“Just stay positive.” “High vibes only.” “Don’t lower your frequency.”
If you’ve ever been deep in grief or rage and heard one of these phrases, you know how alienating it can feel. Because sometimes what you need isn’t more light—it’s a safe place for your fire.
At MIMO, we believe that real healing—spiritual, emotional, or somatic—doesn’t exclude anger. It includes it.
The Harm of “Good Vibes Only” Culture
Spiritual bypassing is the practice of using spirituality to avoid, suppress, or invalidate emotional pain—especially anger. And while it may look peaceful on the surface, underneath it often communicates:
- “Your pain is too much.”
- “Anger means you’re not evolved.”
- “If you were really spiritual, you wouldn’t feel this way.”
But here’s the truth: anger is not the opposite of spirituality. It’s part of it.
Why Anger Deserves a Seat at the Table
Anger is a boundary. Anger is a messenger. Anger says: “Something unjust is happening.”
In many spiritual traditions—especially those rooted in justice, embodiment, and ancestral wisdom—anger is not feared. It’s honored as sacred fire. A force that clears, protects, and reclaims.
As we explored in Not Everything You Think Is True, emotions are data—not defects. And when you listen to anger, you often find the grief, the fear, the unmet need beneath it.
What Honoring Anger Might Look Like
- Letting your body tremble, stomp, or cry without judgment
- Screaming into a pillow, journaling with swear words, punching clay or paper
- Sitting quietly and saying to yourself: “I’m angry. And that’s okay.”
- Asking, “What part of me needed protection back then and didn’t get it?”
This isn’t about staying in rage forever. It’s about letting anger move through you—so it doesn’t get stuck inside you.
Spirituality and Anger Can Coexist
You can meditate and still get mad. You can believe in love and still feel rage. You can practice compassion without self-erasure.
Spiritual maturity isn’t about never getting angry—it’s about letting your anger teach you, not control you.
That’s the difference between fire that destroys and fire that heals.
When Anger Is a Trauma Response
Sometimes anger is present because of unprocessed trauma. It may be covering vulnerability. Or it may be the exact emotion your system wasn’t allowed to feel growing up.
If you were punished for anger, taught to fear it, or only saw it expressed harmfully—then feeling it now might bring up shame or shutdown.
As we shared in When Connection Feels Unsafe, trauma often makes us question whether our emotional truth is safe to express. But healing gives us the chance to feel anger in relationship with safety.
How to Make Space for Sacred Anger
1. Let Go of the Need to Be “Good”
You’re not here to be palatable. You’re here to be whole. Anger is part of that wholeness.
2. Regulate Before You React
Feel the fire—but don’t let it burn your house down. Ground yourself, then speak or act from a place of clarity, not reactivity.
3. Use Anger as a Compass
Ask: “What boundary needs to be set?” “What value is being violated?” “What grief is living beneath this flame?”
4. Stay Spiritual—and Human
Pray. Breathe. Meditate. And scream into the woods. Dance with rage. Write your truth in fire. Your sacred self is not afraid of your angry self.
Final Thoughts: Light Doesn’t Erase Fire—It Reflects It
“Good vibes only” is a myth. What we need is full-spectrum humanity—where joy, rage, softness, and strength all belong.
At MIMO, we believe healing includes anger.
And spirituality includes