6 Steps to Stop Getting into Toxic Relationships
Orlando Therapist provides tools to stop getting into toxic relationships
Have you been feeling overwhelmed, confused, or discouraged about the state of your relationships? Have you been questioning why you keep getting into relationships with toxic people? Do you oftentimes ponder, “Is it me or them?” and ruminate over recent exchanges trying to figure it out.
From my experience as an anxiety therapist and relationship counselor, there are multiple possibilities of why you could be feeling overwhelmed, confused, or discouraged in your relationships (romantic or otherwise). In this guide, I will walk through a 6 step process of how to get clarity on what the heck is happening in your relationships and provide you tools for turning things around so that you can feel closeness and connection in your relationships.
6 Steps to Stop Getting into Toxic Relationships
Use this guide, 10 Traits of Toxic People, to evaluate the people you are spending time with. If you’re spending time with folks that exhibit most of these traits, that is problematic. After you evaluate others, take a moment and evaluate yourself. You can’t have healthy relationships with unhealthy people (yourself included). Remember, you can’t change someone else, but, you can choose who spend time with. And you can begin changing your own behaviors.
Healthy people attract healthy people. Use this guide, 10 Traits of Emotionally Healthy People, to identify the healthy traits in others and the healthy traits within yourself. Once you’ve been able to assess who is doing what in your relationships, you can start to have a clearer picture of whether the person who tends to exhibit toxic traits is the other person or yourself. Remember, not everyone is 100% healthy or 100% toxic.
Evaluate your relationships (romantic or otherwise) with the 4 Qualities of a Healthy Relationship. The 4 healthy qualities are the ability to seek and receive care, the ability to give care, the ability to negotiate your needs, and the ability to be your authentic self. Evaluate where your relationships line up with the qualities of a healthy relationship and initiate a conversation with the other person if it’s appropriate. It would be appropriate to have this type of conversation with a friend or a romantic partner.
Deconstruct your unhealthy relationship patterns using the Trauma Triangle: Making Sense of the Chaos. Deconstructing your relationship patterns will help you see what is happening for yourself in your relationships and help you move from disempowered to empowered relationship patterns.
Make the changes in your unhealthy relationship patterns by moving from chaos to clarity on the Trauma Triangle. When you feel stuck and at the mercy of a situation, define your choices. If you’ve taken on too much responsibility for others, return responsibility to its rightful owner. When overwhelmed, dig deep until you know your truths. Once you know your truths, you will what needs to be negotiated. If you’ve discovered a nonnegotiable need, set a boundary. State the facts by getting honest with yourself about what others are truly capable of. Bring all of this into focus by choosing the lens of compassion to see yourself and others, realizing that underneath all the discord, we are all simply trying to get our needs met.
Choose PEACE is a handy mindfulness practice to bring all of this together so you can begin to do in-the-moment spot checks to see how you’re doing.
The process I have outlined above will support you in disentangling confusing and anxious relationship patterns. This process takes time and the support of healthy people in your close environment. Healing is not linear, in fact, it can be messy. If you get stuck along the way, reach out to a professional to help you make sense of things.
For more information on Toxic Relationships
10 Steps to Heal After After a Toxic Relationship
How to Validate Your Partner for Better Communication
10 Traits of Emotionally Healthy People
4 Qualities of a Healthy Relationship
Trauma Triangle: Making Sense of the Chaos
Trauma Triangle: Moving from Chaos to Clarity
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Mindful Living Counseling Orlando is a trauma healing center. Our Orlando Therapy Services include anxiety therapy, trauma counseling, eating disorder recovery, teen counseling, and healing from toxic relationships. At Mindful Living Counseling Orlando, we use a down-to-earth approach infused with cutting-edge therapies that go beyond traditional talk therapy so clients can heal at the root level and experience lasting change. Feel free to access one of our Guided Meditations to help you feel settled and calm now.