Mark Divine:
You can just meditate. So I want, you know, the point here is to have these be fun, engaging, get you to think a little bit differently. Maybe out of the box, shed some perspectives that maybe are uncommon. Which is the title of my new book, by the way.

Catherine Divine:
It’s a great book.

Mark Divine:
So today, guess what? Toxic positivity.

Catherine Divine:
Toxic positivity.

Mark Divine:
You’re so awesome Catholic.

Catherine Divine:
Thanks. You’re awesome. I’m feeling absolutely fantastic today. You feel fantastic today?

Mark Divine:
Like, it’s just an amazing day, isn’t it? Here’s a definition. Dysfunctional emotional management without acknowledging negative emotions.

Catherine Divine:
Okay, so what do you think? Right. When you read that?

Mark Divine:
So what is coming to me is it’s not allowed to have negative emotions. So I’m going to pretend they don’t exist. I’m going to block them, I’m going to suppress them, I’m going to deny them, and therefore I’m going to reap some unhealthy mental and emotional side effects from that. That’s what comes up to me. How about you? I mean, there’s a lot more. Obviously we’re going to talk about this. Yeah.

Catherine Divine:
I immediately go to. Yeah, the denial piece of, like, if I have a negative emotion or a negative thought, pretending it’s not there, telling it it doesn’t belong there, totally denying it. Right, right. Or in conversation, like trying to autocorrect somebody else if I hear them being negative, like shifting like, well, you could do it this way. So, like not allowing someone to have an experience of negativity because it makes me uncomfortable.

Mark Divine:
I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about this. So even in Unbelievable Mind, we talk about feeding the courage wolf, starving fear. Don’t give the negative the attention. And I think it’s probably we should shed some light on that because I’m not suggesting that emotion, negative emotions aren’t real, or they don’t need to be experienced because they. They do. Right. Otherwise, they get trapped and they get stuck. And.

Mark Divine:
And that kind of denial of those emotions can lead to feelings of shame and guilt, probably even anxiety, and exacerbate depression and things that are just like, dysregulated emotional state because you’re not allowing that energy to flow.

Catherine Divine:
Well, that’s like a huge one for me because, you know, growing up with somebody who was all about positive thinking as a primary caregiver, if I said something like, I can’t do something, or I didn’t feel well, I was told that, well, you’re choosing that.

Mark Divine:
Right.

Catherine Divine:
And so I immediately felt shame, and I immediately felt like something was wrong with me. And now, you know, at 47 years old, I still do that to myself, like where if I’m having a negative experience or I’m having a negative emotion, I think I’m choosing it and that something’s really wrong with me, and I’m, like, failing at life, and it’s like a really dark place to go quickly, you know, even though with all my.

Mark Divine:
Tools, it’s like, right now, this is interesting because this can be learned behavior through modeling or like I said, a caregiver basically telling you you can’t feel a certain way. It’s not. You’re not allowed to feel certain. That happened to me in my case, as well, as I had a little bit of narcissism going on in my family of origin, and anytime that would express something negative, I was told I wasn’t feeling that way.

Catherine Divine:
That’s right.

Mark Divine:
Right.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
Oh, you’re not feeling that. You’re actually. This is. You’re feeling something else. I’m like, okay, maybe I am. And then I wasn’t able to really appreciate what I was feeling and to let it kind of let it flow. Emotions like energy in motion.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah, I love that.

Mark Divine:
Right. So if it’s not moving through you, then what’s it doing?

Catherine Divine:
It’s getting stuck.

Mark Divine:
It’s getting stuck.

Catherine Divine:
Yep.

Mark Divine:
And that’s going to lead to. It’s probably going to be different for everything in every situation, but definitely some sort of dysregulation and health issues come from dysregulation.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah, well, yeah. Like, out of balance. There’s that emotional piece, like I was saying, you know, it’s like the component of being aware as an adult, I can be aware. Oh, that’s the inner dialogue, you know, and then, like, what we talk about in unbeatable Mind, then I can navigate that. Right. And not stay stuck in shame. So I think that’s the difference between toxic positivity, total denial that this is happening. I’m gonna walk around, feed the courage wolves.

Mark Divine:
Oh, there’s no. Negatively and even, you know. Sorry to interrupt.

Catherine Divine:
Oh, no.

Mark Divine:
Even using the tools like the worm process, I witnessed it, interdict it, I redirect it, and I maintain it extremely useful when, when you have to be positive in performance.

Catherine Divine:
Yep.

Mark Divine:
But it doesn’t mean you don’t come back and address the underlying issue. Right. You have to get. Get back at what was causing, what was triggered or what, you know, what the negative emotion was.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah. And it’s going to leak out. Like, that’s the other part is when people do that, it’s felt by others and so something doesn’t feel right. And so then that’s toxic in itself. Back to kind of those dynamics of family systems. Right. You know, like the dysfunctional family system. Everything’s great, we’re all great.

Catherine Divine:
Don’t tell anybody anything’s wrong. You know, so you learn to, like, hide and like, you know, be in that space. You see it in the spiritual community a lot, in the yoga community, for sure. In, I think, like, again, religious communities. Any community where we’re looked at, we’re looking at like, it’s all love, it’s all life. Yeah.

Mark Divine:
You have to act a certain way.

Catherine Divine:
And it’s got a certain, like, put on the wrapper.

Mark Divine:
I call it the happy glad wrapper.

Catherine Divine:
So great. And so like, that’s the other thing is I remember talking about that around gratitude because, like, of course, like doing gratitude every day. Right. So grateful to be alive, grateful for water. That’s all real. And if I’m feeling really sad, I also am grateful I’m sad.

Mark Divine:
I love that.

Catherine Divine:
And that’s something I say.

Mark Divine:
Grateful to be sad or to be grateful for the pain in our life.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah. Because it’s contrast. It’s like, how would I even know what happiness is if I didn’t know what sadness was?

Mark Divine:
Right.

Catherine Divine:
How would I know what gratitude is if I didn’t know how to totally be, like, upset about it?

Mark Divine:
In a way, disregarding of something so toxic. Positivity is denying literally half of your existence. You know, the shadow or the dark. Right. The yin and the yang, they both have to coexist. And one sheds light in the other. And one, you know, the light will dispel the darkness if you allow it to. But denying it keeps the darkness trapped.

Mark Divine:
That’s an interesting perspective. I love what you’re saying about the caregiver because I want to go back to like narcissism and there’s an overlap. Maybe. Or maybe the idea of narcissism is inclusive of toxic positivity because narcissists both can promote toxic positivity and they can also gaslight you and not allow you to feel your emotions. Like in your case or in my case, in which case then you’re going to end up suffering as a result of their narcissistic toxic positivity.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s the part of it. And this kind of goes into the teaching around meditation too, that, you know, I know you teach a lot about. And that, like we’ve taught together is like, you know, this whole, you can choose your thoughts. Well, then that already is like, at least what I was told. That perpetuates that I am my thinking. Instead of like, this is a thought and it’s going to pass and back to like what you’re saying. Energy in motion.

Catherine Divine:
This is an emotion. It’s going to flow.

Mark Divine:
It’s that ownership. I think you just hit on a really important point that’s like both for emotional and spiritual development is this non attachment. Right. So emotions come and emotions go. They’re like waves crashing in the ocean, you know, on the shore. Thoughts come and thoughts go. Thoughts and emotions are like cousins, you know what I mean? Or sister and brother. Right.

Mark Divine:
One is felt experience that you cognize and usually attach meaning to the other is a cognized kind of verbalized experience. Sometimes it comes with emotions or feelings, but sometimes it doesn’t. But they’re both part of the thinking. Thoughts happen and the problem lies. Most suffering comes in. This is what the spiritual tradition teach because you take it personally and you think, oh, this is my thought. I’m such a bad person, I shouldn’t be having this emotion. I’m not a kind of person who experiences anger or fear.

Mark Divine:
I was told that’s bad.

Catherine Divine:
Yep.

Mark Divine:
And so you take it personally.

Catherine Divine:
Yep.

Mark Divine:
And a lot of people hearing this is like, how else could I take it? Well, you can be like, that’s just a thought.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
That’s not who I am.

Catherine Divine:
Right. And it’s a perspective, like, it’s not who you are. That’s the other piece. Back to the, like on that topic of toxic positivity, I was walking with our neighbor the other day and I was saying, you know, one of the things, because I was like frustrated about something that was going on in my life I was looking at the perspective, looking at all the emotions that are coming with it. And then I was like, well, what if I told the story totally different? And see, I think that’s not toxic positivity. That’s actually shifting perspective. Like, maybe I’m stuck in one or two ways of looking at this, and there’s actually, like, at least 10 more ways that I could tell the story of my life right now.

Mark Divine:
Right.

Catherine Divine:
And, you know, like, an example of is like, back in the day when I got conned, right. And I was like, everything’s horrible. I’ve been conned from all my money, and now I have to go do this. And then I can look back 20 years later and go, oh, that was one of the best things that ever happened to me because it put me on a trajectory for something that actually made a huge difference in my life in a positive way.

Mark Divine:
Absolutely.

Catherine Divine:
And that’s that looking back. So always loop, like, kind of circling around perspective but not denying the feeling, the thought.

Mark Divine:
Right.

Catherine Divine:
And I know for. At least from what you said, like, around the caregiver, the narcissist, the denial part, I would. I’m curious. When we talked about talking about this topic is like, for you, because you were denied in so many ways of how you were feeling and how to exist. Right. And there was a very. And, you know, being in your family and meeting your family, I’ve been present and witnessed that. It’s like, this is who Mark is.

Catherine Divine:
This is where he fits. And so there’s a different mark in some ways that has to show up. And over the years that you’ve been.

Mark Divine:
With John, Brad Fall’s metaphor of the mobile, you know, the mobile that kind of like hex hangs in balance. And when. When you remove yourself from that mobile through, like, distance, like I did 7,000 miles away, and through a lot of growth and development. So I don’t really fit in their family mobile. And the whole thing gets to readjust now that I’ve removed. But when I go back to visit, the mindset puts me back at the time that I left, which is around 18.

Catherine Divine:
Yep.

Mark Divine:
And so then especially the matriarch and the patriarch will quickly rearrange and create all this chaos to rearrange the mobile, meaning the other participants in the family to fit me back in.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
And it’s just. It doesn’t work. It’s awful.

Catherine Divine:
It doesn’t work. Probably painful for you and painful again for the siblings more than the parent system.

Mark Divine:
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Mark Divine:
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Mark Divine:
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Catherine Divine:
What I’m curious about is for you, because you had that and then again, like, going through military training, you know, even like working in, like, highly competitive, like, Wall street and all of that. So then as you find yourself being on a spiritual path, doing a lot of therapy, teaching, all of this, do you, where do you feel the rub when you have like, you know, I want to over, you know, back to like the worm or, you know. Yeah, like, like, where do you feel the rub of, like, I want to be positive right now, but I’m having a feeling coming up, you know, and.

Mark Divine:
First of all, it’s a, it’s a practice, right? Especially like a lot of people listening are probably, you know, interested in this video. If you did grow up with narcissistic tendencies in your family or you’ve been impacted by that in your life, and so you’ve maybe experienced toxic positivity and gaslighting in these things. Or another example is just the social media itself. Like, social media tends to be a generally toxically positive environment because, you know, you don’t really feel the emotions that are behind all the happy glad postings, right? It’s like everyone presents this picture of perfection, but it’s just not reality. And so I think it’s very important and I’m, I teach that you, you have to ground your, your positivity in reality, right? And so part of that, like you said very succinctly, is to be real when things aren’t going so well and you’re experiencing, you know, negative emotions to realize that it’s actually a positive thing to allow those emotions to be present and to be experienced. And one of the things that I’ve finally. It took me a while, but finally come to appreciate is that much of the sweetness in life comes from the hurts. Right? From the pain, from the, from what you would call negative.

Mark Divine:
And so I would, I would be a proponent of like stopping the naming of unpleasant emotions as negative.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
Right.

Catherine Divine:
Yep.

Mark Divine:
Now toxic negative emotions. Yeah. Like to. In a hurtful way to express anger or rage, that’s negative emotion. But just because you’re experiencing anger or you’re experiencing shame or guilt, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s negative.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
It just is what it is. So stop, stop naming it and categorizing as negative. Because the lessons that you can get and the empathy that it can build within you and the perspective that it can, can lead to are all very positive.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah. And Marshall Rosenberg from Nonviolent communication, right. He talks about that like all emotions are pointing to needs. And so underlying any emotion, it’s like, yeah, they’re not some need, unmet need. It’s letting go of that, that black or white thinking it’s a good or bad emotion, but just looking at it as like, I’m having a feeling, so I’m having anger. Okay, so what’s my need?

Mark Divine:
Right.

Catherine Divine:
Well, I could just be hungry.

Mark Divine:
Could be hungry. You could be hangry.

Catherine Divine:
I could be hangry. Or I could need to feel reassured right now, if that’s it. Let’s say you and I are on, you know, a drive, you know, somewhere, and I’m needing to feel reassured. Do I need reassurance from Mark if I’m feeling angry? Or do I need reassurance for myself? And then see, this is where my.

Mark Divine:
Mindfulness as a practice is really helpful for being able to be present with and appreciate the entire spectrum of emotions from the negative to the positive. And I would like to kind of relate this to Dr. David Hawkins.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
You know, spectrum of consciousness or power versus force. You know, it’s just really. It’s the amount of energy that is being experienced or consciousness, life force. Right. That’s being experienced by your body at a particular time. Some people are kind of trapped in very low energy systems. Right. Shame being the lowest energy.

Mark Divine:
He mapped that at like 40 on a scale of zero to a thousand. And so if you’re experiencing a lot of shame and you’re trapped in shame because you had a lot of shame based trauma in your childhood or in your life, then that’s. That’s Very real. And it’s going to be very painful. And the way out is to courageously. Right. Courage is the pivot point, is to courageously seek help from an expert who can help you really kind of understand, like, the roots of this and to. To work with you to change energy and the thinking and you know what.

Catherine Divine:
Pull it out to. Like, I always think of weeds, right. If you just pull the top of a weed out, it’s going to grow back.

Mark Divine:
It’s going to grow back, but you.

Catherine Divine:
Got to go all the way to the end of the root system, really. And slowly, slowly pull it out.

Mark Divine:
Hypnotherapy. Yeah, that’s really helpful for that.

Catherine Divine:
You may.

Mark Divine:
Mindfulness. Sorry. The. The practice of mindfulness. Because even if. Let’s go to the happy Glad. Even if you’re part of like a perfect yoga community and you do a lot of meditation, like you are. You’re going to get triggered.

Mark Divine:
Right. You still are dealing with the underlying conditioning and trauma of the body mind system that you are. Even if you have very advanced spiritual, metaphysical experiences and you have God consciousness, you know, occasionally, if you have it permanently, good for you. That’s called enlightenment. But even enlightenment, the body still has the conditioning. It doesn’t suddenly become a saint. And it will get triggered and it will get triggered into negative emotions. And so the spiritual leaders talk about this.

Mark Divine:
The difference between the average person and the spiritual leader is a spiritual leader just watches it and goes, ha. Look at that. There’s that conditioning. They don’t take it personally. They just let that wave crash. But they still experience the full range of human emotions.

Catherine Divine:
Well, that’s what I was going to ask you.

Mark Divine:
That’s mindfulness is to be able to. Without engaging, without.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah, without the reacting. Right. You can engage in the sense. Just like, clarify. You can engage in the sense where you feel it.

Mark Divine:
Sure. Yeah. Thank you for that, Kav. I agree with that.

Catherine Divine:
But not reacting in the sense of like, taking action or it’s the secondary.

Mark Divine:
Level of action where you say, I’m so bad.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
That I’m experiencing this guilt or I’m so bad. Or you’re so bad.

Catherine Divine:
Right? Yeah. Or, hey, you over there, creating the.

Mark Divine:
Sword, you know, taking the story and blowing it up into this big drama.

Catherine Divine:
And I think that that’s. Yes. And so that’s like, that question that I was asking you is like, now you know where you are in your life when you feel that rub of like. Because I would say that you’re good at reframing and saying, okay, this happened. It was seemingly negative or seemingly bad. And I’m going to take the lesson out of it, and I would say you and I are probably really similar in the way we want to get there as quick as possible because of the, like, you know, like, it was bad feeling and like, you know, and maybe again, even though we had totally different childhoods, like, maybe some of that, like, sitting in, whatever it triggers, we’re both trying to get away from as fast as possible. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I might be projecting, but, like, for you, with that, like, toxic positivity, do you ever find yourself kind of shifting into.

Catherine Divine:
Don’t feel it still?

Mark Divine:
I. I think that is. And I. I’m. I’m speaking to the guys now. Right. I think that’s kind of the go to mode for a lot of guys where we weren’t taught to experience our emotions or we were taught that they weren’t appropriate. They made us weak, whatever.

Mark Divine:
And that certainly happened in my case. And so I can easily rely on that. Emotional control.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
And deny that emotions are happening. And so for me, it’s been a process of noticing that. Noticing when I’m clicking back into Navy seal, I’m in emotional control. I got to stay focused, do the worm process, stay on track, redirect, and move on. And there’s great benefit to being able to do that. Guys need that to stay focused on the hunt and being a warrior and whatnot. But then you’re cutting yourself off. I recognize I was cutting myself off from probably the sweetness of life.

Mark Divine:
The most of the emotional ranges, like, weren’t existent for me. So I’ve had to interdict myself from interdicting.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah, right.

Mark Divine:
The negative emotion and allow it to be experienced and even sometimes get help naming it, like, you know, you know, this about my wife, Sandy. She’s often be like, so how you feeling? I’m like, fine.

Catherine Divine:
You’re not allowed to say fine. I grew up with that.

Mark Divine:
And that’s right. You heard the one. So you can’t say fine.

Catherine Divine:
It means I grew up with her as a mother.

Mark Divine:
Fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and extremely, what, in denial. In extreme denial or something like that.

Catherine Divine:
She told me as a kid, it was feelings inwardly not expressed. And it used to bug me so much and be like, but I am. I’m fine.

Mark Divine:
Fine. So fine is not a proper.

Catherine Divine:
It’s not an emotion.

Mark Divine:
It’s not an emotion, guys. And if your girlfriend or wife says, how you doing? And you say, fine. Yeah, that’s not it. So don’t do that. Yeah, but I still end up doing it. And then I’m like, I catch myself and I laugh. I said, well, yeah, I know. I’m actually pretty good.

Mark Divine:
This is what I think I’m feeling or experiencing.

Catherine Divine:
Right. So you’re still like finding the emotions.

Mark Divine:
Still finding the words for it, you know, and, and I love some of those charts were like, oh, here’s or lists of all these different emotions. I know, I read through those. I’m like, wow, I wonder what that feels like.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah, yeah, me too.

Mark Divine:
Very interesting.

Catherine Divine:
The needs too. Sometimes I’m like, wow, I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced that need, you know, like in the list of needs. So. And then going to the. I’m gonna bounce over to the social media thing of the toxic positivity.

Mark Divine:
Yeah, well that’s such a big issue.

Catherine Divine:
It’s a huge issue. You know, and we’re seeing like this epidemic of severe anxiety, severe depression, more people medicated maybe than ever before, at least in the United States. I don’t know what the statistics are like globally, obesity in the United States. Right. We know that that has to do with food too. But also I believe especially with teenagers and a lot of my friends that have teenagers right now and the discussion is, you know, that high risk for suicide because they see their friends having fun and you know, and then I would say that that happens to anyone at any age if you’re feeling isolated, alone or if some you’re struggling in, in relationship with your own family and then you see, oh, these people have a perfect family or these people have the best life.

Mark Divine:
You know, I think that we can blame social media, but I think we should blame all media.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
No, I don’t mean like substack and you this stuff like what we’re doing, but I mean like mainstream media.

Catherine Divine:
Yep.

Mark Divine:
Large corporations and how they market, particularly the food and drug industries and you know, and our government, which props all that up and promotes it. So you could say that we have an extraordinarily narcissistic media driven kind of culture, cultural influence which then individuals just kind of play that out on social media by trying, you know, pretending to be as perfect as what they see in the advertisements.

Catherine Divine:
Well, you can see toxic positivity. Right. Like snap, crackle pop, they’re happy, perfect.

Mark Divine:
People eating in the biggest junk food ever.

Catherine Divine:
Right. Fear. But I also want to speak to the leaders. Right. My, you know, the people on social media that are speaking as authorities, influencers, promote experts, but are like, they have this great life.

Mark Divine:
And that’s a huge disservice, basically, to promote a life that is, you know, is not real. Like, there’s nobody perfect. There’s no such thing as perfection. Everybody has a very unique set of circumstances and challenges and traumas. And so I think you just can’t believe really much of what you see on social media.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
You know what I mean? When it. When it comes from that kind of. I’m perfect. This. Look at, you know, look. Look at my abs. Like, they’re amazing.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
They’re probably airbrushed. You know what I mean?

Catherine Divine:
Yes. Well, yeah, they’re painted on a lot of them are. They do that in Hollywood. I know that for a fact. Yeah. The. Okay, so to the actual process of toxic positivity. So I’ll talk about one of mine, you know, and then see what.

Catherine Divine:
Where you go with this from. The topic is. So for me, you know, many years ago, and you already know this, but I had been meditating for at least five or six years at that point, was in a very toxic relationship. Was teaching meditation yoga. Right. For full time. And so I had at least, I probably at least 500 to a thousand people a week that I was speaking to about universal love and light and happiness and be present through yoga teaching. Right.

Catherine Divine:
Because I had like quite a few people and all the stuff that was going on in my life. So I would override with. It’s all. Well, it’s all meant to be. This is happening perfectly. I want to allow this person, the toxic relationship, to be exactly who they are without interfering because they’re in their life process, showing up smiling and saying everything is beautiful and saying the perfect things. I mean, and. And in some ways a lot of what I said was authentic.

Mark Divine:
Describe why I don’t go to yoga studios anymore. Just so false. Hello, all you yoga teachers out there listening to this. I hope you’re smiling.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
Be authentic.

Catherine Divine:
Be authentic. So, and then I remember there was always that dance of like, not wanting to impose my personal life. Right. On, like, my students. So there’s that boundary for sure. However, the override one. What I’m really wanting to, like, hear your thoughts on. And like, back to the toxic positivity.

Catherine Divine:
Was the overriding in the interpersonal, the spiritual bypassing.

Mark Divine:
Yeah.

Catherine Divine:
Of like, everything’s good even though it’s terrible.

Mark Divine:
This is again, I think, how a lot of spiritual communities have developed and how the teachings have come to the west and then they got corrupted with the narcissistic, you know, kind of tendencies of our culture.

Catherine Divine:
The guru.

Mark Divine:
Yeah, and also the gurus were not necessarily authentic. A lot of the gurus were false gurus. They were projecting the kind of toxic positivity. And you can’t, you know, have these negative feelings and emotions. And so that’s why they call that either their emotional bypass or a spiritual bypass. You’re. You’re bypassing the shadow and denying its existence. And that’s a false teaching.

Mark Divine:
This is why some of the great spiritual teachers and leaders, like Ken Wilber, for instance, for years, Ken Wilbur said, basically, here’s the process. You’re going to wake up, right? This is wake up to, you know, awaken awareness. Wake up to, you know, that you’re a spiritual being having a human existence. But then we got to grow up. And growing up is growing up through stages of development, greater and greater sense of circles of care and concern, right? Starting from, you know, a lot of people are stuck in egocentrism, a lot more stuck in ethnocentrism, which is kind of like egocentric at a national or, you know, maybe a racial level, even my people, not your people. But then you can grow into this world centrism, where you have great care and concern and inclusion of every human. And then you get cosmocentrism, where everything is within your care and concern. And so that’s growing up, right.

Mark Divine:
Which is different than waking up. Waking up can influence growing up, but it’s not going to suddenly, like we said earlier, having a spiritual awakening not going to suddenly make you a saint, right? You still got to go through the growing up. And then there’s this thing called showing up. And this is like karma yoga. Like, how do. How are we showing up authentically and in alignment with our calling, or what the yogis would call your dharma? And so that’s showing up, and that’s. They’re all really important, right? And so for years, he was promoting these kind of three. And then just a few years ago, he came and set out and said, you know what? I kind of missed something.

Mark Divine:
There’s cleaning up to do. And cleaning up is the acknowledgement that life is messy. And even if you’re waking up, growing up, and you’re showing up authentically, and, you know, you have that wholeness in those three categories. If you’re not cleaning up, which means recognizing suppressed emotions, oppressed emotions, repressed, you know, projections, childhood traumas, all the conditioning from all the stuff that happens at an emotional level, then you’re not going to be experiencing wholeness. And you’re going to be, you’re going to have bypassed it. And the challenge for that is because you’re not experiencing it, you’ve suppressed it, which means you’re projecting it. It’s going to show up in some form in your life and generally it’s going to show up in the relationships you have with others that are close to you. So the guru with his, you know, having sex with his students, you know, the spiritual leader, you know, abusing his family or his wife or his kids, you know what I’m saying?

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
So it’s going to show up and if you’re in denial, it’s going to hurt people.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
And most people like, especially in the spiritual community, be like, well, I don’t want to hurt people, I can’t hurt people because I’m perfect.

Catherine Divine:
But there’s definitely harm going on closely.

Mark Divine:
And being willing to receive the feedback. You know, in a perfect world, we’d.

Mark Divine:
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Catherine Divine:
The other part around that just that was coming because a lot of thoughts were coming as you were saying. All that was that, you know, first you talked about, like, the media, right. And the paradigms that exist. And, you know, as a student of media, like, I remember learning that, like in the marketing classes and all of that is like, how do you sell things? Right? And we’re a culture of capitalism at this point point. And I would say even globally, even though some people aren’t as influenced as the United States is by capitalism overall now because of the way we are.

Mark Divine:
Well, the marketing engines of capitalism use, you know, positive psychology.

Catherine Divine:
They do. And the happy people talk to positivity. People talk about one of your favorite subjects. But like, I always think of that as like with like the commercials for menstruation, like tampons, like, I’m happy and I’m wearing all white and like, look at me, I’m having a great time. It’s like, so not the reality for any. For most women, right. And it’s just like, smile and grin and bear it and like, yay. And I, I feel that way.

Catherine Divine:
And I’ve talked about this in this spiritual community. It’s like, where if I’m having an off day, like, I still feel like I have to button it up. Right. And it’s like, that’s tragic to me. And I think that’s why we have a lot of disease or. And then there’s that other of like, okay, where do you. So, like there. You may.

Catherine Divine:
You may also feel like that, you know, where you button it up. Cause there is appropriate places, like professionally, like if.

Mark Divine:
Right. Well, I think this is an important point is whether you’re talking about a family environment or a work environment, especially post Covid. People are demanding or wanting, desiring more authenticity more be the ability to be more vulnerable and say, I’m having a bad day, I am on my period, and it sucks. You know what I mean? It should be okay to say that.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
But it may not be able to be. Right. To say that in every single meeting. Right. Or, you know, be the shoe drop that just like sucks all the auction out of the room.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
So there’s. There’s a place to say that. There’s. There’s a. There’s a way to say that. There’s a way to be authentic and vulnerable in an organization, and there’s a way for an organization to allow that. Like, the debrief is A great example. And we’ve had conversations about the debrief, and this is how in the seals, we did it.

Mark Divine:
Like, it was to have the, you know, I’m having a bad day moments and, you know, vulnerability, and, boy, I really fucked up. I don’t know what’s going on. That happens in the debrief.

Catherine Divine:
Yep.

Mark Divine:
But we teach the team and the culture is that that doesn’t mean that person’s a bad person. It just means that that person’s having a bad day.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
And they’re. They’re gonna do something about it or they’re gonna get some help or you’re gonna provide some help to them. So I think that we’re heading into an era and we can kind of wrap this up soon where emotional development and discussions like this should become more the norm, and they should be part of leadership development, and they should be part of cultural kind of awareness. Right. And so that cultures, whether, again, it’s a family or a work culture, can be a community of practitioners who are working on themselves physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and professionally. And it’s okay to have a bad day or it’s okay to, you know, to be the person who’s experiencing some negativity and some shame and not to feel like you just have to put that happy glad wrapper on.

Catherine Divine:
Do you think Let it flow. Yeah. As we wrap it up. So I have, like, a couple questions. Like, so if we’re. If you’re at the grocery store, someone says, how are you doing? And you’re having a bad day.

Mark Divine:
If I’m having a bad day, do.

Catherine Divine:
You say, I’m experiencing challenging. A challenging moment. I’m experiencing sadness. Or do you say, I’m doing great? Because I think that’s like, again, like.

Mark Divine:
Social rubs I have trained myself away from. I’m going to the grill. I’ll just smile and be like, oh, yeah, it’s one of those days, man.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
Rough one.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
And then a lot of times they’re like, yeah, I know what you mean. Me too. And immediately there’s a connection.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
So that’s a great question. I agree with that. So if you’re having a bad day, be okay with it.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
Other people are probably having a bad day, too.

Catherine Divine:
And then. And then, like you were saying with the appropriateness, this is where I think emotional, you know, And I know that emotional IQ isn’t really a thing necessarily, but emotional awareness, maybe the growing up, the emotional maturity piece is knowing it’s okay to say I’m experiencing challenges. Right. Now and I’m. And I’m feeling sad and then not going into allegory about it for the next 45 minutes while the person, you.

Mark Divine:
Know, go back to.

Catherine Divine:
There’s a.

Mark Divine:
That’s enough.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
Let the energy flow you do not need to create yet. And another chapter of your drama story that you’re going to dump on somebody else.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
Right. And then they’re kind of left holding this thing.

Catherine Divine:
So, like, that’s what therapist is.

Mark Divine:
Okay to let it hang there. Yeah, I’m having. I’m having a pretty rough day.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah.

Mark Divine:
How’s your day going?

Catherine Divine:
You don’t have to explain yourself.

Mark Divine:
Don’t have to explain it, you know.

Catherine Divine:
You know, because I think that’s an important piece in there is like the not dumping on others too. Right. If you’re going to shift away from faking happiness all the time.

Mark Divine:
Yeah. That’s kind of like the narcissist saying, if they’re having a bad day, then you’re going to have to have a bad day with me.

Catherine Divine:
For sure.

Mark Divine:
Right? For sure. And share my. I got to share my suffering. That’s not cool.

Catherine Divine:
And that. So going. One more question I think I have around the toxic positivity and then we flum the depths. Well, I mean, I have more. I have a lot. I have a lot of question about this because I actually was really affected, I think by this, you know, more than many people because I had again, a grandparent that wrote books on it, spoke on it, socialized me in it from. And I was inundated. It, you know, went to the New age church at the age of like six, you know, so like crystals and everything.

Catherine Divine:
Like, so it was pretty exposed and. And it did. It really sunk in. And it’s like, so in that, like back to the spiritual practice. Because this is what I love and you love to talk about the most. When we look at like Maharaji’s teachings, right. Consciousness flowing through everything. Speaking on that, it just is.

Catherine Divine:
And like, what is toxic positivity if it just is? I’m curious what your answer would be.

Mark Divine:
I often couch conversations like this, saying, okay, we can have conversations from the absolute perspective or the relative perspective. So from the absolute perspective. Right. Everything is like consciousness being experienced through individual points of awareness. And that would be you and me. But the awareness that I. That’s looking through my eyes is the same awareness that’s looking through your eyes. And the same awareness is looking through your eyes.

Mark Divine:
But that awareness and that life force is animating this body which has. Which is conditioned to respond a certain way to the environment that it’s in. And that body mind, the way the mind works or the brain mind is to construct a reality that has a perception of an individual sense of self. And that perception comes online at around three or four years old. And the name is taken seriously. And the, and the, and the perception in duality in the relative sense is that I am having these thoughts. I am a separate individuated consciousness amongst other separate individuated consciousnesses. And that’s a false perception.

Mark Divine:
So from the perspective of the Maharaj and the Ramana Maharshis and the Jesus and the enlightened masters is that relative is like a dream. It’s as real as. Like when you wake up from a dream, you don’t say that the dream didn’t exist, it was real, but you don’t also take it to be really real.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
And so the perception of life in the relative sense and duality from the perspective of the absolute is that it’s like, it’s like a dream. It’s not really real, but things are happening. And this is where you get the idea of kind of the happy dream. If with that perspective, you can look at it and be like, oh, I don’t have to be attached to the fact that I grew up with a toxically positive, you know, grandmother. I can see still when I get triggered by that. But I am not that.

Catherine Divine:
Right.

Mark Divine:
I am awareness. I am life. I am the same life that flowing through Mark and Catherine. Right. But the conditioning has these traumas and these traumas have little triggers. Now the emotional development work of cleaning up is to try to release the trauma triggers and to understand, you know, the conditions that cause the. Maybe some of the negative emotions to linger and dwell because you suppress them and. Or repress them.

Mark Divine:
I’m still not sure what the difference between suppress and repress. It sounds a lot like to me.

Catherine Divine:
But anyways, I’m still working on subconscious.

Mark Divine:
And so with. You have more awareness and more mindfulness, which comes online naturally through that long practice of meditation. So you don’t get caught up in it. You don’t blame yourself. You don’t have that like shame and guilt for having the negative emotions. You, you know, and this is really another way toxic positive shows up in people is like, you feel like you, you can’t feel that, so you feel even worse because of it.

Catherine Divine:
Yep.

Mark Divine:
Right. You’re not supposed to feel anger. So instead of that, you feel shame because you’re experiencing anger. Yeah, but you’re not supposed to. And so with the perspective of the absolute awakened awareness, or even just conceptually understanding that is helpful, you can look at that and be. Go like, oh, that’s just the conditioning I just got triggered again. It’s not who I am. And I’m not going to experience the secondary layer of shame or guilt as a result of the experience of not wanting to feel that anger.

Mark Divine:
In fact, what I’m really going to do right now is practice this. Letting the energy move. Emotion, energy, emotion. Let it move, let it flow. Let me finally experience it without naming it and judging it.

Catherine Divine:
Yeah, I found compassion is really important. Huge.

Mark Divine:
You got to have compassion.

Catherine Divine:
So compassion for the story of the past and. Right. Recognizing, like, I remember it differently than it really was anyways. Like, that’s always one of my things. Like, well, but. But more importantly, like what you’re saying, if I’m feeling angry and then I start to feel shame. Now you’re feeling angry and shame. Right.

Catherine Divine:
Is what you’re saying. And so then it’s like real radical compassion. Like, oh, my goodness. Like, wow. You know, and then the way you would pick up like a little kid and just be like, oh, man.

Mark Divine:
Yeah, just hold your heart like that. Oh, wow. Yeah. And how long you’ve been doing that to yourself. Lay down your sword, right? Just treat yourself with compassion and love and. And allow those things, a lot of the energy to flow, and eventually, you know, the waves will become smaller and smaller until you, you know, you’re not affected by them.

Catherine Divine:
And stay positive, and then you can stay positive.

Mark Divine:
All right, thanks so much for joining us today on the Mark Divine show with myself and the lovely Katherine Divine. See you next time.