Are you dealing with a difficult person in your life? It may be a co-worker who is always getting in your face, or a mother-in-law who loves to give you her advice, or a rude neighbour, or an unreasonable boss, or even a grumpy or defiant child. This can feel very challenging especially when it is someone we have to engage with daily or regularly. It can lead to feelings of anxiety, stress, anger, frustration and of being trapped in a situation you do not want to be in.
5 Ways to Respond to Difficult People
1. Look for positive aspects that you can begin to appreciate about the person
Maybe you could recognize that there are qualities in the person that are worth knowing. Maybe you could start to make a list of things you do like even just a little about them.
Energy flows where focus goes.
Whatever you choose to focus on is what will become dominant in your mind and what the reticular activating system in your brain will give you more evidence of. This will take time and practice, especially if you have been focusing in on what you don’t like for a while, but if you continue to turn your focus to what you do like then that will begin to grow. You will notice it more readily, and you will draw more of those aspects from the other person. This is similar to the parenting and teaching concept of praising positive behavior in children to encourage more of it.
Look at the other person through a lens of compassion. Remember that everyone is doing the best they can from where they are. What is this person really trying to gain? What is this person trying to avoid? Chances are, if a person is acting unreasonably, they are likely feeling some sort of vulnerability or fear. Consider what may be going on for them, but remember that we don’t know what another person is really thinking and feeling unless they tell us. If you feel able to, then maybe you could ask them about what is going on for them, and what they are intending or wanting for themselves.
However, if you think that the person is really toxic and you find that it’s too hard to start thinking nice thoughts about someone who’s right there being a catalyst for your discomfort, then you may need to remove yourself from the situation.
2. Remove yourself from the situation
If the situation feels too stressful for you and it is possible, then you may want to remove yourself from it. If you think that you can’t remove yourself and as a result you feel trapped and stuck, then maybe you could soften how you are thinking about the situation, which may lesson your resistance, and create some space for change to occur. Maybe it would feel better to not necessarily change right now, but to tell yourself you could if you wanted to. Maybe you could acknowledge that if you wanted to go you could, or that sometime later you will, or that this situation is temporary.
3. Get Distracted
This is similar to option one, but instead of looking for positives in the difficult person, which may feel too challenging, you just look for general positive things in your life. Reach for any thought that makes you feel good. Focus on what you are grateful for, do more of what you enjoy, spend time with people who uplift you, watch feel good movies, listen to comedy, watch funny animal videos. As much as you can, take your focus off the person you are finding difficult and focus on anything else that feels like joy, fun, excitement, optimism, freedom, allowing, love, peace and appreciation.
Energy flows where focus goes,
and what you focus on grows and grows
4. Express your feelings and set boundaries with the person
This is an option, but it is one that takes courage and effective interpersonal skills. You could ask a support person to be with you. I do discuss tips and skills for how to manage interpersonal conflict in my mini ebook How to Attract a Great Partner & Create the Fulfilling Relationship You Desire. This is focused on conflict in romantic relationships but the principles are the same.
Most people who feel trapped in a situation with a difficult person in their life are people who find it hard to be assertive with others and who avoid conflict. That is why they are in this situation.
This brings us to option five, which is really the only way to effectively resolve this problem long term.
5. Work out what it is in you that is attracting this into your life
“The negative emotion you feel is not about what they’re doing, it’s about your perspective of what they are doing. . . Whatever is in your life is coming in response to you.”
– Abraham Hicks
In NLP this is referred to as “perception is projection”. What we see or perceive in others is a projection of our own beliefs, judgements, values and experiences. If you find that someone else’s behaviour ‘pushes your buttons’ and stimulates a strong emotional response in you, then it is likely that their behavior is somehow a projection of attributes you possess which you wish you didn’t, or they represent something you fear, or they represent something you will not allow yourself to be or have.
This is not a judgment; it is a gift.
The experience of contrast (things we don’t like or don’t want) and conflict gives us the opportunity to become aware of how we are holding ourselves apart from our soul selves, from who we really are. It shows us how we are holding ourselves apart from experiencing all the fullness of life.
This is hard to accept if you want to be in a place of blaming outside people and circumstances for what you are experiencing, but when you accept it, then it is very empowering. When you are in a place of blame and seeing things outside of you as the source of your negative experience, then you are largely powerless because it is very difficult to change other people and all the circumstances of our lives. When you accept that how you feel is the result of how you are thinking about a certain person or condition (your perspective), then you empower yourself because you have full control over what you choose to think and the meaning you choose to give something.
The path to having what we want or becoming the person we desire to be is not necessarily one that is free from contrast and/or discomfort and growth. It is the path that your Soul mind/higher self/inner being knows will most efficiently get you to where you want to go. Your inner being will call you to it. When you are making a decision, drop into your body, open to your intuitive inner voice, and sense into what is best for you at this time. The guided choice may feel like a sense of peace, or it may be a sensation of your heart starting to race and an up-swell of strong emotion – a knowing that what you need to do to get to where you want to go and become who you want to be is to do something that feels really hard and uncomfortable.
These reflection questions may help you to clarify what is attracting this to you:
What is this triggering in me?
How does this person represent something I am afraid of?
How does this person represent something I want?
What in me is needing to be accepted and loved?
Ask these questions of your Soul mind or of the Universe with an attitude of curiosity and pondering. There is no judgement in this. Also, ask them and allow space for the answers to come. It is not likely that you will hear an immediate voice from heaven. Sometimes I do receive statements or images in my head when I ask in a state of meditation. It is possible. More often however, the answer will come later in a more indirect way. Someone may say something to me that clicks as the answer, or I may be drawn to a particular article or video or book that gives me information that will really help me. Sometimes I will have an experience that enables me to understand something more clearly.
You Change Your Life by Changing How You Think
All of the five options listed above are valid ways of responding to a difficult person. Which one you take depends on where you are at in yourself, how stressed you feel, how empowered you feel, and what you want to create in your life. However, be aware, that wherever you go, there you are. By this I mean that you may seek to move yourself away from a certain situation, but the energy of thoughts, beliefs and emotions going on inside you will go with you, and you will attract the same thing in a different form. This is why we have repeating patterns of experiences in our lives. The only way to effectively change this long-term is to change your thoughts, beliefs and emotions, and to love yourself more.
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