Toxic Friendships: Walk Away

We’ve talked about the first step, admitting to yourself that you’re involved in a toxic relationship and you’re suffering. You know there are probably some important lessons to be learned. Pain can be a great teacher, but is there another way?

In Zen, there is always another way. There is always another side. The Japanese have a word for people who only see one side. Tanpankan evokes the image of a person carrying a board on his shoulder. He can see only to one side. The board blinds him to the other.

What does this have to do with me? On the one side of the board, I have my toxic luncheons with my clinical social work friends. Can I tough this out? Am I Jackie Robinson, John Mitchell, Dogen, and the other great Zen masters? Of course, I am. Don’t I chant every week, “I am the Buddhas and they are me”? There are important lessons in my pain. If I stay with the pain, I will learn something valuable. But this is only one side of the board.

Put the board down, Ken. See what’s on the other side of the board: Me and my limitations; my life with its multiple challenges. How much stress can I deal with at this point in my life? How much toxicity can I absorb?

On one side of the board, life is limitless and every person is a teacher. There is so much to learn. On the other side of the board, at every moment, I am a person with limitations. Not everyone is my teacher for this moment.

Recognizing the toxic situation, that the monthly lunches with my colleagues were triggering sadness and discomfort, was a breakthrough first step. Yes, I can use my post-luncheon distress as an opportunity to study myself, to make peace with my demons, to plunge more deeply. I could also listen to the unhappiness of my body. Maybe this isn’t the challenge for now.

It wasn’t easy for me to respect my limitations. I was programmed to rise to challenges, to face my fears. There was programmed guilt for backing off. What was wrong with me that I didn’t push myself through the discomfort? Was I coddling myself? This time I listened to my body. I quit the lunches. It felt good, and I felt guilty. Was that the right decision? If I’d gone deeper, would I have found a different way to work with my private-practice demons? I took a different plunge, the plunge into respecting my limitations. There were demons there too.

Was it the right choice? Zen never tells me what to do. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that Zen is always pointing me in multiple directions. So, what do we do when we recognize that we are in a toxic relationship? Dive deeper? Walk away? Is there an alternative? Well, sort of. We’ll get to that next week.