Shift Your Mental Space and Find the Good in the Bad

I had a client ask me, “What do you do when bad things happen?” He referenced toxic positivity, something that he said feels prevalent in our society. Toxic positivity can be described as only focusing only on the “good things.” I think of it as turning away from struggle or pain, the deliberate suppression of a moment in which we could sit with some one who is hurting. We choose not to listen to understand because it might feel uncomfortable or there may be nothing we can “do” about it. I believe the best in people so I also believe that many people were never taught to sit and listen when some one hurts. Maybe no one did that for us and we might feel that it is unnecessary or “just a part of life” and we need to push down or deny feelings.