Recently, I was on YouTube and came across a video by a channel called “Cinema Therapy.” The thumbnail had a shot from Disney/Pixar’s “Inside Out” with the phrase “toxic positivity???” written in bold white letters next to Joy’s bright, smiling face.
It made my stop DEAD in my scrolling. “Inside Out” is in my Top 5 FAVORITE animated movies of all time and they were coming for it.
Needless to say, my hackles were up! I even switched tabs to Facebook and started a Facebook rant. My fingers were furiously going over my keyboard when I felt a little tap on my spiritual shoulder and a little voice said “uummm…hey…before you click that ‘post’ button…maybe you should actually watch the video?”
Disgruntled, immature Keri begrudgingly clicked out of that post, flipped back tabs to YouTube and hit play.
They weren’t wrong
Here’s the video. If you have time to watch the whole thing it is great, but if you don’t, watch minutes 6:00-8:00 to hear what they mean by “toxic positivity.”
Why are they right?
Licensed Therapist, Johnathan Decker, I think states it perfectly in the video:
“We think we should be happy all the time and if we’re not we’re wrong and should fix it.” — Jonathan Decker
And while yes… being happy all the time would be awesome, it’s not doable.
Life happens. Tragedy happens. We live in fallen world, dealing with fallen people.
Toxic Positivity and Christians
As Christians, we’ve been sold the lie that salvation is a “get out of jail free” card for sadness. That once we say yes, we are always on the happy train, heading to happy village eating happy candy (too much?! lol)
When, in fact, that is not scripturally sound.
Nehemiah 8:10 says “The JOY of the Lord is my strength.”
Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all JOY and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Isaiah 35:10 “and those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting JOY will crown their heads. Gladness and JOY will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
John 16:22 “So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your JOY.”
Need I go on?
We as Christians are not meant to be the poster children for momentary external happiness, but rather the bearers of sustainable, eternal joy.
How can we tell the difference?
Obviously I am not a psychologist or therapist so I don’t have the clinical words to differentiate between the 2, but while researching the idea of “happiness vs joy” I came across the graphic that I feel does a better job than I could ever do.
A picture is definitely worth a thousand words right?
The thread we see throughout this entire chart is this: Joy is internally driven while happiness is externally driven. Which then begs the question: if your happiness is contingent on external things, what happens when that thing is taken away from you?
Do you fall apart? Do you hide from the world?
Or do you do what I always did and just kept pretending to be happy when on the inside I was dying. I lived in the realm of toxic positivity.
I’ve been there
If you are someone who is wrapped up in happiness rather than joy, I truly understand. That was me for so many years.
Even after I received salvation at age 17, I still lived in the realm of happiness. If I wasn’t? Then I beat myself up because I must have been doing this whole Christianity thing “wrong.” So I would fake being happy all the time. I would plaster on the smile, make the jokes, raise my hands at the appropriate times, but nothing made it past the castle walls of my heart.
Even the joy of the Lord.
Today, I live my life with wreckless abandoment to God’s joy. Why? Because faking life got so freaking exhausting! But to find my way to joy, I had to be honest with my past and find peace in things that I couldn’t change.
How? A lot of therapy, hard conversations, soul searching, honesty and a lot of time.
Making the move
Making the move from happiness to joy is not the instant fix. It is not an switch that goes on at salvation.
It is a daily choice to focus on the eternal-internal rather than the external-temporary.
God doesn’t require our constant happiness “feelings.” Rather wants to invite us to receive his never-ending joy that nothing in this world can take away from us.
Even in the hardest of circumstance.
One of my lead pastors, Stacey Henagen, said it best in her book “Breathe Again.”
The Voice You listen to in Pain determines your destination. – Stacy Henagen
Satan would love nothing more than to keep you sidetracked with the quest for happiness so that you will miss out on the true joy you can experience here on this earth.
Don’t give him that kind of power and if you have already given it to him, toady is your day to take it back.
Today is you day to choose joy.
XOXO,
Keri
