The Trap of “Good Vibes Only”

Let's Talk about Toxic Positivity & Spiritual Bypassing

Sitting on a couch in my condo in Arcadia, a handmade marquee sign above me spells out "Good Vibes Only." The irony is suffocating. A police officer sits beside me in silence, waiting for my dad to arrive. I have just received the news that my longtime partner has taken his own life. The vibes are not good. They have not been good for a long time. And yet, I have been living under this mantra, immersing myself in the belief that positivity alone could hold my world together.

A few years earlier, I had started exploring personal development and yoga, drawn in by the promise of self-improvement and inner peace. The catalyst? My relationship, once steady and full of promise, had begun to crack under the weight of my partner's growing untreated mental illness. In an attempt to quiet his mind, he turned to alcohol. It didn’t take long before drinking became his crutch, and soon after, his addiction.

I did everything I could to support him while trying not to fall into codependency, but eventually, I realized that the only thing within my control was myself. So I threw myself into self-help books, yoga classes, and spiritual practices, desperately trying to find stability in a life that was slipping through my fingers. I became obsessed with The Secret and the idea that my thoughts dictated my reality. If I could just focus on the positive, I could manifest a better future. I trained myself to reject negativity, to reframe every difficulty as a lesson, to keep the peace at all costs.

But keeping the peace also meant silencing my truth. My partner was emotionally fragile, and any confrontation, any criticism, could send him spiraling. So I tiptoed around him, filtering every conversation to ensure it stayed light, safe. I built a world of curated beauty on my Instagram, sharing bright, dreamy images that painted a picture of a thriving creative life. And in many ways, my life was beautiful—there was genuine joy, adventure, love—but there was also immense suffering that I couldn’t fully allow myself to acknowledge.

Spiritual bypassing is often born out of necessity. It’s a survival mechanism, a way to make sense of pain when facing the full weight of reality feels unbearable. In the yoga and personal development communities, I see this pattern over and over again—people clinging to "love and light" as a way to avoid confronting the darkness.

The idea of "Good Vibes Only" can be intoxicating. It promises an escape, a way to sidestep discomfort and manifest a life free of suffering. But suffering doesn’t disappear just because we refuse to look at it. In fact, ignoring the full picture often keeps us stuck.

For years, I existed in that limbo. My refusal to acknowledge the severity of my partner’s situation, or my own, kept me from making necessary changes. The belief that I had to maintain unwavering positivity made me blind to the reality that some things don’t get better just because you really want them to.

And yet, I can also see why I clung to those beliefs for so long. Sometimes, optimism is the only thing that keeps us moving forward. In moments of deep despair, hope—even false hope—can be a lifeline. But the key is balance. Positivity is powerful, but not when it comes at the expense of truth.

I no longer live under the illusion of "Good Vibes Only." Life is complex. Healing is messy. Growth requires us to face the hard things, to sit in discomfort, to acknowledge the shadows. The lesson I take from all of this is that true peace doesn’t come from bypassing pain—it comes from integrating it, from holding space for the full spectrum of emotions, and from finding the courage to face what is real.

If there is a mantra I live by now, it is this: Authenticity over perfection. All vibes are welcome here.