Do your relationships serve you?

Sometimes it is difficult to recognize that a relationship is serving the other person and not serving you. When that awareness is brought to the fore front you are left with a choice. Do you maintain that relationship or do you not? Over the course of the last number of years I have eliminated many relationships from my life. They were difficult decisions to make, but I knew it was what I needed, what was best for me.

I realized that I had people in my life that considered me a very good friend, but it was on their terms. They would call when they needed advice, or call if they needed a favour. Friendship to me is a choice. You choose to make a commitment to one another that you will be there for each other. So, when these friends called and asked for assistance, I was there – that is what friends do after all! But, what about when I called and asked for a hand and they were too busy. Or I called and asked for advice and they told me they didn’t have time to talk but would call back … and never did.

I have spent a lot of years working at being a better person. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always had a kind heart and thought of the feelings and needs of others … actually … I thought of them more than I thought of myself. I spent many years of my life worried about hurting others, other people’s feelings, other peoples concerns. I worried so much about hurting others that I didn’t realize I was hurting myself.

As I gained this new knowledge and integrated the new teachings into my life I realized that I was no longer happy with some of the relationships I had in my life. I realized that I was giving a lot more than I was receiving. Now, don’t get me wrong … it’s good to give. But, is it good to give to the point that you are exhausted at the end of the day? Is it good to give to someone and then feel drained by the energy it took?

I say no. My realization was that I no longer desired to have people in my life whom I felt drained by. I realized that some people are so self-absorbed that you could be drowning two feet away from them and they wouldn’t notice, they’d still be talking about whatever catastrophe they were facing that day.

Then, there are the Woe is Me’s. That’s my pet term for people that are so completely negative even opening a dialogue with them is exhausting. You know who I mean, you call them to chat and ask “So, how are you doing today?” and the minute you do you think “Oh no! I didn’t just ask that!” as they begin to tell you how bad their life is. How ill they are … how nobody understands them … how everyone in the world is to blame for their life! You know the ones.

At one point in my life I regularly conversed with a couple Woe is Me’s … they were part of my extended family and I thought we were friends as well as family. But, as time went on and I got to know them quite well I realized that family or not, continuing to have a relationship with them was not good for me. They were energy suckers that I personally found to be very exhausting.

The time came where I made the decision to cut the ties. I feared it would be more difficult than it actually turned out to be. I thought that if I didn’t call them or email them for a few weeks they would call and ask how I was, or why I hadn’t been in touch with them. But … that never happened. They didn’t call, they didn’t email, and they didn’t ask my family or mutual friends how I was. They just continued on in their self-absorbed negativity like nothing had changed.

I bumped into the one person about a year and a half after I cut the ties and her comment to me was “Wow, it’s been a long time since we’ve talked. It has to have been at least a couple of months”! I turned my face to the sky and breathed a quiet “Thank you” to the heavens. Thank you for showing me how draining this person was to my energy and how inconsequential I was to this person. Thank you.

When in your life do you recall having this type of a relationship? Do you remember how things ended? Do you know why things ended? Was it a conscious decision on your part, or did you drift apart?

Do you still have a relationship like this in your life? Do you see it for what it is? Are you willing to continue to allow this? Do you feel you have no choice? What is it that you can do to make the change?

Thought for the Day

Question: Why are we Masters of our Fate, the captains of our souls? Because we have the power to control our thoughts, our attitudes. That is why many people live in the withering negative world. That is why many people live in the Positive Faith world. And you don't have to be a poet or a philosopher to know which is best.

~Alfred A. Montapert