Believe it or not, it is possible to feel negative about positive. There are many ways that a person can form a negative association with positivity. Many things that a person can experience with positivity that are traumatizing. If you or someone you know, is one of those people who has positivity trauma, it can feel like you or they are up against a wall regarding what to do about it. Which is why, I am going to explain how to heal positivity trauma. 

If you have positivity trauma, positivity will in and of itself be a trigger for you. So, all those positive things that should make someone feel better, make you feel worse. Things like positive slogans or phrases, positive people, gratitude practices, compliments, positive language, positivity exercises, reassurance, inspirational content and silver linings. So will situations where you are expected in any way to be positive. You have been led to believe that something is wrong with you because of this. But actually, your brain and body are just reacting the way they should react given what you have experienced. Your negativity or cynicism is actually a survival mechanism. It is your body guard so to speak. A strategy to keep you away from all the painful things you now associate with positivity. To learn about this, you can watch my video titled: Do You Positivity Boycott? But what should you do if you have this positivity trauma? After all, it is also painful to keep yourself in negativity all the time because of how unsafe positivity was.

1. The most important thing to do is to recognize what is happening for what it is and stop telling yourself painful stories about yourself. What I mean by this is, when you encounter positivity, it causes you to feel pain. And when it comes to shifting your mindset to be more positive or to do positivity exercises, you procrastinate and approach it like someone going to get a root canal. It hurts to have to do it. You probably have a whole bunch of negative stories you tell yourself about yourself when this happens. Things like: Something is seriously wrong with me. Maybe I am addicted to the negative. I am just a negative person. It’s my fault I can’t be happy, look at me. I’m not grateful for what I have, so the universe is going to take it from me etc. Stop it. No, I really mean it. Stop it. These stories are not in reality at all. What is happening, and what you need to remind yourself is happening, is that your positivity trauma has been activated. When you have trauma relative to positivity, it means metaphorically speaking, you have been bitten by the shark called toxic positivity. As a result, you have learned that a positive slogan means you will be neglected or silenced because they were used to negate the way you feel. A compliment means loss because you have experienced people taking it back. Reassurance means a bad thing will happen because you’ve experienced so much false reassurance. A positive focus exercise means you are going to get blindsided by something bad. Positive language means you are about to be erased because it was used to completely cover your reality and the truth of what you thought and how you felt about it. Pavlov, a Russian physiologist proved that dogs could be trained to associate a neutral stimulus (ringing a bell) with food. And that eventually, they would start salivating at the sound of the bell alone. This showed that behavioral responses are learned through association. It is no different with what you are experiencing. Positivity – negative association – negative response. You can halt the trigger spiral just by naming what is happening objectively. For example: I know what is happening, I am triggered by the positive, my nervous system is trying to protect me from (fill in the blank with specifically what the negative consequence of the positive thing would be). This may take some reflection to become conscious of what it is. For example, say I pass someone wearing a T-shirt that says “Life is Good”. I feel myself becoming bitter and hateful towards the person wearing that T-shirt. I think hard about what bad thing that might mean to me. Maybe the answer is: That T-shirt totally invalidates the fact that I haven’t had a good life at all. It makes me feel totally alone in my pain and like the odd one out. And I feel extreme envy towards people who have had a good enough life to feel that way. And I feel expected to be positive and happy, no matter what I have been put through. I would say: I know what is happening, I am triggered by the positive, my nervous system is trying to protect me from my pain being invalidated, being alone in pain, feeling envious and feeling the pressure and pain of having to put on a façade.
2. Prioritize feeling safe. Not feeling “positive”. Prioritize the downregulation of your nervous system. So many people who struggle with positivity trauma think that the problem is not being positive or not being able to resource the positive, when it isn’t. It is that you are stuck in fight or flight mode and you don’t even notice that this is actually the issue. The problem is you don’t feel safe. Trauma makes you not feel safe. Have you noticed that when you start to feel safe, suddenly, you start to feel more positive naturally? If you don’t feel safe in a given moment, you will not be able to feel positive or notice positive things. In fact, you will be traumatizing yourself because you will be gaslighting yourself. One part of you will be putting pressure on you to feel positive, as if you should be feeling that way or at least be able to make yourself feel that way. The rest of you will be rejecting the positive because it is a complete contradiction to what is actually happening for the nervous system. You need a calm nervous system that is registering that it is safe in order for you to be able to “register” and feel the positive. Soothe the body into feeling calmer. Confirm that you are safe. It is far more effective when you are triggered to soak your face in cold water, to massage your ears, to go under the covers, to create vibrations in your neck/body by humming, singing or gargling, to scan the room and name things, to cross your arms over your chest and tap your shoulders in an alternating left-right rhythm, to gently rock yourself, to listen to soothing sounds or deliberately go smell scents that make you feel safe, to follow along with a guided meditation, to do breathing practices that specifically pull you out of fight or flight mode and/or to focus on ways you ARE safe than it is to try to be positive or do positivity exercises. If you are struggling with positivity, ask yourself: Why don’t I feel safe right now? And based on the answers you receive, take an action that directly resolves the unsafety. The nervous system responds so much more to physiological safety cues than it ever does to psychological effort to think differently, especially when thinking positive for you is already something that registers as a threat. Toxic positivity demands that you use your mind to ignore your body. You are looking to do the opposite, to use your body to tell your mind that you are safe. Whatever you do, if you have positivity trauma, don’t try to ‘positive’ your way out of feeling or being unsafe, which you know you love to try to do.
3. The healing experience is for “the negative”, really just your unfiltered honesty, to be fully listened to, heard, understood, received, validated and responded to in an attuned way. Your pain needs to be witnessed and responded to in an attuned way in order to reverse the isolation, neglect and abuse you’ve lived in for so long. It is what will pull you out of survival mode. And it is what will pull you out of shame for your emotions. You can no longer be with people where you need to suppress your pain to help them avoid discomfort. This means, be around people (especially friends) who value radical honesty and validation over good vibes or positivity. Be around people where they do not need or expect you to remain positive no matter how challenging or difficult a situation is. Especially avoid people who use positivity to bypass and spiritual bypassers. You need spaces where heavy, painful thoughts and emotions are treated as important information, not defects or personal failings. You need people and places that truly don’t put pressure on you to be ok. You need people who get that you never should feel happy; happiness is an internal signal, and if it isn’t going off, the conditions are not present for it to be signaling. There are people and places where it’s ok to not be ok. Not that no one responds in an attuned, compassionate way to your pain because they think it is ok that you are hurting. Rather people and places where your feelings and current emotional state are not treated like the problem, pushed away, or run away from. They can be there and be part of the place and relationship.
4. Remember that the goal is to become “total”. Not to become a positive person. To be positive is to be partial. To be negative is also to be partial. To be truly grounded in reality and truth, is to be able to see, recognize, feel, know all that is. A person who is total can see the negative and the positive. A person who is total can feel the full range… Joy and sadness, elation and anger, excitement and disappointment. One practice that can help with this is AND consciousness. To be able to hold seemingly contradictory truths and feeling states, and for both to be valid, rather than for either to cancel the other out. For example: I am not enjoying being here AND there are things here that are lovely. Grief and enjoyment are not mutually exclusive. You don't have to "finish" being sad before you're allowed to or can enjoy a movie. To understand more about this, you can watch my video titled: AND Consciousness, The Modern-Day Replacement For the Middle Way. Just don’t do this exercise if you are using positives to “tone down” or try to “cancel out” negatives.
5.  If you do any exercises around positivity, do it FOR your health. Think of positivity exercises no differently than you think of health food or drinking water. Positivity can no longer be a social demand. It must be a personal tool that you can use because you have decided that it does something for you. Just like eating healthy food is not about hiding the bad stuff, it’s just about adding something that supports your system, any of these positive exercises are not about hiding or stuffing down or cancelling out the "bad" stuff; they are about adding something that supports your physical system while you navigate the "bad" stuff. 
6. Micro-dose positivity and in ways that feel safe. Imagine it like this, if you were traumatized by a shark attack, you wouldn’t go swimming in the deep ocean with great whites. You would need safe water experiences. Some ways to do this relative to positivity are to drop trying to be happy and positive. Instead, make your aim to feel relief or comfort or a moment of enjoyment. Find what feels good in little, safe ways. Maybe even not including people in this to start. Things like seeing if you can really let yourself enjoy the cup of tea or the thing you are eating. Things like fully feeling the sunset. Things like noticing and naming the things you like while driving. The deep red color of that car. The skyline. How that woman is singing at the top of her lungs. The song that is playing. The fabric of the outfit you are wearing etc. When positivity has been used against you in an abusive way, your brain treats good feelings like a danger and you experience a threat response. You are looking to prove to your being that things are different now. A good feeling or noticing a good thing, does not come with a terrible consequence. The most common form that toxic positivity comes in, is verbal. So, start with positivity in a nonverbal form. For example, rather than affirmations, focus on noticing beautiful things. Things that just exist, whether you recognize them or not and that are not putting pressure on you to appreciate them or demanding that you notice them. You might find that to start, it is safer to experience good feeling things or engage with the positive when you are alone. Why? You don't have to put on a happy facade to make someone else feel comfortable. A forest is full of things that cause you to feel pleasure, but if no one is there, this allows you to experience those things without having to put on a performance of joy and without fearing the consequences you associate with others seeing you feel good. Or for example, engaging in a hobby (gardening, painting, wood-working) creates a flow state. This quiet, internal positivity doesn't involve another person, so there is none of that complexity or pressure added. Trying to be happy or doing a positive focus exercise may feel 10/10 dangerous. So, do something that is more like a 3/10 for you. Maybe that is aiming to feel an internal exhale or putting your headphones on and really being present with all of your senses to a song you think is really, really good. Feeling a micro-moment of "safe" positivity doesn't mean that what is hurting you is somehow erased or that your trauma isn’t present and real and in need of something.
7. Do parts work relative to the parts of you that are involved in this painful relationship with positivity. You may have even more parts, but when people have been traumatized by toxic positivity, they struggle with four primary parts. Part one is the part of you that was damaged by positivity, the one who was harmed by it in a list of specific ways. Part two is the part that is trying to protect you by refusing to say or do anything “positive” or put any energy into improving your mood because that is what harmed you. Part three is the part of you that puts the pressure on you to feel ok and be ok, no matter what is happening to you or in your life. This is the internalized aspect of the person who harmed you with positivity. Part four is the part of you that is desperate to feel better and get relief (any relief at all) no matter if that is through positive focus or anything else positive. This one is usually drowning in negativity and is desperate to be positive and do positive, but is being prevented from being and doing it. To learn how to do parts work, you can watch my video titled: What is Parts Work and How To Do Parts Work. There are also several therapy modalities that use the tool of parts work. Many Completion Process Facilitators do, voice dialogue does, internal family systems does, schema therapy does, gestalt therapy does. So, if it feels right to get help doing it, you can find a therapist who specializes in one such modality and go to them with the intention of working with these aspects of yourself. Just make sure that your therapist does not employ toxic positivity and makes you feel like you can trust that they have a big container for and are not resistant to painful emotional states. It would (or maybe wouldn’t) surprise you how many therapists get into the role of being a therapist because they are in fact resistant to negative emotion and want to find ways to shut emotions down.  
8.  Speaking of parts work, if you do any positivity exercises and it feels like it is triggering any part of yourself or like it is “against” any part of yourself, that part of yourself that it is triggered or feels like the exercise is against it, needs to be directly tended to with care. Aside from parts work (which you can do with this aspect of you) an effective exercise is to close your eyes as if in mediation and ask to “see” this aspect of you. And respond to that part of you in an attuned way, so as to resolve the pain that aspect of you is in. As well as to meet its needs. For example, if you see a part of yourself that is screaming and banging its head against the wall, you may intuitively get that this part of you is absolutely desperate. What is this part desperate for? Maybe it is for someone to go over and grab them and hold them while they are screaming and really feel and see the depth of despair they are in. And to figure out why they are in that level of despair and then to rescue them out of it in whatever way makes sense. So, you would go through that process as if you were doing an intuitively guided visualization. If seeing things in the mind’s eye does not come naturally to you, you will notice that your knowing is still intact. So, you can feel and know your way through the process even if you don’t get good visual images.    
9. It can be very healing to create a container for you to be unapologetically negative. Especially if part of your trauma involved always having to keep a “happy face”. This is a specific space or place or time of the day or a specific journal for all of what isn’t positive to be there. Negative thoughts, what feels bad, worries, things that were or are painful, everything that is “too much”. And remember, feeling better is not actually about being positive. It is about becoming aware of the emotion you are feeling, figuring out why the emotion present. And what it is trying to tell you. What needs it implies. And then responding to that information in an attuned, compassionate way. 
10. Set boundaries when it comes to toxic positivity. But you need to remember, people who use toxic positivity feel threatened by "negative" emotions. Their pushback against your negative emotions is about their discomfort with the way they feel; their own emotions. At the end of the day, it isn’t even about you. But it is actually re-traumatizing for you to be around toxic positivity. And toxic positivity isn’t healthy for anyone. This means, if someone is meeting you with toxic positivity, rather than go into a self-doubt, shame spiral, you have two choices. The first is to set an internal boundary. A boundary that you hold inside and act in alignment with, but don’t express externally. For example, say that you realize that the other person does not have the capacity to hold space for pain. Stop bringing your deeper truths to them. The vulnerable ones that contain your pain. The second is to set an external boundary. A boundary that you do express externally. Usually, this is done in the form of something you say to them. Something like: "Hold on. Before we look for a solution or a bright side, I need us to stay here for a moment. This part…the part where it hurts, is what I need you to see!” Or “I don't have the energy to perform a good mood today, I’m honoring my grief right now, and that’s what my health requires." Or  "I don't have the emotional bandwidth to be 'positive' about this right now. I need to sit with the reality of what happened.” Or  "I’m not looking for a silver lining right now; I just need you to hear that this is horrible for me." Or "When you try to reframe this as a 'growth opportunity,' it actually makes me feel less safe talking to you." Or “you are making me feel like rather than really trying to understand me, you are just needing me to fix my mood." Or "For me, this is a very painful experience, and searching for the 'lesson' in it feels abusive right now." Or "We have different ways of looking at this. And right now your way of looking at it is making me feel worse, so I’m going to step away from this conversation so I can process things on my own." 
    You can also set the boundary before you speak if you are entering a conversation where you know you'll be vulnerable and don’t want to be met with toxic positivity. This defines the container for the conversation before the other person has a chance to ruin it. For example, you could say: “I really need to just be able to be totally unfiltered and honest about what is happening for me, but I’m afraid for it to be reframed or to be given advice for how to feel different than I feel.” And then, don’t proceed unless the other person gives some indication that they won’t and you are safe to share. Remember, a silver lining is a personal resource. This means that you are the only person that gets to decide if a situation has a "silver lining." And the only person who gets to decide if it counts for anything.      

I’m going to give you an analogy that is really helpful when it comes to responding to your emotions and knowing whether someone else is doing the right thing with your emotions. Imagine that your emotions are visitors in a space, like a house. Your emotions are telling you about that house. When the focus is on fixing the emotions, the approach is actually to get the emotions to go away. This can be compared to evicting them from the house. To the opposite, when you treat your "negative" emotions as honored guests with valuable information, you are essentially asking them what they need for the "house" to be more of what is wanted and needed. And this, in turn causes them to give different feedback/share different information (what you experience as a change in the way you feel/feeling better).

Feeling happy is not a goal post or level of the game of life to reach. It is an internal signal about what is happening within you. You are not failing if that signal is not happening. It simply means the conditions are not there for there to be that signal. If you are not feeling it. And given what you have experienced, you have every right to be un-positive forever. You do not ever have to be positive or develop a good relationship with positivity.