The 'Yuck Factor' by Jennifer Hoffman (why negativity bugs some more than ever)

[Shallah Kali]

http://spiritlibrary.com/uriel-heals/the-yuck-factor

Sorry I can't even quote. This article has copyright against even quoting without written permission so please just click through. I think it is worth it. I am experiencing some of what is talked about and it drives me nuts. Things I used to be able to tolerate or not even notice bug the heck out of me. It aggitates me to be around people who don't want to learn how to get out of a bad mood or are so un-selfaware they swear they aren't angry or scared even when ranting and nearly yelling. I need thinker shields while I try to teach people to not get in my personal space when they are being so very NOT ANGRY!!! :crazy:

[MorningGlow]

1. CRIPES! It's like it was written just for me!

Thank you for the link, Shallah. I barely have time to check in with the ASAH group as much as I want to nowadays, let alone follow links, but I'm glad I was prodded to click on this one!

I feel this way about Mr. MG--I can't tolerate his negativity, and I can't believe I didn't mind it for so many years. I did realize that I have changed and he hasn't--now my question is what to do about it. Can I help get him out of his vibration and into a higher one? Or is it a lost cause? I don't know the answer to that at this point.

Likewise, when I was on vacation with my mother last week, I was completely fritzing by being around her energy--all jagged edges. She worries about EVERYthing, even stuff that hasn't happened and isn't likely to in the near future. She fashions detailed imaginary exchanges with people on the off chance that some thing that's bugging her will end up in a confrontation--like preparing a fight in advance. (I remember I used to do this once upon a time, too, but I sure don't do it anymore.) She gets tied in knots about the smallest things, and then it manifests in her physical health (yeah, it affects her colon--big surprise--not).

And then there are all the Gloomy Guses out there--the ones who say "Oh watch, now this (awful thing) will happen" or "It's just my luck..." and it's never GOOD luck.

I can't stand it! It's like I'm being assaulted from all sides. I can deflect, joke, and ignore a lot of it, but when it's in my immediate family, it's tougher.

I wish Jennifer had said a little more about what to do about it. I get the compassion thing--but I also need some coping skills--! :crazy: Shields are up, but I feel like I need more...

[Shallah Kali]

4. {{{{hug}}}}

I wish I had some great advice but I don't. Still trying to figure out how to not get sucked back into the negativity cycles myself especially when my Mother goes into one. Partly it is psychological - after all she was the one I mainly learned the art of worry wart-ism from - and partly energetic. I have been making progress on the general anxiety I feel and have released some of habit of fear worry and awfulizing but when I am around someone in a tizzy my insides go into knots (which is fraking wonderful for the IBS :nuke:) and I have to fight my brain too wanting to fall back into the old familer groove. Sometimes I can blow it off and others it is so hard to fight the old pattern of exchanging negative energy back and forth. I notice that some people get even more upset when I don't let in their energy like before literally getting in my face as they rant about whatever it is that ticked them off. I end up having to tell them to stand back if they don't stay in place when I run out of space to back up into!

Right now I am back to smudging the house at least every other day and myself daily - and sometimes more than once a day! Also since my Mother won't Reiki herself I have been asking her almost everyday to work on me a few minutes because treating another gives the sender mini-treatment in the process.

will be back, mom needs the pc....

[Shallah Kali]

5. Harriet Lerner's book Dance of Anger has helped me learn about not reacting to others

or at least be aware of how I react to other's actions and reactions and the importance of not letting them dissuade me from changing myself. I have made positive changes in my life that then get big reactions from others at times even those who encouraged those changes. Lerner calls these reactions counter moves and shows how people will try to get the person who changed to change back unconsciously even if consciously they have been encouraging the change. For example I currently have an anxiety disorder w/panic. My Mother being a good Mom wants me to not be afraid or worry all the time yet will try to engage me in the old mutual worry sessions we used to have. Or another thing is she still is afraid I will hurt myself using sharp kitchen knives when cooking and has to warn me several times to be careful if she is around when I cook. AT times I have had to tell her to leave the room because if I use anything bigger than a paring knife she will stand next to me warn me not to cut myself and shudder at the sight. argh. my stomach is knoting right now just writing this. time to reiki and breath in light!

The dance of intimacy: a woman's guide to courageous acts of change in key relationships Harriet Goldhor Lerner
http://books.google.com/books?id=BEuEbtEljLYC

The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, Or Desperate
http://books.google.com/books?id=UcKyLRVnkpkC

this book by a HSP looks like it might be good:

Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life Judith Orloff
http://books.google.com/books?id=_V53VntvlmQC

[MorningGlow]

6. Back atcha, Shallah

:hug: :hug: :hug:

I know what you mean about your IBS being triggered--I can witness all kinds of physical symptoms manifesting when I'm assaulted by negative energy.

Funny about family, isn't it--that they want you to be a better person yet don't notice when they're the ones tearing you back down to the collective-family-dysfunction level? I'm working really hard to break the cycle especially to help my son. When my mom fusses and frets, I tell her to relax, that things will work out in their own time. Then she gets mad at me--she says I'm TOO relaxed!
:rofl:

But if I can help my son grow up in a more relaxed (yet not lazy) atmosphere, it's all worth it.

[Shallah Kali]

7. Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.

I love my family and in so many ways they are wonderful people which I acknowledge and admire but they also have problems too that I have to acknowledge and learn to deal with so I don't fall back into those family dances of constant anxiety.

I really hear you about your Mom. In some ways she sounds like mine and my Grandmother who swears if she wasn't so tense nothing would get done because she would be asleep. Apparently she has too states of being - sleep and warp 10. Best of luck and good Vibes to breaking the cycle for both you and your son. :grouphug: Worry never helped anything get done better. It just exacerbates other issues and wastes energy that would be much better spent on making what preparations that are reasonable for each situation. The worry warts in my life remind me at times of reality shows where every little thing is blown up as if they were life and death crisis. Everything that can go wrong must be awfulized over, everything that does go wrong must be hashed and rehashed and rerehashed. oy. and no one ever gets any relief. I can feel the emotional charge just go on and even get stronger :( This is why I am in psychotherapy with a body-centered therapist to not just change my mind but also clear my body of the old ways and emotional backlog of crud. One thing I leanred was to vacuum out an area on my own putting my left hand over my third chakra then pulling out the energy sending it out through my right hand into the earth as energetic compost. I keep stoping to do this as I type this and did my previous post as I feel my upper then lower abdomen go into knots.

[MorningGlow]

8. ROFL this reminds me

of the day before my wedding. My brother and his family had come in from California, and they and my parents came out to our house (where the wedding was going to take place) to help. My mom walked in the front door "turned up to 11"--FREAAAAAKINNNNNG OUUUUUUT even though there was nothing to freak out about. Everything was in order; everything that needed to be done had been done. All we had to do was drive the head table centerpiece and favors out to the restaurant where we were having the reception. But that's what she did, even for dinner parties she was hosting--she'd scream and fuss if the table wasn't set by 2:00 even though the dinner was at 6:00--that kind of thing. So I expected it. Didn't mean I had to allow it, though.

So I let her have her freakout for about 15 seconds, and then I stopped her cold. I said, "If you keep this up, I am going to throw you out of this house." Then I turned to my brother and said, nice and quiet like, with a smile on my face, "Take your mother out of this room and calm her ass down, would you please?" (My brother is a mellow sort and we always have a good laugh over mom's wound-up-ed-ness.) So he did, and my mother started freaking at him--"How can you let her talk to me that way!!!!" I don't know what he said to her, but she kept quiet after that. Too quiet, of course--she was sulking at having her freakout bonanza denied. But there was NO WAY I was going to let her jack me up when there was no reason for it. Especially for my wedding!
:rofl:

[get the red out]

2. I understand this

Sometimes, as I have gotten spiritually healthier (by small halting increments) I become "the bad guy" to some people around me for short periods. It seemed like I was taking turns for a while being the bad guy to either my husband or my best friend. And a few years ago I simply lost two friendships in short succession in ways like this, where suddenly I had to express who I was and couldn't sit and listen to the same old record playing and letting them know this ended those friendships immediately (by their choice, not mine). It has been very painful, starting in about 2004 for me. I started having some big realizations out of the blue then, but that didn't guarantee others around me were.

I have since been working on my tact, I lack that when I see something happening in front of me that strikes me as completely WRONG. Another lesson learned. And I am trying to find ways to include people important to me on bits of this path I find myself on. Only as they can see fit to join. I feel like the Universe does provide ways, as long as I don't get so caught up in my stuff that I can't see them. My husband is taking a meditation class with me right now, and he likes it! A year ago this wouldn't have happened. I just had to ask and get out of the way and this small nudge was given. Amazing.

[MorningGlow]

3. That's what made me leave my coven in '07

I started to feel that what was being taught there wasn't correct (vibrationally speaking). Then I became the "bad guy" over some drama, even though all the drama going on had nothing to do with me--mainly my elder wanted to demonize another founding member and I refused to go along. I remained neutral, which was seen as "disloyal" and suddenly I was no longer trusted. Went downhill from there. Plus I dared to speak honestly to my elder (something I, she, and two others took a vow with each other to always do) and told her she really should work it out with the person she had a problem with. Huh, yeah, that went over big. Lost my two best friends and my religious group. I don't regret it, though.

It's good to know, however, that not all relationships have to be severed once the change in vibration occurs. Thanks, GTRO, for sharing your experiences. :hi:

[northernlights]

9. I'm in the opposite place

I used to suffer terribly from other people's negativity, especially anger. Now it generally doesn't bother me at all. I am where I am; they are where they are.

There are exceptions, of course. Last evening a co-worker was quiet, tense and a little bit 'short' with me. I realize in retrospect that my discomfort was partly because it was totally out of her character and normal behavior. Usually she's high energy and funny as hell. And so I fell into an old pattern of wondering if I'd done something wrong.

She didn't show up at work today. She's hospitalized with a high fever and vomiting. And suddenly her testiness last night has an entirely different explanation and aspect.

While there are people who seem chronically stuck in negativity, who I find are best simply avoided, I am increasingly finding, through self-observation and observation of others, that a lot of times it has more to do with simple exhaustion than anything else. I know when I get physically exhausted, it's really hard to imagine anything good being just around the corner. I just see a long list of chores that needs to be done.