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Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, do me a favor, go ahead and go to whatever platform you listen to us on, give us a rating and review. Reason why is because the more positive ratings and reviews that we get, the more that those platforms show this podcast to people who've never listened to it before, which allows us to grow and hopefully impact more lives. So if you do that, I would appreciate it. Today I'm going to be talking about how to handle toxic people during the holidays. If you're here, it's because at least one toxic person is in your life that you want to get rid of. And let's be honest, there's at least one person that's probably at your family events that you would never choose to spend time with if they weren't actually related to you. You know, they might criticize you or guilt trip you or gaslight you. And then in the end, somehow you still feel like the person who feels bad at the end of it and they don't feel bad about it all and you've probably spent years thinking, what's wrong with me? Like, why do they always get to me? How can I improve myself? But what if I told you that their toxic behavior actually has nothing to do with you and everything to do with their own traumas, their own insecurities and their own need for control? And they are projecting their problems and the way that they feel about themselves onto you, so it has nothing to do with you. And today I'm going to show you how to flip the perspective so you never get triggered by them again. So you're going to learn how to respond in a way that shuts down all of their drama. And then once you shut down all of their drama, they're going to feel the need to move on to somebody else. So then you will get more peace in your life, and especially this time of year, because the holidays should be fun. And they can be fun, but it can be really stressful for people who have toxic family dynamics and for people that you love the most, they usually trigger you the most. And so it's important to know this before we dive in. It's okay to set boundaries that are true to you and to prioritize yourself and your own mental health. Okay? So let's go ahead and dive in. Toxic behavior can be many different things. It could be criticism of you. It could be them trying to manipulate you. It could be them gaslighting you and making you think that you're the problem when they're the problem. It could be them using guilt and guilt tripping you to try to control you. It could be them just all out trying to control you. It could be guilt, it could be shame. It could be overstepping their boundaries, and it could just be outright hostility from them. And so when you look at a toxic behavior, what's the actual root of the toxic behavior? It's important to know that toxic family members and toxic people often are acting from unresolved trauma within themselves or some sort of insecurity or the need to feel like they need to control you. And now I want you to understand that doesn't excuse their behavior in any sort of way. I'm not trying to excuse their behavior. I'm trying to explain their behavior. It's important to know where it comes from, especially if you're going to deal with it, you know, so like an example might be you might have a really critical parent that's critical every single time that you're around them and critical of what you're doing in your life and your life path and who you're with or who you're not with, or when you're going to have kids or not have kids. And, and they might be critical because they are actually projecting their own fears and their own inadequacy onto you. Like I see this all of the time that parents try to control their children and manipulate their children and push all of their fears and all of their insecurities and all of their inadequacies onto their children to try to control them. And it makes you feel like you're the problem and there's something wrong with you when in reality it actually has nothing to do with you. You just happen to be the person that's getting fear vomited on top of. That's what it comes down to. And you got to remove yourself and hopefully your emotions from the situation. And so the shift and the perspective that you need to understand is this. When somebody is toxic, it isn't about you at all. It is all about them. And when you're in these toxic environments, you have to remind yourself of this. And you might have to remind yourself over and over and over and 10 or 20 times when you're sitting down for Christmas dinner. It's not about you, it's about them. It's not about you, it's about them. You need to say it over and over and over again. And it's really important to know that now. What I always remind myself of, whether it happened to be somebody in my family or someone who's toxic or someone who's just an asshole in public, is what you're seeing is an adult, right? That's what you think. But what you're really seeing is an unhealed child in an adult's body. And if you keep reminding yourself, oh, that's just a wounded child who never healed, that is in a 47 year old's body, you can kind of take a step back and remove yourself and protect your own mental health in that moment. Now the other thing that you need to understand in this situation is you need to understand your own emotional triggers, right? Because family members know you so well and they will either consciously, but a lot of times unconsciously know how to push your buttons. And so you need to identify your specific emotional triggers. Like you can use this moment, you know you will be triggered, I promise you that. But you can use this moment for you to be able to grow. It's like going to the Emotional Resilience gym and we will be right back. Don't let overpriced phone bills suck the joy out of the holidays this year. Right now, all of Mint Mobile's unlimited plans are 50% off. You can get three, six or 12 months of unlimited premium wireless for 15 bucks a month. I've used Mint Mobile for years on my company phone and to be honest with you, it's just as good a service as I get with my other big box company that I use. Turn your expensive wireless present into huge wireless savings future by switching to Mint Shop. 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And it works. 83% of members have applied something they've learned and most say it's had a positive impact on our lives. Masterclass Learn anytime, anywhere from the best in the world. One of my favorite things that I learned from Masterclass was in negotiation class with Chris Voss on how to ask better questions. Masterclass always has great offers during the holiday, sometimes up to as much as 50% off. Head over to masterclass.com dial for the current offer. That's up to 50% off@masterclass.com dial masterclass.com dial. And now back to the show. So, you know, you need to know your own emotional triggers, like being talked down to or being dismissed or being guilt tripped in some sort of way, or being judged for, for what you're doing in life or being judged for your body. You, you need to know what your own emotional triggers are and you can really journal through it. Like, you should journal through it. Like, write down before you go to these family events or these events where there might be toxic people, where it could be, work, whatever it might be, and think to yourself, like, what are my emotional triggers? Cause if I can presence it and I can bring it in when I can see it, it doesn't have as much control over me. And so the first thing you're going to want to do is you want to make sure that you identify your feelings and your triggers. You can also do this when you find yourself in the moment of being triggered. One of the best ways to take yourself out of it emotionally is to take yourself out of your emotional brain and into your logical brain. And what you do in that moment is like, oh my God, I'm really pissed off right now. Instead of getting into the drama, take yourself out of the drama, take out a pen and paper, walk into a different room and, and say, why am I being triggered right now? And what it does is it will over time turn off your emotional part of your brain that's triggered, and it will turn on your analytical brain, which makes you look at it from a completely different perspective, as if you are somebody that's trying to solve a problem versus somebody who is wrapped up in a shitstorm, right? And so what you want to do is make a note of when you are triggered, write it down. And now you're seeing it from a, oh, this is a problem that I can solve and I don't have to be wrapped up in versus, like, oh my God, I'm lost in this moment. Okay? So that's the first thing. The second thing is then what you do, whether it is before you go into a moment where there's a toxic person or in that moment when you remove yourself, is you then plan how you want to respond in those moments so you identify your feelings and your triggers. And then you plan how you want to respond when it does happen. So, for instance, if, like, if criticism about your career triggers you because your parents want you to go and be a lawyer, but you don't want to be a lawyer, well, then what you want to do is you want to rehearse what you will say to yourself, right? You rehearse what you say to yourself. So when they come in and they still want you to be a lawyer, and you don't want to be a lawyer because that doesn't sound fun, you rehearse and you come up with, like, your own empowering phrase for yourself. I'm happy with my choices, and that's all that matters. I'm happy with my choices, and that's all that matters. Then when they come in and they throw their drama on top of you in your head, you just repeat to yourself, I'm happy with my choices, and that's all that matters. I'm happy with my choice and all that matters. And it keeps you from being stuck in this toxic pattern with this toxic person. So planning ahead, believe it or not, is actually really, really important. Because when you're triggered, I'm just going to be honest with you. You're not making the best decisions. Have you ever been triggered? And then an hour after being triggered, you're like, oof. Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have done that. The reason why is because when you're triggered and all of those emotions pop up, when your emotions are high, your logic is low, your emotions are high, your logic is low, your emotions are high, your body stops sending as much blood to the prefrontal cortex of your brain, which is where your logic is and your critical thinking, and you're just wrapped up in emotions. So you're not actually even making smart decisions in those moments. So that's why it's important to plan ahead now. And you plan how you react. And then when you get really pissed off because they still want you to be a lawyer, you're like, what was that fricking phrase? What was that phrase? What was that phrase? Oh, yeah, that's what it was. I'm happy with my choices, and that's all that matters. And it's the way to remove yourself from an old pattern that you've been stuck in. Okay? The other thing you want to try to do is try to work on emotional detachment. Not in your entire life. That's not healthy. But emotional detachment in those moments, detach yourself from that situation. Right? Someone said something to you boo hoo, right? Like you're. In the end, you're gonna be okay. You're not gonna die because somebody wants you to do xyz, right? Somebody said something to you. Not really that big of a deal. Don't get wrapped up in it. I promise you, you'll live. So you don't need to take on someone else's opinions. You are in control of whether or not you want to let somebody else trigger you. And if it's a toxic person, you probably should try to remove yourself from that. You don't get triggered by somebody else without you actually being like, okay, I'm going to be triggered unconsciously. You're doing it like one of my favorite quotes on this is Eleanor Roosevelt and she says no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. You have to realize that if somebody makes you feel bad about yourself, it's because you're actually consenting to letting them feel bad about yourself. Now it might be just a pattern that you've been stuck in since childhood, but as an adult, let's start to remove yourself from this pattern. You can use mindfulness to stay in the present moment. Like when you start to get triggered. Anytime your body shifts in some sort of way, the very first thing to change is your breath. So what you want to do is focus on your breath. Slow your breathing down as slow as you possibly can. Remove yourself from the situation. Go to the bathroom. My favorite way to self soothe, I do it multiple times a day is really deep breath in. And then you do a really long ex, like as long as you possibly can exhale. But you're going to hum at the same time. The reason why is because the hum, the vibration in your chest actually stimulates your vagus nerve and that is actually the vagus nerve then turns on your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the calm, cool, collected side of your nervous system. So you go from fight or flight to breathing really deeply, humming a few times, letting it roll. You can hum in the bathroom, no big deal. You don't have to hum a song.