When you are going through a difficult time and are doing the best you can to move forward, what is the first emotion you feel when someone tells you to silence your feelings and says “good vibes only,” or “no negativity is allowed here”? You will not only feel invalidated, but you will feel even more negatively about your situation. You will then fear talking about your emotions and keep them inside.
Platitudes such as those two are known as toxic positivity, and not only is it dangerous for your wellbeing and the wellbeing of others, but it will have a harmful impact on your manifestation intentions.
What Is Toxic Positivity?
Toxic positivity is a view that people must always have a positive mindset, no matter how difficult or devastating a situation is. That may sound counterintuitive since the idea is that you want to have an optimistic mind frame and belief when you are actively working at manifesting something. However, here is the thing. It is not realistic to be positive all of the time, especially in the face of grief and formidable challenges.
Feeling and expressing negative emotions such as sadness, frustration, anger, and envy is not only part of the human experience but essential for you to allow them to process. But, unfortunately, there is no allowance and tolerance for those human emotions when it comes to toxic positivity.
Instead, the expectation is to be cheerful, positive, optimistic, and happy, no matter what – which means those positive emotions are fake and, therefore, a lot more harmful than any negative emotion can be. If you guessed that engaging in toxic positivity will create a blockage and harm your manifestation intentions, you are correct. Let’s talk about that more!
How Does It Interfere With Manifestation?
You know that when you intend to bring a dream into reality, you have to have the firm belief that you can manifest what you want. Then, you have to take the appropriate action to go after it too and be open to a different outcome if that is what is meant to happen. Either way, you genuinely believe the very thing you manifest will come to fruition regardless of how it plays out.
When you are in the process of manifesting what you want, you stay in a cautiously optimistic mindset where you know you can achieve it, but you are realistic about it too. You will not allow any pessimistic thoughts or beliefs to get in the way. However, that does not mean you will not experience frustration and negative emotions along the way. The trick is to allow it to process by expressing it, acknowledging it, and letting it pass so you can go back to manifesting what you want.
The best thing that can happen for you is to vent your frustrations to someone who can support you and redirect you to your optimistic mindset. Therefore, the best thing is to talk about your frustrations to someone who will validate your feelings and help you to manifest what you want.
However, suppose you vent your frustrations to someone who dishes out toxic positive platitudes by telling you “get over it,” or “it can always be worse,” or “no negative vibes allowed.” In that case, you will suppress those human emotions. What happens when you suppress those feelings and put on a facade of being positive instead?
They fester inside of you and will get in the way of your beliefs that you will manifest what you want. Before you know it, you will tell yourself toxic positive platitudes each time you have a negative thought. Then, you will refuse to acknowledge it and allow it to be processed.
That means since you are expected to put on the facade of being overly optimistic while holding in those negative emotions, you will stop manifesting for what you want because you don’t believe it will work out. You can also end up attracting what you don’t want instead. That is how toxic positivity is truly poisonous when you intend to manifest anything you want. Let’s go over a scenario of how toxic positivity ruined someone’s chances at manifesting what they wanted.
A Scenario Of How It Affected Someone’s Manifestation
A clerical worker named John no longer wanted to work at the office where he was working because he did not feel like the work environment was ideal for him. However, he also wanted to find a job that paid him better, and he knew that job was out there.
Therefore, John set the intention of manifesting a position that would be a much better fit for him. He hired a professional resume writer to polish his resume, wrote up a professional cover letter, and went on different job boards such as Indeed. He found many potential job opportunities, and he knew one of those was the right one for him.
Some employers liked his cover letter and resume and invited John for an interview. He had several interviews within the week, and he was excited that he was getting closer to leaving the office job he no longer liked. However, John discovered that one of the employers that interviewed him hired someone else who was more qualified than he was. John was understandably disappointed because he wanted this job but knew that other options were there. However, when he expressed his frustrations over not getting that job to his mother, his mother told him to be thankful he had a job and get over his disappointment.
John’s mother dished him toxic positive platitudes that caused him to feel invalidated and made him fearful of expressing his true feelings to anyone. Unfortunately, John told himself to stop feeling disappointed and only to think happy thoughts. That caused him to internalize all of his genuine emotions.
That caused John to no longer believe he was qualified to work at any other job than he is now. Not only did that cause John to do terrible job interviews, but he no longer looked for more jobs. Instead, he resigned to stay at the office job he disliked, all because he allowed toxic positivity to get in the way of manifesting a better job.
If John’s mother had been more supportive and validated his feelings, he would have been able to keep manifesting that dream job. However, unfortunately, that was not the case. If you happen to be in John’s position where you are disappointed over something you are attempting to manifest, don’t allow anyone to stifle and invalidate your emotions. You need to acknowledge, honor, and release any negative emotion to focus on the prize you are working on bringing to reality.
