Suggesting some ways to steer away from toxic positivity, Joseph continues, “Identification, validation, or acknowledgement of one’s reality, emotions and life circumstances becomes crucial. Expanding your emotional vocabulary, recognising toxic positive statements, educating people who push them hard on us and admitting one is not alright are the next steps.

When we stop pretending and instead hold healthy conversations about our emotions, we automatically stand in a better position. We can then be available for others to open up and share their emotions without being judged.”

One must learn to break the dichotomy of good and bad emotions. All emotions are valid and welcome. Also, no emotion is final and permanent—our emotional landscape keeps shifting. The emotional system is complex and layered. All of them are acceptable and can coexist. This leads to healthy processing of all our experiences and a self-aware mind.

“When we think of a fulfilling life, we imagine it should be full of positivity only. However, a fulfilling life is a life full of all the emotions. Just like one cannot know of light without the knowledge of darkness, similarly, one cannot experience the entirety of joy without the knowledge of pain,” Saraf says. It’s the Yin and Yang of life that we need to gracefully embrace.