Window Shopping

I believe we have to look at toxic people/relationships like we are window shopping. Have you ever walked on a car lot and dreamed of exotic vehicles or walked by high-end designer stores and only looked in the window because you knew you couldn’t afford the price tag? You dreamed and imagined yourself in it or it in your space and you thought “ it would be nice”. I believe that is how we have to look at toxic relationships with people we love. You have to accept and love them as they are and stop wishing, dreaming, and trying to afford them emotionally.

Recovering from toxic relationships is the most painful pain I’ve ever felt. I’ve been on this journey for 6 months and I now look back at those toxic relationships and know the heartbreak, the pain and grief was a high price tag I simply just couldn’t afford. It broke me! Bankrupted me emotionally. Burned me to the ground. If only I would’ve just walked by, looked, smiled, and thought “that’s nice” instead of going in, touching, feeling, trying it on, and trying to afford them. It took everything I had in my emotional bank account to afford them.

Each time we compromise ourselves for someone toxic by not holding boundaries, we invest in them while they don’t invest in us, and we allow emotional abuse, we are withdrawing from our emotional bank account. We simply cannot afford it because we never get deposits from them. We give and give and give while they take, take and take. You know the saying…”Givers gotta know when to stop giving because takers never stop taking.”

So ask yourself the next time you are around your toxic person, “Can I afford this?” Check your energy and listen to the voice that says “I feel exhausted, I feel depressed, I feel anxious, and/or I feel pain.” It’s the same voice that says to you as you window shop, “I can’t afford this.” You may just have to keep walking, dream about them not being toxic, imagine them not being emotionally abusive to you and know your emotional bank cannot afford them.