Value Yourself Enough

An interesting lesson that seems to be present in almost everyone's life is that of learning when to let go of certain relationships when we come to the hard realization that they no longer have a benefit in our lives. As creatures of comfort and habit, even bad habit, we find ourselves in friendships or other types of relationships in which we feel like the end result is more work than anything else and the gain is so small that it doesn't add anything positive to our lives but in fact cause lots of negative stress instead. I don't think that every relationship is always supposed to be or is ever going to be all fun and games, it's a balance of give and get and the rewards should be seen and felt within that relationship in order for it to maintain a healthy role in your life. We know the odd family member or friend who never really feels comfortable engaging in gatherings or the overzealous friend who never has a bad day, and we wonder silently to ourselves what planet they came from. These relationships are found in every person's life and we learn how to put them into unique categories, some in the category of will see once in awhile and others in the category of will see more often. These are not huge drains on us emotionally and actually add some fun and an element of change to our lives and we usually embrace them for what they are. The type of relationships I am talking about totally getting rid of are the ones that make you doubt your self-esteem, use up all of your energy so that you feel exhausted mentally, and leave you feeling depressed or guilty every single time you are engaged in the relationship. There comes a time when you must choose your well being, time and energy and overall happiness over any relationship that continuously challenges that. Only you know what you are willing to accept before getting to that point but once you learn to value yourself enough, the answers become very clear and walking away from these relationships feels like a weight has been lifted from you and you are ultimately making room for much more healthy ones to come into your life.