‘How to Handle the Difficult People in Your Life’
Getting along with other people is vitally important to our health and wellbeing. Of course, we can look after ourselves as much as possible: we can meditate, eat healthy food, exercise, and do all the right things, but it only takes a negative comment from someone we love or admire to bring rovers of negativity into our lives. This negativity can be hard to escape from, and like an illness, it takes us over. Luckily there are antidotes to the issue of ‘other people.’ These include acceptance, compassion, and communication.
In this article, we look at some of the best practices for dealing with negative people or people we struggle to get along with. This can include partners, friends, coworkers, and family members. We all want to have healthy, happy, and harmonious relationships, and the only way to succeed is through active effort on our part. You might think it requires effort from others too, and in some cases, that’s quite correct. In truth, however, there is a lot we can do for ourselves to improve the quality of our relationships vastly.
If you want to resolve a nagging issue with a partner or learn how to process the negative comments of someone you work with, then this article is for you. Read on for some useful insights on how to handle the difficult people in your life.
Accept People for Who They Are
Most of us have encountered someone we don’t click with, or outright don’t like. It happens in every walk of life, whether in our local sports team, at work or even in our household. Having to relate to someone who rubs us the wrong way can be one of the hardest things to handle on a daily basis, and is the cause of much stress and anxiety. Sometimes there is a good reason for disliking someone – perhaps they are actively antagonistic towards you – other times, there may not be an obvious reason why you don’t get along.
The good news is there are many ways, and offers at https://halfcooked.co.uk/three-vs-smarty-review/, of solving this dilemma, but it does require some effort and creative thinking from your side. The premise is that we want to get along with everyone and for things to be harmonious. In reality, however, this is highly unlikely. People have different personalities and sensitivities, and quite often, these clash in awkward and difficult ways. The first step to realizing the harmony within groups of people is to understand and accept that people ‘are different and that you won’t get in with everyone.
If you feel like you’ve made an effort with a person, but you still clash, it could be that you have fundamentally different values or personalities that are not compatible. If you accept this fact, you will find it’s easier to understand and accept the person. Who knows, it might even lead to an unexpected bridge between you.
Turn Negatives into Positives
Every interaction we have with people, whether it’s friends, family members, or enemies – especially enemies – can teach us something about ourselves. If you have a coworker who doesn’t seem to like you and makes negative comments about you, you will probably feel quite reactive. This reactivity can quickly lead into a downward spiral of negativity and ill-will. A state of mind like this is extremely unhealthy for you. It can affect your entire life and all your relationships.
Instead of harboring negativity and ill-will toward one person in your life, it’s far more useful to meditate on the issue and figure out what disturbs you about the persona and the comments.
Exploring your inner feelings in this manner will lead you to an understanding of who you are at a deeper level. With the self-knowledge obtained from reflecting of this kind, you will be able to establish a more formidable character that will not be affected by the comments and judgments of others.
Although it can be difficult to handle at first, and negativity from others can seriously affect your mood and the quality of your day, try not to react – even if it seems like the most logical thing to do. Reacting to someone’s negativity will engulf you in a dualistic confrontation that won’t be productive for anyone. It will also affect your reputation. A better approach is to absorb the negativity temporarily and process it on your own. Even if this takes time and perseverance, it will eventually yield positive results.
Be Aware of Your Emotions
Becoming more aware of your emotions is the first step toward greater emotional intelligence. Some people have exceptional emotional intelligence, but it didn’t happen without dedicated effort and lots of mistakes. We all have emotions that we are instinctively attached and connected to. That’s natural. If we feel angry, we might throw something or shout; if we feel happy, we smile. But becoming aware of our emotions means detaching ourselves somewhat from the feeling, be they negative or positive.
It might sound counterintuitive to detach yourself from a positive emotion, but it’s part of the practice that develops control over our feelings. This control will be especially useful when feelings of anger or ill-will arise. Whenever you are experiencing an emotion, the first thing is to bring awareness to it. Recognize that you are having an emotion and try to put a label on it. One good sentence to use is ‘anger is arising,’ or ‘joy is arising.’ Labeling the emotion in this way allows you to stand back from it, skilfully.
If you practice this, you will often get faster at recognizing what emotions are arising in you and what situations they arise. This will mean that when you’re confronted with a negative person who rubs you the wrong way, you will have the resources to handle it. It will mean that you don’t have to respond to their negativity with your own negativity and ill-will; you can label the emotion that is arising for you and work with it more constructively.
Don’t Take it Personally
Have you ever been in a situation where you have fallen out with some? Maybe you shouted at each other and went to separate rooms, or didn’t speak for a long time. When you do this, you also tend to overthink the situation and support it from your side with more and more robust arguments. You were in the right because of this and that. Approaching a disagreement like this is not only unhelpful; it breeds contempt and resentment that builds up like toxins and is bad for your health.
In the same way, as you can step back from your emotions given time and practice, you can also step back from a disagreement. More often than not, a disagreement is just a misunderstanding that can be resolved with a little creative thinking. Firstly, don’t assume you are in the right. Like a scientist, try to falsify the issue. Put yourself in the other person’s position and try to understand their concerns, worries, and feelings. Doing this will allow you to see the issue from a different perspective, which should help you find a resolution.
Remember, however, that seeing the issue from the other person’s position is not the same as agreeing with them. You are trying to falsify the argument. In reality, you will probably find that there are some things you were right about. Take some time and space to meditate on the issue and to figure out what is important. When you are clear on how you feel and what you want to say, it’s time to communicate.
Communicate Skillfully
Communication is another very complex area that will require time and practice to improve at. However, it is vitally important in creating healthy relationships. Part of becoming an effective communicator is understanding that how we communicate is just as important as what we say. It doesn’t matter if we apologize for something if we’re still displaying anger or annoyance. These emotions can still be present in us as we say the right things and can come across in our voice and body language.
It’s a sure sign that the issue has not been removed for you and that the conversation should perhaps be postponed. Don’t be afraid to have this awareness and request more to think about what you want to say. Use your emotional intelligence and say something like, I’m still feeling angry about this, or, this is still raw for me, can we talk about it another time? Comments like this are a clear display of emotional intelligence and will be rewarded with better results in the end.
If, however, you are ready to communicate with a difficult person, you need to be as clear as possible about what is bothering you and how it is affecting you. Statements such as, when you do ‘this,’ it makes me feel like ‘this,’ are very useful for getting a skillful conversation underway. The goal is always understanding. Good communication leads to understanding, and understanding is the foundation of harmonious relationships.