Negative Possibilities

There’s a version of faith that looks peaceful on the outside, but functions like avoidance on the inside. It knows the language. It quotes the verses. It says “I’m healed,” “I’ve forgiven,” “I’m trusting God”, and yet nothing actually changes. In this episode, we talk about spiritual bypassing, the habit of using faith, prayer, or spiritual language to skip the hard, human work of healing. Not because we’re dishonest, but because we’re afraid. Afraid of slowing down. Afraid of what we might find if we stop moving long enough to feel what hasn’t been processed yet. This isn’t an attack on faith. It’s a defense of it. Because real faith doesn’t bypass pain, it enters it. It doesn’t rush grief. It doesn’t demand instant clarity or premature peace. It sits in the tension between belief and doubt, between prayer and honesty, between what we say we’ve surrendered and what we’re still holding in our bodies. In a culture that often rewards spiritual certainty and emotional composure, we explore how bypassing can masquerade as maturity. How phrases like “God’s got it” can become a way to avoid hard conversations. How forgiveness can be declared long before resentment has actually been faced. And how unprocessed pain doesn’t disappear in prayer, it simply relocates, leaking into our marriages, our parenting, our tone, our silence, and our burnout. This episode also examines how psychology and faith are not in competition, but in conversation. Therapy doesn’t replace God; it gives language to what faith is already inviting us to confront. Because healing doesn’t come from pretending we’re fine. It comes from being honest enough to admit we’re not. With a quiet, grounded intensity, this conversation leans into the shadow side of spirituality, the part that doesn’t post well, doesn’t sound impressive, and doesn’t resolve neatly. The part that asks whether we’ve been anointing wounds we’ve never cleaned, and whether our version of peace is actually just emotional numbing dressed up as holiness. If you’ve ever felt pressured to “be okay” before you were ready… If you’ve ever rushed forgiveness because sitting in anger felt unchristian… If you’ve ever used spiritual language to avoid naming what hurt you… This episode is an invitation to slow down. To stop bypassing. To let faith do what it was always meant to do, not shield us from pain, but walk with us through it. Because God doesn’t need you to be healed on demand. He doesn’t need polished answers or spiritual shortcuts. He meets you in honesty, not performance. And healing doesn’t happen when we avoid the dark; it happens when we’re willing to walk through it, with God beside us, not ahead of us, telling us to hurry up.