How to Protect Yourself From Negativity 

1. Make peace with the fact that you will never truly know what is on other people's minds

One way you can protect yourself from negativity is by realizing that it is impossible to completely "figure out" other people.

Sometimes others will treat you in a way that is completely unexpected.

This could be anything from betrayal to a situation where a good friend just stops talking to you. It's always tempting to over-analyse situations and panic, but the fact is that you will never know why certain things happen. Don't dwell on negative thoughts such as thinking of what could have been if the negative event didn't happen.

The fact is that it did, so it is more constructive to leave the past behind and move forward. Sometimes you'll just have to accept that unexpected turns are often a reflection/revelation of another's persons true thoughts and attitudes, not a problem on your part. 

2. Avoid arguments

Another way to protect yourself from negativity in daily life is to avoid being caught up in arguments. Arguments always leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, and that's negativity.

Many times in life, if you are going to be able to convince someone something that you believe to be true, it will happen gently - without aggressive force. Therefore, arguments don't get you anywhere. Don't waste your energy engaging in an argument with someone who is obviously only interested in having the louder voice and winning the argument. 

Other times, you will come across contentious people who are sadly only out to trip you up and accuse you of something irrelevant. Those people are interested in evoking an angry reaction from you and making you think negatively. When you avoid arguments with such people, you build up a strong wall against the torrent of their negativity. 

3. Who controls your happiness?

One of my favorite ways to protect myself from negative thoughts is to realize that only I control my happiness. As long as you believe that other people have the power to control your long-term happiness, you will perpetually find yourself surrounded by negativity. Remove phrases such as "I can never be happy because of so and so" from your vocabulary.

Yes - you can, because happiness is a internal thing, a mindset that you refuse to give up despite what may happen in your external surroundings. Believe me, the happiest people in this world are not the people with the most perfect lives. They too have to deal with really tough circumstances and the negativity of others. Yet, they realize that happiness is a choice and that little moments of unhappiness do not equal to an unhappy life. 

4. View the bigger picture 

Viewing the bigger picture is another method you can use to protect yourself from negativity. This is connected to the previous point. When you realise that only you control your happiness, then this means that every negative situation is only a tiny piece of your overall life. I love the saying: "A bad day doesn't mean a bad life".

We all get those bad days, where the people around us seem to get angry more quickly or when we just face one disappointment after another. However, you can escape negativity by thinking about the good things that have happened recently and the things that you can look forward to in the future. What are you excited about? 

Protecting yourself from negativity can be viewed as creating a collage of your life. When negative events and interactions happen, dispose of the negative feelings associated with them. Don't include them in your collage, your big picture view of your life. Fill your collage with the happy moments in your life, the people and situations that make you smile, the breakthroughs you experience that give you hope.

Only allow negative moments to last for as long as they last, in the sense that once they've happened make sure you let them go. Don't recover those negative feelings, they don't belong in the collage of your life. Some things are just better in the trash. 

5. Spend time with people who appreciate positive thoughts & talk 

Do more than protect yourself from negativity - find opportunities to fill your life with positive people and positive talk. There are people in my life who I know I will always have a great time with, because they always have good things to say about life. It's not like there's nothing for them to complain about - they just really love talking about positive things in life and they focus on ideas not situations or people.

It's incredibly encouraging to be around them. They appreciate the value of being positive, so they make the conscious effort to be positive. It's also infectious.

Spend time with people who express gratitude and who choose to the happy, it's a good way to develop a positive outlook on life. A conversation with people who love to complain will make you more aware of your problems, but a conversation with positive people will always leave you more aware of your blessings.

That's what I'm aiming for, what about you? 

Thanks so much for reading! How do you protect yourself from negativity? Comment below!

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