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Toxic Positivity: The Nicest Way to Feel Bad
Want to start feeling better and living a better life? A lot of people will recommend you think positive thoughts and focus on all of your blessings. Believe it or not, there is some merit to these ideas. Being positive can reduce stress and allow you to concentrate on productive behaviors.
Letting in the good vibes encourages people to refresh their outlook on life, but good thoughts can’t make you immune to negativity. Eventually, something will be less-than-ideal and you’ll need to acknowledge something is wrong. Identifying problems can be hard, and it can be worse when you need to provide or receive criticism. As much as people want to be positive all the time, the world doesn’t work that way.
Yet some people want to create an environment where the world only focus on the good and ignores the bad. Welcome to the world of toxic positivity. This is a relatively new term, but a phenomenon becoming increasingly common in offices and social settings. It may be hard to believe, but there are times when forcing positivity into the world can be a bad thing. This can leave individuals with a sense of shame for any expression that isn’t perfectly positive.
The idea of toxic positivity might just seem like a buzzword. In fact, it can have psychological effects on people and lead to a number of other complications. Identifying an overly positive environment might be the first step, but addressing it can be the bigger challenge.
