Question asked by dwega
Hello, my question is whenever my friends relatives etc talk to me on phone like text message me why do i always feel negative. For example whenever i finish talking to them and when i am alone thinking about them i feel a sense of negativity like as if they all have bad intentions for me and wish bad for me. My intuition tells me none of them really care for me and they all wish bad to happen to me . Why i always feel this i am not genuinely connected to them anymore like how i was when i was young or till my early 20s. i feel like everyone has an agenda why they talk to me and none have good thoughts for me they wish bad thing happen to me.. i pray everyday but its not helping me ged rid of these thoughts..i just wanna know why im feeling this. Am i a bad person or am i actually sensing and catching their bad energy ?
Dear Dwega,
Thank you for your question. I am sorry to read that you are feeling like this. There can be many reasons why you are feeling like this, but in most cases these experiences are because you seem to have lost that connection you had with them. This can be due to physical distance, but it can also be due to emotional distance.
You can overcome this by doing a few things:
(i) Meditate on gratitude: this makes us actually understand and cherish the experiences we have been through with people in our lives. You can find a short article on the topic here: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/gratitude-makes-us-happier.html When we develop gratitude towards people, we actually become happier. What you are feeling now is not gratitude of what your relationships used to be like, but nostalgia about how you remember what your relationships were like. Hence that makes you sad. When reality does not match what you think your relationships should be like, you begin thinking that things are not right any more and that can lead to think that people are being negative towards you. That leads me on to the next point:
(ii) Meditate on impermanence: when we think about relationships we think about them in a static manner. So, when reality does not match our expectations, this causes us pain. When you meditate on impermanence, you realise that situations and people change. When you realise that, you can move past your current emotion state and work on your relationships. It won’t make the relationships the same as they were, because that was in the past. But it will make the relationships healthy again. We must remember that people change, and we change too.
You are not a bad person at all, everyone goes through these feelings sometime in their lives. It’s just that for some people it is stronger feelings than others.
Daily practice of the Guru Yoga of Lama Tsongkhapa can help ease this emotional suffering, which you can find here: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/me/tsongkapas-daily-practice-video-commentary.html
If you are worried that you are catching their negative energy as well, you can engage in the practice of Dorje Shugden, available here: https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/beginners-introduction-to-dorje-shugden.html You can read the commentary to the prayers at the bottom of the article. This practice is also extremely beneficial in aiding to remove obstacles in our lives on a general basis as well. So you can even practice it for that purpose too.
I hope this answers your questions.