Wellness Wednesday: Recognizing Toxic Friendships

Do you have people in your life that if you are being honest with yourself, don’t bring out the best version of you?

Toxic friendships and people can come in many different forms, from the blatantly toxic to those who simply never make you feel good about yourself.

For this Wellness Wednesday, your goal is to identify the toxic friendships in your life and start to remove them from your circle.

You wouldn’t let your child or best friend have toxic people in your life, and neither should you.

A toxic person, whether it’s a old or new friend, a colleague or anyone else, can make you feel really bad about yourself.

This is not OK.

I realized years ago that sadly, I had a friend who was incredibly good to me when I was really sick. But as my blog and PR business grew, things felt different. My counselor said — and I feel awkward typing this — that jealousy likely was at play. That this friend liked the “successful” role, and wasn’t as kind when I started to flourish.

It took me a long time to work myself out of that toxic situation, but it was coming to grips with the situation that took the longest.

There’s room for all of us to have big success.

So whether you have a so-called best friend, a colleague, a family member or someone on the “periphery,” it’s time you are honest with yourself.

A toxic person can be detrimental to you, physically and mentally.

Imagine how much better you would feel if you removed this person (or people!) from your life.

So who am I referring to?

Here are examples of toxic friendships in your life:

Anyone who criticizes and critiques you

Someone who constantly complains

Someone who doesn’t make you feel good

Anyone who is not happy for your happiness

Everything is a constant competition

It’s clear she doesn’t believe in you and your dreams

You find them bringing you down more than building you up

Anyone who regularly appears jealous of you

Someone who keeps disappointing you

Anyone that you find yourself constantly talking/complaining about

They don’t value your time, and regularly cancel on you

They are always asking something, but are never available to return the favor (be it with their time, ideas or physical help)

Anyone who negatively impacts your other relationships

You constantly feel “less than” when you’re with them

You simply dread seeing them

 

ALRIGHT, NOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT TOXIC FRIENDSHIPS

Let’s be honest: we all have at least one person in our life like this. Sometimes it’s nearly impossible to remove them, let’s say it’s family, an ex-spouse or your boss. The key is to recognize it so you can set up boundaries to protect yourself.

As the mantra says, you are only as good and strong as the people you surround yourself with.

If you feel the person is worth it, consider having an open dialogue and see if things

If they are someone inevitably in your life, take comments with a grain of salt, eliminate such frequent interaction, be polite and don’t engage or feed into the toxic behaviors; they’re looking for a charge or engagement from you.

Otherwise, I know it’s terrible but sometimes friend “break ups” are necessary.

The key takeaway for this Wellness Wednesday:

You cannot continue to invest in people who do not invest in you and feed your soul.