How to Manage Your Energy When Around Toxic People
5 Things That Will Make it Easier to Deal with Unpleasant Situations or Unwanted Negativity
Your ability to manage your energy when around toxic people is critical if you want to have a positive attitude and stay focused on what’s important.
The people you interact with daily can affect your mental and emotional states if you do not know how to deal with any negativity they may engage in.
1-Minute Summary Video
What is a Toxic Person?
It’s important to know a person isn’t always negative or toxic. Therefore, giving them a label they’re a negative or bad person is not correct.
A toxic person is someone whose behaviour is not healthy or conducive to producing positive results. They often focus on what’s not right with a situation and attempt to get others to buy into how they see things.
They get their charge from pointing out what’s wrong and giving energy to their problems.
Most times, toxic people have unresolved issues, which they project onto others through their behaviour. They do not take responsibility for their words and actions, which shows up in their relationships and the results they produce.
Consequences of Being Around Toxic People
If you don’t manage your energy when around toxic people, it can:
- Lower your energy levels.
- Cause you to avoid them, or dread being in their presence.
- Trigger emotions such as anger, sadness, and depression.
- Take your focus away from what you want to achieve.
- Cause you to rescue or fix them.
- Cause you to ignore your needs.
Common Traits of Toxic People
The traits toxic people have in common include:
- They create drama in situations or in their life.
- They attempt to control or manipulate others, even if they have to lie.
- They are often needy, self-absorbed and self-centred.
- They don’t know how to respect other people’s boundaries.
- They often judge and criticise themselves and others for things unimportant.
- They are jealous of other people and their successes.
- They are unaware of how they come across to others.
- They always need to have the last word in any situation to validate their point of view.
- They don’t know they need help or may be unwilling to get it.
- They don’t have a good reputation and don’t have high levels of trust with others.
- They lack compassion.
- They rarely apologise for their behaviour.
A good starting point to manage your energy is to avoid people who have these traits. However, there are other things you can do to make it easier when dealing with toxic people.
5 Ways to Manage Your Energy Around Toxic People
Here are five things you can do to manage your energy around toxic people that will help make it easier to deal with unpleasant situations or unwanted negativity.
- Make your self-care a priority by setting boundaries and maintaining them. It’s important to take care of yourself, which includes your mental and emotional states. This will require you to let them know what you will or will not engage in when around them.
- Limit your time with toxic people. If people do not respect your boundaries, it’s okay to limit your time with them. This can include making yourself unavailable. Saying “Sorry, I’m not available at the moment” is a simple way to restrict how much time you give them.
- Heighten their awareness of their actions and behaviour. If someone is repeatedly negative, chances are they don’t fully realise how they’re coming across. Saying “Are you aware of the state you’re in at the moment?” or “Do you know you’re choosing to be negative right now?” can cause them to check their behaviour.
- Redirect the conversation when appropriate. Instead of getting drawn into their reality and negativity, change the conversation. If they want to go back to the original conversation, you can say, “That is not something I want to talk to you about now.” If you do this often, it will cause them to pay more attention to what they’re giving attention to.
- Decide in advance how you want to feel when interacting with them. If a person does not want to change their behaviour or is unwilling to get help, it should not affect how you want to feel or what you want to give your attention to. You can generate the emotions you want when you are around them.
Things You Can Do if You Cannot Avoid or Limit Your Time with Toxic People
Sometimes, it may not be possible to avoid or limit your time with toxic people. If that’s the case, here are a few things you can try on.
- Let the person know how you feel. Use “I” statements to affirm your preference. For example, you can say “When you say or act (this way), I feel (this). What I prefer instead is (this). This is because (your reason). E.g. (I value our relationship and want us to respect each other’s wishes.)”
- Suggest or encourage them to get professional help.
- Maintain your boundaries at all times.
- Pay attention to their triggers and change your approach to avoid those triggers.
- Do not get personal with them and always remember they are not their behaviour, but are expressing unresolved wounds.
Final Thoughts
Removing people from your life because they exhibit toxic behaviour is not always the best option or the right one. If you can focus on things you can control and how you want to feel, you can maintain a healthy attitude when around them.
If you pay attention to people’s patterns and behaviours, you will make it easier for yourself to manage your energy when around toxic people.
Action Step: Next time you interact with someone who has traits of a toxic person, focus on how you want to feel and what you want to gain from that interaction. Use these ideas to keep yourself in a positive mental state.
Question: What are other steps you can take to manage your energy when around toxic people?
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