***How to Handle Difficult People: Spiritual Teacher or Downright Toxic?

We all have very challenging, difficult people in our lives. While they often bring up LOTS of stuff for each of us to look at and clear and thus be a good influence ultimately upon us – sometimes the person and situation may become abusive and toxic. So where do you draw the line?

The first issue is being aware, awake and mindful about how the people we interact with and encounter impact us energetically. Any person who enters our life and disturbs us for whatever reason is someone to look at closely! Pay attention to your feelings and honor your gut reaction.

First of all, I NO LONGER CHOOSE TO BEAT UP ON MYSELF for how I handled any encounters or interactions with other people NO MATTER WHAT.

Second, I try not to place labels on it or to judge or criticize myself as being selfish or not compassionate in how I handle a difficult person.

I also try not to revert to guilt or regret at any time. If I feel guilt and regret, I look for what “I should do” or “ought to do” statements – often from early childhood – are operating and clear them out.

When I encounter a difficult person or attract one into my life, I usually drop what I am doing and focus on what is going on energetically. The first thing I do is ask the Creator to heal and ameliorate any karma I may have with that person or that person may have with me. A lot of time this one step alone clears up the whole incident and I go merrily on my way without interacting again with the person.

If that does not resolve the issue, I go to phase 2 and ask what is that person reflecting or mirroring back to me that I need to look at within myself and heal. Then I work with what comes up and clear it out.

If this does not resolve it, I ask is there a hidden wakeup call in this. Is there something going on that is seeking to gain my attention? Sometimes the people in our lives that agitate us are harbingers of change. I would much rather deal with a wakeup call as soon as possible since it is much less stressful to deal with an issue before it becomes a full blown crisis.
If there is no karma, no mirror, no wakeup call then the other possibility is that the difficult person reminds me of someone from my past like a parent, sibling or friend that I need to forgive. Usually the people we have karma with are also the people we need to forgive as well.

I had a friend once who had forgiveness issues with his dad and how it manifested in his life is that he would get jobs from people like his father, have fights with them and get fired. He was only able to shift his work crises when he worked on forgiving his father.

So as horrible and traumatic as that situation was - ULTIMATELY the experience of fighting with his boss and getting fired served my friend’s highest good even if he did not realize or appreciate it at the time.

The really interesting thing to me for mastery is how should we handle difficult people. And to me that is often a combination of where we are on the path and whether or not the difficult person is a teacher or a toxic. The guiding principle is to be compassionate with yourself.

When I first realized what a strong empath I was, it really changed how I interacted with people. I began looking at the people around me and I made changes. I cut out of my life a lot of people who I felt were negative and were lowering my vibration. I was quite ruthless about this. It was something I needed to do at that time because I did not have the shielding and filters and protective mechanisms I needed to interact with them.

I was taking on other people’s stuff right and left and the only way I knew how to handle it was to eliminate them from my life. It created a huge amount of stress on my relationship with my ex who did not understand this and thought I was being extremely selfish by no longer doing stuff with my old low vibration buddies. And I did not feel it was selfish at all and still don’t.

If I have any regrets at all it would be that I realized earlier in my life that I was so empathic and been more disce ing at an earlier age as to who I hung out with. LOL and if I had would I have been with that ex who like all my exes is a great spiritual teacher for me.

Any way – that was sixteen years ago and today I approach difficult people very differently. I have learned over the years that a lot of my growth and evolution comes from difficult people. One of my biggest spiritual teachers was an old boss of mine who I could not cut out of my life. It is quite hard to cut bosses out of your life since we often like earning a salary.
There is a big difference betwee Difficult People who are Spiritual Teachers and Difficult People who Cross the Line and have become Toxic. Teacher Difficult People bring up stuff and make us explore areas that are not comfortable but they provide a way for us to clear, heal, transmute and release dysfunctional patterns and programs. This ultimately helps us to grow, evolve, expand and raise our vibration.

Toxic Difficult People are another type of creature altogether. Toxic people bring up so much stuff and are so negative that they can overpower a person energetically and lower their vibration. And if I see a toxic person enter my life, I start to run and run fast and hard.