Contents
Toxic positivity: when you refuse to accept that you are wrong
Psychology
Ignoring the emotions we feel in situations that cause us discomfort or displeasure leads us to suffer from toxic positivity
What is depression and how to know if you have it
It can be just as heavy to hear someone who constantly complains about everything as the optimist on duty who is not realistic and wastes positivism everywhere. And these types of people who are able to push aside “negative” emotions at all times suffer from toxic positivity.
Yes, being optimistic also has a dark side, and that is to consider that we only have to focus our attention on always feeling good, even if the circumstances are negative, it becomes something toxic in the personality of those who feel it. Those who actively and passively try not to have uncomfortable emotions, thoughts and memories of our life suffer toxic positivity.
Miguel Ángel Rizaldos Lamoca, clinical psychologist, warns that continuous happiness does not exist and “whoever affirms it is lying.” Seeking our own well-being does not mean that we never have negative or uncomfortable emotions, or that they negative circumstances never bring us down. «To know how to value our well-being, sometimes we have to go through discomfort. This is the natural, it is the reality and I would even say this is the healthiest. Accept that in the day to day you will have periods of discomfort it will generate you greater welfare“, He says.
The call problem toxic positivity It is, as Miguel Ángel Rizaldos Lamoca says, to ignore the emotions we feel in situations that cause us discomfort or displeasure. All emotions, including “negative” or annoying ones, are necessary to make decisions and carry them out.
«Allowing yourself to feel all your emotions fosters resilience, which is the ability to adapt and overcome adverse situations. Continually denying everything ‘negative’ that we feel in difficult circumstances is exhausting and also makes you block your emotions », warns the psychologist. In the medium term you will not feel positive emotions either and you will feel apathetic because you do not experience the bad, but neither the good.
That is why blocking emotions that do not make us feel good can have unfavorable health consequences. The psychologist warns that when you force yourself not to feel negative emotions, the body draws attention to that problem and somatizes. For the expert, constantly repressing emotions is physically and mentally exhausting: “It is not healthy and it cannot be maintained over time, it is unsustainable.”
The ideal thing, therefore, is not to take being optimistic to the superficial and extreme. Positive psychology has been distorted by ‘smoke salesmen’ and / or ‘coaches’. Miguel Ángel Rizaldos Lamoca (@rizaldospsicologo) indicates that putting the focus of attention on the aspects that science has shown us that makes us have greater well-being in our lives, is suitable and healthy.
«The problem arises when it is carried out by those who are not mental health professionals who can generate in the person a low ability to cope with adverse circumstances. Denying uncomfortable, hard, painful and harmful situations in life is like seeing reality partially as if we were missing vision in one eye, “he says.
Signs to detect toxic positivity
- Suppress or hide what you really feel.
- Ignore and not want to feel negative or uncomfortable emotions (sadness, anger, anger …).
- Believe that you have no right to feel what you feel.
- Trying to get the positive out of everything negative that happens to you at all costs.
- Do not tolerate or allow people around you to express negative or uncomfortable feelings.
- Resigning yourself, which is very different from accepting negative emotions.
- Wanting to be in absolute control of your own well-being.
Positive psychology applied by psychologists is a very useful tool. Using it incorrectly by non-health professionals generates a very simplistic and partial view of the reality that generates learned helplessness in the medium term, that is, a prelude to a possible depression.