A Way To Stay Unaffected By Negative People

Quite a few things when I work with clients are about dealing with difficult people, people who are trying to put their stuff on you. And they're bringing in negativity into conversations. This could be family members, it could be partners, it could be your boss. And there's really a very, very simple and empowering way to deal with this. And I mean simple because typically the ways that we deal with people like this, who are bringing a negative energy into our life. The ways we deal with it, well first thing we do is we try to justify ourselves or maybe now we're explaining ourselves or we're trying to explain our position to this person. And it doesn't work. In fact it makes us feel like crap at the end of the day when this happens. So what if there's a way that we can talk about here? Because I mean we're going to be around people who are negative. It's going to happen. How can we find a way to relate to people in those situations where we are not taking on their negative energy, okay? Negative energy, I don't know if that's a term I really like, their negativity or their negative outlook. Just keep this simple, right? So there is a way I found to do this. And you know Eckhart Tolle talks a lot about the pain body that people carry around with them. And the pain body is a part of ourselves. And maybe it's carrying old hurts. But it needs to come up and feed every now and then. Or else it kind of goes away or dissolves, right? So people carry around this pain body and it's a lot of hurt, it's a lot of resentment, it's a lot of anger. And really what they want to do with that is put it out there onto somebody else, okay, to get rid of it. So they invite other people into their drama or into their negative stories. And they often do it in the form of an attack, okay? So it could be very critical towards you. It may even be threatening towards you, okay, when it's extreme. But one of the things we want to do is, our power in this situation is noticing that I'm getting defensive around this with this person. And I'm now going into justifying or explaining myself or arguing with this person. You see, the thing is, if someone is bringing negativity into an interaction and you're conversing with them, you're not actually having a conversation with that person. And we try to have a conversation with a person in this situation. When really, there's no back and forth really taking place here. This is an attempt to put stuff on you, right? It's not a back and forth discussion at all. And if we think it is, we're going to get into problems. So a way to think about this is to watch our defensiveness. And now I'm concerned about, well, I need to defend myself. I need to put my perspective forward. I need to explain this. They don't realize that that's the case. And now the attention is not over there on that person who had the emotional block to begin with. Now the attention is all on us, okay? It's all over here. Now that's the problem with this interaction. If that's the case and you're taking it in here, now you're going to leave that interaction and you're going to feel terrible, okay? And a lot of people will tell me things like they feel drained after talking to certain people. That's because their energy is going over here. And we're taking it with us and they were leaving the conversation and we're walking around wondering what happened? Why is this so difficult for me all the time? And it's a horrible thing and there's a lot of self-blame around that. So what we need to do is to drop defensiveness and to realize that the more defensive I get with this person, the worse I'm making it for myself. I'm actually taking it on through my own defensiveness, through my own justifications of myself, through having really any discussion. Now what we want to do is when we realize, okay, well, what's the alternative? Well, think about it this way. This person is bringing negativity towards you. Where should the focus of this conversation, all the focus of this conversation should be over here on this other person, okay? So you don't use I statements. Nothing is about me anymore in this conversation. The really interesting thing is this person is carrying negativity. So the person may even accuse you or say things or criticize you. And we're going to, well, I didn't mean that or I meant this or whatever. Me, me, me. Really, it should be. That's an interesting question that you've brought up. Now, you don't have to be aggressive with this, okay? In fact, we want to avoid aggression because really aggression towards this person is just another form of trying to defend myself, okay? It's one of the worst forms of defense. People say, you know, in sports, attack is the best form of defense. That may be true in sports, but in interpersonal relationships, it's the worst one, really. Because you can guarantee you're going to leave that feeling guilty. So what we want to do is put all the attention over here on this person without attacking them. So any questions that come to you, what you're looking for is not the question. Forget the words that the person is saying. What is the emotional tone that I'm picking up from this person? If I'm feeling hostility, that means that this person has an issue that they're dealing with and they're trying to bring it here. So you put all the focus back over there. How are you feeling right now? Forget, you ignore the question sometimes or the comment they've made. That's an interesting statement you've made. I wonder why you would ask that question. Why would you ask that question? Okay, so you're putting it all over there where the attention needs to be. Now, this person can either choose to walk away, they can become defensive if they want. But what you're doing is you're now walking away from this conversation having not taken on what Eckhart Tolle called their pain body, what you can just call their negativity, that wants feeding from this. It's going to grow with this. Another thing to realize is the more you get defensive and you feed into this dynamic, you're actually not helping this person either. So this person needs to be made aware your stuff is over here and that's really interesting in this interaction. I'm very interested in this. Forget what we're talking about for a second. Look at the hostility that's been brought in here. Let's focus on that. Let's talk about that. So this is a very, very empowering way to keep yourself safe around people who are bringing the negativity towards you. Another thing sometimes we have to look at is am I trying to fix this person in this interaction? Okay, we can't fix other people. That's a big realization that we have, especially in therapy or something. We're not really there to fix other people. Primarily if I'm in this fixer mode for another person, if I look at the fine print of I'm the fixer, really the fine print is, well, I'm ignoring my own life. I'm ignoring my own emotional needs and now I'm getting caught up in a drama that I don't need to. Doesn't help anyway. Does not help in this other person. So the takeaway from this is if there's someone in your life that is very, very negative, watch how you are reacting defensively. Now you will have a little reaction initially when you start to see someone bring a negativity, but just become super aware of, okay, now here's that defensive reaction I typically have. That's interesting. Okay, well, maybe if I don't defend myself, if I don't justify myself and I put the attention where it should really be, this would be an easier interaction for me to have and I won't come away having this, my own pain body. You know, it raises its head up and says, oh, maybe I could join in on this. We don't want to do that. So no justification, don't defend yourself. Don't feel like, even if the person is threatening you, okay, it's interesting that you would think that that's a good strategy. There's many ways you could put it. I'm just thinking off the top of my head here, but really it's all about, that's an interesting perspective, right? It's all about that other person. Really, if they ask you direct questions, don't feel like you have to ask them. You just talk about the question. That's an interesting question. I wonder where that question's coming from. Okay, so no questions, you don't answer questions, you don't want to answer with this. I'm rambling a bit here, but the point is you don't have to suffer these interactions. Of course, there's the other question of personal boundaries. If a person continues to do this, then we have a personal boundary issue, which is, you know, I don't really feel like these interactions are making my life any better and I can put up boundaries at least maybe minimize exposure to this person, maybe temporarily, okay? Maybe not temporarily, but in any case, I hope this sort of little insight will be useful for you in a practical level in your life. As always, thanks so much for joining me here and I'll see you again soon.