It has been confirmed that people who find themselves optimistic and have greater ranges of optimism reside longer than those that don’t. However is it attainable to have an excessive amount of positivity? Can an over-the-top optimistic mindset really do extra hurt than good?
Sadly, the reply is sure.
However when does positivity turn out to be a problem and what are the qualities that may make it probably poisonous? Allow us to discover the 5 qualities of poisonous positivity and the way you is perhaps endlessly chasing a state of everlasting happiness.
You Could Be Questioning…What Precisely Is Poisonous Positivity?
Poisonous positivity is an try to be in a state of everlasting happiness.
It’s as if the individual is a strolling optimistic affirmation, and it doesn’t matter what trauma could also be happening of their lives, it’s nothing however “good vibes solely.”
Reasonably than honoring their struggling, a poisonous optimistic individual appears caught on the brilliant aspect, regardless of how darkish issues may very well be. Sound acquainted, but?
Now, don’t get me incorrect. There’s a very VERY skinny line right here between wholesome positivity and optimism and poisonous positivity.
So to assist distinguish the 2, I’ve provide you with 5 qualities or traits of poisonous positivity to look out for. Consider these as warning indicators that your optimistic mindset could also be turning poisonous!
The 5 Qualities of Poisonous Positivity:
As talked about above, contemplate these qualities warning indicators that your optimistic mindset could have overflowed right into a state of toxicity.
1. Avoiding Something That Is Painful, Uncomfortable or Troublesome
The primary high quality of poisonous positivity is that it’s a working away from one’s self or one’s life. On the onset of something that feels uncomfortable or troublesome one feels a powerful have to do away with it. The so-called “damaging” emotions are seen as “dangerous”, and rituals, habits or behaviors come up with a view to rapidly eradicate them.
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That is like someone who wakes up within the morning and feels the slightest bit of hysteria and rapidly sages the entire home, then takes a shower in important oils, whereas holding rose quartz crystals to their coronary heart chakra, all whereas repeating optimistic affirmations of their thoughts – actually making an attempt every little thing and something to exorcise the disagreeable emotions away.
It’s not that what the individual is doing is essentially an issue, however quite it’s the compulsion to right away rid oneself of something uncomfortable and have it rapidly changed with a “optimistic” feeling that makes it poisonous.
It’s virtually as if there may be an obsessive want to flee as rapidly as attainable one thing that might be seen as “damaging” (extra on this later!).
Generally we expertise issues and lows. It’s all a part of the deal, and it’s not mandatory or helpful to fake in any other case.
I used to have a pal who was a life coach that I loved discussing my life with till I began to note how each time I used the phrase “downside,” he needed to obnoxiously interrupt me and say with an enormous, Stepford-wives smile, “You imply alternative!”
Now, don’t get me incorrect. I’m not disagreeing with the truth that the issues in our lives could be alternatives for studying and deepening our religious follow, however in obsessively having to interrupt me for calling my issues what they have been on the time – actual issues – I not solely felt dismissed, but additionally felt as if he was not honoring my struggling.
Reasonably than compassionately listening and assembly me the place I used to be, he was forcing his optimistic considering mindset down my throat. It was not useful or comforting.
You probably have a bit of shit and also you paint it with brilliant colours and sprinkle glitter on it, it’s nonetheless shit. So why not let shit be shit? Let my downside be what it’s – an issue! We don’t have to wrap it in optimistic, religious wrapping paper to make it fairly.
Generally issues simply suck and are laborious. Generally we expertise issues and lows. It’s all a part of the deal, and it’s not mandatory or helpful to fake in any other case.
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2. Closely Based mostly in Concern and Aversion
No matter it’s, it frightens them to the core and due to this concern, they attempt to escape these emotions as rapidly as attainable with a cliche inspirational quote or perhaps a smile.
The unhappy half is, when left unacknowledged, this very ache or troublesome emotion turns into the driving pressure of the poisonous positivity, and the concern of experiencing that ache solely exacerbates it.
So, out of concern of feeling what we’re feeling, we expend all this pointless power making an attempt to run away by utilizing positivity, which not solely disconnects us from ourselves, but additionally diminishes our means to domesticate emotional maturity and retains us from studying the best way to relate skillfully to our struggling.
I keep in mind vividly having a poisonous positivity second in my very own life primarily based on this high quality of fearing what’s painful. I used to be in a remedy session in faculty, sharing a number of the painful life experiences and up to date struggles I used to be going by. Unbeknownst to me, I used to be explaining all of this with an enormous (in all probability creepy) smile on my face.
In fact, the therapist referred to as me out on it and immediately the facade got here down, leaving me with the extreme emotions my smile was making an attempt to cowl up out of concern. It was a sobering second for me, realizing how afraid I actually was to point out the true me, which, on the time, was not all smiles.
I used to be stunned at how laborious it was to not smile when expressing my ache – a toxically neurotic behavior I’ve hopefully let go of!
Poisonous positivity is just not solely characterised by concern of what we’re feeling, but additionally one’s deep aversion to it. Now don’t get me incorrect, I’m not saying all of us have to “like” our struggling the identical means we like lengthy walks on the seaside or snickers ice cream bars, however we don’t should have such a powerful attachment to our aversion towards it both.
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Aversion has the qualities of working away and of not desirous to look, and it’s this obsessive turning away and unwillingness to acknowledge our ache that turns into the problem.
And once more, it’s vital to remember right here that every one 5 qualities of poisonous positivity should be current to ensure that positivity to show poisonous. There’s nothing incorrect with having an aversion towards troublesome emotions. All of us have that. Who desires to really feel shitty? I absolutely don’t!
Simply because we don’t like experiencing sure disagreeable elements of being human doesn’t imply we’re a poisonous optimistic individual.
However quite after we don’t like one thing and we’re afraid of it, and due to that concern and aversion we really feel we should rapidly escape from it and canopy it up with one thing completely satisfied or optimistic, that’s when it turns into a problem.
3. An Excessive Type of Denial
The following high quality of poisonous positivity is that it’s normally a type of excessive denial. It’s after we grasp on to that inauthentic smile or these Eckhart Tolle quotes and optimistic affirmations as a technique to deny our struggles and fake that they’re not there, that there begins to be a problem.
It’s after we imagine that if we simply drown our ache lengthy sufficient in rainbows and unicorns it’s going to in some way magically go away.
Denial is actually life-denying and positivity turns into poisonous after we use it on this means – as a technique to spiritually bypass the troublesome features of ourselves and our lives. This denial can flip into dismissing issues, dismissing emotions and even selecting (aka faking) happiness.
It may be expressed with sayings corresponding to, “It might be worse” or “The whole lot occurs for a cause.” Reasonably than embracing and opening to the struggling, poisonous positivity denies it utterly as if it’s no huge deal, and even worse, as if it merely doesn’t exist.
However as poet Jennifer Welwood as soon as wrote: “Every situation I flee from pursues me; every situation I welcome transforms me; and turns into itself remodeled; into its radiant jewel-like essence.”
If we proceed to make use of positivity as a technique to deny our emotions, we’ll discover ourselves working from it – all the time uneasy, all the time desperately greedy the short-term aid and all the time nervously on the cusp of falling again into our ache.
However we will’t run away from ourselves without end, and if we proceed to disclaim our ache, we additionally deny our probability for deep therapeutic and transformation, which is what a mature path of follow is all about – shifting towards our struggling and changing into intimate with it, quite than working away from it.
4. Dualistic
The fourth high quality of poisonous positivity is that it’s typically grounded in a dualistic view of life. That is after we are caught within the dichotomy of fine vs evil, optimistic vs damaging, proper vs incorrect. It’s after we cut up the world up into opposites, dropping the potential for true stability and equanimity.
This demonizing of the disagreeable and painful features of ourselves creates pointless pressure and places us at conflict with regular, pure elements of our humanity.
Even worse, we begin believing that sure feelings are “decrease” and should be transcended to be “religious”, additional fragmenting ourselves. It may possibly turn out to be very exhausting and painful making an attempt to continuously keep off the darker elements of our persona.
Once we flip our “interior demons” into one thing that’s not purported to be there we miss the chance for them to information us to the precise place we’d like therapeutic and loving consideration. Bringing the darkness into the sunshine may be very completely different than beginning an all out conflict with the darkness.
As a way to really feel complete and full, all features of our humanity should be included, skilled and honored. But, for a poisonous optimistic individual, the troublesome feelings and emotions look like a curse or a punishment; as if this stuff weren’t purported to be a part of their life.
They could really feel like if solely they did the appropriate model of meditation or repeated the appropriate affirmations these “intruders” could be eradicated and by no means present up once more. However sadly, this isn’t the case.
5. Inauthenticity
No life is ideal. No life is free from struggling.
And to behave like nothing bothers you and that you simply don’t have issues in your life, or that you simply’ve in some way magically transcended all of them, comes off as phony. It makes different people who find themselves struggling really feel like they should be doing one thing incorrect, and places you, the “religious grasp,” above everybody else.
A very optimistic individual understands the ache of life as a result of they’ve absolutely explored their very own.
This isn’t what residing a optimistic, religious life is all about. A religious follow doesn’t make you particular. In reality, a real religious follow will make you, as zen instructor Charlotte Joko Beck typically used to say, “nothing particular.”
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Pretending that nothing bothers you doesn’t make you tremendous realized; it makes you detached and disconnected out of your humanity. A very optimistic individual understands the ache of life as a result of they’ve absolutely explored their very own, and this permits them to be deeply empathic and compassionate to others who’re additionally in ache.
It feels real and genuine as a result of it’s coming from being weak, one thing {that a} poisonous optimistic individual is petrified of.
Say Good-Bye to Poisonous Positivity and Hey to Authenticity!
Little question, wholesome optimism and a real optimistic outlook is an effective way to reside a life. However, positivity should be grounded in actuality. It should perceive the reality that if it arises, it belongs; that even the disagreeable experiences are a part of the deal on this incarnation.
Certain, issues may fit out generally, and it’s, in fact, more healthy to incline the thoughts to suppose this manner, however we should additionally perceive that generally issues don’t. We have to face the information that ache is part of life, that we get offended, anxious and depressed generally, that issues change and finish, and that life doesn’t all the time go based on plan.
A very optimistic individual is spacious sufficient to carry all of it.
These are all regular and pure elements of our lives. With this clever understanding the troublesome features of life don’t turn out to be the enemy nor are they seen as “decrease” issues that solely “unawakened” folks should cope with, however as a substitute are understood as a part of the ever-changing dance and stream of this one uncommon and treasured life.
A very optimistic individual is spacious sufficient to carry all of it, whereas nonetheless being sort, compassionate and in contact with their deepest values. It’s solely by opening as much as all of life, quite than splitting it up and warring with the laborious elements, wherein they’re able to do that in an genuine means.
So maintain an eye fixed out for these 5 qualities of poisonous positivity, and in case you discover their presence see in case you can start the method of letting them go to permit for a really optimistic life.
