Dealing With Negative People
This blog post is inspired by one of my clients who is having a hard time with a negative friend.
We all know people who bring us down emotionally, we may have been that person in the past. However when we have to see someone regularly who always brings the negative into the conversation, it’s hard. Here are some ways of dealing with that person.
Before we talk about THEIR behavior, let’s have a look at your part in the situation. That’s right - I’m putting the focus onto you rather than them.
We know that our happiness can be subject to how others treat us, how others see us, and how we interact with others - if someone close to us is kind, nice, giving towards you, you feel happy. When they are mean, unkind, rude towards you - we feel unhappy. And we’re social creatures, we need social interraction and relationships to survive successfully in life.
Because of these things, it’s very hard to spend time with people who bring us down - people who always see the negative, pessimistic people, people who are constantly distrusting and cynical. Constant and consistant exposure to this type of person can cause a deep effect on your own positivity, it can lead YOU to feel negative towards the negative person.
What’s the best way to deal with this person - of course it’s to walk away and spend as little time with them as possible.
Problem solved! Right?
Wrong.
What if that person lives in your home, or works on your work team? Not so easy to walk away from. So, this is where the hard work comes in, we maybe possibly COULD learn something from them if we start to understand where the negativity comes from. An article in Psychology today states -
“In brief, almost all negativity has its roots in one of three deep-seated fears: the fear of being disrespected by others, the fear of not being loved by others, and the fear that “bad things” are going to happen. These fears feed off each other to fuel the belief that “the world is a dangerous place and people are generally mean.”
These fears show up in different ways, here are a few of those ways -
Taking offence at a positive statement.
Being overly judgmental towards others.
Being demanding of other people.
Pessimism about other people.
Controlling others.
Notice the common thread here? They’re all blaming external factors. Nothing is their fault. What is this telling us? That they don’t see any positive actions towards them.
Why would someone never see the positive actions towards them? Because of low self-esteem.
This may be a difficult notion to think about, but that person who is negative, controlling and can never see the good has really low self-esteem.
How can we manage someone in our world who is negative? But giving them the love, attention, safety and respect, they are craving. And if that’s too hard? (Because it isn’t always easy) Try and find a third-party buffer who can act as a mediator or even support to you both.
The other option is to work on yourself - find as much compassion as you can for the person and respond to them with maturity and thought. Then do whatever you can to secure your own attitudes and work hard on not allowing others to shake those attitudes.
It will take time to see results, time and hard work on your part. It’s tricky, but I assure you it does work - it just takes time, patience, hard work and skill.
Until next time!
L xx
