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One of my most important rules as a therapist is: Ignore all adjectives. When one of my clients says someone in their life is selfish, or cold, or hot-tempered, it doesn\u2019t tell me much about the problem. Adjectives aren\u2019t facts.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s especially true of \u201ctoxic,\u201d an adjective that\u2019s become increasingly popular in and outside of my office (it was even the Oxford Dictionaries\u2019\u00a0word of the year\u00a0in 2018). It\u2019s also easily overused \u2014 a way of reframing\u00a0a difficult relationship\u00a0as one not worth having.<\/p>\n
So when I have a therapy client who uses \u201ctoxic\u201d to describe someone, I don\u2019t ask them to clarify or to reconsider the word. Instead, I focus on the facts of the challenging situation they\u2019re telling me about.<\/p>\n
People use all sorts of words to describe their relationships. But when you sit with people long enough, you begin to see how wildly these descriptions will fluctuate based on their mood. We tend to\u00a0feel more threatened\u00a0by others on days we feel anxious, and we tend to be more forgiving on days we feel confident or hopeful. We love to hear that our feelings are valid, but I think another question is more important: Are these feelings useful?<\/p>\n
Labels like \u201ctoxic\u201d are emotional shortcuts<\/strong> When one of my clients starts getting into an adjective-heavy territory, I redirect them with questions like, \u201cWhat did they do?\u201d \u201cWhen and where did this occur?\u201d and \u201cHow did you respond?\u201d Notice that none of these questions have the word \u201cwhy.\u201d This is because \u201cwhy\u201d usually requires you to guess a person\u2019s motivation, or label them as a certain kind of person. Staying focused on what\u2019s objectively true helps you generate a more thoughtful response to a challenging relationship.<\/p>\n Labels ignore the complexity of human relationships<\/strong> So before you put the toxic stamp on someone, it can be useful to zoom out and observe how each person in the relationship is responding to the situation. You can ask yourself questions like:<\/p>\n How high is the anxiety in the room? You might not agree with what they\u2019re doing, and you don\u2019t need to put up with it, but at least you can see it as a response to tension, rather than simply an evil motive.\u00a0You\u2019ll see how each of you is responding to the other\u2019s anxious behaviors, and how this causes conflict in a relationship. And once you\u2019ve processed that information, you can make an informed decision on the best way forward.<\/p>\n Labels keep the focus on others, not ourselves<\/strong> It\u2019s much more productive to take that other focus and flip it back onto yourself. Instead of organizing people into toxic and non-toxic categories, think about how you want to respond to specific behaviors. Let me give you some examples.<\/p>\n Other-focus:\u00a0She\u2019s terrible for expecting me to pay for everything.<\/p>\n Self-focus:\u00a0I will not become responsible for other people\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n Other-focus:\u00a0He\u2019s toxic because he\u2019s verbally abusive on the phone.<\/p>\n Self-focus:\u00a0I will set the appropriate boundaries when others use harmful language with me.<\/p>\n Other-focus:\u00a0My mother is hateful when I disagree with her about politics.<\/p>\n Self-focus:\u00a0I will decide when it is important to share my beliefs, when I should change the subject, or when I should leave the conversation.<\/p>\n Again, whether the labels are true or false isn\u2019t the point. When you have principles about how you should act\u00a0in human relationships, especially when you feel harmed, used, or misunderstood, you\u2019ll never have to decide whether a person is \u201ctoxic\u201d or not.<\/p>\n Having these principles also helps you maintain strong relationships with the people you love. It\u2019s a lot harder to stand up to a romantic partner who\u2019s making unreasonable demands than it is to a coworker you\u2019re not emotionally invested in. But by staying focused on who you want to be, and what you\u2019re willing to do and not do, you\u2019re less likely to focus your energy on getting people to like you, or excusing harmful behaviors.<\/p>\n We all have people in our lives who we may be better off without. But it\u2019s worth thinking twice before you stick them with the \u201ctoxic\u201d label when talking to your friends, your therapist, or even in your own head. When you use facts instead of adjectives, it\u2019s easier for others to help you with your dilemma. It\u2019s also more difficult for others to dismiss your argument. You help yourself and others when you stay focused on reality, and acknowledge that we owe each other, and ourselves, more than simple labels.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of my most important rules as a therapist is: Ignore all adjectives. When one of my clients says someone in their life is selfish, … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1582,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions\/1582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhen you feel anxious around another person, your brain will begin to take emotional shortcuts that usually involve fighting, fleeing, or complaining to others. You quickly label the person as \u201ctoxic,\u201d declare their toxicity as the cause of your anxiety, and assume that escaping them will fix your distress. And you trust that this handy label can help you can act quickly and\u00a0avoid future anxiety. But there is a cost to these emotional algorithms: Instead of responding to reality, you\u2019re responding to your worst fears about that person.<\/p>\n
\nOne of the most fascinating things about being a therapist is seeing firsthand how people can experience and understand the same event in completely different ways. One person might view a behavior as helpful, and another might see it as overbearing. One might see criticism where another sees concern.<\/p>\n
\nHow is each person responding to this anxiety?
\nHow do these different responses cause conflict or harm?
\nHow would I like to respond to this reality?
\nWhen you begin to see a person\u2019s actions as their best attempt to calm themselves down, a funny thing happens. You no longer see them as toxic villains. You see them as a person who, for better or worse, is doing what they know best to get themselves through a challenge.<\/p>\n
\nWhen you feel threatened by another person, you tend to invest a great amount of energy focusing on them. You might scroll through their social media, quiz other friends and family, or flip through your own memories, looking for reasons to justify your belief that they\u2019re toxic. What I call \u201cother-focus\u201d often leads to increased sensitivity to the other person\u2019s behaviors \u2014 meaning that it takes less and less for you to feel disgusted, annoyed, or afraid of them.<\/p>\n