The Mindset Mentor - How to Handle Toxic People During the Holidays

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Are you tired of getting triggered by the same toxic people over and over again? In today’s episode, I’ll show you why their behavior actually has nothing to do with you and how to flip your perspective so you never give away your emotional power again. High performers don’t wait for clarity, they create it. This Mindset University call will help you see your blind spots and your next level. Grab your spot here 👉 https://www.coachwithrob.com/mindset-university-call-rob   Feeling stuck? It's time to take back control. If you're ready to master your mind and create real, lasting change, click the link below and start transforming your life today. 👉 http://coachwithrob.com   The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life.     Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, do me a favor. Go ahead and go to whatever platform you listen to us on, give us a rating and review. Reason why is because the more positive ratings and reviews that we get, the more of those platforms show this podcast and people have never listened to it before, which allows us to grow and hopefully impact more lives. So if you do that, I would appreciate it.

Today, I'm going to be talking about how to handle toxic people during the holidays. If you're here, it's because at least one toxic person is in your life that you want to get rid of. And let's be honest, there's at least one person that's probably at your family events that you would never choose to spend time with if they weren't actually related to you. You know, they might criticize you or guilt-trip you or gas lights you. And then in the end, somehow you still feel like the person who feels bad at the end of it. And then it'll feel bad about it all. And you've probably spent years thinking, what's wrong with me? Like, why do they always get to me? How can I improve myself? But what if I told you that their toxic behavior actually has nothing to do with you and everything to do with their own traumas, their own

insecurities and their own need for control. And they are projecting their problems and the way that they feel about themselves onto you. So it has nothing to do with you. And today I'm going to show you how to flip the perspective so you never get triggered by them again. So you're going to learn how to respond in a way that shuts down all of their drama. And then once you shut down all of their drama, they're going to feel the need to move on to somebody else. So then you will get more peace in your life. And especially this time of year because the holidays should be fun and they can't be fun, but it can be really stressful for people who have toxic family dynamics. And for people that you love the most, they usually trigger you the most. And so it's important to know this

before we dive in. It's okay to set boundaries that are true to you and to prioritize yourself in your own mental health. Okay. So let's go ahead and dive in. Toxic behavior can be many different things. It could be criticism of you. It could be them trying to manipulate you. It could be them gaslighting you and making you think that you're the problem when they're the problem. It could be them using guilt and guilt tripping you to try to control you. It could be them just all out trying to control you. It could be guilt.

It could be shame. It could be overstepping their boundaries. And it could just be outright hostility from them. And so when you look at a toxic behavior, what's the actual root of the toxic behavior? it's important to know that toxic family members and toxic people often are acting from unresolved trauma within themselves or some sort of insecurity or the need to feel like they need to control you and now i want you understand that doesn't excuse their behavior in any sort of way i'm not trying to excuse their behavior i'm trying to explain their behavior it's important

to know where it comes from especially if you're going to deal with it you know so like an example might be you might have a really critical parent that's critical every single time that you're around them and critical of what you're doing in your life and your life path and who you're with or who you're not with or when you're going to have kids or not have kids. And they might be critical because they are actually projecting their own fears and their own inadequacy onto you. Like I see this all of the time that parents try to control their children and manipulate their children and push all of their fears and all of their insecurities and all of their inadequacies onto their children to try to control them. And it makes you feel like you're the problem and there's something wrong with you when in reality

it actually has nothing to do with you. You just happen to be the person that's getting fear vomited on top of. That's what it comes down to. And you've got to remove yourself and hopefully your emotions from the situation. And so the shift and the perspective that you need to understand is this. When somebody is toxic. It isn't about you at all. It is all about them. And when you're in these toxic environments, you have to remind yourself of this. And you might have to remind yourself over and over and over and 10 or 20 times when you're sitting down for Christmas dinner. It's not about you. It's about them. It's not about you. It's about them. You need to say it over and over and over again. And it's really important to know that. Now, what I

I always remind myself of, whether it happened to be somebody in my family or someone who's toxic or someone who's just an asshole in public, is what you're seeing is an adult, right? That's what you think. But what you're really seeing is an unhealed child in an adult's body. And if you keep reminding yourself, oh, that's just a wounded child who never healed that is in a 47 year old's body, you can kind of take a step back and remove yourself and pretend your own mental health in that moment. Now, the other thing that you need to understand in this situation is you need to understand your own emotional triggers, right? Because family members

know you so well, and they will either consciously, but a lot of times unconsciously, know how to push your buttons. And so you need to identify your specific emotional triggers. Like, you can use this moment, you know, you will be triggered. I promise you that. But you can use this moment for you to be able to grow. It's like going to the emotional resilience gym. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. So, you know, you need to know your own emotional triggers like being talked down to or being dismissed or being guilt tripped in some sort of way or being judged for what you're doing in life or being judged for your body. You need to know what your own emotional triggers are and you can really journal through it like you should journal through it like

right down before you go to these family events or these events where there might be toxic people where it could be work whatever it might be and think to yourself like what are my emotional triggers because if I can presence it and I can bring it in when I can see it it doesn't have as much control over me and so the first thing you're going to want to do is you want to make sure that you identify your feelings and your triggers you can also do this when you find yourself in the moment of being triggered, one of the best ways to take yourself out of it emotionally is to take yourself out of your emotional brain and into your logical brain. And what you do in that moment is like, oh my God, I'm really pissed off right now. Instead of getting into the drama, take yourself out

of the drama, take out a pen and paper, walk into a different room and say, why am I being triggered right now. And what it does is it will, over time, turn off your emotional part of your brain that's triggered, and it will turn on your analytical brain, which makes you look at it from a completely different perspective, as if you're somebody that's trying to solve a problem versus somebody who is wrapped up in a shitstorm, right? And so what you want to do is make a note of when you are triggered. Write it down. And now you're seeing it from a, oh, this is a problem that I can solve and I don't have to be wrapped up in versus like, oh my God, I'm lost in this moment. Okay, so that's the first thing. The second thing is then what you do, whether it is before you go into a moment

where there's a toxic person or in that moment when you remove yourself is you then plan how you want to respond in those moments. So you identify your feelings and your triggers and then you plan how you want to respond when it does happen. So for instance, if like if criticism about your career triggers you because your parents want you to go and be a lawyer, but you don't want to be a lawyer, well, then what you want to do is you want to rehearse what you will say to yourself, right? You rehearse what you say to yourself. So when they come in and they still want you to be a lawyer and you don't want to be a lawyer because that doesn't sound fun, you rehearse and you come up with like your own empowering phrase for yourself. I'm happy with

my choices and that's all that matters. I'm happy with my choices and that's all that matters. Then when they come in and they throw their drama on top of you in your head, you just repeat to yourself, I'm happy with my choices. And that's all that matters. I'm happy with my choice and all that matters. And it keeps you from being stuck in this toxic pattern with this toxic person. So planning ahead, believe it or not, is actually really, really important. Because when you're triggered, I'm just going to be honest to you. You're not making the best decisions. Have you ever been triggered? And then an hour after being triggered, you're like, oof, yeah, I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have done that. The reason why is because when you're triggered,

and all of those emotions pop up. When your emotions are high, your logic is low. Your emotions are high, your logic is low. Your emotions are high, your body stops sending as much blood to the prefrontal cortex of your brain, which is where your logic is and your critical thinking, and you're just wrapped up in emotions. So you're not actually even making smart decisions in those moments.

So that's why it's important to plan ahead now, then you plan how you react. And then when you get really pissed off because they still want you to be a lawyer, you're like, what was that freaking phrase? What was that phrase? What was that phrase? Oh, yeah, that's what it was. I'm happy with my choices, and that's all that matters.

And it's the way to remove yourself from an old pattern that you've been stuck in. Okay? The other thing you want to try to do is try to work on emotional detachment. Not in your entire life. That's not healthy, but emotional detachment in those moments. Detach yourself from that situation, right? Someone said something to you. Boo-hoo, right?

Like, in the end, you're going to be okay. You're not going to die because somebody wants you to do X, Y, Z. right somebody said something to you not really that big of a deal don't get wrapped up in it i promise you you'll live so you don't need to take on someone else's opinions you are in control of whether or not you want to let somebody else trigger you and if it's a toxic person you probably should try to remove yourself from that you don't get triggered by somebody else without you actually being like okay i'm going to be triggered unconsciously you're doing it. Like one of my favorite quotes on this is Eleanor Roosevelt and she says, no one can make you feel

inferior without your consent. You have to realize that if somebody makes you feel bad about yourself, it's because you're actually consenting to letting them feel bad about yourself. Now it might be just a pattern that you've been stuck in since childhood, but as an adult, let's start to remove yourself from this pattern. You can use mindfulness to stay in the present moment. Like when you start to get triggered, anytime your body shifts in some sort of way, the very first thing to change is your breath. So what you want to do is focus on your breath. Slow your breathing down as slow as you possibly can. Remove yourself from the situation. Go to the bathroom. My favorite way to self-soothe, I do it multiple times a day, is really deep breath in and then you do a really long,

like as long as you possibly can, exhale, but you're going to hum at the same time. The reason why is because the hum, the vibration in your chest actually stimulates your vagus nerve, and that is actually the vagus nerve, then turns on your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the calm, cool, collected side of your nervous system. So you go from fight or flight to breathing really deeply, humming a few times, letting it roll. You can hum in the bathroom. No big deal. You don't have to hum a song. Just something like that. And you could do it five, 10, 15 times, and you'll actually start to notice your body will calm down. And so you want to focus on your breath and learn how to self-soothe. This creates a buffer between their actions

in your emotional state. So you might need to go to the bathroom a lot during family events. It's okay because you're going to go and you're going to go home. Right. So you can also use this as a challenge to get better. You know, the only way to get stronger in the gym is to lift heavier. The only way to get stronger emotionally is to go through more emotional things. This is a space for you to work on your own peace and your own happiness. Is it possible to focus on trying not to be triggered? Of course. Is it possible to not be triggered one day?

Yes. Why don't you try it out? Try to remove yourself and break the cycle of reactivity. Toxic individuals often really thrive on reactive energy. And so what you want to do is pause instead of reacting. They're expecting you to react the same way that you've reacted your entire life. Take a pause before answering, before saying anything. not responding or responding different than normal tends to diffuse the situation because you're

not showing up the way they expect to. And over time, when you just refuse to engage in the old toxic patterns that have been existing for a long time, it discourages them from pushing your buttons. And usually what they do is because they thrive on that energy. They usually go to somebody else. And so you might be pushing your toxic family member onto another family member that you love. Maybe they should listen to this episode as well, but you got to protect your own mental health. Right. And being triggered can piss you off if you look at it incorrectly. But I've said this hundreds of times in the podcast and I want you to really, really understand it. Where you are triggered, you're not free. You're stuck in some place in some sort of fear or some sort of limiting belief

or something. When somebody triggers you, it's showing you where you're not free. That's a gift. That is the universe or God or life or source or whatever is you believe in coming to you in this moment through that person to give you a lesson on where you are caught up in life and where you still need to work on yourself. And in that moment, classes in session. So before going to an event, like a family event or a work event or somewhere you know there's going to be a toxic person that you can't really get away from, practice grounding techniques to stay calm before. And then practice those grounding techniques when you're in those difficult moments, the deep breathing, the humming, the visualizing yourself as an observer rather than a participant

in the conversation. Like they can be standing in front of you and you can disassociate, not in an unhealthy way, but disassociate yourself and try to see yourself from a third person looking at this conversation being like, wow, this person's really trying their best to trigger this other person. Wow, that other person, they're doing a really good job not triggering themselves. And you're removing yourself mentally and emotionally from this situation, you know, when you say things and you remind yourself of stuff like, hey, their behavior says more about them than it does me. It has nothing to do with me. You can remove yourself from it. And so you need to focus on what is that you could control. Let go of this need to fix toxic family members, right?

Stop trying to fix people. You're not going to fix them. I promised you that. It's hard enough to fix yourself. Imagine trying to fix another person. Shift your attention into the small joys of holidays and being around family like cooking your favorite dish or, you know, move in the house to somebody else and spend quality time with that non-toxic family member. You know, limit your exposure with that person as much as you possibly can. And then the last thing I think is really important is to have an exit strategy where if you need to get out, you can get out. Like create a plan for leaving the environment if it becomes too toxic. You know, drive yourself.

Don't drink. Drink and usually makes emotions worse. Drive yourself so that you can leave at any time if you need to. You can, if you drive with somebody else, you can prearrange a signal with a family member or a friend if you need an excuse to step away at that moment. You need to normalize self-preservation. Taking care of yourself isn't rude. It's necessary.

And so what I want you to do is listen to this episode and start to make a plan of how you're going to go into events where you know toxic people are going to be and learn to start removing yourself from a situation and stop being triggered. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share our Instagram stories. Tag me in it Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-L-J-R. And if you want to learn more about coaching with me outside of this podcast, you can go to coach with rob.com. Once again, coach with rob.com. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way to leave you every single episode. make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.