We’ve come to the end of our short series on toxic relationships and how to identify them.
It’s an important topic that cannot be understated due to the frequency with which we come across toxic people in our daily lives.
There are countless types of those, we’ve chosen to go over only 8 in the past two weeks to shed some light on some of the more common types that we encounter.
Now we’ve chosen not to expand on more types, because there is a more important facet to deal with in this topic. A very important question that must arise when we talk about toxicity: how do we know if “we” are toxic?
It’s easy to focus on others. It’s simple looking at others’ attitudes and judging them without doing the same on ourselves.
One of the most important assets a person can have, as part of social intelligence, is intra-personal intelligence.
Intra-personal, as opposed to interpersonal intelligence, means the needed intelligence to understand and express thoughts and emotions within yourself.
That, needs constant and thorough self-reflection. Instead of just noticing other people’s actions, it’s more important to focus on your own.
We often forget that it’s easy to ignore our faults, we assume that we’re fair and objective in judging ourselves, but the truth is we don’t pay enough attention to ourselves in the first place.
We overlook this, because deep down, we don’t want to do it.
We don’t want to find out that we made mistakes, that our motives weren’t pure when we wished our colleague our best, or when did someone a favor that we were just waiting for one back.
Our lives can be hectic as it is, so it makes sense not to try and poke around to find things about ourselves that would upset us. However, it’s those very things we might find, that can help change not only our lives, but those of the people around us for the better.
Every kind of toxic trait that we mentioned, can likely be in us. After all, it’s only logical. No one is perfect, so chances are, you have a trait that can be similar to them, or at least some other trait we haven’t discussed.
If we weed them out of our personalities altogether, one by one, our societies and communities would incrementally and drastically change for the better.
And none are more equipped to deal with someone’s flaws, than that person themselves.
It’s more effective when you are your own referee, not waiting for someone else to call you out on our toxicity, after all, people live their entire lives being the same person because they never self-reflected, and no one was able to tell them to their face.
Going into this, it’s important to be humble. We are all flawed whether we like it or not, so with that mindset it should be simple to start a journey of growth.
Right now, if you can’t sit down and write on a piece of a paper a major flaw or two that you possess, (other than working too hard), then you should be very suspicious of your ability to analyze your thoughts and actions.
So instead of being so acutely aware of other peoples’ mistakes, try finding out your own at first, because it might lead you to finding out you possess a toxic trait.
The first person who will be grateful to you for working on your negative traits and overcoming them, is you.
Think how many relationships, friendships, work opportunities were lost because of a toxic personality you were either unaware of or too distracted to change.
Don’t forget, that the greatest asset you could possibly have, is not your money, status, or accomplishments, it’s your personality. And if you haven’t been growing, polishing, revitalizing and cleansing it, then you’re in trouble.