Toxic Positivity
Apparently people know this term. I didn’t until a few years ago. When I heard it I thought it was created by some negative Nancy who just didn’t want to put in the hard work to be positive. Someone who had given up on happiness. Fast forward a few years and I can now say that ‘my name is Emma and I’m a recovering positivity junkie’.
I’m not sure where the positivity mindset came from in my life but I know it was put put under a microscope and matured when I went into sales and eventually business ownership. It seemed like every training, every book, every expert would say some version of how if you look for positive side in a negative situation you will attract good things into your life. Here are a few of the lines I heard a lot:
You find what you look for. (If you look for the positive you’ll find it, if you look for the negative you’ll find that)
You attract what you are. (If you’re negative you’ll attract negative prospects, employees and clients)
It’s easy to be negative, it’s hard to be positive. (I, mostly wrongly, believed that if it was hard then it must be more rewarding)
You either make money or you learn but in one sale you can’t do both. (The idea here is that if you close a sale you make money and if you don’t instead of thinking of it as failure, you think of it as learning.)
Be a role model. If you’re disappointed then other people will feed off that energy. (Buck up! We need you to show us how to feel)
If you celebrate others successes you’ll welcome that same energy into your life.
Now, I’m not saying that any of those are bad per say. But if I look back over that list, what I see is an environment where I learned to not process my feelings and instead paste a smile on my face and try to drum up some inner feelings of positivity. That’s a pretty toxic way to live.
When does positivity become toxic? I don’t think I have a great way to define that yet. For me, if I’m feeling pressured to ignore my ‘bad’ feelings and just be positive it’s toxic. I need to respect that I have a spectrum of feelings and not only happy ones. Sometimes I’m sad, sometimes I’m angry. Sometimes I’m envious or jealous. If I label those emotions as ‘bad’ and happy emotions as ‘good’, I will naturally want to have less bad and more good emotions. Society teaches us from a young age to want to do more good and less bad. It’s ingrained in me at least. Labeling those emotions as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ makes me feel guilty for having ‘bad’ feelings and pressured to only feel good feelings. Almost like if I’m sad then I’m not a good enough human because I can’t even feel the right things.
This leads to the next big aha moment for me. When people ignore the grief and instead try to comfort or lift my spirits about fertility (typically by saying things like ‘you can try again next month’, ‘at least your young, you have lots of time’) I feel the weight of society crashing down on me telling me it’s wrong to be sad. It’s wrong to cry. ‘A good person would see the bright side’.
Most of those statements from above? Ya I actually do believe them. It IS easy to see the negative in a situation. It’s HARD to find the positive. You DO find what you’re looking for, etc. So how do you find the balance between the toxic side of positivity and the healthy respect of the spectrum of emotions? For me, I have to make space for the ‘ugly feelings’, I have to acknowledge them, respect them and then let them go. Most of the time that means recognizing that’s how I’m feeling, letting myself feel that way for a bit and then physically going and doing something that brings me joy. Often that’s something creative or physical. Maybe I’ll work out or do an adult coloring book.
I used to think only the entrepreneurial/success minded/business world dealt with toxic positivity and now I’m not so sure. What do you think? Do you see it in your life? Work? Family? How do you deal with it? What has helped? What has not helped?
