NOVEMBER 17, 2021
When was the last time you felt emotional? Was it yesterday, last week, last month, or today? Think about it.
While you may have defined a certain time where you felt emotional, the reality is that we are emotional every moment of our lives. Emotions are what make us human.
If you’re in a cheerful mood right now, then you’re in a positive emotional state.
If you’re feeling under the weather right now, then you’re in a negative emotional state.
No matter what situation we are in, there is always an underlying emotion with it.
Let’s understand it through this simple example. What happens when you go to visit your grandparents after a few months? You feel happy, right? It has been a long time since you met them and thus when you reunite, you feel great.
Now, imagine that you are taking a stroll through the garden near your grandparent’s house and you come across your favorite singer. At first, you can’t believe that you are seeing this person right in front of you, and the next moment, you’re flooded with many emotions like shock, joy, being surprised, happy, excited, and so many more. You start to cry tears of joy and don’t know what to say as you’re navigating through this whole flood of emotions.
Do you notice the difference in your emotional state when you met your grandparents and when you met your favorite singer? There was a lot of difference, right? When you met your grandparents, you were happy but you weren’t as excited as when you met the singer. Why? Because you know that you can meet your grandparents once in a few months but you never know when you’ll be able to meet your favorite singer ever again because they’re so famous and busy.
As per the people you meet, your emotional state changes too. And that’s why it is said that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most amount of your time with. If you’re around positive cheerful people, then that’s what your emotional state will also be like because you’ll naturally like meeting them. But if the people around you are mostly negative and pessimistic, you’ll be like that too.
And none of us want to be negative, sad, or sorrowful. While there are situations in life where it is natural to feel these emotions, it should never be a constant. And if it is a constant for you, then probably the fault is not in you, but the people you spend most of your time with. Many times, we can’t just cut these people out of our lives, which can then become a very big problem for us. So how can we deal with this and make sure that the negative influence does not become the constant in our lives?
That’s what we’ll discover right in this blog post!
How Do Emotions Work?
Before we move on to understanding how we can deal with the negative emotions we receive from other people, we must understand how does this transfer actually happen so that we can maintain our positive states most effectively.
To understand emotions, we just need to divide the word into two parts: E + motion. In this expression, E means energy. Thus, emotions are simply energy in motion.
We now know that our emotions are affected by the people around us. And that happens not just because we are around those people, but because they have a certain vibe, energy, or frequency about them that we catch. We can also call that the emotional level of a person.
Now, when you’re around someone who is on a negative emotional level while you are on a positive one, the energies will balance out. They’ll feel a little uplifted, while you may feel a little down. It’s just like an old weighing scale where both sides balance out at a certain level. If one is heavier, we remove some of it to create a balance, and if there is less, we add some to create a balance.
That’s why you may be feeling down, upset, or just sad without knowing the reason when you meet certain people. And that is just because your energy and emotional level have gone down.
Now, you might be thinking, “But isn’t it good that I helped the other person get to that little uplifted stage?”
Yes, that is good, but it is only temporary because for that person, the constant state may be that of negativity, and that’s the kind of people they surround themselves with. Thus, your addition may give them a little boost, but they’ll return to their ways once they are in another company. So what is the point of reducing your emotional level and getting your energy sucked out if the other person remains just where they are? If they are willing to change, your support can be the best thing they get, but if they just want to continue being who they are, then there’s no point in reducing your emotional level.
In some cases, it may be effortless to create distance from such people if the personal or professional relationship isn’t very strong. But in case it is, then it gets a little tricky because you don’t want to destroy the relationship completely, but you also don’t want to let your energy and positive emotions go away. You can’t just tell your parents to get lost and never come back. You can’t tell your boss that you don’t want to see them ever again, and you can’t say to your friends that you don’t want to be around them at all. So, how can we create a balance and maintain our emotional level? Let’s discover that!
How To Deal With Negative People Around You?
Sometimes, it may be challenging for you to create distance from negative people. It may just be that your parents are not the most supportive and positive people or that your colleagues and boss aren’t the best. There are always choices that you have. One is just to leave and create a new environment for yourself. While for some people, this may be necessary if the environment is getting too toxic or unbearable. But for most of us, this step is just a little too extreme. So what is it that we can actually and reasonably do to create distance without causing a lot of problems?
- Find some new communication lines.
When you’re surrounded by negative people, you might think that you’ll stop spending a lot of time around them.
But then with whom will you communicate? When this doubt comes, you’ll most probably just return to being around these people and continue feeling negative and sad.
It doesn’t have to be that way. If you find some new communication lines for yourself, you’ll automatically start reducing the time you spend around these people, and they’ll understand too.
If you have some friends you don’t feel great around, avoid going to a late-night party with them. But how will you do that if you don’t have anything solid? You can’t do it.
But if you enroll in a morning mindfulness course that you do live at 5 AM, then those friends will understand and let you sleep at 10 PM. Or maybe, you can connect with new people online who seem to make you feel positive too. Or you could start learning a new skill that requires you to carve out a few hours a day apart from your work.
There are many things you can do and if you can find a person who will just listen to you and uplift you, there’s nothing better you could get. We are humans, and we need social connections. Thus, if we don’t find the connection in our positive communication lines, we will return to the same old people. Find someone who is also on a positive emotional level and helps you rise. It can be a parent, colleague, friend, mentor, or anyone.
When you find these new communication lines where you can invest your time and maintain your positive emotional level, you won’t have to make any excuses and you will start to make some distance in your relationships.
- Be prepared.
Sometimes, you just can’t avoid being around negative people. It may be a company function or attending your cousin’s wedding where there’s no way for you to avoid contact. So what can you do then? You have to be prepared and be aware.
They say, “Ignorance is bliss.” but when your energy is getting sucked out, and you feel sad and upset without anything to do with you, then ignorance is never bliss.
When you are aware that you’ll meet these people and your energy and emotional level will change, you can be prepared, and when you do feel low and upset, you’ll be able to locate the source of that emotion and then deal with it.
We only get stuck in an emotional rut when we are far away from the root that caused it. And when the source is right in front of us, we also know that we can deal with it. Thus, negative emotions don’t impact us for a long time.
We must build an attitude of acceptance here and know that we are not superhumans, so it will be natural for us to go on a lower emotional level, whether or not we have caused it. And when we are aware of this fact and the source of our emotional distress, we’ll get over it very well.
But how can we get over this emotional distress? It’s simple. Return to your new communication lines, and you’ll start getting back to your positive emotional levels again.
Conclusion
These are the only two things you need to know for dealing with the negative people around you. If it is inevitable, then you know the source of the distress, and you don’t hold on to it for long by returning to your positive communication lines.
Maintain this structure, and you’ll find that it becomes effortless to deal with anyone negative around you and still maintain a positive emotional state!
Are you ready to make positivity your new constant?