Holiday Cheer without Toxic Positivity
Miriam Samuelson-Roberts
Day 1 of 3: Joy vs. Toxic Positivity
I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
—John 15:11
If you are reading this devotional around the holidays—specifically the winter trifecta of Thanksgiving, Christmas (for Christians), and New Years—it’s likely that you’re currently surrounded by images of sparkly lights, warm drinks, cozy fires, and happy families and friends gathering together around full tables.
Christmas songs blasting on the radio tell us that it’s the most wonderful time of the year, that we can and should be jolly, that our days are to be merry and bright. I can’t think of another time of the year that is so packed full of images of “the way things should be,” or another season when we are so bombarded by these specific notions of what happiness should look like.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to put down anyone’s holiday traditions, and I love a cheesy Christmas song on the radio as much as anyone. I put up lights, make hot chocolate, and take comfort in many of the rituals surrounding this time of year.
But there’s a fine line between holiday joy and toxic positivity, and as people of faith, we have some biblical and theological grounding for wanting to distinguish between the two.
Toxic positivity, as a term, has recently taken hold in the field of psychology. Whitney Hawkins Goodman, LMFT, owner of The Collaborative Counseling Center, recently posted an image on Twitter explaining the difference between “validation and hope” and “toxic positivity.”
While toxic positivity says “You’ll get over it!” validation and hope says “This is hard. You’ve done hard things before, and I believe in you.” When toxic positivity says “Good vibes only!” hope and validation says “All vibes are welcome here.”
This is an important distinction as we think about our experience as people of faith around the holidays. Do we see our faith in such a way that it only allows for good experiences, positive thoughts, and ignoring all the hard things in life? Or can we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, welcome the full range of our feelings, and hold the good and the bad in tension with one another?
When Jesus talks to his disciples about joy in the gospel of John and says “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete,” he is in the midst of his farewell discourse to the disciples. In other words, he is saying goodbye to them on the evening before he knows he will die a brutal death on the cross.
Jesus doesn’t tell the disciples that their joy will be complete in a happy-clappy way, and this joy certainly won’t erase the pain and confusion they will feel in the coming days as their best friend is taken away and crucified. The joy Jesus is talking about is joy that walks with pain instead of skipping over it. This is the kind of joy that knows tears and laughter can exist at the same time. This is the kind of joy that is the opposite of toxic positivity. It’s the kind of joy that we can give one another this time of year as we seek to honor the full range of human emotion and experience—without feeling like the difficult parts need to be ignored or cut out.
Rev. Miriam Samuelson-Roberts