Forms of Toxic Positivity

Toxic positivity can take a good sort of forms. Some examples you’ll have encountered in your own life:

• When something bad happens, such as losing your job, people tell you to “just stay positive” or “look on the bright side.” While such comments are often meant to be sympathetic, they will even be how of shutting down anything you would possibly want to mention about what you’re experiencing.

• After experiencing some type of failure, people tell you that “the whole thing happens for a reason.” While people often make such statements because they believe they are comforting, it is also how of avoiding someone else’s pain.

• When you state disappointment or sorrow, someone tells you that “happiness is a choice.” This suggests that if you are feeling negative emotions, then it’s your own fault for not “choosing” to be happy.

Such statements are often well-intentioned—people just do not know what else to mention and do not skills to be empathetic. Still, it’s important to acknowledge that these responses are often harmful.

At their best, such statements come off as trite platitudes that permit you off the hook so you don’t need to affect other people’s feelings. At their most horrible, these comments end up shame and blame people who are often dealing with incredibly difficult situations.

 

Why It’s Harmful

Toxic positivity can in fact harm people who are going through hard times. Rather than having the ability to share genuine human emotions and gain unconditional support, people find their feelings dismissed, ignored, or outright invalidated.

• It’s shame: When someone is misery, they need to know that their emotions are valid, but that they can find relief and love in their friends and family. Toxic positivity tells people that the emotions they are feeling are unacceptable.

• It causes fault: It sends a message that if you aren’t finding a way to feel positive, even in the face of calamity, that you are doing something wrong.

• It avoids authentic human emotion: Toxic positivity functions as an avoidance mechanism. When people engage during this sort of behavior, it allows them to sidestep emotional situations which may make them feel uncomfortable. But sometimes we turn these same ideas on ourselves, internalizing these toxic ideas. When we feel difficult emotions, we then discount, dismiss, and deny them.

• It prevents growth: It allows us to avoid feeling things that might be tender, but it also denies us the ability to face challenging feelings that can ultimately lead to growth and deeper insight.

• The “positive vibes only” mantra can be particularly jarring during times of intense personal distress. When people are dealing with situations like financial troubles, job loss, illness, or the loss of a beloved , being told that they have to seem on the bright side can seem downright cruel.

 

Signs

Toxic positivity can often be delicate, but by learning to allow the signs can assist you better identify this sort of behavior. Some signs include:

• Brushing off problems rather than in front of them

• Feeling guilty about being sad, angry, or dissatisfied

• Hiding your true feelings behind feel-good speech marks that seem more socially acceptable

• Hiding or disguise how you really feel        

 

How to Avoid Toxic Positivity

If you’ve been precious by toxic positivity—or if you recognize this kind of behavior in yourself— there are things that you can do to develop a healthier, more supportive approach. Some ideas include:

• It’s okay to feel more than one item. If you’re facing a challenge, it’s possible to feel nervous about the longer term and also hopeful that you simply will succeed. Your emotions are as complex because the situation itself.

• Focus on listening to others and show support. When someone expresses a difficult feeling, don’t shut them down with toxic platitudes. Instead, allow them to know that what they’re feeling is normal which you’re there to concentrate .

• Notice how you feel. Following “positive” social media accounts can sometimes function a source of inspiration, but concentrate to how you are feeling after you view and interact with such content. If you’re left with a way of shame or guilt after seeing “uplifting” posts, it’d flow from to toxic positivity. In such cases, judge limiting your social media consumption.

Give yourself permission to feel your feelings. in its place of trying to avoid difficult emotions, give yourself permission to feel them. These feelings are real, valid, and important. They can provide information and assist you see things a few situation that you simply got to work to vary .

This doesn’t unavoidably mean that you simply simply should act on every emotion that you feel. Sometimes it’s important to take a seat together with your feelings and provides yourself the time and space to process things before you’re taking action.

So once you are browsing something hard, believe ways to offer voice to your emotions during a way that’s productive. Write in a journal. Talk to a friend. Research suggests that just putting what you’re feeling into words can help lower the intensity of these negative feelings.