Skip to main content

Toxic Positivity

Toxic positivity is a new term going around social media these days to describe what it's like when someone pushes down all negative emotions and experiences instead of processing them. Instead, they focus only on the positive. Some examples of this can include "fake it til you make it" or "speaking only beautiful words." 

Before I get into why toxic positivity is so toxic, let me just say that I'm not saying positivity is toxic. It is important to have a healthy mindset which includes hope, the ability to see the good in life, and the ability to plan for future beautiful things. Affirmations and mantras can be wonderful, but they're not enough on their own.

Unfortunately, toxic positivity doesn't allow for a brighter future because in order to have all of these things, one must heal from the negative experiences that have happened in the past. In order to heal, one must acknowledge what happened, talk freely about it, and process through to the point of forgiveness and moving on. 

In toxic positivity, none of these things happen. You push down an experience so that it is not dealt with, but it is still hidden in your body and subconscious mind. Every experience you have in life is quantumly and energetically entangled in every fiber of your being. This is actually a beautiful thing because it means nothing is ever truly lost, however if you do not put the negative experiences in context, they will continue to hurt you and they will come back to haunt you later in the form of physical or mental pain, chronic illness, and perpetuating trauma in the lives of others. 

A good friend of mine recently sent me an article about how when you speak words of Love to water, it forms beautiful shapes in the water. The molecules of the water actually are affected by the frequency of the words you speak, and they are arranged accordingly. In the pictures she sent me, the water molecules that had been told loving, positive affirmations looked like beautiful snowflakes and fractals. However, she also send me pictures of water shaped by words of fear and negativity that caused the water to actually panic. The shapes the water molecules made looked like people who were madly dashing about in fear as if someone had yelled fire in a crowded theater. While this has its own dark beauty, you can tell that it was a horrible experience for the water molecules. 

The point of this excerpt that she sent me was that the human body is 60+ percent water. Naturally, if someone says negative things to you  or you have a negative experience, this is felt by your whole body. The idea behind this is to use positive affirmations and experiences to help your whole being, including your physical body, to be healthier. It also is smart to limit useless negativity such as watching the newsmedia or listening to people who tell you you're no good.

But it got me thinking... there are so many negative experiences we have that we cannot control, and so many negative things have happened in the past. These are still in your body, still affecting your being. Adding affirmations on top of that isn't going to get it out. Affirmations and positivity are important, but not enough on their own. 

This is where the toxic positivity comes in. It says that you can only speak beautiful words, only acknowledge the good in your life, only focus on the positive. If you ever talk about the negative, you're labeled a "negative Nancy" or told you're dwelling on the wrong things. I practiced toxic positivity for years. The affirmations and mantras did help, but they never allowed me to deal with the underlying lies and negative experiences that my religion and life had given me in the past. 

Now I realize that it is important to have balance. We do not want to form a negative mindset in which we have no hope in the future being anything but terrible. We do not want to live in a cycle of rehashing the terrible things that happened to us over and over again so that we never see the good in life and are unable to recognize the Divine in even those terrible things. However, if we are not allowed to process and verbalize our negative experiences, we will never connect those negative frequencies to the more positive and hopeful frequencies so that they can form a whole, healthy, balanced energetic being. 

Practically for me, this looks like accepting every emotion I feel and acknowledging why I feel it and where it came from. It looks like not feeling guilty for what I am feeling or thinking, and it looks like processing the things that have happened to me in small doses and in cycles as they naturally come up. Your mind-body is an amazing entity that loves you. Your subconscious will bring up what you need to deal with in small, manageable doses in the right time. The more you process the smaller, manageable doses, the less the experiences will be overwhelming, though I won't say there won't be times when the process is very deep and painful. Panic attacks are overwhelming to the point of feeling like you're going to die, but I truly believe they are your mind-body's way of loving you and helping you heal... and they won't last forever.

It also looks like verbalizing and being real about what has happened to me, acknowledging that people hurt me, and figuring out how to contextualize the fact that some of the people who hurt me also loved me while they were doing it. 

There are many reasons toxic positivity is so popular. Processing is not fun, and it can seem easier to pretend the negative experiences never happened. Some religions and lifestyles promote toxic positivity as the way you "should" be. Society as a whole doesn't like to deal with negative things, and many people are made to feel guilty for having negative experiences or aftereffects of them such as PTSD. However, the more we learn about the human mind-body and trauma, the more we know the importance of processing through things and truly healing so that hidden negative experiences don't come back to bite us or future generations years later. 

Because they will come back. Your mind-body has to release what you've been through in one way or another. Best to partner with it. Best to remember that you love yourself and are only trying to help yourself heal. You can do it. Love can make it possible.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Creation Isn't Waiting For You to Rule and Reign

There's this idea that creation is waiting for the sons of God to take their places and make the world what it needs to be, this idea that some day out there Yahweh will come back and take us to Heaven and reign from His Throne. Once we remember sovereignty and that we are One with Yahweh, we realize that we are the ones sitting on this throne with Yahweh. We also need to remember that time and eternity are One. Time is the instrument of Our growth, and We actually use it to grow eternity. Once we realize these two things, we can see that We are sovereign in our own lives and ruling and reigning from this throne right now. The instrument of Our dominion is Our choices. This is what Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians 3 where he talks about how we each choose what materials to build our lives with. Some choose jewels, some choose clay. I, as the sovereign in my own life, get to decide what materials to build my life with. However, I cannot judge another's life. As each of u...
1 comment
Read more

Rearranging the Molecules to Form Reality

Illusion is like a sandcastle. It has no staying power, no true form or substance. Each piece of sand is an individual grain arranged in a form that cannot really be. If you look at existence as consisting of atoms or molecules, it can be truly amazing to see that there are forms walking around out there that cannot ever really exist. But what do you do when you see an illusory form, when sickness comes upon your body or you see the trappings of poverty all around you? Your first question must be, "Is this in my metron?" A metron is the place where Yahweh has given you all power and authority to judge. We all have different metrons, and to cross out of ours is to trespass. Your metron will include your being (mind/body), your family, your home and land, your job or business, and your ecclesia (church). If you are not sure where your metron is, ask Yahweh to show you. If you see illusion in someone else's metron, this is the time for intercession, for only they can k...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pie

Imagine that all the love, affection, and resources (time, finances, emotional space, etc.) that each of us has is a pie. This pie may be larger or smaller depending on capacity and circumstances in a person’s life. Now, in order to be healthy and satisfied, each person must constantly be consuming an entire pie. But, after eating a single slice of our own pie, the rest of our pie cannot satisfy us or give us any nutritional value. What are we to do? We must give ourselves the first slice of our pie. This is self-love or self-care. That first slice imbues all of the other slices of our pie with nutritional value. But, after we have consumed the first slice of our own pie, the rest of our pie will give us nothing if we eat it ourselves. We must give the other slices of our pie to other people. Still, we must consume a whole pie to be satisfied, so others must give to us as well. In a healthy, functioning society and group, it would look like this: each of us eats our own first slice...
Post a Comment
Read more