Why does being around certain people wreck my prayer life?

Because when our soul is disrupted, our prayer becomes disrupted. Inadvertently, these people are not just attacking our emotional well-being. On some level they are attacking our relationship with God and our ability to stay connected with him. It's like buying a house beside a train yard: the noise disrupts you every time you try to pray and be silent. You don't blame the train yard.

You simply understand that to maintain your prayer, you need to be somewhere silent. You can't sit down in Times Square and expect a fruitful time with the Jesus Prayer. Yes, you can pray everywhere and at all times, but to truly immerse ourselves in prayer we need a certain stillness. That's one reason the monastics say their prayers in the dark, in the middle of the night or very early morning.

Keeping that stillness in our life and in our soul is part of our spiritual maturation. Many of us grew up in tumultuous homes where fighting and yelling were the norm, so into adulthood it's important to prioritize our peace and say, I can't be everything to everyone. In extreme circumstances you may have to cut somebody out because they are truly a spiritual and emotional danger.

But for most people, you weigh out how much of them you can handle and how often. Toxic people constantly want more from you, and I've observed over the years that truly dysfunctional people actually thrive on creating chaos. It is not our responsibility to entertain that and ruin our spiritual connection so they feel accepted. It is not required by God.