On Saturday, next to a lake filling quickly to its edges with rain, I hiked with someone I love, someone I haven’t seen in months, and someone I had to give up. We had seen each other for a quick tea about a month after we broke up, but in hindsight, neither of us was really ready then. But over emails the past several weeks, we had decided we’d meet in September, more toward the end, somewhere in the middle of our two towns. Instead, as I was having trouble re-acclimating to my post-Burning Man world, and he had been many times before, I asked if we could meet earlier. Even though it was last minute, he agreed to come.

Spiritual bypassing isn’t something that just happens to fallen gurus. According to author and counselor Mariana Caplan, PhD, it’s something we all must be aware of in our own journey.

Our deep pain doesn’t go away just because we figure out what it’s connected to. Nope, it has a lot more to teach us than just that.