Avoiding Negativity is Both Impossible and Unhealthy
Negativity is part of the human experience.
Many messages in today’s world stress the importance of positivity. Many of them are highly toxic because they imply, if not outright state, that positivity is everything and you’re nothing without it.
I’ve been writing about nontoxic positivity for over 12 years now. It’s important to recognize how nontoxic positivity, and its recognition of negativity and everything in between, differ from toxic positivity and its blinders. However, I think I sometimes make it seem like negativity is still something to be avoided.
But it’s not. No matter who you are, life is a series of ups and downs, highs and lows, good and bad, and everything in between that you can imagine. What’s more, most of us frequently exist between any of the given extremes, real or imagined. Good or bad, positive or negative, fortunate or unfortunate, and on and on.
Avoiding negativing isn’t just impossible, it’s unhealthy. Feelings are real and valid, no matter what form they take. And while negative feelings can be disempowering, they can also be useful in determining who, what, where, how, and why you are – and if that is something you desire to change.
It’s often less about positivity versus negativity and more about owning feelings.
What you feel is valid
Too many of the messages we get along the way are utter bullshit. Big girls don’t cry. Boys will be boys. Hold it in because nobody needs to see that. Come on, really? Why do we fight so hard to be emotionless automatons?
The truth is that while the world has grown and changed faster in the past century than at any other time in history, evolution has not. Thus, the way we process emotions like fear is less useful now. That’s because the former iteration of fear of tangible threat, which protected life and limb, is not the same as fear of the intangible. But your nervous system doesn’t know that.
Consumerism also works very hard to sell you happiness and positivity. Buy that watch, play that casino app, get on this diet, or else you’re less than “them,” and that’s why you suffer. Politics takes this a step further and darker, weaponizing fear of suffering to get people to vote against their own best interests. Do you realize how much money 1 billion dollars is? It comes out to $480,769.23 an hour during a 40-hour work week. So, explain to me why anyone – person or business – earning that much an hour doesn’t need to be fairly taxed? I’ll wait.
The point is, your feelings are valid. Even the negative ones. Negativity is not only unavoidable, but it’s also perfectly natural. Denying what you’re feeling doesn’t change it. It’s your feeling, whatever that might be, and it’s valid. Recognize and acknowledge, but don’t judge it.
Too much of any feeling isn’t invalid, but it can be distracting and disturb your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual equilibrium. The problem, as with most things, is finding balance.
Avoiding negativity creates more imbalance
This is not a hooky-spooky, new-agey idea. Every single human being is made up of 4 elements for health, wellness, and wellbeing. They are physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. If any one of these is off, then the whole system, the whole person, is imbalanced.
Feelings and emotions can play into all 4 elements of health, wellness, and wellbeing. If you feel sad, it can make you neglect your physical health, lead to unpleasant thoughts about yourself and others, is already a negative and unpleasant feeling, and can also break your spirit. But you can’t deny, ignore, or neglect it when it comes up. Because it will. It always does.
Because society leans toward focusing on physical health, people tend to be challenged when it comes to finding and/or creating balance. Why does that matter? Because you are a holistic, whole being. You are not just a physical body. Mind, body, and spirit are all contained and connected mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
Shit happens. Change often occurs with little or no input or control on your part. People do and say things that are hurtful, intentionally and not. You cannot avoid the negativity of these, because they just are.
What’s more, negativity is frequently impersonal. Visceral, immediate reactions to things are often more or less instinctual. Ergo, when something happens, and your first reaction is anger, sadness, or frustration, it is what it is.
Sometimes you need the negativity of this to spur you into action. Other times, you need it to create a moment in time for you to find and/or make something new for your betterment. The largest problem, however, comes from intentional avoidance.
Why toxic positivity is unhealthy
Nobody, and I mean nobody, lives in a perfect, good, always positive world. Why? Because that’s not how the Universe works. While we seldom live at either end of any given extreme, we still face and lean towards them. What’s more, feelings come in both a what and a how, which positivity doesn’t always address.
Putting on blinders to negative things is unrealistic. Because they happen. Shit happens. People are assholes. Politics makes for craziness. Pretending that negativity doesn’t occur is not realistic, because it just is.
The Universe isn’t out to get you. Most of what we label negative is, on the surface, neutral. But the impact of it can be negative. When you lose a job, a loved one, or a freedom, that’s going to make you feel bad. Nobody wants to have less. Toxic positivity suggests you should just pretend it’s not happening and move on.
That’s not true. Negativity isn’t to be ignored. It’s part of life. And you’d be amazed how -when you don’t ignore negativity – you can create something better from it. Spite art is a thing. When someone makes you feel bad, you turn around and show them.
Negativity only disempowers when you ignore it or allow it to fester. Unchecked, it’ll seep into your subconscious and take root there. When you feel it, allow it, then work through it; you can turn it into something else. That can empower you to find new potential, possibilities, and who knows what else?
You can’t avoid negativity, but you can use it to make new choices and decisions and take new directions. The power (empowerment) is yours.
Recognizing, acknowledging, and working through negativity isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing active conscious awareness (mindfulness) of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and the positivity or negativity of your approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that negativity is unavoidable, and that avoiding it is unhealthy, you can work with and through it to go to new places and make different choices and decisions. Knowing that it’s okay not to be okay, your feelings are valid, and that everyone feels negativity from time to time, you can see what you need to rebalance your health, wellness, and wellbeing on the mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical levels.
This empowers you. When you’re empowered, that can, in turn, 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 ways that open you to more potential, possibility, and the like. From there, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you in the here and now.
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, it can spread to those around you and empower them, too. That is an amazing conduit to help reason overcome fear in the collective consciousness.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the six-hundred-forty-third (643) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, reblog, and spread the positivity.
Please visit here to explore all my published fiction and non-fiction.
Follow me here!
