No Toxic People, Please!!!!
‘I’m getting rid of all the toxic people in my life’
‘Remove all the toxic people, stay away from all the toxic people’
‘How do I get away from all the toxic people in my life?’
Have you heard such advice? Or given it? On social media or to your friends or family members?
I want to share with you a obvious truth:
There is no such thing as toxic people.
However, as a society and as individuals living in an insane society, there are many toxic behaviours and it is these behaviours that have caused hurt, pain and the trauma. This is what brings about our toxicity as a society and culture.
The ways in which we can cause hurt to ourselves and one another, in our personal and professional lives, in the businesses we conduct and the industries we create show up in behavior.
These behaviours can be felt in the emotions that we often ignore till we go numb to any feeling at all.
They can be heard in the language we use to communicate and in the silence we use to punish ourselves or others.
Ever observed a family who won’t talk to one another when one person is viewed as having done something wrong? Or been the topic of a gossip that flies around your social circle or office?
Have you ever labeled another person or taken on labels that others have assigned to you?
Labels like ‘difficult’, ‘demanding’, ‘loud’, ‘quiet’, ‘reserved’, ‘shy’, ‘bright’, ‘dull’, ‘quick’, for the most part these may be harmless yet we become so used to relying on quick ways to describe another they get worse.
Have you ever labeled someone a ‘narcissist’, ‘sociopath’, or ‘co-dependent’ to describe someone who is insecurely attached?
Often, we use blanket terms we don’t know the full meaning of or we mean no harm to one another yet the way in which we define ourselves and each other has an impact on how we treat ourselves or the other person. This is felt over time and makes itself known in the actions or lack of action we take in our careers and private worlds.
It can result in our self image, how we perceive ourselves to be. It may begin to govern over what we will or won’t do. It is felt by those around us, even if no words are spoken, people will adapt their behaviours according to the ‘vibe’.
Many times our private and professional worlds don’t even meet one another. There may even be a huge gap between our public and personal personalities.
Are you known as outgoing at work whilst your family describe you as aloof, controlling or mean? Or is it the other way around? Maybe you are super loving at home but at work you are far more reserved?
These gaps give us clues into our emotional make up and are worth unpacking along side someone who will help you understand what these clues are telling you.
Each one of us carry a bag of unresolved, never acknowledged baggage until we learn how to deal with it.
There are many tools available to help us with the task. I sometimes describe our inner landscape as a fridge. If you never clean out your fridge of old foods, over time you will end up with a highly toxic fridge and you won’t be able to make room for fresh produce.
Our inner worlds are exactly like this and we take our inner world with us everywhere. To school pick up, to work, to dinner with friends, to bed with our loved ones and if its never been seen or cleaned the overspill can’t help but rub off around them, as they get their feet sticky from standing nearby.
The good news is that once we learn to really clean our insides out, we become a lot more healthy for ourselves and others to be around and with. The question is: what type of cleaner are you? Are you a once in 5 years? 10? Here’s another truth: cleaning up is a lifetime job but its made way easier once you have the tools and the organising skills to do the work.
In my own practice I work with clients over an extended period of time because I know these tools need regular application over time to really give us the support we need.
In the corporate world I’ve seen many profiling tools used. Whilst these tools can be useful for identifying someone’s personality and skillset they do very little to help people shift negative behaviours. Appraisals are relied on in order to take care of this aspect to managing a team, but what if there was a better way? There is!
If you’ve ever landscaped a garden or designed a home you’ll know that the structure of the design goes a very long way to keeping things in order over time. You will also know that weekly gardening is what enables you to maintain the whole look and feel of your garden. The same is true for our emotional health and wellbeing.
Most recently many people have been desperately affected by the loss of Caroline Flack who heartbreakingly had this to say about her situation:
“I’ve been pressing the snooze button on many stresses in my life for my whole life. I’ve accepted shame and toxic opinions on my life for over 10 years and yet told myself its all part of my job, no complaining……… The problem with brushing things under the carpet is….they are still there and one day someone is going to lift that carpet up and all you are going to feel is shame and embarrassment”.
Now, while I didn’t know Caroline or her situation, like many I felt how devastating it is to lose someone so young with so much to live for.
Yet while I didn’t know her, I have invested twelve years and counting in studying the structural dynamics of human behaviour. In fact before my training was always someone dedicated in the exploration of our journey as people. I know how destructive shame can be and I know that loss of what once was, or what we wished for yet never received is often so painful we can’t look fully at it.
Yet in being unable to look at it directly we are also unable to move beyond it.
Sometimes we fear moving on would be to abandon something we committed to. Other times we can feel intense shame for ‘failing’ to live up to someone else’s expectations or demands.
Our human hearts are complex yet very complete, we simply need to learn the tools to listen in to them, in doing so we acquire the resilience to look directly into our pain, what ever it is. From here, over time we gather the strength we need in asserting real communication with ourselves and with others. This is one of the aspects I help my clients with.
Now when I say ‘simply’, that in no way makes it easy. It can feel a fronting and terrifying to begin such a journey.
However, it is an essential journey we all must take to live a life worth living and to take back what belongs to us no matter how much we have lost along the way. It is essential in order for us to bring the fullness of who we truly are to the world for the benefit of one another.
My deepest condolences to the family and friends of Caroline Flack and anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide.
May we all gain and maintain the tools in life that keep us healthy for ourselves and one another.
Need the the tools that enable you to stop hitting snooze on hidden shame, blame, punishment or reward cycles? Want to take yourself from hiding and surviving to thriving? Reach out for a one to one with me if you’re ready to clean your ‘fridge’…
