It's Okay To Not Be Okay

Emotional Intelligence
It’s Okay to Not

by Vasundhara Sawhney
Be Okay
November 10, 2020
solarseven/Getty Images
Summary. Toxic positivity is the assumption that despite a person’s emotional

pain and turmoil, they should only have a positive mindset.
When we pretend that emotional pain doesn’t exist, we send a message to our
brain that whatever the emotion is, it is in some way bad or dangerous. If our
brain believes we are in a dangerous situation, our body will respond as such.
By overdoing positive affirmations, we may be invalidating our or others’ feelings
and harming them when they are already in a vulnerable state.
The best way to deal with negative emotions is to let yourself feel the emotions
you’re feeling and let them pass, not push them under the rug. close
Job and life advice for young professionals. See more from Ascend here.
It was a regular weekday back in August. By this time, my family and

I had somewhat gotten used to working from home, but things still
didn’t seem “settled.” We were struggling with managing meals,
work, online schooling, keeping the kid busy indoors, and our own
emotional well-beings. As if this wasn’t enough, I got a call from my
mother breaking the news that both of my parents had tested positive
for Covid.
My mother seemed undisturbed as she explained the situation. I
sensed that, rather than talking to me about her feelings, she was
trying to console me. We live 400 miles away from each other. The
lockdown was still in place and I couldn’t have reached them if I tried.
She hung up, saying, “It will all be well. Don’t worry.”
My world had just collapsed. My father has underlying health
conditions and, with both of them being ill, I did worry. How would
they get the care they needed to recover? How could I not feel
despair? I spent the day reaching out to relatives in their area and
making frantic calls to friends who wouldn’t mind listening to my
deepest anxieties. I was met with pep talks and positive affirmations:
“Just try to put positive energy into the world.”
“Focus on the good things in your life.”
“It could be so much worse — be grateful.”
“This too shall pass.”
One response stood out: “It’s okay to feel this way right now. It’s your
parents.”
When I heard that, I could finally take a breath. I needed to know that
it was okay to feel how I was feeling in the moment — rather than
bury my emotions and pretend they didn’t exist.
It took my folks 28 days to test negative. I was mentally, physically,
and emotionally drained. And still, the only person I didn’t hide my
true state from was the friend who didn’t see my negative emotions as
inherently bad. With everyone else, I put up a poker face and said I
was doing fine.
One night while trying to clear my mind with some brainless Netflix
scanning, I came across a Korean drama, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay.
The title brought me back to those stressful weeks — all that
pretending. Why was everyone trying to hand me a lollipop when all I
wanted was a cup of chamomile tea? What is with all these “sending
sunshine your way” and “positive vibes only” messages?
I Googled it.
That’s when I came across the term toxic positivity. Dr. Jaime
Zuckerman, a licensed clinical psychologist and trained cognitive
behavior therapist, describes it as, “the assumption, either by one’s
self or others, that despite a person’s emotional pain or difficult
situation, they should only have a positive mindset or — my pet peeve
term — ‘positive vibes.’”
Dr. Zuckerman is currently in private practice outside
Philadelphia. She specializes in the treatment of adults with mood
disorders and anxiety. She helps her patients develop healthy
boundaries in their relationships and focuses heavily on the negative
impact toxic positivity has on patients’ lives, particularly since the
onset of Covid. She highlighted some interesting facts about toxic
positivity and how we must let ourselves and others feel the emotions
we’re feeling in the moment. I reached out to her to learn more about
toxic positivity and why it’s bad.
Here is what I learned.
Toxic positivity
but also notsecondary
increases only invalidates your emotional state,
emotions.
According to Dr Zuckerman, “The inherent problem with this concept
is that we assume that if a person is not in a positive mood (or
whatever we think a positive person should look or act like), then
they are somehow wrong, bad, or inadequate. The problem is that,
when we invalidate someone else’s emotional state — or in this case,
when we tell someone that feeling sad, angry, or any emotion that we
consider ‘negative’ is bad — we end up eliciting secondary emotions
inside of them like shame, guilt, and embarrassment.”
In so many words, we are saying to them that they should feel
ashamed of being sad or that they should feel embarrassed for being
afraid. “Efforts to avoid, ignore or suppress emotions that are
appropriate to context can isolate someone in their time of need,
thereby perpetuating the stigma that mental health issues equate to
weak-mindedness,” Dr. Zuckerman explained.
It really is OKAY to not be okay.
“Not only is it okay to not feel ‘okay,’ it is essential. An abnormal
emotional response to an abnormal situation IS normal. We cannot
simply pick the emotions we want to have. It just does not work that
way,” Dr. Zuckerman said. So feeling sad and scared about my parents
after they contracted Covid was normal. Crying after you get into a
fight with your partner is also normal, as is feeling anxious and scared
about an uncertain future. When we think we might lose something
we care about, that’s sad. When we don’t know what to expect next,
that’s scary. We should let ourselves, and other people in our lives,
feel these things as they come up — which may be more than usual
right now.
Dr. Zuckerman noted, “Allowing yourself not to feel ok involves
accepting all feelings, thoughts, or sensations, and sitting with them
until they pass. If you try to avoid, suppress, or ignore them, they will
only grow stronger and leave you overwhelmed and believing that
you cannot cope.”
Remember that no emotion is permanent. Anger and sadness, just
like happiness and joy, come and go. We need to let ourselves
experience painful feelings if we ever want to truly let them pass
through us.
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By hiding your discomfort, you’re only adding fuel to fire.

“The more we avoid internal discomfort, the more isolated we can
become, the more anxious we can get, and the more depressed we can
feel,” Dr. Zuckerman told me. We need to not only feel, but also
acknowledge our legitimate emotional responses to situations. Efforts
to avoid or ignore them can isolate us during times of need and
perpetuate the stigma that mental health issues equate to weak-
mindedness.
“When we pretend that emotional pain doesn’t exist,” she explained,
“we send a message to our brain that whatever the emotion is, it is in
some way bad or dangerous. If our brain believes we are in a
dangerous situation, our body will respond as such. For example, we
may experience rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing, and a natural
need to unnecessarily avoid the misperceived dangerous situation.
When we avoid any kind of emotional discomfort, even physical pain,
we end up unintentionally making those feelings larger, louder, and
more overwhelming. If you don’t confront or process emotions in an
effective and timely manner, the science shows that it can lead to a
myriad of psychological difficulties including disrupted sleep,
increased substance abuse, risk of an acute stress response, anxiety,
depression, and even post traumatic stress disorder.”
There is a better way to address emotions.
If you’re still not convinced that being too positive can be toxic,
consider its impact on the people you care about (including yourself):
You may feel you’re being supportive by sending positive affirmations
to a friend who is going through a difficult time, but in reality, you
may be invalidating their feelings and harming them when they are
already in a vulnerable state. Your positive affirmations create the
idea that your friend is in some way incapable of handling their
feelings. You may also be unintentionally gaslighting them by
signaling that there isn’t really a problem at hand. Toxic positivity
tasks the person in need with faking an emotional response that is
totally disproportionate to what they are actually experiencing.
When you’re lending an ear to someone in distress, have a positive
mindset, but offer them a pep talk unless they ask for it. Dr.
Zuckerman suggests avoiding phrases like:
Positive vibes only!
It could be worse.
Just smile, stop worrying!
What’s there to cry about? It’ll be fine.
You have so much going for you; how can you be upset?
Get over it.
Instead, she suggests using phrases that affirm the other persons
feelings and lets them know you are here to support them without
expectation:
It is okay to not feel okay right now.
You should feel whatever emotions you want to feel.
Take your time. I am with you and I’m listening.
You’re allowed to feel this way. Your feelings are valid.
Feel your feelings. Sit with them. Let them pass. And let others ride
the wave of whatever emotions they’re feeling too. It’s okay.
Vasundhara Sawhney is a senior editor at

Harvard Business Review.

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Emotional Intelligence

It’s Okay to Not

Summary. Toxic positivity is the assumption that despite a person’s emotional

It was a regular weekday back in August. By this time, my family and

By hiding your discomfort, you’re only adding fuel to fire.

Vasundhara Sawhney is a senior editor at

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