How to stay in your power around abusive and controlling people

Everyone has toxic people in their life. This is nothing new. There were times in my own life where I did not understand just how much of a mental and emotional drain it was to have certain people around. I’ve begun to understand that the more you love your life and yourself, the more you start to see how awful people treat you and how you just can’t take it anymore. I think the reason for this is because we have finally started to treat ourselves good and so our standards have raised. We now know what it feels like to be treated well and so it’s easier to see who is not treating us so well. Sometimes the toxic people in our lives aren’t just toxic. They are also abusive and controlling. They can be our own family members, friends, parents, lovers. This is where it gets extremely difficult. How do you cut out people who are so close to you? Who you love? You can’t understand how or why they would treat you this way. I’ve found that the answer to create peace is BOUNDARIES. Either cut them out completely or do it one step at a time. Because you need space. Time without them. Time to breathe and think for yourself. To come up with solutions and to understand why your soul is so bothered by them. You need freedom.

Toxic and codependent people are unhealed, unaware, and they don’t like space. They want to be as close to you as possible because not being near you, means they have to be alone with themselves. Something they are not able to handle at this point in their life. At least this is how I understand it. These people may get upset once space is applied or boundaries are set in motion, and this is when things become extremely difficult. Not only do you have a person who can be negative, abusive, and rude but now you have someone who is disregarding your boundaries. Probably throwing temper tantrums and trying to take your power away. It’s easy in cases like these to feel like you have no control of your life. It’s even easier to feel like your feelings and actions aren’t accepted.. and then the fear creeps in. You start to feel like this person has all the control and power over you. You doubt your decisions. You doubt if there’s something better than what you’re experiencing.

A lot of people stay in these situations without creating boundaries, speaking their mind, and being the free soul they are meant to be. I have been one of them. We probably all have. There will always be unhealed people who are angry. Sometimes I don’t think these people understand the damage they create for themselves. The pain they cause for others. But I do not have empathy for it. I understand it, but I no longer fall into the category of someone believing that a reason is an excuse. Toxic people have every opportunity to change, heal, grow and ascend from their current reality. They choose not to. And in my eyes, until they make a choice to better themselves, I will not respect them or desire to be around them.

I have personally found the way to keep my power is to not give them any focus in my life. I used to sit and make myself angry thinking about all of the things toxic people have done to me. Really get myself in a mood. I would allow it to hold me back simply because I was spending hours, days focused on how angry I was at this person and trying to rack my brain with why or how they could do this. I would worry about what would happen if I set boundaries. If I stepped on all the eggshells they were spreading out around me. Until I realized that I did not care about those eggshells. I did not care about how this person would feel if I set a boundary. I cared more about me. I had to take control of my life. So I stopped thinking about it so much. I put my focus on things that made me happy. On things that made my life worth while. And in doing so, I broke free of the mental imprisonment I had once placed myself in. I was finally free. It didn’t take never seeing this person again, or cutting them out completely. It didn’t take revenge or anger, all it took was changing my focus. Realizing my true power. I am the creator of my life and I will be damned if I allow any individual to ever take up that much space of my mind.