These are my personal opinions.
Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and wellbeing.
Okay, I have an interesting thought experiment that I would run today, this episode.
I have put all of my content, like everything that I have ever written, and all the episodes of both podcasts that I do Love and Abuse, and The Overwhelmed Brain this one.
I put everything that I know inside a chat bot.
I actually have a chat bot in my Healed Being program that talks about everything I know about emotional abuse.
So if you're in that program and you bought the full course, you'll get what I call the virtual coach.
The virtual coach knows everything that I know about emotional abuse and creating the best relationship possible.
So I've built a few chatbots.
I have some technology in me.
So I built a few chatbots with my content and one of the chatbots I built has all of my content, not just the emotional abuse stuff and relationship stuff.
And so I asked.
I asked the bot.
In fact, I'll read you the question.
I said, from what you see in my content, what do you think are the 10 most important lessons that I've learned in my life?
And I told it, you can look for the words I learned.
For example, I'll be talking about something and I'll say something like this.
I learned that blah, blah, blah.
So I wanted to see what the chatbot came up with and then create an episode on it.
And let's see if I agree with it.
I mean, I should.
It's my content, but I haven't read these yet.
So I'm going to read them to you and kind of respond to them in real time.
It said, I'll search through your content and find the most important lessons you've learned, focusing specifically on instances where you've mentioned, I learned or shared significant personal realizations.
Let me look through your training data for these insights.
Based on the content I can find in your training data, here are the 10 important lessons you've learned in life.
Okay, this is going to be interesting.
Number one, I've learned, and this is how I wrote it.
I've learned that when you create a safe space for someone to express themselves without fear of judgment or consequences, they're more likely to tell the truth and share what's really on their mind.
That's really good.
I wouldn't have worded it that way, but clearly I did.
I would have worded it as you give them a safe space to express themselves, because that's the loving thing to do.
That's a loving and supportive thing to do.
But obviously I've talked about this before because it pulled from my content.
And I'm not saying I disagree with it.
I absolutely 100% agree with it.
Again, I said this in so many words before.
I just found it interesting that it said they're more likely to tell the truth, share what's really on their mind, and that's so true.
So this, this chat bot, was able to put together my um insights and opinions and and thoughts and realizations into a more succinct wording, and i i like the way it wrote it.
So yeah, it's so true if you give somebody a safe space to express themselves without fear of judgment or consequences, they're more likely to tell you the truth and share what's really on their mind.
And it is interesting how it said, tell you the truth.
It sounds like you're trying to seek truth.
But really, I know why it came up with this.
Because What happens often is that when somebody shares something with us and we don't like it let's just say it's a partner, a romantic partner or somebody in your family and they share something that we don't like or that we'll get upset about, they may know that we'll get upset and create an unsafe environment for them to share what they want to share, so they are less likely to tell the truth.
And I think that's so important.
And that is something I definitely learned over the years.
And so there's number one.
I like that one.
Number two is I've learned that continually obsessing about who someone was in the past prevents them from being who they are with you today and can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That's worded a little strangely, so I'm going to read it again.
I've learned that continually obsessing about who someone was in the past prevents them from being who they are with you today and can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I think I know what I'm saying here.
What it is saying is, let's just say that I am jealous of my wife being promiscuous in the past.
And let's just say I was obsessed about it.
You are promiscuous.
You are dirty.
You are, you know, let's just say I was very judgmental and critical about it.
And I was always obsessing about it.
This is who I used to be in my twenties.
I was obsessed about my partner's past.
And let's just say that was me.
What ends up happening is that someone who feels constantly criticized and judged for who they were, you might push them into being that person again or doing the behaviors they did before.
Because if you think that's who they are, still well, and you won't let it go, they might as well be that person today.
I'm not saying that's how it works.
I'm saying that can happen.
This can be how it works.
I'll give you an example.
Let's just say that a partner tells their spouse, you're cheating on me.
I know you are.
And the partner isn't.
And no matter what they do, no matter how transparent they are, no matter how much they check in with that person and say okay, I'm here at work.
Okay, I'm leaving work.
Because they're constantly getting harassed and told that they're cheating.
They don't feel safe.
Go back to number one.
They don't feel safe expressing themselves anymore.
So at least expressing themselves to the person they want to feel trusted by.
So they might end up expressing themselves to somebody else that they feel safe with.
And that somebody else maybe could be a potential partner one day, or if they were single, could be a potential partner one And so the person who's constantly obsessing saying, I know you're cheating or I know you'll cheat on me.
I know that you'll do this stuff, or I believe that you're talking to other people that you might be attracted to.
Whatever they say, those accusations can push somebody into somebody else's presence, into their arms even.
Because they don't feel trusted.
They don't feel safe.
And so that is the self-fulfilling prophecy part.
Is that we can push somebody to do the very thing that we're accusing them of doing, that they're not doing, until they finally do it which fulfills the prophecy.
Like if I told my wife, I don't want you talking to other men.
I pretty much guarantee that will force her to talk to other men, not only because she has a rebellious streak, but also she doesn't like to be told what to do, which is part of her rebellious streak.
And if she feels like she can't be trusted, she might as well do what she is being accused of not to get back at me or anything like that, or not to seek another partner in her life, or anything like that.
It's because she enjoys talking to anyone.
And if I limit, you know, if this is the person I am, the controlling, oppressive person, if I'm doing that, if I'm limiting her in some way, then that is controlling, that is emotionally abusive, that is making her do what I want her to do, regardless of how she feels about it.
And so why would she want to be with me?
Why wouldn't she be more likely to find someone else, someone that she feels comfortable with, that makes her feel comfortable, that makes her feel safe?
I'm going to manifest my own fear and make it occur.
I mean, I may manifest my own fears and make what I don't want to happen to happen.
We can do this.
We can do this in relationships especially so.
That's number two.
Number three let's see what it says.
I've learned that honoring yourself in difficult conversations is possible without causing the negative consequences you might fear.
You can stand up for yourself and still survive the interactions.
I love the way these things are worded.
So Yes, of course.
Honoring yourself in difficult conversations is possible without causing the negative consequences you might fear.
I've said that when you can honor yourself without the fear of the consequences, you actually live your most authentic life.
You live the way you want to live.
And this is saying that when I've done that in the past, I have learned that I can not only survive, But going forward I feel like a totally different person, because I survived that moment of honoring myself, which I feared.
For example, standing up to my bosses in the past, standing up to my alcoholic stepfather, honoring myself in situations that I believed would cause more problems in my life than solve or change.
And what, honoring myself and saying or doing what I wanted to say or do, regardless of my fear of the consequences, I learned that my life always got better, even if it got worse up front.
But it always got better because once I quote, survived that moment of honoring myself being who I really wanted to be, saying what I really wanted to say.
Then I went forward with this new tool.
This tool is basically a rise in my self-esteem, my self-confidence and the ability to be myself and choose to be myself in front of people who may not want me to be myself.
And that has changed my life.
So there's number three.
It's a good one.
I guess these are all good.
Number four, I've learned that healing from relationship betrayal takes about six to 12 months.
And if after that time there's no improvement, both people may need to separate.
This is an interesting one.
I've learned this through others.
I don't feel like I've been betrayed in a relationship, but I have learned through others and in my experiences with others working with them clients, couples.
That when somebody gets betrayed, and that doesn't always mean just infidelity.
Sometimes you get into a relationship and they become hurtful or abusive.
That's a betrayal.
Because you are supposed to be with somebody that you love and trust and feel safe and feel comfortable with.
And when they aren't that way and they become the opposite, and they become hurtful and harmful, that is a betrayal.
It is betraying the trust and feelings of security that the other person has and becoming someone that you weren't in the beginning.
So when there's a betrayal in a relationship and then that person decides to not betray anymore, decides to change, decides to heal, this can happen.
If the person who was being harmful realizes they were being harmful and now decides that's not who I want to be anymore, because that's awful.
I don't want to be that person anymore.
And they decide to change.
And this depends on the length of relationship as well, but typically years will go by when this happens.
But if it happens, if they decide to change and stop doing these hurtful behaviors, then then the victim of those hurtful behaviors it does take here's my timeline.
Actually it takes about two to four months for the initial fog to lift for the victim of hurtful behaviors.
And that fog is basically all the confusion and sadness and maybe anger and All the negative emotions and feelings and thoughts that they've had over the years trying to get through the relationship.
That's all combined.
It's intertwined in there.
It's a toxic mess.
And so the victim of those behaviors.
After the hurtful behaviors stop, It takes about two to four months for all of that fog to lift so that they can start thinking their own thoughts without the good or bad influence of the other person.
In other words, they have to reconnect with themselves.
But in a typical like emotionally abusive relationship, it's about two to four months for the victim of that abuse, for that fog to lift for them.
And once the fog lifts, they can start thinking more clearly about who they are, about what they want in their life.
Because they haven't been able to think that way for a long time.
So there's the first part of the timeline, the two to four months.
And then it takes about two to six months.
And this is just averages.
But it takes about two to six months for the victim of that kind of behavior to actually start healing themselves the harm that was caused, the emotional wounds that were caused, because they have to reconnect with themselves.
They have to ground.
You know, find some grounding in themselves because they just been verbally or emotionally pushed around a lot.
And grounding is just getting stable inside themselves.
So that can take up to six months.
And the healing of all the wounding that took place, the crushing of their self-esteem, the crushing of their confidence, their self-confidence, their ability to make decisions, the confusion that might still be in there, that has to clear up. the intuition that was affected because they may have trusted themselves before and now they don't, trusting their own decisions, all of that takes time to heal.
So that can take a minimum sometimes of six months up to 12 months.
And the six to 12 month mark that I'm talking about is when the person who has done the hurtful behavior has.
They want to reconcile.
They will not do the behaviors anymore.
If that's true, if they really are showing signs of change, which I've seen a lot in my Healed Being program, if they show the signs of change and they really are changing and what triggered them in the past no longer triggers them, so that these behaviors aren't repeated and they want to reconcile.
Does the victim want to reconcile?
Does the victim of that behavior want to reconcile?
It really depends on if the victim of that behavior still has love in their heart.
If they have love in their heart, then any time beyond the two to four month period they're going to find that love.
As the fog lifts, they'll be able to tell if they still have love in their heart for the other person.
Because some people will seal their heart shut and say, no more.
You're not coming in.
I'm not allowing you in my heart anymore.
You are locked out completely and permanently.
I'm throwing away the key, at least for you.
You're not coming back.
That can happen.
And often it takes time for the victim of that behavior to discover that they may not be in love anymore.
They may not have love for that person.
They may love them in a different way or whatever, but the in love feeling goes away and they seal their heart shut and they won't let the person back in.
And that's usually after the fog lifts that they discover that.
But the fog can also lift and reveal that there is still love in their heart.
And if that's the case, as the victim of that behavior heals, heals what happened and realizes that the other person has or is changing and And they are now safe to be around.
They have to make decisions for themselves.
The victim has to make decisions for themselves to decide to come back to the relationship or not and take another chance.
So if the love is still in their heart and they see these changes and they've done some healing or a lot of healing, So that if they decide to get back in the relationship, because the love is still in their heart and they want to give it another chance, because the good parts were really good and the bad parts, if they are really gone, they want to see what it can be like.
If they go back into the relationship, they have to be grounded enough and stable enough in themselves so that if they start to see bad behavior again, They know that they're not going to take that again.
They're not going to let that become a problem or a continuous problem in the relationship.
And they're going to nip it in the bud right there and say, nope, this isn't going to happen.
If you're going to do this, I'm leaving.
I know some people are listening now saying well, if they're hurting you, you should never get back with them.
I understand that you have every right to say that.
And I, I absolutely want the best for you.
And some relationships have gone on for a long time and there have been a lot of great times.
And then the other person.
The person being hurtful is operating on old traumas and old coping mechanisms.
And they're doing things that are hurtful, and they may or may not realize some of it's hurtful, but Either way it has to stop and both people have to decide if they want their relationship again.
And so if the victim of that behavior still has love in their heart, then the chance of reconciling is there.
But the victim has to reach that place of healing.
So I don't want to get too deep into that.
I do talk about that in my Healed Being program.
And I talk about that in Love and Abuse over at loveandabuse.com, my other podcast.
So you can learn more about that over there if you're interested.
But this number four.
I've learned that healing from a relationship betrayal typically takes about six to 12 months.
And if, after that time, there's no improvement.
This is where the key of this comment or this lesson is.
Both people may need to separate, which means if, after 12 months, the victim of that behavior still doesn't feel love in their heart for them and has shown no signs of reconnection, like touching the other person's shoulder or hand, or giving them an extra long stare or having deeper conversations or sitting with them on the couch.
If there's been some sort of change in the relationship, like a separation for a while, emotionally separating or even physically separating for a while and you're still working on things together, hoping to reconcile or at least one of you is hoping to reconcile and seeing where it goes.
The other person is seeing where it goes.
If there's no sign of progress within that six to 12 month period up to 12 months then there usually isn't after that.
So that's what that means.
If after 12 months there's still no forward progress, still no signs of progress like reconnecting or little loving gestures or whatever, then there's usually no reconciliation.
There's no going back to a relationship from that point, because sometimes the victim of that behavior does not want to take a chance or they feel no love.
I mean, they can still feel love, but not want to take the chance again.
So they move forward.
All right, that was a good one.
Number five I've learned that obsessive thoughts are among the most difficult challenges to overcome.
And sometimes you need to push yourself to a deciding moment rather than staying in the I don't know phase.
That is, yeah, wow.
Obsessive thoughts, I've talked about this before.
I have like three or four episodes on obsessive thinking episodes.
Obsessive thinking is one of the hardest patterns of thought to stop and heal and get through.
I've worked directly with clients who had obsessive thinking.
And no matter what I said, no matter how much I guided them, no matter how many solutions I gave them, no matter if I gave them the perfect formula to stop their obsessive thinking, they could not and would not stop.
And so I really had to reflect on what obsessive thinking is and how I have personally gotten past my own obsessive thinking in the past, and how it can just keep you in a rut practically indefinitely, just like it never goes away because you're constantly obsessed.
And so obsessive thinking has been one of the most difficult topics I have ever addressed, because when you become fixated on something, it's very difficult for anyone to come along and say Hey, stop thinking about that.
Or think about it this way.
Or here, hey, I know you're obsessed about that and you will never, ever take your mind off it.
But here, put your mind on this instead.
It might go there for a moment, but then it goes right back.
So if you have obsessive thinking, I'm not going to address it now because it takes several episodes.
But go back into my archive.
Go to TheOverwhelmedBrain.com.
Type in the word obsess and you will find episodes where I talked about obsessive thinking.
And to explain what this comment is.
I've learned that obsessive thoughts are among the most difficult challenges to overcome.
Covered that.
And sometimes you need to push yourself to a deciding moment rather than staying in the I don't know phase.
So an I don't know phase might be, I don't know if we're going to get back together.
I don't know if I'm going to get that job.
I don't know if I'm going to ever see that person again.
I don't know.
So I'm going to obsess.
A good example is after a breakup.
I want to get back together.
I want to get back together.
So I'm going to cyber-stalk them and look at their social media.
I'm going to obsess on their life as they move forward in their life and I stay here.
As they move forward in doing what they're doing in life and meeting other people and having fun, or even not having fun, just moving along.
Where I'm stuck in this rut thinking about them moving along.
So this is how we can cause ourselves to stop.
And once we stop and start obsessing, we stay stopped.
We stay in that rut.
It's a hole.
And we just stay in that hole.
We keep ourselves in that hole because we keep checking their social media and we keep checking our phone and we look for the possible reply to the text message or the fact that they read it.
Yet and obsess obsess, obsess.
So when that happens, the comment that the AI said I have made is is basically taking yourself away from or out of the I don't know phase.
I don't know is I don't know if, for example, if they're coming back into my life.
You take yourself out of that and say, I know they aren't.
Once you say that, once you accept a truth that you don't want to accept, you might say it's not a truth.
It may not be a truth, but that becomes obsessive again.
So this is why I believe in absolutes, at least with obsessive behaviors and obsessive thoughts.
If you go into an absolute from I don't know to I do know, you make that an absolute truth inside of you.
And you say, I do know that.
And then you take it to the place you don't want to take it.
I do know that they're not coming back.
That's how you get out of obsessive thinking.
And I just told you in 10 seconds what I had to explain in many hours of episodes.
So if that doesn't work for you, go listen to those episodes.
But you have to tell yourself that this is the truth, even if you don't know for sure.
This is the truth.
What I don't want to happen is happening and I have to accept it.
And then, once you do that, the I don't know can disappear, so that you can get out of your obsessive thinking and move on with your life.
Because even if you're wrong, so what?
You're wrong.
You deal with it when it changes.
Oh, they did come back.
Oh boy, I was wrong.
I'm so mad at myself.
No, this is okay.
Great.
We can try it again.
But if you're right, for example, they don't come back, then at least you've moved on with your life.
Either way, it's a good thing.
So that's a tough one.
Obsession's very tough.
I actually don't like talking about it.
So I want to move on.
I don't like obsessing about obsessions.
Number six...
I've learned to approach people with an awareness of what they experience daily, particularly in service jobs, and to treat them with kindness and recognition.
What an interesting one.
I don't know if this is like a life lesson or not.
I've learned to approach people with an awareness of what they experience daily.
So I think what it's trying to say here because I don't think I've used these words a is that some people have a bad day.
And so you approach the cashier and they're just unhappy.
And I like to try to make people smile.
I'll say something funny or whatever.
And sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
But this is actually a good reminder for me, because we had a waitress at a restaurant a couple of weeks back who was just not happy and kind of miserable.
And believe me, I know that waiting tables is very much a miserable job for a lot of people.
Some people love it.
I tried it one day, didn't love it, never did it again.
But I have a lot of respect for those people who I choose to go out, or my wife and I choose to go out and eat and someone comes along and serves us.
I think that is phenomenal.
I'm laying my hats off to you.
If you serve people, You come to the table, you take our order, you take our attitudes, you take our personalities, and then you have to carry the plates and you have to get things right.
And people are talking about you and talking to you all day long.
Where's my server?
Where are they?
How come my water isn't filled?
How come I'm not getting a refill of my Coke or whatever?
And so you have to deal with a lot.
And so I have the utmost respect for servers and I always treat them with respect.
And I always try to understand their plight.
It's a hard job.
And so I do like getting a server who is authentic and trying to do their best.
But sometimes they're just miserable.
And maybe that's authentic for them too.
And when they're miserable, it doesn't really help me have a better experience.
And I don't always remember, hey, I'm going to try to make this person smile.
But I have to remember, again, this is a good reminder for me.
I have to remember that, oh, God, you know, they may be dealing with a lot.
Maybe they didn't have just a bad day.
Maybe they don't want to be a server.
Maybe they don't want to deal with the psychology of all these people without being a therapist.
But they're just waiting tables and it's a difficult thing and they don't want to do it.
It's a lot of physical work, a lot of mental work to memorize all these tables and what people want.
And so I have to remind myself that when they're having a bad day, it may not be that they're that kind of person.
It just may be that they're having a bad day.
It reminds me of, what's that old, was it Brian Tracy?
Something about the seven habits of highly successful people.
I think his story was.
You know, I was on the train and this woman was letting her kids run around and I was really upset.
I was really irritated and annoyed that she let her kids run around.
But then it turned out that her dad died that day or something like that.
And he suddenly felt sympathetic and maybe even empathetic for her, because she's letting her kids have fun while she's trying to process and grieve her family's family death or whatever.
I forget what it was.
But it is true.
We have these perspectives of people that may not be true of who they really are.
So I think this helps.
So I guess service jobs are the frontline jobs, right?
They're the hard stuff that they have to deal with our psychology, or you have to deal with people's psychology when you are in any type of frontline job.
I remember being a computer repair technician a long time ago.
And when you are dealing with people who have a broken computer, they can be very upset.
And you have to be their therapist and their computer repair technician to help them get through the upset.
And it can be tough.
It can be a lot of stress on a person to be those roles or to do those roles.
But to understand their plight, like all my data, all my pictures, everything is on my computer.
It can be hard to sympathize while you're trying to deal with their emotions, but it is a good reminder.
I like that one.
I probably wouldn't put it on a life lessons list that really changed my life, but it is helpful.
Number seven, we're almost there.
I've learned that our coping mechanisms from childhood often become our default behaviors as adults when facing challenges or difficult conversations.
This is absolutely true.
How we cope, or how we learn to cope and survive as a child turns into how we behave in relationships later on in life.
A good example is I used to cope with my stepfather's violent alcoholic behavior by hiding, by staying silent, by not speaking up.
And so later on I brought that into my relationships and it became a wonderful dysfunction that really interfered with love and connection.
I'm being sarcastic.
It wasn't wonderful.
It was terrible because I became a people pleaser and nobody could see the real me.
They never met the real me because I always adapted.
I was a chameleon because I didn't want to incite drunk dad behavior.
And I took that learning, those lessons that I learned, pretty much made up as a child from my child brain and thought this is how you operate in the world.
I took those childhood coping mechanisms and they turned into adult dysfunctions and they worked as a child.
They don't work as when we're adults.
When I got into romantic relationships like my first romantic relationship as a teenager I was jealous.
I was clingy.
I was possessive.
I was critical.
I had all these behaviors that did stem from how I used to cope, how I used to deal with things.
And those coping mechanisms turn into how we can change others or change our environment to make us feel more comfortable.
That is a big component of the healed being program that I run for those doing emotionally abusive behaviors and they want to change is we have to look at those coping mechanisms.
We have to look at what we quote survived as a kid because we think we're going to get hurt or die.
At least, that's our extremist thoughts that occur when we're children and And how we survived, turn into how we cope today, how we deal with challenges.
So if you are unintentionally or intentionally hurting someone that you care about, it's usually because of something you learned as a child, that you took into your adult relationships and you believe this is how you're supposed to be.
This is how you're supposed to act.
And so yeah, our coping mechanisms from childhood often become our default behaviors as adults when facing challenges or difficult conversations.
Number eight I've learned to consider how someone shows up today rather than judging them for their past, as we can always find something to judge in anyone's history.
Okay, well, that's very close to what number was that?
It's both number one and two.
One was.
I've learned that when you create a safe space for someone to express themselves without fear of judgment or consequences, they're more likely to tell the truth and share what's really on their mind.
And number two is I've learned that continually obsessing about who someone was in their past prevents them from being who they are with you today.
So number, and it goes on, but number eight is I've learned to consider how someone shows up today, or rather than judging them for their past, as we can always find something to judge in anyone's history.
Yeah, you're right, Paul.
You're right.
This is so true.
When I was married my previous marriage I judged her past very strongly in the beginning of the marriage.
And it was just hurtful.
I was hurtful and I was insecure in myself.
And I judged her for what she did, the behaviors that she had in her past.
And it was wrong.
It was wrong to do because...
The past is the past.
And it took that marriage and her specifically to teach me that we are not our past.
We are the person that we show up as today.
And so if I have a past that bothers you which it might to some people listening then I hope that you can hear me today and and make a judgment.
I don't care, make a judgment.
Make a judgment about me today and not who I was.
I've learned from my past.
I've learned to heal and grow and evolve and become someone that is not that person anymore.
I am proud of the changes I have made in my life and will continue to work on myself, continuing to make changes.
And when you meet someone who has a past that you can't agree with, my suggestion is to judge them for who they are now, who they are today.
Now this doesn't mean that if they did something so heinous that it can't bypass your values and it can't bypass your morals, that you have to be friends with them.
You don't have to.
You can choose somebody else to be friends with.
You can choose not to be around that person, but the concept is to not define someone for who they were.
It's to define someone for who they are.
So you can still have.
In my opinion, you could still judge if you want someone's past because it was just too heinous or too immoral to get past.
But if they are a different person today and they aren't doing what they used to do and you can find a way to maybe get past their past, then maybe you can have something, because you're so focused on who they are today.
I mean, that gets deep.
We can talk about people's past and how some people may not ever change, but if they are different today, that's a different story.
But again there are people who might tell me well, I was married to a narcissist and they will never change.
And that may be true for that person.
Maybe.
So I'm not here to say that everybody can change.
I'm just here to say that it's important that we don't here's that word again obsess about someone's past.
If how they're showing up today and how they continue to show up is a lot different than who they were.
So I think that's a good lesson.
I still think you should be skeptical.
I still think you should have what I call your kind of your emotional guard tower up that watches over you, somebody that you know, something inside you that takes care of you and watches over is the skeptical observer.
So that when you're in a situation or relationship with anyone, you can still have one eye open just to make sure things are going well until enough time passes where you can say no, this is good.
They're good.
They're not that person anymore.
And I don't see the old version of them at all.
It could take a while for you or maybe you can tell right away.
But I'm okay with skepticism because I think we all need to be challenged.
Oh, you're not that person anymore?
I'm not.
Okay, I'm going to challenge you right now.
Oh, okay.
Well, let's see where this goes.
And I think that's okay.
All right, let me get to number nine.
This one's about infidelity.
I've learned that when dealing with infidelity, there needs to be a period where the victim of that infidelity can express and vent their feelings to heal.
But this process can't continue indefinitely.
Well, this is a little controversial, but yes, when I have talked about infidelity in the past, if the infidel, the one who cheated, is truly sorry, knows they made a mistake, feels guilty, feels shame and commits to themselves and to the other person that they will never, ever do that thing again, and the victim of that infidelity wants to work on the relationship and wants to change how things have been, because how things were clearly wasn't working if there was infidelity.
So now there needs to be more transparency.
Now there needs to be full honesty, full expression of self and a lot of other things that need to work if there's been infidelity in a relationship.
If there is a chance of reconciliation or getting closer again after infidelity, then there's a point where the victim of the infidelity, during this period of healing and working things out, The initial moment or stages after the infidelity is discovered, there's going to be a lot of, probably anger and upset.
There's going to be a lot of confusion.
Everything has to be processed.
But then, I'm going to give you another timeline example.
It's the same thing.
Up to a year.
The victim of that infidelity can express and vent their feelings in any way they want.
It can go past a year.
I'm not giving that as a deadline.
I'm saying that during that year, the victim should be allowed to say anything they want, express the pain and the hurt, because infidelity hurts.
Betrayal is one of the most painful processes anyone can go through next to losing a child.
And so when somebody finds out that their partner has been cheating on them, that betrayal is so powerful.
It's like I talked about in an article I wrote once where you trust somebody with your heart.
You hand it to them and say, I trust you with this organ, this important organ inside my body.
I'm giving it to you.
I want you to treat it with care and kindness and protect it at all costs.
And when somebody cheats, it's like they take that heart and on the way to the other person they throw it on the street.
And it rolls and collects leaves and dirt.
And now it's just sitting there unprotected on the side of the street.
And they go cheat.
And then they come back and pick up the heart and wipe it off.
And then they show you I've taken care of it.
I know that's an awful, awful visual.
But that's what it can feel like for many people.
It's like, I trusted you with this.
And you did this to my heart.
I mean, if you did this to my heart, how can I trust you ever again?
And so healing from infidelity is a massive undertaking and it can take a minimum of a year to get through all the feelings and thoughts and starting to build the trust and feeling secure in the relationship again, if those two people want to work that out.
And so I do talk about that in the article I wrote called Healing from Infidelity.
I forget what it's called, but if you go to theoverwhelmedbraincom and type in the word infidelity, you'll find a few articles on that.
But, um, oh yeah, I think it's called healing from infidelity and also, uh, a warning song.
Damn it.
I can't forget.
I can't remember what I called it.
I wrote it back in 2017 or something.
But you'll find it.
Look for the keyword infidelity and you'll find it.
But what this lesson is saying is that there needs to be a period where the victim can express and vent their feelings.
And that period may last a year or longer.
But just like I said earlier...
If that never wanes, if the expressing and the anger, if that never decreases throughout the year and there's no sign of little bits of love and connection returning, then typically after the year, after that has taken place, if there's no tiny little signs of forward progress in the relationship, there usually won't be.
Now, with infidelity, it can take longer for sure.
It can take years to heal and trust again, but there should be signs of forward momentum in the relationship if reconciliation is on the table.
If reconciliation is on the table, then there will be little signs of connection.
And that's usually how you can tell it's going in a good direction, at least if reconciliation is on the table.
But this is a very deep subject.
I get into it a lot more in more detail.
I don't want to gloss over any of those details because I know this can mean so much.
This has such a massive impact in a relationship that you can feel so betrayed.
If there is to be another relationship, a healing process has to take place.
So, in a nutshell, this lesson tells us that when you've been the victim of infidelity, you have every right to just pull your hair out and scream and cry and tell the other person how terrible they are and what they did to you.
For as long as you want.
But there is a point where if you're going to reconcile, if the relationship is going to work, then that kind of needs to decrease.
I'm not saying you have to.
You don't have to, but if you do want bonding again, then there is a point where that needs to decrease.
So I'm not particularly fond that this is in our list of 10, because this is such a deep subject that can go, or should go, into a deeper conversation.
So I'm just going to leave that there.
We can talk about that in another episode, which we have, but we'll just leave that there.
And the reason I believe that it was on the list is is that if you choose to heal the relationship and reconcile with the person that was the betrayer, then it just has to be known that reconciliation is usually only more likely if the upset and anger and anguish and all the feelings that you have uh, decrease over time instead of stay the same.
So, and if they stay the same, you have every right to leave the relationship and say i just can't get over it.
So i'm not trying to take that away from anyone, but i am saying that if reconciliation is to occur in a relationship with infidelity I'll repeat myself then that stuff needs to decrease over time.
And it could take a year or more.
So there's that.
Let's go to the final one, which is number 10, which is I've learned that forgiveness isn't necessarily about the other person.
It's about forgiving yourself for not being able to show up the way you wanted in difficult situations.
This helps release the emotional tethers that keep you connected to painful experiences.
This is such a good one to end with.
The chatbot actually wrote later.
It said this lesson appears in your content about forgiveness, where you explain that you never formally forgave your stepfather for his abuse, but you were able to release the pain by forgiving yourself for not being able to respond differently at the time.
I love this one.
I think this is a great, great lesson to end on, because forgiveness, in my opinion, today is about the other person.
Some people will say you should forgive.
I say that we can tend to think about what happened and blame ourselves in a small way or in a big way, telling ourselves that we should have done something differently.
Like saying, I should have done this or why did I do that?
And we...
We put ourselves down and we give ourselves an emotional bashing for not having the tools or the resources back then that we didn't have.
Otherwise, we would have made a different decision.
So we shouldn't put ourselves down for how we didn't show up in the past.
And we should forgive ourselves for not being the person that we are today.
Because we weren't.
We weren't that person.
I like to say I forgive myself a break.
Give yourself a break for how things went down and how you believe you should have shown up differently.
I see this a lot in relationships.
I see this a lot unfortunately, where children have suffered serious trauma from adults abuse, sexual abuse, whatever and they can look back in the past and some of them blame themselves and they feel shame for what somebody else did to them.
And another deep subject we can talk about that in another episode but the shame or the feelings of guilt that someone can feel about someone doing something to you.
That is why I believe in self forgiveness.
Not that you have to forgive yourself for anything you did wrong, but to forgive yourself for anything you believe you could have done better.
And that's how I see my past.
I look at the times that I could have made different decisions, but you know what?
I give myself a break.
I forgive you, Paul, because you didn't have the tools and the resources that you have today.
You didn't have the knowledge.
You didn't have the boundaries that you honor today.
You didn't know enough to do what you needed to do and say what you needed to say back then.
You weren't that person.
And you could never be that person.
So I forgive you for not being able to do what you would absolutely do differently today, because you weren't that person.
I love ending on this note.
It is a way to tell yourself that you are not to blame for what other people did to you.
And those people, you can choose to forgive those people or not.
But I want to make sure that you absolutely forgive yourself for not being able to, or not having the capability or not having the knowledge to to either stand up for yourself, do something differently, say something different, whatever it was.
Forgive yourself.
Because who you were isn't who you are today.
And if you look at the past or your past self from this perspective of you today, then your perception is a little skewed because you are projecting who you are today onto who you were, which doesn't apply.
So forgive yourself a break because you weren't the person you are now.
And that's okay.
This is how we learn.
This is how we grow.
This is how we evolve into the best version of ourselves and always trying to get better.
Always trying to show up in a better smarter, healthier way, because we are learning from our past.
That's a great way to end today's episode.
So let's do that.
Thank you for listening to another episode of the overwhelmed brain.
I hope you got something from today.
I want to thank the patrons who give monthly, people like Maria and Dilek and Heather and Christie and so many others that value the show and give back.
And I am very grateful for all of you.
If you value the show like these patrons do and you want to give back, head over to moretobcom and there are options to do that over there.
Thank you, patrons.
I appreciate all of you.
And if you're looking for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship, listen to my other podcast called Love and Abuse over at loveandabusecom.
If you know you're the difficult one in the relationship, join the program that is helping a lot of people heal and change and become the best version of themselves, for themselves and in relationships, And with that, always keep your mind open, because that's how you make the best decisions.
You can consider this one number 11.
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.
