Positively Toxic

First published 5th October 2022.

“Toxic positivity is forced, false positivity. It may sound innocuous on the surface, but when you share something difficult with someone and they insist that you turn it into a positive, what they’re really saying is, my comfort is more important than your reality.” - Dr. Susan David

Often, when I work with young people on developing a positive mindset, they’re interested, open-minded and excited to be learning something new. Occasionally however, I’ll work with children as young as 9 who are already jaded and sick to death of being told to ‘just think positive’. Why? To understand, we really need to think carefully about what positivity actually means. It’s such a buzz word nowadays, and we’re constantly told that we can change our world by changing our attitude. Now don’t get me wrong, often changing our mindset can make a seemingly unbearable situation that little bit easier to cope with; sometimes we’ve heard it so much that it becomes a platitude, devoid of any power.

I like to think of myself as a positive person; I try to find the silver lining in any situation, I subscribe to the notion that things always work out for the best and I look for the good in people. In fact, my husband often refers to me as a unicorn, because I have this unending belief that the universe will provide for me - after all, I have no evidence to say it won’t, and plenty to say it will. However, it would be a lie to say I never complain or feel down or think negative thoughts. Of course I do. I’m human, and human emotion is a spectrum, it’s not an absolute. I would argue that there isn’t a single person on this earth that could honestly say they have never experienced any of the emotions on the negative end of the spectrum: sadness, anger, frustration, grief. When we feel these things, it isn’t always enough to just say ‘oh it’s OK, I’ll think positive thoughts and it will all be alright.’ Yet, this is often what we’re told to do, like it’s some magic fix. Here’s the thing however: positivity isn’t a plaster.

To help me explain, let me take one of these negative emotions which I’m all too familiar with: grief. When my dad passed away, suddenly and at a young age, I was absolutely devastated. My world as I knew it came to an end. The night he passed away, I cried, a lot. Then I stopped, and I didn’t cry again until exactly one month after he passed away, not even at his funeral, and then again on New Year’s Eve. I’d held it in for so long to be strong for those around me, especially my mum and grandad, so that when the tears came, they didn’t stop. They came suddenly, without warning and I couldn’t stop crying for hours. This was when I first realised what toxic positivity really is. I had tried to smile, be strong, not show my grief, my hurt, my anguish. I’d used all the platitudes I could think of, and tried to use positivity as a plaster for my grief so those around me would think I was OK and that I’d survived this life-shattering event in my life - and I was suffering for it.

Now, I’m honest. It’s rubbish to suffer from grief, and it doesn’t end. That’s OK. I’m feeling a bit achy today. That’s OK. I’m feeling frustrated because it’s taken me a while to feel able to write a new blog post. That’s OK. All feelings are now equal to me, and they’re all OK. I’ve recognised that none of those feelings will last forever, neither the ‘good’ nor the ‘bad’ ones (grief may be the exception to this, although there are days where it’s easier and days where it’s harder). I’ve taught myself how to recognise, name, accept and let go of each one of these feelings.

In my opinion, good mental health is dependent on being able to experience every emotion in a healthy way. For children, they can find it more difficult to experience feelings and emotions which are on the negative end of the spectrum. They haven’t yet had enough life experience to be able to understand that each one will pass and they will eventually feel OK again. The smallest thing can feel like the end of the world. It is our role as their safe adults to teach them how to navigate these emotions in a healthy way; we can only do that if we are able to do it ourselves. Read on to see a list of do’s and don’ts for helping children develop a positive mindset without it getting toxic:

Acknowledging when children express their negative emotions to us leads to them feeling heard. Think about how good that feels for you, when someone doesn’t dismiss your feelings with a meaningless cliche, but instead takes the time to really hear what you have to say and how you truly feel. We know that when a person offers us a positive platitude, they do so because they either want to cheer us up, don’t know what else to say to us, or both. There’s no malice behind it and often the person does care, but knowing that doesn’t stop us from feeling dismissed. For children, this feeling is amplified, because we are their world. They have little control over how much interaction they have with parents, teachers, friends, other family members . They’re made to sit next to someone in school, they have to see family, they can’t just get up and walk away if it doesn’t feel good to them. The least we can do for them is to make sure they feel seen and heard.

Of course, it’s all a balancing act - after all we don’t want our children to develop a negative mindset where all they focus on is the negatives in a situation. Having a positive mindset is about using negative emotions as a tool to recognise when something isn’t right for us so we can make a positive change to benefit us.

Let’s teach our children to deal and not dwell.

Categories: : Mental Health and Wellbeing, Mindset