Pep talks can irk a few. The pushing of hope may lead some to bury negativity until it bubbles up. Bubbly, smiley nods somewhat dismissing the challenges of the moment.
I was going to say I hate pep talks. But, assuredly, there is a time and place for that. However, there are times when pep talks don’t cut it and have an opposite effect. Believe it or not, positivity can at times be toxic. Personally, I rather be a sunny person. However, I do know and acknowledge when positivity is a bit too much. And, that’s not a great thing to be overheard saying.
Here’s how some view toxic positivity. It can consist of dismissing negative emotions and providing false reassurances rather than empathy. Emitting positivity is not necessarily meant to be mean-spirited or dismissive. It is often well-intentioned but can create a dynamic of feeling disconnected. It can feel inauthentic. But then again inauthenticity is embedded through the social fabric of our lives. Maybe instead of my sunny self, I’m just being a bit of a curmudgeon.
Categories: Culture, identity, Leadership, mental health, Psychology, society
psychologistmimi 
It is very annoying. I call it positivity mania. First of all, positive and negative don’t exist. These are values. There’s also something called reality, which is what really happens despite the values we attach to it.
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SMiLes In Life There Are Wrenches
There Are Guitars And Some Days Most
Sadly Guitars Without Strings
Oh How Hard it is to Be A Guitar
Without Strings All that Lovely Music
Once Played And Gone All Gone into the
Void The Whole of the Instrument With No Sound At All
Yet the Wrenches Have Difficulty Understanding As They’ve
Only Been A Tool Neither Instrument of Music With or Without Strings
Oh Lord When i Was A Young in Numbers
Man A Military Woman i was ‘Involved’
With Said i Touched Her ‘Heart Strings’
And i Was ‘Smart’ Enough to
‘Think’; Yes, Think, Instead of
HeART FeeL iT Had Something
To Do With ‘The Physical’ Instead
of Words Expressing The Deepest
of Feelings Within Beyond All Discrete Measure
And at That Point i Had Forgotten i Ever Had Strings to
Play At All For It’s True How That Song “The Way We Were”
Touched me So Much in High School As a Virgin With A Crush
on the Smart
Girl 3 Years
Older Than
me in the “Nerd Club” Then…
i Suppose the Moral oF A STory
is Our Souls Don’t Always Evolve
Toward Higher Love Powers As Environment
Counts So Much And It’s True if You Work With A Bunch
Of Wrenches At Work Chances Are Someone Will Say Suck
It Up Buttercup It’s Not That Bad We’ve Got Work to Do Now
So Pull Those Bootstraps Up Even if We Are Speaking About
The Very Robust Looking Homeless Dude on the Street
Hearing 100 Voices In His Head Instructing Him
Differently What to Do Next… And Yeah
When i Lost All my Emotions Entering
Into 66 Months of Hell of the
Worst Pain Known to
Humankind And
Lost With No
Reference Point
if i Ever Felt A Smile Before
Oh How i Gnashed my Teeth
in the Once Living Room Sitting
With my Mother And Wife Shiny
Happy People They Still Were And
There Was No Way Out of the Opaque
Glass Around my Soul Trying To Remember
What it Felt Like to Be A Shiny Happy Person Before…
Lost, Lost in a Vast Space With No Measure A Pit Below With No
Bottom or Top As Recently i Was Defending the Lives of Lesbian
Women Buried to Their Chest in Saudi Arabia And Stoned And Saying
i Don’t Believe in Any God of All Mercy, Forgiveness, And Love That Burns
Any Part of Creation Forever in Torture And Misery and Suffering Because
They Were Naughty in this One Life to Live It’s true There Are Days to Smile
And There Are Days to Stand Up With Back Bone And Say NO As It’s True
It’s A Big Mistake
For Anyone
To Mistake
my Smile Now
As Not Having
Teeth As It’s True
The Dentist Said
i Have Some of the
Biggest Teeth He’s Ever Seen, Hehe…
And This is Why i Smile Now my Teeth Are Just too Big to Hide…
No Different Really Than Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head With
Feet Too
Big For A Bed…
Look Around i Do
Life is A Struggle
And Night Makes Day
And Dark Makes Light
Elon Musk Recently Said
One Day Robots Will Do All the
Work And We Humans Will Have
All Abundance For Whatever We Want
Yeah, Like When my Relative Inherited 80,000
Dollars And It Went Up Her Nose And She Ended Up
Dead And So Many Other Relatives of Other Relatives
of People Who Have Never Learned How to Be Naked
Enough Whole And Complete Without Any Cocaine (etc) Levers
For
the
Monkey
Wrench to Press…
Is There Even Any Room
In This World Left to Smile…
i Make Room As i’ve Lived in the Other Place
too Yep So Far Away From the Other Park Bench in The Desert…
More And Less We LiVE iN A World Now Increasingly Where there
is No Time Left For The Human Condition to Even Breathe Freely
With
Shadow
And Sunshine
Fully in Tow Expressing
All Of Who We May Come
to Be EVERY HUMAN EMOTION COUNTS
MOVING US TO CHANGE AS NEED BE with smiles…
No Place
To Hide When Free..:)
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Very interesting post!
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Positivity can be just bloody annoying! Excuse my language!
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The last paragraph describes the toxic positivity that I often endured when I was a kid. Sharing fear or anger with some people was a way to get bludgeoned with cheery platitudes, not to get constructive suggestions.
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Oh my. Sorry you went through that. cheery platitudes belong on a bath mat .
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