What Is Toxic Positivity?

A positive attitude is essential to living a balanced and rewarding life. Looking on the bright side allows us to remain hopeful, achieve more, and even boosts our health. Our thoughts truly have the power to change our lives.

Higher levels of positivity and optimism have been linked to a wide variety of health benefits like less stress, lower rates of depression, increased physical well-being, and better psychological health. But, is positivity really the key to optimal living?

Positivity has been touted as the magic cure. We tell cancer patients that a positive attitude is essential, if not mandatory, for healing. This just simply isn’t true. Many positive people do become ill, many chronically negative people live long and healthy lives. A positive attitude and positive thoughts absolutely influence health, but it is not the only influential behavior. A sunny attitude will help you navigate difficult situations more easily and remain motivated in the face of challenges, it will not always cure you.

While there are many benefits to thinking positively, there are actually times when more realistic thinking is beneficial. Your constant positivity may even be hurting your relationships.

How can something so good for us become the very thing that leaves us feeling misunderstood and alone?

Positivity becomes “toxic” or “dismissive” when we don’t leave space for validation or understanding. This usually happens when we rush into positivity. We can do this to ourselves or others.

You may say something like, “look on the bright side, it could be worse!” after hearing about a friend’s misfortune, unknowingly bulldozing through their internal experience and shoving them into the land of sunshine and rainbows. You want to make them feel better. You mean well. And hey, maybe it could be worse. But, the person on the other end of this wisdom is usually left screaming “whoah I’m not ready to go there yet!” as you pull them unwillingly into the sunshine.

Tolerating distress is difficult.

It’s hard to be with someone who is struggling. You may feel that

Positive thinkers don’t avoid or ignore the bad; instead, they make the most of the less than ideal situations and attempt to see themselves and others in a positive light. Having a positive attitude has a lot to do with the way you explain and make sense of how negative things happen. Typically, people with a more positive attitude will be able to make sense of the world when distressful or negative things happen. They have a way of explaining these instances that doesn’t fully place the blame on themselves or others. They are flexible with their thinking and understanding. Pessimistic individual often blame themselves when negative things happen and are extremely harsh critics. These individuals also fail to recognize when they do well or achieve something.

What I’ve noticed is that positivity is being touted as this “magic cure.” We tell cancer patients that they need a positive attitude to heal and this just simply isn’t true. Being positive does influence health, but it does not control it. It is not as simple as if you’re positive you will heal, if you’re negative you’re doomed. What it does do is help you navigate difficult things more easily and remain motivated in the face of challenges.

Positivity becomes “toxic” or “dismissive” when we don’t leave space for validation or understanding. This usually happens when we move into positivity too quickly. We might completely bulldoze through someone’s internal experience and force them into this place of sunshine and rainbows. What happens is, the individual is like whoah I’m not ready to go here yet! I am still over here. I think this has a lot to do with us not having the tools to tolerate the distress of others. Positive people are a lot easier to be around, right? They’re easier and more fun. We like positive people because they don’t ask much of us and it makes it feel like everything is going to be ok. But the thing is, nothing is sunshine and rainbows all the time. 

We know that positivity helps. We know it could be worse. What we really want is for someone to just say “ok this sucks, I am going to sit here with you for a minute. Then maybe, when it feels a little less sucky, we’ll come up with a way to navigate this.”

What I have found absolutely just infuriates people is when they say hey I’m hurting and you respond with “just be positive, it will all work out!”

Being positive isn’t bad. It’s actually a great tool. It helps us remain hopeful, get more done, and even boosts our health.