Let’s face it. Dealing with someone who sucks is a universal experience. We’ve all encountered that draining individual who seems to suck the joy out of any room. April Shprintz invites you to a masterclass in decoding difficult people, revealing the insecurities and hidden agendas that drive their behavior. Arm yourself with the psychological insight to deflect passive-aggressive jabs, dismantle toxic criticisms, and ultimately, render their negativity utterly powerless. Get ready for a fresh perspective on handling negativity—because it’s not about you, it’s all about them.
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The Secret To Dealing With Someone Who SUCKS
One of the things I love about working on mindset is you get more and more of what you want and less and less of what you don’t want. The world is full of people and that means that even if you have the best mindset, sometimes you’re going to encounter people who suck. In my case, you will encounter lovely people who encounter people who suck and want to explain to them one of the best ways to deal with having to interact with them.
Understanding The Psychology Of Insults
Now, this is going to be very different from the ways that I normally tell you, which is to ignore them or remove yourself from the situation. This helps you understand their psychology at a different level so that the things that they say don’t bother you. The thing is this. There are bullies, there are narcissists, there are people who are just miserable and they’re happiest if they’re trying to make other people miserable too.
What if you knew the secret behind what’s driving their insults and it made them not even land? I can tell you what it is. Everyone’s insult is always going to indicate their own self-conscious fear. I know that sounds crazy, but people cannot help it. I’ll give you some examples. If someone calls you fat, they have a body insecurity. It does not matter how they look, they have a body insecurity or they wouldn’t be throwing that out there.
Real-Life Examples Of Projection In Action
If someone questions your intelligence, they feel like they’re not smart enough, and if they’re constantly calling you lazy, they have a secret fear that they don’t show up enough or don’t do enough. It sounds weird, but let me give you some examples so you can see it in action and it’ll be easier for you to understand. The moment you see this, those kinds of insults and passive-aggressive comments and things that people say will take on a whole new meaning, and by a whole new meaning, you’ll realize they don’t mean shit because the people are just projecting on you what they themselves are afraid of.
Everyone's insult always indicates their own self-conscious fear. Share on XI know a military member whose significant other always said they weren’t a good officer. What’s interesting is the person they were saying wasn’t a good officer was promoted ahead of their significant other, was awarded special assignments, went to special schools, got special awards that the other person didn’t get. They were in the bottom like, I don’t know, 10%, 20% of the officer ranks.
However, they were always tearing down the other person saying, “You are not a good officer.” That’s because deep down, that was their fear. Even though there was all of this evidence to the contrary, sometimes we can take these things to heart and not piece them apart and realize, “This doesn’t make sense,” and that’s what I want you to be able to do.
An example from my own life. When I was in high school, my stepdad was out of work for a couple of years and probably shouldn’t have been. He was probably just being lazy, candidly. What’s so funny is I was going to school full-time and I was working full-time as a waitress, and several times a week, he would talk about how lazy I was because I didn’t both clean the house and cook dinner before I went to work.
I was a teenager, so I didn’t take this too seriously. I was like, “Come on, I’m doing tons of stuff. You’re being ridiculous.” In hindsight, I realized that he had a fear that he was being seen as lazy because he didn’t work. He wasn’t really contributing to our household in any meaningful way, and so he was projecting and taking it out on me.
The more you pay attention to what people insult others about, the more you'll see their own insecurities and weaknesses. Share on XYou’ll also notice that those folks are going to ignore things that they could insult you about. What do I mean by that? Things that might actually be something that you would need to work on, they completely leave out because they’re not something that they have an insecurity about. The more you pay attention to this, the more you pay attention to the things that people are insulting other people about, the more you’ll see where they have insecurities and weaknesses.
How To Respond To Negative People
With this knowledge, you can do one of a few things. The first thing you can do is push back, call them out on it, say, “I’m sorry that you feel inadequate and not smart enough, and because of that, you keep saying these things to me.” You could do that. There was a time in my life and there are times when people are really blatant that I might push back like that. The other thing you could do is realize that their insults aren’t true and they don’t have any power, and you can just ignore them and take it with a grain of salt. It’s like the noise that you hear when you’re outside and somebody’s doing a bunch of yard work. It’s just background noise. Don’t even pay attention to it.
The other thing you could do is have a little empathy. I’m not making excuses for them, but understand that it’s the most hurt people that are hurting people. If they are saying mean and nasty things to you, that is nothing compared to what is going on in their head. What you could do there is take the gratitude route. “I’m really glad I don’t feel so badly about myself that I have to project on other people.”
No matter what route you take, just understand that most of the time, when people suck, it has nothing to do with you. It is all about them. You can go about your day and focus on the things that you want because there is no reason for you to put any stock in what they’re saying or carry any of the baggage that they have because it’s not about you. You deserve to have the life that you truly want. Here’s to your success.
