The Quiet Violence of Toxic Positivity
By Temple Franklin — Mind Body Spirit Hygiene Tools
I was sitting across from a friend. Her mother had died three weeks earlier. She was cracked wide open, telling me she couldn't stop crying, that she felt lost, that some mornings she couldn't get out of bed. And a woman at the next table — a kind woman, a well-meaning woman — leaned over and said: "Everything happens for a reason, sweetie. She's in a better place. Try to focus on the good memories." My friend went quiet. The tears stopped. Not because she felt better. Because she felt erased.
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It sounds like love. It lands like erasure.
That's toxic positivity. It's the pressure to stay positive when you need to be real. It's the well-meaning voice that tells you your pain is inconvenient. And here's the part nobody talks about — we don't just receive it from others. We do it to ourselves. Every day. In the quietest voice. And it costs us more than we realize. Toxic positivity isn't kindness. It's the quiet violence of bypassing someone's truth.
10 phrases to recognize toxic positivity
These phrases come from a loving place. The person saying them genuinely wants you to feel better. But notice what they all have in common — they skip over the hard feeling instead of sitting with it. 1. "Everything happens for a reason." 2. "Just stay positive." 3. "It could be worse." 4. "Good vibes only." 5. "Look on the bright side." 6. "At least…" (anything that starts with 'at least') 7. "God doesn't give you more than you can handle." 8. "You'll look back on this and laugh." 9. "What's meant for you won't miss you." 10. "Be grateful — some people have it so much worse."
What it feels like to receive it
Unheard. Rushed. Small. Like your pain is an inconvenience to the other person's comfort. Like you have to shrink the truth of what you're feeling so the room around you can stay calm. Here's the deep wound: when someone meets your pain with a platitude, your nervous system reads it as "my feelings are not safe here." And over time — over years of these micro-moments — you stop telling people what's really going on. You start performing. You learn to say "I'm fine" with a smile you don't feel. That's not healing. That's hiding. A feeling doesn't need fixing. A feeling needs witnessing.
What it sounds like when we do it to ourselves
This is the part that changed my life when I finally saw it. We don't just catch toxic positivity from other people — we catch it from ourselves. It becomes the loudest voice in our own heads. Listen for these quiet self-sentences: • "I shouldn't feel this way — other people have it worse." • "I just need to get over it." • "What's wrong with me? I have so much to be grateful for." • "Stop being dramatic." • "I'll be fine. I'm always fine." • "I can't fall apart — I have too much to do." • "I should be stronger than this by now." Every one of those sentences is you, being unkind to yourself, dressed up as resilience. Gratitude used as a gag. Positivity used as a prison. And the cost? You lose access to your own truth. You lose the signal your body is trying to send you. You keep going, smiling, producing — while something underneath slowly erodes.
How 'I GET TO' is NOT toxic positivity
I want to be careful here — because 'I GET TO' could sound like 'just reframe your negative thoughts into positive ones.' That is NOT what this is. Toxic positivity skips the feeling. 'I GET TO' honors it AND widens the frame. Toxic positivity says: "Don't be sad about your mom. She's in a better place." 'I GET TO' says: "I am devastated. My mother is gone and nothing about that is okay. AND — I get to be the one who loved her. I get to carry her. I get to grieve, because grief is the receipt of love. Both are true." Do you feel the difference? One erases. One honors. One bypasses. One holds. 'I GET TO' is not a replacement for hard feelings. It is what you come to after you have fully felt them. It is a practice of agency, not avoidance. The pain gets witnessed FIRST. Then the reframe gives you somewhere to stand. You don't have to choose between feeling your feelings and reclaiming your agency. You get to do both.
The HYGIENE practice: 3 ways to replace toxic positivity
Just like dental hygiene — it's daily, it's small, it's non-negotiable. Here's what to practice instead, whether you're talking to yourself or to someone you love. 1. Replace 'at least' with 'and also.' Instead of "At least you have another chance," try "This is a real loss. And also, you're still here." 'And also' holds both truths at once. 2. Replace 'you should' with 'what do you need?' Instead of "You should try to stay positive," try "What do you need right now — to be heard, or to be helped?" 3. Replace 'don't worry' with 'I'm here.' Sometimes the most powerful sentence in the world is three words long — and none of them are about fixing. When you do this with yourself, it sounds like: "I am allowed to be scared. I am allowed to be angry. I am allowed to grieve. And I GET TO choose what I do with it next." That's the shift. Not from negative to positive. From bypassing to honoring. From hiding to holding. From silent to sovereign. You are not a problem to be fixed. You are a person to be witnessed — first by yourself, and then by the world. That's not toxic positivity. That's mind, body, spirit HYGIENE.
You GET TO feel it all. That is not weakness. That is hygiene. If this landed for you, I built the Emergency Calm Kit ($11) for exactly these moments — 20 printable cards with grounding techniques, breathing exercises, and emergency affirmations. Real tools for real women in the messy middle. With love — Temple.
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