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Positive thinking comes with a raft of health benefits, from physical improvement to emotional wellbeing. But with motivational rhetoric on the rise, especially online, has optimism been inadvertently weaponised?
This article was originally published in Women’s Health (July 2021).
It’s been a rough day. Rougher than most. And although you’ve been trying to spend less time on your phone, you reach for it and start scrolling, scrolling, scrolling on social media. It’s a welcome escape at first, but your feed soon starts to take on a categorical theme: “Good vibes only”, touts one influencer, alongside a photo of her sitting beachside, all sun-kissed skin and carefree smile; “Life is what you make it”, insists the pro business coach, whose career was kickstarted by a hefty lump sum from the Bank of Mum and Dad; “Dream, Believe, Achieve”, encourages the big corporate, with no discernible connection to the motivational space. You log off and put your phone down, feeling even worse than you did to begin with.
It’s hard to argue against the benefits of positive thinking. Research has shown the strategy can help to reduce stress, anxiety and depression, improve coping skills, increase physical wellbeing – including reducing the risk of cardiovascular issues – and even lengthen your lifespan. But when positivity turns toxic, the results are considerably different. “Toxic positivity is beyond having a positive approach to life,” explains Dr Jennie Hudson, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of Research at the Black Dog Institute. “It extends beyond the edges of reality. It is insincere optimism, an extreme positive bias that ignores reality.” It also ignores the negative ramifications, both on those spreading toxic positivity and those on the receiving end.
Ainslee Hooper is someone on the receiving end. The 43-year-old says “toxic” is the perfect word to describe the kind of misinformed, misdirected optimism she comes across daily, both in the online space and in person. There’s one experience in particular she’ll never forget. Overcome by floods of tears, Ainslee was in her doctor’s office, suffocating under a deep depression. So, she was surprised when her doctor called her a “tough cookie”. Tough or not, Ainslee was asking for help. Instead, she was told she’d “get over it”. When it comes to #inspo, the quote she despises most? “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” As a lifelong wheelchair user, Ainslee – understandably – puts it bluntly: “That really frustrates the hell out of me, as you can imagine, because that’s not the case at all.”
Although the catchy name might be a recent addition to our lexicon, toxic positivity isn’t a new phenomenon. Phrases such as, “Look on the bright side”, or “Everything happens for a reason” have been go-to responses to bad news for decades, at least. And while optimism is a powerful tool, forced positivity isn’t helpful. Researchers from the University of Bath proved as much last year when they found that “overestimating outcomes was associated with lower wellbeing than setting realistic outcomes”. Zoe Simmons agrees. The 25-year-old, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her teens, says although she has only recently come across the expression “toxic positivity”, it is something she has experienced most of her life. “Growing up with a mental illness, people would often tell me to, ‘Just think positive’,” she recalls. “I always found that to be really hurtful, because I literally couldn’t. It made me feel like I was lesser… like I was broken, or something to be fixed. As an adult, I realise while it’s often meant with good intentions, it negates a whole bunch of experiences that deserve to be felt and worked through.”
Through the lens of toxic positivity, emotions like stress, anxiety and loneliness are seen as inherently bad. It might be an easy conclusion but it isn’t necessarily the right one. In fact, a 2017 study looking at Generalised Anxiety Disorder, published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, showed that emotional acceptance techniques – through which you receive and observe emotions rather than trying to control or suppress them – increased activity between the brain’s amygdala and prefrontal cortex. In other words, the brain worked better. Then, in 2018, researchers from the universities of Toronto and California found that people who avoid acknowledging challenging emotions can actually end up feeling a lot worse. Hudson expands on this: “It is normal to experience painful events, or emotions like anger, sadness and guilt. If we live in a toxically positive environment that doesn’t allow us to experience emotions like anger or sadness, then we are robbed of important life experiences and life lessons. These emotions have a role in our lives, in child development, in our relationships. When we feel angry it is usually because someone has wronged us. When we feel sad it is because we have lost something important. These emotions help to guide us and our choices.”
The pandemic may have put a spotlight on toxic positivity. (“We’re all in the same boat”, for example, might have been hard to swallow for those hit hardest.) But, before that, the movement was gifted a broader audience with the advent of social media. Digital lifestyle expert and author of Life Mode On (Hardie Grant, $24.99) Dr Joanne Orlando, explains: “Everyone with a social media feed who’s got some kind of business presence is sliding these [inspirational] quotes into their feed… so you end up being inundated with these messages of positivity and being the best person you can be,” she explains. “It can make us feel quite inadequate if we’re not jumping out of bed thinking, ‘Yeah, I can’t wait for today.’”
Since tech and gadgets are ubiquitous and, in many ways, essential to modern life, Orlando doesn’t support digital detoxes. Instead, she suggests carefully curating what your devices offer you. “[Technology is] a work in progress,” she says. “So, all the people that you follow now and the content that you use – the games, the apps – are a continual, dynamic thing. You should be really looking at your feed and seeing the content that makes you feel good and just deleting those accounts from people who make you feel bad. We don’t need
to have loyalty to content that doesn’t work for us.”
Counsellor Emma Castle also recommends actively searching for balance from the content we choose to consume. “The internet is full of amazing resources like free meditation apps, support groups and brilliantly written articles on sites like Psychology Today,” she says. “So, if you’re feeling like toxic positivity is getting the better of you, then make choices to deliberately seek out some more balance.”
It’s worth noting that Castle doesn’t believe in toxic positivity. At least, she doesn’t believe in the phrase. Labelling it “a misnomer”, she accepts that the practice exists, but prefers to call it “unreality” or “fantasy”. “Fantasy can be very toxic,” she says. “It’s unrealistic thinking. It’s thinking that’s not grounded in any sort of evidence or research or lived experience.” Castle specialises in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a technique that works on accepting that life has its challenges and committing to a meaningful course of action. She is quick to point out that positive thinking is an integral technique in psychology. It should not, however, replace the expression of genuine emotions. “You should definitely consider context and reframing,” she says. “[Think to yourself] ‘OK, so this has happened’… and look at the big picture [and consider] where do you fall into the big picture? That’s called reframing and it is a very common psychological practice. But the whole ‘stop whining’ [message]? No, no, no, no. You can whine as much as you want. It’s your experience, your suffering, your pain and that needs to be acknowledged regardless of the context.”
The idea of withholding a pep talk might be jarring to natural optimists, of which there are many. Estimates suggests about 80 per cent of the population “display an optimism bias”. If that sounds like you, Hudson says simply taking notice of how you respond to negative news can help “friends and family to feel listened to and truly understood”.
For those on the other side of toxic positivity interactions, Zoe’s advice hits the nail on the head: “We just have to do our best, and that’s more than enough.”
When it comes to showing support, language matters. Life and relationship coach Megan Luscombe offers alt approaches to “motivational” phrases. Keep these in mind when it comes to self-talk, too.
INSTEAD OF
Look on the bright side
TRY…
Sometimes there isn’t a bright side. I’ll stay with you in the dark for as long as it takes and when you want to turn the light on, I’ll help.
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Everything happens for a reason
TRY…
I’m sure you feel like you need a reason for this to have happened to make sense of it. What’s the story you’re telling so far? I want to support you.
INSTEAD OF
You’ll get over it
TRY…
Instead of thinking you have to get over it, let’s instead start to process it.
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It could be worse
TRY…
Your feelings are valid. Don’t minimise your experience.
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Never give up
TRY…
It’s OK to sidestep, press pause or even change our minds. It doesn’t mean you’re giving up; it means you’re re-prioritising.
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It is what it is
TRY…
What it is, is something that’s hurt/upset/ disappointed you. You’re allowed to feel your feelings instead of dismissing them.
