I think positivity is getting a bad reputation because of Toxic Positivity. I’ve noticed that some people react negatively when you are optimistic or positive about a situation. They either treat the optimist condescendingly or think the person is being toxically positive. Toxic positivity is when someone dismisses difficult situations and says everything is fine. It is like placing a bandaid on a deep wound. It does nothing but irritate. But there is a way to be positive without being toxic. And the solution is empathy. When we understand the difficulties of others and have compassion for people’s suffering, there is nothing toxic about that. That is healing.
And that’s the answer for ourselves also. Looking back, I realized that sometimes I procrastinated because I was using toxically positive language to myself. When I was struggling with writing a paper, I told myself, “What are you worried about? This is not a big deal. You can do it.” But that didn’t always help me finish my paper.
Sometimes it did work, especially when the deadline was imminent. Other times, it made me feel worse because it wasn’t addressing the larger problem. I needed time to realize my perfectionistic tendencies were causing me to procrastinate because I was afraid of how long it would take to complete the work. I tended to overthink things. That stemmed from some dysfunctional beliefs I had about myself, an all or nothing outlook. I had to learn that nothing will ever be perfect and adopt a new mindset of “This is good enough,” in order to get work done, submit it and move on to the next assignment.
Toxic positivity doesn’t go deep. It is a superficial fix. It is like a friend who once told me, “Oh, you’ll be fine. You will all bounce back on your feet in no time.” She said this after my husband lost his job and we were struggling financially with two young kids and an elderly parent. It was quite painful to hear. She said it because she didn’t want to listen to me talk about my problems. Suddenly, I realized this was a pattern that I spent a lot of time listening to her, but she really never took the time to listen to me. I hadn’t minded until something big happened and she didn’t want to hear about it. Healing takes empathy, compassion and time. And it’s worth the investment when you care about your friendship and even yourself.