How do you know that you are in a toxic relationship?
Relationships on Female First
Many things can indicate a toxic relationship, I have listed some examples below: When you can't say how you feel. When your partner just looks through you as if you don't exist. When you sometimes cry yourself to sleep because there is no one you can talk to. When you begin to feel numb to everything and everyone. When you start reacting like your partner. When you feel trapped. When you feel responsible or feel it's pointless to defend yourself. When you have forgotten what it feels like to smile. When you seek comfort in binging or crying in the shower so no one can hear you. When you are upset at how helpless you feel. When you are screaming inside and your mouth is shut tight.
If you experience two or more of these symptoms, then you are most likely in a poisonous relationship. It's enough already. It's time to end the pattern of toxicity.
How can you step away?
Allowing these relationships to continue can be due to the fact that we forget that we are the most important person in our life. We seek love outside of us to complete us, fill the gap and make us whole. As a result, in challenging times the gap widens and the relationship breaks down. Rage, anger, frustration and regret run rampant. A temporary fix is applied and the yo-yo cycle of feeling great and then letdown. It's time to stop the pattern.
In sharing how you can do this, I draw on the lessons I learnt having been in a toxic relationship for over 17 years. My ex-husband, my childhood sweetheart, was violent with me for over ten years during our marriage. At the time, I felt guilty believing I deserved it. I wanted to help him and save the marriage. The cycle continued and got worse until I finally chose to leave and reclaim responsibility for my own joy and happiness. There are three specific lessons that helped me regain my confidence and take action:
1. Only I have the power to make myself happy or sad. I had given this power away to my husband, which is why I felt helpless. When I understood that I had chosen to give this away, I realised that I could also choose to take it back. I reclaimed my power in that moment.I understood that whatever I give energy to, I receive more of, so I started consciously choosing that which I wanted more of.
2. In circumstances where I felt hurt, I looked for things or people that made me feel good. I became a gratitude-hunter, actively seeking that which I could be grateful for and in no time at all I started getting more and more experiences to appreciate.
3. I learnt that there is only me. I focused on making myself happy, loving every aspect of me, and my world transformed as a result. I felt unleashed, unstoppable and unconditionally loved.
About the Author, Mynoo Maryel:
Author of The BE Book (£15.99 Panoma Press) www.mynoomaryel.com
As a high-flying executive and pragmatic serial entrepreneur in Europe, Asia and Australia, Mynoo has built eight businesses, produced fifteen feature films for Bollywood and Hollywood and co-founded the renowned Inspired Leaders Network. She became a specialist advisor to key leaders throughout the U.K., as well as to the boards of several Fortune 100 companies. She has represented the U.K. in major EU policy development for information and communications technologies, as well as pioneering some game-changing economic regeneration initiatives in London.
In 2010, Mynoo went through a series of spiritual awakenings through which she reconnected with the true mission of her soul. She began to enter periods of silence, during which what she now calls "downloads"-profound wisdom about restoring miracles, childlike wonder and sublime well-being to our lives - were revealed to her. She then undertook for herself what has now become the Journey Into Miracles, actively applied the received wisdom to her own life, became her own "guru" and transformed, almost beyond recognition.
Her journeys, for herself and with others, have been expanding ever since. She is now the visionary founder of The PoEM (The Palace of Extraordinary Miracles), a movement and for-benefit organisation that focuses on making miracles the norm.
It is Mynoo's great joy to share what she has learnt with the world, to inspire people to follow their own deep inner guidance and wisdom, and to understand that, ultimately, they are the "guru" they have long been waiting for.