Toxic positivity: trying to be happy all the time
It means rejecting negative feelings, which is also known as toxic positivity.
No doubt that being optimistic is a good thing, but making people feel like they can't be sad is not.
Many people have told me, "Be strong," "It will get better," and "Don't do this; there are worse off people than you."
These things may have been said to you many times to make you feel better, but an overly positive outlook that doesn't acknowledge your feelings of sadness can be harmful.
You want to know why? Because when we don't allow ourselves to feel bad, our minds can push painful feelings into the subconscious and act like they don't exist in real life. This makes us more likely to experience much deeper sadness one day.
"Toxic positivity is the idea that we should only think about good things in our lives and feel good about them."
It's the idea that we'll be happy if we dismiss tough feelings or situations.
Having a positive view of life and seeing the good in things can help you get through tough times and shield you from the world's problems.
It also helps us comfort our loved ones and figure out how to do that. But, like everything else, too much is bad and even deadly.
It doesn't help at all to try to avoid feeling bad and ignore bad thoughts and emotions because we think that will make us happy.
Emotions that aren't addressed never go away; they're just buried alive and show up later in worse ways.
"Freud Sigmund Try to see the good side, but don't ignore your bad feelings.
You will realise that you are losing touch with your true feelings if you often swear by negative affirmations, give in to good moods, and always be positive.
On the other hand, ignoring your feelings is not a good thing to do. In fact, ignoring bad feelings like worry, sadness, anger, anxiety, or a sense of being wronged does not make them go away after a while.
In fact, the opposite! No matter how hard you try to ignore the feeling right now, it will come up again in the future, in places and ways you didn't expect.
You're wrong to say that positive thinking doesn't work! Being upbeat is fine, but it's much better to understand and accept your feelings.
What toxic optimism does to mental health When we use toxic positivity, we force ourselves not to think about the pain, which means we don't fix it.
On the other hand, we shouldn't take our feelings and mental health for granted. No matter how much you try to ignore a coffee spill on your table, it will still be there. The same is true for being cheerful.
This is also true for other people's problems or issues. People don't want to talk about their problems when you always respond to them with upbeat affirmations.
However, we can get better if we feel like someone is listening to us and being there for us.