“Look at the bright side”  - Is It Toxic Positivity?

“I should be happy” 

“It could be worse” 

“Look at the bright side” 

“I should be over this by now” 

Ever used one of these phrases on yourself? These phrases exemplify toxic positivity. While these hollow phrases maybe well-intentioned advice, they are also dismissive in nature. Like so many things in life, excessive positivity can do more harm than good. Disallowing existence of certain feelings may lead to denial, minimization or even invalidation of one’s emotional experience. In a way, we are trying to say that this emotion shouldn’t exist, it’s wrong and if we try just a little bit harder, we can eliminate it completely. 

‘Good vibes only’ attitude may not be very good for your mental wellbeing. 

While having a positive mindset is beneficial, toxic positivity is the tendency to undervalue negative emotional experiences and overvalue positive ones. The pressure of pretending to be happy when you’re not prevents you from working through the serious issues that you’re experiencing in a healthy way. And if you don't accept the fact that there’s a distress, then the problem that needs to be addressed can’t be addressed. 

Toxic positivity acts as an unhelpful coping mechanism, because the more we deny our feelings, the worse we will eventually feel. A study by Ford and colleagues (2018) studied the relation between emotional acceptance and psychological health, and found that people who regularly avoid acknowledging difficult emotions can end up feeling worse. 

UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUPPORT AND TOXIC POSITIVITY 

There’s a fine line between support and toxic positivity. Psychotherapist, Whitney Goodman, shared the following graph which illustrates that as well-meaning as we maybe, advices like, ‘be positive’ maybe toxic. There’s a need to change the way we converse by choosing to provide hope and validation, instead of toxic positive phrases. 
 

The harsh reality is one can’t make someone feel happy by telling them to cheer up. What most people need is to be validated, listened to, and have their problems normalised. The world would be a much kinder place if we normalised the notion that all feelings are normal and not just the happy ones.