Sometimes there are situations when life forces you to build relationships with a not quite pleasant person, sometimes with someone who is frankly bad, shows obvious disrespect and even outright hates. For example, a daughter-in-law has to endure the dislike of her husband's mother, or an employee is forced to work with a conflicted person. Is there a way to build such a relationship?
Sometimes life confronts us with a person who treats us negatively, and at the same time it is impossible to avoid communication with him. What steps should be taken to at least mitigate the situation?
Step away from the situation and analyze the reason for the negative attitude towards you
You need to clearly understand why the person is showing negative attitudes or even hating you. At this stage, you will not be able to change the situation, but this information will help you build a different line of your behavior with him.
If negative behavior is associated only with a person's character, and you got into his field of activity by accident, this is one option. If you have somehow touched on something important to him, even if it is his erroneous interpretation, this is a different situation. Understand why the person is so painful. Maybe he is afraid of losing something, being alone, getting less attention?
At this stage, you clearly need to understand the essence of hostility and try not to relate to this fact in any way.
Your attitude to the situation is one of the most important factors in its development
The conflict is based on the fact that one participant is hostile, the other somehow allows him to treat himself that way, otherwise all the hostility would pass by.
Take a detached view of the situation. How does it start, how does it develop, what feelings do all participants experience?
For example, if they start to attack you and express unfounded accusations, you react in the appropriate way - you consider them unfair, take offense (silently or verbally), etc. This is the foundation on your part that supports the conflict and allows it to develop.
Now imagine that in your place there would be a completely different person who would not take unfair accusations personally, ignore them, would not be offended internally by the injustice of the aggressor, but would calmly react to the situation in a positive manner. Try to imagine how such a conflict would develop in the future? He would noticeably fade away, and the aggressor, having lost the target, which allowed him to show aggression, would soon switch to another person.
So, a change in your own position can direct the relationship in a different direction.
However, this is very difficult to do, because here you have to overcome your habits and attitudes.
How to develop the right attitude to the situation?
To treat such a situation correctly, that is, not taking accusations personally, not showing internal aggression and reacting in a positive way, you need a special quality, which in Christianity is called humility. It is his presence that can emotionally extinguish the conflict, while internal aggression and fair indignation, on the contrary, will lead you to intensify the conflict.
Humility is a very complex quality and it takes a long time to develop. Humility includes a lack of retaliatory aggression to unfair behavior and a positive attitude towards the situation and towards the other person, despite their inappropriate behavior. As we remember from history, Christ himself was the preacher of humility.
You can use simple techniques that can help you develop the right attitude towards the person who may hate you.
To do this, you need to monitor your emotions in every conflict situation, not develop a response to injustice, understand that this situation is a kind of test for inner maturity. If this stage succeeds, half the battle is done. If not, at first you must at least not show your aggression outwardly in a verbal skirmish. You may need to use some techniques to release the aggression later through physical activity (exercise, running, etc.) or through journaling. You should not accumulate hidden resentment or irritation in yourself. These emotions need to be released, but in a form that is safe for yourself and others.
And at the final stage, when everything described has become a habit, you can add one trick, which at first may seem strange. You need to find something positive in the aggressor and thank him mentally. If this does not work out in moments of his negative attitude, practice this technique at another time. You can thank him for something good that is in every person or for some specific manifestations. After all, even he did something good, maybe specifically for us, only we have not seen this before.
Gratitude is needed as a counterbalance to aggression. Sooner or later, the aggression will be extinguished.
So, developing the right attitude towards the person who hates you, you can get out of the conflict or make it almost invisible.
