How Toxic Positivity is Killing Your Good Vibes Only Mood

Processing The Uncomfortable, One Hard Emotion at a Time

Positive thinking is such a powerful way to manifest goodness in your life. When you walk through life from a place of gratitude you become more aligned with what you seek. But what about all those negative emotions? You know, the ones you try to repress. These are valid emotions and they deserve your attention too. You can’t process emotions you are unwilling to feel, so it’s time we start normalizing ALL emotions as positive and take the toxicity out of them.

Toxic positivity is a form of avoidance. It’s what happens when you become aware of all the negative emotions you are harboring and become worried that they are overtaking your thoughts. When this happens you begin to suppress or reject these emotions. While this may feel ok in the moment, doing this long-term can be harmful since unprocessed emotions, sensations, and thoughts can end up leading to long-term health issues and distress.

Expressing gratitude even through challenging emotions isn’t a bad thing. Optimism helps us to look at the lighter side of life, but the problems come when we cut ourselves off from feeling or experiencing the negative.

Processing the Uncomfortable

Hard emotions are challenging enough, but when you suppress them, they get worse. As you suppress these emotions they become an incubator for more uncomfortable emotions like shame, guilt, and sadness. These emotions are a part of the human experience and deserve equal acknowledgment.

Every emotion you have contains information that will help you find meaning and fulfillment. So how can you be with the hard emotions without them eating you alive?

It starts with allowing them to have space to be seen and felt. No judgment, no blame, no creating stories about them that peg you as a victim. Allowing them to have space from a curious and compassionate mind. This helps create more thoughts of acceptance and helps build resilience. You might even find yourself reflecting on how you might be able to heal from these emotions or situations. All of these become coping skills that help you show up for yourself and others when the easy thing to do is run away and suppress what’s happening.

Breathing through the discomfort

In this modern world we have been privileged with not having to deal with the uncomfortable. Because of this, any sign of discomfort can feel threatening. We don’t like to be uncomfortable. But it is in discomfort that we find growth. It is in discomfort that we can begin to peel back a layer of unease and stress in our body and mind and begin to emerge stronger.

Breathing exercises are an anchor in helping you through the uncomfortable

Breathing through uncomfortable emotions involves acknowledging their presence, allowing them to be felt without judgment, and exhaling tension with each breath. This fosters a sense of calm and acceptance from within.

From a calm place of acceptance, you can feel your negative emotions with compassion and grace. This is essential because when you feel safe, you get better results. When you don’t feel safe more toxic positivity is bound to ensue.

Your breathing patterns are attached to certain emotions

Think about this, your thoughts stir up feelings, and your feelings create your emotions, and your emotions are what broadcast out into the world that lets people know what kind of mood you’re in. And if you continue to think the same thoughts, you are going to create the same feelings and emotions and before long it’s not a mood, it’s a personality. And your energy is all about breath.

When you step outside your normal thought patterns you can create new feelings, that generate new emotions, that broadcast a different mood or personality. And the easiest way I have found to do this is through your breath.

Simple, but not easy.

When you start to show up to breathe instead of suppressing what’s happening inside of you, energy begins to shift.

Instead of ignoring the necessary conversation or not wanting to feel hate, anger, rage, or grief, what if you just allowed them to be? What if you decided they have a place to be felt and are helping you be a whole human capable of feeling, experiencing, and being with all emotions you hold?

Let your nervous system know it’s supported and safe. Then you will no longer need that “Good Vibes Only” attitude because you’ll understand that all vibes are necessary.

Need help getting started? Head over to Insight Timer and tune in to any of my short breathing practices and see how 5 minutes can shift your energy, your mood, and help you release the need for toxic positivity.