Ditching Toxic Positivity & Feeling (ALL) Your Feelings
We all have that friend. You know the one. They own a plethora of clothes, notepads, and car clings with their favorite phrase – Good Vibes Only! These people are doing themselves and their friends a disservice. Sure, we’d all love to always feel only happiness and contentment, but that’s not realistic. Telling yourself (and proclaiming it to the world via stickers on your water bottles) that only “good” feelings are acceptable, is not in anyone’s best interest. In this blog, I’ll talk about the importance of ditching toxic positivity in order to allow yourself to feel a full range of emotions without labeling them as good or bad because they’re not. Emotions are just emotions. They’re yours and you deserve to feel them all.
The Problematic Myth of Good & Bad Feelings
Striving to only feel “happy” or “joyful” or other “positive” emotions is unrealistic, and it makes people ignore or suppress other emotions. This suppression can make difficult feelings, like anxiety or depression, more severe since these emotions are suppressed or ignored instead of being processed. Additionally, suppressing certain emotions that are considered “negative” may lead to an inability to fully experience “positive” emotions. I’m not saying everyone needs to be depressed or anxious. I’m just saying, if that’s how you feel, let yourself feel that way!
Embracing Your Difficult Emotions
You probably hear a lot about accepting or getting through difficult emotions. The truth of the matter is all our emotions deserve more than just acceptance. Every emotion deserves to be embraced and expressed in healthy ways. It can be difficult to really sit with tough emotions. The urge to distract yourself or ignore these feelings can be overwhelming. To begin teaching yourself to embrace and process tough emotions and explore the lessons they have to offer, you may want to practice the 90 second rule. This approach to embracing all emotions is based on scientific research that showed that the body naturally processes emotional input in 90 seconds. By mimicking these natural rhythms, we can begin to train ourselves to experience a full range of emotions and process them in healthy ways.
The practice is simple. When you notice an uncomfortable emotion, rather than distracting yourself or repressing the emotion, set a timer for 90 seconds. Then, sit with the emotion and really feel it. How is it impacting you? Are you breathing more rapidly? Is your heart racing? What thoughts and associations are going through your mind? Let yourself really experience and notice the way the emotion affects you. Once the 90 second alarm goes off, allow yourself to begin letting the emotion go. Return to work. Take a walk. Clean the dishes. Do something creative. Let yourself be present physically in your body and start moving past the emotion and making room for new feelings.
Want to Say No Thanks to Toxic Positivity? Let’s Talk
If you’re tired of the good vibes only culture, I’m here to support you. I’m Ashley Pichardo, a licensed mental health counselor who welcomes all the vibes. Whether you’re feeling anxious, sad, struggling with trauma, or having a really great week, let’s talk about it. Therapy is a great opportunity to learn skills to accept, process, and express all your beautiful, powerful, messy emotions, and I can’t wait to talk about all of it with you.
