Episode #150

Toxic Positivity & CBT

Just being positive does not make things work out. The belief that negative feelings are bad has led to the term ‘toxic positivity.’

What does toxic positivity look like?

Why is it not good for your mental health?

How can you use CBT tools to create more balanced thought patterns?

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as we explore toxic positivity and how to keep your thoughts and feelings balanced.

Click to listen now!

 
 

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, it's Dr. Julie. Welcome to My CBT Podcast. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So thanks for being with me. I hope the new year is going well so far for everybody. 2025. I know I said this on my last podcast, but I'm still wishing you a happy and healthy new year. And hopefully, lots of CBT growth tools you will be to continue to learn and practice to make your life that much better and happier, more content. So I got a really great suggestion for my podcast today, and I'm going to talk about toxic positivity.

To be honest with you guys, when I first heard this, I did not really know what that term meant. We heard about being positive, but I know I've talked to you guys that cognitive behavioral therapy is definitely not about positive thinking because we can all do positive thinking, and it doesn't work in the long run because we have nothing to support the thoughts. We don't want to be just like, Oh, everything will be okay.

It doesn't really last too long. Let me first give you... I'm going to give you a definition, basically, of what toxic positivity is. Toxic positivity is the belief that negative thoughts should be avoided. It's the assumption that one should have a positive mindset and that everything will be okay even when it is not. That's why it's called toxic positivity. If you believe the negative thoughts should be avoided. So you know, if you've been listening to my podcast that we don't want to avoid our negative thoughts, we don't want to avoid our negative moods. I did a podcast just recently about conflict avoidant and the behaviors and people that are conflict avoiding and why it's a problem. So toxic positivity is if somebody is just always positive all the time, and just to be real with you, I find that annoying. I've been with people that everything's fine, everybody's happy, everything's good all the time. And that really takes away from the relationship being authentic and real as far as I'm concerned, because then you're really not going to share with me who you are if everything's just wonderful and okay. Especially if I know you well enough and I know everything's not okay, then I really feel like there's really any growth happening in the relationship.

And again, I'm really looking to have really authentic relationships in this coming year. And that's what's really important to me. So I thought this is a really good thing to talk about. As always, CBT offers us tools to manage our anxiety and to help us identify and stay away from that toxic positivity and instead foster a balanced mindset. We're looking for balanced thinking thinking. Let's talk about that a little bit. Again, the toxic positivity, it minimizes and also invalidates your genuine emotions. Emotions, feelings, same thing by pushing overly optimistic perspectives. It's all going to be okay. It's all going to work out. We want to be able to use tools to validate how we're feeling. When I say avoiding toxic positivity, it's really also avoiding those that are like that. So if something has happened in the world and you have a lot of strong feelings about it and somebody's minimizing that for you and not allowing you to feel your concern, your worry, your anxiety, especially if you're managing it, but you're just like, wow, this is really on my mind. It's like, oh, no, it's going to be okay. Oh, it always works out.

Oh, it's not going to affect us. Or it's just going to be for a little bit of time or let's just think about something else. Like, That positivity, it doesn't feel good. It's like, well, yeah, that sounds good. Maybe it won't affect me or maybe it won't last a long time. But I still feel bad right now. So what am I going to do about that? So the first thing you want to do for yourself is you want to validate your emotions. You want to practice acknowledging that your feelings are valid and acknowledge them without judgment. So Instead of saying, maybe, I shouldn't feel this way, you might say instead, I feel anxious, and that's okay. I feel worried, and that's okay. I feel sad, and that's okay. I feel angry, and that's okay. It's okay to have all of your feelings. They're all valid. Positive feelings are valid, negative feelings are valid. The goal with CBT, remember, is to have more balanced thinking, that we want to look at your thoughts that aren't 100% true, your hot thoughts, and saying, Okay, what part of them is true and what part isn't? That's not toxic positivity, I'm sorry, at all, because it's saying, Yeah, my negative moods are real.

My thoughts that are creating them are real thoughts that I'm having, and I need to go through those and say, Well, yeah, I understand that I'm angry, but maybe my thought of me never wanting to talk to that person again, or thinking they don't care about me, or they'll never hear what I to say or we'll never be able to work it out. Those are the hot thoughts that are making you feel angry, sad, and anxious, right? And to be okay with that by acknowledging that your feelings are your feelings and not judging them. Because judging them is the last thing you want to do. Not even, it is the last thing you want to do because that's not going to... Again, it goes to our shoulds. And remember, the root word of should is sculled. So now you're going to scoled your sofa having a negative feeling. We want to fully feel our life, and to be able to fully feel our life is to have a range of emotions and be a real person and be able to be authentic with people that we trust. So validating your emotions is really important. Something else you could do to help validate your emotions is doing like daily journaling, just writing about your emotions every day, identifying what's triggering them based on your thoughts, right?

Because remember, with CBT, our thoughts create our moods, which affects our behaviors and our physical reactions. Those are all connected. Like a baby's mobile, you can't have one without the other. And then our environment. So what I'm saying, a journal about your emotions daily. It's like, Okay, this is what I'm feeling. What are my thoughts that are making me feel this way? And then we can start using the other CBT tools like doing a thought record and be able to identify that. And also, I want to repeat myself because I know I've said this before, but Again, we're looking to feel all of our emotions because all of them are important. And that the negative emotions, we just don't want them to be overwhelming. We don't want them to cause havoc in our life. We don't want to make decisions based on them. We just want to acknowledge like, Yeah, these are some really strong feelings I'm having. What am I thinking about that's making me feel this way? And let me walk through that so I can get to some resolutions and I can validate all of my emotions but be able to manage them well.

That's just one of the first steps you can do with validating your emotions. Another CBT tool you can use is to reframe your thoughts. We're not here, we don't want to suppress anything, because then you're going to be doing the toxic positivity. If we suppress stuff, we just want to acknowledge our thoughts, and reframing them is looking at them in a different way. You could say, for example, if you're saying to yourself, it could be worse, a way to reframe that might be to say, It is tough right now, but I can work through this. When saying it could be worse, I mean, that is true, but that's just that positive, like, Well, it could be worse. I guess it's okay. Well, it's not really okay. It is tough right now, but I'm going to be able to work through this. That's the balanced thought we want to get to, right? Saying that it's tough right now is acknowledging that, Yeah, things are really hard and things aren't going very well. And then the balanced part is knowing I can work through it. Why? Because I have in the past, I have tools, I have the support that I need.

And if I don't, I'm going to go seek it. So that's one way of reframing your thoughts. It's by focusing on a realistic view, something that's not overly negative or unrealistically positive. So I have a thought I wanted to share, or a memory, I should say, is I am a huge fan of the Inside Out movies, and Inside Out, too, I'm not going to give it away, but the message in that movie is that all of our emotions are important. And I think the world, society, I think people are uncomfortable with negative emotions. So that's why people do that positive thinking with you and try to make you feel better. People try to fix you when you're not feeling well instead of just being able to sit there because they're uncomfortable with it. And that's where that unrealistic positivity comes from, the toxic part, where I understand they might be coming from a good place, but they're not really helping me. And that's something you could say to them as well. I know you're coming from a good place because you love me and you're uncomfortable that I'm sad, but it's not helping me. I just need you to listen and just sit with me, and you don't have to fix me, and you don't have to give me a positive thought, because that's not what I'm looking for right now.

So communicating your needs can really be helpful if you have someone like that in your life who is overly positive, and they might not be the person to talk to. I'm always telling myself as well and my clients, when you really need to share something, if it's personal or very sensitive, really be mindful who your audience is. Who am I going to go talk to? I talk to people all the time that say, Oh, I went and shared with this person who I haven't been able to trust, who's not a good listener. And I'm like, Why did you pick them? We know that they're not good listeners, that they don't have really good, maybe say, emotional intelligence to understand. They're just going to sit there and stare at you, or again, minimize your situation, or tell them how their story or their life is worse than yours. You want to be mindful who you're talking to if you are sharing some difficult things you're going through. But reframing your own thoughts is the work that you're doing and using the thought records. Again, if you're like, Well, it could be worse. No, we're not just like...

You can say that with almost anything, almost anything. But instead, just tell yourself, It's tough right now, but I can work through it. I'm going to look at a really realistic view, and that's where the research shows you want to remember, too, that when your thoughts are balanced, it actually changes your brain chemistry. When I can look at the evidence, for and against a hot thought, I believe it. It's evidence. And then I can do something about it. I either start to feel better right then and there, or I might start to feel a little better, and I say, I really need to go test this out with an experiment, or I need to go talk to somebody, I need to sleep on it, whatever I need to do. But now I have a new thought, and it's not just dragging me down, because that's not going to help me whatsoever. So another CBT tool you can use is just do some reality testing. When we challenge our overly positive or dismissive thoughts by asking, again, I'm going to go through the thought record here with you, is what evidence supports this thought Another question you can ask yourself is, is this helpful or dismissive of my emotions?

That's a really good one when you're saying, Am I dismissing my own emotions? It's not just somebody else is doing it, but I can be doing it to myself. Is what I'm telling myself helpful? I say to a lot of my clients when we're talking about stuff, I say, Well, that's what you're telling yourself. But is that your truth? Is that what you need to be able to make challenges? Is that based on evidence or is that just more hot thoughts? The biggest mistake people make when they're doing the thaw record is coming up with more hot thoughts to support your hot thoughts because that's really easy to do. When you're in a negative place, it's very easy to come up with more negative thoughts. You want to ask yourself, is this helpful or am I dismissing my emotions if I'm focusing on just trying to make things positive, trying to avoid them. So it's all these different... I know I'm talking about all different situations and examples. In the thought record, again, if you're trying to remember what that tool is, is the main book that I use with my clients is called Mind Over Mood by Dr. Creenberger.

And Dr. Podesky. And in there, the main tool is called the thought record. And that's where we're identifying a situation, we're identifying our emotions, and then we're figuring out what am I thinking that's causing me to feel this way, and then coming up with evidence to support and not support my thought to come up with the more balanced thoughts. So just doing a quick review. My most popular and number one downloaded podcast is called The ABCs of CBT, if you want to listen to that, and that walks you through a whole thought record. But if you're being overly positive, you want to stop and say, Am I dismissing my own thoughts and my own emotions here? Because that's really not the goal. That's not what I'm working for. I always give the example that positive thinking is great when you're at the last half mile of the marathon and you're like, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. That's positive thinking will help in that moment. But long term, I want you guys to be able to make changes to feel happier and content and deal with the issues in your life.

And positive thinking isn't going to do that for you. So the reality testing is just checking in with yourself and saying, is what I'm doing working And maybe it felt like it worked for a minute or two or five minutes or half an hour, but now I'm back where I was. So I need to really go back and think about what am I telling myself and why am I uncomfortable with my negative emotions? Am I uncomfortable or I think I should be uncomfortable because everyone else is telling me, Don't feel this way, right? So there's many ways you can look at this and see where's the message coming from and that I can change it if I want to. Another tool is really just expressing gratitude without minimizing. So giving you an example of that is just acknowledging what you're grateful for while still holding space for the challenges in your life. Just because I'm upset or anxious or worried about something doesn't mean I'm not still grateful, but I'm just having some challenges, and I can have both at the same time. I can be grateful and still be stressed out about something. You could say, to give you an example, maybe something like, I'm grateful for my job, but it's valid to feel stressed about my workload.

There you're grateful and you're holding space for the challenges on how work is. I'm grateful to be a mother, but parenting can be really difficult sometimes. There's a million examples there that you can use that you can express your gratitude without minimizing what you're going through. And that's another tool to deal with this toxic positivity that some people just have in the world. So think about it for yourself. What are some examples you can come up with? You're like, I've been doing this, or maybe this is what annoys me about my friend, or my colleague that I work with, my coworker, whoever it is, my in-law, that I go to this person and I'm trying to be authentic and build a relationship. And they're just... Everything's wonderful and dandy and great, and they're just sharing with you about all the fabulous things, and it just makes us feel bad. Another example is, I've heard a million times, people People looking on Facebook, Instagram, whatever, social media is out there, and everybody's life is fabulous based on a picture that you see. And let me tell you, that is the farthest thing from the truth. But just comparing and saying, Oh, everything's wonderful, everybody else.

Everybody's wonderful. I guess I just have to pretend that way and things will change for me. Or my life is terrible because everybody else's is positive, right? That's false as well. That's a half thought right there that I'm telling you guys. You really want to think about your environment, which is part of CBT, a really important part, and say, Am I doing this to myself or the environments I'm in that maybe I need to not be a part of. Maybe I just set some boundaries for myself. Maybe when that toxic positivity is going on, that I recognize it sooner and I find a way to excuse myself from that situation. And if it's somebody that's really important to you, I'd really encourage you to find the courage, if it's hard for you, to sit down and just say, I'm not sure if it's because you're uncomfortable with negative feelings, or maybe you're just uncomfortable when I'm upset, but I just really care about this relationship, and I would just love it if you could be there for me and just be able to sit with with my negative emotions and the challenges I'm going through and just be able to hear me out.

You can trust that I'm working on this, and the fact that I'm even coming to you is evidence that I am working on things and I am acknowledging the truth in my life and that I respect and care enough about you that I just want you to hear me out. And if you can do that for me instead of trying to just fix it and being all positive and everything's wonderful and not wanting to deal with the reality of my life or maybe even your life, or even the world we live in. Is that something you could do for me? Give them the opportunity. If they can't, that's okay. But at least you put that out there. You're being assertive, you're honoring yourself, and find the people in your life that you can be authentic and you can share your gratitude, but also have someone hold that space for you that you can get that support. So you want to do it for yourself, but also to have some support in your life. And that might not... If you don't have anybody in life, maybe having a therapist. I've worked with some people that were very hesitant to start therapy based on assumptions emotions.

And after our first appointment, they're like, Oh, this wasn't what I thought it was going to be. This was a lot easier. A lot of people don't want to start off talking about their parents or their childhood or whatever that is, which I head, and they think we're just going to be like, ripping off the bandaid. And it's just, for me, at least as a therapist, I just want to get to know you and know your story and how I can help. If you don't have anyone in your life to talk to and be authentic with and get that support you need. If everyone in your life is overly happy, then you know what? Go find a therapist and find a safe space and somewhere you can go that you can trust, that you can really say everything to, and that person will be comfortable just sitting and being in that space with you, and then being able to teach you some CBT tools to be able to walk through it. So whoever thought we'd have a term of toxic positivity, right? I think most of our lives, Oh, you need to be more positive.

Oh, just be positive. Things will work out. Just being positive has nothing to do with things working out. Your mindset is important, yes, but it's what you do and how you're balancing out your thoughts and all the other CBT tools that I've talked to you guys about. This will go on forever. It's not going to go away. And again, I'm not saying never to be positive. We want balanced thoughts, which means there is some positivity in our thoughts as well as acknowledging the challenges. It's funny to me, again, when I heard this term, I was like, toxic positivity. And I thought, okay, now I know what you're talking about. But whoever thought that would be a term? But it's a real thing. It's a real thing. So If we break things apart in our life, we can find all different issues that we didn't think we even had or problems or being able to understand how even something that seems really good isn't really helping me. And I'm looking to grow and to have tools. And the healthier I am, the healthier people in my life I will attract, right? And I can have more of those authentic, real relationships that personally I'm looking for.

And I hope that's something that you're seeking for yourself as well, because those are the relationships that are very fulfilling and help us feel loved and know we have people to count on and that we're not alone because support is really important from whatever community you create for yourself. So just to review a little bit with you guys, the toxic positivity is when you optimize or invalidate genuine emotions by pushing overly optimistic perspectives. So see if first check in and say, Am I doing this to myself? Do I even maybe do this to others? Because I'm uncomfortable, and are others doing this to me? Those would be the three places I would check in. And then go from there. If I'm doing it to myself, I got all these CBT tools, lots and lots of my podcast you can listen to, to learn the tools to change that. If I'm doing that to others, if others have said to me, You're just way too positive, it's annoying. Listen to them and be mindful of that and say, Why am I uncomfortable maybe with hearing other people's emotions? Or if others are doing that to you, is that a relationship I want to continue or how do I want to handle that?

Again, you want to validate your own emotions without judging them. Again, journaling and getting your thoughts on paper, getting your feelings on paper can be super helpful. You want to have that realistic view by reframing your thoughts, so you don't want to be overly negative or unrealistically positive. Checking in that reality testing, always looking for evidence that supports your thoughts, for and against, and also asking yourself, is it helpful what I'm telling myself, or am I dismissing my emotions? And if I am, why am I doing that? I mean, as a therapist, that's just a whole another session right there. Let's figure out why you're dismissing your emotions. Why are you You're not always comfortable with the emotions you have? What are you telling yourself that's making you feel that way? So again, as I talk, I always get excited because there's all these CBT tools that help you get to a whole another level. When people say to me like, Oh, that's a good question, or they'll Oh, I never thought about it like that. That's those aha moments were like, Oh, that's what's going on with me. I didn't even realize it. And then again, expressing gratitude, which is always an excellent thing to do, without minimizing what you're going through.

So I'm grateful for... Even though the situation is difficult, challenging whatever it might be. So I hope this is a little food for thought. I hope it's making you think differently about things. I'm hoping it maybe is helping you put your finger on something that's been bugging you, but you really didn't know what it was, or you even question yourself if you have someone in your life that's like this, that is like, Well, if they're really positive, should I say something that sounds like I'm going to be dead be down or like, You shouldn't be so positive. Again, it can open up a whole can of worms with somebody that might not be the person to say that to, but maybe why does that person just rub me the wrong way? I just couldn't figure out, maybe that's what's going on. So take some time to think it through. As always, I'm here for you guys. Reach out. If you have any questions, any feedback, any suggestions, I always answer all my emails, and I love getting your suggestions as well. So I hope you found this helpful. Please share with anyone else that might find it beneficial as well.

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