Surrounding Yourself with Positive People - A Great Way to Succeed in Life

We need to find the courage to say 'NO' to the things and people that are not serving us if we want to rediscover ourselves and live our lives with authenticity. - Dr. Barbara DeAngelis

Do not listen to those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious. - Og Mandino

The picture of the water and the ripples is a visual representation of what positivity and negativity do to your life. As you think positive thoughts, you emanate them outward as energy, as spoken words, and as actions; the same thing goes for negativity. This has a far greater impact than you think. When you spend time around positive people, your energy--your whole being--thrives. It is, I believe, our natural state of being. When you spend time around negative people, you are affected as well. Your spirit withers as it denies its natural self. Like those ripples in the water in the picture above, a person's attitude has a way of affecting not just that person but all those they come into contact with unless you consciously choose not to be a part of it.

Let's face it: At some point in your life you are going to have to deal with a negative person. Maybe you are one yourself. Then, worse than that, there's the toxic person. That's a whole different level of negativity!  What do I mean by a "toxic person?" A person who will bring others down including you to make themselves look and feel better; a person who lives their life by being bitter, angry, and defensive; a person who is negative toward others and tries to infect others with their negativity. These are the people that when we walk away, we feel drained, unsettled, tired, and negative.

When you are exposed to negativity by another person, it can quickly take hold and spiral out of control affecting you on every level (physically, emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically) until you consciously begin to interject more positivity into your life. Humans have a tendency to focus on negativity because at one point it helped us survive. Hundreds of years ago, humans needed to focus on the negative in their environment for their own safety and well-being--survival depended upon it! In modern times, it does not serve us. Focusing on the negative or perpetuating it by being around negative and toxic people does not serve our spirits. Our spirits long for happiness, peace, and contentment. They do not thrive on the disempowering emotions of anger, jealousy, resentment, bitterness, and the like.

When I was going through a divorce, I attended a weekly divorce support group.  When I first started going, I told my therapist that I felt uncomfortable because there was so much negativity. Women who had been divorced for years (one woman was divorced for 10 years!) were still going and blaming their exes for everything gone wrong in their lives. I was newly separated, extremely vulnerable, and I found these two hours of my life excruciating. I would go home drained and upset, and I knew I didn't want to be a part of their drama. My therapist insisted I continue to go and I'm glad she pushed me. I ended up working past their negativity, learning not to take it on; learning how to relate to them from a heroine's way of life not a victim's, and showing them a new way of being. Yes, the pain of divorce is real and I don't want to negate that or ignore the intense emotions that you experience.  However, it does not serve anyone if the victim side of it becomes a story about your life. We do not have to exist in the world showing others how hurt we are. We do not have to exist in the world trying to "rally the troops" in an effort to gain support for our cause (oooh, and a pet peeve of mine is rallying the kids! Take them out of it and let them have their own separate experience of mom/dad--separate from yours! Don't rob them of their natural right to have a relationship with both parents!). If you perpetuate the negative, it will become your world; it becomes your story (and here again let me interject that if you are negative about your ex, of course your kids are going to pick up on it. If your child is aligning with a parent--that's a huge red flag! Take the time to foster a loving and healthy relationship with all parents involved, even step-parents. Give that gift to your child). If you work on becoming whole again, you will find positivity. I often see people stuck in their own patterns of toxicity, trying to infect others with their pain. And, others--their audience--who are susceptible to their stories of victim hood, fall victim themselves.

It's not just divorce that can have people careening out of control toward negativity and toxicity. People can be this way for a number of reasons. Blaming their parents for their woes, a crappy job, a business failure... Whatever the reason, toxic and negative people exist. However, we do not to become this way nor do we have to be around them if we choose not to be.

What do we gain in life by listening to negative people or by taking on their stories? Better yet, how much do you lose by being around a toxic or negative person? You have many choices in life--of which you are 100% responsible for.  Have you noticed that toxic and negative people do not take responsibility but instead blame and shame others? Choose to nurture yourself by spending time with people who lift you--and others --up instead of putting them down (because if they put others down, they most certainly put you down whether you realize it or not). Toxic people behave the way they do in part because they have been rewarded in the past for their behavior. People do not call them on their negativity (not in a way that stops them dead in their tracks) so it is repeated to a willing participant until someone has the courage to say "Stop! Enough!"

I know of many people who have pity parties--and who doesn't from time to time?  But when the pity party becomes their story, when they insist on bringing you down or others down, when relationships are defined by negativity, then it is time to assess whether that relationship is healthy and empowering, or if it needs to be redefined, addressed, and perhaps even ended. You do not have to put up with negativity. If someone puts others down when they are not present, you can tell them that it is not right to talk badly of someone when they are not there to defend themselves. You wouldn't like it if you were the one who was put down, so do that person a favor. Learn how to be kind to one another, even if a person isn't present.  When someone puts you down, you have the right to tell them to stop, to tell them how you feel, and to walk away and not engage in their negativity.  Sometimes this cannot be done all at once; it is a process. Years of dealing with a negative person will take some time to undo all the negative patterns that have been established over time. Or, if they are not willing to change, you have the right to protect yourself from further negativity by rethinking what being part of a negative or toxic relationship will mean for your future.

Being around negative people takes its toll on your health--physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. Life is too valuable to take part in dis-empowering or unhealthy interactions. Relationships form the basis of much of our growth in our lifetimes, but when you are stuck in relationships whether they are friendships, blood relations, or partnerships (personal or professional) that don't enhance your life but detract from it, it's time to assess whether they serve your best interests. That's not being selfish; that's being wise. If you have to deal with someone who is negative, learn to detach and not react to them. Oftentimes the reactions perpetuate the behavior, reinforcing it.  Give them a new reaction--a non-reaction. Learn how to disengage from negativity before it consumes you.

One way to rid your life of toxic or negative people is to begin to seek out positive people; people who lift you up and support you; people who do the same with you and with others. Stay away from people who whine, who aggravate you, who are judgmental, negative, selfish, jealous, mean-spirited, criminally minded, or miserable. I think it was Tony Robbins who said that you can tell a lot about a person by the type of people they hang out with.

I deal with a lot of clients who are going through a divorce and think nothing of bashing their exes. Okay, sometimes there is a place for that, but when that becomes your story, it is time to rethink whether that enhances or detracts from your life. I know of one woman who, after over fifteen years since her break-up will bend anyone's ear to tell them about how awful her ex is, how he's ruined her life and her child's, and now she has unfortunately rubbed off her attitude toward her ex onto their child. She's wrapped her family, her friends, and anyone else who will listen to her story of woe, and has made her ex and her hatred of him her sole focus in life.  It's how she bonds with others. With no job (and no other outlet for a positive focus), she relies on his child support to live--but she doesn't focus on that (and no one in her circle has pointed out her ex's positive attributes, but instead fostered that negativity in front of the child even!).  She doesn't focus on the positive aspects of what a great father he is to his child and how he's fought to stay in his life. Her toxic attitude has now poisoned their child. Negative people quickly spread their negativity toward others unless you are focused and determined to live a life that is happy, positive, and enhances your well-being.

You can be unhappy and negative and you can surround yourself with people who are unhappy and negative; who blame everyone but themselves for their lot in life, but this takes a serious toll--physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. Life is too short to be like this or to have people in your life who are like this. You are too valuable. Part of personal growth is that we must become 100% responsible for ourselves--for our thoughts, words, actions, and beliefs. No one else can do this--we must. That means that if you want to be living an awesome, truly inspiring, and authentic life, you must address those things in your life that detract from it. One of those things is negativity.  Negativity is a great teacher, but at some point you have to move on and learn from that lesson. It's like a flower trying to grow, but someone keeps trying to poison it with weed killer. It won't grow unless that toxic substance is taken out of the picture. Or, if a flower were planted where there was no sunshine. It needs the sun in order to grow--same thing with positivity. In order to grow as a human being, in order to flourish in life, you need supportive people who you can connect with on a deep level. Negativity is not conducive to a deep, long-lasting, loving connection. And isn't that what everyone wants in the end--a connection? These kinds of connections deepen our happiness in life, enhance our well-being, and add to our sense of what we feel is living our best life.

So, your "homework" this week is to assess who, including yourself, is negative and has a detrimental effect on your well-being and your life. Who, when you leave their presence, leaves you feeling drained, negative, uneasy, feeling less than...? Who has a negative influence in your life?  Next, take steps to remedy it.  That person may not even be aware of the effect they have. If they start talking about their victim story, tell them it's time for a new, more empowering one. Tell them it's time to move on. There's all kinds of ways of viewing the world. These people view it from a disempowering filter, but it doesn't mean you have to be drawn into it. You are a powerful human being--you do not have to be a part of that any longer. Take steps to address it now so that when 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years go by, you've dealt with the negative, dis-empowering relationships and you've filtered them out. Think of the toll that negativity takes.  You can literally add years to your life, not to mention happiness, if you begin to address it NOW.

**I am often asked if what I've written pertains to a certain person; most notably if I've written about someone I know personally or professionally. More often than not, I am working out my own experiences and knowledge by writing about it.  In this case, yes I do know of several toxic people who have had an impact on my life both in the past and in the present. They are often our best teachers so for this I am grateful for the lessons that have been presented to me. Toxic people teach you to detach, disengage, work through anger and frustration in a healthy manner, and to be strong in who you are as a person. You learn to value yourself and your beliefs over someone else's opinion. You learn that you teach them how to treat you and how to interact with you.

Toxic and negative people can teach you to love and value yourself which in turn creates more love in your life (if you want more love in your life, BE love).  Despite the tremendous pain of my divorce, more pain was created through the experience of parental alienation. Not just once, but twice. It has given me the opportunity to work on unconditional love, for further healing of my childhood wounds, and the ability to see that we all do the best we can where we are. My expectations for a parent to see that they are harming their child are unreasonable because they are not at my level of consciousness. To expect them to change their ways after years of this behavior is being unfair. I may not be able to control their actions, but I have learned that I can control my own and to focus on this aspect of PA. I also am surrounded by some wonderfully loving and supportive people--for this I am extremely grateful. I choose to focus on this aspect of my life.