The Dark Side of Positivity: Why Toxic Positivity is Harmful
Do you often hear the following statements, “be positive”, “think happy thoughts”, “find five things you are grateful for each day”, or often see or use the hashtags ‘happy mind, happy life’, ‘no more negativity’, or ‘positive vibes only’. Don’t worry; I, too, find myself sometimes being accountable for this. We live in a fast-paced, goal-orientated society with a high focus on work and achievement—a community with a lot of current negativity and strain, including war and financial crisis. Yet, on the other hand, the same society stresses the importance of being positive, prioritising yourself, finding balance, ensuring you exercise, eating well, maintaining a particular body image, engaging in tasks for your mental well-being, and rest. I don’t know about you, but these conflicting messages create confusion and stress.
We are educated online, through articles, social media, and blogs like this, the importance of positive affirmation and gratitude, as just a few examples, to support us to be positive and support our mental health and well-being. No one ever teaches us the dark side of being positive and how following and practising positive self-help techniques can sometimes be detrimental to our health and well-being.
I am not writing this blog post to downplay the positive value such strategies can have in supporting our mental health and well-being. Surprisingly, helping clients focus on the positives is a big focus in my work. It is essential to be able to know and recognise the meaning and purpose behind your positivity to help distinguish between whether being positive and practising positive affirmation is helping to support your health, well-being, and growth or is it a defence reaction to negativity as a means of avoiding and repressing your emotions.
If reading this, you are already finding yourself questioning or wanting to find out your truth, then this is the blog post for you. Let’s find out together if you are engaging in toxic positivity, but most importantly, if so, what you can do to prevent this moving forward.
What is Toxic Positivity and How do I recognise it within myself?
I can guarantee you have heard of the phrase gaslighting, where someone deflects and uses methods of manipulation which cause you to question yourself. Toxic positivity is a form of self-gaslighting. Toxic positivity is where we feel a sense of pressure or need to be continually positive, or at least display this image to others, whilst suppressing our negative feelings, emotions, thoughts, and experiences. You may be reading this and thinking, ‘we all do that’. Yes, we all may do this occasionally. However, when we continually practice positive affirmation and instantly focus on reframing our thinking away from a negative thought or emotion without allowing our mind to accept and process negative thoughts and feelings, such techniques become a method of avoidance. I will explain more about it later in this blog post when helping you to identify the ways to overcome toxic positivity.
How can you identify and know what toxic positivity is within yourself?
Toxic positivity is where we cannot sit with and experience negative thoughts and emotions and instantly focus on reframing to the positives. For example, when you feel sad, quickly saying to yourself, ‘everything is fine’ rather than looking for the answer to why you feel this way. When you feel angry or wrong-done-by instantly saying to yourself, ‘remember there are people worse off than you’, focus on what you should be grateful for rather than trying to understand why you feel angry. When anxious, immediately doing an activity you enjoy to avoid those feelings. Ultimately, toxic positivity is a form of emotional avoidance. It is a deflection tactic from allowing yourself to feel your feelings and sit with and manage your thoughts, causing a disconnect between how you internally feel versus the image and perception you are displaying on the surface to others. Something you may have heard referenced as ‘putting a brave face on it’. Most of the time, it is when we aspire to be the person we want to be or think society or others want us to be and are repressing our true thoughts or feelings. Through constantly allowing ourselves to escape our emotions, instantly refute to challenge and experience our negative thoughts, emotions, and experiences, we create unhealthy habits and coping mechanisms which lead to the downfall spiral in our health and well-being—overall, affecting our mood, creating heightened anxiety, causing confusion in our identity, impacting our self-esteem, communication and relationships with others, and allowing our ability to be open and honest.
How can positivity be harmful?
Are you using positivity as a means of avoidance?
When we use positivity toxically as a knee-jerk reaction to avoid and escape difficult emotions and thoughts, we invalidate the human experience. If when you experience a negative emotion or thought, you do not allow your mind time to sit with the feeling, process, reflect, and learn from the experience, and immediately jump to using positivity as a means of avoidance or distraction as a way to cope, you are signalling to your mind it is dangerous, wrong, or unacceptable to feel or think this way. It is innately natural to want to avoid difficult emotions and thoughts and focus on the positives because our mind strives to be happy. It is understandable, therefore, that when you feel sad, angry, or stressed, your mind may focus on wanting chocolate, an alcoholic drink, a cigarette, or feel the need to be active, so it can produce dopamine (our immediate gratification hormone) so we can feel calm, happy, and motivated. Suppose all we do is experience negativity and jump to the positive without allowing time for acceptance of our thoughts and experiences. In that case, this is where we can create unhealthy habits. We teach our minds that allowing ourselves to sit with our thoughts and emotions is not safe. Therefore, avoiding or distraction is the only way to manage and cope. By doing so, it jumps to the impulsive need of wanting a dopamine hit, and this is why some of us can create quite unhealthy solid habits such as stress eating, addiction, and obsessive thoughts, and without even recognising it, jumping to the positive and altogether avoiding the reality of how we are thinking or feeling. Whilst in the moment, we may trick our mind into thinking that everything is okay, under the surface, we are subconsciously holding on to the repressed energy and stress from our complex thoughts and emotions, which eventually becomes detrimental to our health and well-being.
Are you trigger-shaming yourself?
When society teaches us to focus on positivity, it can be hard to recognise the strength it takes to ask for help, be vulnerable, and be honest in communicating how we genuinely feel. Unfortunately, when we allow ourselves to believe this to be our truth and hide away from how we honestly think or feel, we are tigger-shaming ourselves. We teach and tell ourselves that feeling or thinking a certain way is unacceptable or dangerous. What emotions does this often trigger, guilt and shame. Over time, the vicious cycle we create of experiencing a negative thought or feeling, invalidating this as unacceptable, and forcing positivity can directly impact our core self-beliefs. Our beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world guide how we believe we should think, act, and aspire to be. Do any of these thoughts ever pop into your head: I need to be strong; it is a weakness to feel and express my emotions; it is not safe for me to be vulnerable; people will judge me and not like me if I am my true self, or I have no right to think or feel this way. Such thoughts are just a few examples of us trigger shaming ourselves, invalidating the experience of negative thoughts and emotions. It is this that can create the cycle of toxic positivity. Rather than respecting and accepting our thoughts and experiences, we shame ourselves, reject our right to think and feel, and force ourselves to jump to being positive, i.e. focusing on what we have in life compared to others, the good old ‘others have it worse than you’ve thought. Whilst jumping to the positive may instantly help you to feel grateful and calm, if we persistently do this, we are reaffirming those thoughts into our beliefs. We are teaching ourselves that accepting all our thoughts and feelings is not okay, which can lead to an internal conflict impacting our self-esteem and confidence.
We need anxiety, anger, and sadness to survive.
Believe it or not, we need negative thoughts, anger, sadness, or anxiety to survive, and as a result, our minds are fine-tuned to allow us to experience negative thoughts. When explaining this to my clients, I often use the analogy of a polar bear. If you came face to face with a polar bear, you wouldn’t want your mind thinking, ‘Oh, it’s a fluffy cute animal; I will be fine’ or ‘trying to think positively about the animal, such as it won’t hurt me’. No, you will want your mind to create stress and anxiety so you can run away or fight. Suppose we need negative emotions and thoughts for survival. Why are you trying to instantly escape them and jump straight to positivity? When we feel scared, angry, or sad, it’s our mind’s signalling that something is incorrect. Suppose all we do is ignore this feeling or thought and try to push the focus onto the positives without trying to reflect on or problem-solve the thought or emotion. In that case, we tell ourselves, ‘We can not cope’. We are teaching our minds that we can’t find the solution, problem solve, or know how to manage. Yes, on the odd occasion, it may be helpful to jump to a positive thought to help us cope. Still, suppose we do not go back and reflect on this. In that case, we turn this deflection into a coping mechanism, positive avoidance. This teaches our mind that we can not cope with stress, anxiety, and challenges, alters our perception of our abilities and creates a fixed mindset impacting our motivation, confidence, tolerance to stress, and mood.
Are you deflecting onto others?
As we can see, engaging in toxic positivity can change our habits, thoughts, perceptions, and beliefs. Then, this can impact our relationships with others. We know our core beliefs influence our thoughts, behaviour, and perceptions of how we think we should be and how others should also think or act. Have you ever found yourself talking to someone and thinking, oh, here comes negative Nancy, or why are they complaining? They have no idea how bad others have it. If so, here can be your crucial warning sign that not only have you validated to yourself that it is unacceptable to feel or think negatively, but you are projecting this in your relationships and communication with others. I am not saying that this is the case if you have these occasional thoughts about others. Still, suppose it becomes a consistent way of thinking when communicating with others or impacting your relationships. In that case, it is something to consider.
When we have drilled the message into our mind to avoid negative thoughts and emotions, taught our mind these are unacceptable or unsafe, we use this belief/judgement in guiding our interaction with others. Now, whilst you might think, ‘It’s fine, I can control what I say’, we also know 55% of our communication is through body language alone, which is hard to hide. Over time, this can lead to us, either purposefully or accidentally, invalidating other’s thoughts, emotions and experiences, pulling away from certain people because they do not mirror our beliefs or impact our ability to create deep connections in our relationships due to our thoughts holding you back from being your true self. We know through research that connections, relationships, and positive interaction are crucial to our health and well-being. Over time, this can lead to challenges with isolation, low mood, and disassociation.
If it impacts our mind, it affects our body.
Finally, as ever, our mind and body are interconnected. When we do not manage or address/challenge our emotions, this creates tension in our body, increasing our heart rate production of adrenaline and cortisol (as we are consistently signalling we are in danger), causing physical health complications such as high blood pressure, weight gain, fatigue, and over some time increases our risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, or even a heart attack.
If, before reading this, you thought frequently jumping to the positive wasn’t harmful or was the right thing to do, I hope now you can see the dark side of positivity. When used in the wrong way, positivity can create a dangerous cocktail of repression, avoidance, and invalidation, leading to a detrimental impact on your overall health and well-being. So, let’s find out how to avoid toxic positivity and find balance using positivity effectively whilst validating your challenging thoughts and emotions.
How does it work, and what can I do? How to address and overcome toxic positivity
Hopefully, reading this blog post has helped you identify some of your signs and triggers and know the impact they currently are or could have on your health and well-being. No doubt, the next question you are likely asking yourself is, what can I do about it? Now, it is essential to know that there isn’t one solution that will work for everyone. We all have different life experiences, beliefs, aspirations, responsibilities and roles, so we all need to find the correct solution that will work for ourselves. We do, however, know there are vital things we need to add to our routines and lives to support us to overcome or prevent the fog of toxic positivity.
See yourself as a priority: disconnect to reconnect
Toxic positivity tends to create traits such as perfectionist standards, the need to get things done now, and a preoccupation with the goal we are trying to achieve (living in the future) and neglecting our current needs. Therefore, The first thing you need to do is prioritise your time. When we prioritise time to focus on our needs, we start to reconnect with the present moment, what we need here and now, what keeps us happy and motivated and creates balance. The easiest way to do this is to refocus on creating foundation habits by setting yourself non-negotiables. A few things you are committed to doing each day to prioritise your self-care. Such things could be going for a 5-10 minute walk, taking a lunch break, or eating without distraction. The more we take time to do something for ourselves and see ourselves as a priority, the more we reframe our thinking and shift our beliefs from recognising our importance rather than dismissing our needs. When we make decisions with ourselves at the centre rather than make decisions based on an imagined or false reality of who we think we should be. Over time, we can build on these habits and strengthen the connection with ourselves as to what is essential, rewriting our beliefs and creating new personal boundaries.
The key to change is self-reflection
The next step is self-reflection. We need to dig deep and work with our inner selves to bring about change. The way we achieve this is through reflection and learning. A great way to start this process is through journaling. Daily or weekly journalling (again, it creates a self-care habit) gives your mind downtime to honestly think about the question you are asking yourself, brain dump and write freely to get your thoughts on paper to help you start to understand the why behind your thoughts, emotions and behaviour. Toxic positivity, as we know, creates a disconnect between who you truly are in terms of your thoughts and feelings and who you are currently being and acting; it is, therefore, essential to begin with to learn about yourself. Good journaling prompts for this are:
Write down what is important to you in life.
What is it that you do that makes you happy?
What do you want to achieve in life?
How do you want to be viewed by others or remembered?
These example prompts will help you to relearn your core beliefs. The dedicated time to journal and learn helps you to refocus your energy on yourself rather than being influenced by the opinion of others, societal pressures or external pressures such as work or responsibilities.
It’s time to learn about the why. What has been holding you back?
Naturally, you will progress towards questioning and challenging your thoughts and emotions to identify what it is about your thoughts or feelings that are preventing you from accepting this as part of who you are, the human experience, and impacting your health, well-being and personal growth. Good journaling prompts to support this include the what and why statements:
Why or what is it that I fear when experiencing this emotion?
What emotions am I trying to avoid?
Why am I trying to avoid my feelings? What will the consequence be if I allow myself to feel?
Such questions will help you to reflect on how you have or continue to create habits of toxic positivity.
When we understand the what or why, we can start the journey of exploration, where we challenge the thoughts driving the toxic positivity and learn new ways to reframe our thinking and respond. Good journaling prompts for this include:
What are my difficult emotions (anger, sadness, stress, anxiety, guilt, shame) trying to tell me?
What is stopping me from addressing these feelings?
What will happen if I let go of these thoughts and feelings?
As soon as we have insight into our triggers, can recognise this in our thinking and behaviour, and have started the process of acceptance, problem-solving, and reframing, we can then begin to move forward to finding the solution to throw over the habits of toxic positivity, that are holding us back and maintaining the vicious cycle.
It is time to find a solution.
By this point, your mind will be fine-tuned to rational thinking, thinking analytically, and ready to problem solve and find the solution. Now that you can recognise your trigger thoughts and emotions, it’s time to become your detective. This part of the process will allow you to teach your brain how to filter out the beliefs, thoughts, and unhealthy habits/coping mechanisms that have been maintaining the cycle of toxic positivity. Here are some effective methods to help in this process.
We first need to allow ourselves time to sit with, feel, and embrace a thought or emotion. Guided imagery, such as seeing your thoughts and feelings float down a stream on lily pads, can be fantastic for this. It allows your mind time to stop, not to run away from your thoughts and emotions, which starts the process of teaching your mind if it is acceptable and safe to think and feel these things. Already, this is starting to change any self-limiting beliefs. To begin the process of problem-solving, we then need to recognise our thoughts and emotions by asking ourselves:
What is this thought or emotion trying to tell me?
Why do I think I feel or am thinking this way?
Is thinking or feeling this way trying to tell me something?
You may identify the solution or action you need to take to support addressing the feeling or thought. Although it may be complicated. To overcome this, we will need to realign with our goals and what is important to us to help ensure our decisions are made with us as the centre. Ask yourself:
Does thinking or feeling this way help take me towards my goals, support my well-being or keep me stuck?
More than likely, if it is a challenging thought or emotion, it will be holding you back. Most of our thoughts are guided or interlinked with our core and self-beliefs we have created over time. These tend to be based on things that have happened to us in the past (something we can not change) or aspirations of who we want to be or our imagined future (not our present reality). To find the solution to help us progress towards our goals and positively maintain our health and well-being, we need to ground ourselves and focus on the present and near future. Ask yourself:
If I wasn’t feeling this way, how would I feel?
What would I be doing differently or more of?
How will this support me?
Focusing on how we want to feel and what we want to do in the present and near future helps us to create SMART goals of what realistic habits we can incorporate into our routine to help us move forward. This goal will help us develop healthy habits and coping mechanisms that effectively maintain our health and well-being. In addition, as these habits have been generated from allowing yourself to sit with, accept, reflect, problem solve, and learn from your challenging thoughts and experiences, these habits will naturally incorporate these skills to avoid engaging in toxic positivity. For example, if you are someone who always takes on the task of others, even though you are stressed, because you positively reframe and think, it’s okay, I need to be strong and be a leader and cope. This process may allow you to create a habit, such as making yourself a daily to-do list with a limited number of crucial priorities. Then, when someone asks you for support, or you need to help others, you can use this list as a guide to reflect on if you can support and decide with your needs at the centre. As you can see, this helps you to positively manage the situation with your own needs at the centre, accept your own needs, and challenge those toxic positive thoughts of I need to be helpful and strong to support your long-term health and well-being.
Toxic positivity can be a thing of the past, but it’s down to you!
I hope this blog post has supported you to understand and recognise the importance of embracing all your thoughts and emotions, both the perceived good and challenging. Positive affirmation, gratitude, and a positive attitude are pivotal for our health and well-being. However, this is only the case when it is delivered naturally rather than being a deflection tactic from true acceptance of our thoughts and feelings.
Thankfully, through my practice in hypnotherapy with clients, I can witness the benefits of supporting clients to adopt this process, understand their minds, find their solutions, work directly with their subconscious to address habits and beliefs holding them back and see them take back control and create a harmonious mind where toxic positivity is a thing of the past—furthermore, helping them to adopt ways to use techniques such as positive affirmation and gratitude in means of maintenance of a positive mindset rather than avoidance of challenging thoughts and emotions. Whether you plan on doing this journey with support or alone, it is pivotal to remember that you are the change. You choose what thoughts and behaviours suit you and what to prioritise. You can end the toxic positivity cycle, remove the mask of repression, and allow yourself to think, feel, communicate, and identify your true self.
If you would like to know more about this subject or methods of addressing toxic positivity and the resulting impact on confidence, mood, or anxiety, feel free to follow my socials (which you can access by clicking the social media icons on my website), or for one to one support feel free to fill in a contact form. I will be in contact to answer your questions and explain more about how I can help you create healthy habits and free your mind.
20th September 2023