When positive thinking becomes dismissive

The hidden cost of forced happiness

Muzamil opens the episode by introducing a problem central to Pakistani society: the lack of emotional literacy. In Pakistan, he notes, people are not taught to deal with emotions. Instead, when someone experiences anger or anxiety, the reflex is dismissal. “Just be happy. Just be good,” people say. Muzamil brings in Ali Ilyas to unpack a concept that sits at the heart of this cultural pattern: toxic positivity.

What toxic positivity actually is

Ali starts by defining the term clearly. “Toxic positivity is when positive thinking becomes dismissive of any sort of difficulty that you’re experiencing emotionally,” he explains. The key distinction is dismissal. Positive thinking itself isn’t the problem. “There’s nothing wrong with positive thinking,” Ali says. “Positive thinking is very important as a human being. You have to achieve anything in life with any level of optimism or positive thinking. But that positive thinking is toxic when it tries to dismiss your other difficult emotions.”

The conversation reveals a critical difference. Hope and positive perception are tools that help you achieve goals. But if someone is struggling and another person constantly says “don’t think about it, everything’s going to be fine, it all happens for a reason,” they’re not helping. They’re dismissing the lived experience of someone in pain.

The research on suppression versus acceptance

Ali shares research that cuts to the heart of why toxic positivity is harmful. Scientists brought together 60 people, some with mood disorders and some with anxiety disorders. They split them into two groups: one read rationales for suppressing emotions, another read rationales for accepting emotions. Then both groups watched a distressing movie.

The results were striking. “The acceptance group, even though they experienced relatively a similar level of sadness, their level of sadness dropped sooner and faster. And their heartbeat was reduced,” Ali describes. The suppression group, meanwhile, kept their elevated heart rate. This isn’t just psychological. “When we talk about the relationship between stress and your body,” Ali notes, avoiding stress through denial doesn’t make it disappear; it just keeps your nervous system activated.

Cultural roots of emotional denial

Muzamil and Ali explore why Pakistan specifically struggles with this. Ali points out that “we are constantly doing this. Anything negative that is coming up, anything difficult to deal with, it has to be dismissed. This is what we learn from children.” When a child is upset or laughing, parents often say, “don’t be laughing, don’t be laughing.” By age 24 or 25, that person has learned that their emotions are wrong.

“I gave a training and the training’s title was Modern Denial of Emotion,” Ali says. “This is a personal view, but we are constantly doing this” in South Asia. The result is adults who don’t know how to feel, only how to suppress.

Why negative emotions matter

A powerful insight emerges: negative emotions are not flaws. They are data. Ali explains: “Negative emotions, they can provide guidance and insight. If you are scared, your mind is sort of telling you to be on alert. Look around, be careful.” Fear isn’t weakness; it’s your nervous system doing its job. Similarly, “if you are angry, your emotion is telling you that there’s something wrong in this situation that I need to change.”

Even sadness serves a purpose. “If you’re feeling sadness, that might tell you something else,” Ali notes. These emotions are signals. Suppress them, and you lose access to crucial information about what matters to you.

Social media and impossible standards

Muzamil describes how social media amplifies toxic positivity. His feed fills with success stories: someone quit their job and became a billionaire. Friends post trips to Bali and Istanbul, new cars, new houses. “What a great year. I made so much money,” they caption, without mentioning expenditure or struggle.

“This also tells us that you just share good things in your life. You don’t tell bad things,” Muzamil observes. The result is that young people grow up comparing their insides to everyone else’s outsides. They see 500 curated highlight reels and wonder why they’re not married, haven’t started a billion-dollar business, and don’t have a new car. This mismatch triggers real anxiety.

Muzamil shares his own experience of posting about financial struggles and receiving messages like, “You’re doing so well!” when the reality included debt and unmet goals. “This is okay, it’s part of life,” he explains. But acknowledging the hard parts makes many uncomfortable. They prefer the filtered version.

Finding the line

By the end, Muzamil and Ali settle on a practical distinction. There’s nothing wrong with having a positive outlook even in difficulty. “If I am afraid, but I choose to believe, keep on working and things will turn around. That’s just a positive outlook,” Ali says. But dismissing the fear itself? That’s toxic. One acknowledges reality while maintaining hope. The other denies reality exists.

The episode ends with a call for cultural shift. Pakistan needs to stop teaching kids that emotions are problems to hide. Instead, understanding emotions as messages, accepting their reality, and working with them might be the path forward. Not toxic positivity that says “be happy.” But genuine resilience that says: “I feel this. It matters. And I’ll move forward anyway.”