Take Back Your Power: How to Handle Toxic Behavior Without Losing Yourself

In this episode, we dive into a powerful topic: the real strategies for handling "toxic" people & behavior - without labeling, diagnosing, or giving away your power. 

We'll uncover the biggest mistakes people make when dealing with toxic behavior and the crucial mindset shift that puts you back in control. Learn how to stay rooted in your self-trust, set boundaries that reflect your true standards, and approach challenging relationships with a fresh mindset. Plus, we’ll give you practical, actionable steps to protect your boundaries and stay focused.

Ready to reclaim your energy and take charge? Let’s get into it.

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Your Host:
Monika Lerch
https://www.monikalerch.com/
Linkedin: /in/monikalerch/
Instagram: @themonikalerch

Your Co-Host:
Patrick Öffl
https://www.amikifilms.com/
Linkedin: /in/patrickoeffl/
Instagram: @patrickoeffl

Chapters

• 1:16 Introduction: Taking back the power in difficult relationships
• 3:59 The most important mindset shift to make when dealing with difficult or "toxic" people, energy vampires, etc.
• 13:39 3 practical tips on how to take back your power & establish new rules
• 19:08 Emotional detachment - Why you shouldn't take things personally
• 25:10 On choosing what you communicate & why walking away can be the best choice
• 28:44 Invitation: Join my FREE Monthly Mindset Mentoring
• 28:45 Invitation: Join my FREE Monthly Mindset Mentoring

Transcript

Monika [00:00:07] This is the Pioneers Club podcast. 

Patrick [00:00:09] The community podcast for driven entrepreneurs and leaders. 

Monika [00:00:13] Here you can connect with like minded people, create a sense of belonging and gain more agency in your daily life. Hi, my name is Monika and I'm your host. I help impact driven freelancers, entrepreneurs and leaders live their full potential and go from feeling overwhelmed, stuck and confused to being confident, clear headed and focused as they go after their goals as a mindset and systemic coach. I focus primarily on topics such as confidence, high performance, self coaching and self leadership and use my mindfulness based and systemic approach to help my clients thrive with more ease. 

Patrick [00:00:50] And I'm your co-host, Patrick, an entrepreneur just like you. I'm an international media producer working on live sports, premium documentaries and digital content. I help people bring their stories to life and work with a global network of partners to create engaging content. I live through the topics of our podcast, just like you and I will try to ask the questions you might have. So I've been wanting to talk about this for quite a while and I've been waiting for this podcast episode for so long because it's been an issue that I've really wanted to talk about. So I'm quite happy that we're finally arriving at this point. We're talking about something that I would personally call energy vampires - people who are draining you, who are… well, they don't really know any boundaries and just take whatever they want from you. 

Monika [00:01:45] That's exactly the effect for us, right? They don't even consider our position, our needs, our boundaries, whatever. But they take what they want. They take what they need. And this may be your attention or space, whatever it is, but the feeling is really well-described with energy vampires, right? This feeling that remains with us that somehow they take from us and we are left drained and hungry and void of energy and are left to ask ourselves like, what happened here right now? 

Patrick [00:02:18] We all know that feeling. We all have these people in our lives. We meet them, may be friends or even people at work. You meet those people, you spend time with each other, and then somehow after you've left them, you're done. You just want to sit back, relax, because it feels like they've taken so much of your energy. And from my personal experience, I can say sometimes you don't even know exactly why, especially when those friendships and also in the business context, these connections are not really, are not that long term yet. You can't really analyze where this is coming from. So it's quite tricky actually, in the beginning to figure out are these connections energy draining and what is it doing to me? 

Monika [00:03:04] Yes. And why is this so important to talk about? I mean, apart from being annoying or uncomfortable or simply draining, this - especially for us and in this context, we are talking about our experiences and our self-awareness and mindset in the context of achieving something. Going after a vision and trying to realize something, we as impact driven entrepreneurs, leaders, freelancers, we don't have the time, the energy and the attention to waste on other people or distractions while we actually know that we want to build something that is already incredibly difficult to build and it will take a lot of resources. So you have no energy to waste and then you are confronted and we all are confronted with people like that. And then you are confronted with them and you have to stop and question what's happening here and how will I deal with that? 

Patrick [00:03:59] That's actually an interesting point. How to deal with it, because there's something that we have to talk about right now in the beginning of this episode. Once I have this feeling of being drained and I'm so exhausted by those people, there is something that a lot of people do that you tend to shift the awareness to the other person and you're calling them toxic, you're calling them unhealthy, and you say, okay, this behavior, it's so bad, I can't deal with that. But that's actually not exactly what we want to talk about today. 

Monika [00:04:30] Well, this is something that oftentimes happens in these dynamics. That we shift our focus onto the other person and we try to diagnose them and we try to also oftentimes, because we are in a culture that does this, pathologize it. We want to be certain why this is happening or because this person is a narcissist. Or why is this happening? Oh, because they are simply egocentric or because they are toxic or whatever it is. We need to find an explanation oftentimes in order to have the feeling that, first of all, we have control. We know what is happening. It's predictable. It’s… It gives us a sense of control, at least. We don't have actual control because you can never control other people. And it also helps us make sense of the situation in the way that for us at least, it doesn't feel that dangerous anymore because it's all of a sudden you have an explanation. But the thing that happens then though, is that we focus so much on the other person that we try to understand what… Are they toxic like? Is this pathologically toxic or are they what I hear a lot of people talking about then like, is this something that is inherent in them? Are they born this way or has this person experienced some kind of trauma or some kind of… do they have some kind of background history that will justify this kind of behavior? Whatever it is, we become so obsessed and we then try to analyze every step, analyze everything that they do, and also really clearly define it, which is basically impossible, that we lose ourselves in this then dynamic of trying to diagnose them in order to gain it may be this sense of safety and control because we can assess the situation or it can also be because we are then in this sense of, well, it's about them, it's not about me. And we fall into a kind of… just like a little bit of we talked about this already at some point, a victim role where we shift the focus and the responsibility to someone else. 

Patrick [00:06:42] You've mentioned two terms already that are out there everywhere right now. Everyone's talking about toxic people and toxic behavior. Very easy to just say, okay, that other person across from the table that I'm discussing with that person has been doing something that is so toxic and I don't want to deal with it. And the other thing that you've mentioned is trauma. Everything that I'm going through because of someone is immediately a trauma. And it's quite important that we talk about this today that not everything is toxic. And even if it is, it's not always important for me. And also on the other side, not everything that you go through is trauma, right? 

Monika [00:07:18] Yes. Well, this is something that I have talked about with a lot of therapists and psychologists who are also saying that we are too quick or we are trying to diagnose with the help of Google, with the help of social media, whatever. We are trying to diagnose things that we are not really qualified to diagnose. And there are very clear criteria that a certain thing has to fulfill in order to be termed a trauma. And this is not that it is simply uncomfortable or shocking or difficult to deal with. There is a certain dynamic of pathologizing things and already talking to these therapists and psychologists, I know that they find it extremely difficult to diagnose something and you have to send people to tests that take at least like 4 to 5 hours and they go through 300 questions in order to gain a first diagnosis. So the work that that goes into diagnosing someone, for example, to say that someone is pathologically narcissistic is immensely complicated. And you are looking not only at like certain behaviors, like one kind of behavior, you are looking at patterns and you are looking at constants. So for us from outside talking to people and not knowing what is really going on within them as well, it's basically impossible to diagnose someone. And the thing then is we both are not clinical psychologists. So how is this or why is this important? Because the thing is, it can be narcissistic behavior or it can be toxic behavior that still affects you. So that this doesn't mean to excuse any behavior. You don't need to pathologize someone in order to say, wait a second, I don't accept being treated this way or this is not okay for me and I will not allow it. You don't need someone to be diagnosed with something in order to be able to set this boundary. 

Patrick [00:09:15] So it's more about what I do with it rather than the other person is actually toxic or a real narcissist. It's more about, okay, I don't really feel comfortable with that person treating me that way and I don't want to have people like this in my friendship group, in my work environment, whatever. So I have to set those boundaries and I have to find a way and how to deal with that behavior.

Monika [00:09:39] I would shift the conversation towards the behavior that you are experiencing and how you want to deal with the behavior instead of trying to understand and categorize the person behind the behavior. Because basically the behavior is the thing that affects you. And there are certain behaviors, of course, that we can term toxic. So, for example, if someone criticizes you constantly, if they try to undermine you, to downplay your achievements to manipulate you. This is behavior that you will clearly have to find a good way to deal with and set boundaries. 

Patrick [00:10:14] But would you already say that that behavior is toxic or is it just something that is I don't know. Is there another term for it other than toxic? 

Monika [00:10:23] Well, you can you can call it whatever you want now. I mean, you can call it toxic in your view. If you were my client, it would be important for me to know how you view it. Like, you can call it unhelpful. You could call it dysfunctional. You could call it toxic, you could call it below my standards, whatever the phrase is for you that you want to use. The thing is, you have to be clear how you want to be acting and responding towards this kind of behavior. But this is a perfect example of what happens with these kinds of dynamics and interactions. We always shift our focus onto trying to find the perfect term to describe this person, onto trying to find the perfect term to describe this behavior or something… We are trying to diagnose the behavior or the person instead of looking at ourselves and being like, This is toxic for me. 

Patrick [00:11:16] Basically, if I don't know how to deal with that behavior, I do the one thing that's costing me even more energy because I'm investing energy in analyzing that person, not the behavior yes person. And I'm ascribing something to them that may or may not be true. And I'm just, I don't know, wasting time and my energy on doing something that doesn't change anything for me. 

Monika [00:11:39] But if you repeat this continuously, it will drain your energy even more because then this person takes up space not only in the interactions that you have with them directly, but then they will take up space in your friendships and your partnership. And you can see this if someone has such a person, for example, a cooperation partner or a client, and they can't set a clear boundary with them or they can't productively, you know, analyze this dynamic, then they will take this dynamic and talk about this with their partner during dinner, and then they will think about this person before they fall asleep. And then first thing in the morning they wake up and they're like, God, this person is definitely going to write me again today and so on. So it takes up so much more space and suddenly you are engulfed in this dynamic. 

Patrick [00:12:24] And the problem that I see with this dynamic is that it's very easy that you become the victim in this dynamic then that you see yourself as, I can't even do anything about it anymore. You know, there's all these problems out there that this person or this issue is causing, and then suddenly I'm well, not the driver anymore. 

Monika [00:12:42] I think the first step is to stop and become aware that you have no control over others and that you have only control over yourself. So the only thing that, if you want to solve this situation… if you're just there to get angry and to, you know, vent, okay, but be intentional about this. If you are really looking to solve this situation, you have to look at yourself. You have to shift your focus back onto yourself and take responsibility for your role in this dynamic. And this doesn't mean that you are at fault or that you are allowing this person or enabling this person to be a certain way directly, but you are definitely playing a certain power game or some kind of game with them. And you can wake up to your own role in this game and question your approach that you had until now and choose a new one. 

Patrick [00:13:39] So once I've decided that I'm focusing on myself and I have this shift away from the okay, why are they the way that they are towards the more productive way of how am I responding to that? What kind of responses can I have? I mean, it's not always easy to dealing with those people. I mean, like we talked about it before, they're the energy vampires. They don't have control over boundaries. They don't respect boundaries. You know, it's it can be quite a lot to handle those situations. What kind of responses do I have then? 

Monika [00:14:12] So I can give you a lot of practical tips. You know, I have written a list of 15 things, just like on the top of my head, that you could do. We can't go into detail with everything now. 

Patrick [00:14:22] But give us the most important ones that you feel like are the top choices. 

Monika [00:14:27] Okay. So tip one, as we already said, is to choose intentionally to shift your focus onto yourself again and to take ownership of your own role. And this means, on the one hand, to make this clear decision and give a declaration even I mean, you can even say this when you talk with friends, you can say this if you have a coach or mentor or this is a clear choice, it's important for me now to focus on myself again. And practically you can then assess your own patterns and triggers in this dynamic and look at yourself. Less “Why are they behaving this way or how are they behaving?” But “What is this doing with me? What is keeping me kind of triggered in the situation? What is triggering me exactly? What is coming up? Which thoughts with feelings? How am I responding physically to it? And what are my automatic patterns that I have already now going on with this person?” Because usually we have a certain kind of pattern that we are then playing with them. And if this really is, I mean, a manipulative person, this other person will see where they can trigger you. So taking back control is a lot about knowing and becoming aware of your own patterns and triggers and distancing yourself from them. 

Patrick [00:15:44] Oftentimes it's a dynamic with someone else. I mean, you're somehow enabling that other person also. I'm not saying it's your own fault, it's just subconsciously sometimes what you do. So that is definitely a hard thing to figure out. What is this dynamic actually, and what's my part in that dynamic? 

Monika [00:15:59] Yeah, it is difficult and it may be even painful because you will have to admit that somehow you have even allowed them to behave towards you in a certain way. And this can be painful or it can be at least… I know that some people also feel embarrassed in this way them because they can clearly see at some point, Wait a second, I could have said no way earlier, but I didn't. 

Patrick [00:16:21] But in the dynamic, what is interesting is even if you figure out what that other person has been doing, it's quite interesting to look back. If you have changed the dynamic and you know yourself, then, okay, I would never let that person treat me like this again. Where were the boundaries that I set? Where was the sort of self-respect coming in again? What did it do to me? And it's quite interesting if you look back, where are you now? Where have you been a few years ago? How has your life changed? How have the people in my life changed? From my personal experience, I can say that I have definitely ended a few friendships because they were not toxic behavior, but it was behavior that I just didn't want to commit to anymore. I didn't want to be in that dynamic anymore where I would enable someone to do this certain, certain thing. So yeah, it's it's heart work. Like you said, it can be challenging sometimes, but it's rewarding to look back afterwards. 

Monika [00:17:18] It is because this is where then the growth comes in. Once you have assessed your own patterns, once you have become clear about the behaviors or the, the ways that you have been triggered and in which you have allowed other people to treat you a certain way, you can choose a new standard. And this is then another tip to set new and enforce clear boundaries. To be clear towards yourself on the one hand, but also towards others, How am I going to communicate my boundaries to the outside? And therein I see oftentimes a huge step of empowerment where exactly what you just said happens. Where people realize, just because I spent my time in this way with a certain type of people doesn't mean that I have to continue to do this. And you can call this then a new chapter. You can call this a new era. You can call this version 2.0 of myself. But it is a clear declaration to say “I no longer accept…” or “I no longer treat myself this way and I will no longer allow other people to treat me this way”, which is so powerful. But you have to be clear and you will have to accept that in the beginning this will be something that will steer some kind of opposition and you will get some backlash from people you know. They won't like that you will set new boundaries. They won't like you to change in this certain way because then, of course, they will either have to adapt their own behavior or they will have to choose also whether they want to stay in this dynamic, in this relationship or not. You can lose friends, connections, relationships by leveling up your standards. However, the cost of not leveling up your standards - once you have become aware of what's happening and how much energy this is costing you - is way higher. Another tip that I would really like to point out here is emotional detachment practicing to not take things personally. I know this may be very difficult for a few people because we like to take things personally or make things about us. We have to accept as well that oftentimes people treat us a certain way or deal with us in a certain way, not because of us, but because they have simply developed this kind of behavior. They are dealing with their own world, and we are not as important in their view as we think that we are you know. So it's not really oftentimes about us why they are treating us a certain way or why we have developed a dynamic, but we do play a role in it where we have to take responsibility about whether we are going to allow them to interact with us in a certain way. 

Patrick [00:19:57] It's not always that easy, especially in a business context, to take things not personally. I mean, we are - and we've talked about this before - we are linked to our persona, to our business persona, and then our behavior comes in and then other people's behavior come in. And then just emotionally detach yourself from what they're doing, how they're behaving, and then that person… Especially in my industry, where some connections are not just business, you know, you have this connection to some people outside of work. You go out for drinks, you meet them, you talk about private stuff. It's not always that easy then to detach it, but that's where your first tip with the boundaries and the declarations of boundaries come on in. So you can actually have that clear separation of those two personas, because otherwise it’s, it's getting really tricky. 

Monika [00:20:51] Also, in private relationships, we have to be clear that any kind of behavior that someone is showing, any kind of mindset, whatever, it’s a sign or is a reflection of them. It's not a reflection of us and our worth and our true nature. You know, everyone is dealing with their ideas that they have of us, as we are also dealing with ideas that we have of other people, because no one can really, really look into someone else's heart and head and understand exactly who they are, how they think, how they feel. So any kind of judgment also that you receive from another person, I would always take it with a certain grain of salt. In the same way that I would take any compliment with a certain grain of salt because this person is simply pointing out something that they noticed in you. But what made them notice this about you? Well, this is again, a reflection of them. I think the easiest thing is to really separate here, clearly: what is the behavior that they are showing and how am I responding to it? But you may be on the receiving end of a certain behavior, but it may not be about you at all. I see this so often. We project so many things onto other people and we are not even aware of it. So this person may be projecting so much onto you. You taking this personally would mean allowing these projections to become part of you when they actually never were. 

Patrick [00:22:18] I think that's why it's so important that you have a group of people around you that help you point that out sometimes. You have a very certain connection relationship to a person, and then you feel like this behavior might be toxic or whatever it is. And then another person could point out, but have you thought about this, have you thought about that? Helping you to, first of all, dismantle this, you know, description of it's toxic, maybe it's just something that they're doing, maybe it's not even toxic for me, and then I'm just trying… Okay, dismantle the whole behavior a bit and take a look, maybe there's a reason for doing that. And second of all, even if there is a reason for it, why are you so triggered by that? Because it has nothing to do with you. I mean, you're way over here. That person's way over there. What's going on in between. What's going on there? 

Monika [00:23:10] That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And this is the moment where you take ownership and responsibility for yourself again. I can give you a very good example because this is already a little bit of a family joke in my family. One very easy way to make me restless and make me nervous is to explain the same thing three times in a row to me and I have to listen to this. Because I am very… usually, I think very quickly and I'm very fast in grasping things, so once you tell me something, okay, once you repeat it, okay. But if you go on and on and on, then the third time and the fourth time, it makes me nervous. So if I took this personally… It happens, people just… this is a way of talking for many people as well. But if I took this personally, you know how many people I would be fighting with because I would think that they are doing this because they think that I didn't understand whatever? And instead of owning my own part in this, which is I know that this is a trigger for me and I know that this is something that is simply tied to my own nature and to my own triggers. This has nothing to do with them that I'm triggered. This is the one thing. But the other thing is also now I can even look at it with this distance and find it funny, because sometimes you will then see it's just because this person has never talked with anyone about this before, but they are so passionate about this. So they enjoy, you know, reiterating the same thing. Or there are people who just, you know, clarify their thoughts and their their ideas by talking. So sometimes they have to repeat things in order to come to a conclusion what is truly right for them. But if I made this about me, if I took this personally, and if I then went into this kind of, “Wow, this person must think that I'm stupid” or whatever kind of projections I would then interpret into this. You know, this could be a never ending story of being provoked and angry and unnerved with other people. 

Patrick [00:25:10] It's just opening up so many more possibilities of communication when you're honest with yourself, when you know this, that some things are triggering you. And also when you play a little bit with it and also inform others, tell your counterpart in that conversation that there's something going on. It's really dismantling and you don't really have that toxic behavior maybe anymore. It's not always working. Don't get me wrong. It's not something…

Monika [00:25:36] Yes, that’s exactly… yeah…

Patrick [00:25:38] that you use all the time. I'm just saying this open conversation can open some doors for you. But obviously there are some counterparts where that's not working at all. 

Monika [00:25:46] So whether you then tell this other person about this, I'm not sure. I don't usually because it's about choosing where you want to invest your energy. I don't even want to talk with this person about my personal triggers or something because I know that this is just something… my brain works in this way and I have to find ways of dealing with certain situations in order to make it okay for myself. But this is now, you know, a situation where it's very easy for me now to see, wait a second, this hasn't got anything to do with me. But where other people would… I see other people being annoyed and triggered because they make things about themselves. But just as you said, there are very clear situations as well where there is something where you can say, okay, I am triggered by it. I'm taking responsibility for my own emotional and mental responses. So which kind of emotions come up with this? Which kind of thoughts come up with this? And still this person is so, for example, egocentric or whatever. I will have to consider leaving this situation. And I think most of us have been in the situation. I have had this many times as well, and very clearly with a very dear friend of mine, for example, where things went in a certain direction where I was confronted, Wait a second. This kind of mindset that the person is cultivating is going deeply against my core values and the behavior is not okay for me. And even if I could find ways of dealing with it, I don't want to. This is a very clear boundary that you can set and then you have to consider, is it okay? Can I leave the situation? What is the cost of leaving the situation? What is the cost of staying in this situation? And therefore then clearly deciding, do you really want to make a decision whether to go or whether to stay? And sometimes you will have these situations where you will see clearly that this is happening, but you can't leave the situations. Then it's about deciding how, again, you are going to distance yourself. And you can do this in so many different ways. You can limit the time that you spend with them. You can limit the communication and, you know, focus on purely communicating on a factual basis, not giving them any grounds for emotional, identity based, whatever conversations, you know. 

Patrick [00:28:08] But I think especially in those situations that you just mentioned, I personally think it's extremely healthy to sometimes realize walking away from something is the best choice. It is sometimes for your own personal mental health, just the best way to deal with it. There are some people, you can try any tip that you give now. You can try anything that you hear somewhere out there. Some behaviors are just not meant for you. And I feel that focus on yourself is just the healthiest thing to do. 

Monika [00:28:45] And if you're ready to dive deeper into mastering your mindset and building this mental strength with self trust and confidence, don't miss out on my monthly free mindset Mentoring Session. Sign up for our newsletter to stay updated and receive your personal invitation. And let's continue this journey together. 

Patrick [00:29:03] If you enjoyed this episode, share it with your fellow entrepreneurs so they can listen to Grab the link in our show notes and send it to them. 

Monika [00:29:10] If you're looking to join our tribe of movers and shakers to get a sense of belonging and fresh insights, join our Pioneers Club community. The link to our community is waiting for you in our show notes as well. 

Patrick [00:29:21] And don't forget to connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram and let us know what was a helpful thought or insight that you gained from this episode. 

Monika [00:29:29] Have any questions or ideas for us? Head over to our LinkedIn or Instagram pages and tell us. We read every submission and would love to answer your question in a later episode too. So thanks for joining us. 

Patrick [00:29:40] See you in the next one.