Navigating Negativity

The electric eel, with its unpredictable bursts of energy, offers a perfect metaphor for navigating negativity. Just as the eel’s shock can jolt its surroundings, life’s negative moments can strike suddenly and disrupt our flow. My artwork captures the electric eel’s curious expression and the chaotic elegance of its movements, reminding us that even in moments of disturbance, there is beauty and opportunity.

What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?

Positivity is an interesting one. I think it’s very important to stay positive and ‘always look on the bright side of life’ – Monty Python .

I think it does have its limits tho and can veer into the realms of toxic positivity, that trait where people only look at the bright side, no matter what. I think suppressing your negative feelings can be dangerous and that the balance between positive and negative is a Yin and Yang thing. You can’t have one without the other and both states are natural human behaviours.

One way I’ve learnt to deal with my negative and challenging situations after becoming a boss of a cafe is to look at the challenge or negative situation and try and see what I can learn from it.

Our cafe virtually never has a constant stream of customers, it’s either quiet or overflowing with people. This would cause a lot of strain in the kitchen. So we took this highly stressful situation and decided on a solution. We looked at our menu and changed it to meals that could cope with the high demand and be partly pre-prepared, so we could have them ready to go. This helped massively going forward. It meant we could be pre-preparing meals in our downtime and getting them out quickly when it’s busy. We acknowledged the negative, learnt from it and changed it into a positive. So now I tend to look at negative situations as an opportunity. Rather than just brushing over it with positivity and trying to smile your way out of a bad situation.

So I think my biggest red flag in a personality trait would be someone with unbalanced positive or negative tendencies. I’ve known people that always focus and dwell on the negative and this is really hard to deal with, and you always leave these conversations feeling exhausted and depleted. And on the flip side I’ve known people to only look at the bright side, and that through the power of positive thought alone was going to make life better.

You want to hang out with people who leave you feeling energised and inspired afterwards, people that bring out the best in you. People that encourage you and help you navigate the negativity, not ignore it or dwell on it.