Have you ever had to fake a smile when, inside, you felt like your world was falling apart? Perhaps you had to show courage in the face of a couple breakdown so as not to appear weak or to continue working after a tough argument with a family member. You surely felt that, faced with the impossibility of living and expressing those emotions, your discomfort increased. And this is what happens with toxic positivity.
Positive psychology, a valuable current proposed by Martin Seligman, has been distorted by some people, leading to a kind of dictatorship of happiness in which there is no room for sadness, anger or fear. As a paradox, these attitudes can be even more damaging and damaging.
What is toxic positivity?
Toxic positivity is a wrong and harmful way of interpreting positive thinking. It consists of fostering a happy, expansive and pleasant mood in any situation, no matter how tough or challenging it may be.
Some phrases that exemplify toxic positivity are as follows:
“Failure is not an option, you have to always keep going.”
“You have to look on the bright side, it could be worse.”
“Don’t think about it, it’s not that bad.”
“Everything happens for a reason, be positive.”
These statements are made with good intention, trying to lift the person’s spirits. However, all of them have something in common and that is that they invalidate the suffering of that human being. Therefore, they end up increasing their discomfort.
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