This is such an important topic for people interested in spirituality. One of the traps in spiritual development is something called “spiritual bypassing,” where someone uses spirituality as a way to bypass other issues. Sometimes the real work means needing to feel and go through a difficult emotion, such as sadness. We can’t pretend that something doesn’t exist, like pretending to be happy when we are actually angry underneath. “If you are not outraged, then you’re not paying attention.” We need to tend to all aspects of ourselves. One without the other is bypass. They are not independent of each other, but rather intimately interconnected.