To all of my gardening friends out there. What happens when you pull a weed out of the ground without removing the root?
The weed will keep growing back.
To me, that it a perfect analogy to how we address the majority of our health. We feel a certain way and then take something to rid ourselves of the bad feeling and want that relief as soon as humanly possible.
We all know that not addressing root causes to weight issues, diabetes, high blood pressure, depression and any other health issue is merely addressing the symptom and not getting rid of the condition completely. At this point, that’s pretty common knowledge right?
So why do we continue to do it? It is because we have the wrong perspective about our health.
We don’t view our health as a whole. We compartmentalize it within other aspects of our lives and only think about it when something goes wrong.
This perspective is wrong. Our health is a dynamic, living, breathing, evolving, and ever-changing entity that will always be there with you… Like luggage.
A major cause of weight gain, stress, depression and hopelessness is the type of relationship we have with those CLOSEST to us. Some relationships allow us to grow and prosper and others are toxic.
Keep in mind that the toxic relationship doesn’t always mean that it is a relationship between you and your partner. Toxic relationships can be between friends, immediate and extended family and coworkers.
Here are 3 types of toxic relationships that impact your weight and overall mental and physical health:
The Deprecating Relationship
This relationship is where the toxic partner (TP) is either subtly or openly belittling you in order to control you. This relationship, as with most toxic relationships is about control.
The objective of this relationship is to belittle any and all aspects of you so that your future is dictated by them. They either subtly through passive aggressive side comments, or openly with direct insults ridicule what you are as a person, how you think, how you feel, what you wear, how you look and how you act.
In this relationship you will constantly be feeling that you aren’t good enough or that you just can’t do anything right. You always feel self-conscious that you will be made fun of for saying something, feeling something, looking a certain way or wearing a certain type of clothing.
The worst part of this relationship is that you will always feel too insecure to discuss your dreams and aspirations out
of fear of being mocked, ridiculed or made to feel like what you have is a stupid idea. The obvious issue this leaves you with is a real sense of insecurity and low self-worth, but that’s not the most dangerous part.
The danger in this relationship is that when someone begins to negatively impact the decisions you want to make for your own happiness or betterment, they have essentially controlled your future. This ultimately leads to you feeling unfulfilled later on in life, resentment, anger and depression.
Your life and your time are gifts given to YOU and ONLY YOU. Remember, when you are giving someone time, you are doing THEM the favor of having your time.
That time is extremely valuable. Never trade it for time spent with someone who only wants to be your puppet master.
The Using Relationship
This type of toxic relationship is a little different. In this relationship the TP will be nice, courteous, affectionate and sweet to you… as long as they are getting what they want.
Just like the “deprecating” toxic relationship, this type of relationship robs you of your time. In this relationship you will find that a lot of your time is invested in them.
You’ll start to realize that a big portion of your time is dedicated to them, what makes them feel good, what makes them happy and what you can do to make THEIR lives better.
A telltale sign of this type of relationship is that this person, as nice as they might be, is always receiving and never giving. And when they give, it’s like they want a parade thrown for them.
There are a couple of ways this TP will manipulate you into spending your time on them. They will either be upfront and ask you, “hey would you mind if you did this or that for me”, or “can you do me a favor…”
They will also be more manipulative and down-low about it too. They do this by becoming a victim or by just being a general sad-sack. They’ll mope and sulk until you ask what’s wrong and then they’ll start to unload and complain about how awful their condition is, how they wish they could just get through this or that so they can accomplish what they want to accomplish.
Don’t believe the hype. They don’t want to accomplish anything other than manipulating you. Why should they want to accomplish anything? You do everything for them anyway… Right?
The Paranoid Relationship
This toxic relationship is the most serious one. This relationship is common in very physically and emotionally abusive relationships.
This relationship actually has a mixture of many different types of toxic relationships from using, to anger, to deprecating, and deceptive. It’s a relationship that can end very, very badly.
In this type of relationship, the TP is by definition paranoid about you. A lot of this has 
to do with control issues you’re TP has as well as a lot of insecurity they may feel internally to begin with.
It is hard to say if the insecurity causes the control issues as everyone is different when it comes to that. But the important thing to understand is that this is probably not the type of relationship that you should consider continuing for too long.
In the beginning of the relationship you might actually mistake the paranoia for the TP being sweet and committed to the relationship because they care so much they might not have thought rationally for a second.
Don’t be fooled. If not checked, that type of behavior can evolve and transform into a serious control dynamic.
You’ll know you are in this type of relationship if your partner:
- checks your odometer
- always asks where you are going
- always asks who you’re talking to on the phone
- controlling how you dress and look
- determining who among your friends and family are acceptable for you to speak with
- disrespecting you, especially in front of other people
- having a short fuse
- always yelling at you
- being demeaning
- criticizing your appearance or intelligence only to then say he’s the only one who really loves you
- always thinking you are lying
Again, control is the objective of this relationship and it is typically achieved through intimidation and aggression.
How These Relationships Destroy Your Physical and Mental Health
Your mental and emotional health has a lot to do with your perception and idea of where you want to end up. Being hopeful and moving forward towards things that fulfill you emotionally and spiritually are things that give you hope.
These toxic relationships are designed to be a 1-way street. And as 1-way streets go you can forget about anything ever coming your way.
What ends up happening is that you begin to lose hope in your future, you lose hope in your happiness and you ultimately lose hope in desiring anything to fulfill you.
This has an immediate and extended impact on your weight and physical health as well.
When you start believing the lies about how useless you are your self-esteem and self-worth begins to crumble. It’s really not your fault either.
The human mind is a product of repetition. If you tell someone that they are fat and stupid enough times, they will start to believe it. Especially if your guard is down because those words are coming from someone you’ve let in to your heart.
The immediate impact of these relationships is that it increases the level of stress, makes you put on weight through comfort/emotional eating. Your desire to even be healthy decreases and you take less and less care of yourself.
The extended health impacts of these relationships are that they tend to lead in you not wanting to put in the effort of either losing weight or overcoming certain medical conditions. You become more susceptible to wanting a quick fix like a weight loss magic pill or medications that end up giving you even more health problems.
In order to take control of your health, weight, physique and mind you HAVE to begin to look at taking care of your relationships.
The majority of the time, you will find that getting sucked in to a toxic relationship turned you into someone you never thought you’d be.
The good news is that YOU CAN overcome it.
Don’t forget to check out my Work Week Weight Loss System on the products page.
In that book I show you:
- How to overcome toxic relationships in order to lose weight
- How to balance your work life/personal life and family life
- How to reclaim your life and health even if you have no time for yourself
- How to lose weight and get healthy without going to the gym
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