When No is what’s best

Saying No to toxic relationships

During the holiday season I’m sure it no exaggeration to say that it can be stressful. The T.V.,entertainment industry and retail industry would have us believe it’s all about warm fuzzy feelings and family get togethers. But what if the season feels more like a hell that you just have to endure every single year? What if you have family get togethers that are more like WW3. What if you have people in those family circles that try as you might to avoid conflicts they just want to be divisive and attacking? That is what I call a toxic relationship.

Now I am no psychiatrist. However I believe Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So as a rational person I realized some lifelong toxic relationships, were not going to change. As a bridge we personally crossed, and not to share all the dirty little details, I would like to share how severing a toxic relationship may just be the nicest thing you can do. Both for yourself and your loved ones around you.

Toxic relationships create a stressful environment

Now this all started about 2 years ago when I decided to work on me. They say you can’t pour from an empty vessel, so to be the best mom and wife I could be I needed to be as physically, mentally, and emotionally stable as I could be. Now I had hypothyroidism for nearly two years at that point and I just knew it was holding me back, (you can read about that journey here). So my journey began with learning how to heal me, and part of that maybe even a huge part was learning the role stress plays in our lives.

Stress is not just something we talk about, or how we feel. It is literally a chemical reaction in our bodies. Many people today are bombarded with constant stress hormones, these hormones were only intended for life and death situations not to be an ongoing process. (If by chance you are a little over stressed, I recently did a post about using herbs to help recover from stress, check out that post here.)

At this point I knew I had to start filtering out the worst stress in my life.  Learning what was necessary, and what was an unnecessary stress. Well for us it was a few hugely toxic relationships. And yes some relationships may be healed, if all parties involved want them to be, some however will never be. So that old saying about a bad apple will ruin the bunch, we took it to heart and threw out the bad apple relationships. My goal it to put the best on most important relationships first, and not to spend time or energy agonizing over a toxic relationship and the bad, mean, hurtful, divisive or secretive things that are done out of one persons mean spirit.

Dividers seek to make themselves look or feel better by making others feel worse. They damage relationships fracture teams and organizations, and create havoc in people’s lives. -John C. Maxwell

You don’t have to make everyone happy

Now we were attacked by a lot of people, extended family and acquaintances , when we decided this was the proper action to take. However we knew it was right for us. Many people would like to just avoid the elephant in the room, but by doing this I was just showing my kids that is acceptable behavior, and it is not. Children need to learn how to have proper relationships, but they don’t learn that by watching bad ones. They need good, positive examples, and a nurturing environment. I always want my kids to know they are the most important people in my life, not extended family, not people in the community.

You teach people how to treat you by what you allow, what you stop, and what you reinforce.  -Unknown

As the controllers of our own destiny, we can pick and choose many aspects of our lives by deciding  what we allow and what we will not. We can have health problems due to stress that we allow to happen to us. On the other hand, we can choose to change the path we are on by choosing what we can and will allow in our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Life is simply to short to live stressed and unhappy due to other people’s bad behavior.

Simply put if you have toxic relationships, it’s ok to care for yourself and your loved ones enough to either change or put a stop to those relationships from damaging your life. It is not “more righteous” to keep taking what someone else wants to throw at you. Do not believe it is wholesome, good or healing to let someone else treat you or your loved ones like a rug to walk on. It is ok to put yourself and wellbeing as well as your loved ones ahead of a toxic relationship. Maybe just maybe be the healthiest thing you can do, is to just say NO, no more relationship toxicity ♡♡♡

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From our family to yours, thanks for stopping by

Beth

Beth is a mother of 6 living on a handful of acres in an old farmhouse in central Kansas. Beth has a background in the military and health and fitness however her passions come from her homestead life. Beth is an enthusiastic homeschooling mom, avid organic gardener, chicken & goat wrangler, who is obsessed with herbs and natural remedies and maintaining an all-around Do-It-Yourself lifestyle. Beth loves to share all she has learned about and sustainable living. While striving for a healthy, natural life, family-centered life.