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Loading...How You Can Unhook From Negativity
- a Care2 favorite by Ed and Deb Shapiro
- 128 comments
No one likes to be in a negative situation, but we don’t always get along with everyone all the time. Once, when we were with the Dalai Lama, he said to us, If we were together all the time we would quarrel!
However, if someone is being dismissive, fault-finding or disapproving and this is making us feel unworthy, insecure or lacking in self-esteem, then it may be because there’s a hook somewhere in us for that negativity to latch on too, a place where it can land that triggers all these hidden self-doubts.
For instance, imagine your mind is like a beautiful garden. If you let a pig in your garden you will have a hard time getting it out, as pigs really like tasty gardens! In the same way, negativity is like a pig that gets in your garden and causes havoc.
How can we get unhooked? Rather than adding fire to fire by being equally as negative, there is another way. Last week we shared the story of how Helen, who had a critical and negative boss, was able to turn the situation around by focusing on kind and caring thoughts toward both herself and her superior.
When we extend kindness toward ourselves as well as toward the person we are having a challenging time with, then an extraordinary thing begins to happen: the hook within us begins to dissolve. This means there is nowhere for the negativity to take hold or to land. By embracing ourselves with kindness, we are strengthening and reinforcing feelings of self-empowerment, worthiness, and personal value. Sending kindness to our adversary transforms them so they are able to release the conflict. It also acts like a shield so that any remaining negativity does not penetrate. It cannot land. You can learn how to do this in the Loving Kindness meditation, on the next page.
This is like turning compost into roses. Deb experienced this in a very personal way: “Many years ago, I was the administrator for an educational institute in Hawaii, and for some reason one of the teachers really had it in for me. No matter what I did, she disagreed and made me wrong. For administrative purposes, I had to be present at her classes and, quite subtly, she soon turned all the participants against me. I realized she was triggering childhood memories of being ignored or disregarded, as I would shrink into a small, ineffective place when I was around her. It then emerged that I was going to have to go with her and the class to a remote cabin on another island for a one-week wilderness program. Not my idea of fun! The only option I had was to focus on her during my kindness meditation practice, which I did every day for the few weeks before we left by holding her in a loving place within me.
“By the time we got to the cabin, her attitude had begun to subtly change and she was no longer making me the cause of everything that went wrong. Over the first few days, she changed even more, every so often acknowledging me, but by the end of the week she was actually including me along with everyone else, once even asking me for my opinion. The interesting thing was that she didn’t seem to notice that anything was different. The whole of the class changed with her. I was astonished to watch it happen. The only thing I had done differently was kindness meditation, through which the hook inside me that she had been hanging all her judgment on had dissolved. She had nowhere to put her negativity; instead, it sort of fell on the floor between us. Eventually, it just slunk away, unable to find a home.”
Read more: Blogs, Ed and Deb, Inspiration, Love, Mental Wellness, Relationships, Spirit, awareness, consciousness, meditation, negativity
Ed and Deb Shapiro
You can learn more in our book, Be The Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World, forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman, with contributors Marianne Williamson, Jane Fonda, Ram Dass, Byron Katie and others. Our 3 meditation CD’s: Metta—Loving kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi–Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra–Inner Conscious Relaxation, are available at: EdandDebShapiro.com
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
people are talking
Perhaps because there are so many other factors-- memory is not the only thing to consider. And gen…
thank you
very simple! Love lavender- thanks
Thanks.
thanks
128 comments
+ add your ownI really want to try this meditation!
How do I deal with negativity? Not always very well. I sometimes try to imagine zipping up an invisible blue sleeping bag around me - I'd heard blue was healing, and I like the idea of soft armour.
I also try to remember this, which I once heard: Holding a grudge against someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Neato!
great info/meditation
I truly believe in this, but find it so hard to meditate, to get my mind open, to stay with it.
Wow, loved the story of how this worked. Thanks.
Lovely article. Let's change the world!
ty
Whoops, HERE's the link
http://tsmethod.com/vvvfiddler4321/7-day-mental-diet.pdf
Here's the link to the 7 Day Mental Diet, by DR.Emmet Fox (Public Domain)
It's GREAT ;-)
Mark
Zig Ziglar is a great one for Positivity, and what it really means as well as how to apply it.
Tom McCarthy's "Cancel Thought" is huge.
Have you checked out Dr. Emmet Fox's 7 Day Mental Diet?
It's free on the web, public domain, I would link to it here but am not sure if the comment will be approved with a link in it?
Tell you what, I link to it in the next comment down !;-)
Have a Good One,
Mark
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