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It has been confirmed that people who find themselves constructive and have increased ranges of optimism reside longer than those that don’t. However is it doable to have an excessive amount of positivity? Can an over-the-top constructive mindset really do extra hurt than good?
Sadly, the reply is sure.
However when does positivity grow to be a problem and what are the qualities that may make it probably poisonous? Allow us to discover the 5 qualities of poisonous positivity and the way you may be endlessly chasing a state of everlasting happiness.
You Might Be Questioning…What Precisely Is Poisonous Positivity?
I’m positive you’ve seen it earlier than. Maybe you’ve even fallen into its lure at occasions in your individual life. I absolutely did for some time. It’s when an individual solely expresses constructive, feel-good feelings, even when the truth is clearly removed from it.
Poisonous positivity is an try and be in a state of everlasting happiness.
It’s as if the individual is a strolling constructive affirmation, and it doesn’t matter what trauma could also be occurring of their lives, it’s nothing however “good vibes solely.”
Reasonably than honoring their struggling, a poisonous constructive individual appears caught on the brilliant aspect, irrespective of how darkish issues may very well be. Sound acquainted, but?
Now, don’t get me fallacious. There’s a very VERY skinny line right here between wholesome positivity and optimism and poisonous positivity.
So to assist distinguish the 2, I’ve give you 5 qualities or traits of poisonous positivity to look out for. Consider these as warning indicators that your constructive mindset could also be turning poisonous!
The 5 Qualities of Poisonous Positivity:
As talked about above, contemplate these qualities warning indicators that your constructive mindset might have overflowed right into a state of toxicity.
1. Avoiding Something That Is Painful, Uncomfortable or Troublesome
The primary high quality of poisonous positivity is that it’s a working away from one’s self or one’s life. On the onset of something that feels uncomfortable or tough one feels a powerful have to eliminate it. The so-called “unfavorable” emotions are seen as “unhealthy”, and rituals, habits or behaviors come up as a way to rapidly eradicate them.
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That is like anyone who wakes up within the morning and feels the slightest bit of hysteria and rapidly sages the entire home, then takes a shower in important oils, whereas holding rose quartz crystals to their coronary heart chakra, all whereas repeating constructive affirmations of their thoughts – actually making an attempt every thing and something to exorcise the disagreeable emotions away.
It’s not that what the individual is doing is essentially an issue, however slightly it’s the compulsion to instantly rid oneself of something uncomfortable and have it rapidly changed with a “constructive” feeling that makes it poisonous.
It’s virtually as if there’s an obsessive want to flee as rapidly as doable one thing that could possibly be considered as “unfavorable” (extra on this later!).
Generally we expertise issues and lows. It’s all a part of the deal, and it’s not needed or helpful to faux in any other case.
I used to have a good friend who was a life coach that I loved discussing my life with till I began to note how at any time when I used the phrase “drawback,” he needed to obnoxiously interrupt me and say with an enormous, Stepford-wives smile, “You imply alternative!”
Now, don’t get me fallacious. I’m not disagreeing with the truth that the issues in our lives will be alternatives for studying and deepening our non secular apply, however in obsessively having to interrupt me for calling my issues what they had been on the time – actual issues – I not solely felt dismissed, but in addition felt as if he was not honoring my struggling.
Reasonably than compassionately listening and assembly me the place I used to be, he was forcing his constructive pondering mindset down my throat. It was not useful or comforting.
If in case you have a bit of shit and also you paint it with vivid colours and sprinkle glitter on it, it’s nonetheless shit. So why not let shit be shit? Let my drawback be what it’s – an issue! We don’t have to wrap it in constructive, non secular wrapping paper to make it fairly.
Generally issues simply suck and are arduous. Generally we expertise issues and lows. It’s all a part of the deal, and it’s not needed or helpful to faux in any other case.
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2. Closely Based mostly in Concern and Aversion
The following high quality of poisonous positivity is that it’s heavily-based in concern and aversion. An individual who practices poisonous positivity is frightened of themselves and their emotions. They don’t need to really feel sure components of their inside world and are terrified by the onset of something that triggers their anger, disappointment, sorrow or ache.
No matter it’s, it frightens them to the core and due to this concern, they attempt to escape these emotions as rapidly as doable with a cliche inspirational quote or perhaps a smile.
The unhappy half is, when left unacknowledged, this very ache or tough emotion turns into the driving drive of the poisonous positivity, and the concern of experiencing that ache solely exacerbates it.
So, out of concern of feeling what we’re feeling, we expend all this pointless vitality making an attempt to run away by utilizing positivity, which not solely disconnects us from ourselves, but in addition diminishes our means to domesticate emotional maturity and retains us from studying how you can relate skillfully to our struggling.
I keep in mind vividly having a poisonous positivity second in my very own life primarily based on this high quality of fearing what’s painful. I used to be in a remedy session in school, sharing among the painful life experiences and up to date struggles I used to be going via. Unbeknownst to me, I used to be explaining all of this with an enormous (in all probability creepy) smile on my face.
After all, the therapist referred to as me out on it and immediately the facade got here down, leaving me with the extreme emotions my smile was making an attempt to cowl up out of concern. It was a sobering second for me, realizing how afraid I actually was to indicate the true me, which, on the time, was not all smiles.
I used to be shocked at how arduous it was to not smile when expressing my ache – a toxically neurotic behavior I’ve hopefully let go of!
Poisonous positivity will not be solely characterised by concern of what we’re feeling, but in addition one’s deep aversion to it. Now don’t get me fallacious, I’m not saying all of us have to “like” our struggling the identical means we like lengthy walks on the seaside or snickers ice cream bars, however we don’t need to have such a powerful attachment to our aversion towards it both.
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Aversion has the qualities of working away and of not desirous to look, and it’s this obsessive turning away and unwillingness to acknowledge our ache that turns into the difficulty.
And once more, it’s vital to bear in mind right here that each one 5 qualities of poisonous positivity have to be current to ensure that positivity to show poisonous. There’s nothing fallacious with having an aversion towards tough emotions. All of us have that. Who needs to really feel shitty? I absolutely don’t!
Simply because we don’t like experiencing sure disagreeable components of being human doesn’t imply we’re a poisonous constructive individual.
However slightly after we don’t like one thing and we’re afraid of it, and due to that concern and aversion we really feel we should rapidly escape from it and canopy it up with one thing completely satisfied or constructive, that’s when it turns into a problem.
3. An Excessive Type of Denial
The following high quality of poisonous positivity is that it’s often a type of excessive denial. It’s after we grasp on to that inauthentic smile or these Eckhart Tolle quotes and constructive affirmations as a option to deny our struggles and faux that they’re not there, that there begins to be a problem.
It’s after we consider that if we simply drown our ache lengthy sufficient in rainbows and unicorns it would in some way magically go away.
Denial is actually life-denying and positivity turns into poisonous after we use it on this means – as a way to spiritually bypass the tough facets of ourselves and our lives. This denial can flip into disregarding issues, dismissing emotions and even selecting (aka faking) happiness.
It may be expressed with sayings equivalent to, “It could possibly be worse” or “The whole lot occurs for a motive.” Reasonably than embracing and opening to the struggling, poisonous positivity denies it utterly as if it’s no huge deal, and even worse, as if it merely doesn’t exist.
However as poet Jennifer Welwood as soon as wrote: “Every situation I flee from pursues me; every situation I welcome transforms me; and turns into itself reworked; into its radiant jewel-like essence.”
If we proceed to make use of positivity as a option to deny our emotions, we are going to discover ourselves working from it – all the time uneasy, all the time desperately greedy the momentary reduction and all the time nervously on the cusp of falling again into our ache.
However we are able to’t run away from ourselves eternally, and if we proceed to disclaim our ache, we additionally deny our likelihood for deep therapeutic and transformation, which is what a mature path of apply is all about – transferring towards our struggling and changing into intimate with it, slightly than working away from it.
4. Dualistic
The fourth high quality of poisonous positivity is that it’s typically grounded in a dualistic view of life. That is after we are caught within the dichotomy of excellent vs evil, constructive vs unfavorable, proper vs fallacious. It’s after we break up the world up into opposites, dropping the potential for true stability and equanimity.
This demonizing of the disagreeable and painful facets of ourselves creates pointless rigidity and places us at battle with regular, pure components of our humanity.
Even worse, we begin believing that sure feelings are “decrease” and have to be transcended to be “non secular”, additional fragmenting ourselves. It might grow to be very exhausting and painful trying to always keep off the darker components of our persona.
After we flip our “inside demons” into one thing that’s not imagined to be there we miss the chance for them to information us to the precise place we’d like therapeutic and loving consideration. Bringing the darkness into the sunshine may be very totally different than beginning an all out battle with the darkness.
With a view to really feel entire and full, all facets of our humanity have to be included, skilled and honored. But, for a poisonous constructive individual, the tough feelings and emotions appear to be a curse or a punishment; as if these items weren’t imagined to be a part of their life.
They might really feel like if solely they did the appropriate model of meditation or repeated the appropriate affirmations these “intruders” can be eradicated and by no means present up once more. However sadly, this isn’t the case.
5. Inauthenticity
The final high quality of poisonous positivity is that it comes off as inauthentic and feels phony. You recognize what I’m speaking about. Whenever you’re speaking to somebody they usually hold telling you every thing is ideal! It’s very arduous to authentically join with them.
No life is ideal. No life is free from struggling.
And to behave like nothing bothers you and that you just don’t have issues in your life, or that you just’ve in some way magically transcended all of them, comes off as phony. It makes different people who find themselves struggling really feel like they have to be doing one thing fallacious, and places you, the “non secular grasp,” above everybody else.
A really constructive individual understands the ache of life as a result of they’ve absolutely explored their very own.
This isn’t what dwelling a constructive, non secular life is all about. A non secular apply doesn’t make you particular. The truth is, a real non secular apply will make you, as zen instructor Charlotte Joko Beck typically used to say, “nothing particular.”
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Pretending that nothing bothers you doesn’t make you tremendous realized; it makes you detached and disconnected out of your humanity. A really constructive individual understands the ache of life as a result of they’ve absolutely explored their very own, and this enables them to be deeply empathic and compassionate to others who’re additionally in ache.
It feels real and genuine as a result of it’s coming from being susceptible, one thing {that a} poisonous constructive individual is frightened of.
Say Good-Bye to Poisonous Positivity and Hey to Authenticity!
Little question, wholesome optimism and a real constructive outlook is an effective way to reside a life. However, positivity have to be grounded in actuality. It should perceive the reality that if it arises, it belongs; that even the disagreeable experiences are a part of the deal on this incarnation.
Certain, issues may go out typically, and it’s, after all, more healthy to incline the thoughts to suppose this manner, however we should additionally perceive that typically issues don’t. We have to face the details that ache is part of life, that we get indignant, anxious and depressed typically, that issues change and finish, and that life doesn’t all the time go based on plan.
A really constructive individual is spacious sufficient to carry all of it.
These are all regular and pure components of our lives. With this smart understanding the tough facets of life don’t grow to be the enemy nor are they seen as “decrease” issues that solely “unawakened” individuals need to cope with, however as a substitute are understood as a part of the ever-changing dance and stream of this one uncommon and treasured life.
A really constructive individual is spacious sufficient to carry all of it, whereas nonetheless being sort, compassionate and in contact with their deepest values. It’s solely by opening as much as all of life, slightly than splitting it up and warring with the arduous components, through which they can do that in an genuine means.
So hold an eye fixed out for these 5 qualities of poisonous positivity, and should you discover their presence see should you can start the method of letting them go to permit for a very constructive life.
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