Toxic relating and toxic relationships are compelling for many reasons. Reasons which are for many people not understood until it’s too late. By too late I mean that people are already jumping right into harms way, emotionally. psychologically, and sometimes even physically by allowing things to get too close too fast and become far more important based on a lack of so much understanding of who someone really is underneath the charm and often false face they first present to you.
There are many charming seemingly wonderful people who would at first glance, and on the surface, seem to be great friendship or relationship candidates and yet they are anything but. Why? Because they have hidden agendas. Because they have toxic personality traits. Because they are exploitative and manipulative. Because they are not approaching the relational dynamic that quickly unfolds for the same reasons that you likely are. They are not people who can be trusted but they can literally charm the pants off of you, reel you in to where your focus on them becomes addictive and all-consuming. They are predators – wolves in sheep’s clothing and it’s important that more people learn how not to end up in the very painful toxic relational dynamics and/or toxic relationships.
Waiting, and slowing things down is your best defense against these types of people. Keep in mind they know who to prey on at the same time. People who don’t want to be alone. People really longing for connection and/or a relationship. That’s why it’s also important to get to know yourself better and work through unresolved childhood issues so that you don’t end up in one of the most painful and often dangerous relational dynamics known to humankind – toxic relationships/toxic relational dynamics. They are not about love. They are not the pathway to happiness or to the future that you want and need for yourself. They just appear to be until one day, if you haven’t learned yet to wait to get to know someone, you wake up and wonder how you got into this place that leaves you feeling like you don’t know yourself and/or that you’ve lost yourself.
Be willing and prepared to wait for what you most want and need. Trust that the winds that blow in your life today have purpose. Learn to wait.
You can and will protect yourself from so much unnecessary pain if you learn to wait and to proceed more slowly with caution in life. Trust your instincts always. Do not be fooled by what feels familiar. Often what is most familiar beckons you back to unfinished painful past issues and is not the love you seek at all.
Wait out those impulses to jump into things or relationships with people when it all feels so familiar. Wait. That familiar feeling is often a red flag that you likely feel somewhere in your instincts is a stop sign and yet so many people are drawn to the toxic familiar like moths to a flame. This is what is important to start realizing and gaining more awareness about to be able to create changes in relational patterns that no longer are healthy for you or that do not serve you well.
Waiting is a sacred time of unfolding preparation for what is to come. Waiting is an important part of the process of change, healing, recovery and the increased awareness that will help you begin to learn more about the awareness and enlightenment that you most need in your life today. Trust that.
Learn to be okay with being alone. Learn to value your precious sacred self. Unlearn the negative associations society has taught us all about what it means to be alone. I help many of my clients learn to re-frame thoughts and process negative core beliefs from childhood so they can free themselves from the hooks that can lead them into these types of toxic and very painful and unrewarding relationships. Sometimes, being alone, is the only way to heal, to recover, to learn the lessons that help us to not continue to repeat the same painful mistakes. Learn to wait. Learn to be alone.
Waiting is not a passive reality. As we wait for some things to become more clear, as we wait to find our way through loss, pain, grief, anger, or remorse, we must take healing and life-changing action. The first step on this ladder of growth is taking responsibility for wherever you are today. Radically accept wherever you are today, even if you are in pain. Do not judge yourself or allow yourself to be so self-critical that you are becoming your own worst enemy. You need to nurture and care about yourself – to be your own best friend. If you hurt – hurt. It is okay to hurt. If you are in pain – radically accept that pain. Pain is a teacher. If you are grieving – grieve. Grief frees up precious space for new in our lives and creates space in a previously wounded heart to make changes so that you can and will find healthier love and/or connection. If you are angry – allow yourself to have healthy constructive anger. Anger is a positive motivating force for change. Wherever you are in your life today, right this minute, radically accept it and surrender to all it is that you cannot control. Control yourself. Tend to your own emotions. Go within and find out who you are as you wait for the lessons to teach you what you need to know to take you to where you are meant to go.
Wait.
Be patient. Trust the process. Have faith. Sit with the reality that is your unfolding life right now. Sit with the heartache, sit with the sadness, sit with the insecurity, sit with the fear, sit with the anxiety. Be one with all you feel in true acceptance of it all. For this is the gateway to the change that you know you need. This is the gateway to the enlightenment you so seek.
Wait.
Relief comes when you tend to the lessons contained within the vortex of your pain and discontent. You will only find pain in rushing into things with others. You will be wide-open and vulnerable to toxic people, toxic relationships, and toxic relating if you do not take your time, heed and assess any red flags, and sit with what your instincts warn you about what you feel. Wait. Heed your instincts.
Wait.
Do what you can today with what you have. Let go of all of your yesterdays and grieve their pain and loss but then turn to today, to this very moment and all that it seeks to offer you as you wait for more understanding and clarity.
In my waiting I will continue to seek. I will take the action that I can to effect the change that is being revealed to me in my life. I will take personal responsibility for where I am today. I am responsible for how I feel. I am responsible for any and all choices I have made or failed to make.
If you are in a toxic relationship and you want to create change and healing in your life begin by taking necessary action to free yourself and then by being nurturing and gentle to and with yourself as you wait for your lessons and as you grieve. Do not judge yourself. You are doing the very best that you can with what you know.
Today, in the action of radical acceptance, I surrender to all that it is that life asks me to wait for.
© A.J. Mahari – All rights reserved.
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