I have been thinking about the difficult people in my life. You know those people whom you dread having to encounter and when you do, they seem to suck the life blood and energy right out of you? Even if you are just thinking about them ( and they seem to occupy so much of our daily thoughts despite how we feel about them ), they have the extraordinary capacity to invade and pervade our beings as if by osmosis. If one cannot walk away from them or divorce oneself from them , then one needs to find a way of accepting their presence but equally to find a way to reject their negative influence on us. Believing in God as I do, I believe that He allows or indeed places these people in my life for a reason and so I have to try to fathom a way that casts some positivity on my growth and development as a direct response to their presence.
If I am called to be kind, patient, gentle, compassionate – in fact any attribute that instantly vanishes when the difficult person enters or drifts across my orb, then the challenge must be how I maintain those characteristics despite the way that my buttons are being pushed in opposition. It is clearly not a natural process and would require serious , conscious discipline and implementation. However, surely with constant practice, one could strive to at least restrain some of one’s knee-jerk reactions and instinctive behaviour by adopting a more measured and ordered response? The pay-off for this would be how one feels subsequently. When one responds with negative thoughts and actions, if one has the slightest conscience, one is bound to feel pretty bad about oneself thus perpetuating the negative cycle of behaviour around that individual. It also elicits in one the desire to pre-judge the person at every turn and to expect their behaviour to be difficult thus giving us permission to feel the way we do. Invariably, the difficult person will of course be as difficult as ever because we perceive them this way without ever giving them the benefit of the doubt. By approaching them and responding differently to them, one is breaking this cycle of negativity within the relationship and so even if none of it rubs off on them, ultimately, we are the victors . We are left with less guilt and anxiety and are freer and more equipped to cut some of the toxicity that keeps us bound to them.
When that difficult person is part of your family and the ropes that tie you together are blood ties, then the quest to find a way of dealing with them or at least accepting them becomes more urgent and pertinent. For me, it has been a lifelong tussle and so the race is on for me to resolve my internal issues before either of us departs from this earth. I have accepted that my difficult person will never change. That change lies with me and the sooner , the better.
