Stop looking on the bright side, please!

As a life coach and avid golfer, I'm fascinated by the way people talk to themselves on the course. Like most people I play with, I silently praise my good shots, and complain out loud about the bad ones. With my teammates, I do the opposite.

This past weekend, I played with someone who made a positive comment about every shot, hers and ours, no matter how ugly it was … and some were pretty awful. I found it endearing at first, but somewhere around the sixth hole, I began feeling annoyed that we weren't allowed to complain when we blew it.

And then I got curious … what was this player afraid would happen if we felt all of our feelings? Was she protecting us from feeling bad about ourselves, or was she protecting herself from our negative emotions? Golf is full of ups and downs ... a feeling salad as it were.

Her urge to smooth over every bad moment is known as toxic positivity – the insistence that we stay upbeat no matter what. It quietly adds a second layer of suffering on top of the first, because now you're not just hurting – you're also failing at not hurting.

Two episodes of the Hidden Brain podcast brought this to the forefront: When Bad Things Happen to Good People and Why Am I Unhappy? Together they make a gentle case for something many of us need to hear: every feeling you have is allowed, even the heavy ones.

What the experts say

When something painful happens, people rush to explain or fix it, because randomness scares them, says Kate Bowler, a historian at Duke Divinity School. When she herself was reeling from a new cancer diagnosis, she discovered that there are three types of people:

• Minimizers: "At least ..."

• Teachers: "Here's the lesson ..."

• Problem-solvers: "Have you tried ...?"

  
  

Each response is a way to restore a sense of order for the helper, but it leaves the person who's hurting feeling rushed and alone. This is what I believe I saw in my friend – protecting herself from feeling down by trying to raise our spirits. What a heavy lift.

What we actually need when dealing with heavy feelings is a witness: someone who sees what this has cost us and holds hope for us when we can't find it for ourselves, says Bowler.

George Loewenstein, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon, believes our minds were built for survival, not happiness, so bad feelings hit harder and last longer than good ones. "That's human design, not a flaw," he says. The trouble starts when we judge ourselves for feeling them, which turns one hard feeling into two. Allowing space for our emotions, and talking about them, takes away much of their sting. And most misery, like most joy, fades over time.

Alison Ledgerwood, a psychologist at UC Davis, believes that our brains naturally lean toward the negative, and pushing those thoughts down only makes them come back stronger. The goal isn't to replace the negative with the positive; it's to find balance – acknowledging the hard thing and practicing noticing the good alongside it.

How to meet yourself where you are

• Let the feeling in. Fighting it makes it louder.

• Find the good, but don't replace the bad. Both can be true at once.

• Separate might from will. Something might go badly. That's not the same as it will.

• Wait before you act. Strong feelings make poor decision-makers.

• Be as patient with yourself as you would be with a child.

• Ask for what you need. Let other people know when you just need a listening ear or a hug, rather than a solution or a reframe.

How to be there for someone else

When someone you know is struggling, skip the silver lining. Be the witness, or simply ask, "What would feel supportive right now?"

Sources: Hidden Brain, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" (October 5, 2026), with Kate Bowler and Lisa Miller; Hidden Brain, "Why Am I Unhappy?" (October 12, 2026), with George Loewenstein and Alison Ledgerwood.