No matter how hard you try, you are going to run into negativity. Sometimes the negativity comes from outside of you- the news, social media, your family, your friends, and sometimes the negativity comes in the form of the voice inside your head. It’s easy to let one negative thought spiral into another and another. I have definitely found myself falling into them more often over the past year. Are there tools we can use to help us navigate the negativity as it pops up in our lives?
The first tool I would suggest is awareness. So much of the negativity that we see just becomes the status quo. Think about watching the news each night. The news is full of negative stories- as they say if it bleeds it leads. I’m not even going to dive into what you see if you get into the comments posted on social media to a local news story. So just being aware of where we often run into negativity will help us avoid it when possible. Many studies show that people who spend less time on social media are happier. It could be that certain people in your life stir up some negative feelings more than others. So being aware of when and where you are more likely to encounter negativity will allow you to either avoid it or go in aware and prepared to deal with it.
Secondly, as I often advocate in this blog, working to keep our natural set point at a higher vibration will help us have less of a reaction to negativity. If you can stay happy and in a high vibration most of the time, then your natural desire will be to return to that set point as soon as possible. So you might have a bad day at work, but if you know how to find happiness at any moment, then you will be more likely to forget that bad day at work when you get home to your favorite pet or family member. This becomes increasingly important because so many people have learned to try and escape negativity through alcohol, drugs, or other negative choices. Simply escaping never addresses the issue and can often lead to more negativity if drinking, overeating, or other escape creates more problems. So it’s important to find ways to raise your mood or vibration that create a net positive effect and not just a temporary distraction. A person with a high vibration is not going to be attracting or looking for negativity, versus someone with a lower vibration might always be waiting and expecting something to go wrong. Those in a negative mood will often look for more reasons to justify that mood. We’ve seen a lot of this during the pandemic as people have been home more and watching the news and fighting on the internet, so something as small as a single nest of murder hornets found in the US became headline news that everyone talked about.
You have survived all of your worst days. Time heals all wounds. These are common phrases that remind us that this too shall pass. Even when some negativity comes up, we can find comfort knowing that it will eventually pass or at least change. Losing a loved one never changes for the better, but it gets easier to accept with time. Remember that your current situation is not your permanent situation. Also, changing your perspective can sometimes turn a negative into a positive. Stop and ask yourself if the situation or comment is absolutely truly negative or if you are just choosing to see it that way.
Finally, it’s completely up to you how to react or respond to negativity. Reactions happen when you don’t take control of your thoughts and actions. Choosing to respond instead of reacting will help you manage the situation more positively. It’s not always easy to catch your thoughts in that blink of a moment, like when you open that email from a co-worker that just sets you off, but practice makes perfect. Try to catch yourself before you automatically react to something. Maybe stop and pause before you reply to that post you just read on the internet…. and choose your response from a state of calm energy. You get to choose to continue a cycle of negativity or stop it. I’m sure everyone can think of a situation where a quick reaction instead of a thoughtful response ended up making a situation or thought in your mind even more negative. This is especially important as you deal with the negative thoughts in your own mind! If you catch yourself thinking something negative- stop, take time to acknowledge it, then take time to replace it with a better thought or at least say “I cancel out that thought.”
We can’t avoid negativity completely, but we can use tools to help navigate away from it or change it. You always have the ultimate control of how you choose to see things, and you have the power to respond instead of reacting. What types of negativity have you been struggling with lately? How can I help break your spiral of negativity? Next week I’ll share how I’m taking control of my thoughts to break the spiral of negativity I have felt since losing my job to the pandemic.
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