Toxic Positivity - Part 2

(Part 1 published on March 7, 2021 and also available at stevesauceda.com)

What happens when you keep trying to be a little more positive and you just feel worse? You’re left walking around wondering why you can’t just be a little bit more appreciative, grateful, or smiley. You feel confused. It’s like everyone else has it all figured out and you’re the loner in the corner.

This is when positivity is now toxic for you - you shame yourself for having normal emotions. We'll say things like: “I shouldn't be feeling like this anymore”; “I have so much to be grateful for”; “it's not a big deal.” These are all things we say to get out of normal emotions. This leads to feelings of shame and guilt.

Shame is: I’m a bad person; guilt is: I did something wrong. Toxic positivity, over time, can make us feel ashamed. It can make us shame ourselves because we get this sensation of: “I’m supposed to be happy” or “I’m supposed to feel good and I just can’t get there.” It can make us feel guilty as well. When people are sharing with us that: “we just need to be more grateful” and we just can’t seem to make it work. That gets us in a loop of not being able to achieve moments of happiness at all because we're feeling ashamed about not being happy and it's a self-defeating cycle.

If you’ve ever internally chastised yourself for how you’re feeling (what you might call wallowing or overreacting), you might not be listening to what those underlying emotions are telling you. Maybe you really do need to mourn that breakup or have a difficult conversation with your supervisor. That’s not to say you need to banish positive thinking entirely; it’s more about recognizing the value of a full emotional spectrum

In this age of social media, we constantly see friends and family post about “having a positive attitude” or “having a positive outlook on life all the time” or “positive vibes only!” Being upbeat at times may be important, but it may come as a surprise to some that it is both okay and important to feel your more difficult feelings.

When you deny or avoid unpleasant emotions, you make them bigger. Avoiding negative emotions reinforces this idea: Because you avoid feeling them, you tell yourself that you don’t need to pay attention to them. While you are trapped in this cycle, these emotions become bigger and more significant as they remain unprocessed. But this approach is simply unsustainable. We as humans cannot program ourselves to only feel happy.

While it may be beneficial to try to look on the bright side of things and find the silver lining in all life experiences, it’s important to also acknowledge and listen to our emotions when they aren’t as pleasant. No one can be a ray of sunshine 24/7; humans just don’t work that way. In fact, paying attention and processing your emotions as they come and go may help you better understand yourself, and those around you.

When you don't pay attention to negative feelings, and then come across to others like they don't have them (or shouldn’t have them), it makes you less approachable and relatable. It gives off the impression that you don't have any problems, which most people can perceive is not the case. Imagine trying to have a meaningful relationship with someone who ignores sadness or anxiety. You might find such a person annoying or difficult to connect with. Prior to my bout with depression in 2017-18, I was EXACTLY that guy. I gave people no opportunity to connect with me at a real level because I hid what I was feeling and going through behind a plastered smile. I had believed a lie that “confessing something negative” meant I had a lack of faith and that people wanted to follow a leader who was strong and steadfast all the time. I’m thankful to no longer believe that.

The worst kind of deception is self-deception. If we don’t learn to be honest with ourselves, then being honest with others will be near impossible. I urge you to sit with yourself and really experience what is going on. Recognize that maybe this thing you’re experiencing isn’t that great. You might learn something from it, you might not, but right now it is happening. Give yourself space to process what is happening. It may take time to arrive at a more positive or meaningful conclusion. That’s ok, it will happen!