Don’t be Glamoured by Energy Vampires — 3 Tips on How to Attract Positive Vibes

Ever get a “bad feeling” from someone? For some inexplicable reason, you just feel like something is “off”, but can’t quite put your finger on it? You feel awkward and uneasy, and eventually you find yourself more touchy and on-edge, snapping at people for the smallest things and for no particular reason.

Bad vibes from other people and you feel emotionally drained; good vibes and you’re on a total high. Energy is infectious. It spreads directly or indirectly and can either give you life or threaten the quality of it. Persistent negativity will take its toll on you sooner or later, and it’s only a matter of time before your mental and emotional states affect your physical health. It’s exhausting! You’re tired, distracted, irritable, and your immune system’s guard is down, so you may even get sick. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

How can you rid your life of all negativity? Hate to tell ya, bud, but you can’t. The bad comes with the good. There will be times when you feel absolutely awful, when you are so angry that you’re blue in the face, so sad that all you want to do is curl up into a ball and cry. Such is life. What sets positive people apart is the ability to focus on the fact that this is temporary.

So what can you do?

1. Shape your environment into what you want it to be

Much of the advice out there includes cutting negative people out of your life, though it’s not as simple as that. What if they’re a close family member? What if you work with them? You can distance yourself and limit your interactions, but you’re only getting rid of the person, not the problem. This might seem like the same thing, but ask yourself, “Is it about them or is it about me?” They are not living your life, they are not in control of how you experience the world, they aren’t really who you care about, anyway. You care about you. You care that you’ve been put in a bad mood, that you’re tired of hearing their whining, that you don’t feel comfortable in this environment, and rightfully so.

Negativity breeds negativity, and if it doesn’t spread to you now, it will get you one way or the other down the road. Don’t just perpetuate the cycle — cutting people out will only get you so far. Immerse yourself in an environment you’ll thrive in, which doesn’t always mean comfortable. Growth happens outside of your comfort zone, when you accept that you are not in full control of your environment, but that you are in control of how you respond. You have the power to take action.

Don’t expect others to always find the silver lining — provide them with it.

Surround yourself with people and things you enjoy — when you enjoy not only the result, but the process, you’re more likely to stick it out. Knowing you will come out stronger gives you an edge, so walk the walk and talk the talk. Environment affects experience. Positive people attract positive vibes. You want positivity from other people? Let yours be contagious. Don’t expect others to always find the silver lining — provide them with it. Laugh, smile! Feed off of each other in the best way possible and convert negative energy into the kind of positive energy that is so powerful that even the most stubborn of pessimists can’t resist the urge to smile with you!

2. Ask questions and listen to the answers

Have you ever sat in a room full of people, not saying a word, and you just feel… heavy? This isn’t necessarily tension, but intensity. No one needs to say anything and yet you can sense the discontent. But why? Why the doom and gloom? Why do you let it affect you, and so much?

Part of the problem is that we’re all guilty of quickly accusing people of being so negative all of the time but we never ask why they are, and if we do, do we truly care to hear the answer? It’s usually a rhetorical question that we’ve forgotten the importance of. After all, at the end of the day, we only ask, “Why are you so miserable?” because we selfishly, but validly, care that this person’s unhappiness is affecting our mood and not because we actually care about why they’re so unhappy. The question, “How are you?” is said in passing and used as a greeting, and its response, “Good,” is automatic and often meaningless. What if someone answered, “Horrible”? Would you ask why, or would you tell them that’s too bad and go about your day? If you choose to ask them why, would you listen? Not hear, but listen?

We’d rather just keep it to ourselves to save others from the burden of knowing

You can lend a sympathetic ear without being an empath and carrying other people’s emotions as your own. Getting to the root of the problem helps to resolve it instead of covering it up with a temporary workaround. Sometimes the problem is just that no one is listening. Dismissive attitudes and eye rolls are so common that people who just need a moment of attention, of genuine care from another human being, are, for all intents and purposes, being put on an emotional island to die. This sounds harsh, but we’ve all felt rejected before, that we don’t have anyone to talk to because no one understands, or we’d rather just keep it to ourselves to save others from the burden of knowing. Let enough time go by, and your spirit will die.

Our spirits, our souls, need constant food. Like fast food and the physical body, you put garbage in, and you will feel like garbage, too. If you let light in, you will radiate from the inside out. Yes, it’s true that some people are born optimists, but don’t be fooled into thinking that makes it easy. This isn’t easy, this is work. Being positive is hard. It’s like a muscle that always has to be exercised to stay strong. We all have the ability to have a positive attitude; we just need to dig a little deeper to find out what’s stopping us.

3. Fake it ‘till you make it!

We may not realize it, but we feed off of each other’s energies, both positive and negative. Those who thrive on drama are not only comfortable in their own misery, but they suck the life out of everyone around them. These energy vampires have a way of making themselves known, finding the most vulnerable, and bringing them over to the dark side, inadvertently or not. It’s easy to get sucked into negative thoughts and behaviors like gossip, pessimism, cynicism, and the baaaad habit of complaining. It’s easy to shut down and shut out, especially when you, yourself, are naturally guarded or have been burned in the past. But who hasn’t? Who hasn’t been hurt before? Who hasn’t gone through a difficult time? No one! Life isn’t always rainbows and daisies. A magical fairy doesn’t skip by, sprinkling happy dust. Some of us make a conscious choice and effort to move on and make life what we will, while others aren’t ready to come out of the darkness.

Bounce positive vibes back and forth, like a give-and-take relationship

You may find yourself falling into this negativity trap, or question your strength to rebuff others’ attempts to drag you down with them. You may be unsure of yourself and your ability to become a positive person, attracting positivity by example and giving it back out into the world. When in doubt, fake it! You know when you fake a smile for a photo but end up laughing because of how ridiculous you feel and how you think you look? Funny thing about faking it — sometimes you end up getting so into it that it becomes less and less pretend. They call it “make-believe” for a reason — making others believe, and maybe yourself, too. Start with something as simple as a smile. If you smile at someone, someone you may not even know, they usually smile back! Use this to bounce positive vibes back and forth, like a give-and-take relationship, creating a collective energy that other positive people are drawn to.

Practice makes progress:

Challenge yourself to immediately replace every single negative thought you have with a positive one. For example, if you feel your blood starting to boil because someone you had plans with cancels (yet again), take a deep breath and appreciate the fact that you now have more time for yourself to do anything you please. Try this for just one day, from the moment you wake up until you fall asleep, and see how you feel the next day.

Originally published at gluttonforgrowth.wordpress.com on January 14, 2017.