There's something sneaky hurting us, and it's pretending to be good. It's not sadness, but a fake kind of happy. It's everywhere, especially online, and it's called toxic positivity.
Think of those super cheerful posts and those quotes that sound nice but don't really help. "Always be positive!" or "Everything happens for a reason!" They seem okay, but they can actually make things worse.
Toxic positivity means thinking you always have to be happy, no matter what. If you're sad, people might say you're weak. If you complain, you're negative. If you're hurting, it's like it's your fault for not being positive enough. This makes people hide their real feelings and pretend everything's great.
Things like "self-love" and "mindfulness" are supposed to be helpful. But now, they're twisted. Self-love isn't about being kind to yourself, it's about making excuses for being lazy or avoiding problems. Mindfulness and meditation should help you understand your feelings, but they're now used to shut them down. Like, if you're sad, just meditate! But those feelings don't just go away. They build up and can explode later.
The worst part is, this all sounds reasonable. It's wrapped up in nice words by people who seem like they know what they're talking about. But a lot of them are fooling themselves too.
Online, everyone's talking about "healing journeys" and how they've found "inner peace." It looks great, but it's not the whole story. Healing isn't easy. Nobody's happy all the time. You can't just meditate a few times and erase all your problems. But online, it looks like you can. They make healing seem like something you can buy, and if you're still struggling, you feel like something's wrong with you.
Even worse, people use "healing" as an excuse to avoid problems. Instead of fixing things, they say "I'm healing." Instead of talking things out, they call everything "negative energy" and walk away. They pretend life is always easy and nice.
But that's not healing. It's lying to yourself. Toxic positivity teaches us that only happiness is good. So, everyone tries to hide the bad stuff. But then, we become weak. We can't handle stress. We don't know how to deal with real pain. We grow up thinking we can just quit anything that makes us uncomfortable. We become runners, running so far we can't even find ourselves.
Life isn't always easy. Sometimes, things are really hard. If you don't know how to deal with tough times, you'll fall apart.
So, what's the truth?
The truth is: Nobody's okay all the time. And that's fine.
The truth is: Pain isn't something to get rid of, it's something to understand.
The truth is: You grow by facing hard things, not avoiding them.
Self-love isn't about being lazy, it's about being strong enough to face your fears.
Mindfulness isn't about ignoring bad feelings, it's about looking at them without running away.
Healing isn't about escaping pain, it's about learning to live with it.
Life isn't a perfect loop of happy thoughts and good vibes. It's messy, unpredictable, and sometimes really mean. Things will go wrong, you'll get hurt, and it'll feel like the world's against you. Growing up isn't about pretending to be positive all the time. It's about learning to be strong even when things are tough, learning to accept the bad times without letting them destroy you. It's knowing life isn't perfect, but choosing to live it anyway – without pretending, without guarantees, but with clear eyes and a brave heart.
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