Coming Home to Yourself

My number one piece of advice, is try your best to understand the person that you’re having to deal with. The behavior and patterns that they have were learned from somewhere, and are usually a coping mechanism and or means of survival that they developed in order to get to where they are today. Most people that have toxic and or unhealthy behaviors are not even aware of the fact that they do, and usually will not see the problem that their behavior(s) cause to others and themselves. Most people don’t have the intention of hurting anyone else especially not the people that they love, but it can definitely be a challenge to say the least when you’re the person on the receiving end of their toxic behavior. If you can, take the time to remove yourself from the situation and look at it as if you were a friend or even a stranger looking in. You would give both sides of the story equal benefit of the doubt right? You would try your best to look for the logic in the reactions of both parties and try to understand why each person has and or responds the way that they do. So, I would like to invite you to take this approach when dealing with someone who has toxic behaviors. Try to analyze the situation and formulate a hypothesis as to why this person could possibly have this behavior. What could have happened to them in their life to make them react and or behave the way that they do now? Try your best not to judge the person and or view them as being strange and or abnormal in this process. Try to make them more human and remove the demonizational affect that we can sometimes use when looking at and or dealing with someone who has hurt us. Once you feel that you have some ideas as to why they might have this behavior(s) I would like to invite you to try one and or all of the different approaches bellow. One of the things that you can try, is changing the way that you respond to the persons behavior. Nothing will change in any situation and or relationship unless you do. For the longest time I was a toxic relationship addict. I would complain about and or play the victim card all the time hoping and begging the other person to change their behaviors and or ask them to stop treating me the way that they were, but would get absolutely nowhere. It was only when I changed how I behaved and responded to those people that the situation and or relationship(s) changed. It’s kind of the same principle as not putting your expectations and or needs onto other people. I know that this might seem like a silly idea because the person still has the toxic behavior and so changing how you respond might seem pointless, but if you change how you respond to a situation and or behavior, the other person will have no choice but to eventually do the same. If they don’t, then you might have to make the conscious decision to gracefully walk away from that person and or wean them out of your life. The root of all things in this world is love. I know that it sounds cheesy, but it’s true. When you see something beautiful and or full of joy it’s because it’s filled with love. When you see something that’s filled with anger and sadness it’s only because it is lacking love and in extreme cases was lacking for far too long. So if we take this premise and apply it to how we deal with all things the answer is quite simple, we need to meet and deal with others from a place of love. I know that meeting someone from a place of love when they are showing you anything but, can seem like the most difficult thing to do in the entire world, but it makes all the difference.