The Importance of Eliminating Negative People from Your Life

Friends are such an important thing to have when you are sick. It’s when you are sick that you find out who your true friends really are.

Some people will claim to be your friends but when it comes down to it you realize they are only there for what they can get from you. Sometimes you find that you are better off without certain people in your life.

I’ve had a few people in my life that I’ve had to choose to remove. One friend I had for years through high school and after that would push me away whenever there was someone else to hang out with but come running back when she needed someone.

It took me years to realize she wasn’t my friend, but I was HERs. After years of this I finally chose to remove her from my life.

There was another that I made efforts with for 4 or 5 years, inviting her out, taking time to spend with her, with nothing in return. She called maybe once without needing something, and the last straw was an email where she basically blew off anything I was dealing with only to tell me I needed to go to church with her.

What I realized was that these types of negative people only drag you down and make you feel worse.

They are like energy vampires, sucking your energy and your time away, leaving you dry with nothing to spare.

When you are sick you see this even more. You realize that the real friends are those who still pick up the phone and make an effort to let you know they care about you even if you aren’t calling them.

Real friends realize you are sick and that you need a friend right now even if you can’t return the favor, they love you no matter what. They will call and they will text and they will email, even if you take days or weeks to respond.

And when you do respond they won’t get upset that it took you so long, they will understand and they will enjoy the fact that you are feeling good enough to call them or email them back. They will feel good for you.

These friends are not the ones who will barrage you with “feel good” crap, and inspirational videos, or try to tell you how much worse it COULD be.

We know it could be worse, it’s not about how much worse it could be (in fact we try not to focus on just how much worse it could be), we try to focus on how we can make it better.

And true friends will remind us of just that, and they will do what they can to make that happen, in any way that they can. They may not know what they can do to make you feel better, but they will ask and they will try. They will be there for you.

If you have friends like that, hang on to them. If your friends are energy vampires, dump them. You’ll feel better for it.

Sometimes the energy vampires are family members and you can’t eliminate them from your life, but you can reduce their ability to suck your life away.

You can reduce the amount of time you spend with them, and control their ability to take your energy when they are around you.

Avoid them when possible, but when you can’t avoid them, try to not be alone with them. Try to have others around that can help you balance the energy.

It’s also much better for your stress level (and we know that higher stress just makes you feel worse) if you can be honest with them about how you feel. Letting them know what they are doing that makes it hard for you to be around them will make you feel better.

Of course, in some situations it may make the situation more difficult, so you have to balance that as well, and determine whether it’s worth reducing your stress in the short term for more stress in the long term.

Look at your life and the people you surround yourself with and ask yourself if they make you feel better or worse. Do what you can to spend more time with the people who make you feel good, and less time with those who take your energy away.

Related Posts: 

• Avoiding Energy Vampires
• 6 Things I Focus on When Dealing with Energy Vampires
• Are you Spending Too Much Time With the Wrong People?