It's Becky's birthday this week! Happy Birthday to a wonderful friend, coach, and podcast partner! I am so lucky to know you and to be able to call you my friend! Enjoy your special day this Friday!
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Today, Kristen and Becky dive into toxic positivity. What is that? People often will say "Don't worry, be happy," "Just think positively," and "It will all work out," which is all fine and good. We all want to think positively and be optimistic overall, but when it's at the expense of feeling true feelings, it sets you up to feel a lot of negative things about yourself.
Becky says that toxic positivity is usually when someone does not want to face negative emotions such as: sadness, anger, guilt, fear, anxiety, depression, hopelessness, pain, loss, trauma-induced insecurity, etc. People who are uncomfortable with those emotions will try to escape them in any way that they can by pushing them away, backing away from them, dismissing them, etc. An example is when someone gets fired and their friend or loved one says, "Oh! Don't worry about it. You're going to get a new job tomorrow." They can't even let that person be sad or experience their own negative feelings about being fired.
When Becky's son died, her friend (now ex friend) said to her, "Oh, it's okay, you have other kids." That left Becky feeling dismissed and uncared about as though her feelings didn't matter. A person who is thinking only in the positive (toxically) may have an agenda of needing you to be okay because he or she is not okay with hard feelings. This is not a safe place for the person in pain and it's not allowing him or her to feel what they're feeling. This can mean that the person living in the toxic positivity actually does not allow him or herself to feel negative feelings.
Kristen says that someone who can't really handle your negative feelings ends up dismissing you. When someone says something like, "Why are you upset that you weren't invited to the party? You have so many other friends. There will be other parties. Who cares?" it puts you into a place of questioning yourself and feeling selfish or wrong for being upset when it actually makes sense that you would be upset. The truth is that you ARE upset. Just be real about it.
Toxic positivity doesn't allow you to be real or transparent with yourself. It actually encourages you to ignore your problems, hide from them, run away from them and all of your feelings. It's another way of suppressing your feelings and when you suppress your negative feelings, you can't actually be happy because you are putting on a mask and pretending. This is a way we disconnect from ourselves and who we really are when we act positive all the time and ignore the not-so-happy feelings. This makes you people please and make decisions that aren't good for you. People don't really trust you and you don't trust yourself. People may think that you are way too happy when really you should be feeling not so happy.
For Becky, there is an element of shame in it. People will make you feel like you should be happy with what you have instead of complaining about what you don't have. This inspires a lot of shame. Like, "You can't feel that way. Someone has it worse." They are not a safe person. Anything you share will be twisted and used against you. It's like they are saying, "How dare you not be thankful for your life. I know I could list five other people who have it so much worse than you. You should be happy. You should be feeling somehow different than you are feeling."
It's just denying reality and not allowing someone to be who they are. It's very dismissive. Your...
