These are my personal opinions. Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well-being.
This should be an interesting episode because it's going to put a spotlight on my level of intelligence.
It's going to highlight just how much I may not know.
And I start off saying that because there's a message that I received.
Someone who wrote to me and said, I've been listening to your show for three years and I can't tell you how much it's helped me through many difficult situations.
And they have been through a relationship that was complicated, a mix of love and abuse.
And it took me a long time to realize how intertwined those dynamics can become and how abuse isn't always clear.
Sometimes I still don't know who the abuser was, him or me.
I'm a recovering addict. I've been in programs like AA and SLA, but relationships have always been one of my biggest challenges.
I often lose myself in helping my partners, neglecting my own needs until I'm deeply resentful, and then I punish them.
No one wants to feel like they're not enough or doing everything to a substandard level and the relationship eventually dissolves.
I grew up in a very demanding, toxic, and dysfunctional family where only success and performance were valued.
And because of that, I've developed this strange pattern.
When a relationship isn't working, I switch into, quote, boss mode, and I start running it like a company.
In fact, I even built a company with my last partner, which really highlighted this pattern for me.
I've done a lot of spiritual work, but I can't seem to break this cycle of abandoning myself in hopes of being praised by people who don't actually want my leadership, which just makes me controlling and hypocritical.
And another thing I've noticed is that I don't choose partners who are on my level educationally.
I have a master's and bachelor's degree and I keep attracting people who only finished high school.
On some level, I avoid people who are as analytical and strategic as I am because they remind me of my family.
Instead, I'm drawn to nurturing people, but then I end up resenting them for not being able to plan or organize life the way I do.
It's such a painful and confusing pattern, Paul.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. How do differences in education and mindset affect relationships?
And why do I keep recreating this dynamic, even with all the spiritual and recovery work I've done?
Thank you for all you do. Your show has been a lifeline.
Okay. Thank you for sharing that. I'm sorry you are experiencing this.
And one of the things that, well, several things that pop out and it's funny because as I said at the beginning, I mean, I'm not laughing at you, I promise.
It's just funny because I've been doing my show for for, uh, what, 14 years now.
And, um, I've done my other podcast, love and abuse for six years now.
And people have been listening to me and I don't have a PhD.
I don't have a master's. I don't have a college degree at all.
Do people then say, well, this guy's not worth listening to.
Probably they might. So here I am giving my thoughts and my opinions and insights to the people that tune into this show and my other show and apply it to their life.
And somehow, most of the people that I hear from, somehow, They have accomplished something or reached a new level or gotten into a better relationship and avoided a toxic relationship and have made decisions that are right for them.
They have improved their boundaries. They have let go of people that aren't right for them.
And they have introduced new people into their life that they get along with and aren't toxic or dysfunctional.
So I have just revealed to you that I have a background of high school.
I have a background of getting my coaching certifications.
And I have a background of probably about, geez, now 30 years of intensive study and reading that I did way before my certifications and way after my certifications.
So I have education, but not in a collegiate sense.
I have enough education to be able to learn more.
And I have chosen to learn more. And finally, my biggest education has been life.
And I've chosen to look at my life and ask myself how I can improve it.
And I would be okay with somebody who dropped out of high school and had life experience like that, where they looked at their life and said something like, I dropped out of high school.
I probably should have finished it, but I didn't.
But I did go on to learn everything I need to know to improve my life.
I would be okay taking advice from that person because they chose to evaluate themselves.
And that to me is important. This is all about personal growth.
It is all about how you develop yourself and not necessarily having to fit into your parents' vision of what you should be or society's perfect mold of what you should be.
Because I think people get stuck on what we should do and what we have to do in order to be not only functioning members of society or a family, but also beneficial to a society or a family.
And if we are not educated to a certain degree, that's pun intended, if we are not educated to that level, then maybe society will look down on us.
Maybe our family or somebody in our family will look down on us.
Maybe the listeners of this show will look down on me because I chose not to do that.
To be honest, I hated school. I hated the idea of waking up and listening to teachers all day and then coming home.
I just didn't like it. And I excelled in certain areas.
I excelled in technology and and writing and english and um what else terrible in math so you know enough about me but i went through that and during i think it was my 10th grade year i told my mom would you be okay if i quit school I wanted to quit.
I didn't like going and I was getting bullied and made fun of and intimidated and I felt like a total outsider.
So I already felt uncomfortable in my own skin.
And then to be in a system that I couldn't feel like I was learning anything, it was just a memorization process for me.
Memorize this and then as soon as the class is over, forget it all.
So that was my high school upbringing. And so in 10th grade, I asked my mom, would you be okay if I quit?
And she said something that blew my mind and changed my life forever.
She said, I don't care if you quit. She said, I don't mind if that's what you want to do.
It gave me the most power I had ever felt.
It put me in charge of my life. Thinking about this now, I never realized how powerful her comment was.
I said, you'd be okay if I quit school. She said, I don't care.
And it wasn't like, I don't care about you.
I don't care what happens to you. It was, if that's what you want to do, that's what you want to do.
That's what you want to do with your life.
She's telling a 15 year old to make these adult decisions.
I mean, it's a big decision, not necessarily an adult decision, but a big decision.
And I said, wow. okay. And I walked away with this power in my hands.
I could quit school. I hate school and I could quit.
And having that power allowed me to reflect on all the decisions that I could make in that moment and in the future.
And just having the ability to dictate what happens to my life.
And so I took that with me and I went back to school the next day and I didn't quit, but I told myself, you know, I'm in 10th grade.
Why don't I just finish 10th grade? I can do that.
Why don't I just finish it that way? I can look back and say, hey, at least I finished the 10th grade.
And so I passed the 10th grade. It was great.
Summer came and I thought, okay, great. Now I can quit and enjoy my life.
I just have no school and just enjoy my life.
I don't have to go back. But having that power and having no resistance to any decision that I could or would make for myself caused me to go into deeper thought and deeper questioning of what I was going to do with my life.
And that's just something I never really thought of when all I was thinking of is how much I hate school and how much I wanted to quit.
That's all I was thinking of before. So to have the power to quit now took my mind off always thinking about how much I hated school and how much I wanted to quit because now I had the power to quit.
So what do I do? Well, I should just go quit, right?
11th grade starts and I said, well, I'll just start 11th grade and see how it goes.
I started 11th grade, still hated it. Don't like getting up early.
Don't like sitting through class. Don't like learning a lot of this stuff.
I loved computers. I loved English and creative writing.
I was totally there and I was totally okay with it.
And I didn't like science and math and I love science now, but I didn't then.
And so I decided, okay, you know, I'm in 11th grade.
Let me just finish this. Let me just finish 11th grade because I have the power to leave.
I have the power to quit. I have God-like powers right now to do anything I want with my life.
It was freedom from resistance and freedom from having no options.
I had no options before because I didn't think I could quit.
But now I have the option. It's there. And I realized I'm thinking differently now that I'm not thinking about not being able to quit.
So I'm in 11th grade. And I said to myself, well, I'm so close.
Why don't I just finish 11th grade? And so I did.
I went through the entire school year, not necessarily hating it, but not loving it.
I hated it when I knew I couldn't quit, but I didn't hate it so much when I had the option to quit.
So the hatred for it or the big disdain I had for it decreased.
It waned. And then after I finished 11th grade, I said to myself, you know where this is going, I made it this far.
Why don't I just finish 12th grade and get my diploma?
And that's what I did. I said, okay, I'm going to do it.
And I went into the 12th grade and I found out that I didn't hate it.
I didn't love it, but it was okay because I had the power to quit at any time.
I had that power. It was wonderful. It was wonderful to know that I could do it, but didn't have to.
And I even chose not to. And I graduated.
And I got through high school and I'm proud of myself.
I did the impossible for me. It was impossible for me because I didn't think I was going to last.
I did not think I was going to make it. And when I finished high school, I said, okay, I got to get to work because I'm not going to go to college after that.
And I never really considered going until later on in life.
I said, you know, I could probably learn this.
I could go get my psychology degree. I could go get this.
And I thought about doing that. And then I...
Kind of let time slip and went to work, worked for some technology companies because I love technology, learned that I could get a pretty good wage in technology.
So that kind of worked out and prevented me from thinking along the lines of getting more educated and going in a direction like that.
And then after a while, I started to realize I do want something more.
I do want more in life. Well, like maybe 25 years old.
And I said, I think I'm going to learn about how to improve myself and learn about the mind and learn about communication and relationships.
And so I bought a bunch of books and I started reading.
And I did that for about 10 years before I became certified as a life coach and a master practitioner and all that stuff.
And, um, by the time I actually got certified, I knew everything they were teaching.
So it wasn't like new information. Some of it was, but, um, the benefit was that I got to work with other people.
I got to work with other professionals in the field and, um, it taught me a lot.
And that was another turning point for me because now I could have some credentials.
So I moved forward with those credentials, became, um, sort of a life coach and then I became more of a, what I am now, which is a behavior and relationship coach.
And so I tell you that entire background because there are people that listen to this show, like this person who wrote, who may not know that I'm not as smart as them.
It's true. I come on the show and I admit that I'm not going to be as smart as you in what you learned in college.
But what I've discovered about myself is that I have always fought against where I'm strongest.
That is something that some of maybe you have done this.
Some people listening right now have fought against where they're strongest.
It's sort of like you have a kid and the kid is really adept at how about making jokes and they're always making people laugh.
But the parents say, you shouldn't be a comedian.
That doesn't really pay well and you may not be successful.
So the kid, the class clown or whatever, decides not to pursue that route and they become something else.
And maybe they like doing what they're doing.
But where they're strongest, and I'm not saying comedy was their strength, but that is a strength in that person, that could have been a path that they didn't pursue and for the primary reason that they were pushed in a direction that they didn't necessarily feel strong in.
Or maybe they were strong in that field or subject.
But they just didn't enjoy it as much as they would had they, and this is just an example, had they gone and become a comedian or stand-up or actor or whatever.
They didn't follow their creativity. They followed maybe the money.
They followed society's expectations. They followed their parents' expectations.
And I've been fighting that throughout my life.
I had fought my strength in order to pursue what I believed I should do with my life.
There was a point in my life where I decided to play into my strengths and I actually joined a self-help company.
This was a personal growth and development company by someone you may know.
I've never ever talked about this on the show, but should I?
Should I tell you? I worked for a period of time for the company James Ray International.
If you recall... James Ray was, um, on the secret and he is infamous for the sweat lodge incident in Sedona, Arizona.
Yes, that James Ray and, uh, three, three people died or four, three or four people died.
I wasn't around at that time. I left a year before that happened.
But I joined the company. A lot of good people in that company.
And I left after a couple years. And I feel it's okay to talk about that now because James Ray himself, if you hadn't heard, has died.
He has passed on. And I'm not here to put him down or talk about him.
But that's where I was. That's what I did.
I decided to pursue that. And that was a great choice for me to pursue because that was my area of my interest, my strengths.
My strengths were in helping people improve their lives, helping people with their relationships.
I was already doing that at my previous jobs. where I would stay late and talk to people.
I mean, I wasn't volunteering. They were asking me questions and I would answer their questions.
So I found that I was a very good listener and I gave them guidance in ways that were helpful to them.
So that felt like a big strength for me.
So I pursued that route with my life and my career.
And that was a good choice. It was a good choice for me to go in that direction because now I'm pursuing a path that plays to my strongest qualities.
At least that's how I feel because what I do today since that day and since I went on my own, you know, creating my own show, creating my blog and following this path for a good 14, 15 years now, this is the longest time I've ever been employed.
So self-employment was apparently my strength to do what worked for me and also as a benefit to others.
That's how I see it. I'm not a benefit to everyone.
I'm just a benefit to those who have benefited.
That's how we operate in life. We become a benefit to those who benefit.
And if they don't benefit, then they aren't the right person for us and we aren't the right person for them.
And then we move forward. So what does any of this have to do with the question that was asked?
I mean, there's probably some open loops in there I need to close.
Like, what do you mean, James Ray? This is a whole thing.
What are your thoughts on it? I will close that loop right now.
My thoughts is that I'm super sad that it all went down that way.
I'm grateful that I wasn't a part of it.
I'm grateful I wasn't in that sweat lodge.
And I'm also grateful that the friends that I had in that organization didn't go down with him.
And that he had to take responsibility and do his time.
And now he has passed on. That's all I have to say about that.
And I am grateful for the time I was there.
And one other loop that you may not even know is open is, why is that my strength?
The life that I had caused me to become strong in certain areas of emotional intelligence and relating to people and becoming a good listener and a good communicator and a good coaching guide for those who need it.
The thing that gave me strength, believe it or not, was a dysfunction.
The dysfunction was people pleasing and having no boundaries. which is they're often one in the same.
If you're a people pleaser, you typically don't have any boundaries or at least not good ones.
And if you enforce your boundaries as a people pleaser, it's usually passive aggressively.
So it's not really an enforcing. It's just something that you're, you're hoping will act as a boundary.
So people don't cross it. Usually it doesn't work, but I was the ultimate people pleaser.
I didn't know how to say no. But as a people pleaser, we are also a chameleon.
We're also highly adaptable. In order to be highly adaptable to other people, to relationships, to other situations, to challenges, We have to become highly observant.
And so I became very good at observing other people.
I learned that from being in an alcoholic home.
I was one when my stepfather moved in and I grew up. with his alcoholism.
And I was highly observant of his behavior because I needed to know where he was so I could know if it was safe or not.
And so I just developed this ability out of instability.
I developed the ability to figure out where people were and how they were and how were they feeling and what they were thinking, although I couldn't tell what they were thinking, but I could tell what was going on and if it was okay to open the door or cross the room.
I could tell it was okay to bring up a certain subject.
And so I developed this muscle in my brain that helped me understand where others are.
And that also allowed me to become very empathetic.
If you start crying in front of me, I'm probably going to start crying.
I can feel it. And it also helped me in what I do today.
It helps me connect with others in a way that I probably wouldn't have been able to do had I not grown up with the dysfunction I did.
Now, Where does this tie in to this person's message?
We're 23 minutes in. This person's listening intently, waiting for direction.
Maybe the direction I take you in today will work or maybe it won't.
Let me start off by saying in order to become more of who I am today, I had to heal my dysfunction.
I had to stop being the people pleaser. I had to stop adapting and becoming the chameleon and not showing up as the person I really wanted to be.
I had to become authentic. And that meant letting go of trying to please others and trying to make sure that everyone's happy and saying yes when I mean no.
I had to let all that go in order for me to become any sort of Help for other people and especially for myself in order to strengthen the right muscles that I needed to evolve emotionally and intellectually and move forward in my life. in a way that felt like the right direction, I had to get rid of the dysfunctions.
And the dysfunction of people pleasing had to go.
The dysfunction of having no boundaries had to go.
I had to strengthen those things. I had to figure out what my boundaries are, enforce them, and stop being steamrolled by other people.
And that's exactly what I did. In fact, I've told this story before, but I spoke up to my boss once and honored myself in front of the team of people that I worked with.
And I honored myself to him. That was the guy I told you about, James Ray.
And that was the first time I really honored myself.
I really put myself to the test of wanting to be this new me.
I wanted to be somebody that I could look in the mirror and be proud of and not look in the mirror and say, oh, I regret I didn't do that.
I don't want to look in the mirror and say, I can't believe I didn't do that.
I should have done that. I don't want to look at myself.
I don't want to go to sleep at night thinking, oh, now I have to deal with that tomorrow because I was so afraid to deal with it today.
I don't want that feeling. I don't want that fear inside of me.
Dysfunction comes from fear, typically, you know, insecurities and other things.
But if you have a dysfunction, then working on that and healing it and getting through it is going to not only help you use that dysfunction as a tool, instead of being used as a tool by the dysfunction, but you will be able to turn that dysfunction into a superpower.
And once you are able to let go of all the negative aspects of that dysfunction, you are going to improve your life tremendously because you're no longer reliant on it.
You are no longer dependent on a dysfunction to get through life.
Like this person, they have a dysfunction, and I don't mean that offensively, We all have our dysfunctions, but it's a dysfunction in the sense that it's not helping you function at 100% capacity or at least as close as you can get.
You're a recovering addict? Wow, that is amazing.
You have overcome a challenge that a lot of people can't do.
So pat yourself on the back. I give you permission and I mean that.
That's amazing. Relationships have been a big challenge.
You said you lose yourself in helping your partners.
If you're losing yourself in helping your partners, then you're giving too much of yourself without enough to survive yourself.
That's a people-pleasing component. I don't know if you're a people-pleaser, but I lost myself in helping others.
I drained myself when helping others because I had no boundaries.
And if you walk through life without boundaries, you will be drained.
You will not have enough energy left over for yourself.
You have to draw the line. You have to figure out where your line is and then draw it so that you don't go past it so that you don't get into your reserves of energy and drain those too.
We have energy to take care of ourselves and to make decisions for ourselves, to say yes when we mean it and no when we mean it.
And when we give that energy, our regular energy to somebody else, and we don't have enough left for ourselves to function during the day or the week or the life that we're living, then we are in dysfunction.
And being in dysfunction is a deficit. That means you're always walking around in deficit if you lose yourself in somebody else.
So this person may or may not be a people pleaser, but there are telltale signs.
One is that she said, I often lose myself in helping my partner.
Two, she neglects her own needs until she is resentful.
Very much a people pleaser component. And then three, I punish them.
So the aggression comes out because you've been holding in what you really want to say or what you really want to do.
And so I see you giving away your energy and giving so much of it away that you don't have enough left for yourself.
And then you blame others because they're not reciprocating as much as you're giving.
I see that you are looking at them as asking yourself, why don't they see that I need help?
Why don't they see that I'm doing all this stuff for them?
And why aren't they giving what I need to me?
Why aren't they giving back? Why aren't they reciprocating?
You may not be saying those words, but I'm pretty sure what you're thinking is, I did all this for you.
Why don't you do enough for me? You don't do any of this for me.
I do so much for you. And then you go on to say you become a different person almost.
You get into boss mode. And boss mode is when you start running things like a company.
I have a feeling that is the point of resentment.
And maybe you said that in the message, you know, you become this boss starting to run the relationship like a company and even building a company with your last partner.
That also says to me more analytical mode, less emotional, because if you don't have to access your emotions, it's going to be a lot easier to communicate with the person you're with.
I experienced this in my first long-term relationship where we had a great emotional connection for the first decade and the last couple of years of the relationship was more analytical.
And it was easier to connect analytically because the love was gone.
And when the love's gone, you know, the emotional connection isn't there.
You're trying to grasp onto what is left.
And if you are not feeling emotionally connected, you probably want to feel something and you can't feel it.
So you revert to an analytical state so you don't have to feel bad.
So I have a feeling your boss mode is your analytical state that is sort of a safety or coping mechanism for you that you default into so that you don't have to feel what you really feel and say what you really want to say because perhaps you're afraid of abandonment and rejection.
Am I doing enough armchair analysis? Yeah.
I'm not diagnosing you. I am just sharing what I know, what I've learned.
And a lot of this I've been through myself.
So my life experience is my education here.
And of course, I've studied all this stuff too.
And of course, your analytical mode, your boss mode, that is your default coping mechanism.
Because how were you brought up? In a very demanding, toxic, and dysfunctional family where only success and performance were valued.
I think I would ask myself, if I were in your shoes, I would ask myself, how am I acting like my mom or my dad right now?
Whoever was, or maybe both of them, whoever was the major influence in your life to make you turn into this boss analytical person.
Who are you being when you are that? And do you want to be that?
I know the answer is no. You said you've done this spiritual work.
You want to break this cycle of abandoning yourself in hopes of being praised by people who don't actually want my leadership, which just makes me controlling and hypocritical.
I'm going to ask you to do the hardest thing that you will ever be able to do.
And that is break something, not to vent or anything like that, but create something and then break something.
And what I mean by that Is I believe you're a perfectionist and perfectionists have the uncanny ability to become anxious about things that aren't perfect.
And they worry about things that aren't perfect.
And they're worried about judgment of others or worry about their own parents' voices in their head.
Because if they don't get it right, it's a self-worth thing.
And they will feel worthless or worthless if they don't get it perfect.
The way to break that kind of pattern is to break perfectionism, which is to break something perfect.
This could look like so many things. And I'm not saying this is the only way to do it.
But what I've learned is that when I want things to be perfect, because I was like that too, when I want things to be perfect, I expect nothing but perfection from myself and others.
And I have raised the bar so high for others to come up to. to reach to a point where I could look at them as an equal and say yes now you get it now you are someone that I can admire because you have reached this bar however it's going to get higher and I hope you're able to reach it because if you don't, I'm going to look down on you.
So we have this huge standard that others can't reach when we are perfectionists.
I mean, not everyone. Some people are perfectionists to themselves.
I got to do it perfectly. And I'm not necessarily talking about that.
And I'm not necessarily saying that perfectionism is a problem or not.
It all depends on the person. Some people's perfectionism is okay with them and it's okay with others.
So if that's you, that's fine. But in this case, this perfectionism is causing problems.
And the problems it's causing is destroying relationships and making you unhappy and All kinds of things that we need to fix and in order to fix perfectionism we have to break it.
That might mean, I'll give you an example or an analogy if you will, you finally get the kitchen spotless.
Now take that chocolate sauce in your fridge and put it on your counter and leave it. ants will probably show up, but it will.
I mean, this is not a real example. You could do that if you wanted, but that's the idea is that we have to break our judgment of ourselves in order to step out of being perfect because our perfectionism bleeds into other people's lives, affecting them and affecting us because they're never going to be good enough.
And we're never going to be happy. It's a continuous vicious cycle of dysfunction.
And it always ends up with disappointment.
You'll end up feeling unloved because they're not doing enough.
And you'll find all kinds of things that aren't going right because they're not reaching your standard.
They're not up to that level. Which is what you say about education as well.
You said, another thing I've noticed is that I don't choose partners who are on my level educationally.
And you have your degrees and you keep attracting people who only finished high school.
And you said you're drawn to nurturing people, which is, guess what?
Probably something that you need in your life.
And when you get that need fulfilled, probably at the beginning of the relationship or the You realize you want more.
You want more than just nurturing. You want an equal.
You want somebody like, it's funny because my wife and I play Scrabble sometimes, but we just started playing Upwards, which is where you put the letters on top of the Scrabble tile, not Scrabble, the letters that are on Upwards. and you create new words.
So if you have the word book, you can create the word nook or bank and you can just put different letters on there and it's different points.
And that has been really challenging Because it requires some vocabulary that we are both fortunate enough to have enough of a vocabulary that we can play and be an equal match for each other.
So it's always like an exciting game. And so we've played that a few times recently.
And we realized that we can't play this game with certain people in our life because it's Their vocabulary may not be, I'm not saying that we're brilliant.
I'm just saying that we have a lot of words in our head and we know how to use those words in a game.
And some people don't have the same level of vocabulary.
So would it be as fun just eradicating those people just to be the winner of a game like that?
And it's not. We've actually played a game with somebody once who said, that's not a word.
And then they said, this is a stupid game.
So it wasn't very fun to play with that person, even though it was great to have them as a friend.
So I understand that when you're in a relationship with somebody that you might want to have intelligent conversation every now and then or play games like this or whatever.
But I also understand that there's probably always going to be one person that's smarter than the other.
Probably always going to be one person who can, like you said, organize their life and the other person who just lives day by day in the present moment.
And I said that on purpose because Asha, my wife, is like you, where she can organize her life.
She can organize her future. She's the one who sets up the 401k and says, we got to start saving now.
She's the one who says, we need to plan for this.
We need to put this on the calendar. Where I'm the one who wakes up and says, hey, maybe we should do something today.
I mean, she does that too, but I'm more present moment, present minded, and she's more future.
And she's also present minded as well, but she's always been that way, more organized in the future.
And she's great at planning and I'm terrible at it.
She's great at organizing and I'm terrible at it.
I bring her to the dentist with me so she can listen to the dentist and tell me what the dentist said and meant after we leave so I know what my game plan is for my dental work.
I rely on her to be with me. She is my partner and makes up for my weaknesses just like I make up for hers.
She has learned a lot from me. I have learned a lot from her.
And interestingly enough, before we bought the house we were in, she said, I am so glad that you didn't put all your money in the retirement fund. because i came into the relationship as a saver i need to save money i need to save money for um a rainy day i need to save money because i it's nice to have money in the bank and yes of course i'll put some money into retirement but not as much as you want me to And she always had something, you know, she always said something against that.
Now you need to, you can't just put that little amount.
We need to do that. We need to put the money into the retirement.
Don't save it in a bank doing nothing. And I didn't change.
I was stubborn. I said, I want money. I want to save money.
And so the day it came that we needed to come up with money for the house, guess who had it?
I had the majority of it. And to this day, she'll say, I am so glad you didn't listen to me.
I'm so glad that you decided to save money because we wouldn't be here.
We'd still be in an apartment. We'd still be living there.
And you saved it. You saved the money. And that's just something I don't do and something I wouldn't have done.
I mean, she does save money, but most of it goes into her future where I want money in the present and my future.
But she's more future oriented. I'm more present.
And so I had the money in the bank, at least most of it, and a series of other miraculous events that had to occur to get this house.
But the money was the key. We needed that money to get to the point where we could buy this house.
Not an expensive house, just a house in general.
You have to come up with money. And I had it.
And if I didn't, we wouldn't be here because she didn't have it.
It was all tied up. And so she saw the value and the strengths that I had and some of the wisdom that I had in the way I process things and the way I dealt with money and the way I lived in the present.
Because yes, we could be dead tomorrow. Then what's the point of all that future money if we're dead tomorrow?
And that's not financial advice. I'm just saying we balance each other out.
And yes, this does apply to the person who wrote to me and wrote all this stuff, is that sometimes we have to have somebody in our life to offset who we are and how we show up.
Because if you are a planner and an organizer, and let's just say that you meet another planner and an organizer, and they're also a nurturer.
Do you think you might bump heads? It happens a lot.
We meet somebody like us and suddenly we're bumping heads.
And bumping heads just means there's a conflict in how we do things.
Because while I use paper, while I use a computer, while I use a filing system, while I use a Dewey Decimal System, there might be issues there.
And I'm not saying it can't work. I'm just saying that we sometimes believe we need somebody that's like us in order to like the relationship or get along or whatever.
And in my life, the relationships that I've had, I've noticed that the strongest relationships were those where the person was quite opposite of me.
And that has been how I have compensated and we have offset each other. to create the balance that's sometimes required so that one of us can plan our vacation and the other person can pay for it.
Or one of us can plan our wedding, which she did, and I am so grateful for because I'm terrible at it.
But the other person can do all the micro stuff that was required for that.
And even on our wedding day when we actually celebrated our vows, I drove like an hour to get our barbecue because we were having it sort of catered, but I had to go pick it up. on our wedding day and I had to rush back.
So there are things that we do for each other and continue to do for each other that play to our strengths.
And so I think this is pretty common sense is that we make up for what other people aren't strong in.
We bring that strength into the relationship and bring that balance.
And even at a work level, we both bring our strengths to the workplace and we make up for other people's weaknesses and they make up for ours.
And I'm definitely not telling this person, don't be afraid to find someone that you think is dumb, but nurturing just to balance you out.
I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that you do have probably sky high standards.
And because you do, you probably have been living as a perfectionist and bringing your perfectionism into the relationship so that criteria always have to be met.
And what you are looking for is someone like you who has the same level of discipline and organizational skills that you have, which unfortunately will probably never happen because maybe you're the best.
Maybe you're so good at what you do and so good at organizing your life that you will never find somebody like that.
And thank God. Because if you found somebody like that, you're probably going to have a huge conflict.
Now, that doesn't really answer your full question because I started to go off on breaking your perfectionism.
When you break your perfectionism, and I do have articles on perfectionism, actually one article that might be helpful to you, go to theoverwhelmedbrain.com, type in the word perfect or perfection, and you will find the article that talks about that.
Because perfectionism... has the ability to make you unhappy if it's not working for you and ruining relationships.
If it does work for you, keep going. This time, this person who doesn't necessarily say they're perfectionists, and I'm assuming a lot of things, but the components are there.
Your perfectionism and your probably lack of boundaries seem to be creating this self-sabotage process.
Meaning you don't have boundaries so they cross the line and you don't say anything when they cross the line so you build resentment and now after a few months or a few years you've had it, you've had enough and you can't stand that they don't know better and they should know better but you've never said what you really wanted from them.
And so now, because you didn't say it, because you didn't express it, because you didn't enforce your boundaries and make sure that they knew what you will accept and won't accept in your life, you're upset at them.
And that is self-sabotage. I'm expecting you to do things that I shouldn't have to tell you to do.
That's self-sabotage. When my wife was just my girlfriend several years ago, way back when, actually, very beginning of our relationship, she would expect me to do things and show up in a certain way that I had no clue.
And she would ignore me for days and I would wonder where the heck she was.
She wouldn't kiss me. She wouldn't look at me.
And I thought, what the heck's going on?
And I had to ask her, what the heck's going on?
And she would say nothing. Everything's fine.
And I said, everything's not fine. And I would tell her, you've been ignoring me.
You don't kiss me. What's happening? And then she would finally say, I don't want to make you upset.
I would rather be upset than be ignored.
I'll take the upset over that. And so we had to talk a lot about that because she was afraid to express what was really on her mind in fear that it would upset me.
And I told her, I would rather you upset me than to not tell me what's on your mind because this is what happens.
You know, I get ignored. We don't connect.
And I feel like the relationship is now going downhill because there's something on your mind that you're not sharing with me.
And so we finally came to an agreement. It's okay to make me upset if that's where it has to go.
It's okay to make me mad. It's okay to tell me something that might cause me to storm out and leave the relationship forever.
That's the agreement we made. And that has strengthened our relationship tenfold.
Why? Because we both had the option to do that.
We both had the option to be honest with each other at the risk of losing the relationship.
That's like my mom telling me, you can quit school if you want.
She left that decision up to me. That was her saying that you can leave or you can go.
It's totally up to you. It's not dependent on me.
The agreement that Asha and I made about being able to express things to each other at the risk of the relationship, even though one of us could leave, that agreement is very similar to that because we both had the power of choice.
And when you have the power to choose the direction that you want to take in your life, and you have the freedom to express yourself in a way that might actually upset the other person.
Not that that's your intention, but you know that if you're honest with this person that might upset them.
But you have the power to do that. You have the power to express in a way that might risk the relationship and you're not dependent on saving the relationship or worrying that the relationship is going to fail.
You're not basing your expression on what happens to the relationship.
You're basing it on the freedom to be yourself regardless of what the world thinks.
You are sharing your genuine self with another person who is also allowed to share their genuine self and let the chips fall where they may.
When my mom gave me the choice to quit school or continue going, It strengthened my relationship with my mom because she didn't say I couldn't.
She didn't say I should. She gave me the choice.
She let me be myself. She let me make my own choice and she knew that I could quit school just like My wife knows that I could leave this relationship.
I won't, but it's the agreement we have that we should be honest with each other, even if it costs us the relationship, because holding onto the lie will only fester and it will create a toxic element in the relationship that will carry forward every day.
And just like I had the freedom to choose when I was 15, if I wanted to stay in school or not, Having the freedom to express yourself, regardless of what happens, but having, quote, permission to be yourself with the person that you're going to spend your life with, especially, takes away fear-based decision-making, which is definitely disempowering.
It's not empowering to make decisions out of fear.
And also the inner conflict that you may have because you believe that if you express yourself truthfully and show up as the real version of you and say what you really want to say, that doing so will upset the other person.
And if you upset the other person, it might destroy the relationship and you might have a fear of abandonment or rejection and you don't want to be alone.
So you end up being inauthentic. and not expressing what's really on your mind and not being as truthful as you could be.
Keeping the resentment alive and carrying it forward into the relationship every day from that point on.
Which again might stem from fears of abandonment and rejection and that will definitely cause you to make decisions out of fear and not express yourself out of fear.
All because you don't want to make someone upset or make them leave or whatever.
But at the same time if you don't speak your truth The self-sabotage takes place anyway.
So I could probably go on for hours on that.
I'm not going to. I'm going to answer this person's questions to the best of my ability.
First one was, how do differences in education and mindset affect relationships?
Practically, I think there needs to be enough of an educational background or at least enough of intelligence in somebody that you're going to spend time with that is of a level that you can feel comfortable around.
This means that you could be with somebody who's just not that bright in a lot of areas.
But you still feel comfortable around them.
You know they're not going to be able to do the taxes and maybe plan and organize like this person is talking about or even know how to fill gas in their car.
I'm not putting anyone down for not being able to do it.
But let's just say that you know a lot of things and they don't.
The question is, are they offsetting you in a good way that balances things?
And can you be okay being the one who does this set of things while they do that set of things?
I mean, there's a big difference between somebody who organizes and plans and schedules and saves money and works all the time.
And they're with somebody who sits on the couch and plays video games and down in the basement and does their own thing and doesn't work and doesn't clean the house and doesn't contribute.
It's all about contribution. How do you contribute and how do they contribute?
You may have the smarts and they have something else.
They have the nurturing. They have the ability to keep the house clean and keep everything in the house organized while you have the ability to schedule and plan and There has to be a balance.
So, yes, you could probably find someone who is just as intelligent or can talk to you at a level that you are most interested in talking at.
And when you are with that person, it feels invigorating and it's energizing to have that kind of conversation.
But remember, that's what friends are for, too.
And what I mean is that we have our partners in life, if you have a romantic partner, that can offset a bunch of stuff for us and make us feel a little bit more whole because we have a lot of maybe weaknesses or parts of us that aren't as fulfilled and they do a good job of fulfilling those parts and that balances us.
And then we have our scientist friend or our gossip friend and our political conversation friend.
And that also gives us a wholeness balancing our life.
So it doesn't always have to come from our partner.
Unless you want certain things in a partner so that you can accomplish certain things in life.
But just the ability to, like this person says, organize and schedule and all that stuff.
There might be basics that you require. I agree.
If Asha wasn't very good at games, it would be a little bit more difficult.
But maybe I could be okay with it. If all she did was listen to the music that I don't like, okay, well, I could probably be okay with that.
If I could never go to the movies with her because she didn't like the movies I liked, okay, well.
Now we're starting to not see so much offset and see more conflict.
See where there are incompatibilities. Because incompatibilities are different than differences.
We can have differences that offset and balance each other. or balance the relationship, and then we can have incompatibilities.
And incompatibilities are those that which, when they occur, are conflict for us.
For example, you don't smoke and they do, and you don't like it.
Now you have an incompatibility that could be a major conflict.
But if you have a high vocabulary and they don't, and it's not necessarily a conflict in how you feel, Because, okay, we won't be able to play Scrabble.
We won't be able to play word games or whatever.
But you could be okay with everything else they do because they contribute in so many other ways.
So to your question, the person who wrote, how do differences in education and mindset affect relationships?
I think if you can look at someone else and ask yourself how else they contribute that that other stuff, the education and the mindset aren't as important or unless they are so important to you as a matter of fulfillment and not a requirement as a result of perfectionism, for example.
Like I require a high performing individual that knows tax law and quantum physics.
That might be a tall order. And maybe there are people, I know there are people out there like that.
And what if they don't have these other qualities that fulfill you?
And if they don't have that level of education, but they have these other qualities, that's what I gauge.
That's what I measure. So when it comes to differences like Asha, she's smarter than me.
She's gone to college. She can play the piano.
She can sing. She can do all kinds of stuff.
And I feel like this small next to her. But she has learned so much from me too.
And I don't say that to puff me up at all.
I say that because she said that to me. She's a constant reminder that I have a lot to contribute.
And so that makes me feel good. And if I'm continuing to contribute to the relationship and she's okay that I don't have a college degree, I think we're getting along great.
And so I could go on with that question, it gets pretty deep, but I'm going to answer the second question is, why do I keep recreating this dynamic even with all the spiritual and recovery work I've done?
I can only give you one educated guess. My education, not yours.
My educated guess is twofold. One, once you heal some of these dysfunctions like people pleasing and perfectionism, once you actually work on those things, and break them down so they are no longer holding you back and they are no longer hindering you then those won't be applied to others as well and what i mean is you won't look for perfectionism in other people if you're able to leave chocolate sauce on a newly cleaned counter which will attract ants so i'm not suggesting you do it but it's a metaphor for life Like if you make your bed every day and it looks perfect, don't make your bed one day.
You will live. And once you live, you will realize that you can do this again and again.
And then it becomes a choice to be perfect instead of a dysfunction and a requirement that you make of yourself that are probably your parents just talking in your head and your negative inner dialogue.
So choose to be imperfect and slowly work that into your system.
And as your imperfections show up, and you live, you survive, you make it through it, you will find yourself not applying it to other people so that they have to be perfect too.
That's tough for anyone to do. I remember because I used to do that to others.
I used to expect them to meet my standards and no one ever could.
And I said my answer was twofold. And the other part of this is when you are able to heal your dysfunctions, or at least start working on them, part of healing a dysfunction is, especially with people pleasing and honoring yourself and honoring your boundaries, is to express your authentic voice, be truthful, and be okay with the fallout.
Be okay with the consequences of being yourself.
This means sometimes radical honesty and telling somebody, hey, this is what I really feel.
This is what I really think. This doesn't mean you become like over the top temper tantrum.
This means you express yourself. For example, when you do that, it makes me upset.
Could you not do that anymore? It's a simple statement, but it's so powerful.
And just any statement like that, that shows yourself that you value yourself.
And it also does so many other things. It shows the other person that you value them with your truth.
You trust them with your truth. You show them how much you value them by being truthful with them.
I feel highly valued when somebody is able to tell me their truth.
I feel so worthy and honored that someone would be willing to express something to me that is from their heart and I know they're probably afraid to tell me.
That's amazing. And I always admire and respect people that can speak their heart and speak their truth to me knowing that I could be upset.
Knowing that I could end this relationship right away.
But why would I want to end a relationship with somebody who's honest with me?
That is one of my highest values in a relationship.
That's why when Asha comes to me and says something that maybe will make me upset, that I'd rather have her tell me than hold on to it and lie.
I'd rather have somebody that is that honest and is willing to face the consequences of whatever happens because I know that the rest of our lives together will be of integrity, of honest conversations.
That is a high value in a healthy relationship, which is why it's important to be yourself and If they can't accept you as you are, do you really want that person in your life anyway?
That's why our relationship has strengthened and it stays strong because we know we're going to be honest with each other, even if it's challenging, but we deal with it because honesty is so much better than the alternative.
So that's my suggestion is deal with the consequences.
Know that there are going to be consequences, but when you honor yourself with people who care about you, it will only make the relationship stronger because they will want you to do that for yourself.
They will want you to honor yourself. They will love that you are valuing yourself that much.
And as you do this more and more, your self-worth increases and your desire to do dysfunctional behaviors, not that you're choosing to, but those desires decrease because you'll realize that your reliance on the old dysfunctional behaviors was keeping you where you are, creating the relationships that you were creating, and causing so many issues for you and really sabotaging your own happiness.
And we definitely don't want that. I'm going to leave you with that.
I am so grateful that you shared all that with me and I appreciate you.
Thank you so much and stay strong. I know that this is challenging, but you got this.
Thanks for listening to another episode of The Overwhelmed Brain.
I want to thank the patrons who give to the show.
They are so valuable to me. People like Heather and Christy and Anna and Sandra and Deborah and Tammy.
Thank you so much for the value that you bring into my life and for giving back.
And if you find value in this show like these patrons do and you want to give back, head over to moretob.com and there are options to do that over there.
Thank you again, patrons. And for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship, listen to my other podcast called Love and Abuse over at loveandabuse.com.
Talk about weeds. We get into the weeds over there about manipulation and control and emotional abuse and all kinds of things like gaslighting and stonewalling and all the things that appear in relationships that sometimes seem normal, but they're not.
Head over to loveandabuse.com if you are having a challenge in your relationship and you want to learn how to deal with that.
And I have a program called Healed Being that helps people that are doing these behaviors change and heal and become improved versions of themselves and give them the best chance at healing a damaged relationship.
If you are that person, you can head over to healedbeing.com.
And you can start off with some free lessons and see if they are right for you, see if they fit your situation and what you're doing.
And if they do, then you know you're in the right place.
That's over at healedbeing.com. And with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions.
Be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want.
Always take steps to grow and evolve. You are powerful beyond measure.
And above all, and this is something I absolutely know to be true about you, you are amazing.
