February 2021 – Andrea Arthur Owan

The Dangers of Positivity and How to Respond to It

When a friend or loved one comes to us, expressing her deepest emotional grief, pain or fear, often, our first reaction is to try to console or fix them, to ease their emotion or correct it so they can experience less pain and more joy. Or ease our own uncomfortable emotions at her honesty.

But are we doing her a disservice?

Probably. What we say and how we respond can help or wind up in the category of toxic positivity.

In my last three posts, I’ve talked a lot about what toxic positivity is, and how harmful it can be. Today we’ll look at what it looks and sounds like, how to turn it around to a constructive and helpful response, and how you can respond if you’re the recipient of it.

WHAT TOXIC POSITIVITY LOOKS LIKE—

When someone has expressed the deepest pain, grief, frustration or agony of her heart, have you ever heard someone respond in any of these ways?

“Cheer up, it could be worse.”
“Look on the bright side,” and then proceed to tell you what that is.
“He’s in a better place.” (If a loved one has died.)
“Focus on the good things.”
“Tomorrow will b your best life.”
“Just go with the flow.”

If you’re trying too hard to be and display positivity, you might also end up with a problem.

WAYS TO SPOT A FAKE POSITIVE ATTITUDE—

There’s at least one big clue to knowing whether or not someone is faking a positive outlook.

Look at their eyes and cheeks.

When someone displays an authentically happy smile, her cheeks scrunch up to her eyes, causing little creases to occur under the eyes. And the eyes narrow as they’re pushed toward the eye socket. The corners of her lips elevate. In short, the facial muscles get involved.

No Duchenne marker? Then the smile is likely a put-on, to make you think they’re happy, or they responded gratefully to your upbeat, think positive comment.

WATCH BODY LANGUAGE TOO—

Did she relax when you blurted out your happy comment? Did she nod gratefully, or thank you?

Or did she tense up, jerk, look down? Did her eyes fly open in shock or disappointment? Did she seem to go quiet or withdraw?

Watch how people respond to your statements, your words. Your body language. Pay attention to how you respond to those words.

THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF BEING TOO POSITIVE—

Inauthentic happiness can stress you physically, emotionally and spiritually. Sometimes the more you avoid negative thoughts, the bigger and more overwhelming they get. It becomes a self-defeating effort.

And if you internalize it, you can damage yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually. For years.

If you’re a never-ending source of upbeat thinking statements, you might come off as being insincere, shallow, self-involved or uncaring. You could be in jeopardy to losing meaningful relationships. At the very least, others may stop sharing their hearts with you.

They might stop telling you the truth about how they feel and instead just stick to the surface issues in conversation. They’ll stop trusting you with their hearts.

For someone that hangs out with a super positive person, she might be in danger of denying herself and her true feelings, work too hard to conform to the positive person’s views, put on a fake demeanor, feel as though she’s walking on eggshells around Ms. Positive and exhaust herself trying to say the right things.

These kinds of responses are crippling to someone’s spirit. And I don’t think many of us want to do that to a friend, or to ourselves.

HOW TO RESPOND IF SOMEONE HITS YOU WITH TOXIC POSITIVITY—

How do you or should you respond when a super cheerleader type dismisses your expressions of tough or painful emotions?

On the extreme, you may have to set some pretty firm boundaries with him, either outwardly or discreetly, while you heal. Especially if the offender just won’t acknowledge his error or the damage his comments did to your spirit.

Quite often, though, the best response is to breathe deeply, remind yourself that your emotions are your emotions you need to acknowledge and maybe express, and then gently tell him how his response affected you.

And cut them some slack by giving them the benefit of the doubt.

You might say, “I know you meant well with your positive response, but that comment made me feel as though my emotions aren’t important or valid, and that you really weren’t listening.”

How he responds to that will tell you volumes about his heart and character.

You could let him off the hook by saying you know he didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable with sharing your emotion, and if it really upsets him, you won’t share your feelings with him.

Or tell him that all you need right now is a listening ear and a listening heart. Someone to talk to.

Can you successfully balance pain-driven emotions with a positive outlook?

No question about it. Life is hard. Most people don’t get through life without having to confront pain, loss, a devastating event or major, stressful life change. And most people do survive them. But often they only survive. You wouldn’t say they managed to survive them well, and with honesty.

But there is a way to do that. To be hopeful (not necessarily sickeningly cheerful or sappy sweet) and be able to look forward with hope in the midst of the deepest heartache.

Join me next week when we’ll learn how we can do that, and not necessarily live an easy life, but live a hopeful one.

Until then, be a good listener, really hear what people are expressing, confirm their emotions and be careful with sharing your positivity.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, jut as your soul prospers.”


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a health and fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally and spiritually and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

When Positivity Harms Mental and Physical Health

The world has been focusing on positivity a long time, and there’s abundant research proving its benefits. But is it possible there’s a dark side to all that positivity?

Evidently the answer is “yes,” and it’s been given a name—toxic positivity.

Definition of Toxic Positivity—

While there are different definitions (I provided one from What’s Your Grief? in my last two blog posts), today I’ll give you the definition I found on thepsychologygroup.com website.

“The overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic state that results in the denial, minimization and invalidation of the authentic human emotional experience.”

As they point out, when anything is carried to the extreme, a problem emerges. In this case, the problem occurs when forcing positive “vibes” and positive thinking and focusing only on positive platitudes can cause you to silence, cover up or deny human emotion and experience. Yours, or someone else’s.

It becomes detrimental and unhealthy—physically, emotionally and spiritually.

What does toxic positivity look like?

How do you know if you’re forcing yourself to be positive or trying to push someone else this direction?

Here are some clues and red flags:

When you try to hide or mask your true feelings.
When you don’t allow someone else to express her true feelings.
When you try to convince yourself that you just need to push ahead and get on with life; when you stuff or dismiss an emotion.
When you tease, ridicule, or dismiss someone else’s emotion.
You force-feed yourself positive statements to cover your emotions, which are likely the opposite of the positive statements.
You force-feed others positive statements, to get them to “cheer up,” when the circumstances don’t warrant cheering.
Trying too hard to change your perspective on an event that has hurt you.
Trying to change someone else’s perspective on an event, especially when they have not asked for your perspective.
Internally shaming yourself for feeling a certain way.
Shaming others for their feelings, either by verbal digs, dismissive words, or negative body language. (Some would now label that behavior as “micro-aggression.”)
Trying to brush off events and feelings that bother you or others with statements like “It is what it is,” or “It could be worse,” or “Look at the bright side.”

Certainly there are times when events cause jarring or overwhelming emotions that, if we latch onto them too hard and for too long, can cause physical, emotional and spiritual problems. But that’s not what I’m addressing here.

I’m focusing on those hasty comments made without really listening to yourself or others and trying to identify the emotion and figure out where it’s coming from. What the source is.

Why Toxic Positivity is Bad for Your Health—

Just was gratefulness and a positive life outlook can be beneficial to your health, swinging the pendulum too far that direction can have negative health consequences.

When you force a positive outlook on pain—the kind of pain that affects you physically, emotionally and spiritually—you’re telling yourself or others to keep silent about your, or their struggles. Sadly, this is often a problem among believers.

When you shut someone down from expressing their heart, you cast a shadow of shame on them. And that forces them to retreat into silence and secrecy, and possibly self-judgment and self-condemnation. They feel condemned by your response. And that often leads to a breakdown in physical, emotional and spiritual health.

They end up internalizing that pain along with the judgment. And that’s a recipe for potential health disaster.

Some dangers of hiding emotions—

Hiding and internalizing emotions or dismissing feelings and lead to a host of problems, like:

Increased body stress and inflammation
Increased difficulty avoiding stressful thoughts
Increased psychological arousal
Increased depression
Increased anxiety and obsessive behaviors
Fear
Physical illness and disease, like cancers, PTSD, etc.
Increased self-isolation and avoidance
Shutting down
Stress of keeping up a fake persona
Loss of connection to others, and to ourselves
Emotional and physical burnout
Damage to the human spirit

What helps relieve emotional stress?

One study conducted by researchers found that when people were allowed and encouraged to express themselves through emotional and whole body responses—like facial expressions, crying, and verbal responses—they were able to relieve the internal stress they were experiencing.

The group not allowed to be free with their expressions had higher levels of internal physiological response. Meaning? What these people weren’t allowed to “get out” made them erupt on the inside.

That may be one of the reasons that people living with volatile individuals who are verbally, emotionally, or physically abusive have a reduced life span. They’re more prone to heart problems and other physically debilitating diseases. Scientists believe it may be the hormone cortisol that’s responsible for the health breakdown. A little of it’s good. Too much of it is damaging.

Much more recent studies indicate that people’s responses to others’ emotions make our own emotional response even more complicated.

Is shame ever good?

The question always comes up: Is shame ever a good thing?

Yes!

Shame can be necessary and productive when you’ve harmed someone emotionally, physically or spiritually. When you know you’ve sinned or done wrong and need to repent for your trespass. When your shame drives you to apologize, so a relationship can be restored.

Remember what the Apostle Paul tells us: it’s okay to get angry, but make sure you don’t sin in the expression of that anger.

Caveat—

Again, I want to say I am not talking about verbalizing EVERY feeling you experience, like lashing out in anger, having emotional outbursts, making sure everyone you encounter knows exactly how you feel about something. That’s just as unhealthy, usually more so for the recipient of your wrath.

I’m talking about feelings and emotions stemming from grief, trauma, honest disappointment, breaking of trust. Those types of events and triggers.

Wrap-up—

While I encourage everyone to be grateful, positive and hopeful, (more on hopeful in future blog posts), I encourage you to take a step back from that thinking and examine your feelings, and listen to others express theirs before making a judgment call or voicing a quick, positive opinion or offering positive-thinking advice—telling someone how they should think or respond.

That’s the loving thing to do for others, and for you.

Invitation—

Think back to times when you expressed your feelings to someone and felt those feelings were quickly dismissed or steered another—happier—direction. How did that make you feel?
When your feelings were dismissed, were you able to lovingly tell the offender how their response made them feel, or did you withdraw and then avoid talking about your pain?
Are you still withdrawing, or avoiding that person or avoiding expressing your feelings to them? Did you lose trust in them?
What helps you validate your feelings and express them honestly (not forcefully)?

Next week we’ll be finishing up this series with more examples of toxic statements, taking a mental inventory of whether we’ve been obnoxious offenders in response to someone’s expressions, and look at good, healthful ways to respond to hurtful people. And learn how to validate our own emotions.

Until then, be slow to anger, slow to speak and longsuffering. When you do respond, carefully choose your words.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, jut as your soul prospers.”


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a health and fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally and spiritually and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Toxic Positivity 101

The term seemed to have erupted last year, when COVID was overwhelming everyone’s life and exhausting us mentally, physically and spiritually. A Google search will produce pages of articles on it. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

Toxic positivity.

It’s not an official psychological diagnosis or academic term, but it’s gaining ground and being used to push back against the positive thinking teaching running rampant, until COVID roared onto the global scene.

What is toxic positivity?

A simple definition of toxic positivity, provided by What’s Your Grief?” is:

“Promoting the ideal or goal that no matter the circumstances, one should always and only maintain a positive, happy, or optimistic mindset.”

In other words, always, and at all times be “Happy, happy, happy!

Examples of toxic positivity—

Have you ever expressed your grief, frustration or heart-felt pain to someone and had them respond with:

“Well, you need to stay positive!”

“Keep focusing on gratitude and being grateful.”

“Look on the bright side.”

“It was God’s will.”

These responses are pretty difficult to hear and take when you’re experiencing painful, complex emotions in grief, trauma or due to another deep hurt. And the comments are usually not helpful. In fact, they may cause you to retreat inward, feel guilty or disillusioned, and to avoid sharing your emotions with anyone. And that can stunt or hamper your healing.

Why the sudden positivity backlash?

2020 tossed all of us into the same suffering path, crammed us into similar shock, disillusionment, frustration and fear of the unknown. In one earth-sweeping stroke, the world was brought to its knees, we learned just how puny and helpless we really are, and we got stamped with identical suffering—alarm, and maybe a hefty dose of fear.

To be sure, all of us experienced different depths of emotions as we watched the world succumb, friends and family members—or even strangers—get sick and recover, or get sick and die. Or watched as our part of the world boarded up into a ghost town. Or we were sent home to quarantine and work, were told to stay home permanently, watched helplessly as our world imploded, were robbed of our livelihoods, or we drained our emergency savings accounts and nervously awaited relief checks—so we could keep the house lights on and purchase groceries. Or we took a number on the unemployment line.

Who among us didn’t learn how to ZOOM in short order, just to stay connected?

And this is where the pep talks started to beat some of us down, or rile us up:

When we were told to stay upbeat in the midst of it, sing, smile, and focus on hope.

It could all sound pretty tone deaf and shallow, especially when the media and government haves were telling the have-nots how to think, feel and act. And to stop living.

While this advice was well-meaning and had some merit, sometimes it came off as being toxic and unrealistic. And that’s what toxic positivity does. It encourages us to ignore the pain, the hard things, the gut-wrenching emotions that MUST be acknowledged and worked through in order for complete and satisfying grief and trauma healing to occur.

Benefits of positivity—

I’ve written extensively on my blogs about the benefits of positive thinking and gratefulness. I extol them and follow the advice of St Paul to bear all things and hope all things—the ways to put love into action. So I’m not advocating automatically rejecting and tossing all of the positive, gratitude-focus advice.

So what’s the problem with being positive?

The problem arises when we’re too quick to offer unsolicited advice or cheerleading. When our mouths run ahead of our brains, and we’re trying WAY too hard to be helpful, even when we haven’t been asked for help.

As loving supporters of a grieving person, we need to be aware of and sensitive to the appropriate time to give positive comments and encouragement, like after the honest recognition of the agony or grief. We must not deny or ignore the suffering. It’s so important that we say, “I hear your pain. I see your agony.” Even if we can’t say, “I understand.”

Get the healing order right—

When we’re suffering, we’re usually anxious to get to the healing, the light at the end of the tunnel. We don’t want to hurt. And we don’t want others to hurt, either.

But as the good folks at What’s Your Grief? wisely point out: in order for a rainbow to appear, there must first be a storm.

You don’t get to bypass the storm or rain in order to enjoy the rainbow.

Toxic positivity to the extreme—

Can you imagine if you heard a friend say,” My husband is dead. Life is great!”

Wouldn’t that sound a bit wacky to you?

What she might want to honestly express is: “My husband is dead, and my heart is broken. I feel disoriented, lost. So alone.” In which case you can listen to her, hear her, weep with her.

As her healing progresses, she might feel more comfortable saying, “My husband is dead, and my heart is broken. But I know with the mercy and goodness of God, and help of loving, patient friends, I will heal and once again—one day—have a joyful, fruitful life.”

She’s not denying the obvious or its accompanying pain. She’s viewing life realistically, with a focus on her mental health, the present reality, and a healthy hope for the future.

Be an honest griever—

As a griever, be honest with yourself, about what your heart and mind are going through, while recognizing there is a road map to a brighter future.

And remind yourself that a critical part of that roadmap is taking some time to think about, pray about and plan your grief journey, so it’s as effective as it can be.

Where are you now? Where do you want to go? How are you going to get there? (We’ll explore these questions in more depth in another blog.)

You might have some horrible terrain to slog over in the beginning of your journey. And, yes, you might experience a few breakdowns and stalls. But as you press on with constructive meditation, support, and purpose, the road will get easier or smoother, brighter, and look more purposeful.

And as your emotions are identified and worked through, the journey will get lighter. The luggage will be easier to carry.

Never forget there is purpose in your grief work.

But toxic positivity forces or requires you to rush through that journey. And when you rush through any journey, you’re prone to ignoring warning and danger signs, traveling when you’re exhausted, or ignoring the dashboard warning light telling you the car is overheating or the oil is dangerously low. You might grab the duct tape to patch things together, which means the journey will be tougher. And dangerous.

And maybe you won’t even be able to arrive at your desired destination.

You’re taking too many risks and not living honestly with your emotions.

And you’ll definitely miss what lessons God has for you along the journey.

It’s about looking to your physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.

Scared of those tough emotions?

Others are frequently scared or uncomfortable of our grief emotions. They want them to go away, or be fixed. Fast. Hence, the toxic positivity statements.

But sometimes we grievers are prone to giving ourselves pep talks because we’re afraid of facing our difficult emotions. I encourage you not to be repulsed by the inevitable moments of desperation and despair. The deep sadness that accompanies grief.

These emotions are normal. They remind us we’re human. And humans need to embrace both the hard and positive stuff in order to be made whole.

In the coming weeks, we’ll dive deeper into the benefits of being positive and the negatives of being toxically positive. We’ll also learn coping techniques for dealing with our own and others’ too positive-too soon words and actions, and how to respond to others when they dish out that toxic positivity.

I hope you can join me!

Invitation—

If you’re grieving, take time to journal and jot down the emotions pouring through your heart. Make note of how they make you feel physically and spiritually. Practice being aware of them without trying to talk them away.

Until next week, be hopeful in all things, but always give yourself permission to hurt and grieve, when it’s right to do so.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, jut as your soul prospers.”

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a health and fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Toxic Positivity and Grief

Have you ever revealed your deepest grief pain to someone only to have her give you an immediate comeback of super-positive or upbeat thinking they believe you should focus on? Something to get you over your slump?

What they may be guilty of is toxic positivity.

While there is no question that being positive and grateful is good for the brain and good for you physically and emotionally, it sometimes does more harm than good when you’re mired deeply in grief, and you’re nursing a raw heart.

Thinking back—

Do you remember a time when someone responded in a nauseatingly positive way when all you wanted to do was share your heart’s pain and have a listening heart hear it?

How did it make you feel?

I remember a lot of overly upbeat sentiments after my daughter’s death. And I remember the effect they had.

Shame.
Embarrassment.
A sense of lacking, or being inadequate.
Betrayed.
Devastated.
Misunderstood.
Anger.

The emotions list could go on and on.

Instead of encouraging me, most of the responses made me retreat into myself and believe that people couldn’t relate to my pain, didn’t want to relate to it, and were eager to have me get back to life and living.

My pain made them uncomfortable.

So I really shouldn’t share it.

Biggest culprits—

Unfortunately, and embarrassingly, Christians are often the biggest culprits of toxic positivity. They’re too quick to recite Bible passages meant to encourage the griever. To put their grief in God’s perspective. (As if the griever were ignorant about all those passages.)

While their hearts might be in the right place, often their mouths aren’t. They aren’t listening with their hearts.

And now the hard question: Are you guilty of doing that to someone?

Yes, there are many, many Bible passages exhorting us to lift one another up, but there is also that big one that tells us that we need to “weep with those who are weeping.”

In order to weep with someone, we need to listen deeply, and weep. And hold. And then, when the griever’s heart is receptive, encourage with more upbeat passages and thinking.

We need to be available to walk alongside them in their grief and trauma, not rush ahead, drag them forward, or get behind them and push.

But I don’t want us to get way ahead of ourselves here. I want to take time to explore this, so we can really learn and heighten our sensitivities and hone our responses to broken, hurting hearts.

What’s ahead—

I’m going to take the entire month of February to cover this new, hot topic, which you may have heard about. This month we’ll:

Define toxic positivity.
Give you examples of it.
Give you ways to deal with and respond to it (if the damaged griever).
Help you develop good handholding and empathy skills.
Discuss the benefits of helpful positivity and how to incorporate that into your life—at the right time.

Toxic positivity definition—

But for today, let’s just start with the current definition of toxic positivity.

While there is no psychological category for it, nor is there a formal diagnosis, the group at What’s Your Grief? provide this definition:

“Toxic positivity is promoting the ideal or goal that, no matter the circumstances, one should always and only maintain a positive, happy or optimistic mindset.”

In other words, “Happy, happy, happy!’ at all times, and in all things.

Is there anything wrong with this?

Well, no, and yes.

And that’s what we’re going to be exploring this month. In small, helpful, bite-size increments. Helpful for the griever, and the one the griever seeks support and empathy from.

Hope you can join me!

Invitation—

For this week, meditate on the toxic positivity definition. See where your thoughts take you on this. Maybe jot down some times you’ve experienced toxic positivity from a well—meaning friend, or when you think you’ve been guilty of it.

On a side note: After a bout with COVID right at the beginning of the New Year, it’s good to be teaching and mentoring again!

And for those of you who are caregivers, check out Guideposts’ bi-monthly devotional Strength and Grace for daily, uplifting devotions to help caregivers as they minister to and care for aging parents, patients, and family members struggling with mental illness, like dementia and Alzheimer’s. It’s a joy to be a member of the writing team contributing to this magazine. For more information, go to Guideposts.org.

Blessings,

Andrea

“I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 2).

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and recover from grief, loss and trauma.