The Psychology of your 20s - 211. The problem with 'toxic' positivity

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Today on the podcast we are talking about toxic positivity and the problem with always being positive and putting a fluffy, warm, positive spin on things. Often our unrealistic optimism comes from a good place and our desire to be happy all the time but any person knows that isn't always possible. We break down:  The reason we gravitate towards toxic positivity What toxic positivity looks like The impact of wellness and self help content The consequences for our mental health  The consequences for our emotional intelligence  Why people who accept negative emotions are ACTUALLY happier How to practice emotional acceptance and healthy positivity  All of that and so much more, listen now!  Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world.

Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this.

He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On The Look Back at it podcast. For 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me.

I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host Keer Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to. Listen and learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. We are going to talk about something a little bit different today, a concept that you may or may not have heard of, which is toxic positivity. Even if you haven't heard of it, you've most likely experienced it in some form. People, you know, telling you. you to keep your chin up, that everything happens for a reason to think good thoughts and they'll become your reality because toxic positivity is everywhere these days, especially with the rise of a lot of Instagram and TikTok self-help content. It is essentially this belief or this attitude that a positive mindset fixes everything. Whatever it is you're going through,

being optimistic will make it better. And it's an attitude that has a lot of consequences for our mental health, for our emotional well-being, but also for our emotional intelligence and our ability to actually address our emotions and solve our problems. I have to admit, I have been guilty of perhaps promoting this kind of messaging, both to myself and you guys, the listeners. It is very easy to villainize negative emotions or so-called negative emotions because they simply just don't feel nice. You know, feeling angry doesn't feel nice. Feeling distressed, disappointed doesn't feel nice.

And putting a positive spin on things kind of erases the need to truly feel and process these big feelings. But maturing is recognizing that just because something doesn't feel nice doesn't mean it's not useful. And second to that, emotions like grief, like despair, like disappointment, and rejection, they are what makes us human. And being able to connect with those emotions means that we are able to connect with ourselves, firstly with our experiences, but also with others.

It's a real privilege to sometimes not feel amazing all the time. Personally, I also think that toxic positivity is really dangerous during our 20s in particular because, you know, our emotions can teach us so much during this period, and they do influence who we are becoming. So if we mask them by being overly positive about everything, by not letting anything in, by numbing ourselves out, we're kind of doing ourselves a disservice. And it may sound strange to hear me say that, you know,

being too positive is a danger to you is dangerous, because how can something so nice be so dangerous? But when we gravitate towards the same reaction for all of our experiences, i.e. always looking for the bright side, no matter how hard or difficult something is, we do tend to suppress a lot of what makes us so tender and so unique and so vulnerable in that vulnerability is a good thing. So today we are going to discuss the problem with always being positive, and I know it sounds strange, but why feeling bad is sometimes good for you. We'll also dive into why it is that we tend to gravitate towards optimism. This constant,

of self-inflicted emotional gaslighting and the alternative. What is the alternative to putting a positive spin on things? Where does this inclination come from? We're going to talk about the origins of shame and emotional embarrassment. And I think that once you realize how common this radical optimism, this unrealistic optimism is, you'll be surprised how often you notice it and you'll be surprised how rampant it is in our society. Once you begin to notice it, you'll never stop noticing it. But we also, of course, want to give you an alternative. We want to talk about what it is that we can do, because if we can't make our emotions feel good,

what's the alternative? Do we just let them exist? Well, yeah, that's the answer. There we go. Episode summed up. No, we'll be talking about that a little bit more. And I think that's all. That's all that I have. Without further ado, let's get into it.

2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more to look past the impractical and way too complex soon. pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person.

Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-Persent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jett.

And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of Iraq. crack. I'm down to talk about crack all day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point,

this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most

important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience

in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses.

Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines,

as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free, our heart radio app. Search learn the hard way and listen now. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.

You doctored this particular test twice in someone, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alespian and Michael Marantini.

My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until Justice of. served in Arizona.

Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Toxic positivity has a few different names. The first time that it was labeled was back in the 1980s. And back then it was known as unrealistic optimism. It's also known as bright-siding, positive tyranny, which is very dramatic. But I think you get the picture. At the end of the day, all these terms are referring to the same thing.

a deep but also toxic and maladaptive belief that thinking positively can erase all negative feelings and that those negative feelings are bad. We have bad emotions that we should not feel and the way to not feel them is to cover them in sugar and cover them in sunshine and always find the positive, always try and shake it off. We want to prioritize upbeat thinking, we want to push down the difficult stuff. No one wants to see that. No one wants to feel that. can't be positive all the time, you have somehow failed, something is wrong with you. This can be a belief that we've learned from someone else around us, or it can be self-imposed, like feeling guilty when you feel sad or disappointed and immediately forcing yourself

to think about everything you should be grateful for instead of letting yourself be sad, or pushing down big feelings by telling yourself, it could be worse. Just move on. This is why toxic positivity is sometimes seen as a form of self-inflicted emotional gaslighting. That is a mouthful, but I think we're all pretty familiar with the term gaslighting when it comes to romantic relationships. It's this act of one person manipulating somebody else into questioning their own reality and what is actually true or real as a way to maintain control over them. When we force ourselves to push down and push aside

hard emotions, the premise is that we are essentially gaslighting ourselves by saying, this isn't real. You don't know what you're experiencing, you're choosing to feel bad about this. Rather than you feel bad about this because it's hard. And that's a normal reaction. This experience is real and raw and it's okay to be in pain and to be flat for a while. This is hard. You can feel sad about it. More often than not, though, toxic positivity is something that we experience from others. there is of course that own sense of like almost self-preservation, I would call it, to maintain a positive outlook at all times. But there are often these times when perhaps you go to a therapist or a family member or a friend

and you say, you know, I'm just really struggling with this thing. This terrible thing is happening. I'm really stressed. I'm really tired. I'm really exhausted. And the only thing they try and do is get you to see the positive sides. They only try and get you to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I get it.

I really do get why a family member or a friend or a therapist or anybody would want to bring us back to what is good. Because we don't like to see other people struggle. We don't like to see other people feel sad, especially people that we love. You know, some examples of this are like when you go through a breakup and you're immediately told that, you know, there's someone better out there. Think about the positives in the situation. Think about how fun it's going to be single. when you perhaps aren't ready to hear that. Losing your job and being told that, you know, you can have it worse.

Some people don't even have a job. Some people don't even have savings. Some people have been unemployed so much longer than you. So chin up. It's all that line of thinking, you know, getting ghosted, getting rejected and being told that everything happens for a reason. Yes, it's a nice thought. It just might not be helpful.

And it's probably one of those thoughts that's only helpful in hindsight when you're ready to hear it. what's another example that we see a lot oh somebody was telling me about this the other day living like when you um go and like see a friend or you're with a family member or whoever it is and you just feel like you can't be low energy because they'll immediately pathologize or think that something is wrong so

if you're like oh i've just had a really bad day they'll immediately be like well that's not good no no no no we don't want you to have a bad day let's like make this better we need to think positive We need to fix your problem when you might just be having a bad day. Or over-emphasizing the power of gratitude. That is something that we see all the time. I had an example from a friend. Well, yeah, from a friend and acquaintance who was telling me about how one of her co-workers

lost her mother to cancer really unexpectedly. And of course, dealing with that just humongous grief, unimaginable grief. She went and saw a therapist, and the therapist, or it was a counsellor, told her to make a gratitude list to help her feel better. And you know what? I get that her intentions were most likely in the right place. But you can also see how this is probably not helpful. That's probably not the one thing that we need to do. This is almost a denial of the negative emotions and an unrealistic promotion of positive thinking when this person probably would actually not benefit from immediately moving on.

That's what I get the point of like, oh yeah, what are you grateful for so you don't dwell on this loss, but maybe it would have been better to just be like, yeah, that's really, really awful, that really sucks. Let's just let you feel really bad about that for a while because that is a completely reasonable thing to be feeling. One final example, because I'm filled with anecdotes today, is this experience, this concept out of order to this, a term known as bright sighting. And we see this a lot when someone tells us a story about something really frustrating or really terrible or painful and immediately somebody else jumps in with a matching story of their own that is

far more terrible and far more painful. Or they point out, the one part of the story where something good happened or something worse could have happened, you know, oh, I just had the most terrible commute to work today. I was so frustrated. I was so angry by the time I got in. I just like didn't want to be there. And then they go, well, on the bright side, like at least, you know, what happened to me today? Well, at least, you know, your car didn't explode like mine, so you have something to feel good about. It's like, well, when that happens, it immediately immediately kind of cuts off your ability to express your feelings because you either feel the need to justify the experience or you can't compete and therefore you just go quiet.

And there is this incredible book about this exact concept called Bright Sided, how the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has undermined America. And it talks about how by stamping out negative thoughts or villainizing negative emotions, we become very two-dimensional. We learn pretty quickly that actually being truthful, looking at, for comfort rather than solutions or optimism is going to be met with toxic positivity. So eventually we just become our happy moments. We just show people the good things.

And everyone looks at each other thinking, wow, her life is really perfect. Her life is really amazing. Whilst you think the same thing about them. And essentially the author makes this very convincing argument that toxic positivity has made us inauthentic. And I tend to agree. let me play devil's advocate for a second before we fully jump into the consequences of this. You know, we do see toxic positivity everywhere. And you know what? Sometimes it is only natural to

want to see the bright side of what we're going through. It can be useful and it can also be intuitive. As humans, both, you know, evolutionarily but also socially, we naturally prefer positive emotions. They indicate greater happiness, greater satisfaction. They create greater less emotional pain and disharmony, less social friction, we would probably prefer to not get bogged down in hard things. There are also just people who are really optimistic. It's not that they are necessarily toxic in their optimism. It's just how they come. And I think a lot of people would probably look at those explanations that I just gave of people trying their hardest to relate to somebody else through a positive lens and be like, what's the problem? What's the problem here? Of course,

it's better to be happy than sad. You know, of course, this lightens the mood. People want to be around you. People want to be your friend. People want to be happy. And I really do understand that. And I'm not saying that in these instances there isn't room for resilience. There isn't room for gratitude. There isn't room for problem solving. But the thing is, is that those things are healthy coping mechanisms, when we overly rely on them, when our solution to anything bad is just be grateful for what you have, or, okay, just get over it and keep your chin up. That is toxic positivity versus healthy positivity. These happy good vibes become toxic when it involves avoiding and suppressing, minimizing or rejecting negative feelings. And let's be real, that doesn't actually

make them go away, that doesn't allow us to make peace with them, the only thing that is occurring is that in the moment, they become invisible. And that means that eventually, they will most likely return with a vengeance later on. So let's talk about the consequences of toxic positivity. First of all, it stigmatizes these so-called negative emotions. And I know that I've been using that word very, that term very frequently negative emotions. Basically what I mean by that is the emotions that are very much villainized by society, things that we kind of cringe at. We would rather not see anger, jealousy, grief, sadness. Often the reason that these emotions I think are so disturbing to some people is because they are so human. And when we see somebody else,

experiencing them, we so deeply can see ourselves in that feeling. We know what that feels like and I think that kind of makes us feel embarrassed. Like, oh, don't be loud about what it means to be human. And, you know, sometimes being human does, is just kind of shit. Sometimes it just isn't fun. There is not a single person alive today who would say, you know, my entire life has been golden. Everything is great for me. And yet it feels like that is what is, what is, what is, what is kind of expected. These negative emotions, they are what keep us from being a very palatable person, from being somebody who always leaves others feeling in a good mood. If nothing else, these negative emotions, I actually think are really useful because they make our good moments and our good memories

even more special. They are also a natural reaction to our experiences and they teach us something they have a purpose. And I think our desire to hide them links very closely to the stigma that is directed towards mental health and mental health conditions and mental health struggles. And I don't think that that is an accident. Society is not that great at wanting people to be open about what they're going through. There is a long history of that. And if we've never been taught to accept that this, that this is a dimension of being human. If we continue to keep up this narrative that intense emotions deserve to be hidden, they deserve to be masked by optimism or masked by positivity,

the next generation is taught the same thing. And that is where prejudice and misunderstanding comes from, a failure to really normalize and accept what is typical for most people, which is that we do feel sad and we do feel angry and we do grieve. and that doesn't always need to be stamped out. It makes us feel like we always have to be okay when no one is. And I saw this quote about this from an author that said, this unrealistic optimism towards life is essentially saying,

whatever you do, don't tell the truth of what it is like to be alive. Don't be authentic. Don't be honest. Don't be open. It's like having a nice illusion of what everything should look like. It's, I don't know, it's not that there is like this greater power. that it's controlling this and making everyone forcing them to look happy. It is like a long pattern and a long history of this going on.

And I think it mainly comes down to the effects of shame and embarrassment. We aren't, you know, necessarily coming out and saying, ew, why are you crying? Don't be upset. That makes me so uncomfortable. You know, we aren't being like, can you please stop that? Can you please stop grieving all over the place or stop being, like, stop being, you know, upset all over the place, like, no, stop. That is not necessarily what it's going on. But when we immediately switch gears when someone brings up the emotions that we don't like, and we cover them

in positivity and we serve them back to them, you know, that is a meaningful enough cue to influence behavior. It is an implicit message to not do that again. Don't do that. We're not outwardly saying it, but everything about our behavior and everything about our treatment of this emotion is telling you just that. And within that reaction, within that interaction that happens, the thing that we're going to feel is a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, a lot of embarrassment that we, you know, even expressed ourselves in the first place and, of course, the stigma lives on. The second consequence of toxic positivity is that it actually makes us feel worse rather than better. And there are dozens of studies to back this up. The less we feel, the more of a positive spin that we put on things, the

less that we learn to cope and the more control that that emotion has. This is the classic cycle of avoidance in psychology. We never actually learn what to do with big emotions because the only thing we can think to do is to suppress them or make them light and fluffy, which actually just gives them more importance. It makes them louder, it makes them darker, the cycle repeats. There is a very well-known study from the 80s, and the title of the study is The Paradoxical effects of thought suppression, just some light reading. And it's pretty groundbreaking. What it basically says is that when you are asked not to think about something, the more you immediately want to think about it. So you may have heard of this if I say to you, okay, please,

whatever you do, don't think about a white elephant. No, don't think about it. Don't think about a white elephant. Of course you're thinking about it. And you'll probably keep thinking about it for the rest of the day. If that's my only instruction, don't think about something. don't think about how hard that was. Don't think about how terrified you were, how unhappy you are, make it positive, make it bubbly, make it glowing. Of course, the thing that I'm telling you not to think about implicitly or explicitly is the thing that's going to become louder.

And that is exactly what is happening here. Your positive thoughts suppress the initial negative ones, and that suppression actually has the reverse effect of creating a preoccupation with the initial event because you didn't get the chance to work through it. You didn't get the chance to truly process how you reacted, perhaps the trauma that it's left, the consequences, none of that. You've just pushed it into a box. There was another study from the 90s that showed something very similar that suppressing feelings can actually make our psychological stress and our psychological suffering more significant and more intense. And that kind of brings me to my next point. Not only does toxic positivity

actually end up making the feelings worse, so kind of having that like backfire effect. It also prevents growth. Now I spoke briefly about this before, but the next step in the toxic positivity disaster timeline is that A, not only do you feel shame and stigma towards your emotion, which B, means that you actually end up feeling worse, but finally, you never actually grow. Now, I am not saying that bad things happen for a reason and that these negative feelings are a lesson, but if there's, you know, anything, any kind of consolation prize, as terrible as it is, it's that when you let yourself feel the hard times, you grow through the hard times. When you apply unrealistic optimism, you don't even get that.

So not only did the bad things still happen and you still feel terrible, but you also never learn to evolve as a person, you never learn how to respond. You also never get to appreciate how tremendous you are. Like, you were the one who had the courage and the strength and the patience and the will to get through all of that. When we try and be like, well, everything happens for a reason or you could have it worse or look on the bright side, we need to stop there. You know, you were actually dealt a bad hand and you still pushed through. And that is a testament to how amazing you are. And that is a testament to your strength and your problem solving and your hard work. And when you wrap it all up in a nice pink fuzzy bow, you don't actually get the acknowledgement you deserve around how truly resilient

you were. So the final consequence of toxic positivity, and in my mind, one of the most convincing as to why we cannot be positive all the time, is that it just isn't the full picture. Your mindset cannot change everything. It is a very privileged perspective to think that thinking good thoughts can shift a situation. Yes, it can definitely shift the way you think about something. You can change how you feel, but the situation and the event remains the same. And I think the big problem I have is that there are certain things that a positive mindset, you know, will not make better. It will not solve. Obviously, like a really big one is things that are like biological or genetic or medical. You know, I've never seen a single article or academic piece of research that has said,

positive thinking shows signs of like improving cancer survival rates or people who suppress negative emotions are less likely to have diabetes or like woman wins award for I don't know for being happy all the time. Congratulations. Happiest woman alive. I've never seen anything like that. And there is a lot that we need to mention about the fact that some people just have it harder and coming into their circumstances, their story, their life, and applying perhaps your more privileged perspective and one in which you can say, just think positive thoughts about it, is kind of not very fair. It's not very fair and it's just not very nice, to be honest.

It's not that you're trying to be mean. It's just not very nice. Because imagine sitting there and being like, yeah, it's very easy for you to say, oh, you know, bad things happen for a reason. but if your mum's just died, or if you're going through a war or whatever it is, like, no, that's not the truth. That's not the full truth. The other thing I think of is like, your environment does play a much bigger role than we think, and it sometimes overwhelms our ability to think positively about something. I saw this video from a creator on YouTube the other day, who she's a dietitian specialist, a doctor, dietitian specialist. And she gave the example of like cortisol levels and how there's been this like whole flood in like pseudoscience or I don't know.

Let's not be so quickest to call it pseudoscience, but this whole flood in research around how changing negative thoughts into positive ones really helps lower your cortisol levels. But she said in this video she's like, yes, that might be true. But none of that is going to be effective if you don't have shelter or you don't have a sense of internal or external safety if you don't have. if you don't have community. Positive thinking, making things lighter, just actually masks certain things that may actually really need to change, that may actually really demand action and demand some form of justice or demand a personal shift.

So we've talked about some of the consequences of toxic positivity. It isn't the full picture. It prevents growth. It actually makes us feel worse and it stigmatizes what a normal emotion. I want to talk about the alternative. If we have to abandon our radical optimism, maybe not radical, unrealistic optimism. Radical optimism is still fine. But if we have to abandon our unrealistic optimism, what do we have left? Well, we're going to talk about all of that and more after this short break. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%. I break down. the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more,

to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships. and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO percent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here,

unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day,

but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Trip Fontaine,

Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about

wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust.

I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search, learn the hard way and listen now.

In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistency in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so-ins, correct? I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.

I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian, Michael Marincini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.

Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I have a little grace for those of us who do genuinely try and see the good. And I will say that I am someone who does try and do that. There is a lot of beauty in finding the joy, despite things being pretty terrible. There is a lot of beauty in seeing the good side of things and trying to find the silver lining. Again, we want the people we love most to be happy. We want to guide them back to a place of feeling good and positive about their circumstances.

So I totally get the inclination. We want to feel good. It's okay to want to feel good. This, you know, episode isn't about being like, if you want to feel good about yourself, you have toxic positivity. No, I think it's more about whether your version of being positive involves not making space for negative emotions or bad emotions. Complex emotions, we'll call them that. I think complex emotions also sometimes make us uncomfortable because we've never been taught how to process them within ourselves or with others. We have no education or emotional management courses. Like, that's not something that we are taught on or informed on as children, even as adults. So suppression and making everything seem quite positive and lovely

is the status quo. But let's talk about some alternatives for actually looking at those complex emotions and, you know, making peace with them. becoming friends with them, becoming friends with your friends, negative emotions, and not bright-siding and not trying to fix everything. So firstly, when you find the desire to suppress a negative or complex emotion is coming up, be honest with the fact that a situation is difficult and break away from the urge to say, it's fine immediately. you're allowed to feel your painful emotions without them becoming you.

There was an article from Scientific America that I read in preparation for this episode and it's about 10 years old and it suggests that across multiple studies, multiple case studies, multiple research projects on happiness, it is actually the people who are in touch with their negative emotions who overall experience the greatest levels of well-being and true mastery over their lives. So honestly, you are better off just admitting that something sucks. Just admitting that something is awful. That is okay.

You're going to push on anyways. You are not going to become those feelings. Those feelings are just part of your human experience. I think it's honesty without the extreme pessimism. And I get that that is a fine line to walk. But you are allowed to feel, despair, feel grief, feel whatever it is. is and that doesn't need to be everything. That doesn't need to become you. You know, you don't have to get wrapped up in ruminating and letting it interrupt your life. If you make space and time for your

negative emotions and then I'm like, okay, I acknowledge that this exists. I acknowledge that I feel this way and I've given myself time to feel that and now I'm going to move on. And if this emotion bubbles up again, I will look at it. I will hold it. I will hold it. I will sit with it, and when we're going to try again. We're going to move through the same process every single time. So when the urge to run and kind of cover up occurs, stay put, fight the instinct. There is this scene in Harry Potter. I think it's like the first one.

Yeah, the first Harry Potter, Sorcerer's Stone, Philosopher's Stone, where they're getting, Harry or Ron, and one of them is like getting, like, suffocated by those, by the vines. And Hermione goes, just relax. just relax. I think when we try and make everything positive all the time, that is the vines tightening around us. We're fighting back again what is a very natural instinct to feel. And it actually ends up suffocating us. It feels counterintuitive, but acceptance is where we find a lot of freedom. One way that I like to think about it is that sadness, anger, grief, jealousy, pessimism,

they're like little creatures in my house. They're like little dust mites or little kittens. You know, my house is my brain, and in it there are all these things kind of wandering around. And sometimes it might jump out and scare me. You know, I'll be pottering around, and this little dust might be in my way. My grief might be in my way. My pessimism might be in my way. But it's just a house guest. I don't need to lock them in a room because that way they're going to become a lot louder.

They're going to screech and wail. They're less disruptive when I let them roam about. when I know that these complex emotions are in the house, but they're not scary to me. They're not something that I need to run from or lock away. When those negative emotions come up, hold them, hug them, let them pass through. Don't feel the need to immediately get rid of them, but find a way to integrate them through things that are healthy coping mechanisms like talk therapy, like journaling, and like some catharsis or physical expression.

This is another big piece of advice that I have. make hard emotions tangible. Things like art therapy, that is a huge component of art therapy, is taking things that we would otherwise push aside and actually making them tangible, making them physical, giving them a home and giving them, you know, a place to be free and a place to come out. Same thing with a lot of physical therapies and not physical therapies in terms of the I broke a bone sense,

but in terms of like expressing negative, emotions through your body, getting involved in a boxing class and a running class and a hit workout, something that provides your body with a release. We know that we feel a lot of emotions in our body. How can we expend that energy and give it a place to go? I think when it comes to navigating the urge to go positive when a friend is sharing or when you're giving advice and you're noticing that, okay, wait, I keep steering into the positive lane here. How do I bring this back so that my friend feels acknowledged? That's a whole other thing.

But I think replace your unrealistically optimistic statements with realistic ones. And with ones that at their center, at their core, are statements of acceptance, a statements of approval for these emotions. For example, if someone is like, oh my God, I know it's been four months, I know it's been a year, but I just am still hung up on my ex. I'm still miserable. Instead of being like, okay, but I feel like it's time to like get over it.

Like maybe you should go and find somebody better because like there's definitely somebody better out there for you. Be like, I'm listening. I can totally see why that would be really, really hard. If somebody, you know, your friend, I've had a lot of friends recently get laid off from their tech jobs. There's huge like redundancies in that area. If your friend is like, oh, I got laid off. This is just like the most terrible thing. Instead of being like, well, in the bright side, at least like, you know, you have savings.

At least, you know, maybe your parents could help with your rent. At least like you'll find a new job pretty soon. At least, you know, you always said that you hated that job. Maybe that's a good thing. Sometimes you just got to say, you know, failure is sometimes a part of life and your feelings around that are super valid. How can I help? Sometimes bad things just happen. I'm really sorry.

There's no reason. What do you want me to do? not like what do you want me to do but like what would you like me to do how can i help you hear what's what are you thinking just explain how you're thinking just explain how you're feeling to me and i will sit and i will absorb all of that complexity all of that outrage all of that negativity i'll just absorb it for you and i'm not going to sit there and be like yeah this happened for a reason because i can acknowledge that maybe you don't want to hear that right now there is a time and a place for being positive.

There is a time and a place. And I totally respect the need to want to make somebody feel better. But sometimes you've got to look for the signs that that's what they want as well. And you know what the easiest sign is is when they say, can you just make me feel better about this? And then you can make them feel, and then you can be a little bit more positive about things. Or when you can see that they're moving from wanting to vent to wanting advice,

or if they are someone who does actually respond pretty well to that, they're like a good friend or a partner like you probably know when they're ready to hear those positive statements. Until then, just be really genuine and authentic in your interactions with them. Kind of avoid using those cliches or those platitudes that may not be relevant or helpful. I just want to finish up by saying, one more time, you don't have to feel good about your life,

about yourself, about the world all the time. In fact, as those studies were telling us, sometimes it's actually helpful to feel deep, vulnerable, complex feelings about a situation about your life. Those feelings not only remind you that you're a human and that you can feel a full rainbow spectrum of emotions, they also do help you grow, they do help you problem solve, they do help you be empathetic, they help you connect with other people. and they stop us from being one-dimensional people. Like that book was saying that author was saying, when the focus is always on happy experiences, happy emotions,

getting back to joy, getting back to what feels good, making just like when the only ambition is to have as many happy moments as possible, and that is like it's a very concrete task. I think sometimes we really forget how special it is when times are good. And we also sometimes forget what it means to be truly feeling.

And that sometimes like those emotions really remind us of what matters and what we care about. And as much as like obviously we love sharing happy, fun memories with our friends, I think true bonding and true connection sometimes actually does come from those dark and hard and sometimes painful moments where you're honest and you're feeling and you're authentic. So I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. It's a bit more rambly than I normally do, but this is just a topic that I'm really passionate about and didn't want to script it as much. I just kind of wanted to talk about it.

Have a bit of a discussion. See if you guys related, if this is something that you've experienced. If you also think that there is perhaps a problem with being too positive all the time. So thank you so much for listening. I hope that you've made it this far. If so, make sure that you are following me on Instagram or following me here on Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Wherever you are listening right now

and if you can leave a five-star review, that is incredibly helpful, and it of course helps the show to grow. Until next time, stay safe, be kind to yourself, be gentle to yourself, and we will talk soon. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs

when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO percent on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist,

They take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On the Look Back at a podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors.

Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing.

How many men carry a suit or armor? It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to. Listen to learn the hard way on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Thank you.