6 Ways to Deal With Toxic People
If you're reading this and you've realized you have some patterns, some habits, some ways of speaking to yourself that you need to break, and need a subconscious reprogramming, then you're in the right place.
Today, we're talking about how to deal with the toxic people in your life step by step.
Let's face it - we all know at least one person that drains the life out of us. It might be a coworker that you just can't avoid that thrives on gossip. Or maybe your friend that only calls you when they need something.
It could be a family member whose constantly criticizes every single step you make in your life.
No matter who it is - realize that toxic people can be very exhausting, manipulative and honestly - they're just bad for your mental health.
So this is a very serious thing that you should pay attention to.
THEY'RE IN YOUR LIFE, SO HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THEM?
How do you minimize the impact that they have on your life and not bring any unnecessary drama?
Well let's break it down into 6 different steps.
STEP 1: Identify the toxic people in your life AND let me step back.
BE HONEST. STOP lying about whose toxic and who isn't, because not everyone who annoys you is toxic. When you look at a "toxic" person, there's probably already somebody who's jumped into your mind.
That's the person you need to deal with first. A toxic person is someone who repeatedly disrespects your boundaries. They might make you feel emotionally exhausted after you hang out with them. Maybe they try to manipulate you, or they try to guilt trip or gaslight you when you set boundaries and try to make you think you're the bad person.
It's also usually somebody who thrives on drama, thrives on negativity. and rarely do these people take responsibility for their own actions.
One way that you can really identify a toxic person quickly is if you go and hang out with this person for 2 hours - how do you feel after?
Do you feel excited about life?
Do you feel energized or do you feel emotionally and physically drained?
Because I was taught by my mentors that there's 2 different types of people. There's batteries and there's vacuums.
A battery is somebody who you can spend an hour with them and you leave their presence after having coffee and you feel great for another hour. You feel excited, you're motivated and you feel good about being around that person.
A vacuum is somebody who sucks the energy out of you.
You can hang out with them for 3 minutes and you want a nap after. You can THINK about them right now and start to feel exhausted just thinking about them.
So if someone consistently makes you feel bad about yourself, or is toxic to you, or talks down to you, or drains your energy, it's really, really important that you start to rethink their role in your life.
Your mental health is extremely important and you've got to stop acting like this person deserves all of your time.
Get really real with yourself and you've got to identify the people who are toxic.
Sit and think - get that first person in your head right now, who's the most toxic person in your life? That popped up before you even read this line?
STEP 2: To either remove them from your life completely OR reduce time with the toxic people.
Look, I understand most of the time you can't remove somebody from your life completely and sometimes you don't always have to completely cut certain people out of your life.
Sometimes it's just not really realistic. You might have toxic co-workers and you love your job, or at least you need to pay the bills and you've got Andrew who works in the office. He's a dick and you can't stand him.
Well you can't really quit your job cause you gotta pay your bills but you still got Andrew you have to deal with.
Or maybe it's your in-laws or your parents in some sort of way. You can't really get rid of either of those. But whether it's the in laws, brother, sister, mother, father - you can limit your interactions with them.
You can start to pull back on the time, and here's how you do it.
I took this from the mindset mentor and I love it. It's called the fade out method.
What this means is over time you gradually spend less time with them. What that means is now you take longer to respond to their text messages. You're not gonna get back to him or her right away. You're leaving them on red for maybe a little longer, right?
Why? Because you're now going to be busy more often. With so much going on, in the future, when it comes to this person when they "hey do you want to hang out on Saturday? " You respond with "yea I've got a whole family day. We have kids, I have soccer and I told my husband I'm gonna do X,Y, and Z. See? Just be busy more often.
Now you're starting to fade them out a little bit and then slowly just start to decrease communication in some sort of way.
It's not like a light switch where it's on or off - you either hang out with them or you don't. No, this is less and less and less - so it almost starts to go unnoticed over time. If you actually Do spend time with them, you're gonna start time blocking.
Maybe the toxic person is your brother and you have a family event and you have to see them. They're family. So schedule short visits and have a very clear end time when you have to leave and clearly communicate that when you arrive.
Now you have something that's scheduled, so that you can get out of there because your mind is gonna feel much better when you know, "ok I've got about 45 minutes then I have to leave and they know we've got 45 minutes. So hopefully they don't guilt or shame me but if they do then I'm just not gonna take what they dish out. I'm leaving.
STEP 3: I LOVE THIS. The grey rock method. This is one of the best tools for dealing with toxic people. People who gaslight you, manipulate you and love drama. The idea behind the Grey Rock Method is to be as boring and uninteresting as a grey rock. That's really what it comes down to. You're as uninteresting as a rock basically. So that they lose interest in You.
Here's how you do it. When they say something to you, you want your responses to be short and very neutral. Like, "hmm, huh, ok." - You want to be boring. As boring as you possibly can.
Why? They're used to, in some sort of way, getting a response out of you. People who are toxic - they want you to engage, they want to get a rise out of you. They want to get a response from you. So you're going to avoid giving emotional reactions to these people.
They know your buttons, whether unconsciously or consciously - and will try to push those buttons in as many ways as they can. NOPE! Don't be triggered and just remind yourself 'you're not even you.' "I'm not Dominique, I'm a gray rock - grey rocks don't get triggered."
What it comes down to, is you avoid giving them the reactions that they want to get out of you. They're trying to get something from you. You're just not going to play the game anymore.
Another really important thing is to stop giving any personal details about you that they can use against you from now on.
A lot of times what people who are manipulative like to do is once they learn about what's going on in your life, they usually pull it back in to try to get a rise out of you. So then you get triggered in some sort of way. So no more personal details from now on, and you're not going to show any enthusiasm for their drama.
The point is - you want to be so boring that they don't want to hang out with you anymore because they're not getting what they want - a reaction from you. They want to find somebody else to feed off of in some sort of way.
And if you do happen to notice yourself starting to be triggered, because these are people who know how to trigger you. You've been triggered in the past and when you're triggered, sometimes it's an unconscious pattern that you go down. If you notice yourself starting to be triggered and you want to make sure to remind yourself to breathe through it.
If you need to, distance yourself for a moment. Go to the bathroom if you feel yourself being triggered. They say something, and you respond with "oh hey, I got to go to the bathroom real quick." Go to the bathroom and pretend you're going number 2 - be in there 5 minutes and breathe through it.
Do whatever you need to do. Get yourself back to the grey rock - the boringness - and go back out there. Just be a boring person WITH THEM. You'd be surprised how well works really, really well people who are narcissists. It works with people who are gossipers, energy vampires and the drama people.
Remember this, the less entertaining that you are, the sooner that they will move on from you, which is really, really important.
STEP 4: Start setting and enforce boundaries.
Toxic people love pushing boundaries and that's why it's critical for you to set firm limits and stick with them.
One of the things that;s really important with boundaries are these 3 steps:
Get really clear on what your boundaries are.
a. "I don't want them to speak to me that way anymore," - is vague. You've got to be very clear. What way do they speak to you? What do they say? Is it when they speak about your children, your career? Get very clear on your boundaries.
You need to clearly communicate those boundaries with the other person.
a. Say it to them without over explaining.
Stay firm on your boundaries.
a. I promise you 100% of the time, they will overstep. I've never heard of somebody being like, I had a toxic person in my life, I told them my boundaries and they never ever overstepped those boundaries again. NO! If they're toxic, it's in their nature to continue to try and keep pushing the boundaries. So you have to remind them of the boundary over and over and over again.
b. It will take multiple times, I can promise you that. A boundary, just so you know, is not a suggestion. It's a way for people to understand how to interact with you. You teach people how to treat you, whether you realize it or not, and if they can't respect it then they don't deserve your time.
Here's what that looks like in action:
They might say: "you don't make time for me anymore, I guess i just don't matter," and they try to guilt you.
Your response is, "hey, Im prioritizing my mental health, I just won't be available as often. That's just the way it goes."
They might say something like, "tell me everything that's going on with (Insert drama here: children at school, your husband) - tell me everything about this person. It's a trap - They're looking for drama.
You say, "I'm not comfortable talking to you about it. I've realized I'm gonna start keeping things a little more close to the vest. I'm just not going to start telling you those things anymore. It's not you, it's some other people as well."
Of course, they're gonna keep overstepping! They may even start to criticize you about your life choices and your choices and you only respond with, "Hey listen. I'm happy with my decision. I'm happy with where my life is and I'm just really not open to discussing it any further." BOOM.
STEP 5: When necessary, you need to completely cut them off.
If you have tried to be a grey rock and its not working as well as you want. If you have tried to set boundaries and it's not working as well as you want. Sometimes, the only solution is you need to remove them entirely.
I understand this can be hard. Especially if it's a long term friend, a family member, a partner.
But your peace of mind, your mental health is extremely important and it's time for you to stop being somebody that gets stepped on by other people. So if you need to, just go 'no contact' with them.
You do not need to tell them that you're blocking them. Just disappear. If you have mutual friends with the person or if it's someone in your family, tell the other people. Tell the other mutual friends, the other family members - let them know you're stepping away and done with all of the gossip.
Respectfully let them know you don't want to know what's going on in this person's life and vice versa. Then the most important part of this is you need to resist the urge to explain. They won't accept your answer or reasoning anyways. So just go out the back door and exit. Disappear.
If somebody is abusive to you, they're manipulative with you in some sort of way, or dangerous to your well being, don't feel guilty about cutting ties with that person. Your mental health comes first.
STEP 6: Really make it a focus of yours to protect your mental energy going forward.
Now that you've set boundaries, now that you've distanced yourself from those people or gone no contact, it's time for you to start focusing on you with that spare time.
I recommend you start surrounding yourself with positive people. With people who make you feel good about you. Who are excited about your growth. They love helping you feel better about yourself and they celebrate your wins.
Why? Because people like that - their energy is contagious. When you start spending more time with those types of people who uplift you and support you, you start becoming better. So take a pen and paper and let's start planning this out.
What type of people do you want to surround yourself with? Make a list. What habits? What traits? What do you want them to do in life? How do you want them to speak to themselves, to each other? All of that.
Maybe you know one or two people who might be friend of a friend or an acquaintance. You've seen them a few time and you want to spend a little more time with them, liked their energy. If there are people you don't have in your circle and you need to find them, search where can you find the people who line up with the habits, traits and qualities you're looking for.
You can go to Meetup online, or go to networking events. Meet a friend of a friend. Birds of a feather flock together so if you like them, you might like their friends as well.
It's really important to start prioritizing your mental health and protecting your energy moving forward.
Stop trying to please everybody in your life.
Learn to start saying no. This is really big for the people pleasers. People pleasing is something you created in your childhood that made you feel safe. Now that you're an adult its not needed anymore and so its time for you to break that pattern by saying no sometimes. Why? A lot of times saying no is a form of self respect and tha'ts really what it comes down to.
Dealing with toxic people isn't about fixing them. It's about protecting you.
So a lot of toxic people thrive on manipulating, or on bringing you down. That's their business! That's not your business.
Your business is your peace, because your peace is priceless, so guard that fiercely.
Next Steps:
Identify the person that came to mind while you were reading this. That's the first person you need to work with and figure out one boundary you need to set with them today.
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