What about Toxic People?

23 Feb What about Toxic People?

Posted at 08:54h in Los Angeles Tantra by Catherine Auman 0 Comments

I know it’s quite popular, but I don’t agree with this concept that certain people are toxic. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all to label people that way; I find it harsh and inaccurate. Perhaps it might be helpful to label some behaviors that people do as “toxic” so that we learn to develop strong boundaries, but the appointing of some beings as “toxic” is often used as a justification to not love people.

In a tantric prospective nothing is toxic; in a yogic perspective everything is either toxic or non-toxic. In the tantric worldview nothing is forbidden; everything is holy. So a challenging relationship with a difficult person may be just what is needed to make us aware of where and how we need to grow.

Observe it: your mind is busy coming up with reasons why to not love people. They’re toxic, or not good-looking enough, or not spiritual, or they have too many problems. Where are these people who have no problems? People come with problems, and they’re going to stir you and make your life difficult, and that’s a good thing.

This idea of “people who are toxic” can be coming from a place of “how do I keep people away?” Not consciously, of course, it’s subtle. Who can I keep away from me because they’re too toxic, and they’ll bring me problems? All of these people that I don’t want to let close. Really, that’s focusing on how to keep love away.

I’m asking you to flip your question 180 degrees to: How could I let people close? Use your intelligence to figure out how to let people in instead of how to keep people out. Who are you going to allow yourself to love? Consider that instead of thinking about who and what is toxic. Open up and let us in.

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