I was in my yoga class this morning, and at the very end of the hour, my instructor said something about not allowing anything or anyone to dim your light or your life. It totally resonated with me…big time.
As of 2013, there were 7.125 billion people in the world (according to Google…and according to my very mediocre research skills). That’s a shit ton of people. So, tell me, WHY would we surround ourselves with the few people who bring us down, make us feel inadequate, and, ultimately, dim our light?
I’m not saying we all do such a thing. However, I am saying I think the majority of us are, in fact, guilty of this (I have been!). And it’s not necessarily your fault. You might be hanging around these ‘negative’ people without even realizing how ‘negative’ they are for you.
I feel it’s important to take a look at who you surround yourself with, who your friends are, who your ‘people’ are. Start by asking yourself two simple questions.
Do you feel happier when you’re around these people?
Do you feel your best self when you’re around these people?
If your answers are ‘NO,’ then, PLEASE, do yourself a favor, and find some new people to hang with. It doesn’t need to be a dramatic exit of I can’t hang with you bitches anymore. You bring me down and I am DONE with you. (Sorry I’ve been watching ‘Pretty Little Liars’ a lot recently…I just started season 4 OMG! and ‘A’ says ‘Bitches’ a lot so it’s in my head). In fact, it doesn’t even mean you need to stop being friends with these people. It just means that maybe you should limit the time you spend with them, and find some different people to surround yourself with.
It can be challenging. What if the person (or people) you’re trying to distance yourself from ever so slightly happens to be the person (or people) you’ve known since you were 2 years old? It may not feel ‘right’ to you to no longer be around this person (or group) because you’ve known them forever, so why now? Well, my response to that would be…now you’re older, wiser (maybe), more mature, and know yourself a bit better than you did when you were, say, 15. You have figured out what you want and need in life, what makes you happy, what brings you up, and so forth and so on. And it’s OK to do your thing, to find people in your life who bring you UP. Who bring out the BEST in you. To branch out a little. It’s MORE than OK.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and probably 100 more times in my little corner of the internet), happiness is SO important. Find your happiness. It’s a choice. CHOOSE to be happy. CHOOSE to be around people who make your light brighter, NOT the people who dim that light.
Get it? Got it? Good!
Image borrowed from Rue Magazine
I recently had to let some friends go because of that exact reason. They weren’t offering anything beneficial to me. They didn’t make me feel good. They didn’t seem to care about my accomplishments, but only my failures.