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Self-Love

What If I Don’t Want To Stay Positive? | Toxic Positivity & Invalidation

Contrary to popular belief, you can’t just “be positive” 100% of the time.

I love the new-found positivity push in the wellness community, but it puts unrealistic standards on the raw human experience. You can’t just throw out, “Think positive!” and expect it to resonate.

I’ve heard it all.

“It could be worse.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Look at the bright side.”

Harmless? Or extremely invalidating?

Having an optimistic outlook on life is healthy. Putting immense pressure on yourself and others to remain happy and positive through all life’s endeavors is toxic.

There’s a difference between being positive and being in denial.

While these are said with the intention of uplifting another… It encourages the need to suppress feelings that don’t give off, “good vibes only.”

It suggests that negative thoughts or emotions should be avoided, which then makes us feel shameful or inadequate for feeling anything other than happy.

You have to take into account how isolating and invalidating it feels to be going through a tough time and have the world screaming at you to get over it.

You can’t answer all of life’s problems by relying on the positivity factor.

When we go through things, we deal with them in phases. Very rarely do we experience something negative and automatically process it in positivity.

We need time to be sad, to be angry, to wallow.

When I’m in my angry phase, do you think I want to look at the bright side?

When we’re emotional, we’re all over the place.

Fun fact! Scientifically, our prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for our rational thoughts, shuts off when we’re in highly emotional states. Our ability to literally think logically is impaired until our emotions are under control. Only then can we start to think logically or even attempt to look at the bright side.

I do try and look at the positive sides to most situations, but not every situation needs a silver lining. Stuff can just suck. We are allowed to accept that something sucks and then move on.

Everyone’s situation is different.


Pushing positivity only becomes a bad thing when you’re pushing away other emotions.

You are indirectly invalidating somebody when you tell them, “It could be worse,” or “Be glad this didn’t happen.”

Toxic positivity results in the denial of the authentic human emotional experience. While it’s rooted in care and has good intentions, it’s fake.

And it’s not an effective solution.

Replace toxic positivity sayings with something more human and real.

Offer comfort instead of “solution.” Acknowledge the initial feelings.

Instead of, “It’ll be okay.”

Try, “I’m sorry that happened.”

Instead of, “You’ll be fine.”

Try, “That’s an awful thing to go through, I’m here for you.”

See the difference?

I’m not trying to convince them to feel better in this instance, I’m letting them know that I hear them, and their emotional experience is valid.

If and when they are in a position where they want solutions and they want to feel happier or positive, they will assess that.

But you cannot excessively push happy thoughts and feelings onto yourself or a person that has so many more emotions to process beforehand.

Offer validation and hope, not toxic positivity.

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