Enjoy this week’s Smart Reads and post a comment if something moves you!
🎗 Awareness 🏡 Home 🗂 Productivity 🥗 Wellness 🧗 Growth 👨👩👧👧 Family
🥗 Do you know the power of the dark side? “We define toxic positivity as the excessive and ineffective overgeneralization of a happy, optimistic state across all situations. The process of toxic positivity results in the denial, minimization, and invalidation of the authentic human emotional experience.” Read Toxic Positivity: The Dark Side of Positive Vibes
🗂 You can love motherhood and be overwhelmed by it at the very same time. And that’s okay. “…more important than the irony of misguided feedback was that rather than changing my friend’s perception about her situation, it made it so much worse. It shamed her. It belittled and isolated her. And it hurt motherhood as a collective.” Read Toxic positivity doesn’t fix how much moms are burnt out—it only makes things worse
👨👩👧👦 How does toxic positivity affect your kids? “The problem with not sharing in age-appropriate ways your real feelings is that it sends children the wrong message that they need to pretend everything is OK, and they can’t handle the truth of life’s challenges or problematic days.” In Case You Need A Reminder, It’s More Than OK To Let Your Kid Feel Negative Emotions
🧗🏽♀️ Isn’t having a positive attitude all the time a good thing? “…toxic positivity says, “everything is fine” while a growth mindset asks, “where are the problems and how do we fix them?” Both can change your life: one for the better and one for the worse.” Read The Difference Between Growth Mindset and Toxic Positivity
🏡 If we knew the whole truth, we might risk extinction. “Before having kids, I knew a lot about parenting. I’d look at tantruming toddlers in grocery stores and scoff to my husband, “how can they LET their child scream like that? In public?” Read Toxic Positivity and What I Thought Having Kids Would Be Like (versus what it’s actually like)
🎗 What is the alternative to toxic positivity? “Much of our world is organized around trying to feel good all the time. If we don’t, this makes us feel like failures. We worry that we’re losing at the game of life, wasting time on feeling miserable.” Read 3 Ways Toxic Positivity Is Ruining Your Life
Time Blocking: How It Helps You Take Control of Your Time