Are You Wearing Poop Coloured Spectacles?

Do you ever wake up in a terrible mood and it ruins your whole day?
Have you ever felt like someone who doesn’t like you just goes out of their way to criticise everything you do?
Do you ever feel like everything is going wrong and you can never catch a break?

You have probably worn or met someone wearing the poop coloured spectacles.

It is a preoccupation with negativity

Rose coloured glasses refer to the idea that we see through a filter of delusional positivity. Maybe you meet a new romantic interest, and whilst everyone around you is pointing out the red flags, you are too busy focusing on all the good, nice and positive qualities.

Poop coloured spectacles are the opposite. When you’re wearing your poop coloured spectacles, you’re seeing the world through a negative filter. It fades out the positives, the silver linings, the lessons, the good, so all you are left with is the crap.

For example, have you met someone who seems to always have something to complain about? Maybe you go to a restaurant with them and they are eagle eyed, waiting for something to be below their standards. They pick apart the decor, the food, the service, and the price – it is EXHAUSTING but they seem to thrive on their ability to be negative. They live in a perpetual state of wearing their poop coloured spectacles.

We are all guilty of this at times, and often it is an unconscious behaviour or process that we don’t even realise we are doing.

Who does it effect?

YOU – Judging other people

Maybe you wake up in a bad mood. Maybe you don’t achieve a goal you’ve set your mind to. Perhaps you notice someone being more ‘successful’ than you.

When we start comparing ourselves to others, it can be very easy for us to slip on those poop coloured spectacles, and start criticising. All we are doing when we allow ourselves to fall into this pattern, is letting our envious, judgemental, and bitter emotions take over.

Perhaps someone is succeeding in a job role or business opportunity that you’ve been wanting to excel in. That nasty and negative side of ourselves can raise it’s head. Soon, you are ranting to a friend about how ‘they’re not even good at what they do!’ or ‘why do people buy their crap and not my really amazing stuff?’ or ‘why do they get a promotion and I don’t?’

Perhaps you fall out with someone and have a disagreement. Next time you see them on social media, or someone mentions them, no matter how positive, you have to criticise and throw shade. You only want to view them through those poop coloured spectacles. Next thing you know you’re thinking, ‘well yeah, sure they’ve raised £2000 for a cancer charity, but they are a stupid cow!’ or ‘they’re only volunteering at the orphanage to make themselves look good’ or ‘OK that performance they did might have been really popular but it was rubbish because I say so’.

Is this sounding familiar?

We all do this. There is something cathartic about having a bit of a negative rant. Getting it out of your system can be healthy.

The change we need to make is realise that these emotions, whilst natural, are not productive or rational long-term. Why does it matter if someone else is successful? Why does it matter if people like them? Why does it matter what they are doing?

Stay in your lane! Focus on YOU and what you are doing. When we focus on comparing ourselves to others, we are expending precious energy that we could have used elsewhere.

YOU – judging yourself and your life 

Maybe you have a run of ‘bad luck’, and nothing seems to be going your way. Maybe you struggle to see the positives in your life, when everything seems to be going wrong. Perhaps you cannot see your own gifts and blessings, instead constantly striving for higher standards.

If you’re looking at your life through poop coloured spectacles, it can be very easy to miss all the positivity, joy and things to be grateful for.

One thing goes wrong and we decide the whole day is a goner. Our plans don’t pan our how we wanted, so the whole plan was rubbish. We do not succeed in the way we want to, so we have to question all of our past decisions.

When we are looking through our lens of negativity, we stop ourselves from having a more balanced view of the world. Removing your poop coloured spectacles is not about delusional positivity, it is about being realistic.

People love to say ‘I’m not being negative, I’m being realistic!’ However, being realistic does not mean being a nihilist or seeing the ‘truth about a brutal world’. It is seeing the world in light and shade. It is seeing beyond the black and white, and into the grey areas of our existence.

When viewing yourself, your life and your world, where are the areas where you’ve been too black and white? Where could you be kinder to yourself? Where could you see the silver linings, the lessons, or the opportunities for growth?

What to do? 

• Give yourself allotted ‘poop spectacles’ time. Indulge yourself for 5-10 minute. Have a rant, write it in your diary, scribble your thoughts onto paper, give a speech to a friend. Then TAKE OFF THE GLASSES, and move on with your day. Close the diary, burn the paper, end the speech. Preserve your energy for things that truly matter.
• Be conscious of when you have put on your poop coloured spectacles without realising. Learn to recognise your own behaviours, and practice dealing with these.
• Actually rehearse a movement or action that helps you physically cement ‘taking off your spectacles’. Either through miming or taking off a real pair of glasses. Physically going through this motion can make it feel more real, and help you to manage your emotions more easily.
• Understand that life is full of grey areas. Just because you don’t like someone, doesn’t mean they don’t have positive traits. Just because something bad happens, doesn’t mean your whole plan has gone to waste.

Who else does it effect?

EVERYONE ELSE!

Have you ever met someone who just doesn’t like you? No matter what you do you can’t seem to build rapport, and there is something about you that just p*sses them off?

These people are looking at you through their poop spectacles. Maybe you did something that initially made them dislike you, or you had a disagreement. For these people nothing you do will ever be good enough. You could save them from a burning building and they would complain you ripped their t-shirt as you dragged them out. Every time you talk or interact, they will be seeking more reasons to confirm their dislike of you.

When you have someone like this – whether you are working with them, have a mutual friend, or are otherwise obligated to be around them – the worst thing you can do is indulge them. You don’t need to argue with them, or prove your worth, or make them like you. You will never convince them to tolerate you until they decide to take off their shit coloured lenses (and they may never do that!).

So, what can you do? Forgive them for being this way. Don’t allow it to drain that precious energy we’ve talked about. Don’t engage with them if they are trying to rile you: remember, they are actively LOOKING for reasons to continue disliking you.

You can only focus on YOU and what you can do. We cannot force other people to change. We cannot make people understand us or our point of view. We need to accept that this is a part of life, and to continue in peace and joy, that accepting and letting go of our need to control others is a part of that.

What one change are you going to make to view the world more positively and challenge your shit spectacles behaviours? 

Let me know in the comments below!