你經(jīng)歷過'有毒的積極情緒'嗎?
Being upbeat is one thing, but if you're supporting friends through tough times, glossing over challenges with cheeriness can make those who are struggling feel worse.
保持樂觀是一回事,但是如果你是在支持朋友度過困難時期,用快樂掩蓋挑戰(zhàn)會讓那些正在掙扎的人感覺更糟。
Between sleepless nights, diapers and feeding times, having small children at home could leave Priscilla Goins feeling exhausted. She loved her kids, but it was a lot.
在不眠之夜、換尿布和喂食之間,有小孩在家會讓普麗西拉感到筋疲力盡。她愛她的孩子,但愛得太多了。
"I would sometimes say 'I just want a minute to myself,'" Goins, of Knoxville, Tennessee, said. "People would be like: 'Oh, you'll miss it when they're older.'" And that made her so mad.
來自田納西州諾克斯維爾的戈恩斯說:“我有時會說,‘我只想給自己一分鐘。’”“人們會說:‘哦,等他們長大了,你會想念它的。’”這讓她很生氣。
It's not that she disagreed. But in those moments, she wanted acknowledgement that the exhaustion she was going through was legitimate. Her friends' responses sometimes left her feeling bad for wanting that alone time.
并不是她不同意。但在那些時刻,她希望人們承認她的疲憊是合理的。她的朋友們的反應有時會讓她感覺很糟糕,因為她想要獨處的時間。
"I still want that minute to myself," she recalled feeling.
“我仍然希望那一分鐘屬于我自己,”她回憶起當時的感覺。
A focus on upbeat thinking, while shunting challenging and difficult experiences to the side, is what some experts call "toxic positivity." Goins came across the term recently and was curious if others had similar encounters.
專注于樂觀的思維,同時把挑戰(zhàn)和困難的經(jīng)歷放在一邊,就是一些專家所說的“有毒的積極情緒”。戈恩斯最近遇到了這個詞,她很好奇其他人是否也遇到過類似的情況。
She tweeted out a simple question in late August: "Y'all ever encountered toxic positivity?"
8月底,她在推特上發(fā)了一個簡單的問題:“你們都遇到過‘有毒的積極情緒’嗎?”
With observations about parenting, writing and daily life, Goins' tweets generally garner a handful of favorites. This one got more than 201,000. For many people, it seemed, her question struck a raw nerve.
通過對養(yǎng)育子女、寫作和日常生活的觀察,戈恩斯的推特通常會被收藏很多次。而這個則超過了20.1萬。對許多人來說,她的問題似乎觸及了她們的痛處。
Maybe it's the pandemic that has come to define 2020, ushering in lockdowns, job losses and some serious mental health issues. People around the world are struggling right now, which experts say is a natural, healthy response to these extraordinary times.
也許是流行病定義了2020年,導致了停工、失業(yè)和一些嚴重的心理健康問題。世界各地的人們現(xiàn)在都在掙扎,專家說這是對這個特殊時期的一種自然的、健康的反應。
And the last thing someone in crisis wants to hear is that it's all for the best.
陷入危機的人最不愿意聽到的是,這一切都是最好的。
What's wrong with being positive all the time?
總是保持樂觀有什么錯?
It's not that being cheerful is a bad thing. A positive attitude can be a gift to those around you, said Jamie Long, a clinical psychologist in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but it shouldn't take the place of listening thoughtfully to others' experiences.
快樂并不是一件壞事。佛羅里達州勞德代爾堡的臨床心理學家杰米·朗說,積極的態(tài)度可以成為你周圍人的禮物,但它不應該取代認真傾聽他人的經(jīng)歷。
"When you are choosing to look at situations from one perspective — in this case a positive perspective — you are very likely to dismiss or minimize an authentic experience," Long explained.
朗解釋道:“當你選擇從一個角度看問題時——在這種情況下是一個積極的角度——你很可能會忽略或最小化真實的經(jīng)歷。”這是一種有害的積極情緒。
Even if you're trying to cheer up someone, diminishing someone's difficult experiences can leave them feeling they should hide negative feelings in the future.
即使你試圖讓某人高興起來,減少某人的困難經(jīng)歷會讓他們覺得他們應該在未來隱藏負面情緒。
But toxic positivity doesn't just show up in how we treat others. Many people put intense pressure on themselves to ignore difficult emotions, too. That can cause us psychological and physical harm, Long said.
但是,有毒的積極情緒不僅表現(xiàn)在我們對待他人的方式上。許多人也給自己施加了巨大的壓力,讓自己忽視困難的情緒。朗說,這會給我們帶來心理和生理上的傷害。
Suppressing emotional responses, whether positive or negative, triggers a sympathetic response in the cardiovascular system, found one study.
一項研究發(fā)現(xiàn),抑制情緒反應,無論是積極的還是消極的,都會引發(fā)心血管系統(tǒng)的交感反應。
Life is full of challenging things, from daily stresses to profound, lasting grief. Trying to push away those feelings doesn't make them disappear. "When you keep that sadness, or shame, or guilt or anger in the body, what happens is it doesn't go anywhere," Long said.
生活充滿了挑戰(zhàn),從日常壓力到深刻、持久的悲痛。試著推開那些感覺并不能讓它們消失。“當你把悲傷、羞恥、內(nèi)疚或憤怒藏在身體里,它們并不會消失,”朗說。
Since ignoring difficult thoughts doesn't work, Long said it's best to just let ourselves experience the bumps in the road. In the end, it can make it easier to move on to other feelings.
既然忽視困難的想法是行不通的,朗說最好是讓自己經(jīng)歷道路上的顛簸。最后,它可以讓你更容易地轉向其他感覺。
Not only that, Long said accepting our feelings can make room for a more nuanced experience of the world, where we frequently contend with positive and negative feelings at the same time. "Look out for the either-or mindset," she said.
不僅如此,朗說,接受我們的感覺可以為我們對這個世界更微妙的體驗騰出空間,在這個世界里,我們經(jīng)常同時面對積極和消極的感覺。“要注意這種非此即彼的心態(tài),”她說。
As an example, she described the complicated experiences that many have had during the pandemic, encountering a blend of grief, anger, gratitude and hope. Sometimes, those feelings come all at once.
例如,她描述了許多人在流行病期間經(jīng)歷的復雜經(jīng)歷,遇到了悲痛、憤怒、感激和希望。有時候,這些感覺一下子就來了。
"We can be really sad this is happening," she said, "and be positive and hopeful for the future at the same time."
她說:“發(fā)生這樣的事我們真的很難過,但同時我們也要對未來保持樂觀和充滿希望。”