The Big Signs You're Being GASLIGHTED & How To End MANIPULATION | Nedra Glover Tawwab & Lewis Howes

One of the biggest things I think we could do in our family relationships is really take ownership of being an adult. This is where I am, this is who I am, and these are the things that I can change, and these are the things that I cannot change in other people. And that's one of the biggest ways that we can...

I think you gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness.

Really?

Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes. A lot of people are struggling with understanding what a toxic relationship is. And I actually feel like a lot of people are in them and they don't know how to get out of them. I'm curious, can you share with me and us some of the key signs? Like if these few things are happening, you're definitely in some type of a relationship that is maybe toxic or unhealthy. Are there a few keys that we should be looking for?

Big signs, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse.

Okay.

There are things outside of that, like we may experience emotional abuse, I would lump that into, or manipulation, I would lump that into emotional abuse. We may have some demeaning, I might lump that into emotional abuse, but sometimes we're not aware because it's so normal in the relationship.

We're so familiar with this behavior.

And from a particular person, right? This person is always yelling. This person always pushes people. This person always says mean things. So you chop it up as this is how they are, but that behavior can be abusive.

Yes.

That behavior can be unhealthy, not just for the relationship they're in with you, but any relationship. I couldn't go to the doctor and push my doctor or yell at the doctor. That would be a crime.

Right. But why do we allow our loving, intimate partner that we're supposed to love the most commit these things against us verbally, emotionally, sexually, consistently. Why do we allow these things to happen so frequently?

Because of the trust and connection that has been built. There was a process of getting to this space. When we have long-term relationships or intimate relationships with people, of course, day one, they can't say, oh, I'm going to cuss you out and we'll be in this relationship for 10 years. But maybe after a while of building trust and learning a person and learning how you can manipulate the situation, that's when we start to see abuse. We start to see it when there is a level of trust that is now being broken by this person. It's not always right away. And the signs, they are not like, It's sometimes very like, oh my gosh, is this happening? Is this person really lying about this thing? Is this person really trying to sabotage me? It's almost like we start to think, is this real? Is this problematic? If you put in key search terms like narcissism, gaslighting, it's like list of stuff because we're all wondering, am I really being abused? We have to learn to trust ourselves and what we're feeling in those situations. Sometimes we don't need any more information. We don't need to read any more articles. We don't need to read anything else. It's like they yelled at me in front of a room of people. I mean, it's like, what are we waiting for? What do we need to happen to say that this situation is unhealthy and out of control?

Yeah, and it's not okay.

It's not okay.

What does it say about us when we allow these behaviors to happen in intimacy continuously as opposed to saying, okay, you raising your voice and yelling at me does not work for me. I've never seen this behavior before. This is something that is against my boundary and that won't work for me moving forward. And let's create an agreement that we don't do this. What does it say about us when we allow bad behavior continuously over time? Is it We haven't healed something that we don't believe in ourselves. We lack self-worth. What is that?

I think it could say many different things. It could be we're unhealed. It could be we are replaying some trauma we've already had, or we're familiar with chaos and this person is recreating it in a way. It could also mean that we see some potential in this person. We know those good parts and we're just waiting for those things to come back. Like, I know they're in there. It's also sometimes what we believe happens in relationships. No relationship is easy. Yeah, or perfect. It's like, yeah, no relationship is perfect, but I don't know if that's the imperfect thing.

That's not what I should accept.

You're right. That's not the imperfect thing that you want. There are so many things. I remember there used to be a thing, if you loved yourself more, you wouldn't be in bad relationships. There are people who really love themselves, and they're still in bad relationships. because they really love that person too. And they're hoping. Sometimes we stay because we hope that this situation will change. We hope that this person will get better. So it's not always trauma. It's like wishful thinking. We want things to improve.

How often does wishful thinking and hoping in a relationship with someone who has bad behaviors actually work out? Like, where in the year they change into like their actual potential, like dating the potential and hoping they change. Has that ever happened?

Yeah, I mean, if there's like some catastrophic event, right? Like, you have this moment of, oh my gosh, I almost thought the world was over and I changed as a human. Or, you know, things happen in people's life where they decide to change. It's not us doing the work for them. They have this moment. When does that happen on our relationships?

I don't know.

I feel like I'm in relationships with unchanged people, and I'm in relationships with people who have changed. So it's not really up to me what that timing is.

But an intimacy, if someone's got bad behavior, maybe you want something to change, they could be a better person, but if it's bad behavior that's causing verbal, emotional, or sexual abuse, it sounds like, I mean, you wrote in here, you can't change people, so don't hold your breath waiting for them to change. You can only control your side of the street. And it sounds to me, unless there's some type of massive breakdown where they lose their job or near-death experience or someone in their family dies that has the chance of opening them up for change, but even then, they might stay stuck in a box, right? So, I hear you saying it's like you have this hope that people will change and you love other aspects of them. But should we stay in intimate relationships where there is abuse and how much abuse should we handle or take until we create a boundary or move on? The intimate relationships, like, you know.

I think that enough point is, when your safety is compromised.

Right.

When people talk to me about being in unhealthy relationships that are emotionally, verbally or physically abusive, I often say, do you feel safe? When you no longer feel safe sleeping in the house with someone, safe physically, safe emotionally, they will cause something within you. I think it's start, you're at the point of safety first. I think that was like an elementary.

School sort of safety first.

You have to think about will you be alive at the end of this? How will you live if something else happens in this relationship? Not all bad relationships are to that extent, but there are some of them where it's like, if this happened again, I don't know if you'll make it through.

Right, yeah. Safety for sure. And when it feels like your nervous system doesn't feel safe because you're being manipulated or there's some gaslighting happening, is that the same type of safety when you're just like, huh, am I safe with myself? They're not gonna physically harm me, but I'm feeling like this gaslighting manipulation. Is that also something we should look out for?

Absolutely. I think with gaslighting, there's a lot of questioning of who you are and what you think about the situation. The emotional breakthrough for me with gaslighting was it doesn't work anymore. Like, I'm so sure of what happened.

The truth.

I'm so sure of the truth. There's nothing you can say. I'm not even expecting explaining the situation to you for you to break down the pieces and tell me it's not true anymore. It doesn't even matter what your interpretation is. It took a lot of work to get there with people who gaslight because their whole plan is like, how do I dissect this story? How do I make this person think that, you know, I did this, but I didn't really do it, or I did it with this intention, when, you know, like all of those and a big part of gaslighting is people are trying to have their way with you. They're using tactics and skills that are unhealthy. When you have a relationship with someone who refuses to be accountable, they are saying, I can't accept who I am, so I am going to make you think I'm something else.

Wow.

They refuse to be accountable, so they try to put the blame on someone else, essentially, right? So they don't have to take responsibility for what happened. Is that what it is? Is that what gaslighting essentially is?

Yeah, it's, you know, I was speaking with someone earlier who say it's easier to see yourself as a bad person in hindsight. Like, man, when I was 12, I was bad, you know? But today, would I say that about myself? Even if I did something, like, do I wanna, like, can I sleep at night knowing I was bad today? And so it might be easier for me to say, no, I'm great and wonderful today and always. Because that just makes me be able to live with myself. Some things, it's just, it's hard to put together. It's hard to put together.

It's hard to face that you're making a bad decision. Even when you do something wrong, you could justify why it's good, right? You could somehow justify, well, they did this, I want to do this bad thing, but it's not bad because they deserved it or whatever, right? It's like you can justify it. as opposed to say, I'm a bad person, I made a bad decision in this moment.

Yes.

That's what can happen.

Interesting.

So how do we know when we are experiencing gaslighting from someone else?

When.

Their version of reality and your version of reality is not the same thing, it's not necessarily an indicator of gaslighting. What's a bigger indicator is when that is always the case. there is no congruence. And I said this, you said that. It's like, no, that wasn't. When you start to notice the inconsistencies on a constant basis in the stories and what happened and why you may be experiencing some form of, of gaslighting, whether that's, you know, to the, to the mass extent or to a lower extent, you know, I think there are some normal levels of gaslighting, right? Like lying and, you know, like these things we do because it's like, oh, no, I didn't take it. It's like, well, no one else was.

Here, you know, like.

But then there are these other, like, psychological twists that people can do that are really disruptive to your spirit or really disruptive to your life. And I think when you start to notice that on a consistent basis with a particular person. You have to see that as there is no honesty here and I have to start to trust myself.

Ah, but what if you don't trust yourself? How do you learn to build that trust back with you?

The way that we typically try to do it, we try to share that story with other people. We try to get people to see our side of it, to validate what we're experiencing, and hopefully that validation we receive from others starts to be a way that we can start to validate ourselves. So as Lewis tells me more and more, yes, I can't believe they did that. Maybe the next time it happens, hopefully that becomes your internal voice. I can't believe they're doing this. Wow, this isn't okay. You know, in therapy sometimes I will ask people, I will hear the manipulation, I'll hear them expressing like someone is gaslighting them and I'll say, what do you call the behavior they're engaged in? And they're like, manipulation?

Mmm.

Mmm. So you see that you're being manipulated. Why would they do that? Let's focus on being manipulated. We don't have to go into the backstory of why they're doing it. You're being manipulated. What do you want to do with that? That's tough.

Yeah.

This person you love is trying to get you to do something that You said no and they keep asking you or you let them have this one thing. Now they want seven things. You all had an issue and they have a whole different story about the issue. They're telling other people something different.

How does it feel to you that.

This person is now doing that to you?

I'm hurt.

That hurts. How does that make you feel about the relationship? Is this something you want to address with them? Is this something you just want to keep in your pocket and say, okay, Let's see what happens from here. How do you want to proceed?

Yeah. What do you think is the biggest mistake a lot of people make getting into an intimate relationship? Because I feel like these things come out six to 12 months later when you're in intimacy sometimes. Not every relationship, but it seems like people are generally good and have good intentions in the beginning, and then the gaslighting or manipulation comes out later. What do you feel like people get wrong about intimacy? entering a relationship so that there is a healthy, conscious relationship to occur later.

I don't think we're noticing enough because we're seeing what we want to see, right? We're seeing all the wonderful things, great hair, great eyes, job, car, whatever. And I think the other thing is we're not asking the right questions.

What questions should we be asking?

Why did your last relationship end? How is your relationship with your parents? How many friends do you have and how are your relationships with them? Who do you share your deepest secrets to? How do you handle money? What do you think? Just all of those things that build a person. We need to know not just where you live, where you work, what you like to do for fun. the deep stuff, the really deep stuff about people. How's your relationship with your mom? And then from there, oh, me and my mom have a great relationship. Really? How often do you talk? Just really probing people in this way to figure it out. Because if someone says, We have a great relationship and you talk to them once a month, well, that's not how I have my great relationships. So there is some incongruency in your story. I'm very family oriented. When the last time you seen your family? You know, so asking people to sort of provide more information, sometimes we try to keep it so surface because we are afraid, is it too soon? Should I go deep? And I'm like, you know, we go deep. We have sexual experiences with people. We, you know, we go on multiple dates. I think we can have these, These important conversations if you want to build emotionally intimate relationships with people.

Why is it easier for people to sleep with someone in the first night or the first week and not have open, deep conversations with them?

I think it is hard to want to acknowledge things about ourselves because if you ask me a question, I have to ask you a question or maybe.

I have to answer what I want to answer. Or answer what I want to answer.

Right.

So, you know, perhaps it's a way for us to not have that mutual sharing. Maybe I'm not ready. Maybe I'm not in that space of healing. It's possible that I'm not in that space and all. I want to have a partner, but I think about that as fun. I don't think about how this person's life may impact who they are. I'm just thinking about, oh, they're fun. So sometimes it's-- we're not deep enough to get to that point with people, but-- I think those emotional questions are really important. The surface stuff is, you know, it's surface, it's great, but we need to get down to business.

It's interesting. When I met my girlfriend, Martha.

We.

Connected online to meet in person, right? She was following the podcast and she had listened to an interview of mine about spiritual healing, to be honest. and then we'd gotten connected and we met up in person. And when I picked her up to meet her for the first time, I had my phone in kind of the middle seat of the car. She was in the passenger seat. I was driving. And I had my phone kind of right next to us. And my. The phone lights up so you can see my screensaver. And it's a photo of myself as a five-year-old. on my screen saver. And she looks, I saw her looking down at it and right away I literally just met her like five minutes before this. I go, oh, don't worry, that's not like, I don't have a kid. You know, that's, I'm going through a process and you know, it's not a kid of mine. She goes, oh, are you healing the inner child? And I go, Yes, I am. And I thought maybe she'd think that is weird or something, but yes, I'm doing the work where I'm going back and healing the different wounds that I had as a child, and creating new meaning from those memories, and really mending that relationship with myself. She goes, that's beautiful. I'm doing the same thing. She showed me her phone and had like a five or six year old version of herself on there. And I was like, wow. So right away the first night- that connection. the first night we're talking about healing. We're talking about all these different things. which I don't know if I'd have been willing to do that 10 years prior. I wouldn't have been in that space to talk like that, but I was in that space. I was available to talk like that. She was available. And so it just went into, like, the most deep conversations right away. And I felt like, okay, we could go there faster, and I could see if we're in alignment on our values and our vision and our lifestyle quicker. and just see like, okay, is this for us to hang out more, to be friends more, to date eventually, and be committed eventually. But we had so many of these deeper conversations, which I think I was afraid to ask in previous periods of my life, because I was afraid to face them like you talked about. It can be scary.

It can be really scary. And I think sometimes people will let you know when they're not ready. to go deeper, they will say, why are you asking me that? We just met.

Those are signs.

Take it easy.

Okay, maybe there's something there. Maybe there isn't, but this person isn't willing to reveal that. I think there are so many intimate conversations we can have without even talking about trauma. Maybe that's not first date conversations, but There are so many other things that we could talk about. How I feel about maybe people not returning my call. That's not trauma.

That's true.

But it gives a person information about you. And one thing I've noticed with male and female dynamics is women are able to go really deep with other women. Oh my gosh. I met two strangers yesterday. I know way too much.

They share their whole life story.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh my gosh, I know way too much. And I think if we can do that with women, we have to learn in some ways to be able to probe and go deeper with men. And men have to be able to do that with men. And men have to be able to do that with women. And this whole circle of we are emotional, beings, period. No matter the gender, we feel, we see, we experience.

I read a stat one time that 50% of men don't feel like they have one male friend they can open up and talk about with anything on their mind. They can go to the bar and have a drink, they can watch a game with, they can do activities with, but 50% of men say they don't have one male friend they could share and open up and be vulnerable with. And it sounds like more women have that. And they have multiple girlfriends or women in their lives that they can be vulnerable with and open up about things they're afraid of or insecure about or vulnerable about. What would you think would happen if women didn't have one friend they could open up and be real with fully about their fears and insecurities? What would happen?

I think we would... I don't even know because I can't say that I've experienced Experience that.

Imagine if you were never able to share how you truly feel with one girlfriend or your mom or your sister or a girl in your life. How would it make you feel?

That makes me sad. That makes me sad to think about not having the ability to share, not having people who are capable or willing to listen. to me, Sharr, I think there is so much to be done around not just us being able to feel our emotions, but us being able to receive the emotions of others. When people are sitting across from me crying, you know, they're like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm like, it's fine. Like, you're a human being.

You feel it?

Yeah.

Yeah, cry. Like, I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm just, you know, I'm just watching. But it's like, oh my gosh, someone's watching me cry.

Why is it so scary for us to be vulnerable with others watching us, whether it be just having a normal human emotion, sadness, crying, purging, grieving, these emotions, why do we hide them in front of others and feel ashamed when we're feeling them?

We're undoing so much from childhood. We're undoing that, you know, don't cry, it's not that big of a deal, I'll give you something to cry about. Instead of feeling that, feel this, you,'re a boy, you're a girl, big girls don't cry, blah, blah. We're undoing so much of that still in our grown ages. Some of us, it's really tough. I once heard this guy say he hadn't cried in two years. I said, oh my gosh, you're constipated. Like you're emotionally constipated. You are emotionally constipated. I don't even want to be around for the rainfall. I'm like, it's gonna be big. And it's probably gonna be over, you know, dropping your mug over the floor because two years without crying? Oh my gosh.

What happens to someone if they have the inability to cry? What does that say about them or the process they're in or what they need in order to... And is there something wrong with them if they're unable to cry?

There's not necessarily anything wrong with them. I would say that there is a need to go back to the very basics of I feel sad, I feel hurt, I feel frustrated. Sometimes we don't even know what we feel, and that gets in the way of us being able to express how we feel about things. It's so hard, you know, when people say it's so hard for me to say how I feel, it's like, but you feel it and you can't say it, yeah, it gets hard when it is abnormal for us, when it is something that we're not doing often enough. We should, you know, be in the practice of just throwing around a few feelings here and there. You know, I'm excited. I'm overjoyed. I'm sad. I'm confused. I'm frustrated. I can't believe I didn't get that project. You know, being disappointed is you know, it's a part of life. We all feel it. So hiding, hiding that feeling, hiding how you feel, it's tough.

Yeah.

You mentioned before we started about the word triggered. And I think this is interesting for us because I feel like a lot of people get triggered by the littlest things. That end up being a lot bigger things for people, but they get triggered when in things where I don't feel like they need to be triggered by, let's just say that. and they get triggered very often and frequently. Whether they see something, they don't agree with their trigger, someone commented in a negative way, they're triggered. Someone cut them off in a car, they're triggered, whatever it might be. What does it say about us when we are constantly in trigger mode and constantly triggered by life scenarios, situations? Not saying we shouldn't have a wide range of emotions and feel sad or disappointed and let down, But when it's like a constant triggering, when little things happen and you're like explosive or reactive, what does it say about the human who's being triggered?

The human who is being triggered, I would almost equate it to a tantrum.

Yes.

You know, sometimes when we are tantruming as adults, we don't have the language. We don't have the capacity to feel. So it comes out in these really big moments of rage and anger and maybe crying, but crying in this very angry and disturbed way sometimes, because we may feel out of control in one area, and now we're driving and we're yelling at this other car when really it's, I hate my job. That's the issue you're having, is I hate my job. and you're taking that out on this other thing. You're taking your, oh, my partner is getting out on my nerves, out on your coworker. So there are so many things that we displace onto these other factors that we think we can control. Maybe it feels safer to have road rage than to think about the situation with your job, to think about the situation with your family. And so we put that energy where we feel like we can, and not in a conscious way. I think it's very unconscious. But when I see people with road rage, when I see people being triggered constantly, I do wonder what deeper thing is happening. Because the cashier not giving you the correct amount of change should not have resulted and you flipping over the, you know, like, so what is going on? Is it, I feel constantly disrespected.

Ah, okay.

So this one person did it in this, you know, small, mistake kind of way. And now this bigger thing is coming up. Who disrespected you? Who named them? Who is the person? Because it's not this person. But we often, we displace that because we try to compartmentalize. We try to, put it in a little pocket and say, well, I don't want to be mad at this thing right now, so I'll keep going, but we really don't keep going. It's just like we're still here, but we're also over here.

I lived that way for most of my life. Until 10 years ago, I opened up about being sexually abused. And in life, I would get easily triggered when I felt like I was being taken advantage of or abused by the littlest things. It's just I would get so reactive and be angry, but I never addressed and mended that original moment that caused that pain. That was an open wound that I just kept living in and I tried to put it back, I tried to forget about it, I tried to say, I wasn't that big a deal, and it caused a lot of suffering until I addressed it and faced it. So I love that you mentioned that. You've got to go back and figure out who's the one who disrespected you in the first place. Name it. call it out, talk about it. How do we really like learn to process the healing? How do we learn to face it and actually heal? Because for me, it took a couple of years of processing and healing that wound. And then it was tied to many other things where I felt taken advantage of, abused, where I had to face. But how do we actually face it? And how long does it take? Until we can get to a state of not being as triggered anymore. And also, do you think it's possible to heal on your own? So I asked you like 20 questions in a row.

You asked me 25 questions at once.

Why is it so hard to face it? The wound. How long does it typically take to start to feel the relief of the wound? And is it wise to try to mend and heal pain on your own? Or is it typically better to find some type of emotional support?

I'm gonna start with the last question. Hopefully, even if we're doing it without therapy or coach or, you know, some spiritual support, we have a friend. So are we alone? Never. There needs to be someone in place, right? Now, whether that is a mental health provider or your best friend, there needs to be someone to support you on that journey. There are some types of healing that it's very hard for us to do on our own, and that's why we haven't done the work.

We don't know how to do the work, yeah.

We don't know how to do the work. And in that case, you know, a self-help book, it's gonna be informative, but it's not gonna put you in the place that you need to be in. you can read 50 self-help books and you might not do the work on your own. So those are the times where you notice, like, I know these things, but nothing is happening. That might be an indicator that you need more support to get you to the other side of that healing. Can you be fully healed? Can you. Is there, like, a time frame? I don't think so. I think some stuff is. ongoing. I think some stuff is forever painful. There are things that we were forever grieve about, you know, maybe parts of our childhood or not having certain things that we wanted or the loss of, you know, a particular person. There's not this happy ending things get better for everything in life. Some stuff, it hurts less. We think about it less often. We're less triggered. We're less maybe moved to tears and other things, you know? Maybe never. Maybe every time I mention my grandmother, I'll tear up. And that's okay. You know, I think sometimes that pain shows us love. That pain shows us how much we cared about having, you know, a solid childhood or how much we cared about losing this particular thing. So it's not always bad. I think what's more important is the meaning you give to the experience, the meaning you give to the situation. Once we deal with something, it's not like we will never go back to it. Like, oh my gosh, I'm forever healed from being passive aggressive. Yeah, until today, and then I did that thing, you know, a little bit. Not as bad as I used to be, but a little bit, you know? So, you know, there's this ebb and flow. And I think as humans, we have to allow ourselves that grace to not get into the spirit of perfectionism or done or complete. I think that's great for a paper, but it doesn't work in real life.

Yeah, amen to that. And I love that you mentioned, you know, if you think of something, allowing yourself to to feel the emotion of sadness or grief or loss or joy or celebration and feel. But I think when it becomes like you're still emotionally triggered to react or to be angry because of something, that's when I think it holds us back. So allow it to move you into a different emotion than anger or trigger or holding you back from being in healthy relationships is kind of what I'm thinking about. is when we can learn to not be as triggered reaction-wise, which I think is more helpful for someone.

Yeah, I think about people who may have been hurt in past relationships. There was maybe a lot of infidelity or there were, I could never trust my parents or I had this thing. And that thing sticks with them and every person that they try to be in relationship with has to deal with that, or they don't even try to be in relationships anymore.

Right.

You know, there is this ability for us to change our futures and to think about, you know, those things as experience, not necessarily how our lives will end up. Just because you have this situation in your family and a dating relationship, it doesn't mean the next thing will be like that.

Right, that's true. But it's hard to trust the next thing will be different.

It is. And that's where we get to, if I can't learn to trust on my own, I might need someone to help me learn to trust. But, you know, I'll tell you with trusting, the really hard part is trusting. That's the only way to trust, is to believe that someone can be there for you to believe that this experience can be different.

Trust is hope.

You gotta have faith. And then when there's signs of, you know, gaslighting or some toxic behavior, you've got to say, hey, you got to create a boundary, which is why I love your work about creating boundaries. How do we learn to communicate effective boundaries in families? with people that we can't get rid of in some times, you know? And then also in friendships, relationships, career.

How do we do it in life.

In a conscious, healthy way where we're not really like we're causing the least amount of friction with the other person. We're not like attacking back, but we're saying, hey, this is the boundary that I have. What's the best way to approach boundaries?

Keep it simple. You know, I think sometimes we say so much because we're trying to control their reaction to it. I say we speak in paragraphs. This is why I want you to do this, because yesterday at 5 o'clock and 4 p.m. It's like we're writing a police report. And it's like, what is the solution here? What do you want? What do they need to know? It's really getting to the point of the thing. We're trying to control, I don't want them to think I'm a bad person. And we can't control that piece of it. That's really tough, because We can have the best intentions and someone can still be upset at us. Like, I could hold the door for someone and they could say, I want to hold it myself. It's like, okay, I was trying to be helpful. It doesn't mean that you're always being helpful when you try. It doesn't mean that you're always being kind when you're trying to be kind. And so even when you're trying to curate the right words, the right environment, It may not land well with a person who doesn't want that same thing. And that's tough. You have to deal with yourself and your disappointment in their reaction, your grief around how they responded, the sadness of that not being received. It's not really for that other person to do anything with. I think of setting a boundary as like applying to a college. We'll see. It's like, we'll see what happens with that. Hopefully you get in. But sometimes you don't. That's the power of choice and free will. People hopefully in relationships with you love you and they want to be in that relationship and want the relationship to be healthy and they can honor it. And sometimes they're like, hey, I have a different boundary actually. This is bumping up against my boundary.

Exactly.

So that's relationships.

And when it comes to managing unhealthy family relationships and being drama free, which is what your book is all about, and I want people to get this, again, when it comes to managing unhealthy family relationships and creating more peace in the family, what would you say are the few keys to get started in that process to set yourself up for healthy relationship and family?

One of the biggest things I think we could do in our family relationships is really take ownership of being an adult. We are in many cases still trying to live up to old expectations, create some version of ourselves that we have to pretend to be like around our families. Sometimes there is some trauma there that hasn't been addressed. But we really have to take ownership of this is where I am, this is who I am, and these are the things that I can change, and these are the things that I cannot change in other people. And that's one of the biggest ways that we can make our relationships healthier, decide to leave them, decide to, you know, be in them differently. we have a lot of power in our relationships with our family.

And if you mentioned about how.

There.

Might be some things that aren't addressed yet that have happened in the past, can you really create drama free relationships and family if you haven't addressed the pain from the past, from childhood, from the situations that you felt were unfair or you weren't seen, or maybe some more traumatic events that were unaddressed? Can you create drama-free life?

You can, but I think that drama and that it's almost like you have to compartmentalize that, right? Can you do that? Some of us can, you know? I don't think all of us can, very few.

Should we do that, though, without addressing it?

I think it comes up in other ways. So when we don't address stuff, we talked about that earlier, row rage. You know, when we don't address stuff, it comes up in other ways. So if I am forgetting that, my parent was an alcoholic. How does that show up in my dating relationship? Am I now dating people who have substance issues? Am I now having this issue with substances? Am I making excuses for people and enabling? How is this stuff continuing to show up because of my refusal to address it? And addressing it is not always with the other person.

A lot of the- yeah, they might have died. They might have just disappeared. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There may be no resolution with them, but the resolution is with you. It is you saying, wow, this was my experience. This is how that experience impacted me. It's not, this person needs to do something to free me from my experience. It's like, how do I free myself?

Because they may never- yeah, because they may never apologize. They may never accept it. So how do we free ourselves then from that? Sorry to cut you off there.

No, we free ourselves with the truth. The truth shall set you free. That is a good one for a reason. We free ourselves with the truth. I don't know if you've been in a situation where you refuse to live in a lie. It's like, this is the truth. And I refuse to pretend as if anything else is true about this situation. And that can be a real way to get some sort of relief from having to live a lie, or from agreeing to be a part of the secret keeping, agreeing to be a part of something that was actually disruptive. And it doesn't have to be, I will be a truth teller, I will tell everyone. It's internal. It can be outward, but it can also be internal. I will not withhold who I am to other people in my life because I don't want to keep that secret anymore. Or it may be, I want to tell a therapist. I want to get this information out there. But I think sometimes just being honest with yourself about what happened. So often I hear, the sugar coating of our childhood because that's how we want it to be perceived. My mom did this all the time, but she was so loving and da-da-da-da-da. We tell all of this story. They were such a great person, da-da-da-da, but they were physically abusive. It's like, okay, yes. So you lived in a nice house. They did this, they did that. Oh, can we talk about the physical abuse part? Whoa, you just-- I just want that piece to be this big and all this stuff was, So how do we start to talk about that piece of it? Because all those other things can be true. Doesn't mean that you have to end a relationship. Just acknowledging it. All of this is true. And this is a hard part for me to talk about.

So when we address this in a family situation, whether to our parents or siblings or whatever it might be, what's the best way to set up the conversation? to speaking about something that hurt you or upset you from childhood as an adult.

One way we could do it is letter writing. Writing a letter with the intention of sending it or not sending it. Right, sometimes the letter is just for you. I just want to get it out so I'll have an idea of the impact. There are other times where you say, I want them to have the letter. If you send the letter, if you give them a letter, I do want you to be ready for their reaction. So until you're ready for the reaction, keep the letter, right? Because what I've seen is the parent will not have a reaction. It's almost like you didn't send them the letter. Or the family member, not just parents. The family member has no reaction. Or their reaction is anger. Or their reaction is to be passive aggressive. Or their reaction is to bring it up. Yeah, when you sent me that letter, their reaction is to cut you off. 'Cause they can't accept that part of themselves. So they're also a reaction. They listen and they understand that letter. So any, you know, we don't know where this will go.

They apologize.

They apologize.

You start to mend the relationship.

You start to mend the relationship. What a concept. What a concept. You know, so letter writing is a way. I think, you know, really pumping yourself up and talking about it.

To them.

To them. To them.

Tough one.

To say, you know, I was impacted in the following ways. And there are other times where maybe you don't have the conversation, but you change your behavior with that person.

Like what? Like how?

You know, I think of families with addiction sometimes. If a person isn't willing to get help, maybe they've had this long-term issue with something. your reaction may be, I don't want to spend my holidays with you. I'm tired of this behavior. I don't want to participate in it anymore. We know what the behavior is. I don't want to spend holidays with you. Or I don't want you at this thing. Or if you come, please be sober. Or, you know, that's when you get into the boundary setting of who they are. But do you want to have the conversation of, hey, I've been impacted by your behavior in the following ways? That sounds like intervention.

Right, right, right.

Maybe you don't want to do that and you just want to accept the situation for what it is and make those behavioral changes in your life.

Why do you feel like most people relate to having a dysfunctional family growing up? Why do people, it seems like people have a lot of dysfunction in families.

Because parents are human beings who have no clue what they're doing.

Mm.

Siblings are human beings who have no clue what they're doing. Aunties and uncles, human beings have no clue what they're doing. We have an expectation based on their role. We think, oh my gosh, once you become a mother, there's all of these things. Once you become a father, once you become an uncle, you'll know how to communicate with kids. No, I don't know how to kid, you know, like, so these, these expectations. Not that they're unreasonable, but the person can't, you know, they can't meet it. They don't grow up. They have their own, you know, demons they're fighting. They aren't emotionally mature. They're not reading a ton of self-help books. They haven't been to therapy. They don't. So our expectation of people, sometimes they can't be met. And that's a tough pill to swallow that although this person is a parent, they may not be nurturing. Although this person is a sibling, they may not be supportive. Although this person is your grandparent, they may have another favorite, you know, like all of these things that happen in family. I think we think of dysfunction as abuse, neglect, But it's also, you know, when someone dies and everybody's fighting over an inheritance. It's also, you know, having issues with your in-laws. It's also sabotaging your sister's wedding. It's so many things. And that's why I think people identify because, you know, so many people in the family. I mean, pick a person.

Someone's messed up.

Yeah, yeah, somewhere. I mean, it's not the nuclear family, but gosh, those cousins. It's somewhere.

Yeah.

I love in your dedication, you say we are the answer, not the people we can't control. How do we learn to self-soothe in dysfunctional family relationships? Because one, you're talking about addressing, as an adult, the parent or the person that maybe you caused upset or pain, right? It's addressing it and having a conversation, writing a letter. We may not get a good response. Hopefully we do, but we may not. How do we learn to self-soothe and mend and heal even when the other person attacks us or blows up even more?

Acceptance.

That's what I was, yeah.

All about acceptance.

But it's such a process. I was talking to a friend the other day who was talking about her relationship with a family member who isn't what she she wants that person to be in. She said, I don't know if I accept her. I said, you do, because you don't invite her into spaces that you know she won't fit in. We think that acceptance looks like everything will be better when in actuality, it is seeing a person as they are and knowing that you are powerless to change it. So this is my mother. This is my mother and father. this is my sibling. You can want something to be different until the end of time, but this is the situation. Given the situation I have, what do I want to do about it? Often we want the other person to do something about it. The person who has exhibited, you know, all of these things, we're like, why don't you get sober? Why don't you start being more nurturing? You don't call me more often. You're not doing this. I had a game and you didn't. It's like the acceptance of that is this person is whatever this thing is. How do I be in this relationship with them or choose not to be in this relationship with them? How do I create closeness? How do I create distance? What can I do to change this situation? Because we're often trying to change people who aren't interested in changing. They aren't going to therapy. They aren't reading these books. It's like you getting the enlightenment and being like, oh, they need to change now that I know this term for them. It's like they're a gaslighter. They must change. It's like, they're not reading that book. You're reading the book.

And maybe they don't want to change.

They don't want to change. They're fine with their behavior. So what will you do? when they continue to do these things.

Acceptance and boundaries is what it sounds like, right? I remember for years I used to be kind of frustrated with my mom when I was an adult, after 21, let's say. It took me a while to become an adult, but I'd say after 21, right? I get frustrated with her because I felt like she kept treating me like a child, right? And I didn't like that feeling and I wanted her to change. And I don't know, 10, 15 years went by, she didn't change. And I expressed my frustrations and all these things didn't change, right? She looked at me as her little baby, even though I was a grown man at the time. And it was frustrating. And I had to learn to accept her. And it wasn't until maybe like five years ago where I fully had like acceptance of my mom, like this is who she is. It's not gonna change, but I can create boundaries. and make sure I set a boundary for myself so it doesn't affect me as much and just love her for who she is. And it's been a beautiful experience for me. I feel a lot more joy thinking about my mom, knowing that this is the way she is and it's okay as long as I put boundaries in place. But why do you think it's so hard for us to accept the people we love the most?

Because we would rather put the Duty of doing the work on others in the situation you just described with your mother if she would have changed when you were 21. Oh, the easiness so much easier, right? So much easier But if you had to place a boundary. Oh, the work you had to do. Oh my gosh, we get so upset at people for making us. Why are they emailing me on vacation? because you're responding. How do you stop responding? You know, the work that we have to do in our relationships with people, it is, it's almost like we get upset with them for making us do the work when really they're just being themselves.

Yes.

If you don't want to be treated like a child, how do you become more of an adult?

Create boundaries.

You create those boundaries. So when your mom is like, tell me about your girlfriend, you're like, I don't want to talk about it. And then your mom is like, oh, he doesn't have to tell me everything anymore. So it's you doing that work. Your mom can always ask, and you can always place that boundary. Exactly. You say, I don't want to talk.

About it right now, mom, let's talk about something else. Yeah. Or whatever.

And I need you to wash my clothes. I don't need you to figure out what I'm doing with my, I don't, you have to be the person to say that because your mom is operating in the capacity that she knows.

Absolutely, yeah. That's beautiful. What else do you think people get wrong about family dynamics, siblings, parents, kids, and what else do we need to know about this?

One of the things we get wrong is that if we are honest about what the relationship is, that we will lose our love for the person.

Give me an example.

If I say my mother was unkind, that means I don't love her. You know, that doesn't mean you don't love her. It just means she was unkind. Maybe sometimes, maybe all the time. I don't know. But you could still love people who who do things to you or who cause you to feel a certain way. And sometimes we don't know that. We think if we say anything bad about someone, it means that we don't love them, that we're betraying them. And both of those things can exist. You know, when I find people talking about their parents, they will say all of these nice qualities because they're trying to make them not seem like a bad person. When we talk about our partners, we'll say, you know, I really love this person. They've been there for me. They always listen to me. And then, you know, like we are trying to say, I really love them, and I don't want to say anything bad about them. And we don't have to protect the truth. We don't have to protect the person from everything that we feel about them. One thing we've been practicing in our house, I have two daughters. and they are at that age where they bicker all the time. And oh, she's annoying. And I say, Everyone in this house is annoying. You, your sister, your dad, the dog, the TV sometimes is too loud. This is normal in relationships. We're not gonna always get it right. And if we have an expectation of perfection in a relationship, sometimes I'm gonna say the wrong thing. I want you to be able to, you know what? Sometimes you say the wrong thing. Sometimes you're unkind. Sometimes you annoy me. Sometimes that happens in relationships. And we should be able to talk about the totality of the relationship, not just the good parts. And they're really amazing in these ways, but I felt neglected when that really hurt when you said, I wish you would have done more of. Those are also things we should say. It's not all about all of the things going well all the time. A normal part of relationships is having some sort of conflict. We can't watch a movie without a little bit of conflict. I mean, yeah, even a good old rom-com, you need that conflict.

You need it.

Yeah. So it's a part of being in relationship that It doesn't have to be perfect to exist. We can talk about all parts of it. It doesn't mean that the relationship is bad or we don't want to be in it. It just means that we're being honest.

Where do you struggle the most in your relationships in terms of how you interpret relationships, how you react and respond? You're in this work constantly. You're working with people who are in breakdown, who are struggling, who are, you know, coming to you for guidance. But where do you see that you could grow the most personally in relationships?

I think having more understanding for people who are unwilling to do the work. Because I'm around people constantly who are doing the work. I'm a therapist, so everyone that I see is doing the work. A lot of people that I talk to on podcasts or, you know, in my online community, they're trying to do the work. So to be in personal relationships, where they're like, I'm fine, it's you.

It's hard to be compassionate about that.

It's like, what? We have all of this information available. Yeah, so that piece, that holding that grace of it hasn't always been easy for me. And it takes a lot of self-compassion and grace to get to a point of saying, you know what? I did mess up. And I have to remember that. Because everybody's not in that space. And so some of those personal relationships, it's like, yeah, they're not in that space. And that's okay. I haven't always been in that space. How dare I look down on someone? Look at me now. I'm in a better space. It's like, I get it. It's tough because I wish sometimes I could unsee stuff. It's like, I wish I didn't care about things so much anymore. Gosh, I wish that thing didn't make me sad because it was a good life to not feel some things. Relationships, they were bad, but they were better because you had them. So I think that, you know, this knowing sometimes is like, oh, it's tough.

The awareness.

The awareness.

Consciousness, seeing it.

I hear you.

Well, I'm excited about your book, Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships. I think a lot of people can relate to to experiencing this now or at some point in their life, dealing with someone in their family that was maybe unhealthy or just they struggled to really manage certain things. Well, I want people to get this book. You've also got another book that's amazing as well. Get both of them. But again, get this, get this for your whole family so you can go through the practices, the guides, all the tools in here that'll support you, create more emotional peace, create more love, more joy, in your relationships. That's what I believe we're all seeking. We all want, we want more of that. Even if it's familiar to be in chaos, I don't think that's our true nature. That's just familiarity and a comfort zone. But it's time to break free of that. It's time to become drama free and break free of the unhealthy relationships. So I'm very excited about the book. And I want people to get this. Also, where can we go to support you, follow you, Get the book, learn more about these things.

My website, NedraTawab.com, everything is there. From there, you will be connected to my socials, to workshops, worksheets, everything that I'm doing.

Okay, cool. NedraTawab.com, we'll have it all linked up. Your Instagram is amazing as well. I love everything you post over there. So make sure you guys go follow on social media as well. I asked you this question before, but we were virtual, so I'm curious if there's a different response. It's a question I ask everyone at the end called the Three Truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on earth, many years away. You live as long as you want to live, but it's the last day. You live 200, 500, doesn't matter to me. And you experience life on your terms. You create what you want. You have the life you want. You write more books, you help more people, whatever you want to do, you live that life. But for whatever reason, all of your work and your message has to go with you when you pass. This book, social media, AI, whatever you create in the future is gone. So we don't have your words anymore, your message. But you get to leave three lessons behind, three things you know to be true from your experience that you would share as lessons for the world to think about. What would be those three truths for you?

I would say live authentically, create your.

Life.

And be present.

I love all three of those. Live authentically, create your life and be present. Before I ask the final question, Nedra, I want to acknowledge you again for your light. You bring such a light to the world with your work, with your teaching, with your one-on-one practice, but also the messages you bring to all of us. and I'm so grateful that you are here to be of service to humanity because we need people like you. So I really acknowledge you for your gifts, your unique experiences, your perspective, and your ability to serve in the unique way that you do. It's beautiful. So thank you. My final question is what's your definition of greatness?

Definition of greatness, you know, I think love. Love is the definition of greatness. Without that, you know, what is life if we can't have love?

There you go. Thanks so much. Appreciate you. Thank you.

If you got value from that, then.

Go ahead and stick around for more.

Coming up right now. Why is it so hard as someone who loves to make people happy, who wants everyone to be happy and peaceful around me, why is it so hard to set boundaries instead of what I normally have done in the past, which is just please them, do what they want to make them happy so that there's peace in that environment as opposed to create the environment of boundaries and agreements so that I'm not out of integrity with myself. Why is that hard for someone like myself and so many of us?

Because we're emotional beings. When you talked about us having emotions and feelings. We feel that when we set boundaries and we're constantly thinking about how might this make them feel. And often when we are setting a boundary, we have this dialogue with ourselves that's much worse than what actually comes out. So we're like, they're going to say this, I'm going to say that. And it's really a process we go through that talks us away from setting the boundary with the person because we're so scared to really execute what we want because we fear the reaction of what they might say or do if we set the boundary.

But a lot of people react when they don't get what they want, when it's not their way. So how do we just be human beings in relationships when people are constantly let down, frustrated, hurt by a boundary that's set When it be an intimate relationship, professional, family, when how do we find the alignment with boundaries as opposed to hurting people when we want something different?

We find the alignment when we speak about our boundaries earlier. So lots of times we wait until something has happened 1000 times and now the person sees it as really offensive that you've come to them after the 100th offense, and you're now saying, why did you do this thing? Or I need you to do this. It's like, I've been doing this for four years. It's much easier when we are more in tune with ourselves and we're, we really tap into our feelings of discomfort, frustration, being angry and act instead of waiting until things are at a point where we can't take it anymore. And so if we speak boundaries sooner, it's much, much easier to set boundaries. And so I know that in our relationships already, the boundaries, they're far gone, and we have to do a lot of cleanup. But once we get to that point, let's start moving forward in a very boundary way. It's kind of like how a parent parents their child. You know, most of them start off with some sort of rules and structure. and they keep going with it. It's not like when you're 16, you find out, oh, these are all the rules. It's like, no, like when you were two, you have rules. When you were three, it's a continual process. And sometimes we don't like the rules, but as we grow in the relationship, if they're healthy rules, we learn to understand them. It's like, oh, that's why my mom didn't want me out at 4:00 AM. When I was 15 and I wanted to do it, yes, it seemed like a crazy thing for her to say, but now, It makes sense like I was 15. And so as we, you know, grow up, we start to figure out like, huh, okay. So that's why my friend may have said, you know, this is what they prefer in this situation. So the sooner we set them the better. And if we're not, you know, starting a new relationship, it's okay to go back and piece by piece, just implement a boundary.

What if you feel like you've been in a relationship for six months or six years and you feel like your boundaries have been violated over and over again, but you haven't taken the responsibility to commute them effectively, non-passive aggressively or, you know, whatever way that's not effective. How does someone set up the conversation for boundaries? And do they dump all of their anger and frustration of 72 boundaries that have been crossed, or is it a one at a time process? over many, many months and years if you've been together for a longer time.

It's a one at a time process. No one wants to hear the never ending conversation about how terrible they are.

You did this.

And here's the thing. That's, that's, that's not good communication. And I wonder if you have 72 boundaries, maybe they could fall into five categories. You can kind of say, okay, category one, like, this is the thing that I really want to address with you. And it might not be 72, but it's just a variation of the five things. And so really focusing in on what is the most important, what is the most pressing. And sometimes I'm happy you said, like, the passive piece, because that's one of the things I talk about in the book, you know, five ways to execute a boundary. Passive, passive, aggressive, manipulative, aggressive, you know, assertive. That's what assertive. But I think so often we'll pretend we don't really have an issue with something. We'll get mad secretly at people. We'll try to manipulate people and they don't even really know what we want. And it's just not effective. It's not. And we suffer longer trying to sit in the silence of, I don't want to be uncomfortable, or I don't want to make this other person uncomfortable.

And what if someone doesn't even know that they've been crossing a boundary? They've been living their life, they've been doing things the way they have been doing them with their intimate partner, and they haven't said anything. Their partner hasn't said that they've crossed anything, but they've been harboring some type of resentment or frustration or whatever it may be towards that other, their partner. And they don't know they're doing anything wrong. How can the person who feels like, hey, things are great right now. My partner isn't complaining. There's no frustration. What can they do to make sure that they're not crossing boundaries? Or is it even their responsibility to be proactively asking their partner, hey, am I doing everything okay? Am I crossing any boundaries? Or is that just therapy woo-woo talk?

I think that's amazing. If that's something that you do, will most people do it? Probably not. We're not typically proactively active about another person's needs. But I do think it's very important as individuals that we know we can shift and change at any time. I mean, I remember being a kid and hating macaroni. And then I remember one day loving macaroni. So like we can change and it can come at any moment. And so yes, this may not have been my boundary one year ago, but today, You know, this thing is an issue for me. And I am talking about it now because this is something that I no longer want to sit with.

Are boundaries the only way to find peace, inner peace and relationship peace?

Because of my broad definition of boundaries, I would say so. Because I think when we think about boundaries, we think about them as something with someone else. And it's really with us. A boundary could be a morning routine. A boundary could be, you know, having some quiet time after lunch. That's a personal boundary that you honor for yourself. And so that does bring you a lot of peace. And so when we think about boundaries, it's not just all of these things that we need other people to do. It's also what we need to do with ourselves.

What happens when we don't live into our own boundaries with ourselves? Not even other relationships, but just our own relationship with ourselves.

I think we experience a lot of frustration, self-betrayal. I think we get really upset at ourselves. I think it causes a lot of anxiety and depression. and feeling out of alignment because we're not honoring those things that we say that we want for ourselves.

So how do we set the right boundaries for ourselves and how do we set them in relationships as well? And is it different conversations for different types of relationships or is it the same conversation?

It's the same core conversation. identifying what the issue is, communicating that, and really stating what you need. Because I think sometimes we think we're setting a boundary because we tell people a problem, but a problem is not a need. So it's. So sometimes we'll say, I don't like it that you're late, and that's it. And we're like, I set a boundary. It's like, no. Well, you didn't tell them what you needed them to do next time. And so it's very it's important that you state what you need, not just the problem. I think the problem, we're so, you know, we're used to talking in terms of problems, but really focusing in on this is what I need, this is what I want, this is something that makes me feel really safe and comfortable. I love it when you do blank can be really helpful. And yes, we can use that strategy. in multiple types of relationships with ourselves. I think the biggest challenge that we have with honoring our own boundaries is the self-talk. So often I hear people say, I'm going to try to quit eating bread. And it's like, you know, try it or you're going to do it. Because trying sounds temporary. Doing it sounds like a real thing. And how do you do that? You have to hold yourself accountable to this thing. No slight against Brit, I love it. But you have to hold yourself accountable to this thing. And so that's one of the areas that we really struggle in. It's much easier to say, My problem is with this person, and they need to do blank for the relationship to improve. But sometimes it's us needing to be better listeners. Sometimes it's us needing to keep certain things to ourselves because this person can't really handle listening to it. So a lot of it, you know, falls on us. And that is the interesting piece about boundaries because so much of it, you know, just on Instagram and, you know, everywhere you read it's like, tell these people to do this. And it's like, what can you do for yourself?

And what if you've communicated the boundary to someone in your life, intimate partner or not, and the boundary continues to be crossed? Maybe they try a little bit, but then eventually time passes and they fall into their pattern or habits of crossing the boundary, whatever it might be. How do you renegotiate the commitments or reagree or when do you know that, okay, this person is not honoring my boundary, my request, or the agreement that we've set out together. Do we cut this person out of our lives? Do we just be passive aggressive towards them crossing our boundaries forever? What's that look like?

So John Maxwell has an interesting quote in one of his books where he talks about changing the personality of your employees. and he talks about hiring the people that you want to have in the role because you like them. Because if someone is not friendly, you can remind them to be friendly and they can do it for a little bit. So let's say it's on a scale of one to ten and they are at a two naturally. You can get them to a four or five. You may not get that person to a ten, but we have to see four or five as progress. And so when people, when we're trying to, I need you to do this thing, one, we have to be patient because this is something we may have been thinking about and something that is just disrupting our spirit and this person had no idea. This is new information. Allow them time to process and actually practice. As humans, when we practice stuff, We don't always stick to it. And so reminding them, hey, this is what we talked about. That might be a natural part of the process. Once you see that you've reminded someone, maybe more than you want to, you determine what your more is, right? Or once you see that this person, if you can't even get to a three, they're still at the two. then you have to decide how you want to proceed. And that could be maybe changing your expectations of the person and dealing with it. Maybe it's severing ties in the relationship. Maybe it's speaking to them less frequently. Maybe there are so many things and I don't think there's one that works for everyone because there are so many people who say, Well, I can't cut my mom off. I can't cut my dad off. And so, you know, maybe if you're not comfortable with that, you can't cut those people off, but could you talk to them less frequently? Do you have to talk to your parents every day or can it move to a few times a week and seeing how that feels? So there are lots of things that you can do. I think cutting off as well, yes, that is a boundary. It depends on the level of toxicity in the interaction.

Right. And do you think it's egotistical for us to say, you know what? I need this boundary and I have this boundary with these people and don't do this to me and you can't do this and I want you to change your personality because I need this to feel peace. Is it too egotistical for us to have these boundaries or what would it look like? Is it possible to allow zero individuals to trigger our emotions and to us be peace, no matter what is happening around us. If someone cuts us off in the street and crosses our boundary physically, if someone says something to us in an argument, if someone shows up late, is there a way that we can just be peace and not need boundaries? Or is every person need certain boundaries?

So the first part of your question, it sounds like you were referring to rigid boundaries where you are like, these are absolutes. They apply to every single person, and I must speak my boundaries. I don't think that that's healthy because everyone doesn't need the same boundaries. And so they are, they're a unique experience based on the relationship. You know, every co-worker doesn't need the same boundaries with you. And so we have to be in relationship with people and, and see how things go and what we're comfortable with and what we're not comfortable with. And that's how we determine the boundary. There's no, I never loan people money. Maybe, you know, this person borrowing ten dollars for lunch and they really give it back tomorrow because they forgot their wallet. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, you know? So if you have a rigid boundary of, I never, you also don't help people sometimes when they really need it. And so being very intentional about when to execute. to secure the boundaries is really important. You mentioned, is it possible to just be at peace without boundaries?

Yeah.

If you lived in a space all by yourself and no people around you and you could control every single aspect of your life now, is that possible?

I don't know.

I think of, you know, like, traffic signals as boundaries. I get so upset when stuck at a light, and it's just flashing because everybody around is like, what are you gonna do?

What are you gonna do?

And it's like, nobody's going. Like, we need the boundary of this light. And so, no, I don't-- I don't want to exist without boundaries. Please come fix this light. And so that's how-- that's how I think of relationships. Like, it's not working. It's like everything is like, ah, it's like, come on, drop a boundary. Drop a boundary.

Yeah, I think structure is a powerful mechanism for life. Just having a time where you go to sleep, having a time when you wake up, cleaning your space, going to... I just remember being, I was a boarding student in high school and middle school. I went to a private boarding school. And I remember everything changed for the better when I was essentially not forced but structure was created for us to wake up at 6:00 a.m. to clean our room and make our bed, to do the morning Bible lesson, to go to school, to then have practice, then have two hours of study hall every night with the door open. You didn't like the structure sometimes, but I remember at the end of the day being like, oh, I'm a better human being with structure. And I'm actually more creative with structure as opposed to having no boundaries, do whatever I want, I can do anything, anytime, you feel more productive and more creative. In my life with structure. So I think it's. I think you're on to something. If we had no traffic lights, it'd be chaos. So creating these boundaries are important.

Yeah, I. I used to be a juvenile probation officer in Detroit very early in my career, and I had kids who were at home in the community, and I had kids who were in placement, which is jail for adolescents, and. We would take these kids who were failing. They never went to school. They were, you know, committing petty or major crimes, and put them in these placements and the structure. I meant you would get six months later, this would be like a different straight-A student playing with peers sort of kid. I'm like, Whoa, what do we do here? We implemented some boundaries.

Mm-.

And it literally changed their lives in a matter of months. And I was like, oh my gosh, like this is unfortunate, but it's so important. And it's so such a good lesson for us to see that boundaries are so important. So even in your family, you need to have a time to wake up in the morning. When we, you know, when we send you back home, this is going to be your schedule because we now see that this actually works.

You've been a licensed therapist for over a decade. I think it's 12 going on 13 years right now, I believe. What's the biggest challenge emotionally in the last two years you've faced that you've had to do therapy on or you've needed to do more work on? You do so much for so many other people with your content online and, and prac and practicing this. But what is the thing that you've Dill struggled with the most.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I've struggled with in the last two years is adjusting to the space of Instagram because it wasn't necessarily a part of my plan. I knew I wanted to graduate and own a private practice and I wanted to use Instagram, but I think the way that it has grown, I've had to scale back in my practice. So I've had to like delegate some things and, you know, kind of reconfigure my passion. And so for me, it's like, I want to do this and I want to do this. And so for me, my personal therapy has been about the journey of merging the two without being overwhelmed because it is really important for me to continue to be a therapist. But now I'm also in this space of being a, you know, influencer on Instagram. And so it's, it's a really interesting and fast paced growth. And so having someone outside of both of those worlds to like bounce this process off of has been really helpful and yeah, it's just been really helpful to talk about that because I think any life transition, there's so many steps to it to get really comfortable in a new role. And so my therapist will even sometimes say, like, remember when you have, like, 1, 000 followers? Remember when you said you wanted to write a book, and now it's out. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, this is, you know, so. It's like talking to a motivational historian who pushes you, but also triggers you.

What would you say is your biggest trigger in life right now, either in personal relationships or life?

You know, I think demands on my schedule. And one thing I've been practicing reciting in my head, like, as people professionally, personally, all these spaces are like, you can do this, you can do more. And I'm setting boundaries in these spaces. I have to constantly remind myself that people are not aware of how much I can take, and it is my job to communicate that to them. Because even when things seem effortless, they're not. It's a lot of work. that goes into preparing dinner or, you know, creating a post and running a business, like there's a lot of moving pieces there. And if I want people to understand that, I have to be the person to communicate it. Yeah.

And do you think it's important for every therapist to have a therapist?

Yes. I first went to therapy in grad school, and it was a recommendation in a class because in these classes, we're talking about super heavy stuff. And there were a few students who would use it as a therapy session. And one of the professors said, you know, you get 12 free sessions through the school. So. So go. And I was like, we do. Okay, I'll go. And so I went, and it was a wonderful experience, like to literally have someone just sit there and listen to you. They're not talking about themselves, and when they do, it's so tiny. It's just a little tiny droplet of, Listen to me. And the rest of it is, -huh, -huh. And what did you think? I'm like, Can I do this daily? No one's listening like this. So I liked it. I took my 12 sessions and I took a break for a while and just at different points, you know, I've kind of hopped in and hopped out, you know, sometimes, you know, once a month, sometimes every other, sometimes every other week, it just really depends on what's going on in life. But to be a therapist, it's important to know how that process works and also how you make people feel.

Yeah. And what was the last, what was the, biggest aha moment for you since starting therapy to now? Is there a specific session or period of sessions that really tapped into something for you that allowed you to unlock something new for yourself or let go of something that was holding you back?

Yeah. The first time I went to therapy, I was really struggling with a friendship. AS: I remember venting about the friendship. And the therapist asked me something that was just-- I just dropped my jaw. I was like, she was like, why are you still in the relationship? And I never thought about that. I was like, what do you mean? It's my friend. And she's like, okay, tell me more. What other things are keeping you there? And it was nothing. It was nothing. And it was just like, wow, what a magical question. Like, you know, what are you getting from the relationship? Because, you know, if you hear someone saying like, this person is gaslighting me and they're doing all of this stuff, it's like, okay, so tell me, what are you doing there? I'm taking it. That's what I'm doing.

Did you end up getting out of that relationship or letting go of that eventually?

Yeah. Eventually. Yeah. You know, I think with relationships, I'm much better at it now, but you know, I was early 20s and at that time, I didn't think it was a big enough deal because I think many of us, we sort of feel like it has to be a big reason to leave a relationship because it can't be something as small as, This person doesn't listen to me, right? It has to be like, they stole my account info. It needs to be something really big. And that therapist taught me, no, it doesn't. It just has to be something that is consistently an annoyance. I'm like, you mean if I'm consistently frustrated and that could be a reason I leave? Yeah. I'm like, oh, okay. I'll remember that next time.

Yeah, that's good. I think a lot of us, I hear this a lot from people, they're like, we've been childhood friends, we've known each other since we were seven, and now they're in their 20s or something, and they're, they're, they have completely different interests or different life paths, and they try to like hang on to this friendship sometimes, but they realize they don't have a lot in common, or it's not supporting either of them. But they hold on to the past idea of, well, we've known each other for so long, so we have to stay friends. What I'm hearing you say is if it's annoying both people, you don't have to be in the friendship, right?

Mm-.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Historical relationships, even, you know, within the family or with an employer, sometimes will say, because, you know, well, this is my 10th year. This is my 11th year. I like my co-workers. Um, but you haven't gotten a raise in five years. you know, there are so many reasons that we'll find to really hang on to these situations that we're no longer happy with. Yeah.

Do you think after a relationship breakup, we should take time to heal, process? How much time do you think we should take? And when do we know? When should we know if it's a good time to start dating someone or people again?

So this is always interesting because I believe, I believe we can heal in relationships, and I believe that we can heal on our own. And it really depends on the person. And I say we can heal in relationships because how do we know if things are working if we don't practice?

Yeah, it's easy to be alone. Well, it's not easy to be alone, but it's easy to be alone and say, okay, nothing's bothering me anymore. but you're not in the environment of the potential for something to bother you.

Right.

Yeah. And so it's like, I don't need anybody anymore. Yeah, because you're single. But let's see what your level of attachment is once you're in a relationship. And so it is really important to practice the skills. And that doesn't always mean being in an intimate relationship. It could mean, you know, practicing the skills, maybe in your friendships or with other relationships. But I think that the reason for the breakup and the level of frustration, discomfort, abuse or what have you in the relationship definitely determines how long you need to be single. Can you go from an abusive relationship to new relationship the next week? Probably not. There may need to be a window of personal healing, not even relationship healing, but personal healing before you can be in another relationship with a person. If you were dating someone and you all kind of decided, hey, I don't like you anymore. Could you start dating someone new next week? Sure. So it depends on the cause of the breakup as to whether this is something that you can do well just getting into another relationship. So it's not an absolute never do it or always do it. It is more of a being aware of your circumstance and what could be beneficial.

And with all of your years as a practitioner, what is the common thread that you see in a lot of relationships or dysfunctional relationships that aren't working or the arguments or the the breakdowns that are happening. What's the biggest fear or common thread you all you tend to see often in many of the sessions that you do?

The huge assumption that people know what we want based off of their common sense, based off of our body language, what they know about us, what they should just assume about relationships in general. And many people aren't coming from, you know, healthy relationship backgrounds. Like, you know, sometimes their parents didn't have a great relationship, so they don't have the tools to be in a healthy relationship. So they are learning in this relationship. So it is important to tell people what your issue is, what you want, what would you, you know, what you want to eat for dinner, all of these things.

Because, you mean, we can't read someone's mind and see, know what where they want to go eat.

He should know what I want to eat. He's asking. I don't think he knows. You know, I think it's this thing that we just, we feel like love is they should automatically know what we want. Like, that's a part of love. Just, you know, know what I want, and that's how I will feel loved. And I think a part of it is us communicating more, maybe. You know, once we order the same thing over and over, the person can say, Hey, I know exactly what they want. But we have to first say, Hey, I want you to order my food for me. Watch me practice. You know, like, let people know your intention. Let people know what you need. Because unspoken requests really get in the way of so many relationships. And people, you know, they'll sit with this for years, you know, the long engagement couple. We were engaged for three years and it's like, okay, so you've been married 15. So did you ever say during this engagement that you had-- no, I just thought he-- okay, well, he didn't get it. So we can't go back 15 years, but I wonder what you need to hear now that will make you feel comfortable. you know, what what could help you now in this situation? Is there, you know, something that we can do today? So if it's not assumptions, I would say the second thing is holding a grudge. And more times than not, the person has no clue about the grudge. I often laugh about the couple who's not having sex because one of them is not cleaning the house. which is a common dynamic. It's like, I don't know what happened. It's like, well, this person is secretly upset at you because you're not helping with these other things. And you don't know that because they're not communicating their need for help. So this is my job to tell you this is why you're not having any more sex.

So assumptions holding a grudge would be the common themes. Let's create a hypothetical scenario here. Two people are going out on a date. They're meeting for the first time. The date is going well. They have chemistry, they have a connection or they have feelings of chemistry and a connection, let's say. They like each other. There's something, there's something, there's a spark, right? Whether it's a sexual spark or emotional spark, whatever it might be. They got something that's like, oh, that's, I want to see them again, both of them. What should be three questions, hypothetical scenario. If you could only ask three questions to the person in front of you to determine whether or not they are going to be a potential good fit for you in the future or you're hanging on to this spark and going down a bad path and it's not going to work out, what would you say of those three questions that everyone should ask? Whether they're uncomfortable or not, to know whether you're at least setting yourself up for a good chance at a potential positive relationship.

I think love language, a love language question is important. So do you know your love language? If so, what does that language mean to you? If you like words of affirmation, give me some examples of what you mean by that. Two, I think it's important to know how a person communicates. Would you consider yourself to be more assertive? aggressive, passive. Give me an example of that. Because sometimes people example of I'm assertive is I tell people like it is. And it's like, oh, that's typically not assertive. That's aggressive. So it's important to know what that means. And when you have an issue with something, how do you talk about it with the other person?

And what if someone's love language is something that you don't like to do?

Well, we can't date ourselves. And so sometimes we have to get a little bit comfortable with doing things for people because it's not just about dating relationships. Everyone has a love language. So when you have a child with this person, your child will probably have a different love language. Would you say, Hey, I'm not doing that because I don't like it. or would you do it because you want to show your child love? I think you do it. And so I think you can also do that for a partner. And so it doesn't have to be something that you, oh my gosh, I love to rub backs. But if this is pleasing to the other person, can you rub your partner's back maybe once a week? Perhaps it's not something you get into every day, but if this is a way to say, I love you and for this person to see it, is it harmful enough that you want to risk your relationship? Or will it be a growth strategy? I think it's a growth strategy.

Do people unconsciously tend to choose someone or be in a relationship with someone who's got a different love language than themselves? Does that happen a lot? Or do we find people that love the same way? For me, I'm words of affirmation and physical touch. You don't have to buy me anything. You don't have to do anything for me. I don't need service. I can pay for all that stuff. You know, I don't need any of that. I just rub my neck, touch my hand and tell me you love me. You know, it's like I'm pretty simple. But is it is it more challenging to find someone like the same as you or do we typically find people that are not that way?

I think we do find people who are the same but in different ways. Like you said, I'd like for you to touch my shoulder. that might not be your partner's definition of physical touch. Their definition might be, I would like you to rub my feet. I would like you to rub your hands through my hair. So even though we have the same love language, it may not manifest the same. And so words of affirmation, you know, I think it could be, you're doing a great job. Thank you for that. Or you look pretty. I love the smell of your perfume. So there are sometimes where people can give certain words of affirmation. They can give certain types of physical touch, but maybe not all. And so it is still really important, even if you're similar, to talk about what those things actually mean, because we may have a different idea of what that is.

What'S your love language?

My love language is words of affirmation and acts of service. So I say thank you a lot to people because I love when people say thank you. So I'm. I'm very much like, oh, my gosh, you look nice today. I love your hair. You're great. So that's super easy for me. And I realized that for some people, that is so hard, and they're not being mean about It's just they're better at gift giving. But once you communicate to them, because we have to express to people what we like and what we don't like, you know, I'm okay with a gift, but because I'm acts of service, can you get me something useful? I really like something like, give me a subscription to car wash. You feel love. Yeah, I feel love if you buy me a membership to the car wash or something, like, you know, like something that's gonna, like, do something because I am acts of service. So it's not that I totally don't care about gifts, but the type of gifts, you know, it is characterized by my love language a bit.

Do you feel like if we never learn to heal the traumas of our past, whether they're big traumas or little traumas, whether they happened one time or frequently, Are we always going to be messed up if we don't learn to heal the traumas of our past? Or is there a way to be a functional, loving, peaceful human being without healing?

Are we going to be messed up? Well, I think there takes a certain level of awareness to be messed up. Like we have to be aware that something is off. Can we pretend our whole lives? Absolutely. I think there are a lot of people who pretend that everything is okay for their entire lives. Is that a healthy way of being? I don't necessarily think it is, but it is functional because it is very heavy and hard to deal with your trauma, to deal with your stuff. And so for some of us, it is more functional to pretend that we are not bothered by certain things.

What happens when we live in that pretend world?

I don't think we get to achieve being our authentic selves. We don't get to that space because we're not, we're not doing anything to, to be there. We're not thinking about the things that have impacted us. And when you say, you know, little trauma, big trauma, I think there are so many things that impact who we are, whether it was, you know, abuse. your parents being divorced, a car accident, a sports related injury. There are so many things that it's just so helpful for us to process, to talk about, not even to fall into pieces, but to just come together a bit more because there is learning in the experience. And when we're not addressing the trauma, we are acting it out. So whether it's we don't like certain noises, We don't like certain smells. I don't like when people touch my shoulders. All of those things have an origin. And so it's so important to really connect with that because it's hard to get past somebody touching your shoulders if you can't even talk about the experience that brought you to that space.

When we react in life in scenarios, whether someone's touching my shoulder or someone across the boundary, and we react with anger. What is that saying about us when we react with anger in our life? Is it something, is there a root to that anger that we haven't addressed? Are we able to address something and heal it and still be angry around it? What does that mean about us when we come from that place?

I think anger is okay. I think us acting in anger, it makes me think of us being destructive with our words or physically. It makes me think of us being volatile, but feeling angry is okay. And there's nothing that, you know, we need to do with that necessarily. But when we start acting in anger.

Whether it be yelling at someone or punching something or screaming or negative reactions on the comments, anything like that, right?

Yeah, I think of anger as a really passive, aggressive response in general, because what you're angry about in that moment has very deep roots. And it's coming out as someone moved your thing. But it's really going back to this deeper thing of people are always touching your stuff and you don't feel safe. And that's not anything that just happened in this situation. I just moved your I was just.

Trying to help you here.

Yeah.

I was just trying to get your jacket off this chair. So it's completely displaced and it's really helpful for us to get to the root of it. Sometimes with road rage, what I've told some of my clients is, as people are driving, one, you have to remember that they don't know you. They don't know you. So they're not saying, Hey, how can I cut Lewis off today? They don't know you. Like they're literally driving on the road, they're distracted and they remember, oh my gosh, I need to get off here. And they just go, it's not personal. They're not trying to harm you. And so it's so important to remember that as people are having reactions to life, to the world, a lot of it has nothing to do with with us, with the situation, that there is something deeper going on. And it's not necessarily our job to penetrate that. That is their work to do.

What does that work look like when we are reactive or acting out in anger in different ways? And maybe it's been happening for years or decades. What does that look like besides just acknowledging it and being aware of it? What type of work could we do?

Sometimes it looks like a good long cry. Sometimes it looks like stepping outside and yelling. Sometimes it's. It's talking to a therapist, having deep dialogue with a. With a pastor, a counselor, a coach. It looks different for everyone. There is no one way to heal, but I think of it as a collective experience of stuff. So just because you go to talk to a therapist does not mean that you. to read any more self-help books. It's like, do all of the things that make you feel better. And so the experience of healing from this stuff that you haven't spoke about, you know, I don't think it's comfortable. And that's one of the biggest things people will bring up is, oh, my gosh, it's difficult. And it is. It really is difficult to continuously set boundaries, to really honor yourself. that is not easy work. It's not, you know, it's not easy being aware of your emotions and really communicating that to other people. It's not easy. But I tell you what, it feels a lot better than. Than hiding. It feels a lot better than trying not to feel, because that's a lot of work. That's a lot of work to not feel.

Do you know people that come to you in the beginning of relationship when things are really good?

Yes, I love when people come to me at that phase because it's really skill building. So at that phase of things, we talk about really fun things like these are the appropriate ways to argue. You guys don't have any arguments, right?

No.

Okay, great. But if you did, this is what you would do. And we talk about extended family relationships. How do you want to handle those. We talk about financial issues because that's a big reason for divorce. We talk about whether or not they want to have children. And if so, how do they think they want to parent? So it gives us space to really talk about some things that are not necessarily problem focused, but prevention. And that word is, is, is so worth it. I, you know, I wish there was some mandate to say, you know, was within the first year of dating, go talk to someone so you could talk about these things in a really proactive way. Because often when, when people come to therapy, it is in reaction to something happening in the relationship.

I am so for this mentality of prevention or prehab in, in the sports world, where it's like, you know, go do stretch and exercise so that you don't get sick, not when you get sick, you need to take medicine. Eat healthy so that you stay healthy a long time and not have to, you know, go to the hospital and get sick. And I think the same goes for relationships. It's invest in prevention tools or prehab tools, whatever it might be, to prepare yourself so that you don't need to get to that place. So you don't need to hurt yourself in a relationship and then learn to heal. you're preventing beforehand. And, this is something that I think is extremely important to do. If you're with someone for three to six months and you're like, okay, now we're going to be exclusive. For me, it'd be amazing to just jump into therapy right then and do it weekly for a while just to be clearing all these things before you need to clear them. I think it's a game changer. And, I'm curious, you mentioned money as being a one of the major reasons people get divorced. Is it money typically the main thing or a common thread?

Communication. I think number one is communication. So people feeling like they argue a lot, they're not able to get along that sort of thing. And then money is right up there next to it. I think I consider that a communication thing. Sometimes we have roles in our relationships, like he should handle the budget, but sometimes he is not the best with money and you're better at budgeting. And so in that phase of things is really helpful to talk about what could work for your unique relationship and what is traditional and what is necessary. Because sometimes following tradition may not work for your relationship and you'll have some to couples who really fight about this is how it should be when it isn't really that way. And we have to accept that and just roll into something that works for the relationship.

What is it typically about money that causes so much friction in relationships for people?

How we spend it, accountability. You know, we spend money differently, like some, you know, in lots of relationships, someone is the spender and someone is the saver, one person values spending money on this thing over this thing. Sometimes it's helping extended family. How much do we do that? There's so many conversations within the money dispute that couples have that they really do need some boundaries around. Like, you know, if you want to loan money to a family member, perhaps it has to be talked about without you like doing it in secret from this joint account. you know, so there are so many issues within that financial piece that some healthy communication can really help with.

And you mentioned, you know, how you've been doing things in your relationship, the traditional style of how money has been handled in the past relationships and then what's necessary with so much that's evolved in our society, especially in America here in the last, you know, 20, 30 years. with both partners having dual incomes more equally than they were probably 20, 30, 50 years ago, with both partners being more driven and career focused in their 20s and mostly in some of their early 30s as opposed to having kids sooner, these things evolving and shifting. How should we be thinking about money in a new way in our relationships. And if both parties are not equally, but both on a process and journey of earning their own money and having their own careers and having kids later, should we merge our money? Should it be separate since both are productively earning? How should we look at that moving forward?

So that is one of the things we process. do you do you do it together? Do you do it separately? Because most folks will say, well, we do it together because that's what you do in a relationship. And some people are more comfortable doing it separately and saying, you know, here's your side of the bills and here's my side of the bills.

And I spend it on what I want to spend my stuff on and you spend your money and you want and I don't want to stress about it.

Yeah, I don't want to police your money. I don't want to say, you know, why did you give so and so $100 or why did you and then there are some people who prefer to talk about it. And so I think it. It really is a conversation to be had and not something that you just do because, oh, this is just how you do things. But why do we do this? Why are we doing it this way? Is this way working for us? So it's really valuable to have the conversation of what could actually work, not what is, you know, what your friends do, what your parents do, but what could actually work for your relationship, because the Dynamics here So we are very different.

How do we have those conversations when people have this expectation of the traditional way things are done in dating dynamics, marriages of the past, and where we are in the present? How do we have that conversation and not offend someone or hurt someone? Well, my dad did this for me and my mom did this and this is the way it's supposed to be. It just seems like it's so much more confusing and challenging to communicate with the different expectations that are out there right now.

Yeah, I think we have to take the my, my, my eyes out of it and put in like we, what could work for us. Because the, the, my mom, my dad, my friends, it's, you're really making a conversation about you and not the both of you and what could actually work. And what could actually work is something that's a little different from other people. and so just really, I know it's hard when you think that is the only way, like that traditional landscape, and it could be, it could work for your relationship, but if it does not, and we know because, you know, we're having this issue with it. So that is a sign that it is not working. So what else can we do to repair this situation?

And if we didn't grow up in an environment where we we're able or seeing how to express our feelings or seeing how to communicate effectively. How do we learn how to do that in future relationships when our model of relationship or communication styles have always been less open minded, I would say?

Well, I think sometimes your environment certainly teaches you what not to do. Right. If you came from a situation where your parents were combative in how they communicated with one another, perhaps you could learn to be less combative.

And if that made you feel unsafe or scared, then you're like, I don't want to repeat that.

Yeah. I think sometimes people will think, well, I don't want to argue at all. And that's not healthy either, to be conflict avoidant. But how can you argue in a way that is not combative? And that is possible. There are tons of books and videos and all sorts of ways we can learn. But I think the biggest thing is communicating your need, just saying it and practicing doing that more. Because sometimes we'll say, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. But we have a lot of skills already. We've watched years of TV. We've done, we have so many skills we can already tap into. So what do we know that works and how do we start to practice that for real in everyday life?

And I don't want to say generalize this, but in the past in America, you hear often that men are less willing to express their emotions. and maybe they didn't grow up in an environment where it was okay to express themselves or cry or say how they truly felt for whatever reason. And I'm not saying all men are this way and some women might be less expressive of their emotions as well. So what if your partner isn't open to expressing themselves in general because they grew up in this environment that didn't cultivate sharing?

I've certainly heard that, too, that men don't express and they don't open up. And my favorite clients are my male ones because they come into that space and they are so open and vulnerable. And it's like, oh, my gosh, you're, you're doing the work. Yeah. Our biggest realization has to be that we can't change people, and you're working with years of programming. And so if this person wants to be different, they have to claim that. You can't claim that for them. You cannot make this person who's had, you know, 30 years of being emotionally shut down, open up. That is something that they have to want to do. And you can gauge that by asking them, you know, do you want to talk more about your emotions? Because I'd like to hear about them. And if they don't want to talk, they, you know, what do you do with that information? Do you want to stay in a relationship with that person? Do you want to modify your expectation of them? But we certainly can't make a person who is not ready to talk to us about things talk. I, I do think that I, I have a family that is, I lots of guys in the family. And so I have found it helpful to just name an emotion when something is happening. So at Grandma's funeral, just saying, you know, yeah, you're really sad. You know, like just naming the emotion can be really helpful. So if they don't talk to, you know, anybody else, you know, it's kind of like, you know, I'm feeling away, and it's like, oh, wow, you're talking to me about something because I've made them feel comfortable just by talking about certain emotions very openly. You know, when people, oh my gosh, they irritated me. Are you frustrated? You know, just throwing words into everyday language so they know that, you know, I recognize this anger is really sadness and disappointment. Yeah, he, you know, that was really terrible that they, you know, did that to you. I. Yeah, I could see how you could be so frustrated. Just naming the emotion can be really helpful because sometimes when it is a man, we just take it as he is and we think that he can't change. But our modeling sometimes and our language around certain things can be helpful.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, I've been I've done many different types of therapies over the years, but it's been extremely helpful to analyze and assess and express and feel the different emotions that I might be holding onto from past experiences that I haven't dealt with yet. And I think it's a powerful method to feeling safe in a space where you can do that if you don't feel safe in your relationship or with your friends. or people make fun of you or whatever, they're not supporting you, then it's always a good place to go to a therapist in my opinion. Do you think it's possible to be fully healed from these traumas of our.

Past.

And fully let it go? Or is healing a journey we have for the rest of our life and comes and goes from past, again, big T little t, that will always.

So.

Is it possible to say, you know what? Yeah, I've fully addressed this, I've fully healed, I've let this go. It does not consume my emotions and my thoughts anymore.

I consider being healed, being aware of the trauma, and working through the triggers and discomfort. So I would say, yes, that is A continuous process, but I think that is also healed. Healing is coming into the realization of, oh my gosh, I have these issues. What do I do with them? And being healed to me is really applying the tools consistently. So I do think that you can be healed. Do I think that you can forget your trauma? No. But I do think that you can be healed from your trauma, meaning that it no longer has the hold over you that it once had.

And you've created those positive coping tools to, okay, I'm feeling this in the moment. I have the awareness. Okay, this is not an attack against me. I'm going to process this and get back into my vision of my life and or whatever my tool might be.

Yes. Yeah.

I like that. Creating those tools for yourself. I'm always fascinated about relationships. I'm going to keep coming back to relationships with you. What is something we should do at the end of every week? Whether it's a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday for you, but you're with your partner, you've got 30-60 minutes of alone time, no phones, and you have an opportunity to connect eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart. What should that experience be like on a weekly basis? What should we ask each other? What should we share to continue to strengthen the relationship? and build week after week.

I think we should be connecting. I don't know if connection would be a conversation or if that would be an activity together. I really like to play like these deep question games or sometimes playing like just, you know, party games. I think that's a beautiful way to connect and to remember that, wow, we are really together. We have the same answer. Like 30 minutes of that. It's like, yep, we're one and the same. I love it. This is why we're together. And that feels like the best connection each week for me, just being reminded of the why and having the warm and fuzzies for your partner. Because sometimes if we're not connecting, whether it's through conversation or activity together, We can forget. We can forget why we're here.

What's a question you wish more couples asked you or individuals in a relationship when they come to you? What do you wish they would ask you?

This is a good one. I had a woman ask me a question, How do you stay with someone for a long time? And I said to her, you, accept them. And she was like, I've never heard that before. I say, yeah, because most of our relationships, we are spending our time trying to change the person instead of saying to them, yeah, he won't watch this. We're like, no, come on, watch it, watch it. It's like, no, he doesn't want to. And that's okay. You know, you have other things that you can do together. And so I think a relationship should be a celebration of differences. because clearly you have something in common. That's why you all are together. But in terms of everything needing to be the same and you all needing to be in line with everything, that's just not possible. And I think the sooner we accept others differences, the happier our relationships will be. I am married. I've been married. this is going into 11 years. And I remember, I don't like sports. And I remember early on saying to my husband, you know, in a joking way, would it please you if I watch football with you? And he's like, no, you don't have the right energy. I said, you're right, you're right. Because I'm like, why are his pants like that? Does he always wear, you know, like, I am terrible. at watching sports. Now, I'll get into somebody's personal story. Like, isn't that the guy whose mom has the, you know, I'll get into that. But in terms of getting me to watch football, it's, it's, it's not the best use of your time. It's just not, you know, I think a better use is finding some things that we can do together, and it's not gonna always be all of the things that you do, and that's okay, because we'll have our time together, and, and that's. assistant< end_header_id > And because we're not mindful, we'll say to other people, well, you're being sensitive when we're actually yelling. We're yelling, right? And so it's like, yeah, no, the person isn't being sensitive. You're actually yelling at them. Tone is so, so important. You know, it goes back to what we said in the beginning, not holding on to things. If we could speak about things as they occur or soon after, we wouldn't have such heated arguments because the things would be so natural. Like, hey, when you leave out the bathroom, please put a, you know, roll of tissue on the thing. Thank you. You know, like, instead of waiting until the 50th time, and it's like, you never put the roll of tissue just, you know, very casually say some of these things because it's not that we need to have this overall character issue with the person, but Perhaps these are smaller conversations that we can be having. So making sure that we're mindful of the tone that we are mindful of, you know, name calling and below the belt comments sticking to the topic is the best thing I can tell people. And I know it's super hard to just say the issue that I have with you today is this one thing.

Not you did this and you did this and this.

Yes. And six months ago, you did a similar thing. Because the issue with going back in time is the other person typically doesn't remember it because it wasn't significant to them. My brain only holds what we need. We don't need to remember whether we left ketchup on a counter. That's not anything that I would retain. So if you're coming to me and you're arguing about me always leaving things out, and you bring up this ketchup, I'm like, huh? It's like, I can't even recall that. But it's a big thing to you, and you've been thinking about it. So it's so important to stay in a zone that people can recall, because things in the past, you know, people don't remember them. And they're not trying to be funny. It's, you know, if you ask somebody, you know, where were you last year on such and such, no one knows. They don't know, unless something significant happened. Right.

So tone, you said anger is an emotion that is okay. But is anger in an angry tone? Okay. As opposed to, okay, I'm feeling angry and let me communicate it. Is there a healthier way to express anger? Or should we just, this is how I feel, I'm gonna get it out and I'm angry and you did this and I didn't like it or what's the best approach?

So you can be angry, you can speak to your anger. But again, it goes back to tone. Do you need to yell at me when you're angry? Do you need to yell and get it out, or do you need to say it?

If someone needs to yell or, or, or if someone is yelling, is that, that's not Is that effective for the relationship or not?

I don't see how it moves a conversation. You know, I don't know what I've learned by someone by being yelled at by them. When we speak to kids, you know, standard practice is to get on their level and speak in a calm voice and say something. And that's when people can really hear you because when you're yelling, people can be so accustomed to your tone that they just tune you out.

Block it out.

Or they just look at your energy and their response is like, I'm not getting into this. So there are so many issues with the yelling piece, and I understand the anger and frustration, but if you are angry, perhaps that's not the best time to talk. If you must yell, perhaps calming down a little bit and then coming back to the topic when you're able to speak through your anger, and not act in your anger is better.

Yeah, I think that's powerful. I've got a couple of final questions for you, but before I ask them, I want to make sure people get your book because I think finding peace is something that we all are looking for, especially in this time right now with a lot of different challenges that are happening in the world. Set boundaries, find peace, a guide to reclaiming yourself. Is there a website? that we can go and learn more about the book or any other bonuses that might come with the book.

Yes.

So my website is my name, NedraTawab.com There you go.

It's got all the information there. You've got an amazing Instagram page. That's how I found you. I'm a fan of following therapy pages to give myself more tools in my own personal life and relationships and becoming a better leader in my business, all these things. and your content is so inspiring. I want people to make sure they follow you over on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Nedra Towaab, you can go find it over there, amazing tools that you give, and then you go deeper in the book with how to expand upon all these tools and lessons. So make sure people follow you over there. How else can we be supportive to you in this moment?

I would say follow the journey, you know, get the tools in this way in a community. You know, one of the things that I really love about Instagram is people being able to see others in a similar space because we don't always get that. We don't always get to see that there are other people who've experienced emotional abuse. There are other people who have unhealthy relationships with their parents. And so in the space of Instagram, there is community in the comments where you see all of these people sharing their stories. So that's a beautiful way to support me. And the other way is to get the book. It's so helpful to be able to have the work of boundaries all in one place because Instagram is very fragmented, you know, and we can't put everything in one place. But in a book, it's kind of like having this resource guide. And so it was really helpful just to have it as a resource guy around boundaries.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I highly recommend getting the book, Powerful Tools for your Life. Three final questions for you.

Okay.

The first one, if you could go, if you could imagine, your seven-year-old self in front of you. You went back in time, time traveled, but your self right now, you are in front of your seven-year-old self. Knowing everything that's happened in your life from seven until now, what advice would you give your seven-year-old self?

I would reassure myself that it's okay to quit. I remember being a kid and trying this thing and trying that thing, and I didn't like it, and I thought, gosh, shouldn't I be able to do some of this stuff? But what I realized is I wasn't very passionate about those things. And so I needed to keep going until I found the. The. The things that. That, you know, brought me some level of satisfaction. And so it wasn't quitting as a problem as much as it was finding the passion around it. So now. Now I'm. I'm happy that I quit a lot of stuff because I feel like I saved. my myself time doing, you know, all of these things that I was half hearted about, right? So yeah, it's okay to quit.

It's a good reminder. This is a question I ask everyone at the end called the three truths, Nedra. So I'd like for you to imagine this hypothetical situation that you get to live as long as you want to live, but for whatever reason, it's your last day on earth. And it could be a hundred years, it could be 50 years, 200 years, whatever it is, you get to live as long as you want. But then eventually you gotta turn the lights off and go to the next place. And you will accomplish everything you want to accomplish in your life. You live the life of your dreams. Everything happens that you imagine, you manifest it. For whatever reason, you've got to take all of your creations with you, your books, your work, your content, this interview, Instagram, all that's got to go with you to the next place. So no one has access to your creations anymore. But you have a piece of paper and a pen and you get to write down three lessons that you've learned in your life that you would share with the rest of us. And this is all we'd have to be reminded of you or remember you by. I call it three truths. What would you say would be those truths for you?

One, I would say becoming yourself is a lifelong journey. Two, Be mindful of how you spend your time and who you spend that time with. Three, we have to talk about the hard things.

If you don't talk about the hard things, man, life is hard. Life gets hard if you don't learn to talk about the hard doing the uncomfortable talking about the hard things. That's a good one. I like that one. Before I ask the final question, Nedra, I want to acknowledge you. for the gift you are, for putting yourself out there again, on Instagram in a way to help heal and give tools to so many people that are struggling, people that are finding discomfort in their life, people that don't know how to express themselves, how to heal, how to communicate, how to set boundaries. I think setting boundaries is one of the most positive, powerful and positive things we can do for ourselves. And yet It's challenging to deal for some reason. It's hard to create those. So I acknowledge you for showing up and stepping out of your comfort zone to create and provide tools for the rest of us to, to live a better life. So thanks for your support in providing all this for so many of us. And thanks for creating this book. I think it's going to be a game changer for so many people that, that invest in it that actually apply the lessons and the tools, which are not easy to do, but are necessary. So I want to acknowledge you for all of this. It's amazing what you're doing. And I have one final question, and it is, what is your definition of greatness?

Being yourself. That is my definition of greatness. I think so often we are determined to be everything else. other than ourselves. So I would say when you can become more of yourself and be that, that is greatness.

People coming out of narcissistic relationships are.

At an incredible advantage because if you.

Can really be honest with yourself about.

Saying, I'm gonna ask for what I.

Need, and if this person ain't gonna give it, then maybe this isn't my person.

Time is a big one.

Narcissistic relationships are usually like this, fast, fast, fast, right?