Ignoring Negative Influences

All of us have negative people in our lives who bring us down, whether they do it intentionally or not. Sometimes negative influences in our lives may not come from negative people. Sometimes there is just a personality conflict. It’s always important to think about their intentions before harboring ill feelings towards them, although we still have to learn how to distance our mentality from the negativity surrounding us. Many people say that you don’t need to be physically around those who may threaten your character. I agree with that to an extent, although I believe that God put us on this earth to reach out to those who may not have the best of intentions, mentality, and even

those who make poor decisions. If he wants us to reach out to them, then why would we distance ourselves from them?

•Obtaining a mental distance vs. physical distance

There have been several times where some people in my life have said things about my character and it really made me upset internally and made me feel like a horrible person. There have been several times where I have had to take a step back and recognize that the problem is not me, and that I cannot do anything to fix the negativity of this person. Although I can change the impact that it has on me mentally.

Negative people still need people in their lives too. They need positive, loving people to help them. Negativity is a habit, and, yes, habits can be broken. Although many times we take this upon ourselves to “fix” these habits for other people. We cannot fix other people’s problems. That is between them and God. What we can do though is pray for them.

I’ll admit, sometimes I forget to pray for people. Yes I know that sounds absolutely horrible. So, what I started doing is writing the names of these people down on a piece of paper and taping it on my wall. Also, I write down my favorite verses and quotes that inspire me. I usually look back on these whenever I’m in a bad mood or I feel overwhelmed.

•Staying strong in who God wants us to be

Unfortunately sometimes we can’t physically distance ourselves from people even if we wanted to. The same goes emotionally, because we cannot control our feelings whether we want to admit it or not. What we have to do is define the mental state that we need to obtain when around these people. Usually people who have a constant negative impact on others are also in a negative mental state. If we stay strong mentally then it lessens their impact on us.

It is so hard for us to stand our own ground whenever we constantly have other people around us trying to get us to change. This applies to a variety of environments. I know that sometimes it is hard to define who we are in the midst of people who we may not get along with or people who may not understand us, and even if we do know who we are, sometimes it is still hard to stand strong with confidence in ourselves and our values.

Either way, the only way around being impacted by these people is defining how you believe what God wants you to be instead of trying to accomodate to the opinions of everyone else. Whether their feedback is out of love or not it’s still okay for you to acknowledge and accept that those actions still have a bad effect on you.

•via Social Media

I have argued with my mom about this over and over. Unfortunately it’s time to accept that she is right. Social media does have an impact on us. Both positively and negatively. The good news is that most of the time we can control that impact as well. Social media gives the image of ourselves that we aren’t afraid to show. But what about our authentic selves? Honestly that is extremely hard to be portrayed over social media. Which means that sometimes we judge people hardcore without even knowing who they are as a person, but just by their social media account. A way to stop negativity in your life is for you to quit being negative and judging other people. Yes, I know that it is hard because pretty much everyone around you does it. I KNOW, I live in the south. Sadly it’s a “thing” here. If you don’t know someone, DO NOT judge them.

Thanks for reading ;)

-Had