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Olivia Walters

Scary 101: Toxic Positivity

✨Good vibes only✨

Woman forcing herself to fake smile
Turn that frown upside down! Or else!

Insidious Ingrained Implications

Think about a time that you’ve felt legitimately frustrated. You’re upset. Maybe angry, maybe sad. Something you hoped for fell through, someone you love is in a rough spot, etc. Which of the following would be the best and worst to hear from an outsider?


  1. “Choose happiness!”

  2. “Turn it into good! You know what they say: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”

  3. “Everything happens for a reason!”

  4. “It’s okay to feel sad right now.”

The issue with three of these comes down to the implications sewn into them, that: 1) it’s all within your power; 2) this is a command, for you to take that power and follow through; 3) if you don’t choose happiness or turn this bad situation into good, then the fact that you’re upset is on you: you could’ve fixed it, but chose not to. This is simply incorrect. But it’s a product of a frightening, subtle, and invasive concept: toxic positivity. 


The team at CLCI Live dares to peek at this frightful subject. Join Jen Long (ACC), Jerome LeDuff (MCPC), Anthony Lopez (MCPC), Brooke Adair Walters (ACC), and Lisa Finck (MCC) as they discuss the pitfalls of toxic positivity and what applications a coach might make from this topic.




The Harms of Toxic Positivity

Social psychologist Tchiki Davis gives us a simple definition of toxic positivity: the act of rejecting or denying stress, negativity, or other negative experiences that exist. Wait- but isn’t positivity good? Yes! Positivity is great for our wellbeing…“as long as we’re not using it to avoid or suppress negative emotions,” Davis writes. 


What about when you’re emphasizing positivity so much that it encourages or forces other people to avoid and suppress their negative emotions as well?


Davis offers relatable examples of this concept in action: “If someone tells us, ‘Hey, look at the bright side,’ we might feel like they are diminishing or denying our negative feelings.” Someone struggling with the toxicity in their workplace might tell another that their job “sucks”, and get told “You’re lucky you even have a job.” Pretty helpful to hear, right? Wrong!


Positivity isn’t a naturally toxic experience. It really is wonderful to experience, sometimes, especially when we or clients may be downplaying the good things in our lives. But positivity can begin to slide into a more harmful light in a context by context basis: who is saying it to whom, what the intention behind the phrasing is, what nuance is present, etc. The pressure to look at the positives and rush to turn a bad situation into a good one has little nuance. Davis points out that “If people encourage us to use a specific emotion regulation skill that we’re not good at, it could actually leave us worse off.”


And just because feeling happy feels great, and negative emotions are negative, becoming obsessed with happiness and finding it through positivity can actually have its own negative effects on our wellbeing. 


Negatives experiences are going to be inevitable for us all. Emphasizing staying positive over all else may hide what others find to be ugly and frightening- but at a cost. Toxic positivity embraces fake happiness and attitudes. And embracing toxic positivity can mean building lives and jobs and relationships on falsehoods: feelings that aren’t actually there, suppressed opinions and self. It’s ultimately effective to run from negativity forever. 


Consider coaching. If you, as a coach, pretend there are no negatives and that staying positive always is the key to a happy life, how likely is it that your client will be open, emotional, and honest with themselves with you? A client may be inclined to simply pretend right back at you- and that won’t lead to much of substance ever getting done throughout the coaching relationship


It hurts to hurt. But telling others that they have plenty to be thankful for and that they shouldn’t be upset only gives toxic positivity more strength. The antidote? Dan Mager (MSW) offers this


“The way to get through emotional pain is to be present and accept it…It’s important to honor the reality of our emotions by acknowledging them.”

Acknowledging Client Emotions

Let’s take a moment to look at the International Coaching Federation’s sample exam questions for the Coaching Exam. In a scenario where the client begins to cry, what options does the ICF consider the most appropriate? It isn’t to hand over a Kleenex, giving them the sense they must clean themselves up. It isn’t to give encouragement and offer platitudes like “It will be alright.” And it isn’t to ignore the emotions and keep a stone face, while moving on, no-nonsense, to the next topic.


Instead, for one scenario offered by the ICF, the best option offered is to “acknowledge the emotional impacts” and ask the client “if they would like to spend some time with those feelings.”


Ignoring the charged emotional state isn’t the answer. There’s no reason to give the client the sense that the coaching space is just another place where they have to put a bright face forward and not acknowledge their own emotions.


But before we take this as evidence to always encourage the client to be emotional, let’s look at a separate ICF scenario where a client is stressed. Once again, the most desirable answer out of the choices is to acknowledge what they have said. It is not to “Ask the client if they need to take a moment before starting the coaching sessions, since they seem stressed.” Like handing a tissue over, this is a moment of a coach assuming what their client is feeling and that they want to either move past or dig deeper into that emotion. That is for the client to decide. 


It can be alarming or upsetting to see someone cry. But it is up to the client to discuss what they’re feeling: the positives, false positives, and negatives alike.


The Heart of the Issue

While positivity, gratitude, and optimism are valuable, they do not in themselves resolve the underlying challenges we or clients face. Action does. It's through critically evaluating the sources of our suffering that we can genuinely begin to address and remedy the dissatisfying aspects of our lives.


By understanding that genuine optimism is not about ignoring the negative but about addressing it head-on, we can foster a coaching environment that encourages authenticity and productive action. In our roles as coaches, it's vital to create spaces where clients can express their true feelings—be they positive or negative—and explore them constructively to foster real growth and resolution.

 

Thank you,


Jen Long (ACC), Jerome LeDuff (MCPC), Anthony Lopez (MCPC), Brooke Adair Walters (ACC), and Lisa Finck (MCC)!


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