This is a summary of Jay Shetty’s On Purpose Podcast Episode 7 SIGNS YOU NEED TO LET GO OF A RELATIONSHIP & 6 STEPS TO FINALLY BREAK IT OFF. In this summary you will learn the key signs of a toxic relationship and how to get out and move on.
We often avoid difficult conversations and put off dealing with a bad relationship because we don’t want the drama in our life but paradoxically keeping the relationship going only creates more opportunity for more drama.
7 signs of a toxic relationship
- You avoid their calls or you don’t look forward to seeing them.
- It is important to reflect on why you are avoiding their calls.
- Admitting that you avoid them can be a really tough admission to make for yourself.
- You should also reflect if conversely there are people in your life that you like being around.
- You feel drained when you speak to that person or when you are around that person. You end up feeling negative or tired.
- If someone is not good for you that doesn’t mean they are not a good person. That just means that they are not good for you. They might be good for someone else.
- You have different expectations.
- Usually they have more and you have less. Or conversely you have more and they have less.
- They are constantly critical of you, either to your face or behind your back.
- They are constantly reminding us of our flaws. This is OK when it is in the context of coaching and when it is constructive.
- When done in a negative context this ends up affecting your self worth and self belief. You don’t want to allow someone to impact you like this over a period of time.
- You are scared before you message them because of how you think they will react or respond.
- If seed of the relationship is fear, the tree will be anxiety and fruit will be stress.
- You feel you have to invite them, not that you want to invite them.
- You don’t think of them when you have good or bad news.
- They are not someone you instantly think of when you want to share information. At one point in time they may have been your go to, but at this point in time you would never go to them.
7 steps to get out of a toxic relationship
- Don’t tell everyone that you are about to break off the relationship.
- You can confide in a couple of close people.
- Reflect on what you gained from this relationship.
- They have given you a gift that you may lose if you don’t take this step.
- Remember and learn the lessons they taught us. What you gained may be a lesson, may be advice or may be a connection.
- Honor them for that in your mind and in your conversation with that. It is very important to honor them. At one point they did bring value into your life.
- Reflect on what you lost by being in this relationship.
- This could be self doubt, loss of time or loss of energy for example.
- Reflect on your shortcomings and the mistakes you made in this relationship.
- Think about the things you did that you know you could have done better so that in the future don’t repeat these patterns with someone else.
- Make your decision and set a deadline.
- If you don’t set a deadline then you are likely to push off this difficult conversation.
- Script your conversation.
- Read your script back to yourself.
- Think if you would be able to digest this and understand this if someone said this to you.
- Schedule the conversation.
- The conversation will never go by the script.
- It is important to have the conversation with all the love, compassion, respect and empathy that you can.
- You will regret the conversation if you spoke in anger or reacted with erratic emotion.
- Do it in a way that you will be proud of later.
Final Words
A real relationship has disagreements but it doesn’t have drama.
A real relationship has pain but it has no games.
A real relationship has limitations but it has no lies.
A real relationship has stress but it has no shame.
If you are experiencing a relationship with disagreements limitations and stress – that’s pretty normal.
If you are experiencing a relationship with drama, games, lies and pain – these are great signs that you are in a toxic relationship and that you need to end it.