A Joyous Perspective on Facing Off with the Negative Soul: How to deflect vs. absorb

It's Friday, and time for another Friday Night Thought Tale Hour with the Hendersons. I’m no saint, and if there’s one thing I know well, it’s that we only do things repeatedly if we believe there’s something in it for us. Even if that something is just to feel needed.
I thought about this the other day when I considered a difficult question: 

“How do you offer compassion to someone who doesn’t seem to deserve it?”

While I believe everyone deserves compassion, I do understand interacting with those who appear to have a complete lack of care for how they might be adversely impacting others. And these people have one thing in common: boundless negative energy that ends up affecting everyone around them.

So this week, I started thinking about how we interact with negative or difficult people. Individuals who seem chronically critical, belligerent, indignant, angry, or just plain rude.

When someone repeatedly drains everyone around them, how do

you maintain a sense of compassion without getting sucked into their doom and even playing their game? And how do you act in a way that doesn’t reinforce their negativity, and maybe even helps them to grow?

"Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.” 

~Shirley MacLaine

Giving the gloomy soul power to be more cantankerous is not our hope, is it? So I dug deep and came up with a few suggestions. Warning, some will bring discomfort. But just remember: They are designed to deflect, not absorb what is coming at you.

Joy's Power Deflections:

1. Resist the urge to judge or assume.

It’s hard to offer someone compassion when you think you have them pegged. "He’s a jerk." "She’s a malcontent." "He’s an–insert another choice noun". Even if it seems unlikely someone will wake up one day and act differently, we have to remember it is possible.
When you think negative thoughts, it comes out in your body language. Someone prone to negativity may feel all too tempted to mirror that. Try to reflect back care to them, no matter what. Keep it real, but find your peace. You don’t have to become a part of their dramatic performance. Own your reaction.

2. Dig deeper, but stay out of the hole.

It’s always easier to offer someone compassion if you try to understand where they’re coming from. But that can ultimately justify bad behavior. If you show negative people you support their choice to behave badly, you give them no real incentive to make a change (which they may actually want deep down).
It may help to repeat this in your head when you deal with them: “I understand your pain. But I’m most helpful if I don’t feed into it.” This might help you approach them with both kindness and firmness, so they don’t bring you down with them.

3.Maintain an active boundary.

Tell yourself this, “I can only control the active space I create around myself.”
Then do two things, in this order of importance:
*Protect the active space around you. When their negativity is too loud to protect it, you need to walk away.
*Help them feel more positive, not just act more confident, which is more likely to create the desired result and be lasting.

4. Disarm negativity, even if just for now.

We know people will rant about life’s injustices as long as we let them. Part of me always feels tempted to play amateur psychiatrist, get them talking, and then try to help them reframe situations into a more positive light. Then I remind myself that I can’t change a person's whole way of being in one conversation. She or he has to want that.  But I can listen compassionately for a short while and then help her focus on something positive right now, at this moment. 

Don’t try to solve or fix them. Just aim to assist in the now.

5. Temper your emotional response.

Negative people often gravitate toward others who react strongly,

those people who easily offer compassion or get outraged or offended. I suspect this gives them a little light in the darkness of their inner world. Some sense that they’re not floating alone in their own anger or sadness.
People remember and learn from what you do more than what you say. If you feed into the situation with emotions, you’ll teach them they can depend on you for a reaction. Practice hearing, breathing, and then go back to point 3. Again, and again.

6. Question what you’re getting out of it.

Like I mentioned above, we often get something out of relationships with negative people. Get honest with yourself: have you fallen into a caretaker role because it makes you feel needed? Have you maintained the relationship so you can gossip about this person in a holier-than-thou way with others? Do you have some sort of stake in keeping the things the way they are?
Questioning yourself helps you change the way you respond, which is really all you can control. You can’t make someone think, feel, or act differently.  All you can control is what you think and do. 

7. Don’t take it personally, but know that sometimes it is personal.

Conventional wisdom suggests that you should never take things personally when you deal with a negative person. I think it’s a little more complicated than that. You can’t write off everything someone says about you just because the person is insensitive or tactless. Even an abrasive person may have a valid point. Try to weigh their comments with a willingness to learn. In every criticism, there is a grain of truth. It might be subtle, but it's there. Don't miss it.


8. Maintain the right relationship based on reality as it is.

I have a thing where I want to be understood by everyone. Not 'liked' necessarily, but just accepted. It seems to me that if I put out the effort to accept and understand, certainly I'll get that back, right?

WRONG.

In reality, I can be accountable for working toward an understanding of the person, and even acceptance, but I can't control how they react to that motion. All we can do is give them space to make a choice. Don't find yourself allowing the conversation to drone on and on. Gently cut it short and move on. Otherwise, you'll be drained and depleted. Remember, the goal is to not absorb.

I’ve learned you can’t always save the world, but you can make the world a better place by working on yourself.

We can do this by becoming self-aware, tapping into your compassion, and protecting your active space. You may even help negative people by fostering a sense of peace within yourself that their negativity can’t pierce. Give them a belief that it is possible for them.

So tonight, Chris and I will be enjoying a simple glass of wine called "Reflection" together after celebrating the birthday of a dear family member. Here's to finding ways to deflect all of the negative barbs sent your way, but still walking away with a new and deepened perspective. Cheers, Friends.