[0:00]Honestly, we all think it's time that you finally stopped holding space for people in your life who clearly don't deserve you. Because if there is one thing I will scream is that your friendship standards better be as high as your dating standards. And in this video, you'll realize that being too nice or deciding to make friends instead of choose friends will cost you your peace, your goals, and your potential in life. And that's why this video is all about how to spot toxic friends, the effects they have on your life, how to cut them off for good, and how to deal with the aftermath of a broken friendship. As always, I'll leave the video chapters on this side of the screen so you guys can familiarize yourself with the structure of this video. But before we get started with this video, I wanted to show you guys this new product I got very quickly. See, I know I'm an adult now when I got excited when I received this package from Lululu. Because guys, a pink Hoover. Are you kidding me? I'm obsessed, it's making doing your chores so much cuter, and it's a cordless vacuum, okay? If you don't have a cordless vacuum in 2023, what are you doing? Do you enjoy wasting your time? No, but seriously, I'm actually so obsessed with the features that this Hoover has. My personal favorite feature is the LED light, which illuminates any dark corners within your house, ensuring that no dirt slips through without the notice of this Hoover. It also has a 1 L high-capacity dustbin, which collects more dirt, dust, and debris, so you don't need to empty it so frequently. We love a cleaning device that provides convenience, comfort, and saves us time. It also has a point-and-shoot dustbin design, which makes cleaning it so much easier. And finally, its multi-cyclonic air filtration instantly traps dust particles and debris, creating a 100% clean living environment. It catches pet fur, pollen, long human hair, dust mites, and any other non-living allergens for cleaner, fresher air in your home. We love to see it. Make sure you guys check out the description because there'll be a link to that cordless Hoover, as well as many more and a discount code for you guys to use as well. Chapter one, how to spot a toxic friend or realize that you are the toxic friend. In my opinion, there are nine types of toxic friends, so let's go through it. Number one, the thief. This person wants to steal your entire identity. Why? Because they're that jealous of you. Sometimes these friends can be very hard to spot, so it's important that you realize there's a very thin line between appreciating your friend and admiring them to the point that you would sabotage their life so that you can have it for yourself. They might say congratulations to you, but you know deep down they're not actually happy for your success and they resent you for it. And I think this is the most dangerous toxic friend to have. Because not only do they secretly dislike and resent you. Not only are they not cheering you on, but every single time something good happens in your life, they wish it would happen to them instead. Meaning you have all of this negative energy and evil eye in your very own inner circle. Number two, the snake. This person talks bad about everyone including you. And you probably think, oh no, like they love a good little gossip, but they would never say anything bad about me. They're so good to my face. Girl, I promise you, this person is discussing the inner details of your life with everybody else they know as well. They're just not letting you know about it. If something bad happens in your life, if you go through a breakup, etc., this person's going to be discussing it with every single person you know instead of coming to you and checking up on you to see if you're okay. And if they actually do reach out to you to see if you're okay, it's only to get more details about the situation so that they can discuss with everybody else when they're gossiping about you. This person is always so invested in everybody else's life because they have nothing good going on in their own. Hell they'll even talk about the most insignificant details like what somebody's wearing or what that person did last weekend. Like, who cares? Three, the energy vampire, because this person drains you. Always complaining, always has something bad going on, always need your advice and literally uses you as their personal therapist. This person thrives off of playing the victim in every single situation, and no matter how much great advice and support you give them, they don't want a solution. They just want to keep complaining. The conversation always shifts back to them, it's always about their life, and when you finally start speaking, they probably turn off and don't listen anymore. And anytime you hang out with this person, you go home feeling drained and exhausted. Four, the puppet master. This person wants to control every single thing around them and especially you. You never text me enough. Why don't you call? Oh my God, you didn't tell me about that. Why are you going now without me? Why are you hanging out with them? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They are so needy, they don't understand your need for space and independence, and the fact that you're your own person. They're probably very overcritical of you, gives you unsolicited advice, tries to change you, and make you feel like a bad friend. They act like you can't do anything right and they're actively trying to change you into being someone that can suit their needs. Because if you're not at their beck and call, if you're not serving their needs in the way they need you to, then you're a terrible friend. Five, the leech. Uses you for your resources, wastes your time, asks for endless favors, never pays money back on time. And they're probably always late because they don't mind disrespecting you. The energy in this friendship is never reciprocated. You are always giving more to them. You're always showing up for them doing favors and they just take, take, take, take and never give back. And they probably apologize and act like they won't do it again and it won't happen next time, but their words never match their actions. Six, the Silent Spy. Oh, they see what you do. They're watching your every move. They see when you post your achievements online. They hear other people talking about it, but do they ever reach out to congratulate you? No. Now, people might try to label this friend as jealous, refer back to friend type number one. But in my opinion, this person doesn't want to be you. They're just very insecure in themselves, extremely inconsiderate and unsupportive. They don't resent you when they see you win. They feel uncomfortable. And having this person and energy in your life can be very damaging, but we'll delve into that in chapter two. Number seven, the fraud, aka the fakest person you have ever met. So two-faced. This person will flirt with your boyfriend, they'll secretly hope for you guys to break up so that they can jump on him right after. They intentionally give you bad advice, they spill your secrets to everybody. They sabotage you, they steal your ideas. They invite everyone to a party and conveniently leaves you out, but they're super nice to your face. So you can't even confront them. And if you were to tell somebody else about this person's actions, they wouldn't believe you because everybody else thinks they're an angel. They know how to put the perfect act on so that you can't label them a bad friend. They're probably always super happy and excited around you, always wants to hang out, but the second you leave, they might as well be your enemy. Oh my God, I love your skirt. Where did you get it? That is the ugliest effing skirt I've ever seen. Friend type number eight, the bad influence. They encourage you to go crazy, dismiss your responsibilities, drink more than you can handle. They want you to make risky choices, they introduce you to bad people. You always end up in unsafe situations with them. This person is not to be trusted and they will affect where you go in life. This friend wants you to lose in life. They are trying to drag you down with them. And they'll say things like, oh, just be fun. Stop taking life so seriously all the time. You'll be fine. Don't worry about that. Just come out with us. No, it's okay if you leave your deadline to the last minute. Bffr. This friend thinks waking up hung over every single weekend is fun. They think having constant toxic situationships is entertaining. They passionately live such a low vibrational life and they want you to do it with them. And the last type, number nine, the clueless. Now, I'm being slightly harsh when I label this person as toxic. But I have extremely high standards for friendship and to be honest, you should too. See, this person doesn't have bad intentions. They're not out here trying to get you or disrespect you. They probably genuinely really like you and enjoy your company. The thing is, they're just a hot effing mess. Every day, can you come with me here? What should I say to this person? How should I respond to this text? My boyfriend cheated on me again. What should I do?
[7:05]This person is probably hella sweet with good intentions, but they are dragging you down, and this is going to have a toxic effect on you and your life. And that leads me to chapter number two, how toxic friends affect the trajectory of your life. Bad energy is so contagious. You need to be extra picky with who you're surrounding yourself with. What do they say? How do they act? What do they do? What do they want to go in life and does that match up to me? Because one of the sayings I have always and will always live by is, you will be the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You need to take this so seriously, especially if you're ambitious, if you want to be a success in life. Every single successful, famous person says that quote because it's so true. If the five people you talk to the most, spend the most time with, are clubbing every weekend, never live responsibly, their priorities are all over the place. They settle and also surround themselves with toxic people. They have no goals, ambition, they don't work on their self-development. You might think you're different and you probably are, but the more time you spend talking to these people, the more your own mindset will change. And before you know it, you'll be going downhill in life just like them. So now I'm going to give you an exercise to help you. I now want you to carefully evaluate every single friend in your life and what effect they have on you and your life. And of course, I'm going to give you examples, so here are some questions to help you out. Here are the questions you're going to ask yourself: How do I feel after I meet ups, happy, energized, sad, tired, drained, exhausted, inspired? Am I satisfied with the way that they show up for me in this relationship? Am I happy with who they are and I wouldn't change them? If I were to raise an issue or a boundary with them, would it result in an honest and mature conversation resulting in compromise, or would it result in defensiveness and gaslighting? Can I name five things I genuinely admire about this person? Can I top that with five reasons as to why me and this friend are genuinely aligned with each other? What effect does this friend have on my behavior and my decisions? Do they uplift and inspire me to do bigger things in life? Or are they trying to keep me realistic and fit into a small box and drag me down? And finally, do I think me and this friend are on a similar life path in terms of goals, values, morals, and ambition? Now, don't get it twisted. You and your friends do not have to be the same people. You can be opposites in fact, okay? You can have completely different interests, completely different personalities. This question is more about does my mindset align with their mindset? If I'm super ambitious and I want to go far in life, and they do too, boom, we match. We might want to go to different destinations, but we're both trying to go up here. We're not trying to stay stagnant. This means every time we meet up or we talk and we're sharing our goals, although they might be different, we are still uplifting and inspiring each other. And I want to finish this chapter off by saying, if you were to create your ideal friend in your head, what would they be like? How would they treat you? What would you guys do together? What would their personality be like? What would their principles be like? Now, whoever you've just thought of, how many of the friends in your life actually align with that ideal person you've just created in your head? And once you've created this ideal person in your head, I want you to write down, mentally or physically, a list of your friendship standards. Because as I said at the beginning of this video, you need to take your friendship standards just as seriously as you take your dating standards. I want you to write out the list of qualities you want your ideal friend to have, and then hold the people in your life accordingly. Choose who to promote and who to fire. So let's go through the main factors that actually prevent people from cutting their toxic friends off and just dealing with them for years instead. I think the first one, because this is actually one of the most commonly asked questions ever is, how do I politely cut a toxic friend off? People are so concerned with like letting people down gently and being nice to people who are literally so bad for them. That then they just deal with having these bad people in their lives. Another factor is if you've been friends with this person for years, like maybe even a decade, you have so many good memories, you don't want to leave all of the good times behind you. You don't want to let go of them because it's too sad. And all I have to say to this is you are literally prioritizing your past over your future. You know that this is a bad friendship. Sure, there were there were good times, there were good memories. But you are more scared of leaving this person and admitting that the last few years of your friendship with them were a waste. That you would rather waste the next few years of your life. What? Listen, I get it. Toxic friends aren't all bad. Sometimes they don't even have bad intentions, but they are still bad friends. They still affect our lives negatively. And for that reason, you can love them, but it has to be from a distance. Because at the end of the day, you have to put yourself first and what is in your future self's best interest. Toxic friends can give us the best adventures. They can be the funniest people. And they can give us memories to treasure for a lifetime. But it's important to know when to let go. So here's some reassurance to help you on getting to that stage. Keeping people in your life for the sake of being nice or not being disruptive or causing any drama, or the fact that you might be left all alone afterwards, is literally preventing you from having the life you want. You are literally out here putting more importance on the feelings of people who aren't even good for you. Over dealing with some temporary solitude and healing to level up and get what you deserve. The longer that you tolerate these toxic people, the more you are pushing away good energy, good opportunities, good people that align with you. In the time that you were spending worrying about how to let this other person down gently, what you should say to them, how you should act, what your exit strategy out of this friendship is going to be. You are wasting precious opportunities to make new friends, to start a new routine, engage in different life practices, to put yourself in rooms with more positive people. And to become the person you want to be with the life that you want to have. And even if you do only have one friend in your life and they've turned out to be toxic, you are better off alone than with a shitty friend. I too used to be the person like, oh my God, what are people going to think about me? But we've been friends for like seven years. How can I just cut them off? That's really mean. I need to be polite about it. Now, my approach is so different. And I've done it enough times that I know it works. I know I heal from it. Nothing bad happens from it. And I always make new friends. I always level up. I start a literal new phase of my life, all thanks to this strategy. So here's how I do with this situation. Let's say I have two toxic friends, Lola and Athena. Now, Athena, okay, we all know she's that girl, okay, from previous videos, we know she's that girl. But she's been bugging me, okay? She's been getting on my nerves. I don't like it. I don't like certain things she's been saying to me and treating me, etc. Same as Lola, okay? I've caught Lola talking about me to other people, and I'm not down with that. I now have to deal with these two toxic friends. My first step in this situation is to imagine how is this person going to react when I sit down and confront them with what I'm upset about. How is that conversation going to go down? See now, Athena, although she's annoying me, when I think about it, if I were to sit down with her and say, listen, I'm really upset you did X, Y, Z, this is how you did it, this is how you hurt me. She will listen and she'll be like, oh my God, she will be genuinely apologetic and it will come to a compromise. It will be calm, there'll be no arguments, there'll be no manipulation. So in those cases, I will sit down with the person and talk to them. But with a toxic friend like Lola, when I think about telling her what she's done to hurt me. I know the way she's going to react to saying, oh my God, I would never do that. Oh my God, you're crazy. Like, why would I ever be against you? Oh, you heard that I was spreading rumors about you? No, no, no, that's not true. They are going to deny, deny, deny, they're going to gaslight you into thinking you're crazy. They're going to manipulate you. They're going to twist the situation into them being the victim and you being the bully. It's going to be like, oh my God, how dare you accuse me of that? I can't believe you think I'm a bad friend after everything I've done for you. So before I even had the conversation, I can imagine that's how Lola's going to react. And in that case, I ghost. Now I know, ghosting isn't a good thing to do. It's not very ethical. I don't condemn this behavior in every relationship of your life, but sometimes it has to be done to protect your own peace. I know sitting down with Lola to have a mature adult conversation about these problems, is literally just going to be the equivalent of me talking to a brick wall. Why am I going to put myself through that? The only times I think you should have a conversation with this people if is if you feel like you really need to do that so that you can say goodbye and get your closure. But don't do it for the other person, girl. No. Because they don't deserve it, and they're not going to care, and they're going to deny, and they're going to lie to you. And even if that conversation was super positive and calm, they will twist it and probably spread it to everybody else to create more drama and turn more people against you. Sometimes it's just better to take the path of least resistance and leave silently. Don't say a word, okay? If you want to be nice about it, be gradual, take them off your private stories, your Finstas. Start texting them less. Anytime they ask you to hang out, say that you're busy. Within this time frame, start hanging out with other people. Over time, they will get the hint. If they don't, if they've reached out and they're like, oh my God, have I done something wrong? What's up? Leave them on delivered or leave them on red. I've left them on red, they never reach out again, and it's done. And like, sure, they might talk bad about you to a few people. And what? Like, I got what I needed from the situation, which was distancing myself from you. So your negative energy isn't plaguing my life anymore. And if they go around trying to say bad things about you, let them. Because if the people they're talking to are truly your friends, they will come to you to ask you about the situation, or that they will trust that you did what you had to do. If they automatically take that person's side and cut you off as well or start spreading rumors about you, they were never your friends in the first place, and that is a blessing, not a curse. Not only did you cut off a toxic friend, but you've now also realized you had all of these other fake friends that you couldn't even see before. You found out sooner rather than later, and that is a gift. And I'm going to give you more strategies on how to cut off a toxic friend because I'm not going to let you have any excuses, okay? The first one is forgive, but don't forget. Keep it civil and polite if you must. Talk to them, leave it on a friendly note, like, hey, listen, I just need some time for myself, or this friendship just isn't doing it for me right now. I kind of just want to be on my own for a bit, so I won't be hanging out as much anymore. And that's probably the nicest way you can put it. Another way is to set boundaries and a condition. You need to tell them this is how you hurt me, I'd appreciate if you didn't do it again. Do not cross this line, and if you do, our friendship is over. That way you're not cutting them off, but you are giving them a chance to redeem themselves and also prove how much you and your friendship actually means to them. And lastly, as I said before, have a conversation with them, get your closure, and say an official goodbye. But ultimately, remember, a toxic person is never going to admit that they're toxic. You cannot control the outcome of the situation. You can just control when you leave and how long you tolerate their behavior. And also, it's all about bravery and confidence and knowing that you're doing the right thing for yourself long-term. Have trust in that. This is for those of you who might struggle with maintaining friendships. You don't really know where it goes wrong, why it's going wrong. It's important to look at ourselves and think, are we the problem here? Are we contributing to the toxicity of this friendship? Sometimes we are the problem, and that's okay, because the sooner that you realize, the sooner that you can work on yourself and develop. So if you engage in one of the behaviors that I mentioned in chapter one, then chances are you are the toxic friend. But there is an important disclaimer here. It's important to figure out what kind of friend you are and what your preferences are. And what I mean by this is high maintenance friends and low maintenance friends. Everybody is one of these types. Both of these types are completely fine, okay? They're not toxic. However, if they are in a friendship with each other, they find each other toxic because they clash. A high-maintenance friend and a low-maintenance friend just don't go together. So I'm a low-maintenance friend, and I thrive off of my connections with other low-maintenance friends. That's just what works for us. We don't text every day, we don't call. We probably update each other on our lives every four to five months. We see each other. Even though we go ages without talking to each other, if that person needs me, I'll come running, vice versa. High-maintenance friends also go together. They are happy to FaceTime every day, text each other every update that goes on in their lives, hang out all the time. They like to have that close bond and partnership. That's what works for them. Low-maintenance friends would hate the thought of that idea, and high-maintenance friends would hate the thought of our idea of friendship. Because I care about my friend. I just don't want to text or call them every day. They want to text and call me every day, so when I don't, they think I don't care about them. And I think they're being too needy and not respecting my need for space. But neither of those statements are true. We just have completely different needs and we are different types of friends. So although we're not toxic people, we are toxic friends to each other. And the final chapter, chapter five, dealing with the aftermath, friendship breakups, missing people that you know were bad for you. When you're in a toxic friendship with somebody, the aftermath can be so stressful and tense. As I've mentioned throughout the video, you know, they'll probably talk bad about you to other people, they'll try and turn other people against you. People will take sides. It's like a whole drama. Plus, if it's a big friendship group, and no one wants to leave the circle and then know that they have no one left, right? Wrong. This is the perfect rebirth of you and your new life. If everyone cuts you off, those people were never actually your friends. And you have to ask yourself, would you rather be a sheep, cause little disruption and keep the peace between all of these people that aren't aligned with you? So that you can continue to be surrounded by the wrong crowd, or would you accept some tension for a few weeks? And then finally find people that uplift you and actually like you and are there for you. And then in terms of missing friends, you know, friendship breakups are so hard, harder than actual heartbreak. But in those situations, all you can do is be grateful for the good times and memories. That in itself is a huge blessing to be able to have experienced such a close bond with someone. To have gone on those adventures with someone, to have loved somebody in that way. You got to experience life with this person and have such a close friendship. Not everybody gets that. And that is beautiful, but the rule of life is that not all experiences are meant to last forever. And sometimes the lessons and the wisdom we gain from it are much more valuable. Not every relationship or experience in our life is meant to be happily ever after. Like think about that, that would literally make no sense. It would be so boring. We would never learn anything or grow as individuals. So, if you are going through a friendship breakup, if you are missing someone, consider this as another scene in the plot of your movie. Because you are a main character and your life is a movie. After all, for the main character, it's normal for them to go through challenges and hurdles. But don't they always get through it in the end? Everything is always okay in the end. Whatever bad things ever happen in your life or somebody else's life, or a main character in a movie's life, it has always happened for the best. They always find their way, and it always leads them to where they're actually supposed to be in life. But that has to happen with a bit of hurt and healing in the middle. So it's important to get some effing character development up in here. So that you can actually get better and ready for the new and improved phase of your life. Because when one friendship fades, another one always enters, I promise. And lastly, it's okay to have trust issues in friendship if you have gone through something like this. It is completely understandable. And you have to be patient with yourself. Take it one day at a time, take as many small steps as you need. Don't force yourself to run into another connection with somebody. But the way to get over it is to take it one step at a time, and once you're slowly building up your courage and your trust once again, you have to take that leap of faith at some point. You can take those baby steps, wait for people to earn your trust, wait for them to prove themselves. But the trust issues are always going to be there if you don't prove those issues wrong with a leap of faith. Because I do think life and love and relationships, is a lot about openly trusting people, and not knowing if you're going to get hurt because truthfully, we never know if things are going to end happily ever after, or if we're going to end up hurt. We'll never know. And if we spend so much time wanting to know and trying to figure it out, we'll never have true deep connections with anybody because we'll be too busy hiding ourselves away and hiding with our guard up. It's about openly trusting somebody, knowing that there's a chance you'll get hurt again, but also knowing you're going to survive it all over again. That's life. Life is like a bunch of little love stories. Some end in happily ever after, and some end in lessons that shape us into the people that we were always meant to be. And that brings us to the end of this video. I hope you guys enjoyed it, but very important, this is only part one, okay? I know this video was a little bit negative, okay? I'm not the biggest fan. We like positive vibes around here, but next week's video is part two to this little friendship series, and that's going to be all about not only how to make friends, but how to choose friends. What are the green flags? What friendship standards should you have? How do you make friends as an adult after school? Which kind of friendships actually benefit you? That entire video is going to be how to create and maintain healthy friendships. So I'll see you guys in that one. If you enjoyed this video, make sure you like and comment down below. I love reading your comments and responding to them. Make sure you follow me on Instagram so you don't miss a beat. And I will see you in my next video. I appreciate you. Bye.
