Happiness.
We hear about it everywhere.“Think positive!”“Just be happy!”“Look on the bright side!”
But let’s be honest: these phrases can feel hollow. In fact, sometimes they make things worse. If you’ve ever been struggling—feeling sad, anxious, or stuck—and someone told you to “just think positively,” you’ve probably felt misunderstood, even dismissed.
This is what we call toxic positivity: the insistence on positivity at all costs, even when it denies the reality of our emotions.
The Problem with Toxic Positivity
Toxic positivity says there’s no room for sadness, anger, or grief in the pursuit of happiness. But life isn’t just sunshine and rainbows—it’s messy, unpredictable, and sometimes painful. When we ignore or suppress the “negative” emotions, we miss the chance to truly understand ourselves.
Sadness, anger, fear—these emotions aren’t the enemy. They’re signals. They’re parts of you that are asking to be seen, heard, and understood. When we push them away, we don’t eliminate them. They just linger beneath the surface, waiting for their moment to burst out.
The truth is, happiness isn’t the absence of sadness—it’s the ability to hold space for all your emotions without being consumed by them.
Staying with the Sadness
Here’s the paradox: to find true happiness, you have to be willing to sit with the sadness.
I know, it sounds counterintuitive. But when you allow yourself to feel the “heavy” emotions—without judging or trying to fix them—you create space for something deeper: presence, freedom, and fulfillment.
Think about it: sadness is a sign that something meaningful has happened. Grief points to love. Anger points to boundaries crossed. Fear points to vulnerability. These emotions are doorways. When you walk through them, you find clarity, healing, and growth on the other side.
A Client’s Story: Anna
Anna came to therapy feeling completely stuck. She wanted to “fix” her sadness. She told me, “I just want to stop crying and feel happy again.” But every time she tried to force herself to feel better, she ended up feeling worse.
So, we did something radical: we stopped trying to fix it.
Instead, I asked her to sit with her sadness. To notice where it lived in her body. To let it speak, without trying to push it away. At first, she resisted. “What’s the point?” she said. “It just feels worse.” But slowly, as she stayed present with her sadness, something shifted.
Underneath the sadness, she found grief for the loss of her father—a loss she had never fully allowed herself to process. She cried, she grieved, and she felt raw. But she also felt lighter. Freer. For the first time in years, she felt like she could breathe again.
Why Sadness is the Door to Happiness
Here’s the thing about emotions: they don’t go away just because we ignore them. They sit in our bodies, waiting to be acknowledged. And the more we avoid them, the louder they get.
When we stay with the sadness—when we allow ourselves to feel the emotions we’ve been avoiding—we reconnect with ourselves. We make room for healing. And as we process what’s been holding us back, we create space for joy, gratitude, and peace to enter.
Happiness isn’t about avoiding the hard stuff. It’s about embracing the full spectrum of your emotions and learning to live in harmony with them.
True Happiness is Presence
Happiness isn’t a constant state of joy. It’s being fully present in your life—feeling all the emotions, the highs and the lows, and knowing that you can handle whatever comes your way.
It’s about knowing that sadness, anger, and fear are part of being human. They’re not signs of failure; they’re signs that you’re alive, growing, and connected to the world around you.
So the next time you feel sadness creeping in, try something different. Instead of pushing it away, lean into it. Ask it what it needs. Listen to what it’s trying to tell you.
Because on the other side of sadness, you might just find freedom.
True happiness isn’t about “thinking positive.” It’s about being real—with yourself, your emotions, and your life. And when you make room for all of it, you might find that happiness was never something to chase—it was something you had inside you all along.
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