I have been in a number of toxic relationships. Sometimes I knew it. Other times I did not know what was happening. Part of the difficulty with toxic people is that only a very few are toxic all the time. Most people make us sick once in a while, and we learn to bend, adapt, take our relational medications, or whatever. Sometimes we even believe we only deserve such people in our lives.
In the modern, mostly urban setting in which we live, the easiest thing to do it to move away from toxic people. Avoid them. Cast them out. Pretend they do not exist. However. . .
Some toxic people work where we work. Unless we change jobs every few weeks we cannot totally avoid them. Some people who seem toxic to us go to the same school as we do. Some are bullies, others are just drags down the classes we are in. Many cling to us like barnacles to a ship's hull, dragging it slower and slower on it's journey through the sea.
What strategies have you figured out, or been taught, that permit you to remain in some sort of relationship with the toxic people in your life without being dragged in a direction you don't want to go? How have you figured out ways to be the best person you can be while embracing many kinds of people including difficult people?
Leave a comment and let us know what's working for you (and what is not working).
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