Hello, welcome to, or welcome back to Trending to Care.
If you're new here, my name's Ashley.
They upload almost every Monday.
And we talk about navigating life, relationships, friendships, personal growth.
You name it, I probably talk about it.
And with every episode, I just hope that you feel heard and you feel a little less alone and you just have a good time while you're here.
Over the last year and a half of being engaged in planning a wedding,
I have just realized how bizarre people can be.
And I know that I'm not alone in feeling this way because I've talked to so many other people who are engaged and I've seen people go online and talk about this where, you know, they're so excited to be in this new chapter of their life.
And not that they expect anything huge from their friends and family but they just expect those people to show up for them or you know to be more understanding of the chaos that goes into planning a wedding and.
Just being in this new chapter of your life really reveals who your people are and who are not your people.
You learn who is genuinely happy for you, who's not only willing but is excited to celebrate you, who is supportive and...
Unfortunately, you learn who isn't.
You notice how people move weird and they make weird comments and people just don't show up in the ways that you would like them to.
And I could probably make an entire episode talking about that.
Everything the past year has taught me about friendships and family dynamics.
I could talk more about that in my bridal Q&A coming up.
But during this past year, I noticed something much bigger.
And that's what I want to talk about today in today's episode.
And
That is why we let other people's weird behavior consume us so much.
You know, when someone starts acting differently towards us, when they stop reaching out to us, when they're being rude or passive aggressive with us, or we find out that they're talking poorly about us to other people.
And our first instinct is to ask ourselves what we did wrong.
Why are they treating us this way?
And it's like, why do we immediately assume that their weird behavior is due to us?
That we deserve the way they're treating us.
I know for me, when I sense that someone is upset with me, I start doing mental gymnastics, trying to figure out what I did wrong.
I start
Replaying back all of our conversations.
I reread our texts.
I try to analyze their tone in texts.
I ask my other friends, like, do you think I said something wrong?
Did I do something wrong?
Did they say something to you?
And I try to piece together some explanation that makes sense so I can fix whatever
You know, I did wrong or what went wrong.
Today I want to talk about,
Although there are times where you do mess up and you do take accountability, there are times where there is no explanation or need to apologize for someone's mistreatment of you or their sudden coldness towards you.
Sometimes people are just weird and your job isn't to figure them out.
And I want to make it very clear that I'm not excusing bad behavior in today's episode.
And I don't want you to take this as me saying that you should pretend hurtful things don't matter.
Today I just really want to focus on refusing to make someone else's issues your emotional responsibility because those are two very different things.
Sometimes people are just weird and you got to clock it and you got to move on with your life.
So that's what we're talking about.
Let's get into today's episode.
It really does seem like it is so common that when someone treats us poorly or their energy shifts towards us, we automatically internalize that behavior and we start looking for reasons why they're acting the way that they are.
We want to think critically and find a reason because there must be a reason, you know, that person decided to not invite me.
I must have done something wrong.
They didn't randomly decide to distance themselves from me.
I must have said something that they didn't like.
They didn't just randomly decide to unfollow me.
I must have pissed them off or posted something that they disagreed with or they didn't like.
We try so hard to figure it out and figure out all the evidence, put it all together.
But the reality is sometimes there is no evidence and there is no answer.
Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't take accountability for your actions because there are times where you do mess up and you do hurt someone and you should own it and apologize and grow from that.
That's healthy.
There is a huge difference in taking accountability for your own actions and then accepting responsibility for someone else's choices.
Those are not the same thing.
Taking accountability is I messed up, I made a mistake, and I want to apologize and right my wrongs.
Self-blame is...
Someone else is upset with me so I must have deserved it and I have to apologize.
I think a lot of us have become obsessed with understanding why someone's acting the way that they are because
We want everyone to be okay with us.
It doesn't feel good to know that people don't like you or they don't respect you or they don't want to be a part of your life.
Rejection is really hard, especially when it comes to the people that you want in your life.
So we think, if I can just understand why they're acting this way, then maybe I can fix it and we can go back to how we were and they'll want to be my friend.
They'll want to be in a relationship with
Me.
But what I've been telling myself over this past year is not every problem is yours to solve and not every broken relationship is yours to repair.
There isn't always
A reason for why someone is treating you the way that they are.
And even if there is some warped explanation for why they're treating you poorly, it is not your job to uncover why they're acting that way.
And that is why I love my current mindset shift, which is let them be weird.
Let them be mad.
Let them talk poorly about you.
Let them try to ruin your reputation.
Let them make you the villain.
When someone starts acting differently towards you, when they make you feel like you're not valued anymore, they don't respect you, they don't like you, they don't want to be a part of your life anymore.
Instead of feeling like you need to fix it or confront it or clear the air.
Just leave it be, let them be.
You know, I admire people who value communication.
I think that it is so important to have honest and open communication with the people in your life.
If you're having problems with a close friend or your partner or your family, I'm not saying to just peace out when things get hard and to cut them off to avoid confrontation.
Like I said before,
If you fuck up, take accountability.
If they have a problem with you, they will come to you and communicate that there is a problem.
If there is no conversation, if there is no communication, if they aren't willing to come to you with the problem, it is not your responsibility to figure out what's going on.
It is not your responsibility to manage someone else's behavior.
If someone decides to randomly unfollow you as like a spiteful thing so you can see that they're upset with you, it is not your responsibility to chase them down and be like, hey, did I do something wrong?
Because they're not mature enough to come to you and just speak to you.
If someone's giving you the silent treatment and refuses to respond to your texts or calls because they're pissed at you, it is not your job to blow up their phone until they answer.
If someone's talking badly about you to other people, it is not your job to confront them or to understand why they're acting the way they are or to apologize for whatever it is they're upset about.
Especially as adults, everything.
Is intentional.
People know what they're doing.
People know when they're not responding to you.
People know when they're excluding you.
People know when they're being passive aggressive towards you.
If someone has an issue with you and they choose not to communicate that with you, that's their decision.
It is not your responsibility to go investigate why they're upset and what you did wrong.
You don't have to force a conversation that they're clearly not willing to have on their own.
A lot of the time, these people are looking to get a reaction out of you.
They want you to be upset.
They want you to be spiraling and overthinking and overanalyzing and asking people what they did wrong because it makes them feel in control.
Do not give them that control, clock that they're being weird and move on with your life.
Because what happens when you don't move on and you sit there and you overthink and you overanalyze and you try to figure out what you did wrong and what you could have done better,
You give them more of your energy and attention and you give them even more control over you and your emotions, all in hopes of changing their minds or making them want to be a part of your life.
If someone is showing you they aren't invested in being in your life that they don't want to be your friend or they don't want to be in a relationship with you believe them do not work harder and give them more of yourself
Do not give more of yourself to someone who is showing you that they're not willing to do the same and i've said this in
And a recent episode actually, that it makes no sense to give more of you to someone who doesn't even respect the amount you're giving to them currently.
It really is as simple as someone unfollowing you on social media.
Sometimes people just unfollow you because they're not interested in what you're posting.
But if it's a romantic connection, or if it's a family member, or if it's a friend, obviously,
They're doing that for a reason.
They're a part of your life.
They're a close connection.
So why do they wanna go out of their way to unfollow you and sever that connection online?
They're doing it for a reason and more than likely,
If you haven't had a conversation with them, they're doing that in an attempt to spite you and to upset you and for you to go to them to create conflict.
Do not message them asking why they unfollowed you.
Do not beg them to follow you back.
They made a choice.
And I know it may hurt, it might be confusing, it might feel embarrassing, but they still made that decision.
And it's a weird decision, but it's not your responsibility to undo it.
Things like that are a blow to our ego.
I know it's just an unfollow, but it hurts.
Rejection never feels good.
And realizing that someone has the capacity to treat you the way that they are and hurt you the way that they did can make you feel really angry and it can make you want to confront them and fight with them or even seek revenge.
But you don't need to do that sometimes, if not a lot of the time.
It is more powerful to not have that conversation looking for closure.
You have more power refusing to participate in their game and making your decision to walk away or to not respond or to just move on with your life than playing into it and giving them what they're seeking and giving them that argument or showing them that you're upset.
And I know that can be really hard to do, especially when it's in the heat of the moment and you have all these emotions flowing through you.
But the best advice I can give to you when you're in that situation is if you're in the room with them, leave.
If you're on the phone with them, if you're texting them, put down your phone and go do quite literally anything else.
Do anything other than engage in their behavior.
Go for a walk.
Go to the grocery store.
Go read a book.
Go get dinner.
Keep yourself busy and keep yourself away from giving them what they want.
One of the hardest parts of being hurt is managing your own ego.
Because when someone disrespects us, our ego immediately wants payback.
We want to feel like we're in control.
And that's why a lot of us play their game and we fight back and we say hurtful things and we talk bad about them and we embarrass them and we try...
To prove a point, and we try to get revenge or to have a one-up on them.
But you don't have to mirror someone else's dysfunction.
And this took me a really long time to understand and to actually follow it.
But like I said, weird people are looking for a reaction.
They're looking for a storyline.
They're looking for someone to villainize.
They're looking for drama because drama is what keeps their lives interesting.
No matter how right you are, you could be the most perfect little angel.
They will twist the story to fit their narrative.
They will make you look like the bad guy and you cannot win by playing their game.
Do not give them what they're seeking.
Do not give them the reaction that they're clearly looking for.
Even if you do prove them wrong and you seek revenge and you feel like you finally got what you needed to move on, you're not actually going to move on because you're never going to have peace continuing arguing with them and keeping them in your life because it keeps you emotionally attached.
It gives them more power over you and your mood and it keeps the drama alive.
You know who you are.
You know you have a good heart.
You know you have good intentions.
And you know the way that this person's treating you, you would never want to treat them that way or make them feel that way on your own.
So don't.
Don't do it just because that's what they're doing to you.
You know that you're better than that.
So don't stoop down to their level.
There are people in your life that are going to insult you and try to offend you.
You don't have to react to that.
You don't have to respond to that.
There's going to be people who give their unsolicited opinions of you and you don't have to defend yourself.
And there's people who are going to go out of their way to misunderstand you.
You don't have to clarify what you meant or what you said or who you are.
If you're an OG and you've been listening to this podcast for a couple years, you know that I had gone through this very chaotic, dramatic, messy friendship breakup a couple years ago.
And this person was going hard at me, dragging me online, just
Spewing hate and it took everything in me to not fight back.
But the only way that I found peace and I was able to get over the situation was just letting them be.
Letting them be weird.
Letting them say what they had to say.
And moving on and not giving them my energy.
Not caring about how they feel about me or how others feel about me.
Because as Taylor Allison Swift once said,
The opposite of love isn't hate.
It's just indifference.
With indifference, you aren't giving that person any of your energy, any of your attention.
I don't hate you.
I don't care about you.
I don't think about you.
I don't feel any way towards you.
And that is so powerful because when you don't feel any sort of way towards someone...
They can't access you.
They have no access to you anymore.
And with that, you don't have to stoop down to their level.
You don't have to play their games and you don't have to prove anything.
I genuinely think the loudest message that you could send to someone is giving them no message.
Removing their access to you is their consequence.
At the end of the day, how people behave says so much more about them than it will ever say about you.
You do not have to match their energy.
You don't have to prove your worth.
You don't have to seek revenge.
Just let people be freaking weird.
Do not let them disrupt your peace because they can't find their own.
There are going to be people who go out of their way to misunderstand you,
To create problems
There's going to be people who just don't like you and there's people who are immature and they project their own pain and problems onto everyone else and you cannot control any of that
You cannot make someone be a good person a good friend a good partner
All you can control
Is whether you allow their behavior and whether you allow their behavior to change who you are.
The moment you stop trying to manage everyone else's behavior and you just let people be who they want to be, whether it's a good person or a bad person or an honest person or an evil person or a weird person,
That's when you become free.
When you say, okay, do what you want to do.
And if I align with it, we're good.
If I don't, we're not.
Let them be.
Let them be a weirdo.
Let them be who they choose to be.
And you choose who you're going to be in response to that.
Don't let them change you though.
If you have been through something similar like this, if you have had someone where you feel like you just have spent so much time trying to understand their behavior or fix a situation that you just didn't really fully understand, I hope that this episode reminds you that not everyone deserves your energy and not everything is your fault.
You need to stop apologizing and trying to fix someone else's bad behavior.
If this episode resonated with you or helped you in any way, I would love if you shared it with someone who you think might also need this reminder too.
Also, before I close out this episode, I know a lot of you have been asking for wedding content and wanting to know what's going on.
I post a lot of wedding content on my TikTok.
But next week I want to do a Q&A all about my wedding and just like the process of planning a wedding for any of you who are interested or are currently planning a wedding or maybe just got engaged and want to know what to expect.
So if you have any questions, leave them in the Spotify comment section or you can ask me on Instagram in my DMs.
If you haven't already, make sure to give trying to take care of reading on Spotify and Apple helps me out so much and I appreciate it so much.
As always, thank you so much for hanging out with me today and I hope to have you back next week.
Until then, I will talk to you next Monday.
Bye.
I love you.
