How Emotionally Intelligent People Deal With Negative People

if you have someone in your life who you find really negative and you find it hard to be around them or at least be around them for very long because of it then I'm gonna teach you some tools on how to not get drained by people who are being negative these are some really simple but powerful little tools that are going to make a big difference stay tuned you're gonna get a lot out of these ones if you're new here welcome to our incredible little corner on the Internet take a second introduce yourself in the comments section below subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and if you are back again welcome here I'm always so glad to have you either way my name is Julia Kristina and I'm a registered clinical therapist a researcher a coach and the creator of the shift society I have a master's degree in counseling psychology and I worked to help heart center go-getter men and women break through the crap that is holding them back so that they can like themselves and their lives more every day and having someone in your life who is typically more negative can be challenging it is definitely not easy and I know that a lot of the recommendations are out there if there's someone in your life when you find draining or youth buying difficult or who's like ruining your vibe or whatever then you just need to cut them off and I'm gonna say that that is not always a great strategy absolutely there's a time and place to remove ourselves from relationships in our lives but cutting off anyone who does or says or acts in a way that we don't like just because it's annoying for us or it bothers us or it's you know impacting us negatively in some way to just cut those people off I think is extremely disempowering because it's saying that those people that person has more control over our minds and emotions than we do that what they're doing are saying is too much for us to manage our own minds and emotions around and so I say we get better at managing our own minds and emotions and not getting too pulled in to what other people have going on and what they're doing and what they're saying and how they're acting that we can let them do their thing and we don't have to get pulled into it the reason why we often find it draining when someone is being really negative is because we are getting pulled into it because we are trying to fix them because we are trying to change them and because we are trying to do something that cannot be done and of course that's absolutely exhausting and draining and frustrating when we are trying to do some things that can't be done and changing someone else and making someone else act think or speak in a different way is not in our control and so absolutely it's gonna be frustrating and draining but I'd go as far as to say that it's not them who is draining us it is us who is draining us by trying to make something happen that we can't make happen and so I'm gonna talk to you about what you can do instead first of all we do need to understand that people who are negative oftentimes they are not aware of it they do not know they might think that they are being really realistic that they are being discerning that they are being smart about it that they are the ones with the accurate perspective on it all they might think that like yeah you got it you got to think about things like this you gotta notice things like this you got to understand things like this they didn't might just think that that is perfectly normal and okay so for a lot of people it's a habit maybe it's because it's how they were raised they had parents who tended to tend to look at the glass as half-empty and to find faults and flaws and everything and everyone around them or at least often find faults and things and so they learn to think that way maybe it's because they've been through something really hard in their life they've been through something really painful or really difficult they've had they've they've been betrayed they've been really deeply wounded and so they have this outlook on life that things are bad and maybe that people are bad or that life is bad or life is out to get them or whatever that is that there's a reason why they have this outlook on life it's a reason why they have this general attitude and so knowing that they are not sucking on purpose that they are doing more often than not the best they can with what they've got and maybe even the way that they think things should be done and so we can let them we are absolutely allowed to let them have their perspective have their understanding have their worldview for me personally I have two engineers in my life and if you know engineers you know that they are trained to look for problems that's just what an engineer is trained to do throughout all their schooling is trained to find the flaws and look for the problems when it comes to systems and structures and you know things that are built and created but their brain still will transfer that into everyday life kind of stuff and so I'm married to an engineer and my dad is an engineer and so I wouldn't say that my husband by any means as a negative person but he will often point out discrepancies and things he'll point out flaws in things and sometimes I find it a bit annoying I'm like just just let's just let's just do this and just hope that it works out we'll just make it work out and he's like well you're missing this this and this and like come on but understanding that even for some people it's how they were trained to think to look for the flaws to look for the problems so just giving you a little bit more of that understanding and understanding again this isn't about excusing behavior so if someone's acting in a way that we really don't like that sort of disrespectful or unkind or cruel or just unnecessarily mean the understanding that it's coming from their own struggles their own pain their own stuff maybe even just their own habits and understanding that it's not personal it's not about us it doesn't excuse it but it keeps us from getting pulled into it it keeps us from getting all emotionally caught up in it by taking it personally or thinking that it has anything to do with us because 99.9 percent of the time it doesn't so what do we do how do we deal with this and this first thing is so simple but it's going to change your life if you have someone in your life who is often negative who when you talk to them about certain things they poopoo it or they or they put you down or they put your ideas down or they don't you just have something unsupportive to say about it and you know that this person more often than not responds in these ways then why are you surprised why is it so upsetting when they do it if that's what they always do so the first thing we need to do is adapt and adjust our expectations to what is in front of us if this person often does these things and says these things criticizes you for these things then that's just what they do so if you can just expect it and be like okay someone so is going to reply like this so it's gonna respond like this so-and-so is gonna have this to say about it then it's not so shocking when they do it and be like that's just that's just Jan being Jan that's just Peter being Peter that's just what they do I don't need to get pulled into it I don't need to get so upset about it I don't need to be so shocked by it because that's just what Cheryl does the next thing and I mentioned this a minute ago is to resist the urge to solve problems more often than not when somebody comes to us and they are telling us why everything is terrible and everything is awful nothing ever works out then we get into fixer mode and we try to fix it for them and then more often than not how does someone respond if someone there's always a problem with something nothing ever works out for them and you come back to them and you try to fix it or you try to tell them what to do how do they respond they say yeah but right more often than not they say yeah but there's a reason why that's not going to work for them so then you get more frustrated we're like what about this you should do this why are you doing this why aren't you putting this effort in why aren't you trying this and we get upset about it when they actually have no interest in doing any of it maybe they have done it it hasn't worked or maybe they just don't want to and we're allowed to let them we don't have to take responsibility for somebody else's life first of all we are not responsible for their life because we have little to no control over their life but even taking a step back and saying why am i working harder to help this person solve their problem than they are why am i working harder than they are and being able to take step back and to be able to say that's okay they are allowed to have this problem and I can offer suggestions if I want to I can offer my feedback if I want to but I'm going to unattach from it like my great-grandfather used to say take my advice and do as you like because that's what anyone is ever going to do anyways so resisting the urge for someone else to need to change for someone else's need to fix their problems or for you to have to fix their problems resist the urge for them to have to be or think or say certain things or be a certain way or have certain outcomes in their life in order for you to feel okay the next thing and this is huge and you've heard me talk about it before and I'm gonna talk about I tell the cows come home set boundaries if the person is bringing up topics and talking about all the terrible things that are happening in the world or all of the awful things about humanity or their boss or their family or the partner or whatever it is if it's happening often there's a difference between your friend coming to you and just wanting to talk and get support and someone coming and always like dumping a bunch of stuff onto you you're allowed to step out of the way and not get crushed by their stuff you're allowed like we said you're allowed to take a step back and not get pulled into it but you're also loud to set boundaries you're also allowed to tell them that you'd like to talk about something else you're also allowed to change the conversation you're you're allowed to very clearly say to them I'd like to talk about something else I don't I'm not comfortable talking about this anymore I don't think it's helpful that we keep talking about this I'd like to focus on something else and you're even allowed to say you know what talking about all the terrible things that are happening in the world is hard for me and I find it difficult right Oni it's not saying like oh you're being so negative and what's wrong with you it's owning it for ourselves I don't like it they might like it they might really enjoy talking about all the terrible things that are happening the world that might give them some sense of comfort or control or whatever but you're allowed to not like it and you're allowed to say that you don't like it they're not necessarily doing something wrong you just don't like it and that's okay so just say you don't like it and ask for something different this is upsetting for me I don't like talking about this I find this difficult can we please talk about something else that's allowed the next one is to have empathy but also not taking on responsibility so if someone is coming to you and they're having a really rough time again even if like they are really just having a hard time you still don't have to fix it and you still can't fix it and it's still not yours to take responsibility for you can absolutely show empathy and I'm a big fan of empathy is being able to just show understanding for what that person is going through just acknowledge their struggle acknowledge their pain saying I can imagine that's really difficult I can imagine that's really hard for you I can see how much you're struggling I can see how painful that was and then being able to offer them responsibility for their struggle being able to say what have you tried what haven't you tried what are your options in this situation what do you think you can do about it if and when that's appropriate sometimes people just want to be heard and often just listening and hearing them out then they will be like okay I'm heard and then you can move on to just naturally to something else but it should get into that battle back and forth where you get anxious when somebody else has a problem you get anxious about it and so you need to fix their problem and make them okay so that you can be okay and then it just becomes this power struggle of you needing them to be okay them resisting feeling like they can feel it when you need them to be okay and so they're more likely to resist any suggestions that you have and that's where we go back to the previous one and just be able to offer suggestions or advice but be unattached from it people can feel the difference I can feel the difference but you can feel the difference when someone comes to you and they offer suggestions but it's not loaded with any expectation they're like hey you could try this but whether or not you do is completely okay and so having empathy understanding for someone and then just asking them what they think their options are and letting them sort that out now because you're a cruel hateful person that doesn't care about other people you absolutely care about other people but knowing that you can't fix it and trying to is gonna be the opposite of caring because what's going to happen is you're going to get frustrated and annoyed if they don't do it the way you want them to do it or if they don't do it at all and then you're gonna start getting an bitter and maybe even angry and maybe even you know taking your distance from them because you just can't handle them that is selfish and mean not not getting pulled into someone else's stuff isn't the next one is accepted accept where someone else is at accept that they might just have an attitude of glasses half-empty that just might be the way that they do things and again this goes back to just adjusting your expectation if this is just how they see things how they talk what they focus on that's just how they do it accept it that's just how I'll four dozen and again not needing to get pulled into it not thinking that you need to fix it so adjust your expectations and move into acceptance also even being able to say I hear that things are really tough for you right now I wish you all the best I hope you're able to figure this out I hope this doesn't last very long so just being able to offer that acceptance the next one is to redirect the conversation we talked about a little bit with this with the boundaries if this isn't a conversation you want to be having or if this person just has a habit of going down this direction and going down these rabbit holes just being able to redirect the conversation and saying tell me what is going well so I have someone in my life and I'm not gonna call them out but I've something close in my life who does I think they just genuinely have a habit but talking about what other people are doing wrong what's going wrong in the world why you know things just aren't going their way or what problems they have to deal with or what customer service person was being incompetent or whatever that is and that's just sort of the way that they do things and so I've just started being able to say or just saying to them tell me what went well today tell me what you did that you were happy about or in this situation that they're complaining about tell me what good came from it or what was good about it so just redirecting the conversation you can even just redirect to a completely different topic and if they're talking about oh this sales person that was being so incompetent and just being able to say oh like what else did you do today tell me about the rest so that you tell me about the rest of your day you can say and acknowledge it and say oh I can imagine that was really frustrating but what else did you get to get up to today and just being able to redirect the conversation in in to a different topic and to something more helpful more positive so using that redirection this last one is one of my favorites because of how wonderfully it works and how little you have to do and this one's really good for when someone just has a habit of being negative a lot and looking for the problems or pointing things out or bringing up really inflammatory topics because you know they want to just get into an argument or a fight or just go down some kind of unhelpful rabbit hole talking about politics talking about the state of the world talking about whatever that is whatever person in their life who is just such a terrible person and if you don't want to have that conversation if you don't want to get into it you're allowed to say nothing I have a cousin who is so amazing at this you can say the most provocative controversial trigger point thing to him or around him or in its presence you can bring up whatever topic you want in his response nine times out of 10 will be huh don't have to say anything this in there is a term for this and it's called the gray rock method where you just kind of don't offer anything this isn't about trying to put some in their place and try to like make them look stupid or it's just about not getting pulled into unhelpful conversations if you don't want to get pulled into unhelpful conversations I got a really inflammatory text from someone in my family the other day and I could kind of tell that they were looking to like prove a point and to like pull me in or whatever that was and it doesn't it was fine I just replied and said okay and it's like that's you don't need to get pulled into it and also letting go of our own ego and our own need to be right our own need to prove our own point that sometimes is the harder part maybe we'll talk about doing some ego work on another video but that is a lot of the work that we do in the shift society if you haven't joined us yet make sure you do join us is really learning how to keep our own ego our own thoughts our own emotions in check and not getting pulled in to whatever it is that's happening around us because we don't have to more often than not like I said it's us creating our own drama by needing things to be a certain way by insisting people be a certain way by wanting certain outcomes and then the emotional drama and chaos we create for ourselves by trying to push something that doesn't want to be moved and so allowing ourselves to just leave it letting people do what they do deciding how much of it we want to be there for participate in absolutely we need to have people in our lives who are positive and supportive and uplifting we need to be having those people who give us life who it's easy to be around but we also need people in our life who are difficult that is how we learn that is how we grow when you can get to a point where you can be around somebody who is negative who looks for the flaws who looks for the fault who rarely has something positive or uplifting or enlightening to say if you can be with them and not get all emotionally caught up in it if you can be calm and cool and grounded in the midst of that that my friend is empowering that is growth that's how we know that we are growing it's easy to be around people who we find it easy to be around it's growth when we be we can be around people that aren't without letting it throw us off completely we do do a lot of that work in the shift' society come and join us there subscribe to the channel if you haven't already share this out if you know someone who might find this helpful we went into a lot today this is a bit of a longer one so if you've made it to the end and got it got through this all then good for you you learned a lot today you might want to go back and watch it again and take some notes because we did cover a lot there was a lot here take some notes or at least write down right now one thing that really connected with you write it in the comment section below because that helps our brain stick to it better when we write it down then we remember it better so one thing that really connected you with you from this video write it in the comment section below not for me although I love hearing from you but more for you so that you remember it so that's more easy for your brain to access next time you need it thank you so much for being here and until next time take good care

Channel: Julia Kristina Counselling

Views: 56,130

Rating: 4.9319148 out of 5

Keywords: deal with people who are negative, how to deal with negative people, how to deal with people who are negative, how smart people deal with negative people, emotional intelligence, signs of a negative person, Brendon.com, Stephanie Lyn Coaching, negativity in the workplace, toxic relationships, toxic people in your life, how to become emotionally intelligent, Julia Kristina, how to deal with difficult people, Evan Carmichael, negative husband, negative person

Id: laNoAjrT4vM

Length: 23min 16sec (1396 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020