Where is the line between healthy optimism and toxic positivity and how not to cross it

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

To be able to enjoy life is good. Doing it under a stick and clenching your teeth is not very good.

What is healthy optimism

The sore glass metaphor describes the concept pretty well. Remember the pessimist thinks the glass is half empty, and the optimist thinks that it is half full? Note that both of them are not making up anything. They simply register the fact and form their expectations in accordance with this. An optimist is not upset that the glass is not filled to the brim. He is satisfied with at least this amount of water and sees the opportunities that it provides.

Artyom Stupak Psychologist, expert in the development of emotional intelligence.

Healthy optimism is the ability to see perspectives in personal and professional life, in relationships with people. The ability not to focus on the negative, but to constantly look for opportunities to realize your abilities, desires and aspirations. To spend your inner emotional energy not on criticism of the world around you and dissatisfaction with the current situation, but on goals, plans and actions to change your life for the better.

An optimist does not persuade himself that there are no problems, he sees them perfectly. He just doesn't consider it the end of the world. Even if things are pretty bad, he believes that there can be good in the future, and uses this as a support.

Pyotr Galigabarov Practicing psychologist, member of the Association for Cognitive-Behavioral Psychotherapy.

Healthy optimism is the perception of the world and oneself, taking into account the cognitive distortions inherent in people and their personal patterns of behavior. In this case, a person is free to change behavior in a given situation, to remain flexible without losing respect for himself and others.

He understands that reality is not always rosy, cheerful and vigorous. He is more of a realist, believing in his own strength to endure what can be endured.

Research confirms that optimism is good for physical and mental health. People who know how to maintain faith in the best are more effective at solving problems and getting out of stressful situations. There is evidence that their quality of life is higher. So cultivating healthy optimism is a good strategy.

How healthy optimism differs from toxic positive

As we found out, an optimist is just a realist who does not lose hope, who adequately perceives the situation, its risks and himself in it. But any idea can be spoiled by excessive zeal - even the desire to maintain a positive attitude.

Healthy optimism makes life easier and more joyful. But it is easy to confuse it with a toxic positive, which poisons life and can lead to negative consequences for the psyche. At first glance, the difference between them is small: at the heart of the desire to see the good in everything. However, toxic positivity has critical signs that distinguish it from optimism.

Ban on emotions

Often, the desire to find at least some advantages in everything leads to the fact that a person completely forbids himself to experience so-called negative emotions: anger, sadness, fear, and so on.

Anna Miller Psychologist.

In a healthy version, it is necessary to experience all the emotions and feelings that come. Psychologists do not have negative emotions. Every emotion and feeling is important for life, for integrity.

Denying negative experiences is like making a choice that sounds like “I choose to live only during the day” or “I choose only to inhale - not to exhale”.

Toxic positivity suggests that if you are feeling a conventionally negative emotion, then you are not coping. I have to be happy all the time, but here I’m unstuck, how is it possible! Moreover, coping with feelings is not so easy, because this is a natural response to this or that event. Therefore, a person begins to suppress them, blame himself, be ashamed. Naturally, all this only makes it worse.

Artyom Stupak notes that this can even affect health: "If we deliberately forbid ourselves to give a negative assessment of the surrounding events, no matter how we see problems or pump ourselves up with positive affirmations, then such a strategy is fraught with psychosomatic diseases."

Devaluation of other people's emotions

A person forbids himself to experience negative feelings and suffers from this. Naturally, he will not be able to calmly watch how others shamelessly cry, grieve, get angry. Therefore, a toxic positivist forbids living negative emotions in his environment. So if his friend gets into trouble, he will only hear “just stop getting upset, you need to think positively”, “not everything is so bad, your problems are nothing compared to …”, “think about the good”.

But this, first of all, does not help. Cases when a person was told "think about good", he started and everything worked out, vanishingly few. Secondly, as we have already found out, emotions must be lived.

According to scientists, the exclusion of negative emotions from communication can worsen psycho-emotional health and contribute to the progression of depression.

Marina Reshetnikova Psychologist, consultant of the digital medical service "Doctor Nearby".

The interlocutor, setting the person up for the positive, skips the first and most important stage of complicity - compassion, the sharing of difficult feelings. From this one gets the feeling that the person is not understood, they are denied him in accepting his problems. The result is sadness and anger.

Denial of problems

Banning emotions is only half the battle. It is much more effective, in terms of toxic positives, not to acknowledge the whole problem.

The intention here is well described by the English expression fake it till you make it - "imitate it until it becomes reality." It seems that if you pretend that everything is fine, then sooner or later it will really be so. And in case of minor difficulties, it might even work. But with more serious troubles, most likely, things will only get worse.

Yulia Chaplygina Clinical psychologist, neuropsychologist.

A person is not honest with himself or with others. He does not admit that it is difficult for him now, that he cannot cope. The same property does not allow to see the situation in its true light. As a result, all mental energy is wasted on maintaining the image of "never discouraged person", instead of going to solve the problem.

Unwillingness to notice the difficulty, to understand it leads to the fact that a person does not look for solutions, does not look for strengths and weaknesses. That is, in fact, it does not take responsibility, shifting it to a certain set of circumstances that should change everything for the better. He only needs to believe in the best. And this brings us to the next point.

Mystical thinking

Healthy optimism means facing challenges and finding ways to cope with them. That is, he takes responsibility for the outcome of events, which requires a certain amount of courage. He knows that just hoping for the best is not enough; he also needs to act.

Toxic positivity gets along well with shifting responsibility. The Universe, higher powers or the Moon in Capricorn should come to the rescue. However, retrograde Mercury or evil envious people are usually to blame for failures. You need to think only good things about yourself.

Artyom Stupak

A toxic positive is built on a blind belief in the best without any objective reason for this. People with this attitude tend to get carried away with esoteric books, in which the main idea runs through - what you radiate is what you get. Having read such opuses, a person, even in obviously negative situations, tries to find something positive. At the very least, he convinces himself and others that it was "a useful and necessary experience from the Universe."

But this, as we remember, does not get rid of problems.

Out of touch with reality

Seeking to see only the positive, the toxic positivist is more likely to believe in illusions.

As Artyom Stupak notes, healthy optimism is based on the psychological and emotional maturity of a person, on an objective perception of reality. Those who are constantly positive, as a rule, do not want to see life as it is. They are not able to assess the situation from different angles, see all the pros and cons and, on this basis, make an informed decision. Seeing only what you like is a sign of a child's, adolescent consciousness.

What to do to stay optimistic without toxicity

It is generally accepted that optimism or pessimism is such an innate characteristic of a person. But it is not so. Many factors influence our perception of the world. For example, habits.

Anna Miller

There is such a thing as habitual emotions. A person is inclined to live those feelings for which a habit has been developed. For example, in the family it was customary to feel dissatisfaction for any reason. A child, becoming an adult, unconsciously repeats this model.

It is possible and necessary to learn to be an optimist. And for this it is worth training to see not only the bad, but also the good. To do this, Yulia Chaplygina offers an exercise: every evening, remember and write down 10 good things that happened to you today. The worse the day, the more important it is to complete this task. As the expert notes, our brain is aimed at first of all to notice the bad. This is a survival mechanism. We are paying for it with a bad mood. By deliberately remembering good things, we help the brain re-tune into an optimistic mode.

In order not to slip into a toxic positive, when you are ready not to seek, but to invent good things, Artem Stupak advises to find logical arguments and facts that confirm your positive attitude to the situation, prospects and opportunities. If you are prone to strong emotions, it may be worthwhile to postpone your grades. Do not block the feelings, but let them subside.

And, of course, one positive attitude is not enough. It is important to be able to take responsibility for your life and use the strength, the support that optimism gives you, for accomplishment. Believing in the best and hoping that you will be rewarded for this alone is not enough.