Surrounded by Obnoxious People? You Can Change That Completely

If you are exposed on a regular basis to obnoxious, loud, stupid and self-centered people, you have but one good choice.

Love them.

"But how on earth can I do that?" you say.

In reality, that is the only way out. And stop calling them negative, obnoxious, self-centered and stupid!

Stop the cycle

We ourselves become obnoxious and rude when we treat them badly. We then act equally ignorantly. Someone needs to stop the cycle. It needs to be me.

We should realize that these folks are just uninformed and uneducated in the area of human relationships. They are temporary prisoners of their own selves, unaware of their own need to give love and receive love. We can't get angry at them for what they don't know, can we? That doesn't make good sense.

Consider them kindergarteners

"So smile, radiate love and understanding," I said to myself. "I will consider them kindergarteners. Adult kindergarteners. I don't criticize children for being in kindergarten, do I?" I continued talking to myself. "I will love them, and they will learn by love."

Re-Picture your Person and Change Your Own Feelings

Taylor McKinney related an experience he had in a group he was working with. "This one guy, call him Tom, always seemed to be on edge. He was quick to get hot about almost any issue, and he expressed himself loudly. No one even wanted to be around him. He had been a bodyguard for celebrities."

The bodyguard's good qualities

We suggested to Taylor that he could "re-picture" his ideas about Tom and change his own attitude by doing that. By re-picturing his friend, Taylor was able to place a new picture in his mind.

A positive spin

This picture placed a positive spin on who Tom was. Taylor started thinking about Tom's good qualities and decided to think of his friend as being protective, strong, and alert to possible threats, which protected them all. This is the process of re-picturing. You draw a new picture of the person in your own mind.

Re-picturing turned things completely around

"Tom, I appreciate you for your strength," Taylor said to him one day. "You are a strong guy, and someone people can depend on." Tom received this compliment and began being more friendly to Taylor. From this small positive interaction, a stronger friendship began to build. Taylor stopped being annoyed by Tom, for starters.

A new picture made a new person

Tom was less aggressive and angry in his communication with Taylor. This positive re-picturing turned things completely around. Taylor changed his thinking. That changed his communication. His communication changed Tom.

We attract to us what we are thinking about

The belief that "what we think about is what we attract" proved to be the turning point. When Taylor stopped thinking how obnoxious Tom was, Tom stopped being obnoxious to Taylor. This is a basic law of life.

We control our circumstances by the way we think about them.

"When we change the way we think," says Rhonda Byrne, television producer and author of The Secret, "we actually change our lives." This fact of life has been a secret to billions of people in the history of humankind. However, with the advent of mass communication, millions are now hearing the truth.

Make your truth a positive truth

The truth sets us free, the sages tell us. We free ourselves to experience positive things like love and gratitude and appreciation when we think thoughts of love and gratitude.

We free ourselves from the negative thinking of criticism, irritation, and frustration. We control our own lives. When we thought negatively, we were irritated, frustrated, and disturbed. We didn't like ourselves and it was hard for other people to like us when we were in that state.

Giving love brings love to us

We ourselves need to remember that we are enriched by our own giving of love. To allow ourselves to dislike these rude and obnoxious people is to diminish ourselves. We cannot do that. We must give love. We can be understanding and we can re-picture how we see people we used to think were obnoxious.

You need to be loving to be happy.

To be happy, we must give love to everyone. When we give love, we automatically get love. Instantly. We feel it in our own spirits. Let yourself feel the benefits of changing to sweet thoughts, and let the irritable ones evaporate.

We must go on up to the next level of love. That obnoxious person will help you get there.