"Good Vibes Only"

Good vibes only. It’s a mantra that I desperately wanted to embody. To be able to simply choose to experience only the good things in life while blocking out the not-so-good, and especially the bad seemed like magic. I clung to this mindset in times of struggle. I told myself to think positive thoughts, to look on the bright side, to find the silver lining. I thought that if I surrounded myself with enough positive energy, there wouldn’t be any space left for negative energy, as though I could just will it out of existence - like magic.

I used the “good vibes only” approach as a coping mechanism to compensate for my severely lacking emotional intelligence. I grew up without any emotionally intelligent role models to look to for guidance. My Nannie raised me and she was my biggest influence - she was always smiling and truly brightened every life she touched; she taught me to laugh and have fun, to be silly, but that was all she taught me. I learned by watching her that everything should always be “fine.” She only shared her lightness and hid away any dark pieces of herself. I never learned how to regulate my own negative emotions, or even that it was ok to have them, so I adopted this method too. Always smiling, always fine.

In addition to my lack of emotional intelligence when it came to myself, I didn’t know how to be present in the face of other people’s negative emotions either. I would do the only thing I knew how to do, which was to encourage them to adopt the “good vibes only” mantra too. I told them the same things I told myself, and I grew frustrated when it didn’t cure them of their darkness. The magic wasn’t working.

The thing is, we are energetic beings and just like the ocean has high tide and low tide, our energy ebbs and flows. There is a full spectrum of human emotions that we all experience - from fear, anger, sadness, and grief at one end all the way up to love, joy, and happiness at the other. To deny ourselves the ability to feel them all goes against our human nature; we require balance. It’s unrealistic to believe that we can just will our “negative” emotions out of existence through denial. They don’t just magically disappear, they sink deeper into our psyche waiting to resurface and slam us back into reality.

I’ve experienced this harsh awakening myself, and I’m seeing it in my Nannie now. She has Alzheimer’s disease, and her ability to hide those pieces of herself is diminishing along with her memory. We’re seeing her darkness now.

My awakening came in the form of my repressed darkness manifesting itself like a poltergeist. I got sick. I lost my appetite and my weight was dropping lower and lower, my stomach was in perpetual knots, and I was experiencing insomnia like never before. But I smiled through it desperately trying to convince everyone around me, and myself, that I was fine. It wasn’t until I acknowledged my soul sickness that my physical ailments were relieved. It was like magic - as soon as I released the negative energy I’d been holding onto, I freed myself from the suffering I’d created.

“Good vibes only” is toxic positivity in a marketable format - because “toxic positivity” wouldn’t look as good on a t-shirt, would it?

The concept of positivity, which I always believed was a good thing, being toxic was confusing to me at first. Positivity becomes toxic when it goes beyond healthy optimism and requires the rejection and denial of any emotions deemed as negative or bad. There is no such thing as good emotions and bad emotions, they’re all just emotions, and it is essential to our mental wellbeing to feel them all.

There is power in positive thinking, but as with all things in life, we must achieve balance. The light cannot exist without the dark.

I am grateful for the lows I experience in my life - the lows help me to appreciate the highs that much more. The lows give me an opportunity to witness my own strength and resilience, to prove to myself that I can survive life’s challenges to thrive another day.

It’s time to normalize the full spectrum of natural human emotions and recognize our need to feel them all. To villainize “negative” emotions creates shame and perpetuates harmful stigmas surrounding mental health. We need to learn emotional intelligence not only for ourselves but for those around us too. To acknowledge our own emotions and allow ourselves to feel them without shame or judgement is an empowering practice. To be able to hold space for other people and show up for them with compassion and support in times of struggle is a powerful, potentially life-saving form of human connection.

My challenge to all of us is to just be there for each other, without trying to patch us up with smiley face bandaids, and we need a new mantra…

Good vibes only. All the vibes.