Did You Ask Yourself Why Some Friends Are Like Magnets?

Photo by Bart LaRue on Unsplash

Toxic friends can merely “do” for you. A healthy friendship is all about “being”.

I am aware some of you might be tempted to ask whether all toxic friends are dark, manipulators, or simply what I like to call character-disturbed individuals who lost their soul battle and turned evil.

There are two kinds of toxic people

Toxicity can either come from an abusive & manipulative person or an emotionally imbalanced human being who is diving into life with a package of numerous emotional scars, mental patterns, and unprocessed feelings.

I am pretty sure each one of you is most likely to have known some kind-hearted people who drain you and leave you frustrated instead of adding a plus-value to your world — be it a parent, a sibling, a life partner, a friend, you name it!

Some of them would even get angry whenever you try to connect with them or seek some validation. Interestingly, they learned to repress their feelings as an adaptation to their environment, given they perceive their vulnerability as a weakness and have no clue about how to regulate their emotions.

What is vulnerability standing for? The willingness to say I love you first, the willingness to do things when there is no guarantee, the willingness to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. When we numb vulnerability, guess what? We numb… everything. We numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. Then, we are miserable and we are looking for a purpose and a meaning. Where after, we feel vulnerable; so, we are having a couple of beers. What if you dare being vulnerable and showing it? What if vulnerability, in addition to some other essential character traits (courage to be imperfect, kindness to yourself first and then to others and ability to connect through authenticity), was the path to the sense of worthiness? — Brené Brown

 

More to the point, your toxic friends may please you by granting you some favors and doing good deeds. Nonetheless, your relationship will never get a chance to be emotionally rich, soul-nurturing, and a healthy exchange of energy.

In conflicts, they hurt you by being too aggressive since they may get easily triggered by something you say or do, and which they exaggerate in their imagination — what we call in psychology an emotional flashback.

As a result, they are unable to detach themselves from their self-centeredness and the need for their unhealthy ego to be right. Hence, those people would not consider your feelings and genuine investment in the relationship, not even for a second, to simply “be” and apologize instantly and sincerely.

At that moment, what should matter is your hurt feelings that you clearly express as well as your need for validation, regardless of who is right and who is wrong. Unfortunately, this kind of wisdom is out of their reach. It takes self-awareness to enlarge the gap between the stimulus and the response.

According to “Childhood Trauma” therapist Patrick Teahan, this kind of person is very averse to your emotions, not because they don’t care but because they are threatened by them. They tend to be very reactive to your emotions, specifically if they perceive that you are going into victimization.

People I will not trade for anything in the world!

I was a fearful-avoidant insecure person up to two years ago. People belonging to this insecure attachment style develop hypervigilance and a high level of observation when it comes to human behavior. As a result, they are experts in spotting any microscopic swing in someone’s mood and act accordingly.

At the same time, and because they have no clue that this skill was part of their subconscious survival strategy, they tend to expect others to mind-read them as well. They believe that it is the norm and how relationships should look like.

When two fearful-avoidant individuals are in a relationship, they can get along so well with each other and build a healthy relationship. The same logic applies when it comes to a secure/secure or secure/fearful-avoidant type of relationship.

It seems to me the problems described above tend to occur very frequently when a fearful-avoidant or secure person tries to build a relationship with another insecure attachment style — anxious-preoccupied or dismissive-avoidant. Simply put, the conflict of needs and tendency to “be” versus “do” would only lead to chaos sooner or later.

During the last year and a half — post the transformation, the Universe has been gifting me with many folks I treasure and have the privilege to call soul friends. I never met most of them in person and was fortunate to know them through Medium or Linkedin. They are the reason why I love these two platforms.

Curiously, I needed to set myself free so that I could start attracting those special individuals and give them a ticket into my sacred world. Also, I became able to pay closer attention to some common patterns between those in my old circle whom I admire.

For those of you who don’t know me well or at all, you would take note of my tendency to separate between love and relationships. While the former is a free emotion I can genuinely give to anyone and anything, a relationship needs to be deserved and balanced.

As hard as it could be for me to give up on a person for whom I care and wholeheartedly invested my time, energy, and soul, I can’t help but do so from time to time because I respect myself and that I also do matter.

Those I will not trade for anything in the world, though, are my soul friends who understand what it takes to build a healthy relationship. They have this exquisite capacity to actively listen to me, make me feel seen and unconditionally loved, and always succeed in empowering me in my moments of angst through merely being who they are.

In the words of Maya Angelou: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel”. I will never be able to thank my soul friends enough or to give credit to all of them. Thus, I will avoid mentioning names. I know they will recognize themselves.

The most impressive one, though, is a 21-year-old student from my old circle. I have been following with pride how much she has been evolving in a record time. Bear in mind she is only 21 and will have plenty of life experiences yet to come. Undoubtedly, her wisdom and self-awareness are beyond her age, and her generous soul will never stop amazing me!

A recent conversation modeling this kind of healthy relationship

He is an ex-classmate from the engineering college and the only one with whom I kept in touch. Knowing my tendency to struggle with self-discipline, he offered to help me when it comes to writing, given he is a habit coach among other entrepreneurship endeavors.

Here was the goal of our collaboration: Sketch Your Next Writing, Consistently And Seamlessly! Should you be interested in what may explain your lack of self-discipline, this piece might be a good fit for you.

I owe the progress I made during the last 3 months to my friend, whether when it comes to the number of my works or their quality, thanks to his phenomenal skills to make me accountable. But, this is not what I wanted to talk about!

Yesterday, we were supposed to have a quick call so that he could explain to me some technical issues I was facing with a new platform. I was watching “The Last Samurai” movie while having lunch.

When he asked me whether everything was alright, I told him I was crying all my warm tears, and he carefully listened without interrupting me. It took me 10 minutes, at least, to reach the main scene that overwhelmed me and made me cry hysterically again:

When the chief of the Samurai had to choose between 1. his mission if he escapes from his enemy and 2. his injured son who would probably slow them down and cause their deaths.

My friend knows some personal details and how much I care about the relationship between parents and their kids, which could make such a scene even more meaningful and moving. He didn’t say a word while I was speaking and crying loudly.

When I finished my crisis, he validated my feelings. He said how beautiful my passion was. He let me know he didn’t see the movie, which was an unpleasant surprise, given I provided him with spoilers.

I was apologizing for my silliness since I didn’t ask him whether he watched the film before starting talking about it. I promised the acting was so good that, even if he knew the events because of me, it was still worth it to notice the body language and the emotions.

“I do not doubt it! I was not even tempted to watch the movie, but after listening to your storytelling, I will, for sure, block some time for it! I am always amazed by your ability to reach the depths and see the meaning which most people fail to discover!”

Our heartfelt discussion continued for more than an hour. I expressed how nurturing it was for my soul to be able to express myself without being anxious about getting interrupted, how much his active listening provides me with the psychological air anyone of us needs.

I also reported how draining some selfish people who not only interrupt you to talk about themselves but also forget to ask you for finishing your sharing afterward could be.

We talked about the difference between diplomacy and emotional intelligence. While the former is fueled by the need to either fit in or manipulate, the latter is driven by the principles and desire to inspire or empower.

We also had such a great time exploring the general tendency to confuse being fragile with being vulnerable. The fact that he knows the two versions of me made the comparison even smoother. When I used to be fragile, I was never able to open up, talk, and cry so comfortably the way I do now.

As counterintuitive as it may sound, vulnerability comes from a place of high internal security and strength of character. Only people who understand, value, and honor your vulnerability deserve your unconditional investment.

Final thoughts

You are anything but selfish whenever you decide to give up on a toxic relationship. You will continue to love your friends with all your heart and wish them well.

I know how hard it is to separate between all the affection you have for someone and the relationship, especially when they are intrinsincly good people.

You are not alone. The difficulty comes from many limiting beliefs around relationships that you will need to address and work on:

• Human beings are complex, and you need to sacrifice a part of who you are if you want to make a relationship work.
• Unconditional love makes you accept all the other party’s flaws even when they don’t know the basics of building a healthy relationship — sometimes abuse you and make you miserable!
• You are not a good person if you decide to give up on a long-term relationship while everything seems “perfect” from the outside. What would others think of you?

You need to understand that toxic relationships impact your emotional health and holistic balance, given your physical health drastically depends on the emotional and mental ones, according to epigenetics science.

Even if they are good people, the hard truth you need to accept is that they are not good for you, exactly like you may not be good for them.

The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best ~ Epictetus