When Does Positivity Become Toxic?
By: Brooklyn Reece
Tags: Emotions, Relationships, Society, Life, Culture

Photo by Lidya Nada on Unsplash

I think we can all agree that positivity is an important virtue to have in life. It helps facilitate happiness, love, forgiveness, friendship, and self-care.

But positivity isn’t all unicorns and rainbows. Actually, there comes a point when positivity does more harm than good. And at this point, we call it toxic positivity. The reality is that as much as we may hate it sometimes, we need more negative emotions to give our lives balance and to inform our lives. (You can learn more about this concept in my article on emotions, linked below.)

What exactly makes positivity toxic, though? And where is the cutoff between helpful positivity and toxic positivity?

Well, the answer has a lot to do with our intentions.

At the core, positivity isn’t the problem; it’s the idealization of it that becomes problematic.

Your “positive vibes only” mindset is one big fallacy, and it’s hurting those around you.

If you are one of those people with a “positive vibes only” mindset, take a moment to ask yourself why you choose to make this a part of your lifestyle. Do you tend to say to friends, “Positive vibes only!” when they come to you with sadness or anger? Do you encourage people to focus on the bright side when they are experiencing emotional turmoil? If this is you, try to channel that aggressive positive energy into some productive encouragement and active understanding of the other person’s feelings.

Most of the time, the idea of “positive vibes only” seems innocent and well-meaning. And at the core, it really is. But it also disregards any sort of emotions that might be unfavorable in any way. Often, though, those emotions need to be confronted. They need to be unpacked. And people who are experiencing those emotions may need support to cope with them.

Consider the fact that your “positive vibes” may be excluding people from the equation, and that’s not productive. Ignoring emotions other than happiness and optimism (because inevitably, we will feel different emotions at different times) may create more harm because refusing to address those feelings can create more anxiety and confliction.

Instead of “positive vibes only,” you can reclaim the meaning behind the phrase by making inclusivity your priority, and practicing that in your relationships (“inclusive vibes only,” if you will!). It may sound less ideal to someone who is used to trying to filter out the bad parts of life with joy, but it’s also more successful in the long run. If you address negative emotions from the very start, you have a more chance of actually living an authentic life filled with an abundance of positive vibes.

And when you practice positivity individually, consider the reason why you choose to do so.

A lot of times, our motivations for practicing positivity are greatly indicative of whether or not we are being toxic about it. (And it’s also possible that some of our positive habits are healthy, while others might be toxic — it might be a combination.)

Are you choosing to be positive because you generally feel optimistic or hopeful about a situation and want to appreciate that feeling?

Or are you choosing to be positive because you feel the need to compress other negative emotions and overcorrect them with positivity?

If it’s the former, then you are on the right track, and your intentions are matching the purpose of positivity. But if it’s the latter, consider why you feel the need to practice positivity, and perhaps what you can do to address your other feelings first.

I do this all the time. For a while, I was a huge people-pleaser and a totally optimistic human being in all of the moments and relationships I had in life. I felt the need to be positive because I dreaded expressing vulnerability to others. I felt judged. I felt exposed. I felt like being realistic automatically meant being “negative” and I would be labelled as such. I wanted to seem like sunshine and rainbows all the time because I thought people gravitated towards that and wanted that from me. And in the process, I ended up compressing all of those negative emotions into a little ball in the pit of my heart, and that ball eventually grew so heavy that it began to destroy me.

And that’s when I realized: life is not about positivity, it’s about authenticity. If your goal is to be a positive person all the time, that’s a wonderful aspiration, but it’s also not a very tangible goal considering all of the curveballs that life tends to throw at people. Our motivation should be to express all of our feelings vulnerably and genuinely, without worrying about what others will think, and without concern for how we will appear in the public eye. We need to become comfortable with all of the emotions that circle within us on a daily basis. Because in order to address them and truly incorporate more authentic, frequent positivity in our daily life, we first must begin with facing any negative emotions and living every day with the goal of eliminating the toxic, negative-emotion-triggering aspects of our lives.

It seems almost paradoxical that positivity has the potential to be toxic, but it’s a very real issue.

So let’s pay attention to it. Let’s do better in our relationships.

The problem behind it, again, is our motivations for practicing positivity. It’s our subtle favoritism for some emotions over others, even though they all matter and provide us with meaningful life skills.

So I’ll say it again:

Positivity isn’t the problem. It’s the idealization of it that becomes problematic.

If we can remember that, we will live a much healthier emotional and interpersonal lifestyle.