Negative people slow you down towards achieving your goals. Whether they know it or not, they end up discouraging you from being ambitious or following your dreams by questioning what you’re doing and planting doubts in your head. Negative energy from toxic people affects your energy level, not to mention your stress and anxiety. Ultimately, it’s your health and well-being, so you are responsible for taking care of it!
You need to create space for positive change to happen. Being in toxic relationships with people and allowing their negative energy into your life will hold you back from manifesting opportunities for your success. Also, releasing negative people will create space for the positive folks to enter, who will encourage, support, and help you grow as a person.
How to detox negative people from your life:
Step 1: Decide that you’re worth it
You need to feel as if you’re worthy of achieving your goals and changing into the person you want to be. Letting go of any negativity in your life will help you get there faster. You’ve got to be committed to doing this for yourself otherwise your guilt for letting go of certain relationships will keep you in the same place (more in Step 3).
How to realize you’re worth it: Decide. Simply. Make the choice and decide that it’s time you committed to yourself, your goals, and your dreams and you won’t let anything stop or slow you down from getting there.
- Think about the negative side effects of holding onto these relationships. Ask yourself:
- What effect are these relationships having on my life?
- What are my goals and how badly do I want to achieve them? Are these people supporting my goals or slowing me down?
Step 2: Identify the toxic folks
Toxic people make you feel worse than when you started talking to them. They bring your energy level down. They leave you feeling bummed out.
There is a difference between someone sharing with you their struggles and challenges vs someone who constantly complains. The difference is someone who is genuinely struggling is willing to listen to constructive feedback and is open to change (and does change). Conversely, whiners and complainers don’t want to change and just want you to feel sorry for them.
They shoot down your ideas. e.g., They question what you’re doing. They may say something like, “Well, maybe you shouldn’t change careers because you have so much job security here. What about your benefits? Or your retirement?” This is pretty common and sometimes subtle and harder to notice. Even though it may sound like they’re giving you advice, in the end, they’re just putting more doubts into your head because your actions may bring up their own fears and insecurity.
Toxic people can fall within the spectrum of being subtly draining to all around toxic and hostile (read: openly critical of you). But even if they fall on the less severe end of the “toxic people spectrum”, they will still bring you down. People don’t need to be outright poisonous to affect you negatively.
Step 3: Let them go
Just start. Use whatever method you think is appropriate. Avoid them. Don’t pick up their calls. Apologize for being distant but you don’t need to explain why or defend your actions.
You don’t have to explain anything to them unless you feel need to because they’re being persistent and pushy. This is because they are probably not in a state of mind to listen to what you have to say anyway and will probably get on the defensive if you try to explain yourself.
Do it gracefully and with love. Send them off with love and a prayer. Be open to the possibility that if and when they are ready to change and be more positive/supportive, then you would be open to rekindling the relationship.
Enjoy this great day!
Your Holistic Health Coach
