And are you hiding “negative” emotions? Have you ever felt like you had to hide your negative emotions? As if you were forced to maintain the image of a “happy person” at all costs, 24/7?
This may seem illogical, but positivity can be poisonous. “Everything of value in life is achieved by overcoming the negative experiences that accompany it,” says American author and personal development consultant Mark Manson. “Any attempt to avoid, suppress, or repress negativity leads to a reverse reaction. Avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. Denying failure is failure,” he continues.
But toxic positivity requires you to do just that-force yourself to pretend to be an optimist and suppress negative emotions, no matter how false your optimism may be. Psychologist Antonio Rodellar, an expert in anxiety disorders and clinical hypnosis, says that negative emotions (which he prefers to call “uncontrollable”) should be acknowledged. “The range of emotions includes uncontrollable feelings such as sadness, disappointment, anger, worry, or envy,” he reminds. “You cannot ignore the fact that as human beings we have the whole spectrum of these emotions, which are useful and give us information about what is happening around us and in our bodies. They cannot be ignored,” Rodelar adds.
British therapist, psychologist and author Sally Baker agrees: “The problem with toxic positivity is that it requires us to suppress some of the wide range of emotions we can experience in a difficult situation.”
Accepting our emotions makes us stronger, says Sally Baker. “If you only allow yourself to experience positive emotions, you are lying to yourself,” she says. “When you find yourself in a difficult situation, suppressing all the ‘negative’ feelings that arise will simply exhaust you. And even worse, you won’t be able to build resilience to them,” says Baker. “It isolates us from ourselves, from our true feelings. We hide behind positivity so that people don’t see us in a negative light,” she sums up.
To understand what toxic positivity is, we need to distinguish it from positive thinking. They may sound similar, but they are very different. “Positive thinking was popularized by Martin Seligman, a psychologist who studied depression. He found a new approach to a number of problems, situations, and pathologies,” says Rodellar. In the 1990s, Seligman, then president of the American Psychological Association, told a conference that psychology should take a new step by scientifically studying everything that makes people happy. In his famous book “Child-Optimist”, published in 1995, an American psychologist explains that people are not born pessimists, but become one through their life experiences. He claims that we can fight this pessimism and transform our negative thoughts into more positive ones.
Great! So when I feel sad, all I have to do is focus on being happy, right? Not quite. That would be the quickest way to fall into the trap of toxic positivity. Negative emotions cannot be ignored – you must first acknowledge and accept them. The focus is on tempering your optimism and avoiding extremes.
“You’re not always going to feel good, and that’s okay.” “The concept of positive psychology has been distorted over time,” says Rodellar. “Focusing on the positive aspects of various life situations can be beneficial, including from a therapeutic point of view. The problem is that focusing too much on the positive can lead to a decrease in the ability to withstand negative situations,” the psychologist says. “Correctly applied positive thinking is very useful, but it inevitably creates a fragmented perception of reality and a sense of helplessness. Denying harmful and painful situations is like looking at the world with one eye,” says Rodelar.
Sources: Tamara Quintero (specialist in trauma, hypnotherapy and personal growth), Jamie Long (specialist in relationships, eating disorders and anxiety).
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Suppressing or ignoring “negative” emotions can have a negative impact on health. “All the emotions that we repress somatize [psychological stress manifests as physical symptoms] and manifest through the body, often as a disease. When we deny an emotion, it finds another way out,” says Rodelar. Baker agrees: “Suppressing emotions affects your health. If you hide your problems behind a facade of toxic positivity, they will manifest in your body in other ways – from skin problems to irritable bowel syndrome.
“If we ignore our negative emotions, our body will try to draw attention to the problem. Suppressing emotions exhausts us physically and psychologically. It is harmful to health and does not work in the long run,” says the therapist.
Another consequence, says Rodellar, is that “when we focus only on positive emotions, we get more naive, infantile versions of situations that happen to us in life, and we become more vulnerable in difficult moments.
Are you honest with yourself? Teresa Gutierrez, an expert in psychopedagogy and neuropsychology, believes that toxic positivity “has more serious psychological and psychiatric consequences than depression. “The world of emotions is being virtualized, and this can lead to a person not living a real life – this affects our mental health. Such an abundance of positivity is harmful to everyone. If there are no disappointments and failures, we will not learn to evolve in our lives,” she says.
Is toxic positivity in style? Baker thinks so, attributing it to the proliferation of social networks “that make us compare our lives to other ideal lives we see online. “There is a constant tendency on social networks to show the most perfect version of yourself, which is exhausting and not reality,” says Baker. “If we were more honest, we wouldn’t hesitate to experience any emotion. We are human and we should allow ourselves to experience the full range of emotions. If something doesn’t feel right, that’s normal. We can’t always be positive,” she says.
Gutierrez believes that “in the last few years” toxic positivity has become more prevalent, especially during the pandemic. “We live in atypical and strange times, many people are suffering. Fear, uncertainty, frustration, anxiety… These are all common feelings. But we are getting too caught up in toxic positivity, and that is dangerous,” she says.
“Everything will be all right” – a pleasant thought, but not very valuable advice. Rodellar believes that “people are trying to find a shortcut to mental health, to feel better immediately, as if it were their natural right. “It is nice to think that everything will be all right. But that doesn’t mean that the process of getting there should be pleasant and easy. It is more realistic to say to yourself ‘this too shall pass’ when you are going through a difficult period in your life,” says the psychologist. “Emotions are like waves: they gather strength, accelerate, slow down, become froth, and finally disappear. Problems arise when we don’t want to feel what we’re feeling, then we lose stability for the next wave,” Rodelar explains.
Psychologists consulted by the BBC agree that, ideally, we should embrace all emotions without suppressing the ones we don’t like.
We should always “feel” good, but this is an unhealthy pressure. The point is not to give up positive thinking, but it is necessary to acknowledge how we feel in each moment, even if it is uncomfortable.
“Be more honest with yourself, don’t be afraid to say you’re sad, you’re depressed, you’re worried. It is important to acknowledge when you feel bad and understand that it happens and will continue to happen,” says Baker. “Just live your emotions and learn from them to become more resilient” (this advice is not appropriate for those suffering from clinical depression, as untreated clinical depression can get worse).
University of Michigan psychology professor Stephanie Preston believes the best way to control your emotions is to “just listen to them. “When someone shares negative feelings with you, do not rush to cheer them up or try to make them think more positively by telling them that “everything will be okay. Instead, try to think about what is bothering or scaring them. Try to listen,” she advises. “Being in emotional distress is isolating, and when people try to suppress those feelings, especially when they’re your loved ones, it’s very painful. Listening to those who are hurting can lead to significant changes in their lives,” says Preston. Maybe this will help you, too. There is evidence that showing altruism is beneficial to health, Preston notes.
Listening to a friend is more important than trying to cheer them up. What if you feel depressed? “The most important thing is to practice mindfulness,” says Rodelar. “Acknowledge the situation and your feelings. Do not deny that something is wrong, do not look away, and do not obsess over negative emotions,” the psychologist adds. “Emotions are information that we need to read and understand in order to look more closely at the situation and see what lessons can be learned, what can be changed in the future,” says Rodelar.
How can this advice be put into practice? Here are typical phrases characteristic of the toxic positivity paradigm and alternatives to them.
Source: The Psychology Group
“We must take responsibility for our own happiness and achieve it through constructive psychology,” Rodelar urges. “It is normal to think that the glass is half full, but it is necessary to accept situations when it is half empty and to take responsibility for how we build our lives from that perspective,” he adds. “All of our emotions are genuine and real, and they all have value,” Baker agrees.