Years ago I heard the famous Jim Rohn quote, “You are the sum total of the five people you spend the most time with,” and TOTALLY cleaned house.
Some of those people were already on their way out, so they didn’t notice…or care.
Some were really hurt and it was heartbreaking.
Some were irritated because they didn’t quit me before I quit them.
Some I had to go all Morris Day on, “You don’t have to go home, but you got to get the hell outta here.”
Some still stand outside my bedroom window playing “In Your Eyes” on a boombox.
But, for the most part, everyone understood why I friend-fired them and we remain peripheral pals.
It felt good, mature, healing, a clean slate for all.
I have only added a couple people back to my circle so far. I want to be thoughtful this time. Hideously logical, in fact. If I sense the slightest bit of old-Lynda-choices emerging, “No soup for you!” It’s not worth the risk.
So why, I thought this morning, do I feel like someone in my current tribe is messing with my mojo? I got quiet, curious, and looked around. It’s not that one. And it’s definitely not him. Or those two. Or even them.
Then, it hit me.
“The call is coming from inside the house!”
IT’S ME.
I looked back on the last couple months and, in a flash, identified my own self-destructive behavior as the weakest link. Negative self-talk. Scarcity mentality. Panic. Judgment. Jealousy. Last year’s jeans that look like shit on me. GASP!
See? That’s my inner-peace-wrecker. Someone obviously got too close to her cage and fed her. Now she’s busted out and is f*cking everything up. She has to be stopped. But how? If I’m the one making the sum suck, what do I do?
Unfriend myself.
What?
UN-FRIEND-MY-SELF.
Yep. It’s the only way.
Until further notice that tiny bull-in-a-China-shop is banned from my morning walks. She is not invited to business meetings. She can talk to the hand if she has an opinion about my dreams, she is not allowed to help me relate to my teenagers, she needs to stay far away from my bank account, and the Ben and Jerry’s.
Then she needs to earn her way back into the fold. Gently. Intelligently. Kindly. Courageously. Repeatedly.
And when I see she has learned from her unstable outbursts and assy ways, I will grant her re-entry.
I’m building something important here, and I can’t trust her to hold the ladder right now.
As the great sage so-and-so once said, “If you find yourself becoming your own worst enemy, try becoming your own best friend…by telling yourself to go f*ck yourself.”
Or something like that.
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© LCRI
