Set Boundaries to Protect Yourself from Negative Influences if you want to feel strong and healthy.
Even if we don’t harbor negative emotions, we can still feel the effects of a negative attitude from the influence of others. These might be the people with poor attitudes, negative outlooks on life, or bad personalities in general.
It could be a customer or client, a coworker, a friend, a family member, or an ex. More often than not, you don’t like interacting with them. They tend to say or do things that make you feel bad, or hurt people that you love.
They might have some kind of past that they try to bring up as an excuse for their poor behavior, such as a bad childhood. They usually bring this up so that you take pity on them, and allow them to keep spreading their negativity.
Allowing these people to stay active in your life is much like having a malignant tumor. At first, it might just be a slight discomfort, but if you don’t remove it soon enough, it may end up spreading and harm you.
You might just think that you can tune out their negativity, but if they’re mostly negative, then you can’t just tune them out. Eventually, being around people that are constantly upset will make you irritable, stressed, and sad.
They refuse to adopt your positive attitude, but you begin to adopt their negative one. However, these people usually stay in your life for some time because they hold some kind of importance to you.
Maybe it’s a parent who constantly criticizes your efforts to start an online business. They ridicule it and interrogate you to try to prove their point that you’re failing. You don’t want to cut them out at first because they might be related to you, or you might see them on a regular basis and don’t want things to be awkward.
You have to stop and think about your mental health first, and your comfort last. Just ignoring them is a temporary solution, and eventually they’ll start to get to you. You have to explain to them directly that their negative attitude is draining, and that you don’t wish to interact with them until they get some help and change.
At first, the change will be difficult, but in time, the benefits will shine through. You’ll stop dreading hearing their criticism when they talk to you, or you’ll stop having to hear their continual complaints about how horrible life is.
It may even help them because they may seek out help from a therapist about their negative behavior when they see how it affects the people around them. If they don’t have that kind of remorse about losing all (or most) contact with you, then they’re not worth spending the time to talk to in the first place.
