If or when you feel yourself sinking into a quagmire of negativity, how to you stop yourself or pull yourself out of it?

Sometimes I feel myself getting sucked into the quicksand of negativity, either because I’m watching the news on TV (where everything is bad, or worse, depending upon what network you are watching) or because there are some situations in my life that are sucky that I may not be able to change, or there are certain people around me who seem to have an aura of negativity constantly floating around them.

The only things that seem to help me from getting sucked into the negativity vortex are to mentally step back, and climb up an imagined mountain to look down upon the situation, rather than to walk along side of the situation, as if it were my only companion. From the viewpoint of the imaginary mountain, I can see things a bit more clearly, and to make a conscious choice not to let myself be pulled down into the negative mire. I might not be able to fix or solve any problems, but I can decide not to allow myself to be consumed with negativity.

The other thing I do that helps me, is to make a decided effort to “pay it forward.” This means by doing good/kind/useful things for other people who might need something. I generally don’t pay it forward to the people who are causing the negative cloud to float near me. Those people tend not to give a sh*t. I like/want/need to pay it forward to other people, one’s who are not causing grief, but who might need something, even if it’s something small, to give them some sort of assistance, or relief, of just a little bit of joy.

What do you guys do, to keep from allowing yourself to turn into a negative nellie?