- Being positive, having a positive mindset,
does not mean you can never feel emotions
like sadness, worry, grief, or anxiety.
Keep watching, and you're going to find out
how to build a positive mindset.
But also to know that sometimes
when a positive mindset can be actually counterproductive.
Somebody recently wrote to me and said, "I'm really confused
"I'm a positive person.
"And my team are complaining about me now
"because when they come in and say,
"'Well, my cat just died,' I go, 'Well hey,
"'you can get another one.'
"There's so many cats that need homes.
"Or I might say, 'I'm really upset
"'that things aren't working out with my boyfriend.'
"They go, 'Oh, that will pass.'"
And the complaint was that these people don't feel heard.
So this was a boss at work,
and every time her clients came in and said,
"I'm going through the menopause, and I feel awful."
They went, "Oh, well, that's nothing.
"Just put on a happy face and smile,
"and pretend it doesn't matter."
It's like that song, "Smile when your heart is breaking,
"it's all worthwhile if you just smile."
But you see, that's not strictly true.
Because as humans, we need to be heard,
we need so much to feel heard and we need
people to be present with us.
And when you go to your mother,
your father, your boss, your partner, and say,
"I feel so sad,"
they go, "What have you got to feel sad about?
"Just put on a happy face, turn that frown upside down."
We don't feel heard.
And I really believe in being positive,
but occasionally I also understand,
sometimes we need to feel grief.
We need to express sadness.
We need to say, "I'm having a really bad day today,
"I just feel terrible."
You know, yesterday my little cat was attacked by two dogs,
and it was horrible.
And for the whole night I kept saying to my husband,
"I keep seeing her little face.
"I feel so bad that I didn't get her in sooner."
It was just becoming dusk and I should have pulled her in
and I wish I'd done this and that.
And he didn't go, "Oh, nevermind, let's be positive.
"There are lots more cats that you can find."
Because I needed to express that grief.
Many, many years ago, my daughter and I were feeding ducks.
And my daughter, I don't know how this happened to this day
because we were behind a fence,
but she somehow fell in the water.
And I took off my shoes and jumped in and got her out
and took her home to my mother.
We were visiting her.
And my daughter kept saying, "Mommy,
"I thought those ducks were coming to eat me.
"Mommy,
"why did you take off your shoes
"before you jumped in the water?
"Were you worried about your shoes getting wet?"
I said, "Oh no, darling,
"my shoes were too heavy.
"I needed to get you as fast as I could."
And my mom said, "Don't talk about it anymore.
"Stop talking about it."
I said, "No, Mom,
"she clearly needs to express this.
"She needs to tell me that she thought
"I cared about my shoes more than her."
She needed me to express everything to her.
And if I did the toxic positive, "It's all good,
"let's never mention it,
"everything is great, everything is fine,"
I would have never understood
that I had to validate my daughter's fears.
And occasionally when something happens that's awful,
we need to be able to say, "You know,
"I was going to die.
"I thought I was going to get sick.
"Hey, I've got a lump, I think I might have cancer."
"No, don't worry about that.
"You don't have cancer."
And even if you did, you can meditate and
wave crystals around and do all this stuff.
You see, when someone is ill, when someone has cancer,
they need you to say, "What can I do?"
One of my friends said
that the thing that annoyed him the most
is whenever he told someone he had cancer, they'd go,
"Oh, you'll be fine."
And he'd go, "How do you know?"
And he got very defensive.
"How do you know?
"How can you possibly say that?"
So when someone tells you, "I'm worried about being ill,
"I'm worried about my partner,
"And I'm worried about my kid,"
don't go, "It'll all be fine, don't worry."
Or even worse, "I know how you feel."
I had a client whose son was run over,
and she said, "You know what drives me crazy?
"People go, 'I know how you feel.'
"And I want to go really?
"Has your son been run over? No.
"Then how could you ever know how they would feel?"
And as a therapist, people come in to me and say,
"You know, my last therapist,
"they would say things like, 'You'll be fine,
"'it's okay, I know how you feel.'"
When people come to me and say, "My child died,"
I tell them the truth.
"You know what?
"Your life will never be quite the same again.
"You will have moments of joy.
"This grief will pass, but it will always be different.
"It will be happy at times, and you'll still have pleasure,
"but it won't be the same."
And I never ever say, "I know how you feel."
Because I don't know how it feels.
I never want to know how that feels.
So the toxic positivity is not listening to someone's grief.
Not hearing someone's pain.
Not saying, "Gosh, that sounds awful.
"What can I do?
"Can I be an ear?
"Can I help you in any way?
"I feel so helpless."
My husband just said, "I feel so helpless,"
about our little cat.
And I said, "No, you're doing great because you understand.
"And you've canceled your day just to take her to the vet.
"And you understand how I feel."
And I love that for him because he loved me enough
to recognize my worry, and to accept,
he never said, "Well, let's go and get another one.
"There are cats all over L.A. that need,
"we can find another one."
If someone comes in and says, "My dog's just been run over,"
you wouldn't go, "Well, get another one."
So the toxic positivity is not tuning in
to someone's need to talk.
And remember what people need?
They need to be heard,
and they need you to be present with them.
When someone comes to you as a boss, as a parent,
as a partner and says, "I feel worried.
"I feel sad.
"I feel terrible."
When someone says, "I feel really unattractive,"
don't go, "Oh you look great."
When someone says, "I have postnatal depression,"
don't go, "You just got a baby.
"What have you got to be depressed about?"
That's like saying to somebody,
"What have you got to be diabetic about?"
You see, here's the thing about your feelings,
and it's such a wonderful saying,
"You must feel your feelings until
"they no longer require to be felt."
You can't Netflix your feelings,
you can't eat your feelings.
You can't drink them.
You can't medicate, and you can't drop them.
You can try.
But when you try to eat your feelings,
they just regroup and come back stronger and stronger
until you take a minute and say "You know what,
"today, I'm feeling sad.
"I'm feeling bereft.
"I'm feeling guilty.
"I'm feeling so bad."
I'm feeling bad because I didn't get my cat in at dusk,
which I always do.
They were having such fun,
I left them out there for a few minutes too long.
And one of them nearly got killed,
and I feel bad and I feel guilty.
But that feeling will make sure I never,
ever, ever do that again.
So that feeling has taught me a valuable lesson.
If my husband said, "Oh, don't feel guilty.
"Oh, that's silly."
But he didn't.
He listened, and actually he agreed with me,
but not in a bad way.
So first of all, you must feel your own feelings
until they're no longer required to be felt.
And then, you must hear someone else's
when someone says, "I feel so broken-hearted,
"my partner left."
"Oh, well he was rubbish.
"You're so much better off without him.
"You'll find someone else, plenty, more fish in the sea."
That is toxic positivity.
You're trying to help, of course,
by saying "No, you'll find someone else.
"They were no good, I never liked him.
"Anyway, guess what, they weren't even nice about you."
No, you say, "Let me hear you out.
"How awful, you feel abandoned, you feel left.
"You feel replaced, that's terrible.
"But remember something,
"you know, everything that person loved in you
"when they packed their bags and left, guess what?
"They didn't take it with them, it's still there.
"And you need to go through feeling bereft,
"feeling sad, feeling lonely.
"And then eventually you'll find someone better.
"But first, you have to feel the feeling."
You know, one of my clients,
when she told someone her child had died,
they said, "Well lucky you've got four others.
"It must hurt less."
She said, "What?
"It doesn't hurt less, it's terrible.
"I've lost my child."
When someone says, "I had a miscarriage,"
they go, "Well, you never really got to know that baby.
"It wasn't really a person,
"it was only the size of a tangerine," that is toxic positive.
You can have another one.
Many years ago,
my lovely father and I were having a conversation, he said to me,
"I never ever worry about you.
"I know you'll be great."
And I said, "But I want you to worry about me.
"That doesn't feel great that you never worry about me."
I didn't really hear what he was saying.
I heard, "Oh, I don't worry about you."
And I wanted him to worry about me.
When I speak to my daughter on the phone,
I say, "You sound a little sad today."
She says, "No mom, I'm fine."
I'm like, "Okay, well that's good.
"But you know, my job is to worry about you.
"You don't have to tell me anything, but you know,
"I'm always here for you.
"And I'll always worry about you
"because you're my beautiful child,
"it's my job to worry about you."
I know how I felt when my dad said, "I never worry about you."
And I decided I would never do that to my children.
So I do the opposite, not excessively.
And when people come to you with issues
that you think are silly and trivial and pointless.
Toxic positively, disregard them
and to try and make it positive,
you must listen.
We have two ears and one mouth
because we're supposed to listen more and speak less.
And you can be a positive person, really positive,
but don't be toxic positive.
Don't not tune in to what other people
that matter to you are feeling.
Listen, be open.
Remember that people want to be heard.
You know what else they want?
To feel significant.
They want to feel they matter.
And if you don't listen to people's worries,
they're going to feel they don't matter to you.
And if they matter to you, then what they feel also matters.
Now my mother, her entire life would wake me up and go,
"I've got another illness.
"I've got this wrong and that wrong."
And my mother was lovely, but a hypochondriac.
And the first thing I did was go,
"Hey mom, I hear you're talking about headache.
"I know this great person.
"Can I send you there?
"I've heard of this great treatment for your allergies."
But I realized that as I got her something
to fix an allergy, she just got something else.
You know what my mother needed me to do?
She needed me to go, "Oh, I hate that for you, that's awful.
"You just got rid of one illness and now you got another one."
And I learned to do what I call the
(commiserates) voice, because that's what my mother wanted.
She didn't want me to fix her.
She didn't want me to recommend a doctor, pay for a doctor,
pay for drugs, pay for, no, she just wanted to be heard.
And my life was improved when I said,
"Oh, that's terrible.
"Another illness? Poor you.
"It must feel awful to always be ill
"and have to take so many pills."
Because that's what she wanted to hear.
And I gave her what she wanted, which was not positivity.
One day, my daughter called me and said,
"Mommy I've got a headache."
And I said, "Okay, well we have some lavender oil."
She goes, "Mommy.
"I just want to take medicine like all the others,
"I don't want lavender oil or peppermint oil
"or homeopathic, or hypnosis.
"I just want Calpol, like all my friends."
So I gave her some, that's what she wanted.
I listened to her.
She felt less important.
All her friends got this pink, syrupy medicine,
she got lavender oil on the forehead,
which worked but she didn't want it.
I gave her a tiny bit of medicine, because she wanted it.
If someone says, "I want you to come with me to the doctor,
"hold my hand.
"I want you to call me after and say,
"'Hey, what happened, are you okay?"
Give them what they want.
Don't go, "I know you'll be fine.
"And by the way, you can meditate.
"And I don't even believe in illness,
"and I believe in never discussing it."
That's what you want.
But it isn't always what other people want.
We want to be heard.
We want to feel significant.
We need to know that we are enough for you to listen to us,
allow us to vent, or share our worries
Without you running around, fixing them,
or shutting us down going, "Well let's not mention it.
"Let's not discuss it.
"It's never going to happen.
"It's all for the best."
Recently, I heard someone in the back of a car
say to someone else,
"You know, you're bringing this all on yourself."
And they were so upset and I had to intervene and say,
"Look, even if you believe that to be true,
"it's not a very kind thing to say."
This person was talking about how every person let them down
and the other person said, "Well you must be creating that,
"it's your fault.
"You know that you can manifest that or not."
And that was toxic positivity.
The better way is to say,
"I'm so sorry this is happening,
"it must feel terrible, it must be awful.
"How sad to always be let down."
And then later say, "You know,
"I wonder if there's something you might be doing
"that you don't know you're doing,
"that's contributing to always be letting down.
"It's awful to be let down.
"It's not your fault,
"but perhaps we could have a look at
"something that may be going on here."
That's kinder, and that's kind positivity,
not toxic positivity.
So if you think one of your friends, colleagues,
family members is a hypochondriac or an excessive worrier,
don't say, "You know,
"all of this can be fixed easily with positive thinking."
First, go into it with them, where is this coming from?
How is it serving them?
And then at the end you can suggest,
"You know, positive thinking could help you with this.
"Could I help you to just change a few of your thoughts?"
Because it may help with the hypochondria,
or the illness, or the worry, or the anxiety,
but do it with kindness.
Someone else's world is not your world.
You can have your world of being super positive.
That's my world, by the way.
But I see people every day with issues,
and I never go, "Oh, hey, let's just be super positive."
Because that annoys them, it upsets them.
They don't feel heard.
I listen, I hear them, I acknowledge them,
and then I gently introduce them to something by saying,
"Do you notice you always say, 'I always get headaches.
"'I could do this, but... That never works,
"'nothing ever works for me.'"
I look at why they're saying that, and I help them,
but I do it with kindness, niceness, warmth, and empathy.
I don't ever try to be superior.
And I never go, "You're doing this all wrong, you know.
"Here's the right way."
Because if it's right for me,
that doesn't mean it's right for them.
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