What Do You Do When You Encounter #Difficult People In Your Life?
People who make you so miserable that you tend to think twice before opening their texts or emails and count to 100, take deep breaths before you reply. Either you deal with it, deflect their oppressive presence or just move on.
I don’t like dealing with them and usually am always on the defensive when encountering them. I always try to think ahead about what they will probably do to make me feel bad so I shield myself. But I always keep quiet. I don’t like dealing with bullies.
Thinking that they will always want to have the last say, I just don’t say anything. But you should see my thought bubble, all my rants and raves are there. You’d think my head would explode from all the things unsaid. You get the picture.
But then I have no choice dealing with them because they are part of my life whether I like it or not. I have to bear with them even if I didn’t choose to be with them.
So I go back to my question: What do you do when you encounter difficult people in your life?
I had to find the answer from the wisest being I know: God. So I resorted to prayer.
The answer goes like this:
ROSES
Think of difficult people as the thorns on a rose’s stem. The rose is so beautiful, it smells so wonderful, but it won’t be a rose unless there are thorns. Sure there are genetically engineered roses nowadays without thorns but that isn’t how it was meant to be.
Life is like a rose, so beautifully perfect with many colors and wonderful smells. But difficult people and challenges are part and parcel of such a beautiful rosy life. We need to accept the fact that thorns and roses go together, life and challenges belong together.
Be careful. Don’t prick yourself. But you can’t help it if you want to pick that rose up from its bush.
So you bleed. Just suck it up, clean it, treat it with some salve and move on.
You don’t go about life avoiding the thorns or else you will never get to enjoy the roses.
Such is the same with life, you don’t go about living like a zombie, scared of any challenging situations that may come your way, because you’re afraid of getting hurt by a few prickly thorns or bullies.
Just keep calm. Let it wash over you, take a deep breath and expel it, both the air and the bad feeling that comes with the challenging situation. No use deflecting it, it really comes your way when you least expect it.
Accept it. Deal with it. Then spew it out of your system lest it spoils the rest of your life like rotten fish. Who likes rotten fish anyway? Would you like to keep it in your kitchen, smell it for the rest of your life? I hope not!
You don’t need to follow everything that bully says, nor bow down your head in defeat and forced obedience. You are your own person. Stand up for yourself, keep your dignity intact. But never, ever stoop down to their level and bully back. No one wins if you do that.
Elevate yourself and be yourself as God meant for you to be. No one can dictate to you how you should live your life. It’s up to you. Either bow down and follow that bully, be cowed by the challenge, lose yourself in a difficult situation, OR stand up for what is right for you.
Don’t be afraid, you have a GIANT of a champion backing you up. He is the one who can deal with the thorns because He is the ultimate “Gardener.” He is just pruning you.
Pray. Follow. Be guided. You’ll get to enjoy the roses and their sweet smell and perfect blooms when you do.
Stop. Pray. Enjoy the roses!
SKY
Life is like the sky. It’s so blue on a clear sunny day. But you learn to appreciate it more when there are clouds dotting the sky, creating different pictures in your imagination.
Difficult people and challenges are those clouds which make the sky perfect. Perfectly imperfect. Clouds make the sky more interesting and more beautiful like paintings. Think of the countless times you looked up and imagined a dog, a lion or even angels with wings with those cloud formations. You could even see dragons and snakes when those clouds turn grey.
It’s all up to your perspective, how you see these clouds. It’s all up to you how you see these challenges in life. You are the interpreter of God’s “paintings” in the sky.
One might see a cloud as flowers where the other might see it as storm clouds looming on the horizon. Different strokes for different folks.
So why did God put clouds in the sky? To make the blue sky less boring. Admit it, you would hardly look up if everything was just plain blue sky.
Clouds make you appreciate the sky because of its many formations and transformations. Oftentimes, the wind blows the clouds away. One moment it’s there, the next time you look it’s gone.
Same with life. Think how boring life would be if everything was just happy all the time. Everyone smiling from ear-to-ear every second of every minute of every hour of everyday. Whew! Lock-jaw! How freaky that would be to see everyone’s faces fixed into smiles as if frozen by botox.
Now here comes a frown. Brows knit together, foreheads furrowed with lines, lips pursed together tightly. Amazing! For sure, people would notice that frowning face amidst all the smiling ones. Interesting! He’s the only one different from all the bunch of zombie-like creatures living in their happy bubble.
But that person is living the most interesting life of all. He’s dealing with a challenge. It’s making him think. It’s making him feel. It’s making him decide what his next course of action should be.
That’s what clouds do. That’s what life should be about. Not endless blue sky but lots of cloud formations that make it more interesting, more beautiful, more challenging.
Don’t you like it when you’re riding an airplane and it reaches the clouds? It makes you think you’re in heaven, right?
Such is life. The clouds that dot the sky mar its blueness only to create more interesting formations that make you appreciate it even more. It makes you think of heaven.
But clouds are the challenges and difficult situations or people that make you think you’re in hell. Huh? First heaven, now hell? It all depends on you, how you view life’s clouds.
You can think of clouds as challenges that prove to be blessings because it makes your life more wonderfully interesting. OR you can think of clouds as dangerous storm clouds and problems that mar your perfect blue sky. So you run inside your house to protect yourself, missing the blessing of seeing the silver lining in it.
So what do you do when these clouds come into your perfect blue sky? Let it embrace you, let it wash over you, let it envelope you with the life lessons it will teach you.
Then like the wind, blow it away. Let the storm clouds break into a bright blue sky again. Look forward to the rainbow!
Accept it! Life is full of thorns and clouds. Life has its share of difficult people, problems and challenges. They are there for a reason. They are there to make your life more interesting and more beautiful.
Why? Because with every thorn and cloud you deal with, you uncover a better part of you that you don’t even know was in you. The YOU that God meant for you to be.
QUESTIONS FOR YOU:
- How do you deal with difficult people? What do you usually do?
- Do you now look at difficult people differently?
