Learn to let go of the poison in your life....
A huge step in moving to the next phase of growth in my life was learning to evaluate the positive and the negative energies that surrounded me. No matter how much progress I made both emotionally and physically, I felt I was constantly weighed down by trivial bullshit. I started feeling like a magnet for drama and felt like I couldn't take a step without falling 2 steps behind.
After a particularly dark time, I chose to look within myself for answers instead of depending on other. I started to visualize my life by my own design. One where I could dedicate my time, energy, and love to things I felt could improve my world. And I also looked at the people who I chose to include on my journey and the energy they brought along with them.
For years I held on to problems, situations, and relationships because of the overwhelming feeling of responsibility I felt. As if I did not help, who would? I realized at the end that feeling was the only thing holding me back. Other people's problems where not caused by me or my actions and I was only responsible for my own decisions moving forward. Now I have to be honest, this was the easiest part. The actual work comes in when I decided to do something about it. After I decided I wanted all of the negative energy gone I told myself I needed to completely remove it from my life. And what is one of the biggest portion of drama in my opinion? You probably guessed it, Facebook!
To be honest, I was tempted to completely shut it down, but I decided against it because the majority of my business is done online and spread through social media. Also, that is where I find most of my funny dog videos, and that is just something I am not willing to give up. I knew I would have to find other ways to improve my online world. I went through a good old fashioned friends list clean out. Friends, I cannot emphasize a good Facebook purge enough!!! Take about 30 mins and go through your friends list. You now have the options to either hide posts from your timeline or completely delete people who don't add any value in your life. You know the ones, I'm sure everyone has them. The ones who always complain, post vague "why me" type statuses, or cause drama online.The ones with the racist posts, passive aggressive posts, and asinine fight videos. I was at the point in my life where I was just so over being "friends" with people just to avoid awkwardness. DELETE THOSE FOOLS. Then subscribe to lots of things that fill your timeline with videos and pictures to make you smile. Buzzed animals is a good one.
Next I had to make a conscious effort to remove the negative people in my life. I had some friends I considered very close, but for years they brought quite a few problems into my life. I tried and tried to help but it always ended up blowing up in my face. So I decided I just did not need to make the effort to keep them tied to me. We had a small falling out over things that had happened a million times and I decided I just was not going to chase them. If they made an effort to change and their lives were going in the same direction as mine, then we could be friends. If not, I had to understand we are not obligated to be friends forever. And shocker, they never could remove themselves from their victim mentality and we never reconnected. Although I was sad to say goodbye to that part of my life, the sense of relief was far greater. I now understand that time changes all of us - some for the better and some for the worse.
Finally - and this is something I have to continue to remind myself to do - I have to wake up every morning and claim my day. I have to tell myself I will have a successful day with a positive outcome. Bad shit is always going to happen in our lives, no one is immune from the crap life throws at us. But you can only control how you respond to those things. If someone brings drama into your life you alone have the ability to not engage in it.
I hope this helps someone out there.
xoxo
