Self-care is really popular these days.

It’s being talked about everywhere from lifestyle blogs and yogini Instagram feeds to mainstream media outlets.

And it’s no real wonder that that’s the case.

Who doesn’t like the idea of spending a little quality time with yourself? Of doing things that make you feel good? Of taking good, nurturing care of yourself, to combat the daily grind of our frenetic modern world?

We all know how stressful it can be.

Practicing self-care also has the powerful effect of allowing us to receive -- which is especially meaningful to those of us for whom receiving love and care has been a complicated prospect in our lives. Those of us who are used to giving (and giving, and giving) instead. 

It flips that dynamic on its head, and damn if it doesn’t feel good.

There’s a lot of relationship advice out there.

The modern spiritual and self-help communities in particular seem to have come to a recent consensus about what constitutes empowerment in relationships, and a few common recommendations have emerged to reflect it.

This would all be well and good -- of course we want to help one another find strength and peace with other people -- except for the fact that these popular pieces of advice are all myths.

Almost completely so.

Like any good myth, they’re enticing. They sound good. They make us feel strong, and relieved. We feel better the moment we enact them, and maybe even for some time after. Plus, they’re easy to understand and quickly, confidently execute the courses of action they recommend.

So what’s the big deal?

“Toxic” people can be a lot to handle.

Interacting with them is stressful, upsetting, perplexing, and puts us in real binds.

In the face of such torment the conventional wisdom around “toxic” people says we need to cut them out of our lives unceremoniously and without delay.

“They’re just too far gone, you see. There’s nothing you can do! You deserve a life without their toxicity.”

Sounds simple enough, right?

While this might be easy to do if the “toxic” person is someone we never really have to see or interact with again, following through with this kind advice isn’t as straightforward if that “toxic” person is someone we can’t really just run from, like our father, sister, boss, or landlord. We don’t always have complete control over who gets to be in our lives and who doesn’t. And not for nothing, but in our heart of hearts we might actually want to save and sustain some of these “toxic” relationships if we could.

So what are we to do?

When we try to figure out what’s not working in a relationship, we typically look at it directly.

Who’s done or said what? Where is communication breaking down? Whose feelings are hurt, and for what reasons?

What we don’t often consider are the factors separate from the relationship itself that led us to this moment in the first place.

Because there are certain underlying conditions that compel us to seek out (and get stuck in) relationships that are mediocre in some way.

These conditions distort our perception -- of ourselves, of our partners, of the quality of our lives in general, and of the relationship itself -- to such a degree that they cause us to make choices that aren’t really right for us in the long run.

Even if they look pretty darn good right now.

Rejection hurts.

When someone rejects us, our minds go into overdrive. We desperately search for all of the reasons we’ve found ourselves on the losing end of love, and we try to figure out what we could have done differently to prevent this from happening.

If we don’t have a clear understanding of the true meaning of rejection, we’ll inevitably think it’s our fault. That we’re the problem. That we’re the reason the people we wanted to be with didn’t want to be with us anymore.

This is when rejection is its most painful -- when we internalize it as a statement about who we are as people (our worth, desirability, or value), and use it as proof that we’re unlovable.

It’s no wonder this drives us a little crazy.

Thankfully this is only one way to experience rejection.

Because it doesn’t have to mean what we so often make it mean. In these moments we can instead remind ourselves of certain simple truths about rejection that will help us not feel so crushed by it.

You are worthy of aligned love.

The kind of love you dream about. That you wonder if you’ll ever find.

A love that may not look exactly like you expect it to, but that feels so good you couldn’t care.

The kind of love that doesn’t play games with your heart -- because it knows that anything that hurts you would hurt it too.

Love that would never make you feel unworthy. Unwanted. Unsure about where it stands.

You deserve a love that’s intensely curious about what makes you, you -- and stands in awe as the truth of you unfolds.

Love that’s ready for the kind of relationship you’re ready for.

That chooses you with an enthusiastic and unequivocal “YES!”

That’s all-in on who you are -- and wants more.

You're probably bracing for it already.

Those moments over the next however many weeks when you’ll find yourself mingling with people you wish you didn’t have to spend time with. Who, if you weren’t related to them -- or if you didn’t want to see the people who also happen to be related to them -- you wouldn’t even try.

Maybe they have political views that you think are offensive or immoral. Maybe they have an abrasive, combative personality -- they like to pick fights and get a rise out of people. Maybe you’re their common target, and they know just what to say to get under your skin. Maybe they’re just unpredictable, and you’re on edge the whole time because you don’t know what's going to set them off. Or maybe they’re those relatives who are relentlessly negative, cynical, or sullen in ways that bring you down too.

Whatever their specific traits are, one thing is certain: their attitude makes you so uncomfortable that you actually dread the family gatherings that you’d otherwise really look forward to.

But… what if you still could?

We have a lot of misconceptions about our emotions, especially around when it’s okay to feel them and when it’s not.

These beliefs limit our ability to comfortably navigate our relationships because they deprive us of our authentic emotional experience, and so we come to the interpersonal table without an essential part of ourselves.

These emotional filters can be so broad, and run so deep, that they invalidate not just the feelings themselves, but also who we are -- the person who feels them.

This dynamic is not necessarily our fault -- we’ve been conditioned not to allow ourselves our emotions -- but the responsibility for our experience does ultimately lie with us.

We can reclaim this part of ourselves by setting the record straight about the true nature of our emotions and by coming to a new agreement with ourselves about when it’s okay -- safe, secure, and even necessary -- to acknowledge, honor, and express them.

Our emotions are some of our most important assets when it comes to our relationships.

They’re our inner guides -- offering up vital clues about how to navigate our lives.

But all too often we don’t allow ourselves our authentic emotional experience. Maybe we don’t think our feelings are valid, or their intensity overwhelms us. Maybe we’ve been taught that expressing our emotions is weak, or unbecoming.

Whatever the case, suppressing our emotions can become a reflex.

This may work out okay for us in the moment, but if we let our emotions go unattended for too long they’ll impact our lives in ways we may not like.

They’ll always be there, contributing to our baseline mental state -- our mood, attitudes, energy, and outlook.

Over the long-term, suppressing our emotions can affect us in ways that are more unpleasant. They have a tendency to demand our attention before too long -- as the burden of their accumulated weight begins to cause its own problems.

Mixed signals can be confusing.

They can be downright perplexing.

When someone sends us mixed signals not only do we have to sort out what they really mean, but they are contradictory enough that they seem to cancel one another out.

This sets up a dynamic where we never really know if we’re making progress towards achieving any real clarity -- it’s always fleeting.

Sometimes someone’s actions don’t line up with their words. Sometimes their words don’t even line up with their words -- they’ll tell us something one day and something else the next.

All too often when we prepare for an interaction with someone we’re at odds with, we prepare for war.

We go over and over in our heads all the ways in which we’re right in our understanding of what’s really going on and how the other person just doesn’t get it. We’re crystal clear on how our actions are justified and how theirs are reprehensible, how we are beyond reproach and the other person is guilty beyond belief. Guilty! How they’re the ones who are largely responsible for the trouble we’re having and we’re just along for the terrible, tumultuous ride.

And we’re going to make sure they know just how wrong they are.

Does this sound familiar?

Here’s the thing. When we approach our relationships looking for conflict, we'll find conflict. When we approach someone with attack thoughts, more often than not they will reflexively defend themselves (and vice versa).

Manipulation can be a funny, subtle thing.

Sometimes it’s so subtle we don’t even realize it’s happening. We just feel a little disjointed, or notice a slight separation between our face-value impression of the interactions at hand and how we really feel about them. Maybe we feel a murmur in our gut that signals there’s more going on here than meets the eye -- that undeniable visceral feedback about our experience of the relationship. It might simply register as a heightened awareness, though for what purpose we’re not quite sure.

Other times manipulation can be much more distressing. It can feel like our ability to determine our own destiny within the context of the relationship is being undermined. Maybe it’s difficult for us to experience someone in the usual easeful way that we relate to people. Maybe we question ourselves about things we’ve never doubted before. Or maybe we feel hooked by someone or a set of circumstances that we know is uncomfortable but that is also strangely alluring, magnetic. One that we simply can’t seem to say no to.

The people we usually turn to for advice about how to live our best lives -- the self-help evangelists, relationship gurus, business leadership icons, and even spiritual seekers -- have been echoing a troubling refrain lately.

As the emerging wisdom goes:

Some people are toxic and we must distance ourselves from them or their toxicity will rub off on us.

Even usually adept social philosophers and cultural commentators have taken the bait and shared this terrible, unfortunate, dirty little secret about human nature. 

“Ain’t it a crying shame?” They’ll remark with downcast eyes. “There’s nothing we can do, it’s an unavoidable truth. Tsk tsk.”

These truth-tellers are well-meaning but they are misguided.

There’s no such thing as a toxic person.

Everything is a relationship.

Yes, everything.

We think of relationships narrowly as the bonds, however shallow or deep, that we have with other human beings, but relationships truly extend beyond the scope of our interactions with other people to include how we react and respond to every instance that our sense of self comes into contact with some aspect of the world around us.

How could this be so?

Because of the fundamental nature of relationships in the most general sense.

There’s no real way to avoid relationship challenges and conflicts. They are going to happen. It’s how we respond when they do --and how we prepare ourselves for them in the first place-- that will make all the difference in how we experience them.

Learning how to approach relationships differently and developing the awareness and strength it sometimes takes to follow through in the moment will help us navigate whatever challenges we face and find peace amidst the drama, the confusion, and the heartbreak.

2016 was a big year.

Collectively, it was kind of rough. We faced an onslaught of bad news, negativity, and shifting norms without the essential heartening ingredient of an inspired public discourse that lights a clear path forward in a common understanding. In our personal lives, we felt more unsettled than usual (and our shifting collective foundation must have contributed to this). We seemed to feel our transitions a little more intensely, we were a little less sure of ourselves, and we sensed a certain loss of control over the direction our lives are going in.