5 Ways to Disarm Toxic People

hey everybody its Meredith Miller with inner integration and right now tonight I want to give you five ways to disarm a toxic person have you ever met a toxic person maybe you had some kind of encounter with them in the moment and you got sucked into their agenda like whatever it was they were trying to emotionally manipulate you about you got sucked in and then maybe afterward you just felt awful maybe like you didn't even understand what happened or how it happened and you were just like oh I coulda woulda should have done all this other stuff but you just didn't think in the moment what you can do we didn't know what tools you could use with the toxic person so chances are you know at least one of these people maybe someone in your family maybe your intimate relationship maybe someone in your friends circles someone at work or just random people that you meet in society so I have five ways to help you disarm a toxic person and opt out of their game so plus if you stick around here you're going to learn some really helpful phrasings that you can use like mental Taichi right so when a person comes at you with a covert aggressive manipulation tactic you can kind of use these phrases to Taichi that away so you don't get involved in the attack you don't go on the self defense you don't really feel horrible afterwards because you kind of just moved the stuff away so the very first thing that you can do is to breathe take some deep breaths right you can always take three breaths before you respond to someone when you start focusing on the breath that makes you present it brings you into the moment you become like totally mindful and present in that moment you start to notice new things you start to notice maybe your heart's palpitating maybe your hands are sweating maybe you notice how that person is triggering you emotionally maybe like man they always just they hit on that shame thing they just know how to imply you're not worthy right and you notice me and that's the trigger every time right so you're catching on the more you breathe the more present you are the more mindful you are what's going on number two is set a new boundary and enforce it that boundary might be as simple as saying no maybe you're at work in the toxic person maybe it's your boss or another co-worker and they're just trying to get you to take on the extra work they always want you to take on the extra work right so you say I'm sorry I have a lot on my plate right now and I simply don't have the bandwidth for it we're going to need to delegate that to someone else you know you start saying no in some way maybe in your intimate relationship you know the person is always asking you to do something for them like always always and you never get to pick you first and so finally that night you stand up and you say no I'm not going to watch that series with you I'm going to go do this thing for me you set a boundary you say no and you enforce it make sure you enforce the boundary or the person is going to think you're not really serious about your boundaries right so number three is to observe that means watch it like you're watching a movie like you're not you and you're not the other person you've separated yourself from you and this other person so looks like something's happening with the feed hopefully it's okay I don't do this very often I'm going to get used to this so when you're observing right you've now separated yourself you're watching like a movie you can see this person you can D personalize the abuse you're not caught in the drama because when you're caught in the drama you're going to want to immediately emotionally react to what they're doing and that's how they win that's how they get you is when they get you to emotionally react right so you don't want to get upset and angry you don't want to actually happy and positive either because either emotional reaction they're just going to hone in on that and somehow manipulate it so when you're observing things it becomes less emotional you can detach you can watch the movie you can see things happening from a different perspective it gives you more of a delayed response and it gives you a lot more power in how you respond so number four on this tactic list is to guard your attention like your life depends on it because it probably does where you focus your attention is where you focus all the power of your mind and that is the greatest tool that the narcissist the psychopath the sociopath the borderline personality will use against you they want to direct your attention to something they want you to focus here they want to elicit a certain emotional response thereby controlling your behavior right so if you control your attention and you catch they're trying to pull you down that way and you're like and you keep that attention where you want to keep it you cancel you delete you redirect towards whatever it is that you actually want to pay attention to you know they'll like to invite you to doubt yourself for example and you know maybe you tell them about a hope or dream you have for the future and they're like well you know bla bla bla bla bla and it's like the seed of doubt right and you're like yeah I've already thought about that but not interested maybe it's a fear well you know you should be really really afraid because if this or that you know maybe you can't do it maybe just all falls apart you know and they try to talk you out of it and you just say no thank you and you focus your attention on the positives on your strengths on how you know you've done this already or something similar and you can do it again you know maybe they even like try to entice you to take actions against your integrity right they love to do that then they can manipulate the guilt around that so when you're really paying attention you're like oh I see that that's a trap yeah I'm not going to do that right and you're like that doesn't feel like it's in alignment with my integrity so I'm going to choose my integrity first so that's guarding your attention and number five is for raising phrasing this is used to defuse the tension it's used to deflect whatever covert manipulation attack is coming at you kind of like a chi chi movement where you don't absorb it you don't hit back you just kind of redirect get over there returning the responsibility to the rightful owner so I'm going to give you some of these phrases let's rap that first part up and let me remind you that if you ever at any point in the conversation start to get upset refer to number one breathe right just keep coming back to number one brief if you don't know what to do go back to number one and breathe that's going to give you a moment to get some distance to start observing things easier to become more mindful so remember never give an emotional reaction to a toxic person they love it they don't care if you're angry they don't care if you're overly excited and happy either way they're going to manipulate that emotion against you so in the moment make sure you don't give that to them you keep breathing then you want to go away later back to your home back to your safe and sacred space where you can process that emotion any emotions that came up maybe you're angry maybe you're sad maybe you're like why would they do that thing and so you work it out by yourself you imagine this person's there you let all the emotions out it's really important to get them out you don't want to keep those emotions stuck in your body you don't want to eat the emotions because they will eat you right that's the dirty trick which the narcissist gets you to own you know these have the emotions so you don't react in the moment you breathe you observe you distance yourself but then later you process the emotions so here are some phrases for handling a toxic person so let's say the first scenario is that you set this new boundary and the person's like or you're selfish and I don't feel blah blah blah blah blah because you're selfish and you set that boundary but you can say is something like that's interesting and you can stop there or you can say that's interesting I wonder why you think that that's interesting I wonder why you say that and maybe they're calling you whatever or whatever and all sorts of names right you can use this sort of tactic I learned this many years ago when I was teaching high school I took this awesome continuing education class how to deal with difficult students Oh you're horrible teacher and you're this and that and why do we have to learn Spanish and whatever you know that's interesting or you can respond to something like if they directly insult you call you something instead of defending yourself and getting angry you say something like that's possible you're a bi TCH that's possible could be this is so unfair I can't believe we have to do this homework assignment that's possible but it's sort of like you're just deflecting it you're not really engaging in it you're not getting them upset and provoking them it's kind of like well you've heard what they said and you're not going to argue and you're also not going to let them manipulate you into doing something different so that's interesting let that be a go to default now maybe you're in a situation with someone and you have like vastly different opinions right and you realize like that's not going to change like you're not going to change your opinion you don't have to and they're not going to change their opinion so you can say something like I see you feel strongly about this and we say things differently you're entitled to your opinion and I'm entitled to mine so we're going to have to agree to disagree here and as you say these sorts of things it kind of diffuses the argument you'll see they just kind of walk away like they don't really know what to do when you're not engaging when you're not trying to convince them of your way or going along with them when they're trying to convince you of your way you just kind of diffuse and say well you have your opinion and I have mine and and that's that so what if the situation turns like really tense and there's like yelling and insulting going on just kind of let the person you know go through their thing and then you can very calmly say something like I would like to maintain a relationship of mutual respect I really like to be able to come up with a solution that works for both you and me or that works for all of us or let's talk when you're feeling calmer feel free to give me a call or feel free to you know message me and let's meet in the conference room something like this right now maybe the narcissist made you're in a closer relationship whether at work or in your own relationship your intimate relationship and they're giving you the silent treatment because you set a boundary or you said something they didn't like you know cause a narcissistic injury or maybe they're doing those passive-aggressive digs they're slamming doors and scuffing you know or maybe they're bad-mouthing you to someone else on the phone or over there and you know as if you didn't hear it you can go up to them later at some point when you feel ready to when they're not there with someone else and you can say I noticed you're upset I'm just curious did I do or say something that offended you and listen to their response and really be open to listen because maybe you did do something that offended them right but maybe they're just blowing things out of proportion you know and they're treating you this way because you set a boundary and they didn't like that you put the boundary because now that means they can't manipulate you to get what they want from you right so in that case you want to hold steady there you know as they're giving you whatever and then you can refer to those earlier phrases like that's interesting I wonder why you would say that that's interesting I wonder why you would think that so you can combine these techniques so maybe you know that one that's like the poor me they're always the victim and they love to exhaust you by complaining and complaining and complaining and kind of soliciting advice that they don't actually really want and then every time you waste your time giving them advice they never take it because really they just want to complain and they're always like well but blah and well but blah and they can't do anything so then you say something like I see how upset you are about that what do you think you're going to do about it and so now you've just put all the responsibility on them you're not owning any of it you're not trying to come up with any ideas or advice and how to resolve it you're just putting the responsibility back on that person or the best one is when they're throwing like an all-out toddler temper tantrum I mean could be in public could be at home take some deep breaths and you know if this is a person that you don't really know that well maybe they're at work and you can just kind of walk away you can say something like I hope you feel better and just walk away and don't engage in that and don't take that personally and just acknowledge the fact that they're clearly upset and wish them feeling better and if you're living with this person and they're throwing an all-out temper tantrum you can say that I hope you feel better I'll be in my room and when you're calm down we can talk and that way you're keeping it open you're not shutting them down you're not shutting off whatever they're feeling you're not saying they don't have a right to feel what they feel because they do but you're just diffusing the situation and a really general one that you can use like maybe you run into jerks you know at the grocery store or in the car somewhere in public right and they're just rude and they have like no reason to be rude because you didn't do anything to them but they're just being rude they're misdirecting their anger towards you you can say something like generally when people are rude they feel a sense of powerless and lack of control over something in their life and I was just wondering why you might be feeling that way and then you let them tell you something and maybe they didn't really mean to be a jerk maybe something really awful happened to them that day and they just like break down in tears and of like I'm so sorry this happened and I'm such a jerk and I didn't mean the blah blah blah then you just created a deeper human connection with that person it's like you you acknowledge that they're not doing well something's going on and like they feel like you're hearing them and maybe you provide this really awesome vulnerable connection for somebody or maybe they're just a jerk right and you say this and they're just like whoa and they walk away right because they know that you're right and they're not going to try to argue with that and being more rude is just further reinforcing the fact that they feel powerless over their life so you know if you've been in relationships with toxic people like psychopath sociopath narcissist people with borderline personality disorder you're going to find great value in utilizing these phrases and using these five tactics that I just gave you her too if you want more work on the self-healing process after being in a relationship with one of these people be sure to check out my 12-week sauna audio series that's a three month journey that I take you into the self healing process after narcissistic abuse you can download the mp3s you can print out the PDF worksheets every week has a different topic with the lesson and a meditation and some exercises you can do to help your self heal so I'm going to put that link below here in case you want to check that it's only ten dollars and just in case you haven't got it yet you know I give out a free training when you click on if you're watching this on Facebook and you click on watch video that will take you right to the opt-in page and it will send you my free fundamentals of sauna training and that's a three part video training it's like from the ground up like you're just starting to heal you don't know what to do where to begin and even if you're further along in the process if you haven't taken advantage of that free training check it out it is always good to review the fundamentals like the really basic stuff like you know number one on my list tonight was Breathe Right that's so basic but sometimes we just forget the most simple stuff that really moves the needle in the biggest way so thank you all so much for tuning in tonight and I am sending a big hug to all of you

Channel: Inner Integration

Views: 2,675,111

Keywords: disarm toxic person, disarm toxic people, disarm narcissist, disarm psychopath, disarm sociopath, toxic relationship, minimal contact narcissist, gray rock technique, gray rock communication, gray stone technique

Id: Dc_ZOjt0QFA

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 28 2016