light it up: Using positivity to deal with reality
By Alice Crann Good / Photos by Kate Treick Photography & Getty Images
If you have ever signed up for a session with a mental health therapist because your positivity crashed and burned, there’s a strong possibility you considered the professional a paragon of perfection who lives a happy-go-lucky life. All positive. No negative.
Well, think again.
Meet two Pensacola Psychology Today-attested professionals who provide a reality check and share what’s in their toolboxes to stay positive: Tiffany Leader, CEO and licensed clinical social worker/burnout coach at See the Wonder LLC; and Erica L. Mack, state-registered clinical social work intern employed at Greenhouse Counseling Corp. and retired U.S. Navy educator.
“There’s an unspoken expectation from the outside world that we, as therapists, have it all together — as if being a therapist means we’re immune to struggle,” Leader said. “But the truth is we’re human, too. We walk through hard seasons, and we lean on the very tools we offer our clients to find our way through.”
Too true, Mack concurred.
“The myth is we are always happy and that we do everything right,” Mack said. “That is very contrary to the nature of life, and I quite often share that with my clients. I am human, too.”
— Erica L. Mack, state-registered clinical social work intern employed at Greenhouse Counseling Corp. and retired U.S. Navy educator
Recently, she had to take time off work due to a really bad cold.
“But isn’t that what the average person would do? It doesn’t change just because your title is therapist, or you are an intern working in therapy. The narrative doesn’t change for the need of positivity,” Mack said.
Both women generously shared some of their challenging times.
“There’s a term I like to use — superhero syndrome,” Leader said. “If you’re a social worker, a caregiver, a helping professional, or simply someone who feels responsible for everyone and everything, you probably know exactly what I mean. It’s the deeply ingrained belief that we must do it all, fix it all and never drop the ball. I wore that invisible cape for years, driven by a desire to serve with a perfectionist streak a mile wide and a high-achiever mindset that rarely let me rest. But when you’re a high-achieving, highly sensitive person with a tendency to put others first, that cape becomes incredibly heavy.”
She said that over time, burnout became a frequent, unwelcome companion in her life.
“It’s sneaky and unrecognizable until you’re fully engulfed in flames,” Leader explained. “It would sneak up on me in quiet, consistent ways — through weeks of lingering illness I couldn’t shake, gastrointestinal issues tied to chronic stress, and that telltale brain fog that left me feeling detached from everything, including myself. I now know the science behind what was happening.”
But with therapy, creating positive “micro moments,” using the Emotional Freedom technique (EFT tapping), and learning what it truly means to care for herself — nourishing her body, mind, spirit and soul — her life improved.
And a one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t exist, Leader stressed.
She turns to mentors/friends in her career field who teach her how to release emotions; as a faith-led person, she prays; and she enjoys her personally selected micro-moments of wellness.
“These moments are small, intentional pauses to reconnect with what I need,” Leader said. “For me, that looks like time in nature, a deep spiritual connection, nourishing conversations with friends and reminding myself that rest is not a reward, it’s essential. And what helps build up myself and my husband is exploration and adventure. New places and faces build curiosity and help us release stress and let us focus on fun as well.”
The days she pondered leaving her profession entirely and joked about working in a coffee shop just to escape the emotional load are gone.
“Deep down, I still knew I had a calling, still wanted to help women like me — women who love their work, who love their people, but who lost touch with themselves along the way,” Leader said.
“My company is called See the Wonder because I believe the awe and wonder is the beginning of healing, and it was where I started healing from burnout.”
The bottom line is we must redefine what it means to be positive, she said.
“Pop culture says be positive and stay positive all of the time, but reality is that the human experience has a full breadth of emotions that we are supposed to express and feel,” Leader said. “Recognize the negative, and do not suppress it because it will pop up in different ways. It’s like trying to push a beach ball under water that keeps popping back up. It’s a waste of energy and unhealthy coping mechanism. When we give space to negative emotions, acknowledge and accept them, they can dissipate and give room for joy and positivity to come back.”
MACK, JUST LIKE YOU
Mack has literally lived the message on her Psychology Today page: “Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual. It’s packed with ups, downs, and upside-downs; twists and turns, backward and forward, and even side-to-side.”
The Navy veteran, breast cancer survivor and caregiver knows it takes bravery to fight the negative, even for her.
“I’ve had a lot to deal with,” said Mack, who simultaneously battled cancer and earned her master’s degree in social work, completing the graduate degree program with a 3.57 GPA.
She said it felt like she couldn’t catch a break from life’s fierce fastballs for a long time.
Mack has been the caregiver for her younger brother, who has a mental health illness, for several years now. And when Hurricane Helene ravaged Georgia, Mack’s 84-year-old mother-in-law was forced to leave her Georgia home and move in with Mack and her husband for about six months.
But thanks to her career in mental health and being “a woman of faith,” Mack said she has a plan to regain her positive take on life.
While Mack knows Dr. Google articles galore offer all types of advice on developing and maintaining positivity, she advises not getting caught up in the published to-do lists. For example, most lists suggest surrounding yourself with positive people.
“When you are burnt out, it’s not just about having positive people in your life,” she said. “They must have a positive investment in you and hold you accountable for taking a break. They must be intentional and listen to you, notice something isn’t right and ask, ‘Are you OK?’ It makes a huge difference.”
Mack is onto something. Research states that good friends who are invested in your mental and physical well-being are as important as exercising and healthy eating; plus, they can teach you about yourself and challenge you.
Mack also suggests identifying your “happy peaceful place and doing something different” because physical spaces and places can affect how you feel, think and behave. And it’s different for everyone.
“I have been a seamstress since I was 16 when my aunt taught me how to sew,” Mack said. “My self-care includes going to craft shops and fabric shops. But I don’t have to buy anything. It’s just me in the space and how it lifts my spirit and changes my mood.”
And how about the “doing something different” part?
“I always encourage people to do something different, something they would never think of doing,” she said. “So, in the next couple of weeks I am going to look at RVs. I just want the salesperson to walk me through an RV. And I am going on a helicopter ride over the coast!”
Research shows a correlation between what you are doing and your well-being; increasing your range of activities and places will affect your brain and body in a positive way, causing an upward spiral of positivity, Mack said.
“If we don’t find ways to process what is happening to us, give us moments of positivity and space, it will come out in other ways such as irritability, loss of appetite, frustration, insomnia, etc.,” Mack said.
One last bit of advice from Mack.
“Check on your strong friends,” she suggested. “It’s another misnomer to think just because a friend looks like they are a strong person that they are a strong person. The friend you see as strong may be falling apart.”
