Perpetual Positivity Syndrome

A term coined by author Jeff Brown, PPS (Perpetual Positivity Syndrome) is one of the most common obstructions to awakening on the healing path. Defined as ‘the addictive need to default to positivity under any and all circumstances’, it prevents a maturation in the deep within because sufferers refuse to be present for all that is. Symptoms include a constant need to find the light in every situation, a tendency to forget or ‘rise above’ the negative aspects of their partners, an inability to fully support and hold the space for other’s suffering, and a turning away from the growth work demanded by life's challenges. Instead of forging a grounded, discerning positivity in the heart of all that is, they jump to the light, while averting the shadows that inform it. They reactively bliss-trip, when lessons are waiting in the wings to be learned. Those who suffer with PPS are often of the illusory view that they had perfect childhoods or that they have moved beyond the shadow, but they are sadly mistaken. If anything, their obsessive clinging to the ‘positive’ is rooted in their unresolved emotional material: pain and anger that will only come back to haunt them. At the end of the day (when the darkness settles in…), there can be no light without shadow. And no substitute for hard-earned transformation.