Do We Really Need Positivity to Live Our Best Lives?
Genuine, non-toxic positivity is essential for everyone.
Toxic positivity is all over the place. Tons of messages about the power of positive thinking, the Law of Attraction, manifestation, happiness, and living our best lives all reduce down to positivity. Toxic positivity both blatantly and subtly tells you all negative thoughts and feelings are bad and must be avoided, ignored, disregarded, and not allowed to take root.
This is a lie. Why? Because nobody – and I mean nobody – lives a life with zero negativity. Life is too unpredictable. What’s more, too many things we can’t control at all can, will, and do happen to generate negativity.
Jobs are lost, relationships end, loved ones die, friends turn on you, plans fall apart, and more. This is natural and unavoidable. This is all part of the human condition.
It sucks. Bad things are not fun, undesirable, and can lead to worse things. But they can, will, and do happen. No matter what any pundits, gurus, teachers, spiritual leaders, or the like say – negativity is unavoidable.
This begs the question: If negativity is unavoidable, do we really need positivity to live our best lives?
Yes. Simply because negativity tends to destroy while positivity tends to build. (FYI – this is a generalization. They can totally flip-flop and reverse roles, too. More on that later).
The most important thing to know about how positivity helps us to live our best lives is to recognize toxic from non-toxic positivity.
How does toxic and non-toxic positivity differ?
The difference between toxic and non-toxic positivity is clear in how they each approach negativity.
Toxic positivity ignores, denies, rejects, and treats negativity as if it should be shunned. In toxic positivity, negativity is treated as an unwelcome enemy that needs to be eradicated. No negativity is ideal according to toxic positivity.
On the other hand, non-toxic positivity recognizes that it’s the opposite end of the flexible cylinder from negativity. You can’t have one without the other. Non-toxic positivity recognizes its debt to negativity and that they are the Yin and Yang of the Universe.
Toxic positivity takes itself utterly, overly seriously. There is no room for anything but positivity in the realm of toxic positivity. You must commit to it fully.
Non-toxic positivity simply is. It’s not forced, it comes from a choice. That choice is to turn towards the positive end of the cylinder from wherever you are now and choose positive things over negative things. Employ positivity to see the silver lining of the cloud, the opportunity for change, the potential and possibility to move from one place to another (literally or metaphorically), and the like.
Toxic positivity forces positivity to be your default approach to life, the Universe, and everything. Non-toxic positivity chooses positivity as your approach.
Toxic positivity will feel disingenuous. Which it is. Non-toxic positivity will feel genuine. Because it is.
What’s more, non-toxic positivity recognizes its existence is in attitude and approach to life, the Universe, and everything – and that it’s never static and/or unchanging.
We live our best lives on the flexible cylinder between extremes
The Universe is made up of lots of extremes. Opposites. Up and down. Large and small. Black and white. Love and hate. Good and bad. Positive and negative.
Many people compare these extremes as opposite sides of a coin. Flip the coin to determine which extreme is facing up.
The thing is, between all extremes, there’s a ton of grey and colored areas. Nuances. Middle grounds.
Very few things, people, and places, exist at the given extremes. That, by the way, is why they’re extreme. For example – Darth Vader isn’t entirely evil in the Star Wars movies. Both Amidala and Luke see that there’s still good in him. Ergo, the seemingly pure-evil Vader isn’t all the way at the extreme, evil side, opposite good. (Emperor Palpatine, however, is the rare example of pure evil at the extreme end of the spectrum).
Hence, I believe the extremes aren’t opposite sides of a coin. Rather, they’re opposite sides of a flexible cylinder.
This is how positive and negative are. On one side of the cylinder, unadulterated, pure, 100% positivity. On the other side of the cylinder, unadulterated, pure, 100% negativity. Between these extremes are you, me, and veritably everyone. Sometimes we exist towards the positive end, other times the negative. And sometimes we’re almost dead center between them – or at least feel that way – and get to choose which direction/approach to face.
You’ll note I refer to this as a flexible cylinder. That’s because positivity and negativity aren’t static. They can flip. Something/someone/someplace you once associated as a positive can and will turn negative.
This is the other major problem with toxic positivity. It doesn’t recognize that today’s positive can change into tomorrow’s negative.
All of this is about choice
Change is the one and only constant in the entire Universe. It can, will, does, has, and will again occur. Desirable or not, change happens. More often than not, it’s beyond our control.
But in the face of change, we get choices. This is where choosing positivity to live our best lives comes into play.
Shit happens. Things will occur all the time you’d really prefer didn’t. When that happens, your initial, visceral reaction will simply be. That means your initial reaction might well be negative. That’s perfectly normal and natural.
After that initial, visceral reaction, however, you have a choice. Do you stay with the negative, or seek out to find and/or create positivity? Take a negative, defeatist approach – or – try a positive, potential, and possibility approach. That’s a choice we get to make.
What’s more, it’s seldom a one-and-done choice. Most of the time, if you choose wrong or choose poorly, you can change it. You can choose to change it.
The choice is wholly yours.
I know I give caveats by using almost, mostly, seldom, and the like. That’s in part because these things tend not to meet the extremes – but fall between them. Also, I’m a realist, and sometimes shit happens and your choices might be limited or virtually non-existent.
You get to choose if you face toward any given positive or negative. Your approach is wholly up to you. We all need non-toxic positivity to live our best lives because it’s an incredible tool for building with potential and possibilities.
Genuine, non-toxic positivity is essential for everyone. That’s because it lets us imagine and create tangible and intangible things to bring us to live our best lives in lots of amazing ways.
Employing non-toxic positivity to live our best lives isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that negativity is part of life, and can’t be avoided, escaped, disregarded, or ignored, you can use non-toxic positivity to grow and choose change. Knowing that genuine positivity is essential to building what we need and desire to live our best lives, we get to choose to face that end of the cylinder and employ it to our advantage.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can 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 in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and seventh (507) 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.
Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.
Follow me here!
