Toxic People

In this answer to a viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley explains that what we don't like about other people is what we want from them. If we didn't want something, then there would be no problem with another person's bad behavior. The task is to see that we have lived unconsciously from a nature that rejects anything that doesn't meet its approval.

Why do I stay in a bad relationship with someone who gaslights me? We all want to know when to let go of a love relationship that is toxic. Guy Finley answers what is going on "within us" when we can't let go and stay involved in a bad relationship.

Mistaking intruders for welcome guests in your inner home is not nearly as uncommon as you may think. Isn't it true that each of us knows firsthand this everyday experience? One minute you're walking along without a care in the world, and the next minute you feel as though you're carrying the entire world on your back! Your inner home, where you really live, has been temporarily...

In this question and answer session, Guy talks about how the first thing we must realize about any toxic relationship is that we are at least one-half of the equation, and that we refuse to let go of the relationship because there is something that we want from it.

In this answer to a viewer's question, Guy explains how healing from something bad that happened to us in the past begins with observing and letting go of the part of us that finds a peculiar thrill in reliving the event.

Every moment is the right moment to start seeing ourselves as we are... regardless of whoever may be our "partner" of the moment. Maybe it's the person in that long line with us, complaining about how slowly things are moving. There's no better time to practice seeing yourself than when some part of you can't wait to "pounce" on the impatience of someone else. How about being ...

Most of us, if we have one shred of decency, have tried to do stuff about the stuff that we don't want to know about in ourselves, and certainly that we don't want others to know -- "the dirty little secret" -- how there's a certain party or character that given the right conditions, will appear and absolutely not only corrupt you but anyone and anything that it touches. How about this?...

The secret that ends your fear of people, of situations, is the possibility of discovering that these people are as afraid of you as you are of them. What do you think would happen if you knew that the person you're afraid of is as afraid of you as you are of him or her? How do you think that would change your reaction? That man makes the cruel comment, that woman makes the cutting remark...

When we look out at the world and don't like what we see, is it really the world we see that is making us sick? Or is the sickness we see in the world the result of the same old reactions that a hundred million human beings have had a hundred million times? The sickness is in this consciousness that has made the world into what it is.

When we apply a label such as "passive aggressive" to someone who bothers us, we cease to have direct contact with that person and instead meet them only through that idea, which prevents any kind of learning. We must work instead to allow the revelation of the nature that has been disturbed within us so we can see the fear that hides beneath it.

To hold a wish to punish someone begins with the unconscious embrace of the very pain we wish to inflict.