💕Emotional Bypassing #4: Relational Bypassing · Inspired Life, Empowered Being

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💕Emotional Bypassing #4: Relational Bypassing

Relational bypassing happens when we stay hyper-focused on other people’s needs, emotions, and comfort while neglecting our own experiences. Caring is beautiful and support is necessary but if we're pouring into others as a way of avoiding ourselves? Well....

If you found yourself feeling like you're always the listener or caretaker, avoiding conflict at all costs, prioritizing harmony over authenticity/facing reality, feeling responsible for others’ emotions, instinctively shifting conversations back to the other person and feeling uncomfortable being the focus, downplaying your own struggles but engaging in others', feeling useful in a crisis but restless in calm, having difficulty answering the question "what do you need", engaging in advice giving rather than sharing your own vulnerability, it may be an indicator that emotional bypassing is occurring.

WHY it develops:

Protection. Again. For many people, connection once depended on being easy, tuning in to others, not causing friction, so the nervous sytem learned that managing the emotional environment leads to sense of safety.

PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPONENTS:

-it can feel easier to 'try' to regulate someone else's emotions--if we help others calm down then that calms us down and it feels relieving--feeling like the problem is solved (external locus of control) rather than doing inner reflection and acknowleding our own feelings.

-some people have their worth tied in to this--"If I'm needed or supportive, I'm safe. I won't be abandoned/they'll like me/they won't reject me" "If I'm strong for them I don't have to be vulnerable"

-we can feel a sense of control through usefulness. Emotions may feel out of control but overfunctioning can feel like it provides a sense of structure and direction when the inner world feels overwhelming

-some people learned that having needs led to rejection/dismissal/being labeled as 'too much'/emotional withdrawal so instead of allowing themselves to be vulnerable, they became indispensable instead. Providing for others what they themselves needed...

-We continue this pattern because it's rewarded: we're praied for being supportive, we're valued for our reliability, we feel purposeful, we avoid confronting other emotions and we feel like we're maintaining a sense of closeness without really risking any exposure.

GOOD NEWS:

Being relationally attuned is a good thing. :) When healthy, it can strengthen empathy, increase emotional intelligence, improve social bonds, create trust and reliability, maintain stability in groups and reduce interpersonal conflict. It creates/maintains secure attachments and improves the capacity for leadership too! We're meant for connection and relational attunement helps this! yay!

NOT SO GREAT NEWS:

When it's a form of avoidance, it can lead to self-erasure...Over time, it can lead to emotional exhaustion/burnout, resentment, relational imbalance (one sided intimacy; difficulty receiving support),loss of identity, and difficulty recognizing personal needs. Constant outward focus disconnects us from our internal world. And..while others may feel connected to us, we may not feel connected to them because we feel unseen because we're not allowing ourselves to actually be seen. (this is a theme with emotional bypassing in general)

POLL: Which feels most true?

QUESTION: Have there been times in your life when you've overfunctioned in relationships? What was at play?

ACTION:

Once this week, when someone asks you how you are, share something small beyond the "i'm good"

Let someone help you, without earning it (don't preface it with how much you've done for them, don't minimize your need, don't immediately reciprocate....just receive).

VIDEO: I didn't finish all of it, but the parts I listened to were good.

Supporting others feels aligned and balanced.

I sometimes over-give when I’m overwhelmed or I overgive because of other emotions at play

I feel uncomfortable receiving help

I’ve built my identity around being the strong one

I don’t relate to this

Helping others is overrated and I'm over it. People can just go "help" themselves.

A combination of a few.

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