It's coming up a lot especially during the pandemic.
What is toxic positivity and how can we avoid it?
Right up front I have to say this. The title of my book is pathological positivity. It was written
a full six years before the pandemic but there's an important distinction between what I'm calling
pathological positivity and toxic positivity. I had never heard the phrase
toxic positivity until we were well into the pandemic and I think it's because
there's a lot of people who are trying to deal with the difficult situations that are
coming up as a result of the pandemic or other challenges that they have in life.
Let's get a definition of what toxic positivity is.
Toxic positivity is the belief that no matter how dire the circumstances, that you should just
think positive. How annoying is that? This is a damaging philosophy that denies the pain
and the difficulties that real people have as they go through life's experiences.
It's not fair and it's very invalidating to deny people's pain. Toxic positivity is a tendency to
have people just ignore that and paste a smile on their face so that they can move on through life.
It doesn't work and it actually hurts people. I've been a psychologist now for 30 years. I'm pretty
sure that the reason this has become an issue now is because of a subculture out there who
think that if you just ignore the difficulties they'll go away somehow and you and I both know
that that never happens. These people may be well-meaning but I think it's important for
us to get to the bottom of what positivity really is and the difference between toxic positivity
and what I'm calling pathological positivity. Just to give you an example of how this can
really impact people. A young mom in one of our coaching groups recently had been experiencing
some real difficulties with her kids. She had been involuntarily inducted into the involuntary
homeschoolers association and some of you parents know exactly what I'm talking about there and this
created some real challenges for her. As she was trying to balance everything else
in her life and now she's handling the kids at home with school. Her friend told her, "Well,
look on the bright side. This is an awesome time to spend more time with your kids",
and even though that's probably true it denied the difficulty and the
challenge and the the hardship that had created for this young mom.
She felt completely invalidated and honestly she didn't feel as close to that friend afterward.
There has to be something better than this toxic just pretend everything's okay philosophy. So how
can we avoid this toxic positivity and get back to something that's actually helpful for us?
I mentioned the title of my book is pathological positivity and I take a little flack for that
because in the world of psychology pathological means disordered, disconnected from reality,
crazy, and it sounds a little crazy at first to consider what I'm proposing here and that
is that we can take a higher level of control over our own mind and intentionally choose
a positive position. But there's a big difference between this and toxic positivity. Let's call it
authentic positivity for a moment and that might help. Authentic positivity is understanding how
to operate the equipment of your own mind. When you understand the processes that are going on
it puts you back into an intentional position of control so that you can actually steer your mind
and get it to work for you instead of against you. Here's one of the main differences between this
and toxic positivity. I'm not here to tell you how to think. I do not have that kind of authority. I
just want you to see that you are thinking. That your thinking has an impact and as you learn how
to operate the equipment of your own mind it puts you back into control over things that you
didn't feel any control over. Let's talk about two specific processes that you can immediately take
more control over. I'm going to share two powerful processes with you next but before we do that.
If you're engaged in this kind of conversation and you want to be part of the solution click on that
subscribe button right down there and we'll team up on this. The first process I want you to notice
is called evaluation, it's judgment, and notice that you can't turn this off, you're constantly
judging. You judge yourself, you judge your spouse, you judge your children. You judge
the circumstances of your life. You judge the pandemic, you judge the government, you judge
the economy, you're judging me, you can't stop and neither can I, it's a human characteristic.
this judgment or evaluation has to be based on some kind of a comparison. I did a conference for
some educators recently where we talked about this very issue the word evaluation implies comparison
and as these teachers and school administrators are evaluating the children. They have to base
that on some comparison with established standards. So just notice that your judgment
of everything that's going on in your life is based on some comparison with some standard.
Just notice it. Here's the catch, it is what it is. Now you've heard that before and it's probably
even irritating sometimes depending on who's saying it and why. All it means is that things are
the way that they are right now without changing anything. It's who you are, it's where you are,
it's who you're with, it's what you have. It's the way things are and it could always be better,
is this true? Think about it now take my word for it. I want you to run it through your own filters
and see if that's true. It could always be better, right? Yeah, no matter how well you're doing.
Is that true the other direction? Oh yeah, it could always be worse so notice that
and I think that's one of the things that got this toxic positivity going. Because it could
always be worse well just think about all those worse things and you're in a better position.
Okay, that's actually true from a psychological standpoint when we compare where we are with
something far worse than what we've already got. We feel better about what we've got.
What do we often do though? We compare what we've got to something much
better than what we've got. Like that young mom, I was telling you about.
Before the pandemic had her kids go off to school leaving her a little bit of time to do her other
things. Well, now the kids are home all day and so compared to having a little break in which she
can do her things this feels overwhelming. But you know what I've also worked with moms who have lost
their children. Either to disease or illness or even abduction. Can you even imagine that?
Well, yes you can and that's my point because as you imagine that
and you compare that to the involuntary homeschoolers association
you suddenly feel a lot better about the situation that you have.
So that comparison is true. But in toxic positivity we're denying the pain of what it is.
We won't deny the pain we'll simply accept and acknowledge that we are constantly judging
and evaluating our situation. I'm not telling you to do that differently. I want you to notice that
you're doing it and in noticing it, it gives you the power to perhaps choose a position that might
serve you better. Notice that you're constantly judging and that involves comparison that's all.
Here's the second process and this is where it gets really exciting because positivity authentic
what I call pathological positivity is the ability to take whatever we've got and move forward to
create an upgrade and this is the process it's called creation. Creation of what is to be not
what it is that already exists. I'm talking about what is yet to be and that doesn't exist yet.
We haven't created it yet. So how do we create something? I've studied the process
I've interviewed thousands of people about this over the course of 30 years
and here's how it happens.
You have to imagine at first you have to. You can't create anything without first imagining it.
It's a necessary component of the creation process. So as we imagine what is to be.
That gives us the template, the blueprints, the plans, for how we can go about creating it and you
know I want to insert something here because the discontent that we feel. The pain, the difficulty,
the frustration, which is real is also an
important part of a creation process. in fact, without that we don't create anything.
Putting that into context as you feel the real pain of where you are. It can
entice your mind then to think about, "Okay, well if not this then what?". See, that's a creation
idea and as we move into creation mode think of it as a different mode in your brain. Creation
requires imagination now think about it. When you imagine because you don't know what's coming.
How you doing next week? You don't know. You've got something to do with it please don't forget
that. But you don't know so all you can do is imagine it and as you imagine that what's coming
for you is worse than what you've already got how do you feel, that my friends is anxiety. There's
30 years of clinical experience in a nutshell. When we imagine that what's coming is worse
we feel anxiety. Do you notice it? I just want you to notice it.
I'm not telling you how to think I want you to see that you are thinking. What happens when
we imagine or anticipate or expect that what's coming is even better than what we've already got.
How do we feel? Do you feel it? That's hope and you have the power to create that by steering
your mind in one of those directions and first noticing that you're already doing
it. You're already anticipating, expecting, imagining, that something's going to happen.
I'm simply saying notice it, notice where your mind is taking you with that and that it has an
impact. You're probably already noticing how these principles can improve your life
but guess what? It's also important to train our children to know these things. I am so passionate
about helping parents like you. We've got a whole series of videos here on the channel that
will help you with your self-care to put you in a position where you can better serve your children.
Click on that next video so that you can get more
strategies for how to take care of you as a parent.