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10 Toxic Things I Removed from my Life to Finally be Happy

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10 Toxic Things I Removed from my Life to Finally be Happy

 

Purge.

 

There is something about this word that I used to love so much. It tastes so exotic in my mouth.

 

It sounds so posh.

 

So unique.

 

So different.

 

Little did I know that I’d be using this word so much when I needed to redesign my life.

 

Purge means getting “rid of someone or something” and in my case, getting rid of both.

 

When I thought that hitting the lowest low was the worst thing that could happen, it actually is the best for giving me the chance to start from scratch.

 

Related Article: The Exact 10 Steps I Took to Kill the Old Me: A Self-Reinvention

 

To redesign a life that I want, I must start from a clean slate.

 

 

I only have one simple wish.

 

I only want to be happy.

 

But I didn’t know that happiness isn’t a one size fits all thing.

 

Everyone has a different definition and when I was asked what will make me happy; I couldn’t answer immediately.

 

I didn’t even know what makes me happy. I didn’t even know who I really was.

 

It took me three years to shed unwanted layers of myself that I didn’t like.

 

It took me three years to figure out but before I did, I had to go through severe feeling of hopelessness, pain and despair.

 

Related Article: 4 Choices I wish I’ve made Sooner

 

Defining happiness felt like a task similar to how I would be eating an elephant. The answer was to eat it piece by piece according to one of the books I have read.

 

Related Article: 5 Books that Changed How I Live my everyday Life

 

In my case, I needed to re-frame my mindset and remove all the negative things that has been stored there since I was young and like the old adage “it’s hard to teach new tricks to an old dog” goes, it was indeed hard to teach myself new ones too.

 

I needed to unlearn what society taught me to create my own.

 

I started by going through all that I know and all that I feel to finally be able to purge everything that’s making me feel miserable and I am telling you: it is not easy.

 

But I couldn’t just ignore all the things that make me feel stuck.

 

Related Article: 10 Serious Signs You are on the Wrong Path in Life

 

For three years, I stick to answering all the questions that I have been asking myself to be able to feel the peace that I was looking for the longest time.

 

Related Article: What Motivates You?

 

Excuses

 

The first thing I removed from my life was my excuses.

 

I was not happy with my job so I left even if I was not sure where I will get money to support myself and later on, my family even if I am still single and childless. It’s our culture. 

 

Related Article: Dear Boss, Thank you Declining my Leave Request

 

I was not happy with my self so I invented a new one even if I was so close to turning 30.

 

I sat with myself and cornered my excuses face to face to tell him that I am breaking up with him.

 

That this time, I was more than willing to set myself free.

 

Don’t believe what they tell you. Age is just a number. You can always turn back and start living the life that you have always wanted.

 

Related Article: How to Find your Passion and Live the Life of your Dreams

 

You just have to get rid of all the excuses that you are convincing yourself to believe.

 

Learning to beat excuses is hard but it will definitely be worth it.

 

Related Article: 11 Things that Changed Since I Found Myself

 

People Pleasing

 

It’s not easy to disappoint people especially if these people are family. I didn’t mind my friends. They’re my friends for a reason. I just got tired of seeking permission on how to live my life.

 

Saying yes to all and putting other people’s needs first left me with so much hate for myself and my life that I couldn’t tolerate it even for just another day.

 

I had to learn how to be direct in saying what I really mean to say even if the stakes of hurting them are high.

 

I quit always trying to explain and wanting to be understood.

 

This taught me how to draw a line that would clearly distance me from everyone who wants to suck my energy.

 

I now guard this line very well and only allow people to cross it if they show me that having the access to cross that line doesn’t give them any right to tell me what should make me feel good or not.

 

Negative Self Talk

 

I have always been far from my country’s epitome of beauty so I made sure that I’d be funny and brave enough to be the one to make fun of myself. That way, nobody will offend me if they decide to humiliate me by highlighting my flaws.

 

Related Article: Never a Size Zero

 

I trashed talk myself, other people laughed, I died inside every single time but people laughed and they seemed to like me so I felt it was worth it.

 

I kept doing it.

 

Trash talking and body-shaming someone to make other people laugh is such a huge industry in my country.

 

Comedians do this all the time and people actually pay them to trash talk and shame someone in front of everyone.

 

This has been the reason why I never had confidence. I always end up sabotaging myself and my happiness by telling myself that I am not worthy of any special thing in this world because I am just a plus size clown.

 

Related Article: 5 Easy Steps To A Healthy Self-Image

 

It would have made a huge difference if my mom was never the first person to call my attention about my weight. She didn’t know that her constant reminder of how horrible I looked like and that I should lose weight to be liked, left me with zero regards for myself.

 

Related Article: How to be Body Positive

 

I know she did that to protect me from the outside world but to be honest, it was my very first experience on how harsh the world is to people who don’t look a certain way.

 

I know she meant well but it is not what one says, it’s how one says it.

 

Reversing this is not an easy job.

 

This seemed like a curse etched within my soul and worse than a last song syndrome on repeat and on shuffle in my head. I know. I am a highly sensitive person.

 

If I didn’t start my journey to personal development, I highly doubt this negative self image will melt away.

 

Positive affirmations are so effective. I realized how powerful words are and this changed the script I used when I talk to myself.

 

I became very selective in the words that I use to myself. I refused to believe all my negative thoughts. I am good enough and deserving to be alive and happy.

 

Related Article: 7 Gifts I am Giving Myself Today

 

Negative People

 

It is so easy to spot negative people.

 

Complaining is their sport and gossiping is their hobby.

 

Their mission in life is to poison your thoughts and kill good vibes.

 

They are more dangerous than cancer and terrorism.

 

They have this contagious energy that sucks the life of a person trying to live in peace.

 

I noticed a different surge of energy flowing inside me when I became super choosy in who I speak with.

 

Protecting my energy became my priority.

 

Dead-End Relationships

 

Like negative people to cut off from your life, it is time to cut ties with people who don’t invite personal growth.

 

The guy who only sees you when it is convenient for him?

 

The girlfriend who talks ill behind your back?

 

That colleague who just always want to gossip?

 

All of them are just waste of time.

 

Trust me. Your alone time spent improving yourself will pay off later on. I know because this blog will not exist had I not enjoyed my time alone and did constant self check and life audit.

 

Ungratefulness and Complaining

 

Facebook and Instagram don’t mean anything to my blog because I hardly get views from them. But I love them because that is where I post my daily gratitude.

 

Instagram is like my mini photo gallery and my Facebook is for posts to remind myself of what I must do often or what I don’t want to become.

 

At first it was just to challenge myself but later on, it became a part of my morning routine and I noticed how my mindset dramatically shifted.

 

When I focused my attention to finding even just one beautiful thing that I am thankful for that day, I started ignoring the not-so-beautiful things that I potentially could rant about until it became a daily habit.

 

Finding what is beautiful became a part of my morning routine.

 

Jealousy and Comparing myself to others

 

When I hit the rock bottom, I was in such pain that I couldn’t even bother to look at other people’s joys, successes and activities.

 

I kept looking inside me for possible answers to all of my questions because for the longest time that I was doing what other people are doing, it just failed to spark joy within me.

 

Related Article: 31 Self-Discovery Journal Prompts

 

I started embracing my quirks, my uniqueness and the fact that we all have our own time zones.

 

Instead of secretly checking other people’s beautiful garden, I started attending to mine and I took my time and boy, it’s therapeutic.

 

I don’t see the need to rush things anymore and I don’t need to be like everybody else.

 

I have learned to grow through what I am going through. I realized that the best gift that I have ever received is my life and no one can be me.

 

I want to be able to use this one life differently.

 

The same with you. No one can be you. Being you is your superpower.

 

Clutter

 

I noticed a huge difference in the way I behave when my surroundings are clean compared to when it looked as if a super typhoon just plowed it.

 

I can think clearly when everything is organized and there is nice flow of positive energy.

 

A messy space makes me feel stressed and scattered.

 

It even saves me time if I know where my stuff are that’s why I became a minimalist.

 

I don’t have any qualms about throwing or giving away anything that I strongly feel that doesn’t bring me bliss anymore and I think thrice about acquiring anything.

 

The lesser I own, the freer I feel.

 

Related Article: 16 Things I No Longer Buy Since Becoming a Minimalist

 

Perfectionism

 

Few months before I forced a closure to my Malaysia life, I desperately told my mother that I wanted to be a writer.

 

I honestly didn’t know where that came from and where I will get all the words for whatever it is that I wanted to write about.

 

I also didn’t know what to write about.

 

I even doubted my capability to write this blog in English. In my head, I am just a poor third world village girl who doesn’t have English as her mother tongue.

 

Related Article: How Teaching English Changed my Life

 

I must also stress that I am a perfectionist and I want to learn everything first about grammar and the technical side of things before I launch this blog but I let everything go and rolled with the punches.

 

Clueless blogging didn’t just made me cry, it literally knocked me out a lot of times but because “done is better than being perfect, I let it go.

 

I even refused to go back my old posts. I wanted everything raw. I wanted to see my progress. This blog is a journey.

 

Related Article: 10 Things I’ve Learned After One Month of Blogging.

 

I am finding more joy in seeing these little progresses I am making everyday.

 

I let my need to control everything go.

 

Nothing and no one is perfect and if everything is perfect, it’s boring. There would be nothing new to learn and nothing more to do.

 

The Need to Get Everything in an Instant

 

I am used to getting everything fast so the same applied to my need to be happy but all I could ever afford to get was a shallow kind of happiness.

 

I love rushing everything thinking that I work better under pressure.

 

I realized there is difference between simple joys and shallow happiness.

 

I refused to understand that happiness, like success and life, is a process that can’t be done overnight.

 

It required growth and hard work which I was not prepared for but it’s sweeter because I know that it’s not handed to me. I take pride and pleasure in knowing that I can stand on my own no matter how long it will take me.

 

Slowing down is the best thing that I did for myself.

 

Fear of Failure

 

I have hit rock bottom.

 

I experienced being broke.

 

I became homeless overseas.

 

Related Article: Homeless in Malaysia: A Christmas Sob Story

 

My heart was broken a lot of times.

 

My family is not happy with my decision to quit my job to find what it is that truly makes me happy…

 

I am only left with these questions:

 

What will I still lose?

 

What do I still fear?

 

What can I still not do?

 

Related Article: Things to Remember When You are About to Give Up

 

I only have a lot to gain. If anything, I found the courage to slow down, be true to myself, chase my most impossible dreams and do what really will make me feel happy. And the start was to intentionally eliminate all these toxic things from my vocabulary.

 

In order to protect my mental health and to prevent my depression from relapsing, I am more ruthless when it comes to making sure that my boarders are properly guarded.

 

Sometimes guilt still hits me but since I know how unhappiness feels like, I make sure to not go back to how it was before.

 

Life is meant to be played forward.

 

 

Read next:

70 Good Habits to Drastically Improve Life

10 Ways To Stop Yourself From Being a Slave To Your Emotions

 

(Photo credit: Pexels.com)

49 thoughts on “10 Toxic Things I Removed from my Life to Finally be Happy

  1. This is exactly what I needed to read this time. Thanks for this ate Dani! Been binge reading your blogs by the way ??? and I’m looking forward to reading more about your beautiful journey!!!

    1. Beautiful write up. I resonate with this. It is a journey of healing and getting to be yourself. Thanks for the great point.
      Patricia

      1. Your all views are like we’re watching ourself in mirror as i am also finding many difficulties , especially to get rid of toxic pepole and always regretting for pleasing other’s, i am very much suprised as your blog create interest in me to read its really worthful and inspiring too.

    2. You are so inspirational ❤️ I am a psychology graduate but I also didn’t really understand how depression feels like until it happened to me. It taught a lot even the meaning of happiness.

    3. I needed this. At the moment I am in a bad place…definitely not happy with the way I choose to let things happen..but now I realized that to protect my mental health is what truly matters, not caring about amy guilt nor what other people will think once I make my decision for me.
      Thanks for this post. I really needed it.

  2. This is the second article of yours that I read. I didn’t realized that I will encounter your blog twice. As I browsed some of your posts, they really caught my interest! Btw, this article of yours is really helpful… naka-relate ako! And I agree with all you said. I need this. It was just a perfect timing na nabasa ko ito. May you inspire more people. God bless.

    1. What a journey! You are brave and vulnerable and I have really enjoyed reading this article. Thank you. I will do my best to start eating the elephant the way you did – one step at a time. Thanks for the inspiration.

        1. This article has sparked joy within me. Funny how you can feel so alone and not know how to talk about it, yet there are people out there that can put exactly what you’re feeling into words. Your writing is beautifully done. Thank you for your insights and not giving up on yourself.

  3. It’s amazing how long you have come in your journey… I could relate to many of the situations you described and found your thoughts very motivating. Keep rocking!

  4. Wow it’s like this post was placed here just for me to read at this very moment. With all that’s going on in my world they one question I can’t answer is, “What makes me happy?” I have to often tied me being happy to someone or something and I really need to take the time to center me and find out what really makes me happy. I truly needed this post. Thank you!

  5. I mostly skip a paragraph and sometimes a whole page when reading articles. Amazingly,I read every word in this writing. Girl! I felt like you were speaking to me face to face. Surely I needed something like this and you packaged it so well for me. Thanks for writing!

  6. Wow! What an amazing article right there. Thank you for sharing! I am quite going through tough times at this moment in my life and then I found your blog. This made me realized that from now on, I should live my life the way I want it to be. Develop self-love first before you can love others. ❤
    Looking forward to more like this from you! 😊

    1. Thank you so much for reading and I am happy this helped you a bit. Enjoy your journey and I know this challenging phase in your life is the one that will teach you everything you need for the next stage. I hope, this stage is the stage where you’ll fall in love with yourself. =)

  7. Hello
    I find your article on Pintetesr.
    I m afraid my english is not that good and i don’t always understand every thing.
    However I loved your style, your writing is very clean and elegant and i hope you find the hapiness you deserve.

  8. Lady, I love this and you! Beautiful, it’s ironic I stumble upon this because this is my new lease on life lately and MAN it feels amazing. You need not worry about your writing skills, they were perfect! 🙂 Thank you, and may you be richly blessed and continue on this journey and let anyone steal your light! ♥️

  9. Thank you so much for sharing this with me (us). I think about what will make me happy, stress free by not causing my own stress. I get overwhelmed very quickly when I think about changing my thoughts and life I tell myself this will be so much work and don’t know where to start. How you started your journey for change has given me hope thank you so much!!

  10. Thanks for your wisdom. I really needed it. I am in a bad place in life now but because of this post…I can finally move forward without regrets about making important decisions that will benefit me and protect my mental health

  11. Hi Dani!
    You are a beautiful soul! And I had great pleasure on reading it and even share some sentences with my friends!
    I had struggled with a friend and I was trying to understand why! And I knew why because my body was taking to me and gave me a lot of signs that it’s not the right person to be around but I didn’t allow myself to get affected by it and just decided to ignore and move forward with the smile on my face.
    Briefly speaking I found a confirmation in this story about negative people and it hit me. Anyway what I know is that I was also negative at some points in my life .. and it’s only due to lack of wisdom!
    The journey of self development it’s very powerful!
    I love it!
    Thanks for your great writing! Looking forward on reading your other stories
    Good luck – and you can do it all!!

  12. Beautifully said!! Going through a divorce with a toxic man who likes to turn the blame on me..finding myself, having boundaries and a voice is the most important step in my life right now..reading your blog was extremely helpful and made me realize I’m not alone and gives me strength to look forward to the new better version of MYSELF!! Thank you!!!💪🏼❤️

  13. Heyy,
    I loved every single thing you wrote and I wanted to say this even if it was hell 10 years later. Every single thing you wrote was amazing, I am so glad you wrote this down and made these decisions. I want you to never give up on any of this because it was so inspiring.
    Thank you much for these lovely words.

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