How To Handle Other's Negativity - The Emotions Diary #12
What do you do when someone's being deliberately mean? Be a human.
Hey there all,
A huge welcome to all the new folks here for their first Emotions Diary, I’m so excited to share this with you. All the instructions are in the video and written down below.
A big part of undividing the world is undoing the divisions we feel in ourselves. Why am I acting this way? Why do I do this thing that hurts me or the people I love? Let the Emotions Diary explain you to you.
With 2000+ new subscribers in a week, I’ve found I have a few nasty comments in the threads. I don’t mean different opinions to mine, they are always welcome—Undividing is a conversation. But when someone just decided to be mean, for mean’s sake.
So this week I asked, “What do I do when other people put their negativity on me?” And the Emotions Diary was on fire with two great insights:
Don’t react.
Instead, act like a human.
Play the video to see what the Emotions Diary had to say. Let’s get undividing…
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INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THE EMOTIONS DIARY
Whatever you can’t figure out in your life, you can figure it out in here. The Emotions Diary is the tool for undividing yourself - understanding why you do, think, and feel the things you do.
You’ll need:
A notebook
A pen
An open heart and mind
And the practice is this:
What - Write down what’s going on in your life that you want an answer to; a persistent feeling, a bad habit, not knowing why you did something, general confusion etc.
Ask - Let this formulate into a question. Sometimes the question itself suprises you, as in, oh yeah, that is what I want to ask. Also, you can go straight to the question if you have already know.
Wait - Relax. Let the universe do its work. Generally an answer starts coming within seconds for me.
Answer - Write down what it “says.” Don’t overthink, edit it, or interpret it while comes. Receive it like you’re taking dictation. Capture the tone.
And a final note is to dwell with the answer. Feel the layers of it land in you.
Inspired by you, I did something *very* unlike me...I took on some trolls on FB. In a bid to experience life outside my little bubble, I engaged them in conversation with kindness and humanity. And you know what? The last interaction I had was a breakthrough. The angry man I was dealing with responded in a very human way about how he envied his little grandson's ability to 'make new friends in the park' "Look Pappa, at all my new friends. They didn't share the same language or culture but within in minutes they all were all communicating and laughing. Maybe we could try to be more like them?" This was from a man who had previously labelled me a 'senseless woke feminist', and 'another wacky white hippy dippy'. I kept searching and searching for the thing that connected us... And I found it!
I have recently thought about learning from martial arts to combat energetic negativity so I thought it was so cool you mentioned Judo. If you respond with negativity, then it perpetuates it, but if you neutralize the negativity inside yourself and respond with a different energy, it ends the cycle of negativity and creates a new pattern. Thank you for sharing your experience Karl. I think sharing our own struggles is a great way to learn.