Peer pressure and toxic relationships

Peer Pressure

and Toxic Relationships

Excerpt from

The Toxic Relationship Self-help Kit:

Love them, but LEAVE them

By Maria Mar(c)2009

Terrified Tweeter jumped from
branch to branch, tweeting as hard as she could. Her friends, scared of the
terrible danger that the small bird announced, stayed safely at a distance.

They admired Tweeter’s courage. Such a tiny bird, staying on the same tree
as that mean predator, Haughty Hawk. What courage! Small as she was,
Terrified Tweeter was relentless. Her tweets were so loud that her whole
body shook with their resonance.

Meanwhile Hawk sat on a steady
branch at the other side of the Ancient Tree, meditating. But it was hard to
meditate with all the racket that the tiny bird was creating. Haughty Hawk
was annoyed. Why was the bird so scared now, when they had co-existed
peacefully for years?

“I thought she was my friend,”

Haughty Hawk reflected. “Go figure these tiny tweeters. They are always
scared.”

Haughty Hawk had also been
scared as it grew up in the noisy city, with the Two-legged predators so
nearby. But now that she was meditating and learning the Ways of the
Warrior, she had chosen to live without fear. She had learned to empty her
mind and visualize her desires, and she had grown strong and confident.

But the more confident Haughty
Hawk grew, the louder Terrified Tweetie squeaked each time Hawk came close.
She had managed to scare all the other birds, who disappeared the minute
Haughty Hawk perched in any of the Ancient Trees around.

Haughty Hawk began to feel more
than resentful. She became angry.

“Perhaps I should give her
reason to tweet,” Haughty Hawk considered, her trained eye gauging the
distance between the scared bird and her branch. In a split second, she
could have the naughty bird in her beak, and she could then meditate in
silence.

Haughty Hawk caught herself in
her fantasies of revenge and released her toxic feelings with a sigh. She
dived her Inner Eye deep into her heart. There she saw and felt the
pain that her new loneliness inflicted. She was sad that her tiny friends
would distrust her after all this time.

Haughty Hawk remembered when
she had caught them murmuring behind her back.

“She says that she is
harnessing power,” they nervously tweeted.

“What could she possibly want
to do with all that power, except eat us all?” they squeaked.

Haughty Hawk smiled sadly. She
remembered when she, too was scared of the great Eagle, the large Hunter
Hawks and the daring Crows. She had felt so small that she had not
understood her own power. She had, like her tiny friends, thought of power
only as a threat, not something she held inside for her own fulfillment.

“Oh, well, tweets will be
tweets!” Hawk finally said to herself. “And I am a Master Warrior.”

She gracefully flew to a near
lamppost and began her concentration again. She was visualizing one of the
fat rats that were coming out of the ground during the construction that the
Two-Legged were doing in the street below.

But Terrified Tweeter didn’t
get it. She still tweeted as if her feathers had caught fire. Nothing
stirred among the Ancient Trees. Nothing moved in miles around. The scared
tweet was doing a great job of scaring all possible prey.

As I looked at this scene, the
beautiful white spotted hawk flew towards a distant tree. I couldn’t get my
eyes off her majestic, silent flight. Still terrified, the small tweeter
squeaked behind my back.

As you read the fable above, were you immediately sympathetic with the small bird, seeing her as the hero and hawk as the bad guy? That is our collective tendency. We instinctively seek justice. But we cannot make true justice if we confuse power with dominance. For if we do, we will be manipulated by those who play the victim and we will repel and punish those who stand in their power. This confusion is at the heart of toxic relationships.

Power as defined by our patriarchal system, is control and dominance. But that is only an illusion of power. When we believe this illusion, we reject power. When we reject power, we align ourselves with helplessness. We make those with personal power our enemies. We repel mentors, teachers and those friends and peers who assume their power. In other words, we become toxic to those who seek freedom, joy and growth.

When we align ourselves with powerlessness, we are afraid to speak with our voice of authority. We place an interrogation mark at the end of our declarations and beat around the bush to speak our truth. We constrict our bodies and our voices. We dream tiny and stay safely perched in our Comfort Zone.

If you have courageously stepped out of that Comfort Zone, you may
unknowingly be facing peer pressure.

We tell our children not to give in to peer pressure. But many adults are clueless as to the level of peer pressure they carry on their Psychic
Shoulders. As a result, they give in to peer pressure, betraying their
Personal Dreams and their spiritual growth.

Children and teens are more direct on their peer pressure tactics. They may result to insults or name-calling. Adults are more subtle. Friends will distance themselves. Peers will murmur behind your back. Family members will close ranks and mount a campaign to wear or break you down. Because they know you well, they know your Breaking Points. They will go for these weak areas in your psyche. This emotional and psychic attack that can undermine your motivation and your energy level.

When you feel that the people you love resist your growth or sabotage your dreams you feel sad, betrayed, resentful, revengeful, angry and lonely. If you are afraid of confrontation and used to the lies of the dysfunctional family, you may join their betrayal by excusing their behavior and going back to your learned limits of perception.

Is it a wonder, then, that many of us go back on our personal growth and give up on our dreams?

If you dream big, you are big. Once you acknowledge your personal power and reclaim your personal authority, you soon find yourself among the Majestic Swans, the Great Eagles, the Master Hunter Hawks and Daring Crows.

Those whom you left behind will tweet loudly and persistently.

“Change back! Change back!” they will squeak.

Perhaps they will not be as raucous as Terrified Tweeter. Perhaps they will give you the silent treatment or the cold shoulder.

What will you do then? What have you done?

Have you given up on your new friends? Have you given up on your new dreams? Have you drowned your desires deep inside yourself? Have you gone back to the humdrum of a life without passion?

It is important for you to recognize the peer pressure tactics of the adults around you. Find the best way to address the fears of your family and peers. If it is possible, bring them into the open. If not, give them special love and attention to ensure them that you still love them and they have nothing to fear.

You also need to recognize your sadness and allow yourself to grieve for your past life. These are growing pains. Every woman and man who has achieved something great ?whether a new discovery that changed humanity or a state of personal fulfillment? has gone through these growing pains. Use the Time Traveling Exercise at the end of this chapter to address your growing pains.

Be firm, however, in your new boundaries, dreams and lifestyle. Above all, do not allow the fear of those in your past to bring down your vibration.

Big dreams require a high vibrational level. The changes you are making in your life are changing your vibrational frequency, so that you can tolerate a higher vibration and can manifest and live in your dream.

Those who cannot tolerate the high vibrational frequency of freedom,
courage, confidence, power, joy and passion may squeak warning signals to you. They may project their own fears or limiting beliefs. They will poke your Breaking Points, exacerbating the old limited beliefs that keep you confined in your old lifestyle.

If you recognize what is happening, you can use this situation to examine your Breaking Points. The confrontation you may experience at this time can then help you to weave a strong mesh in the wounded areas of your energy field. By addressing the limited beliefs and releasing learned fears, you will be able to prevent the many energy leakages that have brought your energy frequency down. You will come out of this experience having transformed your Breaking Points into your strongest points.

On the other hand, give in to peer pressure, and you will begin to fade back into the life that you were trying to escape.

At this time it is especially important to maintain your new friends and allies. You need people who can vibrate at the higher frequency because they “lend you energy.” This means that they bring you into musical entrainment with their energy vibration, helping you generate a higher frequency and sustain it for longer periods of time.

This is an excerpt from

The Toxic Relationships Self-help Kit:

Love them, but LEAVE them

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Maria Mar is the Dream Alchemist, an inspirational poet, speaker, coach, author and spiritual teacher who helps women create the life of their dreams. Visit her at: Catch the Dream Express!