tips for navigating toxic/fake friends
21:34 Share

Ryan Seacrest here.

So hop on to Chumba casino.com now and live the Chumba life sponsored by Chumba casino. No purchase necessary. VGW group void where prohibited by law 18 plus terms and conditions apply. If you have a dream of starting your own podcast, today,

Today's episode is sponsored by Spotify for Podcasters, and I'm going to tell you why this is the best platform in the game. The reason I love Spotify for Podcasters so much is because it has made my life so easy. I can record, film, and distribute my podcast all from one place. Creating a podcast is a lot easier than you think, and when you use Spotify for Podcasters...

It lets you record and edit your podcast right from your phone or your computer. So no matter what your setup is, you can start creating today. Also, when you use Spotify for podcasters, video podcasts are also available and you can earn money in a variety of ways, including ads and podcast subscriptions. And the best part, guys, it's totally free with no catch. So ever since I started using Spotify for podcasters, my entire life changed. I mean, it up leveled.

claim your power and if you want to start your own podcast and if you want to change your life in the podcasting world all you have to do is download Spotify for Podcasters and get started

Hello, my beautiful friends, and welcome back to the Claim Your Power podcast, the ultimate show for all things spirituality, self-love, and personal development. I'm your host, Kim Perez. I'm a two-time author, content creator, yoga teacher, and entrepreneur. You are at the right place if you're ready to tap into your gifts, unleash your potential, and become your higher self. It's time to claim your power.

Hello, my beautiful friends, and welcome back to the pod. Did you guys notice something different? If you've been following the podcast for a while, you probably noticed that I changed the intro. We have filmed a completely new intro, new music, new video.

New little saying and honestly, I feel like the podcast has just quantum leaped. It feels like, you know, when you like deep clean your room or like you move around the furniture, but you like didn't really change anything. You just like move things around a little. This is what this feels like having a new intro for the pod.

But I'm really excited and I just wanted to say that if you've been with me for a while and like you had the original intro and then the second intro that's been on there for like a year and then this new intro, you're a real one and I'm so happy that you're here with me today. Also guys, I'm really excited because I have some really great news to share with you guys.

that on April 6th, I am hosting a full moon circle virtually on Zoom. And if you are someone who craves female friendships, connection, if you are into the whole spiritual world of like meditation, manifestation, journaling, EFT tapping, we're literally going to be doing that, all of it through this spiritual self-care event.

where people all over the world like you can come and I'm just so excited. It's going to be amazing. Spots are very limited because I want to keep it very intimate with you guys. But if this sounds like something that you're interested in, I just released the early bird price and I'm trying to make it very affordable so anyone can come from all over the world. If you're interested, you can check out the link in the episode notes or it's going to be on my stand store that is in all my socials.

But I really hope you guys can do I really want to meet you guys and see your beautiful faces and just like have an amazing little self-care full moon night. So I hope to see you guys there and I'm excited to dive into today's episode topic, which is honestly a pretty requested topic. I've gotten a lot of messages about this.

So today I thought we would talk about how to navigate toxic friendships and how to walk away from these friendships. So let's start off by saying that I have had my own share of toxic...

friendships that did not serve me in any single way. Especially when I look back at my years of high school, I definitely had some girlfriends that, you know, were just not, they were not aligned with me. They did not clap for me when I succeeded. They would say one thing to my face, but another thing behind my back.

And overall, they were probably just not a girl's girl. If you know what the term a girl's girl is, it's like women who uplift other women, women who are tapped into their feminine energy, who are reliable, consistent, true, mature. And certain friendships that I've had in the past in my life were just not girl's girls. They just did not clap for me when I succeeded. And I didn't feel like

You know those types of friendships where like you look back at them and you're like, how was I in those friendships? Because at the time when I was in those, you know, relationships with those girls, they

I thought it was normal and I like didn't think much of it. I didn't realize that like how draining it was to be friends with people that were not aligned with you and how hard it is to walk around on eggshells or have to dim your light to accommodate other people. It was very hard. But it was also a very big learning curve for me because I've learned so much about myself and I have to say that like you learn so much just about true love through female friendships.

I think a lot of people think that your biggest opportunities for growth would be in romantic relationships, but I have to say that some of the most

like common central values that I learned about true love. I learned from my amazing friends and my amazing girlfriends. And I want to just start off this episode by saying off the bat that it is completely 100% possible for you to have true female friends. And if you are walking around with this belief, like I did for a very long time that, you know, girls are out to get you or girls are unreliable, you can't trust girls, you

and you know, girls get jealous or compare da da da. I know, I know what that's like, but I promise you with my entire heart that there are good women out there who are ready to be your friend, who are ready to be a true friend to you. If you have for a long time been attracting these friends that are just not right for you, that are toxic, that are manipulative, that are unreliable, that you feel like you can't really conform

fight in our trust. If you have had these friends for a very long time, for many years, you've probably developed some sort of limiting belief about female friendships like I did for a very long time. I walked around for many years believing that girls were just

not reliable or not mature and I couldn't trust them and so I for a long time was just friends with guys like till this day I have many many guy friends but over the years I have developed the most amazing female friendships that have basically changed my entire perspective on

on women and on female friendships completely because now I have this whole perspective of like women are amazing. Women are their truest friends. You need to be surrounded by women and a strong, true friendship and girlfriends in order to heal your feminine energy.

So I want to first off say that if you are right now surrounded by friends that you feel like you can't truly be yourself with, you feel like don't clap for you when you succeed, you don't really know if they're gossiping behind your back or not, sometimes you can't say your beliefs or your opinions because you have to walk around on eggshells,

Or if it's like on the other side of the spectrum where they're constantly like bringing you down or judging you or they're comparing yourself or they get jealous, any of that, anything down that line, I am here to tell you that that is not an inner circle. That's a cage. You are surrounding yourself with people who are constantly draining your energy and disempowering you. And something that I have learned over the years when I had many toxic friendships is

is that it is by far, by far better to be alone than to be around people who make you feel alone. Because I think many of us are afraid to walk away from toxic friendships because we think that that way we'll be alone and we'll feel even worse.

But I promise you that walking away from a friendship that doesn't serve you, even though it's hard in the moment, it feels like the greatest weight lifted off of your shoulders. Because if you learn to enjoy your own company, you won't actually feel alone. You won't actually feel lonely. You'll feel whole. But if you are surrounding yourself with people who are not right for you, who are judging you, who don't support you, who drain your energy,

You are going to feel alone. You're going to feel isolated in those friendships and you're going to feel lonely. And you have to ask yourself, is that worth it? You have to start choosing people that choose you and you cannot be in fear of walking away from people that don't serve you. And this is something that I wish I could tell like my younger freshman year of high school self. If you guys knew me like when I was in eighth grade or ninth grade, you guys would be so shocked because I

Because I was the biggest people pleaser. I was constantly walking around on eggshells. I had a lot of girlfriends that were just like very toxic. And obviously it's also part of that age. Like when you're very young and you're a teenager. And everyone is dealing with their own insecurities and finding themselves. So obviously everyone is like fighting their own wounds at that time in your life. But it does teach you a lot. It does teach you a lot. And it also teaches you a lot about other people and the way that they treat you.

and their own insecurities and wounds. But I have to say that like now as an adult, I'm in a phase in life where it's like, if you don't serve me, I'm gonna walk away from the friendship. I don't care for how long I've known you. I don't care if you were my bestest friend. If you are like you, if I can't trust you, if I find out that you're breaking my trust or that you disrespect me or that you don't value me or that I feel like you're draining my energy and you're not true to me, I will walk away from the friendship.

So I'm a tourist and I don't know if this has anything to do with it But I'm a very loyal person very loyal like if you ask my best friends I have their back no matter what like I protect my friends like they are my children my babies They meet my friends mean so much to me, especially my girlfriends. They're like my sisters basically and

And so I am a very loyal friend and the friends that I surround myself with truly bring me up. They make me laugh. I can trust them. I can confide in them. They empower me. They always have my best interests at heart. I don't ever feel like like I'm thinking of like my best friends. I'll just say some of their names if you guys are listening to it. But like my best friend Claire, my best friend Callie and Saravi, like these are some of like my truest friends for many years.

I know that if I go to one of these girls, they will have my back no matter what. They will always tell me the truth. They will always make me laugh. They will always give me a hug when I need it. They support me no matter what. They are girls' girls. And I am so blessed and so grateful to have them. And as I get older and I meet new people and I make new friends, I am...

am very self-aware. Like, I think you guys need to be self-aware too. When you meet somebody, you don't need to tell them your entire life story. You do not need to tell them all of your greatest secrets. Friendships are built over time, especially true friendships that are built on trust and love and appreciation. They take time to build. And

And so when you meet somebody, test out the waters. And it's not in like a you have a wall up, you're too cautious way. It's an I love myself way. And I honor my boundaries. And I honor the fact that not everyone can have access to me. And so when you meet people, ask yourself how you feel around them. Truly.

If you feel happy and you feel joyful and you're laughing and you feel good about yourself, ding, ding, ding, that's an amazing friend. Keep surrounding yourself with that person. But if you feel like if all these things are suddenly coming up and these red flags and you feel like this friend maybe you can't trust or you get this weird feeling in your stomach, this gut feeling, like get curious about it. Ask yourself because your intuition is strong. And sometimes people...

are not always there to serve our best interests. And you have to know when to walk away from the situation and set the boundary and love yourself enough to say, okay, I'm not accommodating this. I'm not surrounding myself with people who drain my energy, who disrespect me. Because every single time that you are surrounding yourself with people who don't value you, who don't respect you, who don't care about you in the way that you truly deserve, you are being of disservice to yourself and you're ultimately disrespecting yourself.

If you disrespect me once, shame on you. If you disrespect me twice, shame on me. Because if I let somebody have access to me after they are bringing me down, they are talking shit on me, they're disrespecting me, they don't clap for me when I succeed, they are just not empowering me, twice,

shame on me i'm contributing to that because you always have a choice you can walk away from people that don't serve you i'm not saying it's easy and i'm not saying that there are no consequences to not sticking around with people who don't serve you but guys like life is short like let's be real life is short you were on this earth for a very limited amount of time and you are not meant to be miserable surround yourself with people who make you feel joy and make you feel empowered

Genuinely, like I'm here to like give you that wake up call. Like you're going to look back in life and you're going to tell yourself that you spent your entire 90, 80 years on earth miserable around fake friends, toxic friendships. No, you want to look back on your deathbed and be like, wow, I have met the most amazing people. I've made the most amazing soul connections. I think when it comes a lot to toxic friendships,

We think that because we've known that person for so long, like, you know, they're your childhood friend or they're your really good family friend or you've been friends since high school and you had like a really good friendships for many years. You just think that like, oh, I can never like cut them out of my life. I can never walk away. And I'm not saying that you need to like cut those people out of your life. But if somebody is profusely not serving you and making you feel down, like set the boundary.

Put some distance because when you give people a chance to disrespect you time and time again, you're disrespecting yourself. Like that's just the truth and you deserve truly. I'm telling you that true friends exist. They exist in this world because if you exist, if you're a true friend that exists and you seek those true friendships, that means that other people like you exist too.

They do. They exist and they are seeking your friendships too. Like I just like, I think it's such an important thing. And I think that's what I'm trying to do like online through my TikTok and like through my full moon events is connecting women together and realizing like we can have true female friendships that support and empower each other. But you have to realize that you cannot call in and manifest or attract the

the things that are in your highest good, the true friends, if you're constantly putting yourself in situations and environments that don't serve you. When you stay in friendships that don't serve you and are toxic and you know it consciously, you are blocking the true amazing friendships from coming in because your head is saying one thing, but your vibration is saying another. Stop holding on to people just because you have a big history together.

It is okay, it is valid to walk away from friendships that become unhealthy, that don't serve you. And if that person is mad at you for setting the boundary or for expressing your feelings or for communicating something to them, that is showing you that you picked peace over drama. That that person probably didn't have your best interest in mind if they're not letting you consciously express your feelings.

Like for example, my sisters, I have two sisters. They're like my best friends or my really close girlfriends. If I have a problem with them or something bothering me or something, you know, I'm feeling off about something in our relationship or in our communication, I can go. I know that I can go to every single one of those girls in my life and I could tell them, hey,

this like hurt me. This was hurtful to me. This bothered me. I feel this way. And they're not going to get all defensive and mad. They're going to listen and they're going to hold space for me because we both value each other. We value the way we feel and we care about the friendship. If you have a person in your life where you're scared to confront them, you're scared to communicate your feelings, that's toxic. It's

It's toxic. The people in your life should be a source of peace and reducing stress. They should not be causing more stress in your life. Let that sink in. The people in your closest inner circle should be the ones that are making you laugh and, you know, bringing like the little peace and the clarity and the lightness and the ease into your life. If they are bringing more stress and anxiety, they are not the right people.

And you need to be able to walk away from people like that. You need to be able to put yourself first. Put yourself first. Having healthy friendships is so important. A friendship where there's no competition, no gossip, no jealousy, no negativity. And the more that you become a good friend to yourself, the more you will attract good friends into your life. And by being a good friend, like how would you be a good... Think about it this way.

If you had a best friend that was so amazing and then you were friends with another person that was really toxic, but that other friend really, really cared about you, would they tell you to walk away from that friendship if they cared about you? Because I know very well that when there was a time in my life that I had like a very toxic friend, for example, my sister would tell me, Kim, walk away. They don't serve you. Walk away. Okay.

And so think of it that way. Be that good friend to yourself because the more that you can be that true friend to yourself, the more you will attract those true friends into your physical reality. Be a real female. Bring other women up. Support other women. And realize that another woman's success is not competition. It is a reflection of your own potential and of your own success. Another woman's beauty doesn't take away from your beauty. It just adds to it.

It adds to your value. We as women, we need to bring each other up. We need to heal the feminine friendship wound. And by doing the inner work and by prioritizing ourself, that's the biggest step. That is the collective step.

And being that true friend to yourself first and your true friend to others, you will attract those same type of people into your space. I want you guys to realize that putting yourself first in friendships and being able to walk away from something that doesn't serve you is the biggest act of self-love that you can do for yourself.

When you respect yourself, when you value yourself, when you say no more and you walk away from something that doesn't serve you, from the friends that don't empower you, you are directly coming home to yourself and you are telling the universe, I love myself so much and I deserve better. And this doesn't just apply to friendships. You know, this can apply to romantic relationships too.

But you have to be willing to let go of the things that are stopping you from growing. Not every single person in your life is meant to be there for the long run. Some people just come into your life to teach you something about yourself. And sometimes these toxic friends come into your life to teach you how to walk away and have courage and to say no to things that don't serve you.

And so sometimes if somebody is not serving you and people aren't meant for you anymore, even though you wish they were, you have to be able to summon all your strength and courage and let go of all that negativity. Because by letting go of what doesn't serving serve you, you're opening yourself up to new opportunities that do.

As your life changes and as you level up and grow as a person, so will your inner circle. And instead of resisting it, just ride with that wave and trust that sometimes I know that letting go of that person hurts, but it hurts way more to hold on to people who don't serve you.

Choose people who choose you. Beautiful souls, thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. Feel free to leave a review or DM me any topic suggestions. I hope you feel inspired to claim your power today.