The Bad Feeling Bias
Toxic positivity is just one off-chute of the limited, uni-dimensional mindset we share: It’s good to feel good; it’s bad to feel bad.
No one likes feeling bad, of course, and few of us would go out of our way to. Nevertheless, it’s impossible not to from time to time. We rationally understand this. We don’t actually expect to feel great all the time. Yet, the minute something painful or even mildly uncomfortable surfaces, we’re quick to pop an Advil, head to the bar, distract, distract, distract!
And it’s not just how we react to our own discomfort, but to the discomfort of others (which in turn, makes us uncomfortable). More on this in a moment.
In his book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, Mark Manson aptly points out that wanting something positive is a negative experience. Conversely, accepting something negative is a positive experience. The only way to be truly happy is to accept exactly what is, right now, whether it’s good or bad. If we’re constantly wanting something positive, we’re reinforcing the idea that we don’t have what we want right now, that we’re not enough, we don’t have enough, or we’re not happy. Whereas, when we can embrace and accept the negative experiences that come our way, no matter how painful, we become more at ease.
This is something we need to keep in mind if we’re ever going to change our collective mindset, a mindset that has kept us repressing our negative feelings since, well, pretty much birth. Notice the reactions of others when you feel sad or start to cry:
“Shhhh, shhhhh. It’s okay. Don’t cry,”
“Don’t be sad,”
“Let’s go get some ice cream to make you feel better.”
See a pattern here?
We’re forever trying to talk ourselves and others out of feeling shitty.
We never try to talk people out of their feelings when their feelings happen to be pleasant.
The problem is, we have no formal or personal training on how to just let people feel whatever it is they’re feeling. We don’t know how to let them self-soothe and figure out the way forward. We’re so uncomfortable with pain (in ourselves and seeing it in others) that we use our verbal and body language to try to divert.
Like all things in life, we must consider balance. There is something to be said for taking action to shift your mood. Since mood affects our overall wellbeing, having ongoing negative feelings is likely to drain us, make us sick, and further remove us from life. So making conscious efforts to focus on the positive is a powerful tool to move from a sad place to a content place (or at least a neutral place). But here’s where the balance comes in.
Shifting into a more positive frame of mind should not be the go-to, knee-jerk reaction. Suppressing sadness, anger, hurt, frustration right off the bat isn’t the way to go. Your body will show this time and again: What the mind suppresses, the body expresses.
So don’t stop crying, don’t try to feel better. Just feel it. Let your first line of defense against bad feelings be no defense at all. FEEL THE FEELINGS. Practice on yourself and practice with others. The next time you see someone sad or crying, resist the urge to tell them to stop, or that “it’s okay,” or that they shouldn’t feel sad. Instead, just be there, silent. It’ll feel weird at first, but stay with it.
If you feel like you just HAVE to say SOMETHING, consider what would bring you to where they are, rather than something that would take them away from what they’re feeling:
“Yes, this IS sad,”
“I’m so sorry you’re sad,”
“How upsetting/frustrating/infuriating!”
Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. At some point, you may need to balance out - maybe it’s hours later, days later, or months later. If the bad feelings persist for a while, that will be your cue to bring yourself back into balance with some sunshine and rainbows.