Toxic Positivity??? No Thank You. I'd Rather Feel It All.

Have you ever had a really bad day and received advice from someone to just "suck it up, buttercup" and put on a happy face? Well, may I suggest to you that you don't. The truth is, when we don't actually feel the emotions in our body but just stuff them down and gloss over them with toxic positivity, we are causing our body more stress, which will eventually manifest as depression, sickness, anxiety, rage, and even suicidal thoughts. Emotions are simply energy in motion, and they are meant to be felt so that you can let that energy pass through your body and heal instead of being suppressed and hidden.

When we put on a fake smile and pretend that everything is okay when it isn't, we aren't fooling our body. In fact, doing so can cause real harm to our well-being. Emotions are supposed to be felt. Some days, even if you are usually a glass half full kind of person, there will be times when you may need to vent, rant, or just sit and cry, and that is perfectly okay. In fact, it is really beneficial that you allow yourself time to process through these emotions.

While advice to just look at the bright side and try to stay positive is usually meant to encourage a person, and stems from a genuine place of sympathy and compassion, it can often lead to the person just shutting off from their feelings and often from relationships with others for fear of being seen as a burden or a downer. Toxic positivity causes shame, guilt, and prevents growth. It often conveys a message that we should be ashamed of our negative feelings, and we should be grateful that we aren't as bad off as others. It causes guilt that we aren't able to push past the emotions and just be happy.

Toxic positivity functions as an avoidance mechanism. Many of us would rather numb out in a variety of ways, paint on a happy face, avoid the feelings altogether, rather than sit in the pain, the discomfort, the sadness, the rage, and allow ourselves to actually feel it all. When we avoid uncomfortable emotions, it denies us the ability to face challenging feelings that can ultimately lead to growth, deeper insight, and transformation.

So, next time you are overwhelmed with heavy dark emotions, allow yourself to feel them. In breathwork, I have been able to face these heavier emotions and offer myself compassion and love. Often in my practices, these emotions will move out of my body through an ocean of tears, through sounds, and sometimes fits of rage and shaking, which are all perfectly normal and healthy. In fact, somatic release is simply the body's natural way of sounding and shaking to regulate our nervous system. If you've ever seen a documentary of a gazelle that has narrowly escaped being eaten by a lion, you will see the gazelle shake it off intensely before it sprints away. That is somatic release. When we greet the emotions in our body in a loving and accepting way and allow ourselves to sound and shake, we are providing safety to our nervous system, allowing these emotions to be expelled, which in turn brings us back to a sense of calm, peace, and genuine happiness.

When you begin a regular breathwork routine, you will find that it gets easier and easier to notice when the body is out of alignment and when you may be avoiding dealing with hard emotions. So next time you find yourself putting on a "fake it till you make it" smile, I invite you to go to your mat, light some incense, turn on some music, and connect to your breath and feelings. Feel all the beautifully hard emotions that are there to teach you, help you grow, and be thankful for each one and allow them to release through every inhale and exhale. Before you know it, your nervous system will come back to a regulated state, and you will once again be able to smile, only this time it will be a real, authentic, genuine smile.