How to deal with people that rub you the wrong way

I am one of the therapists here at Healthy Futures, and just wanted to discuss today a couple of strategies that anyone can use when you have to be around people that you don’t necessarily choose to be around, but you don’t have a choice of another place to be, whether that be at work, whether that be at a family reunion, whether that be anywhere where there’s a person that you would choose not to be around.

One of the strategies that you can use is to gently avoid that person. When I say gently avoid, I mean that you would have conversation with that person that you would have if you had just met them. You might talk about the weather. You might talk about the events that you’re at. You might comment on something that is happening in news today, a current event, but you wouldn’t discuss anything more than that. It would be a very basic conversation that you would have with that person.

If you can avoid them, great. Have conversations with other people that you truly enjoy having a conversation with. Be involved in activities that you truly enjoy. That person can be there, but you don’t necessarily have to be involved with that person.

Another thing that you can do that works well with people that you don’t necessarily get along with is by not taking anything that they do personally. When I say that, I mean that don’t assume that they are doing things to frustrate you, to annoy you, to upset you. Just assume that they are doing things because this is their natural behavior. It’s some habit that they have that might be annoying, but it’s not necessarily directed at you.

That person just becomes another person that you encounter, and they don’t necessarily have to be someone that’s frustrating to you or someone that is very angering to you. They just happen to be another person that you might have to encounter on a daily basis.

If you are a client of Healthy Futures, feel free to ask for any sort of advice, maybe some role-playing techniques or how to handle a specific situation. If not, good luck with all of those situations where you might have to encounter people that you don’t always have fun with.