Imagine you’re having a great day, until all of a sudden you’re sideswiped by energy that causes you to prickle and tense up. Enter, stage left, the one person who can raise your hackles just by their presence alone.
Are you thinking of that someone now? I am and I can feel my body start to tense and my energy start to prickle.
We’ve probably all had (or currently have) someone in our lives who bugs us. Someone who can push our buttons and our patience until we’re ready to scream, “Get out of my face!” (a.k.a. “Bye Felicia”).
The reality is…
There are always going to be people whose energy rubs us the wrong way. The thing is, we don’t have to get stuck in that state of prickly and tense every time they come into our personal space.
What if we had some ways to remove that person from our personal space, and in a way that doesn’t piss them off or hurt their feelings?
If it sounds too good to be true, it’s not. Here are three really easy ways to remove someone from our personal space… or to remove ourselves from theirs without conflict and confrontation.
1. Take the higher road.
When someone pushes our buttons it’s all too tempting to react. It makes sense. It’s hard not to react when a button has been pushed, but here’s something helpful to remember: Reacting only perpetuates the button pushing. So, when we feel our buttons being trounced on, that’s a great time to engage some deep breathing so that we can remain calm and cool as a response.
For example, your friend loves to play “the one up game,” where everything you do, she’s done and then some. While it’s probably tempting to give her a “what for” or continue to try topping her (which is perfectly natural), you can take a few deep breaths, acknowledge her achievement and then switch the subject.
“Hey, that’s cool. By the way, did you see last night’s episode of ‘The Sinner’? OMG, what a stomach twister.”
When I’ve done this in the past, it not only stopped the button pushing, it also gave me a chance to regain my composure. It’s a real sanity saver.
2. The bathroom is calling.
It may sound strange, but it works every time. Excusing ourselves to the bathroom (whether we have to go or not) is a great way to get some space. We get to keep our cool and without confrontation.
It’s also a great way to end a conversation that is either going in circles or is just plain negative.
3 Less is more.
Less time, more space. Yep, we can limit the time we have to talk with that person by letting them know that we only have a limited amount of time to chat. For example, “I’ve got to be going in about 5 minutes.”
The less time we spend, the less chance we have for our buttons to be pushed and our hackles to be raised.
So, the next time someone pushes us to the point of wanting to scream, “Get out of my face!” rather than feed into that energy, let’s activate our own personal power and engage in one of the three ways above (if not all of them).
At the end of day, it’s about avoiding being stuck in the rut of tense and prickly, and doing so in a way that is not only creative, but also constructive.
