Hey, everybody, it's Brooke Castillo. Before we get started with today's podcast, I wanted to give you a heads up. When I recorded this podcast, my microphone was disconnected.
So all of the audio that was picked up from me, delivering the podcast was picked up from my computer. It is not the quality that you're used to. It is the quality of just talking at my computer.
So I want to apologize ahead of time. If you really can't stand the sound of it, I totally get it. You might want to skip this one.
And you can always go to the lifecoachschool.com and go to the podcast and get the transcript of the podcast if you'd rather read through the material. Next week, we will be back to high quality. Otherwise, enjoy.
Have a good one. Bye bye. You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode number 75.
Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast where it's all about real clients, real problems, and real coaching. And now, your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.
Episode 75, y'all. What the what? Oh my God, that's so awesome.
So awesome. Every once in a while, I give myself a pat on the back. Right now is one of those times.
Good for me. And hey, if you've listened to every single one of these podcasts, and I know there are a lot of you that have, I just want to say, rock it out. Good for you.
I'm so, so honored to have you as a student, and I'm so glad that you've stuck in there with me. And hey, some of you said that you listened to me on one and a half times, like you speed up, which makes me laugh because I already feel like I talk so fast. So rock it out, man.
Listen to me fast, even faster than I already talk. Some of you might even need to slow me down. It's all good.
All right, so today we are talking about toxic people. What a lovely topic. And actually, after I just spent the weekend with some people, it made me think about this topic because I have so many questions that I get from you all about toxic people and how to handle them.
So that's what we're talking about today. So here's firstly going to burst your bubble. There's no such thing as a toxic person.
I know. If you think about what the word toxic means, it means like it's poisonous. Like you breathe it in and you die, right?
Or you ingest it and you die. And unless you're literally breathing in another person or ingesting them, which I highly hope that you aren't, but many of you do, there's no such thing as a toxic person. And this is such fantastic news, right?
No matter what energy someone is giving off, it's not toxic to you. And I know that a lot of people believe this. They tell me like, how haven't you ever been around someone?
And afterwards, you feel like they got on you. You feel like their energy seeped into you or you feel like. And I say no, I don't feel that way.
And I don't ever want to feel that way or believe that that's true because it gives that person so much power to believe that, to believe that their energy can somehow get on me, does not feel good to me in any way. So I choose and know that it's true, that there's no such thing as a toxic person. People are not toxic, they're not poisonous.
And even if they are, it wouldn't affect us. It's just like being around a poisonous spider, right? It does until it gets inside of you, until it injects something inside of you physically, it does not hurt you.
I could be with a poisonous spider, hold it in my hand, right? And until it gets inside of my blood, which it would do by literally biting me and poisoning me, I'm going to be fine. And so I want you guys to remember that when you're thinking about any person in your life, people are not toxic.
They do not have any power over you unless there is literally some poison in their body and then they inject it inside of you, which does not happen, right? It doesn't happen. You're just in the presence of someone.
Just because you're in the presence of a poisonous spider doesn't mean that you are poisoned. Okay? And thinking about someone as toxic, as poisonous, is not useful.
It does not help you. And in fact, it's scary to think about someone that way, and it gives them power. It's like if you breathe around that person, that you will somehow be poisoned and there is no one that powerful.
And I think that's fantastic news. Okay. So here's what is true.
If there's no such thing as a toxic person, what is there? There are people with whom you get triggered because of your own thinking. They trigger thinking in your brain.
There are people who act in ways, right, that trigger you to think, feel, and act in certain ways. Okay. There are people who you believe bring out the worst in you by how you think when you're around them.
There are people who cross your boundaries. But if you have good boundaries and you follow through on your boundaries, that doesn't have to be a problem. There are people who you think hurt your feelings.
But people do not have the ability to hurt your feelings without your permission, without the way that you think. And there are people who don't like you. And I have in a couple of episodes, I'm going to be doing a podcast called People Who Hate You, When Someone hates You.
I'm going to talk a lot more about that. But there are people that don't like you. And that's okay.
They don't have to affect you in any way, no matter what they say or do around you. You can make room for those people in your life. Now, when people feel like someone is toxic, they ultimately feel like they have to remove that person from their life, which makes complete sense, right?
If something is toxic, I do not want it in my home. If someone is toxic, I do not want them in my life. But if I've convinced you that there's no such thing as a toxic person, then what will you do with these people?
these people who trigger you, these people who trigger negative thoughts in you, these people who cross your boundaries, these people who you are challenged when you are around them. So first and foremost, I want to remind you of two things. First, people are allowed to behave the way they want to behave.
When you say you're going to let someone behave a certain way, you are confused. People are allowed to behave the way they want to. I know that this is challenging for so many of you.
People do not have to follow the rules. Let me give you an example of this. I walk my dogs.
I have two Boston Terriers. They are fantastic. I walk them all the time without their leashes on.
The rule is you need to have leashes on. That's the rule. I don't follow that rule.
I let my dogs walk without leashes on. This makes other people, some other people, crazy. They do not like that I walk my dogs without their leashes.
They do not like that I don't follow the rules, and they get very angry towards me about it because I don't follow the rules. Okay? But I'm allowed to do whatever I want to do.
I'm allowed. It doesn't mean that there won't be consequences, and I may get in trouble by someone. But I'm allowed to do what I want to do.
Okay? And that's true for everyone. People are allowed to be rude.
People are allowed to be violent. People are allowed to be angry. Okay?
There's nothing we can do to control other people's behavior. It doesn't mean there won't be consequences, but they're allowed to do what they want to do. They're allowed to cheat.
They're allowed to lie. They're allowed to steal. They're human beings.
They have free will. They're allowed to do what they want. The sooner you understand that and remember that, the happier you will be.
Now, what matters is how you respond to other people behaving the way that they're allowed to behave. That's up to you. Okay?
Now, that's the first thing. People are allowed to behave the way they want to behave. The second thing is you get to choose who you want to spend time with.
Okay? You get to decide. You are always in charge of who you spend time with.
You do not have to spend time with anyone you don't want to spend time with. But you need to like your reason for not spending time with them. It's not because they're toxic.
It's not because you can't spend time with them. It's because you're choosing not to. And I just want to make sure that you like your reason for not spending time with them.
You don't have to spend time with anyone you don't want to, whether it's your mother, your father, your kid, anyone. You do not have to spend time with anyone. So if you are spending time with someone, it's because you are choosing to.
Now, if you feel yourself arguing with me on that, I just want to back you up. You're allowed to do what you want. You do not have to spend time with your mother ever.
You do not have to spend time with your father ever. You have free will. You can do whatever you want.
You can move to Mexico and never come back. You have free will. So if you're spending time with someone, it's because you're choosing to spend time with someone.
If you're not spending time with someone, it's because you're choosing not to spend time with them. And that is your choice. So remember, number one is people are allowed to behave the way they want to behave, period.
There's nothing you can do about it. And number two, you get to choose who you spend time with. Now, the other thing I want you to take full responsibility for is you don't have to take responsibility for how other people behave or for their feelings.
That is not your job. But you do, I highly recommend, take responsibility for how you behave. So, I notice that it is harder for me to behave around certain people, right?
I have this ideal for who I want to be, and when I'm around certain people, I sometimes find myself not being kind. I find myself not being respectful. I find myself raising my voice, okay?
And blaming the other person for how I'm behaving. It is never their fault for how I'm behaving. They are allowed to behave how they want to behave.
I am responsible for my behavior. So, if someone is rude to me, it is not their fault if I am rude back to them. That's on me.
If someone raises their voice to me, I can't take responsibility for that. But if I raise my voice back, right? Then I do need to take responsibility for that.
Okay? I need to take responsibility for how I behave. If somebody comes at me and is disrespectful, and then I'm disrespectful back, I have to take responsibility for my behavior.
It is never their responsibility for how I behave. So, I try to explain this to my children when I'm teaching them. He'll say, well, he hit me first.
That's why I hit him. I said, you can't take responsibility for his behavior, right? But you can take responsibility for yours.
If you hit him, I'm going to hold you accountable for you hitting him. Okay? I'm not going to hold you accountable for him hitting you, right?
And all that goes along with that. But I will hold you accountable for your behavior. That's all you can control.
All right. So, that's what I want you guys to remember when it comes to you. If you call someone toxic and you think their behavior is unacceptable, and then you behave in an unacceptable way and justify it because of the way they're acting, then you have convinced yourself that they're more powerful than you, and that they can control how you behave.
That is never the case. Okay? So, here's the thing.
If when you are with someone, you notice that you're behaving in a way that you don't like, it's time for you to do work on yourself. The solution is not to remove that person from your life, because that's an opportunity for you to work on yourself. So, for example, if when you hang out with someone, you feel resentful and frustrated, my guess is you probably don't have very clear boundaries.
Okay? If when you're around someone, you're constantly feeling agitated, it's probably because you're not managing your own mind. If you don't like the way someone's behaving, and you're trying to control their behavior, you're going to feel agitated a lot of the time.
So please notice, are you taking responsibility and trying to control someone else's behavior? And are you then turning that on yourself and behaving in a way that you don't respect and then blaming the other person? Okay.
So here's my suggestion. You decide whether you want to spend time with someone, you own that choice, and you make sure you like your reason for not spending time with them. So notice, if the reason is they're toxic, you're saying they're too powerful.
I can't behave myself when I'm around them. I can't control my emotions when I'm around them. I feel awful when I'm around them.
Notice, they are not responsible for how you feel. So you can't give them credit for causing your feelings. Okay.
Now, if you want to say it's too much work to be around them, it's hard for me to feel good around them, I don't like how much thought work I have to do around them, that's why I'm choosing not to be around them, then that's another thing. But let me give you an example. I was just coaching someone today, and she was telling me that she doesn't like being around her stepfather.
She was saying, he's very mean and I don't like being around him. But what the problem was is that her stepfather is always around her mom, and she likes to be around her mom. And so she was limiting her amount of time that she was getting to spend with her mom, because of the stepfather.
And she had all these reasons about the stepfather and who he was, and how he was mean to her, and how he treated her. And what I showed her was that how she thinks around her stepfather is going to determine how she thinks and feels. And she was taking it all very personally and blaming him.
And one of the examples I used was, what if every time you're around your mom, your mom had a dog that was very mean to you, and growled at you, and barked at you, and tried to keep you away from your mom? What would that prevent you from being around your mom? And it depends on what you would make it mean, right?
What you would mean about the dog, what you would make it mean about the mom having the dog, whatever. But her impression was, no, I wouldn't let that bother me at all. I wouldn't take it personally.
I would know that that's just about the dog. And I'm not saying at all that her stepfather is a dog. And what I'm saying is dogs behave the way they do.
People behave the way they do. Everybody's allowed to behave the way they want to behave. We can't control it, but we also don't have to take it personally.
And we certainly don't have to use it as a reason to prevent ourselves from seeing someone we do want to see. So it's worth doing the work on the person that you're giving so much power to. And she didn't even realize how much power she was giving to the stepfather to control how she was going to behave in her life.
And it was really helpful for her to see that she wanted to take her power back. She wanted to be in charge of how she felt when she was around anybody, and she wanted to be in charge of how she acted and not be blaming someone else. And so that was really powerful because the reason why she wasn't spending time with her stepfather is because she was making him responsible for her feelings, and she didn't like that reason.
Okay? Now, she may decide not to spend as much time around him because it does require her to do a lot of work on her mind, and she has to do a lot of management on her emotions, and she may like that reason. That may be a good enough reason for her.
But you want to make sure that if you're eliminating someone from your life, that you're not doing it because you're making that person so powerful, or you're not doing it because you're trying to control their behavior. You get to decide what you want to think, feel, and do when you're around anyone in your life. I have a lot of people in my life that used to really get quote unquote under my skin, which is impossible, of course, but that now don't bother me at all, right?
Because I've done my mind work on them. I've taken all my power back, and I believe that there is no one in my life that can create an emotion for me that I'm not fully creating for myself, okay? So people can try and be rude to me, people can flip me off, people can be angry, people can say that I'm stupid and they don't like my work, and they don't like what I do, and they don't like the way I parent, and it doesn't affect me at all, okay?
And there are other people that I really have to work hard on having that not affect me, but I always know that it's my reaction in my brain that's creating that effect and not that other person, okay? So when I'm going to spend time with someone who I know might trigger me to have negative thoughts, I first own that it's my thoughts that are creating it, not the other person. I do my work before, during, and after that I spend time with them, and I actually think that's time well spent because I think it makes me stronger and better as a person to separate out my feelings from somebody else.
I remind myself that I cannot control how they behave. I can only control how I think, feel, and behave. I remind myself that they're allowed to behave however they want, and that it is my choice to spend time with them or not, and it's my choice how I will feel about spending time with them or not.
Other people are not toxic. I am in control of how I think, feel, and behave around anyone in my life. Nobody is powerful enough to create a feeling within me.
I create my feelings by how I think. There is no more powerful loving place to be when it comes to other people. When I think that someone is toxic, I feel bad.
When I think that someone is wounded or injured or just yapping like a barking dog because they're scared or they're upset or they think they're tough. I like to think about that. Like little dogs that are like barking all the time, I'm so amused by them, right?
Because they think they're so big and they're so tough, and they're really just scared, right? They're really just scared little puppies, and I think there's a lot of people in our lives that are like that, including us sometimes. So I want to invite you to change the way you look at other people.
Nobody is that powerful. People are allowed to behave the way they want, and you can choose whether you want to spend time with them or not. Just make sure you like your reason.
Make sure your reason empowers you and doesn't make them so powerful, because there may come a time where you do need to spend time with them, and you want to make sure that you are in the position of full empowerment in your own life. All right, everyone, I hope that helps with anyone who thinks they're dealing with a toxic person. I'd love to hear your questions and your comments.
Go over to thelifecoachschool.com/seventyfive.
And let's touch base. Let me hear how you guys are doing, how you're working with different people in your life, and how you're empowering yourself. Have an amazing, wonderful week, and I'll talk to you guys next week.
Take care. Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to The Life Coach School Podcast. It would be incredibly awesome if you would take a moment to write a quick review on itunes. For any questions, comments, or coaching issues you would like to hear on the show, please visit us at www.thelifecoachschool.com.
