The people we usually turn to for advice about how to live our best lives -- the self-help evangelists, relationship gurus, business leadership icons, and even spiritual seekers -- have been echoing a troubling refrain lately.

As the emerging wisdom goes:

Some people are toxic and we must distance ourselves from them or their toxicity will rub off on us.

Even usually adept social philosophers and cultural commentators have taken the bait and shared this terrible, unfortunate, dirty little secret about human nature. 

“Ain’t it a crying shame?” They’ll remark with downcast eyes. “There’s nothing we can do, it’s an unavoidable truth. Tsk tsk.”

These truth-tellers are well-meaning but they are misguided.

There’s no such thing as a toxic person.

Everything is a relationship.

Yes, everything.

We think of relationships narrowly as the bonds, however shallow or deep, that we have with other human beings, but relationships truly extend beyond the scope of our interactions with other people to include how we react and respond to every instance that our sense of self comes into contact with some aspect of the world around us.

How could this be so?

Because of the fundamental nature of relationships in the most general sense.

There’s no real way to avoid relationship challenges and conflicts. They are going to happen. It’s how we respond when they do --and how we prepare ourselves for them in the first place-- that will make all the difference in how we experience them.

Learning how to approach relationships differently and developing the awareness and strength it sometimes takes to follow through in the moment will help us navigate whatever challenges we face and find peace amidst the drama, the confusion, and the heartbreak.

2016 was a big year.

Collectively, it was kind of rough. We faced an onslaught of bad news, negativity, and shifting norms without the essential heartening ingredient of an inspired public discourse that lights a clear path forward in a common understanding. In our personal lives, we felt more unsettled than usual (and our shifting collective foundation must have contributed to this). We seemed to feel our transitions a little more intensely, we were a little less sure of ourselves, and we sensed a certain loss of control over the direction our lives are going in.