I want to share an exert here that I shared out with my company today. It’s from Brené Brown’s conversation with Susan David (on the Dare to Lead podcast).
Susan David said:
“What we’ll end up doing is we’ll end up creating a context in which we, with ourselves individually, feel that if we feel difficult emotions, if we feel confusion, if we feel grief, if we feel these difficult emotions, there’s something wrong with us. Because everywhere we look on social media, we’re told to just be positive. This is toxic positivity. Toxic positivity is forced false positivity. That sounds innocuous somewhat on the surface, but it’s basically saying to people, “My comfort is more important than your reality.” Or if you do it to yourself, if you hustle with your own emotions, if you say to yourself, “I’m feeling lonely, but I shouldn’t be lonely because people have it worse than me.” You are gaslighting yourself. You are gaslighting yourself.
And it might sound on the surface like this is going to make you stronger and you’re going to be positive, but there is no research. There is no research supporting the idea that false positivity — in other words, a denial of our experience — is helpful to us as human beings. Again, what are you doing then? You are living in the world as you wish it would be, not in the world as it is. And how do we problem solve? How do we respond effectively to circumstances? It’s when we’re dealing with the world as it is. We need to deal with the world as it is. Doesn’t mean we need to get stuck in our difficult emotions, which is in-agility. We need to be healthy with our emotions, but this narrative is bullshit.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about toxic positivity lately — more to sort through my own part in it. Because I am optimistic and gratitude-leaning and let’s find the sliver lining . . . but that’s not what needed in the face of hard emotions. When something is hard, and we minimize it, that hard thing doesn’t go away. We resolve our emotions by moving through them, not away from them. Over and over I learn this lesson.
I think about all the times I didn’t look at someone’s pain because I didn’t know what to do, rather than having the courage to sit in the pain with them. I think about all the times I didn’t look at my own pain and instead distracted or distanced or drank . . . not just in those worst years. I do it now sometimes too. It is uncomfortable (or agnozining) to sit with hard stuff. But it is part of our bargain with life. A worthy one.
As always, I recommend the podcast episode (it’a actually a two-parter).
With Love,
Natalie