I believe that nobody comes into the world having a negative view, it’s either learned or just life experiences causing you to think differently. At one stage in my life, I was a negative nancy, I used to complain a lot…about almost everything and thought the worst of every situation. I spoke about this in a previous post that an old classmate of mine told straight up that was really negative and I took offence to it. Turns out, she was right but I didn't even realize how I really negative was until it was brought to my attention. Today, I’m going to talk about being a negative person.
Now, who would you consider to be a negative person, complaining all the time…seeing the worst in everything…think of the worst-case scenario? That’s what comes to my mind first but they are definitely a lot more traits to a negative person. Here are a few more I found out:
Always worrisome
Never want to leave their comfort zone
They can drain you
Make a negative comment on good news.
Trying to tell you what to do
Don't allow yourself to be happy or maybe people around you.
Recognizing it
Sadly, I had most of these traits years ago and didn't see an issue with how I was acting. After going through some life-changing moments in life, I became very sad and angry and I would always complain about never having a good day. I would be so miserable and I never thought how it would be portrayed to people. I believe I was about 17 and in 6th form, preparing for biology lab. I think I was complaining about how long the lab would take because in honesty….biology labs would be pretty long. My classmate turned to me and told me straight up, “You’re so negative, Anissa”. I don't remember what I said after but I do remember feeling offended as I was taken aback by what she said. That was the first time something told me that after that, I started to wonder how many other people thought of me like that. Now, you shouldn't really care what people think about you but I wasn't really happy at the thought of myself just being miserable around people. I took what she said and just watched how I react to things and how I think.
Figuring it out
After noticing my negative ways, I started to figure out what could be causing me to act that way. Looking back at the moments in my life that most likely caused me to have such a negative look on life, I don’t think it's a horrible thing that I became a bit negative afterwards…here me out. I think it’s normal and honestly human to not always be so positive about everything. Life can reallllyyyy suck sometimes so I think it’s okay if I’m not so perky about life if a bunch of crazy stuff keeps happening. Now, I tend to see a phrase that goes around a lot, “Trauma isn't your fault, but your healing is”, I do believe after recognizing what you've been through, healing in my eyes can be the hardest part. I do believe you are in charge of your healing but it could take some time. Taking that first step was the little help I needed to give myself because I wanted to change my ways.
Photo by Liza Summer from Pexels
Learning to change
Now, whenever I feel a negative emotion or think a negative thought, I allow it to happen, I don't let myself ignore it, and I acknowledge it. The objective is to not ponder it for long which was my issue. Here are a few ways I dealt with my negative ways over the years:
1. Journal or a brain dump
When something is bothering me, I tend to just let it all out in my notes apps on my phone or I randomly open an empty Google doc and just type away. I don't actually journal with a book and pen, even though I’ve been trying to for years now, I guess I don't have much to write about every single day.
2. Avoid negative people
Yup, sounds funny but when I interacted with negative people when I was going through that phase in my life, it definitely made me even more negative. Also, being around negative people now made me realise how draining it is and how my behaviour was probably for other people.
3. Handling stress
I used to get stressed out so easily but I learnt how to deal with situations that would overwhelm me. For example, since I started working full time, I would organise myself by writing a little to-do list so the situation doesn't look so stressful. They were a few moments that I nearly lost it but I remained focused so I could get everything done. To be honest, I would complain still, but after I got everything done haha, still needed to get it out of my system but was I stressed out? Nope, and that was the objective.
Save for later!
Well, it's been a minute, hasn't it? This post has been in my drafts for months now and it's finally out. I wanted to talk about this for a while so I'm happy I got the time to finish it up. Just a quick update to explain my absence, I graduated from uni last year, went on a job hunt, got a job and been working full-time since. I wanted to find some balance between work and this hobby and I think I'm finding it. I've been settled at work for a minute now so I hope to be more active for the rest of the year. I hope you enjoyed this post and like always, I have a few questions for you:
Have you ever been a negative person?
It is okay to be negative sometimes?
I hope you're at your happiest if not, it's okay...I hope you're starting or working on reaching the highest peak of happiness.
- Anissa (TheQuietGirl)
