Good Boundaries and Goodbyes: Loving Others Without Losing the Best of Who You Are

by Lysa TerKeurst

To bottom line it for you, I want to share a quote from Gary Thomas. In his book When to Walk Away, he says, “If someone is getting in the way of you becoming the person God created you to be or frustrating the work God has called you to do, for you that person is toxic.”3 When we talk about unhealthy relationships and difficult people, there is quite a range of what this can mean. There’s a difference between difficult relationships that have issues that need to be worked through and destructive relationships that are causing harm to the individuals and others around them. If you have given someone access to your emotions and they are irresponsible and don’t consider how their actions are affecting you, pay attention. You’ll know it by the amount of anxiety that stirs up when they are around. The person who continues to break your heart isn’t in a place to properly care for your heart. Our bodies are created to react to alarming situations. It’s hardwired in us. There is a part of the brain called the limbic system that helps us override the analytical part of our brains and kicks us into fight, flight, or freeze mode. When people lived in the days of saber-toothed tigers it would have been detrimental for someone to get too analytical about what to do while the tiger was baring its teeth and clawing its way closer and closer to them. Instead, their body got an extra dose of energy to react so they could get the heck outta there.