Negativity is like a drug in itself, except it's infectious as well as addictive. The more you come into contact with it the more it becomes entrenched into your personality without you realizing it. The bright and cheery person you used to be can become a distant memory and true happiness can seem to be unachievable ever again. It is because the more negativity you have the more you get because it is like a magnet. It attracts more to itself, like a self-perpetuating energy.

But, the good news is that negativity is only able to exist if you give it your attention. If you don't feed it and give it strength by succumbing to the effects, it can get nothing from you and it goes away. In our books we explain how you may achieve this.

We will give you a few examples of some basic ways and situations of how negativity works, apart from the obvious things like trauma in your life: death, accidents, illness, marital problems etc.; the list is endless here too.

*You may be in touch with friends who carry a lot of negativity around with them. They may talk to you of their troubles and worries every time you meet them, and being a good friend you listen and try to be sympathetic and helpful. You may have been feeling full of the joys of spring when you started the conversation, but by the time you have finished, you feel totally drained of energy and washed out.

*This can even happen over the phone. You don't necessarily have to be in their immediate company.

*A similar situation can be that you are around people who are always being negative toward someone else, gossiping. Maybe it is your work colleagues who are always moaning about the job they do.

*Possibly, one member of a family who is always moody and negative causes an atmosphere, and in this situation it can spread to the whole family becoming affected, with arguments breaking out and general disharmony.

*This is how it can be that whole neighborhoods can become anarchistic, even towns, cities and countries. It spreads like a drug.

*You may find similar feelings of depletion and unease when you go to certain places. You may pick up the negativity that is in an area or in a particular building where things have occurred in the past.

*Going over negative situations in your past is a classic way of perpetuating negativity's hold upon you. Even discussing these times in your past, in what you may think is just conversation can attract and create a negative vibration around you, which leaves you vulnerable and sets off a chain reaction for more. Constantly thinking of these times and dwelling upon them and how you felt then, is very detrimental to your well-being.

All of these things are every day events that are just a way of life but nevertheless, you can see how easily it is to come into contact with negativity on a daily basis. We create the perfect environment for negativity to thrive without realizing it.

Negativity causes dis-ease. And we may not always be able to change our way of life or where we live to get away from it. It is everywhere and prolific. But we can learn how to stop it in its tracks. We can learn how to control it instead of it controlling us and eventually affecting our health.