by Jodie the Mom | Apr 17, 2023 | Keeping Your Sanity

Does The Power Of Positive Thinking Work? Or Is It Toxic Positivity

Just think positive thoughts about the terrible situation you are in and everything will be ok. That is typically the promise made from those who promote the idea of the power of positive thinking. But are we allowed to just have a bad day?

As a busy work from home mom and homeschool mom, it often feels like you can never have a bad day. The kids are watching us. We have clients to juggle. We need to keep up the façade of everything being under control. There are no chinks in our super-mom armor. Right?

If you do have a bad day, then you aren’t thinking positively enough. Or you experience the guilt that you should have more control over your situation. Is it possible to just give ourselves permission to have a crappy day.

We all have people in our lives who paste on the fake smile and with a saccharin sweet voice declare that something bad is positive. Do you know what I am talking about? It is toxic positivity.

I know you are thinking, wait, wait a minute here. I thought the power of positive thinking was always a good thing. How can it be toxic then?

Before we continue, let me just state that I am not a psychologist. This post is intended to be thought provoking only. It is a discussion about a popular idea that is accepted. But I think it needs to be thought through. As rebel moms, we can question the popularly accepted ideas.

How the Power of Positive Thinking Leads to Toxic Positivity

Here is my mom confession. I wrestle with the notion of the power of positive thinking. There was a podcast that stopped listening to a podcast because I was tired of hearing, “Just be positive about the crappy situation you are in.”

I had just been laid off from my job. Half of our income and our childcare was gone.

Here I was struggling to make lemonade out of the lemons I was handed. Actually, it was more like should I make lemonade or freeze them and throw them at the people responsible. The last thing I needed to hear was just be positive. What I really needed to hear was, “This is bad situation. It is ok to feel all the negative and stressful feelings.” That would have been more helpful.

Sometimes we just need to acknowledge our feelings instead of burying them under a fake façade of positivity.

Since then, I’ve pushed this idea as far away as I could. I’ve seen people use it to misdiagnosis reality. And hope if they just stay positive it is enough and everything will be ok.

The problem with this idea is you don’t work on your situation. If you are promised that everything will work out if you just stay positive, then you don’t need to do anything more with it. It becomes the easy solution. You feel like you are doing something about your difficult circumstances, but in reality nothing is changing.

Toxic positivity prevents growth because it allows you to avoid feeling that are painful, stressful, frustrating, overwhelming, etc, etc. You know all those hard feelings that we want to avoid anyway.

Does the Power of Positive Thinking Never Work

I ran as hard as I could from the idea that I should look positively at every bad situation. I was so frustrated. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to think positively, my situation wasn’t changing by me just thinking about it.

I could repeat the mantra over and over again, but the feelings of anger and injustice were right below the surface. So I stopped trying to put a positive spin on it. But in the service of reality everything was looked at negatively.

Yes, I ran so hard in the opposite direction that I couldn’t see the positive any more. Except maybe in hindsight.

Here’s the thing, I do believe the science of being grateful. But the idea that the power of positive thinking should be applied to every situation leads to toxic positivity. Any idea that leans too heavily on one extreme or the other, usually isn’t helpful.

The Power of Positive Thinking Requires Balance

It isn’t helpful, to you or those around you, to be a negative Nancy all the time. This can create other physical and mental health issues. Neither is it helpful to paste on the fake smile and with the saccharine voice declare everything is just peachy keen. Ignoring emotions causes physical and mental health issues as well.

This is one of those ideas that require balance in the force. Here are some tips for balance.

1. Acknowledge emotions

If you pretend your emotions don’t exist, they don’t go away. The will just sit there in the depths of your soul and wait for an inopportune time to burst forth.

2. Work through them

You do need to work through your emotions, and depending on the situation it can take some time. Now working through your emotions doesn’t mean you create a video to post on social media. You know the ones where someone is crying about how hard her really good life is, with the sole purpose of getting people to feel sorry for her.

This is not working through your emotions. The purpose should always be to deal with them, so you can get past them, forgive, and move on. You don’t want your emotions to hold you back.

3. Hope

Victor Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning talked about the importance of hope in the concentration camps. He made the observation that those who completely lost hope died within a few days.

Hope is a very powerful emotion. It is important to find it, no matter how dark your circumstances are.

4. Work on your circumstances

Sometimes things happen that are completely out of your control. You can’t change what happened, but you can figure a way out.

When I was laid off, I couldn’t change that. It happened and it was completely out of my control. The only thing that was in my control was starting my own business. I could change how I worked and took care of my kids. That was a circumstance that I could work on.

You have permission to cry

Did you know that crying is good for you? There are health benefits associated with crying.

I have a confession. Crying is not my favorite thing to do. I try to hide and hope no one notices. Which is really hard since my whole face turns red. The problem I have with crying is that it is my default when I am sad, frustrated, or angry. Who can take me seriously when I am crying from anger?

There is usually a relief that comes with crying out your emotions. So don’t try to stop it. Maybe just sit by yourself and let it out.