How Can You Tell When Positivity Is Toxic?
There are lots of signs when it’s not genuine.
The concept of positivity has gotten a bad reputation because of toxic positivity.
What is toxic positivity? It’s a form of unnatural, forced positivity. It can also be a gross misinterpretation of the concept of the power of positive thinking, the Law of Attraction, and the like.
At its core, toxic positivity is the notion of absolute, no-holds-barred, no-other-options positivity. The idea is that an utterly positive attitude, approach, and positioning is the best way to get, create, or manifest whatever it is you desire.
This has given genuine positivity – which is empowering – a bad reputation. Toxic positivity tends to be very Pollyanna-ish and fraught with blinders and rose-colored glasses that defy, ignore, and disregard the world around you.
Recognizing the toxic from the nontoxic can help you make more empowering choices and decisions to live life on your terms. In the current madness of the world, that’s incredibly huge and important for your overall health, wellness, and wellbeing.
How can you tell when positivity is toxic?
The first sign that positivity is toxic is when it’s applied with utter disregard for the negative. If the notion of positivity you’re being presented suggests ignoring, disregarding, and pretending that negative shit happening in the world isn’t – you’re playing with toxic positivity.
When the practice of positivity you’re seeing tells you to play down negativity, tells you not to let negative thoughts and feelings into your head, heart, and soul – you’re dealing with toxic positivity.
You can tell that positivity is toxic when it feels like it’s forced, disingenuous, and pushy. When it leaves you feeling played, dirty, or inexplicably off, and the suggested application disregards your thoughts, feelings, and intentions, you can tell that the positivity you’re being presented with is toxic.
Anytime someone presents you with something being the One True Way, or the Only Option, or the singular, best, and only answer, it’s probably toxic, no matter what it is.
You are one of 8 billion people on this planet. All 8,000,000,000 of us think, feel, intend, and perceive the world uniquely. Hence, there’s NEVER One True Way, an Only Option, or an absolute, singular, best answer.
Genuine, nontoxic positivity
Here’s the way to tell when positivity is nontoxic. It doesn’t ignore, disregard, or put blinders on in the face of negativity. Real, genuine, nontoxic positivity recognizes not only the existence of negativity but the need for it.
Yes, need. There are tons of examples of good things borne of bad things. Shit happens, terrible things occur, and someone takes that and creates something better. Rather than ignore or disregard the negativity, you see it for what it is, recognize it, acknowledge it, and then use it as a springboard to build better.
For example, failure happens. Almost every success story is preceded by a long string of failures. Lots of the technology we enjoy today is the result of a failure. For good or ill, this includes the rubber on tires, Post-it notes, KFC, Amazon, and tons of other people, places, and things.
That’s why ignoring, disregarding, and pretending negative things aren’t real or don’t happen are the main signs of toxicity. Genuine positivity is the Yin to negativity’s Yang.
You need both good and bad, positive and negative, and other extremes
Most of us exist between the extremes of life, the universe, and everything. Between good and bad, black and white, big and small, genuine and artificial, abundant and lacking, and on and on.
Anything toxic is one-sided, one-dimensional, and ignores the need for the opposite. You need both extremes as a gauge for how to live in society with others. Without them, we’re like the rest of the animal kingdom – merely existing.
Humans are the only animals capable of adapting to any and all extremes, building complex tools for good or ill, and choosing who, what, where, how, and even why to be. Yet many want people to be herded, controlled, and disempowered to follow the lead of a very select few. Why? Because of false beliefs in lack, scarcity, and insufficiency that force people to compete where there is no competition (i.e., get what’s yours before it’s taken from you). Which is not, in fact, how the world works.
Genuine positivity opens you to be empowered. When you’re empowered, you can take control of your life experience via choices and decisions to be, do, and have the things you desire.
Everyone experiences good and bad. How can you tell when positivity is toxic? Because ultimately, it doesn’t truly empower you and doesn’t feel empowering.
Recognizing toxic positivity vs nontoxic positivity isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize the toxic from the nontoxic, you can acknowledge that genuine positivity is there when you look for it, and you can use it to make choices and decisions to improve your life. Knowing that toxic positivity ignores negativity, you can recognize the genuine from the toxic, then use that to make empowering choices and decisions about how to apply it or not.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. From that broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, that can spread to those around you for their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred-and-eighty-second (582) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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