Whitney Goodman || Toxic Positivity

a private therapy practice in Miami. Whitney has her own calumn in Psychology Today and has been featured in The New York Times, Teen, Vogue, New York Magazine, In Style, Good Morning America, and other publications. Her most recent book is called Toxic Positivity, Keeping It Real in a world obsessed with being happy. In this episode, I talked to Whitney Goodman about toxic positivity. A happy outlook in life is a strength, but when taken too far, it can

backfire and work against us. Positivity stops becoming helpful and we deny the realities of hardship and try. Whitney believes positivity is not the panacea to our proms, and then it needs to be applied at the right time and with the right purpose. She shares with us ways on how to be supportive without being dismissive of our own wellbeing and the well being of others. We also touch on the topics of authenticity, gratitude, hope, relationships, and work.

It was really fun chatting with Whitney and I really appreciated her authentic style and we laughed a lot in this episode as well. So, without further ado, I now bring you Whitney Goodman. I'm really excited to chat with you today about toxic positivity as well. So I guess no pressure to smile. Come as you are, Come as you are. Yeah, I just want to jump. I just want to dive right in. You know, you're a therapist and you're also is an Instagram superstar. Thank you? How

did that come about? How that did both come about? Why did you go into therapy and then why did you join Instagram? I always want to work with people. I was definitely that friend that you know, was like, oh, I thought I had all the answers to everything. So I ended up becoming a therapist and quickly learning that that was not what therapists do tell people what to do. But it's the only job I've ever had, and I love it. So I got on Instagram really just to

market my private practice. I did not expect it to become this big part of my life, and a lot of people told me I was crazy for trying to market my practice on there, and now it seems to be like where every therapist is these days. Yeah, it's like the battle of the therapist who has more likes on Instagram. It's bizarre, it really is. I still can't get my blue check no matter what I do, Like, why, what's up with that? I got my blue check through

like some campaign I did with next Door. They were like, oh, we can get it for you right now. I'm like, what, you have to know a guy? I guess. Yeah. That's the thing is, I don't know. I don't know what I don't know, and I don't know who the guy is. Other people have asked me him, like if I knew, I would tell you, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That'd be like knowing the secret to me. Okay, So I loved your new book on toxic positivity. As you state, positivity

isn't toxic, it becomes toxic. I think that's a good starting point here because You're not saying that every attempt to be positive is something that should be considered toxic, right, absolutely, So it really depends on the timing, the audience, and

the topic, right. What might be positive or fine in certain situations can become toxic when we use it incorrectly, Okay, And you distinguish between helpful positivity and toxic positivity, So maybe that would be that'd be useful to actually like tell me what is what falls in one category and what falls the other guy category? Give me some examples if possible. Sure. So I think with helpful positivity, we're

making space for the good, the bad, and the neutral. Right, So we're saying things like today really sucked and I think tomorrow is going to be better, or I love this meal that I'm going to have at the end of the day. Toxic positivity is more like everything has to be good, and if we express any negativity or complaints, we're attracting more negativity or we're somehow a negative or a bad person, and we have to deny that any of that even exists. Yeah, the denying or the pretending.

You know a lot of people feel like are pretending these days to be happy all the time, there's almost like a social pressure even when people ask how are you right? Like if I tell them the truth, they don't really want to hear that. I one, I feel like social media plays such a big role in that that we all sort of are like avatars of our own self these days, and there's this feeling of like how do I want to perform my existence right? And

how do I want people to see me? And people feel like they're a burden or they're going to get abandoned if they don't have all these positive feelings. Well, you've showed shown that not to be the case, right, I mean, you keep it real on your social media and then people really resonate with it. I guess maybe you're you're saying things that people want to want to

be saying. Yeah, I try to. I think I'm definitely coming from this place of like, I'm a therapist, so it's normal for me to talk about these things to some extent that people aren't as judgmental. But I hope to like model that, Yeah, we don't have to talk about everything on social media, but we can show something Yeah, yeah it just personally in your own life. Did it bother you for many years that there was kind of this pressure be positive, like is there something in your personality?

What is the individual differences variable here? As well those who because there's going to be some who listening to this podcast too, they are toxic positivity carnate, but they're not going to like this conversation. They're gonna be like, oh, I'm oppressed, right, I'm being oppressed, you know, saying for sure? For sure? I think for me, I always noticed that there was like this performance aspect, like I was supposed to just act like everything was fine even when it wasn't.

Or when I started working as a therapist, like sort of noticing the things people talk about behind closed doors and then what people are showing on social media. I even saw that with my own friends that I'm like, that's so aggravating that we feel this pressure to show up in a way that we're not and it's something that I don't like to do. It bothers me to not be at least somewhat authentic. Yeah, yeah, So when

did you did you coin the term talic positivity? I am very cautious about saying that I've never seen it used anywhere before. I said it on that Instagram post, but I don't know, it could be floating out for some more. Yeah, because I know like also like yeah, like Susan David uses that term a lot as well. Yeah. Yeah, well she wrote the book Emotional Agility prior to that, which I know toxic positivity wasn't used there. Yeah, just the concepts exactly. Yeah. Yeah, So okay, to tell me

about this Instagram post. Okay, so tell me what what year was that? Read it to me? Yeah? So can you read it to me like what it said? Yeah?

So in twenty eighteen, I put up this post that was toxic positivity in one column and I listed a lot of phrases like everything happens for a reason, never give up, things like that, And then in the right hand column I put like I think validation and hope and gave people a list of different things that they could say, like I'm here for you if want to talk about it, that we're a little more validating and less just positivity. Do you ever re up that post

every now and then? Yeah? For sure, recycle that for sure? For sure. When I made it, it was like the worst graphic I with my very early days on Instagram. So I've updated it since, and I put it out when my book was published. Again, good good, I love that. Yeah, you say, my clients who live the most fulfilling lives are those who can experience challenging emotions. So you find that's an important route to growth, even in the clinical setting, absolutely,

especially especially in the clinical seting. Yeah, I find that my clients that and I've worked with a lot of people like this that really just want to feel good all the time or only want to feel positive, end up being the ones that struggle the most because when they are confronted with challenges, they don't really know what to do. They become really bogged down by that experience. You know, we make a lot of really interesting points in this book about positivity. You say, positive making can

give us the illusion of hope and control. In fact, let me call you, can I call you? You say, the world can be cruel and random. Unfortunately, we can put out tons of positive energy and still struggle strive for a life that honors your values and as meaning do the best. You kind of know that not everything bad that comes your way is because you attracted it, right, So this is kind of a reay to the law of attraction kind of idea that goes around, right, how

would you challenge that idea? The law of attraction, the way that I've come to understand it is essentially that whatever you put out there will come back to you. And so what I've found is that that type of thinking can become so victim blaming for some people, and it creates this over emphasis on the just world bias that if you do good things, but things will happen

to you. But we know that bad things happen to good people every day, and so I think positive thinking, the law of attraction, it sort of presents this on a silver platter of if you just follow this, good things will always come back to you, and we know that to not be true. It's it's false hope to a certain extent. Yeah, So it, like you say, can give us the illusion of hope and control. Yeah. Yeah, And when it's coincidentally working, we can it's working, it's true.

But then when it's not true, when it doesn't work, it's like, uh, oh, like, how do we explain that exactly? Yeah? Yeah, you say, it's not like you're saying positivity never works. You're saying it just doesn't always work. Right that I think there's been an over reliance on it. For sure, I get it. I get it. So do positive people always succeed? I want to let's just break down all these myths. Let's go down the line. Yeah, do positive

people who succeed? The research on that really says that no, And that's not even one of I think we're sold this idea that mindset is the most important part of succeeding in the workplace. And what I found and the research that I did, was really that people succeed when they're able to be challenged, when they're able to find

problems and solve them. Creativity is heightened when there's quote unquote negativity in the workplace, and so we really need this you know, healthy dose of like getting knocked down

and problem solving to be successful. I've been watching all these shows lately about like we work in Pharahos, you know, these stories where the leaders are so overly positive that it's like delusional, right, And I think that's a perfect look into like when positivity goes unchecked and no one is allowed to say, like, hey, we have a problem here that we need to fix without getting accused of like dissent when they do that. Yeah, well, how can

you avoid toxic positivity in the workplace? Like, let's say you do have a boss who's like manically egomania, manical, ego maniacal, manically egomaniacal. Do you like that? Do you like that for me? Yeah? I think that's what you're describing, right, Yeah, yeah, is well how do you how in the world do

you deal with that? I think that's one of the toughest situations to be in in the workplace, because if you have a leader that is not listening to you, you can really only control what's within your realm of control, right, So how can you present and talk about the things that you're concerned about to the people that have power, present them in a way that is meaningful and also at some point maybe even saying like, I don't know

if I can work in these types of conditions. If it gets to a point where there's too much risk involved in not being heard, yeah, I mean that's sometimes easier than done. Absolutely, you can get fired for speaking up at all. But yeah, okay, So what if you are an I call egomaniac and you want to change Let's say, yeah, you want to dial that down a little bit. You want to be more negative, You want

to be more negative? What can you do? I really think it's about being more realistic and open to feedback. So how can you create an environment where people are allowed to voice issues that they have and setting aside time to actually have space for that, and knowing that somebody having a problem with what's going on or a concern isn't a direct attack on you. It's them trying to help you make something better, trying to invest in

what's going on. Yeah, I thought that was an interesting chess move you made there When I said negative, you've reframed it is realistic and actually makes me want to bring up this question because I've criticized positive psychology's use of the distinction between positive and negative emotions and have argued, well, that's that's putting a label on these class of emotions. You know, you have uncomfortable emotions, you have comfortable emotions,

you've exhiling. It's more about what I want to kind of reframe it to how we feel about the emotions supposed to objectively labeling. Is that similar to how you think about it as well? Like what do you think of when I say negative? Emotions. I completely agree with you that I think classifying it in that way doesn't

make sense. I think uncomfortable emotions or emotions that cause us discomfort it makes more sense just because I know as a clinician, I've seen people be uncomfortable with happiness. I've seen people be uncomfortable with peace or calm. That some emotions that we would label maybe quote unquote negative are actually easier for certain people depending on what they've

experienced in life. That's a good point. Also, I'm so used to my anxiety in life that like I do in an nessorriyah a while ago to give it a try and was like calm for the first time in my life, and that made me very uncomfortable. I didn't like that feeling of being calm right right, you know, yeah, absolutely, And that would be something that people might be like, oh, but that's a positive feeling, you know, that would and that makes you feel threw the ssrise down the dream now.

I was like, I want to go back to feeling alive, right, I want to feel alive. I want to feel something. I want that energy coursing for your veins again. Yes, I like my nervous energy in the right doses. Yeah, you say you have a math equation here, a very complex math equation well being greater than positive thinking. Can you explain that math equation for those who are not

so math in cliss Yes. I think if we have a more comprehensive view of well being, like where you live, the people that are around you, what you're eating, you know, where you work, all of these pieces that go into who you are, it's a much better way at looking at how we're functioning than just focusing on our thoughts. I think there's this big pressure of like, if you have positive thoughts, you'll have a positive life, and it doesn't capture the whole picture, and it leaves people feeling

very much like they're responsible for everything in their life. Yeah, so what do you include under the umbrella of well being? What are some canuis some things? Yeah? I would include like again, where you live, who you're in relationships with, where you work, what you're putting into your body? Gotcha, you know, So it's your economic status, all of these types of things, Okay, good, good, wonderful. And then when positivity doesn't help, you have some very interesting categories here.

Let's talk about illness. And disability. I really want to double click on that someone who's a big advocate of neurodiversity, advocate of neudiversity and all the different kind of ways that our minds and bodies can make a huge positive impact on the world. So how can too much positivity in that do mean bare? Because I see it all the time, but I'd love for you to explain it. Yeah, all the time. This is like the biggest area that

I've seen it in my career. And what we find is that people are often told that they have to have a positive mindset when they are sick with anything.

I think people who are living with disabilities, we want them to be inspirational and strong, and you know, can't people go through cancer warriors and they're fighting or they lost the battle, and there's this big emphasis on like, if you're going through this really hard thing, you better do it with a smile and be trying really hard or I kind of don't want to hear about it. And we see that reflected I think throughout history in the media, et cetera. Yeah, it sucks, it does you know,

because sometimes things just suck exactly, That's just it. Sometimes things just suck, And like I want to complain. I want to be around someone who will complain with me right and not try to reframe it. That actually frustrates me sometimes, Like there's you know, some people that I talked to and it's like I'm like, I'm complained by something, and there they're like, well, don't worry, you know, like

it's probably for the best, you know. It's like, no, I want you to call that person a mother exactly. That's all I want. That's all I wanted is you'd agree with me that that person's a mother. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know if this if I get an that's how to be bleeped out when I just said, but do you know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, romantic relationship struggles. How on that to mean? You know, when you have couples and they're like, we're fine, our

relationship is fine. Yeah, nobody ain't. Nobody ain't so true? And I think also just putting this pressure on people like when they're single, like oh, you're going to find the one, don't worry. You know, someone will love you. It's like people aren't allowed to be upset about anything. It always has to be turned into a positive Even when people get divorced, we're trying to put a positive spin on that immediately, and maybe that person's going to

get there. I find in the moment, just like you said, they just want to be like this sucks, like it's shitty, just be with me in this moment. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, what about in the demeanor physical appearance, you know, like, no, you're beautiful, don't worry, you haven't worked out in four years. I find that there's this pressure on, or I should say, this emphasis on talking about how great people look, especially

when they're going through something hard. So when we go back to illness, like saying, but you don't even look sick, you look beautiful, and it's like, my gosh, it's kind of a compliment, but it's also very dismissive of what I'm going through. Or telling someone like you look great, you don't even look like you've gained weight or you lost weight. It's like we just need we can compliment

people on such more interesting things about them. Yeah, you're certainly not saying to be like Dan, you look you're saying, no, I don't know, you're saying just emphasize without lying without life to them. Yes, oversens on, I am not telling people, I'm being clear. I'm being clear. No one misinterprets I got you, I got you with me. And then also after I'm all, you've noticed I'm a little cheeky. I like going because you know, people in our field are

so serious. You notice that psychologists and can be so serious. You're like, but the clients just want to laugh. Like the clients, all the client really wants is joy, not to be like over over analyzed. They degree even feel worse about yourself. Yeah, okay, so uh after a traumatic event, let's talk about that. How can that positivity kind of go toxic there? I think this is another place where we put so much pressure on people to like find

meaning and be grateful and be positive. And we know that, yes, there is a lot of value in that, but I think this is all about the timing. When someone's gone or something very difficult, it's not helpful to say to them, well,

everything happens for a reason. Just be grateful that this didn't happen, or at least it's not that that really in that moment, I think what the person is hearing is like, wow, so you think it's good that I went through this, or what could possibly be the reason you know that my child died or that my spouse got cancer, Like, it's hard to conceptualize that in that moment. Yeah, I completely agreed with that. A really big domain in which you see this is in the demean of shame.

You see a lot of shame disguised as positivity, as you put it in your book. Can you kind of talk about us examples of how that could play out. The biggest way that I see this playing out is a lot of times when people are using positivity with themselves,

it just induces shame. So saying I shouldn't be feeling this way, I need to be positive, I should be grateful, I have so much I can't complain about this when they're in a state of distress to me, just creates this gap of like, here's how I'm feeling, here's how I think I should be feeling, and I can't get there, So now I'm going to feel shameful about my emotional experience and beat myself up for it, which we know does not help, and it just ends up isolating people

even more. Yeah. Yeah, you say point blank and say stop shaming yourself. This is actually if I had to pick, like the favorite favorite quote in your whole book, favorite sentence, it might be this one. Feeling depressed or anxious is hard. Pretending that you're not as much harder. I mean that is quite profound, you know, because we make our job

twice as hard by acting as though we're not. And also we lose potential opportunities for connection with others who are probably feeling summarily and you'll never know if you don't tell them how you're feeling, right. I think that's the biggest threat of toxic positivity is that when we use it against ourselves or other people, it's this feeling of like I'm the only one that's going through this, no one understands me, and if I talk about this, I'm going to get shut down. So I'm going to

miss out on any form of connection in this experience. Yeah, exactly. So how can you make affirmations work for you? Because do you think all affirmations are bad? Can they be used in a good way? You know, you remember the Stuart Smiley get on Staren Live. I don't know if it's you're awesome, you're great? God? Do people like me. Yes, yes, yes, I do not think all affirmations are bad in any way.

But what I was really surprised by, you know, a lot of the very limited research on affirmations is that they typically don't help for the people that need them, who have depression or low self esteem, because they don't feel true. And so I think affirmations can work when they're backed up by action and they seem realistic. So more like I'm trying to love myself, I'm working on taking care of myself whatever it is, instead of saying I'm beautiful, I love myself, I'm perfect, good good, So

that's something can be solids from these things. Yeah, yeah, okay. And then a big topic in the field of posit psychology is gratitude, the G word, the G word, So why can't you force gratitude? Like you mean you really can't? I mean you can't. These psychology experiments are literally forcing the subjects and then they do pre and post test analysis and they find such as significant differences in those they force versus those they didn't. So are you saying

that you challenge the statistics? I think that these studies are super limited in my opinion, and only done on certain types of people. And so what I was finding in a lot of the research on gratitude is that it can't really be generalized through the entire population and give mean like white people. Yeah, it's like white women. And there were like forty of them women in the study, white middle aged women exactly. And so when I'm looking at this, I'm like, Okay, well, there's a reason why

some people are not feel like these same effects. I've also found anecdotally in my own practice that people hate to be told to use these interventions like make a gratitude. Let's say I think a client's going to punch me in the face, tell them that because they've heard it from so many therapists. Yeah, oh man, I hear you.

I hear you. And I've written articles about the importance for existential gratitude, which is just just be grateful that you're freaking alive and that you can breathe, like sometimes in your worst days, sometimes your worst days, you know, there's just like a basic existential form of gratitude that can get you through the day. But I hear you, I totally hear you. So how can you make gratitude work for you? Then again, can we salvage just like

we did be affirmations? Can we salvage gratitude? Yeah, salvage it. Let's save gratitude. So I think when people allow gratitude to come up naturally and organically throughout their day and a lot more of that existential gratitude that you're speaking about versus like specific things or material items, it can

be much more effective. So what I challenge people to do is, like, throughout your day, can you just organically recognize things of like, oh it's really nice outside today, or I really liked the meal that I had tonight, or I got to go to betterly, like just these little moments that you can cultivate a sense of gratitude in your life rather than trying to practice gratitude through exercises that are forced. Good. Good, Because you don't want a whole bunch of gratitude researchers to be out of

business after listening to your podcast. We don't want we don't want to, so valuable. Don't misinterpret me there they might see as a threat, existential threat at their job. Okay, well, how can I complain more effectively? Because you say complaining can give us an expansive view of our psyche? Where did that one come from? With me? Did you just come to you like three in the morning, like you woke up? D probably give an expensive view of psyche? Okay,

can you explain to us what that means? And how can I you know, how can I complain more effectively? I think complaining really shows us what's important to us, what we need to work on, where we might need connection in our lives, and so if we try to get rid of it completely, we miss out on all that data. A lot of what people are doing in therapy is a form of complaining, right, and we're taking

all that information and making sense of it. So if you want to complain more effectively, it's helpful to know exactly what you want to be complaining about. So what are the facts, what's the narrative? Then what do you want to happen? I feel like a lot of people get stuck here of like do I just want to vent?

Do I want there to be changed? And then that's going to dictate who can make that happen or what needs to happen for this change to happen, And then you're able to pick the right person or place to go to, which we also end up making the wrong choice here sometimes and that's when we get stuck in those complaint loops that feel never ending. Oh yeah, for sure. You say the goal is not to eliminate complaining from your life, but instead to make it more effective and adaptive.

Is this related at all to healthy assertiveness versus aggressive? So you know, you know there's like all these different kinds of assertiveness that we learnt in the field of ACA. Sure. Yeah, I think you have to know what you're upset about, know what you want to complain about, and then engage in healthy assertiveness right to get your needs met. So whether it's that like your food is cold at a restaurant or whatever it is that you need to tell

someone about so that they can fix it. Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right. How can you support people? How can you support others in complaining effectively and in also giving polite advice to those who are toxic positivity people and being like, you know, you may want to die all that down, you know, how do you how can you do that? And then in the spirit of support

not not not being an asshole? Right, So it's a paths on the relationship you know, I always tell people like, if somebody in the grocery sources to you like your babies crying and you like enjoy every minute, you might just want to say like, okay, thanks and move on. But if it's your which happens to me all the time. But if it's like your mom or someone close to you, it's okay to say, like, I I really know that

you're trying to help me. I can tell that you're trying to be helpful, but that doesn't really help me, and tell them a way that they can be helpful to you instead, which is really unique for all of us across different situations. But I want people to feel empowered to share what is helpful to them and what isn't, because I think that's the only way people can learn how to be helpful to us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very very good point. You have four ingredients that people could

include in their communication, curiosity, understanding, validation, and empathy. Do you want to unpack those far from me, sir, Yeah, So a lot of what happens when we use toxic positivity is we're just shutting the conversation down. So when you're able to get curious about the person's experience, ask them questions, but in a way to understand them more So, what's the hardest part for you? What are you worried out?

Then you're able to get to this place where it's like, Okay, how can I have passion or empathy for this person? How can I show them that I hear them through validation of Like that sounds hard, I can see why you would be struggling with that. Those things make so much more of an impact than a platitude or a piece of advice. Good good, this woefully helpfully. A lot of people listening to this conversation, So, yeah, that's great. You often see discrimination with a smile, right, And I

thought that was an interesting phrase as well. And we talk about the ultimate gaslighting? What is the ultimate gaslighting? So I'll give an example. What I saw happening on social media when we were having a lot of conversations about race during the pandemic was all this toxic positivity that to me sounded like gaslight. So a person of color were talking about their experience, and then someone would say, gosh, can't we all just get along? I don't see color.

Let's all just be nice to each other and to me, it was this way of saying, like a very nice, seemingly nice, positive way of saying, please don't talk about that anymore, or I don't really believe your experience. And I think we do this to people in marginalized identities all the time, and it sounds nice, but really it's

really mean, it's terrible. Well your point, your point, which we can double click on here, is sometimes this discrimination can be disguised in the form of over niceness, but in a way that the means or or denigrate someone's lived experience, right, that ultimately shuts down the conversation. Yeah, yeah, you say, removing toxic positivity from conversations about health, illness, and disability requires us to confront a lot of difficult realities. So in a way, sometimes you think it's used as

a band aid. Maybe toxic positivity. For sure. I think when we're talking about anything related to health or mortality, people get uncomfortable, and so it's almost like I want to make you feel better, but I also really want to make myself feel better by saying everything happens for a reason or it's going to be fine, Because I don't want to live in a place where this bad thing is possible. Yeah. Yeah, health and happiness are not a packaged deal. Who says they are are people saying

they are. I think a lot of people think that if you are happy, if you have positive thoughts, you think positively health will be given to you, and that it's sort of like they come together in some ways. But you don't think that's the case. I think there's a lot of people that are very positive who struggle with their health. I think there's a lot of people

that are extremely negative and live to be one hundred. Like, I don't know that your mindset always dictates your physical health, you know, just riffing on the idea of the impact of social media on this and may you tend to see that correlation a lot looking at others and social media can give you a skewed perception of reality the extent to which they really go together in the real world, because people are just like showing themselves off right all

the time in ways that are like, look, I'm happy and I'm healthy, you know, like look at my body, you know, look at my yoga poses. You know, do you see that as really problematic? I think that our brains are bombarded with so much of this imagery that even though we know on a logical level, like this is ten percent of that person's life, or it doesn't

show the whole picture. It's very easy to forget that when your view constant images of people who appear healthy and happy, and that's what they're telling you and showing you yes, yes, thanks for making that point. So okay. So for a meaning timeless interview today, how can people opt out of the quest for happiness? So? I think living a values driven life, which a lot of people

talk about this is really the most important thing. And when you're living in alignment with your values and what's important to you, you're able to accept that you're not always going to feel happy or positive emotions, but you're going to feel like your life has meaning and like

you're doing the things that are important to you. I think the best example of this is like when it comes to parenting, that your kids and parenthood might be one of the most important things to you, but it's not always the thing that makes you the happiest, or it can be very frustrated sometimes, but it is often an important value for people. Yeah, the value driven life

versus the happiness driven life. The value driven life is one that is would you associate that with more with meaning and happiness for sure, more with meaning, with really just knowing what's important to you, And I think what

is important changes throughout our lifetime. Of course, you know, depending on how old you are and what stage of life you're in, that you can curate those values to like, this is what is important to me right now, and it's okay if that changes later, and it's more about what you believe versus these like happiness scripts that were given from society, of like, these are the things you need to do to be happy? Yeah, yeah. And then

there's also a psychologist. I've identified another pathway, the psychologically rich life, which is one that's uh, I mean, does everything have to be so value driven? That sounds so serious? Like can't you sometimes just jump out of an airplane and just have fun? And that's not necessarily even they'm talking.

I'm not talking about handania. I'm saying just engaging in rich, complex, interesting experiences that get you out of your comfort zone just for the sake of that, you know, right, I would say that could even be of value, like to say that spontaneity, fun excitement, like is something that you really it's an important part of your life and it's

something you want to have access to. I think you know, I have dark side Sundays, right, and so I like one day of the week where I'd be like, do everything. I don't give a shit. If it's part of my value system, I love that. That's great. Okay. So one of the worst things about toxic positive is that when used in the wrong moments, it denies what we're feeling and makes us feel worse. So it is a feedback, right, It's a it's a part of a cycle. It can spile.

It's interesting, toxic positive can spiral downwards. It's kind of what you're saying. Yeah, it's definitely this cycle that we can get stuck in. That I think goes back again to that feeling of like there's something wrong with me, because I am a human being who has feelings and I need to get rid of those feelings. And I think we see a lot of that on social media. Now. We really do, we really do. And yeah, I mean kudos to people like you who are pointing this out

on social media and giving an alternative perspective. I mean, do you ever just scroll through the timelines and Instagram. I can imagine see, I can see your eyes were just rolling. Yeah. I didn't even know that this world really like existed on Instagram until I got on to market my own practice, and I was like, Wow, there's a lot of really interesting stuff out there, but you are really yeah, there really are. But humans are endlessly fascinating.

And I feel like you also just learned a lot about what humans value in general by by scrolling through these things. I mean, you know all these like what do you think of all these inspirational videos, you know, like one after another or another with the cheesy music in the background, with the like you know, like and then we'll be Overkeeme not having any eyeballs, you know, and was able to have X ray vision, you know, and then it's like you're so inspired, right, You're like, wow,

that's all. Do you do you think that ever goes

too far those inspirational videos? I you know what, I think this goes back to like a little bit of what I talk in the book about, like if the person is disabled or there's something you know in their life that it kind of makes this pressure of like everything has to come to this positive ending, Like everything has to be inspirational or great in some way, because those are the only stories that we hear on social media that you know, we don't we don't hear about

the person that didn't have a good ending. They're not getting the video. What a great point. I think we really should have more videos of people just be like everyone, Look, I'm really not having a good day today, Like today's kind of sucks and I just wanted to let y'all know that. And my heart goes out to all those who are suffering from the same thing. Maybe do that. That's a good idea. Oh my god, I'm hearing myself talk.

I'm like, there's viral potential. There is there is you're onto something, something you say, and this is you, including you. You You say it's okay to just be you know. Wow, I wish I knew that before today. I want to save a lot of pain and suffering. Right well, now I'm noticing this thing on social media that I definitely have participated in and perpetuated that there's always something to fix, always something to obsess over. That I feel like people

now are just becoming obsessed with fixing themselves. And yes, like we all need to do our own work and get to this place. But I want everyone to know that you're supposed to live and like enjoy life then not be you know, just always looking for the next trauma or attachment style or this that like it can be just a lot, Yeah, of a lot. Sometimes it's it's good to just like just dial it all down

and just just exist. Yeah, I totally hear you. So we would we'd be remiss not to mention Gabriel ol Engine's research because sometimes a little positive fantasy does help, you know. Don't tell me to like eradicate all positive fantasies from my head, please, because you know, also, my advisor in grad school, Jeromel Singer, studied positive constructive daydreaming. You know, So, so in what ways can can that can that be helpful? That type of like positive fantasy

can help you get from like moment to moment. So they've shown like people that are in more time or in prison or things like that, fantasizing about what's next what could be can really help you or the storm of that moment of something very difficult. Even though so talk more about Gabriel Oldigen's research. She found that sometimes though fantasies can deplete you from wanting to actually make it a reality right in the real world, So be

a double edged sword. Well, they talk about like how a lot of these positive fantasies don't allow you to look out for obstacles or to create a plan, right, You're just focusing on like how great it's going to be when all of this happens. And so it's like that the whoop technique that doctor a Jen talks about is really getting in touch with you know, what is your wish, what do you want the outcome to be,

What problems could come up? What opportunities do you have in getting a full picture of like the attack instead of just having this positive fantasy about it. Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So you're in no way advocating today that we need to eradicate positivity from our language and our dreams and desires. You're not, like, you know, like Satan. I'm sure some real positive people maybe have accused me of that from time to time. But I think positivity has a time,

a place, a purpose. I just think we've become so obsessed with it to a degree that it's starting to hurt us more than help us. I hear you, I'm going to end with some quotes from you. Not all positivity happiness. Our good vibes are bad. Remember to look out for the timing, audience, and topic that you're discussing. This is the best way to identify if something as toxic positivity. That's basically what you just said. And then

I want to end with this note. When we opt out of the predetermined path toward happiness, we gain access to so much more. You'll get to feel all that join pain, comfort and discomfort, growth and stagnation. You'll be able to ride the waves of life and know that there isn't this final happiness destination. This is it. This is what we've got, and all the feelings, ups and downs,

changes and chaos certainly make the ride much more interesting. Well, thank you so much for being on my podcast today and making my life more interesting today and by having this chat. Thank you so much for having me my pleasure. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at thus psychologypodcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page

the Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior and creativity.