The Dangers Of Toxic Positivity #231

"Toxic Positivity" can have a great impact on your emotional health and well-being. Trying too hard to be positive ALL the time creates disconnection, and shame and doesn't allow an authentic experience of all human emotions. Toxic Positivity can be within yourself, towards others, and/or be experienced as the recipient. Tune in and find out how to transform toxic positivity into authentic positivity and much more! This episode of Soul Infused Monday was recorded live on May 30th, 2022.

Transcript

Welcome to the Soul Infused Monday Show,

Your show for an inspired and meaningful week.

Thank you for coming back every week to connect,

To learn,

To grow.

And today's topic is the dangers of toxic positivity.

And I'm excited about this topic because it's a very important topic and a phenomena that I have been experiencing over the last 20 years,

Being on the journey as a recipient and with working with my clients.

And I recently had a conversation with a friend and I experienced that type of toxic positivity that it was such a good reminder.

And I felt inspired to talk about this today because it's a very important piece when it comes to being able to handle and deal emotions in interaction and within yourself.

Now as a disclaimer or to bring context to it,

Toxic positivity is not the same as authentic positivity.

Of course,

It's good to be positive.

It is good to have a positive outlook on life and a positive mindset.

I talk a lot about energy and energy follows attention.

You are the creator of your experience.

And of course,

Positivity is good.

Now there is a level of being obsessed with positive thinking or an approach to being positive all the time that can actually be harmful,

Hurtful,

And create dysfunctional mechanism in your system.

One definition of toxic positivity is the over-generalization of a happy,

Optimistic state that results in a denial,

Minimization,

And invalidation of the authentic human experience.

That's one definition.

I want to add that for me,

Toxic positivity means denying,

Dismissing,

Judging,

Shaming anything that is not so-called positive and is responding to discomfort or pain with a false reassurance instead of acknowledging it or instead of using empathy with it.

I'm going to give you a few examples on how toxic positivity can look like,

What to do instead,

And also give you a few pointers on why is it actually harmful or unhealthy or dangerous,

Whatever word you want to use.

Being positive is good.

Today,

I'm focusing on the dysfunctional piece of it.

Maybe you get triggered,

Maybe you disagree,

Maybe you judge what I'm saying,

And that is totally okay and totally welcomed.

This is one piece and I can only scratch the surface and you might see yourself in some of the stories that I'm going to tell because often we are also the recipient of toxic positivity.

I give you an example.

Only for me recently that happened.

I recently,

And I'm traveling currently,

So I'm around different people and I talk to different people,

People that I don't know yet very much,

Or I share things with people that I maybe wouldn't share and I didn't share any extremely vulnerable or deep.

However,

I connected with someone that I know and I made a simple statement.

He asked me,

Hey,

How are you doing or something I don't remember exactly.

I said something like,

I'm going through a challenging time right now.

Today I feel a little off.

I feel like a little depression.

I just shared that because I'm okay with it.

I didn't want to change my experience.

I was just being honest because that's who I am.

The response I got was such a typical response from a lot of people who don't know how to handle that.

But I understand that.

It's like,

Oh,

So why are you choosing to be depressed right now?

So you can choose to feel different.

Why don't you just choose to feel different?

Now even though I knew it had a good intention,

That was super not helpful for me and that's not what I needed.

And it came with that obsession of,

Hey,

You can change,

You can be positive.

This is good.

Be positive,

Be strong,

Change,

Change and choose to feel different now.

You might have experienced this before.

I have experienced that many times.

For me that I've done a lot of work and I keep doing this with my clients and I'm very good in holding space for people that are in pain and going through something that is important for me as a coach and healer to help them heal through trauma.

I'm good at that.

And so I'm also good in holding space for myself.

So I was okay and I shared very simply,

You know what I'm choosing right now?

I'm choosing to be okay with my experience.

I'm okay that I feel this way,

But I appreciate you wanting to help me.

So that's just one example.

The other example and why I chose to also talk about this today is I was talking to a friend,

He was going through something tough and he kept trying to apologize and change the fact that he was trying to say that he wasn't feeling so good because he is surrounded a lot by that toxic positivity.

And at some point I just paused him and I said to him,

Listen,

Just be yourself.

Just tell me how I will you feel.

It's okay.

It's okay that you feel this way.

And it sounds to me like you're putting a lot of pressure and a lot of judgment and you're trying so hard to change the way you feel that this is obviously not making you feel any better.

It's not supporting you.

It's okay that you feel this way.

And he takes a breath and he looks at me and he said,

And he says,

Thank you.

It's so good to hear that it's okay that I feel this way.

That conversation went on much deeper and longer,

But it was a reminder for me.

And I wanted to talk to you about it so that you recognize it within yourself,

That you recognize it within interactions with other people and that you can pay attention.

Now that doesn't substitute the fact that you might want to do deep inner work because you are in suffering and pain most of the time.

I'm not saying that being in pain or in suffering is beautiful and great and good and you should accept it and keep suffering.

I'm not talking about that.

Pain and suffering is part of our human experience.

It's inevitable.

What you do with it and how you deal with it is a different story.

But what is not helpful,

Beneficial for your wellbeing is to deny,

Dismiss,

Judge,

Or shame a so-called negative experience and trying to hide it,

Mask it,

Put a lid on it.

Because what that creates,

It creates disconnection.

It creates a feeling,

Not being safe sharing.

It creates isolation and it suppresses something.

And over time,

Any unresolved or suppressed emotion will pile up,

Can cause physical disease,

Mental instability,

Emotional pain.

It can create a lot of dysfunctional mechanisms in your body if you don't address and acknowledge.

If you don't address it,

It will pile up.

I want to make the distinction between you are doing this to yourself.

You are doing it to someone else.

Someone is doing it to you.

You are doing it to yourself means that you are not allowing yourself to be in acceptance with your experience.

You're judging yourself for your experience.

You feel guilty about it.

You're trying so hard to see it as a positive thing,

And you believe that having a so-called negative experience is bad.

All of that creates self-judgment,

Disconnection,

And just piles up.

So that's what you do within yourself when you are not allowing yourself to be a holding space and acknowledge your experience or your emotion.

Now when you do this with yourself,

You will also do it with others because if you're not able to hold space or be in acceptance with an emotion that you experience,

You will have a very hard time doing it with someone else.

So you will try to actually make them change.

And I will give you at the end of the show a few statements where you can switch from toxic positivity to authentic positivity.

So stay tuned until the end.

So you do this within yourself.

You do this on the outside or someone else does it to you,

Meaning you might be in a vulnerable state of being and you're sharing with someone,

I feel sad.

Oh my gosh,

I'm so anxious that I might lose my job or I'm stressed,

Whatever it is.

And I'm not talking about just putting garbage out and just being complaining and blaming and for no reason.

I'm talking about someone that is conscious and aware and is sharing a pain that they have.

You might say something that I feel sad right now.

And then the response you get on the outside is,

Yeah,

Don't feel sad.

Don't feel sad.

Just be happy.

Or what are you sad about?

You have no reason to be sad about.

Just be happy.

Any version of that.

I'm curious,

Have you experienced this?

Now I'm curious,

Tune in for a moment.

Out of these three options,

Doing it mainly to you,

Doing it to someone else or receiving it from someone else,

Where do you feel you resonate most?

Where do you see yourself experiencing possible toxic positivity in your life?

Tune in for a moment.

And I would love to hear from you.

So if you're here and you can leave a comment,

Leave a comment right now.

I will go over your comments in a moment.

And if you're listening to this on Inside Timer or Spotify or anywhere else on a podcast platform,

Please leave me a review at the end because I love hearing from you and it always fills up my heart.

And I'm going to take a moment now to go over your comments.

And I'm going to complete this with giving you a few pointers on how to recognize it and also how to change it,

Whether you're doing it yourself,

Within yourself,

To others,

Or you are the person that receives it.

Here are some comments probably from myself.

Yes.

Towards myself and definitely towards others.

I was raised,

It was not okay to feel negative feelings.

Thank you for sharing.

Myself.

Yes.

Very,

Very common.

I had this happen recently.

Someone responded that way to me regarding an experience I shared and it seemed very dismissive and triggering as my family was extremely dismissive or downright hostile towards any of my feelings that caused them discomfort.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing.

This became a real source of pain for me.

It became impossible to be real about anything I felt.

I have been labeled as negative or negative speaking by people very close to me.

I feel cut off from them and ashamed.

Yes.

I hear you.

I hear you.

To me,

It means putting on a happy face while not dealing with the serious issues happening in your life.

We do this so others think we are a positive person and won't judge us.

Yes.

So many other comments.

Thank you so much for all your comments.

Please keep them coming.

I read them all.

Also if you're listening to this later on,

Leave me a review or comment or send me a message.

I want to address a few of the things that I read and thank you for sharing so vulnerably.

And I'm not going to go into too much detail today of what it means to stay in a negative space versus being in a vulnerable state because there's more to say.

However,

We all have the need to feel safe,

Heard and seen.

That doesn't mean the other person necessarily needs to understand us.

Let go maybe of the need of being understood because maybe the other person is not able to understand us,

But the other person is able or willing to hear us out.

So if that need is not met and the wounding starts in childhood,

As some of you shared,

When we grow up being not allowed to feel certain emotions and we learn that very early on as a baby,

When we laugh and giggle and smile,

We get a lot of attention.

When we're angry,

Upset,

Cry,

Whatever it is,

We don't get that much attention.

It's conditioned so early on that it's ingrained in our society to a certain extent.

Again I want to say positivity is a good thing.

And I have an outlook in life that life happens for me and there's good in the experiences that I have.

However,

I go through painful states or experiences and I want to acknowledge them within myself first and then if I do share it,

I share it with someone that I know can actually hold space and not gonna try to fix me or change me.

Sometimes it's valuable for the other person to reflect and see,

Okay,

I see you're struggling with this.

What do you want me to do?

Do you want me just to listen or do you want me to help you shift?

There's so many ways to dealing with this and I'm gonna give you a few more.

What it also creates or the danger of toxic positivity to repeat is shame,

Isolation,

Disconnection and a feeling of not being safe to share and therefore we retreat as well.

It also creates a fakeness.

You are not authentic anymore.

So I'm gonna give you a few examples because I want to give you something practical as well.

So you want to take notes and you might want to re-listen to this and I might do a follow up on this show because it's such an important topic but I hope that this was already helpful,

That it gives you already insight and understanding of yourself and others and also why you sometimes feel the way you feel.

Nevertheless,

Your response to any of this is your responsibility.

If someone does that to you,

So to say,

You then can respond a certain way.

So that's your responsibility.

I don't want to get into that field of,

Oh yeah,

It's someone else's fault because they're practicing toxic positivity.

No,

You want to be aware of it.

So first then you don't do it.

You don't do it with yourself first and therefore you don't do it with others.

And if you are the recipient of toxic positivity,

You want to be aware of it and you want to deal and respond to it,

Not with judgment either because then you are not holding space for that person either.

Important distinction.

I made a few notes that I want to share with you and of course there are way more statements and I could give you much more and you can add to it.

You can do your own version in flavor.

You ready?

One of the things,

And I nearly have to laugh about this because I heard this so many times.

So you share something vulnerably.

Let's say I feel anxious right now,

Or I'm going through a really tough time.

I don't know what to do,

Or I just lost my dog,

Or I just lost my job,

Or it doesn't matter what it is.

There's something vulnerable that you experienced discomfort or pain around it.

And then someone might say,

Stay strong,

Stay positive.

I heard this so many times,

It makes me laugh now,

But it's actually not funny.

When you're in that state,

Instead of saying,

Stay strong or stay positive,

You can say,

And you can interchange everything I'm going to share with you.

Stay strong,

Stay positive.

Instead you can say,

Tell me more,

I'm listening.

What's happening?

Tell me more.

That's one.

Or if someone says,

Don't worry,

Be happy.

You could instead say,

It sounds like you're going through a tough time.

How can I support you?

Or is there anything that I can do for you?

When you're in it,

Even though we know,

And from a spiritual perspective or a higher perspective,

Things work out the way they work out.

Things happen for a reason.

Everything works out for us.

There's something good in everything.

I'm the first to go into that direction.

Now when you are in something and you are experiencing pain,

That's not necessarily what you might want to say in that moment.

You might want to say,

I hear that this is hard for you.

My heart is with you.

I'm thinking of you.

I'm with you.

I hear you.

How can I support you?

Do you feel the difference?

I mean,

Just even sharing it with you.

Here's also a good one.

Positive vibes only.

Heard it many times,

Read it many times,

Positive vibes only.

Now instead of saying positive vibes only,

You could also say like,

I'm here for you,

Whether in good and in bad.

I'm here for you,

No matter how you feel.

I'm here for you,

Whether you feel good or bad.

Does that not feel much better and more supportive?

Also when someone says delete negativity,

No negativity,

Zero negativity,

Zero fear,

Like fearless,

No matter which extreme it goes.

The approach to authentic positivity versus toxic positivity could be pain and suffer is part of our human experience.

It's okay and you are not alone.

You are not alone.

Another good one is,

Oh,

It could be worse.

Have you ever received that one?

It's like,

Ah,

You know,

This has happened to me and I feel really sad about that.

It's like,

Yeah,

It could be worse.

Not helpful.

You could say again,

I hear you.

Man,

That really sucks.

I hear you.

My heart is with you.

And then you can help support them.

I'm not,

I mean,

If you followed me even just a little bit,

You know,

I'm all about shifting your energy,

But you don't want to bypass or deny or put a lid on it because then you are not going to shift into a higher frequency because you are not authentically going to raise your vibration by putting pressure on something that you don't want to see because that's not authenticity in raising your vibration.

Just one more because I could go on and on.

When you share this and you are in a community where positivity and mindfulness is big because that's good again,

That's a good thing.

And they would say,

Oh,

Why do you choose to be depressed right now?

Choose to feel different.

Choose,

Just choose to choose to be happy now.

It's a lovely concept and often it does work when you are in a certain state,

But sometimes that is not helpful.

And instead of just saying that because it creates judgment and sometimes a shameful feeling,

You can say something like,

I can see this is difficult for you.

I'm here for you.

Tell me more,

Or how can I support you?

Or you can say,

Hey,

I feel this is really difficult for you.

This is what I usually do.

Maybe it helps,

Maybe it doesn't.

Now one other thing that is helpful is to be honest.

What I mean by that is,

Oh gosh,

I cannot handle your emotion right now.

I have no idea what to do.

That's all I have to give.

I am not able to hold space for you.

That is so much more loving and supportive than trying to change the other person or deny the other person's experience because you are having a hard time.

Be honest.

Say,

You know what?

I really want to hold space for you and be there for you,

But this is hard for me.

I don't know what to do.

Just so you know.

Be honest.

That's also a way to do it.

Now take a nice deep breath.

There's so much more that I can say to this topic.

But for today,

I'm going to close this off and I invite you to tune in for a moment.

Tune in for this show and episode for today.

Out of everything you've heard,

What is your biggest takeaway?

And leave me a comment below or leave me a review,

Send me a message.

What is the most valuable thing you're getting out of this show today?

One more thing I want to say before I share some of your biggest takeaways.

It's your responsibility,

How you respond.

And it's also you have the power and capacity to share what you need.

If it's someone that you feel,

If it's a good friend,

You wouldn't necessarily share your deepest most vulnerable pieces with someone that you know you don't feel safe with.

But sometimes it just happens.

But if you share something vulnerably,

That happened to me recently too.

And it's a person that doesn't know you well.

They don't know what's challenging for you or not.

So I was talking,

I was out for dinner with a guy that I had met.

And so we were spending some time and we're having dinner and I shared something with him.

I don't know exactly.

But it was,

And he made a joke about it,

Not in a bad way,

But I noticed for a moment,

Oof,

That was a vulnerable share,

But he didn't know that.

Now so he was laughing,

He wasn't laughing at me,

But he was making a joke.

I noticed that.

So first you want to notice,

You want to have that sense of yourself and taking care of yourself.

And I felt like,

Oh,

No,

That was a vulnerable share,

But he doesn't know it.

And I said to him,

You know what,

That was actually vulnerable for me to share.

You laughing about it is a bit uncomfortable.

And I didn't judge him for it or anything,

But I shared it with him so that he actually knows that this was a challenging moment for me because he doesn't know anything really much about me.

My point in sharing this is you have a responsibility and also the possibility and opportunity to let people know what you need.

Another example could be,

You know,

I understand that you want,

You're trying to make me feel better.

However,

That's not really working for me.

What would work better for me is if you can listen and even just simply say,

I hear you,

It's okay that you feel this way.

If you can,

If you're not available,

That's totally fine,

But you are responsible for your communication,

For your response.

That's also how you create deeper connections.

I'm going to just take one or two takeaways and I would love to see you again next Monday for the Soul & Tears Monday show.

Thank you for being here.

I'm going to share one or two takeaways.

Because takeaway here,

When we shift without allowing ourselves to feel the negative emotion,

We aren't really healing it.

Beautiful takeaway,

Beautiful takeaway.

I appreciate the different responses.

I can use this with myself as well.

Beautiful takeaway.

Yes.

And one more takeaway that I can hold space for others and myself with all feelings,

Just holding space and allowing ourselves or the person to feel the feelings create space for curiosity than hopefully healing.

Beautiful takeaway.

If you're watching this on the replay,

If you're listening and leave your biggest takeaway,

Share your biggest takeaway with me,

It means the world to me.

I hear you.

I see you.

I love you.

I'm with you.

And I'm looking forward to seeing you again next Monday for a new episode of Soul Infused Monday.

May you have a blessed week.

Much love.

Reviews

So refreshing to hear a talk that is real about how positivity can also be toxic in certain circumstances. As a person who fell ill whilst supposedly being happy and positive this really hits home for me. I struggled trying to understand how I got ill when I was "choosing to be positive' thankfully I am much better physically and mentally too these days 🙏. I know it's ok not to be ok 😊 and I practice much more self compassion no matter what I am feeling. Thank you for sharing.❤️

Insightful discussion on a topic that I am currently paying more attention to the importance of having awareness between authentic positivity and toxic positivity. This talk has really helped to deepen my understanding between both
Many thanks for sharing 🙏🏻

Really enjoyed that talk… And it gave me comfort to hear that other people have trouble too with all the faults positivity that's going around…, Yes I believe in positivity… When it's real… But when it's just used to cover an emotional wreckage of some sort… I say be real rather than positive

Thank you for this. You gave some really great examples of responses that I will take with me in my meetings with others. Very helpful 💜