When positivity turns toxic - part 1

This article is part of an ongoing discussion series on Mental Health and the Church. While each article can stand alone if you’d like to start at the beginning click here.

In my last article “Moralizing Our Emotions”, I asked these two questions, “Is there such a thing as too much positivity, or even toxic positivity? If there is, then what makes normal and good positivity become toxic?”

I totally believe in being positive, and as a Christian the hope and promises I have from God give me a hope-filled perspective on life. However, it is possible as individuals and as churches to develop an unhealthy fixation with having to try and see everything from a positive perspective. When that happens we move into a form of positivity that dismisses and discourages anything we see as negative. it’s an easy move from there to starting to develop an unhealthy culture that becomes toxic in its positivity. Dismissive and toxic positivity can affect all types of cultures – personal, family, peer group, or even a church culture. Over the next four articles, I want to look at this in some depth.

Dismissive positivity

So, what are dismissive and toxic positivity? Let’s start with dismissive positivity first, because it’s here that toxic positivity develops. Dismissive positivity rejects and suppresses difficult or uncomfortable emotions in favour of putting on a façade that’s often a cover-up of our real feelings.

In New Zealand we’ve created a society that is very good at dismissing our uncomfortable, unpleasant feelings, tamping them down, putting on a smile, and using that little dismissive laugh along with a cover-up statement. Here’s some that I’ve used many times over the years, or heard others use – “She’ll be right”, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, “Never mind, it’ll be over soon”, “No worries”, and, “It could have been worse”.

We hide or mask our true feelings and try to just get on with life. We put on a false smile, pull our shoulders back, act strong, and use terms like “Life’s great”, I’m fine” “Couldn’t be better”, or “I’m on top of the world”. We castigate ourselves with statements like “You know better than this”, “Come on, buck up”, or “Don’t be so negative”. We may do it because we feel guilty for feeling what we feel, and blame ourselves for not being able to see the good in a situation.

Our feelings don’t just go away by our ignoring or dismissing them. While positivity is good for your mental and physical well-being, dismissive positivity causes both mental and physical harm. The repression of our unpleasant emotions that dismissive positivity demands of us, can end up causing sickness caused by the dis-ease in our mind and bodies, such as depression, emotional shut-down, dissociation, feelings of rejection and of not being listened to or heard, physical sickness like certain cancers, arthritis, and more. And it denies the fact that life isn’t always positive and we all deal with painful experiences and emotions.

Provisional clinical psychologist Victoria Tarratt says about dismissive positivity. “We know that it can affect blood pressure, memory, and self-esteem. Longer-term, there’s an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. And avoiding emotions can also “lead to problems with memory, aggression, anxiety, and depression”.

I spent years trying to cope and cover up how I was feeling. I did it at first because my childhood family life was a scary place and my self-preservation antenna was set on high alert at all times. It became a habitual way of dealing with my uncomfortable emotions – stuff it down, put on a smiley face, pretend you don’t care, and tough it out. I carried that habit over into adulthood, adding other reasons for keeping my emotions covered up – I was scared of others’ reactions, or that I’d be seen as weak. I felt ashamed at the strength of some of my feelings, and I was scared that I’d be ridiculed. or seenas a ‘bad’ weak Christian.

When we believe that we should see everything from a positive mindset and outlook, no matter how difficult a situation is, or no matter what unpleasant emotions we’re feeling, that’s an unhealthy coping mechanism. It diminishes or rejects the true feelings we have, and what we are going through.

Dismissive positivity is something we are all tempted with daily in our personal lives, and if allowed to become our habitual way of dealing with things as individuals, we can unwittingly as adults begin to develop a family culture of dismissive positivity which creates a toxic environment for our kids to grow up in.

I spent too many years dismissing my emotions, not honouring them, not listening to what they were trying to tell me. Maybe it’s been the same for you, too. If it has, maybe now would be a good time to take a moment, acknowledge that, and thank your emotions, heart, and mind for the ways they sought to warn you, protect you and inform you, for all the things they were trying to tell you. Maybe also thank God for giving you such an amazing gift – your emotions.

Don’t dismiss, don’t wallow, process!

We need to give our feelings the acknowledgment they deserve. They deserve respect, acknowledgment, and to be listened to.

While it’s certainly not recommended that we dismiss our feelings, it’s also not wise to wallow in them and become filled with self-pity. We need to learn how to listen to what they are trying to tell us, and how to process them through and bring ourselves back into a more balanced state of mind.

As we’ve seen in the last article I wrote, God made us with our full range of emotions, and He isn’t ashamed of our uncomfortable ones. God gives us grace and strength in the midst of hard times, He is there with us, strengthening us, and if we ask He will give us much-needed wisdom and strategy. It can take time to process and work through horrible situations, and in the midst of them we need to give ourselves the understanding and support we wish others would give us. Judging ourselves and attempting to reframe our situation and turn it into something “positive” will in the end work against us, possibly causing even more damage than the initial situation. During our hard times, when we’re experiencing uncomfortable, unpleasant feelings, we need both God and others who will process them through with us, comfort and encourage us, speak wisdom, and bring healing into our lives where it’s needed.

It's usually later, as we look back in retrospect, that we’re able to see how God took what was bad and made it work for good in our lives, in our character, in our growth in empathy, etc. That’s when we can begin to feel better about it all. That’s when we can begin to show authentic optimism and positivity.

Change ourselves, change our culture

If we want our New Zealand culture to change it must happen first at an individual level, with us changing. I believe it’s time we changed our way of operating, gave ourselves permission to face our feelings, to admit that they exist and are giving us vital needed information, to honour them, and learn to express them in healthy ways. Doing so will take courage and determination, it will mean learning how to let down our defenses in a safe way and let other people in. It will take us being willing to be vulnerable. We will need to learn new skills, new ways of safely letting those emotions surface and be expressed. But the end result will be worth it. We will be healthier and safer, as individuals, families, and in society.

Coming next

In the next article, I want to look particularly at how dismissive positivity can create a toxic environment in which we, or others, are not allowed to express anything negative. I especially want to address what happens when this becomes the culture in a church.  

 For the next article in this series click here.