Releasing Toxic Otherness
There’s no denying that the tensions and divisions of current times have reached a boiling point. Between the gritty grips of politics and a highly unprecedented year, the energy of otherness is so thick you can practically taste it in the air.
But… that taste is toxic.
Keep reading to find out what toxic otherness looks like and how to dismantle its presence in your life.
“People cherish and cling to their hates and grievances; to heal humanity, it may be necessary to pry whole populations away from lifestyles of spite, attack, and revenge.”
Have you noticed there’s been a sort of public calling out of “toxic positivity” in recent times?
I’ve never been a proponent of blinding positivity from either a psychological standpoint or a spiritual one. It’s detrimental at both the personal and collective level to selectively focus on the beauty, light, and love of this earthly experience while ignoring its shadows.
The inherent duality of the human experience seems to be why we’re here. The most profound growth and expansion of consciousness often happen through tribulation.
The goal, of course, is to experience the full breadth of both sides without identifying with either (see this post and this post on the ego for more information about the idea of experiencing vs. identifying). A challenging task for all except the persistently enlightened few.
But back to toxic positivity…
Or more so, back to an idea it illuminated for me recently.
There’s no denying that the tensions and divisions of current times have reached a boiling point. Between the gritty grips of politics and a highly unprecedented year, the energy of otherness is so thick you can practically taste it in the air.
But… that taste is toxic.
And just as toxic positivity has been deemed detrimental, so is what I’ve come to call ‘toxic otherness’.
Let me start by admitting that I’ve certainly been guilty of engaging in toxic otherness.
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the spirit of otherness when we’re looking for answers. Most especially when we’re searching for answers in a climate of fear.
It’s tempting to plop ourselves on one side and label the other side as wrong.
But doing so is toxic. To each of us individually and to the collective whole.
Just as our beliefs lead us to dangerously divisive places, so does our perpetuation of otherness.
NOTES: Before you proceed, if you haven’t already read this post on the Backfire Effect, I recommend you do so first. If you’ve read A New Earth (<<affiliate link****), that knowledge will come in handy too, but I’ve done my best to summarize and insert supportive quotes where helpful.
Challenge your mind to use the below information to engage in humble self-reflection and to examine your own participation in otherness vs. allowing it to become another means to perpetuate it (e.g., “OMG, YES!! So and so engages in so much toxic otherness.”).
Own yourself and focus on what you can personally change within to contribute to the greater good without. In other words, make the solution your point of intention rather than the problem.
WHAT IS TOXIC OTHERNESS?
Most simply put, toxic otherness turns others into enemies.
This ego- and mind-derived phenomenon creates and sustains a war—real or imagined—between the perceived self and the perceived other.
Toxic otherness manifests in a myriad of ways, including:
Us vs. Them mentality.
Stereotyping of counterpart groups (e.g., republicans/democrats, pro-vaxxers/anti-vaxxers).
Believing you or your chosen group are better than the “other” group.
Engaging in dangerous patterns of blind faith within your chosen group. For instance, you fervently question the beliefs of “them” but rarely question the beliefs of “us”.
Name calling, finger pointing, or shaming of the identified other (this can be overt or covert).
“Whenever a people are separated, and they focus on what they do not have in common or label themselves different from others, it is a perfect disguise to keep them from discovering what they do have in common.” —Barbara Marciniak
WHO LOVES OTHERNESS? THE EGO + THE LAZY BRAIN.
Taking a side entangles us more deeply with the ego. In order for the ego to exist, it must be able to differentiate itself from others.
The ego seeks this differentiation at both the individual and collective level through attachment to various identities (read more about that here).
Right now, we’re feeling the culmination of collective identities bulging—the differentiation of one group from another by way of political party, beliefs around hot-button topics, etc.
And as these collective identities bulge, their snowballing energy entices us to participate in their divisive antics.
“There are many people who are always waiting for the next thing to react against, to feel annoyed or disturbed about—and it never takes long before they find it. ‘This is an outrage,’ they say. ‘How dare you…’ ‘I resent this.’ They are addicted to upset and anger as others are to a drug. Through reacting against this or that they assert and strengthen their feeling of self.” —Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
Even without consciously choosing to do so, we can find ourselves swept up in a swirling sea of labels that accentuate the boundaries between “us” and “them”.
Labeling is:
From a spiritual perspective, something the ego does to preserve its existence, because the loss of others would also mean the loss of self.
From a psychological perspective, a lazy shortcut the brain takes to prevent itself from having to think too much. In other words, we put people in boxes to construct differentiating barriers between ‘self’ and ‘other’ because it’s easier this way. We can then disregard entire groups of people without having to allocate precious mental resources to doing so—“She is a/an X, which means she’s Y, so her perspective doesn’t matter.”
We do this both overtly, voicing our perspectives or writing about them, and covertly, silently gathering and forming internal arguments. Both are equally toxic to the individual and collective sense of well-being.
“War is a mind-set, and all action that comes out of such a mind-set will either strengthen the enemy, the perceived evil, or, if the war is won, will create a new enemy, a new evil equal to and often worse than the one that was defeated… When you are in the grip of a mind-set such as ‘war,’ your perceptions become extremely selective as well as distorted. In other words, you will see only what you want to see and then misinterpret it.” —Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
DISMANTLING THE EPICENTER OF OTHERNESS
For a moment, let’s think about otherness as a sort of independent energetic entity of its own making. If you’re familiar with Eckhart Tolle’s concept of the pain-body, envision it as something similar to that.
Take a moment to imagine this energy of otherness. What does it look like and feel like to you?
For me, it’s a sort of black, swirling, and gritty haze with hot spots of red mixed in throughout. It feels heavy and chaotic, draining and depleting.
Once you’ve pictured otherness, begin to consider where it garners its external lifeforce (we know it’s internally sustained by the ego).
What external sources fuel your experience of otherness? Where is its external epicenter?
I see it as having many refueling stations but the most potent amongst them have their roots in media. Social media, news media*, etc.
Do you sense that too?
Although completely disconnecting from media sources is unrealistic in this day in age, we can teach ourselves to become more conscious media consumers—to intentionally choose what we will and will not give our attention and energy to.
Try this...
When you find yourself caught up in a story of otherness, take note of what it is you’re doing in that moment as well as how you feel. Not your intellectualized interpretation of your feelings but how your body is physically responding.
What does the experience feel like in your belly? In your chest? What does it feel like to have your head spinning with us-them stories?
Does it feel energetically uplifting or draining? Does it feel unifying (open feeling) or divisive (closed feeling)? Does it feel light or heavy? If the latter, your intuition is guiding you elsewhere. Consider disengaging from the activity or story. Just because the information (or conversation) is there, doesn’t mean you have to partake.
Bring more intention to your daily choices by repeatedly checking in with yourself while you’re doing whatever it is you usually do. Notice how your media consumption patterns (as well as your recurring thoughts in response to them) might be contributing to a toxic sense of otherness.
Protect your energy. And be unapologetically bold about it.
We have so much more to offer to the collective when we’re participating in life from an energized and unified heartspace. Do what you need to to get your energy there.
*I’ve suggested it before but it’s worth mentioning again that if you’d like to feel more unified with your fellow humans, consider shutting off the news. Or at the very least, challenge yourself to become a highly questioning, thoroughly discerning consumer of media. Don’t outsource your thinking to anyone else. All is worthy of questioning, most especially that which is positioned to be in favor of our own beliefs—bias often underpins delusion.
THE BIRD’S EYE VIEW
In a climate that’s predicated on our willingness to separate ourselves into categories and uphold our differences, there are instances where it can feel nearly impossible not to differentiate ourselves from the “other” side.
What do we do then?
Instead of remaining entrenched in the unconscious battle of otherness, we can choose to zoom out and above to observe the entire picture from a place of bird’s eye awareness.
And then we can zoom back into the center, using awareness as our guide, to perceive of ourselves as part of a unified whole from a nonreactive and highly conscious heartspace.
Instead of spewing divisive us-them ideology and rhetoric (or allowing it to silently eat away at us), we can choose to accept the whole as it is—suffering and all. We can choose to observe without contributing to the collective pain and divisions.
Not in a passive or toxically positive sort of way, but in a way that fully honors the duality of what is without becoming entangled with the stories that feed otherness mentality. And in a way that unconditionally honors our fellow humans rather than reserving that for only those groups and individuals our egos have deemed to be on the “right” side of things.
We can move beyond the identity- and belief-obsessed mind and use nonreactive awareness to begin to lead with the heart again.
THE EGO’S ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF OTHERNESS
As I’ve worked to release toxic otherness, my mind (ego) has worked just as hard to defend it. Below are just a few of the many arguments the mind likes to lean on to protect its us-them perspectives.
#1 But what about justice?
But what about justice? What about “bad” people? Don’t we need to differentiate ourselves to seek justice and separate “good” from “bad”?
At the level of the mind, these seem like reasonable arguments. At the level of the soul? Not at all.
“...beware of making it your mission to ‘eradicate evil,’ as you are likely to turn into the very thing you are fighting against.” —Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
At best, allocating precious energetic resources to call out otherness only distracts from and weakens the power of whatever mission we’ve declared our own. At worst, it turns us into the same flavor of evil we’ve waged a war against.
Just as the runner veers off course when she looks to the side to observe the progression of those running alongside her, when the mind-derived “other” becomes our point of focus, we lose sight of the path in front of us.
We can uphold what we personally believe is “good” without perpetuating otherness.
We can stand powerfully in our chosen perspective without needing to tear someone else’s down. And if that’s not possible, then we should critically examine the perspective we’re seeking to uphold.
“At times you may have to take practical steps to protect yourself from deeply unconscious people. This you can do without making them into enemies. Your greatest protection, however, is being conscious. Somebody becomes an enemy if you personalize the unconsciousness that is the ego. Nonreaction is not weakness but strength. Another word for nonreaction is forgiveness. To forgive is to overlook, or rather to look through. You look through the ego to the sanity that is in every human being as his or her essence.” —Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
At its core, otherness is nothing more than distracting drama.
We disempower ourselves and carve out deeper divisions when we’re engaged in egoic energy battles that pit ourselves against the imagined “other”.
#2 But… they’re wrong! I need to tell them!
It’s the ego in each of us that concerns itself so desperately with the particulars of wrongness and rightness.
“There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position—a perspective, an opinion, a judgment, a story. For you to be right, of course, you need someone else to be wrong, and so the ego loves to make wrong in order to be right.” —Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth****
We seek being right even to the detriment of our fellow humans. We engage in the tearing down of “others” to uphold our personal illusions of what our beliefs suggest to us is right. The irony of this is not lost on me. Do you see it too?
When has condemnation ever convinced someone to change their perspective? And yet how often has it strengthened the divides?
Are our ego-driven efforts to right the wrongs actually doing more harm than good? Time and time again we’re reminded that peace is not the outcome of coercion but of a revelatory leap in consciousness.
This quote from Dr. David R. Hawkins book Power vs. Force sheds light on this matter:
“One cannot create peace as such. Peace is the natural state of affairs when that which prevents it is removed. Relatively few people are genuinely committed to peace as a realistic goal. In their private lives, people prefer being ‘right’ at whatever cost to their relationships or themselves. A self-justified positionality is the real enemy of peace. When solutions are sought on the level of coercion, no peaceful resolution is possible.”
#3 But isn’t this being apathetic or toxically positive?
Disengaging from patterns of toxic otherness doesn’t mean we turn a blind eye to the suffering and dysfunction in this world or that we ignore it within ourselves. Rather that we bring conscious awareness to our interpretation of it.
“Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego… The truth is that you need to say yes to suffering before you can transcend it.” ** —Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth
We can honor and acknowledge the full breadth of the human experience without contributing to the divisions. And even without trying to fix whatever it is we perceive to be wrong.
All too often our attempts to fix are ego-wrought and therefore only serve to perpetuate some aspect of whatever problem it is we’re trying to fix. Quite the predicament.
Conversely, when we turn inward to elevate our consciousness at the individual level, we also elevate the collective consciousness. And so our attempts to “fix” are most effective when directed inward. By untangling these mind-derived patterns within ourselves, the collective benefits too.
“If you cling to your judgment of another, you won’t see beyond the veil of illusion.” —Maureen J. St. Germain
**Consider the above quote for a moment. ✨ My mind loves to find all sorts of ways to seemingly run circles around it. My soul, on the other hand, welcomes its validity without any pushback whatsoever. It’s ok to understand something profoundly at the level of the heart without being able to fully rationalize it at the level of the mind.
A FINAL NOTE
With so many unknowns, it’s tempting to look outside ourselves for answers. To believe that if X was different, all would be right in the world.
It feels comfortable, hopeful even, to believe that the perceived “other” is the barrier to joy, justice, unity… the good stuff. Doing so offers us a place to unload our frustrations and discontents with what is. We can then collectively battle against the “other” and fool ourselves into believing it’s in pursuit of a better world.
In reality, the battle that will lead us to better external places is the internally-focused battle to elevate consciousness within. It always begins with us, never with the other.
“Trying to become a good or better human being sounds like a commendable and high-minded thing to do, yet it is an endeavor you can not ultimately succeed in unless there is a shift in consciousness. This is because it is still part of the same dysfunction, a more subtle and rarified form of self-enhancement, of desire for more and a strengthening of one’s conceptual identity, one’s self-image. You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge.” —Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth****
INTENTION
The peace I seek begins within.
INTUITIVE WRITING PROMPT
Think of a pattern of otherness you’ve found yourself frequently engaged in during recent months. Write to your intuition*** (essence of you) to answer the following question.
What is feeding this pattern? What is freeing me from this pattern?
***If you’re unsure how to write to your intuition, read this post to learn how to access your intuition in 5 easy steps.
RESOURCE
Book: A New Earth**** by Eckhart Tolle
****This is an affiliate link. Purchasing through affiliate links supports me at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!
