Piece Of Mind Podcast

Ep 06: Is Positive Psychology F*cking With Us

• Ashley Badman

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Ever felt like all this pressure to "stay positive" just makes things worse? You’re not alone. In this episode of Piece of Mind, we’re digging into whether positive psychology is actually stressing us out by pushing us to ignore our real emotions.

We’re breaking down why slapping a smile on everything isn’t always the answer and how an overly optimistic mindset can sometimes backfire.

Instead, we’ll talk about what it really takes to handle stress in a way that’s healthy, genuine, and realistic.

You'll also get a front-row seat to two game-changing ways to cope: when it’s time to tackle stress head-on vs. when it’s better to manage your emotions (hint: it’s all about balance).

Forget the fluffy stuff—these are practical, science-backed strategies you can actually use. From confronting the tough stuff to finding calm through meditation, reframing, or just letting yourself feel, we’ve got your toolkit covered.

And what’s up with the whole “good vibes only” culture on social media? Why are women, in particular, under so much pressure to be happy all the time? We’re calling out these unrealistic expectations and talking about why real emotional expression is the key to deeper connections and a healthier mindset.
 
If you’re ready to embrace your messy emotions, let go of the “just be happy” trap, and find true emotional freedom—this episode is for you!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Peace of Mind the podcast. This is all about piecing together the parts of your mind so that you can live a life that is authentic, unapologetic and actually fulfilling. I'm your host, ashley Badman, and I'm here to help you get real with yourself, embrace who you truly are and unleash your fullest potential. Get ready for a no bullshit, straight talk and a little chaos, because I'm here to give you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. So let's go. Welcome back to Peace of Mind Podcast. Today we're going to be diving into stress and I know I've done kind of an episode on stress before, but this is going to be a little bit different because I want to walk you through something that I'm learning in my degree at the moment that I think can be quite beneficial to you, and when I was reading it, when I was learning it, I thought it was really, really interesting, because we all feel stressed, right? We all go through stress in our life and stress has the ability to impact our mental health, impact our emotional well-being. Impact how we show up in the world impact our mental health, impact our emotional well-being. Impact how we show up in the world, impact our relationships, how we parent, just absolutely everything. So I think a conversation needs to be had about how we can actually manage our stress a little bit better. And, specifically, this conversation is going to dive into positive psychology. And is it really fucking us over? Is positive psychology causing us to be more stressed? Is it causing us to bypass how we're actually feeling and creating more shame and guilt around the emotions that are just coming up for us, instead of allowing ourselves to sit in our emotions, feel what we're feeling, acknowledge that something is just really fucking stressful and hard to deal with? Are we kind of in this time now where it's like, well, just be really grateful, just focus on what you do have, focus on all the things that are great in your life, or you have full control over your happiness? If you think happy, if you think grateful thoughts, then you're not going to be stressed. And it's almost kind of blaming people for how they're experiencing their life or how they're experiencing really hard moments in their life, and it's almost maybe making us feel that we need to rush through our feelings or we can't share that things are actually really fucking hard for us, or this is making me feel really down, angry, anxious, depressed, whatever the feeling actually is for you, because there's so much information out there now especially because social media and because influencers and mindset coaches and all these things that it can almost just appear that it's as simple as well just be happy, just change your thoughts to happier thoughts, just be grateful for what you do have, and I think it's worth noting with this.

Speaker 1:

I do agree with all of those things. I do think that they have a time and a place. I think that gratitude is incredibly powerful and there are so many evidence-based studies and scientific studies that show that gratitude can change our brain, it can change how we feel, it can change our emotional well-being. So there is absolutely a time and a place for gratitude. And with anything to do with human behavior and anything to do with psychology and learning evidence-based things where there have been actual studies on it we have to be able to have discernment and we have to be able to have duality, and this is kind of what I think gets missed on social media, where people are so certain of the way that they do things and the way that they believe things that they almost think that that is universal and that is going to work for everybody. So we have to keep in mind here that when it comes to positive psychology, I'm definitely not saying it's bad or wrong. I think it has its place, I think it works for certain things and I think that it can be beneficial as a whole I really, really do. But I also think, like with anything, we can have duality. Two things, two rights and two wrongs, or whatever we want to call it can coexist. It's always a gray area, it's not black and white.

Speaker 1:

I do think that sometimes for certain people, positive psychology can actually be worse for them and actually be impacting their mental health in a much worse way. It could be leading to more suppression of emotions, repressed and suppressed emotions, which we know. When we suppress and repress our emotions and we keep them in our body and we don't allow them to be released, it causes so many physical and mental health issues. So not just mental health issues suppressed and repressed emotions can actually be impacting your physical health. So that's what I love about these types of conversations around psychology and mindset, because we have to really acknowledge that the two go hand in hand. How you think and how you feel is impacting your physical health, impacting infection, disease, like all of those different things. So I think that that's really cool that we can acknowledge both.

Speaker 1:

But this conversation is really about stress and managing your stress, and are you being fucked over by positive psychology and how can you ensure that that's not something that's actually having a negative impact on you? Or are you someone who's listening to this who could actually benefit from focusing on more positive psychology, thinking happier thinking, more grateful, reframing your negative thoughts, that you're not constantly thinking the worst and going to the negative what ifs? Or are you somebody that benefits from actually feeling your emotions, acknowledging the bad shit has happened to you, acknowledging that you have some trauma that's still sitting there, and do you have to actually explore it? Do you actually have to face it rather than just avoid it with a smile on your face? You actually have to face it rather than just avoid it with a smile on your face.

Speaker 1:

So in my studies, I've been given three definitions of coping mechanisms and I'm going to share them with you, because that is what we're here to do on the Peace of Mind podcast. I am here to teach you things I already know, but I'm also here to share things with you that I'm learning, that I find of value that I think are going to be interesting to you. I might add that I think everything that I'm learning is not always super beneficial in real world context, and I will always be honest and upfront with you guys about what I'm learning that I'm like I don't really think I'm going to use this so much, or what I'm learning that I'm like wow, this is really insightful. And another thing that we have to remember is things that we are learning, things that I'm learning that I'm going to be teaching you, or things that I already know that I'm going to be teaching you do not apply to everybody, so this is always going to be subjective. I always get that wrong. Is it objective or subjective? Which is the one where it doesn't apply to all of us? Anyways, can you believe I'm doing a uni degree? And these are the moments that I have? Believe it, I am. And also, while we're here, before we get into the definitions, I thought I would celebrate something with you, my listeners.

Speaker 1:

I submitted my first empirical report, which is basically a scientific report, and I was finding it so fucking challenging. I'm just going to be really honest. I was finding it really, really challenging and I was like fuck, oh my God, am I going to be able to do this? This is so hard. I was stressed. I had to go to like additional things. I had to get like a tutor person to come and like help me wrap my head around it. But I did. I went the extra mile. I knew that it was something I found difficult. I knew that it was something I'd never done in my entire life before. So I made sure that I put myself in a position to gain more insight into it, to gain more knowledge, to help myself understand a little bit more, a little bit better.

Speaker 1:

Anyways, I submitted it and I got my results back. I think it took like three weeks to get my results back, which is so long, such a long wait, and I got a hundred percent, a hundred percent. I did not drop a mark. I actually could not believe it. I refreshed the page. That's how much I couldn't believe it. I read through my feedback and it was like even the way you've written the method I think it was. She was like we do like this is amazing for a first year in uni. We don't usually see this. And I was like, oh my God, I literally want to cry. I like yelled out to Dave I'm like God, look at this, because I just wanted to make sure that I was like seeing it right, that I actually got a hundred percent, but, anyways, I'm going to celebrate that. I may not always get it Well, I know, I won't always get a hundred percent, and that's fine, but it's important to acknowledge and celebrate ourselves when that does happen. Happen, so I'm celebrating with all you guys. This is very exciting. I can't wait to keep you up to date with all of these things and, obviously, be open and honest with you guys about if I fail anything or if I don't do well in anything. I will tell you guys, because I think that failure is a part of any successful journey.

Speaker 1:

Let's get back to the three definitions. So here are the three definitions that I have been provided. First one coping is Coping. Can I even can I speak today? You guys? I'm going to pull it together. Coping is efforts to prevent or diminish threat, harm and loss, or to reduce the distress that is often associated with those experiences. So that is the first definition of coping. It is by someone named Carver, and they must have said this in 2017, because that is what the reference is telling me. The next one is coping refers to cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage, master, reduce or tolerate a troubled person-environment relationship. This one is much, much older. That was said in 1985 by I can't even pronounce those names Folkman and Lazarus. That sounds very 85. And Lazarus that sounds very 85.

Speaker 1:

And the third definition I have on coping is coping refers to how people respond to stress as they contend with real life problems. That was 2007. I like the first one and the third one. I think these are really good definitions. I think that we can take away a lot from those and I think that that really kind of describes that, because in life we all have to cope right. We all are faced with hardship, we are all faced with heartbreak, we are all faced with challenges and hurdles and stressful situations. So we all need to learn how to cope with those things and some people cope better than others. We want to be the people that can cope really, really well and the good thing about this is that we can all learn to cope better.

Speaker 1:

Coping isn't something that you're like. I'm born to cope with things better than anybody else. That's not true. And obviously our childhood and our upbringing and our nervous system, if it's dysregulated, is going to impact our ability to cope. But coping is not something you inherently have. It is something that you learn. It is a tool that you gain through regulating your nervous system, through understanding your emotions, through understanding your reactions and your triggers and all of those different things. But at the end of the day, the better that we can cope with something, the happier we are going to be and the more likely we are to move through whatever the thing was that was challenging for us in that moment.

Speaker 1:

The next thing that it has here is categories of coping mechanisms, which I find really, really interesting, and I thought you guys would find interesting too. So here are some kind of examples of different coping mechanisms put into categories. So the first one is problem-focused versus emotional-focused coping, and I'm going to briefly go into what each of these are so you guys can have a bit more of an understanding of that. The next one is approach versus avoidance. I feel like that's quite self-explanatory, but there may be a little twist with the avoidance part of this that you may not be expecting. The next one is active versus passive Again quite self-explanatory. I think you guys can understand which of the two of those is more beneficial to you, and the last one is cognitive versus behavioral. So we'll quickly touch on what each of those are so that you guys have a better understanding. So the first one we're going to dive into very quickly. I'm just going to read what I have here, because I think that's just going to be the best thing for you guys and just make it easier, even though at uni, what I'm finding is everything needs to be paraphrased. So you're saying the exact same thing just in a different way, which I'm kind of like it feels like it's defeating the purpose. But okay, I'll play by the rules and I'll do the thing. But for this I'm just going to read it.

Speaker 1:

An article I want to talk to you guys about when it comes to positive psychology, and see what you think of that. I want to hear from you guys whether it's a DM or whatever it actually is. I think that these things can be quite thought-provoking and we're all going to have very differing opinions and it's really cool to bring this into a conversation. So if you're listening to this, I always love to hear from you guys. I'm very grateful that you're here and I think these conversations are better had when you can actually have them with me, not just listening to me.

Speaker 1:

So the first one is problem-focused coping. It is a stress management approach in which an individual honestly faces a stressor in an effort to reduce it or get rid of it. So this might engage generating probable solutions to a problem, confronting others who are accountable for or else linked with the stressor, and other forms of involved action. For example and I love the example that they've given here because it relates like so much to them being like well, sort your shit out. Students. For example, a student who is anxious about an upcoming examination might deal with it by studying more, taking every class and attending revision sessions to make sure they completely know the course subject matter. So one of the things in this that I don't really agree with is the part where it says confronting others who are accountable.

Speaker 1:

I think, again, discernment. There is a time and a place for this. In some instances you're going to have to have conversations with people, and I think that's more applicable in a relationship where you're actually in a partnership with that person, and you do need to have uncomfortable conversations and you do need to have open and vulnerable conversations in order for the relationship, to feel really connected and for you guys to actually be able to have a really nice and healthy relationship. Where I don't necessarily think it's always necessary is in situations where maybe someone has really, really hurt you that you are no longer going to be a part of their life or they're going to be a part of your life. Maybe it's ex-partners, maybe it's your parents, maybe you experienced some trauma growing up from your parents, and I am truly in the belief that you don't need an apology to be able to heal and you don't need the other person to be able to get what they have done for you for you to be able to heal. And you don't need the other person to be able to get what they have done for you for you to be able to heal. Because in some instances, especially when it comes to this parent child dynamic, you're not going to get an apology, they're not going to say sorry, they're not going to acknowledge what they did, because maybe it's too painful for them to do so, maybe they don't care, maybe, you know, for a multitude of different reasons, but sometimes, to cope with the stress, it is about going inwards, and sometimes that means that you're not going to hold people accountable and it's being really really okay with that. So it's being able to kind of judge is this something where I need to actually confront the person involved to reduce the stressor, or is it something where this is an inner healing thing and I don't actually need the accountability from that person to be able to move through the thing?

Speaker 1:

The next one is emotional focused coping techniques. So these techniques aid you in becoming less emotionally reactive to the stressor you face. This I love. I think this is perfect. This is something that I work very closely with my clients with. This is something that we do a lot in the Unapologetic Woman In my true belief, and what I have found to be really beneficial is a lot of the times we can't control the things outside of ourselves.

Speaker 1:

A lot of the times there are going to be stresses in our life that we have no control over. They are going to happen whether we are doing something or we're not doing something. Not always, obviously, we can play a role in the stresses that happen, but a lot of the time there are things that happen in our life that are completely out of our control and in those cases the only thing that we can control is ourselves. The only thing that we can control is how regulated our nervous system is and how we deal with our emotions and how we express and regulate our emotions and how we can actually be there for ourselves. So this, I think, is really good. So they alter the way you experience these situations. They impact you differently. So, obviously, saying, if you focus on your emotional coping strategies, the situation, the stress, is going to impact you differently because you can cope with it more emotionally in a different way.

Speaker 1:

Emotion-focused coping focuses on regulating negative emotional reactions to stress, such as anxiety, fear, sadness and anger. This type of coping may be useful when a stressor is something that you cannot change or cannot control. As I said, same similar words. So these can include things like meditation, cognitive reframing and journaling. I know that we can hear these things, like you know, meditation and cognitive reframing and journaling and it can sound very woohoo Again. I think this is just because, with social media at the moment, people being influencers and lots of talk of, like you know, just meditate for 500 hours a day and you're going to be fine, and it's kind of taking it down a path where people are kind of like eye rolling and being like that's dumb, that's stupid, that's not going to work. Who the fuck has the time for that? And I completely, completely get that. But this is evidence-based. This is science, you guys. Like there is so much evidence to show that meditation, cognitive reframing and journaling are emotional, focused coping strategies that can actually help you in your life. And it doesn't mean that you have to now meditate every single fucking day and it doesn't mean you need to sit in silence and like hum and like put your hands up beside you and become this like Zen person. It doesn't mean that Meditation can mean different things for different people, but these are all actual things that can really really help you and that I really do love and I've used that within myself, emotional coping mechanisms and with clients.

Speaker 1:

The next thing we're going to talk about is the approach versus avoidance. Again, I said this sounds obvious, but there is a little twist in this one. So approach responses are defined as responses that are problem focused and reflect cognitive and behavioral efforts to resolve the stresses. Basically, you are self-aware, you are able to reflect inwards, you are able to focus on the things that you can control and not get really hyper-focused on the things you can't control. You are focused on your emotional responses rather than being very, very reactive. You are focused on your own behavior and not really kind of just feeling out of control and behaving in ways that aren't really beneficial or healthy for you, based on the stressor, because you have the self-awareness and the emotional regulation skills to be able to behave in a way that actually benefits you.

Speaker 1:

The other part of this avoidance coping. So this is generally considered a non-adaptive form of coping. For example, if a person changes their behavior to avoid thinking about, feeling or doing difficult things, now you might hear that and think, well, that's not good. Like we hear the word avoidance and we definitely think that that's something that you don't want to be doing and that's not going to be beneficial to you. And of course that is true. There are many, many, many, many, many times, and I would say more often than not, where avoidance is not good for you.

Speaker 1:

If we avoid our trauma, it is manifesting in mental health problems and physical health problems. If we avoid having uncomfortable conversations, it results in confrontation and anger or resentment further down the track. If we avoid majority of things in our life, we procrastinate. It never usually ends well for us, so it is always great to focus on our inner healing and focus on having the uncomfortable conversations and even just down to avoiding your fears. Avoiding doing anything that makes you feel uncomfortable obviously is going to keep you feeling very stuck, very stagnant and likely limit your ability to actually achieve whatever you want to achieve in your life. However, avoiding may not always be a non-adaptive mechanism, so meaning it may not always be bad. It may not always be bad. Sometimes avoidance can be beneficial. Please don't take this as like, thank fuck, ash, I'm going to avoid all the responsibilities and fears and inner healing and all the things that I have to do Absolutely not.

Speaker 1:

The example that I have read that I think, yes, this makes so much sense is that when people experience pain like really experience pain physical or mental pain, emotional pain avoidance strategies such as distraction can be more effective in relieving symptoms than redefining sensations as an active coping strategy. So I find that fascinating that there are times in our life where, yeah, we actually will be more beneficial or benefit off of more whatever I'm trying to say here, we actually will be more beneficial or benefit off of more, whatever I'm trying to say here actually avoiding feeling and sitting in that pain and maybe, maybe it's something where we kind of pin it, where it's like now is not the time to actually really dive into this, now is not the time to really look into this. I actually need to pin this. I need to go and distract myself. I need to do something else that is more productive and is going to help me feel regulated and feel a little bit better, and then maybe something that is something that I can look at in the future when I am more able to and when it's not going to actually cause me more harm than good. So this is a good example of how a coping strategy is not, in and of itself, adaptive or maladaptive. It is either, you know, right or wrong for the circumstances, and this is what we have to take into consideration when it comes to anything to do with ourselves, our mindset, human behavior. Neither is right or wrong, depending on the circumstance. What is right for you is going to be not right for somebody else, and this is why we need to have that amazing self-awareness, or we need to be able to outsource that with therapy or whatever it is, so that somebody else can help us with what is going to be the best thing for us if we don't really know that for ourselves right now?

Speaker 1:

And the next one that we were going to touch on is active versus passive. So active refers to the utilization of those psychological or behavioral coping efforts that are characterized by an attempt to use one's own resources to deal with a problem situation. So these responses are designed either to change the nature of the stressful situation or event in order to decrease the problematic nature of that situation or event, or to modify how we think and how we feel about it in order to change our own reaction to it. So there's two things there with active, and I think that those are both very interesting. One is you can actively change the situation that's causing you stress. If you can do that, then you should do that. A lot of the times we can't, a lot of the times it's out of our control, then what we would do is we would focus on our own reaction and our own ability to cope with that thing, and changing our reaction to the thing, changing our behavior to the thing. So those are two really cool things that we should be focusing on. And then there's passive coping, which you know we don't want to do.

Speaker 1:

This. This is not the one for us, this is not the one for you. This is involving avoidance, withdrawal and wishful thinking. So obviously, again, we said that there can be benefits to avoidance, but majority of the time, most people are using avoidance in a way that's not beneficial and not healthy helpful for them. So withdrawal and wishful thinking as well, like I just hope it gets better or I just hope this resolves, or I'm just going to turn a blind eye to it and like hope in the future it just goes away. And then we end up in this loop of creating these same patterns and the same shit popping up in our life over and over, and, over and over again, and never actually dealing with it, and then spending a whole life stuck in that loop, which we don't want.

Speaker 1:

And the final one that I mentioned earlier was cognitive versus behavioral. So cognitive coping refers to dealing with stresses internally by thinking patterns. So these can be positive or negative. So cognitive is your mind, it is how you think, it is your brain. Behavioral coping refers to strategies which require us to act in a certain way. Again, these can be positive or these can be negative. So thinking and acting, those are the two kind of things that you can differentiate there, which brings us to positive thinking and positive psychology. So I'm going to read you out another definition, because why not so beneficial? This definition is positive thinking. According to popular self-help literature presumes that thought alone can change that person's life, including their personality, what jobs they get and their relationships. This is from 2009.

Speaker 1:

And then we have a quote that directly kind of contradicts that quote, which I also think is interesting, and it's saying by TPA, which TPA refers to tyranny of the positive attitude. By TPA, I mean that our culture has little tolerance for those who can't smile and look on the bright side in the face of adversity. That, I think, is very interesting, and this is kind of what I spoke about at the start, in that sometimes we do have low tolerance for people that actually feel their emotions, especially women, and this is why I was like fuck, yeah, I need to talk about this With women. We don't want women to be too emotional. Even just saying that out loud, it's like oh, she's so emotional or she reacts like this, or da, da, da, da. It has a very negative connotation to it. We're expected to smile and wave and see the bright side of anything and never get too angry. Certainly not anger. Anger in women is just like she's basically a psycho and we don't want anything to do with it and we make it sound so bad. We can't be angry, we can't be frustrated, we certainly can't be anxious.

Speaker 1:

It's to smile through everything, and that is so dangerous and so fucking impossible. It bypasses everything that you actually need to focus on, which is acknowledging how you actually feel and not shaming how you feel, because, like I harp on about all of the time, we cannot grow through shame. We have to be able to have compassion for ourselves. And is it really having compassion for ourselves if we're telling ourselves we can't feel how we actually feel? Is it really having compassion for ourselves when we are going through something so hard and so challenging in our life and we're telling ourselves, based on society's conditioning, that we just have to get over it, that we just have to not worry about it? Is that beneficial to us? And, in my opinion, I don't think it is beneficial to us.

Speaker 1:

Do I think that changing our thoughts is a really powerful tool? Absolutely. Your thoughts dictate your behaviors and your actions. If you are constantly thinking negative, if you are constantly in a victim mentality, where you think everything bad happens to you and everything's out to get you and you're never going to be able to do what you want to do, then we have confirmation bias at play. You're going to be bringing all the evidence that confirm that and it's going to keep you really, really stuck. So we need to be able to have discernment here and we need to be able to really ascertain what is the thing that we need in that moment, and can it be a mixture of both? Absolutely of course it can. Can we need to change our thoughts to be more positive and can, at the same time, we allow ourselves to sit in our emotions and we allow ourselves to feel the hurt and the pain and the hardship and the anger and the frustration that has come with the adversity that we have faced? Yes, of course both can coexist. But have we taken it too far in society and social media, on the gram, on TikTok, where it's like just be happy, just be grateful, get out your gratitude journal? Can we have more of a balance of both? And I think yes. I think it's both important.

Speaker 1:

I think it's a little tricky on social media and I get that like nobody has to share their emotions on social media. No one has to share their hardships and their stress if they don't want to, and that may not feel safe for people, and that's okay as well. I definitely take my hat off to people that can be honest in their emotions and how they're feeling, because I think it does have a positive impact. I also think that some people on social media can do it in a manipulative way where they just want people to feel sorry for them and want people to sympathize with them because it makes them feel like they get attention Again. Like with anything, there is just so much context that needs to be had when it comes to conversations like this, but I definitely do think that it is challenging on social media because we are trying to protect our concept of self on social media. We don't want people to see us in a way that we don't want to be seen, and for some people, they only want to be seen as this happy person who's so bright and bubbly and always has their shit together.

Speaker 1:

And maybe I'm a little bit guilty of this because majority of the time, I am pretty fucking happy over the top person. Do I have anxiety and stresses? Absolutely. Do I feel like I need to share all of those on social media? Absolutely not, and I'm a pretty open book and I share a lot with you. So it's like where do we come up with a solution with this? I don't really know, and I think maybe it's just having open and honest conversations like this that may be really, really beneficial. So, on that note, if you do think this is a beneficial conversation, you're enjoying it, don't forget to take a screenshot, share on your social media, tag me, get more people listening to this your friends, your family, anyone who you think would benefit because these are the types of conversations that I just want to have more of Human behavior, how we work and how we can have more of an understanding of the complexities of how two things that seem polarizing or opposite can actually be beneficial when brought together for the right person at the right time in their life. So this brings me to an article that I was reading through that I thought would be really cool to share with you guys, and it is around positive psychology. I might actually even link it below in the blurb, in the notes for the podcast, so that you can have a read of it yourself if you want to. If you're not a big reader, that's fine. I'm going to read out a little bit of it in this so that you can have a better understanding of positive psychology and start to think about what you think about positive psychology. Obviously, I'm not going to read out the whole article because I don't want to have you listening to this, but I'm going to read out two paragraphs that I think you guys might find beneficial.

Speaker 1:

Here we go tolerance for those who can't smile and look on the bright side in the face of adversity, even in cases of profound loss. Held says people are supposed to get over their sadness within weeks, if not sooner. The TPA has two component parts. First, you feel bad about whatever pain has come your way. Then you are made to feel guilty or defective if you can't be grateful for what you do have, move forward or focus on the positives. This the double punch, and it's the second part that does the most serious damage.

Speaker 1:

A 2012 study undertaken at the University of Queensland and published in the journal Emotion found that when people think others expect them to not feel negative emotions, they end up feeling more negative emotions. A 2009 study published in Psychological Science found that forcing people to use positive statements such as I am a lovable person can make some people feel more insecure. Further, new York University psychology professor Gabrielle something something can't pronounce her last name and her colleagues have found that visualizing a successful outcome under certain conditions can make people less likely to achieve it. This is interesting, you guys. Researchers have also found that people in a negative mood produce better quality and more persuasive arguments than people in a positive mood, and that negative moods can improve memory. This is fascinating, right, and it just goes to show, though, that obviously you do need positive moods, and that's very important for our mental health and wellbeing. But also it's to really highlight that all of these negative moods and emotions that we feel that we're not allowed to have are actually beneficial to us, that we actually need them.

Speaker 1:

We can't always feel happy. It is an impossible expectation to place on yourself, and it really closes you off to vulnerability and connection to say, hey, I'm actually finding this really hard, even with grief I think this is really relevant to that as well where we almost feel like there's this you know, we've all heard of the stages of grief but then we place that on ourselves and think that it has to go in those steps and it has to be in a certain timeframe. What if you get to step four and you go back to step one and you feel the same way? Does it mean that you're failing grief? No, because everybody experiences emotions differently, including grief and the timeline of grief. The expectation that you should be over something when you're not over it. Is that beneficial to you that you should just start to be positive and you should just start to see the lesson in everything straight away.

Speaker 1:

And you guys know I'm a big advocate for seeing the lesson in everything, like I am, and that's just the way that my mind works. I love to find the lessons in things and I am such a curious mind, so I'm always like, oh, that's interesting, like why did that happen in my life? Why did that happen to me? And sometimes I'll be completely honest with you, I don't fucking know, like I just don't know. And other times I'm like, oh, okay, okay, thank you, universe, thank you, I get it. This is what I was meant to learn from this, and I think it does take a really open and curious mind to be able to learn lessons. Sometimes I think the lessons or the gifts we want to call them that come from difficult or challenging situations aren't really made clear to us for a very long time after. So sometimes the thing that we can go through can be so shitty and so painful that we can't see any lesson, and can we be okay with that? But can we also acknowledge that maybe the lesson will come years and years later, and that is the beauty of life. We don't need instant gratification. We can be patient and we can allow life to unfold and we can allow ourselves to learn the lesson at the pace in which we are allowed to learn it.

Speaker 1:

I also am of the opinion, which I have just formed very recently, that maybe not everything has to happen for a reason or for a lesson. And this is because something I saw really upset me. It truly, truly did, and I don't want to share the story because it's not my story to share, but basically, somebody that I went to school with was pregnant to give birth and and their baby. They lost their baby and I saw it and I hadn't spoke to this person since I was in high school and still on Facebook Facebook friends as we do and it hurt my heart in so many ways. I had messaged another friend I went to school with and we chatted about it for a little bit. We donated some money to her and we were saying, if things can happen for a reason, why would something so painful and so horrendous and so horrible happen to this person? And it made me really think and question everything that I've always said and believed, which is that everything happens for a reason.

Speaker 1:

And look, I'm not going to sit here in this podcast and tell you if I do believe that or I don't believe that right now, because it's something I think that I'm pondering, even with the sickness of my own son, who now has two lifelong diseases which, yeah, really, really challenging. I am not going to be like, oh my God, it's making us more resilient. That's why, no, it's still very raw, it's still very painful, and that's two years on, and I think it's okay for it to be like that. I don't have to pretend that. I am just going to be positive about it and always look on the bright side. And, whilst I think after a certain amount of time, that is beneficial, if you stay in something and feel very negative towards something for a very long time, that's not good for you either. It really, really isn't, but I'm not always positive about it either.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes, especially when we're going to doctor's appointments, I am very negative about it, I'm very hurt, I'm very upset, and I just allow that to simply be. I just allow that experience to be my experience and I allow my emotions to be my emotions, and I think that that is a big takeaway of this episode for you guys, and I hope that it is that sometimes you will benefit so much from being more positive, from changing your thoughts, reframing your thoughts and stop being so hard on yourself and stop feeling so negative about yourself and your life. And other times you are going to benefit from just listening to yourself and feeling what you need to feel, without always feeling you need to whack a smile on your face or list three things that you're grateful for. There is duality in everything and I really hope today that this was a very interesting podcast for you guys, that you were able to start to maybe have your own thoughts when it comes to this and where you have experienced this.

Speaker 1:

Have you ever had this inner feeling of like I should just be happy or I should get over this by now, or even apologizing for ruining the mood? I've actually had people do that in group settings. Someone that was in one of my masterminds was experiencing something really painful and really challenging and she didn't want to bring it into the group space because she didn't want to ruin the vibe. She didn't want to be like the sad Debbie Downer and I'm like absolutely not. We, as humans, we have to be able to experience the ebbs and flows with the people around us that we love and hold them in that, without feeling this pressure for ourselves or for them to not bring down the mood or to always be happy or to just get over something. So I'm very interested for you guys to really sit with that and be like have you experienced that where you thought that you had to be happy or you thought you had to get over something or you didn't want to bring down the mood of other people with your real human emotions? And if you have, can you please send me a DM?

Speaker 1:

I would love to share it on my story so that I can share this episode and be like this is what the listeners are thinking, this is the thoughts that came out of it, and I would be so interested if you guys have very varying thoughts and different thoughts, because I think that's how we learn best by being able to have different thoughts and have the conversation around it. It's such a great learning opportunity for us and if we can do social media in that way, I think social media would be a much more interesting place, where we're not trying to make people right or wrong. We're accepting that different views can coexist, and that is actually really fucking cool. If you did enjoy this episode, I would be very grateful if you would leave a rating, so just click the stars. If you want to click five stars, that would be really, really beneficial to me.

Speaker 1:

And also share it. Share it, tag me. I really want to get more information jam-packed into these episodes, more insights into the human behavior, how we work, why we work the way that we do, and I want as many people as possible to listen to these conversations because I think it is really, really powerful. So share it, tag me, message me and I will be in your ears next week for another episode. Until then, have an amazing morning, afternoon or night whenever you are listening to this.