Are you wondering how positivity can be toxic? Take a seat as I explain with a personal story.

Few months ago I had this not so great job in Network Marketing where I had to go out and talk to people on a daily basis. Talking to people isn’t easy, most times you get rejected even before you speak. At my job, we had meetings everyday, morning and evenings to motivate us to keep pushing. 

Here’s the thing, we weren’t allowed to feel negative, unmotivated, stressed, tired, overworked or underappreciated for the work we put in. Everyday, our leaders preached Stay positive, they read books to us, gave us audio tapes to listen to and videos to watch. At some point, nothing was working for me. I was tired and nothing was motivating me anymore.

While I was on surfing the net one day, I came across the phrase Toxic Positivity. I checked out the meaning and hello world!, it described exactly how I was feeling with work. I didn’t want to be the negative one to bring up the discussion at work so for the sake of my mental and physical health, I quit.

With this personal experience, you can denote what toxic positivity is. To crown it all;

• When you are in an obvious state of tiredness, stress and weakness but you keep telling yourself to stay positive. 
• When you are unmotivated because of countless rejections, no recent successes but you keep telling yourself positivity is the way.
• When you do not admit to being fed up and tired but keep saying “I am going to stay positive”

All these are signs of toxic positivity. I am not saying, you shouldn’t be positive. What I Am saying is, there are certain times when admitting things aren’t working and breaking down or crying will make you feel better than when you keep dusting your shoes with “I am going to stay positive”. Certain situations will never get better irrespective of how positive you stay. So, no when to just stop and breathe or take a break from it all.