Toxic Positivity Is Killing Us

If I had a nickel for every time I was emotionally and spiritually bypassed this year — I’d be richer than J.K. Rowling. And don’t even get me started on her behavior of late. That’s not what this essay is about.

You know you’ve been spiritually bypassed when you hear something like, “It’s all in God’s plan” or “Choose light.” (Tell someone you had a miscarriage and count how many people tell you, “It was meant to be.”) It’s essentially using religion or any sort of pseudo-spiritual dogma (many yogis are experts at this) to scrub away any feelings that are deemed “negative” and replace them with a smile. Even if that smile is fake.

Emotional bypassing is the same idea. It’s when someone encourages you to sidestep or ignore valid but uncomfortable emotions like sadness, pain, or frustration and “take the high road” or “look on the bright side.”

The thing is, we do this to ourselves too.

We choose to sidestep our valid and uncomfortable emotions because they’re “bad,” “negative,” or, mostly, because they make us uncomfortable. Many of us, myself included, weren’t taught how to lean into those emotions, to feel them, to self-soothe and console ourselves, and then work through the sadness, anger, or frustration in order to fully release and understand our pain.

We can learn a lot from these emotions. But more importantly, we are meant to feel them. Not dwell in them forever, not define ourselves by them, but feel them.

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