can’t bypass your way into healing.
Avoidance may look like peace, but it keeps us disconnected from ourselves, from others, and from the growth that change demands. The wounds we ignore don’t vanish. As Jung (1959) reminds us, “What is not made conscious will appear in our lives as fate.” In other words, what we refuse to feel will find another way to speak.
The Alternative? Real Mindfulness.
Unlike spiritual bypassing, real mindfulness doesn’t promise an escape. It offers a way in.
Mindfulness, at its best, is not just a technique. It’s a way of relating to life. It means turning toward our experience, not away from it. It’s about staying present with what is, even when what is feels messy, painful, or unclear. Joseph Goldstein (2022)4 describes mindfulness as “knowing that we are knowing”. It is a deep, self-aware presence that lets us witness our experience without getting lost in it.
Mindfulness teaches us to stay with the full spectrum of life, both the hard and the hallowed. It doesn’t ask us to feel better. It asks us to feel honestly. As Kornfield (2008) puts it, “We must connect to our body, to our feelings, to our life just now, if we are to awaken.”
When we practice this kind of presence during change, something shifts. We stop trying to rush to the next chapter. We stop narrating over our pain. Instead, we learn to breathe into the unknown. To sit in the gap. To listen.
And in that space, something else appears: quiet clarity, the wisdom of feelings, and the beginning of newness.
The Quiet Power of Honest Presence
Mindfulness doesn’t eliminate the struggle of change, but it allows us to stay whole through it. It creates a compassionate space where real transformation happens. It helps us hold joy and sorrow, hope and fear, clarity and confusion in the same breath.
Without this grounding, spirituality can become a coping strategy. We reach for not to deepen presence, but to manage our discomfort with uncertainty. It becomes a way to control rather than emerge, to appear composed rather than feel connected. We may speak the language of awakening while secretly searching for relief from the unknown. We may look calm on the outside while feeling profoundly unmoored within.
But with real mindfulness, we return, again and again, to what is really real: the breath, the body, the feelings, the moment as it is. In that return, we begin to uncover something deeper than a spiritual high or a polished exterior. We find a steady, honest truth. One that doesn’t promise to fix everything, but that can hold us steady when everything else is falling apart.
To be truly spiritual, we must first be deeply human.
To truly heal, we must be radically honest: with our pain, our patterns, and our longing to be free.
Spiritual bypassing tells us to transcend the storm.
Mindfulness teaches us to walk through it with eyes open, heart intact.
One evades. The other engages. One fragments. The other integrates.
In a world addicted to speed and surface, mindfulness brings us back to what is felt, what is flawed, what is honest. And in that return, we don’t just survive change, we’re transformed by it. Gently. Courageously. Completely.
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Welwood, J. (1984). Principles of inner work: Psychological and spiritual guidance for a new era. New York: Teachers College Press.
Masters, R. A. (2010). Spiritual bypassing: When spirituality disconnects us from what really matters. North Atlantic Books.
Kornfield, J. (2008). The wise heart: A guide to the universal teachings of Buddhist psychology. Bantam Books.
Goldstein, J. (2022). Mindfulness: A practical guide to awakening. Sounds True.
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