Personal Development for Smart People Forums - View Single Post - Dealing with difficult people. which of 2 ways?

metamorph · 07-24-2008, 01:20 PM

I wonder what your philosophy is on how to handle "difficult" people (let us say someone says something nasty about you...). Taking accountability could be done very differently:
Some self-help gurus (Phil McGraw, Nathaniel Branden etc) say "you teach other people how to treat you". So, if someone "offends" you or direspects you, you stand up for yourself and teach other people that this is not OK.

Others (Tolle, Dyer etc) say: There is no offense in the first place. People just mirror themselves in you, and if they are full of disrespect (etc) then that is just what is in them. They tell you not to even go down the road of "offense" ,"difficult" etc, but preach detachment from form and ego. But then, if you do not even buy into the concept of offense (etc), you obviously cannot "teach other people how to treat you". So both ways are exclusive, aren't they.

I just wondered which way you go and how this affects your happiness and self-esteem.

07-24-2008, 01:20 PM	#1 (permalink)
metamorph Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: UK Posts: 175	Dealing with difficult people. which of 2 ways? I wonder what your philosophy is on how to handle "difficult" people (let us say someone says something nasty about you...). Taking accountability could be done very differently: Some self-help gurus (Phil McGraw, Nathaniel Branden etc) say "you teach other people how to treat you". So, if someone "offends" you or direspects you, you stand up for yourself and teach other people that this is not OK. Others (Tolle, Dyer etc) say: There is no offense in the first place. People just mirror themselves in you, and if they are full of disrespect (etc) then that is just what is in them. They tell you not to even go down the road of "offense" ,"difficult" etc, but preach detachment from form and ego. But then, if you do not even buy into the concept of offense (etc), you obviously cannot "teach other people how to treat you". So both ways are exclusive, aren't they. I just wondered which way you go and how this affects your happiness and self-esteem.