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Toxic Positivity

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Shame Shields

Shame Shields

It can be easy to subconsciously overgeneralize an extreme reaction as a one-sizefits-all approach when faced with stressful situations. In other words, we learn to avoid processing the pain of shame and corresponding sense of unworthiness by galvanizing ourselves against it in a way that corresponds to our flight, freeze, and fight responses. For example, conflict can be tough to navigate for many of us. Assessment and reporting have the potential to cause conflict with students and parents, especially if a student is not meeting curricular expectations. When you know that your assessment will be met with aggression (such as an angry parent email or a student angrily confronting you in class), it might feel easier to avoid the conflict by elevating the mark. Unfortunately, this approach is one way of fleeing from the stress of potential conflict. Instead of being honest, ethical, and transparent, we’ve avoided the conflict altogether, exemplifying a flight response. In the context of trauma, PTSD is not considered a mental illness but rather a psychological injury (Carrington, 2020). What’s significant and hopeful about understanding PTSD as an injury and not an illness is that even if we suffer the effects of PTSD as a result of lived trauma, we have the capacity through hard work and rehabilitation to overcome the negative effects of our trauma. We do not have to be shackled to and limited by our traumatic experiences forever. It is possible to become resilient after trauma, and much of our ability to bounce forward comes from the narratives we create as we process painful experiences.

Although these protective mechanisms shield us from pain at the outset, they stop serving us in the long term (Wadsworth, 2015). It can be hard to take off the comfy sweatshirt (namely, our patterns of maladaptive emotional responses). This maladaptive emotional shield can prevent us from showing up as our full selves, resulting in a counterfeit representative of who we are.

Striving to develop a positive outlook and belief system should not eclipse or cause us to deny our inherent human emotions like grief, sadness, anger, shame, and disappointment. These emotions serve an important purpose in our self-expression as human beings, indicating when it is time to step back, observe ourselves with some authentic curiosity, and choose how we wish to proceed (Rodriguez, 2013).

The insistence that people should always aim to “see the bright side” of their struggle is called toxic positivity. Toxic positivity refers to a mindset that seeks out only positive thoughts and rejects the existence of negative emotions and experiences. “Toxic positivity can be described as insincere positivity that leads to

harm, needless suffering, or misunderstanding,” says psychiatrist Gayani DeSilva (Gillespie, 2020). Not only is it annoying to be faced with toxic positivity when you are truly going through a challenging time, but the effects of toxic positivity and the corresponding concealment of emotions have been proven to have a negative impact on overall mental well-being (Gross & Levenson, 1997).

Educators can experience toxic positivity within their peer-to-peer relationships. For example, imagine it’s your end-of-week physical education class and you are refereeing a spirited game of basketball. Suddenly, a scuffle breaks out between two players on the same team. You quickly rush to break it up. Suddenly, you feel the blow of a closed fist on your cheek and realize that one of the students has just accidentally punched you in the face. As you recount the situation to a colleague through tears after school, your colleague responds by saying, “At least your nose didn’t start bleeding—that would have been worse!” Minimizing difficult situations is toxic and decreases a person’s sense of feeling heard and understood.

Toxic positivity can show up in our teacher-administrator interactions, leaving us feeling disillusioned and frustrated. Imagine it’s the beginning of the year and you have a busy classroom, but you’ve managed the behavioral challenges well so far. The teacher next door also teaches the same grade as you but has been less successful with classroom management. Two new students at your grade level arrive at the school flagged by outside agencies as students with significant needs. Your administrator decides you should be the one to take on the two new students because of your experience, skills, and current success. You object, but your objection is met with “You can do hard things. I know you can do this! Thanks so much for helping me out with this one.” In this circumstance, it would be easy to feel as though you were being punished for your previous successes and even taken for granted. Validation and equity go a long way to feeling valued!

Sometimes teachers can demonstrate toxic positivity with their students even when they’re trying to be encouraging. Take, for instance, a teacher attempting to cajole a consistently struggling student by saying, “Look, all you have to do is just keep focusing. You’ll get this eventually. Just keep trying your best!” Though it’s a nice thought, it’s likely that the student’s inability to succeed at the task has less to do with his or her focus and more to do with brain-based learning and processing difficulties that are out of his or her control. An entirely different approach is probably needed, not simply a renewed injection of willpower and focus. There are times when encouragement does more to harm than help the student’s self-efficacy.

Suppressing emotions through toxic positivity can be more damaging than simply allowing ourselves to work through uncomfortable emotions as they arise.

Five Markers of Toxic Positivity (Quintero, n.d.)

1. Concealing your honest emotions or denying others the right to express theirs.

Example: Imagine that your friend and colleague was hired for a district position that you wanted, but you don’t allow yourself the opportunity to feel privately disappointed that you weren’t picked for the position. 2. Trying to move on before you’re ready, or expecting someone else to.

Example: A colleague apologizes for a rude comment he made to you during a class placement meeting and expects you to move on quickly after the apology. You’re still feeling hurt, but you try to ignore it and move on.

3. Minimizing someone’s lived experience or your own. When responding to someone’s bad-news story, starting with “At least . . .”

Example: Imagine you’ve had to make a call to Child Protective

Services because of a tough disclosure a child has made in your class. After doing so, you’re feeling saddened by the situation. Your administrator tries to make you feel better by saying, “At least you only had to make one of those calls this year, right?!” 4. Giving someone advice instead of validating her feelings. Brushing your own feelings aside and moving immediately to pragmatism.

Example: You’re venting to your spouse about a misunderstanding you’ve had with a student’s parent, which has left you feeling like you’ve got loose ends to tie up. It’s the weekend, so resolution is out of reach until Monday. Your spouse responds by telling you what you should have done differently in the first place and how you should approach the problem on Monday. 5. Making others feel badly about the feelings they have. Feeling ashamed of your own feelings.

Example: Imagine you’ve had a hard day with your class and you’re feeling overwhelmed. You share your feelings of overwhelm with a colleague, who responds by telling you that you really need to be less negative and simply “choose joy.”

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