You Don't Have To Be An Emotional Slave To Toxic People

(Source: The Christian Science Monitor)

When I started writing about campus politics, I thought my blog would be a good opportunity for me to share my beliefs and to improve my writing. Yet since my first publication, I have encountered abuse on social media on nearly a daily basis. People who do not like what I have to say will swear at me, mock me, degrade me, accuse me of ill motives, and more.

However, no matter what other people choose to do, I, like anyone else, still have a decision to make. How am I going to let this affect me? Am I going to let it hurt my feelings and feel powerless before other people’s hurtful actions or am I going to choose do something else?

This kind of stuff used to really bother me, but then I learned how to live free from other people's toxic influence. That is, I learned how to take back my own power that I gave to others. Now that I know how to do this, I don't feel the emotional fallout—the feelings of powerless and intimidation—that comes from experiencing abuse from other people.

It’s quite the opposite. Now, I feel a peaceful sense of control.

So, if you want to live free from the emotional hurt and harmful influence that other people can have over your life, then here are three life-changing truths that help me maintain my power and walk in emotional freedom in the midst of challenging confrontations from other people.

Truth #1: Your beliefs create your feelings. 

If I came into your classroom five minutes before it started and told everyone in the room, “Guys! Watch out! It’s raining!”, do you think the people would be afraid? I think probably not. It's just rain. 

What if, instead of saying it is raining, I told them, “Guys! There’s an active shooter on campus!” Now would they be afraid? I think they would.

So what’s the difference? The answer is, their belief. Rather than dealing with harmless rain, an active shooter situation would put each person in a significant amount of danger. Hence, this belief elicited fear. What they believed changed and so did their emotional response.

Even though this is an imaginary scenario, it is real enough to illustrate how our beliefs create our feelings. When it comes to getting free from toxic people, it is important to realize that the crippling feelings of guilt, shame, fear or frustration you experience that keep us prey to abuse all come from a place of belief. 

If you’re going to live free from toxic people and not be their slave, then you must know that our emotions come from what we believe. If you can start diagnosing your problems on the "belief level" rather than on the "feeling level", then you can be one step closer to being free from the captivating feelings of other people's abuse.

Truth #2: Belief is a choice.

While belief may not feel like much of a choice in the heat of the moment when a toxic person is telling you that you that are, I dunno, uglier than a newborn baby, and the steam is coming out your ears, it is still true: belief is a choice. That is, whether you accept what other people say about you or not is not an automatic thing. It is an act of will.

For example, have you ever tried to trace a decision you made back to the bottom-line reason for why you made it? For example, have you ever asked yourself something like, “Why did I end up eating pizza for lunch instead of a bowl of soup?” (Just roll with me here.)

You might say, “Because I like the way the cheese smells,” or “because I needed something I could hold in my hand and eat while I study.” These might be our motivations, but alongside these all the while is our choosing. We chose to eat pizza because we chose to prioritize studying because we chose to….and so on. The truth is, we are always choosing.

The same goes with our beliefs. We choose to believe what we do because, regardless of why, we "just do." It is a fact of life. This means that we do not have to automatically accept what someone else says about us. Our belief is a choice. We can choose to accept certain thoughts and we can choose to reject certain thoughts.

We are not powerless before a toxic person’s words or in the situations in which we find ourselves encountering toxic people. Since we can choose how we respond, we are not victims. We are free, and this means we never have to let a toxic person’s words or actions automatically affect us again. 

By realizing that belief is a choice, we have the power to be free from toxic people’s influence over our lives. 

Truth #3: You are only responsible for yourself. You are not responsible for other people’s choices.

A toxic person’s ploy is to get you to believe the lie that they are powerless. To a toxic person, the power is always in someone else’s hands. To a toxic person, they are not responsible for their actions. After all, how can they be responsible? They are powerless! Your words and yours actions control how they feel. How they respond is your fault.

Toxic people do not accept that they can control what they believe. They do not accept that they can choose their response to circumstances. What they need, according to the toxic person, is for someone outside of themselves to do something for them (i.e., lend them money, come home for Christmas, stop bringing up an important issue, etc.).

This is how they think they will finally find some peace: when someone else does something for them. Their false belief is that all the responsibility belongs to you and that none of it belongs to them. 

However, as an emotionally healthy person, you do not have to accept this. If you can accept that the power of choice makes us all empowered then you can reject the lie that any one of us is truly in a powerless status. We are powerful through our choice. 

In this way, you never have to feel the guilt that comes from the toxic person’s lie that you must be responsible for other people. As empowered individuals, they are responsible for themselves, just as we are.

It's when we become partners with someone, as equals, that we can enjoy a truly enriching relationship. Though we all enjoy enriching relationships with other people, ultimately you are only responsible for yourself.

If you can get this in your head, if you can hold onto this and believe this, then you can live free from the claws of a toxic influence encroaching upon your life. You can life free from the toxic people's abuse.

Conclusion

Toxic people are everywhere, but they don’t have to run your life. If you can realize that your feelings come what you believe, that what you believe is a choice and that ultimately, you are responsible just for yourself and not other people's choices, then you can live free from toxic people’s hurtful influence in your life.