Social media and the rise of toxic positivity.

During the pandemic many people found that maintaining a positive outlook helped them to cope. However, positivity can be a two-edged sword and, whilst it’s generally good for our mental health, unrelenting optimism or ‘toxic positivity’ can make us feel a whole lot worse.

The phrase ‘toxic positivity’ refers to the excessive and unhealthy promotion of positive thinking and the denial, invalidation, or suppression of negative emotions or experiences. It occurs when people are encouraged to always maintain a positive attitude, even in the face of genuine challenges, difficulties, or hardships. No matter how bad a situation looks, positivity needs to be maintained and anything that triggers a negative emotion must be rejected.

This pressure to always maintain a positive attitude can be exacerbated by social media platforms where people showcase their accomplishments, happy moments, and positive experiences. A constant stream of curated content can create unrealistic expectations and make others feel inadequate or flawed if their lives don't match up. Seeing other people’s seemingly perfect lives can create a sense of pressure to portray oneself in the same way and lead to feelings of inadequacy and anxiety. As content users share will favour positive experiences and achievements, the illusion that everyone's lives are consistently positive and perfect further reinforces toxic positivity.

Because social media platforms thrive on likes, comments, and shares, users may seek validation and approval through positive feedback and engagement resulting in a tendency to focus on presenting a positive image to garner more attention and affirmation. This further perpetuaties toxic positivity and encourages the dismissal or invalidation of negative emotions. People may feel pressured to quickly move past challenges or hardships, suppressing their true feelings in favour of maintaining a positive image which can lead to a lack of emotional authenticity and hinder genuine connection and support.

It is important to remember that social media itself is not inherently toxic or negative. It can be a powerful tool for connecting, sharing experiences, and spreading positivity. However, the way in which it is used and the behaviours it can encourage may contribute to the perpetuation of toxic positivity, so it is essential people are mindful of these influences and cultivate a healthy balance between sharing positivity and acknowledging the full range of human emotions and experiences.

Whilst negative emotions are seen as a failure or weakness and are unpleasant and hard to deal with, they are important and need to be dealt with openly and honestly and although it’s undeniably a good thing to look on the bright side and be grateful for what we have, it’s also important to acknowledge and listen to our emotions – even when they’re not as pleasant.

Fashion as empowerment. Social responsibility, technology and resilience.

Jonathan Joseph believes that fashion is for everyone. He started his company Little Red Fashion as way to educate children about the fashion industry through tech-enhanced books and resources that empower the next generation of fashion lovers, leaders, consumers, and creatives through a lens of DEI and sustainability.

Jonathan worked as a consultant in the woman’s luxury fashion and sportswear industry. During this time he saw a lot of toxicity and negativity that not only affected people working in the industry but also consumers through marketing and advertising. He thought that it would be possible to shortcut some of these issues such as the body dysmorphia created by unrealistic standards by empowering children rather than fixing broken adults.

After being left at an orphanage in Columbia when he was a baby, Jonathan was adopted when he was nine months old. He then grew up in New York where he was diagnosed with Ataxic Cerebral Palsy (ACP). This is a very rare type of Cerebral Palsy that affects perception, balance and fine motor skills but Jonathan’s parents taught him to be resilient. He wasn’t treated any differently by his family. It was ‘OK you have Cerebral Palsy but you can find ways around it and we will fight for you’.

Living with ACP became normal for Jonathan. His is non generative and when he was younger he undertook a lot of physical and occupational therapy. He also had to wear leg braces and these helped get him into fashion. His Mother was always looking for ways to empower him against the ACP by finding clothes and accessories that provided ‘armour’ in a world that may otherwise have been judgmental. Jonathan feels his Mother was a great role model. She was diagnosed with breast cancer before he was born and he can remember when she was going for chemo or radiation treatment she always had a scarf and her favourite Dior sunglasses - her armour for a situation that was disempowering by its nature.

Jonathan feels that you can use fashion as part of your therapeutic approach by creating a persona or armour or by realising that how you currently present yourself might be part of your ongoing issues. There is also the opportunity to use fashion as a lens to deconstruct the negative things that the fashion industry is notorious for. Fashion is a double-edged sword.  It can be very empowering but you can also get wrapped up in the consumer culture that puts a premium on fashion to the detriment of financial or mental health. The need is to create a healthy relationship between fashion, the consumer culture and children. Children need to realise that whatever their online personality is it comes from them and should be empowering. As long as they are aware of that then they are approaching it in a healthy way.

The fashion industry brings together a lot of topics under its umbrella, business, design and textiles for example. Jonathan’s company Little Red Fashion uses fashion as a lens to talk about and deconstruct complex issues and broker conversations between children and adults. Fashion is infinitely relateable and can play a role in how children navigate the world. Jonathan uses augmented reality (AR) to help highlight the goals of diversity, equity, inclusion, and sustainability by enhancing static resources like books to make them more dynamic and interactive and easier to engage with things such as body positivity They also have a fashion mentorship scheme so children and families can get resources and insights from professionals across the field in different disciplines that may inspire them – helping to move away from the ‘need to know someone in the industry’.

Jonathan’s first book The Little Red Dress is available on website preorders from February 2022

You can find out more about Jonathan and Little Red Fashion here.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

Hamilton to heart attack. The theatre of perfection

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled - Enjoy the experience as much as the result. Musical theatre and managing perfectionism.

Julian Reeve was a Music Director for over 25 years with a career that combined music and business and took him around the world.  He joined the Broadway team of Hamilton as Music Director and took it on it’s first national tour in 2017 before suffering from a heart attack which was triggered by maladaptive perfectionism. He is now based just outside Los Angeles where he is a perfectionism contributor, speaker, and author.

Julian started out as a musician before moving on to musical direction, which involves the running and creative upkeep of a show. Musical theatre can be seen to be a process rather than being creative as its essential to keep producing the same piece of music every night without mistakes to ensure the longevity of a show. The Musical Director also has to build team spirit and ensure high-level performance without burning out. Resilience is important. Julian feels you need to find the parts you enjoy and forget the bits you don't like to find the positivity which is the only thing that keeps you going. The Music Director is sometimes thought to be the least musical person in the room as their role is less about the music more about being the best leader and facilitator. Julian found his resilience by looking outside the box. He was always motivated by finding out what made his team tick and what got them to perform at their best every night. Even after five years on the same show you can still discover new things.

Julian had no idea he was a perfectionist until he was in his 40s. He suffered his heart attack 3 months after starting Hamilton and he feels his perfectionism was the cause. In his childhood he suffered from low self esteem and bullying, which led to bad lifestyle choices. Perfectionism has numerous explanations but research has shown it falls into two categories - adaptive and maladaptive. The adaptive part is what is recognised as good perfectionism, the part that gets good results, but the maladaptive side can lead to anxiety, depression, burnout and even suicide. Nothing is ever good enough. Perfectionists battle between the two and need to create equilibrium to regulate their experiences but this needs knowledge. We need to find a way to speak to perfectionists in a different way. They need self-compassion. This is made up of three elements, self-kindness, mindfulness and common humanity.

Julian now works with children and adults but his book is aimed at 6 to 12 year olds who can learn perfectionist behaviour in childhood. They need to develop self-management techniques. Warning signs include low self esteem, putting themselves down, mistakes being unacceptable, struggling to celebrate when they do well, fear of failure, all or nothing thinking and there only one way to do something.

Perfectionists need to learn self worth, to value themselves enough and to learn to love themselves.  They need to be able to say ‘I’m worth more than this’, to slow down and readdress. Perfectionism can be exciting if you can hone the gifts perfectionism gives you to the point where you become high performance.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Julian here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can get in touch with Julian at www.julianreeve.com or www.captain-perfection.com

Attitude to Gratitude. Turning a challenge into a benefit to others.

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled – Attitude to Gratitude. Turning a challenge into a benefit for others.

In this episode, Dr. Russell Thackeray talks to Holly Bertone, the President and CEO of Pink Fortitude, LLC, and founder of Fortitude.Academy and the health and wellness website pinkfortitude.com. Holly spent the first 10 years of her career as a recruiter before becoming a Chief of Staff in the federal government service. As well as having a highly successful career, Holly took part in triathlons and was a mountain bike racer but she was diagnosed and treated first for breast cancer and then for the autoimmune illness, Hashimoto Disease. She is based in Alexandria, Virginia.

When Holly was diagnosed with breast cancer she was told ‘don't worry you have the good kind of cancer’.  Two days later her boyfriend proposed (they have recently celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary) and, having completed surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment, they got married 10 days after Holly’s treatment ended. Over the next year however she kept getting sicker and sicker and the following year was diagnosed with the autoimmune condition Hasimoto Disease. This can lead to a number of symptoms including fatigue, migraine and IBS that are sometimes manageable and sometimes debilitating.

An autoimmune condition is really a case of our immune cells doing what they should be doing. The body has too much inflammation in it and the autoimmune system is trying to calm it down and put the fire out. There are 80 – 100 autoimmune diseases and they can have varying symptoms such as debilitating fatigue, pain, rashes, IBS and migraines. The symptoms and severity are different from person to person.

Holly was still working full time and could still function but she self demoted herself to an analyst role to reduce the amount of stress she was dealing with. She investigated different ways of dealing with her condition but gratitude seemed to be the driver - you can wake up and be miserable about your condition or wake up and be thankful for what life has given you. Holly’s mother had been diagnosed with Addison’s Disease, an autoimmune illness and Holly recalls that her mother was always positive, saying that gratitude builds fortitude.  Going through tough times builds fortitude and being grateful builds fortitude. It can be transformative in the midst of storms.

We all need fortitude or inner strength. Every day we can choose to be a victim of circumstance or we can say ‘I’ve got this’.  Our day might not be perfect but we can take control of our life despite of what’s coming our way – we can deal with what we’re going through because we’re strong and have fortitude. It’s about having a mental narrative and giving ourselves positive messages. We're all really good at ‘talking bad to ourselves’ and telling ourselves that we’re not good enough. Holly feels we should talk to ourselves as if we were talking to a baby, a grandparent or a member of the clergy – with respect, kindness and lovingness. If we’re feeling bad at the start of the day, messages, a mantra or inspirational quote can help get through a tough time. It's a matter of finding what works for you

Holly feels that gratitude is the umbrella. A simple definition of gratitude is that it’s a state of being thankful, a place of joy or love.  A way of getting started would be to start to think about 3 things to be grateful for in the morning and 3 before you go to bed. Over time this gradually starts to grow and change your mindset. The benefits of gratitude have a scientific base. Dr. Robert Emmons is a leading expert on gratitude and he has undertaken a number of world studies on the link between gratitude and wellbeing. It has been established that practicing gratitude has 7 benefits. Gratitude can:

1. open the door to more relationships.

2. improve physical health.

3. improve psychological health.

4. enhance empathy and reduce aggression.

5. help people sleep better.

6. improve self-esteem.

7. increase mental strength.

Holly has turned two significant health challenges into a passion to help transform the lives of women struggling with chronic illness by sharing the power of gratitude.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Holly here. Our previous podcast episodes, upcoming guest list and full blog archive are also available.

You can get in touch with Holly through pinkfortitude.com or Fortitude.Academy 

Holly is also the #1 Amazon.com bestselling author of the book Thriving in the Workplace with Autoimmune Disease: Know Your Rights, Resolve Conflict, and Reduce Stress, the first book ever to educate others on Autoimmune Disease as a legal disability in the U.S. workplace.