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I have one hard-and-fast rule: No listening to holiday music until December. Don’t get me wrong — I love the holiday season, but I do believe you can have too much of a good thing.
This fall, it’s taken all my strength not to dive into my traditions early. I wanted to feel some kind of joy after this (very long) year, and I was convinced the holidays would finally bring that to me. When December 1st rolled around, I could not wait to turn on my favorite tunes and bask in the soft white glow of twinkly lights. I poured myself a cup of hot chocolate and asked Alexa to get me in the spirit.
The familiar melody of I’ll Be Home For Christmas shook my speakers to life. Without warning, my heart dropped at the chorus.
Christmas eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
I remembered that I won’t be going home for Christmas.
No matter what you celebrate, December is usually a time for coming together — with your family, coworkers, and friends. But this winter, many of us won’t be able to experience those moments, and lately, even music can’t make me feel better about that.
A part of me wants to wallow in my own sadness. The other part is desperately trying to rally. “I can turn this around,” I think. I can throw a Zoom party, plan a gift exchange, or deliver homemade cookies to all my friends and coworkers. To be honest, I don’t know which is worse — leaning into my sorrow or pretending to be merry until it feels real.
I recently learned about toxic positivity — the assumption that you should try to stay positive at all times — and how it can negatively impact our well-being. It had me wondering: Is it really that bad to fake happiness?
I brought my questions to Dr. Laura Gallaher, an organizational psychologist and the CEO of management consulting firm Gallaher Edge. She’s built her career on helping leaders develop healthy cultures inside their companies, and she filled me in on what to do when positivity becomes toxic at work, and in life.
Lately, I’ve been trying to force a lot of “holiday cheer” on myself. Is that what toxic positivity is?
When somebody is experiencing negative emotions — sadness, frustration, or anxiety — and they’re trying to force themselves to not feel that way, or pretend that they feel something different, that’s when it becomes toxic.
We’re not good at suppressing emotions, and it’s not good for our health. I use the metaphor of holding a beach ball under water. At a certain point, your arms are going to fatigue. That ball is going to rip through the surface, and when that happens, who knows who will get splashed. When we hold in too many emotions, they can manifest as physical illness: intense stomach pain, backaches, tension migraines, or all kinds of symptoms people don’t realize stem from emotions.
It’s harmful for our relationships, too. While people usually have good intentions, the rest of us can intuit when someone is being dishonest. In relationships, it creates a level of mistrust. In work environments, it can harm the culture.
Still, I feel like it’s easy to fall back into that “all is merry and bright” attitude this time of year. What are some actionable things I can do to stop spreading toxic positivity at work, and in my life?
The best thing you can do is listen, and I mean genuinely. Don’t pretend to hear someone when you’re actually thinking, “No, you’re wrong, you shouldn’t feel that way.”
If someone tells you that they’re struggling or sad, one of the most toxic things you can do is respond with, “You should feel grateful for what you have.” You may have positive intentions, but what you are really doing is undermining and invalidating the other person’s feelings.
If you notice someone you care about is having a hard time, are there healthy ways to try and comfort them as an alternative?
Yes, you can build a connection. That’s what the holidays are all about anyway. When someone is vulnerable with you, encourage them. You can say, “Tell me more. Help me understand.” You want to create space for them to be heard.
To show you’re listening, it’s a good idea to paraphrase their statement back. Start with, “What I hear you saying and feeling is … (fill in the blank here).” Sometimes, people don’t like to paraphrase because they’re afraid it will make them seem passive and agreeable. I can assure you, that’s not the case. When you repeat back what someone has expressed to you, what you’re saying is, “I see you, and I hear you.”
Essentially you’re practicing empathy, and empathy is all about recognizing the emotion someone else is describing inside yourself. As you listen, ask yourself, “Can I relate to this feeling, even if my situation is different?”
When you can honestly say, “That’s hard, I understand,” you create a level of genuine positivity. You become two human beings who are connecting about something in a real way.
What about those of us who are already deep inside our own delusions about being “happy” right now? How do we check ourselves for toxic positivity?
You’ll want to start by checking in on what your true experience is, and allow yourself to really know your own emotions. Then, find that person who can empathize and be there for you. Not everybody is prepared or mature enough to handle your vulnerability. But there are a handful of people who are.
If you’re not sure if someone can handle your real emotions, just ask them. I’d recommend starting with someone who you trust. You might say, “Can I talk with you for a while? I trust you and I just want you to listen. I don’t need you to try and solve anything. Would you be willing to do that for me?”
Now you’ve set an expectation. It will be easier for you to show up as you are.
How can you go about finding that person? I’m thinking about those of us who are just out of school right now, in a new city, or a new job. It’s hard to make those connections.
Given that most of us are spending the majority of our time at work, or socializing virtually with family and friends, I’d recommend finding a person to confide in within each environment. At work, you want to find someone who is a real friend. In your personal life, look for someone who you feel comfortable being 100% honest with. If you don’t have this person in your life right now, that’s okay too.
Sometimes these things take time, but if you’re willing to open up and be vulnerable, you can find them. Start small — vulnerability takes place on a spectrum. When you meet someone you’re interested in having a deeper connection with, take a small emotional risk. For instance, try being honest when they say, “How are you?” Open yourself up and see how the other person responds. If at first, you get a little bit of toxic positivity in response, hang in there. Let them know what you want: for them to listen.
It’s surprising how infrequently we tell people what we want, and how often we expect or hope that they’ll understand. Give people a chance to do right by you.
What if your manager is the one pushing positivity at work? Or what if your parent is the one pushing it at home? There are power dynamics in some of these relationships. How do you deal with that?
I’m a big advocate of openness. In my opinion, you should attempt to address it. A good way to begin is by clarifying the other person’s intentions. If they say something that feels positive but fake, try asking, “What does positivity mean to you? What feels most important to you about being positive right now?” Get them to elaborate. The last thing you want is to hear a series of platitudes.
For instance, let’s say your boss says, “Let’s make sure we look on the bright side this year.” Instead of resenting their comment, respond with curiosity. Ask, “Can you say a little bit more about that?” That may open up the conversation a bit. If they respond with something like: “Well, I really want there to be positivity because that’s how we can connect.” You could say, “I would like to be real about my feelings, which aren’t always positive, because I think that’s how we can connect. Can that work for you?”
You’re both looking for connection. Figure out what’s underneath that and get deeper.
Holiday parties and gift exchanges — gatherings that bring people together — used to be a great place to connect with new people in some of the ways you’re describing. Do you have any suggestions around how to create feelings of togetherness this year (especially given the remoteness of it all)?
The greatest connections happen during moments when you can share who you are with someone else. At social gatherings, these moments are often created when a sense of community is established through music, culture, food, drink, games, and chatter. People who were once near strangers may become fond acquaintances by the end of the night. You can absolutely recreate this in a virtual environment.
Using program like Zoom or Google Meet, you can set up calls with different breakout rooms that allow people to pop into private chats. Before entering a virtual social space, come up with some good questions to help you out — ones that are personal, but not invasive. For example, ask about holiday traditions or the funniest gift someone has ever received. The idea is to talk to other people about things that they would normally talk about at an actual holiday party. There are a lot of ways to create strong feelings of connection in a virtual setting.
Okay, so I’m switching gears slightly, but still keeping with the subject of holidays. I find myself doing this a lot: I’ll start off an email by saying “Happy holidays!” without even thinking twice about the fact that people might not be so happy. Is that on this toxic positivity scale? Any examples of things I could say instead?
My recommendation is to make your intro an actual question. Instead of saying, “I hope you had a great holiday,” ask, “Hey, how was your break?” And mean it. Some people may not want to get into it with you. If that’s the case, they probably won’t offer it up. But asking a question is a good way to avoid toxic positivity because it’s an invitation for somebody to be real with you.
That said, don’t be too hard on yourself. People say things like “I hope you had a great weekend,” so often that it has almost become benign. Others tend to recognize these phrases for what they are. I wouldn’t overthink it.
Is it possible to take this all too far in the negative direction? Is there some validity to having a positive outlook and using the holidays as a way to boost joy?
Absolutely. The reason toxic positivity is gaining momentum and interest right now is because it’s an overgeneralization of a really important idea: being positive is generally very helpful in life. As humans, we are not responding to the world around us. We are only ever responding to the meaning that we place on what is happening around us. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it. The reason that’s important is because it means you have a choice.
When you know that you have a choice, you can be more conscious of the meaning that you project onto everything. Take, for example, a facial expression you’re trying to interpret. If someone rolls their eyes at you, you might start thinking, “It looks like that person just rolled their eyes at me and the meaning I take from that is that they were being dismissive of my idea, and that really bothers me. It bothers me because it would break my heart to think that they don’t trust me or think I’m smart or good at my job.”
But when you have awareness, you can recognize your own thought process, and think instead, “Is it really true that they don’t think I’m smart or good at my job? Probably not. I have a lot of evidence to suggest otherwise.”
When you acknowledge this, you can start to be a bit more vulnerable and say, “Hey, I noticed this. It triggered a little something in me, I just wanted to find out what’s going on for you.”
You can reality check yourself. You can challenge the meaning that you put on things, and you can eventually get to a place where the story that you tell yourself doesn’t come from a place of insecurities.
I’m getting a little existential now, but all this comes back to building a genuinely positive or optimistic point of view. It only becomes toxic when you’re trying to suppress that first negative emotion, instead of acknowledging it, working through it, and letting it pass.