How to deal with toxic people in your life?

When we cut people from our lives, we are not acting out of love, but out of fear

I have come across quite a number of personal development articles recently, which recommend to “remove toxic people from your life because they stand in the way of your personal growth”.

Every time I read this advice, or that a coaching client or friend tells me how they have cut relations with a friend, family member or stopped going to some place because meeting specific people dragged them down, I cringe inside. Every time, I also ask myself why I cannot agree with this approach (and why I feel guilty when I do it myself).

This post is an attempt to give words to this unease.

I do know that there are cases, for instance for trauma survivors, in which avoidance, and keeping a distance to specific people is what is needed. I am here talking about how to deal with people who are “always negative, cynical, condescending, jealous, …”, in other words, ways, in which all of us can behave on a bad day.

There are circumstances that force us to accept toxic people in our lives

There are situations in life, when the choice we have is all or nothing: Sometimes, to reach a particular goal you have to be around a specific person. So either you give up our goal, or you have to deal with the person.

For example, you are in a committed relationship that is going well. Just so happens that your partner is friends with what you feel to be toxic people. Every week or so, they go out and your partner wants you to join. After a few times of yu saying no, your partner starts a fight. What do you do? Discard the relationship because your partner does not understand that you do not want to hang out with his or her friends? Or work on yourself to not let these friends get to you, and enjoy that your partner is having a good time.

Or imagine there is a guy like that in your favourite bar? Do you stop going and having fun, just because you might meet that person?

What about parents and close friends?

Do you really have what it takes to cut the relationship with people you have known for your whole life? Is no relationship the only way? They might not understand us (at times or at all), and they might not agree with our choices, but, whether we like it or not, they know us very well. Those are the people most likely to be there for us during tough times. They also are the ones that know very well how to push our buttons, which is why it can be so hard to be around them.

But this brings me to the next point:

People who push our buttons, help us grow.

Cutting out toxic people robs us of a lot of great opportunities for personal growth. You might want to improve your leadership skills and become better at motivating other people. What better situation to learn that than having to work with a couple of cynical colleagues? We can find out why they became cynical in the first place, what might give their work meaning again, and maybe they will surprise us and become really pleasant people to be around.

Who is the toxic one in the relationship?

In general I have a hard time believing that someone is always negative, cynical, a downer, so if they are that way with us, then maybe we need to consider that we are playing a part. Or worse (for us): Often times what we judge others about is just a mirror image of our own issues and shortcomings.

Blaming the others for the problem, is also reflected in the way we talk about “these” people, we use words like cutting or removing them as if they were a bad piece in an otherwise healthy fruit. Why not treat them like fellow humans, who also just want to avoid feeling bad and be happy, just like us?

How do you measure the success of personal growth?

Goals like earning a 6-figure income, writing 10 books in 5 years, building a house, or even more “noble” objectives like creating a company that does good, or becoming the Director of an NGO are great to gain momentum, focus your motivation and get stuff done. But, none of these serve as criteria for successful personal growth.

What is personal growth about? For me is it to become the best version of myself, so I can be fulfilled. And to be really fulfilled I have work on emotional states like anxiety, fear and anger, and instead embrace love. When I cut people from my life, am not acting out of love, I am acting from fear: fear not to manage, fear to become the same, or fear to be confronted with my own issues, for example.

How, then, you might ask, can we deal with relationships that seem to undermine our efforts to becoming a better person?

I suggest we do a whole lot of soul searching:

• We can learn to see these people as learning and growth opportunities, instead of as problems. How can improving our relationship with them, or learning how not be affected by them, help us become a better version of ourselves?
• We can acknowledge that these people are humans just like you and I with the same challenges and aspirations.
• We can search inside ourselves, how we contribute to their behaviour. Or for the daring: ask them! After all relationships are 2-way!
• We can reflect on how and when fear or anger are triggered in us. What do they say, or do that is dragging us down, that makes us explode? Is it them or are they just touching something in us that we do not want to deal with?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for you to spend all your time with people who make you feel bad. But not looking for their company is not the same as actively avoiding them, or outright telling them to keep a distance.

Then, when you do meet, brace yourself for impact. You might enjoy yourself after all, sometimes in spite of their presence, sometimes because of it. Most of the time our imagination is far worse than reality.

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