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Why it’s OK not to feel OK right now (or ever, really).
If you’re struggling with COVID-anxiety, climate grief, or general worry about the state of the world — then that’s healthy.
The other day, one of my dear friends posted something like this on Facebook: “I am a mess right now. But, you know, being a white, educated, privileged member of society, I will just get over it”.
Yesterday, I spoke to a couple of other friends who were doling out an extra portion of stress onto themselves — firstly, the stress of dealing with social isolation, uncertainty over the future and all the other stress that the coronavirus is causing — secondly, the pressure they pile onto themselves about how they should be happy right now.
Being a Positive Psychology graduate who works as a coach and is generally known for having a sunny, bubbly personality, I sometimes think people have the idea that I spend the majority of my day bouncing through the house, singing and dancing, and spinning every news story I see into something positive.
People ask me “how can I think more positively?” or “ohh, you studied Positive Psychology, is that all about positive thinking?” — and, internally, I cringe. Because I actually hate the cult of ‘positive thinking’ and the pressure it puts on people to be ‘happy’ all the time.
One of the common misconceptions about Positive Psychology is that it is exclusively “the Science of Happiness”, a simple A-Z of how to be happy or to change your thinking. In fact, this is a common criticism of the field made by people who haven’t bothered to read much of its research, because once you get past the first few studies looking into the factors correlated with life satisfaction and happiness, you mostly find discussions about the value of “negative emotions”.
There are evolutionary reasons behind all of our emotions. Fear, for example, evolved to send the blood into our legs — hence the feeling of your face going white — and to pump adrenaline into the body so that our ancestors could run away from predators. Those who didn’t feel fear when they saw a lion running towards them were not so likely to survive and pass on their genes. Sadness makes us withdraw — perhaps to stay close to home, where our ancestors would have been safer, in order to process the loss they…
