In response to my post/video Can The Negative Thoughts of Others Influence Us?, Christine asked the following question in the comments:

I loved the subject question, and the metaphor will be a great help in order for this LOA lesson to stick! I do have my own question or subject that I would love your input on. It’s sort of a twist on this issue of siblings pulling you into their sewer pit. The recurring problem in my family is the triangle that three sisters can accumulate. Of course one sister (Who’s the oldest and has more of life’s “baggage”) can be the one to constantly swim in her own sewer but it seems to be worse when she’s around us sisters. I’ve seen her with her other girlfriends and she has a different personality…or vibration as you would say. So, I know it is for me to not choose to move into her pit of negative but she definitely gets to my second sister who then calls me to complain about how down she is after sending some time with that pity party. I’m in the middle struggling with my own vibrations and now I need to support this other sister! OK, so this is easy to avoid in friendship relationships but I’m talking about siblings here. We live really close together caring for an aging parent so we have contact with each other at a minimum of twice a week. We have many conversations about how this sister does not see how much she is always exaggerating the truth and putting a negative twist to everything in her life but avoiding her is not an option and telling her to change her pooh-pooh attitude is not what siblings who love each other do. Believe me I tried that once and we didn’t talk to each other for three years. We have been taught to be accepting of all family members…and there are brothers too in this story but they are able to disregard her and change the conversation. I believe everyone lives in their own soap opera but why do some people like to dramatize themselves and always about themselves?!

Quick recap of the sewage metaphor:

In case you didn’t read the article or watch the video, let me quickly recap the metaphor that Christine is referring to: I compared the negative vibrations that someone is stuck in when they’re complaining or in a bad mood to being stuck in a pit full of stinky sewage. People in this situation tend to try and call others in, in the hopes that sharing their misery will make them feel better. It won’t. The point was that no one can force you into their pit of sewage and put you in a bad mood. All they can do is call you in, but you have to jump. It’s your decision whether or not you allow their vibration to affect to you.

Why we tend to act differently with our family

Christine mentioned that her sister acts differently with her friends than she does with her family. First of all, we only change our personalities to suit the situation when we’re not living authentically. We develop all kinds of masks, hoping to protect ourselves from ridicule or humiliation. The fear is that if people knew who we really were, with all of our vulnerabilities, they’d reject us, hurt us or leave us. The opposite, in fact, is true. Once we become truly authentic, it becomes harder and harder to actually hurt us, and we attract more and more acceptance and love into our lives. The key is that once we truly accept ourselves, others can finally truly accept us, as well.

Our family has the special power to elicit the worst version of us. The problem is that a lot of our “family masks” were developed in childhood or in our teenage years. And if these beliefs and issues were never healed, if they haven’t progressed from that point, we can actually turn into a 16-year old when we meet up with our siblings. We react from the exact same place of insecurity as we did when the beliefs were formed.

Your sister’s behavior says more about you than her

And yet, I’m still not going to let Christine off the hook. She can’t control her sister’s behavior or heal her issues. And that’s not her job. Whatever problems Christine’s sister has, they are actually irrelevant to what Christine experiences when she meets up with her. Because Christine will always elicit the version of her sister that matches her own vibration. The Law of Attraction can’t bring them together any other way.

So, even though it seems like the issues are her sister’s, whatever Christine is experiencing is actually a mirror of what’s going on in her own vibration. This wouldn’t be an issue if her sister’s behavior didn’t bother her. People will mirror your helpful and positive vibrations back to you, as well. In this case, however, Christine is experiencing negative emotion around her sister.

Now, this is the hard and annoying bit:

Instead of blaming the sister for causing her negative response, Christine needs to look at herself and figure out what beliefs of her own are being triggered. Yes, I know this is annoying. Why can’t we just ever blame other people? Why does it always have to come back to us? Well, because that’s just not how it works. We can blame others all we want, but that’s not going to change anything. If we want things to change, we have to take control of the only thing we can: our own vibration.

Perhaps Christine holds the belief that she is actually doing more than her fair share of caring for her parent, and feels resentful of her sister. Perhaps she has an underlying belief that she never got as much attention as her siblings. Remember that these beliefs were often formed in childhood and do not need to be rational or logical.  So, while feeling starved for attention might not make any sense to the adult you, the child in you may well feel that way. This would be quite common in a household with many siblings…

Whatever the belief is, the clue is in how Christine feels around her sisters. Whatever emotion comes up around them will match the same emotion of the underlying belief that’s being triggered. If she can figure out what old beliefs are being triggered and release them, her sisters’ behavior will no longer affect her, and she will then begin to elicit a different version of her family.

Don’t tell people to “stop being so negative”

As Christine pointed out, simply telling her sister to change her negative attitude, wasn’t exactly received well. This makes perfect sense.

When you’re vibrating at a higher frequency (you’re feeling good), and you come along with someone at a lower frequency (they’re feeling bad), the discord between these two vibrations is going to make you both somewhat uncomfortable. Generally, the person with the lower frequency will feel the discord the most. Simply telling someone to cheer up, is like looking at them in their pit of sewage, with nothing to hold on to and no way to climb out and telling them to “Just get out of there. Look at me! I’m clean and dry! Be like me! What are you even doing in there?” It’s not only not helpful, it’s incredibly annoying.

Having that conversation is trying to change someone’s vibration through brute force action. It’s the hard way to go about it.

Line up the energy first

But there’s an easier way: If you take the time to align your energy with what you want, you can begin to elicit a different version from the “Negative Nelly”. You can throw them a rope, so to speak, and actually help them climb out of the sewage pit. Keep in mind that just as no one can pull you into their pit, you cannot pull anyone out. You can call them out, you can assist them, but they’re the ones that actually have to do the work. They have to make the decision to think different thoughts.

But again, it’s not your responsibility to help them out of their pit. If, as a result of your efforts, the other person actually becomes more positive, well, YAY. But your work is in changing your own vibration so that you’ll eventually meet up with a different version of them.

Note: normally, if a person is too negative for you, when the vibrational discord is too great, there’s a good chance that they will simply gravitate out of your existence altogether. If there is no higher vibrational version of them for you to meet up with, the Universe will simply not match you up at all. This is very rarely the case with families, however. I’ve found that we seem to have special agreements with our relatives. They can push our buttons like no one else (they are excellent mirrors for our vibrations), and are awesome catalysts for our growth. As such, they tend to stick around to continue to help us grow. So, while you may lose negative friends and other people in your life when you raise your vibration, it’s rare that your relationships with your family completely break down when you do this. In fact, the opposite is often true. Remember, you are there to be a catalyst for them, too.

Practice your vibration when you’re not together

The best thing that Christine can do, is to spend some time focusing on her family in a positive way, when she’s nowhere near them. So, she may be sitting at home, alone, and she could take out a piece of paper and list all the things she loves about her sister. This exercise may sound simple, but it can be very powerful.

When we focus only on the aspects of someone that we like, and we choose to only give our energy to those parts of them that feel good to us, we actually raise our vibration on that subject. This will do a couple of things:

1. By practicing looking at our family in a way that feels good, we have a much easier time holding that vibration when we’re with them. This means that even if they start to complain, we don’t feel nearly as irritated. We can see what they’re doing from a different perspective and it no longer affects us. Just because someone is bitching and complaining, doesn’t mean that it has to change the way we feel in that moment.
2. We will begin to elicit more and more of those positive traits from them when we meet up with them, and less and less of their negative traits. You get what you focus on. So, if we spend a lot of time complaining about someone, and listing what we don’t like about them, that’s the version of them we’ll meet up with every time. It works both ways.

Why some people love the drama

Finally, Christine asked why some people love to dramatize everything and make it all about themselves. Essentially, when someone does this, they’re coming from a place of insecurity. Whenever someone puts themselves into the place of the victim, what they’re saying is: “Acknowledge me. Tell me that I’m good enough. Tell me that my contribution matters. Because I’m afraid that it doesn’t.” Again, no one triggers our insecurities quite like our family.

Insecurity is often formed in childhood. There are competitions for attention, for worthiness, for approval, for stuff, etc. The irony is that generally, every single sibling feels that they somehow drew the short straw. No one sees themselves as the favorite. It was always the other child. So, every kid grows up feeling insecure in some way.

The key is to get past that insecurity and realize that we’re still reacting as though we were children. Even confident executives will crumble in the face of their family. It all comes down to where you last left the vibration of a subject. Trigger that subject, and you’ll revert to and react from that place. Shift the energy of that subject and the next time, you’ll react as an adult.

If someone in your family loves to play the drama queen, the best advice I can give you is this: Don’t see them as a victim (don’t give any energy to that paradigm). Hold a vision of them as strong and capable in your mind, even if they can’t. Be compassionate with them. If you find yourself getting irritated, you’re most likely competing for attention yourself. And if they’re ready, gently coach them through the process of shifting their energy. Remember that it’s not your job to change them. It’s your job to shift your own vibration until their behavior no longer bothers you. You can assist them if you like, but only once you’ve achieved a high vibration yourself.

If you have a question you’d like me to answer, just ask me in the comments, or contact me directly.