Toxic Positivity Explained on the Therapeutic Life Healing Podcast
Recently I sat down with my friend Eidit (pronounced Adeet) Choochage on her podcast Therapeutic Life Healing for Women to talk about Toxic Positivity. We explored the following questions:
How do you define toxic positivity and toxic positivity culture in general? Can you share an example of what it could sound like?
How can someone notice the signs that they are being negatively impacted by toxic positivity? And how can they respond to toxic positivity thereafter?
How can toxic positivity impact relationships and what are some ways to respond to it in the relationship?
Here are some of the highlights from our conversation.
What is toxic positivity?
Toxic positivity is like giving someone a bandaid when their leg is broken.
It’s a lack of empathy and compassion.
It’s when we invalidate people’s hardship by assuming that they should maintain a positive mindset.
It’s counterproductive.
Toxic positivity is a form of denial, or distraction, it often comes out of a place of anxiety when people can’t tolerate other people’s negative emotions.
Toxic positivity is based on unrealistic expectations for how we should experience pain - in a way it’s a type of distorted thinking
It communicates that feeling very normal emotions to feel is wrong.
It’s ineffective at actually helping people.
Toxic positivity can sound like:
“Other people have it so much worse”
“Just pray”
“Everything happens for a reason”
“If you haven’t come out of quarantine with a new skill, then you’re just not motivated enough”
These statements are NOT okay and do not help someone heal!
How can toxic productivity make us feel?
Toxic positivity makes us feel worse, not better
Studies show that suppressing feelings can cause more psychological distress
You might feel small, ashamed, or judged for feeling very normal feelings
Toxic positivity can make people feel unsafe or ashamed of their difficulties, and make them want to hide them from others.
It makes people less willing to be vulnerable and ask for help.
How to respond to toxic positivity:
Set boundaries. Disagree or say how their toxic positivity makes you feel.
Let them know what you DO need instead.
This was such a meaningful topic and I hope you find our conversation helpful.
To listen to Eidit’s podcast featuring our conversation on toxic positivity, click here.