“I’d rather be whole than good” - Carl Jung”
Introduction
We all are very familiar with positivity. Positivity in general is a good thing for people to have a healthy mindset, but what happens if this positivity is in excess? We call this occurrence toxic positivity. In simple terms, toxic positivity is when people believe that one should face any seriously difficult situation with extreme positivity in order to protect their mental health. How many times have you heard random people on the internet preach about ‘Good Vibes Only’ whenever the opportunity presents itself? The notion of toxic positivity rejects and does not explore negative emotions in order to maintain a farce of an extremely cheerful persona.
Having a positive outlook in general is good for your mental health, but it is important to realize that life is not always positive, and everyone at some point has to deal with negative thoughts and emotions. We should not avoid such negative emotions, but instead deal with them more honestly and openly.
The worst aspect of toxic positivity is that this form of thinking does not give importance to optimism, but it tries to erase the existence of other human emotions which are negative such as sadness, anger, disgust, etc.
Examples of Toxic Positivity
There are many examples of toxic positivity many of us have faced in our daily lives. Some of them are:
When a person fails to achieve their goals, others will tell them to “Just be positive!” or “Focus on the positives and avoid the negatives”. A lot of these comments are said with good intentions, and many times there is nothing wrong with them. That being said, such statements are often used by other people to shut down what the affected person has to say about experiencing negative emotions.
If you have experienced some type of grief or loss, others will tell you things like “everything happens for a reason”. A lot of people say these things in an attempt to be sympathetic, but many times others say things like this because they are unwilling to listen to the person who has experienced grief or loss.
Whenever you are sad for any reason, others will tell you to “Just be happy”, “Happiness is a choice”. This indirectly ends up suggesting that it is your own fault for feeling sad when you can just choose to be happy. Again, like others it is a well-intentioned comment which ends up coming off as very dismissive of actual human emotions.
Most of these responses are not done with malicious intent. A lot of people are just very clueless on being supportive as they do not know what to say, and do not know how to offer support and be empathetic. These statements often get people off the hook for not wanting to deal with others’ feelings, but on the other hand the affected person gets unnecessarily accused for experiencing normal human emotions.
Signs of Toxic Positivity
These are some of the ways in which toxic positivity shows up in real life:
Hiding how you really feel.
Trying to cope by ignoring your actual emotions.
Experiencing guilt for feeling negative.
Brushing off things with an “it is what it is attitude”.
Trying to phrase people’s experiences with overly positive statements.
Saying “it could be worse” in a way to give perspective instead of empathizing.
Making others feel shameful for experiencing negative emotions.
Why is Toxic Positivity harmful?
Toxic positivity is harmful to people who are going through difficult times in their lives. When they need to have their emotions validated and gain support, their feelings get ignored, dismissed or invalidated.
Shame
When a person is struggling, they should be offered support and be told that their emotions are valid and that they can find comfort in their friends and family. Toxic positive does the opposite, and implies that people should be ashamed for feeling certain emotions.
Guilt
It makes people feel guilty for experiencing negative emotions. It indirectly says that the person is doing something wrong, if they are not able to be positive when they are experiencing a tragedy.
Avoids real human emotion
Toxic positivity is a knee-jerk avoidance mechanism. People use these as a way to avoid emotional situations, if they feel uncomfortable. The result of this is that the affected person will internalize these toxic ideas, and end up discounting, denying, and dismissing their own emotions.
Prevents Growth
The person would avoid exploring their emotions, causing them to not deal healthily with their challenging feelings. This will hinder their emotional growth as they would not know how to deal with their problems in the future.
How to Empathize
Some examples of statements which can be used to empathize with people instead of dismissing their emotions are:
Instead of “Stay Positive.” you can say, “Describe how you feel, I am listening.”
Instead of “Don’t worry, be happy!”, you can say “I can see that you are stressed, do you need any help”
Instead of “Everything will work out in the end.”, you can say “This is really a hard situation, take your time to heal”.
Instead of “If I can do it, so can you!”, you can say “Everyone has different skills, abilities, and talents and that’s okay”
Instead of “Everything happens for a reason.” you can say “Sometimes, we all experience major drawbacks, how can I help you?”
Conclusion
In conclusion, the mindset of toxic positivity is not always intentionally harmful, but can have long lasting negative effects. The mindset of overwhelming positivity is not ideal during times of personal distress such as the loss of a person, financial issues, job loss, etc. It has even gotten worse during the pandemic as people keep hearing bad news, and try to console themselves by thinking overly positive thoughts. In such cases asking people to look on the bright side can be very insensitive. We all have been guilty of being positive in a toxic way, that being said it is important to realize the long-term effects of our words, and be able to empathize in a sensitive manner.
References
healthline.com
verywellmind.com
medicalnewstoday.com
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