Are NegaTalkers spinning your head, messing with your mind and stealing your peace of mind while sending you on a gut-wrenching guilt trip? Sh-Boom! NegaTalkers are terribly good at amplifying your negative thoughts, and turning down the volume of your positive thoughts…if you agree. You don’t have to be negative…you choose to be. Don’t you agree?
The most negative live word grenade that any person or partner can maddeningly and condemningly hand you with the pin pulled out is: “WHY do YOU ALWAYS have to be SO-O NEGATIVE?” Now there’s some ultra-positive talking that will boost your spirits to the high heavens, eh? So, what on earth are you supposed to say back to a “negatalker” when talking back may lead straight away into “circular talks” that spin your head and mess with your mind and serenity?’ How can you pull out the nails that a “negatalker” is trying to drill into you that get your back up and stick your back up against a wall?
Now it’s true that “guilters” are “self-esteem thiefs” who feel good when they are able to make you feel bad. To be sure…some pretty slick and sick stuff. If you’re like me, when a mega-sized “nega-talker” hands you a live grenade you naively may try to “talk about IT” in a mature way…Ka-boom! Or you may try to be logical and sensible and try to “talk IT out…Ka-blammy! Or you may be turn the other cheek like every Christian has been sermonized to do…Ka-whammy! The ulterior motive of negative talking is that you are invited to carry guilt luggage that doesn’t belong to you. Sadly, if you’re “ a nice boy or girl”…you just might comply and take the hit on your chin with a grin…Ka-blooey!
So what can you publicly say in spoken words, cards, phone or e-mail that work to pull out the sharp nails and glass shards that a “negatalker” is trying to drill into you and take your life? SO let’s stop “negatalkers”—all of those guileless and ruthless “guilters” A.K.A. “self-esteem thiefs”…who attempt to make you feel like slimy soap scum on a glass shower wall from keeping you down.
In the accompanying article, “Why Do You Always Have To Be So Negative?” I will help you drive safely through an obstacle course of negativity, so you can better handle NegaTalkers…and the most energetic and perfectionistic negative talker of them all… named YOU.
SO get a smile on when you try out my bunch of sassy, sarcastic, truthful comebacks to the negative talk transaction: “Why do YOU ALWAYS have to be SO NEGATIVE?” (This is how to effectively respond to the negative talks (-T) mode in miscommunication).
After all, there are many pithy “PosiTalks!” one-liners to definitely use when you want to “talk back” and stop criticizing yourself unmercifully by using a “directive question” to defend yourself.
Use “PosiTalks!” to defend yourself from being harmed by obsessively negative self-talk that creates a worry avalanche…one that simultaneously buries you under a ton of guilt.
Dr. Dennis O’Grady is a communications psychologist and relationship coach from Dayton, Ohio, and the author of “TALK TO ME: Communication moves to get along with anyone.” Dennis is using his new theory of communicator types and communicator modes to bring these “CommTools” alive to you and yours to improve your communication skills and strategies.