Personal coaching can be a lot like shaking your keyboard. It can lead to a renewed feeling of peace and harmony in your life. Personal Coaches can show you loops that you are in and guide you out of them, to a new way of life. It is important to choose a coach that is compatible to you. You also need to find a coach who is living what they teach. If you encounter a coach who seems to be just reading things to you from a script, and then sending you script that they just read to you over phone, then you need to try a new one. You should be able to chat easily with your coach. If you don't feel at ease with him/her, then you are not going to gain much from work. All good coaches will offer you a free session, and it is your best interest to use it. That way, you can see how it feels to you, and make an informed judgment about it.

And metaphors aside, really do turn over your keyboard and give it a shake; it makes keys work a lot better!

Even at this point, I was not considering ending friendship. I did spend a lot of time considering possible ways to handle this problem. I literally spent months pondering problem, and what might be best way to eliminate negativity without hurting my friend. Eventually I made decision to just point out what I was hearing from her, as gently as possible, in an attempt to allow her to step back and take a look at what she was manifesting in her life.

Bad idea! It literally blew up in my face. What I got back was an acidic personal attack on my life, my personality, my financial status… it was very insulting. At first, I was shocked. Next, I was hurt. And then, I stopped and took a long hard look at entire situation. When I did, I just had to laugh! I had done it again! I had allowed a person into my life that was toxic to me, knowingly, willingly and with my eyes wide open. So much for all that back-patting I had done all those years before. I had sprained my arm for nothing.

Lessons have a way of coming back to bite us in butt when we only think we have learned them. The tricky part is that they don’t always come back in same way. They disguise themselves. If we have really, truly learned lesson we recognize them. If we only think we have learned lesson, we will fall right into trap again. I like to think now that I will be a lot more cautious next time I am thinking of allowing someone into my energy as a friend. In reality, I can only hope. I do know that toxic people can come in many guises. They will suck up your energy, depress you, upset you and make your life harder. They can be family members, friends or co-workers. However, they can only do this if we let them.

An excellent book on this very subject is People Of The Lie by M. Scott Peck. I highly recommend it.