Ep.13 Toxic Positivity

In this episode, Katie talks with CRR Global faculty member Yuri Morikawa about toxic positivity. Across this conversation, they discuss:

• Can too much positivity ever really be considered 'toxic'? 
• The difference between useful positivity and toxic positivity
• What becomes marginalized when a system is overly biased towards positivity
• Becoming aware of this pattern of behavior in ourselves and the systems that we work with

Yuri Morikawa has been an active player in the professional coaching field since 2004. She has trained and coached more than 1000 of leaders and coaches globally from various backgrounds, such as corporate executives, NGO leaders, business owners, independent professionals, and dream seekers of their own. Prior to her career in coaching, Yuri worked as a management consultant specializing in organizational and leadership development for 13 years. After being a trainer for Coaching Training Institute (CTI) for 8 years, she launched the Organizational and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC) Program in Japan and founded CRR Japan in 2009.  Currently, she is a global faculty member of CRR Global, developing professional organizational coaches around the world, such as in Japan, China, Singapore, South Africa, and Australia. She is passionate about bringing her professional experience to the bigger social context and works extensively with NGOs in Social Sectors such as the Kamonohashi Project supporting survivor leaders of human trafficking issues in India and Asia Rural Institute, educating organic farming, and developing servant leadership for rural leaders in Asia and Africa.


For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to build stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time

We believe Relationship Matters, from humanity to nature, to the larger whole.

Transcript

Key 

KC – Katie Churchman

YM - Yuri Morikawa

[Intro 00:00 – 00:06] 

KC – Hello and welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. We believe relationship matters, from humanity, to nature, to the larger whole. I’m your host, Katie Churchman, and in this episode, I welcome back CRR Global faculty member Yuri Morikawa to talk about toxic positivity. Across this conversation we discuss can too much positivity ever really be considered toxic? The difference between useful positivity and toxic positivity? What becomes marginalized when a system is overly biased towards positivity? And how we can become more aware of this pattern of behavior in ourselves and the systems that we work with. So, without further ado I bring you Yuri Morikawa

talking about toxic positivity.

KC – Yuri, welcome back to the Relationship Matters podcast. I'm always beaming when I have you on the show so, welcome.

YM - Thank you. It's always my excitement to be here. And at the same time, a little bit of nervousness because we don't know where we're going but we know that something good will happen during our conversation. That's something that I'm really looking forward to. 

KC – Absolutely, the power of relationship. Today we're talking about toxic positivity. I guess I want to start by asking about your thoughts on this because there's so much research that points in the direction of positivity being positive, so can too much positivity ever really be considered a bad thing?

YM - What great question. That question directly hit me and that really made me think, what is the impact of positivity on me? Because for me, positivity is part of my identity. I notice that people think of me as an ultra-positive person and people acknowledge me as someone that is a positive and empowering person. I like those feedbacks but at the same time, sometimes I notice that my positivity tells some kind of emotion or some types of being not to show up because my very strong positivity probably tells people that positivity is a good thing and negativity is something that we need to be careful about. 

KC – And it makes me think, what even is positivity and what is negativity? It seems quite clear sometimes in terms of our social conditioning what that is, but maybe our view of positivity is too narrow. What do you feel true positivity is? 

YM – So, true positivity is… by the way, isn't it interesting that we name or label some kind of emotions as positive and some kind of emotion as negative. So over here, when we say what's positive, we name it like happiness or being kind or being empowering and acknowledging – those we call ‘positive’, is that right? 

KC - Yeah, that's the same over here. Yes.

YM - Okay. So, answering to your question, I think the positive positivity is when the emotional field is truly, authentically positive happy, acknowledging, empowering. Why not being positive. And it’s great to really show and really honor how positive it is and something that we should be proud, and it’s nice to be proud. 

KC – And I think we know the damage or the dangers of negativity or toxic negativity we could say, particularly in our relationship systems, that be couples or teams or organizations, but what is toxic positivity?

YM - I think it's the other way around of what I have just said. When the emotion has no bad labelling. This is us who says what's good and what's bad. So, let's say anger, jealousy, fear, uneasiness. All are emotions are authentically there. But when we marginalize these emotions or when use the positive energy or positive words or positive emotions to dismiss those emotions. When that happens, positivity becomes negative and toxic, I’ve found. 

YM – I certainly have a bias towards that too. I think for a lot of my life it's been unconscious. You mentioned before how people see you as a positive person, and so often then what they bring to you is more in that space. I've had a few examples in my life where people have brought me something and they've really wanted to ventilate and I've gone into inspiring or empowering, and it's not what they needed, they needed to be met where they were in that moment, in their frustration, or their jealousy or whatever it was. And in some ways, my positivity felt like it was sort of sweeping their emotions under the rug and dismissing them,

YM - Sweeping it under the rug. That's very English expression, isn't it Katie? 

KC – Very British! There's another one where we'll put on a cup of tea and that's another way we ignore emotions. I think it stems from the war generations. But it's still very pervasive over here in terms of how certain emotions are allowed and then others you don't talk about. 

YM - Where is it coming from? You said it's connected to something like war, where’s that coming from? 

KC - I believe I haven't done too much research into this but just from my own experience with my grandparents, there was this idea of the stiff upper lip. Because of the atrocities they've dealt with in the wars, World War I and World War II, there was a sort of let's not talk about it and get on with our lives. I think in some ways it was a protective mechanism, certainly for my grandparents, but I think then that has continued on through generations and then certain emotions just aren't really allowed to come to the surface. And then, as we know, that can be very damaging, both on a personal level and also in our wider systems.

YM - Thank you for sharing because I find it very inspiring to talk about it. I am Japanese, right? So here in Japan, we have a very similar expression and a very similar background. We have an expression that means ‘let's put the things in the closet’. And in Japan there is an expression of ‘just show the outer face and hide the inner face’. 

KC - Oh, wow. 

YM – So, outer face needs to be perfect and pretty and ‘positive’ all the time and kind and nice and sweet and soft. All of that is the outer face, and let's keep it inside, or let's keep it in a closet, those are the emotions that what we are talking about that negative - anger, sadness, being weak. 

KC – Yeah, and I think that a big part of that is inherited. I think we take on what we learned from our environment, from our family systems and our social systems. Do you have a sense of where that stems from in Japan? That needing to push those emotions into the closet, as you say. 

YM - When you say World War I and II, I thought about it, but I think in Japan it comes way back. Japan still values the samurai spirit. Samurai being a warrior and always being ready to go out and be grounded, and strong. So, weakness was dismissed, and to be strong and be brave. Be kind to others and put yourself last and serve others – that’s a culture that we value in society. So, along that line, these ‘negative’ emotions have no place to show up.

KC - I'm wondering then what do we feel is the damage then that comes from not allowing these emotions to show up? Whether that be in our families or in our work systems. 

YM – Well I notice that my husband and myself, when we come together, both of us are coming from the family where the negative emotions were dismissed. It wasn't allowed or it was marginalized and also criticized. Being weam or even a complainer, or being always negative, or being sad or complaining about others, those were the bad things, don't do that, be positive to be responsible. So, both of us, both my husband and myself, both brought that culture. So, what was challenging was that we had such a challenging time to connect deeply, emotionally. I think we kept our relationship quite superficial for the first several years. 

KC - That's interesting. And then what enabled you or what provoked that deepening in your relationship? Was it just due to time or was something occurring that enabled you to go deeper together?

YM - Well, one of the biggest times was when you had our daughter. Children have all the emotions, right? Babies cry when he or she is sad or angry or uncomfortable. And they are sweet when they're happy but they're like another creature when they're angry and sad. So, when both of us, as a parent, meeting with the baby and how to deal with this crying baby, we needed to be creative. We tried to pamper, make her happy, giving her something nice. But there are some moments where she's just unhappy and needs to cry. So, being a parent really grew us up and trained us as you we are the human beings that will have both emotions. 

KC – Yeah, that's such a great example. I do think, when I think about my childhood, it wasn't that negative emotions weren't allowed but it was that you quickly wanted to change them into so-called positive emotions. There was almost that fixing spirit. I notice my mum on Christmas, she always tries so hard to make it such an amazing day that it can be quite stressful, actually. So, there's so much focus on positive that then she can find herself quite stressed and I think that's something that many of us deal with, that actually we’re so focused on turning things into positive that we don't allow that emotion of frustration, or anger or whatever it is to just ventilate for a moment. And as you say, with the baby, the baby cries until it needs to finish crying. You can't just say, okay, we're done now, moving on. That must have been such a learning curve, I'm sure. 

YM – Yeah, and onto another point of my life was really when I started learning about coaching. This profession is meeting with all the emotion, and I had such a challenging time really meeting and really turning toward the negative emotions that the client brings. Or even myself, feeling stressed, or if I’m in sadness or a challenging time. How can I manage my time, manage my emotions when, for me, that time, self-management, was dismissing my emotions or disapproving my emotions. Okay, you're positive, be happy. Your client is coming in five minutes, smile! 

KC – Yes. I think I've mentioned this on another podcast, but I didn't realize for years that I had a default of a smiling face. And I think my face naturally smiles but there’d be something really sad going on in a meeting, say, and I'd still be there smiling. It was only when someone reflected that back to me, I had no idea but it was this autopilot expression that I almost painted on and didn't realize that that was having an impact on the emotional field.

YM – Right. I have exactly that same pattern. Isn't that interesting? 

KC – It is! And some people think, well, how wonderful to smile all the time. But it's not always helpful because if someone's going through something really bad and you're automatically smiling, I'm sure it doesn't feel very comforting for them, actually, to not have someone except what they're feeling.

YM - Yeah. And that really stops us to deeply, emotionally, connect to each other. It all becomes false, sugar-coated, superficial relationship. 

KC – Yeah. I guess then I'm wondering, what becomes marginalized when a system is overly biased towards positivity. So, when there's toxic positivity in a system, what becomes marginalized or missed out?

YM - Well, the authentic moment of truth. It is like a huge signal of ourselves individually, but also in the relationship, and sometimes it's such an opportunity for us to deeply connect emotionally. But once that's covered up by the positive emotions and being dismissed, it's almost like a door closes and we miss the opportunity to connect deeply and understand each other and to be able to really share who you are and who I am. That's one of very sad things. It's such an opportunity loss for our emotions to come together. 

KC - Absolutely. I feel there's that lost ventilation, as well. Obviously, I think ventilation can be quite skillful or unskillful, particularly, say, with my husband after a stressful day at work. We’ll ask for five minutes to ventilate. So, it's not five hours of ventilation that takes over the whole evening. It's a time boxed amount of ventilation. I find that to be quite a cathartic experience for both of us. And the other person, they're not trying to fix, they're not trying to make it okay, they're just holding space and that's a big shift from how, at least how I used to show up in those conversations a few years ago. I tried to fix them, and they'd go on and that's unskillful. But it's interesting how frustration, when held in a way like that, can be actually quite a positive experience because then it allows for the steam to come off a little bit. 

YM - Right. And it's almost like a melting pot. If we melt in the stewpot, all the good ingredients come together and talk about it and sharing together and that comes out as a new relationship.

KC - Yeah, I guess as well, when we don't allow for all of these emotions, do you feel that we limit our range as human beings, what we're allowed to feel?

YM - Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really lesson 101 of coaching, when you dismiss the negative feeling. It means out life pause becomes quiet. I really talk about other unique experiences in my relationship with my husband, and my life itself. And that really helped who I am as a parent. 

KC - What helped you, Yuri, you mentioned becoming a parent, becoming a coach - what helped you to embrace more of these emotions, particularly in yourself? In that system of me. 

YM - I think I said in the other podcast that I learned all the lesson about the relationship and about the system from my relationship with my husband. 

KC - That's brilliant. 

YM – I’m looking back to almost 10 years ago, when my husband and I started really looking at who we are together, especially when our daughter became independent and left us, and two of us had to live together without the child who was connecting our relationship. Our role of parenting was almost coming to an end, and we were graduating from parenting and becoming a real couple. We were at the age of mid-40s and at that time we realized that, oh my goodness, our emotions toward each other as man and woman was becoming one. And one of the reasons was both of us were hard workers and we spent so much time for parenting our daughter and we took such little time to really be authentic toward each other. While we realized both of us had a frustration for each other, but we didn't talk about all these our ‘negative emotions’. I obviously had anger toward him. I thought that I was doing more and serving more, and she had a track record the same way, she had an anger, she had disappointment for me. But we didn't we never talked about it because we wanted to be efficient. We were masters of logistics, we tried to be efficient, and we tried to be convenient and we tried not to bother each other but being productive, even at home. When our daughter was gone, and we realized that we had good time to talk about how we felt for each other and if we still wanted to be together, and that was the beginning of our hard conversation but our learning process.

KC - What a beautiful example. Thank you for sharing that and I'm sure it resonates with so many people listening because I think those different life stages, they do you change us, and probably different emotions arise and what was positive before will look different now. You're in a sort of secondary and that's becoming your primary. It’s why I recommend couples coaching to everyone who's going through a big life transition, whether that's getting married, having kids, becoming empty nesters, because it's not that you're suggesting that something's necessarily going to go wrong but it's planning together, it's being action orientated. I found it to be so powerful in my life, my husband, I currently working with a couples coach and preparing for our twins. It's amazing because so much will show up. I've never experienced my husband as a parent, and he's never explained to me as a parent and so different parts of us will show up. I think it's so useful to have those conversations because we assume, often, in our intimate relationships that they think the same as we do and then suddenly, there's all this other stuff under the surface. Was your experience, as soon as that came up to the surface that it allowed a different kind of emotional field to emerge in your relationship?

YM - That's right. Exactly what you said about both of us bringing the different culture and different family background. There was a moment to really learn who he is and who I am, and what is the emotional history or emotional culture that I inherited from my parents, who are a different generation. For example, my grandparents age, they were in the World War II and they definitely needed to be told the positivity in order to survive their daily lives and that was the influence toward my parents’ generation. Unconsciously they bring that to their family, were I was brought up. And so, what I learned so much was culture that all the lineage of the people in my ancestry. When I realized that I realized, okay, so now where do I want to be? How do I want to create a relationship with my husband who has a very different family history, and with a good reason about how he was brought up. 

KC - And that is so powerful, finding out actually what's really going on for you, and actually how you want to express that. I think this journey around toxic positivity or moving away from toxic positivity, we might say, it starts with the self - what am I marginalizing within me? I think for me, a powerful moment was years ago, when someone said to me, ‘wow, you seem sad’. And it's such a simple thing, isn't it? But it's beautiful to have that reflected back. because so often I think we either ignore or dismiss or try and fix and to just have someone be a mirror. I think as a coach, that's such a powerful tool, just to say, ‘I'm sensing some frustration’, or ‘it seems like this annoys you’. That in itself could just change something in the emotional field of that system. 

YM - And isn’t it interesting that what we call negative emotions - they are so powerful. Anger, jealousy, those have amazing energy, that it's such a pure energy. And once we know how to work with it or how to be with it, waiting for that to transform to the longings and dreams. That is the direct power to create something new. So, answering your question, the last question - what do we miss because of the toxic positivity, it’s like this pure energy of the other side of the emotions. 

KC - You're right and they're just signals that something is trying to happen. If we don't put them in those categories or link them to certain stories about what that means, then we can hold them in that neutral way. Not always easy to do, but it allows for that energy to really emerge and evolve in the way it needs to. When you were saying about it being forces for energy, it made me think about all of our films and books. They're all based on these so-called negative emotions. If we had a book filled with toxic positivity, if you say boring. 

YM - I know, who wants to read that? 

KC - Yeah, it’s fascinating, isn't it? 

YM – It is. Those are the energies that have the creative power and connecting power. 

KC - Well, this is stuff of our lives and yet it's weird how we want to marginalize it for ourselves, for our kids, for our team members – it’s almost like no, that's not allowed, but yet when we're watching something on TV we want those, we find them fascinating.

YM - Yes. And how people meet with it, how people go through it, and how people create from that. 

KC – Yeah, they are fuel for something else, for change. I'm wondering, as a systems coach how do you become aware of when you're leaning towards toxic positivity or being biased towards positivity? Because I know we want to have the ratio of five to one: five positives to every one negative interaction, and we can take that too far, as we've been mentioning, so how do you become aware of that when you're coaching?

YM - Well, one of the one of the things is that our customer, our clients, are paying us because they want to face the real authentic energy in a team and how to create from that. I mostly work with the Japanese client and also the global team in Japan, and their challenges what is the real voice in the team? Usually, they're all sugar coated by the nice smiley face. No problem. Everything goes well. But of course not. So, I'm saying this because I have made many, many failures, all nice and smiley and happy, happy team building activities, but not the real voice, it's not coming up. And at the end it's a disappointment. People think yeah, we know this. We know this in our surface smiles, but we know that there's a real voice underneath. So, with those feedback I was really noticing, and I realized that this is actually my work, our work, as your systems coach, to really meet with the smiley face and that underneath is a real treasure waiting for us. Let's go there and let's find out what is possible for this team, the real authentic, wholeness of the team?

KC - I love that you described it as the treasure underneath, because I think many of us get so fearful of what lives underneath that we don't look at all. And yet, then so often, we hear the rumblings under the surface through gossip or other channels. And it's there and it shows up in different ways, perhaps unskillful ways, in fact, and so whether we reveal it or not it's going to show up in some way, shape or form, it's just one could be held in a container of a coaching setting. And the other might be that it comes out when people are moaning about their manager around the water cooler, or, and I think we mentioned this offline, it can show up physically for some people. 

YM – Yes. A lot of depression and health conditions once you really suppress those emotions. It’s especially bad the longer the time that you suppress all those ‘negative emotions’, and coating by the false harmony or false positivity and that is quite harmful. What I noticed is that there’s a of or business persons that have such a hard time to connect to their EQs, their real emotions, and that really supresses their aliveness as human beings, and also not being able to touch, connect with their team member as a leader. That also leads to false psychological safety. 

KC - Yeah. Well, I think it's important that we talk to that, the fact that suicide and other mental health challenges are on the rise. Maybe that's in part because we're not allowing certain things in our, maybe personal systems but also in our cultural systems, too. I have a friend who lost her partner to suicide, and she said afterwards, she lost so many friends because people just wouldn't talk to her. It wasn't because they didn't like her anymore, it was because they just didn't know what to say and so they didn't say anything at all. And maybe they’d turn away if they saw on the street and things like that and I think that talks the fact that we're just not great, actually. And I'm broadly holding culture, but I think in general, we are so positively bias, that we don't hold stuff, the stuff of life for other people sometimes, or for ourselves.

YM - And certain FMS, they are just filled with happy, smiley and positive, and certain media of the FMS, that it becomes whole bowls of negativity, or gossip, almost like a violence, the verbal violence is there. And these really leads to the suicides. Especially in Japan, the reason behind suicide, it's a gossip on the FMS, and people cannot handle it. 

KC – Well it makes me think about, I can't remember the term, but when everything turns into its opposite. And it seems like if we go too far in terms of positivity, it does turn into something quite negative or destructive. And actually, in the same way, if we turn to the so-called negative emotions or parts of life, they can then become a positive experience, or create positive change. 

YM - That's right. 

KC - Yeah, it's really interesting thinking about what we allow and what we don't allow, and actually how that shows up in both the way we parent, the way we're a partner and the way that we coach. 

YM - What you’ve said reminds me of the figure of Yin & Yang, black and white. 

KC – Yes! We need both. And if we don't have both, it seems that we end up with more of what we don't want anyway.

YM - One of the elders of Native America told me that when we look at the moon, don't just look at the shiny part. It's the wholeness of the moon, that includes the shadow of the moon. 

KC - I love that. 

YM - Look at the whole moon when you look at the moon. 

KC – That’s beautiful.

YM – So it’s no which is good or bad, and it’s no bad or positive sand neither side is negative, it’s whole. 

KC – When we think about our lives it’s the shades that make them so interesting and alive. If we didn't have the shadows, the dark moments, then the bright moments wouldn't be so bright.

YM - That's right. How true. Because there's a shadow side, we can treasure the light side. We need both.

KC - We do. What's a final thought for our listeners about holding the shadow and the light? I love the way you've put that, Yuri. How do we hold the shadow and the light, both for ourselves and our families and the people we work with, better?

YM - Well, I'm speaking to voice, being with the shadow is not easy. Like we said, it's scary because we cannot see, and we don't know how long it's going to last and how long we need to walk this path of darkness and aloneness. But the suns rise in the morning. So, we have to simply trust the process. Trust the system. Trust that both our in our light, and starting from ourselves, staring from your own, learning from your own. We don't need to rush to sit in the whole shadow of the world. But really, meeting with my own shadow, meeting my own ‘negativity’, and embrace it and love it and be curious, and what's the creative energy awaiting to emerge?

KC – Beautiful. I love the metaphors from nature, with the sun rising the sun setting and trusting that it will.

YM - And it's not easy, right? 

KC – It’s not! It's not at all. And this is our work. This is our world work, in fact. 

YM - I know, it is. So, let's keep us communicating about ‘negativity’ and ‘positivity’. We need both.

KC - Thank you so much Yuri, as always, for sharing your wisdom and your light on the show. Take care.

YM - Thank you so much, Katie. Always a joy to chat with you and looking forward to another opportunity that we can share like this. 

[Music outro begins 34:36] 

KC – A huge thanks as always to Yuri Morikawa for sharing her light and her wisdom on the show. Here are my key takeaways. When the emotional field is authentically positive, it can be a great ally for the relationship system. However, when positivity becomes forced or pushed and certain emotions become marginalized, positivity can become negative and unhelpful. Emotions are sources of energy and they’re neither good or bad, positive or negative. Notice which emotions you marginalize and label as negative or bad. How can you hold these emotions in a more neutral and curious way? So called negative emotions can be a source of energy and creativity. How can you use these emotions as a positive force for change? As systems coaches, our job is to help our clients face the real, authentic emotions present within a team, to meet the system where it is at by being curious about what is the real voice of the team? What's really going on beneath the surface? Working with marginalized emotion starts with the self. How can you meet your own shadow and embrace it so that its creative energy can emerge. For over 20 years, CRR Global has accompanied leaders, teams, and practitioners on their journey to stronger relationships by focusing on the relationship itself, not only the individuals occupying it. This leads to a community of changemakers around the world. Supported by a global network of Faculty and Partners, we connect, inspire, and equip change agents to shift systems, one relationship at a time. CRR Global’s unshakeable belief is that relationship matters, from humanity to nature to the larger whole. For more information please visit CRRGlobal.com. 

[Music outro 36:41 – end]