School for School Counselors Podcast

The Hidden Dangers of Toxic Positivity in School Counseling

September 16, 2024 • School for School Counselors • Episode 117

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Can adopting a positive mindset inadvertently lead to dismissing genuine struggles? 

How can we balance a healthy stress mindset without falling into the trap of toxic positivity? 

In this episode of the 'School for School Counselors Podcast, host Steph Johnson addresses the complexities of stress management for school counselors. The episode delves into recognizing the difference between a constructive stress mindset and falling into the trap of toxic positivity. 

Steph shares strategies for identifying warning signs of burnout, maintaining realistic expectations, and balancing professional efforts with emotional well-being. Listeners are encouraged to adopt mindful self-reflection, understand contextual limits, and seek peer support to sustain a healthy professional mindset.

00:00 Introduction and Podcast Overview

01:33 Understanding Stress Mindset vs. Toxic Positivity

01:45 Listener Reviews and Reflections

03:19 Reinterpreting Stress: A Deeper Dive

05:03 Growth Mindset and Its Pitfalls

08:12 Warning Signs of Toxic Positivity

08:59 Personal Experience with Hustle Culture

19:35 Strategies to Maintain a Healthy Mindset

26:10 Conclusion

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References/Resources:

American School Counselor Association. (2019). The ASCA national model: A framework for school counseling programs (4th ed.). American School Counselor Association.

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.

Tao W, Zhao D, Yue H, Horton I, Tian X, Xu Z and Sun H-J (2022) The Influence of Growth Mindset on the Mental Health and Life Events of College Students. Front. Psychol. 13:821206. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.821206

Tsai, Min-Ying. 2023. Comparing Perfectionism, Cognitive Mindset, Constructive Thinking, and Emotional Intelligence in Gifted Students by Grade and Gender. Social Sciences 12: 233. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/socsci12040233

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Speaker 1:

Hello school counselor, welcome back to the School for School Counselors podcast. I'm your host, steph Johnson, a full-time school counselor just like you, on a mission to make school counseling feel more sustainable and more enjoyable, so that you look forward to walking in those schoolhouse doors each and every day. For the past couple of episodes we've been talking about stress how to identify chronic stress, how to lay some tracks so that you can avoid chronic stress, and in the last podcast episode we talked about how to adapt the way we're looking at school counselor stress, how we are interpreting our physiological signs and how we can shift our stress mindset to actually make stress work in our favor. So I'm always trying to imagine what are you thinking on the other side of this podcast recording as you're listening, what are some of the questions you might have or what are some of the things that you might be saying in your head. To me, like Steph, that all sounds great, but you know and I know that just thinking positive about things doesn't necessarily change it and it's very possible it could actually make stress worse. I had the same thought. I was thinking about the difference between stress mindset and toxic positivity, and so I want to dive into that this week. I want to talk through the differences and the nuances between the two and how we can tell which camp we are in currently.

Speaker 1:

But before I do that, I want to read some more of the amazing reviews that we received during our recent pod party. So many listeners were kind enough to leave some amazing reviews with Apple Podcasts and I would love to share one with you today. Ehl Mom titled their review Newbie and went on to say this Steph Johnson has already offered fantastic guidance and encouragement as I've embarked on year number one as a school counselor after 16 years in the classroom. Her empathy for new professionals and also mamas of young children like me is matched by her knowledge and expertise, and I am grateful. I'm working my way through previous podcast episodes while also listening to the current releases. Steph is a pro and I'm here for it. Thank you so much, ehl mom. That means so much to me and I'm so glad that the message is coming through loud and clear. You guys, school counseling is not for the faint of heart, and certainly not as we embark on other missions like being partners, being mothers, being community helpers. There are all kinds of roles that we play in our lives. School counseling definitely isn't the only one, and so we need to be mindful of all the things that we're confronting in our day-to-day business. So thanks again for that review. It's so, so sweet and positive All right.

Speaker 1:

Now, shifting back toward stress In our last podcast episode, that one was titled School Counseling Stress what If we're Wrong? We were talking about how we can reinterpret our physiological signs of stress as a strength, for instance, if we feel our heart start to pound a little bit in a stressful situation. Instead of panicking and thinking, oh no, this is stressful, I don't like it, we could think my body is preparing to help me be awesome in this situation. And it sounds kind of funny to say out loud but the research strongly supports this that the better we are able to reinterpret our physiological signals as well as reprogram the way we are able to reinterpret our physiological signals as well as reprogram the way we think about stress, the more likely we will be able to not only survive with stress but thrive within it. But I do think it's dangerous just to say, ah, change the way you think about stress, frame it all in a positive light and everything will be great, because that's not real right. That's not the way that life really works, and I think this is a danger in our field as a whole, where we tend to want to try to oversimplify things in order to create these really concise pat answers that, unfortunately, don't do a lot for the people in those situations. I think we have to dive in a little bit deeper. I think we have to get a little bit more real about what's going on so that we can ensure that everyone all of our school counseling colleagues and friends are successful.

Speaker 1:

Now, I know that you know about growth mindset. I know that the name Carol Dweck probably rings in your dreams as a school counselor, because we talk about growth mindset with our students all the time. We are constantly trying to convince students that if they can develop this belief in their abilities and in their intelligence, that the sky is the limit for them and that building that ability takes effort, it takes persistence and it takes learning right. When students are able to curate a growth mindset, when they come up against a setback, they see it as an opportunity for improvement, and we know from the research that folks with a strong growth mindset tend to be more resilient, they tend to cope better with stress and they're more motivated to learn from their failures instead of just throwing their hands up and saying, oh crap, I messed that one up right. And then walking off and not even confronting that situation again.

Speaker 1:

But I do think if we're not careful, oftentimes we can misinterpret growth mindset and it can start to morph into toxic positivity. That's when we start to oversimplify these situations where we feel like we need to maintain a positive, can-do outlook, even when there are legitimate struggles in the way, even when we are actually feeling very negative about the situation. Instead of processing through that, instead of working through the difficulties, instead of confronting those negative emotions, we just dismiss them and we say, oh well, you know, let's try again next time. Good vibes only, let's just stay positive, those kinds of things. And when we don't confront our real issues, some other secondary issues come into play, like we start to feel guilty, we start to feel a sense of shame, or sometimes we have the after effects of emotional invalidation.

Speaker 1:

We don't need to always be happy. I don't think that that is realistic for human beings and because we can't always be happy, I don't know that it's fair to say that we should always put on this persona of being happy in our work Now. We don't wanna be at grumpy grump walking around the hallways either. Right, there's a nice balance there. But the point of this conversation is, if we're trying to reframe stress, if we're trying to reinterpret it for ourselves and see it as a superpower instead of a detriment, we've got to be careful we don't go too far in the way of toxic positivity, because that's going to be just as damaging to us as if we let the stress eat us alive. We have to be somewhere in the middle and balance those two approaches out. So we need to identify some warning signs to let us know if we are reinterpreting our physiological stress signals, if we are rethinking the way we view stress in our minds. We need to be aware of the danger signs that we've gone too far the other direction and are now venturing into toxic positivity. One of those is when we start to feel like we are under extremely unrealistic expectations and burnout. We're starting to expect way too much of ourselves, we start doing way too much for one person, or we get involved in something that is often called the hustle culture.

Speaker 1:

Now I have a personal experience with hustle culture. Now I have a personal experience with hustle culture. You may have heard me talk in the past about how School for School Counselors was never intended to become what it is now. It was just kind of a grassroots little small group on the internet that has now grown over the last four years to become huge, to comprise the podcast and Facebook group and Instagram pages and mastermind memberships and workshops and get the job programs and all the things that are going on. And as we were building that with the direction of our members, I kind of started to venture into the world of hustle culture because I so desperately wanted to support my colleagues, because I was seeing the effects of the COVID pandemic already and I could see the writing on the wall headed straight our direction and with the lack of support in school counseling, I knew we were headed toward some bumpy road in school counseling and so I got very intentional, I got very motivated to start developing resources and supports for school counselors culture where I would go to work and work full-time as a school counselor all day, meaning I was busy all day.

Speaker 1:

Right, you know this because you're busy all day too. I would get finished at work, I would pick my kiddos up from school, I would get them to their after-school activities. I would go home, get everybody fed some dinner, get them ready for the next day, and then I sat down with my laptop and started to work on School for School Counselors, and I would often get started around 9 or 9.30 in the evening. I wouldn't shut my laptop until 1 or 2 in the morning, grab a couple hours sleep, get up the next day and do it all over again. And at first it was easy because I was so motivated, because I so desperately wanted to be of help to people, that it was easy to do that.

Speaker 1:

But as time went on it started to take its toll on me. It took its toll physically and it also took its toll mentally. And I'll be honest with you, I feel like sometimes I am still crawling out of that mindset. There are still times that I am very, very tempted to sit in front of that laptop until the wee hours of the morning and I have to remind myself that it's not healthy, it's not good. But I think that's exactly what happened to me. I think it was a lot of just this desperate desire to want to help and pushing myself through that, adopting whatever mindset. It took to get to the finish line without realizing that I had taken on all of these unrealistic expectations, and I do think I flirted a little bit with burnout. Thank goodness I didn't get all the way there. But, like I said, this is a battle I'm still fighting and so I want you to be aware of it in your school counseling work.

Speaker 1:

If you go beyond persistence, if you're going beyond just having a resilient mindset and you're over committing to things, you're creating unrealistic expectations of constant success, constant improvement or constant attempts to align to the ASCA standard, you're going to be risking burnout for sure, particularly because school counseling is so high stress. You are going to start feeling like you have to constantly overcome every challenge through your own effort, even when circumstances make it impossible. That brings to mind the ASCA national model. You've heard me say this before. I think the national model is great. I think it's wonderful to have a standard to aim toward and I hope that one day we get to the point that all school counseling programs can align to that model. But in the meantime we have a lot of school counselors feeling like they're supposed to toe that line when they've been put in situations and circumstances that cannot sustain that model, but because they were trained in it, because that's all they hear about online and in their resources that they download and all of the articles and conversations. They feel like if they're not meeting that standard, they're failing and that the only way to meet that standard is through their own effort. That's not true and I think it is a dangerous game we are playing.

Speaker 1:

With regard to the national model, that's when we start to experience emotional exhaustion, we start to feel inadequate, we start to feel extreme levels of stress and we start looking at the land of burnout. We don't want to get there. So, if you're feeling overwhelmed, take a hard look at the expectations you have in place for yourself. Are you trending toward burnout? Do you feel like it's too much for one person? And if it is, is this positivity mindset contributing to that? Second danger sign is when you start to ignore your real feelings.

Speaker 1:

If we over-rely on a positive mindset or on a growth mindset, we start to dismiss negative emotions. We start to feel like we should always be focusing on something constructive, something positive, something to get us to the next thing and, over the long term, dismissing our negative emotions can be really harmful. We have to have time to process. We see and hear some of the most difficult things going on on our school campuses, and it can take its toll on you for sure. Sadness, my goodness. I've heard some of the saddest things ever since becoming a school counselor Frustration either for students or with our systems and our educational environments in general. All of these negative emotions that we experience throughout our day certainly beyond frustration and sadness, but I'll use those two as examples need to be processed. And if we don't take the time to process it, if we're not allowing ourselves our own mental space to do that, because we're so busy saying, oh no, it'll be fine, just push through it, just reframe it. This is an opportunity for growth.

Speaker 1:

Without taking time to really address these negative feelings, we are going to feel the blowback from that. So make sure, as you are striving to maintain these mindsets, you're not ignoring your real feelings. We can reframe stress your real feelings. We can reframe stress. We can look at it as a positive experience while also still processing those feelings. And we need to acknowledge both sides. It can't be one or the other, all right.

Speaker 1:

So we've looked at two warning signs so far One is doing too much. Two is ignoring our real feelings. Third and we've kind of touched on this a little bit is when we begin to blame ourselves for not doing the job perfectly, when this mindset starts to lead to perfectionism or blaming ourselves for program failures, for counseling failures. When we have all of these external factors at play in our work, that becomes very dangerous. You cannot push and hope and dream and think positive to the point that you start to feel like you're not working hard enough or learning fast enough when you're actually giving it everything you can in a day right.

Speaker 1:

If we start to let our minds tell us that our personal deficiencies are the cause of our lack of growth or our lack of success or our inability to make an impact with the student, that gets very dangerous. We have to be thoughtful about the way we're conceptualizing this in our minds. If we're giving it everything we can give it, if we are working within evidence-based practices, if we are capturing use of time, we're working within campus data, all of those things, and we still start to blame ourselves for not doing everything perfectly. According to the ASCA national model, we've got to keep a realistic perspective on this. We are working within ratios well above 250 to 1. We're still doing all of these baloney job responsibilities that have nothing to do with school counseling. If you can't do the job perfectly, it's not 100% your fault. 99% of the time in school counseling, it's because there are other limitations and systemic challenges that are standing in your way.

Speaker 1:

And then, fourth, a big red flag you need to keep your eyes out for is when you stop recognizing your own boundaries. A study by Zhao 2021 emphasized that growth mindset should be balanced with self-awareness of personal limits. If you feel obligated to push through every single difficulty without recognizing your own personal boundaries, you're at risk of becoming even more stressed and more overwhelmed by your caseload. We know, if we don't respect our own limits, we are definitely going to reach physical and emotional burnout. We have to be cognizant of where our boundaries lie and that we're not towing across them. We're not staying longer at the detriment to our own mental health or our families. We have to make sure that we are able to leave work at work when we walk away for the day and not take it home.

Speaker 1:

There are all kinds of boundaries we need to be aware of and that we need to be monitoring to make sure that this positive thinking, this can-do attitude, doesn't cross over into maladaptive thinking. So what can we do? What can we do to either prevent these red flags from becoming an issue or what can we do? What can we do to either prevent these red flags from becoming an issue, or what can we do to turn the boat around if we're already in that harbor? There are a few things we can do, again, according to the research. Number one and this is going to sound so cliche, I don't even want to hear the words coming out of my mouth, because you know I hate cliche, but I'm going to say it because it's true and it's evidence-based and you need to know Self-reflection and mindfulness.

Speaker 1:

If you can pursue self-reflection and mindfulness, according to Schroeder 2020, you're going to be able to identify when your pursuit of growth is harming your emotional well-being. You've got to be able to recognize and validate your emotions, to validate feelings of stress, feelings of frustration, feelings of I don't even know what it is I'm doing anymore. Know what it is I'm doing anymore. We can maintain a positive perspective on stress while still recognizing those feelings, and that is imperative. It cannot be a one or the other situation, it must be both. Carol Dweck also reminds us, as cited by Psy 2023, we've got to be consciously practicing coping skills as part of that self reflection. It's funny, I think. As school counselors we are very prone to forget coping skills for ourselves. We talk about them a lot with our students and perhaps with our staff. Sometimes we forget about ourselves and we need to make sure that we're really, really looking at those. So that's the first strategy self-reflection, mindfulness and coping skills.

Speaker 1:

The second step that we can take to address when our mindset is veering off into dangerous territory is contextualizing our growth. Here's what I mean by that. As we're thinking about where our programs are, where we want them to be, what we want them to become, and all the great ideas that you have, all the initiatives you want to put in place and all the effects that you want to see for students, we have to keep in mind the contextual limits of what we do, that not all of these things, all of these initiatives, programs and outcomes can be effected by our personal effort alone. We've always got to keep in mind the external factors that are also at play. What are your constraints within your work? Recognize those and accept those.

Speaker 1:

To be real about your current circumstances, if you're carrying a caseload of 800 to 1, you're not going to be able to put very many new initiatives into place on your campus, if at all. Right, you're focusing on triage, short-term counseling and referring kids out as fast as you can with a caseload that size, and unfortunately that is not too far out of the norm in a lot of areas of our country. It's great to want to know where we want to go, it's great to have goals and aspirations for our programs, but we also need to be realistic. Do we have the time, do we have the money, do we have the support available to implement those kinds of initiatives? And if we don't, we have to be very mindful about not taking the lack of progress personally.

Speaker 1:

And the third step to address this maladaptive positive mindset is to seek support. We know from our peer-reviewed literature it's all over the place that counselors need to engage in professional supervision or peer support groups to manage the pressure of what we do each and every day. If we don't do that, we tend to start to feel very isolated, we tend to feel very overwhelmed by the challenges in front of us and we can risk, over committing to a growth mindset, we can risk kind of veering over into that other lane where it's progress and results at every turn, when really we need some external reality checks. We need some folks to say hang on, slow down, how are things going With that many students? You may want to try it this way. Maybe wait until then to do that.

Speaker 1:

Or, as Psy 2023 tells us, or as Psy 2023 tells us, practicing constructive thinking in our roles. That's hard to do on your own. It's much easier to do in a group and if you can do that, it will keep that positive mindset in check. It will keep the reframing, your stress situations in check. It will keep your perception of your physiological cues in check, so that you don't become a slave to this positive growth culture that's going to tend you toward burnout or, at the very least, some additional personal distress. We don't want you there. That's not where you want to go either. I want you to enjoy your work every day.

Speaker 1:

So, at the end of the day, I think the point is this Even though we're talking about stress, we're talking about avoiding chronic stress, about changing the way we look at stress, how we interpret it, so that it can be our ally instead of our enemy. We also want to keep in mind that our thoughts and feelings don't go too far, the other direction, where we start engaging in perfectionistic thinking, where we become emotionally exhausted or we just lose that ability to acknowledge what our emotional needs are when we're striving to do all of the things right. We've got to be able to balance our effort with our emotional well-being, while also keeping in mind all of these external limitations. If we can do that, then we'll have that healthy, growth-oriented approach that we need for our programs, without doing too much, without feeling solely responsible for the outcomes and without burning out. You know, I tell you this every week and I'm never, ever going to stop because I believe so passionately in it.

Speaker 1:

This is exactly why we built our School for School Counselors mastermind. We wanted school counselors to have a safe place for case consultation, for professional support, where they don't feel judged by others in their school building, where we have the ability to be very real and honest about situations and get a wealth of feedback from people who have not only been there but have been there in different circumstances, so that we can create really comprehensive pictures of what our next steps are going to be and that we're not alone in the challenges that we confront each day. I would love for you to be part of the mastermind with us. We are growing, our conversations are getting more and more dynamic and I'm telling you it is the place to be. You can check out the information on our website, schoolforschoolcounselorscom slash mastermind. We have a chair waiting for you always, and we just recently transferred our online group to a new platform. We're experimenting with it. We are very excited about it. So if you wanna check that out as well, head over to schoolforschoolcounselorscom. Slash mastermind. All right. Well, I so enjoyed our conversation today. I hope you enjoyed it too.

Speaker 1:

And just keeping things in perspective, being mindful about our stress levels, how we confront our stress, how we can make it positive and proactive without going too far and living in la-la land where we start burning ourselves out.

Speaker 1:

I hope that you took some of this to heart and have made plans to apply some of the things we've talked about in your work in school counseling as you head back to your school campus. This is important stuff. It's heavy stuff, but it's also going to make you better and better at your craft so that you can not only grow as a professional counselor, but as a thinker, as a leader on your campus, so that you can become a go-to voice when situations get kind of intense, your administrators, your teachers are going to seek you out and want to hear what you have to say. Because you have this clarity of mind, because you're able to remain centered and a voice of reason when everyone around you is stressed to the max. That's what I want for you and, as you're working that direction, I hope that this week you have the best week ever. I'll be back soon with another podcast episode, but in the meantime, take care of yourself, be mindful about the way you're conceptualizing your stress, and I will see you again very soon. Take care.