We know how sometimes people from your own family can be the one person who always bring you down. You may be a charmer to the world but when you are faced with this person you are a weakling, you can’t function well, you end up actually making things worse than it is. If you have someone in you own family who is a negative influence on you than this article is for you. Its easy for so many to say ignore them, it’s your life, you don’t have to do it and similar black and white advice. But I know sometimes families are not so easy to deal with. We get emotional and sometimes we might be manipulated through those emotion. So if you are in this situation what shall you do then?
I have 7 steps to achieve it. I believe it actually is the sequence you ought to follow if this is the first time you are trying to heal it. I also think that sometimes it is the number 5 that is the best advice.
The steps to cope with toxic people in your family.
1. Understand: This basic thing that people are not their behavior they are their needs. Everything that a person does is to meet some basic needs. Try to see things from their perspective, even though it is hard as hell. Ask yourself this question for clarity – “What are they trying to achieve by this negative behavior?” “What need are they trying to achieve?”. I’ve posted a video about this in YouTube check it out here: Why your actions does not define you .- Road to Awesomeness (S02E01)https://youtu.be/h0eePX8au98)
2.Talk it out: If you want to find the need try asking them about that needs in other context : never touch the hot topic as mentioning it will take them to their flight or fight response, you will not have access to their frontal cortex the developed part of their brain that might understand your point of view. So always talk with them without talking about the main agenda. May be you can use an example from the society and ask their point of view or ask their suggestion for such situations but never point fingers towards them.
3.Just don’t expect them to change: It’s counter intuitive after all wasn’t that the main theme for this post? Yes and No. Yes as it deals with how to deal with it and No because it never said how it will change people.
4.Love: That’s the piece that’s missing actually something called un-conditional love. Isn’t it just plain selfish that someone in your family have to act in a certain way for you to love them? Isn’t it just too strict a rule to be happy? If you have so many things dependent upon others you’ll never be truly fulfilled. And that too to a toxic person. So why not try to love them as they are? The main point being the trying part. Why not give it a shot?
5.A temporary fix: But sometimes it too damn difficult for us to love them, heck it so hard even to face them, they are too negative. Facing or even talking to them in a phone has a negative effect upon us. When the toxicity of that person is too much for you, to much for you to even function properly then the only way is to strategically arrange your life that you’d have to be less in their presence. What if it’s your own family member …. that’s why i said temporary…. go to your friends for a month or may be shift to a different town or get a job in a new place.
6.Remove it from the Root: But remember if you don’t go to the roots it will rise again no matter how much you ignore. It is something deep rooted, it is rooted in your emotional being, it is sometimes the issue of self-esteem. Go to the bottom of the pit. Mind you when you start you might feel this pit is bottom-less but let me assure you that is not true it has a starting point if you have the courage to go through your emotions. Like Gary Vee says “Every negative voice in your life is from the outside”. So this also has a root and most often in your childhood experience and sometimes in the environment you grew up in.
7.When to start again then?: So you decided and took step 5 and 6. You distanced yourself and did self-analysis, now when do you start the actual healing? I think after these steps, once you think/feel you can take on their negative energy, when you feel you have yourself healed such that the person will not charge you again emotionally then and then only you go back and start at step 1. Understanding the needs they are trying to achieve, talking about it in different context, not expecting them to change but loving them as they are…..
These are things you can do and if you do it enough times….. they will and mind you, you cannot get it out of them…. they will give you a gift called “changed behavior”.
Thus you both live happily ever after.
[The last line inspired by Ester Hicks “You life if you own fairy tale.”]
Till next time this is Your Awesomeness Coach Ojesh, I love you and remember “YOU ARE AWESOME!”
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Your Journey to AWESOMENESS task for today: If you are in such toxic relationship I want you to share in the comment, without naming people, why do you think they might be toxic. As a coach I am asking you to start at number 1. Looking forward to your comments.