You walk into your workplace on a deceptively “normal” day, if there is such a thing anymore. The floor is sparsely populated now, various people on vacation. All is calm, all the fluorescent lights are bright.
Suddenly Liz opens the door to her office, closes it with something resembling a slam, and strides down the hall toward you. She sees you, looks momentarily annoyed, then forces her face into a broad smile that doesn’t douse the fire in her eyes and yells “Hi!” at you as she strides past. Your feel your body go all Deer-in-the-Headlights.
This may be way too obvious an example of Toxic Positivity, but I’m sure you have your own. And the more damaging examples are the subtle kind – you may have even launched a few of them yourself.
I know that when I am under stress, under deadline, under water, I nevertheless resort to an ingrained habit of denying what is obvious to everyone around me. Instead, I hurl an “I’m FINE!” (translation: Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional). Why can’t I just admit I’m in trouble, ask for help/space/extra time/whatever and move on? Why the impulse to deny?
’Tis the Season Alright…
The holidays, somehow, make it worse. Did you ever read the book “Skipping Christmas” by John Grisham? The book was funnier than the movie, although the movie: “Christmas With the Kranks” came pretty close.
I’m thinking of Jamie Lee Curtis as Nora, the harried wife trying to desperately create the perfect holiday once her husband’s plan for a cruise in the Bahamas falls through. If Nora had a full time job plus COVID anxiety, she’d be experiencing something closer to what so many women are experiencing now. And the fact that many of us feel we were “robbed” of the holidays because of the shutdown may be putting extra pressure on ourselves and others to make Christmas 2021 even more perfect!
Toxic Positivity wears a few masks, I’ve discovered. And while the denial of what we are feeling can be irritating, shaming others around what they feel can be downright destructive, no matter how well-meaning the initial impulse.
With a friend going through an agonizing divorce, for example, a response like “He wasn’t exactly a prince – right? You’ll find someone new” may make the speaker feel like she’s bucking her friend up, but there is no acknowledgement of her friend’s pain in this offhand response. And it doesn’t help to sideswipe her taste in men!
This is the problem I find as well, with “tough love”. Responses to pain like “Buck up, it could be worse” may seem, on the surface, like a way to strengthen and support the wounded recipient, but I’ve felt it more like an expression of irritation with perceived weakness.
Who does Toxic Positivity take care of? Not the one spoken to, but rather, the speaker. What is needed when someone close to you is vulnerable enough to express pain is what Christmas supposedly is truly about – expressions of love and caring; in a word, empathy.
Recently I was reminded, rather painfully, of how tricky it can be to express empathy. A woman I’ve worked with shared with our group that her dog is very ill. As we lost our dog last year around this time, I shared that with her, along with my heartfelt wishes that her dog recovers. In retrospect, I wondered if my attempt at empathy had come across more as sympathy or worse, a self serving expression of my own pain. In addition, juxtaposing a deceased dog with one who is ill was probably not helpful.
Sympathy Vs. Empathy
An article posted by Psychiatric Medical Care shares Webster’s definition of sympathy as “the feeling that you care about and are sorry about someone else’s trouble, grief, misfortune, etc.” Right. So what’s wrong with that? Compare that to the definition of empathy: “the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions” or “the ability to share someone else’s feelings”. So what’s the difference? Turns out, the difference is in the amount of distance between ourselves and the person expressing pain. Judgement and pity are the rumbling undertones beneath sympathy, and prevents bridging the gap between ourselves and others. The only way to truly build trust and understanding is with empathy.
Faulty Assumptions….
I used to believe that if I had not actually experienced the same pain as someone else, I had a “empathy handicap” and could only sympathize, but it turns out that this is not true. One doesn’t have to have experienced the same pain in order to build empathy, one simply needs to set aside their own agenda and be willing to deeply listen to someone else’s pain.
The fact that someone is sharing a tough experience with us does not mean we need to fix it! This is another erroneous assumption I made early on in my life. But again, “fixing” someone’s issues is often times more about the fixer than the person in trouble. Honestly, in a world where everyone and everything seems to be screaming for our attention, the simple act of listening deeply is a rare and treasured experience.
Let’s do Empathy better…
Next time someone trusts you enough to authentically share their difficulty, take a breath before you respond. Try getting curious about their experience. Ask them some questions like: “Can you tell me more about_____”? “How did you feel when you heard that?” “What is your body telling you?” “What do you most need right now?” Simply asking questions like these will tune you in to listen more deeply, and will signal to the person that you can be trusted with their feelings and their authentic experience.
One more thing….
I’m tempted to stop here. It’s a natural ending place and I have other things to accomplish today, but there’s one more piece of Toxic Positivity I would like to unpack.
Most of us are painfully aware that our country is going through churning change: the climate is roaring back at us with floods, fires, and now a December mega-tornado system that has devoured towns in nine states. We continue to be plagued with yet another variant of a deadly virus that has been gunning for us since late 2019. And our democracy, which too many of us, myself included, took for granted, is now in significant peril.
Tempting as it is to tune out politics right now, just turning off the news and convincing ourselves that “It will all turn out OK”, or “It doesn’t matter who’s in charge, it won’t effect us”, amounts to the same toxic positivity hall pass. It prevents us from getting involved, from taking effective action. This passivity has proven, in multiple countries, to be a primary symptom leading to a failed democracy. We can do more than simply hope that our vote counts, and this link for Protect Democracy spells out how. We can talk about what’s happening to our country at Christmas dinner. We can commit to voting no matter how informed we feel we aren’t, or how difficult local polling places try to make it for us. And critically, you can breathe some patience and empathy into conversations with those who don’t believe our democracy is imperiled and encourage them to dig a bit deeper into their views. And newsflash! Empathizing with someone doesn’t mean you agree with their views! It might help to remember the 10% rule: Anything that someone says has at least 10% validity.
This holiday season, let’s ban Toxic Positivity whenever we’re tempted by it. Instead, let’s breathe, slow down, and have the courage to dig in and truly listen.
Announcement! My new book: Using Head, Heart, and Hand Listening in Coaching Practice has been accepted for publication in 2022 by Routledge Publishing!