These are my personal opinions always secret professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well -being.
Welcome to the show.
Sometimes it's bittersweet to be here.
I'm not talking about me.
I'm talking about the reason you might tune into a show like this is because you might have a question about something going on in your life or a those questions aren't always easy like I talked about in the last episode where it was a tough it was a tough subject it was a tough subject to address it was about a person who said I didn't ask to be here and I don't want to live or said something like that it's very difficult to talk about and then sometimes I'll get questions where I know the answers right away I know how to answer that because I've been through it I've learned about it I studied
it I've I've done it myself many times, for example when somebody ever asks me about personal boundaries, boom, I know that.
I know that pretty well because I actually started honoring my personal boundaries, a good 15 years ago now, and realized how much easier life got when I told people what I will and won't accept.
and life gets easier when you share with people what you will and won't accept for behavior, for how they treat you, how they show up in your life.
You're just saying, I'm sorry, I won't accept that behavior.
You don't have to say those words, it might come out like, hey, would you mind not doing that again?
Hey, would you mind being more respectful next time?
It might be a little confrontational when you say it that way, but this is what you learn when you start doing it, when you start honoring yourself is that you learn the reactions and responses or non -responses that you get.
I remember the very first time I chose to speak up for myself at work and it went a lot better than I expected.
In fact, it led to an eventual promotion and raise just because I decided to speak up even at the risk of losing my job.
And it wasn't like I wanted to call my boss a jerk it was just to tell someone how I wish to be treated.
I do not wish to be treated this way.
Will you please do it this way instead or will you please respect me?
Will you please not speak to me that way again?
That's all I ask. And then if they choose not to it would be surprising to me because you're asking someone, because when you ask someone to treat you the way you wish to be treated, you should expect someone to honor that.
Why wouldn't they honor what you wanted, unless they're mean or controlling or manipulative, or if they just want to hurt you and they don't care, then you have to ask yourself well, what am I doing talking to this person if they're mean controlling manipulative or they don't care if they hurt me then why am I here what's the point of having a conversation with this person and in a work situation a little different you know what I don't like you you don't like me but let's just get through this I'm not saying you say that but I've had to use that philosophy sometimes I don't like this person they
don't like me, but let's just get the job done.
Let's just finish this and move forward. I've had to do that before.
Alright, so we move forward and then I don't want to work with that person again, goodbye.
But there are many many times that I honored myself after that first time just by standing up and saying, no that's not acceptable to me.
Or yes, that's what I want.
When I did that my life got easier.
And it sounds like it should get harder, at least that was my belief.
It's probably gonna get harder when I tell somebody what they don't wanna hear, which was my belief that they didn't wanna hear it.
And no, that's true.
Sometimes they don't wanna hear what you have to say.
But I have learned that when you tell somebody what is acceptable to you or not acceptable to you, you might get resistance at first, But then there's a point where you're either going to lose that person as a friend or family or partner even, or they're going to realize what works for you and follow those guidelines.
And that's what has worked for me is expressing my guidelines, expressing my boundaries, and letting people know where the line is.
Because I honestly believe this is probably 90 % true.
I honestly believe that 90 % of the people out there don't know they're crossing your boundaries until you tell them that 10 % might be the tough ones the 10 % are the ones that know they're crossing your boundaries and don't care or aren't willing to change or whatever maybe they do care and they aren't willing to change but there are 10 % of people and this is a total guess I haven't taken a hole.
There's a percentage of people out there that know they're crossing your boundaries and will not change.
Don't want to change and that's that.
That's who they are and you just have to deal with it and that's actually good to know.
If you know they won't change it's good to know.
Hey, you're not gonna change, okay.
Now I know who you are.
Now every time we are in the same room or talking to other.
I know that I can't expect anything else from you.
Therefore, I won't look for it." You know how relieving and liberating that is to stop looking for better behavior out of someone who is not capable of doing it?
It is extremely relieving.
It sets you free. It lets you go and set you free.
if you can set yourself free by saying this person won't change and when you do that you no longer have to dig into your own psyche or into their psyche and try to figure out why they aren't changing or why aren't they treating you any better.
You could just stop thinking about all that stuff.
You can stop thinking that you don't deserve it or maybe you think that you do deserve it.
You don't have to think about any of that stuff.
All you have to think about is, oh, that's who they are.
I accept that. That's who they are.
Totally freeing, believe me.
If you haven't tried that, it's totally freeing.
I had to accept that about certain family members, and when you accept that about...
Here's the thing. When you accept that about anyone in your life, when you accept that that's who they are and that they will never change, that frees you from the expectation or hope that they will it frees you from that because we can become obsessed hoping they'll change and expecting that they should change because can't they see what they're doing can't they see what they're saying is hurtful or toxic no they can't and so they won't change So free yourself of hoping or expecting, wishing or praying that somebody will change, and let them be.
This really segues into one of the questions I received, which is, is future behavior really based on past behavior?
Is that always accurate?
Meaning, is what they've done in the past a predictor of what they'll do in the future?
The question this person asked is, is it always accurate in relationships?
And my answer to you is 100 % yes.
Before you write to me and say, that's wrong.
That's not true. It's not, you're right.
It's not true. But if you believe this is the point.
If you believe it's true, it frees you from expecting anything else.
because what happens if it's false?
What happens if you're wrong and they do change?
That's a bonus. That's a that's dessert you didn't expect.
That's great. That means it's a nice surprise so you didn't expect anything and you got a nice surprise so if you go forward accepting that this person will never change and the trend that's been occurring will be the trend that continues to occur, it's sort of a no -lose situation, meaning, if you accept that they'll never change, and they do, you win.
If you accept that they'll never change and they don't, it's not exactly a win, but it sort of is because you had stopped putting energy toward it, and the less energy you put towards something that you know won't change, the more energy you have for yourself, and the more brain matter you have to make decisions that are right for you.
And this leads into my thoughts about decision -making, like, how do I know to make this decision if I don't know if they're going to change or not?
For example, if you're in a relationship with somebody that is doing behaviors that are hurtful or that you don't like, or they're dysfunctional in some way and you can't stand being around them sometimes, how do you know it's best to move forward?
I look at the trend, I say, okay, this has been who they've been all this time.
Have I ever seen them progress?
Have I ever seen them move forward or heal something and move forward?
Are they going in an upward trend in their personal development or their healing?
Are they moving in an upward trend if they're not then that's what to expect tomorrow as well.
If I'm wrong and they surprised me great we can work with that, that's no problem but this is why I don't like to invest too much time in people that don't seem to ever change and I don't waste too much time hoping or praying or wishing that they will.
I just say okay this is who they are.
I accept that and that's that's how I answer this person's question is they asked if future behavior will always be what their past behavior is.
I say yes it will even though I might be wrong because it frees me from having to think about it, hope about it, wish anything and now I can make a decision based on what I know instead of what I don't.
Because what I know is what's been happening up to this point.
It frees you and you might I'd say, what if I'm in a relationship and my only option is divorce because now I have seen the trend and I know this trend will continue.
I've accepted it, but in a week they're no longer hurtful.
They're no longer a bad person, but I've filed for divorce.
You don't have to go through with it.
It's a big step I know, but you don't have to go through with it if you filed for divorce and this is just a minor or maybe a major example, let's just say that you did take a big step like that and taking that step it is harder to reverse there are feelings that may be hurt yes but it is a step forward that wasn't there before because maybe nothing would have ever changed until you made that decision and I've seen that countless times.
Somebody finally says you know what I don't want to take this kind of behavior anymore, so I'm leaving, and then the other person says whoa whoa whoa, okay, I won't do that behavior anymore.
Really now? You won't do that behavior now that I'm leaving?
Why didn't you make that decision before?
Well, you know, and then they have a long conversation or argument about it.
I've just seen that over and over again, and there are reasons but I won't get into that right now, but the point is sometimes you need to make a decision that's right for you based on the information that you have, not the information that you hope for or what you hope happens because if you base your life on what you hope happens, there is no forward progress or there is very little.
If you get lucky, there's more but there's very little forward progress if you are waiting and hoping and wishing and praying, something changes and hopefully it will but it doesn't so what do you do?
Wait another year? Wait another five years, wait another ten years?
That was my mom. She waited years and years decades until finally something happened but that was decades.
That was a long time before, if you don't know the story, my stepfather finally left her after 40 years and she did not like him at all.
But she wanted something to happen for her instead of her taking the steps to happen and I'm not putting her down for that.
She was in an emotionally abusive relationship sometimes physically abusive relationship with him.
And she was hoping that he would just leave her and she waited a long time and I don't like that idea of waiting.
I like the idea of making the decision that's right for you today based on the information that you have today and then if something changes because you make that decision great well work with that change but if you don't make the decision nothing may ever change.
So to that person's question that's why I see future behavior will match past behavior because it frees me to make a decision that I need to make and if things change because I make that decision we can work with that.
This person's second question is can we have love in a trauma bond.
If you're not familiar with a trauma bond I'm going to do my best to give you my definition of it.
It typically starts when you fall in love with a person and everything's great and then they start acting badly and hurting you and what you end up doing is taking the blame for them hurting you.
This is one aspect of trauma bonding that you take the blame for them hurting you and you start taking and responsibility for making changes in the relationship, or making changes in yourself in order to please the other person.
And so you spend the whole time in the next several months or years not only getting hurt by them, but also trying to please them.
And all this time, you don't feel worthy of their love and connection.
And so you try harder to show that you are worthy.
And then when they do show love and connection and they really make you feel good about yourself, you feel so good, it's like a high, it's like a drug.
And when you get that high, that emotional high, it feels so good you want more of it, but then the bad behavior starts again and then it's taken away from you and you go through an emotional withdrawal and the kind of withdrawal where you crave that love and connection again so you try harder to please them and satisfy them and you notice that sometimes it seems to work because they start acting nice again.
They start showing you how worthy and lovable you are, and it feels really good!
So you start to believe that you are the problem.
I mean, you probably have believed this for a long time.
You believe that you are the problem, but you also believe that you are the solution.
If I just do this, if I just start doing that, if I say this if I don't bother them in the morning if I don't you know you have all these criteria that you end up following that you create and it's sort of like a reward system if I do this this happens if I do that that happens and this usually happens to those who blame themselves for the problems in the relationship and so they keep trying harder and harder and as they get this love and abuse, which is the title of my other podcast, love and abuse.
It's a push and pull on their heart and their brain and their body.
It's a push and pull that is a constant back and forth with their emotional state.
And because they don't want to be pushed away, they want to be pulled back in feeling worthy, feeling love and connection.
And because they take responsibility for not showing up in the right way for that person.
and they see the only source of love and connection from the very person who is hurting them too they keep coming back to the person that is hurting them and also making them feel lovable and worthy and so you can see how that would really do a number on the brain and it is like a drug some people take drugs to feel better but they need the drug to continue feeling better but when they don't have the drug, they seek the supplier of that drug to get more of it.
That way they can feel better again.
So it is using a single source, a source that hurts you and makes you feel special that you rely on to get all your needs met.
Many people in a trauma bond believe that they can only feel love and feel that sense of worth and feel important from the very person that is also hurting them.
And that is the basics of a trauma bond.
And I know I'm not explaining it in a technical fashion, but I wanted to give you my experience of how trauma bonds are formed to perhaps relate it to something that you may have experienced in your life, or at least the people that this applies to.
So that is my roundabout definition of a trauma bond, is that you're in this sort of addictive place.
It's like an addiction.
And the person asked, can we have love in a trauma bond?
And the answer is yes and no. It is love in the sense that it feels loving, it feels like connection, but it's not a healthy love, it's a dysfunctional type of love.
It's a desperate love.
It is a desperation that you want to feel loved and worthy in someone else's eyes but it comes from a place of insecurity and desperation and when you have that kind of feeling a feeling of desperation and the fear that you won't get that love from anyone else and it has to be this person or you need to please this person that fear and that desperate energy isn't what I call love.
It feels like love and it gives you a good feeling that's probably a rise in your dopamine levels and it feels really good because when you get it, it's replacing all the bad feelings that you had and because you don't wanna feel bad again, that good feeling is just amplified.
It's over the top. So it feels like love but it's an unhealthy love and I don't wanna say it's not love because sometimes there is love there.
It's just an unhealthy version of it.
My healthy version of love is when you support someone being who they are.
It's when you support the decisions they make to be happy.
It's when you support what they value.
You may not like what they value, but you support them liking what they value.
And you support their choices even when you disagree with them.
that is my version of love, is that you're basically showing someone that it's not only okay to be themselves but you encourage it.
And you want them to pursue their path to whatever makes them happy.
That's how I view love and when you have somebody that is hurting you and then loving you a quote, you know quote loving you and then hurting you again that's not how I define love.
That that is an unhealthy love, and some people might not even call that love at all.
You know, in my personal life, I don't call that love, but it feels like love when you're in it.
And I don't wanna discount or minimize or invalidate anyone experiencing this right now, because you are absolutely worthy of love.
And you are absolutely worthy of respect and kindness from somebody that you are around or with, but some people are incapable at least at this time maybe at this time in their life some people are incapable of showing you the true definition of love because they're not in that space they're not healed or they have challenges that they need to get over but that doesn't mean you have to cope with their challenges as they try to get over their own stuff while they are hurting you you should not have to tolerate somebody hurting you I don't you to be in that situation.
But this is a very deep topic, a very complex topic sometimes, but I'll answer that question.
Can we have love in a trauma bond?
Yes. It's just not the type of love that's going to survive.
It's not the type of love that's going to get stronger.
It's only going to feel like a constant push and pull.
You're going to seek it.
You're going to feel it.
And then you're going to lose it over and over and over again.
It's gonna feel like love but true love doesn't have all those strings attached.
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So that's my answer to that question.
And I've got two more questions from this same person that they asked a lot of good questions here.
I'm just gonna go with it.
The next question is how do you understand that even people who love you will hurt you?
That's a loaded question.
How do you understand that even people who love you will hurt you.
I sort of answered that in a tiny way just a moment ago, but there is an answer to that and that is first define what love means to you.
Love means to me is that someone who loves me won't hurt me, not intentionally.
Someone who loves me will support me being myself.
Someone who loves me doesn't want me to feel wrong all the time.
Someone who loves me wants me to be happy and will support my happiness.
Someone who loves me will support me making decisions for myself.
Very much what I just talked about.
My definition of love.
So it is a good question.
If you love me, this is the real question.
If you love me, why would you hurt me?
That is the question.
I've received that question a number of times over the years and I usually get it from victims of emotional abuse.
If they loved me, why would they hurt me?
That question I finally figured it out.
I finally had to think about my own past and think about what I went through and think about what other people have gone through, clients I've worked with and such, and the answer is a simple but hard to comprehend maybe answer which is they believe they're right.
A person who loves you who says they love you really believes that what they're doing to you the right thing to do.
That means that if you're crying because they hurt you or you are upset because of something they said or did.
It is because they believe so strongly that they are right.
That they'll see you as doing this to yourself.
It would be like me saying hey don't touch that fire you'll get burned And then you say I'm not gonna get burned and you touch the fire and then I say See, I told you you're gonna get burned and now you're hurt You're holding your hand and you're hurt and I say, you know, that's too bad.
It's tough. I told you.
I Know that I'm right This is an example.
I know that I'm right.
You shouldn't have touched the fire.
And So that might be a real world scenario like you tell a child.
Don't touch the fire Don't touch the stove.
But the real world scenario in a relationship, for example, might be, and this is an emotional abuse example.
I don't want you to see your friends.
I, you know, this is a isolation in emotional abuse.
I don't want you to see your friends because they're bad for you.
They tell you bad things and they talked badly about us.
So I don't want to see, I don't want you to see your friends or they may say, I don't want you to see your friends tonight or I don't want you to see that particular person.
So they're trying to isolate you from a support system, from your friends, from people you love, and you feel that it's wrong inside.
You know that it's wrong sometimes.
You just know that what they're saying is wrong.
But maybe you've come to trust them and love them and really believe what they say because they seem smart.
They sound like they have good reasoning skills because they've figured a lot of stuff out and they know a lot of things and they are smart so I guess if they're saying that maybe I should go see my friends and then you accidentally run into a friend and then you have a great talk with that friend and then you come back and they say where were you and you said well I ran into so -and -so.
I told you not to talk to so -and -so.
Why did you talk to so -and -so?
Well it wasn't a problem.
They you know they were they were there and I ran into them and it was a nice conversation, I had a good time.
And the emotionally abusive person's gonna say, I told you not to talk to them.
And then they may pretend to be sad or give you the silent treatment because they want you to feel guilty for doing something that they said you shouldn't do.
And you're gonna feel bad about yourself because you really don't want them to be upset with you.
And so you feel bad now that you have disappointed somebody who claims to have loved you, but they want you to feel bad because of what you did when they told you not to do it, and they know they're right.
They, quote, know they're right and you know that they know they're right.
This is how this works is that you believe so strongly in what they're saying.
That you believe they're right and you have already agreed not to see the friends they told you not to see.
And so you will then feel bad for disappointing them.
You will then also feel guilty for doing something against their wishes.
And so they see you hurting yourself.
It is ridiculous, it is toxic.
And the people who do it want the other person to feel bad in themselves, about themselves.
The emotionally abusive person wants the other person to believe they are hurting themselves by not doing what the emotional abuser wants.
And that's what happens, is that people who quote love you will hurt you because they believe you're hurting yourself.
They believe they're right.
They have all the answers.
They believe they're right.
And so they believe that what you're doing is only hurting yourself because all you have to do is listen to me and we'll both be happy That is the belief of many many people all you have to do is listen to me, and we'll both be happy I Don't want you to be independent and make your own decisions because I don't want to support those decisions I want to support the decisions that benefit me and if they're not benefiting me, then it's your fault It's complex. Some of this stuff is very complex. Unfortunately, you can't just look at a situation.
Oh, this is what's happening.
That's easy. I figured it out because you're so deep within some of these dysfunctional relationships.
If you have a dysfunctional or toxic relationship like this in your life, be it romantic or familial or a friendship and you always feel bad, and they always seem like they're right and they can do no wrong especially, that happens a lot, they can do no wrong and you're always the one that's wrong, they will make it so you feel bad about disappointing them and hurting them and they set that up.
They set you up to make you feel bad about what you did and make you feel bad about yourself and make you feel bad for not being good enough and never doing what they want you to do.
It's like you're gonna feel like a failure over and over again, but they set that up So yes Even people who love you or at least claim to love you will hurt you because they are just in this righteous space And when they're in that righteous space they can do no wrong and everything you do practically everything you do is wrong They set that up.
So just be aware of that Let's get to this last question.
These are these are good questions I haven't really explored these as deeply as I am right now.
So here's the last one.
Do we all have toxic traits and behaviors?
But can we move past those and communicate with a partner and fix this?
Okay, I'm having trouble reading that one.
Do we all have toxic traits and behaviors?
But can we move past them and okay, so can we move past them with a partner to fix all these toxic traits.
So here's another big one that I hear a lot, and I actually hear this a lot in my heeled being program is, can I heal my emotional abusive behaviors and stay in the relationship?
My heeled being program is for people who are doing emotionally abusive behavior and want to stop.
If you're listening now and you need that, go to healedbeing .com.
The reason they ask that question is because they don't want to lose the relationship.
The person in their life probably reached what I call their threshold and that means they're not going to accept any hurtful behavior anymore, and they have basically put out an ultimatum saying if you don't change, I'm leaving.
That happens a lot.
There's a point where the victim of abusive behavior will get to that they won't take anymore.
It's a final straw.
If you don't change, I'm done.
And that's their threshold, that's That's what I call it.
And so when they reach their threshold, it's at this point that a lot of abusive people, hurtful people, toxic people, will finally step out of their righteousness.
Not all of them, but I've seen this over and over again.
They step out of righteousness for the first time sometimes and they finally realize that maybe they're not right about everything.
Maybe that's it. And at that point that is the that is the first step into healing themselves.
It's also sometimes the first step that the victim of that behavior gets to heal themselves as well and that is one of my lessons is called focus and that means you focus on your own healing.
The victim focuses on their healing, the emotional and then they can either heal while still in the relationship or heal apart.
The challenge is if you heal while you're still in the relationship, guess what's still there?
The influence both positive and negative of the other person and because the influence both positive and negative of the other person is still in your life.
If you have any triggers, you're going to get triggered.
And so when you are together, healing your own stuff together, it can work but you will likely trigger each other.
This is bad and bad and good.
Bad in the sense that I said bad twice because I'm just emphasizing it, but bad in the sense that when it feels like you're moving forward progressively and you have some good momentum, then the other person gets triggered, you're suddenly taken back to what feels like step one.
You're suddenly taking back to the beginning, and it feels like you're starting all over again.
And on top of that, the victim of the hurtful behavior might discount all the progress that the other person has made and say, you're not healing at all.
And so, this isn't gonna work.
This is the risk of healing together in the relationship is that the influences are still there and the triggers are still there and you both will become triggered because the victim of hurtful behavior has now become highly sensitive to everything that the other person does.
I don't mean sensitive but more acutely aware and observant of everything that the other person does and also sensitive to the that person is going to be upset with me so I better not do XYZ, but sometimes that disappears after threshold.
After their threshold after they've said I'm done, I'm not gonna tiptoe anymore, I'm not gonna walk on eggshells anymore, you have to deal with your stuff, fix yourself because I don't want to have to deal with that anymore.
I don't deserve this behavior.
The threshold is also the point where many say I don't deserve this behavior anymore and I'm not going to accept it anymore it is the point where things have to change or else and so the victim of this hurtful behavior doesn't want any more hurtful behavior period they are done it's it's the threshold for a reason the line has been crossed and it will never be crossed again and in order for you not to cross that line talking to the hurtful person the emotional abusive person you have to up or ship out.
And I can't see that behavior anymore.
So, it's a huge risk healing together.
It can and does work.
I don't want to totally say it can't work.
It can and does work.
But the only way I've seen two people healing together, you know, working on themselves and staying in the relationship.
The only way I've seen that work is when a the victim still has love in their heart for them and they want the relationship to work, and B, the emotionally abusive person doesn't focus on the relationship, but focuses on themselves.
I mean they both have to focus on themselves, but typically what happens is the hurtful person will go back and forth with oh, I need to heal myself, but I also need to save this relationship.
So I need to focus on saving the relationship and making them happy, and their reasons for changing might be solely about making the other person happy and not about the true healing that they need to do in themselves.
And if one makes the reason for healing and changing their own bad behaviors another person and not about themselves then the healing is less likely to stick, because they may believe that they only need to change because the other person doesn't like their behavior.
instead of saying I need to change because I have these problems, I have these terrible coping mechanisms and I don't know how to deal with challenges and I get that desperate and fearful energy I'm talking about earlier the hurtful person, the emotionally abusive person can also feel that desperate and fearful energy which brings out their triggers, which brings out their emotionally abusive behaviors and when they experience that fear and desperation again coming from insecurities inside themselves whether it's a fear of abandonment fear of being alone fear of rejection fear of confrontation fear
of all this stuff all these little fears that they haven't learned to deal within themselves if those are being triggered because they haven't been healed then they don't go away and if a person works on healing themselves in those areas then no matter who they're with they won't get those old emotional triggers anymore, because now they are secure in themselves.
They're more confident in themselves.
They're more comfortable in their own skin.
And therefore they very likely won't do emotionally abusive behavior because they're not pointing at someone else as the cause of their problems, they're pointing at themselves and taking responsibility for the challenges that they have in their own life.
And so to wrap that up a little bit, the emotionally abusive person who points at another person and says, I'm changing for you is almost like saying, I'm not gonna change for me because I want to save this relationship.
The problem is if they lose the relationship, what happens to them?
They don't change because they were changing for someone else.
And I always say in the program, the healed being program, I say, you can use the relationship as motivation to change.
Absolutely. If that's your incentive, great.
But don't deny that you need to work on these things in yourself so that you deal with your triggers and that you deal with your inability to handle challenges or tough situations that come along.
They have triggered you in the past and you don't want to do those behaviors anymore.
So that's why it's important to work on these for yourself in yourself.
And coming back to the question, can you work on these behaviors for yourself, in yourself and stay in a relationship and continue to work on the relationship.
Absolutely. It does happen, it can happen, it is more challenging typically because that influence is still there but you can do it.
You just have to make your purpose and your priority to heal yourself because the final goal of creating any good relationship after some bad times is to bring the best version of yourself into that relationship and then the other person can say, I like this, I want this, and I want more of this, or they can say, I don't like this, I don't want any more of this, and I want to move on.
Or they can even say, I really like who you've become, but I really don't have any more love for you.
That happens too. They can say, I love who you're becoming.
I love how you've changed.
I see the changes. It's amazing but my heart is closed.
It's been too long and I've hurt too much. That happens too.
But the question if you can work on this stuff while still in the relationship and get past it, the second part of...
I gave you two things here.
One of them is the victim of hurtful behavior still has to have love in their heart for the other person.
And the second part is the emotionally abusive person or the hurtful person, toxic, dysfunctional, they have to know that there is something that needs healing in them and focus on what they need to heal in themselves and pursue that healing no matter what it takes.
That needs to be their priority.
The relationship is second to that.
Their number one priority is themselves because they need to heal themselves to bring the best, healthiest, most healed version of themselves into the relationship.
And it works for the victim of the hurtful behavior as well.
The victim needs to bring the most healed version of themselves into the relationship so that when those orange flags or red flags come up, if they come up again, they can say a -ah, this ain't happening again.
We went through this before, and we went down a rabbit hole that I never want to go down again.
So you need to stop that behavior right now.
You need to deal with it.
that's what Asha my wife says to me.
If anything ever comes out of me that sounds like it might be dysfunctional or toxic which fortunately doesn't happen at all now except for the occasional I'm tired I'm hungry I'm triggered it does happen in almost all relationships I'll say something and she'll say well that's something you got to deal with you got to work on that yourself and I'll go UGH." And then I'll know she's right.
One of my mantras has really helped me over the years.
As I started healing from my own terrible behaviors in my past, I started saying to myself, if I have a problem with her, it's my problem not hers.
That's it. I use that mantra.
If I have a problem with that person, it's my problem, not that person.
And if you're listening to me right now saying, but they're the problem, not me, but if I have a problem with another person, it's how I deal with it, isn't it?
If you have a problem with another person, isn't it your reaction?
Isn't it how you deal with it, that needs to be addressed?
Not necessarily who they are or how they are.
I'm not saying that you just discount anything they do.
If they're hurting you and you need to defend yourself, you might have to do that.
What I'm saying is that in most cases and most arguments and tough situations and dysfunctional or toxic relationships their behaviors if we choose to accept that's who they are.
Remember we talked about that earlier if you choose to accept that's who they are then the problem you have with them becomes your problem and I don't mean to say hey it's your problem tough luck I mean to say, Oh, since it's my problem, how do I solve this?
If I can't change them, what do I need to do for me?
Because if that's who they are, and I know they're not going to change, then what do I need to do to take care of myself?
And that's all I mean by if I have a problem with somebody else, it's my problem, not theirs.
Wow. I talked about a lot today, I hope that you were able to get something from this episode.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I want to thank the person who wrote and asked those questions and they were great questions.
I really think it was a good idea to dive into them.
I do hope you got some value from that.
Thanks for listening to another episode of The Overwhelmed Brain.
I want to thank the patrons that always support this show.
I am grateful for your monthly contributions to the show and it just warms my heart every time I see your names and if you find value in the show and you want to become a patron, head over to moretob .com and there are options to do that over there.
And for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship, yes we talk about difficult relationships over here but I get into the weeds over there.
So if you're in a difficult relationship or you want to learn more about emotional abuse and manipulation and control, head over to LoveAndAbuse .com.
It's my other podcast that I've been doing since 2019.
And if And if you know you're the difficult one in the relationship, join the program that is helping a lot of people heal over at HealedBeing .com.
And with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions.
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 are amazing! you
