INOCULATE YOURSELF FROM “EMOTIONALLY CONTAGIOUS VIRUSES
As those of us in the United States and around the world are fighting against the highly contagious Coronavirus, we also need to take safety measures to protect ourselves from “emotionally contagious viruses”. From our earliest days of life we have been impacted strongly by the people and circumstances of our environment. We in effect all receive and give emotions by simply living our lives and interacting with others. The power of modeling is so underestimated for the power it has over all of us to various degrees all our lives. Social media has added a whole new dimension to picking up and giving strong emotions to others. We actually learn from observing others how to behave. Like the old adage, WHEN IN ROME DO AS THE ROMANS DO. This can be positive or negative. Anger is an emotion heavily influenced by observing other persons and learning that it can be effective at least in the short run. Expressing love and affection are further examples of what others have modeled and we learned to understand and effectively express. It is evident we tend to be happy and more satisfied when around positive persons as compared to when we are with negative and sad persons. The key to not getting an “emotionally contagious virus” is to be as positive as we can be and stay away from persons who are negative and toxic to our happiness. The more we can be content with who we are will positively impact on our ability to not be impacted negatively by those who are negative and destructive to us emotionally.