Toxic Positivity Is Killing Us
By: Misha Lazzara
Tags: Covid-19, Toxic Positivity, Psychology, Culture, Yoga

Image from Kat Jayne on Pexels

If I had a nickel for every time I was emotionally and spiritually bypassed this year — I’d be richer than J.K. Rowling. And don’t even get me started on her behavior of late. That’s not what this essay is about.

You know you’ve been spiritually bypassed when you hear something like, “It’s all in God’s plan” or “Choose light.” (Tell someone you had a miscarriage and count how many people tell you, “It was meant to be.”) It’s essentially using religion or any sort of pseudo-spiritual dogma (many yogis are experts at this) to scrub away any feelings that are deemed “negative” and replace them with a smile. Even if that smile is fake.

Here’s a basic definition of spiritual bypassing from the man who coined the term: “In his classic book, Toward a Psychology of Awakening…[John Welwood] defined spiritual bypassing as using “spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal, emotional ‘unfinished business,’ to shore up a shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and developmental tasks.” The goal of such practices, he claimed, was enlightenment.” [source]

Emotional bypassing is the same idea. It’s when someone encourages you to sidestep or ignore valid but uncomfortable emotions like sadness, pain, or frustration and “take the high road” or “look on the bright side.”

The thing is, we do this to ourselves too.

We choose to sidestep our valid and uncomfortable emotions because they’re “bad,” “negative,” or, mostly, because they make us uncomfortable. Many of us, myself included, weren’t taught how to lean into those emotions, to feel them, to self-soothe and console ourselves, and then work through the sadness, anger, or frustration in order to fully release and understand our pain.

We can learn a lot from these emotions. But more importantly, we are meant to feel them. Not dwell in them forever, not define ourselves by them, but feel them.

I might never have realized just how many of us weren’t taught how to feel our painful emotions if it weren’t for 2020. And as things got worse, the “toxic positivity” crew got more aggressive.

Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels

I had stumbled across these terms before this year. I heard them in passing, maybe in the therapist’s office, but didn’t give them much thought until I saw them in action over and over and over (I could add a few more “overs” here) again this year.

And it hasn’t been enough to simply sidestep and invalidate their and others’ emotions such as fear and sadness, now certain people are claiming it’s “sheepish” to even feel them. It’s “brainwashing” by the “mainstream media.” So, as BLM activists protested the murder of George Floyd, as Americans get sicker and COVID spreads faster, while the election news still carries on and the President refuses to concede a lost election — many people are still trying to urge others to “be grateful” and “Watch this YouTube video.” Forget the insanity of reality! At least you are alive!

Well, that’s not enough for me. Perhaps in some sense, we do need balance. Perhaps we do have a lot to be grateful for. I might agree with that statement. But here’s the kicker — I believe that mindset is what got us into these messes in the first place.

We can be angry when things aren’t going well — when the government doesn’t follow through on its duties, when police officers fail to keep citizens safe but, in fact, put them in danger. We can and will stop looking on the bright side when men are murdered by police officers in the streets or women in their own homes. We can and will feel sad when we actually acknowledge the reality of the 3,000 Americans a day that are dying in hospitals, hospitals which are near full to bursting. We can be disappointed that we are choosing not to spend the holidays traveling because of the pandemic. We are missing our families and loved ones. I am. If we keep pushing those valid emotions away, what kind of world are we going to get in return?

Yes, it’s uncomfortable to let those feelings in. It’s certainly not “positive vibes only.” Those people who urge you to avoid “negative” feelings and the pain of reality do know one thing: it’s a lot easier to avoid. It’s a lot less work to just sidestep painful emotions and situations and pretend that everything is “peace and love,” even if, in a year like this, they are lying to us and lying to themselves. And we see it. I see it. And it’s getting us nowhere.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t beautiful moments.

But — full stop — we do not need to caveat our grief and frustration with silver linings. Perhaps if we begin to acknowledge our own and other’s pain, we can start to do the work of consoling, begin to adjust our lives and our societies for the better, to recognize the hurt others suffer and practice real empathy. If we don’t allow ourselves to feel the full weight of our own grief and disappointment, how could we ever recognize it in others? If we don’t start using those emotions to make a better world, we’ll be stuck in this one forever. Full stop.