Social Media Spiritualist.Walking a spiritual path — however you define that — is often difficult. The journey to healing your childhood trauma, releasing your ego’s limiting beliefs, and connecting with your authentic self or a higher power is fraught with pitfalls. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can be wonderful vehicles to connect with other spiritual seekers, share your journey, and gain spiritual wisdom. But they can also be a minefield of emotional triggers and distractions that lure us away from our path and into spiritual bypass—that is, using spirituality to avoid emotional pain and protect the ego. Below are 3 of the most common forms of spiritual bypass to watch for so you don’t end up using social media to sabotage your spiritual growth. You Always Turn to Social Media for “Spiritual Inspiration” One of our deepest tendencies, as human beings, is to avoid pain and pursue pleasure. We prefer to distract and numb ourselves than deal with discomfort. A spiritual path is meant to teach you to face your pain so that you can heal. It’s very easy to turn to social media like Facebook and Instagram and scroll away your pain. Perusing inspirational stories or searching for uplifting spiritual memes can easily become a means to numb or distract yourself. Constantly turning to social media for a quick “inspirational” boost becomes spiritual bypass; you’ll just look for another “hit” the next time you start to feel low again,Social Media Spiritualist. Another version of this kind of bypass is to spend countless hours in spiritual Facebook groups, posting about your life or commenting on others’ posts. It’s a wonderful impulse to want to connect with others and share what’s happening in your life, but constant chatter and commentary on threads, particularly when helping others to diagnose what’s going on in their lives, is a common way to distract yourself from your own inner work. You’re Using Social Media to Judge Others’ Spiritual Progress