Be positive. Positive vibes only!

You must have heard these phrases before or someone might have said them to you. Being positive is wonderful, isn’t it? Wouldn’t life become happier if we develop a positive outlook?

But has this happened to you?

Sometimes life is tough. The grief might make you cut off everyone and isolate yourself in your darkness. The uncontrollable pull of sadness sucks you back every time you try to overcome it. Even small gestures and seemingly minuscule tasks seem arduous. You give up. And in that depth of the abyss, you make the herculean effort to reach out to someone who would understand or just listen. 

And that person looks you in the eye with complete seriousness and gives you the golden advice, “You know, you just need to be more positive. Spread positive vibes only. Stop complaining about life. There are millions of people out there who have it worse than you. You should be grateful for all the things that you have.”

At this moment, do you notice the wetness in your eyes caused by the held-back tears drying up while you start seeing the colour red? Do you feel your grief transform into a rage while you have an intense desire to smack them in the head?

This is the brilliant advice they are giving you. To be positive.

But being positive is good, isn’t it? Then why does this advice seem insensitive? 

Can it be that positivity has its limits and might become toxic? Is there a dark side to positive vibes?

Can you truly heal if you try to be positive all the time? Can too much positivity lead to long-term unhappiness?

The dark side of positive vibes

Non-acknowledgement of pain

So much of our pain comes from having never been allowed to grieve what we’ve lost.

Allyson Dinneen

There is comfort in expressing your pain and not shoving it under the rug. To acknowledge the real emotions you feel and get through the pain slowly through the process of acceptance. You might feel shitty at the time, but this process eventually makes you feel okay. By letting reality be a reality, the natural healing process takes place. And when you feel stronger, you can finally take the risk of reaching out to someone and opening up about your vulnerabilities. Not seeking advice or solutions but a space for you to grieve without being alone.

But the darkness of positive vibes only arises when you are not even allowed to be sad, let alone grieve. The only accepted currency is positivity. Your every other emotion is discarded like a bag of garbage. Your every genuine emotion is dismissed. All the vulnerabilities you opened up are judged. Your pain is denied an exit. It is neither acknowledged nor validated.

So instead of grieving, recognising your pain and finally beginning the healing process, you hide it. Sometimes it is okay to distract yourself. To make yourself feel better temporarily when the emotions are overpowering. But the positive vibes only brigade forces you to never feel your true emotions. And when you keep shoving the pain inside, it one day bursts open. 

This non-acknowledgement of your real pain puts a delay or sometimes can even stop your healing process. And how can you be happy if you never heal your wounds?

The guilt about not being positive

The main problem was thinking I wasn’t supposed to feel bad.

Allyson Dinneen

Life is real. It is filled with experiences that can take you high or topple you to your lowest. It is a reality where you get to experience all the emotions. But the issue with the philosophy of positive vibes only is that it exists in its bubble. A dream world. It can only be a positive utopia.

And in a society where it is heroic to be positive in the depths of suffering, expressing any negative feelings freely can be frowned upon. The path of positive vibes can thus create unwritten rules where it is shameful to express emotions which aren’t filled with colourful positivity. This social conditioning can slowly creep into your thoughts and opinions. And then these thoughts make you feel guilty about not being positive all the time. 

I need to be positive when I am suffering. But I am not. This must mean I am weak.

You question yourself and blame yourself for not feeling positive. Not knowing it is the surrounding that is making you feel bad and forcing you on the path of positive vibes only. It is good to have a positive outlook towards life. But that does not mean life cannot suck. That does not mean the pain is not real. And feeling guilty about your pain is messed up. You are suffering. And now you are making yourself feel guilty that you are not positive in your suffering? You are judging yourself in your grief when you need love. How cruel are you going to be to yourself? Show a tiny bit of compassion. It is okay. Things can suck. It is fine to be sad sometimes. You are human.

The expectation of being positive all the time is one of the biggest factors contributing to our unhappiness.

Feelings of unworthiness

The guilt about not feeling positive vibes all the time comes with another partner, unworthiness.

The pain that we feel makes us vulnerable. And in that heightened emotional state the social conditioning of not being able to have a constant positive outlook can create guilt. You try to be positive, but you keep failing. And slowly, the guilt transforms into shame, the feeling of being ashamed of yourself.

You keep criticising yourself. Your cruelty has no end. This constant questioning bubbles up doubt. A doubt of your worth — Am I worthy of anything?

Why am I not strong enough? I need to stop complaining. Why can’t I ever be positive? I am useless! I am always like this, a crybaby. Worthless!

Your confidence gets a hit. Your self-esteem is now crippled. In your chase for positivity, and thus happiness, you end up overpowered by sadness and feelings of unworthiness. You get stuck in a cycle where the more you criticise yourself, the more worthless you feel. And the more worthless you feel, the more you criticise yourself.

When you need compassion and love, you attack yourself with constant criticism. In this state seeking positive vibes becomes toxic and can keep you from being happy for a long time, maybe forever.

Not receiving the help you need

Occasionally we need help. Sometimes life’s problems could be hard to define, let alone solve them. If the trauma is significant, the stress can shut off our bodies and throw us into an emotional state where rational thinking is non-existent. During these times when we are not at our best selves, outside help might bring us back into a better state. Also, a little guidance might swerve us in the right direction.

The times when we are closely associated with a life problem, we might try to solve them in the same failed ways we have attempted before, hoping the same actions might bring in different results. Maybe we are too afraid to try new ways, or we haven’t been able to think of better methods. In this case, a fresh perspective or encouragement might be what we are looking for.

But how can you find any help if you tell the world everything is AMAZING all the time?

Forcing yourself into the positive vibes mode can hide the reality of our issues underneath. And this might make it awkward for you to tell anyone about it when the world thinks you are having a great time. And even if you do seek help, people might not realise the urgency or refuse to help you by thinking things are great with you.

Sometimes it is difficult to reach out for help. Then, creating an outward shell of positive vibes around you might make everyone think you do not need any help. This can create a false outlook that no one cares about you. But in reality, it is either because no one thinks you need any support or you haven’t been able to communicate your needs properly.

You don’t need to reveal your pain to everyone. But reaching out to people you trust might be of great help. If not for solving the said issues, then for having someone to listen. That could be of great comfort too.

But hiding beneath positive vibes can create an environment of dangerous isolation where not receiving help can easily become your reality.

Ignoring your problems

When you clean your house, you sweep away the dust and gather the litter or garbage to dispose of them. In your attempt to clean the mess, you unintentionally get dirty. Dealing with life’s problems is somewhat similar. When you approach your deep-rooted issues, childhood traumas, broken relationships or disputes, it brings to the surface the negative emotions you would not want to face. Feelings like anger, grief, fear, anxiousness, guilt, blame and loneliness might come up while addressing these problems.

But because the positive vibes philosophy pushes only positivity, you might want to run away from these problems as they create real emotions which are anything but happy or positive. In this need to be positive, anything that makes us feel otherwise is avoided and never addressed. Thus positive vibes delay resolving our problems rather than beginning the attempt to acknowledge and solve them.

And this can be a slippery slope where anything that makes us uncomfortable is ignored. Difficult conversations, establishing boundaries, exerting assertion, providing love and compassion to someone in deep pain, etc. are situations that might be blatantly disregarded.

Of course, this does not mean you put yourself amid your overwhelming problems. You do it voluntarily and slowly and face reality at the level you are comfortable with. But if you keep running away under the guise of maintaining positive vibes only, the positivity you feel will always be fake. Because you are only avoiding the problems that are needed to be faced.

The illusion of positivity

Sometimes positivity is just denial.

Whitney Goodman

Do you sometimes remind yourself to be positive?

I am positive. I am positive! Stay positive. Stop thinking negative thoughts! Positive vibes only.

Let’s ask ourselves the question, why do we feel the need to make ourselves positive? It arises from the fact that we are NOT positive. 

This non-acceptance of the pain in itself is a deep-rooted negative experience. 

I do not want to feel bad. I am positive. I am positive!

A toxic positive environment where everyone pretends to be positive because the pain is too real to experience. We are so afraid to acknowledge the reality that we hide our pain under the guise of positivity. That is not positivity, that is fear. Fear to address our issues. It is simply denial to acknowledge the reality of life. And without acknowledging the issues, your healing process might never begin.

Life is great sometimes and it sucks the other times. The acceptance of it in itself can be a positive experience.

A positive outlook can be a good addition to our lives. But if not done wisely, the chase for positive vibes only can create toxicity that might completely mess up our overall happiness.