10 Stoic Strategies To Overcome Toxic Relationships

Navigate toxic relationships with Stoic wisdom in this guided session, offering 10 practical strategies to set boundaries and reclaim peace. Inspired by Seneca's letters, learn to detach from drama, practice empathy without absorption, and focus on self-growth. This helps reduce anxiety from conflicts, fostering gratitude for healthy connections. Includes visualizations for emotional release and affirmations for resilience. Ideal for anyone dealing with difficult people—use it to transform pain into strength. Keywords: toxic relationships, Stoic anxiety relief, boundary setting, gratitude in challenges, mindfulness for peace. Build a daily habit with my morning meditations; explore premium tracks for deeper healing.

Transcript

Welcome to the Stoic Handbook Podcast.

This is John Brooke speaking.

I'd like to begin today's episode by just acknowledging you the listener.

I've been seeing some of my stats on Spotify and Apple podcasts and the episodes are continuing to grow more and more people are really enjoying them and finding value in them and reaching out to me.

So I appreciate that and I appreciate you and I'm glad that these short lessons can be useful to you.

If you are mainly a podcast listener but you'd like to also get access to my articles where I break down ancient texts,

You can visit stoichandbook.

Co and sign up and I'll send you an email every week where I break down and illustrate an ancient stoic text.

In today's episode I want to talk about difficult relationships.

If you look back over your life you'll find that nearly all of the worst times in your life have been caused by other people.

Also of course on the flip side almost all of the best times in your life have been caused by other people.

If you look at movies and stories,

Drama,

Television,

We love these things and they are all about other people.

We are very social.

We respond emotionally to other people and events.

We respond emotionally to insults and compliments and hatred and love.

One of the most addictive feelings in the world is love and intimacy and one of the most catastrophically painful emotions in the world is isolation and rejection.

It is for this reason the stoics place the heavy emphasis on how we should interact with others in social situations.

They had a lot to say for example on how we can navigate insults and difficult individuals.

There is a very famous quote by Mark Zarelius.

I'll read it to you in full now.

Not of the same blood or birth but the same mind and processing a share of the divine.

And so none of them can hurt me.

No one can implicate me in ugliness Nor can I feel angry at my relative or hate him We were born to work together like feet hands and eyes like two rows of teeth Upper and lower to obstruct each other is unnatural to feel anger at someone to turn your back on him These are obstructions.

So here we see the journal entry to himself About how he should think about dealing with difficult individuals Now what's really amazing about this is that Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor when he wrote it if someone is at the bottom of a status hierarchy and They're constantly getting bullied and walked all over you might understand then why they would write a Note to themselves about being more tolerant and accepting But Marcus Aurelius couldn't get arrested He couldn't be bullied.

He could tell people what to do.

He could make orders and He could have people imprisoned or executed he had lots of power and yet he still reminds himself to be tolerant and To accept his fellows as just another part of the larger whole He realized that the path to wisdom and ultimately the path to being a good Emperor wasn't to become a tyrannical oppressive dictator But was to make good decisions based on all of the available data to find wisdom and truth even When it's presented by difficult Jealous or dishonest or arrogant individuals in my own approach and thoughts around dealing with difficult individuals It's a nuanced topic.

But one thing that is very important to recognize right at the beginning is that Even if you are a practicing stoic that doesn't mean that you should endure everything that happens to you in life For example,

If you're in a job situation and you're not being treated well The attitude of well,

I'm a stoic and if I'm feeling negative emotions because of this Then the issue is with me and I should think about it differently and I'm failing because I'm letting them get to me That's actually not a very rational view For example,

The idea of stoicism is to see the world and yourself More rationally more clearly with your divine reason.

We know that we are biological organisms and as biological organisms No matter how much a reason we have we know that our emotional systems can be provoked Maybe we can use reason later on to navigate those provocations,

But they can be provoked so even if you take the greatest stoic sage ever and You constantly interrupt that sage's sleep and you constantly berate him and prod him and poke him and you Constantly push him outside of a group.

Basically if you constantly tortured such a sage eventually his biological system would feel that and Start to deteriorate or break down in the same way if you are in a damaging relationship Whether that be something that is friend based or work based or intimate relationship based That's having an effect on your biological system no matter how much reason you have and so even if you are a practicing stoic if you notice that there is a very very damaging relationship in your life then it is completely acceptable to remove yourself from that because Ultimately,

You want to live a life of wisdom You want to pass your gifts to other people and you want to meet your potential if all of your energy is Being used to navigate a difficult single relationship that is avoidable How is that wise to do so?

So what I like to do is I like to categorize relationships typically into three Categories these are categories of troubled relationships The first type I called misaligned relationships.

This would be a code yellow So a misaligned relationship would be you're not enemies You're not abusive.

You're not hating on each other,

But there are certain personality traits that just don't go well together maybe someone talks a lot and you Find it hard to get a word in edgeways,

Right?

That's a misaligned relationship.

There's no real flow Maybe someone has interests that are completely different from yours And every time you decide to chat with them,

It's always a struggle to find something that you agree on and Things can become quite tense quite quickly You might have many misaligned relationships in your life and and maybe you really like these individuals Families are full of misaligned relationships.

You love different members of your family,

But you wouldn't necessarily Want to spend every waking moment with them like they are best friends,

Right?

Because you didn't choose them and yeah family members can be quite triggering and and and they can be misaligned and Visiting them for a few weeks a couple of times a year can be great but then you find that if you have too much of it,

It overwhelms you and The misalignment becomes too much to handle the next type of relationship is a code orange and this would be a Troubled relationship A truly difficult relationship where you don't really see eye to eye with a person Perhaps they are a little bit triggering Perhaps they say things that are quite quite rude to you at times Perhaps these types of relationships.

There's not much respect or empathy a Troubled relationship is typically what you see in a romantic relationship when it's close to being broken up You know where there's a lot of blame and a lot of arguments a lot of accusations and victimization And then the third type of relationship,

Which is what I call a toxic relationship now Toxic relationships are talked about a lot and it seems like everyone these days has had a toxic relationship always in a toxic relationship or is with someone who has toxic traits and and Yeah,

That would get used a lot because it's kind of a Buzzword,

But when I refer to a truly toxic relationship,

I'm talking about a relationship that is actually detrimental to your health and the type of relationship that you might need counseling to be able to deal with either during or after you know,

Like a very very emotionally damaging relationship and The way that we respond to each of these Colors is to deal with the relationship each of these colors the misaligned the troubled and the toxic are all different,

Right?

So there's not a one-size-fits-all approach.

So the idea of the misaligned relationships now,

These are very good for stoicism Marcus Aurelius is talking about misaligned relationships in the quote Today I will deal with meddling and grateful arrogant dishonest jealous and surly people So these are people that are coming in and out of his life.

He's not living with them he's just dealing with them and They can be difficult to deal with and there's this there's a level of misalignment there Marcus Aurelius also has another quote where he he says that when you meet difficult people either put up with them or Instruct them.

So there's this element when we meet the misaligned people that it might not always be in our best interest to Make a huge deal about every grievance that we have The idea with misaligned relationships is that we focus on the outcome that we want.

So if Marcus is dealing with people on a daily basis He can either focus on the personality traits that he doesn't like in them or he can focus on well Look,

They are who they are But I have a job to do and I want to figure out the outcome that I want and I want us to get there together If that means that I have to tolerate them a bit more and I have to tactically navigate the situation Then so be it,

You know,

This is not going to be a situation that lasts forever and there's nothing to be gained by having unnecessary fights and arguments and At times I may need to instruct them,

You know,

But I'm going to instruct them in a way that is compassionate and One way we can do that is use something like the nonviolent communication model outlined by Marshall Rosenberg Which to summarize goes something like you you give an observation without criticizing Then you express your feelings and needs and then you give a request So if someone comes to you and they're misaligned and they they kind of accuse you of something or put some blame in or They're not very grateful for something you've done for them You can just simply say what you see without criticizing so you don't For example,

If you notice that someone's been working a lot,

You don't go you work too much,

Right?

Because that's a judgment instead you would say hey on the books.

I've noticed that you've worked 60 hours this week Okay,

So in the case of someone being difficult,

You could say something.

Hey in the last three conversations I've had with you.

I've noticed that you've pointed out three things I've done that you didn't like Okay,

So there's no criticism.

It's just an observation Then you follow up with the feelings and needs when I hear this It makes me quite upset and a little bit irritated because I am actually trying my best And because I'm dedicating so much time to this job that I'm doing I really need to feel like I have support I would really appreciate it if you could come to me with a few things that you think I'm doing well So I could feel that I'm not just doing a terrible job and I do feel appreciated by you And then if you do have anything that you don't like I'd love to set aside some time and brainstorm solutions to those issues Would you be willing to do that tomorrow?

Okay,

So that's an example.

I've just come up with that off the top of my head But that's a beautiful way to to engage with the misaligned relationship.

You're observing something you're expressing How you feel you're expressing what you need and then you're making a request right because you can't just Expect things to change right you have to make a request either put up with them or instruct them and the request can be a form of instruction The idea of expressing feelings and needs is something I want I want to stick with you It's a crazy thing,

But people think that when you deal with difficult people You should kind of become a difficult person yourself To kind of fight fire with fire,

But it doesn't work like that a Much better approach is to be human to be real and to be strong Let me give you an example if you were having a really bad day And you came to me and started telling me that I was no good And then I didn't help out around the house for example say we live together if I returned fire by saying well look I'm trying my best,

But you've got to understand I do XYZ and You don't do this other thing imagine how you'd feel if I said that if I responded with another counter-attack Versus if you said to me,

I don't help out enough around the house,

And I said to you oh Wow,

Okay I'm a little bit surprised that you said that and a little bit hurt Yeah,

Hang on a second.

I'm taking a moment to think about it Yeah,

Hang on a second.

I'm taking this in Yeah,

So you okay,

You don't feel like I'm helping enough Now we have a chance of intimacy right because I'm telling you how I'm feeling it's real So expressing feelings and needs is a huge thing huge huge huge Huge thing for misaligned relationships when it kind when it comes time to dealing with troubled relationships You really have three options right if you have a genuinely troubled relationship,

And these are typically relationships that you see more than once so consistently So these troubled relationships you you see regularly right like partners friends co-workers etc You have a few options right you can accept the status quo and just deal with it You can leave the relationship or you can try and change things It's really that simple you know a lot of people stress out about troubled relationships a lot you have three options Okay,

It's really that simple you can accept it the way it is and if so then don't complain anymore You got to be mature about it right you can't say well I'm not going to leave and I'm not going to change,

But I'm still going to complain Well,

You don't get to have your cake and eat it You can't accept the status quo and then continue to complain So if you accept the status quo you've got to stop complaining and deal with it If you decide to leave then you leave if you think that that's the only option and if you want to Change the relationship the key to doing that is change yourself And the reason why is because it's very very very difficult to change another human being like almost impossible It's a very very very difficult to change yourself And you are you and you also want to change and even so it's hard to change Think about habits that you've tried to do how difficult it is to remain consistent with new habits or getting rid of bad habits Or changing behavioral patterns.

It's hard and you think you can do that for another person It doesn't matter even if you're a great manipulator It's a very difficult to make last thing changes in another person,

But you can change yourself and People are different depending on the environment they're in and so if you change yourself you therefore change the environment That the other person in the troubled relationship is in This is the best way to Change a troubled relationship and the change can happen overnight.

It can be dramatic If you change yourself,

But again,

If you don't want to change yourself,

That's fine.

I believe or accept the status quo You cannot say that you want to change the relationship But only change the other while you remain the same again.

It doesn't work like that.

That's not a very mature approach So the question is how do you change yourself?

Well,

You need to learn the difference between good communication and Bad communication the acronym that I like from feeling good together a book by David Burns is the acronym of EAR empathy assertiveness respect You'll discover that whenever you have a troubled relationship You will typically Not be communicating with empathy assertiveness or respect on a consistent basis Empathy means that you actually acknowledge the emotional state and place that the person Who you're interacting with is in if they're struggling with something you feel into that if they're thinking something you try to really See where they're coming from.

We don't just brush it aside and go.

Ah,

Well,

You know,

You're always saying stuff like that It's not empathy at all.

So empathy is truly Putting yourself in another person's shoes assertiveness though on the flip side to empathy means that you Speak the truth You don't just say only things that you want the other person to hear you've got to say well I feel this or i'm annoyed by that or I didn't like it when this happened Right,

So it's true empathy but also honesty And then the third thing is that you can't just say that you don't like it.

You can't just say that you don't like it The host edge is supposed to be beautiful walk out of your house talk to your partner or friend or colleague with empathy,

Assertiveness and respect for 30 days,

Then I don't know what you're looking for,

Right?

It's not rocket science.

And you might say,

Well,

They won't speak to me like that.

Sure,

They probably won't.

But if you continue to speak to them like that,

Watch what will happen in 30 days.

You'll be astounded actually.

It will change everything.

Empathy is something that's missing massively in life.

Truly,

Truly,

Truly missing.

Very rarely do people actually empathize with anybody anymore,

You know?

Like asking you a question,

Then really thinking about your response and putting themselves in your shoes,

You know?

Like,

How's your day going?

Oh,

I've had a rough day.

I haven't had much sleep.

How many people would go,

Oh yeah,

Okay,

You slept bad.

That happened to me last night too.

Or well,

Whatever,

Let's forget about it.

Let's talk about something else.

Or pretend to care.

You know,

Like,

Oh,

Poor you.

Yeah,

You must be so tired anyway.

But what about actually empathizing with someone and going,

Wow,

This person,

They have a lot to do today.

You know,

They've got to go to work.

They've got a child to look after.

And they've only had four hours sleep.

You know,

I wonder what their actual day-to-day experience is like.

I wonder what their biggest struggle is today being so sleep deprived.

I wonder what kind of thoughts they're having.

I wonder if they're experiencing more agitation than usual.

I wonder if they feel like giving up,

Right?

Now that's empathy.

But it takes pausing and being mindful of the situation.

There's a technique also from Feeling Good Together called the disarming technique.

This technique is amazing.

It's so simple,

But I promise you,

It's extremely difficult to do.

If you can do it,

You will see amazing results in troubled relationships,

But it is difficult.

The disarming technique works like this.

Whenever someone says something to you in a troubled relationship,

You try and find the truth in what they say.

So if someone says in a romantic relationship,

We never go anywhere together.

It's like you don't want to be with me.

Right,

Now,

In a troubled relationship,

The typical response to this would be,

Well,

I went somewhere with you last Thursday,

Didn't I?

Right,

So you're basically discounting them,

Right?

The empathy is not even there.

But the disarming technique would be,

Hmm,

Let me think about that.

So how many places have we been in the last month?

Yeah,

Well,

We've been out twice in the last month.

That's actually not that many times,

To be honest.

You're right,

I can see why you'd say that.

How many times would you like to go out?

Like what would be your ideal?

I'd like to try and help you with that.

Boom,

Beautiful relationship there if you can do that consistently.

Hard to do,

But it's magic if you can do it.

Resentment,

That feeling of resentment that happens towards the end of relationships will cover this over.

And it'll be really hard to use the disarming technique and to genuinely try and find truth in what the other person is saying if there's resentment.

That's a beautiful technique to do in general.

Every time there is the trigger feeling,

Every time you feel like,

Ugh,

Try and find truth in what the other person is saying.

Again,

This goes back to stoicism as well.

The Stoics encouraged us when we get insulted to simply ask ourselves,

Is this true?

You know,

Like if someone says,

You're bald.

It's like,

Is this true?

Not really,

I'm not actually bald.

Well then they're wrong,

And so the insult means nothing.

Or they're right and go,

Yeah,

You said what was self-evident.

Either way,

There's no insult.

You're either wrong or you're right,

And that's it.

Maybe I learn from it,

Maybe I don't.

But the insult part,

That's a judgment that I add to it.

I decide to be harmed based on what you said.

The third category is of course the toxic relationship.

Even Seneca said that some people are an enemy to tranquility,

And this means that no matter how deep you go into stoicism,

Philosophy,

Self-improvement,

If you can help it,

Why would you chain yourself to someone who is an extremely violent individual whose whole life is there to cause misery in others?

Like a full-on psychopath,

Why would you do that?

It would make no sense to do that if you can avoid it.

And so if you find that you are constantly living in a sense of fear and obligation and guilt,

And that you don't have any control,

And that you can't seem to have happiness,

And that the person you're interacting with can't seem to take requests or is incapable of showing you any respect,

Or is incapable of wanting to make any progress towards improving the relationship,

And you've tried and you've failed,

At a certain point you have to leave.

So Jordan B.

Peterson has a rule when you should leave a relationship,

And the rule is simple.

If you think that if you stayed with this person in 10 years' time,

You'd be homicidal and an alcoholic,

Then you should leave.

Okay,

So that's a really simple rule.

It's an extreme rule,

But it actually makes a lot of sense.

If you look forward into the future,

If you think that you would turn to drinking,

And you think that you'd become extremely aggressive and angry and resentful and bitter because of this relationship,

The feeling that you haven't truly lived your life because you've been so controlled and walked all over and had your self-esteem eroded,

Then it's time to go.

And yeah,

That can actually be very helpful to the person as well,

Because they can use that data of you leaving to try and help them.

Now,

There's a lot that I could say about how to deal with insults and the specifics of social ninjitsu,

How to out-frame individuals,

And there are a lot of stoic principles and tactics for dealing with insults and triggering situations,

But I'm gonna dedicate an entire lesson to that because I think it needs its own stage.

This is more about difficult and troubled relationships.

I hope that these three frameworks have been useful.

In terms of books that you could read,

If you believe that you're in a truly dangerous kind of toxic relationship,

Then you can read books like Psychopath Free or The Narcissist's Nightmare,

And you might need some support and help to get out of that.

But those are more rare than the more kind of troubled relationships.

Troubled relationships are incredibly common,

And the biggest mistake I see is that the person who's complaining about the troubled relationship is neither willing to leave and doesn't want to change themselves either,

But is thinking inaccurately that if they just annoy and criticize their partner,

Eventually they'll magically change,

And I'm sorry to break it to you.

But yeah,

Human beings are not like that.

For misaligned relationships,

The goal is outcome-focused.

How can we resolve the situation?

How can we move forward together?

How can we see each other as working as a whole?

How can we collaborate?

It's like it's okay to not get along completely.

You can still do good work together.

Many successful businesses have been ran by people who didn't get along,

But they worked well together.

So what do you want?

Do you want to work well with someone,

Or do you have to just get along with them?

Because likewise,

Many best friends would do a really bad job if they were working together.

Many best friends wouldn't make great relationships where there's a lot of negotiation and mature decisions to be made.

So I hope this helps,

And thank you for listening to the Stoic Handbook podcast.

If you leave a review on Apple Podcasts,

That would be awesome,

Really appreciate it.

And check out stoichandbook.

Co for more articles that explore ancient breakdowns of Epictetus.

Thank you very much,

And I'll speak to you soon.

Vape-O-Mitting.

Reviews

Excellent as always, thank you Jon. You are the voice of sense. Thank you particularly for the examples you give as they really help me learn how I could apply these methods to my life. Cheers!

One of the most informative and enlightening talks I've heard. Thank you for breaking down the 3 types of relationships and how to handle them. I will look for your podcasts and follow you! Thank you!

Very very helpful. Thank you for putting together such a useful way to see relationships. Yeah correct we can barely change ourselves so why do we persist in changing others.

Excellent talk and came at a time in my life when I needed to hear it. Your talk gave me clarity in how to deal with a particularly difficult relationship. Thank you.

So many helpful ideas and tools in this podcast. I've returned to it several times when faced with challenging relationships.

We all need help in this area. Need to listen a few more times. Thank you.

This is a very useful recording which breaks down the complexity of varying types of relationships into understandable concepts with several practical actions items for positive change that can be made, right away. Highly recommended!!

Excellent information and delivery. Really helped me figure out how to approach different relationships in my life and how to change myself to better be in them. Thank you!

🙏🏻

Thank you very much, It was very interesting, and made a lot of sense which resonated with me. I will be listening to it again and take your advice.

Thank you for this, I will definitely listen to it again.

Great information, packed with all kinds of workable ideas. Thank you thank you!

Excellent. Worth listening to again and again.
Thanks for your sharing. I especially like the examples you give of how to deal with relationships…

Such valuable information & tools to use. Thank you

Love the Stoic way of thinking ❤️
Just have to keep reminding myself 🙂

Wow, I did not expect to get so much out of this. I will need to listen a few times to truly grasp everything but man this was enlightening. Thank you!

Excellent talk..I took a lot from it. Thank you Jon 🙏

Extremely beautiful talk. Got into the nerve of a troubled relationship with so much ease. I now understand where I stand w.r.t my relationship and what I should be doing in order to get myself out of this "grey" zone and into one with more clarity.

Thankyou so much for putting this across.

Very useful

Very informative. Thank you.