Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, well, welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners.
Speaker 1: Wherever you are in the world, it is so great
Speaker 1: to have you here. Back for another episode. As we,
Speaker 1: of course break down the psychology of our twenties, we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about something a little bit different today,
Speaker 1: a concept that you may or may not have heard of,
Speaker 1: which is toxic positivity. Even if you haven't heard of it,
Speaker 1: you've most likely experienced it in some form, people you know,
Speaker 1: telling you to keep your chin up, that everything happens
Speaker 1: for a reason, and to think good thoughts and they'll
Speaker 1: become your reality. Because toxic positivity is everywhere these days,
Speaker 1: especially with the rise of a lot of Instagram and
Speaker 1: TikTok self help content. It is essentially this belief or
Speaker 1: this attitude that a positive mindset fixes everything. Whatever it
Speaker 1: is you're going through, being optimistic will make it better.
Speaker 1: And it's an attitude that has a lot of consequences
Speaker 1: for our mental health, for our emotional wellbeing, but also
Speaker 1: for our emotional intelligence and our ability to actually address
Speaker 1: our emotions and solve our problems. I have to admit
Speaker 1: I have been guilty of perhaps promoting this kind of messaging,
Speaker 1: both to myself and you guys, the listeners. It is
Speaker 1: very easy to villainize negative emotions or so called negative emotions,
Speaker 1: because they simply just don't feel nice. You know, feeling
Speaker 1: angry doesn't feel nice, Feeling distressed disappointed doesn't feel nice,
Speaker 1: and putting a positive spin on things kind of erases
Speaker 1: the need to truly feel and process these big feelings.
Speaker 1: But maturing is recognizing that just because something doesn't feel
Speaker 1: nice doesn't mean it's not useful. And second to that,
Speaker 1: emotions like grief, like despair, like disappointment, and rejection they
Speaker 1: are what makes us human, and being able to connect
Speaker 1: with those emotions means that we are able to connect
Speaker 1: with ourselves, firstly with our experiences, but also with others.
Speaker 1: It's a real privilege to sometimes not feel amazing all
Speaker 1: the time personally. I also think that toxic positivity is
Speaker 1: really dangerous during our twenties, in particular, because you know,
Speaker 1: our emotions can teach us so much during this period,
Speaker 1: and they do influence who we are becoming. So if
Speaker 1: we mask them by being overly positive about everything, by
Speaker 1: not letting anything in, by numbing ourselves out, we're kind
Speaker 1: of doing ourselves a disservice. And it may sound strange
Speaker 1: to hear me say that, you know, being too positive
Speaker 1: is a danger to you? Is dangerous because how can
Speaker 1: something so nice be so dangerous? But when we gravitate
Speaker 1: towards the same reaction for all of our experiences, I
Speaker 1: eat always looking for the bright side, no matter how
Speaker 1: hard or difficult something is, we do tend to suppress
Speaker 1: a lot of what makes us so tender and so
Speaker 1: unique and so vulnerable in that vulnerability is a good thing.
Speaker 1: So today we are going to discuss the problem with
Speaker 1: always being positive. And I know it sounds strange, but
Speaker 1: why feeling bad is sometimes good for you. We'll also
Speaker 1: dive into why it is that we tend to gravitate
Speaker 1: towards optimism, this concept of self inflicted emotional gas lighting,
Speaker 1: and the alternative. What is the alternative to putting a
Speaker 1: positive spin on things? Where does this incline come from?
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the origins of shame and
Speaker 1: emotional embarrassment. And I think that once you realize how
Speaker 1: common this radical optimism, this unrealistic optimism is, you'll be
Speaker 1: surprised how often you notice it, and you'll be surprised
Speaker 1: how rampant it is in our society. Once you begin
Speaker 1: to notice it, you'll never stop noticing it. But we also,
Speaker 1: of course want to give you an alternative. We want
Speaker 1: to talk about what it is that we can do,
Speaker 1: because if we can't make our emotions feel good, what's
Speaker 1: the alternative? Do we just let them exist? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the answer. There we go the episode summed up. No,
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about that a little bit more, and
Speaker 1: I think that's all. That's all that I have without
Speaker 1: further ado, let's get into it. Toxic positivity has a
Speaker 1: few different names, you know. The first time that it
Speaker 1: was labeled was back in the nineteen eighties, and back
Speaker 1: then it was as unrealistic optimism. It's also known as
Speaker 1: bright siding positive tyranny, which is very dramatic, but I
Speaker 1: think you get the picture at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: All these terms are referring to the same thing, a
Speaker 1: deep but also toxic and maladaptive belief that thinking positively
Speaker 1: can erase all negative feelings, and that those negative feelings
Speaker 1: are bad. We have bad emotions that we should not feel,
Speaker 1: and the way to not feel them is to cover
Speaker 1: them in sugar and cover them in sunshine and always
Speaker 1: find the positive, always try and shake it off. We
Speaker 1: want to prioritize upbeat thinking. We want to push down
Speaker 1: the difficult stuff. No one wants to see that, no
Speaker 1: one wants to feel that. And if you can't be
Speaker 1: positive all the time, you have somehow failed. Something is
Speaker 1: wrong with you. This can be a belief that we've
Speaker 1: learned from someone else around us, or it can be
Speaker 1: self imposed, like feeling guilty when you feel sad or
Speaker 1: disappointed and immediately forcing yourself to think about everything you
Speaker 1: should be grateful for instead of letting yourself be sad
Speaker 1: or pushing down big feelings by telling yourself it could
Speaker 1: be worse, just move on. This is why toxic positivity
Speaker 1: is sometimes seen as a form of self inflicted emotional
Speaker 1: gas lighting. That is a mouthful, but I think we're
Speaker 1: all pretty familiar with the term gaslighting when it comes
Speaker 1: to romantic relationships. It's this act of one person manipulating
Speaker 1: somebody else into questioning their own reality and what is
Speaker 1: actually true or real, as a way to maintain control
Speaker 1: over them. When we force ourselves to push down and
Speaker 1: push aside hard emotions, the premise is that we are
Speaker 1: essentially gaslighting ourselves by saying this isn't real. You don't
Speaker 1: know what you're experiencing, your choosing to feel bad about this. Rather,
Speaker 1: then you feel bad about this because it's hard, and
Speaker 1: that's a normal reaction. This experience is real and raw,
Speaker 1: and it's okay to be in pain and to be
Speaker 1: flat for a while. This is hard. You can feel
Speaker 1: sad about it more often than not. Though toxic positivity
Speaker 1: is something that we experience from others, there is of course,
Speaker 1: that own sense of like almost self preservation. I would
Speaker 1: call it, to maintain a positive outlook at all times.
Speaker 1: But there are often these times when perhaps you go
Speaker 1: to a therapist or a family member or a friend
Speaker 1: and you say, you know, I'm just really struggling with
Speaker 1: this thing, this terrible thing is happening. I'm really stressed,
Speaker 1: I'm really tired and really exhausted, And the only thing
Speaker 1: they try and do is get you to see the
Speaker 1: positive sides. They only try and get you to see
Speaker 1: the light at the end of the tunnel, and I
Speaker 1: get it. I really do get why a family member
Speaker 1: or a friend, or a therapist or anybody would want
Speaker 1: to bring us back to what is good because we
Speaker 1: don't like to see other people struggle. We don't like
Speaker 1: to see other people feel sad, especially people that we love.
Speaker 1: You know. Some examples of this are like, when you
Speaker 1: go through a breakup and you're immediately told that you
Speaker 1: know there's someone better out there. Think about the positives
Speaker 1: in this situation, think about how fun it's going to
Speaker 1: be single when you perhaps aren't ready to hear that.
Speaker 1: Losing your job and being told that you know you
Speaker 1: can have it worse. Some people don't even have a job.
Speaker 1: Some people don't even have savings. Some people have been
Speaker 1: unemployed so much longer than you, so chin up. It's
Speaker 1: all that line of thinking, you know, getting ghosted, getting rejected,
Speaker 1: and being told that everything happens for a reason. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a nice thought, it just might not be helpful,
Speaker 1: and it's probably one of those thoughts it's only helpful
Speaker 1: in hindsight when you're ready to hear it. What's another
Speaker 1: example that we see a lot, Oh, somebody was telling
Speaker 1: me about this the other day. Live it like when
Speaker 1: you go and like see a friend, or you're with
Speaker 1: a family member or whoever it is, and you just
Speaker 1: feel like you can't be low energy because they'll immediately
Speaker 1: pathologize or think that something is wrong. So if you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've just had a really bad day, they'll immediately be like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not good. No, no, no, no, we don't want
Speaker 1: you to have a bad day. Let's make this better.
Speaker 1: We need to think positively, we need to fix your
Speaker 1: problem when you might just be having a bad day
Speaker 1: or over emphasizing the power of gratitude. And that is
Speaker 1: something that we see all the time. I had an
Speaker 1: example from a friend, well from a friend an acquaintance,
Speaker 1: who was telling me about how one of her coworkers
Speaker 1: lost her mother to cancer really unexpectedly, and of course
Speaker 1: dealing with that just humongous grief, unimaginable grief, she went
Speaker 1: and saw a therapist, and a therapist or it was
Speaker 1: a counselor told her to make a gratitude list to
Speaker 1: help her feel better. And you know what, I get
Speaker 1: her intentions. We're most likely in the right place, but
Speaker 1: you can also see how this is probably not helpful.
Speaker 1: That's probably not the one thing that we need to do.
Speaker 1: This is almost a denial of the negative emotions and
Speaker 1: an unrealistic promotion ofitive thinking when this person probably would
Speaker 1: actually not benefit from immediately moving on. That's what I
Speaker 1: get the point of, Like, Oh, yeah, what are you
Speaker 1: grateful for? So you don't dwell on this loss? But
Speaker 1: maybe it would have been better to just be like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really really awful. That really sucks. Let's just let
Speaker 1: you feel really bad about that for a while, because
Speaker 1: that is a completely reasonable thing to be feeling. One
Speaker 1: final example, because I'm filled with anecdotes today, is this experience.
Speaker 1: This concept out of order is a term known as
Speaker 1: bright siding, and we see this a lot when someone
Speaker 1: tells us a story about something really frustrating or really
Speaker 1: terrible or painful, and immediately somebody else jumps in with
Speaker 1: a matching story of their own that is far more
Speaker 1: terrible and far more painful, or they point out the
Speaker 1: one part of the story where something good happened or
Speaker 1: something worse could have happened. You know, Oh, I just
Speaker 1: had the most terrible commute to work today. I was
Speaker 1: so frustrated, I was so angry by the time I
Speaker 1: got in, I just like didn't want to be there.
Speaker 1: And then they go, well, on the bright side, like,
Speaker 1: at least you know what happened to me today. Well,
Speaker 1: at least you know your car didn't explode like mine,
Speaker 1: so you have something to feel good about. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: when that happens, it immediately immediately kind of cuts off
Speaker 1: your ability to express your feelings because you either feel
Speaker 1: the need to justify the experience or you can't compete,
Speaker 1: and therefore you just go quiet. And there is this
Speaker 1: incredible book about this exact concept called bright Sided How
Speaker 1: Thevorlentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America, and it
Speaker 1: talks about how by stamping out negative thoughts or villainizing
Speaker 1: negative emotions, we become very two dimensional. We learn pretty
Speaker 1: quickly that actually being truthful, looking for comfort rather than
Speaker 1: solutions or optimism is going to be met with toxic positivity.
Speaker 1: So eventually we just become our happy moments. We just
Speaker 1: showed all the good things and everyone looks at each
Speaker 1: other thinking, wow, her life is really perfect, her life
Speaker 1: is really amazing, whilst you think the same thing about them,
Speaker 1: And essentially the author makes this very convincing argument that
Speaker 1: toxic positivity has made us inauthentic, and I tend to agree.
Speaker 1: Let me play devil's advocate for a second before we
Speaker 1: fully jump into the consequences of this. You know, we
Speaker 1: do see toxic positivity everywhere, and you know what, sometimes
Speaker 1: it is only natural to want to see the bright
Speaker 1: side of what we're going through. It can be useful
Speaker 1: and it can also be intuitive. As humans, both you know,
Speaker 1: evolutionarily but also socially, we naturally prefer positive emotions. They
Speaker 1: indicate greater happiness, greater satisfaction, They create less emotional pain
Speaker 1: and disharmony, less social friction. We would probably prefer to
Speaker 1: not get bogged down in hard things. There are also
Speaker 1: just people who are really optimistic. It's not that they're
Speaker 1: necessarily toxic in their optimism, it's just how they come.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people would probably look
Speaker 1: at that those explanations that I just gave of people
Speaker 1: trying their hardest to relate to somebody else through a
Speaker 1: positive lens and be like, what's the problem. What's the
Speaker 1: problem here? Of course, it's better to be happy than sad,
Speaker 1: you know. Of course, this lightens the mood people want
Speaker 1: to be around you, people want to be your friend,
Speaker 1: people want to be happy, and I really do understand that.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that in these instances there isn't
Speaker 1: room for resilience, there isn't room for gratitude, there isn't
Speaker 1: room for problem solving. But the thing is is that
Speaker 1: those things are healthy coping mechanisms. When we overly rely
Speaker 1: on them, When our solution to anything bad is just
Speaker 1: be grateful for what you have or okay, just get
Speaker 1: over it and keep your chin up, that is toxic
Speaker 1: positivity versus healthy positive. These happy, good vibes become toxic
Speaker 1: when it involves avoiding and suppressing, minimizing, or rejecting negative feelings.
Speaker 1: And let's be real, that doesn't actually make them go away,
Speaker 1: that doesn't allow us to make peace with them. The
Speaker 1: only thing that is occurring is that in the moment,
Speaker 1: they become invisible, and that means that eventually they will
Speaker 1: most likely return with the vengeance later on. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about the consequences of toxic positivity. First of all,
Speaker 1: it stigmatizes these so called negative emotions. And I know
Speaker 1: that I've been using that word that term very frequently.
Speaker 1: Negative emotions Basically, what I mean by that is the
Speaker 1: emotions that are very much villainized by society, things that
Speaker 1: we kind of cringe at, we would rather not see. Anger, jealousy, grief, sadness.
Speaker 1: Often the the reason that these emotions I think are
Speaker 1: so disturbing to some people is because they are so human,
Speaker 1: and when we see somebody else experiencing them, we so
Speaker 1: deeply can see ourselves in that feeling. We know what
Speaker 1: that feels like, and I think that kind of makes
Speaker 1: us feel embarrassed, like, oh, don't be loud about what
Speaker 1: it means to be human. And you know, sometimes being
Speaker 1: human does it's just kind of shit. Sometimes it just
Speaker 1: isn't fun. There is not a single person alive today
Speaker 1: who would say, you know, my entire life has been golden.
Speaker 1: Everything is great for me, and yet it feels like
Speaker 1: that is what is kind of expected. These negative emotions,
Speaker 1: they are what keep us from being a very palatable person,
Speaker 1: from being somebody who always leaves others feeling in a
Speaker 1: good mood. If nothing else. These negative emotions, I actually
Speaker 1: think are really useful because they make our good moments
Speaker 1: and our good memories even more special. They are also
Speaker 1: a natural reaction to our experiences and they teach us something,
Speaker 1: They have a purpose, and I think our desire to
Speaker 1: hide them links very closely to the stigma that is
Speaker 1: directed towards mental health and mental health conditions and mental
Speaker 1: health struggles. And I don't think that that is an accident.
Speaker 1: Society is not that great at wanting people to be
Speaker 1: open about what they're going through. There is a long
Speaker 1: history of that. And if we've never been taught to
Speaker 1: accept that this is a dimension of being human. If
Speaker 1: we continue to keep up this narrative that intense emotions
Speaker 1: deserve to be hidden, they don't deserve to be masked
Speaker 1: by optimism or masks by positivity, the next generation is
Speaker 1: taught the same thing, and that is where prejudice and
Speaker 1: misunderstanding comes from a failure to really normalize and accept
Speaker 1: what is typical for most people, which is that we
Speaker 1: do feel sad, and we do feel angry, and we
Speaker 1: do grieve, and that doesn't always need to be stamped out.
Speaker 1: It makes us feel like we always have to be
Speaker 1: okay when no one is. And I saw this quote
Speaker 1: about this from an author that said, this unrealistic optimism
Speaker 1: towards life is essentially saying whatever you do don't tell
Speaker 1: the truth of what it is like to be alive.
Speaker 1: Don't be authentic, don't be honest, don't be open. It's
Speaker 1: like having a nice illusion of what everything should look like.
Speaker 1: It's I don't know. It's not that there is like
Speaker 1: this greater power that be that is controlling this and
Speaker 1: making everyone forcing them to look happy. It is like
Speaker 1: a long pattern and a long history of this going on,
Speaker 1: and I think it mainly comes down to the effects
Speaker 1: of shame and embarrassment. We aren't, you know, necessarily coming
Speaker 1: out and saying ill, why are you crying? Don't be upset?
Speaker 1: That makes me so uncomfortable. We aren't being like can
Speaker 1: you please stop that? Can you please stop grieving all
Speaker 1: over the place, or stop being you know, upset all
Speaker 1: over the place? Like no, stop. That is not necessarily
Speaker 1: what it's going on. But when we immediately switch gears,
Speaker 1: when someone brings up the emotions that we don't like
Speaker 1: and we cover them in positivity and we serve them
Speaker 1: back to them, you know, that is a meaningful enough
Speaker 1: queue to influence behavior. It is an implicit message to
Speaker 1: not do that again, don't do that. We're not outwardly
Speaker 1: saying it, but everything about our behavior and everything about
Speaker 1: our treatment of this emotion is telling you just that.
Speaker 1: And within that reaction, within that interaction that happens, the
Speaker 1: thing that we're going to feel is a lot of shame,
Speaker 1: a lot of guilt, a lot of embarrassment that we,
Speaker 1: you know, even expressed ourself in the first place. And
Speaker 1: of course this stigma lives on. The second consequence of
Speaker 1: toxic positivity is that it actually makes us feel worse
Speaker 1: rather than better, and there are dozens of studies to
Speaker 1: back this up. The less we feel, the more of
Speaker 1: a positive spin that we put on things, the less
Speaker 1: that we learn to cope, and the more control that
Speaker 1: that emotion has. This is the classic cycle of avoidance
Speaker 1: in psychology. We never actually learn what to do with
Speaker 1: big emotions because the only thing we can think to
Speaker 1: do is to suppress them or make them light and fluffy,
Speaker 1: which actually just gives them more importance. It makes them louder,
Speaker 1: it makes them darker. The cycle repeats. There is a
Speaker 1: very well known study from the eighties and the title
Speaker 1: of the study is the Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression.
Speaker 1: Just some light reading, and it's pretty groundbreaking. What it
Speaker 1: basically says is that when you're asked not to think
Speaker 1: about something, the more you immediately want to think about it.
Speaker 1: So you may have heard of this. If I say
Speaker 1: to you, okay, please, whatever you do, don't think about
Speaker 1: a white elephant, don't think about it. Don't think about
Speaker 1: a white elephant. Of course, you're thinking about it, and
Speaker 1: you'll probably keep thinking about it for the rest of
Speaker 1: the day. If that's my only instruction. Don't think about
Speaker 1: so don't think about how hard that was. Don't think
Speaker 1: about how terrified you were, how unhappy you are. Make
Speaker 1: it positive, make it bubbly, make it glowy. Of course,
Speaker 1: the thing that I'm telling you not to think about
Speaker 1: implicitly or explicitly is the thing that's going to become louder.
Speaker 1: And that is exactly what is happening here. Your positive
Speaker 1: thoughts suppressed the initial negative ones, and that suppression actually
Speaker 1: has the reverse effect of creating a preoccupation with the
Speaker 1: initial event because you didn't get the chance to work
Speaker 1: through it. You didn't get the chance to truly process
Speaker 1: how you reacted, perhaps the trauma that it's left, the consequences,
Speaker 1: none of that. You've just pushed it into a box.
Speaker 1: There was another study from the nineties that showed something
Speaker 1: very similar that suppressing feelings can actually make our psychological
Speaker 1: stress and our psychological suffering more significant and more intense.
Speaker 1: And that kind of brings me to my next point.
Speaker 1: Not only does toxic positivity actually end up making the
Speaker 1: feelings worse, so kind of having that like backfire effect,
Speaker 1: it also prevents growth. Now I spoke briefly about this before,
Speaker 1: but the next step in the toxic positivity disaster timeline
Speaker 1: is that a not only do you feel shame and
Speaker 1: stigma towards your emotion, which b means that you actually
Speaker 1: end up feeling worse, but finally, you never actually grow. Now,
Speaker 1: I am not saying that bad things happen for a
Speaker 1: reason and that these negative feelings are a lesson, But
Speaker 1: if there's, you know, anything, any kind of consolation prize,
Speaker 1: as terrible as it is, it's that when you let
Speaker 1: yourself feel the hard times, you grow through the hard times.
Speaker 1: When you apply unrealistic optimism, you don't even get that.
Speaker 1: So not only did the bad things still happen and
Speaker 1: you still feel terrible, but you also never learn to
Speaker 1: evolve as a person, learn how to respond. You also
Speaker 1: never get to appreciate how tremendous you are, Like you
Speaker 1: were the one who had the courage and the strength
Speaker 1: and the patience and the will to get through all
Speaker 1: of that. When we try and be like, well, everything
Speaker 1: happens for a reason, or you could have it worse,
Speaker 1: or look on the bright side, we need to stop there.
Speaker 1: You know, you were actually dealt a bad hand and
Speaker 1: you still push through, and that is a testament to
Speaker 1: how amazing you are. And that is a testament to
Speaker 1: your strength and your problem solving and your hard work.
Speaker 1: And when you wrap it all up in a nice pink,
Speaker 1: fuzzy bow, you don't actually get the acknowledgment you deserve
Speaker 1: around how truly resilient you were. So the final consequence
Speaker 1: of toxic positivity, and in my mind, one of the
Speaker 1: most convincing is to why we cannot be positive all
Speaker 1: the time is that it just isn't the full picture.
Speaker 1: Your mindset cannot change everything. It is a very privileged
Speaker 1: perspective to think that thinking good thoughts can shift a situation. Yes,
Speaker 1: it can definitely shift the way you think about something,
Speaker 1: it can change how you feel, but the situation in
Speaker 1: the event remains the same. And I think the big
Speaker 1: problem I have is that there are certain things that
Speaker 1: a positive mindset, you know, will not make better, It
Speaker 1: will not solve obviously, Like a really big one is
Speaker 1: things that are like biological or genetic or medical. You know,
Speaker 1: I've never seen a single article or academic piece of
Speaker 1: research that has said positive thinking shows signs of like
Speaker 1: improving cancer survival rates, or people who suppress negative emotions
Speaker 1: are less likely to have diabetes, or like woman wins
Speaker 1: award for I don't know, for being happy all the time, congratulation,
Speaker 1: happiest woman alive. I've never seen anything like that. And
Speaker 1: there is a lot that we need to mention about
Speaker 1: the fact that some people just have it harder. And
Speaker 1: coming into their circumstances, their story, their life, and applying
Speaker 1: perhaps your more privileged perspective and one in which you
Speaker 1: can say just think positive thoughts about it is kind
Speaker 1: of not very fair. It's not very fair, and it's
Speaker 1: just not very nice, to be honest. It's not that
Speaker 1: you're trying to be mean. It's just it's just not
Speaker 1: very nice. Because imagine sitting there and being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very easy for you to say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: bad things happen for a reason. But if your mom's
Speaker 1: just died, or if you're going through a war or whatever,
Speaker 1: it is like, no, that's not the truth, that's not
Speaker 1: the full truth. The other thing, the other thing I
Speaker 1: think of, is like your environment does play a much
Speaker 1: bigger role than we think, and it sometimes overwhelms our
Speaker 1: ability to think positively about something. I saw this video
Speaker 1: from a creator on YouTube the other day who she's
Speaker 1: a dietitian specialist, a doctor dietitian specialist, and she gave
Speaker 1: the example of like cortisol levels and how there's been
Speaker 1: this whole flood and like pseudoscience or I don't know,
Speaker 1: let's not be so quick as to call it pseudoscience,
Speaker 1: but this whole flood and research around how changing negative
Speaker 1: thoughts into positive ones really helps lower your causal levels.
Speaker 1: But she said in this video, she's like, yes, that
Speaker 1: might be true, but none of that is going to
Speaker 1: be effective if you don't have shelter, or you don't
Speaker 1: have a sense of internal or external safety, if you
Speaker 1: don't have community. Positive thinking making things lighter just actually
Speaker 1: masks certain things that may actually really need to change,
Speaker 1: that may actually really demand action and demand some form
Speaker 1: of justice or demand a personal shift. So we've talked
Speaker 1: about some of the consequences of toxic positivity. It isn't
Speaker 1: the full picture. It prevents growth, It actually makes us
Speaker 1: feel worse, and it stigmatizes what are normal emotions. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the alternative. If we have to
Speaker 1: abandon our radical optimism, maybe not radical unrealistic optimism. Radical
Speaker 1: optimism is still fine. But if we have to aband
Speaker 1: and our unrealistic optimism, what do we have left. Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about all of that and more
Speaker 1: after this shortbreak. I have a lot of grace for
Speaker 1: those of us who do genuinely try and see the good,
Speaker 1: and I will say that I am someone who does
Speaker 1: try and do that. There is a lot of beauty
Speaker 1: in finding the joy despite things being pretty terrible. There
Speaker 1: is a lot of beauty in seeing the good side
Speaker 1: of things and trying to find the silver lining. Again,
Speaker 1: we want the people we love most to be happy.
Speaker 1: We want to guide them back to a place of
Speaker 1: feeling good and positive about their circumstances. So I totally
Speaker 1: get the inclination we want to feel good. It's okay
Speaker 1: to want to feel good. This episode isn't about being
Speaker 1: like if you want to feel good about yourself, you
Speaker 1: have toxic positivity. No, I think it's more about whether
Speaker 1: your version of being positive involves not not making space
Speaker 1: for negative emotions or bad emotions. Complex emotions will call
Speaker 1: them that. I think complex emotions also sometimes make us
Speaker 1: uncomfortable because we've never been taught how to process them
Speaker 1: within ourselves or with others. We have no education or
Speaker 1: emotional management courses like that's not something that we are
Speaker 1: taught on or informed on as children, even as adults.
Speaker 1: So suppression and making everything seem quite positive and lovely
Speaker 1: is the status quo. But let's talk about some alternatives
Speaker 1: for actually looking at those complex emotions and you know,
Speaker 1: making peace with them, becoming friends with them, becoming friends
Speaker 1: with your friends negative emotions and not bright siding and
Speaker 1: not trying to fix everything. So, firstly, when you find
Speaker 1: the desire to suppress a negative or complex emotion is
Speaker 1: coming up, be honest with the fact that a situation
Speaker 1: is difficult and break away from the urge to say
Speaker 1: it's fine. Immediately. You're allowed to feel your painful emotions
Speaker 1: without them becoming you. There was an article from Scientific
Speaker 1: America that I read in preparation for this episode. It's
Speaker 1: about ten years old, and it suggests that across multiple studies,
Speaker 1: multiple case studies, multiple research projects on happiness, it is
Speaker 1: actually the people who are in touch with their negative
Speaker 1: emotions who overall experience the greatest levels of well being
Speaker 1: and true mastery over their lives. So, honestly, you are
Speaker 1: better off just admitting that something sucks, just admitting that
Speaker 1: something is awful. That is okay, You're going to push
Speaker 1: on anyways. You are not going to become those feelings.
Speaker 1: Those feelings are just part of your human experience. I
Speaker 1: think it's honesty without the extreme pessimism, and I get
Speaker 1: that that is a fine line to walk. But you
Speaker 1: are allowed to feel despair, feel griefeel whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't need to be everything. That doesn't need
Speaker 1: to become you. You know, you don't have to get
Speaker 1: wrapped up in ruminating and letting it interrupt your life.
Speaker 1: If you make space and time for your negative emotions
Speaker 1: and then are like, Okay, I acknowledge that this exists.
Speaker 1: I acknowledge that I feel this way, and I've given
Speaker 1: myself time to feel that, and now I'm going to
Speaker 1: move on. And if this emotion bubbles up again, I
Speaker 1: will look at it. I will hold it, I will
Speaker 1: sit with it. And when we're going to try again,
Speaker 1: we're going to move through same process every single time.
Speaker 1: So when the urge to run and kind of cover
Speaker 1: up occurs, stay put, fight the instinct. There is this
Speaker 1: scene in Harry Potter. I think it's like the first one, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first Harry Potter Sorcerer's Stone, Philosopher's Stone, where they're
Speaker 1: getting Harry'll run and one of them is like getting
Speaker 1: like suffocated by those by the vines, and Hermione goes
Speaker 1: just relaxed, just relax. I think when we try and
Speaker 1: make everything positive all the time, that is the vines
Speaker 1: tightening around us. We're fighting back against what is a
Speaker 1: very natural instinct to feel, and it actually ends up
Speaker 1: suffocating us. It feels counterintuitive, but acceptance is where we
Speaker 1: find a lot of freedom. One way that I like
Speaker 1: to think about it is that sadness and goer grief, jealousy, pessimism,
Speaker 1: they're like little creatures in my house. They're like little
Speaker 1: dust mites or little kittens. You know. My house is
Speaker 1: my brain and in it there are all these things
Speaker 1: kind of wandering around, and sometimes it might jump out
Speaker 1: and scare me, you know, are we pottering around and
Speaker 1: this little dust mite might be in my way. My
Speaker 1: grief might be in my way, my pessimism might be
Speaker 1: in my way. But it's just a house guest. I
Speaker 1: don't need to lock them in a room, because that
Speaker 1: way they're going to become a lot louder, they're going
Speaker 1: to screech, and they're less disruptive when I let them
Speaker 1: roam about. When I know that these complex emotions are
Speaker 1: in the house, but they're not scary to me. They're
Speaker 1: not something that I need to run from or lock away.
Speaker 1: When those negative emotions come up, hold them, hug them,
Speaker 1: let them pass through. Don't feel the need to immediately
Speaker 1: get rid of them, but find a way to integrate
Speaker 1: them through things like that are healthy coping mechanisms like
Speaker 1: talk therapy, like journaling, and like some catharsis or physical expression.
Speaker 1: This is another big piece of advice that I have.
Speaker 1: Make hard emotions tangible things like art therapy. That is
Speaker 1: a huge component of art therapy is taking things that
Speaker 1: we would otherwise push aside and actually making them tangible,
Speaker 1: making them physical, giving them a home, and giving them,
Speaker 1: you know, a place to be free in a place
Speaker 1: to come out. Same thing with a lot of physical therapies,
Speaker 1: and not physical therapies in terms of the eyebroker bone sense,
Speaker 1: in terms of like expressing negative emotions through your body,
Speaker 1: getting involved in a boxing class and a running class
Speaker 1: and a hit workout, something that provides your body with
Speaker 1: a release. We know that we feel a lot of
Speaker 1: emotions in our body. How can we expend and expend
Speaker 1: that energy and give it a place to go. I
Speaker 1: think when it comes to navigating the urge to go
Speaker 1: positive when a friend is sharing or when you're giving
Speaker 1: advice and you're noticing that Okay, wait, I keep steering
Speaker 1: into the positive lane here. How do I bring this
Speaker 1: back so that my friend feels acknowledged. That's a whole
Speaker 1: other thing. But I think replace your unrealistically optimistic statements
Speaker 1: with realistic ones and with ones that at their center,
Speaker 1: at their core are statements of acceptance, are statements of
Speaker 1: approval for these emotions. For example, if someone is like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I know it's been four months. I
Speaker 1: know it's been a year, but I just still hung
Speaker 1: up on my ex I'm still miserable. Instead of being
Speaker 1: like okay, but I feel like it's time to like
Speaker 1: get over it, Like maybe you should go and find
Speaker 1: somebody better, because like there's definitely somebody better out there
Speaker 1: for you. Be Like, I'm listening, I can totally see
Speaker 1: why that would be really really hard if somebody, you know,
Speaker 1: your friend, I've had a lot of friends recently get
Speaker 1: later from their tech jobs. There's huge like redundancies in
Speaker 1: that area. If your friend is like, oh I got
Speaker 1: laid off, this is just like the most terrible thing.
Speaker 1: Instead of being like, well, on the bright side, at least, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you have savings. At least, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: your parents could help with your rent. At least, like
Speaker 1: you'll find a new job pretty soon. At least you
Speaker 1: know you always said that you hated that job. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. Sometimes you just got to say,
Speaker 1: you know, failure is sometimes a part of life, and
Speaker 1: your feelings around that are super valid. How can I help?
Speaker 1: Sometimes bad things just happen. I'm really sorry, there's no reason.
Speaker 1: What do you want me to do? Not like what
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? But like what would
Speaker 1: you like me to do? How can I help you?
Speaker 1: You hear? What are you thinking? Just explain how you're thinking?
Speaker 1: Just explain how you're feeling to me, and I will
Speaker 1: sit and I will absorb all of that complexity, all
Speaker 1: of that outrage, all of that negativity. I'll just absorb
Speaker 1: it for you. And I'm not going to sit there
Speaker 1: and be like, yeah, this happened for a reason, because
Speaker 1: I can acknowledge that maybe you don't want to hear
Speaker 1: that right now. There is a time and a place
Speaker 1: for being positive. There is a time and a place,
Speaker 1: and I totally respect the need to want to make
Speaker 1: somebody feel better, but sometimes you've got to look for
Speaker 1: the signs that that's what they want as well. And
Speaker 1: you know what the easiest sign is is when they say,
Speaker 1: can you just make me feel better about this? And
Speaker 1: then you can make them feel and then you can
Speaker 1: be a little bit more positive about things, or when
Speaker 1: you can see that they're moving from wanting to vent
Speaker 1: to wanting advice, or if they are someone who does
Speaker 1: actually respond pretty well to that, they're like a good
Speaker 1: friend or a partner, like you, probably know when they're
Speaker 1: ready to hear those positive statements. Until then, just be
Speaker 1: really genuine and authentic in your interactions with them, kind
Speaker 1: of avoid using those cliches or those platitudes. That may
Speaker 1: not be relevant or helpful. I just want to finish
Speaker 1: up by saying, one more time, you don't have to
Speaker 1: feel good about your life, about yourself, about the world
Speaker 1: all the time. In fact, as those studies were telling us,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's actually helpful to feel deep, vulnerable, complex feelings
Speaker 1: about a situation, about your life. Those feelings not only
Speaker 1: remind you that you're a human and that you can
Speaker 1: feel a full rainbow spectrum of emotions, they also do
Speaker 1: help you grow. They do help you problem solve, they
Speaker 1: do help you be empathetic, they help you connect with
Speaker 1: other people, and they stop us from being one dimensional people,
Speaker 1: like that book was saying, that author was saying, when
Speaker 1: the focus is always on happy experiences, happy emotions, getting
Speaker 1: back to joy, getting back to what feels good, making
Speaker 1: just like when the only ambition is to have as
Speaker 1: many happy moments as possible, and that is like it's
Speaker 1: a very concrete task. I think sometimes we really forget
Speaker 1: how special it is when times are good, and we
Speaker 1: also sometimes forget what it means to be truly feeling,
Speaker 1: and that sometimes like those emotions really remind us of
Speaker 1: what matters and what we care about. And as much
Speaker 1: as like obviously, we love sharing happy, fun memories with
Speaker 1: our friends. I think true bonding and true connections sometimes
Speaker 1: actually does come from those dark and hard and sometimes
Speaker 1: painful moments where you're honest and you're feeling and you're authentic.
Speaker 1: So I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. It's
Speaker 1: a bit more ramboly than I normally do, but this
Speaker 1: is just a topic that I'm really passionate about and
Speaker 1: didn't want to script it as much. I just kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to talk about it, have a bit of
Speaker 1: a discussion. See if you guys related, if this is
Speaker 1: something that you've experienced, if you also think that there
Speaker 1: is perhaps a problem with being too positive all the time.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for listening. I hope that
Speaker 1: you've made it this far. If so, make sure that
Speaker 1: you are following me on Instagram or following me here
Speaker 1: on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you are listening right now,
Speaker 1: and if you can leave a five star review, that
Speaker 1: is incredibly helpful and it of course helps the show
Speaker 1: to grow. Until next time, stay safe, be kind to yourself,
Speaker 1: be gentle to yourself, and we will talk soon.