The Christian Response to Toxic People Part 2

Narrator: Welcome to Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self, the place where you can get real answers to tough questions. Jesus promised you abundant life, but poor choices and dark forces stand in your way. It is time to learn how to overcome the obstacles that keep you out of your promised land. Knowledge of God will pave the path for you to walk in His blessing.

[Music]

Dr. Ray: Hello and welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. So I've been talking about the Christian response to toxic relationships, in my last episode we, we covered some of the symptoms of toxic people, and I talked about as a Christian it is okay to set a boundary. A boundary is knowing where you begin and another person ends, or where you end, another person begins. It's okay to say no. It's okay to understand that other people's words, actions, and behaviors don't belong to you, they belong to them. God holds each of us accountable for our own words and our own thoughts. So in other words, what you think of me is none of my business, what I think of you is none of your business because my thoughts are my thoughts, your thoughts are your thoughts. I want you to think good, I want you to like me, and I hope you, you– hope we can like each other, that's a good thing, amen. But boundaries is knowing what belongs to me and what belongs to you, and especially dealing with toxic people. You have to know their poison is their poison, not your poison. It has nothing to do with you. Zero, zilch, nada. Nothing to do with you, everything to do with them, so my response is, Wow, I really feel sorry for this person. I want to pray for God to heal them because they're sick and they need help. I'm sorry they think the way they think, I'm sorry for the words they say, I'm sorry for their opinion of me, but I'm going to pray that the Lord will heal them, that's a good Christian response. But I want to talk today about symptoms of a toxic relationship, or maybe we could even call it symptoms of a toxic marriage, ooh, that's a tough one that is a tough one. So, Heavenly Father, help us through this, Holy Spirit, you are welcome here and I need your help. This is a tough one.

So, if you're in a toxic relationship or maybe a toxic marriage, let's call this a marriage, okay? What are the symptoms? Now, if you're in a toxic relationship or marriage, you won't have all these symptoms but then you, you will have some of them. Here's a list of the symptoms, you know it's– remember when covid first hit, I think we were reading symptoms of covid all the time trying to figure out if I had it. Let’s see, you lose your taste, you lose your smell, you got a fever, you got body aches, uh, let's see, maybe some nausea, fatigue, um, you know, all those covid symptoms. But anyway, let's look at something different. Symptoms of a toxic relationship. There's a general lack of trust. It just, it just happens over the time. If you are being victimized by a toxic person, you're not validated. You see, validation– or, and you're also not respected, validation means what you think is important, what you believe is important and what you feel is important. Now I may not agree with what you think, I may not agree with what you feel, but I can validate if I'm healthy and you're my friend, okay? If I were married to you or whatever, if you understand, I may not agree with you but I know I can still validate and respect your opinion, okay? That, that's uh, that's healthy. You don't have to agree with someone to validate and respect and give value to their opinion. But, in a toxic relationship, you're not validated and your opinion is not respected, it's more or less trashed or they throw cold water on it, okay? You're walking on eggshells. That means…you know that feeling where you're just constantly waiting for the other shoe to fall, you never know when something's going to erupt, or there's just this– there's tension in the atmosphere, you can feel the tension in the atmosphere. Sometimes it lifts and sometimes it's okay and whenever that tension - or I call it the cloud - whenever the cloud lifts, you kind of go, “Oh, sheew, oh, okay, okay, it feels good,” and you start to feel better, all of a sudden, something happens and the tension comes back and you can feel it, okay? Again, your opinion is devalued, your emotions are ignored. Passive aggressive behavior is normal. Passive aggressive behavior, you know, maybe– I hope you understand that term, but it's, it's behavior that’s aggressive that's done in a passive format. For instance, a person doesn't like what you did so they don't speak to you for three days, that's passive-aggressive. They're actually being aggressive towards you in a very passive way. Passive-aggressive may be withholding affection, it could be withholding finances, it could be avoiding talking to you. There's a lot of things that, that go into the passive-aggressive but anyway, it's a form of punishment that's done passively and that becomes normal in a toxic relationship. Constant criticism and– or correction. You can't ever do anything right. No matter what you do, it's just not quite right, and who wants to be criticized all the time? And because of all this, if you're in a toxic relationship you feel anxious, um, you can get sad, depressed, lonely. You know, it's really interesting that you can be lonely living in a house with someone. You can be lonely in a group. You don't have to be alone to be lonely. 

If there's a toxic relationship, communication is unhealthy. You know, healthy communication is I listen, you listen, I hear what you say, you hear what I say. I express my opinion, you get it, you understand it, you value it. You express your opinion, I get it, I hear it, I understand it, I value it. Sometimes we have to look for a middle ground, we have to look for solutions. You know, in communication and conflict resolution, one thing I've taught for years, I'm going to throw this in - this is bonus material. People handle conflicts in four ways. There's four ways and you may– you'll probably be one of these four. Some people will avoid a conflict at all costs, these are the avoiders. Whatever it takes, they just avoid it. Some people appease. In other words, they're the, “Yes dear, okay, whatever you want, okay, okay, have it your way,” they're the appeasers. Then there's the people who say, “I'm,” you know, “I'm gonna show you how wrong you are. Let me explain to you, let– I'm going to convince you. Let me explain to you how wrong your thinking is. I want to prove you're wrong,” that's the fight to win people. Then there's the fourth group, that's called, “You know what, I don't agree with you, you don't agree with me, let's find– let's pray and find a Godly, loving resolution.” that's Christianity, that's maturity. Find a loving, Godly resolution to the problem. Fight to win is the worst thing you can do in a relationship because what happens is you may win the argument but then you destroy the relationship. Who wants to be the wrong person? Who wants to be wrong? But you see, toxic people fight to win. They want to prove that you're wrong. See, when a person has a low self-esteem, it's very important to prove everybody else is wrong. Many times toxic people have very low self-esteems. Fight to win is– now you may be right, they may be right, but fighting to prove that you're right and prove that they're wrong kills relationships. Instead of doing that, work for an answer, work for a solution to the problem, okay? That's what healthy people do but in a toxic relationship, it's usually fight to win, or it could be avoidance or appeasement, okay? Remember, healthy people look for Godly resolutions, get that? All right. 

Um, you may find controlling behaviors like manipulation or shaming. In other words um, “If you don't do what I want, I'll never speak to you again,” that's manipulation. “If you don't do what I want, I'm just going to cancel our vacation. If you don't do what I want, we won't have Christmas this year, if you don't do what I want, you can forget about having any love tonight,” you know what I'm saying? That's manipulation, okay? That– that's power brokering, that's using weapons… weapons. Uh, it's grabbing weapons to try to control another person, to try to make another person do something against their will that's control. Matter of fact, spiritually that's uh, you know, hear me now, that you– when you get into the controlling spirit you, you step into the area of witchcraft. I'm just gonna– that's just how it is, folks. We could get into– that's a whole nother, whole nother lesson. You might find in toxic relationships, uh, frequent lying…uh, selfish behavior. You will also find if you're involved in a toxic relationship you are mentally and emotionally drained. Or, the last thing is many people in toxic relationships just make excuses for their spouse or for the person they’re in a relationship with. They excuse them. There's no excuse for it but again, we talked about setting boundaries. A boundary says everybody's behavior belongs to them, not to you. So what another person thinks of you, another person's opinion of you, it's none of your business, it's their business. Now I want to have people– I, I love it when somebody has a good opinion of me, I think it's great, but I'm not responsible for that, they're responsible for their words and their thoughts and their actions. I am responsible to be a good person, I am responsible to try to, you know, take– to do this webinar, I mean, and, and I try to act kind toward people, that's my responsibility, that's what I want to do, but how people receive me and how people react to me and what people say to me and what people think of me is their business, not mine, and that's boundaries. It's their business, not my business. So let people own their stuff. 

Now if you're in a toxic relationship, you know, obviously you need professional help, you need help, especially if it's a marriage. you know I never, I never counsel divorce, I do not counsel that. Now, I'm not saying a person should stay and be abused, I don't think– I've never believed, I will never believe, I, I know it's not God's will for any of His children to be abused. Some people think that God values the institution of marriage more than He values the people in the marriage. God loves you and He doesn't want people to be abused. Sometimes if there's toxic relationships you can have a demonic problem, you can pray, cast out demons, do spiritual warfare, you can pray for the Holy Spirit to intervene, that's all really good and powerful stuff. Maybe you need to separate. Now you, you separate for a time, for a purpose. Separation is to get help, separation is not done hatefully, it's done lovingly saying, “I'm not going to live in this anymore, I'm going to separate so we can get some help and get restored,” so there's a purpose in the separation.

Now, it's, it's, it's no simple answer to it. I wish I could tell you there's just, you know, cut-and-dried answers to it. There's not, there's not. It's, it's hard, it's, it's rough. Now, I think one thing, I know this helps me when I'm– and I've had, I've been in some toxic relationships in my life, what helped me was when I started to feel sorry for the person with the problem and I began to pray for them because I realized they had a problem and they were trying to inflict their problem upon me and it hurt me. You know, I'm not perfect at boundaries, neither are you, nobody is, they hurt me with their words but I began to realize that they had a problem, they were carrying a lot of poison. They had a lot of garbage in their soul and it didn't belong to me, and it wasn't about me, it was really stuff that belonged to them. And so, when I kept thinking about this I began to feel compassion toward the person who was toxic, I began to feel more love toward a person that toxic, and I began to treat them…this is going to sound extreme but again, I began to treat them like a person who had cancer. Al– although they were hard to be around because of their words and their actions, I knew they were sick and I treated them like a sick person. I didn't tell them they were sick, but I knew they were sick. And so…but that helped me, knowing that they were sick, knowing that they had issues and, you know, whatever. If you're around a toxic person, this toxic person may have been abused, they may have come out of a dysfunctional family, they may have come through a lot of stuff. Maybe it's because they're using drugs or alcohol, which is, which is really sad - don't ask me how much I hate alcohol, I hate alcohol. Should Christians drink? No, no, no no, no, no, absolutely not. Will that send you to hell? No, it will not. Is it good for you to do it? No, it's not. It's bad for your witness, it's bad for your health, and how many more people have to die, how many more marriages have to be broken up, how many more lives have to be destroyed by alcohol before we give up that stuff? That's just my little opinion. I know it sounds kind of radical, but this is a guy who many years ago used to drink myself so I'm not hypocritical about it, I just think that the, the detriment of alcohol far outweighs any benefit, and too many people get hurt. I don't like to see people hurt, okay? I love people too much. But if you're in a toxic relationship and you - and you're listening to this, you go, “Wow, I, I'm in a toxic relationship,” you know, ask your spouse if they would consider counseling, that would be– help. Pray for your spouse, pray for the Holy Spirit to touch them, pray for the Lord to convict them, pray protection. And sometimes demons love to come in on top of and work with toxic people. Rebuke any spirit, any, any foul spirit, any hindering spirit, any ugly spirit, any spirit not of Jesus Christ. For– forbid them from operating in your family, okay? Set boundaries, know that their words and their actions belong to them, not to you. Let me say that again, know that their words and their actions belong to them, not to you, got it? It's not about you, it's about them. Although it affects you, it's really not about you. But you got to take care of yourself.

Another thing, while I'm on that point, I really want to emphasize this point. Take care of yourself. Self-care is not selfish. Let me say that again, self-care is not selfish. When you're around toxic people or you're in a toxic marriage, it will consume you, it'll make you exhausted because you think about it all the time and you're focused on it all the time and you're looking for answers all the time and you're tired and you're just done with it, and you're depressed and all this ugly stuff. You've got to be good to yourself in the midst of it. Find some– don't give up your hobbies, pick up your hobbies. If you used to play golf and you quit, start playing golf again. If you're a fisherman and you haven't fished, go fish. Do something, work out, whatever you like to do, do some good things for yourself. Treat yourself with kid gloves, treat yourself well. It's okay to take care of yourself, it's okay to do nice things for yourself, you need it. If you're– you need some nice things, you've only got one life to live, enjoy your life– do things. What do you need right now? What do you want right now? These are important questions. What do you need? Ask yourself. What do you need? What do you want? What do you need? What do you want? And take care of that. If you don't take care of yourself there's nobody else to do it and if you're with a toxic person, they're probably not going to do anything for you so you have to take care of yourself and what's really cool is the healthier you get, the better your relationship gets and the better you can deal with a toxic person, and maybe you can pray more for them and maybe you can help them more. Now you cannot fix them because they had this problem before they met you. Now they may blame you for it, but it's not your fault. Remember that it's not– they, they'll, they will tell you that it's your fault, do not believe that lie, it's not your fault. It's all about them, okay? You're a child of the most high God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ, bought by the blood of Jesus Christ. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, a member of the royal priesthood, this is who you are. Don't receive toxic garbage from a toxic person. Even if it's your husband or your wife, you can still love them without receiving the poison. You can have compassion on them and pray for their healing and pray for the Holy Spirit to set them free because the Spirit of the Lord God's upon you to set at liberty those that are captive. A toxic person is captive to their poison. They're cap– they don't, they know nothing else, it's a familiar spirit to them. Pray for them and in praying for them you'll feel a burden lift off of you. When you pray for them, you'll feel a burden lift off of you. Listen, if you're with a toxic person, I know, I know, I know it's crazy. 

Um, you know, another thing they do is that they want you to doubt your own reality, I've talked about this. You know, they will gaslight you, they'll, they'll deny things. Um, I know one particular person that was toxic and I had actually seen this person do this particular behavior over 50 times, literally over 50 times. And one day I confronted them on it and they denied they had ever done it. Said, “No, I never did that.” In other words, what they were doing is gaslighting me, trying to get me to doubt my reality by denying– in other words, trying to make me think that I was just imagining things or I was crazy. That is typical of a toxic person– or whatever, don't receive the craziness, don't receive– remember, it's their stuff. What, what belongs to you, what belongs to them, their thoughts, their words, their actions, their poison is theirs, it's not yours. Even if they call you every name in the book. Feel sorry for them because that's their ugly self, and normally - hear me now - normally, what you're being blamed for is what they are guilty of. That's a– I've seen this hundreds of times, it's called projection, they'll project their guilt upon you. They will blame you for everything, that way they have– they do not have to take responsibility. Toxic people generally have very low self-esteem, even - they may act prideful - underneath the pride, it's just a mask to cover up low self-esteem, they cannot admit they were wrong or make a mistake because actually their ego and self-esteem is too fragile. But you love them, you pray for them, and take care of yourself. Take good care of yourself, amen.

Speaking of self, this is Dr. Ray Self and this has been Self Talk. Check out my books, uh, Hear His Voice, Be His Voice, and I think you'd really enjoy Redeeming Your Past and Finding Your Promised Land. Both from amazon.com. If you'd like to donate, we really could use it to help us. Go to my website, I'm president of International College of Ministry, maybe you want to enroll, get a degree, go to icmcollege.org/donate. I give scholarships to hundreds of pastors and church leaders every year and uh, pastors in India and pastors in Tehila, Peru, and also Liberia, Africa. I send free education all over the world and I also help pastors with financial hardships get their college degrees, and that's called hardship scholarship fund. Appreciate it. If you'd like to donate to that, that's all I've got tonight, today, this morning, whenever you're listening to this. Again, this is Dr. Ray Self, this has been Self Talk, and Holy Spirit, touch everyone listening to me. Give them the wisdom and the grace and the power to deal with toxic people. In Jesus’ name, amen.

[Music]

Narrator: Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review our show on iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, Charisma Podcast Network, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your review helps our show reach more people and spread the gospel. You can purchase Dr. Self's latest book, Hear His Voice, be His Voice, on amazon.com. Please visit Dr. Self's webpage at icmcollege.org for more information and free downloads.