How to deal with Toxic People? || Acharya Prashant (2022)
Video Information: Advait Learning Camp, 23.02.2019, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
Context:
What is the right time to be into a relationship?
What is relationship?
How to make relationship healthy?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
What is the right time to be into a relationship?
What is relationship?
How to make relationship healthy?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Transcript
00:00 Namaste Sir, I'm Shelly. My question is how to deal with the toxic people in our daily
00:08 life and sometimes their behavior adds negativity and upset in my life and how to deal such
00:16 situation and how to stay positive when I'm dealing with such personalities.
00:23 You are Shelly you said?
00:25 Yes, Shelly.
00:27 Shelly how did you first of all manage to accommodate so many toxic people in your daily
00:33 life?
00:35 Like attracts like.
00:40 My question to you is how did you first of all have so many toxic people gravitate to
00:47 you?
00:48 How did that happen?
00:49 It's a miracle.
00:51 Not so many Sir, one or two people they are always.
00:55 Even those two people, how are they managing to stick around?
01:02 Why are they still in your sensory or mental domain?
01:07 Why do you see them?
01:08 Why do you think of them?
01:10 Because I can't avoid them.
01:17 That's exactly what toxicity is.
01:19 That's exactly what toxicity is.
01:21 Something that cannot be avoided.
01:24 That's everybody's apology and explanation.
01:28 Just as you say you cannot avoid toxic people.
01:31 Similarly the toxic people say they cannot avoid being toxic.
01:36 That's everybody's apology.
01:38 Now what do you do?
01:39 Tell me.
01:44 In my problem is I'm always reacting them.
01:47 So you always?
01:49 I'm always reacting them when they are manipulating, when they are.
01:52 Sometimes I'm not able to, I used to think that I will be silent but in some situation
01:59 I can't.
02:00 So I will.
02:01 No, no, we need to stick to my question.
02:05 Why are these people there in your life at all?
02:08 Of course, they are my family members.
02:17 Why do they need to be necessarily there in your life?
02:21 Who told you that the family is bigger than everything else?
02:29 You are not born to be a family woman.
02:32 You are born to be liberated.
02:35 Liberation is bigger than everything.
02:39 Your gender, your identities, your roles, your relationships, all of these are subservient
02:46 to your existential purpose.
02:49 You do not exist to be a family member.
02:55 You are born alone, you will die alone.
02:58 What is this thing about family?
03:01 The only thing that will remain with you is the height of consciousness you could reach.
03:11 In fact, the ones who have known have told us that if you could reach great heights and
03:16 even transcend the heights, those heights remain so much with you that even your death
03:23 does not matter, you become immortal.
03:26 Will the family remain with you always?
03:32 They are already bothering you so much.
03:36 Not everyone, but some people.
03:39 Just two days back, they were judging, manipulating and I couldn't control it.
03:47 I said something, I reacted, but that affected me.
03:51 You are not being fully willing to consider my question.
03:59 If there are such people, what compulsion do you have to have interactions with them?
04:06 Please tell me.
04:09 And it is these compulsions that fuel the toxicity.
04:16 If toxicity knows that it would be thrown out of the window, it would change its ways,
04:26 but it does not mend itself because it knows it would be accommodated.
04:32 Why do you accommodate it so much?
04:34 And by accommodating it, are you doing yourself any good?
04:39 Are you doing the other person any good?
04:42 That person will continue to remain toxic, you will continue to suffer, you will continue
04:47 to feel like a victim, he will continue to be himself.
04:53 Who is gaining?
05:00 Nobody is gaining, right?
05:03 You know what is the fundamental problem?
05:06 This feeling of obligation, this feeling of compulsiveness, this feeling that you are
05:13 indebted, that there is a great responsibility to bear all nonsense.
05:23 And all of this arises from an ignorance of one's true nature.
05:29 Since we do not know who we really are, therefore we take on all kinds of needless roles, responsibilities
05:37 and identities.
05:41 Every second lost to mischief is a second that you owe to your own inner progress.
05:53 Every second lost to toxicity is a moment stolen away from its right utilization.
06:05 Do you see what kind of loss that is?
06:11 Also, remember, we are talking of just one side of the story.
06:21 If we manage to bring those two so-called toxic people to this conversation, they will
06:27 have their own tale to tell.
06:35 Toxicity is not something necessarily present in a person.
06:40 It breeds in an environment, not really in a person.
06:46 And if it is there in an environment, there are many people responsible for it.
06:53 Stop being one of those who are responsible for that toxicity.
06:59 You can support toxicity actively by displaying toxic behavior or you can support toxicity
07:09 passively by tolerating toxic behavior.
07:20 Active or passive, support is support, is it not?
07:29 And there is fun in portraying oneself as the victim of toxicity.
07:33 We are not just victims of toxicity, we are supporters of toxicity.
07:44 Please understand, all these concepts that have been implanted in our minds, that cohesion
07:57 is of prime importance, that staying together is of prime importance, that being a good-mannered
08:13 and dainty girl, a woman, is of prime importance.
08:22 These are junk principles.
08:28 The real principles of life have never been taught to us.
08:34 What really matters in life is not your good etiquette, but your deep wisdom.
08:48 But wisdom is something we never respected, never quite cultivated with intent.
09:00 Instead we value a lot of other things and those other things, they are actually valueless.
09:11 We have just been taught to value them.
09:16 Stop giving values to things that have none.
09:25 Call a spade a spade.
09:28 And it's not about being vindictive, it's not about retribution.
09:43 In some sense it is also about helping that other toxic person.
09:51 Somebody has to call him out and that need not be done with a lot of anger, that has
09:58 to be done as an exercise in factfulness.
10:04 Why not tell it to the other person that he or she is displaying sick behavior, that that
10:12 person's behavior is adversely affecting the mental well-being of a lot of other people,
10:20 at least one other person.
10:26 And you do that honestly, and you do that without any violence.
10:33 If the other person is his own well-wisher, he will listen to you.
10:41 That must be your intention.
10:43 And if he does not listen, then you cannot foist yourself on someone.
10:52 People improve by their own consent.
10:59 If you tell the right things to a person and he does not want to improve, you cannot force
11:05 him to.
11:08 That's not in your hands.
11:10 But your own well-being is definitely in your hands.
11:14 I repeat, there is no obligation, no responsibility to stay put in an environment or with people
11:25 who adversely impact your mental health.
11:38 Anything else?
11:39 No, sir.
11:40 Thank you, sir.
11:41 Thank you so much.
11:42 [MUSIC PLAYING]