TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS
Our relationships will be decisive in defining who we are and our destiny. The old saying "tell me who you hang out with and I'll tell you who you are" has never been more current. That is why it is important to know who we surround ourselves with and with whom we are most in contact. According to Jim Rohn, we end up becoming the combination of the five people we spend the most time with, to the point that we not only end up eating like them, but also talking like them, seeing what they see and even treating people the same mode. The more robust our values are and the more robust we are emotionally, the less influential we are going to be or, rather, the values of other people will pass through the filter of ours, integrating only those that are in line with us and discarding those that are not. They are. The problem arises when the people around us - sometimes without realizing it - do not respect our values and begin to break our limits and invade our spaces. They want to take over our life because on many occasions we, consciously or not, allow it.
In general, the emotional toxicity that has the most consequences - if it is not dealt with in time - is the one we generate with the parents. In childhood we forge the pillars of our emotional robustness and in their construction, they are the ones who contribute the most.
There are extreme cases in which a single individual can completely change the course of our life. You have to bear in mind that the impact of a toxic person is greater the less emotionally mature we are. Hence, in adolescence, when for many young people friends become family, a close friend can change their direction of life. In most addiction cases, a friend was the one who introduced you to the world of drugs or incited you to commit a crime. Many were not attracted to drugs but felt forced to take drugs in the face of peer pressure to feel rejected by friends.
A couple can also end up destroying the future of an individual, to such an extent that there are people for whom having met their partner is a before and after in their life history. The effect can be so devastating that the person ends with a broken self-esteem, a victim of an addiction or plunged into a deep depression.
And now that success in life is based on job success, co-workers and bosses have become great builders and destroyers of people. I had a chance to find myself
fortuitously at the airport with a colleague from the faculty. She was a brilliant student, and I confessed to her that for a long time I had been suspicious of her because she had been chosen to do an internship at a large consulting firm. Through tears he confessed to me that it was the worst experience of his life, and that they had taken care to destroy all his security. She had to take a leave of absence and then resign herself to having a job that would not stress her so much, thus truncating her bright future.
There are people imposed by circumstances that are impossible to avoid and who become part of work, family or social life. We may not be able to decide whether they are part of our life, but we can learn to set emotional limits and minimize their harmful effect on us. We can also learn to identify in time those who do not do us well or simply cannot bear it. Speaking of not putting up with it. Many individuals we can't stand are not only not toxic, but could pose a challenge that makes us grow .Learning to work and live with people who think differently from us or don't agree with our values can help us teach a lot about who we are and how to improve ourselves.