“Resentment, anger, frustration, worry, disappointment - emotional states, take a toll on your heart, brain and body. Don't let justified emotions rob your health and well-being.” Doc Childre Top Stress and Performance Researcher 1978-2010.
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Going out of your way to expose yourself to toxins is not something a person looking for health and well-being would knowingly court. Toxins are by definition a poisonous substance produced by living organisms. Once absorbed they do damage, they can be as mild as say a bee sting or as fatal as say botulism. And whilst in this crazy mixed up world bee stung lips and botoxed foreheads may have become desirable... let us not forget, the swelling from a bee sting is painful and botulism leads to paralysis of the breathing muscles and causes respiratory failure.
Keeping healthy is something we all realise is something we have a responsibility to do. We are more aware than any generations that came before us of the effects of toxic poisons on our bodies and that to illuminate or at least reduce such poisons is conducive to a longer healthier...and ultimately happier life. We are all getting pretty good at avoiding the poisons that lower our positive well-being.
Except when it comes to friends.
Go back and look at the definition of toxic... a poisonous substance produced by living organisms that once absorbed do damage.
Yup... sometimes the people we allow into our lives are as toxic as any other substance we come across. And sometimes there are those whom after exposure to leave their friends drained, exhausted and devoid of self esteem. Once their evil work is done you find yourself questioning YOUR OWN judgement – you give gravitas to their assessment of your value – after all YOU are the one who calls this person a friend. You remain in a state of paralysis as sure as if you have been exposed to botulism.
Of course the sensible thing to do is to recognise that you have been poisoned and reduce the expose to the source – if not cut it our all together.
But this is easier said than done. Cutting contact with a friend is a difficult and often heartbreaking experience – after all you must have seen good in this person once...why else would you have had them as a friend in the first place? Maybe they are just giving you some 'tough love' for your own good. Maybe they are just trying to help you.
However if a friend turns toxic believe me they are NOT trying to help anyone other than themselves. A toxic friend will go out of their way to undermine your true potential for happiness. They will ensure that their assessment of you is attacking your self belief and will paralyses any attempt you make to progress.
An easier way to spot a toxic friend is to look at the friendships you are most proud of your role in. Look at the friendships where you know your friend has the utmost confidence that you have only THEIR best interests at heart. You will easily see that the friendship is characterised by lasting memories, shared hopes and dreams plus an ability to some how know when to physically be there when you need them most. This is the friendship where you are genuinely concerned for your friends well-being, where you share a pragmatic view of the past, present and future, where advice is welcomed, where support is shared and returned, where views are exchanged and where exposure to each other enhances life. Yeah.. a row or two may well take place over the years, but you never feel undermined and neither do they.
Toxic friendships are nothing like the above. Toxic friendships should be cut out like the cancer they are. Ruthlessly without sentiment or apology. Believe me the cancer analogy was not accidental... you cannot live with this level of toxic exposure. You need to recognise it and get it cleanly cut away...before it incidously creeps into every area and thwarts your chance of a healthy life.
Can't recognise toxicity? Confused? Here's your JaxWorld guide to toxic friends:
A) STAY WITH ME
This is the friend who does an oscar winning performance of being supportive and concerned for your well being whilst shooting down everything you ever get excited about. This is the friend who gives you 101 reasons why your idea is a bad idea and why your plans may work for other people but could NEVER work for the likes of you and them. Favourite quote “Don't get ideas above your station”.
B) THE DOOM MACHINE
This is the person who knows the world is conspiring against them. They will tell you to watch out at work because the company conspires against them and by extension YOU because you are their friend. They will tell you they didn't get invited to an event because the host has a vendetta against them (and by extension you so even though you have an invite...don't go). This is the friend who is constantly complaining (whilst protecting YOU from the pain the world inflicts) so they can drag you down into their doom.
C) THE SELF DESTRUCT
This is the friend who is always in another scandal, another abusive relationship, or addicted to another substance, or in trouble with another authority figure. This friend is constantly bearing their soul and asking your advice. Of course they don't really want your advice... they want the undivided attention you will give while you focus on possible solutions. Then off they go, unheard of till they are in need of another attention fix.
D) THE GUILT TRIPPER
This is the friend who will lend you money when you never asked for it... and hold this one act of charity over your head for ever more. WHY? So that they can borrow from you and never pay you back. It doesn't matter that you paid back the one off loan promptly, they will justify their frequent unrepaid borrowings by reminding you that they were their for you when no one else thought to help you. Their need for your wallet is always a matter of life and death and if you don't help them...suicide is always an inferred option...what else can you do?
E) THE PANIC CALLER
This is the friend who will call with a crisis...increasingly frequently. Every aspect of their life seems to leave them panicked and every minute detail has to be discussed. You become increasingly aware that nothing you say can help as their default setting is nothing in life has value...and you are trapped from the moment you said hello.
F) ME MYSELF AND I
This is the friend who forgets you are a living breathing human and not a sounding wall. They are so completely absorbed in their new project or even themselves that a conversation with them becomes a chess match of how they can out manoeuvre what you try to say and relate yet more information about their new project. They don't even hear you.
G) THE GOSSIP
This is the friend who acts like your personal shrink...always wanting you yo divulge your private worries and most personal secrets. Friends of this type do it for the thrill of superiority, something that can only be proven if they run your secret by just one other person. Needless to say they are blithely unaware that one of the tenants of friendship is confidentiality. This is the friend who does not know a secret is something you keep and the thing you tell just ON other person...is gossip.
H) THE ADVISOR
This is the friend who will tell you exactly how your life should be. This is the friend who will tell you when to get over a broken heart, how you should raise your children, how you should manage your money, even how to prioritise what is important in this world. This friend crossed the line of well meaning advice so long ago that they can barely see it in the distance. If you try to deal with things your own way, this is the friend who will tell you have “patented suffering” and point out that if you did things their way you would not have any problems.
There are many more toxic friendship types out there. These are just a few of the ones that sprung to mind as I write this article. Hopefully, if any of these ring a bell with you – you will eliminate needless stress and unnecessary pain by cutting them out. Like I said before, these sort of friendships are cancerous and you have no option but to be ruthless and decisive when you get rid.
I have spent sometime removing these particular toxins from my life recently.
Getting rid of A) made me feel I did have ideas above my station in a soulless call centre – but what price publishing a novel and writing for a living after all?
Getting rid of B) made me feel guilty for a minute, but what price a less paranoid world?
Getting rid of C)made me feel I was taking away someone's safety net, but what price not having to repeat the 'don't jump' warning over and over again?
Getting rid of D) did leave me £15,000 out of pocket, but what price sanity and a guilt trip free existence?
Getting rid of E)did mean I had to change my number, but what price phone calls from people who had something life enhancing to say?
Getting rid of F) did mean stepping back from a long time friend, but what price being HEARD from time to time?
Getting rid of G) did mean cutting myself out from a loop I liked being in, but what price some privacy?
Getting rid of H) did mean nothing more than getting rid of a plastic wanna-be who has no feeling for anything real (must be the silicone leaking into where the heart used to be!) - so what price REAL friends?
Okay the last one was very recent, so excuse the bitchy tone!
However the point is we should all take time to identify the levels of toxicity being generated by some of our relationships. If we find ourselves being poisoned by these so called friendships, we should end them pronto. If a friendship makes you feel angry, resentful, frustrated, worried or disappointed more than it makes you feel connected to humanity... then it is toxic.
I began this article with a quote from a stress practitioner of some 30 years experience:
"Resentment, anger, frustration, worry, disappointment - emotional states, take a toll on your heart, brain and body. Don't let justified emotions rob your health and well-being”
I wholeheartedly agree. If you look at a friendship and find the toxic emotions it generates are justified – shed the source... and move on to a higher class of comrade.
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