How Catholics Deal with Difficult People

About this sermon

When we encounter abusive behaviour from someone else, it’s going to influence our perception of other people and what we can expect from them. Abuse can teach us to be more suspicious and antagonistic towards other people because of how prominent those experiences are in shaping our social development. When we encounter people who are difficult or even abusive towards us, are we going to allow that cycle to emanate out from us as well or are we going to be prepared to interrupt it? So, in anticipation of that possibility, here are some tips I’d offer about how to deal with difficult or even abusive people. The first thing I’d suggest is to realize that it’s not about you. They aren’t treating you that way because of you, they’re doing it because that’s their modus operandi. That’s how they learned to interact as a result of the things they’ve experienced or some pathology that is deeply rooted in their psychology. So don’t take it personally. And if you can manage that, it will make the next part easier, which is to forgive them. Now forgiveness has to be one of the most misunderstood concepts I can think of which is why I understand that his idea turns off a lot of people. People seem to think that to forgive is to welcome someone back into a privileged position of intimacy in your life; one in which they can hurt you again. And I don’t think that that’s necessary in order to forgive someone. Forgiveness means to let go of whatever they’ve done and to wish them well moving forward. It means that you won’t entertain feelings and desires for revenge or even restitution. You don’t have to strongarm your emotions in an attempt to have good feelings about that person. You don’t have to like them to forgive them. And, again, if you can understand that this likely wasn’t personal, as in they did this because of something specifically about you, but rather, it had everything to do with who they are and how they operate, then this idea of forgiveness should be a little easier to swallow. In the end, it liberates you most of all because you can get on with your life without letting what happened to you overshadow other aspects of your life. It will help you prevent that experience from shaping your perception of other people, as it did to your abuser when they suffered something similar. The last step is about how you respond to an immediate instance of antagonism or abuse. Do you return insult for insult or is there a better way? I think it’s important to understand that the former is what they expect. They’ve already predetermined that you, along with everyone else, are an adversary and their behaviour towards you is the inevitable result of that perception. But what if you interrupt that perception. What if you defy their expectations by responding in a way that discredits the conclusions they’ve made about the world and the people (especially you) in it? Imagine if you were to return kindness for their abuse. This is the kind of thing that is so catastrophically contradictory to the things they believe about other people, that it might just be the thing that completely interrupts their default behaviour. Many of us saw an amazing example of this on Twitter recently involving comedian Sarah Silverman, who is someone I disagree with on a lot, but I really admired her response in this situation. When a young man called her a vulgar name as a response to something she tweeted out, she responded in compassion by reading through his profile and learning that he has a lot of pain. She told him that she understands his pain and that she believes in him. And what happened is, it completely disarmed him and the next thing he did was share with her that he was abused and that it’s paralyzed him in life. She went on to encourage him more and to ask her many followers to rally around him to see if anyone could help him. That’s the kind of thing that nobody, especially her abuser, expected and because it’s so unexpected, it shakes us loose from our default way of treating people and helps us to see the goodness in others. That example is a true moment of what I think Jesus meant by turning the other cheek and it’s about the only thing that will actually move things forward in a positive way. We can either choose to dive into that cycle of abuse and keep that pattern alive and well or we can do the hard thing and see through that abusive behaviour and, hopefully, interrupt that pattern in the process. Twitter: https://twitter.com/briankeepsworth Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brianholdsworthmedia Business: https://www.holdsworthdesign.com