“Save your skin from the corrosive acids from the mouths of toxic people. Someone who just helped you to speak evil about another person can later help another person to speak evil about you.”Israelmore Ayivor.

It has probably happened to you at some point in your life when you are with someone, and you feel some bad vibes, almost as if that person is projecting negativity of some kind.

Here’s a thing…. One study conducted at the Belfield University in Germany revealed that plants take in energy from other plants. The results of this investigation were followed by a physician and therapist, Olivia Bader-Lee. Bader-Lee explains that human bodies are like sponges taking in energy that is around us too. Those who know me, know that I do not prescribe strongly to a great deal of theories about “energy” but we do certainly detect a great deal of what is going on around us – and sometimes we take it on board too.

This is one reason that some people do or do not feel comfortable when they are around certain other people. I have a friend who always makes me feel alive, fills me with joy and that I laugh with greatly when I am around him, and we all have friends who often (or perhaps rarely if they are experiencing a challenging time in their life) drain the fun and joy out of life from us – fun vampires!

It can sometimes feel quite toxic to have a chronically negative person in your life. I’m not talking about people who we are supporting through hard times in their lives, whereby it is wholly acceptable and understandable for them to be feeling low for a period of time while they deal with that – we support and love those people through those times. I am referring to those who seem to have a negative outlook, that contaminates others, and that is usually quite unreasonable. Today, I’m sharing a few useful ways to protect you from such negativity.

1. Ignore It.
“It is easier to avoid the effects of others’ negativity when we question if an action or attitude is appropriately directed at us. If it isn’t, we can choose to sidestep it and let it pass.”Sue Patton Theole.

In the same way a parasite requires a host in order to live, an unreasonably negative person often needs someone to recognise, react to and share their negativity with – we have all heard the oft-used expression “misery loves company.” 

Negativity often thrives on attention. Otherwise, what’s the point? When you ignore a negative person, or at least ignore their negativity, you take the wind out of it’s sails, you do not let it (the negativity) grow. You can’t tell them how they should be, but you can decide whether or not to pay attention.

If you’ve got a real negative person in your life casting shade on everyone and everything and complaining non-stop, just remember that you can’t make everyone happy. The negativity wants to drag us down, but by remembering that you can’t make everyone happy, you preserve your own well-being and appropriate positivity.

Have a read of this article too, it’ll help in this regard….
A Neat Self-Hypnosis Process For Changing Incessant Whining Into Effective Complaining.

2. Steer Clear:
“People who try to bring you down every day aren’t important in your life, so you better treat their opinions as such.”Terry Mark.

Have you ever had a friend that just sucks the life out of you? The kind of friend that you have to gather up your strengths to hang out with and leaves you feeling emotionally and physically drained? These kinds of people are referred to as energy vampires or fun vampires, you know the kind of thing.

You need to identify these people and understand if they are temporary takers, just going through a difficult time, or drainers who leave you feeling drained every time you get together.

If you don’t want to feel drained, you might consider avoiding these people, or plan to spend shorter amounts of time around them. The reality is, energy vampires may not want to work on themselves and it’s up to you to decide how you allow others to effect your mood and well-being.

There’s no reason to feel guilty about spending less time around these people. You don’t want to be drained and left feeling tired so walk away from them because you are just looking after yourself.

3. Say No:
“Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions.”Will Smith.

It’s important to know your boundaries and speak up when they are crossed. You wouldn’t let someone come into your home and tear it apart, so why should you let him damage your self-esteem?

Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t rude to say no to someone, and you don’t need to justify the use of the word. If you feel like you aren’t being respected, stand up for yourself and make it known. Have a read of this article to help with this:
The Importance of Being Assertive: Why You’ll Benefit From Being Assertive.

Your time and your well-being are precious, so keep good people around you and protect yourself from the bad. If you find yourself saying no more than yes to a particular friend, consider if they are helping you grow or just holding you back. Or have a good think about what else you can do to either help them, or direct them to help themselves.

4. Take Responsibility:
“Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.”Hans Selye.

Ultimately, you are the only person who decides how you feel. No matter what environment you’re in, you have the choice to stay strong or to let others have power over you.

Once you take responsibility for your emotions, you release yourself from the influence of others. When you feel confident and love yourself, you gain emotional strength and endurance. It insulates you.

Don’t forget to stay appropriately positive in your daily life where possible. It’s okay to let yourself have negative thoughts every once in a while, be realistic and when you do, work through it and learn from it.

5. Enjoy “Me” Time:
It’s important to give yourself time away from everyone so that you can tune into your own thoughts and desires. Whether it’s taking a bath or having a lazy morning in bed, schedule time to find your inner voice.

If you’re in a rough spot, go outside. The fresh air and innocence of the natural world will make you realize that every problem is small in the scale of the universe and that life always goes on.

Soak up the pure energy of the world around you and reconnect with your authentic self.

“No matter how good you are, someone is always going to be against you. But never let them be the limit of your success.”Terry Mark.

Have a read of this article to help you with this point:
Solitude – The Importance of ‘Me Time’ and How It’ll Make You More Successful.

After all, you need to keep in mind that you are responsible for your life experience. Choose situations which boost your positivity and well-being and keep the kind of company that only adds to who you are. Make it for you and make it phenomenal!

6. Use Self-Hypnosis:


Those of you in the UK may remember an advertisement for a breakfast cereal called ‘Ready Brek’ – in the advertisements, if you had eaten your Ready Brek (instant hot oats) then you had a sort of orange glow around you… In the adverts, everyone would be shivering in the bus queue waiting for the bus, but the chap who ate his Ready Brek was glowing and warm with his orange glow… I used to be hypnotised by this idea as a boy!

Why am I mentioning this here?

When I was younger, I used to have a crush on the spectacularly attractive receptionist at my workplace. At that stage in my life, I had never met anyone that good looking – women like her only existed in magazines, on perfume counters at departments stores and on TV at that stage in my life! I used to try and act cool each time I walked in to work, but I often felt I was making a fool of myself!

One day, I went to a party on the 50th floor of Canary Wharf, missed my last train home and had to sleep on my friends floor, I got to work in the same clothes I wore the day before and had slept in… As I walked in the girl on reception, a part-time model and now good friend of mine, said to me “ooh Adam, you look like sh@t today!”

As I strolled into the office, I felt as if an axe had been planted in my heart… I was mortified. My self-esteem was knocked for six! I started avoiding people for the day and fully malfunctioned as a human being that day! She had meant nothing by it, but it had affected me in such a way that I was non-productive in many ways that day.
Crazy stuff, eh? This had not even been a purposely negative person – imagine the impact those people have on us!

Today though… I have ‘Ready Brek Man Mode!’

Yes indeed, things I do not want to take on board and carry around with me, I do not let pass my shield. A shield that I wear psychologically that protects me in the same way as many super-heroes… I recommend you all have one too. I thought I’d round things off today with a self-hypnosis technique for you to use and install your own protective shield.
Just install your protective shield with the simple steps in this session and you’ll feel so good in so many areas of your life. You can protect your state, protect your senses, protect your well-being and be free of old circumstances and situations that used to make you feel that old unwanted feeling.

Step One: Induce Hypnosis:
You can do so by any means you desire or know of. You can use the process in my Science of self-hypnosis book, use the free audio we give away on this website to practice or have a look at the following articles as and when you need them; they are basic processes to help you simply open the door of your mind:

Heavy Arm Self-Hypnosis Induction Method
Using Eye Fixation for Self-Hypnosis
The Chiasson Self-Hypnosis Method
Hand to Face Self-Hypnosis Induction
Using Magnetic Hands for Self-Hypnosis
The Coin Drop Self-Hypnosis Induction

However, with this process, an induction is potentially too much activity, so I teach my clients how to adopt a hypnotic mindset and simply have a mindset that is positive and expectant. Again, to really understand the cognitive set of the hypnotic mindset, go grab a copy of my Science of self-hypnosis book where it is explained in simple but comprehensive terms.

Once you have induced hypnosis, or just adopted the hypnotic mindset, move on to the next step.

Step Two: Relax deeply.
It is not always necessary to use relaxation to engage in self-hypnosis, but this particular process is going to utilise relaxation in a very particular way. 

The aim here is to spread relaxation into various parts of your body. As you get better at doing this, you can start to focus on more specific and smaller parts of the body, something referred to by hypnotherapists and fractionation. Here are some ideas of how to do this:

a) Use your internal dialogue and simply tell yourself that each part of your body is relaxing. For example “my toes are relaxing deeper… and now my ankles… moving into my lower legs…” and so on.

b) As you work your way through your body, you may like to use a colour or light or imagined warming sensation and spread that through the muscles and imagine the colour (ideally one you associate with relaxing) spreading through the muscles as you reach each part of your body.

c) Additional cognitions. Richard Bandler uses the word “soften” as he relaxes parts of the body. He focuses on each muscle and then says “soften” as he works through, you might like to do the same.

d) You may imagine a relaxing sound moving through your body.

e) You may imagine the muscles limp, loose, dormant; maybe like a loose rubber band, or a rag doll, or whatever else you can imagine to indicate the relaxation spreading. i learned a great technique from Terrence Watts who suggested imagining the body as a candle and as the candle softened and got warm and liquid-like, so the muscles of the body got warm and softened and so on.

Ideally, use a combination of these elements. Bask in the relaxation you create, enjoy it and enjoy this time as well spent. You may like to repeat this step a couple of times to make sure you develop the progressive relaxation as much as possible.
Once you have done so, move on to the next step.

Step Three: Deeper relaxation.

Use your internal dialogue and start to count downwards with each breath that you exhale. You might imagine the numbers in your mind, or simply say it with your internal dialogue.

After each number, say the words “relaxing deeper” too. Say it in a highly relaxing tone and manner to yourself, so there is no hint of effort, just gently assume it is happening, counting downwards as you exhale and all the time focus on being deeply relaxed.
Tell yourself and imagine that on each number you count, you are relaxing deeper into profound hypnotic relaxation.

When you reach zero, move on to the next step.

Step Four: The next step is to fix your attention and focus onto a single ongoing and repetitive train of thought. You will use the idea and belief of being highly and deeply relaxed.

You can do this in a number of ways:

a) Continue to say certain words upon each breath you exhale. Such as “deeper” or “more relaxed.” Use whatever word you find to be most relaxing to you.

b) Focus on your breath; you might count your breaths and keep going. Do not alter your breathing, just count each breath as it happens and if you lose track of your counting, simply start from 1 again and see how long you can continue to be aware and keep tuned in before your mind wanders. Do this without challenging yourself, and without effort. Just accept it calmly if you lose count and start again. Enjoy the counting.

You can also simply follow the movement of your breathing, maybe just watching the ribs expand, or the chest rise or noticing the change of temperature in the nostrils as you inhale and exhale and watch your breathing that way instead. Tuning into it and letting it consume your attention and train of thought.

c) Enjoying relaxing sensations. Simply notice somewhere about your body that is relaxed, notice what tells you it is relaxed and then watch those sensations start top spread to other parts as well. Again, bringing your awareness back to it if it wanders.
Whichever of these you use, keep a fixed train of thought for the remaining time you have allotted to this. Keep encouraging your self, keep assuming it is working, being progressive and positive with yourself and engage in a gentle, easy way without ever ‘trying’ or getting anxious or worrying about anything. Simply enjoy it lazily with utmost relaxation of the body and keeping your awareness and focus in place.

Take your time to do this thoroughly, because we’ll need you to be tuned into your body as we proceed with this process.

Step Five: This is the important part… Using your mind and imagination, now let these deep, comfortable and relaxing feelings you’ve created gently and powerfully move out beyond your physical self.

Imagine the feeling radiating out… right out… all around you.. forming a powerful protective shield all around your body and mind, just like an invulnerable second skin…. Sense it and let it spread all around your being. Imagine that you are turning into the man in the ‘ready brek’ adverts!

Again, take all the right time necessary to do this properly and thoroughly. 

Start to think about all the ways this hypnotic shield is going to protect you, perhaps even imagining some aspects of your life where it will serve you well. Be convinced of it and remember it’ll be working for you and protecting you even when you are not thinking about it, then move on to the final step.

Step Six: Exit hypnosis.
If you use the process I recommend on my courses or in my book, follow that, otherwise exit hypnosis counting from one through to 5,  taking a deep, energising breath, wiggling your fingers and toes and opening your eyes.

Now you can ideally practice this process a couple of times, but then go and test what you have done – enjoy being protected from negativity. 

There you have it, a number of ways to help you protect yourself from negativity.

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Have some of themes here resonated with you? Then have a read of these pages:

1. Do you need help or support in a particular area of your life?
Coaching with Adam Eason Or Hypnotherapy with Adam Eason
2. Would you like a satisfying and meaningful career as a hypnotherapist helping others? Are you a hypnotherapist looking for stimulating and career enhancing continued professional development and advanced studies?
Adam Eason’s Anglo European training college.
3. Are you a hypnotherapist looking to fulfil your ambitions or advance your career?
Hypnotherapist Mentoring with Adam Eason.

Likewise, if you’d like to learn more about self-hypnosis, understand the evidence based principles of it from a scientific perspective and learn how to apply it to many areas of your life while having fun and in a safe environment and have the opportunity to test everything you learn, then come and join me for my one day seminar which does all that and more, have a read here: The Science of Self-Hypnosis Seminar. Alternatively, go grab a copy of my Science of self-hypnosis book.