The True Art of Negativity

When one picks up the newspaper, goes on social media or listens to some conversations it doesn’t take long to notice the themes of negativity. The world seems to be surrounded by this cloud of negativity. It is so prevalent that people appear to be unaccustomed to good news.

So let’s looks at negativity. Negativity refers to a range of emotions and can be described as an attitude or a tendency towards being disagreeable, skeptical, downbeat or pessimistic. It may start with mere offense or dislike but staying in it, thinking about the thing that offended you or you dislike over and over again soon leads to resentment. Continued resentment leads to anger and continued anger ultimately leads to hatred. Bitterness is a result of prolonged hatred. It feeds and justifies the dislike allowing the cycle starts all over again. When one is stuck in that negativity cycle they usually do not want to hear reason. They may justify staying in that emotion, no matter how unhealthy, especially if the initial reason for the emotion is believed to be right.

Staying in an emotional cycle requires that one bypasses logic. Emotions are not logical, they are about feelings, not thinking. They are a feedback or information mechanism, similar to an alarm system. They alert the brain but are not be relied on for decision making. They may be triggered by a thought but they also influence thoughts, which at times lead to more of the same feelings being experienced. The more intense the emotions, the less logical they are likely to be.

The negativity cycle is therefore dangerous and unhealthy place to be in, for a number of reasons.

1. Negativity colours everything else about the person or situation it is directed at. It is like a pair of glasses that one wears which filter everything else so that no good is seen or acknowledged about the person or situation. All that is ever seen is the reason for the negativity, as if they have been wrapped in a negativity bubble.

2. The negativity cycle needs to be proved right. Its existence needs to be justified. And so, it is continually fed by the one maintaining it. That is why they look for other things they can hate about the person or situation.

3. The negativity cycle needs an audience. Bitter people cannot help but share their bitterness every opportunity they get. They may not even realise that this is what they are doing because they are too consumed by the negativity they carry.

4. The negativity may start off being reserved for a particular individual or situation but it soon spreads to other people or situations who look like the original person or situation. Others are soon added in the negativity bubble. For example, from resenting one man a woman may end up resenting many men.

5. The negativity cycle recruits. The one maintaining the cycle will want to bring others in as well, to help them sustain the negativity. They will want to grow the bubble, to multiply the negativity directed at that person or situation in order to justify their continued bitterness and to keep it alive.

6. Those maintaining the cycle may extend the negativity to those who do not want to participate. They resent those who do not want to join the negativity as they see them as ‘siding with the enemy’.

7. Negativity burns the container. It transforms one’s identity into being an overall negative person. And before long one finds many other situations to be negative about.

8. Negativity pushes other people away, leaving one isolated. Sadly, this usually makes the negative person even more bitter and negative.

9. Continued negativity affects one’s mental health. All that over-thinking can be emotionally exhausting and unhealthy. All that negativity will finally overload the system leading to a mental or emotional breakdown.

10. The negativity bubble will ultimately kill one. It harms the physical body. If one is constantly carrying negative energy they end up experiencing ailments that can’t be explained. Negative people ultimately end up getting a stroke or heart attack because the brain has been working overtime sending unhealthy hormones to the body.

So how do we stop this cycle of bitterness, how do we burst the negativity bubble?

The best way to weaken or break an unhealthy feelings cycle is by introducing a healthy thinking cycle. You cannot break a feelings cycle with more feelings. One needs to engage the thinking part of the brain.

The biggest thinking challenge people encounter when trying to break a negativity cycle is that they get stuck on how right they are. So, thinking yourself out of the negativity cycle will mean deliberately letting go of how right you feel you are. Being right about the reason for the negativity does not make being negative right. Your negative response to a situation does not make you right. Yes you may be right about the person, yes you may have what appears to be a valid reason to dislike them, but the continuation and sliding into the negativity cycle is still a choice.

Breaking the negativity cycle requires maturity. There is nothing noble about negativity, instead it is a sign of immaturity. An immature mind refuses to see good in people it dislikes. A mature mind does not assume complete badness about others, instead it accepts that no one person is all good or all bad. . Maturity means not dwelling solely on the negative but being deliberate about looking for the good as well. A mature mind also accepts that one chooses what they focus on and knows that if they continually focus on the bad they will ultimately end up bitter, stuck in a negativity cycle.

Maturity means accepting that you also have both good and bad in you. And so you really are not in any position to hold other people’s bad over them. Your bad may be different but that does not make it better. It makes you human just as much as they are human. Maturity means you ultimately develop empathy for people in spite of their flaws. This is how one can free themselves from the negativity cycle.

Wrapping others in a negativity bubble is not about them person but totally about you. It is more about your feelings towards them than about their actions. And that’s why only you can get yourself out of it. Yes at times with professional help, like therapy.

Please do not get me wrong, I am not saying people must stay in unhealthy relationships. I am not even saying people must ignore wrongs done by others. I am saying free yourself of the negativity. You can walk away from a person or a situation and not be bitter about it.

Ultimately you have a choice of whether you want to be bitter or you want to be free and happy.