Key Takeaways
• Positivity turns into avoidance without emotional responsibility. ||| • Avoided emotions linger in our bodies. ||| • Loss of authentic contact with constant positivity. ||| • Apologies disguised with positivity create unresolved tension.
When Positivity Cease to Support
Positive thinking can be used as an aid to stay hopeful and resilient; however, problems arise when positivity becomes used not for supporting experience but as an escape mechanism – in these moments optimism becomes an avoidance strategy and difficult emotions are quickly reframed, minimized, or replaced with words which sound constructive but disconnect with what actually lies before us.
Emotional Responsibility Vs Emotional Avoidance
Emotional responsibility does not equate with controlling feelings and remaining calm at any cost; rather, it means acknowledging what feelings arise and their impact on decisions and relationships. When responsibility is removed from the equation, positivity often turns into avoidance: rather than saying things like, “this hurts,” “this feels overwhelming” etc… instead phrases such as, “Everything happens for a reason” or “it isn’t all that bad” become common responses — meaning the experience itself was avoided rather than integrated fully.
Reducing Negative Emotions in Schools and Offices
Many have been taught to believe that negative emotions are signs of weakness or immaturity, leading them to choose positivity as an emotionally distant way to maintain harmony or self-image and avoid conflict or upset. From a Gestalt viewpoint, however, this prevents contact being established because whatever cannot enter awareness cannot be completed successfully.
Negativity as an Antidote for Impact
After having caused harm, one method of avoidance involves turning toward positivity as an attempt at reconciliation. Apologies may be replaced with positive-sounding phrases; responsibility softened through assurance; instead of acknowledging impact and shifting attention toward future optimism instead – creating unresolved relational tension which must eventually be acknowledged and dealt with responsibly; emotional responsibility requires staying with discomfort long enough to identify how actions affect others rather than simply reframing it away with reframing strategies.
At What Cost to Our Bodies and Nervous Systems?
Avoided emotions do not vanish from our bodies: they remain active within them. Constant positivity often coexists with tension, fatigue or emotional numbness as unfinished experiences persist within. Gestalt work emphasizes bodily awareness as essential; when positivity blocks emotional expression through words alone, our body takes up any burden that cannot be expressed verbally.
Loss of Authentic Contact
Relationships suffer when positivity takes the place of truthfulness in communication, leaving others aware of an emotional gap even though words seem encouraging; this creates dissonance and distance in interpersonal relations. For true contact to exist between internal experience and external expression – when positivity overrides truthiness it leads to superficial relationships, where only superficial assurances are offered instead of true presence.
Reclaiming Responsibility through Awareness.
Emotional responsibility begins by slowing down and acknowledging what’s truly present, including discomfort, ambivalence or emotions that don’t fit an easily understandable narrative. Recognizing these experiences doesn’t lead to negativity but integration; awareness restores choice. Once feelings have been acknowledged responses become more grounded and less reactive.
Positivity that Includes Truth
Positivity finds its support when used alongside emotional honesty; hope becomes meaningful when founded upon contact with reality; optimism that embraces responsibility allows both difficulty and possibility to coexist; this restores wholeness – what is faced can finally move, while that which is avoided remains trapped.
