Who Is Toxic In My Relationships? | Life-Mastery Q&A

This comes from a single mother and says, I'm a single mother. It's hard for me to trust anyone, especially with my children. How do I make healthy steps to get to getting out of bitterness and welcoming the ideas of loving again? We, as human beings were designed to have a certain level of connection and of a romantic connection. But here's the thing. Many times we end up in relationships before we're actually ready to be in those relationships. So I think step one of the entire process is something I actually taught my daughter, which is make a list. Make a list of the character traits of the husband that you desperately want to lead you or be part of your home or be part of your relationship in the future. Start out first with the character traits. I want them to be honest. I want them to be trustworthy. I want them to be a good provider. I want them to be loving and nurturing and be a good father. Start off with those character traits. And then when you get done with that, feel free to talk about the color of their eyes and the color of their hair and whether or not they have a dad bod or a six pack. All that's irrelevant. Start there. Okay, make a complete list there. So that's step one. Make a list of the character traits of the person you want to be with or the person you think you want to be with. Second, make a list of the things that you need to do to become the person that would attract that person. Okay, that's step two. Step three is to take it a little bit further. Step three is then to make sure that you do the homework on yourself, to make sure you're ready for that, which means you're going to eliminate any bitterness, any pain, anything like that, Forgive your exes, all that kind of stuff so you don't take those triggers, those traumas and things of that nature into the new relationship. Because if not, what can happen is that you can accidentally place blame for something that happened in the past on someone who never did it to begin with. That's very important because people want to stand on their own two feet. They want to be evaluated for who they are in that moment, who they are with you. The next thing I would do, and this is like a bonus tip, once you have the courage and you've done this work and you start dating again, make sure you take the time not to introduce your children to the person you're dating until such a time as you guys are becoming serious. Now, when I become serious, that person has already met my family, meaning my mother My father, my immediate siblings, and they've also met my key friends. Okay, the next thing you do is you do that several times. You don't do that once. You do it several times. Because anybody can put on a pretty face. Once you do it several times, let people get to know them. After that, if they say, hey, look, I really like this person for you, then you can lean in a little deeper and then possibly let them meet your kids. Also, if you're a single parent with children, I'm not opposed to you guys doing a professional background check nowadays to make sure that that person has not got a history of actually harming children or something like that. Because we're in a day and time. Unfortunately, where there is caution needs to be happening. A lot of people are great salespeople. A lot of people can sell you a great story. You need to become wise enough to be able to know that story is not true, notify the difference, and find the person that's actually meant for you. I learned a long time ago that in order to attract your soulmate or the one or the person, all you need to do is become the person that attracts that person and you'll win. Hope that helps.

I've been listening to your videos and podcasts on toxic relationships recently. I feel that I might be in one who is toxic in my relationship. Where do I even start that change? All right, so step one is to try to figure out if you are in fact in a toxic relationship. I can tell you there are lots of different things. I want to invite you to go back to a face to face lesson on YouTube where I break down the attributes of a toxic relationship. The reason I want you to start there is because it's a big subject. I also did a whiteboard lesson on the eight levels of a toxic relationship, and both of those will help you understand how that goes into play. Okay. But for the time being, the quickest way to do this is do you feel emotionally, physically, and spiritually drained on a regular basis? If the answer is yes, then you need to take a step further. Then you need to draw your bullseye. Rate that person on a scale of 1 to 10 on the following things. They bring this much value to me, 10 being the most, one being the least. So they add value to my life. They're honest with me, scale of 1 to 10. Okay. Number three, they're personally accountable and responsible. Scale of 1 to 10 on that, look at those scores. If they're 7, 8, 9, and 10, then there's a good chance you probably have somebody you just need to do. You're growing, you're going through a growth cycle with and you're working your way through that relationship. If it's, gosh, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, then you need to be going, you need to take the time to really go look at that piece of content on YouTube. Reason I say that is because it's going to be very clear and give you some other instructions. When you're involved in a toxic relationship, it's a slow fade in and it's also a slow exit. Right. Those that have the moment where they have to go and run immediately without having an actual exit plan to protect their safety of their mental status or physical status and their emotional status, unfortunately are at a greater risk of getting harmed. Right. In the. In the event that you're on the way on the far side and this toxic relationship has even gotten physical and there's verbal abuse and physical abuse and stuff like that, you're going to have to take the time to create an exit plan. What I mean by that is you're going to have to create some allies and some partners out there that are going to help take care of you and even shelter you for a time while you're working through this. Now, this can be a male or female. Toxic relationships come in a variety of forms. All a toxic relationship is, is that person is so hurt on the inside of their own self esteem, self worth, self direction, self confidence, all of that, that there's probably so much trauma in their life that they're putting that trauma and projecting that trauma on other people. All right? So you can love them from afar, but if you're in a toxic relationship, you're going to have to create the exit strategy. How will you know if you're in a toxic relationship? Again, I want to invite you, go back to the face to face lesson and the whiteboard lesson on toxic relationships on YouTube. That'll help a whole lot. But in the meantime, scale of 1 to 10 on the three questions I mentioned, talk to you soon.

I feel that my family is an unhealthy influence in my life right now. Do I distance myself from them? They would never forgive me if I did or never forgive me if I did that.

I don't know if you're going to like my answer. I can only give you the answer from my personal experience on what worked for me. I grew up in an environment where several of my family members, where would be deemed now and nowadays as being unhealthy for a variety of reasons. Some struggle with alcoholism. Some struggle with mental. Not dysfunctions, but mental challenges, meaning they're emotionally destructive from time to time. Some just simply didn't believe in where I was going. Each one of those different attributes are very different. Each one of those are very different destructive. As far as being destructive, first thing you need to do is you need to identify at what level these people are. Are they okay to be an acquaintance? Are they okay to be close to you? Are they okay to be in your inner circle? Are they. Are they so toxic and so dangerous that they need to be. You need to distance yourself from them completely. All right? The way I do that is scale of 1 to 10. I love 1 to 10 because it's easiest and clearest way to make something very visible. So if they're eight, between an eight and a ten, they're inner circle people. Okay? If they're between a seven and an eight, they are. The area that's just a little bit better than Aquinas might be somebody that I see a few times a month. Okay, six to seven is gonna be more of an acquaintance. I might see them once or twice a month. Right after that, I start putting people in buckets as far as, okay, how much or how difficult is it for them to add value? So the next level would be 5 to 6, which is add value, and 1 to 4 is destructive behaviors. Okay? Anyone who's in the 1 to 4 category, even if my. Even if they're my family members, do not have direct access to me on a regular basis. Okay? Now, the people that are in the five to six category, where they're kind of like. That means they've. They've got some destructive tendency or some toxic tendencies or something like that. I might see them once a month. So I'm not completely taking myself away from them entirely. Instead, what I'm doing is I'm trying to spend the time with the people that are going to add the most value and the people that I can add the most value to. All right? The problem is many of us get lost in trying to save the people who aren't ready to be saved. You can throw a life raft out to somebody or anything like that on a regular basis to people, but if they don't actually take advantage of it, you got to stop throwing it. Because there's probably somebody else in the lake or somebody else in the water that is in need of that life raft that will absolutely take ownership. Grab that donut, come on board, focus on making yourself better. And inevitably what happens is, even Though you think they're not going to forgive you, they'll never measure up. I can tell you from personal experience that if you'll do the work, you'll get the breakthrough you do the transformation. They'll actually follow suit because you'll find that you gave them permission to do the same. I hope that helps.

I'm 35 years old and still single. I feel like dating is getting me nowhere. I feel like I'm attracting. I keep attracting a specific type of person, and that's not the person that I want. What could I be doing wrong? I think this actually goes back to another video that we've done in Q and A where you need to understand what it is you're actually trying to attract. Okay. One of the reasons. There's two reasons that dating doesn't work or dating doesn't lead us somewhere. First of all, it's because we settle. In other words, we are settling for someone who is not the person that we're after. One of the reasons we're settling is because we're not clear on who that person is. What are the character traits of that person? Far too many of us will judge a book by its cover and whether or not we think that person's cute and hot and sexy and whatever, all that kind of stuff. Okay, I'm not saying that looks can't be important, but it's not as important as character qualities and character traits. A lot of people will start dating because the person looks cute only to find out that that's a turd wrapped in gold, for lack of a better word. But in the meantime, what you need to do is spend time making the list, listing out the character traits of who that person needs to be. Who are they as far as. Are they honest? Are they a great provider? Are they loving? Are they nurturing? Are they kind? Are they generous? Are they. Are they people that you can rely upon? Do they. You know, these are the character traits that you need to identify. Because when I used to date, long before I met my soulmate Karen, one of the things that I used to do is I would sit down and I would roll through my list as I was dating. And if I didn't have 100% of my list, and yes, 100% seems like a lot, but I almost missed out on my soulmate because I almost settled for somebody who's 70% of the list that I created. That's the problem. Settling instead, through a set of fortunate events, I was able to not do that. And I got 110% of my list, which is the character traits, the beauty and everything that came with it. So that's one thing. The next thing is you got to make sure that you are in a place where you are ready to date. And if you've been dating recently or if you just ended a relationship, you are not in a good place to date. Why? Because what's going to happen is your loneliness effect is going to drive the need to connect, which means you are going to see through rose colored glasses. And if you see through rose colored glasses, some of those turds, rats and wrapping paper are going to show up unfortunately. So get clear on who you want to be with and what kind of character traits this person has. You could talk about the appearance, but that needs to be latter. Okay. And then also make sure you're in a season where you're ready to date. I personally recommend this is me personally for personal experience. Before my head was right and my emotions were right. Six months to a year without dating. Doing a lot of personal development work, a lot of soul searching, a lot of self awareness work, a lot of understanding what that relationship needs to be. Do that work first. Then put yourself on the market and then don't settle. When a turd shows up, win a wrapping paper, politely put them in the litter box where they belong and move on to the next person. Don't spend a lot of time with people that aren't going to be effective. In three days, you'll know if that person deserves three months of your time. In three months, you'll know if that person deserves a lifetime. If you've done the work first. So do that work. Start winning. You'll meet the person you got that you're meant to be with. Stop looking at your age of your life to dictate whether or not you should be married or whatever. Instead, make sure you've got the right person. It's going to be the most important or one of the most important decisions you'll ever make in your life. It deserves the time it takes to make that a reality. Hope that helps.

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