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Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your20s.
The podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our20s, and what they mean for ourpsychology.
Helloeverybody, welcome back to theshow, welcome back to thepodcast, newlisteners, oldlisteners, where ever you are in theworld, it is so great to have you here back for anotherepisode.
As we of course break down the psychology of our20s.
We are going to talk about something a little bit differenttoday, a concept that you may or may not have heardof, which is toxicpositivity.
Even if you haven't heard ofit, you've most likely experienced it in someform.
People telling you to keep your chinup, that everything happens for a reason to think good thoughts and they'll become yourreality, because toxic positivity is everywhere thesedays, especially with the rise of a lot of Instagram andTikTok.
It is essentially this belief or this attitude that a positive mindset fixeseverything, whatever it is you're goingthrough, being optimistic will make itbetter.
And it's an attitude that has a lot of consequences for our mentalhealth, for our emotionalwell-being, but also for our emotional intelligence and our ability to actually address our emotions and solve ourproblems.
I have toadmit, I have been guilty of perhaps promoting this kind ofmessaging, both to myself and youguys, thelisteners.
It is very easy to villainize negativeemotions, also called negativeemotions, because they simply just don't feelnice.
Feeling angry doesn't feelnice.
Feelingdistressed,disappointed, doesn't feelnice.
And putting a positive spin onthings, a ton of erases the need to truly feel and process these bigfeelings.
But maturing is recognizing that just because something doesn't feel nice doesn't mean it's notuseful.
And second tothat, emotions likegrief, likedespair, like disappointment andrejection, they are what makes ushuman.
And being able to connect with those emotions means that we are able to connect withourselves,firstly, withoutexperiences, but also withothers, it's a real privilege to sometimes not feel amazing all thetime.
Personally, I also think that toxic positivity is really dangerous during our 20s inparticular, because our emotions can teach us so much during thisperiod, and they do influence who we arebecoming.
So if we mask them by being overly positive abouteverything, by not letting anythingin, by numbing ourselvesout, we're kind of doing ourselves adisservice.
And it may sound strange tohim, he say that being too positive is a danger to you asdangerous, because how can something so nice be sodangerous.
But when we gravitate towards the same reaction for all of ourexperiences,i.e.
always looking for the brightside, no matter how hard or difficult somethingis, we do tend to suppress a lot of what makes us so tender and sounique.
And so vulnerable and that vulnerability is a goodthing.
So today we are going to discuss the problem with always beingpositive, and I know it soundsstrange, but why feeling bad is sometimes good foryou, or also dive into why it is that we tend to gravitate towardsoptimism, this concept of self-inflicted emotional gaslighting and thealternative.
What is the alternative to putting a positive spin onthings, where does this inclination comefrom, we're going to talk about the origins of shame and emotionalembarrassment.
And I think that once you realize how common this radicaloptimism, this unrealistic optimismis, you'll be surprised how often you noticeit, and you'll be surprised how rampant it is in oursociety.
Once you begin to noticeit, you'll never stop noticingit.
But wealso, ofcourse, want to give you an alternative we want to talk about what it is that we cando, because if we can't make our emotions feelgood, what's thealternative?
Do we just let themexist?
Well,yeah, that's theanswer.
There wego. Episode summedup.
No, we'll be talking about that a little bitmore.
And I think that's all that Ihave.
Without furtherado, let's get intoit.
The basic positivity has a few differentnames, youknow, the first time that it was labored was back in the1980s, and back then it was known as unrealisticoptimism.
It's also known asbright-siding, positivetyranny, which is verydramatic.
I think you get the picture at the end of theday, all these terms are referring to the samething.
A deep but also toxic and maladaptive belief that thinking positively can erase all negative feelings and that those negative feelings arebad.
We have bad emotions that we should not feel and the way to not feel them is to cover them in sugar and cover them in sunshine and always find thepositive, always try and shake itoff.
We want toprioritize,update, thinking we want to push down the difficultstuff.
No one wants to saythat, no one wants to feelthat.
And if you can't be positive all thetime, you have somehow failed something is wrong withyou.
This can be a belief that we've learned from someone else around us or it can beself-imposed, like feeling guilty when you feel sad or disappointed and immediately forcing yourself to think about everything you should be grateful for instead of letting yourself be sad or pushing down big feelings by telling yourself it could beworse.
Just moveon. This is why toxic positivity is sometimes seen as a form of self-inflicted emotionalgaslighting.
That is amouthful, but I think we're all pretty familiar with the term gaslighting when it comes to romanticrelationships.
It's this act of one person manipulating somebody else into questioning their own reality and what is actually true or real as a way to maintain control overthem.
When we force ourselves to push down and push aside hardemotions, the premise is that we are essentially gaslighting ourselves bysaying, this isn'treal.
You don't know what you'reexperiencing, you're choosing to feel bad aboutthis.
Rather than you feel bad about this because it's hard and that's a normalreaction.
This experience is real and raw and it's okay to be in pain and to be flat for awhile, this ishard, you can feel sad aboutit.
More often than notthough, toxic positivity is something that we experience fromothers.
There is of course that own sense of like almost self-preservation I would call it to maintain a positive outlook at alltimes.
But there are often these times when perhaps you go to a therapist or a family member or a friend and yousay, youknow, I'm just really struggling with thisthing.
This terrible thing ishappening.
I'm reallystressed, I'm reallytired, I'm reallyexhausted.
And the only thing they try and do is get you to see the positivesides.
They only try and get you to see the light at the end of thetunnel.
And I getit. I really do get why a family member or a friend or a therapist or anybody would want to bring us back to what is good because we don't like to see other peoplestruggle.
We don't like to see other people feelsad, especially people that welove.
Some examples of this are like when you go through a breakup and you're immediately told that there's someone better outthere.
Think about the positives in thesituation.
Think about how fun it's going to besingle.
When you perhaps aren't ready to hearthat.
Losing your job and being told that youknow, you could have itworse.
Some people don't even have ajob.
Some people don't even havesavings.
Some people have been unemployed so much longer thanyou.
So chinup. It's all that line ofthinking, youknow, gettingghosted, getting rejected and being told that everything happens for areason.
Yes, it's a nicethought.
It just might not behelpful.
And it's probably one of those thoughts that's only helpful in hindsight when you're ready to hearit.
What's another example that we see alot?
Oh, somebody was telling me about this the otherday.
When you go and see a friend or with a family member or whoever it is and you just feel like you can't be low energy because they'll immediately pathologize or think that something iswrong.
So I feel like I have tosay, I don't really badday.
They'll immediately belike,well, that'swrong,good.
No,no,no,no, we don't want you to have a badday.
Let's make thisbetter.
We need to thinkpositively.
We need to fix your problem when you might just be having a bad day or over emphasizing the power ofgratitude.
That is something that we see all the time I had an example from afriend.
Well,yeah, from a friend in acquaintance who was telling me about how one of her coworkers lost her mother to cancer reallyunexpectedly.
And of course dealing with that just humongousgrief, unimaginablegrief.
She went and saw a therapist and the therapist or was a counselor told her to make a gratitude list to help her feelbetter.
And you knowwhat? I get the her intentions were most likely in the rightplace.
But you can also see how this is probably nothelpful.
That's probably not the one thing that we need todo.
This is almost a denial of the negative emotions and an unrealistic promotion of positive thinking when this person probably would actually not benefit from immediately movingon.
That's what I get the point oflike, ohyeah, what are you gratefulfor?
So you don't dwell on thisloss.
But maybe it would have been better to just belike,yeah, that'sreally, reallyawful.
That reallysucks. Let's just let you feel really bad about that for a while because that is a completely reasonable thing to befeeling.
One final example because I'm filled with anecdotes today is thisexperience, thisconcept, I don't know what itis, a term known as bright siding and we see this a lot when someone tells us a story about something really frustrating or really terrible orpainful.
And immediately somebody else jumps in with a matching story of their own that is far more terrible and far more painful or they point out the one part of the story where something good happened or something worst could havehappened.
Youknow, I just had the most terrible commute to worktoday.
I was sofrustrated. I was so angry by the time I gotin.
I just like didn't want to bethere.
And then theygo,well, on the brightside, like at least you know what happened to metoday, what least youknow, your card didn't explode likemine.
So you have something to feel goodabout.
It'slike,well, when thathappens, itimmediately, immediately kind of cuts off your ability to express your feelings because you either feel the need to justify the experience or you can'tcompete.
And therefore you just goquiet.
And there is this incredible book about this exact concept called brightsided, how they were lent this promotion of positive thinking has underminedAmerica.
And it talks about how by stamping out negative thoughts or villainizing negativeemotions, we become very toodimensional.
We learn pretty quickly that actually beingtruthful, looking for comfort rather than solutions or optimism is going to be met with toxicpositivity.
So eventually we just become our happymoments.
We just showed people the good things and everyone looks at each otherthinking,wow, her life is reallyperfect.
Her life is reallyamazing.
Whilst you think the same thing aboutthem.
And essentially the author makes this very convincing argument that toxic positivity has made usinauthentic.
And I tend toagree. Let me play devil's advocate for a second before we fully jump into the consequences ofthis.
Youknow, we do see toxic positivityeverywhere.
And you knowwhat? Sometimes it is only natural to want to see the bright side of what we're goingthrough.
It can be useful and it can also be intuitive ashumans,both, youknow,evolutionarily, but alsosocially, we naturally prefer positiveemotions.
They indicate greaterhappiness, greatersatisfaction.
They create less emotional pain and disarmony less socialfriction.
We would probably prefer to not get bogged down in hardthings.
There are also just people who are reallyoptimistic.
It's not that they are necessarily toxic in theiroptimism.
It's just how theycome.
And I think a lot of people would probably look at those explanations that I just gave of people trying their hardest to relate to somebody else through a positivelens.
And belike, what's theproblem?
What's the problemhere?
Ofcourse, it's better to be happy thansad.
Youknow, ofcourse, this lightens themood.
People want to be aroundyou.
People want to be yourfriend.
People want to behappy.
And I really do understandthat.
And I'm not saying that in these instances there isn't room forresilience.
There isn't room forgratitude.
There isn't room for problemsolving.
But the thingis, is that those things are healthy copingmechanisms.
When we overly rely onthem, when our solution to anything bad is just be grateful for what youhave.
Or,okay, just get over it and keep you chinup.
That is toxic positivity versus healthypositivity.
These happy good vibes become toxic when it involves avoiding andsuppressing, minimizing or rejecting negativefeelings.
And let's bereal. That doesn't actually make them goaway.
That doesn't allow us to make peace withthem.
The only thing that is occurring is that in themoment, they becomeinvisible.
And that means thateventually, they will most likely return with the vengeance lateron.
So let's talk about the consequences of toxicpositivity.
First ofall, it stigmatizes these so-called negativeemotions.
And I know that I've been using that word veryfrequently, negativeemotions.
Basically, what I mean by that is the emotions that are very much villainized bysociety.
Things that we kind of cringeat.
We would rather not seeanger,jealousy,grief,sadness.
And the reason that theseemotions, Ithink, are so disturbing to some people is because they are sohuman.
And when we see somebody else experiencingthem, we so deeply can see ourselves in thatfeeling.
We know what that feels like and I think that kind of makes us feelembarrassed.
Like, I don't be loud about what it means to behuman.
And youknow, sometimes being human does is just kind ofshit.
Sometimes it just isn'tfun.
There is not a single person alive today who wouldsay, youknow, my entire life has beengolden.
Everything is great forme.
And yet it feels like that is what it's what is kind ofexpected.
These negativeemotions, they are what keep us from being a very palatableperson, from being somebody who always leaves others feeling in a goodmood.
If nothingelse, these negativeemotions, I actually think are really useful because they make our good moments and our goodmemories, even morespecial.
They are also a natural reaction to our experiences and they teach us something they have apurpose.
And I think our desire to hide them links very closely to the stigma that is directed towards mental health and mental health conditions and mental healthstruggles.
And I don't think that that is anaccident.
Society is not that great at wanting people to be open about what they're goingthrough.
There is a long history ofthat.
And if we've never been taught to accept that this is a dimension of beinghuman.
If we continue to keep up this narrative that intense emotions deserve to behidden, they deserve to be masked by optimism or mask bypositivity.
The next generation is taught the same thing and that is where prejudice and misunderstanding comesfrom.
A failure to really normalize and accept what is typical for mostpeople, which is that we do feel sad and we do feel angry and we dogrieve.
And that doesn't always need to be stampedout.
It makes us feel like we always have to be okay when no one is and I saw this quote about this from an author that said this unrealistic optimism towards life is essentially saying whatever youdo, don't tell the truth of what it is like to bealive.
Don't beauthentic. Don't behonest.
Don't beopen. It's like having a nice illusion of what everything should looklike.
It's not that there is this greater power that is controlling this and making everyone forcing them to lookhappy.
It is like a long pattern and a long history of this going on and I think it mainly comes down to the effects of shame andembarrassment.
We aren't necessarily coming out andsaying, why are youcrying?
Don't beupset. That makes me souncomfortable.
Can you please stopthat?
Can you please stop grieving all over the place or stop being upset all over theplace?
No,stop. That is not necessarily what it's goingon.
But when we immediately switch gears when someone brings up the emotions that we don't like and we cover them in positivity and we serve them back tothem, youknow, that is a meaningful enough q to influencebehavior.
It is an implicit message to not do thatagain.
Don't dothat. We're not outwardly sayingit.
But everything about our behavior and everything about our treatment of this emotion is telling you justthat.
And within thatreaction, within that interaction thathappens, the thing that we're going to feel is a lot ofshame, a lot ofguilt, a lot of embarrassment thatwe, youknow, even expressed ourself in the firstplace.
And ofcourse, the stigma liveson.
The second consequence of toxic positivity is that it actually makes us feel worse rather thanbetter.
And there are dozens of studies to back thisup.
The less wefeel, the more of a positive spin that we put onthings, the less that we learn to cope in the more control that that emotionhas.
This is the classic cycle of avoidance inpsychology.
We never actually learn what to do with big emotions because the only thing we can think to do is to suppress them or make them light andfluffy, which actually just gives them moreimportance.
It makes themlouder. It makes themdarker.
The cyclerepeats. There is a very well-known study from the80s.
And the title of the study is the paradoxical effects of thoughtsuppression, just some lightreading.
And it's prettygroundbreaking.
What it basically says is that when you asked not to think aboutsomething, the more you immediately want to think aboutit.
So you may have heard ofthis.
If I say toyou,okay,please, whatever youdo, don't think about a whiteelephant.
Don't think aboutit. Don't think about a whiteelephant, ofcourse, you're thinking aboutit.
And you'll probably keep thinking about it for the rest of theday.
If that's my onlyinstruction, don't think aboutsomething.
Don't think about how hard thatwas.
Don't think about how terrified youwere, how unhappy youwere.
Make itpositive. Make itbubbly.
Make itglowy. Ofcourse, the thing that I'm telling you not to think about implicitly or explicitly is the thing that's going to becomelouder.
And that is exactly what is happeninghere.
Your positive thoughts suppress the initial negativeones.
And that suppression actually has the reverse effect of creating a preoccupation with the initialevent, because you didn't get the chance to work throughit.
You didn't get the chance to truly process how youreacted, perhaps the trauma that it'sleft, theconsequences, none ofthat.
You just pushed it into abox.
There was another study from the 90s that showed something very similar that suppressing feelings can actually make our psychological stress and psychological suffering more significant and moreintense.
And that kind of brings me to my nextpoint.
Not only does toxic positivity actually end up making the feelingsworse, so kind of having that like backfireeffect.
It also preventsgrowth.
Now I spoke briefly about thisbefore, but the next step in the toxic positivity disaster timeline is thata, not only do you feel shame and stigma towards youremotion, whichb, means that you actually end up feelingworse, but finally you never actuallygrow.
Now I'm not saying that bad things happen for a reason and that these negative feelings are alesson, but ifthere's, youknow,anything, any kind of consolation prize as terrible as itis, it's that when you let yourself feel the hard times you grow through the hardtimes.
When you apply unrealisticoptimism, you don't even getthat.
So not only did the bad things will happen and you still feelterrible, but you also never learn to evolve as aperson, you never learn how torespond.
You also never get to appreciate how tremendous youare.
Like you were the one who had the courage and the strength and the patience and the will to get through all ofthat.
When we try and belike,well, everything happens for a reason or you could have it worse on the rightside, we need to stopthere.
Youknow, you were actually dealt a bad hand and you still pushed through and that is a testament to how amazing youare.
And that is a testament to your strength and your problem solving and your hardwork.
And when you wrap it all up in a nice pink fuzzybow, you don't actually get the acknowledgement you deserve around how truly resilient youwere.
So the final consequence of toxic positivity and in mymind, one of the most convincing is to why we cannot be positive all the time is that it just isn't the fullpicture.
Your mindset cannot changeeverything.
It is a very privileged perspective to think that thinking good thoughts can shift asituation.
Yes, it can definitely shift the way you think about something you can change how youfeel, but the situation and the event remains thesame.
And I think the big problem I have is that there are certain things that a positive mindset will not makebetter.
It will notsolve.Obviously, like a really big one is things that are like biological or genetic ormedical, youknow, I've never seen a single article or academic piece of research that is said positive thinking show signs of like improving cancer survival rates or people who suppress negative emotions are less likely to have diabetes or like woman wins awardfor, I don'tknow, for being happy all thetime.
I've never seen anything likethat.
And there is a lot that we need to mention about the fact that some people just have it harder and coming into theircircumstances, theirstory, their life and applying perhaps your more privileged perspective and one in which you can say just think positive thoughts about it is kind of not veryfair.
It's not very fair and it's just not very nice to behonest.
It's not that you're trying to bemean.
It's just it's just not very nice because imagine sitting there and beinglike,yeah, it's very easy for you tosay,oh, you know bad things happened for areason.
But if your mom's just died or if you're going through a war or whatever itis,like,no, that's not thetruth.
That's not the fulltruth.
The other thing I think of islike, your environment does play a much bigger role than we think and it sometimes overwhelms our ability to think positively aboutsomething.
I saw this video from a creator on YouTube the other day who she's a dietitian specialist ordoctor, dietitianspecialist.
And she gave the example of like cortisol levels and how there's been this like whole flood and like pseudo science or I don'tknow, let's not be so quick as to call it pseudoscience.
But this whole flood and research around how changing negative thoughts into positive ones really helps lower your cortisollevels.
But she said in thisvideo, she'slike,yes, that might betrue.
But none of that is going to be effective if you don't have shelter or you don't have a sense of internal or externalsafety.
If you don't have community positivethinking, making thingslighter, just actually masks certain things that may actually really need tochange.
That may actually really demand action and demand some form of justice or demand a personalshift.
So we've talked about some of the consequences of toxicpositivity.
It isn't a fullpicture, it preventsgrowth.
It actually makes us feel worse and it stigmatizes what are normalemotions.
I want to talk about thealternative.
If we have to abandon our radicaloptimism, maybe not radical unrealistic optimism radical optimism is stillfine.
But if we have to abandon our unrealisticoptimism, what do we haveleft?
Well, we're going to talk about all of that and more after this showbreak.
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I have a little grace for those of us who genuinely try and see thegood.
And I will say that I am someone who does try and dothat.
There is a lot of beauty in finding the joy despite things being prettyterrible.
There is a lot of beauty in seeing the good side of things and trying to find the still of thelining.
Again, we want the people we love most to be able tosee.
Again, we want the people we love most to behappy.
We want to guide them back to a place of feeling good and positive about theircircumstances.
So I totally get theinclination.
We want to feelgood. It's okay to want to feelgood.
This episode isn't about beinglike, if you want to feel good aboutyourself, you have toxicpositivity.
No, I think it's more about whether your version of being positive involves not making space for negative emotions or bademotions.
Complex emotions will call themthat.
I think complex emotions also sometimes make us uncomfortable because we've never been taught how to process them within ourselves or withothers.
We have no education or emotional managementcourses.
That's not something that we are taught on or informed on aschildren, even asadults.
So suppression and making everything seem quite positive and lovely is the statusquo.
But let's talk about some alternatives for actually looking at those complex emotions and making peace withthem, becoming friends withthem, becoming friends with yourfriends, negativeemotions, and not bright-siding and not trying to fixeverything.
Sofirstly, when you find the desire to suppress a negative or complex emotion is comingup, be honest with the fact that a situation is difficult and break away from the urge tosay, it's fineimmediately.
You're allowed to feel your painful emotions without them becomingyou.
There was an article from Scientific America that I read in preparation for thisepisode.
It's about 10 yearsold, and it suggests that across multiplestudies, multiple casestudies, multiple research projects onhappiness, it is actually the people who are in touch with their negative emotions who overall experienced the greatest levels of well-being and true mastery over theirlives.
Sohonestly, you are better off just admitting that somethingsucks, just admitting that something isawful.
That isokay. You're going to push onanyways.
You are not going to become thosefeelings.
Those feelings are just part of your humanexperience.
I think it's honesty without the extremepessimism.
And I get that that is a fine line towalk, but you're allowed to feeldespair, feel where you feel whatever itis, and that doesn't need to beeverything.
That doesn't need to becomeyou.
You don't have to get wrapped up in ruminating and letting it interrupt yourlife.
If you make space and time for your negativeemotions, and then I'mlike,okay, I acknowledge that thisexists.
I acknowledge that I feel thisway, and I've given myself time to feelthat, and now I'm going to moveon.
And if this emotion bubbles upagain, I will look atit, I will holdit, I will sit withit, and when we're going to tryagain, we're going to move through the same process every singletime.
So when the urge to run and kind of cover upoccurs, stayput, fight theinstinct.
There is this scene in HarryPotter.
I think it's like the firstone.
Yeah, the first HarryPotter, source of hisstone, philosophy of hisstone, where they're getting Harry or one of them is like getting suffocated by those by thevines.
And Hermione goes justrelax, justrelax.
I think when we try and make everything positive all thetime, that is the vines tightening aroundus.
We're fightingback.Again, what is a very natural instinct tofeel, and it actually ends up suffocatingus.
It feelscounterintuitive, but acceptance is where we find a lot offreedom.
One way that I like to think about it is thatsadness,anger,grieve,jealousy,pessimism, they're like little creatures in myhouse.
They're like little dust mites or littlekittens.
Youknow, my house is mybrain, and in it there are all these things kind of wonderingaround.
And sometimes it might jump out and scareme.
Youknow, I'll be potteringaround, and this little dust might be in myway, my grief might be in myway, my pessimism might be in myway.
But it's just a houseguest.
I don't need to lock them in aroom, because that way they're going to become a lotlouder, they're going to screech andwail.
They're less disruptive when I let them roamabout.
When I know that these complex emotions are in thehouse, but they're not scary tome.
They're not something that I need to run from or lockaway.
When those negative emotions comeup, holdthem, hugthem, let them passthrough.
Don't feel the need to immediately get rid ofthem, but find a way to integrate them through things like that are healthy copingmechanisms, like talktherapy, likejournaling, and like some catharsis or physicalexpression, this is another big piece of advice that Ihave.
Make hard emotionstangible.
Things like arttherapy, that is a huge component of arttherapy, is taking things that we would otherwise pushaside, and actually making themtangible, making themphysical, giving them a home and givingthem, youknow, a place to be free and a place to comeout.
Same thing with a lot of physical therapies and not physical therapies in terms of the Ibrookabonesense, but in terms of like expressing negative emotions through yourbody, getting involved in a boxing class and a running class and a hitworkout, something that provides your body with arelease.
We know that we feel a lot of emotions in ourbody, how can we expand that energy and give it a place togo.
I think when it comes to navigating the urge to go positive on a friend issharing, or when you're giving advice and you're noticingthat,okay,wait, I keep steering into the positive lanehere.
How do I bring this back so that my friend feels acknowledged that's a whole otherthing, but I think replace your unrealistically optimistic statements with realisticones, and with ones that at theircenter, at theircore, are statements ofacceptance, a statements of approval for theseemotions.
Forexample, if someone islike, oh myGod, I know it's been fourmonths, I know it's been ayear, but I just am still hung up on myex, I'm stillmiserable.
Instead of beinglike,okay, but I feel like it's time to get overit.
Like, maybe you should go and find somebody better becauselike, there's definitely somebody better out there foryou.
Belike, I'mlistening.
I can totally see why that would bereally, reallyhard.
Ifsomebody, youknow, yourfriend, I've had a lot of friends recently get laid off from their techjobs, this huge redundancies in thatarea.
If your friend islike, I got laidoff, this is just like the most terriblething.
Instead of beinglike,well, on the brightside, at leastlike, youknow, you havesavings, atleast, youknow, maybe your parents could help with yourrent, at least like you'll find a new job prettysoon.
Atleast, youknow, you always said that you hated thatjob.
Maybe that's a goodthing.
Sometimes you just got tosay, youknow, failure is sometimes a part of life and your feelings around that are supervalid.
How can Ihelp? Sometimes bad things justhappen.
I'm reallysorry. There's noreason.
What do you want me todo?
Notlike, what do you want me todo?
Butlike, what would you like me todo?
How can I help youhere?What's, what are youthinking?
Just explain how you'rethinking.
Just explain how you're feeling tome.
And I will sit and I will absorb all of thatcomplexity, all of thatoutrage, all of thatnegativity.
I'll just absorb it foryou.
And I'm not going to sit there and belike,yeah, this happened for a reason because I can acknowledge that maybe you don't want to hear that rightnow.
There is a time and a place for beingpositive.
There is a time and aplace.
And I totally respect the need to want to make somebody feelbetter.
But sometimes you've got to look for the signs that that's what they want aswell.
And you know what the easiest sign is is when theysay, can you just make me feel better aboutthis?
And then you can make themfeel, then you can be a little bit more positive aboutthings.
Or when you can see that they're moving from wanting to vent to wantingadvice.
Or if they are someone who does actually respond pretty well tothat, they're like a good friend or a partner like you probably know when they're ready to hear those positivestatements.
Untilthen, just be really genuine and authentic in your interactions withthem.
Kind of avoid using those cliches or those platitudes that may not be relevant orhelpful.
I just want to finish up by saying one more time you don't have to feel good about your life about yourself about the world all thetime.
Infact, as those studies were tellingus, sometimes it's actually helpful to feeldeep,vulnerable, complex feelings about a situation about yourlife.
Those feelings not only remind you that you are human and that you can feel a full rainbow spectrum ofemotions, they also do help yougrow, they do help you problemsolve, they do help you beempathetic, they help you connect with otherpeople.
And they stop us from being one dimensional people like that book was saying that author was saying when the focus is always on happyexperiences, happyemotions, getting back to theworld.
Getting back tojoy, getting back to what feelsgood, making just like when the only ambition is to have as many happy moments as possible and that is like it's a very concretetask.
I think sometimes we really forget how special it is when times aregood.
And we also sometimes forget what it means to be truly feeling and that sometimes like those emotions really remind us of what matters and what we careabout.
And as much as like obviously we love sharing happy phone memories with ourfriends, I think true bonding and true connection sometimes actually does come from those dark and hard and sometimes painful moments where you're honest and you're feeling in yourlife.
And you're feeling in yourauthentic.
So I really hope that you enjoyed thisepisode.
I, it's a bit more rambly than I normallydo, but this is just a topic that I'm really passionate about and didn't want to script it asmuch.
I just kind of wanted to talk aboutit.
Have a bit of adiscussion.
See if you guysrelated.
If this is something that you'veexperienced.
If you also think that there is perhaps a problem with being too positive all thetime.
So thank you so much forlistening.
I hope that you've made it thisfar.
Ifso, make sure that you are following me on Instagram or following me here on Spotify Applepodcasts.
Whatever you are listening right now and if you can leave a five star review that is incredibly helpful and of course helps the show togrow.
Until next time staysafe, be kind toyourself, be gentle to yourself and we will talksoon.
If you want togrow, you've got to step out of your comfortzone.
Joinme, Jenna Colopas for season three of my podcast overcomfort.
Every week I'll be having honest conversations with some of my favoritefriends.
This is like me actually first time talking aboutit.
My mom is going to literally killme, but I'm so sorrymom.
We're opening up about the goodstuff, the vulnerable stuff and the crunchystuff.
Listen to your over comfort podcast with Jenna Colopas on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get yourpodcast.
My name is Curly and I'm Maya and welcome to the Super Secret Bestie Clubspodcast.
A super secret club where we talk about super secretthings.
Yeah like secrets that aresuper.
That's what itis. In each episode we'll talk aboutlove,friendship,heartbreak, men and of course our favoritesecrets.
Get inhere! Listen to the Super Secret Bestie Club on iHeartRadioapp, app podcast or wherever you get yourpodcast.
Heyy'all,Dr. Joyhere.
I invite you to join me every Wednesday on the Therapy for Black Girlspodcast, a weekly chat about mental health and personaldevelopment.
Where my expert guests and I discuss the unique challenges and triumphs faced by black women through the lens ofself-care, pop culture and building the best version ofyou.
So if you're looking for more ways to incorporate wellness into yourlife, listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadioapp, Apple Podcast or wherever you get yourpodcast.
Heyfam, I'm SimoneBoyce.
I'm DanielleRobay. And we're the host of The BrightSide, the podcast from Hello Sunshine that's guaranteed to light up yourday.
Check out our recent episode with Bachelorette HannahBrown, all about growing up and chasing herdreams.
It's great to be a healedHannah.
I sometimes miss thechaotic, but it feels better in this body to feel more centered and grounded and working on thatdaily.
