Energy is all around you, in every person and in every room. And even though you can’t see it, it’s still there. It’s a life force, one that you can easily understand in the context of how you feel from day-to-day – sluggish or invincible, numb or joyful.
Everyone gives off their own energy when you’re near them and you pick up on these energetic frequencies on a subliminal, subconscious level. Some fill you with warmth and joy, while others with doom and gloom. By now, this has also been confirmed by a study – revealing that plants can absorb energy from other plants – followed by an investigation concluding that in the same way, your body is like a sponge, absorbing energy that surrounds you.
We all have our bad days and when that happens, we know our mojo isn’t at its best. But have you noticed that you tend to perceive negative energy as something other people have while blaming your own bad mojo on having a bad mood due to lack of sleep or someone somehow offending you? Did you know that negativity can be so ingrained in you that it goes unnoticed? That you’re going about your life the way you usually do and it’s actually you who’s Debbie Downer of your friend group?
Positive people are drawn to positive energy; negative people are drawn to negative energy. Just like the old adage: like attracts like. But what do you do when you are unwillingly attracting negativity into your life? Could it be that you’re unaware of your own negativity? And if so, how can you change your vibration?
All About Those Negative Vibes
Negative vibes are way more than just a bad mood for a day or two. Negativity is toxic to your mind and body. It can make you feel dark and gloomy, emotionally reactive and defensive, seeing the world through a filter of fear, anger, and paranoia.
Since your mind and body are deeply intertwined, your mental negativity has a physical counterpart. You may have tense muscles, shallow breathing, increased blood pressure, elevated levels of adrenalin and cortisol – a classic stress response.
Having a bad day every once in a while is just part of life and it doesn’t do you any harm. It is actually harmful for your psychological health to suppress your feelings and feel bad about feeling bad.
Being human means facing suffering. There is no light without dark, no joy without sadness. However, enduring negative energy day in, day out for prolonged periods, even to the point of it becoming a fundamental trait of your personality, does you no good.
Some of the symptoms of negative energy in your body can include:
- Restlessness
- Sleepiness
- Nervousness
- Headaches
- Stomach aches
- Fatigue and exhaustion
- Heavy breathing
- Confusion and tension
- Sudden mood swings
- Anxiety or depression
Where Does Negative Energy Come From?
Christie Marie Sheldon, an internationally known intuitive healer and abundance coach, says that your thoughts and feelings come from a few different sources.
Source number one is your own energy. The reality you’re experiencing depends directly on your own feelings, your thoughts, and your beliefs about things. To change your low state, you have to understand what you’re thinking and projecting into your life.
If you have a naturally pessimistic outlook on life, you might be conditioned to believe that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and whatever can go right, will probably go wrong too. But this is a lose/lose mentality. You lose by preparing yourself to lose, since it attracts losing. It’s very likely the complete opposite of what you’d wish from the Law of Attraction, isn’t it?
“How many pessimists end up by desiring the things they fear, in order to prove that they are right?” – Robert Mallet
Your nervous system doesn’t make things easier for you. Something that can have a powerful effect on your behavior, decisions, and your relationships is the negativity bias. It’s the tendency not only to register negative stimuli more readily but also to dwell on these events.
This explains why:
- bad first impressions can be so difficult to overcome
- when experiencing numerous good events in one day, you still focus on the sole ‘bad thing’ that occurred
- past traumas can have such long lingering effects.
If the negativity is so ingrained in you that you don’t notice it, how can you be sure you’re not unconsciously perpetuating that negativity?
Are you ready to find out if you have a predictable thinking pattern? Find out by taking this test.
How Do You Turn Negative Energy Into Positive Energy?
Start by asking yourself these questions:
- Do you find yourself complaining, not just sometimes but all the time?
- Do you discuss more what’s wrong in the world than what’s right, including the ‘terrible’ weather, ‘horrible’ traffic, ‘idiotic’ government, ‘lousy’ economy, and ‘stupid’ in-laws?
- Do you put the blame on everything and everyone else, not just in certain situations, but all the time?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you are actively holding on to negative energy. To clear that out and raise your vibration, you will need to retrain yourself to choose a better attitude that supports you in everything you do. There are different ways to get rid of negative energy.
This 3-step process is one of the ways how you can start clearing your negative energy to turn it into positive.
1. Take ownership of your own life
The first step to changing anything is to become aware of it and accept responsibility. You’re not an innocent bystander. Believing that life is constantly happening to you, blaming everything and everyone else, puts you in the role of a victim. It’s easy to feel like a victim when life doesn’t go your way. And while sometimes it may very well be true, it’s definitely not true all of the time. You need to break free from the “poor me” mentality if you want to create any lasting change in your thinking patterns, and eventually, in your life.
Realize that you have control over your life. No one can make you feel any particular way. They can trigger you, but the source of discomfort is to be found within. In the same logic, you are influenced by the energy of others, but to what degree is entirely up to you. Blaming others and ignoring the role you play makes you passive, while taking ownership helps you grow by giving you a choice to take action. You are the maker of your own happiness.
2. Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change
There are days when you just can’t catch a break. If only you had born taller, richer, stronger, more handsome, then things could have been easier. But it doesn’t work like this. You have to work with what you got. Don’t fight with your current reality – accept it how it is and separate factors that you can control from those that you cannot control.
There’s an old story that illustrates this point well.
There lived an old farmer who had worked in his fields for many, many years. One day, his horse bolted away. His neighbors dropped in to commiserate with him. “What awful luck,” they tut-tutted sympathetically, to which the farmer only replied, “We’ll see.”
Next morning, to everyone’s surprise, the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How amazing is that!” they exclaimed in excitement. The old man replied, “We’ll see.”
A day later, the farmer’s son tried to mount one of the wild horses. He was thrown on the ground and broke his leg. Once more, the neighbors came by to express their sympathies for this stroke of bad luck. “We’ll see,” said the farmer politely.
The next day, the village had some visitors – military officers who had come with the purpose of drafting young men into the army. They passed over the farmer’s son, thanks to his broken leg. The neighbors patted the farmer on his back – how lucky he was to not have his son join the army! “We’ll see,” was all that the farmer said.
Our perception of the world is what creates our life experience. It takes practice, dedication and making a decision to see the world through the eyes of “what can go right” instead of “what can go wrong.” What it definitely doesn’t mean is fake positivity. Negative emotions and experiences allow us to grow and avoiding them does more harm than good.
However, positive and negative thoughts can become self-fulfilling prophecies. What you expect can often come true. So it’s in your best interest to focus on the future you want to create.
3. Start a gratitude practice
Many studies have found that people who consciously count their blessings tend to be happier and less depressed. From improving your physical and psychological health to making you sleep better, gratitude has several scientifically proven benefits. Once you start counting your blessings, you’ll see you have a lot more to be thankful for than you previously thought.
Developing an “attitude of gratitude” is one of the simplest ways to improve satisfaction with your life. If you’re grateful for what is (including the unpleasant school of life lessons), you can invite more positive energy into your life. What you value in your life, increases in value. What you think about and focus on, grows. Energy flows where your attention goes.
When you realize that the future is not set in stone and that you have more control over your circumstances than you believe – then you can begin to consciously design your life. Once you make a few changes within, you can quickly notice your life improving.
