Toxic Positivist Minimizes that which is Uncomfortable for them.

There is such a person who is the "toxic positivist", the person who exudes sunshine and only looks at the good side of everything.

A person like this is not able to help anyone because they will deliberately try to find reasons why it didn't happen or we must not have encountered our problem.

These people deny truth in favor of happy feelings, they can never stand strong in the face of adversity. Their focus is on themselves not the person in front of them.

The born-again believer has joy through all things but they do not always have happiness. Sometimes all of us go through difficult times in which we feel a lot of pain or sadness, this does not make us foolish or less spiritual.

Those who are Spiritual will go through these hard times with joy and tears simultaneously coming out the other side stronger and wiser. Refer to the story of Job to understand this more fully.

When someone says to you while you are sharing your trials; "just be happy", they are telling you they do not want to deal with you while you are in your trial. They are glad to come back and take from us when we are having great days but want nothing to do with going through with us on the hard days. They are "fair-weather friends, really not friends at all.

Our lives are like a garden, there are flowers and food but there are also weeds. When we love someone we take all of them, their flowers, their food, and their weeds, this is a true friendship. We enter into every aspect of our friend's lives as the Scripture describes true friendship.

Romans 12:15

"15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."

If our friend falls into sin, comes out repentant and sorrowful ready to turn from their sin we weep with them. It is not a good friend who accuses a repentant sinner in order to beat them down further, this is a narcissist who would do such a thing. The narcissist loves our pain and the power they think they have over us when we are climbing out of the pit of despair. They would rather see us in the pit than see us climb out of it.

A "toxic positivist" is self-absorbed or they would authentically feel what others feel and desire to be supportive.

A toxic positivist would say to a person with aphids on the leaves of a plant to ingore the bugs and focus on the flowers. So leaving the plant unprotected without a solution. The very least a good Christian friend does is to pray with you or for you during your trial.

To ignore the problems and focus only on what they choose to believe is happy they invalidate others through phony positive talk.

When we go through trials and others are watching we learn from them but so do others. There is a learning process we go through when we can call things what they really are. Those who pretend things dishonestly will not learn wisdom.

Those who can only face what is positive have a very narrow view of life because of their fear of feeling bad. Those who are confident in Christ will be able to look at everything objectively without the need to place frosting on it. We can state the truth, even weep with those who weep, and maintain our confidence. Those who are narcissists fear being discovered a weak so they have to put forth a false positive persona as they hide from others within their inner man.

Those who are hiding, pretending to be positive never become close to anyone. In order to be close to others we must be willing to be vulnerable and able to share authentically with trusted friends our feelings about everything. Notice I said "trusted friends", not everyone is worthy of this level of closeness, many would use our honesty against us but others would engage with us, pray for us, and love us as brothers and sisters should.

Some of the thoughts in this article come from quotes from Stoicism. I would not recommend everything the Stoics said but some reflect Biblical concepts, even if they don't know it. Perhaps some of what they say is just "good old-fashioned horse sense" that all people should understand.

Refuse to be moved by emotional manipulation and learn to say no assertively so that there are no misunderstandings. We need to be willing to be emotionally supportive of someone's trials but we cannot solve their problems for them.

Our life must always be guided by our own values and decisions. As a born-again believer, our life is guided by Jesus Christ Who lives in us.

"A garden needs both sunshine and rain to flourish," Our life is full of ups and downs, and we can face both with courage and in honesty.