We Need to Talk About Toxic Positivity...

a soft, honest, slightly uncomfortable conversation we've been avoiding...

"Your feelings are not the problem. Pretending they don't exist that is the problem."

Hey Sunny, 💛

Today we are talking about something I have personally struggled with and unknowingly encouraged. 💜

And I say that with full accountability and zero self-flagellation, because growth requires honesty and honesty requires a little bit of courage. So here I am. Being courageous. Slightly uncomfortable. But showing up anyway. As one does. Let's talk about toxic positivity.

Here is something about me that might surprise you, coming from someone who runs a self-care blog: I am a deeply sensitive person. I cry over the smallest things. A touching video. A kind word from a stranger. That one scene in that one movie, you know the one. I feel things intensely and frequently and sometimes with no apparent cause whatsoever.

And yet, and here is where it gets interesting, when something truly, seriously difficult happens in my life? I go completely numb. The big stuff barely touches me. I become calm, almost detached, and I say things like "everything happens for a reason" with a serenity that, in retrospect, was not serenity at all. It was avoidance wearing a very convincing spiritual costume.

I started noticing this pattern properly in 2024, a year that, honestly, was a lot. A lot was happening. A lot was heavy. And I moved through most of it saying, "it'll be fine, things happen for a reason," while not actually processing a single feeling underneath that statement. The positivity was not helping me heal. It was helping me hide. And I think, and this is my own understanding, I am not a psychology guru, that is exactly why I cry over small things sometimes. The little things crack open what the big things were never allowed to release. The suppressed emotions have to go somewhere.

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge that I used to give out advice laced with toxic positivity, particularly on the podcast. If I ever dismissed your feelings with a "just stay positive" energy, I am genuinely, wholeheartedly sorry. That was never my intention. And part of why I'm writing this today is to do better. For you and for myself. 💜

What Is Toxic Positivity? 🌙

defining the thing we didn't know had a name...

"Not every storm needs a silver lining pointed out. Sometimes it just needs to be allowed to rain."

let's define it properly~

Toxic positivity is the excessive and often dismissive promotion of a positive mindset in all situations, regardless of how painful, complex or valid those situations actually are. It is the insistence that people focus only on the good, stay positive, look on the bright side, and push through even when what they actually need is to be allowed to feel the full weight of what they're experiencing. The word "toxic" is important here. It is not that positivity itself is bad. It is that forced, excessive or ill-timed positivity becomes harmful to the person experiencing it and to the people around them. It invalidates genuine emotions, disrupts real healing and creates an environment where difficult feelings are treated as problems to be solved rather than experiences to be honored.

Toxic positivity often sounds like the most helpful thing in the world. That is what makes it so sneaky. It shows up in well-meaning phrases that feel supportive on the surface but actually shut the conversation down entirely:

• "Everything happens for a reason."

• "Just stay positive, your mindset is everything."

• "At least it's not worse."

• "Good vibes only."

• "Other people have it worse."

• "You just need to choose happiness."

• "Don't be negative, focus on the good."

Recognize any of those? I said most of them. Probably more than once. And I meant every single one with genuine kindness, which is exactly the point. Toxic positivity is not always malicious. Most of the time it comes from a place of care. But impact matters more than intention. And the impact of these phrases is that the person on the receiving end feels unheard, dismissed and quietly ashamed for having difficult feelings in the first place.

Toxic Positivity vs Optimism. They Are Not the Same Thing

"Optimism says: this is hard and I believe it can get better. Toxic positivity says: this is hard so stop feeling it. One holds you. The other erases you."

This is the distinction I really want us to sit with because I think a lot of people, myself very much included, have been using these two things interchangeably when they are actually quite different. Genuinely different. Importantly different.

💜 Toxic Positivity

• Dismisses or minimizes difficult emotions

• Insists on a positive frame regardless of circumstance

• Makes people feel guilty for struggling

• Bypasses the healing process entirely

• Shuts down authentic conversation

• Feels hollow and performative over time

• Leaves the underlying pain completely unaddressed

✦ Genuine Optimism

• Acknowledges difficulty without denying it

• Holds space for pain AND possibility simultaneously

• Validates the full emotional experience

• Supports the healing process

• Encourages honest conversation

• Feels grounded and realistic

• Addresses the pain before offering hope

See the difference? Optimism does not deny the storm. It just believes that you can weather it. Toxic positivity tells you there is no storm. Or worse, that the storm is your fault for not thinking positively enough. And that, in its most extreme forms, can become manipulative and even abusive.

At its most harmful, toxic positivity is used as a tool to silence people. In abusive relationships and toxic environments, it shows up as: "You're always so negative," when someone raises a legitimate concern. "Just be grateful for what you have," when someone expresses pain. "Your energy is bringing everyone down," when someone refuses to pretend everything is fine. This is not wellness. This is control. And it is important to name it as such.

Why Toxic Positivity Is Harmful...

"The feelings you refuse to feel do not disappear. They go underground. And underground things have a way of growing in the dark."

Toxic positivity is not just annoying or unhelpful; it is genuinely damaging. And I say that not to be dramatic but because understanding why it harms us is what finally motivated me to stop practicing it and start doing better. So, let's be honest about what it actually does. 💜

💔 It invalidates real emotions

When someone tells you to "just be positive" while you are grieving, struggling or hurting, the message your nervous system receives is your feelings are wrong. Your pain is a problem. You should not be feeling this. And that message, however unintentionally delivered, is deeply harmful to anyone's sense of emotional safety and self-worth.

🚧 It blocks the healing process

You cannot heal what you refuse to feel. Emotions are not obstacles to wellbeing, they are part of the process of reaching it. When we bypass difficult feelings with positive platitudes, we don't actually move through them. We push them down. And as I have personally discovered, suppressed emotions resurface in unexpected ways. Sometimes as unexplained sadness, sometimes as anxiety, sometimes as numbness in the exact moments we most need to feel.

😶 It creates emotional isolation

When people feel they cannot express difficult emotions without being met with "good vibes only" energy, they stop sharing. They learn that this is not a safe space for their real feelings. And that isolation, the silence that comes from feeling like your authentic experience is unwelcome, is one of the loneliest feelings there is.

🎭 It creates a culture of performance

Toxic positivity trains people to perform happiness rather than feel it. To curate their emotional experience for public consumption. To smile through things that deserve to be cried through. That performance is exhausting. And it makes genuine connection, the kind built on honesty and vulnerability, nearly impossible.

🌀 It can become a harmful coping mechanism

As I experienced myself, "everything happens for a reason" can stop being a comforting belief and start being an avoidance strategy. A way to bypass the hard work of actually processing difficult experiences. When positivity becomes your default response to pain rather than one tool among many, it stops being helpful and starts being a very well-dressed form of denial.

Signs of Toxic Positivity...

"Awareness is not the same as blame. You can recognize a pattern in yourself with curiosity and compassion rather than shame."

The tricky thing about toxic positivity is that it is sneaky. It often genuinely feels like the right, kind, supportive thing to do. So here are the signs to look out for, in yourself, in your relationships and in the spaces you occupy. No judgment. Just awareness. 🌙

✦ You dismiss your own difficult feelings immediately

If your first response to your own pain is to immediately reframe it positively, "it could be worse," "at least I have X", before you have allowed yourself to actually feel it, that is worth noticing. Gratitude and grief are not mutually exclusive. You can feel both. But the grief deserves space first.

✦ You feel uncomfortable when others express negative emotions

If someone's sadness, anger or frustration makes you immediately want to fix it, silver-line it or redirect them to something positive, notice that impulse. It often says more about our own discomfort with difficult emotions than it does about what the other person actually needs.

✦ You use positive phrases to shut down conversation

When someone shares something painful and your response is "everything happens for a reason" or "just think positive" and the conversation stops there. that is toxic positivity functioning as a door closing rather than a hand extending.

✦ You feel guilty for having negative emotions

If you experience sadness, anger or fear and your immediate next thought is "I shouldn't feel this way" or "I need to be more positive". That guilt is a sign that you have internalized the message that difficult emotions are wrong. They are not. They are human.

✦ You are numb to big things but reactive to small ones

Sound familiar? When big, difficult things happen and you feel strangely calm, almost detached, but small inconveniences send you spiraling, it may be a sign that emotions are being suppressed rather than processed. The small things crack what the big things were not allowed to release.

How to Avoid Toxic Positivity

"She learned to sit with difficult feelings the way you sit with a friend going through something hard, present, quiet, without trying to fix a single thing."

Avoiding toxic positivity does not mean becoming a pessimist. It does not mean wallowing, catastrophising or abandoning hope. It means developing a more honest, more compassionate relationship with the full spectrum of human emotion, in yourself and in others. Here is how. 💜

• Allow yourself to feel the full feeling first~ Before you reach for the silver lining, sit with what is actually there. Name it. Acknowledge it. Let it be real for a moment. You do not have to stay there forever, but you do have to pass through it. There are no shortcuts around feelings, only detours that make the journey longer.

• Replace dismissive phrases with validating ones~ Instead of "everything happens for a reason," try "this is really hard and your feelings make complete sense." Instead of "just stay positive," try "I don't have an answer but I am here with you." The shift from fixing to witnessing is everything.

• Practice emotional honesty with yourself~ Journal your real feelings. Talk to a therapist. Be honest in your inner dialogue about what you are actually experiencing rather than what you think you should be experiencing. Real healing requires real honesty.

• Distinguish between genuine hope and emotional bypassing~ Ask yourself: am I feeling genuinely hopeful right now, or am I using hope as a way to avoid feeling something uncomfortable? Both are valid, but they lead to very different places, and it is worth knowing which one you are in.

• Give yourself permission to not be okay~ You are allowed to not be okay. You are allowed to have hard days, hard seasons, hard feelings. That is not failure. That is being human.

• Seek support that holds space rather than fixes~ Find the people and the spaces; therapy, journaling, trusted friendships, where you can be honest about the full picture without being immediately redirected to the positive. Those spaces are gold. Protect them.

How to Be There for Someone Without Toxic Positivity...

"The most loving thing you can do for someone in pain is not to take the pain away. It is to make sure they do not have to carry it alone."

This is the section I wish someone had handed me years ago. Because I genuinely wanted to be supportive. I genuinely thought I was being helpful. And learning that some of what I was doing was actually unhelpful, that required some sitting with. But here we are. Growing together. 🌸

• Lead with listening, not fixing~ When someone comes to you with something hard, resist the immediate urge to make it better. Before you say anything, just listen fully. Without preparing your response while they're still talking. Often, being truly heard is all a person needs.

• Validate before you encourage~ If someone tells you they are struggling, the first response should always be validation: "That sounds really hard." "Your feelings make complete sense." "I hear you." Only after the person feels genuinely heard should you gently move toward encouragement, if they even want it.

• Ask what kind of support they need~ "Do you want advice, or do you just need to vent?" Different people need different things at different times. Asking removes the guesswork and shows real attentiveness.

• Sit in the discomfort with them~ Not every difficult situation has a silver lining. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is simply sit with someone in their pain without trying to move them out of it. Presence is powerful. Do not underestimate it.

• Choose your words carefully~ Avoid phrases like "at least," "everything happens for a reason," "just be grateful," or "other people have it worse." Instead choose phrases that witness: "I'm here." "That's a lot to carry." "You don't have to figure it out right now."

• Check in after the initial conversation~ Support is not a one-time event. Following up tells someone that their pain mattered to you beyond the moment. That kind of sustained attention is rare and deeply meaningful.

🌻To my sunnies...

"To every sunny who was told to just be positive when what you needed was to be heard, I see you. Your feelings were always valid. Every single one of them."

If you have ever been on the receiving end of toxic positivity, from me, from someone you love, from the internet at large, I want to say clearly and with my whole heart: your difficult feelings were never the problem. The dismissal of them was. 🌙

You are allowed to be sad. You are allowed to be angry. You are allowed to not know how to feel. You are allowed to sit in the hard thing for as long as it takes, without performing recovery for anyone's comfort. Healing is not linear and it is not photogenic and it does not always have a quote to go with it. Sometimes it just looks like feeling the feeling. And that is enough.

And if you have been practicing toxic positivity on yourself, if you have been "everything happens for a reason"-ing your way through things that deserved to be fully felt, I say this gently, kindly and with complete solidarity: it is not too late to go back and feel what you bypassed. The feelings are still there. They are patient. And you, my love, are ready. 💛

💜 ✦ 🌙 ✦ 💜

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Come find me on Instagram @_.selfcare_diary and tell me honestly. have you ever caught yourself in toxic positivity? I want to hear about it. No judgment. Only growth. And for deeper, longer, more personal conversations, the podcast Navigating Life Diaries is always there. 🎙️