How to behave with heavy people

Each of us has his own lens through which he sees the world. In this article we will talk about three types of lenses that are worth trying when you are exposed to negative emotions .

Do you have a person at work who constantly provokes you? Not listening? Assigns the work you have done? Take away your time with your trifles? Expose yourself to know-all? Speaks only about yourself? Constantly criticizing?
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Our basic emotional need is to feel our importance, to feel appreciated. And if we do not feel this, it knocks us out of balance, disrupts a sense of balance, confidence and well-being. Speaking of primary instincts, it can cause a feeling of a threat to our existence.

This is especially felt when the person with whom you have difficulty communicating is your boss. The problem is that the one who is at the head of other people is often revealed from the wrong side.

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” said Lord Acton in 1887. “There is nothing worse than a sinless carrier of power.”

The easiest and most attractive way out when we feel undervalued is to play the role of a victim. Blaming others for their own poor health is a kind of self-defense. Whatever happens is not our fault. Putting responsibility on others, we feel better for a while.

By exposing yourself as a victim, you face the problem that you miss the opportunity to influence your own state of affairs. And when it comes to people with whom you find it difficult, the bitter truth is this: you cannot change them. The only person you can change is yourself.

Each of us has his own lens through which he sees the world. We call it reality, but in reality it’s a selective filter. And we have the opportunity to look at the world through other lenses. There are three types of lenses that are worth trying when you are exposed to negative emotions.

Objective realistic optimism. Using this lens, you need to ask yourself two simple questions when you feel that you are being treated badly or unfairly. First: "What are the facts in this situation?". Second, "What story do I tell myself about these facts?"

Making this distinction allows you to disengage from your own perception, rather than be led by. It also provides an opportunity to look at the situation from the other side.

Realistic optimism, a term coined by psychologist Sandra Schneider, means: telling yourself the most encouraging and encouraging story about the circumstances and looking for an alternative way of seeing the situation that will ultimately satisfy you. Another way to find an alternative is to ask yourself: “How would I behave in this situation, doing everything I can?”.

Reverse lens. This lens suggests a view of the world through the lens of the person with whom you find it difficult. This does not mean that you need to sacrifice your view of the world; you just need to expand your horizons.

Surely, the one whom you perceive as a heavy person looks at the situation differently from you. Using the reverse lens, you should ask yourself: “What does this person feel, and how does it make sense?”. Or to formulate the question more clearly: “What is my role in all this?”.

Oddly enough, one of the most effective ways to regain its value when it is threatened is to find a way to get the gaze of a person who you think devalues ​​you. This is called the ability to put yourself in the place of another.

Like you, others tend to behave better when they feel that they are noticed and valued - all the more so, insecurity is usually what motivates people to behave in the first place.

Long focus lens. Sometimes your worst fears about the other person are true. He is the one who unnecessarily torments you, and the use of the reverse lens method does not help here. He invariably ascribes to himself the work you have done.

When your current circumstances are irrefutably bad, the long-focus lens gives you the opportunity to temporarily forget about the present and present a better future. Start with the following question: "Regardless of how I feel about what is happening now, how can I grow and what can I learn from this experience?"

How often does something that once seemed terrible to you turns out to be completely trivial after a few months or even opens up wonderful opportunities for you and sets a new positive direction?

My former boss fired me. At that moment I felt terrible, but this event pushed me out of the comfort zone, which, as it turned out, was really necessary for me.

Looking back, the story I tell myself is this: I learned a lot and learned a lot from my boss thanks to his shortcomings, and now it helps me a lot. I can understand, from his point of view, why he considered me a problem worker, and at the same time I do not feel devalued. And most importantly, the dismissal prompted me to make a decision - the foundation of the company, which I now lead. And this decision brought me more happiness than any work I have ever done.

PS We recommend another article on the topic - How I managed to achieve a feeling of happiness while working .

Translated by Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult