A speaker argues that tolerating toxic relationships reflects a belief you deserve mistreatment, rooted in negative self-talk and misaligned spirituality. He says staying in harm sends a message of inadequacy, and that filling the internal void with purpose and confidence means either evolving together with a partner or evolving out of the relationship.
The power move inside your life is when you stop tolerating all dysfunction, all toxic behaviors, all dysfunction. You remove it from your life. You no longer participate in it. You no longer enroll yourself in it. You no longer feel obligated, right, to entertain it. You just don't tolerate it because it's not a part of your identity. It's not a part of who you are anymore. The only reason we really tolerate dysfunction is because we believe we deserve it, and most of the time that's because of the way that we treat ourselves. I know when I tolerated dysfunction in my life, it was because I abandoned myself. I betrayed myself. I abused myself through my self-destructive behaviors and vices and negative self-talk. I did not live in alignment with the will of God inside my life. God didn't give you a spirit of inadequacy. God didn't give you a spirit of brokenness. God didn't give you a spirit, right, where he obligated you to remain in something that's clearly unhealthy. So my question is, what kind of message do you send yourself when you remain in something that's clearly toxic, damaging to you and damaging to everyone around you because they watch you go through it? The message is that you don't matter. That's right. You're sending yourself a message that what? You are inadequate, that you're not enough, that you're sending yourself a message that you're unlovable. My question is, where did you receive that message? Because a lot of times you think it's attraction. You think you're attracted to this person when in reality it's recognition. This person's behavior mirrors and mimics experiences and relationships that you've had in your past. Stop sacrificing your authenticity to preserve attachment systems with people that are clearly not treating you the way that you deserve, people that are clearly don't have your best interests at heart, and people that are unwilling to contribute or participate in a healthy dynamic with you. See, the reality is, even if you got your wife to change, you're still dealing with that void, which most of the time you've just tried to fill with the relationship. That's why in the absence of the relationship, you think that you need your wife back. That void that you're feeling, brother, is not the absence of your wife. It's actually the void that you haven't filled with a sense of purpose. It's a void that you haven't filled with a sense of healthy confidence, with a healthy amount of mature love that comes from the inside, recognition of your identity between you and your Heavenly Father. So what I want to tell you today is I want to encourage you. Nobody shackled you to this relationship. You're not obligated to remain in something that's toxic. And stop using spirituality and God as a way to justify and rationalize why you should continue going down a path that's clearly detrimental for you. Because you got to ask yourself, what type of God are you really serving if you believe that he wants you to suffer and that you're getting punished in a relationship? When you stop tolerating toxicity from you then you elevate the standard in your life and you no longer tolerate it from other people. Because when we don't tolerate dysfunction inside our own life in terms of the way that we treat ourselves, we become highly intolerant of it and highly, highly allergic to anybody in our life who doesn't want to be on a journey of self-development with us. So, brother, either you're evolving with this person Or you're evolving out of the relationship. But regardless, how was there any other option?
