Everyday Canvas

Dealing with Negative People

Prompt:
Someone who had difficulty ignoring another person's negativity asked me this question:
“How do we learn to not see what we see, or not know what we know?”
How would you answer her question? And how difficult or easy is it for you to ignore negativity?

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Speaking for myself, I can tolerate and even ignore some negativity but there's a limit to everything. I may even try to help if the negative person has some good qualities and does not mean to hurt and scare others with nasty words and behavior.

Negativity can blind people to reality and hurt their growth because it works as a powerful force that seeps into thoughts, perceptions, and overall outlook on life. It also clouds vision, distorts understanding, and stops them from seeing the truth.

Overcoming all this requires a conscious effort on the negative person, but most negative people aren't even aware that they are being negative. For others around them, I can't think of any real workable solution for dealing with the negative ones if their negativity is extreme as what they need may be professional help, only.

Some negative people, however, can be encouraged tenderly to see the positive by being made aware of their negative thought patterns. Possibly, gentle prodding and saying something like, "There you go, again! Nothing is that bad!" may work.

Then, maybe,--when they delve into negative self-talk with words or thoughts such as, "Why is this always happening to me?" or "I must be so rotten to be in this position," etc.--,emphasizing their strengths, achievements, and potential may work to some degree.

Chances are most negative people learned to be negative through their past experiences and by being criticized by people important to them in their earlier lives, such as parents and teachers. In other words, their earlier negative experiences may have led to their later negative behavior, with them subconsciously doing unto others what was done to them.

Truth is, such people need positive reinforcement more than most of us, so they can nurture some self-compassion. This is because self-compassion and the understanding of one's own self leads the way to compassion, kindness, and understanding for others.

Unfortunately for some negative people, their negativity makes them focus only on the flaws, shortcomings, negative aspects of situations, other human beings, and even themselves. This may lead to a general defeatist mindset and hidden or apparent self-doubt and fear.

People around them, then, need to be careful when pointing out a problem or a mishap as something simple may be blown to epic proportions in the minds of negative people. Also, being gentle with them and encouraging the positive sides of their selves would help greatly.

Who knows, maybe what the people who take things adversely all the time can use some praise, meaningful conversations, other perspectives, and most of all understanding.

Then, if you are around a negative person and you cannot "learn to not see what they see, or not know what they know," maybe the negative person's antics are too much for you. Being around a negative person all the time may seriously hurt your own mental health and well-being. I would say, for self-respect and self-preservation, to just remove yourself from the company of such a nasty, pessimistic person rather than allowing them to define and hurt you in unseen ways, when you are only trying to help.





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