How To Cope With Difficult People
They are out there. They may either be your boss, college
professor, business partner, landlord, or even your own spouse,
children, siblings or parents. Anyone can be a difficult person
to someone else.
You may not admit it — but at one time or another; all of us
have been difficult people to other people. It is vital to see
if you are in a situation with a difficult person or if you
yourself are beginning to be one. The first solution to any
problem is recognizing the problem.
Most times, difficult people do not realize they are difficult.
They don’t see that they are demanding too much from other
people. They think their attitude is just normal. Likewise, some
of their victims may not see that they are dealing with
difficult people.
It’s vital that at this early point, we grasp the fact that
avoiding difficult people does not solve the problem in
question. As earlier mentioned, these people are everywhere.
There is no privacy they cannot invade.
Ironically, the more successful you get the more difficult
people you have to meet and cope with. Coping with difficult
people might even be considered an essential skill to getting
and staying successful in your life.
If you enjoy sailing in the sea you have to get used to its
moods. The key is not to stay out of it but to learn to sail
smoothly through thick and thin. Likewise, it is learning how to
deal with a difficult person that gives you smooth sailing amid
a storm.
Once you master this, difficult people will start liking you.
So what makes a difficult person difficult? Everyone out there
is fighting a life battle of some kind. The battles may be
fierce or mild. Different people have different stress
tolerance. When people reach a state of high confusion and
overwhelm, they become difficult. They, then, unconsciously
project their frustration on you.
As a psychologist, my business is actually in dealing with
difficult people, trying to make them less difficult. Once
people become aware of their own inner pain, they begin to see
how they bludgeon others with it, often unconsciously. Their
lives are falling apart because they are critical, judgmental,
and hostile to themselves and other people. Everything I do in a
session is designed for only one purpose: to make them
self-aware.
Given this opportunity to see other people more deeply, I have
found the best way to stay objective enough to help them is to
follow the advice of Don Miguel Ruiz, a brilliant philosopher.
He said that everyone is living in their own dream, their own
version of reality. You have to understand that everything they
are saying about you is only a projection from that state of
unawareness. In fact, they do not see you at all, only their
interpretation of what someone like you means to them. Thus, he
advised–do not take things personally.
If you base your values and your meanings on someone else’s
point of view, you have merely traded in your own uniqueness and
become imprisoned in their dream. You are letting them define
you. No one can truly understand you…for they do not know you
well enough to do it.
Once you really get this perspective, you can allow yourself the
freedom to see them as they are–i.e. upset about something that
has nothing to do with you but over something that is bothering
them. They are experiencing something about you that does not
even exist in your reality.
Often, too, they do not even use the same words in the same way
you do. Let me give you a simple example of the often invisible
linguistic barrier that arises between people. Yesterday, I was
having a discussion with someone about “consciousness.” She
argued that it had no value for her. This was puzzling to
me…because what I was witnessing was a being that was animated
because of consciousness. After some investigation, I finally
understood that she had narrowed the word down to mean “figuring
things out.” Thus, while I was defining the word as “sentience,
life-force, and awareness,” she was defining it as “limited,
circuitous thinking.”
Thus, even when two people are discussing what appears to be the
same topic, they are actually talking about two completely
different things. Each in their own minds are convinced that
they are correct–because each is viewing something that is
perfectly aligned with their own precepts and own vision.
The best way to cope with difficult people is to not take what
they have to say personally.
If this does not make sense to you, consider the following.
Difficult people are difficult because:
(a) They project their inner pain on you; and you just happen to
be at the wrong place at the wrong time. (b) They do not even
experience you as you are; but only interpret you a certain way
because of their limited experience of you. (c) They do not even
see you as you are; but are only caught up in a dream state of
what someone like you stirs up in them. (d) They do not even
hear the words you say; but are only interpreting the meaning of
your words according to their own hidden definition.
Thus, when you really look at it deeply, it is not wise to take
things personally. Once you remain free of getting stuck in
their view of you, then you can intuitively understand how to
cope with the situation.
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