The Myth of “Toxic People”
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” – C.G. Jung
There’s a lot of personal development writing about how it’s important to avoid “toxic people” and “energy vampires”—people who criticize us, make fun of us, tell us we can’t achieve our goals, and so on. I actually have the opposite view: that the “difficult people” in our lives offer us wonderful opportunities to grow as human beings.
My sense is that, whenever you find yourself getting annoyed, disturbed, or uncomfortable around someone, you’re always learning something about yourself. In a nutshell, what you’re becoming aware of is a part of yourself you aren’t fully comfortable with. When someone acts in a way you see as greedy, fearful, obnoxious, or something else, the discomfort you experience is actually your distaste for your own greed, fear or obnoxiousness. The other person’s behavior is simply reminding you of this unwanted part.
What’s more, simply having this awareness can do much to help you reconcile with parts of yourself you shunned before—and free up all the energy you were using to repress those parts, so it can fuel you as you pursue what you want.
My Own Example
I’ll tell you a story that illustrates this idea well. When I first started my own business, I had a friend who basically told me I was wasting my life, and that I had been brainwashed by self-help books I’d read about being an entrepreneur. When he said these things, I felt angry, and initially I reacted the way I think most of us would. I decided I was “justified” and “right” in feeling upset, and distanced myself from him to make sure he wouldn’t hold me back from reaching my goals.
However, around that time, I began reading Embracing Our Selves, by Hal and Sidra Stone
In starting my new venture, I’d been making a concerted effort to stay positive and directed, and never let doubt creep into my mind. Labeling my friend as “toxic” and pushing him out of my life was a natural outgrowth of this mindset. But by forcing myself to be perpetually upbeat and motivated, I was shoving aside a younger, less self-assured part of myself—a part that was scared that I would fail and that I was, in fact, wasting my life. And by pushing that part away, I was doing violence to who I really was.
Making Peace With Our Fearful Parts
For a moment, instead of keeping this scared child part at bay, I tried allowing it to voice its concerns. I acknowledged that, on some level, I was feeling fearful and pessimistic about my path, just like my friend. When I admitted to myself how I really felt, some tense areas in my body suddenly relaxed, and I felt refreshed. All the energy I’d been using to plaster a smile on my face and force away negativity was now freed up to help me achieve what I wanted, and I actually started feeling more excited and directed about my goals.
So, in an important sense, my friend’s pessimism was helpful to me. By voicing his doubts about my course in life, he alerted me to a place where I wasn’t completely okay with myself. I was repressing a childlike part of me that felt timid and unready, and straining against that part was actually physically tiring. But when I fully accepted that part and listened to what it had to say, I felt more powerful than ever before.
What I learned from this experience was that the greatest power to pursue our goals and succeed comes from wholeness—from our acceptance of every aspect of who we are. This may sound counterintuitive, because a lot of self-help literature advises us to simply tell our fearful inner voices to shut up, and avoid people who remind us of them. But if you try on the accepting mindset I’m talking about, and simply let those voices be without judgment, I think you’ll find it worthwhile.
Related posts:
- Growing Into Our Humanity, Part 3: The Myth of the “Ego-Free Project”
- Five Reasons To Be Grateful For “Difficult People” In Your Life
- Growing Into Our Humanity, Part 2: The Myth of the “Bulletproof Life”
- Interview With Tess Marshall, Author of “Flying By The Seat Of My Soul”
- “Authentic Marketing,” Part 2: On Actually Caring About People
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May 26th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
i love this post, chris, because it is just the opposite of what you hear. i read martha beck’s most recent book, steering by starlight, and she calls that inner voice of doubt your dragon. she tells you to name it, accept it. acknowledge what it says and then tell it that while you appreciate its concern, you’re going ahead anyway. (even as i read her words, i was thinking of things you’ve written – about acknowledging our childlike, attention-seeking selves rather than pushing them aside.)
great post! i’m off to retweet you!
May 27th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Thanks Judy — I strive to be the opposite in all things.
I’m glad that the perspective that we don’t need to be “afraid of fear” is catching on in personal development writing — I know that fully experiencing my own fear rather than telling it to shut up produced a breakthrough for me.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Hi Chris,
I hear what your saying and completely agree. However I’m in the process of making new friends in AZ. One friend continuously calls a certain class names and puts them down. I’ve asked her to stop several times. She completely ignores me and continues the behavior.
In the last couple of weeks I’ve decided I can’t be with her anymore. Am I missing my lesson here?
May 27th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Thanks for your comment Tess. It sounds like, when your friend puts certain people down, you feel angry or disgusted with her. I’m curious — what sorts of things are you thinking when you’re feeling upset with her? Is it a fear that others will see you as holding the same views as your friend? Do you find yourself sympathizing with what she’s saying and disliking yourself for it? And so on.
I think questions like these are a helpful way to make this situation a learning experience. You might end up finding something out like “I worry that I’ll be seen as just like my friends, and then other people who are valuable to me will abandon me.” And then once you’re aware of that belief, it stops unconsciously controlling the choices you make in your life. From that place, you can actually choose to be or not be with her, without feeling compelled to get away from her because the feelings that come up when you’re with her are too scary or difficult.
May 27th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
I believe it’s easier to get rid of someone that doesn’t fit into my life, the problem is everyone has some personality trait that bothers me at some point if I hang out with them long enough. If I would keep getting rid of everyone that doesn’t fit what I am looking for in that moment I wouldn’t have any friends.
I never realized that I was using this technique for the past few years. Thank you for putting it into such clear words.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Hi Chris.
This is great! You know what I think is interesting about this is how when you’re friend was “reacting” to you he was seeing something in you that he didn’t want to see in himself. I’d never considered it from that angle before until I was reading this post. Kind of makes things seem less personal doesn’t it?
May 28th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Thanks Karl — I like that way of putting it. It sounds useful to recognize that it’s what you’re wanting or needing in each moment, not what someone else says or does, that creates how you feel about them — and that what you want and need is always changing.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Hi Davina — yes, my sense is that, for my friend, I represented the individualistic, “selfish” part of him that he didn’t want to acknowledge, and so he was critical of me. The Jung quote at the top of this article is such a useful principle for making sense out of our relating with others.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Hi Chris – I totally agree with every single word! Great stuff. It’s not only personal development material that has talk of how “negative” people affect us – people often go around disowning their reflections in the name of “wisdom” (if they are clear about themselves they simply won’t get into the situation where people are dragging them down).
Just on your conversation with Davina – maybe your friend was reacting to the way you were “going for it” with your new ventures, while he wasn’t progressing – but then, this isn’t our business!
Cheers – Robin
May 28th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Thanks Robin, I think that’s well-put — it’s easy to say, when we feel criticized, “I won’t take it personally — it’s their problem, not mine,” but the more difficult and ultimately the more rewarding road is to look at the way it actually is “our problem.” In other words, it’s what _we_ think of _ourselves_ that has us feel hurt or angry when someone else tells us we can’t accomplish something, that we aren’t good enough, and so on.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:56 am
This is such a powerful concept that so many of us should take heed of. Face them (or more likely our fears,) head-on and find out what we need to work on about ourselves.
You and Liara Covert are of one mind on this and I appreciate very much being exposed to your wisdom.
Thanks!
May 29th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Hi Jannie — I’m glad you liked the post. Thanks for referring me to Liara — I haven’t seen her writing yet and I’ll definitely check it out.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Fabulous article, and so very important. It seems to me that people do alot of projecting, and feel that an uncomfortable situation is about the other person, when in fact, it has everything to do with what is arising inside of us. I am so happy to see what you’ve written, as it is such an important part of accepting, surrendering.
Thank you!
June 26th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Hi Molly — thanks for the appreciation. Just reminding myself that everything I perceive is part of my experience of the world, and none of it is “objective reality,” is such a useful way to keep perspective.