Spiritual Direction without Bypassing: When the Body Leads
Feb 24, 2026“I feel crunched and crushed,” she said.
It was an online spiritual direction session, and this was how my directee—a college professor—began the call.
She went on to describe the anger and angst she felt living within society’s grind culture and the relentless pressure it places on people. This pressure compounded her rage over national and international events and the persistent question of how to bring meaningful change in the midst of it all. How could there be peace under such weight?
She was surrounded by demands on her time, demands on her heart, demands on her mind. From parenting to professor-ing, pressure pressed in on all sides.
I could see the anger and frustration coursing through her.
“And my body feels like moving,” she added, giving a small shake, as if trying to break free from something that had her bound or was sticking to her.
When people think of spiritual direction, they often imagine calming meditations, conscious breathing, or gentle conversations meant to quiet the spirit in order to listen for God. Yet calm does not always equal wisdom—nor is it always the pathway to peace.
This was not the moment to calm her anger. To do so would have been spiritual bypassing.
She had offered deeply embodied information. The spark of life—the Spirit of Life—was speaking through her body. What was coursing through her was not a distraction from prayer; it was the prayer. The body was the pathway.
I responded to her urge to move.
“So… how about you do that?” I said. “We could both mute and turn off our cameras and let you go into [what I call] a ‘prayer cave.’ Or, if you prefer, I can stay present and witness your movement.”
She paused, then smiled.
“I think I’d like you to witness it—and then maybe I’ll journal.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” I replied. “I wonder if you might begin by letting your body take on the posture of ‘crunched’ and ‘crushed’… and see where it goes from there.”
Her smile widened. It was exactly what she needed.
More conversation—or even calming techniques—would have stifled the flow. She didn’t need to be soothed; she needed space. And in spiritual direction, she had both space and time.
For ten minutes, I watched as her body moved from curled and scrunched—almost trapped and pinned to the ground—into a slow unfolding. She rose, reached skyward, twisted, wrung herself out. Eventually, she was drawn back down to the earth, lying face-down in stillness. She rested there for a long while before returning to her feet.
She looked grounded. Strong.
Then she entered the silence and solitude of her online “prayer cave,” turning off her video to journal about the wisdom her body had revealed. She asked for fifteen minutes, with a gentle notification at the five-minute mark, then again at one minute—an invitation, not a demand, to return when ready for conversation.
By the end of our hour together, she had not solved the world’s problems.
But she carried a subversive smile.
She knew she didn’t need to solve everything—not the world, not even herself. She knew the next faithful action. She knew what was hers to do in the classroom, her home, and beyond, at least for that day. The rest could be entrusted to the One Who Holds the Future.
------------------------------------
Spiritual bypassing happens when we use spiritual language or practices to avoid what is real, embodied, and asking for our attention. In spiritual direction, wisdom does not always arise through calm or clarity. Sometimes it emerges through anger, grief, restlessness, or movement. The task of the spiritual director is not to rush the directee toward resolution, but to stay present to what is alive—trusting that the Spirit is already at work in the body, the emotions, and the moment itself.
--Kasey Hitt, MDiv, WTC Co-founder and Director of The School of Spiritual Direction
This is the first of four blogs in the series, "Spiritual Direction without Bypassing"
Practice contemplative, active listening with Kasey, Sister Mary Rose Bumpus, & Wendy Brown through the 7-week series, The Wisdom of Listening beginning April 7th from Noon-1:00pm CST. Learn more here.
Stay Connected!
Updates and News sent directly to your inbox.
We hate SPAM. We will never sell your information, for any reason.
