Quick Tip: Detoxing

No matter how hard you work from your end to make relationships successful, there are always a few that pop up now and then that are just inherently problematic.  I call these toxic relationships, because they take a lot of time and energy away from the good relationships in your life. 

Some examples of toxic relationships:

• Relationships with Poor Boundaries
• Relationships with Ex's
• One-Sided Relationships (You're giving more than you're receiving)
• Flakey People
• Unstable People
• People with Too Much Drama

It's important to periodically "take stock" of the relationships in your life and detoxify yourself so that you can turn your time and energy back to the relationships that deserve it.  Otherwise, you'll find that you've worked very hard to try to make something work that simply never will, and in the meantime, you've seriously neglected something that would have been successful, so you end up with a double loss.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you always have to eliminate toxic relationships completely - you might, instead, just put up really strong boundaries and significantly reduce that person's role in your life.  Sometimes relationships become toxic because the other person is dealing with an issue in their personal life, and once they get through it they could become a healthy relationship again.  So, if you feel this is the case you might want to hold on to some extent.

This detoxing idea is especially important for those people who chronically try to be "rescuers".  Many of us often feel like we can be the hero in someone's life and subconsciously seek out pity cases so that we can chase the high of feeling like we helped them turn their life around.  To you I say take a serious look back over past relationships like this and honestly look at the outcome pattern - I can guarantee that in most cases, your efforts didn't really change a whole lot.  We really don't have the power to change anyone but ourselves.  So, that's where your time and energy should be focused to truly be happy.