1. Don’t take anything personally.
If someone says something mean to you, it is because they are hurting inside and don’t know how to ask for love.
Now, if a person is being mean, I listen to them, look at them with compassion, and choose not to retaliate. This typically helps defuse that person’s pain.
2. Replace negative thoughts with positive action.
As a child I often had negative thoughts about myself and others, which would cause me to feel bad.
Many of my thoughts centered on the fact that I didn’t feel good enough. These thoughts caused me a lot fear and anger, and stopped me from doing things that I felt would bring me joy.
One thing that has helped me overcome this is telling myself, “I love being me,” and following through with the things that I feel guided to do.
For example, I received strong intuitive messages to go to college to become a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Doing this was enriching and life changing for me. I also met the love of my life, my wife, at TCM college.
When you start thinking negative thoughts about yourself or others, tune in to your intuition about what would bring you fulfillment. When you devote your energy to things that bring you joy and satisfaction in life, there’s less energy to devote to negativity.
3. Love yourself unconditionally. Because if you don’t, who will?
Every day I reinforce how much I love myself. Why? Because it feels good, and who doesn’t like to feel good?
One simple way I do this is by telling myself, in my head, with a smile on my face, “I love myself unconditionally.” Then I sit in the feeling of love that arises.
Another thing I will do is ask myself the question, “What can I do today to deepen my self-love?”
My intuition will give me a response in the form of a feeling, thought, or image. For example, I may get a thought or an image of something to do, such as spend time in nature or with a friend.
4. Lastly, forgive.
If you don’t, you’re letting your past control and poison you, and you’re the one who ends up feeling bad.
I felt so bad in my adolescence as a result of having negative feelings toward people that I never want to feel that way again. The more anger I would feel toward someone, the more my life felt miserable and chaotic.
To forgive people, I needed to surrender to the things that had caused me stress. They were in the past, and they were only still bothering me because I was letting them.
As a result of letting them stress me out, similar issues would arise in other relationships until I acknowledged that I had to do something about it.
The way I see it now is, if I had rotting garbage in my home, I would not keep it because it stinks and it’s not good for my health. So why would I hold onto negative feelings that are causing me problems?
In order to let go and forgive, I first got into a calm mindset. I did this by focusing my attention on my breath, which brought me into the present moment.
Next, I thought about the person and said in my head, “I forgive (person’s name) for hurting me, and I release any anger and pain I feel about (person’s name). I send (person’s name) unconditional love.”
Doing this simple exercise helped me clear so much negativity from my life that I felt like a whole different person.
You may have to do this many times before you feel comfortable with it. It can take a while to fully surrender because we often hold a false sense that these negative feelings are serving us.
It helps to remember the first lesson—don’t take anything personally. The person who hurt you was also hurting. It doesn’t condone what they did, but it does make it easier to forgive.