When positivity shuts you down

Have you ever been struggling with a difficult emotion or experience and tried to share it with someone, only to be told to ‘be positive’ or ‘look on the bright side’? And though it may have seemed helpful or kind on one level, did it leave you feeling shut down and unseen?  Even angry?

This is what is sometimes referred to as toxic positivity.  In this article, we’ll explore what it is, how it develops, its emotional and relational cost, and how therapy might approach it.

What is toxic positivity?

It’s not about being positive, at least not in any real sense. It often masquerades as positivity, but something else is happening underneath. Toxic positivity is when being positive becomes the only acceptable response.

But first, a word about genuine optimism or hope. These are important parts of our lived experience. Who wouldn’t want more positive experiences in their life?  The difficulty arises when only a positive, upbeat version of us is permitted; when the fuller range of who we are is pushed away or rejected, particularly the parts of us that struggle.

In this sense, toxic positivity is less about what is expressed, and more about what is not allowed to remain; the parts of us that are rejected or experienced as ‘wrong’.

How does it take root?

For many people who are familiar with this way of relating to emotion, there are deep roots.

It often develops early in life, where certain feelings were difficult to tolerate.  Perhaps a parent felt overwhelmed by distress and moved quickly to reassure or redirect.  Perhaps there was an unspoken sense that things should be kept upbeat or ‘positive’, even when they weren’t.

This is often an attempt to cope; a way of managing something that feels too much.  But over time, a relational pattern can form, where some feelings are easier to hold in relationship than others.  Staying connected may come to depend on keeping things positive.

The cost of emotional silencing

This begins to shape how connection feels. If you are conditioned to expect that certain parts of your experience cannot be shared, you may find yourself feeling unseen or emotionally distant, even in close relationships. You might also find it difficult to express what is going on for you, or even to know what you are actually feeling.

This can begin to affect how you relate to yourself.  A sense may develop that there is something wrong in you for feeling what you feel; that these parts of you should be hidden or changed.  This can give rise to shame.

How therapy can help

Therapy can offer a space to begin noticing these patterns more clearly. Not just in terms of what you feel, but how you have learned to relate to those feelings, and how this plays out between you and others.

In a relational approach, attention is given to how these dynamics developed and how they continue to show up in your present life and relationships.  We might begin to notice the pull to move away from certain feelings, and to become curious about where that response comes from, and what it has been trying to protect.

A different kind of contact

As this shifts, something changes in how you relate to yourself and to others.

It may show up in small moments: allowing a feeling to be there without immediately changing it; listening to someone without needing to reassure; letting something remain unresolved for a little longer.

These are not dramatic changes, but they can alter the quality of contact; a sense that what is being experienced can be stayed with, rather than managed away.

Because often, it is not positivity that creates connection, but the sense that what we are experiencing can be known and held as it is. That we can be a more authentic version of ourselves, and be accepted – by ourselves and by others.