Have you noticed that your energies dip around certain individuals ? After even a few minutes with such people, you feel drained out, irritable and anxious? Pay close attention to those signs that your body and intuition is giving you to protect you. Do not disregard those signs or you will pay a heavy price for ignoring it. Just like how there may be people who are toxic for us, you also can be equally toxic for few others ! Learn to spot your own toxicity too while you process how to safeguard yourself from anyone else that is toxic to you.
Ok- so now you know the signs and how to identify a toxic person. What do you do next? The first option which normally everyone does is to try to communicate with the toxic person- you try hard to explain what you feel or how their words or behavior is impacting you. You do this with the hope that you can salvage your relationship with them and repair any ruptures.
In normal healthy relationships- this channel of communication is open and honest. You can speak your mind and not worry about the repercussions. But if the person you are dealing with is clearly toxic, the whole conversation will be re-directed to you and your flaws and what you did wrong! To the point of you forgetting why you even had reached out to them in the first place, instead you would be filled with self doubt or guilt about something you had done X months or X years ago. You will be riddled with guilt, anxiety and shame for having dared to point out the toxic person’s flaws.
How dare you expose their shortcomings ? !!!!!Who are you to remove their blind fold and shatter their own perspective of who they are as a person?!!!!! The whole conversation will leave you feeling terrible and the conversation would go nowhere close to what you at first intended to do. The toxic person would continue living their life as though this conversation never ever happened and continue to portray themselves as honest and good people to the rest of the world. While you will be left with dealing with the constant mind chatter and dialogue thinking how did the conversation take such a bad turn and wondering if you are a toxic person for having trying to expose someone else’s toxicity ! There will literally be a war inside your own head.
The other thing that can also happen is that the toxic person would now portray themselves as victims and make you seem like an abuser or someone who is targeting them for no reason. They would immediately start recruiting family and friends and create a false narrative about you. I read somewhere that once a toxic person can’t manipulate you, they would manipulate the way the world sees you. That is very true. So be prepared for the mud slinging accusations against you and do not bother with justifying or clearing your name. A toxic manipulator has years of experience of doing this and it is really no point in getting yourself involved in their drama and chaos.
Instead rise above all the nonsense and stay aloof. Set your boundaries with anyone who messes with your peace of mind and continues to behave in ways that hurt you. Keep your physical distance if possible. At times, some clients have shared that if the toxic individual is a family member , you can’t keep your physical distance from them due to many reasons and the way our culture and upbringing is. Yet is it possible to keep your distance from them. It is called greyrocking or soul distancing. You can speak to them about general things like the weather, your country’s economic situation , poverty, pollution, etc but not about what is really happening in your life, your dreams, goals, passions, plans, your vulnerabilities . If you continue to share about your life, you will keep the door open for the toxic people to continue to mess up and meddle with your life. If you share about your vulnerabilities and insecurities it will be thrown back on your face at a later stage to make you feel terrible about yourself. So stay alert around them and hold your guard up. It takes time to practice this but it is possible and you save yourself from unnecessary drama and chaos in future.
The toxic person may try to contact you to try to reconcile the differences so that the world doesn’t know what is really wrong with them. Be prepared to not lock your horns with them again especially if there has been a negative pattern in the past where you repeatedly have these same cycles and yet you are back at square one feeling more and more damaged. Spare yourself this pain and just assertively excuse yourself from any reconciliation discussions. Better to disappoint others rather than let yourself down right?
To summarize this:
1. Set your healthy boundaries with toxic people
2. Do not explain the need for your boundaries to anyone or justify anything
3. Prioritize yourself and your self care
4. Practice assertive communication – It is really ok to say No to others
5. You deserve a peaceful , beautiful, toxic-free, drama-free life.
6. Make the right choice today for a beautiful tomorrow.
7. Reach out to therapists/coaches for help – You don’t have to do this alone.
8. There are so many people out there who may be going through similar situations and relationships. Try to join abuse survivor networks to get real time support but ensure that you are not getting stuck in more toxicity and victim mindset.
Healing from abuse is possible.✌
Believe in yourself💜