There’s nothing worse when you’re going through a hard time than that person who tells you to just ‘think positive’. It’s invalidating, shaming, and aimed to make you feel like you are somehow failing as a person for having emotions.
Toxic positivity has become rampant, especially amongst the ‘wellness’ crowd where a misunderstanding of the Law of Attraction has basically scared people into thinking that you are only allowed to feel happy only ever. If you don’t, you’re doing life wrong.
I’m not sure where the confusion all started, but it has become like an addiction for a lot of people. And it has led to a lot more emotional collapses than it has genuine help.
So, let’s start with an explanation of the Law of Attraction, and why having Emotions like a real human doesn’t invalidate it.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, the Law of Attraction came into popularity from the bestselling book ‘The Secret’. It originated from Abraham, an entity that Esther Hicks channels. It’s got some decent ideas, but keep in mind the source of the information – an off-planet entity speaking through a human is telling you how you should live your life. Sure, maybe this entity has some decent understandings, but that doesn’t make it Divine Universal Truth. You’re getting one dude’s opinion. And you have no way to fact check this guy’s resume. He could be the equivalent of the 40 year old creeper who lives in his mom’s basement trolling people online. You don’t know. So take the information with a grain of salt and decide whether or not it’s something you want to base your belief systems on, is all I’m saying. What does he know of earth? Has he ever lived here? Can you trust the source of this information?
Now, this sounds like I’m Abraham bashing, but I’m not. I love Esther Hicks and Abraham seems like a cool dude. But any being that shames a human for the complex array of very beautiful emotional experiences that are fundamental to our species is not coming from a place of Divine Truth. That dude is an incarnated being with his own opinions about life on a planet he may or may not ever have even been to. So just… consider the context before you base your life on his opinions about how you should be living your life. All I’m sayin’… (And for the record, yes, Abraham is a collective consciousness, but that doesn’t mean that that collective consciousness isn’t incarnated. People make this mistake often too – there are incarnated collective consciousnesses, which are really just the equivalent of incarnated people who share one consciousness, like a hive mind network (like the werewolves in Twilight… yes, I used a Twilight reference… I went there.) and there are collective consciousnesses that are made up of souls or divine beings. Incarnated beings are programed with all of the beliefs and opinions necessary for that particular lifetime. It’s not the same as Divine Truth that souls have. Just food for thought the next time you’re chatting with beings from Andromeda or Pleidia and taking what they say as Divine Truth for a human life on earth. You’re getting their perspective on what they think a life on earth should be like. That does not mean they looked at your soul plan for what you wanted your life to be like. That’s like your judgey aunt coming to visit who has an opinion on you wanting to be an accountant and she’s trying to force you to travel and be an artist. Just cause they’re off world does not mean they get an opinion on how you live your life. Keep that in mind before you take their advice.)
So, what is the Law of Attraction? It’s the concept that we are in constant communication with the world around us. We co-create our realities. And what we think and believe and feel creates a vibration that resonates with the world around us to bring us (or ‘attract’) those things to us that match our vibration. So if you’re happy, you’ll bring the situations and people to you that are happy. If you’re sad or frustrated, you’ll bring the situations or people to you that are sad. This accidentally sets up a fear-based ‘so only think happy thoughts always’, which is the heart of Toxic Positivity.
The thing is, those events and people and situations are really just neutral things. Your experience of them is what you can control – whether or not you decide to be happy or sad or angry about them. This is the difference between a positive mindset versus Toxic Positivity. That traffic jam you’re stuck in? From the Toxic Positivity crowd – you created it because you woke up grumpy, are worried about being late for your meeting, and now here you are. You failed at being unrealistically happy and now here is your punishment. A positive mindset, for contrast, says that it is perfectly normal for you to be feeling nervous about the presentation you have to give at your meeting so you are going to love and accept that feeling and allow yourself that beautiful human experience and luckily here’s a wonderfully valid reason for being a little late so you get some extra practice time in. Thanks for always having my back, Universe!
People who use positivity as a deflection mechanism for not dealing with human emotions generally have some deep feelings within themselves around what human emotions are ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But human emotional experiences are like a colour wheel. Saying that only some of those colours are ‘good’ colours just limits your ability to create art. Why is yellow good but magenta is bad? Personal preference, sure, you can like the experience of one more than the other, but it doesn’t make you a bad person to like magenta. And that’s what the Toxic Positivity people would have you believe. That if you have chronic depression or anxiety, that you are a bad person. That’s like telling someone with diabetes that they are bad people. It’s just garbage. That’s not Divine Love. That’s ego based, Toxic Positivity from someone who has a serious lack of self love and self acceptance and a lot to learn as a soul. So love them for their lack of understanding, but maybe spend more time with people who aren’t quite so judgey.
Loving yourself while you’re sad or angry or any of those emotions turns that vibration to one of love and self-acceptance. That’s where people get the Law of Attraction wrong. It’s not about not feeling those emotions – we’re human, we’re going to – it’s about loving the f’ing bloody crap out of yourself, knowing you are a beautiful person and enjoying the experience of anger, or sadness, or whathaveyou. Being afraid of feeling a particular feeling pretty much just guarantees you’re going to feel it a whole lot more. But when you get to paint with all of the colours of the rainbow and thoroughly love and enjoy the experience of all of them – life gets a lot more enjoyable.
Thanks for reading! Till next time, Folks!