How Do We Keep Ourselves Away From Negative People? (A Spiritual Perspective)

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There are all types of people in this world: some who inspire us and some who bring us down. Life gives an opportunity to recognize those who are good to be around with, and equally important, identify the negative ones so that one can keep one’s self away from them.

But how exactly do we identify them?

SEE ALSO: How I Learned To Make Others Feel Heard And Cared For (Including Myself)

Characteristics of negative people

Some of the characteristics that these negative people exhibit are:

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• They view the world and almost everything around them cynically. Even in a positive situation, they will somehow manage to find something negative. Overall, they are pessimists.
• These individuals are constantly complaining about one thing or another.
• Their satisfaction level is exceptionally low.
• They are envious – they find it extremely hard to be happy for anyone who is doing well.
• They are constantly competing with everyone because of their own lack of self-worth.
• They bring you down when you are happy.
• They are gossipers, deriving pleasure from other people’s misfortunes.
• They are highly egocentric and always put their needs above someone else’s.
• They like the world to revolve only around them.

Dealing with negativity

If we find someone’s behavior is inclined more towards negativity, these suggestions on how to conduct ourselves might help:

• It is difficult to completely ignore the person, but we can change the amount of time we spend in their company.
• When someone is using negative speech, we, from our end, make sure we do not ruin our own speech. If they are saying things we do not agree with, we can say a couple of positive things to counterbalance the interaction. We could also have a positive impact on them by doing this.
• We do not have to necessarily agree with them; we can voice our opinion, but without hurting them.
• Every living being acts based on their past life karma. So, although a person/s may seem negative externally, one may be feeling remorseful for their actions and words internally.
• Once we know this law of karma, it makes it easy to deal with such person/s without harboring abhorrence towards them, or else we bind a future karmic account with them once again.
• In case any hurtful thought arises in our mind towards such person, we’ll immediately ask for forgiveness, as a result of which, we will feel lighter and our opinions linked to them will dissipate.

The Soul exists within every single living being and it is inherent nature is absolutely pure. We should always bear in mind that such a Soul exists within that person.

To conclude

People walk into our life for a reason. It is because of our karmic bondage from our past life that this happens. Therefore, if we deal with them with equanimity i.e. without abhorrence or attachment towards them, and seek forgiveness from the God (the Pure Soul) residing in that person whenever we fail to do so, then the conflict or the uneasiness that we experience in the presence of that person shall eventually come to an amicable closure and end.