SWIHA Blog

We have all lived through the following scenario or something similar: You wake up in the morning and are well rested, refreshed, and ready to start your day. You happily get ready and you might even sing along to the songs playing on the radio while driving in your car. You are in a wonderful mood and feel as if you are on top of the world. You get to work and head to your desk. All of a sudden your supervisor comes over and hands you a mountain of work along with a deadline that seems impossible to reach. As you go through the mountain of work and complete the assignments, you feel as though maybe you will make the deadline after all. However, after lunch your supervisor comes to tell you that your work is mediocre and needs to be redone. But you know that you did your work to the best of your ability. You are now in a negative funk for the rest of the day.

What could have possibly caused your supervisor to be so unpleasant and negative when they are normally upbeat and enthusiastic?

The Story Behind the Story

Well, just a few hours prior, your supervisor went to Starbucks and was served by a barista who hated her job and had a major attitude. Then they got stuck in traffic and were behind schedule by 30 minutes. Finally, once they were 10 minutes from the office, they got a flat tire.

The barista, who served your supervisor, got into an argument with her husband that morning, yelled at her dog for chewing up one of her aprons, and discovered that her car battery was dead upon leaving for work.

The barista’s husband was mad at her for not taking the dog out in time and the dog ended up relieving itself in one of his shoes.

Do you see how this goes?

Negativity is like a snowball that rolls down a hill.

Unless somebody stops it, all it does is grow and becomes destructive to everything in its path. Negativity spreads like wildfire. In fact, it’s said that bad news travels faster than good news. Why is that?

If you ask me, it’s because people need to learn how to take a step back and breathe before reacting to negativity. Things don’t always work out the way we want them to. Our options are to either work around those negativity land mines or step on them and let them destroy us.

We may not have control over whom or what projects the negativity our way. However, we do have control over how we react to the situation.

3 Tips to counteract Negativity

1. Take yourself out of the situation – stepping back allows you to get a better perspective.
2. Breathe – pause and take some deep breaths in and out of your nose.
3. Shrug it off – realize that someone else’s negativity has more to do with them and their life, than it does with you and yours.

Now see if you can react positively, or maybe you just need to walk away. Remember, we are always learning on our spiritual journey.