What is Toxic Positivity?

Look on the bright side, things could be worse, find something that was good... Dr. Susan David, author of Emotional Agility, discusses how when we embrace false positive emotions to push aside difficult emotions we decrease our skills on how to navigate the world, and identify our needs.

Dr. Davis explores in her TED Talk how challenging emotions are essential.

Dr. Davis discusses how we also do not want to get stuck in an emotion and brood there, or stuff them inside feeling that they are not legitimate. Emotional flexibility is the opposite of brooding, bottling or using false positivity.

Ignoring or pushing your feelings aside actually makes your feelings stronger.

Learning to identify your feelings, name them, and then learn from them allow us to experience all life's emotions, and Dr. Davis notes that research supports that accepting all of life's emotions - even the difficult ones - is the cornerstone to resilience, thriving and true, authentic happiness.