Tag: toxic positivity
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If You Stuff Your Emotions Down: You Gotta Feel It to Heal It
“Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Sit with it. Even though you want to run. Even when it’s heavy and difficult. Even though you’re not quite sure of the way through. Healing happens by feeling.” ~Dr. Rebecca Ray
I’ve spent much of my life resisting my true feelings.
Anger made me feel wrong. Sadness made me feel weak. Neediness made me feel “girly.” Love made me feel scared.
I became an expert at hiding when I was feeling any of the above.
Some people numb their feelings with alcohol, drugs, shopping, or sex. I numb with control. Being in control. Exerting control. Maintaining iron-will control over everything in my life, including my emotions.
The thing about the illusion of being in control is that it really only works for so long before emotions bubble up to the surface, erupt like a dormant volcano, and explode onto someone or something unintended. And trust me when I tell you, that ain’t pretty.
One of the most famous quotes of every twelve-step program is: “You gotta feel it to heal it.” As someone who absolutely hated feeling anything that made me uncomfortable, this was the best advice I’d ever heard and the single most important tool I started using over the years to heal from anything in my life that was hard.
It was in that twelve-step program for an eating disorder I had many years ago where I learned that all my ‘self-control’ tactics were an illusion. If I would just allow myself to feel “it,” whatever “it” was, I could make peace with a lot of things, including myself.
My mom was the role model I grew up with. Strong. Resilient. Positive and always in control. I strived to be like her. Positive and happy no matter what life threw my way.
We were raised to not be weak, negative, or ungrateful because (we were told) somebody out there had it worse than us. The way through life was to remain positive. I mean, if she could do it, why couldn’t I?
But I was different. More sensitive. Overly sensitive. A tad too empathetic. A chronic people-pleaser who didn’t like to rock the boat or risk anyone not liking me. When I had big feelings, I thought it best to push those feelings right down.
Anger got me into trouble and cost me my childhood best friend. Sadness and tears (especially if, God forbid, they happened in the workplace) were “unprofessional,” I was told. And being anything but positive cramped my Supergirl vibe because people had gushed to me my entire life how “strong and resilient” I was, and I wanted to live up to their perception of me.
But pushing down my feelings led to things that, for periods of time, wrecked my life: Depression. Anxiety. Secrets. Migraines. Illness. Chronic fatigue. Binging. Purging. Lies. And ultimately, not feeling I could be who I truly was and still be loved.
And like every human being that walks this earth, I wanted to be able to be me and still be loved.
So I started to do work on myself. And that work, let me tell you, was hard. But as one of my very favorite authors, Glennon Doyle, likes to say, “We can do hard things.”
The hard thing for me was surrendering to the discomfort, the judgment of others, the judgments I had about myself, and owning the truth of who I was and how I actually felt about things.
So I went to therapy. I signed up for yoga/meditation retreats. I dove deep into spirituality. I prayed and sat in silence for hours listening for God and then writing what I heard Him say.
I traveled to Peru and then Costa Rica, where I was introduced to sacred plant medicine, and purged out all the feelings I didn’t realize I had been carrying for years in ceremonies that literally changed my life. Wisdom and visions guided me to make changes I don’t think I would have had the courage to make on my own.
If you’re brave enough to step outside your comfort zone and try different things to open your heart and hold a mirror up to yourself, you’ll uncover one simple truth: You’ve got to feel whatever it is you’re running from to heal that thing for good.
For those people who think I have it all together all the time, I want to set the record straight…
None of us has it together all of the time. And to believe that you should, that there is anybody in this world who has “it”—whatever “it” is—together all the time, well that’s the very thing that’s causing any of us to feel sad, angry, overwhelmed, depressed, anxious, (fill in the blank with whatever emotion you think you shouldn’t be feeling today).
I have it together most days. And others I’m completely overwhelmed.
I’m sometimes sad for no reason at all. But still, I allow myself to cry.
I feel sorry for myself some days, knowing that somebody out there has it worse than me. But I no longer try to shut that feeling down. I let it come. Feel it. Let it pass.
We all have something in our lives that makes us feel sorry for ourselves. Let’s stop declaring to the world “I’m fine” when we really aren’t and, instead, accept it’s just a feeling—and feeling anything other than fine is not admitting we’re weak or pathetic, but human.
I get angry. And when I do, I don’t make myself out to be a villain because of that anger. I just ask it what it’s trying to show me about myself or someone else and then I listen to it. I approach it with compassion instead of judgment. Maybe I have a right to be angry. Maybe someone is doing something hurtful, and the anger is inviting me to stand up for myself, or walk away, or learn how to set a boundary.
Every feeling we have is trying to teach us something. I’ve learned to listen to the teacher and ask, “What are you trying to show me?”
I’ve been through loss. Betrayal. Divorce. Depression. An eating disorder. All things that others have been through. We all have our things we need to heal from. Mine aren’t any harder or less hard than yours.
But you can heal. You can be happy even if you’ve been through something sad. You can be you and still be loved. But you’ve gotta feel it to heal it if you want to get there.
I’m grateful for all of my life. Not just the good stuff.
I’m grateful for the hard things. The hard things are what have shown me who I am, what I’m made of, and pushed me to create the best life possible for myself and my children. The hard things pushed me to heal things that needed to be healed for decades.
If sharing my story encourages just one person to find the courage to do the hard things to help them heal… well then, the hard things, in my opinion, have been totally worth it.
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When Positive Messages Feel Bad: Why I’m Changing How I Use Social Media
“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.” ~Niels Bohr
Social media is indeed a paradox in that it has the power to be both good and evil simultaneously. Ironically, one of the most harmful things about social media is the abundance of “positive” messages.
You’re probably wondering how something that creates so much comparison, self-doubt, and anxiety can be “too positive.” What I mean is that social media messaging is starting to put a lot of pressure on us to be grateful and optimistic about our life no matter what we’re going through—also known as “toxic positivity.” This seems to especially be applied to mothers.
Optimism and happiness are of course wonderful when they’re authentic for you. However, if you try to pass over your uncomfortable emotions or ignore what you’re going through, it’s similar to spiritual bypassing, where you try to skip over being a human and struggling through life’s challenging times.
What feels like toxic positivity to one person can feel completely empowering to another. It depends on where you’re at in this moment and how a specific message lands with you.
There does seem to be an overall trend, however, of emphasizing how grateful and fulfilled we should be without the counter-messaging that sometimes life just sucks.
One of the hardest things about social media is staying in tune with ourselves. We go to our phone for comfort, distraction, and entertainment. Once we arrive, our brain gets hijacked by the content, and we have to buckle up for whatever ride the algorithm sends us on. Even with the best intentions going in, we can get turned around by one video or post and find ourselves feeling like we aren’t measuring up.
When I first became I mother I was obsessed with the idea of gentle parenting. I consumed everything I could find on this parenting style. I gave it my best go, but every day I felt like a complete and worthless failure.
I was bombarding myself with an idealized version of this parenting style that social media made look so easy. After reading any social post, I felt like I was an idiot for sucking at it.
How hard is it to just speak in a calm voice and not lose your patience with your one-year-old? He’s literally an innocent baby! One that hits the dog, bites you while breastfeeding, or turns and runs into the street with a mischievous smirk on his face.
In my frustration I would go straight to social media to flagellate myself with messaging that had a toxic effect on me. I pivoted against my husband who had a more relaxed attitude toward parenting and put more pressure on myself to be a “perfect” mom. This created tension in my marriage and physical and emotional burnout for me.
Don’t get me wrong here’; I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with social media. The way it connects us with each other is truly wonderful. The current messaging to parents and mothers sounds so beautiful at first glance.
“Your babies grow up fast, so you should savor each moment.”
“Motherhood is the most challenging job, but so worthwhile.”
“Your house is a disaster, but you shouldn’t care about that when you have young children.”
My issue is that we are using social media as a weapon to inflict self-harm. Instead of taking these messages in the way they are intended—to inspire us—we criticize and judge ourselves against them.
We can start to feel bad that we actually care if our house is a giant mess or that we don’t enjoy every moment.
Or we might feel guilty for not feeling grateful. Or bad about feeling sad. Or frustrated because we can’t just “choose to be happy” when we’re feeling down.
My solution is not to delete all your social media apps (but go for it if that sounds amazing to you). What I recommend is to start actually noticing how each reel, TikTok, or post feels in your body. It doesn’t matter that it has beautiful music, photos, or a positive message.
If your brain is twisting that message to be used against you, it is not yours to absorb.
It is easier to spot the types of messages that we instantly don’t agree with. Any time I see a perfectly put-together mom with three kids in matching, neutral-toned outfits, I mentally reject it. It doesn’t matter what the content is; this is always a pass for me. What messaging bothers you or feels toxic is completely personal.
Our brain gets conflicted when something seems really positive, but doesn’t feel good to us. Since our brain doesn’t like being confused, we unknowingly spend mental energy trying to make sense of the discordance that we feel. Becoming aware of your emotional reactions helps you quickly accept or reject the messaging coming at you, so you aren’t as negatively affected by it.
We don’t need to villainize the content creators here either. I don’t think anyone (hopefully) is going out there intentionally using pretty messaging to turn us against ourselves. So much of the messaging we see is meant to be inspiring and helpful.
A lot of times I feel connected and motivated by the positivity I encounter on social media. Especially content that is less perfected and less filtered.
When you come across a “positive” message that makes you feel critical of yourself, I suggest you mentally “pass” on it and move on.
I like to compare social media messaging to a food sensitivity. Tomatoes are not inherently bad, but if your body doesn’t react well to them, then they aren’t for you right now. You may heal or grow out of some particular food sensitivities and be fine with them in the future.
Giving yourself the power to pass on or to accept every message that comes your way gives you complete control over your experience on social media, regardless of what you scroll through.
You get to decide what “positive” things feel good to absorb and what “positive” things aren’t for you right now. My wish for each of you reading this is that you update your relationship with social media to be one that fully empowers and supports you.
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Why It’s Worth the Temporary Discomfort of Sitting with Intense Emotions
“Whatever you’re feeling, it will eventually pass.” ~Lori Deschene
Can you feel an intense emotion, like anger, without acting on it, reacting to it, or trying to get rid of it?
Can you feel such an intense emotion without needing to justify or explain it—or needing to find someone or something to blame it on?
After successfully dodging it for two years, I recently caught Covid-19. The physical symptoms were utter misery. But something much more interesting happened while I was unwell.
The whole experience brought some intense emotions to the surface. Namely, seething anger about something that had nothing to do with the virus.
In the handful of days that my symptoms were at their worst, I was absolutely livid. And while on some level it made sense that I was angry that getting this sick was both extremely unpleasant and delaying work on a project I was all fired up about, the anger was manifesting with a deeper-rooted blame.
I grew up in a religious denomination that had a profound effect on my childhood and adolescence. It taught me through debilitating fear, division, and confusion. It ingrained black-and-white rights and wrongs for living, thinking, and being that had never made sufficient sense to me, no one could adequately explain, and were damaging for me on a number of levels.
In the past couple of years, I worked through its various effects with shadow work, inner child healing, forgiveness, and even quantum energetic healing. Each of these modalities supported me immensely with healing different layers.
But the emotion of deep anger I harbored clearly hadn’t gone away, and it simply needed to be felt.
The more we learn to observe and witness our emotions, the more acutely aware we become of where they’re stemming from, and the more we’re able to notice and catch ourselves when we’re associating our emotions with narratives and situations that are not in fact to blame for how we’re feeling.
Although I’d initially managed to fashion some connection between being unwell and the church I still harbored so much anger toward, I became increasingly aware that there was none. My inclination to blame the church was part of an ongoing pattern. And it was time to break this pattern.
At the same time, I’d recently become very aware that whenever I’d hear mention of the church or any of its associated beliefs, a brief surge of anger would leap up in me. I was still feeling triggered.
I was very ready to move beyond these patterns of blame and anger. And getting to that inner peace I so wanted to feel meant addressing this on an emotional level. I realized that what I needed was to actually sit with these feelings so they could be fully acknowledged and allowed to move through me.
The only person who is ever responsible for your emotions is you. And your emotions are simply powerful feedback. They show up for one of two dominant reasons.
Either they’re unresolved past emotions that are surfacing because they’re ready to be acknowledged and felt now, or they’re feelings that demonstrate how a situation is resonating for you—in other words, they’re your own inner compass.
Sadly, although traditions like Buddhism have been teaching us how to develop emotional awareness for thousands of years, we’ve somehow landed on two dominant, ineffective responses.
Acting on our emotions or trying to brush them under the rug.
Brushing an emotion under the rug will only keep it trapped inside of you. Meaning it will resurface to bother you as many times as it needs to in the future until you deal with it.
And the practices of toxic positivity fall under this category. Write a gratitude list and look for the best-feeling thought you can find, they say. In other words, avoid the “negative” emotion for now and let it fester under the surface a little while longer.
Newsflash: No emotion is negative unless it’s fueling a negative action or reaction. It’s simply feedback pointing you toward growth or clarity.
Which brings me to the next dominant response we resort to. Acting on the emotion (by yelling at someone, for example) will at least give it an opportunity to release but will most likely create consequences that won’t serve you. We’ve all been there and done that, so no judgment here.
As I emphasized earlier, the only person who’s ever responsible for your emotions is you. And we tend to act on our emotions by deflecting this responsibility. So we learn, understand, and gain nothing from them.
So, I sat with the anger. I was fully present with it—by itself, separate from any experience or event that I could possibly associate it with.
I acknowledged it, felt its full intensity, and breathed through it. I sat with the parts of me that felt this emotion with compassion. I surrendered to letting it move through me.
Despite having felt the intensity of this anger for a few days, it released fairly quickly when I leaned into it. And when it released, I was able to see pretty clearly why being ill had triggered this anger.
I’ve also noticed that since this whole experience, the little surges of anger I’d previously felt have gone away. So far I haven’t felt those triggers since, which is a relief.
Before I go any further, I want to acknowledge that many of us are carrying deep trauma that’s often too painful to even fathom triggering. So have compassion for yourself in whatever you feel, and don’t put off seeking the right support to work through your emotions if you feel you need this.
Now, this might sound counterintuitive, and it’s incredibly uncomfortable to do at first. But real emotional awareness—and maturity—means sitting with the emotion and feeling its fullness.
It’s identifying what this emotion is and how it feels. Including where you can feel it physically.
It’s giving yourself some time and space to focus on really leaning into the emotion and separating it from any narrative or incident it may be associated with. Focusing on the emotion by itself in isolation allows us to process it. Without blame, justification, or self-pity.
When you can truly feel, acknowledge, and breathe through it, it releases. And when it’s released, you’re able to understand what it represented for you. You grow through it.
This may take time, but a feeling is only ever there to be felt. And until it is, it will be increasingly vociferous in how it tries to get your attention.
This can require a lot of courage, especially because too many of us have been conditioned to fear feeling our emotions and believe that we can’t handle them.
But if you need to cry, cry. If it feels intense, this is where deeply buried stuff is surfacing for release.
And when you let an emotion move through you, you let it move out of you.
This doesn’t mean that you’ll never feel another “negative” emotion ever again.
But it does mean that you’ll understand how to respond to these emotions and allow them to be felt and understood with a lot more compassion.
And that’s more than worth the temporary discomfort.
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Hate Your Life? 4 Ways to Boost Your Happiness
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” ~Desmond Tutu
I hate my life. Does this statement ring true to you at all? Do you feel like you’re at rock bottom? The good news is, it might not be as bad as you fear.
I spent a lot of time feeling afraid of everything.
I had an emotional collapse, and it made life suddenly seem terrifying. What had happened? Had the town I was living in changed? Had my country suddenly become different?
No, I had changed the filter through which I saw the world, from one of hope and joy to one of fear and hopelessness.
My biggest problem wasn’t that I was feeling terrible, but that I had unconsciously bought into the idea that the problem was ‘out there,’ or that perhaps I had lost my mind. It frightened me to experience that level of darkness, where everything looked gloomy and hopeless.
When We Believe Our Self-Talk and Perceptions of Our Terrible Life
What had really happened was that, after a series of bad experiences, I got very sad and then a whole lot sadder. I didn’t realize that, after the initial painful problems, I was continuing to create a lot of my upset with my thinking processes.
I was seeing—through my perception filter—only the darker parts of life. Everything felt greyer somehow. It got gradually worse and I became more and more entrenched in the grip of it.
Had the bad situations caused it? Perhaps, but the real problem was that they had caused me to change my filter to grey, and I was stuck there. The more I saw the world this way, the more I expected it. The more I unconsciously expected it, the more evidence my senses found for me to confirm my fears.
Therapists and books, in trying to help me get past my sense of pain and suffering, took me back to the time when the collapse happened, and even back to my childhood.
I established what the original problem was and ‘worked through it.’ I agree with the necessity to work through old wounds and baggage to a degree, and it is sometimes crucial for mental wellness. However, for me, it was re-traumatizing and mostly just dug up old things I’d already accepted. I found myself back at square one over and over again. Far from recovering, I was in a circle of regression.
What kept me going back over it was simple: The bad situations I had experienced were long over, and I had done the forgiveness and grieving, but I was still feeling bad. The only reason I could find was that I needed to do more healing work on the past. However, now that I look back, it seems what was really keeping it alive was my own belief that the problem was still there.
The Wake-Up Call
Here was a major truth bomb for me: While I’d certainly had experiences that were traumatizing when they happened, I was the one who was now perpetuating my pain. I had a habit of hating my life.
Did that mean it was my fault? No, I was just doing what we all do. I had practiced feeling terrible every day, and after a month or so it had become habit. I was a professional fearful person.
Yes, maybe the original upset or difficulties in my life were bad, but they were no longer happening. I kept them alive two ways: 1. Through learned habitual behavior and 2. By constantly picking over them to find out why I still felt bad.
Don’t Put a Happy Face Sticker Over It
There’s a lot of talk now of toxic positivity and concerns about putting a happy face sticker over problems. I do get that people sometimes do this. It is irresponsible to run away from a real-life problem, but I do not believe that most people who talk about toxic positivity are really warning about that.
I believe that many people who talk about toxic positivity are actually stuck with their filter on grey, and they are arguing for their own limitations.
There is an increased stigma around the idea of “love and light.” It’s become an almost contemptible topic. I agree that it’s ridiculous to think that “love and light” is the answer to everything. But if you feel stuck in old stuff and find that you feel less than happy about your life, I challenge you to give it a try before disregarding it as naïve or evasive.
Please remember that even some apparently very wise spiritual and transformational helpers or gurus are still themselves very much stuck in their egos. They still want to be the hero battling their pain and discussing their survival. Just because someone is well-known and well-loved does not make them any less human. Just because they claim to know better, does not mean that they do.
Positivity gets a bad rap in certain places on the internet, but please remember this idea that we don’t have to dwell in the difficulties is age old and has been supported by mystics and gurus since the beginning of time.
As the old Buddhist saying states, “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” I get that there is a time and a place for facing pain—dealing with circumstances and processing grief is incredibly important. But we do not need to suffer beyond the original pain.
How to feel the Pain Without Getting Caught in Suffering
Yes, you’ll encounter difficulties, and sometimes they will be terrible, awful, and shocking. However, once you’ve done the initial processing and the grieving process is well under way, there is a lot to be said for introducing a happy face sticker! Not to go over the wound, but to go alongside it. We don’t need to dwell in toxic positivity or negativity.
What do I mean by initial processing of difficulties in life? It will be different for everyone and it depends on the circumstances, but what I really mean is this: Allow yourself a reasonable time to feel the feelings and then make efforts to move forward with your life!
No one would expect you to be happy the day after you witnessed some horrible crime or after the death of a loved one. This is ridiculous and what is really meant by toxic positivity—the notion that you should be happy all of the time regardless of your circumstances.
But there comes a time when we have to choose to shift our perspective and find reasons to smile, because it only happens if we make it happen.
Put a Happy Face Sticker Next to it and Start Hanging Out There
If you really hate your life, you may have gotten to the stage where you have started to believe it will never get better. Take it from someone who knows, this isn’t true. You are awake and breathing now, so there is still hope to turn everything around. I did. I am no more special than you, I have no special skills. If I can, so can you.
If you are clinically ill, get help, that is a given. If you are unsure, reach out to a medical professional and get assistance and their opinion. This is a must!
Once you are sure that you do not need medical intervention, be a risk taker and try the much maligned “positive thinking and action” methodology below.
What I suggest below is what I did, and it worked for me. It has worked for clients. Does this mean it will work for you? No, not necessarily, and perhaps you will do it slightly differently. But hopefully you will be able to understand the essence of what I’m suggesting and give it a try.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
4 Ways to be Happier (The Not-So-Magic Formula)
Firstly, suspend the idea of not wanting to buy into “toxic positivity” and try this twenty-minute morning routine for a couple of weeks. I have never had anyone report that it made them feel worse.
Exercise as soon as you get out of bed.
Okay, go to the bathroom first! After that, take two to ten minutes to do some stretches, weights, or aerobic exercises. Put on some music and then get started.
I do fifteen minutes every morning with two little weights and a resistance band. I do five minutes on my legs with the resistance band, five minutes on my core on the floor or with the weights, and five minutes with the weights on my arms. My body looks better, and it gets my good-feeling chemicals pumping.
Make a few sheets of goals, quotes, or a vision board.
Put them up in the area where you will be doing your exercises, and read or look at them as you move to get into an empowered mindset. You can include pictures, quotes, or ideas.
I have thirteen sheets and a load of sticky notes. I don’t read everything perfectly every day, but I read most of it every day as I work on my arms. I have mainly quotes from my favorite transformational authors, as I’m not a massive fan of setting specific goals, but whatever you choose is up to you.
Gratitude journal.
Take one minute and list three things you are grateful for. This is a minimum requirement. If you have time, consider writing intentions for the day or listing the ways in which you feel the universe has helped you lately.
Even if you feel that there are twenty things that you could complain about, if there is one good thing, write about that.
A great addition to these exercises is to look back over previous days and notice how much you have to be grateful for or how many of your intentions you have met. If you think you haven’t met any of your intentions, remember that isn’t true! If you are writing your gratitude journal on more than one day, you are showing up for you and keeping it up somewhat. A huge number of people will not even get so far.
Be compassionate with yourself and grateful that you have shown some dedication to yourself, however small that effort may seem at first.
Listen to something motivational and upbeat every morning.
I do this while I am getting dressed or doing my to-do list. I watch something that talks about empowerment, what we can achieve, what is right with me and the world rather than what is wrong.
Is it to stick my head in the sand or deny that there’s anything wrong in the world? No, it’s so that I am pumped and empowered to actually take on the task of living life.
There is so much free content out there on social media that you can access. Do a social media search and start finding material that uplifts you and gets you thinking positively and with purpose every day.
No one gets excited about facing pain or the destruction stretched out in front of them. So, even when there are difficult things to face, it’s crucial that we can somewhat reframe it so that we can see it as a positive challenge rather than solely a painful experience.
When we do this, it is not to be irresponsible or to avoid the reality, but rather to give ourselves the best chance of being able to embrace what we need to do with enthusiasm and a good energy. This way we are more use to ourselves, the people around us, and the world
Takeaway: Summary of the Plan to Shift Out of the Pain
You don’t like your life… Okay, no need to panic.
Take a moment to check if you might need medical assistance. If you’re not sure, reach out to a health professional. Once you’ve done this and are sure you don’t have a clinical reason for feeling so bad about life, ask yourself if you are expecting yourself to feel better before you’ve had a reasonable time to grieve or recover from a recent event.
If something bad has happened, you will need time to feel it and process it. The world does seem to encourage us to always feel great, and this isn’t realistic. Our minds naturally want a simple solution and to get away from processing a painful experience, but it only prolongs it in the long run. Make sure you are not rushing a sensible grieving process.
Equally, if you hate your life today, check in with yourself and ask yourself if you are perhaps just having a bad couple of days. No one feels happy all of the time, and it is unhealthy to expect yourself to do so.
Once you’ve checked for a medical reason and that you don’t have a temporary and reasonable explanation for why you feel so bad, consider trying the ideas above and seeing what a positive start to your day might do for you.
Do it for a month and see what changes.
Perhaps starting your day with movement, motivation, and gratitude will not work, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t! Will it solve all of your problems? No, of course not. But hopefully, it will give you a boost of positivity and a sense of hope and show you that you can make changes that can help you to feel better about your life.
Once you see that small changes can make a big difference, you will get excited about all the other things you can change and improve in your life. It takes you out of reverse gear and into first. It may seem small, but it’s a start, and a very positive one at that!