Toxic positivity: wanting to feel good at all costs is not good

Anyone who has the audacity to complain will see ten years of misfortune befall him and his family! In recent years, the injunction to happiness and good humor is such that we no longer dare to utter the slightest whimper. You have to have spent a dream vacation in Greece, love your job, know how to flourish alone and/or as a couple, be passionate about sport, meditation, cooking and gardening, and above all… stay positive, even more so when a global pandemic descends upon us. Between cardboard perfection on social networks, the boom in personal development and the survivor side induced by the Covid, these last two years have paradoxically been placed under the sign of excellence and surpassing oneself. “Toxic positivity is something that first hit me on social media. I also notice that many of my patients are struggling, but keep repeating “I know I should be grateful...”. They feel like they never do enough, because there's real pressure around performance, both publicly and privately,” says Whitney Goodman, a “radically honest psychologist” to nearly 400,000 Instagram followers.

Voluntarism and perfectionism: these has-beens

For the one who dedicates her account to the prevention of forced anti-positivism, “personal development is so popular that we have become obsessed with ourselves”. “If we are constantly thinking that something is wrong with us, or always finding things to improve, then things are getting too intense, or they are affecting us in some way. negative," said Whitney Goodman.

Wanting too much to become better versions of ourselves, the hegemonic reign of the proverb "When you want, you can" has imposed itself. Happiness then seems reserved for enthusiasts and those who do not complain. "Moral and psychological puritanism has come back in force in recent years, trying to make us believe in the supremacy of the will, if not in its omnipotence, with its corollary of excessive accountability", denounces Saverio Tomasella, doctor in psychology, and author of “Freeing yourself from the Cinderella* complex”. For the psychoanalyst, to think that personal fulfillment is inaccessible to any form of negativity stems from "a mythology, a fantasy and moral construction which rests on a collective repression, by the eviction of suffering, death, difficulties, and conflicts”.

Detaching yourself from an illusory and unattainable perfection to accept not being at your best 7 days a week has become a real challenge for mental health. "Perfectionism forces us to contort ourselves to respond to an ideal by forgetting ourselves, even by sacrificing our fulfillment for the benefit of our reputation", denounces Saverio Tomasella.

For Whitney Goodman, it is therefore essential to sort out the social networks. "If following certain people causes us to have low self-esteem, makes us feel bad, we must unsubscribe to follow accounts that make us laugh, or that interest us", recommends the American, who has makes toxic positivity his workhorse on Instagram.

Then comes the time to accept his emotions, all his emotions. Repressing feelings identified as negative is indeed totally counterproductive. As we deny them, they indeed grow in our minds, fueling our emotional charge. "The more we repress our emotions and the pain associated with them, the more we accumulate an overflow of difficult experiences and discomfort", confirms Saverio Tomasella. His American colleague recalls that "studies show that being able to experience one's emotions, to name them, and to identify where they come from, helps us to move forward".

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By mimicking unfailing good humor, feelings of isolation and shame set in, with some people even sinking into severe depression. We then think we are feeling illegitimate or excessive emotions that cannot be understood by others, or even “invalidated” by those around us. “Fake positivity is poison for the heart and for the soul. It pushes us to lie, to cheat, to pretend, to think only of ourselves, to put ourselves forward, and the backlash, one day or the other, is all the more violent. We fall from very high, we sink into self-loathing, despair or cynicism”, warns Saverio Tomasella.

I feel, therefore I am

It would therefore seem that a good dose of darkness is saving, from time to time. “All humans are vulnerable, it is part of our condition. Good mental health lies precisely in the fact of accepting our frailties, our errors, our wounds and our moments of weakness, to grow each time we are confronted with our vulnerability, pain and death,” says Saverio. Tomasella

Finally, isn't it liberating to admit that we had a rotten vacation in the rain, that we are completely depressed by our last breakup, and that no, we have never managed to meditate? ? On social networks, the positive attitude is gradually being put aside, for feeds imbued with humor and honesty. We no longer seek to show an idyllic sunset behind a chilled glass of rosé, but an unvarnished everyday life that finally takes responsibility. “In recent years, emphatic self-exhibition has been the rule on social media. A bit of modesty can't hurt...", rejoices Saverio Tomasella. “It's very important to accept our failures, our dark side, our imperfections, our faults, our failures, our doubts. What counts is authenticity and sincerity vis-à-vis ourselves, and honesty in the face of reality", affirms the author, who claims the existence of "happy and healthy moaners health ".

“It's all generational, and I find that young people are much more sensitive to vulnerability, to showing themselves in an authentic way. Things are changing, people want sincerity rather than false images and appearances,” said Whitney Goodman. The real revolution would go through the fact of finally removing their “positive” and “negative” label from our emotions. “I have been rebelling against these moralizing categories for more than twenty years. Emotions are neutral, they are signals, messengers, useful information that needs to be heard, because they tell us about what we are going through, through our body”, explains the doctor of psychology. "The negative helps us to find out who are the people we don't want around us, to understand what things we need to work on," says Whitney Goodman.

Anger as much as joy, sadness as much as pride can thus be born of positive things for our construction. “It's what we do with our emotions that can work for us, or not. If we take the time to welcome each emotion, we will live much better and healthier,” encourages Saverino Tomasella.

For the author, "it is a question of initiating this fundamental cultural change which consists in accepting all the manifestations of our sensitivity, to better identify what we feel and express it with the most accurate words". The only keys are then “the empathetic welcome and real compassion”. In the facts ? We no longer say "It's going to be fine!" “, or “Look on the bright side of things”, but we “listen attentively, with kindness, without any judgment”.

* With Eyrolles editions.