On toxic positivity

and why the only way through things, is through them

When my dad was in the ICU for months back in 2021, things were terrible. Really terrible. And the great privilege of that time was that they were allowed to be. Very few people offered my family empty positivity (It will be okay! Don’t worry! Look on the bright side!) because it was clear that it was a bad time. It was allowed to be a bad time.

We said goodbye to him. We cried ourselves hoarse. We sat for hours in the ICU waiting room, wondering what was going to happen, and when. We despaired and prayed and bargained and grew restless and walked the halls.

But do you know what else my family did during those endless weeks? We laughed. So much. We spent time together. We had conversations we would never otherwise have had. We forged quiet, fleeting bonds with other ICU families, nurses and doctors. We drank coffee in the sunshine with Dad’s brother and sister and ate so many caramel slices staring at the bloody awful piss-yellow waiting room walls.

We rode the waves of human emotions for months and I’m so grateful that we were given the space to feel both their shadowy depths and their sunny peaks. Had we tried to corral the oceans of fear and sadness into a tiny little box and hide it behind a façade of gratitude and positive thinking, I think we might have robbed ourselves of most of those experiences. And, as hard as they were, those are experiences I hold dear.

There is power in positive thinking, I believe that. There is power in gratitude, I believe that too. But if we use them to squash so-called negative emotions, to ignore or invalidate them, we are hurting the person we’re trying to comfort. Even if that person is us, even if the pain we’re trying to suppress is our own.

Over the years, I’ve said every variation of these things both to myself and other people:

• “Just focus on the good things in life.”

• “Try not to worry about it.”

• “It’ll all work out in the end.”  

• “There are people doing it tougher than you.”

And I’ve meant them too. Said them with good intentions; when I didn’t know what else to say, when I wanted to make the other person feel better — right now — or when I was uncomfortable in the presence of their pain.

Ultimately, I was trying to find a shortcut to comfort — theirs and mine. I was trying to stick a Bandaid on their wound so it would look all better from the outside, while also denying them the chance to heal.

We can’t force someone to avoid negative emotions. We can’t take those emotions away either, as much as we might want to. But we can listen. We can truly hear what they’re saying. We can make space for them. We can empathise. And if we don’t understand, that’s okay. We’re not required to.

Letting things be what they are is so difficult. But by allowing it to be whatever it is — good, bad, ridiculous, infuriating — we create space into which our experience can expand. And it’s in that space that, ironically, we often find the full range of emotions.

Toxic positivity, on the other hand, does the opposite of what it’s trying to do. It doesn’t stop things from sucking, it just shrinks the space in which we experience it.

And we need that space. It’s in that space that we laugh in the ICU waiting room, tear-stained and exhausted. It’s where we cry at our child’s birthday party, grateful and frazzled. It’s where we sit quietly on the edge of a mountain, scared and awed and humbled.

There’s room for all of it. But if we continuously try to go around the negative as a shortcut to the positive, we miss so much. The mess and the beauty and the tears and the laughs and the caramel slices.  

Me and my dad sitting on the banks of the Bow River, Canmore, 2018.

My dad survived his time in the ICU and is currently kicking all of our butts in every way you could imagine. Against all odds, he was the second-longest-serving patient to walk out of there many months after he was wheeled in. It’s a thrill even now, two years later, to reflect on that and something I am so indescribably grateful for.

Watching him go through his recovery was yet another reminder for me that the only way through anything, is by literally going through it. We can’t pretend hard things away, we can’t positive-mindset them into non-existence.

Does a positive attitude help? Of course! And is there room in this conversation for resilience? Absolutely.

But where toxic positivity says, “Chin up, it’s not so bad,” and leaves us feeling small and guilty and alone, a positive attitude says, “Hey, this sucks. It will get better soon. But until then, do you want a caramel slice?”

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I’m Currently…

Listening to our neighbour’s drop saw (audio recordings of these letters will be back next week I hope!)

Reading this piece on The Guardian about the joys of slow running: The slow running revolution: How to move at a ‘sexy’ pace and really enjoy the race. Before my health took another dip, I’d just started getting back into (very slow) running, using a Couch to 5K program. I’m hopeful that if I take my time getting back on my feet, I’ll be able to pick it back up again.

Feeling a bit silly. I’ve had a flame weeder (which is basically a mini flame-thrower used to burn weeds) sitting in the shed for at least 12 months but stubbornly thought that hand-pulling the gajillion weeds in our driveway would be a better solution. I finally got the flame weeder out last weekend and stand here, humbled. It is the best invention ever.

Trying something new for all paying subscribers of The Tortoise this weekend. Notes on Noticing is a little weekly diary of tiny things I’ve noticed during the week. The first one will hit inboxes on Sunday. If you’re not yet a paying subscriber and would like to be, you can upgrade here.

Finding time to lay in the sun for five minutes a day and just do nothing. It feels like a luxury before I do it, and a no-brainer once it’s done. It’s amazing the ways I get unstuck by simply stepping away from things for a few minutes.

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That’s it for today, mates. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, and that your weekend holds some sweet little pockets of slowness.

Brooke xx