Mindfulness Is The Antidote To Toxic Positivity
Toxic Positivity On The Internet Is What Fuels Self Help Scams And Hooks Social Media Users
Positivity can be toxic too, when it is forced on someone. I am sure someone would have advised you “to be happy” and “think positive” when you needed to vent out and deal with your difficult emotions. Didn’t it make you angry? However, the problem these days is- toxic positivity is not limited to people giving empty encouragement. It has been used to hook users to social media. It has also been used by the scammers who mostly go by the titles “Self help guru”, “spritual guides” etc. In fact, Indian godmen also use this gimmick in the west to fill their pockets.
There are plenty of books on self help too, filled with toxic positivity. Many of us are guilty of reading these books and even articles. When I was in my first year of my college, I tried reading a few such books. They used to give me very short lived motivation that never amounted to anything. In retrospect, I feel it was more of a ‘high’ than motivation. It wasn’t anything near to being helpful.
How Did This Culture Of Toxic Positivity Start?
In the self help books genre itself, there is a book with a cult like following- “The Secret”. It started the culture of toxic positivity more than a decade back.
It told people that they can keep imagining all their desires coming true and they don’t need to work hard towards them. It told them to be “unconditionally positive”. People stopped facing their realities for a brief amount of time. People fell for it. It was stupid but people believe what they want to believe. Logic takes a backseat when people are confronted with something they desperately want to believe.
It was also a book that victim shamed people for being poor, telling them it was their fault because their thoughts were making them and keeping them poor. It was filled with toxic positivity. I don’t know if there was anything it got right. But the major message of the book was about being happy and ignoring any negative feelings. It was about constantly thinking positive. It, in fact, told you to ignore the reality altogether. Forget working hard. In theory, it sounded great to people who didn’t want to work to get out of their misery. This books, for me, is the classic definition of toxic positivity. “Forget your problems and imagine you are happy or rich or whatever”- that was the gist of the book. The book was heavily advertised. I don’t know a single person who benefitted from the book’s preaching of toxic positivity.
Let me sum up “The Secret” in three sentences-
You are the best and hence you deserve unlimited materialism. You are going to get it by practising unconditional positivity and ignorance of reality instead of working hard.
There came more and more self help gurus teaching you to “stay positive”.
How Social Media Fuelled The Toxic Positivity Culture Further
After “The Secret” became famous, social media also came into picture. It was built on the logic that people like to peep into other people’s lives. Also, it rewarded people to fake a perfect life so that others could get jealous.
Social Media gave people exactly what they wanted but didn’t need.
Showing off and making others jealous is a human tendency that humans want but don’t need. So is peeping into others lives. In order to engage the people who are jealous, and depressed comparing their lives to others, social media came up with toxic positivity- the quotes with empty motivation and ego boosting statement-
You are the best.
You are hot/sexy/bossbabe/better than everyone/blablabla.
You are going to change the world.
You are doing great. Don’t listen to anyone telling you otherwise.
The above statements do nothing other than boosting your ego and giving you a ‘high’. Social media can as well be declared a digital drug.
Let me show you what I recently came across. I followed this hashtag #yoga on Instagram to see if anything good comes up. This is what came up-
The above post is problematic on so many levels. It wants you to feel sexy, attractive, hot and beautiful. It is reinforcing the need to be physically attractive. It is also telling you that you can be all of that, if you buy what they are selling. If you look at the caption, it is an advertisement for some spiritual adviser. Just because I am interested in yoga (the hashtag because of which Instagram showed me this post), doesn’t mean I am interested in or even remotely believes in scams like spiritual advisory, astrology and other crap. But that didn’t stop Instagram from showing me this garbage. Think about what these posts must be doing to the mind of a naive teenagers repeatedly come across posts like this.
Mindfulness Is The Antidote Of Toxic Positivity
Mindfulness is exactly the opposite of toxic positivity. Anyone telling you to “stay positive unconditionally” doesn’t even understand mindfulness.
Mindfulness is being in the present, and not running away from any of your emotions. It is staying in the present even when your feelings become difficult and unbearable.
For me, mindfulness is the way of life. I am a yoga and meditation instructor. I don’t stay positive all the time. I don’t claim to be blissfully happy every minute of the day or every day or the week. This is precisely the reason I am able to achieve my goals and lead a content life. I deal with my problems, situations and feelings when needed. Sometimes, I sit in a meditation and all the difficult, unresolved feelings and emotions come rushing towards me. Are such meditation sessions blissful for me? No! But they are necessary. I sit with such emotions, in the present, not running to a fascination of future or reminiscence of the past. No matter how uncomfortable they are, I deal with them, discarding what many self help gurus and Indian godmen teach.
Being mindful is about accepting the present situation. You don’t need something boosting you ego- telling you that you are the best. You are not in competition with anyone. We all are unique with our unique goals and unique paths. We can’t compete with one other. Ever heard about comparing apples with oranges? So, you understand how stupid that is. What will you compare? Their subjective taste? Some people like apples, other like oranges. Would it be helpful if apples sacrifices its own characteristics and tries to copy orange? Would it become the best? No! It is plain stupid.
You eat different food items, every item gives you different nutrients, and helps with you keeping up with your health. What if there is only one food item? Even if it is the beeesssstttttt? It has the most nutrients and the best taste. Would you be able to survive without the rest of the nutrients? Deficiency of even one nutrient would kill you. No food item can have all the nutrients. Nothing is perfect and is sufficient on its own. Lets say you survive, would you even be able to eat it everyday? No!
Stop with the toxic positivity. Work on yourself and stay the hell away from social media.
That is why I meditate. That is why I teach meditation and mindfulness. Neither mediation not mindfuless is about this toxic positivity. It is more about acceptance. Don’t fall for anyone who teaches you to fake happiness.
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