Walking Away from What No Longer Serves You
This year has probably been one of the most transformative years of my life. As I have grown and matured, I am also beginning to discover and know who I am on a deeper level. What I like, what I don’t like and who the kind of people are that I choose to surround myself with. I’ve also come to learn that as I focus on myself, and my own personal goals, I’ve become more selective and intentional with the kinds of people that have access to me and situations I place myself in. Being around the wrong people who do not share a similar vision or have similar goals in life can be a tremendous waste of time, energy and resources. I’ve found it’s often better to focus on yourself and working on your goals in peace than try to conform to other people’s idea of “fun”. A lot of people don’t really know themselves, what they want in life or have a vision for themselves. Plenty of people live for the weekend and chase temporary highs. It’s important to be with like minded people because your circle can either choke your dreams or stretch your vision.
I’ve honestly never been the type of person who enjoyed drama of any kind. I honestly couldn’t care less about Keeping up with the Kardashians, celebrity gossip, or petty group drama as I’ve also seen these as a waste of time. There are many other outlets for energy like art if you’re creative, creative writing, sports, meditation, music, reading and other quirky hobbies. I’ve found myself time and time and time again disappointed by the lack of passion and creativity of certain people I used to consider friends or those that exhibit crab mentality and try to drag other people down by bullying, judging, or excluding others in order to feed their ego. I’ve come to the conclusion people who bully, exclude, judge, or attack others directly or indirectly do these for two reasons: 1. they are threatened by this person and are deeply insecure. 2. they want to feed their own fragile ego and make themselves feel good by putting others down. Needless to say, I make it a point to distance myself and to avoid toxic aggressive types of people who lack empathy and compassion. I find myself repulsed by those who create immature drama around themselves to get attention and more drawn to kind, gentle and calm types of people who are loving, mature and self aware. I’m drawn to souls who spread love and positivity not hate. Thankfully, i’ve met many kind and compassionate old souls during my yoga journey with whom I align with.
A favorite quote of mine goes “ Small minds talk about other people, mediocre minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas”. I live by that. Everytime I feel myself getting dragged down by low vibrational energy and get depleted by mindless gossip, drama and backstabbing these days, I make a mental note to myself that these are not my people. I’m the type or person that enjoys intellectual conversations, self improvement and thinking of ways to improve or create businesses. At this point in my life gossip and petty drama is something I consider childish and should be left in high school. Your circle should lift you up, not drag you down. They should share your vision and challenge you to be the best version of yourself. They should be proud, not jealous.
Protecting my energy has been by far the most useful tool I have come across in my mindfulness meditation journey. I’ve learned that I need to trust my intuition when it comes to people and to be mindful of how they make me feel. Oftentimes you can’t rely on words or appearances as people don’t really mean what they say or act in ways they perceive would make them as likable “kind” or “saintly”. People will try to please you and to feed their image as well. Many times people also just tell you what you want to hear in order to be liked as well.
As an empath, I can also usually quickly pick up people’s energy and moods and the more I learned to trust this, the more I’ve become selective of who has access to my energy. Your body can instantly feel when someone is hostile, aggressive or has ulterior motives, and the more people you meet outside your comfort zone, the more you’ll realize there are toxic types with similar personality types. There are narcissists that need their ego to be constantly fed, there are people pleasing saints who have a passive aggressive rage, personalizers that take everything personal and think the world revolves around them, rebels without a cause that just feel the need to be angry and so on. Everyone has toxic tendencies and no one is perfect however it is your responsibility to spot these flaws in yourself in order to evolve, grow and mature as an adult. At a certain point in life I learned you have to stop blaming others for what is wrong in your life. You can’t always blame your parents, partner, friends or even your enemies for your mistakes, shortcomings or failures. This gives an attitude that you aren’t in control of your life.
Your happiness and sense of peace is your responsibility and a part of this is saying goodbye to or learning to walk away from situations that no longer serve you. You are the captain of your fate and the master of your ship. It’s not your partner’s job to please you, or your parents or your friends- this is entitlement. You need to take accountability for your life at a certain point. A large part of being accountable for your happiness also includes walking away from those who take advantage of you, manipulate you and disrespect you. Learn to protect yourself from aggressive types as well as friendships that have run its course. Life is too short for negativity. Protecting and conserving your energy gives you that sense of unperturbed solitude and peace wherein you can learn who you are and what you want in life instead of just following the crowd. It also gives you time for quiet reflection, meditation and helps you recharge to create more energy for your goals that matter. Energy flows where intention goes. What you focus on magnifies. When you focus on hate, anger and bad vibes that grows. The same way when you focus on yourself- your skills, your dreams, your goals and self love, that grows as well.
“ Small minds talk about other people, mediocre minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas”
- Eleanor Roosevelt