You may have a relationship or two or three with toxic people. Think about the people you know, the relationships you have whether it be family, friends, neighbors, co-workers or anyone you see on a fairly regular basis. What are the signs and clues that this person is toxic?
Here’s the number one sign that the relationship you have with certain people is toxic. You don’t look forward to seeing them! When you know you are gong to see them, you aren’t really that excited about it. In fact, you may even dread it. You may think back on the last time you were with them and it wasn’t fun. This sign may seem so obvious, but we really overlook this blaring clue about certain relationships because we may feel obligated to see them or keep the relationship intact. Maybe they are family members, your own friends or that of your partner, your kids parents, people you have to work with or your boss. It could be an ex, a neighbor that you avoid or a group of friends where you feel excited to see some of them and you want to steer clear of others. We all know people like this and they aren’t bad people, usually they are just unaware.
The next sign it’s a toxic relationship is that you feel drained after being with them. Especially if you are an empath, you will feel that you just want to remove yourself from their presence and go home. They have a way of pulling the life force out of you. This can be a sign that you have a relationship with a narcissists also, but to a different degree and there are other tell tale signs of being with a narcissist. You can usually recover faster after being with a toxic person depending on your sensitivity level.
Another sign of a toxic person is that the conversation is primarily and consistently about them. As soon as you start to talk about your life, they quickly interrupt, interject or divert the conversation back to them. I am not talking about the occasional conversation where we don’t listen well and we are so excited to tell someone about something that happened or an experience that we had. We all do that on occasion. This is when you know the conversation is going to be about them and then it’s over. You leave feeling that you didn’t get a word in edgewise. Even if it was to contribute to something they said!
Toxic people have a negative, complaining and victim type spin on everything. You notice that they don’t seem to take responsibility for their lives, circumstances and relationships. Again, we all have moments when we just want to dump our loads, for someone to listen and not really give us any advice or suggestions for things that we should probably change in our lives. I’m talking about consistency here again. When you are with these people, there is an energy drain quality to the negativity. The same conversation could happen the very next day and nothing has changed in how they see the world. In other words, there is a lack of awareness as mentioned above.
The signs of not looking forward to being with these people, feeling drained after being with them, the conversation always being about them and it being negative the majority of the time are all clues that you are in a toxic relationship.
But it’s not all about them after all. Yes, these people can serve to give you valuable insight into how your soul wants you to evolve. Have you ever visited a place and after you left, you thought, wow, I’m glad I visited, but I would never want to live there? When you have toxic relationships, you are given a window into their world and often what bothers you about them is something that you may not like about yourself or it may be a trait that your soul would like you to work on or clear. This doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to end a toxic relationship, particularly if it becomes abusive. That is a topic for a different blog. These are the relationships where you may have to stay, and in order to do so, you will have to develop tools to equip yourself when around them.
In order to stay in these relationships and maintain a sense of self, there are a few tools you can use along the way. You will have to establish strong energetic boundaries. Meaning you don’t have to accept every invitation when invited, especially when you feel depleted yourself. You can also limit your time with them and release any guilt you may have around this. Respecting your energy and time may be new to you, but it’s part of your own evolution. Along the lines of evolving from a spiritual perspective, you may notice on your path of awakening that in the beginning you will have less tolerance for toxic people and then there will come a time when you notice yourself accepting them just as they are.
This can take time and clearing of our own negative energy, but there starts to be a softening toward people. You begin to see them just as human beings doing what they know on their individual path. You can observe this about yourself as you are in their presence. It doesn’t mean you don’t set boundaries with them or remove yourself when your intuition says to, but it gives you an opportunity to observe yourself in their presence and how you have learned from them on an energetic and spiritual level.
You can meet them where they are and not try to change them or have them become more like you. The universe has orchestrated your relationships and is waiting for you to discover or even stumble upon the lessons gleaned from these interactions. What have you learned from toxic relationships? How did you adjust to the relationship or did you end it? Let me know in the comments.
Peace, health and love
