Toxic People

I’m sure you’ve met a few toxic people. While the positive people in our lives nurture and encourage us, the toxic people function more like speed bumps. Energy vampires, fun suckers—whatever you want to call them—these poor souls force us to grow or be drawn into their unhappy world. The next time you find yourself dealing with a toxic person, remember that they deserve your compassion. Just don’t let yourself be submerged in their toxins.

If you’ve ever befriended a toxic person—or if you’ve been lucky enough to have one in your family—you know about the draining effect they can have on you. I’ve found they come in three basic varieties: the overtly negative, the snipers, and the attention hogs. The ones who are overtly negative are also usually hypercritical, and they’re frequently spewing profanity at every turn. Everyone and everything has a label. They can leave you feeling like a punching bag. For these folks, every conversation is the opportunity for a full frontal assault. Snipers appear pleasant, but leave you feeling uneasy as you wonder what on earth they really mean by their back-handed comments (“Gee, Susie, I never would have thought a girl your size could look good in that color, but you really pull it off.”) Attention hogs don’t seem to have a clue that anyone else exists. They can appear egotistical and inconsiderate. These are those people who can’t wait to get together with you, and then spend the entire time talking about themselves. They wonder why you never told them about your marriage, promotion, or pregnancy, completely oblivious to the fact that they never gave you the chance.

The best method I know for dealing with toxic people is compassionate silence, plus a generous dose of self-protection. You can do your best to avoid them, but it isn’t always possible. You can’t take anything they say (or don’t say) personally. Toxic people offer us the opportunity to hone our listening skills, and to practice non-interference and detachment. Listen to what the fun suckers in your life are really saying. What you’re likely to hear under all that negative energy is, “Listen to me! Look at me! I’m lonely!” Fail to hear the real message under all that sludge, and you’ll find yourself smack in the middle of a wave of judgment, maybe even anger. These people virtually invented the senseless argument.

Toxic people teach as much (maybe even more) as our supportive and fun friends. From the toxic people in my life, I learned that unsolicited advice rarely does anyone any good—for either the giver or the receiver. I also learned to relinquish the need to be right, or to talk about myself. The only thing I’m still working on is how to shake that nasty cloud of negative energy they bring with them.

Last week, I met up with an old acquaintance who is also a toxic person. At one time, years ago, she was a friend. But then she became an attention hog. I lost interest in visiting with her after several hours-long episodes of her talking non-stop about herself, sometimes repeating herself endlessly. At first, I felt that because I was her friend I should just let her vent, but then it started to feel like I was on the receiving end of a big pile of emotional vomit. Nothing was going right, her husband was a jerk, her health was a wreck, positive thinking was for imbeciles, and almost everyone she knew was either an idiot or intellectually deficient in some way. She was profoundly uninterested in anything going on in my life. When she got back in touch with me recently, it had been over a year since I’d seen her. I agreed to meet her for some catching up.

I’m happy to say that her health is better and she appears to enjoy at least a few of the people in her life, but she didn’t spend much time talking about those things. Her main topics of conversation revolved around her husband’s failings and how put-upon she is to forever be hosting visitors in her new home. One poor soul had the nerve to bring her an unsatisfactory bottle of wine for a housewarming gift, which she told me she wouldn’t use to make vinegar. (I didn’t mention that I had a bottle of that same wine in my refrigerator.) After two hours of her talking about herself, she was ready to leave. I chuckled when I got in my car. What had led me to believe she had changed? Why hadn't I thought of an excuse not to see her?

My chuckling stopped as I wondered, is it me? Was I at fault because I hadn’t been able to get the conversation going in any kind of positive way? Why did she even bother taking the time to meet me? Did it make her feel better, or superior, or did she just enjoy the fact that I let her talk? How could it be a good experience to have such a one-sided conversation?

In prior years, I would have obsessed over these questions. I would have worried that I appeared weak, uninteresting, or stupid. I’ll admit that it still took me a while to shake the film of black goo that I allowed to cloud my thinking. Fortunately, although she hasn’t changed much since I last saw her, I have changed. Instead of obsessively re-playing every bit of uncomfortable conversation, or thinking of the more witty remarks I could have made, I let it go. I had to consciously move my thoughts away from our visit and on to something positive, but after persistent effort, I succeeded. I realized that it really wouldn’t have made any difference if I’d been as witty as a stand-up comedian, as rich as a Trump, or as sophisticated as a Hamptons resident. It really wasn’t about me. It was about her.

And that, I have to say, is one of the biggest lessons we can learn from the toxic people in our lives. All those mean comments, the negative energy, the seeming lack of consideration, all that thinly veiled judgment isn’t about us. If we take it personally, we just bring ourselves down. But if we practice compassion and detachment, we’ll find the toxic people in our lives can be our best teachers.
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Picture courtesy of Greschoj at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1057832

An Enduring Classic

If you’re a student of positive thinking, the law of attraction, or any other similar schools of thought, I hope you’ve read the classic Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Published in 1937, this little gem of a book contains the wisdom Hill gleaned after 20 years of interviewing the most successful men of his day—men like Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell. Even if you have read it, it bears re-reading—and making notes in it and marking pages that catch your attention.

The table of contents gives a good synopsis of the book:

1. The Power of Thought
2. Desire: The Starting Point of All Achievement
3. Faith: Visualizing and believing in the Attainment of Desire
4. Autosuggestion: The Medium for Influencing the Subconscious Mind
5. Specialized Knowledge: Personal Experiences or Observations
6. Imagination: The Workshop of the Mind
7. Organized Planning: The Crystallization of Desire into Action
8. Decision: The Mastery of Procrastination
9. Persistence: The Sustained Effort Necessary to Induce Faith
10. Power of the Master Mind: The Driving Force
11. The Mystery of Sex Transmutation
12. The Subconscious Mind: The Connecting Link
13. The Brain: A Broadcasting and Receiving Station for Thought
14. The Sixth Sense: The Door to the Temple of Wisdom
15. How to Outwit the Six Ghosts of Fear (Clearing the Brain for Riches)
16. The Devil’s Workshop

Interesting enough, right before I started to write this post, I checked my e-mail and found a message from our Twitter account (@YouRTheAnswer) that let me know I had what’s known as a “follow” from Bob Proctor—yes, the Bob Proctor featured on The Secret. I’m sure it wasn’t from Bob personally; many serious users have systems that automatically give anyone who follows their updates a “follow back,” and I had just signed up for his updates. (Almost every one of The Secret’s teachers are on Twitter, by the way.) As a thank-you, he had sent a link to one of his free videos. This is also a common strategy from high-level Twitter users—they send a link to a free video, a free e-book, or website. I’ve never clicked through to any of these offerings, but for some reason, I clicked on Bob’s. I almost fell out of my chair when he started talking about—you guessed it—Think and Grow Rich. Bob held up his well-read copy and explained exactly how he had put the book’s advice to use in his own life.

It’s difficult to find many modern self-transformation teachers who haven’t studied Hill’s classic. Read the author’s introduction to the original, and it’s easy to see why. Here’s an excerpt:

“Every chapter of this book mentions the money-making secret that has made fortunes for more than 500 exceedingly wealthy people whom I have carefully analyzed over a long period of years. The secret was brought to my attention more than a quarter of century ago by Andrew Carnegie…. When he saw that I had grasped the idea, he asked if I would be willing to spend 20 years or more preparing myself to take it to the world, to men and women who, without the secret, might go through life as failures.” The modern edition is updated and tells the story of some of our own modern giants, like Bill Gates and Steven Speilberg.

Hill tells us in Chapter 1, “A great many years ago I purchased a fine dictionary. The first thing I did was turn to the word ‘impossible,’ and neatly clip it out of the book. That would not be an unwise thing for you to do.”

It would be very wise, however, for you to pick up a copy of Think and Grow Rich.

The Fallacy of Should

All by itself, “should” isn’t a bad word. It’s quite useful in sentences: Johnny should clean up his room. But it’s quite useless in daily life.

Here’s the difficulty with “should”: instead of simply sitting in your sentences as a desired action, it indicates thwarted expectations. One therapist I know said any time we use the word “should,” it indicates an erroneous belief. I should be skinny. I should be richer. My mate should be more attentive. My children should behave better. Should’s sister is Can’t, and they usually travel together: I should be skinny, but I can’t find the time to cook meals. I should be richer, but I can’t do anything beyond my job to make more money. My mate should be more attentive, but I can’t say anything to him. My children should behave better, but I can’t get them to listen to me.

I’ve been reading Dr. Wayne Dyer’s Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life every morning while I drink my cup of tea. In this book, he examines each verse of the Tao Te Ching, an ancient text written by Lao-tzu. I don’t think Lao-tzu had much use for Should. He was more concerned with Is. I was struck this morning by his examination of the pitfalls of authoritarianism, the epitome of Should. In the 57th verse, Dr. Dyer’s translation says:

If you want to be a great leader,
You must learn to follow the Tao
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
And the world will govern itself.

Should and Can’t figure prominently in many people’s lives, especially during tumultuous times. I have a dear friend whose business has all but collapsed because of the economic downturn. “I should be able to support my family,” he tells me. Repeatedly. “This shouldn’t be happening to me.” Because he feels his business Should be doing better, he is very angry that things aren’t the way they Should be. Anger blinds us to the possibilities contained within our challenges. You’ve probably heard clichés about thinking outside the box; the boundaries of that box are formed with Should.

Students of the LOA (law of attraction) may initially take exception to this line of thinking. They might argue that if we keep our minds focused on how things Should be, then that’s what will happen. Here’s the difficulty with that vein of thought: Should carries a heavy load of negative connotation. It’s all about not wanting what we’ve got. There’s not a shred of thankfulness or gratitude in Should.

We can look at what we don’t want to give us contrast and help us define what we do want, but focusing on what Should happen means you’re second-guessing the Universe. Ever heard the saying, “God works in mysterious ways”? Don’t paint your world in black and white when you live in a colorful Universe. Those things that Should or Should Not be happening may simply be the stepping stones to what you do want, but you’ve got to stop passing judgment on them. Thinking positively and practicing the LOA does not mean that you never encounter difficulty. No matter how positive your thoughts, or much fortune and luck you attract, you will still have to deal with challenges. Let go of Should and be willing to go with the flow, to understand that in every life storms arrive (and pass), and that what appears awful today may be just what you need to push you in the direction you need to go.

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Photograph by Nevada Redd

Courage

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” --Eleanor Roosevelt

I’ve thought a lot about what to write about courage. These are times in which great courage is required, both from individuals and from those whom we have elected as our leaders. For me, every day reminds me how important courage is.

You may have heard the saying by Susan Jeffers (coined in a book title): “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Yet, like so many (seemingly) simple bits of wisdom, the ability to act when you’re afraid can feel like an impossibility. Fear can freeze us into one spot and paralyze us from doing anything.

I remember watching a good friend of mine succumb to the paralysis of fear. Years ago, long before our current recession-depression, he had lost his job, and he had a large family and wife to support. He didn’t have a high school diploma, and he struggled with reading and writing, which made him afraid to fill out job applications. Lacking any immediate prospects for work, he simply sat down one day and began watching television non-stop. He gave up bathing and caring for himself, and his friends and family watched helplessly as the bills mounted and the pantry became bare. When an out-of-state friend called to offer him a job, he accepted it and moved his family across the country. Although undertaking a job search scared my friend into immobility, he was courageous about uprooting his family and starting over in another state—an action that would have terrified someone else.

Fear is subjective. Most people will do anything to avoid public speaking; I’ll volunteer to stand in front of a crowd. Courage is born in those moments when we realize that fear is the boogey man in the closet, the nightmare that makes us scream in the middle of the night. Fear, like courage, comes from within us. It is largely a creation of our own minds.

Courage, the antidote to fear, is like jumping off the high board. As one of my friend puts it, it’s swinging from the skinny branches. Courage isn’t always—or even usually—headline winning acts of bravery. True courage comes every day, in the small choices we make. It’s deciding that we can be truthful with our spouse. It’s choosing to be kind and compassionate rather than lashing out in anger and fear. It’s making that phone call for a job, or to the bill collector, or to an old friend whom we haven’t spoken to in a long time.

Many people, myself included, have had to find new stores of courage in the current economic climate. After years of easily finding work and enjoying financial abundance, things abruptly changed. After months of searching for work, I have a new appreciation for why my friend parked himself in front of his television set.

I remind myself every day that a connection to the Universe diminishes fear and fuels courage. When I feel the tyranny of the urgent pressing upon me—that obnoxious voice in the back of my head screaming scary things at me—I retreat to silence. In that silence, I listen. I allow the Universe to carry away my fears, and in their place I feel the pulse of courage. And then I follow Mrs. Roosevelt’s words. I do the things I thought I couldn’t. I make those phone calls and send out manuscripts and write. Sometimes my hands sweat and my heart pounds, but I move forward anyway. I’d rather live a courageous life than a fearful one. Every day, I renew that choice.

“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.” --Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Picture courtesy of Simeon Eichmann at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/971596

Buddha: Ancient Wisdom for Today

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. --Buddha


What do you know about Buddha? His image is so prevalent today that his wisdom and actual life story is often forgotten.

Buddha began life as privileged prince Siddhārtha Gautama. His father shielded him from all of life’s unpleasantries, but the day came when Siddhartha saw the old, the infirm, and the poor. Deeply disturbed by what he saw, he left his princely life behind to study with the mystics and wise men of his day—he studied not only to educate himself, but also in hopes that he could end the suffering he saw in the world. His quest and studies eventually led him to the Bodhi tree, and after 49 days of meditation, he achieved Enlightenment. He did not claim to be a god. So what is enlightenment? That’s a bit like trying to define love; words are insufficient. It’s the loss of ego, the severing of attachment to the world, and the ability to see things as they truly are—but that only touches on the subject in the most superficial way. If you are seeking peace, read up on Buddha and his life; remember that today, the term Buddha can refer not only to the historical person, but to anyone who has achieved enlightenment.

Here are some more Buddha quotes:

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

He is able who thinks he is able.

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.
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Photo by Nevada Redd

Be Impeccable With Your Word

From the book: The Four Agreements – A Toltec Wisdom Book – A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom - by: Don Miguel Ruiz – Pages 25 – 26.

The First Agreement: Be Impeccable with Your Word

THE FIRST AGREEMENT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE and also the most difficult one to honor. It is so important that with just this first agreement you will be able to transcend to the level of existence I call heaven on earth.

The first agreement is to be impeccable with your word. It sounds very simple, but it is very, very powerful.

Why your word? Your word is the power that you have to create. Your word is the gift that comes directly from God. The Gospel of John in the Bible, speaking of the creation of the universe, says, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word is God.” Through the word you express your creative power. It is through the word that you manifest everything. Regardless of what language you speak, your intent manifests through the word.

The word is not just a sound or a written symbol. The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life. You can speak. What other animal on the planet can speak? The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you. One edge is the misuse of word, which creates a living hell. The other edge is the impeccability of the word, which will only create beauty, love, and heaven on earth. Depending upon how it is used, the word can set you free, or it can enslave you even more than you know. Your word is pure magic, and misuse of your word is black magic.

The Anti-Antidepressant

If you pay attention to television ads, you know that the drug companies have been hard at work developing medications to ease depression. “Mākuhapē will help you get out of bed every day and get back to your normal, cheerful self. Side effects include headache, dizziness, stomach upset, loss of libido, numbness and tingling in your extremities, disrupted sleep, increased or decreased appetite, and heart palpitations. In rare cases, Mākuhapē may cause your head to become misshapen, liver failure, and death. Consult with your doctor to see if Mākuhapē is right for you.” I don’t know about you, but I’d have to be in pretty bad shape to consider taking any make-you-happy pills. I think the happiness would be short-lived before the side effects kicked in.

Don’t get me wrong—depression and its cousins are very real, and people truly suffer from feelings of despair, worthlessness, and hopelessness. I spent years battling depression. I never took anti-depressants because I have a deep-seated aversion to both doctors and medication. I believe both are extremely over-valued in our society, but that’s a topic for another post, something I might call “Doctors Aren’t Gods.” Instead of turning to pills, I decided I would figure out why darkness so often overtook me, why life lost all meaning periodically, why I was unable to get out of bed some days. It was a long journey.

I began journaling and reading, meditating, and studying nutrition and herbs. Years passed, and although my depression changed, and in some ways eased, it didn’t leave. Too much stress, too much worry, and I would fall down a black hole that felt like it had no escape. After a while, I didn’t want to escape. I wanted to stay in that abyss so I wouldn’t have to fight it any longer.

In reading spiritual and self-help books, I had discovered that our live experiences are all about perception. Our focus is up to us—we can dwell on the dark side, or we can choose to find the good in life. We have far more control over our thoughts and feelings than most of us believe (or exercise); most people take life by default. If we feel a certain way, we just assume we must deal with it. If our personality tilts toward depression, we think that’s simply how it is. The problem, of course, is that this life-by-default thinking is wrong.

Deeply depressed one day, I retreated to my bedroom. The darkest thoughts clouded my mind, and as I laid in my bed, mired in thoughts of sorrow and despair, I had a stunning moment of clarity. I knew that if I did not stop allowing myself to spiral into deep depression, I wasn’t going to make it. Suicide would win one day. Was I falling into that black hole, or was I grabbing a hold of the well rope and sliding down into the darkness? I realized that I was allowing myself to wallow in regret, pity, and sadness, that I was permitting these thoughts to hijack my emotions, that I was obsessively re-playing my worst thoughts over and over again. Maybe I couldn’t completely control my depression, but I could stop myself from sinking to this point. I could stop focusing entirely on the darkness. I decided enough was enough.

Until that point, I’d always felt like spiritual books were an indulgence, a bit of wishful thinking with a cover. I almost felt embarrassed to be seen reading one. They were so relentlessly… cheerful. Upbeat. Positive. Even the more philosophical books espoused inner calm and peacefulness. Many spiritual teachers say that we don’t actually learn new things in the realm of spirit; we just have to remember what we already know. Every book I read and every audio recording I listened to reminded me that I didn’t have to be depressed. No internal coding mandated that I had to be miserable and unhappy; no exterior circumstances required my sadness. I decided to dedicate time every day to reading spiritual/self-help books. No doctor’s visit was required, no prescription was necessary, and I suffered no side effects. At first, I was concerned about the cost of my make-you-happy books, but then I realized that buying books was much less expensive than doctors and antidepressants. So far, my method works.

Did I “cure” my depression, or did I simply stop feeding it?
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Picture courtesy of Patrice Dufour at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1136463