These are my personal opinions.
Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well -being.
Wow, thanks for joining.
I forget how to start the show.
It's been a while. I actually prerecorded a few episodes before my wife and I went on vacation for a couple of weeks to visit family and watch somebody graduate high school and start her life for college and beyond.
So that was a nice trip, and the last two or three episodes I had to prerecord to get that done.
So it's neither here nor there.
It doesn't really matter to you probably, but I'm trying to get my bearings straight coming back after not recording for so long.
And I'm just going to tell you what we're here to do today.
I'm going to read you a message and then I have some comments on it.
There were some, there's some realizations in myself that, I mean, I read this message and I realized, wow, this is really mirroring my life.
There are things going on in my life or have gone on in my life in the last 15, 20 years that mirror events that have occurred.
And normally on most episodes, almost all my episodes, I'm very practical.
I look at things in a very practical and pragmatic way.
Those terms probably mean the same thing.
And I look at things in a way that's very logical, analytical.
political, but I do it with emotional intelligence.
I look at things in a way that affects us emotionally.
It affects me emotionally, affects you in an emotional way.
We all have different ways of responding and reacting to things.
And I like to include emotion even in my analysis of things because emotions are the things that help us make decisions they are what help us feel good and feel bad they are a part of us so this heart and mind and body and soul and this holistic being that we are it's all a part of us i mean i've met people who've said that um i prefer to to be more Vulcan, Star Trek reference, more analytical, no emotions or very little emotions.
And those people, I have no problem with that, but emotions are the experience or one of the major experiences of our lives and they are inside.
We are meant to have them.
We are hardwired for analytical because when you are, you miss a giant part of your life.
Now, if it makes you happy, that's an emotion.
But if it makes you happy to be that way, solely analytical, and you're not carrying something with you, like my mom loves to be happy, loves to joke a lot.
But if we get into the weeds of a subject that she hasn't processed or healed from yet.
It's going to be challenging for her and she's going to change the subject.
And that just tells me that she might be carrying, or I know, I know she's carrying things with her that she just doesn't want to address.
And if that works for her, I support it.
I look at somebody like that, like my mom or anybody listening, anybody I've worked with, that when you are carrying something that gives you that negative feeling when you think about it, there might be something like an open loop.
An open loop is like unfinished business, something unresolved.
And we can usually walk through life with these minor unresolved things that still need some sort of closure.
We could walk through life saying, oh, you know, I really feel bad about that thing I did 20 years ago, but there's nothing I can do about it.
So I'm just going to move forward. But every time I think about it, I feel bad about it.
So that might be unresolved, something that's unresolved inside you.
But when there's nothing you can do about it, you just kind of have to push through it.
And I mean, you could work on that, of course.
and I have episodes on working on old past unresolved stuff, but if you can't resolve it, what can you do?
I mean, sometimes you do just have to push through it.
So I look at, it's sort of like a percentage thing for me.
If 0 .001 % of my life is thinking about something that I did in the past or something that happened to me in the past and it makes me feel bad, but it only takes up 0 .001 % of my life.
Do I really care? Am I really going to address that?
Do I need to? I like to address everything that comes up like, huh, why am I still thinking about it this way?
Why does that still bother me?
I do like to address that, but how much energy am I going to put toward it if it's really not affecting my life?
I mean, I will. I will put some energy toward it.
And I think it's a good idea.
Let's put some energy toward it to find out if it's really a problem.
I feel bad about how I treated my pet when I was 17.
I feel really bad about that.
And this is kind of made up, but another part of my life is a part of this story as well.
But but I feel really bad about that.
Is it affecting me?
Do I carry it with me into other situations?
How about this? Something that makes you feel bad in the past that you carry into present moments, present events and situations that causes you to feel good about what you are doing today.
for example because i feel bad about how i treated animals in the past i treat them like royalty today they are loved they are spoiled any animal of mine will be taken care of until they are no longer around and once i have an animal in my life i commit to it If that means I had to move out, we got a divorce and I had to move out and I took my animal with me and I couldn't get an apartment because I had an animal, I wouldn't get the apartment.
That's me. I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad who's been in a difficult situation.
But my declaration to myself is I will not ever let go of an animal for any reason that I've committed to.
That is my declaration.
that is my philosophy, that's how I live.
And that came from how I used to be in the past. How you used to be in the past, if you did something that doesn't make you feel good, I'm pretty sure that the people listening to this show, something like that has changed them.
Something like that has changed you.
Something you did in the past changed you to become a better person, a nicer person, or you're never going to do what you used to do.
So you're doing the opposite.
That's kind of the way I feel.
I used to hurt people I love and now I love them as if they were the most important thing on earth because they are.
And that's just how I see things.
That's how I've changed my life.
And that doesn't take away some of the hurt, some of the the bad feelings that I have from some of the unresolved stuff that I can't resolve from the past. I can't take back what I did to certain people.
I can apologize. I can move beyond it, and they can move beyond it.
They can heal, but I still did it.
So when I think about it, I feel bad.
And because of that, I like to transform that negative energy regarding the past and put it into my present and into my future so that that part of me doesn't get activated because I don't want to feel that way again.
And I don't want to hurt people that I love anymore or animals that I love or anyone in my life.
So I am going to be the person I never was and continue to be this person that I am going forward. And that makes me feel good.
it. So yeah, there's a displacement going on here.
The negative past is being replaced with a positive present and future.
That's how I see it.
It's how I live my life.
And it feels really good to do that.
And when I think about the past, yeah, I'm going to feel bad.
And I've noticed that because I started living my life like that, happiness comes more naturally naturally because i feel like i'm always doing the right thing now it doesn't mean i always accomplish it doesn't mean i'm always successful it just means it feels like because i've done this over and over again you know transforming the negative feelings into positive feelings and putting it into present and future situations the happiness or the the feeling good about myself self especially.
The self -worth comes more naturally and that feels good.
So it contributes to my life positively.
And I think that's a good way to live life when you are having trouble resolving past issues is to transform that.
I mean, I talk about guilt and stuff like that.
This is very helpful with guilt.
In my other episodes, I've talked about how you can transform form the guilt you feel and pay it present and forward so that when you feel that guilt, those in your life today benefit from who you've become because of it.
And so I'm going to get back to what I started to talk about, which is the message that I received that started this process of thinking about creating this episode.
And this won't be for everyone.
one. Somebody might listen to this and say, nope, I'm analytical.
I don't need to listen to this.
And I don't believe in all this connecting the dots stuff.
What am I talking about?
Let's begin. This person wrote and said, seven years ago, I sent you the submission below.
I was 23. I was lost. Today, I'm divorced from the person that I sent the submission about, out.
And I finally feel like me.
As it turns out, my gut, my subconscious, whatever was speaking to me.
I just didn't know myself well enough to understand.
And I looked for the tangible, visible reasons for my feelings of doubt.
And when in reality, it was deeper and much more complex. My husband emotionally abandoned me and he'd always shown signs of that, but because that's what I thought love looked like, having an absent father in parentheses, it never came to the forefront of my mind.
But here I am today, divorced, several years into therapy, out into the world, and as free as can be.
I realized I didn't give much context in my original submission, and I greatly appreciate your response episode.
And I created an episode specifically to respond and she finishes the message by saying, I'm not sure why I felt compelled to share what I learned in hindsight, but thanks for all you do.
It's very sweet. Thank you for sharing that.
And I'm so sorry that you had to experience what you did, which I'm sure at one time maybe made you feel bad, or maybe it still does.
But you're in a better place today.
You've taken steps.
you've moved forward and you're still moving forward. It sounds like you're still in therapy and that's great.
You're, you're moving forward. And that's, that's how I see life is that we need forward momentum, even incrementally, even tiny baby steps, as long as we're moving forward. So thank you for sharing that.
Thank you for sending that my way.
And I was so glad that I was able to address what was going on in your life in another episode, but I probably didn't have like good news when you wrote that?
Because a lot of people write to me and say, hey, this is happening in my relationship.
What's going on? Or what should I do?
Or what should I say?
And I don't always have good news, but I have very practical news.
I have very practical suggestions and advice as far as what I believe will happen if you do this and what I believe won't happen if you do this.
And when it comes to relationships, I like to at least try to give the relationship a chance to heal, to reconcile, to grow stronger.
So I will try to push in that direction.
But when the results don't come back favoring a closer bond, then I can tell where it's going.
And that's what I like to share is a guidance that tells you, okay, try this.
And if you get this kind of response, this is the result of that.
And so I'm assuming this is exactly what happened here.
And I'm a proponent of trying everything until you're exhausted.
And then when you're exhausted, it's easy to make the decision.
I'm not saying you have to do that, but that's how I make decisions.
I try everything until I'm exhausted and say, ah, now I know it's not working.
I've tried it. I've tried this.
I've tried this. It doesn't work.
So I'm moving on. Some people will make faster decisions and sometimes I will too.
But I like looking back and saying, I tried everything and I have no regrets because I tried everything.
At least I tried everything I knew how to do back then.
I did everything with the resources that were available to me, with the knowledge that was available to me.
I did what I could.
Just like this person.
She did what she could at the time.
She considered all her options at the time, the ones that she understood.
And at the same time, she didn't know what she didn't know.
no she said that's what i thought love looked like that's what i thought love was and so you go forward with your best guess and that's what she did and she had to learn it was a difficult lesson but she had to learn so that she could be happy again move forward and um learn what she doesn't want in her life again i don't want that again so i know what to look for now.
And that's a great lesson to take with us.
Once we do something that affects us negatively, we know we don't want that again.
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and so the reason i read this is because well a i wanted to acknowledge her thank you for writing that thank you for sharing that i'm so glad your life is in a much better place and b it really solidifies something that i believe which is when you're ready to tackle or resolve or finish something that's unfinished, when you're ready, you will be presented with an opportunity to do so.
This may be a wild idea to some people, but to me, I can look back in my life, especially with personal growth and development.
Every time I learn something new and healed something within in myself, the opportunity to test that healing, that new improved version of myself showed up every time.
Every time I learned something new, I changed something about how I show up or I healed something in myself, an opportunity arrived to test it.
they're little tests but i like to call them opportunities and these opportunities have helped me permanently lock in my improvement i'm not sure how to say it any other way if i learned how to honor myself you know i discovered that i was a people pleaser and so i healed that about myself i don't want to just say yes when i feel like saying no No, I practiced that.
I practiced boundaries and telling people, no, I really don't want that.
And telling people what I really did want and telling people how I really did feel.
When I felt comfortable doing that, the big challenge showed up.
The big opportunity.
I like to call them opportunities because they're an opportunity to test what I learned.
Not only that, to make them a permanent part of who I am.
When I learned how to honor myself and I was ready to enforce my boundaries, the big test came, both.
I mean, two tests came, actually.
One was at work, a work situation where my boss, you know, this is a long time ago, but my boss was yelling at the team and I faced that challenge.
I've told that story before, probably several times, but if you haven't heard it, he was going around the room saying, what are you going to do?
What are you going to do?
And I just said, I'm just going to do this so you'll stop yelling at us.
The room went silent.
I actually like telling that story.
The room went silent because I faced the boss, this multimillionaire boss.
And I said those words.
I was passive aggressive, but I still said it because you'll stop yelling at us.
And he said, oh, you think I'm yelling at you?
And he moved on and I didn't lose my job.
There's the quick end of that.
and I felt really good about myself.
And other people came up to me and said, I'm so glad you said that he was being such a jerk.
That felt really good.
So I tested that. I mean, the thoughts that went through my mind, like I don't deserve this.
That's what I thought.
I don't deserve this and nobody else deserves this.
We didn't do anything wrong.
And so I decided to stand up and that was very hard. I would never have done that before, but that opportunity was presented.
And so the other opportunity I talk about a million times on the show is my stepfather showed up one day and he'd been a bad force, a bad toxic element in our entire family's life.
And my mom had already gotten divorced from him.
So two months later, he shows up at my mom's house and I answer the door and I'd always been afraid of him.
And I said that the milliseconds, the nanoseconds of thought that occurred, you know, I'm supposed supposed to honor myself right now.
I'm supposed to honor my mom.
I'm supposed to stand up for myself.
Am I going to become that scared little child again and just let him come in?
And in that moment, I decided that I wanted to be the person I'd become.
That's who I wanted to be.
And with all my fear and all my courage, I said, sorry, you're not welcome here.
Wow. It still has an an impact on me thinking about that because that was a pivotal moment in my life.
And that opportunity was presented as soon as I started honoring my boundaries and getting those opportunities a little bit more difficult each time.
And I've had other instances of that happening to me where there was a choice to be the person I used to be or the person I wanted to be.
And I chose the person I wanted to be every single time.
And so I see these these opportunities come up every time there's a new level of understanding, a new level of healing, a new level of mental and emotional evolution, I guess you could say.
And when that happens, wow, the universe provides and just puts it out there and says, here you go.
That's why I see someone like this who says, you know, I didn't make the decision at the time that that I needed to make, but there was a moment, there was an opportunity that came and she finally made it.
She was ready. And I do believe that the universe will present these challenges when you're ready for them.
What does that mean?
That means when there's a challenge that comes your way, you have an opportunity to show up as you used to be or as the person you want to be.
And if you've learned how to respond or react to this challenge, and you're not sure what's going to happen if you be yourself, your new self in this moment, you can look at it as an opportunity to practice what you have already learned and understand about yourself.
Now you may still be learning something about yourself.
You may still be trying to improve something about yourself.
And so when these opportunities come, that's how I want you to see them.
Every challenge, I mean, you don't have to, but that's how I want you to see them.
I like to look at every challenge challenge as an opportunity to practice what I've become.
If I can see every challenge as an opportunity to practice, that tells me there's a fork in the road.
And am I going to take the well -worn path or am I going to take this new one?
Because it might be brand new.
There are the challenges that we face.
These opportunities that show up might be something you've never done done before.
In fact, they usually are.
I've never done that before.
I don't want to take that road.
I don't know what the consequences are going to be.
I don't like when they show up because that means I have to face some fear or insecurity inside myself.
But when you have those opportunities come up and you make the decision on the brand new path, you will change because when you survive it, you realize you can do it.
I'm not telling you that everything's going to turn out wonderful.
Sometimes it goes the wrong way, but who you are changes and who you are improves and evolves and gets stronger mentally and emotionally, sometimes physically.
This is emotional weight training and you're lifting weights at an emotional and mental level.
And the more emotional weights you lift, the stronger you get.
And so I have like a ton of notes that I wrote for this episode that I really haven't addressed yet.
I don't know how much I'll get to, but it had to do with how opportunities show up in our lives.
For example, like synchronicity, we've all heard that term.
Um, the dictionary says it's the simultaneous occurrence of events, which appear significantly related, but have no discernible causal connection.
and when I meet somebody that I haven't seen in many years and we're in the same place at the same time and the series of events that led them to that place at that time and the series of events that led me to that place at the same time could be seen as a synchronous event and some people will say it's coincidental some people will say oh that's meant to be doesn't matter really because it happened either way it happened and either way i'm okay with it but what i find fascinating is the synchronous events that have occurred to me that brought me to a place and somebody else to a place at the same
time seem to happen after i learned something i healed something.
I thought differently about something.
And that makes me connect some higher level spiritual dots or something.
Like I said in the beginning, some people are going to say, Oh, what?
Connect the dots. That's ridiculous.
It's all coincidental.
That's fine. I won't talk you out of that.
I won't convince you otherwise because I could be 100 % wrong.
And I believe that you should do what works for you.
But what's working for me right now is going through all these connections that I've made in my past. For example, I reconnected with my two best friends in high school.
I reconnected with both best friends after 35 years in a matter of less than a year.
And it wasn't because I reached out to them and tried to get a hold of them.
I have actually moved on from my old friends in high school.
I mean, it sounds cold, but I did.
I moved on, and I just lived my life.
I thought about them every now and then, how they were, but I felt so different.
I felt that I had moved past what made us compatible in the first place.
I felt that I had moved on, so I didn't do anything about it, even though they were great people, and then suddenly within the last year, I was able to reconnect with my first good friend from high school, and that happened.
after a lot of reflection on, um, whether I wanted to see this person again.
And I came to the conclusion that, uh, why don't I see this person and the other person I'm talking about, why don't I see them again?
And if I don't think there's a compatibility or I don't like them or whatever, I can make the decision not to see them again.
It was something that I had avoided or not avoided, but just hadn't pursued in 30 something years because I thought, eh, we're probably not compatible anymore.
We're probably not the same people.
And I decided to meet up with him and we connected and we got along great.
And then I realized it took me all this time to get into a space inside myself to be comfortable, to be able to honor myself if our meeting went badly or I just didn't like the person to be able to make the decision if I wanted to see that person again.
Whereas before, I think I just wanted to avoid the situation altogether.
And so I carried with me, this is part of this episode too, I carried with me this uncomfortable feeling like I hope we don't run into each other because I'm not sure how I'd feel about it.
And just recently the past two years, I thought, you know, I can make a decision after we meet instead of just assuming that they're going to be somebody I don't like or whatever.
I had to come to that conclusion and reflection inside myself.
And when I did, that person reached out.
That's what I'm talking about.
The synchronicity, this opportunity that arises, that person reached out and I said, okay, this is what I'm going to do.
I'm gonna I'm gonna go meet them and I had a great time and so that happened and then another person from high school same thing I I went through the same reflections you know I'm ready to see him again and I didn't seek him out I didn't pursue him but the series of events that led me to going to New Hampshire to seeing my family and ending up at that pizza place at that that day, that time.
And seeing him sitting at the table behind me, what?
I was crazy. Some may call it coincidental.
I look at it as there's my opportunity.
It's my opportunity to step into who I've become and know that this could be a great meeting or not, but being, it's going to sound silly, courageous enough to talk to my best friend from high school and just see what's going on.
And I did. And we spoke for about a half an hour while I was ignoring my sister, which was terrible because I was there to see my sister.
But it was such a wonderful meeting.
And I got to know him as the adult, the man that he'd become.
And it just warmed my heart to see him.
So there's another opportunity that showed up.
And I'm going to repeat it.
Every time I've learned something new, every time I've improved myself, every time I understand something every time I reflect on something an opportunity arises and when the opportunity arises we have a choice to make and I've learned that when we make the choice that moves us forward instead of keeping us in the past life seems to work out so much more I'm not gonna say it's better I'm just say it's more like we don't have to think about and have a past hold us back.
And that's really what I want to emphasize today is that sometimes we will hold on to something and walk through life with that thing in our mind, in our heart, and we don't feel so good about it.
Or there's something unfinished about it.
Like I thought to myself, am I ever going to see my best friends from high school again?
Should I ever? And now that I think about What worries me are the jackasses that I used to know in high school.
Do I have unfinished business with them?
Am I fearing that I might not see them again?
And is that a good thing?
Is that a bad? Am I going to run into them?
Who will I be then?
Okay. Yeah. Okay. Here we are.
I'm talking about it.
It's going to happen.
It's going to happen.
I'm going to see these people that they weren't very nice to me.
They weren't awful to me, but some of them were bullies.
and I don't really want to deal with them.
We'll see what happens.
Maybe they'll hear my show, the 11 years that I've got going on in this show and realize, hey, I know that guy.
I went to school with him.
I used to call him names.
I want to write to him and call him that name again.
Whatever. Hopefully they have grown and reflected on their lives and what they used to do to people.
But we'll see what happens.
I'll let you know. Some opportunity will arise and I'll have to deal with it.
And that's good because I can make a choice.
There they are. I'm in the grocery store.
Oh my God. I remember that guy.
Am I going to approach him?
I probably will because I'm creating accountability right now.
You said you would.
There I am. I'm going to do it.
All right. There's an opportunity to be had coming soon.
Anyway, I had other opportunities that I wrote down, but they're all about me.
I want you to think about the opportunities that have happened or are happening now in your life and ask yourself if you are going to be the person you've been or the person that you are or the person that you want to be.
I like to choose the person that I am and the person that I want to be.
The person that I am doesn't always choose right, but the person I want to be always chooses right.
And so I teeter between those two, but it's been life changing, literally life changing.
Thanks for joining me today.
I appreciate you. I want to thank that person who wrote and I'm so glad that your life is on a better track.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the overwhelmed brain um this surprised me but i received a couple donations from way we i'm not sure how i pronounce thank you so much and uh tanya thank you for your words for your kind donation everyone that gives to the show i let me be honest i still don't know exactly how to accept graciously.
Like, Hey, thanks a lot.
And move on because it, uh, it really warms my heart.
Sometimes people will write and say, thank you.
And sometimes they will thank me monetarily with money.
And, um, I am so grateful no matter how someone thanks me, no matter how you thank me, I'm so grateful.
And, uh, it really warms my heart.
When you thank me with your words, when you thank me with your kindness, your generosity, your wonderful heart.
In fact, Tonya actually wrote something.
Not everyone writes and says something when they send money or something like that, but Tonya wrote, add me to the long list of people you've helped understand what was happening to them.
I spent 22 years in a toxic marriage, including using three tools developed from various sources trying to improve it.
But those tools didn't work.
I'm on the healing path now.
Thank you. I'm so sorry those tools didn't work.
That hurts me. It hurts me to hear that there are tools out there that don't work.
I'm so glad that you're on a better path as well.
Thank you for your generosity.
Thank you, Way. Oh, Way actually decided to make their donation a monthly donation.
So I just want to acknowledge that, that I noticed that.
Thank you so much. I appreciate you.
you and i'm very grateful to those who give to the show thank you all and if you find value in this show and you want to give back head over to more tob .com and there are options to do that over there and for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship including dealing with somebody who's controlling or manipulative listen to my other podcast called love and abuse over at loveandabuse .com you might be surprised what consists of manipulation as well so check that out and if you know you're the difficult one you know the manipulative one the controlling one if you're that person join the program
that is helping a lot of people heal over at healedbeing .com there's a comprehensive program on how to help you change from being that way to being the healthiest version of yourself that people you love want to be near that's over at healedbeing .com and with that always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions and be 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.
Thank you. Thank you.
