What is Toxic Positivity?
(and why it matters)
Chances are you’ve experienced toxic positivity – either directed at you by a well-meaning person or unintentionally doled out to someone else. While often mistaken for encouragement, toxic positivity is something quite different.
Toxic positivity dismisses difficult emotions and responds to distress with false reassurance rather than empathy. It’s the belief that no matter how painful or complicated a situation may be, people should maintain a positive mindset.
Of course, optimism has value. But toxic positivity can silence honest emotions, minimize grief, and pressure people to appear happy even when they are struggling.
As grief expert David Kessler explains, toxic positivity is “positivity given in the wrong way, in the wrong dose, at the wrong time.”
Positive Thinking vs. Toxic Positivity
There’s a meaningful difference between healthy optimism and toxic positivity.
Positive thinking allows space for difficult emotions while still holding onto hope. Toxic positivity, on the other hand, rejects or minimizes emotions that aren’t rooted in happiness. It overgeneralizes positivity and leaves little room for the full human experience.
It’s natural to look for a silver lining, but when positivity becomes a way of avoiding discomfort, it can backfire.
Some emotions are painful, uncomfortable or messy but they still need to be acknowledged and processed honestly. When people feel pressured to “stay positive,” they can end up feeling isolated, misunderstood, or ashamed of their struggles.
Positivity becomes harmful when it is insincere or invalidates genuine feelings of anxiety, fear, sadness or hardship.
What Does Toxic Positivity Sound Like?
This isn’t about shaming people. Toxic positivity often comes from discomfort, not cruelty. People become anxious in the face of another person’s pain, so they try to fix it, or move past it quickly.
Most of us have probably said something similar at some point, trying our best to comfort someone and not knowing what else to say. But even well-intentioned comments can unintentionally dismiss someone’s experience.
Here are some common examples:
· Look at the bright side.
· It could be worse.
· We’ve all been through a lot.
· Happiness is a choice.
· I know exactly how you feel.
· You need to move on.
· You have so much to be thankful for.
For me, the term “toxic positivity” resonated deeply when I was grieving a family member several years ago. Comments that were meant to comfort me instead made me feel unseen.
I heard things like:
“At least she isn’t suffering anymore.”
“You weren’t that close, were you?”
“She’s in a better place.”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
Such statements may be well-meaning but are often said to avoid the other person’s sadness or pain. It certainly doesn’t make the person delivering these platitudes a bad friend or uncaring person. But these comments can leave someone unheard at the very moment they most need empathy.
How to Deal With Toxic Positivity
The first step starts within – specifically with self-awareness and self-acceptance. Allow yourself to feel what you feel without immediately trying to fix, suppress, or judge it.
“Feel all the feelings” may sound cliché, but naming and acknowledging emotions is an important part of healing. Feeling sadness, anger, fear, or grief does not mean you are broken. It’s all part of being human. The goal isn’t to avoid difficult emotions; it’s to avoid becoming trapped inside them.
Practice gentle positivity instead of forced positivity. Gentle positivity accepts that emotions are temporary without denying their existence.
Spiritual teacher Mooji said, “Feelings are just visitors. Let them come and go.”
You will feel pain, fear, and whatever other emotion that make you suffer. But those feelings are temporary and are not an indication of what your future looks like. You can acknowledge pain while still trusting that it won’t define your future. Give yourself permission to reset and then continue doing what needs to be done.
On the flip side, you’ll want to have the tools for when toxic positivity is directed at you by others. It may help to understand that people generally are not trying to hurt you when they offer dismissive advice or overly positive responses. Often, they simply don’t know how to sit with discomfort – yours, their own or both.
That said, you are still allowed to set and hold boundaries. You have the right to communicate what support looks like for you. You have the right to say, “I don’t need advice right now,” or “I just need someone to listen.”
We are all shaped by our own experiences, and part of being human is sharing what we’ve learned along the way. That’s where things can get tricky. Often, people offer advice or encouragement because they genuinely want to help or create connection. The key is to acknowledge someone’s feelings before trying to reframe them. Supportive guidance leaves room for pain instead of trying to erase it. It’s possible to offer hope, perspective, or reassurance without dismissing someone’s experience or slipping into toxic positivity.
Not everyone will know how to support you well, and not everyone needs to be part of your inner circle during difficult times. Often, tough times clarify who can truly hold space for your pain.
It can also help to explain that emotional overwhelm and pain may show up differently in different people. Sadness doesn’t always look quiet. Sometimes it appears as anger, frustration, withdrawal, or exhaustion. Helping others understand that can create more compassion and less judgement.
The Impact of Social Media
Social media can also amplify toxic positivity. Whether it’s friends, influencers or brands, platforms are filled with curated versions of happiness, motivational quotes, success stories and constant encouragement to “choose joy” or “stay positive.” While inspiring at times, this can create pressure to appear emotionally well even when you’re struggling.
Constant exposure to those carefully filtered moments can create the illusion that everyone else is coping better, happier or more successfully than you are. When people already feel pressure to “stay positive,” social media can intensify feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, and shame.
Social media itself isn’t necessarily harmful, but how we engage with it matters.
Pay attention to how certain accounts make you feel. Unfollow those that leave you drained, anxious or inadequate. Take breaks from scrolling. Turn off notifications. Spend time doing things that reconnect you to your real life instead of constantly consuming someone else’s version of theirs.
We Are in This Together – Sort Of
I hesitate to say “we are in this together,” because pain is deeply personal. Grief, illness, heartbreak and hardship are profoundly individual experiences.
But what we are in together is the responsibility to show up for one another with compassion and respect.
People who are hurting usually don’t need to be fixed. They need to be witnessed. They don’t need someone to explain away their pain or rush them toward a lesson. They need patience and understanding.
And during difficult times, people may not behave exactly as you would. Their emotions, words, or reactions may feel messy, inconsistent or unfamiliar. But eventually, the intensity softens. People heal and recalibrate.
In the meantime, the most meaningful thing we can offer each other is simple: support over judgement, listening over lecturing, and empathy over empty positivity.