The Positivity Trap - Essay No. 8
Being positive has, in our time, become something that is not only appreciated, but often expected, and there is an unspoken stigma attached to not being so. As if a smile, a cheerful tone, or an optimistic attitude were signs of maturity, while heaviness, doubt, or sorrow signal that something is wrong. For many, this creates a constant pressure to perform and a sense that one ought to be positive. Quite often we force ourselves into it, not because it is true, but because it is considered better.
At the same time, there is no denying that genuine positivity is attractive. People who naturally radiate warmth, openness, and joy tend to draw others toward them, not because they say the right things, but because something in their presence feels lighter. It is not a technique, it is a state, and they often do not have to make an effort for it to be there, it simply is, in the way they move through life. Around such people, others feel better.
The problem arises when we confuse this natural way of being with a pasted-on attitude, when positivity becomes something one does rather than something that emerges, because then we have already begun to step into the trap. We live in a world structured by polarity. Positive and negative. Plus and minus. Yin and yang. There is nothing inherently judgmental in this; this is simply how energy, movement, and life function. It is the tension between the poles that creates flow, and somewhere in between them a neutral state arises. Life itself is a constant oscillation between these extremes. What often becomes problematic is not polarity as such, but our judgment of it.
We have learned that positive is good and negative is bad, that certain emotions are desirable while others should be avoided. And of course one can see how life takes on different qualities depending on where one tends to reside. A positive spiral often carries with it a sense of ease, of things falling into place. There is movement, vitality, and a feeling of being carried. A negative spiral feels heavier, more like a struggle, like walking against the wind. This is what David Hawkins points to when he speaks of power versus force. In resistance there is effort, in flow there is power, and he suggests that as human beings we often live in one spiral or the other, upward in positive development or downward in negative decline.
But this is where precision becomes important. Because positivity that arises naturally is not the same as positivity that is forced. When we try to make ourselves think positively, maintain a positive attitude, or repeat positive affirmations while what we actually feel is something entirely different, we create an inner split. This is no longer positivity. It is masking.
This has been particularly pronounced in a culture that has strongly emphasized the idea of a “positive mindset.” The notion that if one only thinks right, feels right, and focuses right, one can achieve anything. And yes, there is power in thoughts that are genuinely anchored in the body and in feeling. But when positivity is used to avoid what hurts, to bypass sorrow, anger, hopelessness, or exhaustion, it becomes false. And false positivity does not create lightness; it creates dissonance.
This is where the positivity trap closes.
We begin to project something that does not match what is actually happening inside us, dressing ourselves in positivity while something entirely different is unfolding beneath the surface. We become wolves in sheep’s clothing. This disguise is always revealed, not necessarily through words, but through what we radiate, most of all through our energetic signature. Honest feeling always carries more information than the most carefully chosen positive words.
This becomes especially visible in people who have fully internalized the idea that they ought to be positive. I have a friend who repeatedly believes there is something wrong with her whenever she does not feel happy, light, or optimistic. In those moments she judges herself harshly, blames herself, and tries to correct herself into a “better” version. Here the positivity trap appears in its most naked form. Not because she is negative, but because she does not allow herself to be anything other than positive without condemning it. When positivity becomes the norm, everything else becomes a failure.
I recognize this in myself as well. There have been periods in my life when I used affirmations, put up notes with positive words, spoke encouragingly to others even when I myself did not feel positive. Sometimes to lift the mood, sometimes to create a certain atmosphere, sometimes because I believed it was the right thing to do. And sometimes it does serve a purpose. It can be a social choice, a temporary strategy, a way of not burdening others with one’s inner state in that moment. The problem does not lie there. The problem arises when it becomes unconscious, or when it turns into enforced falseness, when positivity is used compulsively to avoid feeling, and when one begins to believe there is something wrong with oneself as soon as the positive feeling is not present.
There are theories suggesting that if you smile, it spreads, that if you behave positively for long enough, the inner state will eventually change. And yes, temporarily this can work. It can function as a band-aid, a shortcut, a way to shift a state for the moment. But if it is used to avoid what is actually going on, it does not lead to a lasting positive way of being, but to increased fragmentation. Because the most powerful change does not occur when we try to be positive, but when we stop being dishonest. When we allow the entire spectrum to exist and take responsibility for what we are and what we transmit, without playing roles. This does not mean that one must always say exactly what one feels or unload one’s inner life onto others. It means that one stops lying to oneself.
It is often said that our thinking creates our reality. Think positive. Stay positive. Your thoughts create your reality. And yes, thinking has an impact. But what actually shapes our lives in practice is not thoughts in themselves, but how true they are in relation to what we genuinely feel. It is feeling, frequency, that always precedes thought.
When a positive thought matches a genuinely positive feeling, when it is not forced or constructed, there is coherence. Then it carries power. Then it is reflected back in life. But when the thought is positive and the feeling miserable, feeling always wins. It cannot be deceived. Dissonance arises, and no matter how much one tries to think one’s way through it, a lasting shift cannot be forced.
I am not saying this to deny that some people do manage to turn their state around through positive impulses. I have done so myself many times. Listening to music, quotes, books, words that point in a different direction. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it created a temporarily lighter state. But what lay underneath always remained, regardless of how successfully I managed to change the surface.
The real shift came only when I stopped trying to be positive and instead allowed what was there to be there. And the paradox is that the more I did that, the more positive I became, not as a strategy, but as a consequence. Not because life always felt easy, but because resistance softened. Perhaps that is where the positivity trap finally dissolves. Not through better thoughts, but through more honest presence. When we stop demanding a certain state from ourselves and instead meet what is, what we were trying to create so desperately often arises on its own. Not forced. Not conditional. But as a natural way of being.
Positivity that truly carries weight is never conditional. It is not performed to receive something in return, to be liked, or to create a particular response. It arises naturally when we stop trying to manipulate our inner state. And often it appears only when we stop demanding that we be a certain way. When we force ourselves to be positive while life feels heavy, while we are sad, angry, or discouraged, we often believe we are bypassing the difficult. In reality, we are digging ourselves deeper. What we avoid does not disappear. It becomes more compressed, heavier, more dense.
The highest honesty is always the feeling that is actually present. And the highest form of wholeness does not lie in replacing that feeling with something “better,” but in allowing it to exist fully. It is only when we stop pretending to be someone other than who we are in the moment that something begins to move.
The solution to the positivity trap is therefore not to become more positive. It is to become more true. To acknowledge what one actually feels, thinks, and is, without trying to improve it, justify it, or dress it in more beautiful words. When we do this, so-called negative emotions quickly lose their grip. They are allowed to flow through rather than being held in place. As human beings, we cannot resist truth for very long. It is resistance that consumes energy, not feeling itself.
When honesty is allowed to take up space, something unexpected often arises. A lightness that is not forced. A warmth that is not pasted on. And sometimes, only then, does what we were trying to create through positivity finally appear.