These are my personal opinions.
Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well-being.
Welcome to the show.
I'm going to go over a couple things today.
One question that I received was something I think I can answer quickly, because I don't have a lot of advice or suggestions for this person, unfortunately.
I actually was in this position for a short period of time.
This person wrote and said, How do I feel comfortable to start dating again?
Seriously, I've been single for many years.
I've written the personality in my text, who I am in search for of these 16 different personality.
I think what this person is saying is that she wrote in her bio, I guess, about her personality and the 16 different aspects of it.
And many men have said, what's that?
And she says, I explain it to get a fast picture of who I am inside.
I'm looking for a man with empathy, who's driven, who's positive, who's honest.
I feel no success in any areas of my life.
I live at this place I'm not going to mention it here where I feel this is a slow process and my patience is getting thin.
I'm getting bored.
Nothing new here to be happy about for me.
I've tried everything.
I've had a couple of dates in the last few years.
I like to use dating apps that are not for toxic people.
And one of them you can get new friends for life or a life partner or both.
But what's my next step?
I'm going to fix my hair.
I'm going to get a passport, a new health card, healthier and so on and so forth.
So I want to thank that person for writing that.
This one.
I don't again.
I don't have a big answer for you, but I, you know, I like to answer these things as if I'm sitting in your shoes.
What would I do if I did all this?
The first thing that comes to mind is you have this personality profile in your bio that I'm assuming that's where you put it.
That doesn't really explain you and your words, so i don't know if i would keep that in.
Personally, i might say something along the lines of hey, these are the kind of movies i like and You know, when I'm in a relationship, I like the person I'm with to be honest and transparent, because that's how I show up.
And I want somebody who's similar in that respect.
And I'm not looking for anyone who is really dramatic.
I just want to live life and enjoy time together.
You know, I would be very simple and probably big picture like that.
But when you get into the nitty gritty details of every little aspect of yourself, what may happen is that you may get very few, if any, matches.
And the reason I say that is because let's just say that you knew every single thing about me, my entire personality type.
Maybe some of you do.
I've been on the air for a good almost 12 years now.
And if you know every single little bit of my personality and you disagree with one aspect of it, Imagine you saw all these personality aspects of me on paper and you went down and you said I don't know about that.
I don't think I like that.
So he's probably not compatible with me.
I won't consider him being a potential partner for me.
Let's just say I'm on a dating app or something and you found my podcast and you listen to every single episode.
You saw my personality profile.
Like I'm saying, you might have a problem with one or two aspects.
Even though 99% of the time I won't be wearing those aspects on my sleeve, if you know what I mean.
You know, we walk around with something on our sleeve that people notice.
And so, will you notice, will it matter if one or two of those aspects are a problem if...
9,998 aspects of myself, qualities, components, whatever, of who I am are compatible or even great.
Imagine that most of me is a pretty decent guy, but you don't like that I read sci-fi books.
I don't want some nerd.
Imagine some people do that.
Some people will prejudge.
And so if you have every little aspect of yourself out there, you might get prejudged.
And I know if you get a prejudger then I don't want him in my life.
But it's a natural inclination when you see.
You know, for most people it's a natural inclination when you see somebody's the components that make up who they are, their aspects, their qualities.
And so if somebody saw all your qualities and you're just trying to put it out there to get it out of the way, You might be limiting yourself.
You're filtering people out before they even get a chance to know you.
That's the wonderful thing about getting to know someone.
You get to discover these qualities about them.
So if you're just putting them all out there And I have a feeling you're just looking for the perfect match
You don't have to waste any time with anybody who's not compatible.
I get it.
But I think there are higher level things out there.
Like, if you don't smoke, it might be nice to say hey, I don't want to smoke, or because I don't like to be around, smoke.
That makes sense.
But if you don't like the color blue, you say, I don't like the color blue.
And the person's looking at your profile going, well, I have a blue car.
I guess I'm out.
I'm exaggerating, of course, but that's what I mean.
That somebody might see all these micro qualities about you and make a judgment, even subconsciously.
And they may be a nice person.
But now you have all this detail about yourself and it may cause an issue that you may not want.
And I have a feeling you're going to say, yeah, but I just want to get it out of the way.
If you want to get it out of the way.
There might be other people out there that say I just want to get to know you.
I want to get to know you first before I know every single little thing about you.
Because there are so many aspects of every quality.
You have a lot of aspects of yourself and there's aspects of those aspects.
There are variations and expanded potentials of your quality.
There are so many Ways to look at a person and get to know them.
Here's a good example.
I actually filtered out anyone with non brunette hair one day when I was dating one day.
It was one day after my long term relationship ended.
I wanted somebody with dark hair.
And so I filtered out all the other possibilities.
Do you realize how many good people I could have met because I filtered that out?
It's an aspect that I thought I wanted.
I really thought I wanted that particular detail in a partner.
And it turned out that when I met somebody who didn't have dark hair and And I finally gave them a chance,
I found happiness.
You know, that's what we do to ourselves.
We think, well, this is what I want.
And this is the only way I want it.
And this is what I'm going to put out into the universe.
This is who I am.
And if you aren't compatible, then don't bother calling me.
I think when we do that, we limit ourselves.
And if we do that, if we put out this specific criteria, which I'm not saying is a bad thing.
But if you put out that specific criteria, you have to realize two things.
One.
There are very few people that might match that criteria to a T, or at least 97 of the way there.
Number two is your perfect partner might be in a situation that has to wrap up before they get to you.
I'm speaking from my wife's experience of doing exactly this.
She made her criteria.
She said the things that I want in a partner and she wrote them all down.
And when I came along, I fit like 95% of everything she wanted in a partner.
And I'm still trying to fill in the 5% that's left.
I showed up in her life eight years later.
After she made that list, or she had been single for eight years and she said she wasn't going to settle for anything less than this list.
So she made that list and it took a long time for me to show up, because when she made that list I was still married.
I was still married to that non brunette.
So there were things that I had to wrap up in my life before we could get together, and i didn't even know her.
I'm not saying that oh, she came along and then i decided not to be married anymore.
No, i didn't even know about her until after my marriage was over, and then i knew about her.
Yes, there are some spiritual aspects to this that i'm talking about that i don't normally talk about on this show, but i do think that The universe and the stars have to align in order to meet certain criteria if you want those criteria met.
So if you want somebody who drives a very specific car, you might have to wait a while until you get it, because everyone has their own tastes.
And maybe you'll find them 10 years from now because you want that specific car, or maybe it'll happen tomorrow, we don't know.
But the more specific you are, it comes with the condition that it might take a little longer.
It took my wife eight years to find me, and the pickings are a little slimmer, and when you have slim pickings it does take longer.
So that is my um first thought for this person who wrote.
My second thought is again, I'm saying this as if I were you when I spent some time after my divorce, when I spent some time with my mom, I was living in New Hampshire and I was also searching for somebody to have as a partner.
And that search didn't last long, A, because there was no one that I really wanted up there.
I did some online dating and I really wasn't connecting with anybody and There were slim pickings, because I have certain criteria in mind.
You know I'm not saying that I only looked for dark haired women this time, but the tighter and more stringent your criteria, the more likely it'll take longer.
Or maybe you'll find that in your area and this is where I'm going with you in your area, that person doesn't exist.
I want somebody who has worldly travel under their belt and you live on a small island off you know a country.
If that's the case, you may not find that person there.
Or maybe they are there and they're with somebody else.
This is what happens when we have very stringent criteria.
Or in your case, you are very specific with who you are.
Which, in general, it's not a problem if you don't mind waiting for the perfect person to align with that criteria.
Because I've met a lot of people who I don't, at the outset, align with who they are, with their values, with what their interests are.
I don't align with them.
And then suddenly we're good friends.
How did that happen?
I wouldn't have chosen that person as a friend because this, this, and this.
But suddenly we're friends because there are other aspects of the personality that can align, that are compatible.
You may find that you have some common ground, common story that you can relate to each other with.
And then big picture, your personalities align in other ways.
And then suddenly you're great friends.
And they have their own values and their own interests.
And I love technology.
And one of my best friends doesn't know squat about technology.
I mean, I shouldn't say that.
He knows some stuff.
But I can't necessarily talk tech a lot with him.
And I don't.
Because there's a billion other things to talk about.
I don't have to talk about that stuff.
And that's why we get along so great.
And I think that's a good way to look at life is that sometimes you don't know what you're going to get until you get to know the person.
You get to know the job.
You get to know the area that you live.
There's all sorts of qualities and components of a person, place, or thing that you may miss.
There are certain qualities and components that you may look at and go, well, I don't want that.
But then you miss all the other good stuff.
Like I always heard that Atlanta was a very high crime area.
So I was always afraid to move here.
Now I live in Atlanta and I'm happy here and I have not experienced the quote high crime, even though there are areas of Atlanta and Georgia and the Eastern United States and the entire United States that have higher crime.
But again, If you're not in those small areas, you may not experience that kind of thing.
And so for most of my life, I'm thinking, oh, Atlanta's high crime.
I'm not going to move there.
And then suddenly I meet the woman of my dreams, my wife, Asha.
I meet her and she's in Atlanta.
And I thought, huh.
Okay, I'll move there and see what happens.
I've been here for 10 years.
Or 11 years now.
And it's been great.
It's been wonderful.
So I limited myself by having criteria that wasn't necessarily helpful to me.
In fact, it was steering me away from things that could have made me happier sooner.
I'm glad the way my life turned out in every way.
But I could have... experienced more in life.
So there are two aspects of what this person is writing.
She's saying that she shared a lot about herself, all these details.
And I'm saying when you share those details, you might limit yourself to what you get.
And I'm also saying that when you consider other people and their details or other places and those details, that you may limit yourself in that case as well, because you don't know every other aspect of that person, place or thing.
So the bottom line is the second part of my thought to this person who wrote is and I don't think I started to say it, but I was going to say to get out away from the place you're in.
You said you're going to get a new passport.
Great.
Traveling is a great way to meet people, or at least get out there and expand your horizons and expand your personality, because you meet more people.
You learn more about people.
You learn more about the world itself.
And I think that's an excellent idea.
And I'm not saying that you should leave.
I'm just saying that when you've exhausted your supply... where you are, you may have to.
And that's what I started to say is that I lived in New Hampshire for a period of time and I didn't meet my wife in New Hampshire, but I met her while I was in New Hampshire.
What I mean by that is I met her online while she lived in Georgia.
She just happened to be passing through New Hampshire and her profile on the online dating app we were using came up for like 15 minutes.
This tiny little window.
It came up.
And she reached out to me and said, Hey, how you doing?
And I live in Georgia and all that stuff.
I think she just asked me general stuff.
And I said, Hey, it's great to meet you.
I just want to let you know, I'm not going to be dating anyone.
I'm actually getting off this app.
It's a whole story I talked about on another episode, but it's kind of cool because we had this tiny little window and I chose to get off the apps because I realized I still needed healing to do from my divorce.
And I was able to work on my own personality and stuff that I was working on.
So I decided to be single.
And she just happened to be in this area, or at least in the area that I was in at the time that she signed up for the app, making her local to the area.
But she really wasn't.
And she changed it from New Hampshire to Georgia.
And then before she changed it, she sent that notification or I got notified or something like that.
We connected with each other in that 15 minute window and the day before I was going to get off the app.
This is why I say sometimes things need to align in order for what you want to materialize, to meet the criteria in your life.
And the person who wrote she has shared details about her personality.
That again may limit her in the sense that if that perfect person comes along and sees all these aspects, They may think, oh well, she's probably not going to like me because I don't have this, this and this.
And that's not compatible with what she's looking for.
So you may limit yourself by unintentionally filtering out people that might actually be a really great match.
And they are an individual with their own personality. aspects and quirks and all that stuff.
And you meet somewhere in the middle and it works out like magic.
That would be wonderful.
I know that's a simplification, but that does happen.
And I think it happens more with people who are willing to open their mind a little bit beyond what they normally prefer.
Like my wife, she never liked blondes.
I'm blonde.
I'm a dirty blonde.
And that surprised her that she chose a blonde and she is now with a blonde.
And It still surprises her that she went in that direction.
And I think it's funny because I didn't meet one of her criteria.
And that pretty much states my point is that one of her criteria was I don't want him to be blonde.
And so imagine if she saw me on the street, there's a blonde guy.
Oh, no, I don't want that.
I'm not saying she would do that.
I'm just saying that's the whole point of what I'm saying here.
So I hope that helps the person who wrote and I'm going to get into the next message.
Thank you to that person.
Thank you for that.
And good luck with dating or finding yourself, figuring yourself out, working through all this, because it sounds like you're ready.
It sounds like you're ready to move on to the next chapter of your life.
And that's, that's pretty cool.
And there might be things that need to align for that next chapter to materialize.
So good luck with that.
This next person wrote I just ended a 12-year relationship with an emotionally abusive person, not recognizing it as abuse until I was out.
I knew it hurt to hear repeated comments like you make excuses for yourself and you don't take any responsibility for your actions.
However, because I loved and trusted this person, I found myself wondering, well, is this true?
The abuse grew over time.
I was repeatedly called a liar and selfish and lacking integrity, and I faced a silent treatment for small errors.
When I asked why, I was told, I can't talk to you because you'll deny anything you've done wrong.
I was always apologizing to make things right.
I'm not a liar.
I'm accountable.
So I finally sought therapy to help my relationship.
And I told my partner being accused hurt.
And I was told, I'm sure it does.
And in order to move forward together, I had to admit that I was a liar.
So I left instead.
Therapy is helping, but I'm feeling devastated.
Your podcast has also helped, especially hearing about covert abuse.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that.
I'm so sorry that you had to go through that.
There is a healing period.
Here's my thing.
I usually talk about this stuff at Love and Abuse, over at loveandabuse.com, my other podcast.
I'm talking about it here because there's a bigger picture that I want to mention as well.
And I'm going to talk about that in a moment.
But just real quick.
I want to say that when you leave an abusive or an emotionally abusive relationship, it can take up to two to four months for the initial fog, the initial confusion, to lift.
And when that finally starts to lift, you get to have your own thoughts again that don't include and aren't influenced by the abusive person.
So what that means is, on day one after you leave, you're still having thoughts and feelings, and every thought and feeling and emotion that you have is somehow attached to that person who hurt you.
Like every thought you have will contain a wording like, oh, I wonder what they'll think.
And even if that's not the exact wording in your mind, that's what happens is that every thought and feeling and emotion that you have, especially while you're in the relationship that's how it is is every thought, feeling and emotion that you have is attached and influenced, and sometimes coerced and manipulated by the other person, and so you're always trying to figure out what to do that won't make them upset and that will lead to the least amount of resistance or being hurt or whatever, and so that doesn't end Immediately after you get out of an abusive relationship.
That ends later.
And in my experience for the last decade I've noticed that it takes some people two to four months and then sometimes up to six months, sometimes longer.
There's no true time period, but usually within six months. the fog starts to lift.
I'm not saying the healing has taken place.
I'm saying the fog starts to lift and the healing is starting, or at least the starting point of the healing is usually after you leave, of course, but after the fog lifts as well, because there's still like some PTSD going on there.
It's still like you're walking on eggshells, watching what you think, watching what you do.
And it takes a while to get past that.
And to get past that, you have to reconnect with yourself.
And reconnecting with yourself after leaving.
A relationship like that requires you to get past the point where they occupy all that gray matter in your head.
And that doesn't mean they'll leave your brain.
It just means that you'll think of them less often.
Every thought you have won't include them in some way.
Hey, I want to go to the store and get myself something to drink won't include.
But if I do.
Imagine having a thought, let's just say that you're in a difficult relationship right now.
Imagine if you could have a thought that didn't include, but if I do.
Some people out there know exactly what I'm talking about.
I'd like to watch TV right now, but if I do, then they finish that sentence and it's usually not pleasant.
I would rather not upset the other person, so I'll just leave the TV off.
You know, that's terrible.
It's not a good way to live.
That's not living freely.
That's living oppressively.
It's like what I call an emotional prison.
You feel emotionally trapped inside yourself and you can't do anything that might cause upset, or you Try to do something that you believe won't cause upset, but it causes upset anyway.
And you get this association that everything you do is wrong or not good enough, or you're told that you're not smart enough or not attractive enough, or whatever.
You're made to believe things about yourself that aren't true.
So getting out of that scenario?
For years and years of being conditioned and trained to believe that you're not good enough, not perfect, not attractive, not worthy, not lovable all of this is stuck in your mind until the fog lifts.
And then you start to reconnect with yourself and you realize, wait, that can't be true.
Those things that they said about me.
That can't be true, because that's not what I believed coming into this relationship.
And that's a key indicator that you have been what I sometimes refer to as groomed.
You've been groomed by an abusive person to believe things about yourself that aren't true.
And so who you were coming into a relationship like that is who you need to reconnect with.
But it's hard because sometimes you forget who you were.
And so sometimes you have to rebuild who you are.
And that just requires getting to know yourself again getting to know what you love to do, getting to know what you like about yourself, or even love about yourself, and reconnecting with friends because you were isolated from them or told that they were bad for you.
I mean, it's all about rebuilding yourself.
Even if you knew who you were, it's hard to reconnect with who you were sometimes.
So you just have to rebuild.
So this is what this person is doing.
They're rebuilding themselves.
They're going to therapy.
They're trying to get through life now that they are no longer told how to live it.
What a difference.
I can live my life my way, the way i want.
What does that look like?
I don't even know anymore after that relationship, because i feel like if i do xyz, i'll be put down.
I'll be belittled.
I'll be intimidated.
So getting past that, that PTSD is very similar.
You're just feeling the past trauma and therapy or talking to friends and reconnecting and rebuilding yourself is going to help you get past that old trauma.
It may take a while.
It may take a long time.
But the initial fog has to lift so that you can start having your own thoughts without the coercion and manipulation and control and influence of somebody who doesn't have your best interests in mind.
And so to this person's message who didn't really ask a question, but I wanted to comment on it because it's really about blame.
Like this person who wrote is being blamed over and over again for things they didn't do, they don't feel they did and they know they didn't all kinds of blaming going on, and the person who's constantly blaming is doing the abusing, and so there's a pattern here that happens in regular relationships and emotionally abusive relationships that's important to be aware of, and it's a pattern of a person who claims to care about you but wants to blame you and put you down for almost everything.
That pattern is important to understand so that it doesn't become something that occurs in your relationships, any of them.
It's important to know the blamer, the accuser, the one who's always pointing things out in the person they claim to care about.
I'm here to say that somebody who does that is Either 99.9% or 100% the problem.
In other words, the person who accuses and blames and points the finger.
Almost always they are the problem.
Now this doesn't mean that if you feel righteous about somebody being wrong because they are or they're awful, and you want to point the finger and say you are an awful person, I'm not saying that can't be true.
I'm talking about a pattern, the pattern of the person who finds every single little thing to point the finger at you and blame you for.
And that pattern of blaming and accusing reveals who they are.
If you are at the other end of their blame and you are hearing it constantly or they're just a, a grumpy blaming person that blames everyone else.
Usually, they never take responsibility for things.
Usually they never apologize.
And usually they are the one who is the problem.
And the problem is they are being abusive.
The person who is putting you down, making you feel bad, making you feel responsible, making you feel guilty.
They are being abusive.
I can't imagine looking at my wife and pointing the finger at her for every little thing she did.
That bothered me, that triggered me.
And seeing her face, seeing her frown, her cry, or her get upset or get angry or whatever.
And me being the person who did that to her, me being the person who made her feel that way.
I can't imagine doing that to her.
And then later on thinking, oh, she's just upset because I pointed out what she was doing wrong.
You know, that's her issue.
That's her problem.
What kind of caring, loving, supportive person does that to another person?
If she were truly wrong about something, yes, let's talk about that.
Let's have a conversation on it.
But I'm not going to beat her down with my words just to make her feel bad, just to make her feel powerless, which is what this is all about.
The one who accuses, the one who blames and has a pattern of doing it, wants to feel powerful, wants to have power over the person they're doing it to.
And as long as the person they're doing it to feels like they have no power, meaning they feel like they can't make their own decisions without being criticized or scrutinized for every move they make.
Then the accuser, who probably has a lot of control issues and a lot of coping challenges because they learned unhealthy coping skills.
They feel like they're in control of their life by making you feel out of control of your life and that you need to be controlled.
And so I'm just sharing this because there are people in our life that like to blame and criticize.
And if you are around somebody who does that to you, you are not the problem.
It is not you.
It is them.
Because someone who claims to care about you wants you to feel good.
They want you to feel happy.
They want you to feel worthy.
They want you to feel lovable.
They want you to feel supported.
They don't want you to feel beaten down all the time.
So the relationship that this person just described is a person who points the finger, accuses and makes sure that their partner the person who wrote feels down, feels hurt, feels I mean even said it.
It's like, you know, when you accuse me, it hurts.
And their partner said, I'm sure it does.
Once you hear that, that's your sign.
Once you hear somebody that says, oh, you're hurting because of something I did.
Yeah, well, that's what happens.
It hurts.
Wow, that's not caring at all.
These aren't caring statements.
A caring statement is, oh my God, I don't mean to hurt you.
I'm so sorry.
What's going on?
Let's fix this.
I'm so sorry.
They're humble.
They're apologetic.
They want you to feel good.
And if you feel bad, they feel bad.
So I'm giving this as a public service announcement for one.
And for two, I know this person who wrote it's a little too late.
The relationship's over and now you're, you're in the healing phase.
And, um, I, I wish you much strength through this healing phase.
And I want to let you know that um, This person is not a good source of your worthiness, of your lovability, of your amazing qualities.
They are not a good source because they point the finger at others so that they don't have to deal with what they need to heal in themselves.
And someone who doesn't want to deal with their own problems, their own dysfunctions, their own toxic behaviors, always points the finger at other people.
They always do, and they rarely take responsibility unless they're caught red-handed, and even then sometimes they don't, and they rarely apologize unless they want something.
And that sometimes happens after you've had enough, you've reached your breaking point and you say, that's enough.
I can't take it anymore.
And then they might apologize.
Or if you say, I'm going to leave.
I can't stand being around you.
Then they might apologize, but that's only after you've had enough.
They push you to the limit.
They're like um, a kid that pushes boundaries to find out where you break, and so when you're with somebody like that, it's not you, it's them.
And so, to the person who wrote i wish you didn't have to deal with that for 12 years.
I wish you didn't have to go through all that, But now that you did, you've learned a lot.
You've learned what to look for.
And hopefully with my words and what you're learning in therapy and everything that you have learned about yourself and how you can get coerced into a manipulative or abusive relationship for so long, because I don't blame you for that.
I blame the person who coerces and conditions and grooms you into a state of mind and a state of being that makes you feel like you're the problem.
And when somebody does that, when they make you feel like you're the problem and it's especially a pattern like a multiple times a day, daily pattern I like to think of emotional abuse as the drip feeding of bad behavior that makes you feel like you're never good enough, you're never perfect enough, you're not lovable enough, you're not worthy enough.
And if you don't feel supported and loved and worthy in the person's eyes who claims to care about you, you need to question the source.
And I'm so glad this person left a relationship where their source was faulty.
Their source was incorrect.
And I hope now you are truly seeing your worth and your significance.
The world, in your own life, in your families and your friends lives, so that you don't believe that you are the person that your ex described you as, because you ain't.
You are not that person and you are going to grow and heal through this and you will get through this.
You are already on a good path.
You're in therapy, you're getting help and you're gonna make it.
You're gonna get through fine.
And if you don't believe me, listen to my entire backlog.
Because you are amazing.
Thank you for writing.
Stay strong through this.
And thanks for listening to another episode of The Overwhelmed Brain.
I want to thank Debra and Tammy and Soup.
Yes, she told me to call her soup.
And she said that I recently asked some people if they could stop talking in a movie theater and they did.
In the past, I just tried to deal with my discomfort internally.
I could never imagine that I would be the kind of person who would say something.
I was nervous speaking up, but afterward, I was able to enjoy the rest of the movie.
I know this empowering move comes from listening to your show.
You make a huge difference in my life.
I am so grateful to you.
Thank you, Soup.
I am so grateful to you too.
And I'm thinking of myself in a movie theater with people talking.
I think the last time it happened, I was about to say something and they did stop.
So I'm so happy to hear that you spoke up for yourself.
And that can be challenging.
That can be a huge challenge.
Somebody's talking.
They're either going to get upset that you said anything at all or they're going to be quiet because they realize oh crap, I didn't realize I was being so loud.
You don't know what you're going to get.
You never do.
So what you did was tell yourself, I'm going to put words in your mouth.
I want to enjoy this movie.
I want to hear it.
I don't want to listen to two people talking.
And so you probably said, I'm going to guess you probably said, Hey, would you mind keeping it down?
I am imagining that you said that, instead of standing up looking over and saying Hey, will you two please shut up.
When I was a teenager with a bunch of my teen friends, that happened to us.
Some guy a few rows up looked back.
He stood up, looked back, pointed his finger and says, shut the F up.
We all went silent.
And then we left because we were jerks.
We were being loud and other people paid for the movie and they wanted to hear it.
And So I'm glad you didn't have that experience.
And I learned a lot from that, because when somebody did that to me I learned okay, I got to be quiet in a movie theater.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Because now that I'm an adult, I paid for the ticket.
I want to enjoy the movie.
I want to be entertained.
I want to be immersed in this movie, not in somebody else's conversation.
So the fact that you said something and enjoyed your movie changed your life.
Sure, it only changed a couple hours of your life, but maybe it changed a little bit more because now you know you can do it.
Now you know you can say something.
Just be prepared that sometimes you'll get resistance.
Sometimes you'll say something and they'll say, well, mind your own business.
That's fine.
You said your piece and...
Now you move on.
Maybe you'll have to go get the usher or whatever.
Are they called ushers?
And they might have to take care of it.
But it sounds like you did the thing that you felt you needed to do.
And sometimes that's what life needs.
It needs to hear your boundaries.
Sometimes life needs to hear your boundaries so that your boundaries are honored.
Because if life doesn't hear your boundaries, your boundaries might get violated.
And we don't want that.
So I'm so grateful to you.
I'm so grateful to all the patrons that have provided support for this show for months and sometimes years.
And a few other patrons want to write to me and share stories like this.
I'm all ears.
Soup likes to write and share these things.
That's why I read them.
Thank you all.
I appreciate you.
If you value this show, like these patrons do, and you want to give back, head over to moretobcom, and there are ways to do that over there.
And for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship, listen to my other podcast called Love and Abuse over at loveandabusecom.
I do talk about difficult relationships over here, but we get into the weeds over there.
It's manipulation, emotional abuse and control and all kinds of bad behavior that shouldn't be in a relationship.
That's over at loveandabuse.com.
And here's the thing.
I don't just help the people that are in the difficult relationship.
I also help the people that are the difficult person in the relationship because So if you are the difficult one in the relationship and you want to change and heal that about yourself, join the program that is helping a lot of people heal over at healedbeingcom.
And with that, always keep your mind open, because that's how you make the best decisions, and be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want.
Always take steps to grow and evolve.
You are powerful beyond measure.
And above all, And this is something I absolutely know to be true about you.
You just heard me say it a few minutes ago, but I'm going to say it again.
You are amazing.
Thank you.
