Ten Tips to Get That Toxic Person Out of Your Head
Have you ever felt unable to stop thinking about someone because of what they did or said, or because they left you baffled by their actions?
When someone hurts you or your loved ones, they may get stuck in your mind for longer than you’d like. This can cause you to feel bad, not just at the time you were hurt, but days, weeks, or even months later.
When this happens, you can’t stop thinking about the behavior that hurt you so much. In fact, you keep in your mind the memory of the image and words of that toxic person. This happens a lot in couples who suddenly end their relationship.
Fortunately, it’s possible to learn to let go of these types of thoughts and free yourself from the negative influence that unhealthy people can leave in your life even several months after they’ve left.
Having toxic thoughts
You probably know that toxic thoughts are harmful, both emotionally and physically. In fact, studies show that a person with negative thoughts tends not only to be more unhappy but also to be in poorer health and less able to cope with life’s challenges.
Many researchers support this fact. Some determine that toxic thinking plays a critical role in illnesses such as depression, cancer, heart disease, and autoimmune disease.
How to eliminate your toxic thoughts and get that person out of your head
No doubt you work really hard to eliminate everything that’s toxic in your life. For example, you might buy organic products, avoid unhealthy foods, and eat green vegetables. However, it’s likely that you put very little effort into trying to detox your mind. Yet, doing so could have a really positive impact on your daily life.
How, then, can you stop thinking about a toxic person and the damage they’ve done to you? How can you forget their attitude, behavior, or actions that let you down and upset you? Why does this unpleasant memory keep coming back to you again and again?
These ten small but powerful ideas will help you get that toxic person out of your head. Therefore, you’ll get out of that downward spiral of toxic thoughts and emotions. Indeed, choose any of these ways of thinking or acting, and you’ll be able to rid yourself of that undesirable person who’s haunting your mind once and for all:
1. Stop talking about them. After a while, not mentioning them will mean they go completely out of your head.
2. Wait and see what happens next. Often, you feel the need to respond and react to difficult people or situations immediately. Instead, give yourself permission to wait and see what happens next.
3. Stay away from feelings of guilt. Thinking about past events and blaming yourself for them is rarely productive. In fact, you’ll find that bad things and misunderstandings tend to ‘happen’ more often, through a series of events, like a domino effect. No one person is generally entirely to blame for anything.
4. Try not to try to get into other people’s minds. You’ll never get to know what they’re really thinking. It’s impossible.
5. Deal with your biggest problem first. No matter what happened, the biggest problem you’re facing is your own anger. In fact, your anger creates a cloud of emotion that prevents you from responding in a useful and productive way. Therefore, eliminating this emotion can help you in discovering more effective ways to act and you’ll be able to resolve your conflicts with ease.
6. Practice calm. Faced with a situation in which you’ve felt offended or hurt, it’s essential that you manage to keep your emotions under control. Otherwise, they could run amok and end up causing even worse effects.
7. Don’t believe everything you think. When you’re emotionally held hostage by worry, grief, fear, anxiety, or anger, the emotional and physical state you experience makes you think that your discomfort is real. However, this may not be true. In this particular case, doubting your own emotions can be a really useful tool.
8. You’re not a time wizard. When you think about past events that have hurt you, you often think about what you could’ve done differently to avoid an altercation or a regrettable outcome. This, however, rarely brings you anything positive.
9. Forgiveness. You’re probably too loyal to your suffering. To get rid of it, use forgiveness, both toward the person who’s upset you and toward yourself.
10. Change your state of mind. If none of the previous techniques has been helpful, it may be that changing your environment and distracting yourself with more pleasant aspects can help you reduce your levels of discomfort and face your problems more effectively.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Blair, R. J. R. (2012). Considering anger from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 3(1), 65-74.
- Ehring, T. (2021). Thinking too much: rumination and psychopathology. World Psychiatry, 20(3), 441.
- Long, K. N., Worthington, E. L., VanderWeele, T. J., & Chen, Y. (2020). Forgiveness of others and subsequent health and well-being in mid-life: a longitudinal study on female nurses. BMC psychology, 8(1), 1-11.
- Marcks, B. A., & Woods, D. W. (2005). A comparison of thought suppression to an acceptance-based technique in the management of personal intrusive thoughts: A controlled evaluation. Behaviour research and therapy, 43(4), 433-445.
- Pickard, H. (2013). Irrational blame. Analysis, 73(4), 613-626.
