We all encounter negative people over the course of our lives.
If we’re lucky, we can avoid them in some situations, or excuse ourselves when they start to bring us down.
Unfortunately, this won’t always be the case.
Sometimes the most negative people are the ones we’re unable to escape completely, such as family members and coworkers.
In situations like this, it’s important to learn how to deal with them in a way that stops their bad vibes from infiltrating us.
In this article, we’ll examine how other people’s negativity can affect us, and how we can go about mitigating the effects of their potentially damaging energy.
You may need to adjust these approaches depending on your individual circumstances, but they can all be quite effective if you find yourself stuck interacting with negative people.
How another person’s negativity might affect you.
Have you ever been in a great mood, only to have it soured by someone else’s complaints or miserable attitude? Or felt like something you had in hand was now too overwhelming or stressful to deal with because someone questioned your ability?
This often happens because the negativity that others spew has a tangible effect on us, on countless levels.
Here are some of the main ways that another person’s negativity may affect you:
- Loss of positivity: your positive energy is suddenly neutralized by someone else’s bitterness
- Loss of motivation: why bother pursuing your dreams or goals when people are constantly naysaying your aspirations or putting you down?
- Emotional “shutdown”: tuning out and retreating inward in order to tolerate whatever they’re talking about
- Lessened creativity: if others are always negative or critical, there’s less creative drive, as well as lessened ability, which can be devastating if you’re in a creative field
- Shifted perspective: you might have been feeling positive about a particular subject, but someone else’s negativity makes you doubt yourself and your abilities
- Irritability and unpleasant feelings about the person who’s being a Debbie Downer
- Lower cognitive function: toxic people’s negativity can affect pain thresholds, memory, executive function, information processing, and more
- Exhaustion: other people’s endless complaints, insults, or other types of negative feedback can make you feel physically and mentally exhausted
- Loss of boundaries: some people get so worn down by others’ negativity that they “give in” and do what others want them to do just to shut them up and make them go away, rather than enduring their misery by defending boundaries more fiercely
- Poor health: many studies show that long-term exposure to stress and other types of negativity can affect our immune systems, leading to illness and chronic health issues
11 Tips For Dealing With Negative People.
Almost every poison on the planet has an antidote that can neutralize it. Similarly, every negative trait a person might exhibit can be counteracted or redirected using a variety of tactics.
Below are some of the key techniques you can use to protect yourself when dealing with negative people in any life situation.
1. Validate without agreeing or engaging.
Many pessimistic people behave with negativity because they were never able to achieve their dreams. As such, when they see others aiming to pursue paths that once meant something to them, they become immediate naysayers rather than supporters.
Some may behave in this way because they’re bitter about the idea of someone else succeeding where they failed, while others may sincerely want to spare you the same type of heartbreak they experienced.
Regardless of their intentions, however, the result is the same: a loss of motivation or ambition toward what had previously been a passion.
If you’re dealing with someone who is bitter and who is turning their bitterness toward something you feel passionate about, try to see where they’re coming from so you can respond with validation rather than anger.
For example, let’s say you’ve told a colleague that you’re pursuing a degree that they gave up on for various reasons, and they tell you that it’s not worth doing.
You can respond with something like, “I understand that you had a negative experience when you were in school, and I’m sorry you went through that. That said, I really want to give this a go, so I’d appreciate encouragement rather than negativity.”
2. Redirect to a subject that you know they’re positive about.
Remember that negative people are generally unhappy. They tend to fixate on the issues that are plaguing them and as a result, that’s all they talk about.
For example, one of your relatives may bring up their chronic knee problem every time people talk about their weekend outings; or friends who don’t have close family will grumble about that whenever a holiday rolls around.
When it comes to communicating with negative people, redirection is often one of the most effective courses of action. It’s also one of the easiest. When they start their broken record griping, simply change the subject to something that you know will positively engage them.
Perhaps your coworker is obsessed with a particular TV series? Bring up that topic and ask how they feel about a certain character.
Is this person a dog lover? Mention a pup that you’re thinking of adopting from the local animal shelter.
They’ll drop the complaint immediately and launch into this new topic enthusiastically.
This type of approach is rather like distracting a child who is upset after tripping over by offering them a cookie. They quickly forget about the incident as their displeasure is replaced with delight. And sugar.
3. Use distractions.
Unlike the positive redirections mentioned above, these are simply distractions that are meant to disrupt someone’s negative spiral and turn their attention in a different direction. It doesn’t need to be positive—it just needs to stop them.
The distractions you use can be either concrete or abstract and totally random, depending on the circumstances and the people you’re dealing with.
For instance, let’s say someone you know is heading down a negativity spiral about all the terrible things they’ve experienced.
Disrupt the monologue with a random fact like “I watched this documentary recently about tubeworms who live around deep oceanic vents. They have hemoglobin, just like humans do. How cool is that?”
Or ask them a bizarre question like “If you could be any type of cheese, which type would you be?”
This will derail them from the tangent they were about to deep-dive into. You may get a look of confusion at first, even irritability (depending on how utterly random your interruption was), but you may get some interesting answers out of them.
Who knew that Johnson from Accounting envisioned himself as a wedge of Camembert? At least now you have an idea of what to get him if he ends up being your Secret Santa assignment at the company Christmas party.
4. Go “gray rock.”
This technique won’t work for everyone but is well suited to those who have a great deal of control over their emotions and responses.
In essence, you try to become as much like a slab of grey concrete as possible. It’s a technique that’s often used when dealing with narcissists to thwart their attempts to feed off your energy, but it works on energy vampires and generally negative people as well.
No matter what they say, don’t let their words affect you. Don’t show any type of emotional response, and instead, merely reply with neutral phrases that only offer the most basic acknowledgment that they’ve said anything at all.
If they get frustrated and try to be more toxic in an attempt to draw you in, simply shrug it off or reply with “Okay.” They’ll soon abandon their efforts and wander off to find someone else to try and bother.
5. Respond to them with humor.
Few things can diffuse negativity like responding to negative people with humor. This is especially true if you’re either being playfully self-deprecating or including them in the humor, rather than poking fun at them, which can backfire and make everything much worse.
The person who’s expressing negativity is likely doing so because they either feel powerless or are suffering from low self-esteem. As such, they’re projecting self-loathing onto someone else as a means of dealing with emotions they may not be equipped to handle.
Let’s say a relative or coworker makes a comment about your body in relation to something you’re wearing, like, “That’s a nice shirt—I had no idea they made them that big.” You can own it, grin, and respond with something like, “Yeah, the parachute store was having a sale: always be prepared, right?”
This serves the dual purpose of showing them that nothing they say will hurt you, and if others laugh along with you, they’ll see that you have the upper hand regarding allies, and they should watch their step in the future.
Alternatively, if someone’s being particularly bad-tempered, use a combination of redirection and humor by telling a truly ridiculous joke. I guarantee they’ll forget what they were griping about when they’re bent over and wheezing with laughter.
6. Ask for their help or advice.
As we mentioned earlier, most people who seem to display a bad attitude to life are incredibly unhappy. While this is often due to past hurts, it can also be due to grief and bitterness about their current life circumstances.
You may have noticed that elderly relatives sometimes tend to be the primary critics and fault-finders in a family.
This is often because they’re dealing with the combination of chronic health issues, a sense of no longer being “useful,” the awareness that time is slipping away, and they may lack the energy to do the things they want with the time they do have.
If this is the case, you can circumvent or even neutralize their negativity by asking for their help or advice about something.
This shifts their perspective from bitterness at feeling worn out or useless to feeling like someone who’s needed and whose knowledge and experience are valued.
You’d be amazed to see people’s energy brighten when they feel like they have a purpose again.
It’s a technique that also works for friends or partners who are dealing with depression or those who are recovering from illness or injury. Having a purpose is one of the best remedies for negativity and lessened self-worth.
As an aside, if you’re dealing with perpetually critical coworkers, asking for help may result in them avoiding you rather than stepping up and helping.
This may be because they either don’t want to share their exalted knowledge with you or because they aren’t as skilled as they claim to be and don’t want to be found out. Really, this is a win-win either way.
7. Create (and defend) solid boundaries.
If you’re regularly stuck engaging with negative people, it’s incredibly important to set boundaries with them. These boundaries will depend on the type of negativity they exhibit and can be adapted for every situation.
For example, if you have to deal with people who are constantly criticizing you or your life choices, you can put a moratorium on certain topics. Maybe they’re prone to body shaming and make snide comments about what (and how much) you eat.
Tell them in no uncertain terms that such comments are unacceptable, and that you don’t want to hear anything from them on the subject unless they’re being positive and encouraging.
If they get insulting or negative, walk away from them and don’t speak to them until they apologize.
They’ll undoubtedly balk and try to push back against your boundaries, and may even fight the consequences for their poor behavior.
Over time, however, you’re likely to see at least some improvement in your circumstances, even if it means that they’ll avoid you because they don’t want to change or improve their own actions.
8. Respond with logic and reason.
Communicating with negative people can be exhausting and demoralizing, especially if they’re fixated on all the awful things that could go wrong with everything you want to do in life.
It’s important to note here that some of the people who are perpetually naysaying your interests and goals do want the best for you.
They’ve likely experienced an extraordinary amount of disappointment and suffering in their own lives, and as such want to spare you those same experiences.
If you have the mental and emotional bandwidth to do so, and if you think that you can actually get through to them on some level, you can try to counteract their negativity with reason.
For example, if one of your parents tries to convince you not to travel to a place because you’ll only experience awful things there, ask them to name three people they know personally who have experienced such things.
They likely can’t, but “have heard stories” about it happening.
This is when you bring up examples of people you know personally who have had positive experiences there instead. The griper may grumble and mutter a bit, but it’s difficult to argue with tangible evidence.
A lot of people get stuck on biases due to fear, either because they’ve experienced hardship themselves or have heard about others who have.
The thing is, no two people will ever have the same life experiences. Your grandmother might criticize your food choices because of how her body reacts to those foods, but you don’t have the same body that she does and thus those choices will affect you differently.
Similarly, your coworker may have had a miserable time traveling to a certain place in springtime, but you’re going there in the fall.
Believe it or not, responding to negative people with calm, cool logic can often go a long way toward shifting both their perspectives and their behavior.
9. Mentally visualize them experiencing something hilarious.
This isn’t necessarily the nicest technique on the list, but it’s definitely one of the most cathartic ones.
When you were in school, nervous about giving a report in front of the class, were you ever encouraged to picture everyone naked or in their underclothes?
Instead of picturing the person in their underpants (which could be quite horrifying, especially if it’s your great-grandparent), envision them engaged in something that would amuse you.
For example, if you’re getting more and more drained because the energy vampire at work won’t stop complaining about their geriatric cat’s ear infection, envision one of your co-workers walking past and giving the moaner a pie in the face.
Imagine your bitter aunt Hilda dressed in a toad costume.
If your sense of humor is particularly dark, you can even envision yourself using a catapult to launch this person into a nearby lake.
You’d be amazed to see how much your mood will improve with this kind of imaginative catharsis. Humor does wonders as far as neutralizing another person’s cynicism or negative energy is concerned.
These people may be tedious to contend with, but if you can remove yourself mentally or emotionally by finding humor in the situation, their negativity will slide off you without having any bad effects.
10. Replenish yourself with positivity.
If your body became depleted through cold, fatigue, and hunger, you would replenish it with warmth, rest, and a lot of good food.
Similarly, if you find yourself drained from interacting with negative people, counteract their toxic effects by replenishing yourself with whatever nurtures it best.
Some people need solitude to replenish while others prefer to bask in intense positive energy.
What makes you feel happy and strong within yourself?
Do you feel energized and motivated after attending a concert with a few thousand other excited, happy music fans? Or would you rather soak in a bath and then watch a favorite movie with delicious snacks at hand?
Once you’ve figured out how to take care of yourself emotionally, you can make a point of doing so regularly.
This won’t just replenish you, but will also help to create solid defenses so you aren’t affected by the critical, pessimistic drama queens and kings you have to deal with daily.
Consider your self-care routines rather like immune boosters but for your psyche. Strengthen them enough and nothing will break through to bother you.
11. Take responsibility for your happiness.
It’s a mark of immaturity to accuse someone else of “making” us feel a certain way. This puts the power of our emotional control in someone else’s hands while abdicating personal responsibility.
Examples of this include someone blaming another for “making them” mad, thus justifying verbal or physical violence.
Similarly, if you end up feeling down or discouraged after dealing with negative people, you may feel the inclination to blame them for “making you” feel bad.
Nobody can “make you” feel anything: you are solely responsible for your own emotional responses.
You’ll need to determine the best ways to stop letting others get to you and make the conscious decision to not allow their negativity to dampen your light.
The effectiveness of these techniques will differ from one person to another, so it’s best to try out a few different approaches to determine which works best for you.
For example, the technique I like to use best is the “armor of light” meditation, which involves envisioning a protective barrier of gold-white light between myself and others that prevents any negativity from affecting me.
In contrast, my partner’s technique is an innate “zero f’s given” attitude about what anyone thinks or says about her.
Ultimately, you’ll need to find—and put into practice—whatever helps to reinforce your joy and fortify you against other people’s negativity. When you take back control over how you feel, others simply don’t have the power to affect you anymore.
The limitations of any approach to handling negative people.
It’s important to note that in many cases, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If you try responding to negative people with compassion and understanding, you may end up intensifying their attempts to bring you down or leech positive energy from you.
Similarly, you may not always be able to practice sincere empathy and compassion: we all have personal difficulties to contend with, and if you’re worn down by your own problems, your empathy may well be running on empty.
As such, the most effective thing you can do when dealing with toxic people is to make a conscious effort to not let anything they say or do affect you.
This may be easier said than done when you’re in a captive situation, for example, if you have to live with a perpetually negative relative due to financial difficulties. But if you can fortify yourself so you don’t get worn down, it’s generally the best course of action.
One of the best means of overcoming negativity in others is to view them as wounded children who haven’t developed any coping skills yet.
Age does not necessarily determine aptitude, and many people in their fifties and beyond still behave like petulant pre-teens. When you focus on the hurt little kid inside them, you’re less likely to take their negativity to heart.
Note that this technique isn’t going to work for everyone and may not even work all the time for those who practice it regularly. It’s quite likely that constantly coping with negative people will eventually wear you down enough that you’ll snap.
Please don’t ever feel that you need to cultivate an air of false positivity, or invalidate your own emotions by pretending you aren’t being affected. That can make the situation far worse.
Not only will your positivity be recognized as inauthentic (thus potentially increasing tensions), but not releasing your own stress or upset can cause it to build up until you break down.
You may want to consider booking time with a good therapist who can help you cope with the onslaught of negativity you constantly have to deal with.
They can act like a heat sink so you can work through your own emotions, and may even be able to offer advice on the best ways to handle negative people you’ll inevitably meet as you go through life.
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Navigating relationships with negative people is never easy, especially if their negativity stems from past traumas or chronic health issues.
If the cynical complainers you have to contend with are like that because they’re dealing with severe personal issues or past traumas, it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to change their behavior any time soon.
In cases like this, we can only be as patient as humanly possible, and take whatever steps are needed to guard our own peace of mind.
