How Much True Positivity is Too Much Positivity?
Unless it’s toxic positivity, there’s never too much to be had.
Positivity has gotten a bad name of late.
This is largely due to the many and loud proponents of toxic positivity.
If you aren’t familiar with the term – toxic positivity is positive to the point of ignoring, disregarding, and pretending that all negatives don’t exist. Deny the bad, don’t even look at it. Keep a positive mindset and a positive attitude and all will be well.
If you live in the real world, then you know that this is total bullshit.
Nobody is positive all the time. Anyone who claims otherwise is probably trying to sell you something.
Bad things happen to everyone. All the people you know experience the death of loved ones, get fired from jobs, get dumped from relationships, lose friendships, contend with unexpected expenses, gain weight, lose hair, and the list goes on and on. Nobody experiences a negativity-free life.
And the truth is – you need negatives in your life. Why? Because you can’t appreciate positives without them. This is a world of paradox, yin and yang, and opposite extremes. Most of who and what you are in relation to them is somewhere in the middle.
How does that work?
The flexible cylinder between extremes
Veritably everything you can think of has an opposite. Those things are extremes, often compared to one another as opposite sides of the coin.
Extremes include things like up and down, black and white, good and evil, short and tall, on and off, positive and negative, good and bad, and on and on. There are lots and lots of extremes out there.
To me, these are not on a coin with a thin space between one side and the other. They are, instead, a cylinder – and quite a lot of space between one end and the other.
What’s more – the cylinder is flexible. Why? Because sometimes the extremes shift. Today’s bad is tomorrow’s good. If you give this just a little thought, I’d bet you can come up with an example of something or someone you considered on the bad end of the extremes having become the good end instead.
You most likely do not exist at one extreme or another. At least, not all the time. There will be situations where you’ll find yourself happy or sad, positive or negative, light or heavy, or mostly affiliated with a given extreme. But even then, you’re likely not entirely at that extreme, either.
Everyone exists between extremes. Some are more towards one than the other. Some people look more in one direction than the other. And some people just go with it – and haven’t a clue where they fall.
This is why toxic positivity is so damned toxic. Because the world is a dichotomy, a paradox. The opposite extremes will always exist because they simply are. So, positivity without recognition of negativity is toxic, especially when it denies the existence of the negative.
What’s more, the negative can often spark the positive.
Positivity arising from negativity
Lots of entrepreneurs have a story similar to this: After I got fired from my job, I was really depressed for a while. But then, I realized I could take the opportunity to learn that skill I’d always wanted, and with that, I started my own company and am now my own boss.
Why did they become their own boss? Because something negative happened. And after that happened, it became the impetus for positive change.
There are many instances you’ll find where people used a negative experience to create something more positive. Losing the job led to starting a business. Getting dumped provided lessons about mistakes that were made, and the next relationship led to a happy marriage. Losing that loved one led to spending more time with and cherishing other loved ones. And so on.
Toxic positivity utterly neglects that negativity can be an even more powerful conscious reality creator than positivity. And sometimes you need negativity to spur you to better things, people, places, actions, and whatnot.
But like the fact that you need to have and experience negativity in your life, you need to experience positivity, too. And there is no such thing as too much positivity.
Never too much
Positivity, in its truest form, is not toxic. That’s because it is self-referential, and you can recognize it as the opposite of another extreme. Likewise, toxic positivity is recognizable because it neglects, ignores, and denies that it’s an extreme opposite of negativity.
What’s more, because you and I live in a fear-based society, negativity tends to get more attention than positivity. That’s why social media, news outlets, and other media tend to focus on and share mostly negative things. Negativity sells.
Genuine positivity is looking for the good in the bad. Seeing possibility and potential rather than difficulties and struggles. Looking for solutions rather than placing blame. Choosing to try and do rather than give up.
True positivity, in its recognition and acknowledgment of negativity, can never be too much. That’s because it’s an attitude, a choice to face the positive end of the flexible cylinder between the extremes. True positivity is not an end-all-be-all cure or solution, but a regular, ongoing choice you get to make.
And it’s alright to feel negative. Sometimes it happens. You can’t control that, avoid it, deny it, or escape it. Negativity is a natural, normal occurrence in your life – and everyone’s life.
And that’s the other reason there can never be too much positivity. Because with all the messages of negativity constantly bombarding you, the choice of positivity is never easy. Having more options and abilities to see the positive end of the spectrum is harder than seeing the negative.
Hence, there is never too much.
Recognizing true positivity over toxic positivity isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you experience positivity that lacks any acknowledgment of negativity – or tells you that negative thoughts and feelings are undesirable – you can see that you’re dealing with toxic positivity. Knowing that true positivity is a reaction or active counter to negativity – and not a denial of it – you can use your conscious awareness (genuine mindfulness), here and now, to choose to face towards positivity rather than negativity for what best suits your life.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. That can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Lastly, 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 also open those around you to their own empowerment.
To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the four hundred-and-sixty-first 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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