Can you spiritually gaslight yourself?

The concepts of toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing have played on my mind for some time now, and this isn’t the first time I’ve addressed them. But today I’m feeling a slightly different stance…

It’s been 16(ish) years since I started exploring this kind of stuff, and I remember the joyful optimism of thinking positive, reframing my thoughts and getting playful with the Law of Attraction. Those things literally had me buzzing! And I wanted the world and everyone in it to know how amazing they could feel, too.

But the truth is, like everything in our existence, it was only ever temporary. It only ever worked for so long. Before the universe reminded me that I still had wounds to heal, trauma to unpack and many, many lessons still to learn.

I’d dramatically reduced the amount I was drinking over the course of a few years, then eventually stopped drinking about 10 years ago. And the escapism void that was left within me quickly got filled by affirmations, vision boards, meditation, yoga, self-help books and spiritual exploration. And these things worked wonders for my physical, mental and spiritual health. But they didn’t make the shit go away.

In some respects, I could argue that I suppressed things even further by avoiding facing into the hard truths. Instead, distracting myself with the power of positivity. In many ways, I prolonged my pain and suffering by masking it with a positive mental attitude.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE all these practices and still use them as very valid tools on a daily basis. But what I see so often is people using these tools as a way to gaslight themselves.

🌈 Telling themselves that as long as they think positive, everything will be okay.

🌈 That as long as they love on themselves, the demons can’t get them.

🌈 That as long as they stay away from that darkness, they can thrive in the light.

But if the last 16 years has taught me anything, it’s that we’re all made of both darkness and light. And that if we truly want to be whole and complete human beings, we need to deep dive into that darkness in order to truly appreciate the light. That we need to make friends with our faults, flaws and shame. Because when we understand them, we the give them the opportunity to become our greatest strengths and we start to truly know ourselves.

💛 That’s what self love is.

💛 That’s what compassion is.

💛 That’s what success is.

💛 That’s what being human is.

That said, the gaslighting was actually such a valid and important part of my journey. It was almost like a self-created antidepressant. It got me through some heavy times. But much like an antidepressant, it didn’t fix much. It just delayed the inevitable.

The truth is, we all need to face into our shit at some point. But if you want to use positive spirituality to cheer yourself up for a while, then I applaud you. Because it’s so much healthier than some of the more main stream alternatives. And it takes a bucket load of confidence to do it!

Here’s to gaslighting ourselves until we’re ready to deal with our 💩!