Responding to Toxic People and Environments | 2023 Update
Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes explains toxic behaviors across three levels: self-directed, interpersonal, and institutional. She connects them to insecure attachment and stress responses, then teaches concrete strategies like setting boundaries, assertiveness, and recognizing patterns using the CRAVES framework to protect yourself in harmful relationships.
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Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this presentation on responding to toxic people and behaviors. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this video, we're going to define toxic behaviors, explore where they come from, and explore ways to address them and protect yourself. Very simply, toxic behaviors are any behaviors that cause others or you to feel unsafe or powerless to you feel like you need to defend yourself. Toxic behaviors come in many different forms, and the way we're going to conceptualize it today is all of the ways that they run counter to a healthy, secure attachment. So in a secure attachment, people are consistent. You can depend on them, you know what to expect. They're responsive when you need something, they try to help you, they try to, to assist you, they provide attention. They want to spend time with you. It's not just coming to you to complain about something. They validate you. They accept what you think and what you feel, even if they don't agree. They say, all right, I see that you're angry, or I can tell that you're feeling very sad about this. They encourage you and they provide support. And all of that kind of sums up to the mnemonic craves. But let's talk about inconsistent behaviors and toxic behaviors. So you can have self toxic behaviors. What do I mean by that? I mean, these are behaviors that you engage in with yourself so you're actually being toxic to yourself. You can engage in inconsistent responding, if you will, to yourself. You can be in extremes. You can either love yourself or hate yourself. And that is really toxic in any relationship. If it's one all one or all the other, it creates a lot of ambiguity, a lot of uncertainty because you don't know from one minute to the next whether you're going to be approved of or disapproved of. And a lot of times you learned this from your family of origin. So it's important to recognize when you engage in those behaviors, when you are completely hating on yourself, you can be passive aggressive with yourself. You can tell yourself in one minute, oh, it's okay to do that. I'll allow myself to do this. And then 30 minutes later, oh, you are such an idiot for doing that, or you're such a bad person for doing that, so you're your own worst enemy. You tell yourself it's okay in one minute. And then you, behind your back, you criticize yourself. You tell yourself, well, if you were stronger, you would have, should have, could have. You're not dependable in response or presence to yourself. You're not mindful, you're not regularly checking in with yourself to say, what do I want? What do I need in this situation? How do I feel in this situation? When you are inconsistent with yourself, it creates an element of insecurity because you're not paying attention to your own needs, at least not in a dependable sort of way. When you're unresponsive to your needs, you may actually notice them. Maybe you are mindful, maybe you are present and, and notice what you, what you need. But then you're not responsive to it. You just ignore it. You're either unwilling to respond. You tell yourself later, I can't worry about that, I won't worry about that. I can't feel this. Whatever you tell yourself, so you don't respond to it. You just avoid or ignore. Or you can make it so everything is all about other people. And yes, I know I'm using extreme words, but your focus is on tending to everyone else's needs all the time. And you ignore your own needs. Emotional, physical, cognitive. Negative attention is the next one. You can give your own self negative attention where you tell yourself that everybody else should be the center of attention. Everybody else's thoughts, wants and needs are more important. So we're going to go with whatever they want. You don't give any positive attention to yourself. You don't tend to yourself. You don't care for yourself. And in many cases you may not even know yourself. You're so busy being a chameleon to try to get other people's approval that you may not know yourself at all. And you keep a relationship scorecard with yourself. You're regularly keeping the scorecard of whether you're good or bad or worthy or lovable or not. You regularly invalidate yourself. You don't empathize with yourself. You don't look at what's going on and go, yeah, I can see why I would feel really depressed about this. Or, you know what? I deserve to take a moment to grieve this loss. You don't have empathy for yourself. You just should yourself into next week and try to keep on going. And you take responsibility for other people's stuff. This can be so toxic. Their behaviors, their thoughts, their feelings. Instead of taking responsibility for your stuff, which we all have plenty of our own stuff, thoughts, wants, feelings, behaviors, et cetera, you, you take responsibility for yours and everybody else's and that nobody can do that. That's exhausting. And a lot of times you get so overwhelmed dealing with other people's stuff and trying to fix, help control that, that your Stuff your feelings, your needs, your wants all get lost in the mix. You lack encouragement, you are highly critical and global of yourself. And that what I mean by that is that inner critic is just constantly telling you you're not smart enough, you're not deserving, you're not lovable enough, you're not doing enough, you're not good enough, you're not enough. And that is demoralizing. And it's really hard when it's that voice in your own head telling you these things. Other people, you can not answer their emails, you can not answer the phone, the door, whatever. But when it's in your own head, it's really hard to shut it off. And global means that you take everything as part of you. I'm stupid, I am horrible person. You know, you may have made a mistake, you may have done something wrong, you may have failed a test or not gotten a promotion, but that's a behavior, that's an event, that's not who you are. So when you're global, when you lump behaviors in with a person's lovability, then that starts to become again very demoralizing and you start to feel a lot of shame instead of recognizing that you're lovable. And maybe the behaviors weren't the ideal solution. Maybe you should. I hate using that word, but it's appropriate here. Maybe you should feel guilty about what you did, but not who you are. And finally, support. Clinging to unhealthy relationships is toxic to your self esteem. Clinging to relationships where other people are doing all kinds of toxic stuff to you just compounds that message in your head and makes you feel worse about yourself, makes you feel more unlovable, more insecure. And then providing yourself conditional love. And that is when you love yourself only if you fulfill these conditions, only if you're a success, only if you're always nice, only if that's not love, that is conditional love, that's manipulation. So it's important to really look at how these behaviors affect how you feel about yourself, how secure you feel in your own skin, how lovable you feel, because that's going to impact how you interact with other people. You're probably going to treat them in some ways much the same way you treat yourself. And you may also have difficulty trusting that they are going to love you, that they're not going to abandon you because you don't really like yourself that much. All of this adds stress. All of this contributes to sleep problems. All of this contributes to HPA axis activation and trauma and all kinds of other Stuff that a lot of times we really don't recognize. We don't recognize how our own behaviors towards ourself can be traumatic. So let's talk about what you probably thought we were going to start with and that's toxic relationship behaviors from other people and effects. And again, we see a lot of the same behaviors, inconsistency, where someone, maybe a loved one, a significant other, maybe even a co worker, engages in splitting. They treat you like you are all good or all bad. One day they'll love you, the next day they'll hate you. And it's really scary because you don't know whether Jekyll or Hyde is going to show up. And a lot of times you don't know exactly what you did to trigger that splitting episode because their reaction is often much more intense than you would have expected. Even if you made a mistake, they may be reacting like you did something ginormous when it was in the big scheme of things, you know, not that big of a deal. They may be passive aggressive where they will be sticky sweet to your face and smile and as soon as your back's turned they are criticizing you or gossiping about you. So you don't know whether to trust them or they'll tell you one minute, you know, you are doing this great, you know, it's wonderful, you don't need to change a thing, I approve. And then two weeks, two months, two years later, they're like, oh yeah, I was really hoping you were going to stop doing that because I thought it was a bad idea. And you're like, that's not what you told me when we were talking about it before. That can feel really scary because you never know what people are thinking, what is going on in their head. They're not being truthful and authentic with you. So you're always a little bit on guard, trying to look for non verbal behaviors that might give you a clue as to whether they're actually telling you what they're thinking or they're just making something up and they're not dependable in response or presence. These are the people who aren't there when you need them all the time. They may be there some of the time, but you can't count on them. And that again, whether it's you're not being dependable for yourself, you're not being mindful, or someone else is not being dependable. To be a resource, to be supportive of you, it's really intimidating and really scary to think, well, there may be somebody there to help me and support me. And there may not be. I may be in freefall. That's terrifying unresponsiveness. And, and when. Let me go back. When people are inconsistent, it makes you more wary of trusting other people because nobody in your life is trustworthy. So when you're experiencing this inconsistency, especially when you're experiencing it repeatedly, it starts to make you question everybody else and it starts to make you expect inconsistency in everybody else unresponsiveness. Now this is one you got in common. It's always about them and they don't care about your happiness. So in these relationships, they're talking about them. They want to talk about what's going on with them, what their needs are, what their wants are, and they don't really care about what's going on in your life. Which, if you remember the prior slide, is the same thing you may do to yourself where you say, what's going on in my life? It ain't important. It's about you. It's always about you. In relationships, it needs to be a give and take. It's not always going to be 50, 50. Sometimes somebody will be in crisis and it's 90, 10, 90 about them, 10 about you. And then down the road you'll be in crisis and it'll be 9010. But it all should balance out somewhere along the way to 50, 50. Now obviously this is in relationships between two adults. If we're talking about between caregiver and child, the caregiver is going to have to take more responsibility and often do more to care about the child's happiness than the child should have to care about theirs. The child shouldn't be put in a position of having to respond to and assist and support their caregiver. That's not okay. Entitlement. And this comes under unresponsiveness, where people feel like they are entitled to you doing things for them. They are not going to respond to your needs. They don't care what's going on in your life or how tired you are or how hard you work. They feel like they are entitled and they may have been raised that way. They may have been raised without things. So then when they got started to get things, they started to really relish that and start to believe they were entitled. They may have come to believe that somewhere else that they're entitled to things without the effort and they're entitled to other people serving them. We are all entitled to respect. We are all entitled to what we work for. So I'm not saying we aren't entitled to some things, but this extreme entitlement that is unresponsive to anybody else's needs or the moment, you know, I want what I want and I want it now. Heck, to everybody else and what's going on in their life. That's what I'm talking about. That's toxic. Unwilling or unable to respond to your needs in a toxic relationship, that other person, it will be unable or unwilling to respond to your needs. They see you're upset, but they don't care. They're not going to respond to it. They're just like, sucks to be you. Have a good day. Call me when you're in a better mood. That's a toxic behavior. Negative attention. They must be the center of attention. So whenever you're together, they feel like they need to be the center of everybody else's attention. And a lot of times when people need to be the center of attention, it is because they fear abandonment. They fear that if some everybody takes their eyes off them that they're going to all of a sudden disappear. They may need other people to constantly be validating them, telling them that they're okay in order to feel okay, because they don't feel okay in their own skin if they manipulate for attention. Maybe you're in a relationship with somebody and they flirt with other people or react extremely dramatically whenever you don't do exactly what they want because they're trying to manipulate you. And, and guilt. Guilt is a great manipulator in a toxic sort of way. These are all potentially toxic behaviors. Now don't get me wrong. You can be in a relationship, you can make a mistake. And again, there's that should word. You should feel guilty for a minute about what you did. Guilt is anger at yourself for doing something that you shouldn't have done or not doing something that you should have done. Okay, when you feel guilty, acknowledge that anger, learn from it, make amends if necessary and move on. Holding on to that guilt or lording that guilt over somebody for days, weeks, months, years, that's toxic. Bringing it up every time you get into a fight, that's toxic. There's no positive attention for you in a toxic relationship. It's generally, we're going to do what I want to do right now. I don't care what you want to do. And again, they keep a relationship scorecard. They keep a scorecard of all the times that you have disappointed them, of all the times that you've done wrong, of all the. And it's Generally, the scorecard is generally just the negatives. It's not all the positives too. Invalidation. They don't empathize with you. They don't look at things from your perspective. It's just like, well, I'm not angry about this, or I'm not upset about this, so you shouldn't be. Either get over it. And that's toxic. Not validating how you feel. They don't have to agree, but validating and say, you know, I can see this really makes you angry right now. Want to talk about it? They won't take responsibility for anything that they do. They blame you for their actions, or they gaslight and try to make you think that it's your fault or what you think is going on is not really going on. They invalidate perception of things. And again, our perceptions are not always 100% accurate. So there's the correct inception, but then that can be used to an extreme. And even when somebody's perception is right, trying to make them think that they're. They're crazy or their perception is wrong, Lack of encouragement can happen when they're jealous of your successes and they discourage growth. That's not healthy in a relationship. In a relationship, we want to bring out the best in each other, not hold each other back for fear of being outshined or overshadowed. In a toxic relationship, there is very little support. They may be very clingy. And you may say, well, clingy is kind of supportive. No, not really. Clingy is controlling. Clingy. Think about a child that clings to their parents coattails. You know, it kind of pulls them down. It holds them in place. Clingy between adults in relationships is not healthy. Clingy often indicates a fear of abandonment, whether it's in children or adults. And then that conditional love again, where they say, I love you, if not I love you, but I love you if, and it should be I love you should be three words followed by an exclamation point or a period. Not a question mark, not an if, just that's it. Those three words and other toxic behaviors also include boundary violations. And I didn't know where to exactly stick those because they have so many different forms. But boundary violations come in five different forms. Physical boundary. They violate your personal space. They touch you when you don't want to be touched, or in a way you don't want to be touched. I remember my uncle used to think it was just hilarious to tickle me, and I hated being tickled, but he refused to respect that and he would tickle me and I would scream until I threw up laughing. Of course, he wasn't being inappropriate. He was just being what he considered playful. But that's a boundary violation. Violation of your personal space can also include glaring at you. It doesn't even have to include actual touching or getting in your space. And we have personal space. Some people, depending on the culture, may stand a little closer. Some people are stand further apart. But it's important to recognize what is a comfortable space for you. And that's sort of your personal bubble. Affective boundaries. Those are your feelings. Your feelings are yours. And nobody has the right to tell you how you should feel. That same thing with your cognitions or your thoughts. Your thoughts and beliefs are yours, and your feelings, thoughts and beliefs are based on your prior experiences and your prior learning and your interpretation of those experiences. And that is uniquely yours. Nobody can tell you that those are wrong. Only you can look at them and say, maybe this isn't accurate anymore, or maybe my perception when I was 8 of what was going on was wrong, but I can see how an 8 year old would have that perception. So you validate the inner child. You say, I can see how you would have gotten that impression from what was going on, but as an adult, I can look back on it and see something differently. I can see things through wiser eyes, if you will. Environmental boundaries, your place and your stuff. Now, this is past your physical bubble. This is your, your diary, your clothing, your whatever, your, your home where people need to respect that. And in toxic relationships, people don't respect that. They will take your stuff without asking. They'll eat your food, they will read your diary, whatever it is that you can think of that is not on your physical person or in your physical bubble. That's your environmental boundaries, and we all have those. We have a belief that we have, and I believe it's true. We have a right to privacy. We have a right to the stuff we own. And not having to give permission to anybody to touch it, to have it, to wear it. And relational boundaries. Three ways this can come up. One, in a relationship where somebody tells you who you can and cannot be friends with, that's a violation. Number two, moving too fast in a relationship where you want to take it slow, for example, or at your pace, and they insist on pushing it faster than you're comfortable with. You know, you've been dating for two weeks and they want you to move in. That may be pushing that relationship boundary where you're like, no, you know, I still need to have my own place, thank you very much. And one that's come up recently in the past five, ten years is changing the structure of the relationship and you insisting that this is what's going to happen, either changing it to a polyamorous relationship or a, and I use the term consensual loosely, consensual non monogamy. And both of these are relationship structures that involve more than two people, that's fine if you both agree on it. But if one person doesn't agree and the other person says, well, I don't care, I'm going to do it anyway, that is a boundary violation. Toxic behaviors often can be traced back to people or organizations that feel unsafe and powerless and have insecure attachment and fear of abandonment. Now, where did organizations come up in all of this? Well, we interact with organizations every day. Organizations are filled with run by, guess what? People. And those people are the ones that may engage in toxic behaviors. So it's important to look at, and we're going to, you know, make this parallel and help you see how not only can you be toxic to yourself, others can be toxic to you in relationships, but institutions and organizations can also be toxic. And it's important to recognize all of those things, the impact that those things are having on you, and then decide from there. In order to live your rich and meaningful life, what do you need to do in order to feel safe, in order to feel empowered, in order to feel respected? So these behaviors are often learned from our caregivers. You know, you grow up in that environment, you have ideally, a secure attachment growing up. But a lot of people don't. A lot of people, their caregivers are their very first toxic relationship. Their caregivers don't know how to deal with their own stuff. And they're certainly not able to help a child deal with their stuff or be responsive to a child's needs. So you see a lot of unresponsiveness or criticism, negativity, unpredictability. None of those are consistent, responsive, validating, encouraging, or safe and supportive. So people can learn those behaviors from their caregivers. And if that's what they've always known, they're not expected to know anything different if they grow up in this toxic environment. That's where you learn your relationship behaviors. And unless somebody else teaches them to you, you're not expected to just randomly know that, hey, this ain't right. The media can teach us toxic behaviors, whether it is in dramas that you watch or sitcoms or on the news or even through educational institutions. And maybe I should have put that in its own column, not under media. But it's important to recognize that all of these institutions or organizations have an agenda. And you know, I'm not saying that to be mean or critical. Their agenda is to survive. Their agenda is to do what they need to do in order to thrive in a capitalist society. So they are going to often push narratives and ideas and beliefs that are going to get them the most money. Let's just put it out where it is. Therefore we need to recognize that and recognize that you're probably not getting a completely balanced view of everything that's going on. And they are probably not overly concerned with you as an individual and your thoughts, wants and needs and they're probably not going to be overly responsive to it. You can try, you can try writing a campaign, but until you start showing them that it's going to hit them where it hurts and that's that, bottom line, a lot of times they are going to not be responsive. Peers also teach us toxic behaviors and we can learn these on social media, for example. You can, people have started learning, they've created an art out of trolling. Now people, trolls, learn how to troll from other trolls and it's just mind boggling that people have that kind of time and energy to hate on each other so much. But we can learn these behaviors from social media. We can learn them from colleagues and friends. We see how they act or react and we may pick up on some of that. Think about how the schools, the media and the news teach toxic behaviors. How are they inconsistent in their messaging, inconsistent in their availability and presence to people? How are they unresponsive to the needs of the people that they serve? They are more responsive to their own needs, to their own bottom line. How are they inattentive? Remember, attention we're talking about positive attention would be reaching out to the communities that they serve and saying, hey, I'm interested in what you want, I'm interested in what you need. Why don't you tell me about it? When was the last time CBS called you and said, hey, what kind of programming would you like to see? Or Facebook sent you a survey to see what you would like to see on their, on their platform. Invalidating. A lot of times the media will tell you, and I use the term media broadly to include television shows, movies, news, etc and social media. They will tell you that their opinions are right and your opinions are wrong or their opinions are right and they don't really care what your opinions are. They May discourage alternate opinions or alternate thinking or behaviors, and they may be unsupportive of the individual themselves. That's not their job. You know, ultimately, let's, let's think about it. PBS's job is not to babysit and raise my children. So it's also not their job to be supportive of my children. Yeah, they've got some great shows. Love Curious George and Martha and Clifford the Big Red Dog. But it is not PBS's job to be a secure attachment for my child. And I think it's important that we recognize most of these organizations we actually don't have to connect with, to interact with. They need us. We don't need them. And some of you may have grown up in a time where you've always had 247 news and connectivity. So those of us who are sort of dinosaurs who grew up when we had landlines that were, you know, attached to the wall, the only time you could call somebody was, you know, at a pay phone or, or if you were home, the television went off at midnight or 11 o' clock or something, and all night long it was just like this test pattern that played. We didn't have news 24 hours a day. We had the evening news and we didn't die. We didn't wither away into nothing. We got what we needed. So it's important to recognize how much of this, whatever this is, how much of this is it that I really need? How. What big, how big of a dose of this do I need? Do I need 20 minutes or do I need 20 hours? And I can't think of much that you would need 20 hours of. So I wanted us to encourage ourselves to really reflect on these things. Same thing with educational institutions. Yeah, they may provide teaching for our children. They may. Teachers have a huge role in helping young people grow and explore who they are. And it is the responsibility of the parent to help the child process and integrate all that stuff. Okay, you learn this stuff at school today. Do you agree? Do you disagree? What do you think about it? Help the child determine their own opinions, be responsive to the child's needs, and advocate for them sometimes. So again, it's important that we recognize where organizations and institutions are coming from and exactly what their responsibilities are and to not take things too personally if we're able to find alternate avenues or we recognize that we don't need all that much. So how do we address these toxic behaviors? Consistency and this is toxic behaviors from you towards you. So address these extremes when you split, when you start thinking of yourself as either all good or all bad. Stepping back and evaluating the facts of what's going on, evaluating what makes you a good person, and whether you're upset about something that you did about a behavior or you don't like yourself as a person and, and generally you as a person are not going to change that much. Your behaviors can change a lot, your opinions can change a lot. But it's important to explore and really integrate that and recognize that we're not going to be our best selves every single day. That doesn't mean that we're worthless. That means we were not our best self today. Being assertive instead of passive aggressive with ourselves, Instead of giving ourselves permission one minute, then criticizing ourselves 10 minutes later. Being assertive with ourselves and identifying what we want to do what we want. And if we give ourselves permission, then owning that and saying, all right, I'm giving myself permission to do this. Being mindful and dependable for ourselves, Consistently checking in with ourselves and saying, what is it that I need right now? What are my thoughts? What are my feelings? And doing that with regularity. Not just, you know, every second Tuesday and maybe a Friday here and there, but every single day. Dependably checking in with ourself. Being responsive once we check in and have that list of what I need, actually doing something about it. Imagine that caring about your happiness, it doesn't mean that you stop caring about other people's happiness, but it means you care about your happiness and you set those boundaries and you say, you know what? If I am going to be able to be responsive and attentive and all those things to you, I need to be healthy and happy and I need to do those same things. For me, my thoughts, wants and needs are just as important as your thoughts, wants, and needs. Being willing to respond to yourself instead of recognizing that, hey, I'm angry or depressed or I don't feel well, and then telling yourself that you just, just need to ignore it. Being willing to respond and say, okay, what can I do to improve the next moment? And that may be just tolerating the distress. Maybe there's nothing you can do to improve the next moment, but tolerating the distress can be helpful because you're acknowledging it and you're saying, all right, I. I get get it that you're stressed out about this and there's nothing you can do about it right now. So what can you do? Saying this to yourself, what can you do to tolerate this so it's not dragging you down, so it's not triggering your stress response and develop emotional intelligence. One of the best ways to be responsive to yourself is to be able to identify what you're feeling, tolerate the distress, and then respond in a way that helps you improve the next moment. Learn how to regulate and manage your emotions. Attention. Recognizing that you deserve attention and you have a lot to offer. Get to know yourself. Spend time actually figuring out, hey, what is it that I like to do? You know, I am 50 some odd years old and I still love to watch cartoons, especially the old Hanna Barbera ones. Yeah, not every 50 year old on the planet is still watching Hanna Barbera cartoons. But I do and it's one of those things that I like and people may think it's weird and no, I'm not gonna say I watch them with my grandchildren or my kids or something because I don't. I watch them by myself, thank you very much, and I enjoy it. So get to know yourself. What you like to do, what makes you happy that brings a smile to your face and ditch that relationship. Scorecard Keep Quit keeping score of how good of a person you are. Recognize that you are a good person. You're lovable. You're going to make mistakes. We all make mistakes. But stop keeping score. Validate yourself. Have empathy when you're feeling a certain way. Empathize with yourself. Don't tell yourself you shouldn't feel some way you do, okay, I recognize that I'm feeling this way right now. Doesn't mean I have to sit there and stew in it. But empathy helps me find a starting point. It helps me feel heard. It helps me know where I am. And then I can say, all right, I feel depressed. What's causing that? And don't take responsibility for other people's feelings, thoughts and behaviors. Validate how you feel. I feel fine right now. You may be really upset about it and I hurt for you because you're upset. But I am not upset about. Doesn't mean I don't care, but it means I'm acknowledging where I stop and you start. I hurt for the fact that you're hurting, but I may not hurt for the reason that you're hurting, if that makes any sense. Encouragement. Tame that inner critic. That voice inside your head that keeps saying, you can't do that or there's no way you'll succeed. Tame that inner critic. Sometimes they have useful information. Most of the time they're trying to prevent you from taking a risk, from being vulnerable and putting yourself in a situation where you may fail. What happens if you fail? Yeah, in the big scheme of things. 99 of the time, if you fail, you have an opportunity to grow in some way or you learn one more way not to do it. There's lots of different anecdotes for what failure means, but most of the time if you fail, it's uncomfortable. Yeah, it sucks, but it's not the end of the world. So taming that inner critic and acknowledging them sometimes can help. Saying, all right, I hear that you're afraid that I may not succeed at this and it will be uncomfortable if I fail. I hear you. I'm gonna do it anyway. Thank you very much. Some people will just silence that inner critic and refuse to listen. Other people will develop that rapport with them where they say, I hear your concerns, but I'm going to do it anyway. Set goals and use positive self talk. Encourage yourself, but it's hard to say, all right, you are going to be the best you that you can be. If you don't know what that is, what does that look like? You can't be that person unless you know what that person looks like or is or acts like or whatever. So set those goals and use that positive self talk to encourage yourself to step out of your comfort zone and recognize which goes down to support that. Even if you do screw up or you fail or somebody rejects you, all right, you love yourself and there are other people likely who also love you unconditionally and you can rely on them. You don't need everybody's approval. Whose approval do you actually need? There's a lot of people you want, but whose approval do you actually need? Consistency. I didn't change the top of this slide. Addressing toxic behaviors in other people, addressing extremes or splitting. If they are presenting as either all good, that they love you or they hate you, all right, that's fine. It's important to acknowledge that behavior in them and recognize they may be doing the very best they can with the tools they have. Deciding at that point what's the best use of your energy? Is it going to do any good when they are in a integrated frame of mind as opposed to a split one? Is it going to do you any good to talk with them about this, or will that just prompt another splitting episode? If it's not safe for you to stay in that relationship because it's too emotionally draining to be on again, off again, loved again, hated again, then you may need to consider how to set boundaries with that person so you're not getting sucked into that vortex. Use assertiveness. Remember, assertiveness means My thoughts and wants and needs are just as important as your thoughts, wants and needs. So communicating to people authentically about what you need, what you want, what you feel is going to be a lot better and a lot more consistent than being passive aggressive, saying one thing one day because you think that's what they want to hear and then changing it the next day. No, being assertive, being authentic and honest is going to create consistency. And if they are passive aggressive, address again, addressing that with them and saying, you know what, it really is unsettling when you tell me this on Monday and then two weeks later you're telling me something different or you're saying just the complete opposite. I want to know what your thoughts are or your feelings are about something, and I'd have rather you tell me honestly to begin with. Again, this is not always going to be productive, and it's important to remember that others who engage in toxic behaviors toward you often feel unsafe and powerless and are fearful of rejection. And they've got a lot of stuff going on. Therefore, it's going to be important to recognize is whatever I'm going to do to address these toxic behaviors, is there a way to address it with you that will result in a positive resolution? Or do I need to set some boundaries so that toxicity doesn't seep in and negatively impact me? Mindfulness and dependability is also important to recognize. If they are not dependable, if they're not mindful of your needs, if you call them and they're never available for you, or they're only available one out of every 17 times to talk to you. Now, I don't mean to help you move. What I'm talking about is to be there, to be a friend, to be dependable and consistent. If they're always making everything about them and they don't care about your happiness, this is another one of those areas where you need to explore. Number one, do they know what your makes you happy or have you been just letting them do what they want to do? If they don't know that what they're doing makes you unhappy, then assertive communication is essential. If they know and they just don't care, then communicating about how that makes you feel and if you don't think that'll do any good. Again, figuring out how to set boundaries, you may need to limit your time with that person. If they're not going to consider you in the relationship and if they're just emotionally unavailable to you, that can be problematic. If they have to be the center of attention when it wherever you go. That can feel toxic. When they're giving everybody else attention and they're making it again about them, you may feel like you get lost or rejected or that you're not enough and. Or if they're gossiping, you may not know what they say behind your back, and that can make you feel insecure. It's important to recognize how it makes you feel and whether addressing it will do any good. Manipulation to get your attention, flirting with others or dramatic reactions, guilting you. This is often a way of controlling you, and often it comes from that fear of abandonment. If they can control you, they can get you to do what they want you to do, and they can feel safe. If they know they can manipulate you, then they feel safe. No positive attention for you. Well, they're just sucking all the energy and air out of the room with their need for attention. What does that mean for you? Some people don't mind falling to the background. My. My stepfather used to just kind of sit in the chair and read a book and observe. He was a very, very quiet man, and he didn't need a lot of attention. He really didn't like being the center of attention. But for some people, that is not okay if they are always sort of the wallflower they feel. Again, not enough. They feel ignored. They feel unappreciated. So it's important to recognize how your partner, how this other person's behavior makes you feel. And if they keep a relationship scorecard, that's a sign. Explore all of these behaviors. What do they mean? What's their function? Why would somebody keep a relationship scorecard? Well, that may mean that they are trying to protect themselves and identify your bad behaviors. However, that also could mean that they are trying to blame or manipulate. They're trying to get ammunition so they can control you a little bit better. Either way, a relationship scorecard's just not healthy. It's important when you have an issue with people to communicate it openly and deal with it, then not build up this list of, you know, seven years worth of done me wrongs that all of a sudden you pull out this, you know, laundry list of things and just unload on somebody. That's not okay either. Validation. If they are not empathetic with you, it's important to let them know. Some people. My husband, for example, you know, is. He's a thinker. He's not a feeler. So empathy doesn't come, or didn't come super easy for him at first because he didn't see the point of talking about feelings. But once he realized that it was important for. For me to feel heard, for him to empathize and say, I can tell you're feeling this way, and things would go a lot easier, then that became easier for him. It wasn't that he didn't care. He just didn't really know how to overtly empathize. I mean, he could sympathize, but generally, instead of being empathetic, he just would start trying to fix it and make it better. And that's not what I wanted. So empathy is important, but sometimes, again, it means communicating with people what you need in order to feel heard, in order to feel understood. If they are not validating how you're feeling, if they're telling you how you should feel, that may be their way of trying to help you feel better. They don't know how to fix it. They're trying to fix it it. Instead of hearing you, they're trying to fix it. And in that case, it might call for a conversation about how your feelings are important and it's important to you that they hear your feelings and your thoughts and you recognize and respect. They may have different ones, but it's important for them to allow you the give you the respect of allowing you to have your feelings and thoughts. And you will be the one to change your feelings and thoughts when and if you feel it's appropriate. If they won't take responsibility and they want to blame you for their actions, for their emotions, for their thoughts, for their whatever, it's important to deflect that, to say, no, you know what, these are my behaviors and I will take responsibility for them, but those are yours and I will not accept blame for things that you did. And that's really hard for a lot of people to hear if they are used to scapegoating other people. Encouragement is another thing that is needed in relationships, but a lot of times it's lacking. Not because people don't care, but because they were really never taught how to encourage other people. They were taught how to criticize real well, but they weren't taught how to encourage. So recognizing what you're doing, if they are jealous of your successes, explore, you know, what's the function? Sounds like they feel insecure. They're afraid that if you succeed, you won't need them anymore or you won't love them anymore. Okay, address that by reassuring them that they're secure. If they discourage your growth or they don't encourage your growth, you know, either one can be toxic. Letting them know what would Be helpful. What would make you feel good in the relationship? What would make you feel loved and supported in the relationship? How can they encourage you in a positive way? Not everybody is all about getting praise all the time or rah rahs or whatever you want to call it. So communicating with them about how they could show encouragement is also important. Kind of like love languages. We all perceive the encouragement in different ways and then support. If they are being clingy, that's another example of how they may feel insecure. So addressing that, talking with them about what is it that would help you feel more secure and if they engage in those in that conditional love where I love you, if having that discussion. A lot of people were never taught to separate love and goodness of a person from behaviors. You can love their behaviors and love them. You can love their behaviors and really not like them, or you can any combination they're in. So you get my point. People who someone is, is different than what they do. And we can change our behaviors a whole lot easier than we can change who we are. Ultimately, we want to give people what they crave. We're back to that mnemonic consistency, responsiveness, attention, validation, encouragement and safety and support. We all want to feel safe, empowered and loved. Decide what your goals and needs are for that relationship. And, and as I mentioned several times, you may choose to ignore it because it's not that big of a deal. You can set up a boundary. You can say, oh, that's just, that's their stuff. I'm not worth the energy to go there. You can assertively address it because it is bothersome to you and it needs to be addressed, or you can terminate the relationship. Sometimes you're in situations where it's just that person or that agency or organization is not going to change. And you're like, you know what? This is just bringing me down and this is not healthy for me, so I need to make a clean break. Consistently maintain your boundaries. And as a kid we always used to say, I'm rubber and you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you. We want to recognize that a lot of times people's stuff reflects how they feel inside. They may be projecting it onto us, but a lot of times it ref. If they're being angry with us, it indicates that they feel threatened, they feel angry or intimidated. Recognize your part, even if it is recognizing that you're just a part of transference, recognizing that you trigger something in them. It's not about you, but you remind them of somebody okay. Recognizing your part is essential. Respond by validating or acknowledging their fears, their thoughts and needs as real to them. Respect their boundaries. I get the fact that you're afraid that I will get angry or reject you if you do this, and I want to assure you that I won't. And if safe and necessary and helpful, you may want to validate and acknowledge your feelings about the situations and your preferences in the situation that's not always necessary, safe and helpful in the moment with that person. It's important to do it for yourself, to acknowledge to yourself how you feel about the situation and your preferences. It's not always necessary to get into it with them. You can say things like, I feel blank when blank or it would be helpful to me if you could, you know, creating this request that instead of saying you need to do this, which will put them on the defensive because you're trying to control them, you're trying to tell them what to do, you're saying, it would be a great favor to me so they feel like they're able to make a choice and make a choice in a way that's going to make you happy. For example, it would be helpful to me if you would bring turkey this year because mine is always seems to be too dry. My mother in law would always get criticism from her mother in law about her turkey and I always thought it was just fine. But instead of arguing about it all the time, my mother in law's mother in law started bringing the turkey. Solve the problem, okay, you don't like my turkey, you bring it. And it wasn't defensive or argumentative or nasty. It was like, okay, well it would be really hopeful if you would bring the turkey this year. Attend to these people or organizations proactively to help them feel safe so they don't need to use those toxic behaviors. Help them understand how you're going to be there for them. You're going to be loyal and dependable and all that kind of stuff. Encourage appropriate behavior by rewarding it. Other tips Practice good self care. Dealing with all the toxicity in the world is freaking exhausting. So it's important to check out occasionally and check in with yourself and say, what is it that I need to recharge right now? Develop an emergency line. If you are in a toxic environment at work, for example, an emergency line can be a friend that you can call or text and go, it's bad in here today. Somebody who can validate you and say, all right, you know, how can I help you? What can I do? And maybe it's just listen. Focus on the facts and what you can and cannot control. You can choose to address the situation or not. You can choose to internalize what's going on, which generally is not good, or ignore it. Say, you know what? No, that's your stuff. You can choose to end the relationship or you can choose pity and compassion over anger. When people are acting in toxic ways, recognizing how dark and scary it must be inside their head, it don't feed the trolls. Remember that unrewarded behavior often extinguishes. So instead of automatically responding nastiness for nastiness when somebody trolls you or is nasty, taking a breath and maybe saying very quickly to yourself the Loving Kindness Meditation Everyone just wants to be safe, healthy and pain free. Avoid trigger topics with toxic people because when they feel triggered, when they feel vulnerable, they're likely to be more toxic. Increase your self awareness of your wants and needs, their behaviors that are toxic, and the impact that's having on you and your sense of safety and empowerment. Recognize that their behaviors are likely more about them and their insecurities or their lack of a sense of safety and power than anything you did wrong. Explore what those behaviors are communicating for that person or organization and how that may have developed as a survival response. And remember that empathy and validation do not equal acceptance. It means I hear what you're saying, I sense what you're feeling. Toxic behaviors are all too common. Living happily in a toxic society means recognizing toxic behaviors and their impact on you, reconceptualizing toxic behaviors as frantic strategies from someone who feels unsafe to try to get some power, and identifying ways to improve the moment, cope with toxic behaviors and maintain your sense of safety, empowerment and self esteem.
