3 Types of Relationships that are stopping us from growing

3 Types of Relationships that are stopping us from growing

I study and teach sociology because it is the cousin of personal development. What I have learned about beliefs, values and norms, is that they are defined for us and by us through our social environments. In essence, we learn who to be and how to be through the cultures in which we were born. They either empower us or deplete us.

Whatever is deemed to be a social norm for those around us, is usually a social norm for us too.

This theory plays out especially well with friends. The way our friends and associates treat us, often facilitates our foundation of who we are and what we decide our worth may be.

When we are children, we have less control over these connections because we are simply put in any environment that our parents or caregivers choose for us. We don’t really choose our childhood friends, our social environment does.

It’s like walking into a store and really needing a pair of shoes for an event. We pick a pair, a really good pair but truly, we made the best of what was available to us with the limited choices.

There are many types of toxic relationships that are carryovers from our childhood mindsets that we may have to relinquish in order to grow:

1. Relationships that are not balanced

2. Relationships that are built on your old personality and not where you’re headed

3. Relationships that drain you, people that leaving you feeling exhausted

As we grow older, we tend to decide who our friends and associates should be based on our social connections, but this time around we are usually choosing those connections. Even still, some negative patterns might persist.

Have you ever seen a person who gets into the same types of friendships all the time? They play the same role without provocation because their values are deeply embedded within them. If they do not value themselves, they tend to attract users or energy vampires.

My own personal fault in choosing friends has shown up in being a sidekick for people who like to absorb attention. If I think back to all of my significant relationships with friends, I have always been somewhat of a flunky. Now, a flunky I am not, but I played this role because I didn’t value my own existence. I preferred to fade into the background, rather than be seen.

Only recently in my life have I relinquished these types of connections, trading them in for balanced friendships where I’m asked what’s going on in my life and how I’m doing. I no longer connect well with people who feel their lives are so much more significant than the lives of others that they are not capable of having a ten minute, meaningful exchange, that is not about them.

Nobody deserves your friendship if they don’t reciprocate, if they are dragging you backwards or if they leave you feeling exhausted.

Love

~Jameelah