The Cult of New Age Positivity

How “good vibes only” thinking became the new form of spiritual denial

“Real spirituality isn’t about floating above your pain — it’s about walking through it and emerging whole.”

There’s a growing phenomenon in modern spiritual spaces that deserves a closer look — something often called spiritual bypassing. But what I’m seeing today feels like it’s evolved beyond that. It’s starting to look and act like a cult of positivity — complete with its own dogma, jargon, and unspoken rules.

When Positivity Becomes a Prison

Many traditional and online cults weave toxic positivity into their ideology. Take NXIVM, for example — the so-called “self-improvement” organisation that turned out to be a coercive cult. Part of their curriculum revolved around a concept called being at cause, which taught members to eradicate all negative feelings by seeing them as personal failings.

If you felt pain, fear, or anger, it was your fault. The message was clear: negative emotions weren’t to be processed — they were to be suppressed. Over time, members learned to shame themselves for being human.

And while most of us aren’t part of NXIVM, this same attitude has seeped into mainstream new age and online spiritual communities. Scroll through social media and you’ll see it everywhere — wrapped in pastel quotes about love and light, good vibes only, and everything happens for a reason.

The Bypass Trap

At first glance, focusing on the positive sounds harmless — even healthy. But when it’s used to avoid or deny pain, it becomes spiritual bypassing: the act of using spiritual ideas or practices to sidestep uncomfortable emotions, unresolved trauma, or real-life responsibilities.

This shows up in statements like:

• “Just focus on the positives.”

• “It’s all a lesson.”

• “That happened to help you grow.”

  
  

While there’s some truth in those ideas, they can easily become a form of denial. Pain doesn’t disappear because you reframe it — it simply gets buried, often resurfacing later as addiction, self-sabotage, or toxic relationship patterns.

“Pain doesn’t disappear because you reframe it — it simply gets buried.”

Toxic Positivity: The “Good Vibes Only” Myth

New age circles often promote the belief that emotions like grief, anger, or rage are “low vibrational.” These feelings are labeled as unspiritual — something to rise above. But this mindset is deeply flawed.

Telling someone who’s experienced trauma that their pain is simply a “lesson” isn’t healing — it’s harmful. It mirrors the NXIVM idea of being at cause, subtly suggesting that if you feel bad, you’re doing something wrong.

The truth is, negative emotions are not a flaw in your spiritual evolution — they’re a fundamental part of being human. Without them, we’d have no sense of danger, no motivation to change, and no real depth of empathy.

The Power of Anger

One of the most stigmatised emotions in the spiritual world is anger. Yet anger, in its healthy form, is a vital signal — a natural alarm system that tells us when our boundaries have been crossed or something is deeply unfair.

To deny anger is to silence your own internal protector. When expressed consciously, it’s not destructive — it’s clarifying. It helps us recognise what matters, what feels unjust, and where we need to take action.

“Suppressing anger doesn’t make you more enlightened — it just disconnects you from your truth.”

When Spirituality Feeds the Ego

Another form of spiritual bypassing is what I call spiritual narcissism — the belief that being “awake” or “enlightened” makes you superior to others.

You’ve probably seen it online: people leaving sanctimonious comments on videos or posts, lecturing others about how “unspiritual” they are, or offering unsolicited advice from a place of ego rather than empathy.

Ironically, this kind of behaviour reveals the exact opposite of enlightenment. It’s just the ego putting on a robe and calling itself divine.

Real Spirituality Is Shadow Work

Authentic spirituality isn’t about escaping darkness — it’s about integrating it. It means doing your shadow work: facing the messy, uncomfortable parts of yourself and taking accountability for what you find there.

It’s not pretty. It’s not always “high vibe.” But it’s real. And on the other side of that honesty is true growth — the kind that builds compassion, strength, and self-awareness.

Because genuine spirituality isn’t about pretending to be light — it’s about becoming whole.

“You don’t heal by avoiding your shadow. You heal by learning to walk with it.”