Monthly Metox Practice: September 2026 Choosing Yourself When Friendships No Longer Fit

Not every relationship is meant to last forever. The ones that do usually make room for the person you’re becoming, not just the person you used to be.

There comes a point where choosing yourself stops feeling selfish and starts feeling essential. That’s not to say you’ve suddenly stopped caring about other people, but you have wound up spending too long abandoning yourself to keep the peace.

I’ve been through emotional burnout. Every time I swallowed my truth and ignored my instinct, I ended up paying for it somewhere. In my body, my energy and in my relationships. It eats away at your life if you ignore it.

Once you've been there, you start to recognise the signs. In yourself and others.

I struggled with this at first. I remember sitting on a plane back in 2000 and hearing on the tannoy, “Put your mask on first before you help anyone else.” I'd become a new mum, and so my immediate reaction was, "That’s not right!” Shouldn’t we put others before ourselves? Shouldn't I protect my baby first?

But then it dawned on me - how could I help him or anyone else if I were dead?

The Metox concept came to me in that moment and transpired during my emotional burnout phase in 2018. It's now developed into an intentional Metox Monthly Practice to keep our souls aligned and our hearts happy.

We Are Not Being Selfish

Choosing ourselves isn’t about putting ourselves above everyone else or making out we know better. It’s not about being selfish or arrogant or narcissistic. It’s about refusing to disappear to keep other people comfortable. It’s about being who you came here to be,

A long friendship of mine ended recently. If I were honest, it had been on the cards since it started. That being said, it took 43 years for me to understand that. Nonetheless, 43 years of history came to a roaring halt all because I shared a post celebrating Britain's diversity and the heritage of its sporting heroes. The disagreement wasn’t what surprised me. People see the world differently. We always have. But what surprised me was how quickly the conversation moved away from the post in question, onto me, personally.

The response I received didn’t stay with what I had shared. It quickly became a set of accusations about who I am, what I believe, how I feel about my country, and what other people apparently think of me.

None of it reflected the truth of my intentions.

What stayed with me was not the disagreement itself. People disagree. That’s part of being human. It was the certainty. The judgement. The way the door closed before any real conversation could happen. There was no curiosity there. No space to ask, “Is this what you meant?” No willingness to hear me.

And when that happens - when a conversation becomes a verdict, there is very little left to repair.

For a moment, I sat with the extremely familiar instinct to defend myself and justify my intentions. I explained to her directly what my intentions were for posting the story, but it was soon clear she had made up her mind to end the relationship.

For her, this wasn’t really about politics or the England football team. I know that.

For me, it was about asking myself - who gets permission to define who I am?, and what my values mean, and what I believe and what I get to say and not say.

Me.

One of the hardest parts of growing older is accepting that some friendships are built around old versions of you that don’t exist anymore.

When we were easy-going. When we just stayed quiet and didn’t challenge anything. When we would go out of our way to make everyone comfortable rather than speaking our truth...

That’s not me anymore.

Sure, I have copious amounts of compassion. I have an innate ability to understand people at a soul level and always have. A blessing - and a curse! But now, I use discernment to decide who gets that compassion and who doesn’t.

I’ve learned that real growth changes the chemistry of all relationships. Sometimes people grow with you. Sometimes they slam the door on your way out. Either way, that is not yours to manage. What is yours is merely to understand whether someone is lifting you up or dragging you down.

This Is Part Of The Metox Process

The reason I’m telling you about this particular situation is that after years of Metox practice, I was able to see what was happening. I didn’t need to convince or earn understanding. I simply made my intentions clear and let her disagree. There was nothing else I could do.

This is how we don’t abandon ourselves. And I also understand that she may have done that, too.

A Metox has never been about removing toxic people from your life. It’s about removing the belief that you must shrink yourself to keep them comfortable. And if you keep that power, people will come in and out, and it won’t push you off your path.

I’ve spent the last decade or so of my life building new boundaries. I have witnessed my own self-respect in action, and that's super empowering. Once you start this journey, it becomes visible to yourself and others and honestly, changes trajectories. It gives others a permission slip to do the same, and that can start quite a ripple in this world.

Good friendships deserve maintenance. They also deserve forgiveness and honesty and difficult conversations because if we don’t have those, where can we go? Where can we grow? Where can we each learn what gifts we have for the other?

I’m choosing myself over that particular friendship because there were no gifts left for me.

If every conversation leaves us feeling smaller, and we are walking on eggshells or afraid to express a belief, it’s well worth stepping back and asking yourself;

Am I protecting this friendship? Or am I protecting the version of myself that this friendship demands?

Monthly Metox Practice: September 2026

Every relationship has a season. Some become lifelong companions. Some become teachers. Some quietly show you where your next boundary needs to be.

It’s all a part of becoming more fully ourselves.

This month’s Metox invitation is simple. Write down the names of the people who leave you feeling more like yourself after you’ve spent time with them.

Then write down the names of the people who leave you feeling less.

Don’t judge what you’ve written, just notice it and be aware.

Our nervous system usually knows the truth of things before our mind is ready to admit it.

LOVE X

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