Why do we dwell on the negative?

[cosmo105]

I know I do. I drive myself nuts thinking about certain people that didn't like me or said something mean to me or had some negative impact on my life. I wallow in that hate. I know it's bad for me, but I can't help it. And then it's harder to see the good that's in the present. I know I can't be the only one like this. So why? Why do we dwell when we could be enjoying ourselves otherwise? Is it that it's so hard to let go of when you feel like you "lost" somehow, or that you think that maybe you could resolve it in your mind if you find something wrong with that person? Does this make any sense?

[Qdrop]

it's human nature.
we are wired to be obsessed with social circles, trust issues, gossip, personal relationships, etc.

it does fucking suck.

stupid nature.

[cosmo105]

It's annoying. Someone that affected my life negatively over a year ago and then never came into it again...STILL BOTHERS ME. I still think about her and try to find ways in which I'm better than her :\

[DandyFop]

I'm very lucky that way. I always look for the positive aspect.

[adam_f]

Honestly, I think it's good to dwell on negative things. None of us are perfect, merely human. There are times that we feel victory and just want to wild out to celebrate whatever you've done. It's only the natural balance that causes us to dwell on what is wrong with life. For every great thing that'll happen to you, something bad, no matter the scale, will happen. Maybe you win 20 bucks on a lottery ticket, then you get your phone bill and it's 40 dollars higher than you expected. Then you just sit there and wonder 'How the hell is it this high? Who did I call?'

It's only natural to do this. You can't avoid it, just like you can't avoid success in any aspect of your life.

[enree erzweglle]

Some of what you're talking about gets easier in time...you learn not
to hold one person's transgressions against other people in your life.
It takes time and practice to do this and to not just know it.

If someone does something bad to me, I try to learn something from
that. I don't dwell on the negative aspects of it. I try to see what
the lesson is for me in this situation. I try to remind myself of that
in every situation that I find myself facing.

Sometimes, I find the same hard things happening to me in a sort of
cycle, and then I realize that I haven't learned the lesson from those
situations that I was supposed to learn. When I realize that is when I
shift perspectives and change things up, and the problem usually
resolves, I see things that I didn't see before or I see them in a
different light. Sometimes it's just that I learn how to be inside of that
situation. Hard to explain that.

There are some people here who are very negative. Some of them
try to be that way; others, I think, are just jaded. I think it would
be hard to go through life being cynical and suspecting nothing but bad
things from people--and to not see the lessons in life must make it
it seem unbearable, like a constant struggle without benefit of reward.

This sounds cliche, but the bad things that I've usually faced are
the very things that I needed to face before I could grow and learn.
Those bad things were very often blessings in disguise.

[JBernas]

I used to be the same way, and like enree said, it takes time to 'unlearn' how to do this.......not that I'm some wealth of wisdom and experience, but I decided a long time ago that I didn't want to hold grudges and dwell on 'how could they do this to me' type shit forever. It's hard work to let go, but if you really want it, it's possible....I'm much happier now (y)

[hpdrifter]

I think you're talking about 2 different things. I don't think that thinking about someone who wronged you necessarily constitutes dwelling on the negative. I kind of see dwelling on the negative more esoterically, like you're negative in general, your initial reaction is to be negative or to look at things in a half-empty glass kind of way. Sort of like negativity follows you around and comes out your pores.

A little like TurdBurglar.

[cosmo105]

Are you saying I have blackheads?

Seriously though, I get what you're saying. And it's not really like that. I just wonder why we practically bathe in hatred of someone or something from time to time, long after we've stopped actually caring about what happened. I don't like being like that. There have been a few times in my life that I actually had to tell myself, "You don't care, so why are you still acting like you do?" And after that it's been a lot easier to just put those things away and move on. I mean, I'm really happy with my life right now, so there's no point in letting people or things from the past still weigh on me. I've gotten away from the relationships with people that were drains - my old best friend, for example - and am a much happier, healthier person for it. And as enree said, I've learned from it, mostly about myself.

[TurdBerglar]

i dwell in my home

[voltanapricot]

I think looking at things with a negative view helps the positive ideas come along. I mean when you think about it, you don't appreciate how good things are until you see how it could have been worse, right?

[cosmo105]

^this is true.

how would i appreciate the wonderful people in my life now if i hadn't dealt with assholes in the past?

[kll]

i remember that the group of girls i hung out with in high school split in half after graduation and for years when i would go home to visit from college, i'd obsess over running into one of the girls from the "other side"... the older i got, the less i cared... i didn't even think of any of them when i was home last weekend... it's progress...

[voltanapricot]

^this is true.

how would i appreciate the wonderful people in my life now if i hadn't dealt with assholes in the past?
Precisely, we've all had moments where we brick ourselves over a situation, then think back to a really negative situation. It's always reassuring to think "I've heard/seen/done worse, I can get through that, with another lesson learnt."

I think we dwell on some things anyway because we are social creatures and maybe we're reaching out for sympathy, others' view and experiences to make us feel comfort.

[cosmo105]

hah! that reminds me of these two girls i've known since KINDERGARTEN that were in my group of friends in high school. one of them is a pathological liar and i said something to someone about taking what she said with a grain of salt, and of course the other half was there and snapped at me. on graduation day the latter said to me, "i'd watch out for so and so if i were you, because of what you said about her the other day. she said if she saw you she was going to punch you in the face" (or something along those lines). i couldn't help but laugh. the sad thing is, they still hold these grudges...and occasionally i would go into the local shopping mall and get something at the coffee shop with my mom, and there they'd be, every night, impressing the 17-year-olds...glaring at me. i don't dwell on them at all - in fact, i find it pretty hilarious - but knowing that they probably still hiss at each other about what a this or that i am and how hard they'd so totally kick my ass...heehee.

that also reminds me...
one time at lunch, i was saying something and i accidentally spit a little when i was talking. the girl i was talking about ^ yelled, "eww, you spit!" really loud in the middle of my sentence, so i yelled, "EWW, YOU'RE A BITCH!" and i think i kind of shocked myself that it came out of my mouth. but she turned bright red and everyone laughed for a good 20 minutes right in her face, so i was pretty proud.

[kll]

hah! that reminds me of these two girls i've known since KINDERGARTEN that were in my group of friends in high school. one of them is a pathological liar and i said something to someone about taking what she said with a grain of salt, and of course the other half was there and snapped at me. on graduation day the latter said to me, "i'd watch out for so and so if i were you, because of what you said about her the other day. she said if she saw you she was going to punch you in the face" (or something along those lines). i couldn't help but laugh. the sad thing is, they still hold these grudges...and occasionally i would go into the local shopping mall and get something at the coffee shop with my mom, and there they'd be, every night, impressing the 17-year-olds...glaring at me. i don't dwell on them at all - in fact, i find it pretty hilarious - but knowing that they probably still hiss at each other about what a this or that i am and how hard they'd so totally kick my ass...heehee.

that also reminds me...
one time at lunch, i was saying something and i accidentally spit a little when i was talking. the girl i was talking about ^ yelled, "eww, you spit!" really loud in the middle of my sentence, so i yelled, "EWW, YOU'RE A BITCH!" and i think i kind of shocked myself that it came out of my mouth. but she turned bright red and everyone laughed for a good 20 minutes right in her face, so i was pretty proud.


makes you soooo wanna be 16 again, doesn't it?



*pukes*

[cosmo105]

it's funny how some of these girls still hang out with kids in high school. hell, i heard that my old best friend has started hanging out with kids around 17, and to them, she's REALLY cool.

[kll]

how sad that you are so socially retarded that you can't even hang with people your own age...

those girls are like the has-been guys who talk the rest of their life about their "glory days" as the freshman quarterback of the frosh/soph team...

[cosmo105]

i don't think there's anything wrong with having friends of different ages, really...two of my best friends are over 10 years older than me. but they also have lots of friends their age, and it's not like they keep me around to make themselves feel cool.

[Sandinista!]

I still live on hoping that the dolt who snatched my ex will slowly die in a fiery explosion.

And thus is life.

I reckon I should actually be getting a new chick, given that its been two years, but still... hate is a persistent kitty, I'll say that.

[monkey]

if you put out negative energy, negative energy comes back to bite your ass.

goodness breeds goodness.

everybody smile :)

[Elusive]

^well that sounded a bit like some cultish mantra,
but it is true.

[ToucanSpam]

People tend to be more negative because it's easier. Its very easy to get mad or annoyed at something completely stupid and then let it dwell in your mind. I envy people who can be positive all the time because imagine how great things would have to be in order to support that mind frame...

[Dr Deaf]

i dwell on the negative to fully absorb it and move on faster.

[Lindsey_1535]

I tend to jsut forget about things to fast to dwell on them. I usually look to the good side anyway. i 've done some dumb shit and looking back all the time would be weirdd.. and what im confused now. :confused:

[Nuzzolese]

There are two very general types of people in this world.

1) People with problems.

This category encompasses about 98% of the world's population. Be it anger management, post-tramatic stress syndrome, clinical depression brought on by a difficult childhood, or that weird way that Ray Liotta laughs with his mouth completely open, almost every human being has some kind of problem. But their problem is something that can be fixed or altered with medication, therapy, or a tad more self awareness.

2) Problems with people.

This category of individuals makes up that final 2% of the population. These are the freaks. The people with deep psychological malfunctions or physiological anomolies that you see or hear of or read about and think to yourself, "Sure it sucks to be me most of the time but at least I'm not THAT DUDE!"

[guerillaGardner]

I think that people dwell on the past because they aren't moving on in their lives. That may seem kind of obvious but sometimes we have to work out what's required to let it all go.

If events in the past made you doubt yourself some way you then have to address those doubts and resolve them. Once they're resolved the negativity no longer becomes an issue.

Often old painful memories have more of a sting if you are going through a bad patch of underperforming to your own expectations. NLP advises us that we should only make self to self comparisons and not self to others comparisons, as the latter tend to be negative, while the former are motivating)

Another way to deal with negative thoughts is using NLP to reframe the memory, placing yourself outside the memory looking into it, making it black and white and/or blurred when you recall it, etc.

My favourite way to take the sting out of bad memories is to put it to slapstick Woody Allen ragtime music in my head and imagine everybody in the memory dressed like clowns until I can't remember it any other way.

But the main thing is to challenge the assumption that is made in response to the bad memory - I am stupid, I am ugly, etc. Pinpoint the assumption and say it back to yourself in the most ridiculous voice possible. Keep saying it till the assumption itself seems stupid by association and failing that, prove the assumption wrong.