How To Deal With Difficult People & Relationships

How to deal with difficult relationships. This could be your boss, sister, husband, next door neighbor, anyone you interact with in a not-so-great way. Whether they are codependent, narcissistic, toxic, triggering, combustible, difficult. There are a lot of factors we have to navigate and I am sharing the keys to these types of interactions.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Habit podcast.

I'm Kara Payton and this is your podcast for becoming the happiest person you know.

The Happiness Habit is a place for those seeking insight,

Needing answers to hard cues,

And guidance for all things inner world.

Diving deeply into how our mind works,

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Self-inventory,

Emotional homes and mentality,

Dissecting habits,

And manifesting your highest potential.

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And more at karapayton.

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Sign up at karapayton.

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Today I'm going to dive in and unpack difficult relationships,

Whether they be intimate,

Coworking,

Family,

Anything.

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With that,

Let's dive in.

How to deal with difficult relationships.

What a loaded topic.

This could be your boss,

Your sister,

Husband,

Next door neighbor,

Anyone you interact with in a not so great way.

Whether they are codependent,

Narcissistic,

Toxic,

Triggering,

Combustible,

Or just difficult,

There are a lot of factors we have to navigate,

And I am going to share the keys to these types of interaction that I have gathered over the years.

In my coaching,

Personal,

Intimate,

Professional life,

These are what I have developed as my,

We'll say,

Guidelines or rules.

Starting with number one,

Accept where they are fully.

This one's a tricky one and probably where most of us are going to trip up first because accepting where they are fully means we automatically assume that means some huge concession or tolerating bad behavior.

It doesn't.

We simply accept it where it is,

Don't make it better than it is or worse than it is.

Just as is,

What is the truth of the matter,

And then leave it there.

We tend to credit people for massive breakthroughs out of one simple conversation over a lifetime of say bad or unhealthy relationship patterns.

We also condemn people for one,

With labels of toxic and narcissism,

For one unflattering moment.

These are very big exaggerations of what I'm talking about to bring it down to just accept them where they are.

One critical way that you could find out if you're doing that is to ask yourself,

Are you being realistic with your expectations?

Meaning,

Are you expecting them to be anything else?

Are you saying that they should be like this?

You know,

My so and so is like this and we have this expectation that they should be like this and that's our expectation,

But does it match what is there?

Do you have any other reason to expect them to be any other way or has their behavior up to this point been pretty consistent?

And if you are expecting them to be anything else other than they are,

Hard truth.

That is a conflict you created with you,

Not them with you.

If your mom is dramatic,

Don't act disappointed when she's being dramatic.

A key way to go about that would be to take the meaning away.

Take the meaning away,

Take the label away,

Say the same dramatic mom is being dramatic.

She's operating totally normal to her function.

The only thing that causes the upset or the conflict in the reality of what's going on is your expectation that it should be anything else.

When you release her of that,

That unrealistic expectation,

She's just mom again.

When you release her of that,

You do you both a favor because a crossroads that doesn't have a stop sign doesn't ever fault anyone for not stopping there.

So big rule number one,

Accept where they are.

It is what it is.

That's another famously coined way of saying that.

Number two,

Create boundaries out of a healthy place,

Not just healthy boundaries.

This is one that's going to probably spend some people on axis because boundaries are not for the other person.

I'm going to say that again.

Boundaries are not for the other person.

This misconception is a new inversion of the mindset relationship life coaching world that you hear and it does you such a total disservice.

There's a whole narrative around boundaries out there.

They're so backwards is causing as much damage than a lack of boundaries does.

Boundaries are not,

Well,

I've given this person my boundaries and they're not obeying them.

Of course they're not.

Boundaries are a set of rules set by yourself for yourself.

How you will operate,

How you will govern in all your situations,

That's what boundaries are.

Now,

Why does it screw us over to set them for others?

So many people are so obsessed these days with setting boundaries for other people.

Why does it screw us over?

Because we can't control others.

What they do and say is entirely out of your control.

It's not a boundary to say,

You can't treat me like this,

Then don't allow them.

It's your boundary to tolerate.

It's your boundary,

Your rule,

Your code of conduct.

It's not a code of conduct.

Trying to construct boundaries for anyone outside of yourself would be like trying to go into someone else's yard,

Build a fence and tell them not to cross it.

Decide your boundaries.

Make them support you.

Let them govern and keep you aligned with you and your highest self and then follow them to the letter.

If you do,

Even though you can't control others,

You will likely find yourself in a lot less situations where you are battling someone at the fence.

Number three,

Don't get hooked in their story.

Everyone has a different perspective,

Outlook,

Lens,

Life experience.

There is literally zero chance you will ever get anyone to understand you 100% fully at the granular level.

The most we can ever hope for is creating understanding and common ground by choosing to focus on where you do agree,

What unites you rather than divides you and what can move you forward rather than apart.

Both are available,

But your focus will determine their availability.

So ask yourself,

Where is your focus and where is their focus?

At the onset,

You being able to determine this will determine the temperature of the interaction.

If you're focused solely on what's not working,

What the other did wrong and trying to prove your perspective on how hurt you are,

It will be defense,

Volley,

Verbal chess,

Volley,

Win,

Lose,

Et cetera.

No one wins this.

Number four,

Stop analyzing the situation.

This I'm going to say is like a 2.

0,

2.

1 of rule number one,

Because there is a growing momentum in today's world behind trying to locate,

Understand,

Determine the source or reasoning behind everyone's behaviors,

Everyone else's behaviors.

Trying to dissect a situation and mentally navigate is one of the most unhelpful things to engage in because it does multiple things that disempower you from being able to move past it.

Number one,

You're trying to locate the source of somebody else's behaviors based on your place and your perspective.

You're looking from your vantage point,

Your life experience,

And you're only going to see a limited view of it and its assumption,

Its speculation,

Your likelihood of discovering some magical unturned stone,

Especially in someone else that reveals the reason the whole thing doesn't make sense and explains why everything doesn't match your expectations is zero.

But here's the dangerous part,

You will still find it.

It's called confirmation bias.

Another reason why this does you a huge disservice and disempowers you from being able to move past any kind of situation you come across with anyone else is that you're only capable of affecting your own experience.

You can only control you no matter what you find,

You determine,

You see,

Say you do uncover this massive revelation for them.

You still cannot,

It's still in your sights.

You cannot make someone else change.

You can't even make them learn.

You can't make them go beyond their perspective unless they choose to.

So you're wasting valuable time spending time in someone else's yard.

If they're not going to mow it,

You're not going to get them to mow it.

And you're also not going to be able to make them see it's too long in the first place.

The last part of why the disempowering factors is that what you seek,

You will find.

So be careful with what you seek to prove about the other person,

Because what you seek,

You will find no matter what it is.

If you want to prove your husband's a narcissist,

You will find all evidence to stack against you.

If you want to corner yourself as you're alone and you don't matter in your workplace or that you will find your brain is brilliant.

It will find ways to prove this to yourself and you will pit yourself further and further and further down into a limited perspective.

And it will still not be what the other person sees.

Don't waste your time trying to shift your view enough to where they can't detect that the other person can't detect it's opposing.

Don't do this to appeal your perspective to them by making it more palatable or even further to tailor it beyond recognition to either of you.

Mutual understanding is mutual and it is a mutual choice.

It is not one made by one person trying to fit both people.

Number five,

Recognize the behavior is separate from the person.

This one was huge for me growing up into adult years and reflecting back on my childhood,

Realizing that behaviors and people are totally separate.

When I was a kid,

I thought my parents,

You know,

They're parents,

They're adults,

So they're infallible and that they know everything.

And I'm just,

You know,

The kid.

I'm the kid I'm still learning.

The adults have already learned.

And so it was really mind blowing to look back and realize that my parents were not perfect people,

That they were capable of foul ups and they were capable of making huge mistakes.

We are all affected by our life experience.

This causes all of us to create lenses that define and label and discern and give meaning to everything that happens to us.

None of us can be totally neutral in our life.

Our brains have have to give finite form to anything that receives this input.

That is what the brain's job is to help us learn our environment through observation and use that information to stay safe by turning it into applicable action steps or reference.

When we know this,

We can appreciate how different our path may have been and how different it may have been paved by our brain's repertoire of tools and another person's different environment,

Different outcome.

If you plant a flower in a parking lot and a garage and a greenhouse,

The flowers will be different.

This is definitely the hard one because we do often forget that a person choosing to be a certain way is doing so outside of who they are.

See the behavior separately.

We all have our highest self,

Our lowest self,

Our stressed self,

Our tired self,

Our blissful self,

Our successful self,

Our aligned self.

From these different vantage points that we all can click in and click out of depending on our circumstances and the way we define things,

Our behavior is going to be different in all of those states.

If you can manage this,

You can garnish a higher insight to their perspective,

See their wounds over their flaws,

Understand why they may choose it and still maintain a healthy discernment that it's not going to align what is conducive for relationship.

But do so without judgment or personal offense.

Someone in who they are and what they choose to do and be varies and it's not personal to you and it's not personal to them.

It's just a different state,

A different perspective and their behavior is totally separate from their core.

Their behavior is separate from your core if you are not aligned with it.

Most of the times we get crossways of being able to see someone's behavior has nothing to do with us and so we take offense when a relationship fails or goes into a bad place because we get hooked into the story that it means we weren't enough or we didn't try sufficiently or that we're somehow inherently flawed.

We get hooked into a story of relationship failing because it says,

Okay,

It's me and this other person in the relationship.

So if it failed,

This person,

We have to,

We almost go into this volleying of,

Okay,

They have this much blame and I have this much blame.

We don't just say,

We don't accept it and that it is what it is and that our communication habits and styles and the way that we operated in this relationship,

Our behaviors cause the people in the relationship,

The behaviors cause the people in the relationship to fall apart or to transform or to reconnect or to whatever evolution or change relationship goes through.

So separating the behavior and the person frees everyone to accept reality without needing to compensate,

Make excuse,

Defend,

Prove or fight.

Number six and my last one,

I feel like these all kind of really piggyback on the one before it.

This one last,

This last one is no exception.

Number six,

Be frugal with labels.

You not only draw someone to a corner by calling them toxic or psychotic or dramatic or you know,

Selfish or narcissistic,

But you draw yourself into a corner away from them.

Not all things that are painful or toxic,

Not on all healthy tactics are a sign of a personality disorder.

Not all manipulation is narcissism or intentional.

Not all victims are blameless empaths just trying to find their Mr.

Right and not all needs someone asks you to meet is codependency.

Our behavior and what we choose to do and the things that we ask for are not always just some sign that we have brokenness or we have,

We're better than someone else or we've gotten it more together,

Have more experience.

Sometimes I know perfectly healthy people that have codependency,

Codependent tactics and tendencies.

I know perfectly healthy,

Awesome people that are navigating their way through a toxic pattern in their relationship when the relationship itself is sound.

Not everything has to have a label.

Not everything is,

Follows some condemnation or some absolute,

Nothing is absolute.

We've gotten into a dangerous trend of labeling everyone that comes out of alignment with their highest self with some sort of condemning finality.

Without our attention and presence,

We are all susceptible to critical error.

We're all capable of judgment,

Foul ups.

We're all capable of following patterns of self-sabotage and fear derailment.

We all have fear.

We all have hopes.

We all have dreams.

We all have loves.

We all have happiness.

These things are all present with all of us and to follow fear does not mean anything but that moment we followed fear.

What does matter,

It's a matter of what you do consistently to grow out of them and those patterns of behavior into a better way.

Those are my six ways to deal with interactions and difficult relationships in a way that supports you.

Now,

I want to hear from you.

What stood out to you most here?

What ticked you off?

What shook your head?

What raised your eyebrows?

What stirred up some inspiration or created a breakthrough in a relationship that you're having?

And if you still have questions,

That's what I'm here for.

I love these conversations and the best conversations happen over in the comment section at karapayton.

Com and Happiness Habit podcast on Instagram.

Did you like this episode?

Share it with a friend or loved one or anyone you know that this will speak to.

Thank you for joining me in another episode of the Happiness Habit podcast.

Until next time,

Keep moving forward.

Your best life happens when you become your best self and the world needs that person in it.

Reviews

Really well put! Thanks for this🙏

Thank you, this was helpful.

Excellent list!!

Wow ! I need to connect with you ! I will go to your website… many thanks 🙏🫶

This is spectacular Kara!! You never fail to impress me ♥️♥️