The effects of one Bad Apple
I am sure we have all heard to term, “one bad apple spoils the bunch”
Most of us realize that a negative person’s behavior, can often spread a lot faster, than positive attitude or behavior.
But why is this? How does this process work?
There are a few reasons, one is simply because people tend to not engage with a negative person.
Because obviously, they do not want to get involved and rather not get into any interactions with them.
But what this does is leave their negativity unchallenged which others seeing an unchallenged statement take it as truth.
Truth is perception, and your perception is shaped by how you interpret the world around you.
So should we challenge the negativity?
Usually if you do this, the person spreading the negativity will feel threatened, and fight back, which then makes the
challenger also fight back.
So now we have an even larger mess of ever increasing negativity.
One thing we can do is use that negativity as fuel to grow and do better.
Learn from what they have done and learn to not be like that.
Use them as an example of how not to be.
See past the walls of the box they have built around themselves.
But should we allow such negativity to persist?
I think here we can use an approach animal trainers use.
Usually at the most basal primal state a person may lash out and be angry because they are afraid.
This is what animals do, Its a defense system to try to protect some part of themselves that may have been hurt.
Or maybe their belief system has been threatened.
Something deeper has challenged them and this fear makes them feel vulnerable.
This is the first step in at least understanding them.
Finding the actual cause of that original reason then offering understanding may be the start of an approach
that can lead to the mental healing they need.