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We all want peace in our life. We all want healthy relationships. We all want positivity to surround us. Therefore we tend to stay away from toxic and negative people. But sometimes, this need to keep toxic and negative people out of our circle is also making us THE toxic and negative person to others. And we may not realize it because we are doing it unconsciously and unintentionally.
In this episode of On Purpose, Jay Shetty covers the different types of unhealthy behaviors that make relationships draining and how we can carry ourselves with positive energy and optimistic views.
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There is no such thing as a negative person. People at the core are full of joy, bliss and beauty. But unfortunately it's our conditioning, our experiences, our pains, our traumas that change how someone is experienced. Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now today we're talking about the types of negative people that we meet in our lives. Now, you may meet them at work, they may be part of your family. There may be people that you bump into through friends or friends of friends. But this is honestly one of the biggest questions I get asked all the time. Jay, I am surrounded by negative and toxic people. I am surrounded by negativity and toxicity. How do I deal with it? What do I do about it? How do I overcome these challenges? If you're listening right now and you can relate to one of those points, then you're in exactly the right place. How many of you feel like you're trying to make progress at work, You're trying to collaborate, you're trying to connect, but you feel limited or restricted. How many people in your family always play down your dreams, maybe they belittle your goals, maybe they even minimize your success. You did your thing, you followed through, you even made something happen, and they still find something wrong with it. How many of you in your life have experienced some type of negative, civity and toxicity in your day to day I believe we all have. And before we dive in, I want to clarify something that's really really important. There is no such thing as a negative person. There is no such thing as a toxic person. People at the core, at the root, at the heart, at the source, are full of joy, bliss and beauty. But unfortunately it's our conditioning, our experiences, our pains, our traumas that change how someone is experienced. Now, it is always a choice whether that person lets their trauma become trauma that they pass on to others, or whether they choose to process it and purify it. But the real point here is that we have to realize that negativity and toxicity are traits. They are not people, They are not individuals. At the core, our consciousness is pure and free, but all of us have been muddied. We've all been impurified, We've all become conditioned to live a certain way. We have to approach each of these people with that inner understanding. We have to approach all these people with that inner compassion. Not because it's the right thing to do or it's the best thing to do. It's because it's the truth, it's reality. And when you can see that, you can start to see how this person isn't truly against you. It's not that they don't like you, it's that they don't like themselves. It's not that they want to cause you pain. It's that they're in so much pain that they don't know what to do with the leftovers. It's that they have created so many challenges in their life that they don't know how to do anything else for anyone else. When you have that deep understanding of where that person's pain and hurt comes from, you start to realize it's not about you, and you stop letting it affect you. You recognize it's part of who they have become, and it is up to them to become something more or less. But it is also your choice to decide whether you want their pain to become yours. So let's talk about the different types of negative people. The First, is the complainer, right, We all know a complainer. I remember when I lived in the monastery, there was one monk who absolutely drove me crazy. If I asked him how he was in the morning, he told me how badly he'd slept and whose fault it was. He complained that the food was bad, and yet there was never enough. It was relentless verbal diarrhea, so negative that I never wanted to be around him. Then I found myself complaining about him to the other monks, and so I realized I became exactly what I was criticizing. Complaining is contagious, and he'd passed it on to me. And studies show that negativity like mine can increase aggression toward random, uninvolved people, and that the more negative your attitude, the more likely you are to have a negative attitude in the future. Studies also showed that long term stress like that generated by complaining actually shrinks your hippocampus, that's the region of your brain that affects reasoning and memory courts. All the same stress hormone that takes a toll on the hippocampus also impairs your immune system and has loads of other harmful effects. I'm not blaming every illness on negativity, but if remaining positive can prevent even one of my winter colds, I'm all for it. Right. So what I'm saying here is that it's interesting to recognize that we're not just not trying to complain about complainers because it makes us feel better. It actually is better for our health. So what happens when someone complains to us, Often we complain about them to other people, which makes us a complainer. The challenge, though, is that if someone's complaining to you, they are draining you. Right. If someone is complaining to you, they are draining you. They are taking your energy away from you, and that is why you need to go further and dump that on someone else. It's kind of like this idea that if someone dumps their work on you, you dump some of your work on someone else. Often when people join a new company or new organization, the new person gets dumped on because when they were the new person, they got dumped on. Right. So it's constantly this perpetuating, never ending cycle, and we have to be the ones to break the cycle because otherwise we become like the people that we're complaining about. We take on all of their energy, and then we pass on their energy to someone else. So how do we deal with someone who's always telling us about how bad their day has been. How do we deal with that? The worst thing you can do is tell that person to be positive. Another bad thing you can do is tell that person to just cheer up. When someone who's sharing their negative emotions is hearing you say just be positive, or cheer up, or get over it or it's not that bad, that actually triggers their negativity even more. Now they're thinking no one wants to hear about their feelings, and they feel even more shut down. So next time, before you're about to say just be positive, hold back a second and ask yourself, when you're sharing something painful in your day, what is it that really helps you. It may be for someone to just listen, and maybe you're going to listen. You're going to recognize that you don't have to solve everything they're complaining doesn't need you to become a problem solver. Often that's where we lose our energy because we try to solve a complaint is every problem. We think if we can solve their problem today, then they may not have a problem tomorrow. But that's not how it works. For them, having a problem has become a habit, and for them, sharing a problem with you has become a habit. So you're not trying to solve every problem of a complaint. You're listening, you're not in your present. But then what you're truly trying to do is you're trying to find an opportunity to ask a question, a question that is not condescending, a question that is not minimizing, a question that doesn't take away from their experience. So you may ask them a follow up question, say, tell me about that. Wow, that does sound really tough. That does sound really challenging. I'm sorry you had to go through that. And then you may say, well, it sounds like you learned a really powerful lesson there. It sounds like you're you're onto something. What do you think that is? Notice how you've helped someone get to an answer without giving it to them. And that's what I find with someone who's complaining is that you're not trying to give them the answer. If you give them the answer, they haven't made the connections in their head, so they can't see the power of that answer. But when you say to someone, hey, I think you're onto something. I think you figured something out there, even if you see that glimpse. And what that does is it trains you to see the positive. It trains you to see the powerful even when it's not possible. So now, not only are you helping them, you're helping yourself. Right, Not only are you helping them, you're helping yourself. So the second type of negative person is the canceler. What I mean by the cancelor is not someone who cancels people, but they cancel your response out. So you say something like, oh, you look so nice today, and they say, what about yesterday? I didn't look good yesterday. Or you say oh, it seems like you're doing really really well this year and then thinking oh, does that mean you didn't think I was doing well before? Or you say oh, you seem are happy right now and they're like, oh, yeah, I guess I am right. Like there's a canceling out of a compliment to turn it into something that sounds like you said something negative, right. Or you may say oh, yeah, but you're so smart, and you're like, yeah, you're always telling me I'm smart, but you never tell me that I'm confident, right, it's you've said something positive, but they're finding something negative with something positive that you've said. And that's a really interesting place because you're trying to encourage that person. You're trying to motivate that person. You're trying to push them into the right direction. You're trying to guide them to feel better about themselves. But again, what we're trying to do is short cut someone's work for them. We're trying to put into their mind thoughts that they need to have about themselves. When someone has a thought about themselves, it is much stronger than a thought you have at them. You may tell someone that they are beautiful and wonderful and smart and intelligent, but if they don't see it, if they don't notice it themselves, it will never satisfy them. They have to feel it about themselves. So you may say, how do I help this person? Well, for this person, anything you say, they may cancel it out right. If you say to them, hey, well why don't you take a moment to think about things you like about yourself, they may cancel it out and say, oh, I could give you a long list about things I don't like about myself. And so often with these individuals. The greatest thing you can do is move out of the way, remove yourself from the equation, and introduce them to other people's thoughts. You may say, hey, if you read thing like a monk or on purpose, or have you wants this interview or whatever that they're into. You may introduce them to other insights, to other voices. And often we have to do that with the people closest to us, the people closest to me. I have to introduce them to other people to get through to them, because it's always the way. We don't want to be influenced by the people closest to us. There's some ego that blocks us from learning from people we know, and that is the most ridiculous way that ego protects itself and it's prestige by saying I will not learn from people that I am close to. I will only learn from people I don't know, and that is a mistake. Look around right now, look at the people you're surrounded by, Look at your closest friends, and think to yourself, Wow, she's amazing. She's an incredible yoga instructor. He's awesome. He knows everything there is to know about how to cook in a healthy way. They are amazing because that person knows everything about money and investments and finances. Look at your immediate circle right now, and I promise you your life will improve drastically. So again, by introducing them to other people, you realize the value in your own life of you meeting other people. See, everything you're doing for someone else is something you can do for yourself, and we often miss that that the value you create in someone else's life shows you a value that you're missing in your own. When you start introducing them to a book or a person, you may think to yourself, Oh, yeah, I can't believe I've never picked their brain. I know that person so deeply. Think about that for your own life. Is that with someone who cancels something out often you have to cancel yourself out of their life and introduce them to new people. The third type of negative person is the casualty. The world is always against them, Everyone always has it in for them, and they look at life through that lens where even the person walking across the street doesn't look at them. The barista didn't write their name correctly, and they feel it was unique to them. Right when we know that that's part of the technique that Starbucks and other coffee shops use where they write your name in correct so you post it on Instagram. But for them, it's like no, no, no, that was about me. And the thing is that sometimes they might be right right. We do all have bosses that have it in for us, So we do have people that we meet that feel intimidated by us. Of course that's reality, but now they amplify that and extend that to each and every person, and it starts to ruin their relationships. It starts to wreck their ability to form deep bonds with other people. For this individual, we have to be careful because what we don't want to do is try and get them to trust everyone, because that isn't smart either. We all have people in our life that we have to be careful with how we build trust. But this person needs to experience a group of people that are positive about them. They need to be encouraged to spend time with people and notice the good in them. Now, with the casualties, it give me really really hard because that's how they see life. And this is where I'd like to share with you the twenty five seventy five principle. For every negative person in your life, have three uplifting people. I try to surround myself with people who are better than I am in some way, happier, more spiritual, more focused. In life, As in sports, being around better players pushes you to grow. Like you don't get good at tennis by playing with someone who's worse than you. You You don't get good at pickleball by playing with someone who's not competitive. 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 seventy five percent of your time is spent with people who inspire you rather than bring you down. You can do your part in making a friendship and uplifting exchange. So this isn't just about saying do people uplift me? It's the question do we uplift each other? Have you ever had one bad moment spoil your entire day, or felt overwhelmed for no reason? What about stressed or anxious over that big moment or difficult conversation. You should try meditation. And I know what you're thinking, Jay, you used to be a monk. I don't have time to sit in the woods for hours doing nothing, but really all the time you need to start your own mindfulness practice is seven minutes a day with the Daily j my daily guided meditations on the car mapp. You don't need to close your eyes or find a special seat. You can try it while you brush your teeth, do the dishes, or walk your dog. My goal in seven minutes a day is to help you find a calm and feel grounded in your busy world, plant beautiful intentions for an abundant life and simple steps for positive actions to get you closer to the life of your dreams. Here's what one of the listeners of the Daily Jay had to say about their meditation. Wow, I just had a super hard day at work and couldn't get my boss's comments out of my head. Then I did the Daily JA which related to my work issues, opened my eyes at the end of the session and felt renewed again. Previously today would have destroyed my whole weekend. Meditate with me by going to calm dot com forward slash Jay to get forty percent of a Calm Premium membership. That's only forty two dollars for the whole year for Daily guided meditations, experience the daily j only on calm. I was speaking to one of my friends this year, who I see once a month without fail, and then now we've been nearly seeing each other once a week, and we decided that the value for our friendship together this year would be friendship, fun and fitness. Right. I know it sounds cheesy, but we love it. Right. It's like that idea though, that it's not that I'm expecting him to lift me up. I'm not saying, oh, he's an uplifting friend because he makes me feel better. No, no, no, no no, it's a friend that I can grow with together. It's a friend that we can lift each other up. Right, don't just spend time with the people you love, grow with them, Take a class, read a book, do a workshop. Sunga is the Sanskrit word for community, and it suggests a refuge where people serve and inspire each other. So I want you to think about your songer, right, I want you to think about the people you spend time with. And yes, you may have a friend who's always being a casualty, but you therefore need friends that you are uplifting yourself with. And guess what when this casualty friend sees that they're going to want to join in. They're going to learn by your example. Now, the fourth type of negative person that we come across is called the critic. This person is always criticizing others. They're always looking for flaws and faults in others. I heard about this from a friend the other day that, you know, they went out for an event and then on the way back, one of the people that was attending the event couldn't stop talking bad about the person whose event they just went to. And I was thinking, how sad is that that we're going to some event or we're going to someone's Instagram profile and then we're talking bad about them. But that person never asked you to be there, That person never forced you to be there. That person's not asking you for your attention. They're just doing their thing. And if someone's just doing their thing on TikTok or Instagram and we don't like it, I mean we don't have to go to their page, we don't have to engage with it. But some people want to be critical in the comment section, and these fall under the critics, right. They judge others for either having a different opinion or not having one for any choices they've made that are different from what the critic would have done. Or sometimes I see people just obsessing over criticizing anything right like it. It's crazy that we have so much time to criticize others. And I find out the more time you spend time criticizing others, you block yourself from creating the life you want. Sometimes when I go on a hike in LA, you can get pretty high up. And if you get high up on a hike in LA, you can look at a lot of homes. Imagine you spent your time. They're sitting there criticizing those homes, going, oh I would have built it that way, or that pools on the wrong side, or oh I would have planted the trees differently. I don't like the garden in that one. Now, all that time that you've spent criticizing that person's home, you've missed out on time creating your own. And that's what's happening in the real world, is that we waste so much time. If we spent as much time as we do looking at celebrity lives and marriages and relationships, if we spend that much effort on our own lives and relationships. Our lives would change. If we spent the amount of time we spend obsessing about what's going on in the news as we did about our own journey, our lives would change. And the thing is, obsession is different to learning. If you're observing someone else's life and you're learning from it, like we do on on purpose. When we sit down with a celebrity or an academic, or we sit down with a CEO or an entrepreneur, we're trying to learn from their lives. What we're not trying to do is just talk about their lives. And so I learned this activity when I lived as a monk, and it really has stayed with me and I want to do it more. And we had to keep a tally of every criticism we spoke or thought. For each one, we had to write down ten good things about the person. It was hard we were living together in close quarters. Issues came up, most of them Petty. The average time for a monk shower was four minutes. When there was a line at the showers, we would take bets on who was taking too long. This was the only betting we did, of course, because monks and though the snorers were relegated to their own room. Sometimes new practitioners emerged and we rated their snores on a scale of motorcycles. This monks of vesper that one's a Harley Davidson. I went through the exercise, dutifully noting every criticism. Next to each I jotted down ten positive qualities about that person. The point of the exercise wasn't hard to figure it out. Every person was more good than bad, but seeing it on the page made the ratio sink in. This helped me see my own weaknesses differently. I tended to focus on my mistakes without balancing them against my strengths. When I found myself being self critical, I reminded myself that I too had positive qualities. Putting my negative qualities in context helped me recognize the same ratio in myself that I'm more good than bad. Now, I want you to think about that for a second. That when you're asked to write down ten good things about someone you're criticizing, it puts things into perspective. It makes you do some research. You start realizing how little you know the person. In reality, right, we have to make so many judgments and criticisms about people we don't even know, about people we don't even understand. We discuss people's marriage is if we know them inside out, but we have no clue. We discuss other people's decisions or what they say without knowing them. Imagine someone did that to us. When people do that to us, it courses us so much pain, courses us so much pain. When you write down ten good things, you're not trying to excuse that person's negative choice. You're helping yourself realize the reality that we're all struggling with something. We all have some flaws, and let's realize that we criticize others because deep down we're still criticizing ourselves. The next type of negative person or should I say negative personality trait because there are no negative people, is commanders give me more of your time. How many people in your life no demand your time, they expect your time, They make you feel bad for not spending time with them. This one I've always found very difficult because I'm married to my best friend and incredible human. Rather, for those of you who obviously know and rather, since we've been together we've nearly been together ten years now, has been the least demanding person over my time and energy. She's given me freedom, she's given me choice. I've given it back. She has the same, and we have this relationship where there's a lot of trust, there's a high degree of space and freedom, and we don't make each other feel bad when we can't spend time with each other because we know that we do want to spend time with each other. So I'm surrounded by a wife who's not demanding, and I'm not demanding back, and I'm very grateful for my mum and my sister or my father who are also the same where we love spending time together. We spend good quality time together, but we don't make each other feel bad when we're not available. And so when I have a friend in my life or a person in my life sometimes not even as close as a friend, and they're making me feel bad for not having time for them, that starts to get really tough for me. I've struggled with that because actually, the people closest to me in my life and not demanding. So how do you deal with someone who's commanding. The first thing is you give up the people pleasing inside of you, and you become honest with them about how much time you have. I've been really honest with people and said to them, Hey, just so you know, I really would love to spend more time with you, but my priority right now is my wife and my work, and this is where I'm putting my energy. And if I do have more, I would definitely let you know. But the rest of the time I'm using for self preservation. I'm not saying that in a mean way or a spiteful way, or a holier than that way, or a superior way. I don't believe I'm better than them. It's just that being honest is so much better than either forcing myself and exhausting myself or ignoring them. So often what we do is that we force ourselves as we exhaust ourselves to be there for other people. Then we feel tired, Then we feel upset with ourselves, and then we feel upset with them. That's one cycle. Or the other cycle that we choose to do is we choose to ignore them, we choose to distance ourselves from them, or we choose to tell them our boundaries without telling them why we have that boundary. I found that telling people I'm unavailable is different to saying I'm really tired tonight, I'd love a night in on my own. It makes such a difference. You're not telling someone you don't want to see them. You're telling someone you want to see yourself. Right, you're not telling someone you don't want to meet them. You're telling someone you want to meet with yourself. That makes all the difference. It makes the biggest difference in the world, that simple clarification. And now the commander might be upset in the short term, they might even be repeatedly upset because they still have this demand and a feeling of ownership over your time for some reason. But the truth is, deep down they know that you haven't said anything hurtful and that you haven't done anything that's against them. So setting boundaries it's really healthy with the commander type, because otherwise that can get really draining when you think someone believes they are entitled to your time when they don't have an engagement deeply in your life. Now, there are two more types of negative traits that I'd love to share with you. This one, the sixth one is the competitor. My success is more successful than your success. Right, It's like you say something and they have to one up you. Oh, me and my friend are going to Carbo for the week. Oh we went to Carbo last year. This year we're going to Hawaii. Right. Oh, Mia, you know we we just finally broke through that six figures in our business. It's doing really really well. Oh yeah, we did that like three years ago, right. Or oh we won this award. Oh yeah, but you know they just give them out right, they're not even real awards. Right. There's someone who always has something to say about your success, and it's someone who's bringing that competition into your life when you're not trying to compete. I remember I used to have a friend growing up who used to always tell me, this is in our teens, very young. You're about to hear how young and stupid I was. But I had a friend who'd always say, let's see who can get more girls numbers tonight, right, like that kind of an attitude. And I would always say to him, I'd be like, well, I'm not I don't want to compete with you, because I'd like to just get one girl's numbers, Like I don't want lots of numbers. That doesn't that's not kind of what I'm looking for. And for him, it was always just let's see who can get more, Let's see who can do this, and I found that I started to gravitate towards people who wanted equality, who didn't want to compete with me. I'd say, all my friends who've lasted the test of time, who've been my friends for a long time, are all people who may be competitive in their own world and in their own space, but they don't want to compete with me. I'm their friend. So I said a very clear rule that I don't want my closest friends to be people i'm compete And in order to make that clear, what I would do is I would always celebrate my friend's successes, and I would share my successes, but not in context to anyone else. I would share them as aligned with my own goals. The way you communicate your success and the way you communicate about other people's success has a big, big impact on how they perceive you and what your goal is as well. And the final one is the controller. You can only do what I say, and when someone who makes you change all your plans, someone who always tells everyone that it needs to be done this way, someone who needs to have all of that control, This person can be extremely difficult right They monitor and try to direct how their friends or partners spend time and who they spend time with and what choices they make. These can be some of the hardest, negative toxic traits to spend time with and hang around with. And the only way you operate around this person is by doing what you want but without trying to put that person down. You're rebelling for your freedom, but you're not rebelling with their ideology if they force something to happen and you choose to make another choice. And notice how so much of this is us giving up our own ego. The reason why we complain about these people or we're affected by these people is because we don't want them to think we're not nice people. But we think they're not nice people. But then we give up who we are just so that they don't think we're nice people. Ultimately, it comes down to are you willing to let go of the fact that not everyone is going to like you, not everyone is going to understand you, and not everyone is meant for you. Not everyone is meant for you. What a refreshing feeling, and you are not meant for everyone. You are going to find your people. You are going to find your tribe, go and search and seek for them. When we move to New York and then moved to LA we have been seeing our community. So there are seven types of negative traits complainers, cancelers, casualties, critics, commanders, competitors, controllers, and I've shared with you a number of strategies today of how to deal with each of them. Practice these, implement these, experiment with these, and watch how your life changes. Thank you so much for listening to today. I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. I can't wait for the next one. And please, it would mean the world to me if you leave a review. When nearly an eighteen thousand, I would love, love, love to get to twenty thousand by the end of this year. Please, please, please go and leave a review. I'm going to read a couple that I really loved, and please leave your name. This is from Alexis Ross Jay. I'm such a fan. I've been listening to your podcast from the start, and as a clinician myself, I find it incredibly grounding and therapeutic. You have a real gift and each episode touches on such relevant topics I'm so grateful for you and what you share with the world through your work. I've shared this podcast with many friends, family, and patience. And that is a five star review from Alexis Ross Alexis, thank you so much. And this one is from Zach five stars. Again. As a man in a traditionally masculine job, this podcast has really helped me rethink and grow emotionally and reflect through a lot of transition this year, I've been feverishly devouring episodes and enjoy everyone with Jay. Thanks Zach. I appreciate you. I mean, there are some huge, beautiful reviews here. Thank you so much. And this is from El Gomez. I started listening to Jay when the pandemic started. Since then I could not stop listening. I look forward to Monday and Friday mornings to listen in Every show always relates to some part of my current life. Helps me reflect and find ways to do better to live a more mindful and intentional life. I really appreciate you Jay. I'm thankful I ran into your podcast. So far, my favorite podcasts have been with Russ and Big Sean. Love them. Thank you for another five star review. You, Like I said, I deeply appreciate them, and i just want you to know that I'm on this journey with you. I'm not stopping. I'm here for you, and I'm on this journey with you. And as you keep committing to on purpose, I deeply continue to commit to you. Can't wait to meet you all, sending you so much love. Can't wait to see how your life changes.