The Harm of Positive Thinking
Free yourself from the confusing loop of the self-help, imperfect empire.
Perhaps you have met that one person who keeps up the pretence ‘nothing is wrong’, even when their world is tumbling down. Or perhaps you have become that person through your journey of a self-help cult. Only to find yourself feeling depleted and worse than ever.
The movement of positive thinking has earned a bad rap and its own label: ‘toxic positivity’.
Toxic positivity is the assumption, either by one’s self or others, that despite a person’s emotional pain or difficult situation, they should only have a positive mindset or — my pet peeve term — ‘positive vibes,’ explains Dr. Jaime Zuckerman, a clinical psychologist.
This attitude doesn’t just stress optimism. It downplays and fights the inherent nature of human emotions.
Indeed, losing your job can serve a blessing in disguise. Still, you are entitled to feel disappointed. A break-up can serve as a miraculous redirection. Still, you should grant yourself the time to grieve that relationship. Any disease is a form of communication of your body and a plea to make lifestyle changes. Still, you are allowed to acknowledge the pain it brings.
I am not depreciating gratitude, as even in the darkest times, emphasizing experiences, people and things I get to be thankful for, served as magical rays of sunshine on shitty days.
However, I am dissing on fake smiles, distracting yourself with forced positivity, only to keep your thoughts away from emotions bubbling inside you.
Signs of toxic positivity:
- you feel guilty for having a bad moment,
- you run away from uncomfortable emotions, even if somebody from your environment is going through tough times,
- positive affirmations make you feel worse,
- you became a master at putting on a fake smile.
Long-term effects?
Our mindset shifts.
The way we approach life and reflect on ourselves becomes an obstacle in living our magnificent potential.
Toxic positivity can cause us to feel inadequate. What is wrong with me? Everyone seems to be handling life, while my mood is falling apart. You are not deficient. You are enough. Yes, it is easier for our brain to spot out negativity in life:
we are evolutionary wired to give greater weight to negative experiences instead of positive ones,
points out Eva Berkovic, from Marbella International University Centre.
In today’s world, having a constant negativity bias is no longer necessary for our survival. In fact, it is also your prerogative to embrace emotions that arise every day. They are our precious indicators of what you desire to change, signalling you are heading the wrong path.
They’re functional, they’re adaptive, and essentially they help us survive and reproduce. Stresses Jessica Tracy, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia.
Your physical health deteriorates.
Forcing yourself into conjuring up positive thoughts when you clearly go through grief, sadness or doubt, becomes a form of avoidance. Through positive thinking, we’re less likely to address the underlying issue.
When you desperately try clinging to the bright side, you suppress uncomfortable feelings in your body, thus creating energy blockages and offering physical diseases conditions to thrive.
A study showed that suppressing feelings leads to increased anxiety, depression and deterioration of mental health.
Suppressing emotions is associated with high rates of heart disease, as well as autoimmune disorders. Studies show that holding in feelings has a correlation to high cortisol — the hormone released in response to stress — and that cortisol leads to lower immunity and toxic thinking patterns. Over time, untreated or unrecognized stress can lead to an increased risk of diabetes, problems with memory, aggression, anxiety, and depression.
You deprive yourself of growth and success.
Running away from sadness or pain means resistance to give in to the flow of life.
Life is a desire to experience. We want to experience a myriad of emotions because they make us one of a kind. We were meant to go through highs and lows. Only through those opportunities, we get to learn, transform and grow into exceptional beings. To recognize unrestrained freedom, we need to taste the constraints.
Feeling negative emotions does not mean making them feel at home, and they're definitely not going to stay with you for long.
Feeling the emotion in your body is the key to let go, so that you become detached from your past and finally get to live to your fullest potential in the present moment.
David R. Hawkins, in his book Letting Go: The Pathway To Surrender, brilliantly described the healing process, which changed my physical and emotional health.
Handling an emotional crisis leads to greater wisdom and results in lifetime benefits. Fear of life is really the fear of emotions. It is not the facts that we fear but our feelings about them. Once we have mastery over our feelings, our fear of life diminishes.
― David R. Hawkins
Embracing emotions heal us. Embracing emotions is our privilege, not a prison sentence, and definitely not a magnet for a disaster.
Once you confront your crappy mood, you self-growth skyrockets.
How you approach your weaker moments becomes a clear reflection of the self-growth journey you have travelled.
3 key attitudes to nurture daily:
Acceptance.
You cannot avoid reality and get rid of uncertainty. You can only embrace it. That is exactly what we should practice daily. Accept whatever feeling may arise. Shed light onto the scene, and invite that anger to take a closer look at what has prompted us to feel a certain way. Once you let emotions come up, they eventually disappear. Once you accept, without forcing the change, you get to cultivate understanding.
Responsibility.
You do not control every human being on this planet, weather conditions, your manager’s attitude or your partner’s choices. Why should we take the responsibility for others, as we hardly even take accountability for our choices? And what is the responsibility anyway?
Responsibility simply means your ability to respond. Reactivity is enslavement. Responsibility is freedom.
— Sadhguru, Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy
Realize, you have a choice how you wish to answer to any circumstance that arises. You can go down the path of reckless anger or denial, or you can opt for crafting your future with mindful choices.
Mindfulness.
People are not only running from emotions. They are keeping themselves busy with a hectic and unproductive lifestyle and a myriad of distractions. We frantically react, instead of consciously design the response we wish our better self would own up to.
Allowing ourselves to feel, keeps us grounded and present. In the present moment, no fear prevails. Any fear is just an illusion, a trick of our mind. It takes awareness to spot it out and befriend it.
And why do you fear? What is fear? Fear is a certain thought you project yourself into some future moment, and you’re not present. Because if you were present, you would realize that in this moment there’s nothing to fear. Only when you leave this moment, fear arises as a thought form, which then creates an emotion.
— Eckhart Tolle
You can feel down and still grateful for the experiences you have gone through. Although, it becomes a much more soothing kind of sadness. The one you are not rushed to escape from.
Coin your wisdom into practice.
Whenever a crappier mood washes over me, I make myself a priority. I find some space, quiet my mind through meditation or take a walk. Making room for the feelings to come up in my body and mindfully observing them brings satisfaction. Facing fear brings peace. Once I see it, I get to question the emotion or even mock it.
- What has caused my anger?
- Why did I feel threatened by that person’s comment?
- What thought did throw me off balance?
When the shame arises, feel it. Take it all in. Do not brush off the embarrassing thought with any judgement or explanation. Once you acknowledge the negative feeling, it loses its power.
Mindfulness is a powerful tool to get to know oneself. And when you know thyself, you act from a place of harmony, thus reflecting it in your life.
The feeling of satisfaction once you release the discomfort is indescribable. You look at the world from a much clearer angle. Suddenly, colours are brighter. Simple food tastes better. Birds sing louder. The purge is magical.
Now, you get to jump right back on track. The train keeps on rolling, although you might have taken the step back and are no longer interested in the lucrative self-help business or fake positivity. You have nailed your personal system.
I am a firm believer and an avid practitioner of a daily gratitude, self-love and positive affirmations grounding me in self-confidence, as long as I am not denying myself the right to feel out of whack. Even though the self-help business became super lucrative, I still owe a huge mindset shift due to the self-improvement bookstore section.
Cynics get bitter in shaming the Law of Attraction and the power of designing your happiness. Cynicism comes easy. Criticism takes a lot of energy, while you could use it to focus on abundance instead of lack. Facing your worse days with understanding is a form of self-care. Cynicism is just a lack of faith in your own worth.
Thank you for reading!
I write to empower and inspire with self-love. Your biggest strength lies in your authenticity, so embrace the whole package. Wear your unique attitude proudly.
