I consider myself to be a positive person overall. I believe that we largely create our own happiness. Life is not easy, but often it is not as difficult as people make it. I believe that attitude is very powerful in shaping our perspective.
I have been struggling quite a bit with a very negative person on our team. I call her Mrs. Grumpy. For some reason, she really triggers intense anger and frustration in me. I cannot stand how she doesn’t demonstrate proper manners and being ignored really triggers a very bad reaction in me.
Every counselor I’ve seen, or women’s group I’ve been in, always emphasises that she likely reminds me of someone else. My guess is that she reminds me of memories of being bullied in school. I am also quite exhausted still from the experience of being bullied by Alison. It wasn’t until I had come through the experience that I realised how emotionally exhausted I was and am.
I simply need a break. I could use a week or two off just to be alone and have some down time. My counselor suggested that I take an action-oriented approach instead of wallowing in how frustrated I am. My action-oriented approach includes starting to look for another position. It includes meeting with recruiters and moving forward. I feel stuck, and in many ways, I am in that I cannot abruptly quit.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading about handling negative people:
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. ~Carl Jung
Don’t say: They are draining my energy; they are making me unhappy; their negative energy is polluting my mind, my body and my life, but rather…
Say: How can I use this situation to my advantage? What am I doing wrong? How can I improve this situation? How can I make my positive energy bigger than their negative energy? How can I heal this situation, myself and the people involved? What can I learn from all of this?
What am I doing wrong? I am allowing Mrs. Grumpy to control my feelings. I am giving her power to ruin my day and give me anxiety. I waste too much time thinking about her during the day and at home.
How can I improve this situation? I don’t feel safe with her or respected. I can improve the situation in the short term by trying not to think about her for an hour. Start working on not giving her negativity power over me. I know that she triggers me. I will work on trying to stop blaming her and instead focusing on myself. I need to take responsibility for the situation.
Therefore, tomorrow I will try for one hour not to think about her beside me. I will try for the first half hour to change my way of thinking and not allow myself to dwell on her. I will keep working on this until I can go the whole day without thinking about her.
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