Welcome to, she persisted, I'm your host CD son. Every Friday. I post interviews about mental health, dialectical behavioral therapy and Teenage life. These episodes break down my mental health Journey. Teach skills to help you cope with life and showcase testimonials from individuals, including teens, just like you. Whether you've struggled yourself or just want to improve your mental Fitness. This podcast is your inspiration to live a life, you love and keep persisting.
This week's ubt scale is validation in this interview Whitney and I talked a lot about how invalidating with positivity can be and how it can really negatively. Impact both your mental health and relationships. I wanted to get super detailed on how you can be more validating. So in case validation is a new term Tio validation is something that you can do both towards yourself or towards other people, where you create space and appreciation for an emotion without necessarily agreeing
with an action. A belief, a decision or the intensity of the emotion so there are six stops and they weren't in difficulty. So they are pay attention reflect back. Read my I ain't understand acknowledge the valid and show equality will start with the easiest and go to the hardest. So first is paying attention. You are looking interested in the other person and side of board. So you're not multitasking.
And if you're doing this for yourself, you're kind of sitting and giving yourself a moment to process what you're going through. Instead of just completely distracting and trying to move on second is reflect back, stay back. What you heard? The other person say or do to be sure, you understood exactly what the person is saying, we're not using judgmental language or a Of tone of voice. Third is read minds and that's
in quotations. We're being sensitive to what's not being said by the other person so that's facial expressions. Body language what's happening around you what you know about the person already and you are showing your understanding in both words and actions.
You are checking to see if you are right in your assumptions but you're letting it go if you're not, fourth is understand, look for how with the other person is feeling thinking or doing make sense based on their past experiences present situation and Or their current state of mind or physical condition. This is really breaking down the cause of the action or motion that has arisen.
Fifth is acknowledged the valid, look for all the other person's feelings thinking or actions are valid responses because they fit the current facts or are understandable because they are a logical response to the current facts. Again, even if you don't agree with it, where you're looking to understand their perspective and create space for that and lastly is showing a quality. So be yourself. You're not trying to one up or one down.
On the other person and you're treating the other person as an equal and not as someone that's fragile or incompetent because of what they're feeling. So that is validation, boiled down. You are creating space for yourself or someone else's emotional experience. You are creating an appreciation for that without necessarily agreeing and it's an amazing tool that allows you to feel seen heard understood and process your emotions rather than having them bubble up and get more overwhelming.
So with that, let's get into the episode. Hello, hello, and welcome to. She persisted. I'm so excited. You're here today. If you are new. Welcome. My name is Sadie. I am a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. Studying psychology, I started she persisted after I went through a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety and just gain so much wisdom and insight and learn so many skills that I wanted to share with other teens.
Because I really did feel like so much of what I went through was preventable, if only the mental health education and resources had been there, So that's why I started the podcast. If you are a returning listener, welcome back. We have an amazing interview today with Whitney Goodman. She is the author of toxic positivity and I left this interview just amazed by all the insights you shared. And there are so many tips here that you can Implement in your relationships and your internal
dialogue all of those things. So I know you guys are going to love it before we dive in, happy may it is mental health awareness month, I love may. It's a great month to be hosting a mental health podcast, and it's really fun to see. Ton of different brands and creators and individuals being vulnerable, their stories and sharing more resources. So, yeah, it's just a month that makes my heart very happy and to celebrate, we have two things going on.
One, I am posting a ton of tick-tocks and reels every day to celebrate mental health awareness month. So tons of tips clips from the podcast mental health advice, you name it, those will be going up and so make sure to follow along at a cheap resisted podcast on Instagram. And the second thing I'm doing is a huge giveaway. This month to celebrate 100 reviews and mental health, awareness month, we are at 95 right now.
So five of you go leave a review so we can hit that and I can announce the giveaway, but it's just such an amazing collection of brands that I've partnered with think, 5-minute journals some amazing skincare companies, sweatshirts all brands that are really aligned with the podcast and promote mental health, awareness and resources. So I'm so excited for that.
I will be announcing that on the podcast, as well as Instagram and Tick-Tock and we'll announce a giveaway winner by And the month but to give you a little bit more context before we dive into this interview Whitney good. Men L MF T is the radically honest psychotherapist behind the hugely popular Instagram account at sit with which she's also the author of toxic positivity. In the owner of the collaborative, Counseling Center, a private therapy practice in Miami Florida.
She helped people who want to improve their relationships and emotional awareness and gives tons of great tips on this in this interview. So with that as always, make sure to leave a review, an apple podcast share with a friend or family member if you enjoy this. This interview and let's dive in. Thank you so much for joining me today on. She persisted, I'm so excited to
have you on the show. Of course, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so I want to start by hearing about how you became a therapist, how you became aware of toxic positivity. And then I'm sure that I'll say, we're right into what exactly that is. Because it's not a term that people I think totally understand you here thrown around. But I'd love to hear your explanation because I think you
explained it so well. Yeah. So I've been a therapist for a little over seven years now I wish I had a better story of how I became one but the truth is is I was graduating from college with like degrees in sociology and gender studies which you really can do nothing with. So I started to look for masters programs and I knew I always wanted to work with people in some capacity and I found this
therapy programs. Like oh that sounds exactly like what I want to do. And I went straight from college and so it's really the only job like profession I've ever had. And I'm lucky that. I love it. Yeah, just worked out well, yeah. So how did you start noticing in practice or talking to other clinicians? That toxic positivity, was something that was going on in on a really big scale now.
So I started my career working a lot with patients who had cancer and I noticed that positivity was like oh, Always the prescription of choice. There was something I was doing. There was this definite pressure that like, if you were going to get through this, you needed to be positive and always felt kind of weird to me. And so, over time, I started noticing a lot of my clients saying things. Like, I know I should be positive, but I know I shouldn't
complain. But I know I need to be grateful, and I was also just seeing this all over Instagram. Especially once I started my Instagram to Market my practice, So I was like, okay, there's something going on here. So, I created this chart that was really just, like, toxic positively and one column and validation in the other.
And a lot of people were either saying like, oh my gosh, I've been looking for something to call this my whole life, or I've noticed this, but I've never thought about it. And then, there were other people that were like, this is crazy, positivity is nothing but good. And so from there, I really realized like, oh, gosh, this is something that we need to be talking about it. People have such a polarizing reaction to the concept.
Yeah, no. It's really interesting that second column are that second group of people that's like positivity is only anything but good because they themselves are also in that toxic positivity kind of Pennsylvania. And you like, okay, thank you for explaining my point. Yes, it's a great example here. So really breaking it down.
What is toxic positivity? So toxic positivity is really this unrelenting pressure to be Be positive be seeking out happiness, no matter what the situation and it's really something that we use against ourselves like in some of those examples that I just brought up, like I should be grateful and it's also something that we use against each other. When we use toxic positivity and telling people that they shouldn't feel a certain way or that they need to look on the
bright side. Yeah, no, I think that's very true and it's something that is becoming very widespread. I know you talked a lot about how this became just Even more overwhelming in the pandemic because that was the narrative was stay positive. Let's get through it. And there are, there are pros and cons to that, but I don't know what your perspective is being practiced, but I feel like I've never seen such an overwhelming urge of everyone to be like, let's stay positive like before.
It felt like, there was much more of a mix of, like, some people were like, well, this sucks but I guess like maybe we'll get through another people were like, no, we're going to stay positive. This is great. So it's interesting to see for sure. Yeah I definitely saw that and there was also this like you have to make causative use of your time.
You need to achieve something you need to like self-care your way through this or like you had the celebrities singing in their houses, you know, telling yourselves as file and get along. And it's like, there is a really crazy thing happening in the world right now and we're just not going to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. What are some like red flags or phrases that People can catch on to that, they can be aware that either using toxic positivity internally or they're noticing
it within their interactions. So these phrases really depend on like, What's the timing? What's the audience? And what's the topic that's being discussed? And some of those ones that tend to kind of go into that toxic positivity category, or definitely like everything happens for a reason Time Heals all wounds just be grateful, you know, it's this or at At least it's not X and we use these statements when someone's truck struggling is when they kind of
can turn into toxic positivity. Yeah. Yeah. And I know those things are very, very common, like when you go to someone and there's not really like, if you don't know they're going to respond. Well, a lot of the times, those are the responses that you get and it can be really invalidating and it can be really difficult to to feel like you're getting your needs met and then move through that in an effective way.
So if you are engaging some with Or you yourself are utilizing, toxic positivity, what are the consequences there, obviously, if it wasn't in - we wouldn't be discussing it as much. So what happens when you are chronically surrounded by toxic
positivity. So when you're using toxic positivity against yourself, a couple of things happen, where you're likely going to feel this Mist, you're going to kind of try to shove down your emotions, you're going to suppress them, and we know the research, really clearly shows us that the more you suppress emotions. Owns, the more intense, they become the more difficult they become it. Also inhibits connection because you're not going to go and talk to people. If you feel like you shouldn't
feel what you're feeling. And that's a consequence that we see a lot when people are surrounded by toxic positivity coming from other people, is this feeling of I'm alone? I'm the only one that's dealing with this. And nobody can help me, or will understand me. And I think, again, we're seeing people really Silo themselves. They become Really isolated and we don't know how to connect with each other support each other around our pain.
When that is kind of like the narrative that's going on. Yeah, what are the most common things that people use that narrative to to navigate? I'm sure it's different for everyone and there are different pain points that everyone navigates, but other common things while you're like, no, like this is not effective, like, let's feel what's going on here, then you don't have to be positive.
Yeah, II line a lot of these in my book that I think it's, there's these like big ticket items were positivity, just really doesn't fit so grief and loss, infertility pregnancy, being a parent. Any of these really hard things in life, you know, anything related to trauma, mental health struggles. It often doesn't feel appropriate to try to use positivity to kind of Band-Aid, any of those blue jeans. Yeah, I think Another really
interesting thing to adhere. I think when people first hear about this idea of toxic positivity and really creating space for those emotions, they kind of get stuck on just that first step and you kind of forget that like okay but once the emotional need is met, there's so much growth that can happen and you can work through it and navigate it and advocate for yourself. So can you speak to that a
little bit of? There's this first step of identifying like okay this might not be the most effective thing to tell myself that it's going to be fine and it could be worse but what happens when you do acknowledge those emotions and create space as so after you acknowledge those emotions, you're really like giving a label and a name to what you're experiencing which helps it become known to you and less
scary. So I know that I'm feeling anger about something that it makes sense to me and I can kind of think about what do I want to do with this. What tools do I have access to and then you're going to start thinking, maybe about like what action do I want to take? What do I want to explore? Who I want to talk to you about this and you're able to really like, get your needs met and also build up this list of like coping skills for yourself and
make it easier. The next time you start to feel any of these emotions. Hmm, when I was researching for this, I heard you mentioned over validation, which is something I don't think I've ever heard of before, and I love to hear your perspective there and kind of unpack what? That is. Yeah. So I think validation has Become like a really widely used thing. It's very necessary, but I do think over validating something or continuing to tell yourself, like it's fine.
I don't need to worry about that or like it's going to be okay. Can sometimes keep us stuck where we need to start thinking about? Like, all right, what do I need to do about this? What action do I need to take? Is there an area in my life, where maybe I'm not doing enough or where I need to work on something. Sometimes, when people say, like, Anxious and it's okay that I'm anxious. It's okay that I'm not.
Okay. I think you can stop people from may be pursuing therapy or from thinking that things could get better. So, validation is always like the first step. It's something I tell people to do, but from there you want to make sure that you're not telling yourself, like I'm just miserable and I it's okay to be miserable and it's fine. This way that there is more out there than that for you. Yeah, no, it's interesting and it makes Me, think about the CBT cycle.
And it's like, this is so effective from the thoughts beliefs perspective to really effectively get your needs met and then it's moving to the next part of the behavior and being real with yourself and being like, okay, what is effective here? And maybe in some cases, it's not like sitting in this emotion creating space taking a pause. And then in some cases, it's continuing to move forward, advocate for your needs, ask for help, solve problem, solve if
that's necessary. So, I think that's really interesting to think about and important to remember, as well. If you had to save there is like a lesser of two evils, toxic positivity versus pessimism. They're obviously very different, but they're kind of two folds of this idea. What are your thoughts there? So, I think both of them are not great in large doses, right? And we tend to as a society like to think in very black, or white term.
So a lot of people say to me, oh, you don't want me to be positive, then you just going to be negative all the time or to be a pessimist. And I think there's this Middle Road where we can acknowledge, you know, what's bad? What's good? What's neutral? And we don't have to drift into either territory of like pessimism or toxic positivity. I do find throughout my work just like anecdotally that the people who are really
pessimistic are often. The people who were never validated or they were constantly dismissed. They were constantly told that what they're feeling was it real? And so now they've had to like, find this way to sort of like over identify with it and talk about those things all the time because no one has ever said to them. Like that makes sense why you're upset? Yeah about that. That's so interesting, this week's episode is sponsored by teen counseling. You guys know, I cannot have a
therapist on the podcast. Without mentioning teen counseling, it's such a great way to dip your toe into the water of therapy without getting overwhelmed and waiting on waitlist to try and find a therapist in your area. It's an amazing solution. Teen counseling is the each of butter helps, their P program for teens. They have over 14,000 licensed therapist in their Network and they offer support on things like depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and so much more.
You can meet be a talk text or video counseling, depending on what level of support you're looking for. And to start meeting with a therapist, you were going to go to teen counseling.com, she persisted. What you're going to do is you're going to file a quick survey about what you're hoping to work on, what your priorities are what you're struggling with so that they can match you with a therapist that specializes in your area of concern you then.
Put any parent or Guardians email to give consent for treatment and payment. None of your information is disclosed. I tried it myself and all it says is Sadie or whatever your name is. Is hoping to work with a therapist from Teen. Counseling please click here to learn more, give consent, and provide payment. So all of that information you filled out on your survey is completely protected, your privacy is intact. And then from there, they match with a therapist that meets your needs.
So what you're going to do is head to teen counseling.com, she persisted again, that is teen counseling.com she persisted Did you find a therapist today? Similar to that parents? That are practicing toxic positivity. I think, especially for teens, this is a big one because you're starting to get into the season of life where you aren't 100% agreeing or looking up to are getting all your problems solved by your parents, you're becoming more independent.
And you notice these aspects of your relationship and if toxic positivity is something that you start to notice, it's like, okay? So like how do we move forward? So first part of that question would be like, what happens when you are in an environment? Iron Man where you have a parent or a guardian or a loved one? Who is chronically?
Being toxic li+. Yeah, I see this a lot because I think parents forget that, like certain problems for teens feel like a really big deal, and they are very big. Yeah. For them, even if the parent doesn't see it that way, you know, you're not in that stage of life and so it's okay. As, as the teenager, I was a kid to say, to your parents. Like, I know you're trying to be helpful but that's not really helpful for me.
I Even trying to teach them how they could be more helpful telling them like I just need to vent to you for a second and I don't want you to try to solve the problem or to give me suggestions and almost like doing a little bit of coaching. And from, for parents remembering that like your teenagers problems are a big deal. They're learning how to figure things out for themselves and it's okay to allow them to experience.
All of that ya know, I always like to remind people that Like obviously everyone has that Universal experience. Like helping a teenager was really hard, it really sucked but yeah, haven't totally your brain. Hasn't finished developing you're not able to fully step into that, like logistical wise mind reasoning, you really are feeling your emotions a lot more intensely. You haven't learned how to cope with them. You still have a lot of aspects of your life that are being
decided for you. So you're not able to completely decide your community and your resources and your schedule and your support systems. So, yes, these Problems or challenges that you're dealing with 30 years from now you're like why was I upset over this? But in the moment it's really overwhelming and those emotions are real, they're valid and and it can be really tough to navigate especially if you have this person that a thing like this is fine.
What are you talking about? Just get through it. It could be so much worse. So I think that's a really important reminder, for sure. Similarly, I think this is kind of more something that happens when you are being toxically positive, but with your internal monologue. And how does this shame cycle come into play? So what I see happening for people is that like over here, they're feeling a certain way, right? Whether it's like they're sad, whatever.
And then on the other side is like what they think they should be feeling. I should be happy right now. I shouldn't be feeling this way. And the discrepancy between those two like, ends of the spectrum is where shame kind of comes up. Because you're, you're bullying yourself, essentially for not being able to feel the way you think you should be feeling. Yeah no I think that's really
interesting. And if Shane comes up as a secondary emotion and you're navigating that you're still not validating or coping with the root Primary Emotion, which is the same consequence of the toxic positivity. Like, it's the secondary layer of still not getting those needs met not getting validated, not feeling seen so that you can move into that second part of the process and continue to move
forward. I'd love to hear your thoughts on complaining because I've joked for a long time that I'm a complainer. And I Haven't really thought that it's like a terrible thing because I'm like, okay, I get my my needs met internally. I'm acknowledging when I'm feeling, I don't think I ought to a crazy degree but I definitely do like to make. Oh my God, this is so annoying. So talk to me about how that can be a good thing at times.
Yeah, complaining is one of those things that people talk about it, like it's a bad habit but everyone does it like. Yeah, and there are there's a not helpful way to complain and there's better ways to complain. So what we see reflected in In a lot of the research on complaining is that if you know what your goal is, you know, what is the actual problem?
And you know who can help you meet that need or fix that problem, that complaining and be really useful in creating change and helping you feel heard helping you get your needs met that without that you know I think as women were especially taught not to complain, there's never going to be any change in the world. Nothing will get done without somebody. Really Getting out of problem. No, I completely agree. And I'm writing a philosophy
paper right now. And it's a critique of this paper about being content with imperfections and to some extent, I agree. And then to some extent, I'm like, but we're always going to be evaluating and seeing the negatives. And if we don't see the negatives, there would be no motivation to change or improve anything. So I completely agree with you
there. If you could give a piece of advice to people that are struggling with tossed, toxic positivity towards themselves, whether it's like a skill or or a way, they can rewire thought. What would it be? I think using the word and is so powerful in trying to deconstruct this. So saying, I am having this feeling whatever the distressing thing that you're feeling is.
So I am angry and then adding the word and and there you can put in something that you're grateful for something that you're excited about to. Like I am angry about the great I got on this test and I'm going to study harder next time and I'm glad I have another chance to get my grades up, whatever it is. Can help you create that space for you're looking at all the sides of a situation.
I love that. And that's something I remember learning when I was in treatment, especially in Family Therapy. That whenever we were navigating something it was like, stop using but we're going to say and instead because no matter what you're saying, no matter how well you set up this validation as soon as you say. But the person's like all of, that's erased. Like okay, what's going on there? And like we're we're wired to focus on the negatives.
It makes sense, it's kind of it hurts when someone Someone's like, it's like a break out there. Like, you are so great, but I've been, they, like dunk you. So, that shift is huge. And it's such an easy one to make, is there something you would recommend for people that notice that someone in their life, whether it's like a boss, a friend, a parent, a family member is being really toxically positive and they're noticing that it's impacting their mental
health. I think going back to what we were talking about with teenagers, like, really trying to empower yourself, to teach people, how to help you, when the Chat more in stock. So with the people in your life that are close to you sharing with them, how to be helpful for you telling them when things are not helpful. If there's people that continue to say this stuff to you you feel like it's not worth your labor to kind of teach them.
It's also okay to stop going to them with these types of things or when they give you a toxic positivity, phrase just being like, Oh, thanks so much and changing the subject or walking away and not taking that. Personally or upon yourself? Yeah, in a perfect world. Do you see people not ever being talks Lee positive? Do you see them that happening? And then people really advocating and demonstrating how they can get their needs met? Like, what would you like to see
people doing more effectively? Yeah, I think that would be the most ideal outcome, right? Because all of us like to get help and give help in different ways and there's no manual for that. There's no way to like do it. Exactly. Right. All the time. That what I'd really like to see is more people just talking about this and kind of coming together to meet on that. Yeah, and I think that's so interesting because, again, it's the audience, it's the setting.
Like, there's been times where people have been like, this is just a season of life, and it could be so much worse and I'm like, you're so right. And that's why I need to hear. And then there's other times where I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, this is not helpful. So, it's really it's different. And you do have to advocate for your needs. You have to To Showcase what you're hoping to receive. And I think it's so true with friendships romantic relationships.
Like, parent relationships. It's huge while, I know that so many teens are going to find this. So helpful and just learn about this, this pattern that so many people are experiencing but haven't been able to identify, or know how to solve. So I'm so glad we got to do this. Thank you so much for having me, of course, working people get your book, follow along with you and continue to consume your content. You can find me on social media. Instagram, that's it with wet.
And you can get my book, toxic positivity, any where books are sold? Awesome to recap. This week's episode Whitney, and I discussed her clinical experience how she started. Observing toxic positivity both in her practice and Community. What exactly toxic positivity is how it shows up in both ourselves and our relationships negative. Impacts of invalidation situations. You shouldn't be positive. What is over validation and the benefits of complaining. This interview is jam packed with.
You if you enjoyed it as much as I did, make sure to share with a friend or family member. And if you share on social media tag me at at she persisted podcast and I'll make sure to repost and give you a little shout-out. So with that, I will see you next week.