How do you turn a negative conversation around ?

I would have done exactly what you did and tried to turn it around to being about her. If that didn't work, I would probably find a reason to excuse myself and try to avoid her the rest of the day.


I really like what Ashley said though!

I have given up on this with my DH stepdad. I just stay away from him now because everything is negative.

You say to her in a friendly tone "Is there anything you like, you seem to be negative about every topic."

With my kids, or DH, if they are just in a negative mood at the moment, I'll just say to them "Hey, did anything GOOD happen to you today?". (Not if they've had something awful happen, of course, but if they're just having a whiny kind of day. I have them too, sometimes.) And that's usually all it takes for them.



But there are some people in my life who I find near impossible to turn around. No matter how many positive things I try to say, they just keep on trucking down the highway of negativity without a rest stop or exit to be found.



Sometimes I think people have vents that no one else has really listened to, and so if you can let them spill their woes first, then they can be brought around to something more positive.

And occasionally, in the right circumstances, you can offer what you might have done or thought in a similar situation and it makes them think a little. But you have to be careful or they may very well just think you are saying that they were wrong or that they handled it badly, which is no help at all.



My friend & I were talking the other day and the last one actually worked out well in our conversation. She explained about things that were bothering her son and what she tried to do to get it to stop, and I offered a similar story about my own son, but I told her that I didn't call anyone, I just gave him a few replies to try out on his own first and that they had worked.

And she liked those ideas and decided to try them out next time. And because she had a new approach in her pocket, she was able to move on to other topics that were more positive.




Mostly, I just try to fish around for a topic about something that interests them, even if I'm not terribly interested, just to try to swing the conversation to the positive side for awhile.

I love Ashley's idea. Thanks for sharing this. I'll use it when it happens to me. 

For someone with negativity as a personality trait, no, there is no way to get a conversation moving in a positive vein.