It’s hard to avoid toxic people sometimes. They sometimes appear like something else, and they’re sometimes inextricably bound up with our work or family lives.
However, there are smart practical steps you can take to preserve yourself from this sort of damage.
Let’s take a closer look at how to effectively and definitively remove toxic people from your life.
Firstly, and most importantly, moving past toxic relationships requires true acceptance of the fact that you can’t force toxic people to change.
They may imply that they can change, or you may yearn to be the one who can help them become better, but this is almost always a hopeless project.
Toxic people are not motivated by what’s good for them or for their relationship with you. They’re motivated by their own complex problems and needs.
When you give up the desire to change them, it’s much easier to let them go.
Manipulative and toxic people drain your resources by constantly pushing you to work harder to please them, making you compromise more and more. This is exhausting and transgresses all acceptable relationship boundaries.
Give some serious thought to what you will tolerate and what you won’t from partners, family members, colleagues, and friends.
When you get a sense that something’s not right in your interactions with someone, run through your mental boundary checklist and enforce these boundaries deliberately and rigidly.
Toxic people often make it seem like they “need you” because they’re always in crisis. But the important thing to know is that these are crises of their own making.
Toxic people create drama deliberately in order to attract more attention and engage in manipulation, so remember this the next time you’re asked to run to their side. You might feel bad, but remember that you’re not dealing with a genuine person in distress.
Toxic people give you a lot to be sad and angry about but if you focus on this, you’ll stay miserable and frustrated, even if you’re excising such a person from your social circle.
Instead, turn your attention to the fact you’re clearing up a psychological and emotional mess in your life. If you spend much of your time ruminating on (and trying to understand) a toxic person’s negative behavior, they’ll suck away all your resources even when they’re no longer in your life.
When you’re in a toxic relationship of any kind, you’ll notice that the other person tends to exploit your flaws and find ways to use them against you. However, you can dramatically reduce the likelihood of this happening by simply getting to know yourself and learning to accept your weaknesses.
Balance them against your strengths, believe that you are a good person, and commit to self-improvement. That way, it’ll be old news if a toxic person tries to highlight your perceived flaws, and you won’t be easily manipulated by such a tactic.
Part of removing toxic people from your life involves reducing their power over your emotions and that requires recognizing that they’re not really seeing you when they’re hurting you.
In truth, they’re projecting onto you the parts of themselves they don’t want to acknowledge or accept so that they can pour all their suppressed self-hatred into attacking you. See their cruel behavior for what it is: a way of avoiding the truth about themselves.
Toxic people often throw tantrums when they feel ignored. This is usually because you’re stopping them from being able to control or manipulate you. They may increase their previous tactics tenfold, but eventually, they will back off and look elsewhere to meet their needs.
Don’t give in when their behavior escalates, and instead remind yourself that you’re teaching these people that their old behaviors will no longer work.
On a related note, make sure you choose your battles wisely. Conflict with toxic people requires huge amounts of energy and time. Just remember you don’t need to engage in every fight that they might try to instigate. Instead, save that energy for looking after yourself, and for nourishing relationships that are genuinely healthy.
Finally, removing toxic people from your life can be deeply painful, as you may deeply care for some of these people in spite of how difficult it is to have them in your life.
To maintain your resilience and cope with any sadness, stay in close contact with those who make you feel safe, cherished, and happy. These are the people who will model healthy friendships and relationships, reminding you exactly why you are choosing to sever toxic ones.
“Have you ever been overwhelmed or weighed down by a negative comment from a friend? This feeling can be triggered by a thought, another person, an event, or anything that triggers a negative association. This is the stimulus. Realize the problem is inside you, not in the other person.”
Get your free copy of our ‘Clearing Negativity From Your Life' ebook and discover how to cut the negative energy cord in your life.
Learn how to identify and clear any limiting beliefs that you have which could be holding you back from living a positive life.
