Emotional Vampires and How to deal with them

weekly radish 47

Is there an emotional vampire in your life? 3 things to do

In this week’s video, I talk about how to protect ourselves against those who inevitably drain the positivity out of us. We all encounter (and, go on admit it, have been on occasion) emotional vampires in our lives.  What's an emotional vampire?  It's someone who, for whatever reason, seems set on seeing the negative, promoting it and wallowing in it.  we all do it from time to time and to an extent.  however, emotional vampires are those who have been 'turned' by negativity.  The not only can't seem to see another way of looking at things but seem to want to swell their ranks by sucking you into the same way of seeing things. They want you to share their sense of despair, gloom and misery and are only happy when others are sharing in that misery. Here are three tips to help you mitigate the negative, draining impact upon yourself. So watch today's video and learn how you can protect yourself from emotional vampires.

The Weekly Radish is coming to up to it’s one year birthday! I will be moving onto a new project at that point, so keep an eye out for more information on my ‘Man Sprouts Project’ (check it out at www.mansprouts.com).  More of that in future videos.  For now, watch and learn why a daily mindfulness or meditation practice can be vital to your wellbeing.

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Dave
Dave Algeo,
Stress(ed) Guru Speaker, trainer and 'Men's Burnout+ Coach (coaching from burnout to break-through)
dave@stressedguru.com
Helping you create success with (not at the expense of) wellbeing.

Transcript:

- Do you have to deal with emotional vampires? What do I mean by emotional vampires? Just like our blood-sucking vampire friends, these are people who, rather than sucking blood, suck the very marrow out of your positivity, out of your energy, out of your emotional state, by sometimes even being in the same room as you or engaging in conversation. Now, you may be one of these and I know it sounds like a harsh term. I have been an emotional vampire in my time. I have been somebody who has either been in such a negative place, unable to see any positives, that I have, by my demeanour, by my wording, my body language, my conversation, been so draining and negative that I have sucked the atmosphere out of the room. And I have dragged and drained the positivity out of those around me. And we've all been around people who do that as well. And they can, if we allow them, leave you like a shrivelled husk of negativity, where your positivity has been just completely sucked out of you. So how do we protect ourselves from emotional vampires? Well, here we can learn things from how we protect ourselves from real vampires. I know vampires aren't really real, but we can still learn from them. So, here's my three tips this week and next week I'll give you three more on how to deal with emotional vampires. Number one. Just like real vampires, they need permission. The vampire can not enter a house without permission of somebody inside and it's the same for emotional vampires. By allowing them to engage in this conversation, by allowing them to set the tone, you are allowing and giving them permission to enter your territory. Learn to say no. Learn to step away and say no. It can be difficult. It can be challenging, but what are the consequences if you allow them in? Number two. Remember daylight. Vampires hate daylight. It destroys them. This is where you can arm yourself against the emotional vampire. You can be the sunbeam, the ray of positivity that is like daylight to the emotional vampire. It kills them, it makes them shy away. It burns them, they can't go near you. They have to escape you. Be that positive ray of sunshine whenever you see an emotional vampire around. They won't come near you. Number three. Remember the mirror. For those of you who know your vampire lore, you know that vampires do not have their reflection in the mirror. Now, this can be translated to the emotional vampire. Emotional vampires lack the insight and the self awareness to recognise their negativity, their effect on others, the way that they drain others. They don't have that self-awareness. Even if you were to hold a mirror up in front of them and point it out to them, they won't see it. So, remember, it's not your job to fix them. So, there's your three tips this week for dealing with emotional vampires. Remember, don't give them permission. Don't give them permission to suck the very positivity out of your soul. Two, vampires hate daylight. Be that positive ray of sunshine to protect yourself. And number three, remember, it's not your job to fix the emotional vampire. They lack self-awareness. Even if you hold the mirror up in front of them, they won't see it. So, don't get sucked into trying to fix them. Why don't you make The Daily Sprout part of your wellbeing five-a-day? Sign up at dailysprout.net and never miss another Daily Sprout again.