How do you deal with controlling, clingy, sadistic and selfish tendencies in people, without losing your own mind? How do you learn to deal with bad behaviors in strangers, work colleagues, and even your friends and family members? How do you turn into the ‘One that got away’ rather than the crazy psycho-ex? How do you escape from conflict without victimizing yourself or turning into a monstrous mirror of the person who pushed all your buttons?
How do you remain pristine, unaffected and zen-like?
By being emotionally intelligent.
The importance of developing emotional intelligence has been grossly undervalued in our society, which prioritizes conventional notions of success. The result of this is a huge population of emotionally immature people who simply do not take responsibility for how they feel. They have not learned healthy coping mechanisms as children, which extends into adulthood and even old age.
As a result, they are not accountable for the consequences of their actions.
How can we learn to become more emotionally resilient, and develop a strong sense of integrity that is not dependent on external circumstances? By making our own decisions, and letting other people live with the consequences of their own.
Anyone can snap their fingers and retaliate, but it takes a rare strength to exhibit grace under pressure. Be calm, collected, polite and dignified. Sometimes people will instigate or provoke you on purpose even though they are at fault, so that they can turn it around and blame it on you. You are the only one who has power over your own mental and emotional health. Learn to be emotionally and mentally independent.
If a person is being manipulative, insidious or emotionally abusive, to get you to do what they want, then don’t get mad and play their game, simply call them out on it. If your bae is telling you that he or she wants to be ‘just friends’ or can’t be in a relationship, or stands you up or doesn’t return calls, then give them what they want, and walk away. If your boss or colleague is being verbally combative, and blaming you for his or her own ineptitude, then stick it them as well.
Truly secure people don’t explain why they want respect; they simply remove their attention from those that don’t deserve it.
Most people are unable to talk with their actions, because they were simply not taught this as children. So surprise the little tantrum-throwing child in them, and let them bear the consequences.
If you don’t react to their volatile behavior, then it will hit a blank wall and ricochet right back to them. If you take a deep breath, simply state why you are displeased, and then disengage by communicating with your actions, this will get to them so-much-more than screaming, arguing, crying and convincing them to see your point of view. This is beneficial for the both of you as a valuable lesson. You learn to get comfortable saying no and develop stronger boundaries; and they learn to take responsibility for their own erratic actions.
The only way to escape this vicious cycle of action-reaction is to step out of the line of fire, and let them walk through it instead. If you let them walk through their own blazing inferno, they will realize that they are just as painfully human and prone to imperfections, and they will change. This is because they have been forced to solve their own problem, rather than expecting someone else to do it for them.
Everyone wants to change other people, and everyone’s ego keeps getting in the way. Instead, change your own approach, and give them the freedom to let them change themselves. If you don’t do this, you will have to suffer the consequences of their bad behavior, by your own bad decision of not making them responsible for it.
You will end up feeling like the dysfunctional, unstable and irrational one. You will be giving them a justifiable excuse to drag you into their emotional turmoil, and blame it all on you. Your self-esteem will suffer, and you will start to doubt your own sense of self-worth.
Don’t play a cheat at their lousy game of chess.
Turn the tables over. 
