Let's talk about how to react to negativity and what to do with the emotions that usually accompany it - anger, resentment and irritation.
Have you ever noticed this: if something really upsets you, then the rest of the day goes “wrong”? You were rude in the store, scolded at work, and now a chain of
negative events
: from a coat splashed with mud to the failure of a contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
If you were offended by a loved one, you quarreled, or worse, broke up, don’t wait for time to heal the wounds and everything will return to normal on its own.
Find out what to do to fix everything >>>
Why does just one negative event cause a whole chain of negative reactions?
It’s simple: you became “infected” with someone else’s negativity and also allowed yourself to experience negative emotions, thereby starting a negative chain reaction.
How to properly respond to someone else’s anger, insults and nagging in order to live calmly and happily, we’ll talk in this article.
A small life hack awaits the most patient at the end
- how to communicate with people in order to be guaranteed to get infected from them... with positivity.
Our negative emotions turn... into negative events!
One day I got sick and had to go to the doctors regularly. Probably everyone is familiar with the situation when you really just need to “ask”, and the entrance to the doctor’s office is guarded by a line of 15 grannies...
I then noticed an interesting pattern: if you get into an argument with the queue, then it will be difficult to wash yourself away from the rising wave of negativity. As a result, instead of half an hour, you will spend half a day in the clinic: the necessary offices will be closed, the specialists will be on vacation, the receptionist will definitely lose your card, and your gloves will be in the wardrobe.
For a while, I really went to the clinic as if I was going to work. And I had no idea how to protect myself from negativity. I was indignant, swore and spent almost the entire working day solving simple issues. And then I learned not to let the negativity inside myself, and then everything began to be resolved easily and quickly. There was even a card!
Life works like this: the outside world constantly tests our strength, trying to push us out of the resource state. And when he succeeds, another chain of negative events is launched.
On the subject: The power of human thought: how thoughts can become reality
When faced with a chain reaction of negativity, we think: “Okay, today I’m upset, I didn’t have a good day, but tomorrow everything will be different.” Right? It turns out not really...
How negative emotions ruin our lives
Negativity is like a virus: it is also contagious and destroys health - blood pressure rises, problems with the gastrointestinal tract arise, and depression can begin.
This is especially true for situations where the source of negative influence is constantly nearby - in the family or at work. Of course, emotional people, the so-called empaths, react the hardest to negativity.
It turns out that weakened “emotional immunity” can complicate our lives not only in one day, but also in the long term - cause illness, break-ups, career problems...
How to react to negativity to protect yourself from infection?
First, try to track and catch the moment of infection itself. This is not easy, because many people immediately turn on the instinctive “Flight or Fight” program, and they simply cannot react consciously. But if you pay attention, you will definitely learn over time.
And then you can completely change the setting of the current day with the help of thoughts.
I'll tell you another story...
About the smell of money and victory over negative emotions
Emperor Vespasian argued that money has no smell, and in ancient Rome this was probably true. But today money smells, and how!
In money magic, there are rituals during which banknotes are smeared with patchouli oil. Everything would be fine, but after a couple of days the weaker ethereal notes of patchouli disappear, and what remains is the most persistent base aroma - the smell of camphor.
As a rule, by this time the money magician has already gotten rid of the bill, and the paper “stink” with a face value of 1000 or 5000 rubles goes to an innocent visitor to a store or bank.
The smell of camphor is quite pungent. If a soiled bill is not noticed in time, the entire wallet along with the rest of its contents will smell.
How to protect yourself from negativity if you want to remember the money magician with his oil with an unkind word?
I know that many people react calmly to this scent. But personally, I don’t like camphor, and my husband is generally allergic to it.
And then one day I was picking up my change at the checkout in a supermarket and I felt that one of the bills smelled of this very camphor, and very strongly.
I ask the cashier to change the bill and receive a slightly rude refusal. I explain the situation, ask again - the cashier refuses with undisguised pleasure. It is clear that what is happening amuses her.
Formally, she is right, but her tone makes me angry. And suddenly the understanding comes that right now I am creating a negative event with my own hands and ruining my “karma” for the rest of the day. But it’s already difficult to slow down - as they say, “Ostap got carried away.” »…
In the end, the cashier and I through gritted teeth wish each other a good day and part: I with a fragrant bill in my wallet, she with a clear sense of superiority.
On the way to the car, I try to cool down and urgently figure out how to react to the negativity after the fact. I remember Zeeland’s pendulums (I’ll write about them later) and take a few deep breaths. This immediately reduces the degree of negative emotions.
That time my day was saved and no more negative events happened. And over time, I realized: in order to react correctly to negativity, you need to turn on awareness in time - that is, understand what is happening right now
. This is the most difficult thing, and the rest is just a matter of technique.
On topic: Mindfulness is the key to living in balance
Map of the Effective Mind
A mental map is a way of keeping records that is consistent with the natural way of thinking. The map reflects semantic, associative, cause-and-effect and other connections between concepts and parts. This is a branched structure, in the center of which there is a word or image that encodes the main theme. Branches-subtopics branch off from it, each of which, in turn, grows into smaller branches and so on. Such a structure is limitless.
Therefore, once you start using this method, you will often find that you have already run out of paper, but there are still plenty of ideas.
Another advantage of a mind map is its flexibility. If, during the process of linear note-taking, you came up with an idea regarding the previous points, then in order to write it down, you need to make a callout, write in the margins or between the lines. When this happens often enough, at some point it will no longer be possible to understand anything in your notes. On the map, all you need to do is add a branch: this does not destroy the structure of the records, but, on the contrary, complements it.
How to respond to negativity correctly
In general, negativity as such does not exist in nature. If we analyze our life, it turns out that all events in it are neutral. And negative or positive shades are given to them by our feelings, which depend on our mood, habits and our character as a whole. Do you agree?
And this is where the fun begins...
Our feelings towards events in life are a powerful force... Just like thoughts, emotions have the ability to lead us to future happiness or plunge us into unhappiness.
Jim Rohn "Five Essential Pieces to the Puzzle of Life"
In other words, if we learn to manage our emotions, we will not only understand how to protect ourselves from negativity, but we will also be able to completely change our life, making it happy.
“This is all good,” you say, “but what if you can’t cope with negative emotions? How to consciously respond to negativity when anger, resentment and other strong feelings are stifling?”
The same Jim Rohn has a wonderful recipe for all occasions:
If you can’t change your circumstances, change your attitude towards them.
As soon as in a negative situation you managed to wake up and remember
, that is, to realize what is actually happening now, you can begin to change your attitude towards what is happening. It's much simpler than it seems at first glance.
Let's look at two sides of this issue:
1. How to respond to negativity for protection if you find yourself in the midst of a negative event;
2. How to remove negative emotions “after a fight” if you still become infected with them.
How to protect yourself from negativity if you find yourself in the midst of a negative event
There are several proven techniques that allow you to calm down, soberly assess the situation and replace negative emotions with positive or neutral ones. I’ll tell you about those that I most often use myself, and if you have your own recipes, share them in the comments, I’ll be grateful!
Failure or damping of the pendulum (according to V. Zeeland)
The term “pendulums” was proposed by Vadim Zeland, author of books on reality transurfing. He calls pendulums special energy-informational structures - group or individual.
Group pendulums are formed around communities of people united by a common idea (family, work or educational team, political party, state).
Single pendulums are an energetic “superstructure” of one person or even just an obsessive thought.
Pendulums are fueled by our energy. When you hear negative news on TV, or a neighbor comes to gossip, or you are trolled on social networks, know that at this very time various pendulums are trying to get your energy.
The influence of pendulums on a person is so great that his mind literally becomes clouded and loses the ability to think independently and consciously.
Vadim Zeland “Reality Transurfing”
How to react to negative pendulums? There are two simple techniques: failure and extinction. It is better to read about them in detail from the author, but in short it looks like this:
Pendulum failure
First, we accept the pendulum: TV, the neighbor, and even the online troll have the right to exist. Negative events are part of our lives.
Then we release the pendulum and pass by indifferently. The pendulum has nothing to cling to, and all its negativity falls into the void.
Often it is enough just to realize the fact that we have fallen under the influence of a pendulum - and it immediately loses its power.
Pendulum damping
If we violate the scenario according to which the pendulum operates, its oscillations are extinguished. For example, how to protect yourself from negativity in a clinic? Instead of being indignant or complaining (which is exactly what the pendulum expects from you), imagine that you are going through a quest. As in the famous scene from “Ural Dumplings”:
- So, you can’t go without shoe covers, shoe covers are in the wardrobe, the wardrobe is closed... I told you, this is a quest!
Ural Dumplings Show, skit “Official in the Clinic”
Where people expect you to be irritated and angry, try to be happy. Instead of indignation or fear, yawn out of boredom. And so on.
Protective barrier against negativity
The technique is simple: we mentally build a wall between ourselves and the source of negativity, imagining that this protection is transparent on our part and mirrored on the part of the offender. Therefore, all the evil words, emotions and flows of negative energies flying at you are reflected back without causing you any harm.
Try it! This technique even works for my husband, who is skeptical about the topic of energy practices.
Humor and self-irony
How to react to negativity? With humor! In any tense situation, we start looking for something funny. For example, imagine how an angry boss grows donkey ears. Or we turn on self-irony - yes, we have shortcomings, and I remembered a great joke on this topic...
Then, instead of defending and tense, you will soften, smile (at least internally) and calm down - and in such a state it is impossible to unsettle a person.
If we recall Zeeland’s pendulums, then this and the next technique also lead to their cancellation.
Non-standard reactions
How to react to negativity when they shout at you and aggressively “run into you” in every possible way? There is another great option - try to react unconventionally, for example, suddenly switch to a whisper.
If the situation allows, you can even lie down. Your interlocutor will immediately lower his tone: first from surprise, and then it turns out that in principle it is impossible to shout at a lying person. And responding to a whisper with a shout is generally absurd, even funny.
"Short breaths"
Breathing practices are a powerful tool to help you engage in mindfulness. They are suitable for any negative situations.
At the moment of a negative event, just take a few deep breaths and exhales, and you will noticeably calm down. This will allow you to look at what is happening from the outside so that you can react meaningfully, and not follow the lead of the “negatives”.
All these methods work if you manage to realize that you are in a negative situation. But this doesn’t always work out, especially at first.
This little guide will help you save your love relationship >>>
How to react to negativity when the moment has already passed and you are full of negative emotions? Get rid of them as soon as possible before they ruin your day!
The Power of Keywords
Tony Buzan, in his book Make the Most of Your Mind, describes an experiment in which several groups of students were asked to reproduce the same lecture.
Students who did not take notes at all did the worst. Slightly better are those who recorded the entire lecture. Short notes turned out to be much more effective, and the best results were shown by those who wrote down only key words, as Daniel Lapp wrote, “where there is attention, there is memory.” Now these words are located side by side, rather than getting lost in a sea of redundant text. Plus, now we don’t do a ton of extra work, first writing down extra words and then reading them, and therefore we can focus on identifying the semantic structure of the text.
In order to make the relationship between keywords in the outline more clear, you can connect them with arrows and lines. And to connect the creative right hemisphere to the process, you can replace some of the keywords with pictures, play with the size of the letters and the way of writing, and add different colors.
And now we are literally one step away from the advanced note-taking technique proposed by the English psychologist Tony Buzan - mental maps.
How to get rid of negative emotions after the fact
Switching your mind
Instead of ruminating on a negative event, move on to something else. A light meditative state helps best. There are many ways to achieve it. Some people like to hum a catchy song, some pop bubbles on packaging film, immersing themselves in pleasant memories, and some actually meditate.
Doing what you love is very calming and distracts from anger, resentment and other negative emotions.
Body switching
How to react to negativity is most common for you, remember? While you are clenching your fists or teeth, something is also clenching in other parts of your body. This is how various muscle clamps and blocks are born.
Redirect this energy to something else: make your body scream, move, sing loudly. Play sports, go for a massage.
Strong tension of individual muscle groups followed by their relaxation helps to get rid of negativity. Try to alternately tense the muscles of your face, neck, shoulders, arms, and so on. Count to 10, then relax. Finally, tense your entire body. After the final relaxation, you will forget about negative emotions.
Water treatments
If you remember, young mothers used to have this belief: when a child cries, you need to wash him from a plate and throw the water over the threshold. I also did this once, and it helped! Our grandmothers taught us this.
Water does magical things with negativity! When you're upset, try washing your face, or better yet, take a shower. If this is not possible, just drink some water. It will become much easier for you. It is not for nothing that it is believed that when a person is very excited, you need to offer him a glass of water.
Here are some more tips on how to protect yourself from negativity in certain life situations.
How to protect yourself from negativity at work
It is important to remember that a negative opponent has nothing against you personally. He may not like the result of the work - yours or the entire team. Or maybe he's just in a bad mood today. Be that as it may, all this definitely does not apply to your personality.
Advice:
ignore the hurtful words of your interlocutor, concentrating only on his feelings. If you agree and sincerely acknowledge that he has the right to experience anger, irritation and other negative emotions at the moment, then you will greatly soften, or even completely extinguish the conflict.
On topic: How to respond to an insult. The commandment of Christ and the test of your awareness
How to protect yourself from negativity in the family
Here the mechanism of occurrence of negative emotions is similar to the previous one. The rules of behavior are the same: realize that raising your tone and hurtful words from your loved ones is never directed at you personally. There is always some other reason, and it's not you.
Tip
# 1:
Don't try to correct your husband, wife or his/her mother. As they say, what grows, grows.
Tip
No. 2:
try not to get into the epicenter of a negative event; stop communicating as soon as you feel the first signs of a storm. Do not try to react instantly: it is better to return to the conversation later, when your “negative” person has calmed down, in order to peacefully discuss his problem.
How to protect yourself from negativity on TV
“Don’t read Soviet newspapers before lunch,” Professor Preobrazhensky used to say in M. Bulgakov’s story “The Heart of a Dog.” Since there was no television in Bulgakov’s time, I will add: “Protect yourself before eating and from watching news channels on TV!”
When footage from disaster sites, military operations and other negative events flash on TV, political intrigues and scandals are discussed - how can we react to this? As a rule, we experience fear, indignation and indignation. Have you noticed?
If you regularly watch the news, you will be haunted by troubles - verified! How to protect yourself from negativity in this case?
Advice:
try the “Failure” and “Pendulum Cancellation” techniques (see above). In my opinion, this is the most effective way.
How to protect yourself from negativity on social networks
The online world is designed in such a way that there will always be someone who will think badly of you. No matter how hard you try to please everyone and please everyone, the statistics will still work: for every few pleasant reviews you will definitely get one unpleasant one.
Advice:
When you come across condemnation, remember the statistics. This will help you not take negativity personally. And under no circumstances engage in controversy. If you feel that you have encountered an obvious troll, it is better to immediately protect your account, delete the comment and block the author.
Note:
Advice on how to respond to negativity online is only suitable for individuals. For companies represented on social networks, the ways of dealing with negativity will be completely different.
How to react to negativity and control destiny
Now you know that negativity is contagious and dangerous, and negative events cannot be left to chance. How to relate to your own emotions at this moment, which thoughts to allow yourself and which to ignore - this is only your daily choice.
With the power of thought, you can completely change the setting of the current day. And the next one... And further... So, day after day, your new, completely different life will take shape - more joyful and successful than before.
After all, if we know how to react correctly to negativity, then we become free and can control our destiny.
And now, as promised...
How to remove negative energy from your things?
If an item is donated by an ill-wisher, it can transfer negative energy to the new owner:
- The easiest way to clean is to rinse under running water;
- if the item is made of fabric, you can keep it for some time in a container with salt dissolved in water. This method is also suitable for cleaning jewelry;
- You can also remove negative energy from a thing using fire. A lit candle is placed next to the object and left until it burns out completely. If we are talking about jewelry that was given or inherited, a more radical method is suitable - melt the metal and get a new product;
- Clothes can also be washed in silver-plated water (pre-soak the silver item in a container of water overnight).
Lifehack for gaining a positive charge for the whole day
Almost every day we get a chance to recharge ourselves with good emotions completely free of charge. All you need to do is exchange a few kind words with someone.
Give a compliment to a colleague, a saleswoman in a store or a courier from a delivery service. Call a friend to share your smile and good mood.
You already know how to react to negativity so as not to become infected with negative emotions. But a smile is transmitted from person to person using the same mechanism. Exchange smiles with someone - you will immediately feel how your soul has become warmer.
And if you can carry this feeling throughout the whole day, you are guaranteed many pleasant events today! And tomorrow... And always... Just try!
Entertaining cartography
Over time, you will develop your own style of mind mapping, but in the beginning there are a few guidelines to follow.
Take paper of at least A4 size. Place the sheet horizontally.
Use only one central image - preferably a drawing, not a word.
Try to use individual words rather than phrases.
Direct the main branches towards the corners of the leaf, and bend additional branches to fill the entire leaf.
Don't leave words hanging in space. There should be a thread under each word.
The main branches are thicker than the derivatives.
Do not turn the paper to make it easier to write: the words above the branches will be upside down and this will make it difficult to quickly see.
Use colors, decorative fonts, arrows, drawings, three-dimensional images.
Choose a different color for each main branch and its derivatives. Then, even if different branches get mixed up at some point, the map will not lose its clarity.
Stay realistic
In an effort to remain compassionate and caring, we always try our best to reassure and positively influence negative people.
It is very important to understand that you can only help if you look at things realistically. In situations where a negative person seriously oversteps boundaries, you need to consider breaking off any relationship with him.
This advice may seem a little harsh. However, you must be aware that many other people may need your help. You cannot and should not allow yourself to be negatively influenced. It prevents you from helping those who truly deserve it.
