How to deal with negativity and negative people.

The 25/75 Principle

For every negative person in life, have three uplifting people. I try to surround myself with better people than I am in some way: happier, more spiritual. In life, as in sports, being around better players pushes you to grow. I don't mean for you to take this so literally that you label each of your friends either negative or uplifting, but aim for the feeling that at least 75 percent of your time is spent with people who inspire you rather than bring you down. Do your part, making the friendship an uplifting exchange. Do not just spend time with the people you love- grow with them. Take a class, read a book, do a workshop. Sangha is a Sanskrit word for community, and it suggests a refuge where people serve and inspire each other.

                                                                            Spot, Stop, Swap

Most of us don't register our negative thoughts, much as I did not register that sole mosquito. To purify our thoughts, monks talk about the process of awareness, addressing, and amending. I like to remember this as spot, stop, swap. First, we become aware of a feeling or issue- we spot it. Then we pause to address what the feeling is and where it comes from-we stop to consider it. And last, we amend our behavior-we swap in a new way of processing the moment.

SPOT: Becoming aware of negativity means learning to spot the toxic impulse around you. To help us confront our own negativity, our monk teacher told us to try not to complain, compare, or criticize for a week and keep a tally of how many times we failed. The goal was to see the daily tally decrease. The more aware we became of these tendencies, the more we might free ourselves from them.

Try this: Audit your negative comments:

Keep a tally of the negative remarks you make over the course of a week. See if you can make your daily number go down. The goal is zero.

STOP: When you better understand the roots of your negativity, the next step is to address it. Silence your negativity to make room for thoughts and actions that add to your life instead of taking away from it. Start with your breath. When we are stressed, we hold our breath or clench our jaws. We slump in defeat or tense our shoulders. Throughout the day, observe your physical presence. Is your jaw tight? Is your brow furrowed? These are signs that we need to remember to breathe, to loosen up physically and emotionally.

SWAP: After spotting and stopping the negativity in your heart, mind, and speech, you can begin to amend it. Most of us monks were unable to avoid complaining, comparing completely, and criticizing- and you cannot expect you will be completely cured of that habit either- but researchers have found that happy people tend to complain .....wait for it....mindfully.

Try this: reverse envy.

Make a list of five people you care about but also feel competitive with. Come up with at least one reason you are envious of each one: something they have achieved, something they are better at, something that's gone well for them.