This blog didn’t flow right away, I struggled with my truth. I sat with my bullet points for almost a week, stared at an opening paragraph for two days (this obviously isn’t that paragraph). I was seriously stuck. I had to sit with my hand on my heart and listen for guidance, for understanding. This topic was too emotional for me at first – full honesty – I was triggered by it.
And I know what that means – the trigger is an indication of an unhealed part of my soul. I put it down, I wanted to sleep on if for a night and that night turned into seven – and before I let it turn into a month I went in deep again. Because, as always happens when I put a pause on a writing project, that blocks off all my creativity, not cool.
In between coronavirus news feeds and election memes, I’m seeing something that I can only describe as an assault on the positive vibe community, a bit harsh, I know – it’s this idea that pushing constant positivity is TOXIC. How could positivity be toxic? I scoffed at this idea. I immediately wanted to dismiss the very notion. That’s just dumb, I thought to myself.
Then it nagged at me, why? Why should a few opinions have this much of an impact on me? What inside of myself was hurt by this? I meditated, I prayed, and I listened.
I am still in the very early stages of my spiritual journey; it’s only been a year and there are days where I feel like I’m failing miserably at this. And there are days where I feel on top of the world. And then there are the average days, ones where I might just share a whole mess of positive quotes because I loved them. What I never do is share negative quotes – what the hell would be the point of that? So, when I saw that positive vibes could be toxic, I was at first puzzled, followed by mildly annoyed and then full on triggered. Because let me tell you something, I’m a naturally bubbly person, and I’ve struggled off and on with darkness that occasionally threatens to consume me. Post-Partum amplified those darker thoughts and feelings and those thoughts began crippling my life. I’ve been very open about this. Then my Dad died, but, instead of that sending me to the very pit of despair, I stumbled upon the Spiritual Community. I’m wasn’t unfamiliar with it, but I always thought it was a little too woo woo, even for me who admittedly has been dabbling in occult theory for many years now. After he passed, I felt that shift. And I embraced that community like there was no tomorrow. This was what I was meant to do with my life. Exploring the spiritual side of life whole heartedly. And guiding others toward that light too.
But I was not shiny happy off the bat, in fact – the fake it until you make mentality was my crutch for a long time. And it’s not wrong, I see it as an equal and opposite reaction to what we are consistently surrounded by day in and day out – negativity permeates the very air we breathe. Everything in the news is bad – you know there is a reason that the tag line “if it bleeds, it leads” is a thing. People soak up the scary side of life like it’s their job.
It Is Not Your Job. It isn’t my job. Displays of violence have been popular for thousands of years. I have never understood why. Part of me even wonders if the idea positivity could be toxic is directly influenced by the fact people are more accustomed to the bombardment of negativity than they are to the positive ones. Making people suspicious of the positive. That’s sad. I’m here to make myself the best version of me I can be. And those of us who tote the positive quotes and thoughts aren’t “Stepford”, we have bad days. I still have some very bad days. But I don’t feed it. I stopped actively watching the evening news twenty years ago. Trust me when I tell you, I’m kept very up to date with the fear du jour by my family and social media new feeds. My head is not in the sand. But I’m not going to sit in front of the tv and absorb that.
If your argument is there is a person in your life who is ‘Positive Vibes Only’ and is being dismissive of your feelings, my dear, this isn’t a positive person, this is an asshole. If you are depressed and someone is tossing platitudes at you, it might just be their way of masking the fact they don’t know how to help you, but desperately want to.
My point is, we are not ‘up’ all the time: we argue with our spouses, we get down on ourselves and we feel deeply the good, the bad and the ugly. The only difference being, we don’t stay there long. We’ve learned ways of bringing the light through the darkness – be it shadow work, meditation, tapping, mantras, breathwork or just taking a walk outside. We find our way back to happy. And a little fake it ‘til you make it works nicely in a pinch as a placebo – we all wear masks – what is wrong with one that has a smile on it? If you are being true to yourself and you aren’t pretending for someone else and you give yourself the space to be down and be okay with that. You’re fine, we’re all fine.
The positive vibes community is here, and we aren’t going anywhere, you have the option to block their feeds if their boundless happiness is upsetting you, but maybe someday you might want to take stock of why this might be making you uncomfortable.
Just a thought.
Let me know what your thoughts are below!