A look at why relentless, inflexible positivity can do more harm than good and why negative emotions are so important
Photo: Westend61/Getty Images/Westend61 It can be tempting, when you or someone you care about is feeling low, to encourage them to cheer up! Or stay positive! Or look on the bright side! This impulse makes sense. Feeling good … feels good, so when someone is upset, or angry, or sad, it’s understandable that you would want to help them stop feeling those negative emotions and feel happy instead.
It can also be an avoidance tactic, a way to escape confronting a source of negativity, which then only makes our fear and anxiety around whatever is triggering our negative emotions even stronger. As author and clinical social worker Jenny Maenpaa told Health, “You may close the metaphorical closet door on it, but the specter of it looms behind the door, growing scarier and stronger in our minds precisely because we aren’t addressing it.
Consider the following example: If you notice that, say, you feel really hurt and sad when your partner doesn’t respond to your texts, you can take that information and make a decision to address the issue in a way that feels right for you. Maybe you share your feelings with your partner and ask them to be mindful of your needs, or maybe you look at why their lack of responsiveness ignites such strong feelings in you and try to address that. Maybe you do both at the same time.
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