People Can't Drive You Crazy If You Don't Give Them the Keys

by Mike Bechtle

The event isn’t really the problem; it’s our response to the event.

Martin Luther supposedly said, “You might not be able to stop the birds from landing on your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.”

We need to become nicer or more patient on the inside. It takes too much energy to fake it.

We can’t overlook the impact of faith on our lives, either. I’ve found that my resources for solving relationship problems are limited, but trusting God to build character in my life is the greatest source of strength.

I realized that my problem was threefold: I didn’t have all the facts, so I made assumptions. I decided those assumptions were accurate. My emotions were based on assumptions that were untrue (but I didn’t know they were untrue).

That’s the problem with our perspective; we always assume we’re right based on the information we have.

No matter what the other person does, it’s our perspective that determines how we feel and respond.

1. If I can convince someone of the facts, they’ll respond differently.

I’ll never be happy until this relationship is fixed.

If they would just get right with God, everything would be OK.

It takes two people to improve a relationship.

When we can’t change a situation and we can’t leave the situation, we can choose our response to the situation.

I can’t change the traffic, but I can protect my emotions from being hijacked by that traffic.

It’s important to know what we can control and what we can’t. When we confuse the two, we set ourselves up for frustration.

It’s unhealthy to be at the mercy of what someone does or doesn’t do. We can’t control the choices and attitudes of others. The only thing we really have control over is our own choices and attitudes. When we take responsibility for our own choices, we gain greater influence in other people’s lives. When we focus on things we can’t do anything about, we lose influence with others. We give away our joy and our sense of self to their weaknesses.

When people experience strong emotion, they can’t hear logic. Have you ever tried reasoning with a frustrated spouse or an angry teenager? How did it go?

Life is filled with examples of things we can and can’t control. Most people have trouble separating the two, and it causes stress. Our expectations are unrealistic when we try to change the unchangeable.

Holding anger toward someone in that way is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.

We need to become intentional about influencing others. It allows us to take responsibility for our side of a relationship, while giving others the freedom to make their own choices.

Influence means living a healthy emotional life in close proximity to others.

We shouldn’t place expectations on those relationships, because then we would become discouraged when people don’t respond properly.

It simply means that God hasn’t given up and will be intimately involved with him throughout his whole life.

Relationships are dynamic because people are always changing. We can’t plan our responses until we see what they say or do.

It’s not my job to fix another person.

People can change—but don’t count on it.

hope and pray that they change; accept the fact that they might not change; and avoid becoming victims while we influence their lives.

Escaping doesn’t always solve the problem.

We need to talk to the person, not about them.

How do we stay focused on facts? By talking to the crazy person, not simply about him. Gossip never promotes healing. Truth does.

There’s usually no need to lecture or punish. It’s much more effective to just let people feel the natural consequences of their choices.

I’ve learned that God never gives up on someone, and he’s the one who is working in their lives.

If we can’t change another person, we must learn how to change ourselves.

Recognize and celebrate each person’s uniqueness, including their natural weaknesses and strengths. Let people work in their areas of strength. Provide training in those areas of strength so they can specialize and excel in what they’re naturally wired to do.4

It’s easy to assume that if the other person changed, everything would be better. But we have our own blind spots that contribute to the chaos. We need to look inward, observing the areas of need in our own lives as well.

At a basic level, that’s true. But the reason we have strong emotions is because we care. If we didn’t care, our emotions wouldn’t be a problem.

Emotions are a gift from God that make our lives multicolor masterpieces. Without feelings, life becomes beige.

A reaction is how we feel; a response is what we do. Reactions are automatic, but we choose our responses.

Messed-up thinking mixed with strong emotion leads us to focus on the problem rather than the solution.

God won’t necessarily make your crazy people go away. But when we become different, we’ll see those people differently. We’ll hold the keys to unlocking healthy relationships.

But humility is a position of strength in a relationship. It means seeing ourselves and others through the lens of truth, not through our reactive emotions.

We can love the crazy people in our lives without handing them the reins of the relationship. We don’t need to roll over in submission and always let them have their way. Honestly determining what they need and finding appropriate ways to meet those needs is essential.

A healthy person’s life is characterized by joy.

Joy is something that comes into our lives when we replace our negative lens with a bigger perspective of truth. That doesn’t mean everything will suddenly be perfect; it just means we’ll see people and situations as they really are.

But fixing others isn’t our responsibility. We’re choosing the wrong stuff when we try. We’re only responsible for our own choices and actions. In relationships, the “wrong stuff” is anything that is the responsibility of another person.

The more we focus on our own responsibilities instead of trying to fix everyone else, the more we’ll be in charge of our own emotions.

Contentment comes when we know what things we’re responsible for and which ones we should let go.

What can I control? Me—my choices and attitudes What can I not control? Everything else—including my boss.

Patience is what develops inside of us between those encounters. It’s the characteristic that helps us stay strong when things are tough over the long haul.

Patience allows us to let people change at their own pace. Without it, we’re putting all of our hope in future progress instead of living in present reality.

But only strong people can be truly kind. Kindness becomes one of the characteristics that enable us to deal effectively with others.