What is Toxic Positivity? Toxic positivity is the pressure to only display positive emotions, suppressing any negative emotions, feelings, reactions, or experiences. It invalidates human experience and can lead to trauma, isolation, and unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Toxic positivity can also lead to feelings of shame, guilt and lack of empathy over time. I see Toxic positvity all over social media when people post only happy pictures of themselves leading others to believe that they probably have a perfect life where they are always happy. We rarely see people posting about the bad, unhappy and not so good moments for fear of being perceived as whiners or people who like to complain. Someone said to me: “after all, who wants to see someone sad and unhappy”?
However, it’s the array different emotions what makes for the human experience. Feeling bad sometimes is normal! and it’s ok to say that you feel sad or that you are having a bad day.
I believe that many people are well intentioned and maybe are used to saying these things due to lack of knowledge, emotional intelligence or empathy. Let’s see what you can say that can be more useful and make others feel better:
There might be a connection between toxic people and toxic positivity. Do you have a friend or family member who “tries to help” with toxic positivity? It’s important to recognize it and do something to protect yourself. People who have low confidence and/or self-esteem are at higher risk of experiencing anxiety or deppression due to toxic positivity. I obviously cannot change your family or friends but I can help people work on themselves, increase self-love, confidence, self-esteem, emotional intelligence and more to avoid being negatively affected by toxic relationships
I help people all the time who deal with this issue, let’s connect! Consultation is always free.