Love Toxic Quotes

You can love them, forgive them, want good things for them…but still move on without them.

It makes no sense to try to extend a friendship that was only meant to be a season into a lifetime.

If you walked away from a toxic, negative, abusive, one-sided, dead-end low vibrational relationship or friendship — you won.

It is necessary, and even vital, to set standards for your life and the people you allow in it.

Toxic people will pollute everything around them. Don’t hesitate. Fumigate.

Stop inviting people who don't celebrate you to your party! It's YOUR life - you have the right to be exclusive.

If there is a particular person in your life that is repeatedly choosing not to honor you and is causing you more sadness or pain than they are joy - it might be time to release that friendship back to God and trust that it is not where you belong.

People appear like angels until you hear them speak. You must not rush to judge people by the colour of their cloaks, but by the content of their words!

Look around you at the people you spend the most time with and realize that your life can’t rise any higher than your friendships.

We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants...I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. she walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. She knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either. People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.

The greatest win is walking away and choosing not to engage in drama and toxic energy at all.

MISERABLE Release the toxic and infectious- Spreaders of misery, Souls destroying souls- And poisonous liars. Awaken from the hallucinations- And take back your heart. Reclaim your self-esteem- And leave the toxic be.

Baring your soul to someone is like purposefully stabbing yourself in the heart and waiting for the person you love to stop the bleeding

Even if toxic people are right about what is "good," they are wrong if the approach is not healthy.

the idea that we are so capable of love but still choose to be toxic

You will meet a lot of people in your life; some laugh with you, others will laugh at you; some will love to clean your mess, others will love to mess you up! Love all, but choose carefully the one who stays close to you forever!

Shout out to everyone transcending a mindset, mentality, desire, belief, emotion, habit, behavior or vibration, that no longer serves them.

There are only two kinds of people who can drain your energy: those you love, and those you fear. In both instances it is you who let them in. They did not force their way into your aura, or pry their way into your reality experience.

I seem to be torn between 'I wish we'd met earlier' and 'I wish we'd never met'.

Or, you could stay mad, and we could go to your lab and throw test tubes full of toxic reagents at each other until the pain of third-degree burns overrides your shitty mood? Sounds like fun, no?

Don't let toxic people infect you with the fear of giving and receiving one of the most powerful forces in this world... LOVE!

You’re poisonous, toxic, bad for my health. You’re greedy, sly, way too stealth. You hurt me, use me, mistreat and abuse me. But your apologetic eyes, As you tell your lies, Draw me back in, And I forgive every sin. I take you back, Your love is my crack. I’m clearly a masochist, You’re my personal terrorist. My tormentor, My lover, My bully, My friend.

A victim evokes sympathy, right? Victims are not responsible, right? Victims have the moral high ground… someone else is causing the misery, right? Victims can easily justify why they are right. Victims allow themselves to be stuck in the status quo and they excel at seeing the faults in others, ignoring their own re-sponsibility. They love to take others’ inventory of faults and are excellent at blaming. Victims become hypersensitive to real and perceived injustice, where any slight becomes a reason to reject. Victimization is the toxic wind blowing through families, fanning the fires of dysfunction.

Just because you feel lost doesn't mean that you are. Sometimes you just have to relax, breathe deep, and trust the path you're on.

Forgiveness is a personal process that doesn’t depend on us having direct contact with the people who have hurt us.

Van Houten, I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invented anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.” A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.

It's funny isn't it? People claim to know what love is -- yet the minute they're given the opportunity to prove it -- they bail.

Because everyone knows, when it comes to love, it’s not the fall that hurts… it’s the landing.

Being cut off from our own natural self-compassion is one of the greatest impairments we can suffer. Along with our ability to feel our own pain go our best hopes for healing, dignity and love. What seems nonadapative and self-harming in the present was, at some point in our lives, an adaptation to help us endure what we then had to go through. If people are addicted to self-soothing behaviours, it's only because in their formative years they did not receive the soothing they needed. Such understanding helps delete toxic self-judgment on the past and supports responsibility for the now. Hence the need for compassionate self-inquiry.

Loneliness is a liar,” Graham told me, sitting down on the edge of his bed as he spoke. “It’s toxic and deadly most of the time. It forces people to believe they are better off with the devil himself than being alone, because somehow being alone means a person failed. Somehow being alone means a person isn’t good enough. So, more often than not, the poison of loneliness seeps in and makes a person believe that any kind of attention must stand for love. Fake love that is built on a bed of loneliness will fail—I should know. I’ve been alone all my life.

I may seem happy, but I’m still hurting. A nasty, adulterous divorce will do that.

Two kinds of people to avoid in your life; 1. Those who love your lies and 2. Those who hate your truth. Avoid them.

It's very possible and very okay to forgive someone and still not want to spend time with them

That we’re dysfunctional and toxic!” “We were dysfunctional and toxic,” I correct her.

The hardest thing about being an outcast isn't the love you don't receive. It's the love you long to give that nobody wants. After a while, it backs up into your system like stagnant water and turns toxic, poisoning your spirit. When this happens, you don't have many choices available. You can become a bitter loner who goes through life being pissed off at the world; you can fester with rage until one day you murder your classmates. Or, you can find another outlet for your love, where it will be appreciated and maybe even returned.

Not all toxic people are cruel and uncaring. Some of them love us dearly. Many of them have good intentions. Most are simply toxic to our being simply because their needs and way of existing force us to compromise ourselves and our happiness. They aren't inherently bad people, but they aren't the right people for us.

Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it’s supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful—something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that’s not what love is all about. Loving behaviour doesn’t grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn’t hurt, it feels good. Loving behaviour nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace.

The danger is never in loving someone — but losing your identity in the process.

If the self is the source of our depression or despair or insecurity or fear, it can’t also be the source of our ultimate fulfillment.

I want a dyke for president. I want a person with AIDS for president and I want a fag for vice president and I want someone with no health insurance and I want someone who grew up in a place where the earth is so saturated with toxic waste that they didn’t have a choice about getting leukemia. I want a president that had an abortion at sixteen and I want a candidate who isn’t the lesser of two evils and I want a president who lost their last lover to AIDS, who still sees that in their eyes every time they lay down to rest, who held their lover in their arms and knew they were dying. I want a president with no air-conditioning, a president who has stood in line at the clinic, at the DMV, at the welfare office, and has been unemployed and laid off and sexually harassed and gaybashed and deported. I want someone who has spent the night in the tombs and had a cross burned on their lawn and survived rape. I want someone who has been in love and been hurt, who respects sex, who has made mistakes and learned from them. I want a Black woman for president. I want someone with bad teeth and an attitude, someone who has eaten that nasty hospital food, someone who crossdresses and has done drugs and been in therapy. I want someone who has committed civil disobedience. And I want to know why this isn’t possible. I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the line that a president is always a clown. Always a john and never a hooker. Always a boss and never a worker. Always a liar, always a thief, and never caught.

If I want reality, I’ll walk outside and breathe in the toxic air, dammit. I’ll take a look at my own miserable life. If I read or watch a movie, I’d better get a fucking happily-ever-after.

The most toxic relationships in life are defined by the way they make us feel about ourselves.

You stopped loving me. We're a sick, fucking toxic Möbius strip, Amy. We weren't ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves - surprise! - we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way. You don't even really love me, Amy. You don't even like me. Divorce me. Divorce me, and let's try to be happy.

A new immigrant, within two years, will come to know that the salon is, in the end, a place where dreams become the calcified knowledge of what it means to be awake in American bones — with or without citizenship — aching, toxic, and underpaid. I hate and love your battered hands for what they can never be.

The attitude you pose is greatly influenced by the links of friendships you bookmark. Good friends, good attitudes; best friends, best attitudes. Guess what for toxic friends...!

love ice cream, I love pancakes, I love the color blue — bullshit. Because when I said love — I meant I bled for you. When the word love actually leaves my lips — I’m speaking it into existence. I’m empowering my soul — I’m joining with yours.

The glorification of hatred is predicated on a foundation of fear-induced ignorance venomous to haters and those they believe they hate.

Don’t confuse “familiar” with “acceptable”. Toxic relationships can fool you like that.

It’s like my entire conscious state has been reduced to this toxic blend of hope and uncertainty. I hate that I have to act cool and almost pretend I don’t like him when in fact I do, because, God forbid, I might come across as desperate for affection or a little clingy, which everyone should know are perfectly natural human behaviors, after all. Ugh!

One day..." Gabe whispered. "When my heart is mine again. When I'm not sharing it with a dying girl...I'll give you everything." "Gabe," I said, sighing. "Right now? I'm perfectly happy with the pieces. No matter how broken they may be.

You're damaged beyond repair that even if I wanted to fix you I couldn't.

Staying with detractors is like sleeping in a room located just behind the public toilet. You will never feel comfortable until you relocate.

Abusive relationships exist because they provide enough rations of warmth, laughter, and affection to clutch onto like a security blanket in the heap of degradation. The good times are the initial euphoria that keeps addicts draining their wallets for toxic substances to inject into their veins. Scraps of love are food for an abusive relationship.

Entitlement is an expression of conditional love. Nobody is ever entitled to your love. You always have a right to protect your mental, emotional, and physical well-being by removing yourself from toxic people and circumstances.

A boy made of stardust and selfishness; a girl filled with fire and fury at the world. We are a tangle of emotional wreckage, two broken messes thrown together, trying to navigate something we can barely comprehend.

Loving you will always be easy because when I look into your eyes I know you see the real me.

If someone keeps bringing you down, perhaps it's time to get up and leave

Our family was stuck in a cosmic hamster wheel of toxic love, making the same mistakes, saying the same words, being hurt in the same ways generation after generation. I didn’t want to keep playing a role in this tragedy of errors.

I wrote a song called 'Red' and thinking about what that song means to me and all the different emotions on this album they're all pretty much about the tumultuous, crazy, insane, intense, semi-toxic relationships I've experienced in the last two years. All those emotions fanning from intense love, intense frustration, intense jealousy, confusion, all of that in my mind, all those emotions are red. There's nothing in between, there's nothing beige about those feelings and so I called my record that.

You know intuitively that love is not insulting, criticizing, cheating, and lying. Love does not make you feel suicidal. Love does not mock you for having hurt feelings.

When love becomes toxic, it’s not love anymore.

Love toxic people from a distance.

I love you. If you remember nothing else for the rest of your life, if you fall and hit your head and can’t remember my name, if you get so sick you’re unrecognizable, if you hate me, if you’re on your deathbed and can’t manage to even lift a finger — remember this. I. Love. You. Always. Forever. Eternally. Is that kind of love something you can handle, Saylor?

If you want to bring the world closer to peace, be a peacemaker by creating peace whenever you can. If you find yourself engaged in an argument that only stirs anger in the heart, quickly make peace and carry on.

For as long as it takes for the sorrow and pain to transfer into acceptance. I’ll stay here. With you. By your side. I won’t leave.” “Promise?” “Vow.” I placed his hands gently on the piano. “I vow.

You are holding a cactus plant in your hand. You are bleeding and cursing the cactus but not letting go of it. Cactus is not hurting you. Your own attachment with the cactus is hurting you.

How you choose to feel today should not be dependent on others.

Your failure may put smiles on people’s faces while your success squeezes tears from their eyes. Don’t be deceived; it’s just a charm to entice you to fall in love with mediocrity!

When we follow Christ, we are never at risk of "losing ourselves," because our identity is eternally found in him.

How could I let a love go — one I’d been holding onto for so long — one that felt like home? It’s not easy to let go of the pieces, even though they’re the reason for my pain. I gripped them so hard that my blood fell like rain. But nothing, nothing could have prepared me for a new life with you — one I didn’t deserve, one I want to pursue.

I started getting Mal's texts just before lunch. Mal: Awake Anne: Morning Mal: Going for a run with Jim Anne: Have fun! Mal: Back from run having lunch ... Mal:Your taste in music sucks Anne: Thanks Mal: Seriously, we need to talk it's that bad. Everything apart from Stage Dive needs to go. Anne: Wait. What are you doing? Mal:Fixing it. Anne: Mal, WTH are you doing? Mal: Making you new playlist wih decent shit. Relay Anne: K Thanks Mal: Bored again Mal: Ben's coming over to play Halo Anne: Great! But you don't have to tell me everything you do, Mal Mal: Davie says communication's important Mal: When are you on the rag? Davie said to find out if you want cupcakes or ice cream Anne: I want to not talk about this ever Mal: Bored. Ben's late Mal: Let's get a dog Anne: Apartment has no pets rule Mal: Nice green lace bra Anne: Get out of my drawers, Mal. Mal: Matching panties? Anne: GET OUT NOW. Mal: :) Mal: sext me Mal: Some on it'll be funny Mal: Plz? Mal: High level of unhealthy codependency traits exhibited by both parties relationship possibly bordeing on toxic Anne: WTF? Mal: Did magazine quiz. We need help- Especially you Anne:... Mal: Booking us couples counseling. Tues 4:15 alright? Anne: We are not going to counseling. Mal: What's wrong? Don't you love me anymore? Anne: Turning phone off now.

Psychopaths do not actually feel the love and happiness that they so frequently proclaim. They oscillate between contempt, envy, and boredom. Nothing more.

Loving you has been worse than an addiction to drugs. At least I don't have the drugs c r a w l i n g into my bed at night.

Our truth is usually Satan's lie.

I am worth more than these excuses. I am worth more than this inconsistent, unhealthy, disappointing dynamic. I am worthy of finding someone that is never going to allow us to settle into this toxic, distorted version of love.

Vincent Van Gogh used to eat yellow paint because he thought it would get the happiness inside him. Many people thought he was mad and stupid for doing so because the paint was toxic, never mind that it was obvious that eating paint couldn't possibly have any direct correlation to one's happiness, but i never saw that. If you were so unhappy that even the maddest ideas could possibly work, like painting the walls of your internal organs yellow, then you are going to do it. It's really no different than falling in love or taking drugs. There is a greater risk of getting your heart broken or overdosing, but people still do ir everyday because there was always that chance it could make things better. Everyone has their own yellow paint.

Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. ... We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless--epically useless in my current state--but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either. People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox. ... But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. ... What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.

Yes! If you really love your beautiful garden of dreams, you will never allow any hungry beast to have its way in. Keep dream killers away!

If the family you chose before your birth no longer supports your path towards fulfilling your true destiny, it is never too late to find a new tribe.

Was looking for honey found poison instead - Toxic Friendships

He fears because he is small. I will not meet him there. I will not shrink down to his size, or anyone else's, for their comfort, for their appeasement.

The kiss is anything but sweet. It’s twisted, and toxic; a poison masked in sugar, making you love the taste of death. But for the life of me, I can’t stop.

Just because something is addictive doesn't mean that you will get addicted to it. But . . . if your stomach ties up in knots while you count the seconds waiting for a phone call from that special someone . . . if you hear a loud buzzing in your ears when you see a certain person's car (or one just like it) . . . if your eyes burn when you hear a random love song or see a couple holding hands . . . if you suffer the twin agonies of craving for and withdrawing from a series of unrequited crushes or toxic relationships . . . if you always feel like you're clutching at someone's ankle and dragged across the floor as they try to leave the room . . . welcome to the club.

People can forgive toxic parents, but they should do it at the conclusion—not at the beginning—of their emotional housecleaning. People need to get angry about what happened to them. They need to grieve over the fact that they never had the parental love they yearned for. They need to stop diminishing or discounting the damage that was done to them.

We share a reckless, toxic love that feeds the brokenness in me, in us. Our love is an addiction. A love that I won’t ever consider living without.

He said he loved more than any other women he's ever loved and I had a black eye to prove it.

Everything has a price. The price, however, isn't always money.

Watching someone you love go through difficult times is like being trapped in your own body but paralyzed. You want to yell at them, scream, help them, but your body won't move, and you know that no matter how hard you try, in the end, the path is theirs to choose, you can't choose for them. What a terrifying concept, especially considering we hardly see every option when we're stuck in our own self-defeat.

You know you’re in love with someone when the idea of them being in love with someone else doesn’t just wreck you, it invades every part of your being. Yet, how could I be upset that Gabe loved her? When his love for her was one of the very reasons I loved him? —Saylor

I love you more than the heavens love the sun and the moon.

Living in love, gratitude and forgiveness, is peaceful and spiritually rejuvenating. Living under the emotional constraints of anger and resentment is draining and toxic to heart and soul. It can be difficult to let go of past hurts, but it can also be freeing and uplifting. More and more, i choose to live in love, gratitude and forgiveness.

Once you understand what love is, you may come to the realization that your parents couldn’t or didn’t know how to be loving. This is one of the saddest truths you will ever have to accept. But when you clearly define and acknowledge your parents’ limitations, and the losses you suffered because of them, you open a door in your life for people who will love you the way you deserve to be loved—the real way.

The people in your life will either help you shake hands with yourself or they’ll teach you what you don’t want. Everyone, eventually, does one or the other. All pain transforms to learning. All love transforms to self-awareness.

Just because someone is your family doesn’t mean you have to keep them around if they are toxic or abusive. Don’t let people guilt you.

when I said love — I meant I bled for you. When the word love actually leaves my lips — I’m speaking it into existence. I’m empowering my soul — I’m joining with yours.

I feel fortunate to have spent a fair amount of time around toxic people, because their true purpose is confirming the value of those who should be treasured.

I love him the most when we fight and I am scared that he will leave me.

My love is toxic and you're suicidal.

Some people were only meant to be a part of one aspect of your journey. If you can't take them with you into the next phase of your life, then it's ok. They have served their purpose.

As Jesus explained, the right things have to die so the right things can live—we die to selfishness, greed, power, accumulation, prestige, and self-preservation, giving life to community, generosity, compassion, mercy, brotherhood, kindness, and love. The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self.

This has been a really tough lesson for me to learn. The people I love, I love hard and without conditions. My loyalty, once earned, will be with you for a lifetime. I really get that we are all connected and that until we all get it, no-one is getting it. That said, I'm also learning that some people are not a good match for us and their presence in our life is incredibly toxic. We can still love them, we just need to love them from a distance. Maybe after a few more reincarnations, we'll be able to love them up close again.

The Psychopath Free Pledge: 1. I will never beg or plead for someone else again. Any man or woman who brings me to that level is not worth my heart. 2. I will never tolerate criticisms about my body, age, weight, job, or any other insecurities I might have. Good partners won't put me down, they'll raise me up. 3. I will take a step back from my relationship once every month to make sure that I am being respected and loved, not flattered and love-bombed. 4. I will always ask myself the question: "Would I ever treat someone else like this?" If the answer is no, then I don't deserve to be treated like that either. 5. I will trust my gut. If I get a bad feeling, I won't try to push it away and make excuses. I will trust myself. 6. I understand that it is better to be single than in a toxic relationship. 7. I will not be spoken to in a condescending or sarcastic way. Loving partners will not patronize me. 8. I will not allow my partner to call me jealous, crazy, or any other form of projection. 9. My relationships will be mutual and equal at all times. Love is not about control and power. 10. If I ever feel unsure about any of these steps, I will seek out help from a friend, support forum, or therapist. I will not act on impulsive decisions.

The media landscape of the present day is a map in search of a territory. A huge volume of sensational and often toxic imagery inundates our minds, much of it fictional in content. How do we make sense of this ceaseless flow of advertising and publicity, news and entertainment, where presidential campaigns and moon voyages are presented in terms indistinguishable from the launch of a new candy bar or deodorant? What actually happens on the level of our unconscious minds when, within minutes on the same TV screen, a prime minister is assassinated, an actress makes love, an injured child is carried from a car crash? Faced with these charged events, prepackaged emotions already in place, we can only stitch together a set of emergency scenarios, just as our sleeping minds extemporize a narrative from the unrelated memories that veer through the cortical night. In the waking dream that now constitutes everyday reality, images of a blood-spattered widow, the chromium trim of a limousine windshield, the stylised glamour of a motorcade, fuse together to provide a secondary narrative with very different meanings.

You cannot circle around the pain and discover the happiness you deserve. You must travel through the pain and embrace all of the challenging feelings and difficult ups and downs that are the essence of the grieving process. For a long time, it may seem as if you will always be hurting . . . until one day you will find that you turned a corner and found a lovely new world you never could have imagined.

I love him in a way that’s toxic.

Love promises happily ever after, it boldly professes forever—but delivers only one thing—a reckless brand of hope.

When it’s just you and me, there will be fire in the air. Forget the moon. The ocean will pull to our magnetism. We’ll control the tides with our love.

i don't wanna be with anybody who weaponizes my vulnerability saves it in a wooden box loads it in a shotgun when I least expect it

Spirituality makes a really nice companion to therapy, because it provides love and warmth that you can tap into any time.

But if we were really enough as is, we wouldn’t have to try so hard to convince ourselves it’s true.

Maybe I fell in love with a version of him that didn't exist.

We spend a lot of time talking about the unfairness of how our toxic musculine society forces us to be ashamed of embracing romance novels. Yet we buy our books in secret. It's time we practice what we preach.

If I could take away his pain… If there was a way to transfer it from his soul onto mine. I would take it. Without hesitation I would take it all. Maybe that’s how you know you love someone. When you actually feel each tear they cry as if they were your own. When you feel each cut, each bruise, each hit as if you’re the one suffering. I bled for him.& in turn, he bled for her.Funny, how life comes full circle

Purposively whirling around, I glared at him. How dangerously handsome he is! How fiercely I hate him! How hopelessly I still love him. How badly I want to melt in his arms! How desperately I want to make him mine again! How strongly I want to get rid of his presence! I couldn’t see more of him and face nightmares for the rest of my life. His presence was toxic. Like bad toxic. Or a good toxic? I couldn’t differentiate. My head was spinning.

What makes a controlling parent so insidious is that the domination usually comes in the guise of concern. Phrases such as, “this is for your own good,” “I’m only doing this for you,” and, “only because I love you so much,” all mean the same thing: “I’m doing this because I’m so afraid of losing you that I’m willing to make you miserable.

For all the environmental troubles single-use shopping bags cause, the much greater impacts are in what they contain. reducing the human footprint means addressing fundamentally unsustainable habits of food consumption, such as expecting strawberries in the depths of winter or buying of seafood that are being fished to the brink of extinction.

You’ve dug yourself under my skin, into my bones. You fucking stabbed me in the chest, I’m bleeding for you, Princess. You kill me and I still fucking need you like I need my next breath. I need you as much as I want to destroy you. How is that possible?” “My love is toxic,” I said, my voice groggy and thick with emotion. “It’s fucking poison,” he agreed.

the hardest part is forgiving people who were never truly sorry

If you keep pretending you’re not hurt, how can you heal? True love doesn’t expect you to deny you’re in pain.

I finally stop feeding my mind with toxic thoughts and started nurturing my heart and soul with love instead.

A child, without toxic interference, will naturally become the person they are meant to be. André Chevalier

I love the sound of NOT hearing from some people.

Create new avenues in your life by removing toxic people who defeat your purpose.

Don't set your husband up on a pedestal and then cry when you find that he is only an ordinary man, after all.

The toxicity of love coupled with pain can erode even the strongest heart.

I understand the logic behind removing toxic people from one’s life. But I also understand that many who are “toxic” are acting out of a painful past… and that to marginalize someone who’s not known much love is to validate that they don’t matter. To live in the world we desire – a world of good people, safe places – requires less fence-building and more heart-building. It requires valuing the worth of all people and loving the hurt as much as possible.

No one would ever know me like he did. Understand and indulge the darkness and the lightness in me. The good and the bad. The strong and the weak. Take all of the parts of me that were toxic and soothe them with the perfect antidote. We had all of the ingredients of forever love.

She had to know, soon or later, that he was no saint and never would be. He loved her, but if she was going to stay with him, she had to know the worst of him. He wanted honesty between them.

Men,you say you want a strong, intelligent, truly independent woman who wants you rather than needs you, who inspires you, who pushes you towards being yourself, who can stick by you through the hardest times, and who can be your rock through life's obstacles. But you need to know that a truly strong, independent woman does not walk through life with her heart wide open. She has had to put up walls to block toxicity to obtain her strength. She is skeptical and always on alert from a lifetime of defense against predators. She is going to be a bit jaded, a little cynical, and a little scary because those qualities come with the struggle of obtaining that strength that gravitates you. She is going to doubt and question your good intentions because it has become her adaptability instincts that have allowed her to thrive. She is not a ball of sunshine. She has flaws. She has a past. She has her demons. She knows better than to just let down her barriers for you simply because you voice a desire to enter. You have to prove your right of entrance. She will assume the worst of you because the worst has happened. If you want her to see otherwise, prove her wrong.

If you are operating under the illusion that you can continue to hold on to people who you know are not good for you, and still create an extraordinary life filled with love and fulfillment, then you are fooling yourself. Toxic ties cost us and they cost us big time. If you are feeling stuck in your life, look to see who or what it is that you are stuck to.

What is evil neither can nor should be loved; for it is not one’s duty to be a lover of evil or to become like what is bad; and we have said that like is dear to like. Must the friendship, then, be forthwith broken off? Or is this not so in all cases, but only when one’s friends are incurable in their wickedness? If they are capable of being reformed one should rather come to the assistance of their character or their property, inasmuch as this is better and more characteristic of friendship. But a man who breaks off such a friendship would seem to be doing nothing strange; for it was not to a man of this sort that he was a friend; when his friend changed, therefore, and he is unable to save him, he gives him up.

She’s has craters you didn’t create and darkness you don’t deserve. She’s as stunning as the moon on a cloudless night, but it may take millennia for her to find and manifest her own internal sunlight.

It’s funny isn’t it? People claim to know what love is — yet the minute they’re given the opportunity to prove it — they bail.Because when I said love — I meant I bled for you. When the word love actually leaves my lips — I’m speaking it into existence. I’m empowering my soul — I’m joining with yours..

There is healing in telling. There is healing in exposing abuse. There is healing in being truthful. There is healing in knowing you are not to blame. There is healing in standing up for yourself. There is healing in setting boundaries. There is healing in self-love. Hold onto hope that you will recover.

What do you love?" "You for doing this - you in general. Chocolate, sushi, malt shakes. All things I'm highly deficient in at the moment. Well, other than you." "What do you hate?" "Chloe and clowns. Come to think of it, Chloe is a clown.

LAST WORD You made me laugh, And I forgot all the tears. You helped me up, And I forgot the times You let me down. You were hatred, Just as surely as You were love. You were everything right And everything wrong— Humility and Defiance, Cruelty And kindness, Approval and Contempt. You were everything And nothing. I had to let you go, And it freed me. Still, I’m sad, For I know Who you might have been. I know you so well… But you do not know me.

Dear Fellow Human Being, You are born wild, You do not deserve to be tamed! Tell yourself, You do not deserve this! All those toxic words you have to listen from people, All those fears they try to pin on your mind, All those giggles they aim at your dreams, All those judgmental stares inspecting your individuality, All those fingers pointing towards your crude character, All those shackles that tie your feet to social expectations, All those cages that do not let your imagination fly free, Listen deeply, you do not deserve any of it. My dear fellow human, you do not deserve this hostility. You are born wild, You do not deserve to be tamed!

I am thoroughly convinced that there are people who cross our paths every day that do nothing but discourage us and make us lose focus on the big picture of what God has called us to do. If we allow them, they will steal our joy, our enthusiasm, and our calling. When you come across people like that, give them no time or opportunity. God is the source of our joy, and we must spend our energies focused on Him alone.

It's impossible to love someone and control them at the same time

Oxana had never felt the slightest need to be liked, but it gave her profound satisfaction to be desired.

[...] we grieved for both our lives, in which we were both more dead than alive.

There are some secrets so toxic you can’t share. Especially if you love who it is you’d have to share with.

That’s the thing about love. It doesn’t care if you’re toxic … Love doesn’t care because it takes you over. It consumes you, eats at you, and leaves you barren. It does what it wants. It takes what it needs, and it doesn’t care what it does when it leaves.

You think you can change a guy, that he’ll be different with you, that you’ll finally be the one to tame him… and before you know it, you’re alone in your underwear at nine o’clock on a Saturday night, crying to Adele songs, eating ice cream straight from the gallon, and wondering what the hell is the matter with you that you fell for such a goddamned man-child, after he explicitly warned you not to.

Social justice is concerned not with equality of opportunity but equality of outcomes. In order to achieve this, it must hold back those who are ahead and push forward those who are behind. Equality of outcome is NEVER possible without government force." -p. 86

but nothing I ever gave was good for you; it was like white bread to goldfish. they cram and cram, and it kills them, and they drift in the pool, belly-up, making stunned faces and playing on our guilt as if their own toxic gluttony was not their own fault there you are, still outside the window, still with your hands out, still pallid and fish-eyed, still acting stupidly innocent and starved.

Plastic should be a high value material... [It] should be in products that last a long time, and at the end of the life, you recycle it. To take oil or natural gas that took millions of years to produce and then to make a disposable product that last minutes or seconds, and then to just discard it--I think that's not a good way of using this resource. (Robert Haley)

You start to see that you’ve never behaved like this in any other relationship, and it’s not because they were special. It’s because they were actively working against you from the moment they chose you. You look back at all of the things that once made you feel paranoid, now able to see that every instance of abuse & neglect was calculated and intentional. And finally, you come to the horrifying realization that the love of your life—the person you trusted with all your heart—had set you up for failure since the very beginning.

Sometimes by holding onto what you love the most — you end up choking the very life from the thing you want to keep on living. It’s possible to try too hard, to love something so deeply that you lose yourself. The danger is never in loving someone — but losing your identity in the process. Because what happens when tragedy strikes? You’re left an empty shell. You’re left with nothing.

It is always good to have friends. Friends may be considered as part of the family because you have created and unbreakable bond. But, sometimes we outgrow certain people. We no longer have the same interests or outlook on life. That is when you realize that the friendship has to be maintained from a distance. Therefore, you create a new avenue in your life by removing toxic people who defeat your purpose.

It’s perplexing how family members claim their undying love for us. They can say whatever they choose, but their actions and behaviors don’t match their words. There is an imbalance in the relationships with distinct discrepancies, especially in who overpowers the scapegoat.

(Divorce) We’ll remarry someday when we’ve grown, Like royalty who’ve earned the throne. An aisle made of gold, To have and to hold. My dress made of rags, A suit that’s so torn. All eyes are on me, But mine only on you. You give your hand, A king to his queen, But know this darling, Mulligans aren’t for the weak. By changing the rules, We’re changing the war, The wounds that we’ve known, Battle stains on the floor. But from this day on, The same as before, You are the apple, My eyes still adore. Worth more than one shot, Though we’ll face the worst a lot, Better days will come, If we stay and don’t run. And if a wave takes us out, I know we’ll figure it out. And if the current takes us in, I know we’ll do it all again.

I know every corner of you savage heart, your capacity for cruelty, your caprice, and yet I love you still. I would have you right here if you would let me. Fear you? I exalt you. Remember what I told you?" He laughed, tightening his grip on her hair. "You could burn me a thousand times, and I would still want you for my own.

You can break this cycle by meeting your own internal pain with self-love and a heartfelt understanding that this experience truly was not your fault. Whatever happened to them to cause this disorder was likely not their fault either, but now you see that your love cannot possibly break that psychological barrier. Your first priority is to turn your focus inward, allowing yourself to feel the emotions you were told were wrong.

The problem isn’t that they don't show you love, respect, and attention... The problem is that you wish they would... and now you’re begging, hoping, and giving endless second chances. They don’t value you and if you don’t change something, they’ll convince you to not value yourself. Stop arguing with reality. When it comes to love, respect, and attention, the right person won’t have to be begged.

The narcissistic mother cannot give her child unconditional love. She’s not capable of being self-less, devoted, warm, mature, or attentive to you. Instead, everything is about her. Life revolves around meeting her unrealistic, immature needs. She expects your undivided attention. Your admiration. Your praises. Your loyalty to her. She demands you to meet her needs no matter how ridiculous they can be.

Sometimes the people who are supposed to love you the most are the ones who hurt you the worst. They don’t get a pass just because they’re family. Choose yourself.” I’ve seen the damage holding onto a toxic relationship of any kind can cause and I don’t want that for her.

This morning, I woke up different. I accepted that life goes on... I might still love you, I might still miss you, but I'm better off without you. So, I'm closing this chapter of hurt because I deserve to be happy. And the only way I'll reach that is by letting go of toxic people who don't want to see me grow. Holding on doesn't make me strong, but letting go does.

To be self-compassionate is not to be self-indulgent or self-centred. A major component of self-compassion is to be kind to yourself. Treat yourself with love, care, dignity and make your wellbeing a priority. With self-compassion, we still hold ourselves accountable professionally and personally, but there are no toxic emotions inflicted upon and towards ourselves.

the parents’ primary task, beyond providing for the child’s survival requirements, is to emanate a simple message to the child in word, deed, and (most of all) energetic presence, that he or she is precisely the person they love, welcome, and want. The child doesn’t have to do anything, or be any different, to win that love—in fact, cannot do anything, because this abiding embrace cannot be earned, nor can it be revoked. It doesn’t depend on the child’s behavior or personality; it is just there, whether the child is showing up as “good” or “bad,” “naughty” or “nice.

The only question you need to be asking in a toxic relationship is this: If you were disfigured in an automobile accident and lost all your beauty would your husband still stay by your side and love you? Deep down in your soul you know the answer to this. The next question you need to ask is when are you going to leave.

Origins Of Cptsd How do traumatically abused and/or abandoned children develop Cptsd? While the origin of Cptsd is most often associated with extended periods of physical and/or sexual abuse in childhood, my observations convince me that ongoing verbal and emotional abuse also causes it. Many dysfunctional parents react contemptuously to a baby or toddler’s plaintive call for connection and attachment. Contempt is extremely traumatizing to a child, and at best, extremely noxious to an adult. Contempt is a toxic cocktail of verbal and emotional abuse, a deadly amalgam of denigration, rage and disgust. Rage creates fear, and disgust creates shame in the child in a way that soon teaches her to refrain from crying out, from ever asking for attention. Before long, the child gives up on seeking any kind of help or connection at all. The child’s bid for bonding and acceptance is thwarted, and she is left to suffer in the frightened despair of abandonment. Particularly abusive parents deepen the abandonment trauma by linking corporal punishment with contempt. Slaveholders and prison guards typically use contempt and scorn to destroy their victims’ self-esteem. Slaves, prisoners, and children, who are made to feel worthless and powerless devolve into learned helplessness and can be controlled with far less energy and attention. Cult leaders also use contempt to shrink their followers into absolute submission after luring them in with brief phases of fake unconditional love.

Toxic shame is the feeling that we are somehow inherently defective, that something is wrong with our being. Guilt is “I made a mistake, I did something wrong.” Shame is “I’m a mistake, something is wrong with me.” At the core of our wounding is the unbearable emotional pain resulting from having internalized the false message that we are not loved because we are personally defective and shameful. —ROBERT BURNEY

Loving behavior doesn’t grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn’t hurt, it feels good. Loving behavior nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace.

We know each other without knowing each other. I know your name, you know mine. We recognize each other in the corridors, and we know it. There is something between us. A bond. A special bond. That no one knows. It's just you and me. Keep ignoring me ! You amuse me. If you only knew how much I know about you, and how much I know everything. You really think I love you ???? Well, you're right. Get inside my head, you'll see, you're everywhere. Even as I write this quote. Fortunately, you'll never know any of this. I'm the one with all the keys in my hand. You have to beg me to give you one !

Nobody really enjoys having to pacify their feelings. It's too much like failure; it reminds you of weakness. but feelings don't want to be pacified, either. They want to be fulfilled. You fulfill your positive feelings (love, hope, optimism, appreciation, approval) by connecting with other people, expressing your best self. You fulfill your negative feelings by releasing them. Your whole system recognizes negative feelings as toxic. It's futile to bottle them up, divert them, ignore them, or try to rise above them. Either negativity is leaving or it's hanging on - it has no other alternative. As you fulfill emotions, your brain will change and form new patterns, which is the whole goal.

Watching someone you love go through difficult times is like being trapped in your own body but paralyzed. You want to yell at them, scream, help them, but your body won’t move, and you know that no matter how hard you try, in the end, the path is theirs to choose. You can’t choose for them. What a terrifying concept, especially considering we hardly see every option when we’re stuck in our own self-defeat.

Unlike modern pills, these hard antimony pills didn’t dissolve in the intestines, and the pills were considered so valuable that people rooted through fecal matter to retrieve and reuse them. Some lucky families even passed down laxatives from father to son. Perhaps for this reason, antimony found heavy work as a medicine, although it’s actually toxic. Mozart probably died from taking too much to combat a severe fever.

Watching someone you love… die? There are no words for how broken that makes a person. It’s like waking up from a bad dream only to find out that it’s you reality, it’s like watching sunlight fade from the sky, like watching death suck the one you love dry, and being powerless to stop it. You may as well try to stop the waves from rolling in, or the sun from rising.In the end, the waves will roll, the sun will set, and death will come. The only thing you have a choice in? How you deal with it…when it does.

But of course saying 'just let go of toxic masculinity' to a man is like saying 'just relax' to a person having a panic attack. Men will only break free from the masculinity trap when they have a safe alternative, but for the time being they're growing up receiving the message that they are being surveilled and that any deviation from the ideals created by rigid masculinity will be grounds for embarrassment and rejection from men as well as women. The change is first and foremost individual, but it also has to be collective. No one is free from gender norms, and the messages that men receive about their gender is setting them up to fail, particularly in their intimate relationships.

Because emotional abuse is impossible to prove, we often have an incredibly difficult time describing or putting into words what exactly has happened to us that is so bad. We know things were not or are not normal, but we don’t know why. Emotional abuse moves quickly. Just as we’re about to put our finger on it, it seems to slip away. Without a clear set of concrete, provable terms, many of us question if our abuse or neglect was real. Did it really happen? Or are we just making it up? We reason that if we were truly abused, our abuse should be easy to explain.

Dear Fellow Human Being, You are born wild, You do not deserve to be tamed! Tell yourself, You do not deserve this! All those toxic words you have to listen from people, All those fears they try to pin on your mind, All those giggles they aim at your dreams, All those judgmental stares inspecting your individuality, All those fingers pointing towards your crude character, All those shackles that tie your feet to social expectations, All those cages that do not let your imagination fly free, Listen deeply, you do not deserve any of it. My dear fellow human, you do not deserve this hostility. You are born wild, You do not deserve to be tamed! ― Jasz Gill

Oh, the dream. The goddamned man + baby dream. Written by the High Commission on Heterosexual Love and Sexual Reproduction and practiced by couples across the land, the dream's a bitch if you're a maternally inclined straight female and not living it by the age of thirty-seven -- a situation of a spermicidally toxic flavor. Of course you want to bring out your six-shooter every time you see another bloated mom hoisting up another pinched-faced spawn on Facebook. You want the dream too!

Even years from now, once I've stopped drinking, I will never stop trusting extremes. I will always believe that anything worth having is worth having in excess. The good things are worth hoarding until you have a cookie-fat ass, sex-aching loins, joy that fires through you like popping popcorn, or love, the weakness at the sight of some boy who makes your chest ache like indigestion. If it's good for you, it ought to be good for you in any amount, and you should track down every available bit of it. And if it's toxic, if it turns your liver into a hard little rock of scar tissue, or curls your memory at the edges like something burned in a fire, or makes your stomach flop, or your mind ache, or your personality contorted, you shouldn't buy into the bullshit about temperance.

We can deeply love our poison. We can love the taste of it, the scent of it, the comforting weight of it in our belly and find ourselves woken in the night with stabbing cramps, arms around porcelain toilet bowls, hurling every last bit until collapsing on bathroom tile, limp from dehydration. Sometimes parting with love is essential for survival. I’ve found the most tragic aspect of losing loved ones wasn’t the big boom of the fallout, but realizing later how much healthier I was without them.

That’s the thing about toxic relationships. They aren’t always toxic. They give us moments of happiness that we wish would last a lifetime. Those are the moments we cling onto. You convince yourself that there is enough love, underneath all of the chaos and mayhem you created in each other’s lives. You tell yourself that maybe there’s enough love left to make things work. And this made you question every little thing, including yourself. Maybe it wasn’t just him that was toxic. Maybe I was toxic to myself by continually opening the same closed doors, very well knowing there was nothing good behind them.

If you can't reuse or repair an item, do you ever really own it? Do you ever really own it? Do you ever develop the sense of pride and proprietorship that comes from maintaining an object in fine working order? We invest something of ourselves in our material world, which in turn reflects who we are. In the era of disposability that plastic has helped us foster, we have increasingly invested ourselves in objects that have no real meaning in our lives. We think of disposable lighters as conveniences -- which they indisputably are; ask any smoker or backyard-barbecue chef -- and yet we don't think much about the tradeoffs that that convenience entails.

Contrast toxic religion with the pure gospel. Religion is all about what I do. The gospel is all about what Jesus has done. Religion is about me. The gospel is about Jesus. Religion highlights my efforts to do what is right. The gospel highlights what Christ has already done. Religion lures me to believe that if I obey God, he will love me. But the gospel shows me that because God loves me, I get to obey him. Religion puts the burden on us. We have to do what is right. A relationship with Christ puts the burden on him. And because of what he did for us, we get to do what is right. Instead of an obligation, our right living is a response to his gift. Giving Christ our whole lives is the only reasonable response to such love. There nothing more we need to do. Nothing...

Love often doesn’t make any sense at all. It likes to creep up on you when you’re least expecting it, with the person you’re least expecting it to be with. It climbs walls and crosses oceans to find you. When it’s your time, love will track you down. Love isn’t possession, it isn’t codependency, it isn’t jealousy, and it isn’t neediness or clinginess. It’s not meant to complete you, but to complement you. If it’s toxic, it isn’t love. Love isn’t finding a “better half,” but an “equal match.” Love is letting go when you want to hold on. Love will never require you to sacrifice your dreams or your dignity. Love isn’t uncertainty. It isn’t a “maybe” thing. It isn’t a question. It’s always an answer. Love is beautiful. It is magical. It is life-changing. It is breathtaking.

I find some small, twisted comfort in thinking that perhaps we used each other. Him, for a glimpse into what it would be like to live a life entirely different from the one he'd been raised to desire, and me for the steady diet of angst and emotional damage that seemed to make me better, sharper, like a sword against a whetstone. I was his intellectual escape from a long parade of pretty, empty girls... and he was my drug of choice -- unhealthy, probably lethal, but ultimately so addictive it was hard to turn away. The problem, of course, with this theory of mutual exploitation, is that it is the deepest of lies. There was nothing equal or mutual about the way we used each other. I barely scratched his surface while he sliced me limb from limb. There's no comfort in that. None at all.

People hate thinking systematically about how to optimize their relationships. It is normal to hear someone say: “I will just wait for something to happen naturally” when talking about one of the most important aspects of their life while genuinely believing that this approach has reasonable odds of success. Imagine if people said the same thing about their careers. It would sound truly bizarre for someone to expect a successful career to “just happen naturally” and yet it is entirely normalized to expect that good relationships will. People pay tens of thousands of dollars to receive degrees in computer science, marketing, and neuroscience. They make tough sacrifices with the understanding that the skills and knowledge they build in these domains will dramatically affect their quality of life. Ironically, people spend very little time systematically examining mating strategies—despite the fact that a robust understanding of the subject can dramatically affect quality of life. We will happily argue that your sexual and relationship skills matter more than your career skills. If you want to be wealthy, the fastest way to become so is to marry rich. Nothing makes happiness easier than a loving, supportive relationship, while one of the best ways to ensure you are never happy is to enter or fail to recognize and escape toxic relationships. If you want to change the world, a great partner can serve as a force multiplier. A draft horse can pull 8000 pounds, while two working together can pull 24,000 pounds. When you have a partner with whom you can synergize, you gain reach and speed that neither you nor your partner could muster individually. Heck, even if you are the type of person to judge your self-worth by the number of people with whom you have slept, a solid grasp of mating strategies will help you more than a lifetime of hitting the gym (and we say this with full acknowledgment that hitting the gym absolutely helps). A great romantic relationship will even positively impact your health (a 2018 paper in Psychophysiology found that the presence of a partner in a room lowered participants’ blood pressure) and increase your lifespan (a 2019 paper in the journal Health Psychology showed individuals in happy marriages died young at a 20% lower rate). 

If you read Scripture scholar Marcus Borg and go to the index in search of 'sinner,' it'll say, 'see outcast.' This was a social grouping of people who felt wholly unacceptable. The world had deemed them disgraceful and shameful, and this toxic shame, as I have mentioned before, was brought inside and given a home in the outcast. Jesus' strategy is a simple one: He eats with them. Precisely to those paralyzed in this toxic shame, Jesus says, 'I will eat with you.' He goes where love has not yet arrived, and he 'gets his grub on.' Eating with outcasts rendered them acceptable.

10 facts about abusive relationships (what i wish i'd known) 1. it's not always loud. it's not always obvious. the poison doesn't always hit you like a gunshot. sometimes, it seeps in quietly, slowly. sometimes, you don't even know it was ever there until months after. 2. love is not draining. love is not tiring. this is not how it is supposed to be. 3. apologies are like band-aids, when what you really need is stitches– they don't actually fix anything long-term. soon enough, you'll be bleeding again, but they will never give you what you really need. 4. this is not your fault. you did not turn them into this. this is how they are, how they've always been. you can't blame yourself. 5. there will be less good days than bad days but the good days will be so amazing that it will feel like everything is better than it actually is. your mind is playing tricks on itself and your heart is trying to convince itself that it made the right choice. 6. they do not love you. they can not love you. this is not love. 7. you're not wrong for wanting to run, so do it. listen to what your gut is telling you. 8. you will let them come back again and again before you realize that they only change long enough for you to let them in one more time. 9. it's okay to be selfish and leave. there is never any crime in putting yourself first. when they tell you otherwise, don't believe them. don't let them tear you down. they want to knock you off your feet so that they can keep you on the ground. 10. after, you will look back on this regretting all the chances given, all the time wasted. you will think about what you know now, and what you would do differently if given the chance. part of you will say that you would never have even given them the time of the day, but another part of you, the larger one, will say that even after everything, you wouldn't have changed a thing. and as much as it will bother you, eventually, you will realize that that is the part that is right. because as much as it hurts, as much as you wish you'd never felt that pain, it has taught you something. it has helped you grow. they brought you something that you would have never gotten from somebody else. at the end of the day, you will accept that even now, you wouldn't go about it differently at all.

A storm-filled life replete with piercing and unearthly sounds ravages the soul of any thoughtful person. In contrast, the genteel wind of restoration moves silently, invisibly. Renewal is a spiritual process, the communal melody that sustains us. Inexpressible braids of tenderness whispering reciprocating chords of love for family, friends, humankind, and nature plaits interweaved layers of blissful atmosphere, which copious heart song brings spiritual rejuvenation. For when we love in a charitable and bountiful manner without reservation, liberated from petty jealously, and free of the toxic blot of discrimination, we become the ineluctable wind that vivifies the lives of other people. The mellifluous changes in heaven, earth, and our journey through the travails of time, while worshiping the trove of fathomless joys of life, constitute the seeds of universal poetry.

Dear my strong girls, you will all go through that phase of life making a mistake of helping a toxic girl whose friendship with you turns into her self-interest. This kind of girls is a real burden towards the empowerment of other females as they can never get past their own insecurity and grow out of high-school-like drama. Despite how advanced we are in educating modern women, this type will still go through life living in identity crisis, endlessly looking for providers of any kind at the end of the day. They can never stand up for others or things that matter because they can't stand up for themselves. They care what everyone thinks only doing things to impress men, friends, strangers, everyone in society except themselves, while at the same time can't stand seeing other women with purpose get what those women want in life. But let me tell you, this is nothing new, let them compete and compare with you as much as they wish, be it your career, love or spirit. You know who you are and you will know who your true girls are by weeding out girls that break our girlie code of honor, but do me a favor by losing this type of people for good. Remind yourself to never waste time with a person who likes to betray others' trust, never. Disloyalty is a trait that can't be cured. Bless yourself that you see a person's true colors sooner than later. With love, your mama. XOXO

He turns around, and when he sees me standing there, he looks scared. That’s something useful. Because I’m not going to let him go. He may think he was lying when he said all those nice things to lure me home. But I know different. I know Nick can’t lie like that. I know that as he recited those words, he realized the truth. Ping! Because you can’t be as in love as we were and not have it invade your bone marrow. Our kind of love can go into remission, but it’s always waiting to return. Like the world’s sweetest cancer... "We’re a sick, fucking toxic Möbius strip, Amy. We weren’t ourselves when we fell in love, and when we became ourselves – surprise! – we were poison. We complete each other in the nastiest, ugliest possible way. You don’t really love me, Amy. You don’t even like me. Divorce me. Divorce me, and let’s try to be happy.’ ‘I won’t divorce you, Nick. I won’t. And I swear to you, if you try to leave, I will devote my life to making your life as awful as I can. And you know I can make it awful.

Brace yourselves, girls: Soda is liquid Satan. It is the devil. It is garbage. There is nothing in soda that should be put into your body. For starters, soda’s high levels of phosphorous can increase calcium loss from the body, as can its sodium and caffeine. [Cousens, Conscious Eating, 475] You know what this means—bone loss, which may lead to osteoporosis. And the last time we checked, sugar, found in soda by the boatload, does not make you skinny! Now don’t go patting yourself on the back if you drink diet soda. That stuff is even worse. Aspartame (an ingredient commonly found in diet sodas and other sugar-free foods) has been blamed for a slew of scary maladies, like arthritis, birth defects, fibromyalgia, Alzheimer’s, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and diabetes.2 When methyl alcohol, a component of aspartame, enters your body, it turns into formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is toxic and carcinogenic (cancer-causing). 3 Laboratory scientists use formaldehyde as a disinfectant or preservative. They don’t fucking drink it. Perhaps you have a lumpy ass because you are preserving your fat cells with diet soda. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received more complaints about aspartame than any other ingredient to date.4 Want more bad news? When aspartame is paired with carbs, it causes your brain to slow down its production of serotonin.5 A healthy level of serotonin is needed to be happy and well balanced. So drinking soda can make you fat, sick, and unhappy.

You have me.” His serious eyes penetrate mine. “For the rest of your days, I will be here for you—someone to trust, to lean on—to have and to hold from this day on.” Marshall is a thing of beauty both inside and out. I reach up and touch my fingers to his lips. Somebody is going to be very lucky to love him fully one day. “Those sounded an awful lot like wedding vows,” I whisper. “You will be everything to me, Skyla. A lover…” He kisses a finger. “A friend…” He kisses the tip of another. “A spouse…” He pushes my finger into his hot mouth and I pluck it out. “Where shall we spend our honeymoon?” He goes right there without provocation. “No honeymoon—but, well…” I fold my arms across my chest. “I’m sort of not really seeing Gage, since I can’t trust him. Logan wants to wait until the end of the faction war before we see where our feelings lie, so I suppose I’m open.” “Open?” His head twitches to the side just so. “You know, for wooing—no kissing though. You’ll have to woo without lingual contact.” “No kissing.” His chest broadens under the guise of this new turn of events. “Fantastic.” He says it sharp as if this were a war and he just gained ground on the enemy. “What shall we do to commemorate our first day of coupledom?

If beauty is pain — let me get lost in it. If you’re my salvation — I want to earn it. If love is all I have to give — then let me give it. You. It’s all for you.” Gabe’s eyes opened and locked in on mine. “How can I prove that what I feel is real? You ask for truth I give you lies. You ask for joy I make you cry. But I don’t want to lose you. Not like this. Not when I’ve left your heart in such a mess. Give me one chance — I’m letting go of the past — but I need you here to know.” “If beauty is pain — let me get lost in it. If you’re my salvation — I want to earn it. If love is all I have to give — then let me give it. You, it’s all for you.” He paused, hitting the last few notes, and the song ended. Gabe’s smile lit up the room. But I was frozen in place. Me. He’d sung that to me.

Hennessy leaned over one of the shelves. The tediously normal-looking cell phone on it brightened to display a photograph of two young men as the lock screen. One was Ronan, laughing explosively. The other was a rather self-​contained-looking fellow, striking in an unusual sort of way, smirking a bit at whatever he’d just said. They were not exactly opposites but their appearances nonetheless gave the impression they were. Ronan’s dark, dramatic eyebrows, the other guy’s light, barely visible ones. Ronan’s emotions screamed upon his face while the other guy’s whispered. “Is that him?” Ronan addressed the dream at large. “Traitor. You didn’t have to show her.” “He doesn’t look like he’s filling a hole inside himself with your toxic presence,” Hennessy said. She kind of hated looking at them together. It made her feel ugly inside. “Are you guys in love five-​ever or do you think you’re a pretty board game to pass his time?” Now she sounded ugly, too.

After Jericho's illness crippled him and his parents had abandoned him to the state, it was Will who'd stepped in as guardian. He had sheltered Jericho, fed and clothed him, and taught his ward what he could about running the museum and about Diviners. For that, Jericho supposed he owed him a debt. But Will hadn't given Jericho the parts that mattered most. He hadn't given himself. The two of them had never gone fishing in a cold stream early on a summer's day and shared their thoughts on love and life while they watched the sun draw the curling morning mist from the water. They'd never discussed how to find one's place in the world, never talked of fathers and sons, or what makes someone a man. No. He and Will spoke in newspaper articles about ghosts. They conversed through the careful curation of supernatural knickknacks. And Jericho couldn't help but feel cheated at how little he'd gotten when he'd needed so much more. Why was there so much silence between men?

Emotional abuse poisons a relationship and infuses it it with hostility, contempt, and hatred. No matter how much a couple once loved each other, once emotional abuse becomes a consistent aspect of the relationship, that love is overshadowed by fear, anger, guilt, and shame. Whether it is one or both partners who are being emotionally abusive, the relationship becomes increasingly more toxic as time goes by. In this polluted environment it is difficult for love not only to grow but to survive. At the very least, emotional abuse causes both the abuser and the victim to lose sight of any redeeming qualitites his or her partner once had. The more a partner is allowed to degrade, criticize, or dominate her partner, the less she will respect her partner. And the more a partner is emotionally abused, the more he will slowly build up an intense hatred towards his abuser. The disrespect and hatred each partner begins to feel leads to more and more emotional abuse and to each partner justifying inappropriate, even destructive, behavior. Over time, anger can build up on the part of both abuser and victim, and emotional abuse can turn to physical violence.

Core needs for children include, but are not limited to, receiving adequate levels of time, love, and attention, along with meeting their needs to feel heard, validated, and understood. When these needs aren’t met, there is no way to rewind to the beginning of life in a way that enables any outside love relationship to heal or meet your core needs. Research naively suggests we seek other relationships outside our family to supply our basic needs of love, acceptance, and emotional support. Although other love relationships are fundamental, necessary, and important to our overall well-being, I believe it is not only inappropriate for us to put this type of pressure on others to fill the needs our family neglected, but this request is also impossible to satisfy. It is unwise and emotionally dangerous to assume anyone could meet the core needs that can be met only by the family we were born into. The unfortunate message from this type of information is that other people can heal our wounds and meet our core needs when, ultimately, we need to learn to heal our own wounds and meet our own needs.

He would talk, and I would talk, and he would talk, and each of our words sounded out the deepest secret depths inside us. There are some forms of love that words can do no justice to. There are some scars that can't be seen. Perfection is in itself an imperfection. He had flaws. He was sick. He needed help. Is not everyone sick, at one time or another? That was part of his beauty, his sickness. If he had not been sick, he would not have been beautiful, in the way that consumptives are, burning themselves up in brilliant flashes of light . . . I don't expect you to be able to understand. Love is strong enough to resurrect the dead. I don't like the word scar, because it implies intent and blame. A soul as powerful as his had to burn. I have never known a love like this. You don't know. I would have done anything at all for him. You don't know. It feels so goddamn good to be needed, to have someone tell you that he has a gaping hole in him whose shape is made to fit you . . . I saw that he was burning a piece of art on me, a signature on my psyche because it filled the hole in his own, and he wanted to make me his.

A few months ago on a school morning, as I attempted to etch a straight midline part on the back of my wiggling daughter's soon-to-be-ponytailed blond head, I reminded her that it was chilly outside and she needed to grab a sweater. "No, mama." "Excuse me?" "No, I don't want to wear that sweater, it makes me look fat." "What?!" My comb clattered to the bathroom floor. "Fat?! What do you know about fat? You're 5 years old! You are definitely not fat. God made you just right. Now get your sweater." She scampered off, and I wearily leaned against the counter and let out a long, sad sigh. It has begun. I thought I had a few more years before my twin daughters picked up the modern day f-word. I have admittedly had my own seasons of unwarranted, psychotic Slim-Fasting and have looked erroneously to the scale to give me a measurement of myself. But these departures from my character were in my 20s, before the balancing hand of motherhood met the grounding grip of running. Once I learned what it meant to push myself, I lost all taste for depriving myself. I want to grow into more of a woman, not find ways to whittle myself down to less. The way I see it, the only way to run counter to our toxic image-centric society is to literally run by example. I can't tell my daughters that beauty is an incidental side effect of living your passion rather than an adherence to socially prescribed standards. I can't tell my son how to recognize and appreciate this kind of beauty in a woman. I have to show them, over and over again, mile after mile, until they feel the power of their own legs beneath them and catch the rhythm of their own strides. Which is why my parents wake my kids early on race-day mornings. It matters to me that my children see me out there, slogging through difficult miles. I want my girls to grow up recognizing the beauty of strength, the exuberance of endurance, and the core confidence residing in a well-tended body and spirit. I want them to be more interested in what they are doing than how they look doing it. I want them to enjoy food that is delicious, feed their bodies with wisdom and intent, and give themselves the freedom to indulge. I want them to compete in healthy ways that honor the cultivation of skill, the expenditure of effort, and the courage of the attempt. Grace and Bella, will you have any idea how lovely you are when you try? Recently we ran the Chuy's Hot to Trot Kids K together as a family in Austin, and I ran the 5-K immediately afterward. Post?race, my kids asked me where my medal was. I explained that not everyone gets a medal, so they must have run really well (all kids got a medal, shhh!). As I picked up Grace, she said, "You are so sweaty Mommy, all wet." Luke smiled and said, "Mommy's sweaty 'cause she's fast. And she looks pretty. All clean." My PRs will never garner attention or generate awards. But when I run, I am 100 percent me--my strengths and weaknesses play out like a cracked-open diary, my emotions often as raw as the chafing from my jog bra. In my ultimate moments of vulnerability, I am twice the woman I was when I thought I was meant to look pretty on the sidelines. Sweaty and smiling, breathless and beautiful: Running helps us all shine. A lesson worth passing along.

The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.

I want you to know I have never loved anyone like I love you. More than Darcy loved Elizabeth or Heathcliff loved Cathy. I just don’t want to make you a widow.” “I never really understood why Brontë is considered to be a romance writer. We were required to read Wuthering Heights in high school and I always believed that her novel showcased the bleakest aspects of human nature. The story provided readers with a small yet unforgettable glimpse into the depths of human cruelty. Personally, I never considered the story romantic because the love shared between Cathy and Heathcliff was fatal, not just for themselves but for those around them. Their souls were incompatible, and they were a toxic pairing. Despite their love, passion, jealousy, and desire for connection, they were unable to recognize this fact.” “I was never a fan of Victorian romance novels.” “It was never one of my favorites. It’s often viewed as one of the great romance novels of all time, but I think it represents something darker: the fatal, selfish side of love, obsession, and abuse. To this day, I have not encountered a more accurate depiction of how love can become selfish.” “Why do you say that?” Xuan asked. “Because I think you have to love someone in the way that I love you to truly understand what love means... and to understand how wrong the story is. My soul and yours are the same in a way that Catherine and Heathcliff’s could never be. Widow or not, I will never stop loving you, Xuan. You have mesmerized me. My very soul has been entangled completely by you over these past three years. If Brontë or Austen could write the greatest love story of all time they’d write our story. And whether you marry me or not, how I feel about you will never change.

Things I've Learned in 18 Years of Life   1) True love is not something found, rather [sic] something encountered. You can’t go out and look for it. The person you marry and the person you love could easily be two different people. So have a beautiful life while waiting for God to bring along your once-in-a-lifetime love. Don't allow yourself to settle for anything less than them. Stop worrying about who you're going to marry because God's already on the front porch watching your grandchildren play.   2) God WILL give you more than you can handle, so you can learn to lean on him in times of need. He won't tempt you more than you can handle, though. So don't lose hope. Hope anchors the soul.   3) Remember who you are and where you came from. Remember that you are not from this earth. You are a child of heaven, you're invaluable, you are beautiful. Carry yourself that way.   4) Don't put your faith in humanity, humanity is inherently flawed. We are all imperfect people created and loved by a perfect God. Perfect. So put your faith in Him.   5) I fail daily, and that is why I succeed.   6) Time passes, and nothing and everything changes. Don't live life half asleep. Don't drag your soul through the days. Feel everything you do. Be there physically and mentally. Do things that make you feel this way as well.   7) Live for beauty. We all need beauty, get it where you can find it. Clothing, paintings, sculptures, music, tattoos, nature, literature, makeup. It's all art and it's what makes us human. Same as feeling the things we do. Stay human.   8) If someone makes you think, keep them. If someone makes you feel, keep them.   9) There is nothing the human brain cannot do. You can change anything about yourself that you want to. Fight for it. It's all a mental game.   10) God didn’t break our chains for us to be bound again. Alcohol, drugs, depression, addiction, toxic relationships, monotony and repetition, they bind us. Break those chains. Destroy your past and give yourself new life like God has given you.   11) This is your life. Your struggle, your happiness, your sorrow, and your success. You do not need to justify yourself to anyone. You owe no one an explanation for the choices that you make and the position you are in. In the same vein, respect yourself by not comparing your journey to anyone else's.   12) There is no wrong way to feel.   13) Knowledge is everywhere, keep your eyes open. Look at how diverse and wonderful this world is. Are you going to miss out on beautiful people, places, experiences, and ideas because you are close-minded? I sure hope not.   14) Selfless actions always benefit you more than the recipient.   15) There is really no room for regret in this life. Everything happens for a reason. If you can't find that reason, accept there is one and move on.   16) There is room, however, for guilt. Resolve everything when it first comes up. That's not only having integrity, but also taking care of your emotional well-being.   17) If the question is ‘Am I strong enough for this?’ The answer is always, ‘Yes, but not on your own.’   18) Mental health and sanity above all.   19) We love because He first loved us. The capacity to love is the ultimate gift, the ultimate passion, euphoria, and satisfaction. We have all of that because He first loved us. If you think about it in those terms, it is easy to love Him. Just by thinking of how much He loves us.   20) From destruction comes creation. Beauty will rise from the ashes.   21) Many things can cause depression. Such as knowing you aren't becoming the person you have the potential to become. Choose happiness and change. The sooner the better, and the easier.   22) Half of happiness is as simple as eating right and exercising. You are one big chemical reaction. So are your emotions. Give your body the right reactants to work with and you'll be satisfied with the products.

Darkness seems to have prevailed and has taken the forefront. This country as in the 'cooperation' of The United States of America has never been about the true higher-good of the people. Know and remember this. Cling to your faith. Roll your spiritual sleeves up and get to work. Use your energy wisely. Transmute all anger, panic and fear into light and empowerment. Don't use what fuels them; all lower-energy. Mourn as you need to. Console who you need to—and then go get into the spiritual and energetic arena. There's plenty work for us to do; within and without. Let's each focus on becoming 'The President of Our Own Life. Cultivate your mind. Pursue your purpose. Shine your light. Elevate past—and reject—any culture of low vibrational energy and ratchetness. Don't take fear, defeat or anger—on or in. The system is doing what they've been created to do. Are you? Am I? Are we—collectively? Let's get to work. No more drifting through life without your higher-self in complete control of your mind. Awaken—fully. Activate—now. Put your frustrations or concerns into your work. Don't lose sight. There is still—a higher plan. Let's ride this 4 year energetic-wave like the spiritual gangsters that we are. This will all be the past soon. Let's get to work and stay dedicated, consistent and diligent. Again, this will all be the past soon. We have preparing and work to do. Toxic energy is so not a game. Toxic energy and low vibrations are being collectively acted out on the world stage. Covertly operating through the unconscious weak spots and blind spots in the human psyche; making people oblivious to their own madness, causing and influencing them to act against–their–own–best–interests and higher-good, as if under a spell and unconsciously possessed. This means that they are actually nourishing the lower vibrational energy with their lifestyle, choices, energy and habits, which is unconsciously giving the lower-energy the very power and fuel it needs—for repeating and recreating endless drama, suffering and destruction, in more and more amplified forms on a national and world stage. So what do we do? We take away its autonomy and power over us while at the same time empowering ourselves. By recognizing how this energetic/spiritual virus or parasite of the mind—operates through our unawareness is the beginning of the cure. Knowledge is power. Applied knowledge is—freedom. Our shared future will be decided primarily by the changes that take place in the psyche of humanity, starting with each of us— vibrationally. In closing and most importantly, the greatest protection against becoming affected or possessed by this lower-energy is to be in touch with our higher vibrational-self. We have to call our energy and power back. Being in touch with our higher-self and true nature acts as a sacred amulet, shielding and protecting us from the attempted effects. We defeat evil not by fighting against it (in which case, by playing its game, we’ve already lost) but by getting in touch with the part of us that is invulnerable to its effects— our higher vibrational-self. Will this defeat and destroy us? Or will it awaken us more and more? Everything depends upon our recognizing what is being revealed to us and our stepping out of the unconscious influence of low vibrational/negative/toxic/evil/distraction energy (or whatever name you relate to it as) that is and has been seeking power over each of our lives energetically and/or spiritually, and step into our wholeness, our personal power, our higher self and vibrate higher and higher daily. Stay woke my friends—let's get to work.

Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?’ Amos 3:3 ‘Does This Person Belong in your Life?’ A toxic relationship is like a limb with gangrene: unless you amputate it the infection can spread and kill you. Without the courage to cut off what refuses to heal, you’ll end up losing a lot more. Your personal growth - and in some cases your healing - will only be expedited by establishing relationships with the right people. Maybe you’ve heard the story about the scorpion who asked the frog to carry him across the river because he couldn’t swim. ‘I’m afraid you’ll sting me,’ replied the frog. The scorpion smiled reassuringly and said, ‘Of course I won’t. If I did that we’d both drown!’ So the frog agreed, and the scorpion hopped on his back. Wouldn’t you know it: halfway across the river the scorpion stung him! As they began to sink the frog lamented, ‘You promised you wouldn’t sting me. Why’d you do it?’ The scorpion replied, ‘I can’t help it. It’s my nature!’ Until God changes the other person’s nature, they have the power to affect and infect you. For example, when you feel passionately about something but others don’t, it’s like trying to dance a foxtrot with someone who only knows how to waltz. You picked the wrong dance partner! Don’t get tied up with someone who doesn’t share your values and God-given goals. Some issues can be corrected through counselling, prayer, teaching, and leadership. But you can’t teach someone to care; if they don’t care they’ll pollute your environment, kill your productivity, and break your rhythm with constant complaints. That’s why it’s important to pray and ask God, ‘Does this person belong in my life?