Feb 6 will be the first meeting in Searcy, AR at our new location. Our host church for the Saturday meeting has moved. We will now meet at the Fellowship Bible Church on 1009 E Beebe Capps which is nearer the University from their old location. This meeting is currently in person only, but reach out to Doug for more information. We will enter the church from the back (Lincoln Street). Please use the double doors at the far right. The meeting will continue to be 9-10:30 am.
Recovery Articles
15 Effective Ways Clever People Handle Toxic People
SOURCE: JC AXE/Lifehack Magazine
Dealing with toxic people is something we all have to confront in our lives at one point or another.
Narcissists, compulsive liars, sociopaths, manipulators, gossipers, and those wallowing in self-pity are just a few examples of toxic people. Toxic people always find a way of worming their way into people’s lives and creating drama and anarchy in order to manipulate a social circle to suit their needs. Often they will apply a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy, in which they sow the seeds of instability, in order to make themselves seem essential to a social group. The actions of toxic people usually stem from innate insecurity that compels them to drag people around them into their vacuous hole of insecurity and instability; not only can toxic people ruin your life and hinder your progress, but they can put you at risk of dragging you down to their level and turning you into a toxic person as well.
Luckily, there are a number of ways to avoid letting toxic people rule your life, employed by clever people who have usually dealt with toxic people in the past.
1. They ignore attention seekers
Often toxic people compulsively seek attention at all costs. Even if it’s somebody’s birthday, toxic people will always find a way of making everything about them. It usually begins with small actions, interrupting people or talking over them, being unnecessarily loud or obnoxious, or acting out. Usually, if they do not get the attention they crave, their actions become more drastic, starting arguments, throwing a tantrum, or acting destructively. Good social cohesion relies on everybody getting their chance to talk, joke, and have fun. A social circle should never revolve around one person. If this is the case, the best course of action is to pay little or no attention to that person, and instead spend more time with the quieter and more reserved members of the group.
2. They do not trust or share secrets with gossipers
Toxic people will share deep secrets with people just to seem momentarily interesting and they will frequently judge or gossip about people behind their backs. If you meet somebody who does this, do not be fooled into thinking that they are gossiping with you because they like you or trust you. They will just as easily betray your trust. Toxic people will often talk behind somebody’s back to you in the hopes that they will agree with them. They will then go and tell the other person what you said. This creates friction between two people, leaving the toxic person in the middle holding all the cards. It’s a divisive and manipulative method of gaining friends or power in a social group. Do not take the bait.
3. They spend a lot of time with trustworthy and loyal friends
In contrast to the point made previously, clever people will develop a strong support network of loyal and trustworthy people. They know that they do not have to be everybody’s friend, and not everybody is deserving of their friendship. In turn, they reward their friends’ loyalty and trust by showing that it works both ways. Clever people know that true friendship and fidelity is one of the rarest and most valuable commodities you will ever have in life, and they will not allow this to be corrupted by toxic, negative and untrustworthy people.
4. They avoid manipulative people
Manipulative people will ruin your life. They will callously manipulate your feelings in order to make you act in a certain way to further their goals. Compulsively manipulative people often have few redeemable qualities, so it is worth avoiding them altogether. In order to avoid them, however, you must first recognize the signs of a manipulative person. Do you find yourself constantly feeling strong or unstable emotions when they are around; anger, irritation, sadness, or inadequacy? Do you often question why they might have said something? Do you get the suspicion that you’re being deceived? If so, it is likely that the person is trying to toy with your emotions, and are best avoided.
5. They allow liars to trip themselves up
Toxic people will often lie compulsively, not just to others, but to themselves. They will often perform mental gymnastics to convince themselves that their lies are reality. Unfortunately, lies are actually very hard to keep up. Recounting a true event is relatively easy, but keeping track of a bunch of made-up stories is difficult. Liars end up exposing themselves over time, by contradicting themselves with other lies.
6. They do not get involved in petty feuds and drama
Most people like to keep arguments solely in the realms of themselves, and whoever they are arguing with. Toxic people aren’t like that, they love to air their dirty laundry in public, and when an argument breaks out, they want everybody to pick a side. It doesn’t matter if you’re involved or not, it barely matters if you even know the two people involved, a toxic person will not allow you to remain neutral. Often fights between one or more toxic people can be cataclysmic, and it’s the innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire that will suffer the most. There are six words that will save you from being sucked into the storm in a teacup that comes when toxic people argue; “It’s nothing to do with me”.
7. They stand up to bullies
This is perhaps the most important way of handling a toxic person. Standing up to bullying wherever you see it. Most decent people will help the helpless, defend the vulnerable and assist those who need it. Toxic people prey on anybody they consider to be weak. It could be somebody who’s a little shy, socially awkward, or even somebody who lacks physical prowess. Toxic people will bully and take advantage of anybody who they think won’t stand up to them, which is why it’s so important to stand up to toxic people, not just for yourself, but for others around you.
8. They ignore insults
Insults come in many forms, but the most cleverly-disguised insults are actually disguised as compliments. “I’d never have the confidence to wear that.” “You’re so funny, and you don’t even realize it!” “You’re such a nice person.” These are just a few thinly veiled insults that will leave you wondering what they actually meant, which in turn leaves you seeking approval, and ultimately
9. They do not indulge self-pitying people
Toxic people will often put on a mask of helplessness in order to trick and manipulate people, or emancipate themselves from responsibility. You’ll often hear a toxic person saying that they can’t pay you back because they can’t find a job, and they can’t find a job because they haven’t got any qualifications, and they haven’t got any qualifications because their teachers mistreated them at school, etc. There is always a reason for their failure which is out of their hands, and it is always up to you to sort it out. And if you don’t, well, then you’re just the same as everybody else who’s mistreated them throughout the terrible ordeal that is their life.
Some level of self-pity is totally healthy, after a nasty breakup, a death in the family or something similar, but there is always a point where you have to grow up and accept responsibility for your own destiny, because it’s nobody else’s job but yours. Self-pitying people live in a vacuous maelstrom of misery, and make absolutely no effort to effect any change in their lives. Avoiding self-pitying people and refusing to justify their apathy is not only good for them, but will stop you from being sucked into their depressing world of self-perpetuating failure.
10. They demand straight answers to their questions
Toxic people will often go out of their way to give arbitrary, vague, non-committal, or misleading answers to questions. Just ask anybody whose ever been involved in the criminal justice system. The lengths a toxic person will go to avoid giving a satisfactory answer are incredible. This is done not just to withhold information, but also to prevent anybody from telling them they’ve backtracked later. The trick to getting around this is to present them with only closed questions, that is, a question with a yes or no answer. This will force them to make their intentions clear, and prevent them from playing mind games with you or others.
11. They do not indulge narcissists
Narcissists love themselves. Or perhaps more accurately, they love the idea of themselves. They are often so deluded in their own favor that they genuinely lose touch with reality. Narcissists will often fish for compliments, often by pretending that they do not feel so highly about themselves. They will often take numerous pictures of themselves and constantly seek comment on them. The best way to deal with a narcissist is to simply ignore their insatiable appetite for gratification. You do not have to criticize them or try to make them feel bad, but by simply ignoring them, you will help to remind them that we are all human, and our lives are all equally meaningful.
12. They will tell them when they are at fault
Toxic people will do almost anything to absolve themselves from blame. Even if they are clearly at fault, they will justify their actions by bringing up something somebody else has done. Handling toxic people cleverly means telling them they are at fault and refusing to accept their excuses. This can be difficult to do when they are being evasive, but ultimately it will help them to grow.
13. They are not won over by false kindness
There is an old African saying “Beware of a naked man who offers you a shirt.”
Effectively, it means that you cannot accept something from somebody who is in no position to give it. Namely, compliments and gestures of love. Toxic people will often try to win over certain people by showering them with compliments. This is often done because they want something from you, or you present some kind of a threat to them. You may notice that they are not nearly so complimentary of others around them, perhaps they are rude to customer service staff or abrasive towards strangers. Do not be fooled into believing that this person genuinely likes you, or that they are actually a nice person. They are just trying to get something from you.
14. They are in control of their own emotions
Toxic people will try to manipulate people’s emotions to engineer a social group to suit their needs. In order to avoid this, clever people make sure that they are aware of the emotions they are feeling, and the root causes of why they are feeling them, in order to ensure that they are the only person in control of them. This is easier said than done. Controlling one’s emotions takes years of mental discipline, so for the majority of us, it is better to avoid situations that may cause us to act irrationally, or feel emotionally unstable. For example, an argument or discussion which flares your emotions may be best carried out through written -rather than spoken- word. This gives you a chance to properly process what is being said, and provide a coherent and controlled reply, rather than an emotional outburst.
15. They focus on solutions, not problems
Toxic people are often the first to place blame when something goes wrong. They do this to emancipate themselves from having to make an effort to right the wrong. It’s very easy to hate stuff and to blame people, but it’s much harder to make it change. Clever people will circumvent the power of a toxic person by looking for a solution to a problem, rather than just focusing on the guilty party. They will help to put something right, whether they had any part in it or not. This shows that they are compassionate, protective, and loyal, and on a long enough timescale, this will always beat toxic people. Blaming somebody for a problem shows that you are afraid of confronting it; helping to resolve a problem shows real leadership.
The Saturday Meeting in Searcy, Arkansas is now in-person only.
The Saturday Meeting in Searcy, Arkansas is now in person only. We offered two other meetings times during the week with virtual options.
The Top 10 Types of “Stinkin’ Thinkin”
SOURCE: David Burns
One of the most common types of skills learned in psychotherapy today focuses on our thinking. Unbeknownst to many of us, we often engage in internal conversations with ourselves throughout the day. Unless we’re trained to examine these conversations, however, many of us don’t even realize we’re having them! For instance, imagine looking in the mirror at yourself. What’s the first thing you think when you look at yourself? That thought is a part of our internal conversation.
Having these kinds of conversations with yourself is perfectly normal and in fact, everybody does it.
Where we mess up in our lives is when we let these conversations take on a life of their own. If we answer ourselves in the above example with something like, “I’m fat and ugly and nobody loves me,” that’s an example of “stinkin’ thinkin’.” Our thoughts have taken on an unhealthy attitude, one that is working against us instead of for us. Psychologists would call these thoughts “irrational,” because they have little or no basis in reality. For instance, the reality is that most everyone is loved by someone (even if they’re no longer with us), and that a lot of our beauty springs from inside us — our personality.
It is exactly these kinds of thoughts that you can learn to identify as you go through your day. Often times it will be helpful to keep a little journal of the thoughts, writing down the day and time you had it, the thought itself, and the type of irrational thought — or stinkin’ thinkin’ — from the list below. As you learn to better identify them, you can then learn how to start answering them back with rational arguments. In this manner, you can work to turn your internal conversation back to being a positive in your life, instead of a running negative commentary.
1. All-or-nothing thinking – You see things in black-or-white categories. If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure. When a young woman on a diet ate a spoonful of ice cream, she told herself, “I’ve blown my diet completely.” This thought upset her so much that she gobbled down an entire quart of ice cream.
2. Overgeneralization – You see a single negative event, such as a romantic rejection or a career reversal, as a never-ending pattern of defeat by using words such as “always” or “never” when you think about it. A depressed salesman became terribly upset when he noticed bird dung on the window of his car. He told himself, “Just my luck! Birds are always crapping on my car!”
3. Mental Filter – You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of water. Example: You receive many positive comments about your presentation to a group of associates at work, but one of them says something mildly critical. You obsess about his reaction for days and ignore all the positive feedback.
4. Discounting the positive – You reject positive experiences by insisting that they “don’t count.” If you do a good job, you may tell yourself that it wasn’t good enough or that anyone could have done as well. Discounting the positives takes the joy out of life and makes you feel inadequate and unrewarded.
5. Jumping to conclusions – You interpret things negatively when there are no facts to support your conclusion.
Mind Reading : Without checking it out, you arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you.
Fortune-telling : You predict that things will turn out badly. Before a test you may tell yourself, “I’m really going to blow it. What if I flunk?” If you’re depressed you may tell yourself, “I’ll never get better.”
6. Magnification – You exaggerate the importance of your problems and shortcomings, or you minimize the importance of your desirable qualities. This is also called the “binocular trick.”
7. Emotional Reasoning – You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel terrified about going on airplanes. It must be very dangerous to fly.” Or, “I feel guilty. I must be a rotten person.” Or, “I feel angry. This proves that I’m being treated unfairly.” Or, “I feel so inferior. This means I’m a second rate person.” Or, “I feel hopeless. I must really be hopeless.”
8. “Should” statements – You tell yourself that things should be the way you hoped or expected them to be. After playing a difficult piece on the piano, a gifted pianist told herself, “I shouldn’t have made so many mistakes.” This made her feel so disgusted that she quit practicing for several days. “Musts,” “oughts” and “have tos” are similar offenders.
“Should statements” that are directed against yourself lead to guilt and frustration. Should statements that are directed against other people or the world in general, lead to anger and frustration: “He shouldn’t be so stubborn and argumentative!”
Many people try to motivate themselves with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if they were delinquents who had to be punished before they could be expected to do anything. “I shouldn’t eat that doughnut.” This usually doesn’t work because all these shoulds and musts make you feel rebellious and you get the urge to do just the opposite. Dr. Albert Ellis has called this ” must erbation.” I call it the “shouldy” approach to life.
9. Labeling – Labeling is an extreme form of all-or-nothing thinking. Instead of saying “I made a mistake,” you attach a negative label to yourself: “I’m a loser.” You might also label yourself “a fool” or “a failure” or “a jerk.” Labeling is quite irrational because you are not the same as what you do. Human beings exist, but “fools,” “losers” and “jerks” do not. These labels are just useless abstractions that lead to anger, anxiety, frustration and low self-esteem.
You may also label others. When someone does something that rubs you the wrong way, you may tell yourself: “He’s an S.O.B.” Then you feel that the problem is with that person’s “character” or “essence” instead of with their thinking or behavior. You see them as totally bad. This makes you feel hostile and hopeless about improving things and leaves very little room for constructive communication.
10. Personalization and Blame – Personalization comes when you hold yourself personally responsible for an event that isn’t entirely under your control. When a woman received a note that her child was having difficulty in school, she told herself, “This shows what a bad mother I am,” instead of trying to pinpoint the cause of the problem so that she could be helpful to her child. When another woman’s husband beat her, she told herself, “If only I was better in bed, he wouldn’t beat me.” Personalization leads to guilt, shame and feelings of inadequacy.
Some people do the opposite. They blame other people or their circumstances for their problems, and they overlook ways they might be contributing to the problem: “The reason my marriage is so lousy is because my spouse is totally unreasonable.” Blame usually doesn’t work very well because other people will resent being scapegoated and they will just toss the blame right back in your lap. It’s like the game of hot potato–no one wants to get stuck with it.
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Parts of this article were exercepted from the book, “The Feeling Good Handbook” by David D. Burns, M.D. © 1989.
Why Do You Do What You Don’t Want To Do?
Source: Rick Warren
“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:32 (NIV)
Have you ever wondered why you do what you don’t want to do? Ever wondered why it’s so hard to do the things that you know are the right things to do?
Our sinful nature causes us to often make the wrong choice. You can probably relate to the apostle Paul when he says, “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate . . . So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t” (Romans 7:15, 17-18 NLT).
Even after you become a follower of Jesus, there’s this tension inside of you. You have your good nature that God gave you, but you also have your old sinful nature that is pulling at you.
But there is a way out! Jesus promised in John 8:32, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (NIV).
The secret to personal change is not willpower or something you do or say. It’s not a pill, resolution, or vow you make.
The secret to personal change is something you know.
You know the truth. When you change the way you think, it changes the way you feel. And when you change the way you feel, it changes the way you act.
Behind every self-defeating act is a lie you believe. It may be a lie about yourself, your past or future, God, or others.
Why do you do something that you know is bad for you? Because you think there’s some kind of payoff. That’s the lie! You can only change and fulfill God’s purpose for your life if you start with God’s truth. If you want to change the way you live, you need to start in your mind. You need to know and believe God’s truth.
When you know the truth, the truth will set you free.
