MENTAL HEALTH MONTH || 3 things you can do today to emerge from the shadows of toxic relationships
Breaking up is hard to do.
This holds true for all kinds of relationships: friendships, work and romantic relationships.
How you can truly make it so that ‘this time it’s different’ is by closing the door of opportunity for these past relationships to continue haunting or hurting you. Easy to say, hard to do, right?
We’ve got 3 concrete actions you can take starting today to strengthen yourself to shut out these negative influences on your life.
“Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.”
Don’t chase the hurt.
The first step, block them on social media. Minimizing the potential touchpoints of engaging with your past gives you fewer reasons to relive the pain. Do you want them to know you’re still taking a quick peek at their IG stories? Do you need to stay in touch with their best friends? Do you really need to know if they’ve moved on? Does that really make you feel better? We would bet it actually hurts more than it fuels your soul. Why do we go searching for ways to hurt ourselves? The reality is that some of us enjoy playing the victim but it just drags out your recovery process. Just let it go.
What purpose is there for you to scroll through their social media to stay up-to-date with their lives? It opens up more opportunities for you to relive an unpleasant experience and stay where you had fallen.
Delete them from all of your records.
And we mean ALL. Whether that’s from your phone, on your iCloud, or from a written note that has their email address scribbled on it. Either they chose not to be a part of your life or you chose to show them the door. However events transpired, there is no longer a reason for you to stay in touch through any means of communication unless, of course, you’re leaving the door open to rekindle the relationship. If this is the case, ask yourself why you’re lying to yourself about wanting to move on.
Don’t mention it.
We understand that initially, you will need to release your emotions to your friends or through journaling, but don’t let yourself dwell on it. Did you know that people love the sound of their own name? In Napoleon Hill’s book, How to Win Friends and Influencer People, he shares that one of the key ways to make friends is to address the person by their name. Saying a person’s name gives them power. Don’t mention it. Repeating the stories of how they’ve hurt you in a romantic relationship or, in the case of a work scenario, what they’ve done at work to throw you under the bus does not make anything better; it just gives them more airtime in your life. Do you want to invest more time in this person even when they have no idea how upset you are? The only person upset is yourself; they don’t know nor care about how you feel anymore, so doesn’t it seem like a massive waste of time?
You may have chosen to engage in a friendship, work or romantic relationship with someone and it didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay there wallowing in your failure. It’s only a true defeat if you stay down, so get up and get moving to take control of the relationships in your life and start emerging form the shadow of toxic relationships today.
