Have some unhealthy female friendships in your life? You’re not the only one.
You may have heard by now that who you spend time with is who you become. That means that if you spend a lot of time around people who are low value, negative and spiteful, you will eventually become negative and spiteful too.
This is a follow-up post to the post Warning: Pick Your Friends carefully.
Most friendships with other females are simply not worth your time. Why?
Because most humans are extremely prone to envy.
(See: 12 Secretive Signs Of Envy: How To Tell If Someone Is Envious Of You).
On top of that, too many people in this modern world struggle with low self esteem. This low self esteem makes them terrible friends by default.
People with low self esteem will not be there for you when you need them – and not only that, but you’ll always come second to their fears.
I know this sounds negative too, but the truth isn’t negative or positive, it just is. Whilst there are many friends who are toxic and not worth your time (most of the “friends” who come into your life probably will be), there are also a handful of friends who are truly great.
Table of Contents
Proximity To Bad Female Friends
Most of us will encounter bad friendship groups, bad friends or bad influences in our lives due to proximity.
You may work with a group of people whose conversations are negative or bitchy, or whose values do not align with yours.
You may simply have family members who do not add a lot of value to your life, or who feel like an absolute pain to be around. Schools and Universities are also another great source of random “friends” you meet because of proximity.
So, what does this all mean? What do you even do when you encounter unhealthy female friendships?
If you already have a friendship group that you’ve realised are bad influences, what are your options? What about childhood friends whom you have known forever?
What about parents or brothers or sisters whom you love but have a ‘heavy’ energy that makes you wish you weren’t spending time with them?
Given that the tendency to become who we spend the most time with; the next logical question is:
Should you leave your friends?
The short answer is no. You do not have to leave your friends. The point of all of this is that you must pick your friends carefully, and be mindful of whom you spend the most time with.
However, if you find that you have been spending a lot of time around people who are not the kind of influences you want in your life, here are your options:
- Influence them, and become a greater influence in their lives than they are on yours; or
- Take them out of your peer group or influence.
- Stay with them, knowing that your life will never be as bright as it could be. (Don’t pick this one)
Now let me explain.
Option 1
With this option, you don’t leave your existing friends; instead, you lead them.
Provided that you have determined that you can give them hope. Don’t lead your friends simply because you believe your values are superior. But rather, if your friends are in a bad place, aren’t fulfilling their potential, or are being unfair to the people around them; you can provide your care and love.
There is a gray area, where you can stay a good friend to them, but stop spending as much time with them, if at all.
You can always care for someone and be there for someone without having to spend a lot of time with them.
Due to the fact that this will cost you time and energy, you may only choose to do this with family or childhood friends.
LOVING a friend and being a TRUE friend doesn’t have to mean that you make that person or that peer group the main influence in your life and spend a lot of time in their presence.
It just means that you will be there for them if they ever truly need you, but that you know your time is better spent elsewhere.
To be honest, your life is too short to just settle for an average connection and unhealthy female friendships.
Why would you settle for breadcrumbs? Settling for breadcrumbs in a friendship is tolerating toxicity in exchange for a feeling that you have someone in your life, for fear of feeling lonely, or being SEEN as a loner.
Related: 10 Seemingly Harmless Signs Of A Toxic Relationship.
By making solid choices, you then allow yourself more room to grow.
By leading your friends, you get growth. Also; by forcing yourself to find better influences, you get growth too.
Do the quiz: What is my attachment style?
A note about leading your friends
If you do choose this option (option1), you must be sure within yourself that you are prepared for leadership.
If, say, your friend(s) have some bad attitudes about life that don’t serve them, you can care more and offer them solutions, and them help them create the life of their dreams.
This, however, can be a very difficult task. Many people will listen to you when they’re in your presence, but as soon as they return home, they may resort to their old patterns again.
You’ve probably observed this to be true in your life already, right?
Old patterns that have taken your friends years or decades, to cement in to their life will die hard. So be mindful of this.
You must have (or must develop) strong leadership qualities in order to do this. It also takes some time to fully influence someone.
Related: The 4 Qualities Of A Feminine Goddess.
Think about a change in your own life you may have once “tried” to make, and it took days, months, even years to fully change.
Worse still, for most average people who try to change an area of their own life, they never fully get there – months and years go by without them really “changing” anything.
Think about the typical news years resolution. When was the last time you knew of someone who kept their new years resolution?
Or what about the person who is going to quit smoking? Or lose weight? How often does this ever truly eventuate?
It usually doesn’t, right?
So if you are willing to fill the shoes of a leader, them know that leading your friends and peer group is about bringing a more compelling picture of the future and communicating to them in a clear and precise way so that there cannot be any miscommunication.
Do it to contribute to those whom you value, not for your own need to feel superior or smarter.
If you can repeatedly communicate a positive message of change to these people and to change these unhealthy female friendships from the inside out with total certainty, then those individuals will eventually align themselves with you or with more empowering beliefs and/or energy!
Remember:
It’s a very hard job and most people will not succeed with it. Remember, old habits die hard.
Do our feminine energy quiz: how feminine am i really?
Option 2
With this option, you decide that you will take this friend out of your influence and/or peer group. On this path, you send that person love, and move on and take another path. You may just need to give them space.
People come and go in your life. You may not be able to keep every single friend all the time, in the way you’d like.
Leaving a friend behind does not have to mean that you don’t care. For me, I only make this decision (ie: chose option 2) when even my own resolve to lead them over and over has proved unfruitful.
Some people just have no good reason to change, even if they know they ‘should’.
Don’t stay joint at the hip to bad female friends due to fear of loneliness.
People always have their own ambitions and desires and fears. They are not always at the same stage of life as we are, from moment to moment.
We can’t always expect our friends to grow and make the choices we want them to make.
They sometimes need their own kind of growth, and sometimes that means making major mistakes and having up and downs in life. We need to remember to respect that and remember that a life that is flat is not a life worth living.
So give your respect to other people’s decisions. If that friend comes back into your life, welcome their presence, but don’t settle for their negative or destructive influence in your life.
Option 3
You are worth too much to do this, no my advice would be to honor yourself instead.
We have all been given only a short time on this earth, so, do remember to not just settle for little crumbs of connection. You are not this kind of woman! Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this.
Nurturing your differences
If you ever find yourself in a situation where you:
- Have unhealthy female friendships; or
- Are friends with someone whom is very different to you
This does not mean you always have to leave them!
It is only when you have unhealthy female friendships that are very toxic that you need to walk away.
But never confuse simple differences with toxicity. Two people can have very different values, have disagreements and not see eye-to-eye, yet still have a respectful friendship.
This is where it may be a good idea to both nurture your differences. As long as this friend is not pulling you down or staying bad influence in any way, then there is no problem with such a friendship.
By the way, I’ve just published my brand new program titled “Becoming His One & Only!”…Click HERE to find out more details and how you can get your man to fall deeper in love with you and beg you to be his one and only.
If you haven’t downloaded your copy of the Goddess Report, click here to do so.
What are your thoughts? Have you ever had any bad influences or unhealthy female friendships? Share your story with me below, I always read the comments!
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Renee is the founder of The Feminine Woman & co-founder of Shen Wade Media where we teach women how to show up as a high value high status woman whom easily inspires a deep sense of emotional commitment from her chosen man. She graduated with a bachelor of Law and bachelor of Arts majoring in sociology and psychology. She has been a dating and relationship coach for women in the past 15 years and together with her husband D. Shen at Commitment Triggers blog, they have positively influenced the lives of over 20 million women through their articles and videos as well as 10’s of thousands through paid programs through the Shen Wade Media platform.
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