Thursday's Therapy - How to Deal with Toxic People ~Robyn Lindsey

Thursday's Therapy

How to Deal with Toxic People

~Empowerment and Grief Coach, Robyn Lindsey

April 4, 2012

How to deal with toxic people

Greetings! My name is Robyn and I am a certified empowerment and grief coach...

I’ve done a lot of work with crazy-makers or emotional vampires. Something I think we all struggle with is the unhealthy people and situations that seem to make their way into our lives.

We all strive to live an empowered life. We all want to soar. Yet there are people who seem to have no function but to sabotage our efforts. How do we deal with these speedbumps? How do we cope?

The first step is to identify these people in your life. I’ve had bosses, co-workers, family members, and friends all be speedbumps in my forward progress. I’ve also had people I barely knew act as a crazy-maker or emotional vampire.

Once you are aware of who they are, it’s time for some boundaries. Working on a new project? Don’t share the details with them. Don’t give them a chance to get you down. Instead, reach out to those who stand by you, who hold you up, who offer support.

If you have to go out to dinner with your Aunt Ruth who tries to break you down, only discuss non personal topics. Make a list of “safe topics” and memorize it. Talk about the weather, a news story, a new baby in the family. Have a wonderful, pleasant meal without the attacks. Do the same with co-workers (though likely tweaking the topics a bit).

I have some satellite family members who like to negate my attempts. They haven’t learned how to think outside the box, so when I do so, they panic and tell me all the ways it’s not possible. I stopped telling them what I was working on. When I wrote my book recently, there were perhaps 3 family members that I told while I was writing. The others? I shared after, and they cheered me on. Had I told them during though, they would have been crazy-makers and thwarted my efforts.

Know your right people. Share your efforts with those who will encourage you and you will soar.

If you are constantly finding yourself in situations that get you down, I’d suggest journaling it out. Why are you in those situations? Are you drawn in (thereby acting as your own crazymaker)? Are you required to be there because of a job? If your job is constantly a toxic environment, I’d suggest you get out if you can. Can you avoid these situations? If you can, do so. If you can’t, be clear with your boundaries and don’t allow others to trample them. Journal. Journal. Journal. I really can’t say that enough.

One last thing… about journaling and crazy-makers. If you journal daily, at least 3 pages, your champions and crazymakers will become apparent. You won’t really have to do much more self-examination to be crystal clear on just who they are.

Know what else? You deserve to soar. You deserve to be cheered on!

~Robyn Lindsey, Empowerment and Grief Coach



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For more on "Emotional Vampires," you may want to check out our post from November 5, 2009:

Thursday’s Therapy - 5 Emotional Vampires and How to Combat Them

Article:

http://meditativearts.ca/2012/04/guest-post-by-empowerment-and-grief-coach-robyn-lindsey/

Wednesday's Woe - What happens when you tell? ~Angie and Tommy Prince

Wednesday's Woe

What happens when you tell?

~Angie and Tommy Prince

What happens when you tell that your child has died? Does telling it get any easier? 

You make yourself vulnerable to the person who could really undo you. Or, you take the risk of making yourself vulnerable, then find you immediately become speechless to say what happened… 

I even find myself steering the questions away from family so that these kind of questions won't come up: 

How many children do you have? 

Or… Do you have any kids? 

Or… Where are your kids these days? 

I was at a party during the first few months of my grief (yes, I was still in shock, or I couldn't even have attended the party) due to a girlfriend of my daughter's being thrown a party by her family before she left to enter the marines. Someone I hardly knew asked, "How old are your kids?" I was not prepared for this question, so instinctively, I just immediately rattled off, "19, 21, and 23." Then she asked, "Where are they all now?" I had to think and rethink very quickly as I didn't want to say "Two in college, one in Heaven," to shock the poor woman to death at a festive party, so I just rattled off, "Oh, they're all away at college." (All of this had been true just a few months before, after all…)  She nosed her way in even further as I was beginning to realize she had heard, and she knew, but she was wanting to hear me say, "I have a child who died…" Number one, I didn't know this woman that well, and number two, I wasn't ready to deliver that heavy news at a party, so I just brushed her off, "Oh, they're scattered all over!" 

She must have really been surprised then when her husband (who knows me really well) walked up and began telling me how much trouble they were having with one of their sons, and I said to him, "I understand how painful that is," then assured him, "but at least you still have him with you!"

I long to tell, but I do think twice to myself: 

Do you really want to risk everything right here, right now? 

And does this person really want to know, or will what I say just depress them when all they wanted was a little small talk? 

Our lives have descended way below "small talk," all the way down into "death talk." Who is ready to have their lives shocked by our painful truths, especially when our own families can't even talk about or handle our pain. And yet… that is where we live... 

Picture, thanks to Grieving Mother, Jill Compton