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These are my personal opinions always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well -being.
I really hate holding onto things that bother me.
I really don't like walking around thinking about it.
thinking about somebody's feelings about me, toward me.
I had a reconciliation with a family member quite recently, and it was liberating.
But you know, when you don't talk to somebody for many, many years, you think maybe they don't like me?
Maybe we just don't get along and we never will.
I had somebody write to me and ask me, they're trying to reach their best friend from high school.
and they said, every time I try to reach out to her she doesn't answer the phone, she doesn't pick it up, and I tried texting her and then eventually she blocked me, and then I got her number and I tried to call her and she said I'll call you back when I have time and she never does and then something happened and she found out that the other person was mad at her and she said that her friend that she was trying to reach, I think the person who wrote to me, I I apologize if that's not true, but she said that the other person was mad at her and She's also forgiven her So the person she's trying
to reach out her best friend from high school was mad at her But I'd forgiven you and I'll call you when I'm ready, but she hasn't heard back She doesn't know why she's mad.
She just knows that she's been mad and she hasn't been able to reach You know the person who wrote to me says she hasn't been able to reach her best friend and she wants to reach out and it really bothers her.
And so she said, you know, help me get over this.
Help me try to get past this.
So why does it upset you?
I'm talking directly to that person now.
Why does it upset you?
That she is mad at you?
I mean, when I put myself in your shoes, I think what did I do wrong?
What could I have done wrong?
And maybe you didn't do anything wrong, but she interpreted it that way.
or maybe she just changed.
Some people change.
Some people hold a grudge for something you did in eighth grade and then they think about later and think about how vital and impactful it was in their life and then they realize I don't want to talk to that person anymore.
That happens. I think about that stuff.
There are people in my high school where I grew up and went to school that I I certainly don't want to talk to ever again.
It would be weird if they reached out to me and said hey Paul, let's talk, let's get together.
And I would look at the text or message in Facebook, wherever they reached me, and ask myself, why is this person contacting me?
I didn't really like them in high school.
Funny enough, I did have an old friend reach out to me and we reconnected and we reconciled and we were doing great, But other people that I went to high school with...
Probably not. There are some people that I would like to hear from and some people I wouldn't but it just really depends on where they are and we change.
We grow up and we change.
And then some of us don't.
Some of us hold on to who we were.
And then we try to connect with the person that we were friends with when we were in high school and we wonder why they aren't connecting with us anymore.
They changed, maybe you didn't.
Or you changed and maybe they did.
So there's one part of that.
Some people change, some people don't.
But we all grow up and think that we're gonna connect the way we used to.
Sometimes it doesn't happen.
So that's that's an easy answer.
I know. Sometimes we change and that's not the way to get rid of the feelings that you have because another part of when I put myself in your shoes is thinking I'm not a bad person.
I didn't do anything to hurt her.
I I don't want to be seen as a bad person.
I don't want her to think I'm a bad person.
So there might be some insecurity inside you that you feel like if somebody doesn't like you that you're a bad person or you're not lovable or not worthy.
You don't want to be seen as that person by people you care about because they'll spread the word, you know, there might there might be something in there.
Maybe a little people pleasing because you don't want to be seen as a bad guy.
So what you do is try to keep the peace, make the peace, keep the balance, try to make people happy.
If that's in there, that's something that you might want to look at.
I'm not saying it wouldn't make anyone feel bad.
If somebody was mad at you for no reason, it would make me feel bad.
Like why they mad at me, that would be kind of hard. I didn't do anything.
When I know I didn't do anything and they're mad at me that would be challenging.
And then they say they forgive me?
For what? What did I do?
But what I've learned over the years is that you will never ever be able to make everyone happy.
People will come along and they will hate you for no reason.
Sometimes they have a weird reason that they made up or they misinterpreted.
And sometimes you just have to accept that people will come along and not like you.
I've had to accept that.
In fact the more popular you get the more of a chance that you will be unliked by more people.
That has happened to me.
My show has been on the air eleven years now.
It has happened to me.
People have put in their reviews how awful I am.
And people have reached out to me directly, telling me I've destroyed their marriage.
I'm not responsible for that.
But they blame me. They blame me for destroying their marriage or they call me narcissistic or abusive.
I've heard it all. I've heard all kinds of stuff.
And fortunately, it happens very, very rarely because my philosophy is live and let live, accept people for who they are and what they do.
And if they are a challenge to you and you can't get past that challenge you may have to back off and let them be.
I had to learn that in my previous relationships because I kept losing those relationships.
Turns out I wasn't accepting people for who they were.
And once I started doing that I felt better in myself.
I felt lighter. I felt free.
I felt free to allow people to be who they are, think the way they want to think.
Have thoughts about me that I don't want them to have, but what am I going to do about it?
It's their brain. It's their interpretation, and if they really want to connect with me, they will reach out and tell me, hey, when you said that, it sounded mean, or it sounded abusive, or it sounded like bad advice.
So, what do you have to say about that?
Actually, prefer those kinds of messages, this is what I heard you say.
I didn't like it, or it was very bad advice, or very unprofessional, whatever they want to say.
I prefer those because it gives me an opportunity to comment.
I've talked about this on the show before, but I've had people write comments that say, I can't believe you gave that person advice you were victim shaming.
That's like the last thing I would ever want to do.
And if it came out of my mouth, I wanted to know about it.
So I listened to that episode.
And I said, Oh, I wasn't saying, Oh, because I was victim shaming.
I said, Oh, they didn't listen to the rest of the episode.
They didn't get the whole message.
They heard one little part, took it out of context and said, oh, you're a victim.
Shamer, I'm not listening to you anymore.
One star. I don't know.
You can't stop people like that.
You can't get through to some people once they've made up their mind.
And it sounds like the person who wrote to me, their friend has made up their mind.
Here's the beauty of all of this.
There is a beauty to this.
Is that when you accept people where they are, you give them the most wonderful, loving gift that you could give to another human being and that's exaggerating I know.
But this is my belief that when you give this gift, which I'll tell you in a second when you give this gift, it is one of the most loving, one of the most supportive things you can do for another person.
And that is giving them the freedom to choose to reach out to you, to make their own decisions about you, to have their own opinions about you giving them the freedom to decide if they want you in their life or not that is a beautiful gift to give to someone and one of the examples I like to use in my life is an apology or in anyone's life this is the advice I've given before when you apologize to someone for something that you did you I mean this is a different case you don't even know what you did but in general when you apologize for something you did, you apologize in a very genuine way I'm
so sorry I mean, you have to feel it but the genuine way is I am so sorry for what I did to you it was unacceptable.
You didn't deserve that and I, I can't take it back and I know that but I just wanted to let you know how bad I feel and how awful I was to you I take full responsibility for what I did and again I am so sorry and I hope that maybe one day we can move past this, period.
You leave it be. You don't ask for anything in return.
You don't say please forgive me.
This is my philosophy.
It may not be your belief or religion or whatever, but it's my philosophy.
I don't believe you ask for forgiveness because that's an expectation that you put on somebody that puts pressure on them and it's I'm not gonna say it's all always the case but it kind of might guilt someone into forgiving you when they should have come to that conclusion on their own they should have the reflection time to think about what happened to think about what you did to them or maybe you didn't really do anything to them but they took it in a bad way so they have that time Once you give them the freedom to choose to reconnect with you, or choose to forgive you, or not, or choose to
reconcile a relationship or not.
Once you give that gift of the freedom to choose that you are no longer a positive or negative influence in their life.
You are freeing them to think for themselves with zero influence from you, with zero possibility of coercion from you because when you feel the pressure of somebody saying please forgive me call me let's talk this out when you feel that I mean it's not always pressure but sometimes you can feel like pressure that somebody wants you to come to your conclusion faster that can feel like pressure consider it faster reflect on it faster come back to me say that you care about me forgive me.
You're putting all these expectations of a lot of pressure on someone.
And as long as that pressure is there, you risk their resistance.
You risk them being in a state of resistance saying, I'm not gonna forgive that person, I'm still mad at them.
And in fact bringing it up.
Please forgive me. Or let's talk this out.
Bringing that up reminds them of why they're upset in the first place or can it can remind them why they're angry or upset and when you do that when you bring this up let's talk you know send them another text send them another voice Mel send them an email when you keep putting that out there putting those feelers out there or those you're trying to hook them into that's a bad word but you know what I mean you're trying to get them to respond to talk to you maybe if you can talk to them just Just for 30 seconds and explain things, everything will be cleared up.
And maybe it will. But they need to, again, my opinion, my philosophy.
They need to come to that conclusion on their own because that's what sticks.
When you try to influence somebody to come to a conclusion, that may not stick.
And they may grow resistance and they may actually grow resentment towards you if they don't come to that conclusion.
I see this all the time in emotionally abusive relationships my program healed being I help people stop doing emotionally abusive behavior and Give their relationship the best chance at healing and you know if there's still love in their heart.
There's a chance That's how I see it If the other person that someone's been hurting for a long time still has love in their heart Then there's still a chance for reconciliation But the healing former emotionally abusive person has to give the person they've been hurting the freedom to come to their own conclusion.
And so I tell the people in my program, don't be desperate and fearful.
Don't go up to the people that you've hurt and be desperate and fearful and say, please take me back, please talk to me.
That desperation and that fear, or at least the energy of fear can be sometimes sensed and act as a deterrent.
It can be repelling.
And somebody comes along and you are still in this state of anger.
And somebody comes along and says, please forgive me, please, please.
Let's talk about this.
Let's talk about this.
It can actually fuel the negativity inside the person.
I'm still angry. I want to be angry.
I have a right to be angry.
And maybe they do. Maybe they need to stay angry.
That's why I love the gift that you give to someone to give them the freedom of choice, To make their own decision, to forgive you or not, to reconnect with you or not.
When you give somebody that freedom to do whatever they want, whether they want to reconcile with you or talk to you on the phone or whatever.
When you let somebody be, when you accept them where they are, it shows immense trust in their process.
I love being in a state of wonder at the world around me.
I do that when I'm outside in between my work.
Take a break. There's no negative aspect to wonder in my opinion and helps me not take life so seriously and it keeps me learning.
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Imagine you are debating something or you're angry at somebody and somebody says I trust the way you process and I trust the decision that you're going to make.
I trust everything about that.
If you decide never to talk to me again, then I honor that.
So you're trusting and you're honoring and you're showing the person that you support whatever choice they make.
That's the gift. That is a gift of love and support that shows that their happiness and their comfort and their feelings of safety even are your top priority.
You have their best interest in mind when you can let someone go and let someone be and accept them for whatever they want to think just let that be you've given your apology you know use the apology example you've given your apology you've said your part you've passed the ball you know you you hit the ball into their court it's now their ball they can choose to hit it back or not but you've done your part and when you do your part, that's the gift. You let them be and you put no expectations on them.
And when you put no expectations on someone, you give them no new information to use against you.
And that's a little odd but let me explain it.
If they are already thinking about you in another way, like who you used to be or what you did, but then you apologize and you let them be.
And you You say, hey, I'd love to connect again if you want, but if that's your choice, then I honor it.
So one thing you can say is, I honor whatever choice you make.
But if you choose not to bother them anymore, try to reach out to them anymore, then what you're doing is giving their brain back so that they can think for themselves and only think about the things that now come into their thoughts on their own.
Nothing you introduce, that's the influence part.
When you talk to them, when you say, hey, let's talk this out.
Let's get together and talk this out.
When you do that, you place an expectation on them, which forces an influential thought in their brain, which means it may not stick, and that gives them something new to think about.
Now, I'm not saying to never say these words.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't say, Oh, my God, that's not what I meant.
Let's have a conversation.
Give me a call. It was misinterpreted.
I'm not saying you can't say that to people.
I'm just talking about someone that maybe has moved on without you or is really upset with you in this case the person who wrote this person's really upset with her so what does she do with that and hopefully I've given you a path you reach out and say I'm so sorry about what I did I don't know what they did but you obviously are upset about something and I am truly sorry I hope that we can get past this and connect again in the future.
But if you choose not to, then I honor that.
I love you, and I wish you the best. No expectation.
And when you do that, now it's time for you to focus on your own life, which is the question you're asking, the person who reached out, how do I get past this?
That was your question.
How do I heal from this?
How do I feel better about this?
A, you feel better because you just gave your best friend from high school, the best gift possible in my opinion.
The best gift you can give to someone is letting them be who they are.
And letting them move on as long as you've passed the ball to her, which you did.
Or at least in my explanation here, if you do these things that I'm saying that you will be passing that ball to her.
You will be hitting it into her court her side, and if she chooses to hit it back.
That's up to her But if she doesn't yeah might sting it might hurt But then you still are putting love out there and that's kind of what I like about this You're putting love out there anyway.
It's not about any fear inside you it's about Putting it out there instead of taking it in Good way to look at it.
I'm putting out the love for you.
I'm giving you the freedom to make any choice you want to make.
That is my gift." And I know that sounds a little bit like an ego talking, but that's not the point.
The point is I'm letting that person go.
I'm giving you the gift of not bothering you anymore.
And I'm giving you the gift of trusting your process.
That's what I was saying earlier.
Trust the person's process.
It shows that you trust them in general.
If you come to the decision that I'm not a good fit in your life, then I trust that I trust your process because you have to make decisions that are right for you and that's another part of this gift so I believe how you get past it is knowing you did everything you can or at least you did what you can to show her that you love her and that you care about her and that you are truly sorry and if there's ever away past this please reach out but I honor your path I honor your process and if that's the decision you make I support it so keep putting the love energy out there stop taking in the fear
energy because a true relationship a true friendship or romantic relationship or whatever connection you have out there with another human being if it's meant to be it will be and that's I know a spiritual perspective almost. But when you let people come to their own decisions on their own, they're going to remember what they had, they're going to miss what they had if it was good and they will reach out to you.
That's the magic that can happen from all of this, is you let someone be, you show them that you still love them no matter what, and you let them move forward on their own and they may or may not reach the conclusion that they want to reconnect with you but a good relationship has a good foundation and a good foundation is what brings people back together, assuming there's no outstanding issues and there might be in this case there might be an outstanding issue that maybe she'll miss her time with you maybe she'll want to reconnect and if you leave her be and accept where she is and trust her
process this whole time maybe she'll finally reach out and say this is why I'm mad at you and she may not be able to do that right now but putting out that loving energy that supportive energy and avoiding taking in all that fear and focusing on the fear and just knowing that you did your best will allow her to come to her own conclusion and in my opinion that's often the best chance that you have with somebody that doesn't want to reconnect with you just show them everything I've already said you know this is where I am I'm so sorry and if you ever want to reconnect if you want to talk about anything
please reach out otherwise I'll leave you be and I wish you well you know don't use my words but that's basically the gist of it I mean I say the same thing in my own relationship if Asha my wife suddenly did not love me anymore let's talk about it what's going on hopefully we have a conversation before that ever happens but uh let's talk about it what's happening and if she says i'm just not in love with you anymore i'm not going to say well please stay and i'll make you love me please stay and i'll give you a lot of reasons to love me that's really not what i'm supposed to do i'm supposed to
show up as the best version of myself and hope she loves it and if my best version isn't attractive to her isn't something that she feels like she can stay with, then it's not up to me to change her mind.
It's up to me to honor the path she wants to take because I don't want to be in a relationship with somebody who I have to force to love me.
That's just an icky feeling, and I know it doesn't last. That's a controlling, I want to control what she does and how she thinks.
No I want her to come to it naturally on her own and if she's not there, I have to honor that.
As painful as that would be, I would have to honor the fact that she's no longer in love with me.
I would have to deal with it and then I would have to heal from it and I would have to move forward and I would have to continue showing her that even though she doesn't love me, I still love her if you know if that's the case.
But I also honor her process and what she needs to do.
But here's the thing, when you allow somebody to be who they are and make their own decisions, people want to be around people who allow them to do that.
Asha wants to be around me because I let her be herself.
I hope that's not the only reason but it's one of the underlying components of our foundation.
I want her to feel like she can be and say and do anything she wants.
I don't always succeed but I try.
I try to give her that freedom to be and say and do anything.
She wants. And because I mean, she does the same for me.
And because of that, because we are supportive of that, we don't go out and do things against each other.
We don't go out and try to go against each other's values or anything like that, you know, doing behaviors that might be offensive to the other person.
No, we actually enjoy the other person's company so much. Because they allow us to be who we are, that we feel so loved and worthy and important in their eyes.
And that's the the concept behind everything I talked about in this episode, where you can show somebody that you trust who they are and what decisions they make, and when you do that, people don't feel the pressure to be anything else but who they are.
and when you support someone who wants to be who they are, they're gonna love you, even if they're mad at you.
They're gonna love you, because you're letting them be who they are, which again, is one of the most loving supportive gifts you can give to anyone.
I hope this helps you.
Thanks for writing.
And thanks for listening to another episode of the Overwhelmed Brain.
I wanna thank the patrons who financially support the show.
I am very grateful for you.
And I know that there are times when it's harder to give then I can't believe that some people have done it for so long, and it still warms my heart every time I see your name.
So thank you, patrons.
And if you find value in this show like these patrons do, head over to moretob .com.
And there are ways to give back there.
Very grateful. Thank you to everyone who gives.
And for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship when we're talking about some of the stuff that we talked about today, actually, for control and manipulation, emotional abuse, you can head over to my other podcast called Love and Abuse, over at loveandabuse .com.
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.
Many, many success stories over there.
And with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions.
And be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want.
Always take steps to grow and evolve.
You are powerful beyond measure, And above all and this is something that I absolutely know to be true about you.
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