The School of Greatness - 924 Let Go of Toxic Relationships

Episode Date: March 6, 2020

“You know energetically if someone is adding to or subtracting from you.”If you’ve never experienced or been a part of a toxic relationship, congratulations!You will still benefit from listening to this episode on The School of Greatness, however.For the rest of us, this conversation with Transformation Coach Chris Lee (back for the 5th time by popular demand!) is powerful.Take it from me: toxic relationships are not worth it, whether they are romantic, professional, family, friends, whatever.But it can be really really hard to end them if you don’t know how.That’s why Chris and I wanted to discuss this process on the podcast. In this 5 Minute Friday, he breaks down the first two steps, walks you through the how and why, and drops a lot of wisdom along the way.This process is powerful and can free you from relationships in your life that need to shift or go away.If you enjoyed this episode, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/924 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes

This is 5-Minute Friday! Welcome everyone to today's episode with the one, the only, Mr. Chris Lee, who's back again to talk about how to let go and end toxic relationships. So the first step is to identify if you're in a toxic relationship. You need to be able to identify it. How do you identify that if it's not 100% clear, if you're not like feeling sick every time you talk to this person? Well, here's some of the factors or symptoms. Number one is you're feeling less than yourself with them.

You're feeling less than yourself? Yeah, so you feel like you've got to be someone you're feeling less than yourself with them. You're feeling less than yourself? Yeah. So you feel like you've got to be someone you're not. So you feel like you're being the inauthentic you. And you're agreeing with things that you don't agree with. You're going along with things that you don't want to go along with. You're letting yourself be controlled by the other person. Another factor that will have you identify and you'll be able to measure to see if you're in a toxic relationship is that you find yourself draining your life's

energy when you're around them. You feel drained, you feel exhausted. And we talked about that earlier, but it's important that we highlight that. You know energetically if someone's adding or subtracting from you so this person is draining you and you feel less right okay so that's is that all in identifying it or the other way it's all identifying it okay uh another way of identifying it is that you find yourself giving your power over to them you feel weak around them okay another thing you don't feel worthy another factor is that you ignore your intuition when you're with them in other words you don't trust yourself also these people make you feel like you can't do anything right everything's about them it's all me and i so every conversation ends up

in me and i sure as opposed to we and creating a win-win. Exactly. And another thing or the final thing I would say is you don't feel like you're allowed to grow around them. Like when you're growing and you're accomplishing things, they start attacking you and judging you. Man, I felt that. you man i felt that i've felt that before in a relationship where every time i achieved something that like a success or an achievement or got to another level in my business or had something to share a former relationship of mine she would get mad at me and frustrated and kind of like get sad or and she would bring it back to what she's not doing right and she would like get mad at me for

something to try to bring me down to feeling like a third level or something right and she would like get mad at me for something to try to bring me down to feeling like a level or something right and it was the worst feeling ever it was just like can't you be happy for me for once well what happens is that these people are so empty and they're so insecure that when they see other people accomplishing things and other people growing and other people actually joyful it upsets them yeah it's like those people that can't stand to see people happy. And so this person who's in your life is toxic because instead of celebrating your success, they're actually complaining about it. So that's stage one is identifying. That's the first step in terms of ending and transforming a toxic relationship is to identify it. Identify it.

Okay. And what if there's a lot of gray area? What if it's like, well, sometimes I feel like they bring me down like once every couple of months. I feel like they'll attack me, but then they apologize and then they're always supportive the rest of the time. You know, what if there's like this gray area? What a great question because that leads to the second of the time. You know, what if there's like this gray area or- What a great question, because that leads to the second step. Awesome.

What is that? Keep a record. Oh, wow. Like a mental record or like write it down? No, take notes. Wow. Take notes. You're in the relationship and take notes.

That's really interesting because I almost started doing this in my last relationship because I wanted to like remind her of like, you know, four times last week, you attacked me for these reasons. Yeah. Keep a record. It's important that you keep a record of all the times that you have felt less than joyful around this person. Wow. And if you start identifying and seeing that the pages are filling rapidly, it lets you know. Because sometimes we forget. And sometimes we're so involved in our lives that we don't realize,

you know what, that's the fifth time this person has made me feel this way. That's the fifth time this person has broken their word to me or has accused me of something or has attacked me. And so by keeping a journal and keeping a record of this, you have it right in front of you. Now, should you also keep a record of all the things they do well, like empowering you or acknowledging you, or is it more? Well, we're talking about toxic relationships. We're talking about the people that are in your life that are draining you and that you suspect that they are.

Right. So – They're nine times out of ten when you accomplish something or if they're attacking you nine times and then they're once saying, oh, nice job, then you want to have that ratio flipped. Right. You know? Of course. Of course. But yeah, that's a good idea too in your relationships.

You know, it's really not about keeping score. It's about being aware. Gotcha. Okay. You know, so that's the whole point of keeping a record and you you would keep a record with people that you you know what i feel i feel drained around so and so then you should keep a record then yeah you start tracking yeah i'm not talking about all your relationships there you are monitoring their every move i'm talking about people that in general have you feel

that they are taking more than something's off they are taking more than they're giving. Something's off. They're taking more than they're giving. Okay, cool. So this is something that I recommend. Keep a record. I like that. You like that?

I like that a lot because I thought about doing that before, but then I was like, is this lame or is this – would this be weird? But I actually think it's valuable for you personally to identify it so you can look back at it and be like, here's all the things that happened over and over again in the last couple of weeks. This isn't serving me. Not at all. And this is taking too much of my energy and my time away. Exactly. There's no point of being in this relationship. There's no benefit. Exactly. Yeah. And then from that point, I think you can have a conversation with them and say, listen, I haven't been feeling comfortable. And maybe you could coach me on this, but maybe say, I haven't been feeling comfortable over the last months or the last couple of weeks about the way

you've been, the way you talk to me, the way, the way I feel around you, the way I feel around you. And here are the things that have happened over the last couple of weeks. I want to create a, you know, I wanted to bring this to the table because I really want us to transform this. Absolutely. And move this in a different place where we're supporting each other and loving each other, not judging each other. And then ask a request if they're committed to that, right? Exactly. And that would be a way to transform the relationship if you see that there's possibilities in the relationship. Yes. And so, you And so communicating is very important. Yeah. And we'll get to that.

But I think it's important for you before you even get to that point of making a request is for you to see, am I in a toxic relationship? Yes. Because the first two steps really is about identifying. That's cool. And so you're identifying what are the prices that I'm paying for being in this relationship.

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