Are negative thoughts contagious?

Hello Tom! I have a simple question. I practise to keep the thought of love, joy and euphoria in my mind. I succeeded in a certain way. When a feeling or a mood of hatred, jealousy and anger arised in my head I thought of the exact opposite, for a thought of love destroys anger, timidity is destroyed by a thought of courage and so on. This is working great. When I'm alone I always feel very good. I'm never depressed.

But when I mix with other people, I get 'infected' by their mood or thoughts. Is it possible that negative thoughts are contagious?

And if this is so, should we keep in touch with these people, even if we LOVE them very much? I love my girlfriend. I like to be together with her. But I always get very depressed. I loose control. This occured several times. First I thought it to be a coincidence. Then I realized that she is 'submitting' me to her negative mood. She admitted that she is not feeling well at the moment.

My problem is that I felt very bad. I felt deep grief, malice and anger. I thought about killing myself and about hurting myself and I hated everything around me. It was not a pleasureable feeling. My question is:

Everytime I left her and got distance to her house I felt much better. It was like leaving a gloomy gap. Should I allow myself to feel these obnoxious mood? Or should I avoid her, leave her alone when my mind gets vitiated?

It is brought to my attention, how imperfect I am and how much I have to learn. This is the only positive about it.

Motz

The greatest challenge for our feelings always comes from the interaction with people to whom we are emotionally attached. It is not a coincidence. Let me explain.

When you examine yourSelf, you will find that you have a fundamental conscious need to be ACCEPTED and UNDERSTOOD. Everyone conscious, from plants and bacteria to human beings have this need. It is the essence of Conscious Existence.

Note, that when this basic need is NOT satisfied - it is almost impossible to experience Higher feelings such as Love. We may even say that acceptance and some degree of understanding are actually the NECESSARY CONDITIONS not only for Love to exist, but even to "feel good".

When we are alone, we CAN accept and understand ourSelves. We CAN accept and understand others. We also feel accepted and understood by Nature and the Universe. Therefore we CAN attain sincere feelings of Love in the absence of the feedback from others.

Now imagine that the "foundation" of acceptance and understanding is completely missing. Imagine that other people demonstrate that they NOT accept you, your thoughts and your ideas - they are not even interested. They "have eyes" but they DO NOT even WANT to SEE who you really are. All they are concerned with is "appearances". They want to SEE you smile, but they are not interested to become aware of what THOUGHTS make you happy.

It is difficult to "feel good" isn't it?

Of course, we expect acceptance and understanding from people to whom we are close emotionally. Isn't it natural? When THEY do not accept us, when they do not understand us, when they do not even want to see who we really are - we feel deeply dissappointed and even upset. Our "foundation" for "feeling good" is absent. It is very easy to lose control and leave the annoying company. I used to do it all the time.

Now I try to see them as babies. Can you blame a baby that it hasn't yet learned to walk? All we can do is to SHOW babies how we walk ourselves and offer our assistance when and if they CHOOSE to learn to walk. Of course, it IS still dissappointing if a baby CHOOSES not to try...

The only solution I see at the moment is to keep walking...

Tom