What happens when our positive vibrations come at the expense of the full range of the human experience? Mik and Jenn talk about toxic positivity in this episode and how repressing negative emotions can actually hinder our growth. They also explore some of the biggest culprits of toxic positivity, and you may be shocked to see yourself as the villain.
Some things we talked about in this episode:
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What happens when our positive vibrations come at the expense of the full range of the human experience? Mik and Jenn talk about toxic positivity in this episode and how repressing negative emotions can actually hinder our growth. They also explore some of the biggest culprits of toxic positivity, and you may be shocked to see yourself as the villain.
Some things we talked about in this episode:
Join our Patreon community for more exclusive content.
Click here to join our mailing list, support our Patreon, or check out our merch store.
You are now listening to Chakras and Shotguns.
Jenn:Welcome to Chakras and Shotguns Episode 43. I'm Jenn...
Mik :...and I'm Mik welcome back. So what's on your mind?
Jenn:This week's been a little bit of a whirlwind like work has been busy, we got a lot of projects going on. Actually, funny that I mentioned work in my head. Also earlier this week...well, let me back up. Earlier this past year, I decided, after talking to my therapist that I was trying to consistently give 100% at work and just like be the best employee, like that's just how I show up even whether or not I'm like, super interested in the project or not. And my therapist was kind of like, I think your 100% is probably somebody else's, like 125 150. So why don't you like scale that back a little bit. And I think I took it down, I like actively decided to take my effort back to like 40% Like, I'm not, I'm not not answering emails, but I'm not trying to answer emails within 10 minutes, I get everything done, everything is done on time. But I like took that pressure off of myself, and had my performance appraisal, and still got like the next the highest rating that you could get the highest rating being like you had to save the company like $100 million. So like nobody gets that rating. So basically, I got the highest rating. And I was just laughing at myself, because where would I have been on the other side of that, like, Where would I have been this week, if I was still giving 100 125% to this job. And with and I would have ended up with the same rating. But I probably would have had more gray hair, my back would have been hurting my feet would have been hurt. And I would have been Biden mix head off and all of that. And like now I have like all of these projects we watched and all of these different things that we're working on, I stopped work at five to go pick up the kids like, I feel a lot more ownership over my day. And I'm happier for it. And it ended up being a wash from the company's perspective anyway, like they have no idea. They're just like she's doing great. So I say all of that to say evaluate how much you're giving into your job, if that's what you want to do, and then do it. But
Mik :yeah, I think a big help with that has been the work from home aspect of things.
Jenn:Absolutely.
Mik :So like not having to be in the office like for these mandatory hours, many of which you probably weren't being as productive, as you know, the certain hours when you have things that really need to get done, right. Like you don't have 40 hours of work that you have to do every week, right? And so, so you're being more efficient with your time. I think you work when you have to and we don't you turn it off and go do other things that are personally or professionally like outside of the job professionally enriching for you. So
Jenn:But also over the weekend, it was Easter. We're gonna be a little behind by the time you guys hear this, but we got together with some friends, we ate crawfish. We let the girls get dressed up. We hunted for Easter eggs. So that was a lot of fun. That was a good kickoff to a whirlwind of a week.
Mik :Yeah, so kind of a Chakras and Shotguns connection with Easter. There's actually this meme that was going around about Easter and I'm sure a lot of our listeners may have saw this. Basically, it was talking about how like where the bunny and the eggs kind of come from in connection with Easter. And so basically the meme was like the bunny and the eggs. They come from this Assyrian and Babylonian goddess named Ishtar. And she according to the meme was associated with fertility and sex. And you know, I kind of got fooled by and I'm thinking oh, maybe that that sounds like it's plausible, but part of me was like, let me go do some research. And I'm gonna go look into it. And there was actually this whole article, I think is from American Scientific was the publication and they broke down, specifically that meme and like, where things were incorrect. And so, in actuality, Easter comes from a German goddess. She's the goddess of the dawn name, Eostre E O S, T R e is how you pronounce that and Yeah, the goddess Ishtar actually has nothing really to do with fertility. So that was kind of a complete mischaracterization I'd say
Jenn:What's funny is when we were talking about it. I thought about American Gods season one I watched it was on Showtime. No, it was on Starz, I always get Showtime and Starz mixed up. I think it was on stars is based off a book. I remember that I stopped watching it because I kind of felt that it was blasphemous a little bit, but then like, so that was years ago, like before our spiritual awakening and as being on the spiritual journey together. But since then, it's made me reexamine the show, I might actually circle back and re watch it again. It so if if you're not familiar with the show, the show is basically about this character, and he meets gods like he meets Greek gods, Norse gods like I think Odin is like one of the main characters. And so you see different gods and goddesses and deities, like Jesus pops up, and there's different iterations of Jesus. And then there's like, the new American guides, which are media and technology. And so anyways, there's conflict there, blah, blah, blah. But it's, it's, it's a pretty good show. There was an episode for Easter, and Kristin Chenoweth, who was in Wicked, she played Glinda, the Good Witch. And she's like big on Broadway. She plays the goddess Easter. And she has this big Easter party, and there's bunnies everywhere, and they're laying eggs. And then like, all of the different Jesus's are there. Like, there's like a Mexican Jesus, like, there's Je-sus. And so like, You got different shades of Jesus, like how people think of Jesus. And so that was really interesting to me. So when Mik started telling me about Ishtar, I was like, Oh, that was Chris and Shannon was character. And then I looked it up. And then we realized, oh, this meme this mem might be wrong.
Mik :Yeah, so I guess thinking more more about it. Even as we were having that conversation. Something came up there, like I didn't even know. And it surprised me and a little bit embarrassed because I've been celebrating Easter for so long. But I really had no clue how Easter was determined, did you?
Jenn:Not really, I just knew it wasn't consistent.
Mik :So apparently, it's I Googled this...anybody can look this up, it's always the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox. And so you know, I know, as Christianity was spreading throughout the world, they would incorporate, like existing pagan holidays into certain Christian celebrations so that like the local populations would still be able to kind of have their festival that they were used to, and then kind of as time will go on, like, the old traditions will kind of fade and more of the Christian traditions would come into play. So, you know, I see I'm know, why that exists. But it's just like, still, I didn't realize to this day, we were still utilizing like the full moon to calculate when Easter Sunday would fall. So
Jenn:Yeah, that's interesting to me for two reasons. One, a lot of times in the church, they'll consider astrology as other. But like, the determination of the moment, like the moment that you have to believe in to be a Christian is determined based off, like, what's going on with the moon, and, like the equinox like it, that's a very astrological type of event that you tie that to, which is really interesting. Second, I would not be upset if you sign up to be a Christian, whether that's the way you were, you were brought up, or, you know, you found Christianity as an adult. And they were like, Hey, these are our holidays. Okay. But we these are observations of these events. I think that one I think a lot of people don't know. And to the people who do know, decide that they don't really want to get into all of that. And it's just easier if they tell you. This is what you're supposed to believe. But there's something not fully transparent about that, that irks me a little bit is that Jesus was born on December 25. Well, we know that's not true. And then it's like, okay, Jesus died on this Friday. And, but it's happened around all over the year, every year. And so it's like, okay, well, Jesus died on this Friday. And then he rose again on Sunday. And but what it really was was that they wanted to celebrate that it and they wanted to kind of convince the pagans to do it too. It's just, I don't know, it just, I just wish it was like, Hey, this is what we this is the day that we observe this happening. And this is what we're going to celebrate. It just sometimes it can kind of feel like they're taking advantage of people's naivete, or if they're children I don't know, I don't want to get too dark into it and just be like my, my meh meh meh on Christianity. But, you know, we observe these things and not know what the true meaning is behind them. Like circling back to American Gods. I was like, I don't know how I feel about this show. I think I tried to get you to watch it. And you were like, I don't really know how I feel about that either. Yeah, but then I took a step back. And I was like, America is a very aggressively Christian country, right? We see what's going on now with all of these laws that conservatives are trying to pass. But nobody ever has a problem with us learning about Greek and Roman gods. That's never an issue. Ever, ever. Why is that? Is it because they're white? Is that okay? Yeah, it Oh, all of a sudden it becomes mythology. Yeah. And so if I can learn about this in a mythology type of context, why can I not learn about African gods, Egyptian gods and goddesses, that's not really on the table, we don't really learn about indigenous deities either. And so it's just this kind of like, cherry picking what's appropriate, and what's not appropriate. And then you start really digging is trying to investigate on your own and learn, and you discover things like the legend of Easter, this goddess, or, you know, of Tik Tok as a black hole. I'm not even gonna get into all of that. But like, you start digging more into the history of Christianity. And then like, Christianity wasn't really a thing until almost 100 years after Jesus died. And so like having that context is really helpful. But then it makes you like, ask more questions, which sometimes Christians don't like for you to ask too many questions. And so it's just an interesting kind of thought exercise that I find myself on all the time now.
Mik :Cool, well, do you want to jump into some breath work?
Jenn:Let's get into it. Okay, so, ya'll know, my breath work is always me trying to work through something that I need to work through on my own, but I'm gonna do it with you. So like I said, this week has been kind of crazy. And just my energy is poured into a lot of different buckets, you know, kids and husband and home and businesses and the podcast and self care even. And there's so many areas that I'm giving myself too. And I wanted to do this exercise that I learned from a healer named Marcy Baron, who hopefully will have on the show, I don't want to tell you anything about what that's going to be, but it's very exciting. And I thought it was a really, really cool way to pull your energy back into yourself. So let's get into it. We're going to take three cleansing breaths together. Start by taking a big inhale in through your nose. Expanding your belly and then exhale that out through your mouth. Let's do that one more time together. Inhale in through your nose. Sitting up a little straighter. releasing any tension that's in your body. And I want you to further relax as you exhale that breath out through your mouth. Last one, inhale in through your nose. Can you sit up even a little bit straighter. rolling your shoulders up to your ears and your shoulder blades down your bank maybe moving your neck from side to side. And this time we're gonna exhale out through our nose hopefully you're in a comfortable seat you can be laying down I want you to visualize All of the things that you may be giving your energy to. It can be work, friends, obligations, family, the things that you're worrying about or anything that requires mental labor from you. You can be conflicts that you're currently in. It can be past conflicts past trauma. And I want you to imagine each of those things in front of you. And let's put them each in different buckets and attach to each bucket, there's a handle, and attached to that handle is a fishhook. And on that fish, her given line that's coming back to you. So one by one, as you go to each bucket, I want you to imagine yourself on hooking that fish hook and letting that line come back to you unencumbered. One by one, we're pulling off the things that we're holding to, that we're worrying about, even when we don't think we're thinking about that thing. We're not worried about that person right now. But somehow your energy is still attached. And this doesn't mean that you're going to lose your connection with that person. You're just freeing yourself and freeing your energy from doing any labor, that's not really required right now. And as all of those lines come back to you, I want you to imagine your aura or an outline of your body now beginning to increase in golden light. So as each line of energy comes back to you, you start to glow and glow, and glow. Feel free to express gratitude to your energy to your whole self in gratitude for the energy that you have that you share with others All right,
Mik :Thanks, Jenn. I can relate to that. And a lot of ways it's having energy spread out so many different places. I've talked about the different businesses I have as well. Also working on the shows a lot that's gonna really get into that pull the my energy back in.
Jenn:It's kind of like, on your computer when you have processes going on in the background. And you're like, my computer's going slow. But I got open is word but you gotta hold and you hit Ctrl Alt Delete into that task manager.
Mik :I think about my phone like when you have all the apps in the background when the battery go down, go down faster. Yes, I think that's the perfect analogy right, your your phone batteries, the more apps you have open in the background, the faster it drains.
Jenn:So there you go. All right, let's get into our main topic. It is something that we've been wanting to talk about for a while. And then it came up in Episode 40 with Dr. Adia, and then it came up again, from one of our lovely listeners shout out to Lady P you know who you are. So before we could get another nudge from the universe, we decided to put this topic in the queue. Without further ado, we are talking today about toxic positivity. I feel like it's another one of those topics that gets thrown around in social media snippets, like you'll see a clip or a tic tac or whatever. But we're diving deep into it today.
Mik :Yeah, so let's start off first with a definition of what toxic positivity is. So one definition would be the excessive and ineffective over generalization of a happy, optimistic state across all situations, resulting in the denial, minimization and invalidation of the authentic human emotional experience. So I think for me, as someone who I've been characterized a lot as being an optimist from a lot of my friends, I was a little nervous when I was like hearing more about toxic positivity because I feel like I could borderline on some of that in certain situations. And so when I read this definition that I think the second part is what's most crucial. It's okay to be happy, and it's okay to be optimistic, you know, we all should try to be, but you have to really understand if you're doing it to the detriment of your other emotions. Are you denying how you feel because it may not be all good vibes?
Jenn:Let's get into some examples. So we can really see toxic positivity at work. Some examples of what this could look like hiding painful emotions, ignoring your problems, which could also include like ignoring your bills, reciting positive quotes about hard situations, experiencing guilt for being sad or angry. And this is an interesting one, because it's how we interact with others, diminishing other people's difficult feelings. Now, I can see the counterargument to some of these signs. For instance, when I felt that I was getting passed over for promotion at work once I I was coming home fussing and cussing to make like every day, like, errday, but when someone would ask me about it at work, I would give them well, you know, we'll just wait and see, I don't know what they're doing. Because I wasn't gonna be like, Yeah, this is bullshit. I was trying to be a professional and those, those were people who were my, my work friends, but they weren't people who I was comfortable being vulnerable with in that setting. Like, it didn't make sense for me to be vulnerable about like, no, like, yeah, I am working my ass off and they don't see it didn't, it wasn't appropriate. So there's also like a caveat of, are you it's okay to not display all of your emotions to people that you're not comfortable being vulnerable with, but like if I was coming home, and Mik was like, well, your boss left, so are you gonna get his job? And I was just like, Well, we'll see. It'll be fine. And Mik looking at me. Like, I know, you may because I burnt up in his work, too. It's okay. I'm part of the team. He probably be like some snacks like something's not right.
Mik :So what's funny is, you're reading this definition. And he's examples of toxic positivity. And it made me a little worried because I feel like one of my favorite songs might be a toxic positivity, Anthem, whatever it was. So back in the day, the Big Tymer's song Still Fly was one of my jams. Now do you remember the chorus? Can't pay my rent, cus all my money's spent, but that's okay cus I'm still fly.
Jenn:Got a quarter tank of gas in my new E class
Mik :but that's alright, cus I'm gonna ride.
Jenn:That's a tricky one. That's a tricky one. He is acknowledging that all of his money is gone. He's not ignoring that. Okay? He is reframing, which we'll get into that he's still gonna get these looks off though. You know,
Mik :okay. Okay. Just making sure. This is a tricky line. You know, he said
Jenn:he had a quarter tank of gas and his new E Class, but that's alright, because I'm going right because guess what, a quarter tank of gas stills gonna get you where you need to go to an extent. Okay. Okay. But then he say he got everything in my mama name is. I'll say this. I'll say this about about that song. He does not sound like he's a good custodian of resources. All right. All right. You know, money is imaginary. All of that. Let's be a good custodian of our resources.
Mik :No, but on a serious note, I think we talked a little bit about, like, needing to be vulnerable and vulnerability, and especially when it comes to like with your partner. And I think a lot about just the concept of vulnerability and men and how that relates to masculinity. And I know you and I talk a lot about toxic masculinity, what that is and what that isn't. We've also talked about kind of creating safe spaces for men to be vulnerable about their feelings, and how oftentimes, negative emotion is really limited for men like they can really only display anger. I think a lot of times men will will often like shield their negative emotions to kind of keep up this facade of being like the man that has it all together, right the man with the plan nothing fazes me, cool as a cucumber under pressure. So I just, you know, I kind of want to reiterate that it's really important and healthy for men to find spaces where they can be vulnerable. Maybe that is with a partner, maybe that's where the therapist, maybe that friends. I'm actually working on a project right now, that's really all about kind of creating that space. So it's something that I'll be working on more, and I'll announce maybe on the on the podcast in the coming months, but it's just on my mind, and I think it relates to this topic.
Jenn:That also made me think about a conversation you and I were having a few weeks ago, because we were talking about the Big Tymer's song and music. And when I was thinking about this episode, I was also thinking about how we, like put our emotions in music. And so when I was thinking about men, and I was thinking about rapping about like, what I look like when I'm driving and what I got, or it's about, like, I'm gonna shoot some people up when you're talking about hip hop. Yeah. And you and I were talking about like, relationships and how like men and women engaging in relationships and romance and like, where did that go? And is that still a thing? And we don't know enough Gen Zers to know if that's still a thing or not. But one thing we were tracking back was ain't nobody putting in a lot of songs. No more. Yeah. If like, I don't know it. I say that I'm not I'm not completely up on all the hit tunes. But Neyo was out here singing his heart out okay. Yeah. And nevermind like the Luther Vandross and like Peebo Bryson's and all of that, that like my mom and then was listening to, but I think Neyo was the cut off because Trey Songz started and that's not good on me. But he was singing very beautifully about being very, like raunchy and like, yeah, it wasn't very loving. Yeah, there, there isn't a lot of like lovey dovey type of songs. And it's interesting to think that we might get some of our emotional cues from music, like the songs that we're thinking about how that can influence how we engage with with each other. And so I have not heard a male song about heartbreak in a very long time.
Mik :So there are some artists out there that are trying to you know, just take on the r&b Mantle you got like Lucky Daye out there. You got Masego
Jenn:is Lucky Daye and when they don't take care of his kids?
Mik :I don't know I mean, personal business I
Jenn:think they've seen it on the Grammys on the on the Twitter's
Mik :Okay, well, I don't know I just know there's some artists but it seems like they haven't really hit that like stardom where I feel like we heard Neyo on the radio consistently like like, you know, their music videos for Neyo and maybe they are for these guys and they just aren't publicized the same way or maybe I'm just watching whatever How do you watch music videos it's on vevo on I'm like, I'm used to watching TRL or whatever back in the day or BET shows
Jenn:I think is vevo now like on YouTube Yeah, so I actually did as you were saying talking I did think of a song about heartbreak that's recent. Smoking out the window with Silk Sonic. Okay, so he's heartbroken because this woman then did him wrong and how does how does the chorus start? This bitch? Why why
Mik :That's the vibes I guess
Jenn:why I want to get back to Tears of a Clown I want to get back to just my imagination. He was just like I thought I had my baby but I must be losing my mind I ain't even got her and then you got em over here talkin bout. This bitch got me paying her rent what why is it so aggressive?
Mik :It's the economy
Jenn:Inflation? Is that the problem?
Mik :wages ain't going up, that brother mad
Jenn:I'm done with you. Silk Sonic it had a nice little groove. He got to that part. I said I don't know. I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I can do this but let's get back into what we were supposed to be talking about. But fellas be vulnerable, you know talk about your emotions. It's okay if you're hurt. It's okay. It's okay. The positive quotes example that we gave that's like a sign of toxic positivity reciting positive quotes about hard situations. Let me be clear, put my Obama voice on. Let me be clear there's nothing wrong with having your positive affirmations, saying, I'm living the life of my dreams, or I'm abundant, or I'm powerful, I'm strong, that doesn't necessarily cancel out that you're angry about losing your job or that you're jealous that your friend just bought a new Tesla. If you can't even acknowledge that you feel angry, or that you feel jealous, or if you're confronted with those emotions, and you're just like, oh, girl, please I'm out here shinin and I don't even care about your little car or whatever. Like, Well, one you kinda gave yourself away if you say it like that
Mik :anytime black people put a little in front of something they don't really respect it
Jenn:How your little friend? You still working your little job? If you just flat out dismiss it as untrue. Like Absolutely not. No, that's not what I'm feeling at all. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. You might be partaking in toxic positivity. A pop culture reference for positive quotes example back to Encanto Tia Peppa. Now, everybody was like, Okay, girl, when you get mad, it be hurricanes up in here. And so I get that, you know what I mean? Like weather events can be very disruptive. But they really had this heffa like she couldn't feel nothing. She was just clear skies, clear skies. That's all she could do is stroke that braid. They was like Peppa, you have a cloud, she couldn't do nothing.
Mik :That is like really like a physical manifestation of toxic positivity having like, they can literally see her emotions happening. Shut that down shut it down. We're gonna stamp on them negative emotion.
Jenn:We need a rainbow Hefa. Like, get it together. It's
Mik :hilarious. I hadn't even thought about that.
Jenn:And I kind of feel like she knew that she had to control the weather. But part of that was like convincing herself that she was okay. Like she really could not find her son in that instance, which can be very distressing and stressful as you're trying to plan for this big party and the whole Encanto has come into the house, and she would have to cover Everything's fine. Everything's fine, you know. So she was constantly doing this. This act of fooling herself that she was okay.
Mik :Yeah, I think convincing yourself that your feelings are untrue. That really kind of gets us into another concept about toxic positivity. Something we've talked about before, which is gaslighting. We see that term thrown around a lot, it usually comes up when we were talking about like interpersonal relationships, someone tells you that your version of reality is incorrect or untrue, that can really lead you to doubting yourself. It's really interesting how that shows up here with toxic positivity. You're feeling what may be a negative emotion and instead you kind of paste over this happy smile. Basically, you're gaslighting yourself by telling yourself that you don't feel sad or grief or angry. And of course, if you're diminishing how someone else feels about a hard situation, good intentions are not your gaslighting that person. Remember, gaslighting doesn't necessarily have to be evil or manipulative.
Jenn:Yeah, I the first time I talked about gaslighting with my therapist, she was talking about how it can be subconscious, like you're even trying to soothe someone else. So it can even come up with parents, you know, your child falls and you're like, you're okay, or something happens. It's like you're okay, like, just dust yourself off. And the kid is like, I don't feel okay. But my parent is telling me this. So that must be true. And so you know how their perception of reality can kind of get skewed. And so some classic examples, some common phrases out there that we hear all the time, or that we may even say to others going through a difficult situation. Again, with the best intentions, it could still signal toxic positivity. So some of those are everything happens for a reason. Count your blessings. Hey, look on the bright side. Be grateful for what you have. And well, at least dot dot dot like at least you still have your help. At least your husband didn't lose his job you just saw Sure so y'all should be okay. At least you have each other. And, and don't don't get me wrong. I love a reframe. So we're going to talk about reframing. I for instance, can be someone who like dwells over the past and I can swirl over it. And if I'm in a super stressful situation, I can I can wallow. I can be like Oh, nothing's going well. Everything sucks. Why did this person send me this email? I can't log into my computer today. Why? Like, Oh, everything's awful. And like I can get into that kind of cycle. And I don't like being in that dark place. I've seen it with other people too, who I feel like maybe they were kind of going through a depressive type of situation where you would try and cheer them up or try and, you know, give them solutions, or just hear them out. And they just seem to be really happy in the dark space that they were in, they were kind of like I used to say, like, they're wearing it like a blanket, it's something about it that like they need it for, for some reason. And I empathize and definitely have gone through that to my therapists talk to me about like reframing some of my sitch, like reframing situations that I'm not happy about. So for instance, when I wasn't happy at my job, I would then reframe it and say, Well, I'm working from home, I don't have to commute. That gives me some freedom to do some other things that I want to do. This is providing security for me and my family. That's what that is, like, I'm not, I'm still angry about how this is going on the amount of work that I have, or this person pissed me off that day. And I'm not saying that none of that is true, it is. But I'm going to choose to also focus on what's positive, I acknowledge how I feel, I don't sit in it. I understand that that's a real emotion. But I'm going to focus on like, Okay, what is this giving me the power to do? Gratitude for that I'm gonna move on. So there's nothing wrong with reframing a situation. And you just have to be really careful about that distinction, that you just aren't shutting down whatever negative emotion like no negative emotions cannot be here. I'm not angry. I love this job. I love this job. I love this job. And before you know it, you just like, go off the deep end. And you're trying to tell yourself that you, you love this job and like your eyes twitching, and you look a mess and everything's fine.
Mik :Yeah, you were reading those phrases of commonly used toxic positivity, and one of them hit home, I'm guilty of telling myself and others, everything happens for a reason. And I don't know if it comes from my childhood, like maybe my mom or grandparent or something would say it to me. But it's one that I've used over time. And, you know, kind of hearing that in this context, I'm struggling a little bit with that. I really do believe that everything happens for a reason that things are laid out as part of a grander plan. And you know, maybe you uncover something about yourself, something shakes you out of your complacency. There's a reason kind of behind a lot of things, but kind of thinking through it. With this lens of toxic positivity and thinking like, should I first sit with whatever emotion comes with those kind of unpleasant experiences? Before kind of moving to everything happens for a reason? I don't know something else I'll be thinking about.
Jenn:Yeah, I think, again, is that distinction of acknowledging what's coming up before moving on? Or are you shoving that negative emotion down or asking someone else to shut that down? And that little sign used to be everywhere, keep calm and carry on? Like, it's just like, pick yourself back up again? Yeah. However, I tried to talk to like, a boss of mine at a job that I had. And I was like, hey, like, this person that you have me working for is a whole asshole and like this, this is not working. And this man told me, you know, sometimes you just gotta dust yourself off and get back on the saddle. Like, what does that mean?
Mik :I'm gonna saddle my ass on up out this job.
Jenn:Okay. And I did in that order, okay. But he did not want to deal with whatever emotion I was going through. Like, it probably made him uncomfortable that I was bringing up that hey, this is not okay, the way that this person is treating me. And so he was just like, ah, get back to work. And it was just, it was like, really annoying. I was like, No, I'm not going to push that down and push that aside, like this person is mistreating me and I did leave that situation. But that wasn't fair of him to ask me that. There also can be comfort in hoping that when a difficult situation is in the rearview mirror, that you will be able to pull the lessons from it and be stronger for it. So that job sucked. It was like really long hours there was racism and sexism at play and just just a mess. But I can look back on it now and say like, I actually got really good training because they held me to an impossible standard. Just like absolutely impossible and ridiculous. That they didn't hold everybody else to. And I was able to navigate and better understand at a younger age in my career, how people maneuver in these types of types of corporate situations. So there is definitely lessons that I got from it. But when I was like, absolutely miserable, and like crying in my car, someone telling me everything happens for a reason, or like, get back on the saddle like that was really just gon piss me off. Like, that was not okay. I, as a black woman in particular, some of those phrases can cut deep because we're used to powering through difficult situations, like it's almost cultural, it's not a good thing. But it's like something that like, No, we put the whole team on our back anyway. And so I would challenge black women to take a step back and ask ourselves, are we being strong at the expense of our humanity? Like, are we allowing ourselves to fully experience the full range of emotions that come with being a human in this life? Or are we stuffing that down? Because it's more convenient and more helpful to everyone else around us that depends on us?
Mik :Yeah, I would think it would be even more of a slap in the face just given like you said, as a black woman you're used to carrying so much. And so you've gotten to the point where you've now voiced your discomfort, displeasure, and you're getting a very flippant phrase thrown back at you. Because like, I've been carrying all this other stuff, I finally got to the point where, like, the straw is breaking the camel's back, metaphorically. And that's what you come back with. Okay.
Jenn:Absolutely. I can just like, I could call my mom right now. And I say, you just gotta get back in the saddle, and she'll get pissed. Oh, she was so mad when I told her that when I was like, You know what he told me? And that was like, that was like, almost like eight years ago. Yeah, she will still be mad. If I called her right now and tell her that she's like, I can't believe he said that to you. I can't believe it.
Mik :So going back to some of those phrases that you talked about, that, you know, are commonly used, and others other phrases like it, I'm sure we can kind of rattle off. One thing to consider is that, you know, when you're using these phrases, at best, you're letting yourself off the hook from dealing with this person's emotions, kind of what you said that that boss said to you, which can make them feel alienated, which is what you felt right? And then at worse, you're blaming and shaming them for not better managing what is likely a difficult situation.
Jenn:Yeah, then that was an incredible experience of corporate gaslighting, because even though I knew what he was doing, like I knew he just did not want to be a good manager and handle the conflict. There was still a part of me that was like, am I just not professional enough? Am I just not good enough, at like managing office politics? That I had to go run until work daddy, but this was going on. Like, it's like, you know, there was a part of me that was like, Why? Why can't I manage this better? Why can't I be better at this job that I don't have to deal with situations like this? So yeah, that one's interesting. And what's interesting, when Mik and I were talking through this topic, we realized that we typically see this toxic positivity pop up in two different camps. So traditional Christianity, which is our upbringing, what we're used to. And this new age, spirituality, which is what we've been exploring since 2020. It's really interesting to us that we see it in the old and the new, and to talk about Christianity for a moment. Something you see in church a lot was that if something tragic happened to someone, a common platitude that you would hear in the church is that it's all part of God's plan. And whether you think that that's true or not. What it doesn't do is leave space for you to be angry or hurt or upset that your loved one is sick or that your house burned down that it it just did not create any room for that. It felt like a very quick like shut it down. Shut it down. This is part of God's plan. How dare you question God's plan?
Mik :And with that, like you definitely aren't allowed to be angry or disappointed with God right? It's not something you can verbalize. Another way this can come up in both Christianity and spirituality is gratitude, specifically using gratitude to bypass your emotions. So there's nothing wrong for being grateful. Gratitude is really high frequency is something we should all practice. But we don't want to allow gratitude to smother the human emotions that we all feel we need to let those out.
Jenn:Yeah, I believe that practicing gratitude gratitude exercises, overall raise my vibration, particularly like when I'm really stressed, I can be a hairpin trigger, like anything will piss me off, like one person who I might not particularly care for can send me an email, and it could just be like, oh, you know, I saw this and thought of you. And I'd be like, Why are you emailing me? Now, they were never sending me a nice email like that it was consistently trying to get me to do their work. But that's neither here nor there. But I would rage and it was like no reason for me to be that angry, I would have a completely disproportionate response, and like Mik and I shared office space at home. And I just knew, like, what's wrong with you? And I was like, she emailed me asking me to send her this document that I sent her like five times, and I'm sick of this. And I came up like, oh, my gosh, but I you know, it was an eye roll it best.
Mik :Let me add on top of that. So not only was a request, when I just remember this one time, where Jenn don't like people playing in her email inbox. There was this thread going around at her job of people showing their dogs playing in the snow. And I mean, it was probably like, 12 emails, 13 it was just like, you know, people would send a picture and then like, everybody would respond to it. And then like, someone else was in the picture of their dog, and everybody would respond to that. And I mean, it got to the point where it was just like, I don't know, 30 emails, 40 email all about this. These dogs, and she was losing her shit.
Jenn:Okay, so first of all, remember, I've scaled back my effort at work to 40% That might mean, me doing yoga or me going and sitting outside with Mik for a little bit and going to ground or me getting my nails done, or, you know, like, I'm managing emails, I come back to my phone, and I got that little red bubble. And it says 40 I said, Oh, shit, I'm bout to get fired, what's going on? I opened up my inbox, and it's like, oh, my gosh, what a cute pupper. Oh, that's what I said, Susan, oh, this is so amazing. And it was just unnecessary. It was so many emails, and I don't like my inbox swelling like that. I
Mik :I was like, c'mon baby let them get their dogs off. But she was like not having it.
Jenn:I have a thing about that. Anyway, like, one of my friends knows and this applies to Twitter to like, people who tweet too much. If all I see are your tweets. You gotta go. You gotta go. So like y'all are clogging my inbox. I'm missing other emails that are interspersed in there with people really asking me for stuff because y'all want to get these dog pics off. All right, put that shit in a PowerPoint and schedule a meeting to talk about that. And ooh, and I you know what I mean? Only at mattress giant. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. But anyways, that's, that's neither here nor there. I was talking about gratitude. Okay, I am grateful that those things don't don't trigger me as much. And so that kept me from like, flying off the handle over like the smallest little thing. But on the topic of spirituality, and the way that toxic positivity can pop up, I do remember getting frustrated about certain things that I was navigating. And I wasn't in a dark space. It was just, it was real emotions. It was like real shit. Like, certain things, certain things were about to change in my life. And, and I don't love change, that's me. Like, I get a little homesick for like the first like 12 hours of going on vacation and I love to travel. I just like miss being home. Like I just something about that transition. I'm gonna see if that's in my human design chart. Something about that transition. It just like disorients me for a little bit. It's uncomfortable, but I power through and I just move on. And so knowing that and like preparing for change, like knowing that we might move somewhere or changing jobs or anything like that. It's like, I know what on the other what's on the other side is going to be better and I'm excited about it. But change is uncomfortable for me. And I remember one time like someone telling be like, Oh, you're operating out of fear. And so fear can be a real emotion, right? Like, I'm afraid that I might not like that job, or I'm afraid that when I was thinking about getting into real estate, like, I'm afraid that I'm gonna lose money, but what the real thing was, is I was still gonna do it. And that, in and of itself is the definition of courage, like, courage is being afraid and doing it anyway. And so acknowledging that I was afraid, was okay, like, I was like, Yeah, I'm afraid, but I know, my numbers cold on this property, I know what I'm doing. Or I know, like, my different options, and I'm doing and I feel like, okay, with the risk that I'm taking, and I'm gonna move forward, like, it's a little nerve wracking. But I think for someone to ask me to be like, I'm not afraid at all, this is going to be amazing. And I'm gonna make all this money. And it was just like, I didn't think that that was a really authentic way to enter into that transaction. I didn't think that it would be authentic to myself to be like, Hey, I'm sad about leaving this job, or it's a little bittersweet, or I wish I could have made it work. But now I'm going on to something else, like it was okay for me to feel that emotion. And so sometimes I feel like the spiritual girls can be like, Oh, you're operating out of fear. And, oh, you're you're bringing your emotions down. And if you're not vibrating high enough, you're not going to be able to manifest and you're not going to get the abundance that you want, and it makes you, you end up it's exactly the definition of toxic positivity, that you feel guilt, and you feel shame, for feeling something that is part of the human experience. Like I would be like, Oh my gosh, I'm not going to get the thing that I've been praying and manifesting because in this one moment, I let Suzie Q at work pissed me off about this email. The email was annoying. Facts. Let yourself feel that
Mik :So I want to talk about another sneaky source of toxic positivity and that's social media, and particularly image apps like Instagram. Everyone on there is portraying beautiful filtered images of themselves their families them on vacation, the finest luxury goods these cute little captions about what they doing what they up to where they at a We out here we are outside.
Jenn:With Jason on the weekends when we get home these kids look busted, but you will not see that. Mommy and Daddy look busted too. But we're not gonna put that out there right like the edges are laid. The baby hairs have been neatly swooped. The bows are matching the outfit is matching the Easter basket. Okay, so what I kind of find it funny, and I had to ask myself if I'm playing into toxic positivity, it can be jarring and really uncomfortable when people post them feeling negative emotions. Like I remember Megan Good's soon to be ex husband like posted these pictures of him crying with this like long ass caption about how the marriage didn't work out or whatever. And I was just like, but who took these pictures of you crying? Like this is weird. To give myself some leeway, I guess is that Megan Good's ex-husband don't know me. Why should he be vulnerable with me? Yeah, he shouldn't be inviting me in to be vulnerable about his impending divorce. That ain't none of my business.
Mik :Yeah, it's interesting cuz I think like, oh, you know, we pose for pictures to get the perfect smile. Like, we'll take a picture selfie, whatever, multiple times make sure like we're smiling, right? The light looks good. And so like, when you're posting something sad, are you doing the same thing? Like, are my cries right are the tears dropping, you know, hitting the cheek the right way. Like, so that almost feels like it's staged sadness. Yeah. Which we're okay as a society would staged happiness. Right. Right, but not with staged sadness. Is that a bad thing? I don't know. I'm just like, trying to flip that on its head. Like.
Jenn:I guess it's the intent behind it. Like, if me and you and the girls on the dog sat down and take a picture and we smile, we're legitimately happy. It's the it's the times when like humans, humans for New York, that guy that post. It was like there was a woman who was showing these pictures of her beautiful family and like the whole time her husband was cheating. He was abusing children and abusing her and, and she was like, we were the perfect family. And it was like they sat down and posed for that picture. And they weren't happy. And they were portraying them. They knew that they were being inauthentic when they were doing that.
Mik :So is it jarring if someone is authentically sad and they posted on social media? Like I get why you don't want to see someone who was like faking being sad to try to gain sympathy.
Jenn:I guess it's just how it's done. And but then again, I don't want to criticize someone how they decide to use their social media, because that's not the way that I will use my social media. Yeah. I mean, people post all the time, like, they may have lost a loved one. Yeah. And they post a picture of their loved one. And they're like, you know, you know, that, to me, isn't jarring. It's like when someone sits up there, and they're like, recording themselves crying, and they're telling the story. And it's like, I guess it's why did you think you needed that for public consumption? I'm always trying to understand. It's always with people, I don't know. For sure, for sure. And so I'm always trying to understand what the goal was, but I think that's because I'm very private, too. I remember I was like, flipping through Tik Tok, and this woman was crying. And she was telling us that she had been assaulted. But I just didn't understand why she wanted to go on Tik Tok. Like, I just did not, I didn't understand that. And I think she's a different generation. So is maybe not for me to understand. And I wasn't, I was definitely not mean like, hey, get back on the saddle girl out there. But it's just it's it's interesting, like how all of that plays into our discomfort. Yeah, anything that's not happy, happy, happy.
Mik :Exactly. I think that's the reason why I'm probing and asking these questions, because I think we have been conditioned in a lot of ways to hide those sad feelings. And I've also had similar thoughts to you. Like why? Why are people pointing the camera at themselves while they're crying, telling us really sad stories and posting it for public consumption? And if I flip that on its head, it's like, well, maybe as a society, we need to become more comfortable with expressing our sadness, our anger, our fear in front of people, and allowing that part of the human experience to shine forward. So maybe I was misguided in my initial reactions to some of those posts. Yeah, just kind of having like a live moment right here.
Jenn:Yeah, I It's interesting, because you don't really have to be that vulnerable to show yourself with your hair perfect, your makeup done, your clothes, you know, still flat, right? That does not really require any vulnerability. Unless you're like, in a bikini, like you're half naked, you know what I mean? Like, you know, if you have like, for you, if you have body issues, and you know, you don't like to share like yourself in something that's maybe more revealing. But other than that, it doesn't really require a lot of vulnerability to be like, Hey, look at me and my husband having a great time at this music festival. Like, that's what you're supposed to do. Yeah. I saw like, another video was like this man, his wife had had like a stroke. And it was taking a lot out of him to care for her. And he was showing like, he was showing like him taking care of her. And then he was showing how. So she doesn't know that how much of like how stressed and how hard this is that he cries in his car. And so he had posts, he had like, rigged the phone up some kind of way in the passenger seat, and he is like, in a full breakdown in the car. And to me, I was like, how did you time this? How did you put this together? Like, is this authentic? Is it real? I hate that I have to question that. But that was an extremely vulnerable moment. There are very, very few people on the planet earth who have seen me go full ugly cry. Yeah. Because that's extremely vulnerable.
Mik :Interesting.
Jenn:Now, twitter, on the other hand, full of negativity, honey. Ain't nothing but it. It's, that's That's it. I actually what's funny. I actually, as I'm thinking about it, I wonder if I would have like the opposite reaction. If somebody if there was somebody on my Twitter timeline, who was just like, I love rainbows and unicorns every day. If I'd be like, What are you doing? That's not the vibe on here. Twitter, I have to police who's been too negative on my timeline. And then with Instagram, we're hearing all of this commentary about how teenage girls in particular are having like, really a lot more body image issues now because of what they're seeing, and the images and the doctored images that were frank that are being shown to them all the time. So we talked a lot about what toxic positivity is, how sneaky it can be, how it can make you feel guilt or shame for not being happy. And then that can even go into like a spiral you feel guilt and shame about feeling guilt and shame. Toxic positivity also hinders your growth. So that's just another interesting thing to think about. You know, you're saying to yourself, I'm powering through, I'm putting a happy face, I'm moving forward. But if you're never fully processing the full range of emotion that you feel in a situation, how can you fully grasp the lesson that you're supposed to take from that situation? Like, I move forward, despite feeling fear, into real estate, and it ended up working out. And now I can look back and say, Wow, you were really afraid. But you move forward anyway. And wow, wasn't that beautiful to see how that all ended up shaking out. So let's, let's get into how we can better honor our emotions and ultimately, ourselves.
Mik :Yeah, so some things you may want to incorporate. So first, manage your negative emotions, but don't deny them. Really get into and recognize your emotions. Notice how you're feeling. Be realistic about how you should feel given in a certain circumstance, like don't compare how others around, you may have reacted to a similar situation, understand who you are as a person and be again, realistic about how you should feel and acknowledge that it's okay to feel more than one thing. And when you're supporting others, focus on listening. And this is something particularly for the men out there, we a lot of times want to jump into solutions and trying to help people turn around their moods, when, in many situations, folks are just looking for an ear. So just focus on that listening piece.
Jenn:I love that. Thank you for listening. Something Mik does do is if I'm like ranting and raving about something, and I stop to get something from him like a reaction. He's like, Okay, do you want me to listen? Or do you want a solution? And he gives me the option. And hopefully he was listening to the first part before he asked me if I want him to listen. Because what if I say listen, and then he was like, Okay, so we'll start over. But anyhow, so that's the toxic positivity episode. Hopefully, we're feeling a little bit more free to open ourselves up to the full range of human emotions and experiences to tie this into the chakras. That'll definitely help that heart chakra.
Mik :So is it like good vibes mostly, instead of good vibes only? How we feel about it?
Jenn:I like that.
Mik :All right, so guys, we're gonna get out of here. Shoot us a question at chakras and shotguns@gmail.com. Or you can hit us in the DMS on Instagram. We're also on YouTube and Facebook. And if you'd like to join our Chakras and Shotguns, community, you can support us on Patreon. We really appreciate our patrons. And finally, if you're loving the show, please subscribe and give us five stars wherever you listen
Jenn:Namaste.