Toxic Positivity is killing you

It's important to say positive things; it can boost your self-esteem and inspire others. It can also reduce anxiety and change how you feel for the better. There are even some physical benefits linked with a positive attitude. However, it's a double-edged sword.

The same practices that can help you can hurt you. It's when we overuse positivity to overlook struggles and problems in our lives. When we don't express how we truly feel about a situation and fail to address the problems in our lives, we can invalidate and hurt ourselves. Or we can develop a false sense of reality, ignorant of what we face. In Inside Out, Joy is the literal embodiment of happiness and wants the main character Riley to be happy because beings happy all the time is a good thing, right?

Not in this case, as the story progresses, she uses positivity wrong notably in the scene with Bing Bong upon losing his wagon; an item he deeply cherished. Rather than listening to his problem she was unsympathetic and just tried to cheer him up.

Maybe you have faced toxic positivity in your life. Maybe your boss has been taking advantage of you, as you happily agree to unrealistic demands. Or maybe you are accepting getting cheated on. You smile as you are ignorant to these problems

So what steps can we take to learn and improve ourselves to be happy? I know some methods to combat toxic positivity and live healthier, happier lives. These are just what has worked for me, but I hope it will help you and it will take time but with effort you will see results.

1. Love yourself more.

Understand that it's okay to cry. It's okay to struggle with who we are right now. We are all a mess and still trying to figure everything out in our lives. Finding flaws in ourselves is a normal process to growth and development.

In Inside Out, Sadness understood that the wagon meant a lot to Bing Bong and comforted him. By learning to open up as Sadness did with him, we can develop more compassion for ourselves and others. Later, Joy also learns that to grow, we must be sad to reflect because perpetual happiness blinds us to problems. We need to be more accepting and compassionate about ourselves, as well as to reflect and love ourselves more.

I suggest journaling how you feel about a situation, did your boss treat you unfairly? Did getting cheated made you upset? Write honestly about how you felt would frame with these three points.

1. What was good today

2. What was not good today and finally

3. How can this be better?

Make sure to be thoughtful about your answer. Take some time to think about how you felt about it. I also recommend opening up to a friend and having an honest conversation about how you felt. I also have some resources that may help. 2. Unplug The internet is the source of the world's information, and the fact that it’s accessible anywhere can greatly influence our mental health. Social media, celebrities, and even motivational speakers and influencers telling you what success is and how to live your life. But it comes at a cost; absorbing wrong or too much content can build toxic positivity and create a self-destructive loop on your mental health.

So take some time away from the screens, and spend time with friends and family. Take a walk, a hike, or an activity you enjoy and reflect on yourself. I've spent 30-day challenge away from social media, Matt D'avella has a great video on this, I'll link that down below. In summary, we all need to be happy and smile but if we do it in unsustainable ways we can end up hurting ourselves.