The Problem With ‘Love and Light’: Why Toxic Positivity Can Go Straight to Hell

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 (and take your fake affirmations with it)

Let’s start with a little incense and a big disclaimer: I’m not against actual love, and I’ve got nothing against light. Love is sacred. Light is vital. But when “love and light” becomes a shield to deflect reality, discomfort, or accountability, it stops being spiritual and starts being a spiritual bypass.

You’ve seen it. Hell, maybe you’ve done it.
Somebody opens up—really opens up—about pain, about grief, about rage or injustice. And what do they get?

“You should send them love and light.”
“Don’t lower your vibration.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“Don’t manifest negativity!”

Y'all. Stop.

☁️ Toxic Positivity: The Sage-Scented Silence Button

This kind of spiritual deflection is what I like to call "sage-scented gaslighting." It looks pretty. It smells calming. But it's pushing down real emotions under a cloud of faux serenity.

Toxic positivity doesn't allow for the messy, the angry, or the grieving. It doesn’t hold space—it fills it with fluff. And sometimes, that fluff is deeply unkind.

  • Telling someone who’s lost a loved one, “They’re in a better place,” shuts down their grief.

  • Dismissing pain with “Just choose happiness” erases trauma.

  • Ignoring injustice with “Raise your frequency and don’t focus on negativity” is the spiritual equivalent of sticking your head in a Himalayan salt lamp.

🌸 Faux Serenity: The Cult of Calm at All Costs

There’s a version of “spiritual peace” being sold that’s more about aesthetics than authenticity. You know the vibe: soft pastels, sound baths, unbothered expressions, the perpetual hum of a singing bowl in the background. On the surface, it’s calming. But if you look closer—really look—you’ll often find a tight-lipped suppression underneath all that serenity.

That’s what I call faux serenity.

It’s the kind of “calm” that’s really just repression in disguise:

  • It looks like smiling through tears because “I don’t want to bring the energy down.”

  • It sounds like “I’m fine, everything’s in divine order,” when your world is actually falling apart.

  • It feels like sitting on a cushion in stillness while your chest screams—but you’re too “evolved” to cry anymore.

Faux serenity teaches you to keep the peace externally while falling apart internally.

And why? Because real emotion, especially unpleasant emotion, doesn’t photograph well. Anger isn’t “on brand.” Rage isn’t monetizable. Grief gets fewer likes than gratitude. And in a culture obsessed with spiritual image, emotional truth is seen as a crack in the facade.

🧘🏾‍♀️ The Performance of Peace Is Not the Practice of Peace

This is where it gets dangerous. Because faux serenity isn’t just a personal habit—it’s a communal standard. It becomes a social code in spiritual spaces:

“We don’t do drama here.”
“High vibe only.”
“Please leave your negativity at the door.”

But peace that requires you to hide your pain is not peace.
It’s a costume. It’s a muzzle. It’s emotional exile.

Real serenity? It’s built through integration, not denial. It comes from acknowledging the mess, not pretending it’s not there. It’s choosing stillness after the storm, not instead of it.

Faux serenity whispers, “Don’t feel that.”
Authentic peace says, “Feel it all, and I’ll sit with you through it.”

🔥 The Danger Beneath the Glow

Here’s the blunt truth: You can’t affirm your way out of a broken system. You can’t meditate your way out of abuse. You can’t “just let it go” when the wound is still bleeding.

When we insist that others stay positive at all costs, we’re really saying:

“Your discomfort makes me uncomfortable. Please package it in something prettier.”

That’s not healing. That’s emotional censorship.
That’s like sticking a vision board over a cracked foundation and wondering why the damn house keeps falling in.

❤️‍🔥 Love Without Truth Is Just Performance

Real love—spiritual love—doesn’t flinch at discomfort. It sits in the fire with you. It doesn’t tell you to calm down; it hands you the drum and says, “Let it out.”

And real light? It doesn’t ignore the darkness—it illuminates it.
Not to shame it. Not to erase it.
But to witness it.

We need more of that. More witnessing. More truth-telling. More sacred rage, sacred grief, sacred honesty.

Not everything can be sage-smudged away.

Some things must be faced, named, screamed into the wind, and cried into the earth.

🌑 So, What Now?

I’m not asking you to ditch your affirmations or toss out your rose quartz (unless it’s covered in glitter glue and spiritual superiority—then yeet it). I’m asking you to be brave enough to make room for truth.

When someone’s hurting, resist the urge to slap a sticker of positivity on their pain.
Say, “That’s heavy. I hear you.”
Say, “That sucks. Want to talk?”
Say, “I’m here.”

That’s real love. That’s real light.

Keep your sage. Burn your illusions. And tell the truth.
Even when it’s uncomfortable.
Especially then.

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