Hello everyone!
Character reveals everything about a person. A person's true character will always show itself. This may take time but the real man or woman will shine through with undeniable clarity. People can't hide from who they are, no matter how hard they try. A few times in my life, this has given me the opportunity to end things that need to be ended. There are times that in order to end things, you must practice silence, absense and the simple act of walking away.
More recently I learned some things about a friend, well someone I thought of as a friend, that showed me this person was not really a friend but simply a user among other things. I wrote a blog about users the other day and how you spot them. I had a user, that was undeniable. I began the practice of silence, absense and walking away.
I will explain in detail how I practice these in order to have healthy relationships and remove toxic people from my life. I hope this will help someone else who sees the need to do the same.
The first thing I did was based upon the knowledge at hand and some concensus opinion from close friends. I determined I needed to end my friendship and professional relationship with this person for my own emotional health. I removed this person from my cell phone (silence). Confronting this person about the issues at hand would not have done any good as denial is their action of choice. Second, I removed myself from social media as far as they are concerned so they have no access to my day to day life nor I to their day to day life (silence/absense). They are free to follow my writing workbut not my personal life. Third, I determined I would not be returning to their place of work (absense). I am no longer in need of services attached to ulterior, unhealthy motives. These three steps culminated into the practice of walking away. I have walked away from an unhealthy person who can't be honest and who is full of ulterior, unhealthy motives towards myself and others. This type of person is not your friend or mine, not now not ever. Period.
I want to encourage everyone reading this to take a look at their friends. If one of them matches the descriptions I have given in this blog, it is time for silence, absense and to walk away entirely from that relationship. I would ask you if you will not walk away, what is your payoff? What is it that you need from that person or that you perceive you need? Listen to your close friends who care about you! We don't always see everything ourselves at first. Sometimes we need help to see!
My decision in regards to this particular frienship is final. There will be times you won't be able to explain your actions to people because they will not only not accept them, they will deny the reason you are exiting their life. The only way this particular decision would change is if God changed it for me and this person did lot of work in their own life. I am not responsible for their emotional health or heart work but I am responsible for mine. I choose emotional health over quantity of friends. I choose quality of friends over quantity of friends.
Examine those who are in your life. Are they uplifting you? Do they trully care about you? Do they trully support you? Do they love you for who you are? Are they hoping to gain something from you? Are they using you?
If we can answer these questions well about our relationships, we can ensure we have the healthiest relationships and stay away from unhealthy people and relationships.
We will always be navigating relationships, let's navigate them well with wisdom.
Unhealty relationships need not apply.
Until next time,
Elizabeth