An Unexpected Way of How to Deal Negative People

If you are like a lot of people, you may be wondering how to deal with negative people.

Negative people are to be avoided...correct? That is the conventional wisdom nowadays. After all, don’t negative people bring you down, make you feel drained of energy, they pull you down with them, and more? It makes sense to avoid that which makes you feel bad, doesn't it. But what if I were to say that negative people should not always be avoided. Would you think I was crazy?

Sometimes when you hear someone else's negativity you want to give up, crawl in bed and not come out again. Or maybe like you’ve been in a boxing match with your hands tied behind your back. Or you just might feel drained and tired. But here is the surprising truth that I have discovered. The truth is these feelings are the result of your own negativity taking over now, not the other person's. We are feeling our own self-doubts, worries, resentments, fears, etc. We like to blame them for being a negative person that brings us down. But the only person's negativity that is bringing us down is our own. If we had no negativity of our own that other person's negativity could not effect us.

Their negativity only serves as a magnet, so to speak, to dredge up our own ugly thoughts and beliefs. In a way it can be a blessing, because it gives us a chance to look within . . . and decide whether we are ready to let our own negativity go at last. Avoidance will often lead to the negativity sinking back down in the dark recesses of our being again, where it largely goes unnoticed except for this vague sense of dissatisfaction or feeling that something is "off" but we can't quite put our finger on what. But all is not lost, as we can always count on someone to come around to bring it up again. Where again you are given the choice to keep it through avoidance or to face it so it can be let go of.

The reason their negativity is so upsetting is very likely that deep down you are buying into the message of their negativity. Perhaps they say you are stupid . . . deep down aren't you afraid that they are right? If you didn’t worry that it was true could it really upset you at all? Or in a topsy way of viewing things, if being stupid didn’t bother you, if you could love yourself 100% in spite of your being stupid (aren't we all stupid at least sometimes?) could you feel bad at all? After all, do you hate a small child for being stupid? Or do you love them anyway, unconditionally? If you loved yourself unconditionally, could anyone else's negativity effect you? I believe that they could not.

As I write this, I am feeling my own negativity that has been brought up to the surface by another. Their simple, "Geez! I wasn't asking for advice!" has me doubting myself, berating myself for thinking anyone would want to hear what I have to say, that I have anything to offer. I hear that these words are my own. So clearly it is my negativity and not hers. Had I not these self doubts her exclamation that she did not want advice would have nothing to connect to within me. I would simply take her words to mean just that, and not to mean that there is something wrong with me. I do not need to create a thick skin to protect me from other’s harsh words . . . I just need to stop believing my own harsh words that her words remind me of.