Daveswordsofwisdom.com: Negative People Will Hold You Back
Negative people will hold you back. They take the fun out of everything! So how do you lighten your load?
Asking them to quit being negative is often fruitless as is trying to avoid them.
Perhaps the best idea is to surround yourself with positive thinking people and the negative thinker will either fall into line and try to be more positive or go away and find someone who wants to hear their negativity. Either way, just keep your loving positive channels open and life will bring you lots of great adventures and interesting friends.
This is so true in my life. As an artist I also teach one afternoon a week in my home studio. For years I have worked with a very talented student who
ReplyDeleteis very negative. At first I thought she needed more affirmation and self confidence . But that didn't help. I encouraged her to put her art out there and that didn't help. I tried to direct her to follow her own style of painting and I even offered my personal services when she felt over whelmed with work she had to do at home. All of this was to no avail. I took her on a professional trip with me and she tidied everyone else's display, yet another way of criticizing and finding fault. The other artisans were embarrassed and did not appreciate this. It put me in a bad spot as she was my companion. When we got home someone asked her how the show was and her comment was that she was "forced" to stop at a museum on the way home. Not a word about the show or that we had discussed that stop on the way up.
She realized when she got home that she had forgotten her bag but of course she tried to say I forgot it until I faced her down. Again it is all about negative thinking. She felt she was always right and I was always wrong.Finally finally I realized how ego ridden I must be to think I could change her. What made me think she even wanted or needed to be changed? As time passed and she got more aggressive and took over (or tried to) an event I had planned and coordinated for many years and then moved on to complain about everything in the studio and kibitz about things while I was working with another student, I realized that she was working me. All the time I foolishly thought i was helping her she was pulling me down one drip at a time.
She is not a bad person. WIth much regret, I graduated her from my class.
I thought I would miss her more than I did. She had been with me for 15 years at least and guess what? It is like a light went on in the studio and I have renewed energy in my teaching and all of the students are prospering from that energy. She has moved on to another class and is very happy.
Everything worked out. My only regret is that I was so confident that I could work with her and help her. How could I have been so out of touch?
Right now I am just pleased that is all is well that ends well. But it was sure a waste of valuable time. For both of us.