How To Deal With Toxic Relationships | Journey Principles Podcast 024

Welcome to the Journey Principles, where we show you how to go from stuck to unstoppable with life strategies that work. Now here's your host and creator of the Transform youm Framework, Stephen Scoggins.

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Journey of Principles. I'm here Steven Scoggins. Connor Kraft, director of Connections, here to help you go from stuck to unstoppable with Live Strategies at work. If this is your first time here, that's what we do. Our goal was to give you life strategies that actually work, that actually take you somewhere and actually get you going. Today, we're going to be talking about.

What Connor how to deal with toxic relationships. So if you tuned in for our last episode, we did how to identify toxic relationships. Really? For two weeks now, we've been just diving deep into relationships because we always like to say that there's three things you need to do to transform your life. We talked about this on our first ever podcast and it's build better relationships, which is one of the three things. The other one is discovering what drives you and then mapping out a plan for a life you love. So relationships are very important and that's why we're going so deep on them. So we're talking about how to actually deal with the toxic relationship if you're in one.

Yeah, absolutely. In the last episode, too, I talked a little bit about my barbecue girl, right? And we talked a little bit about what a toxic relationship relationship looks like. And when I began trying to deal with my toxic relationship, barbecue girl, and I've had, I've had several.

Now, it doesn't, I want to clarify, it doesn't necessarily have to be a romantic relationship, right? Like you could have a toxic relationship. So if you listened to the last podcast, those traits can apply.

I see it a lot in families, I see it a lot in the workplace, and I see it a lot in romance. For sure, it can be present in friendships, but. But it's on the lower scale compared to the other three areas.

Interesting.

For sure. What I like to do is I try to use real life examples to the best of my ability to kind of make sure people know my heart behind trying to make sure this content is actually something they can use, if that makes any sense. And my barbecue girl that I had, it was probably two years in before I ever actually realized that I had been in a toxic relationship pretty much the entire time. The first two months of the relationship were awesome, meaning I got what I wanted at the time. Being a young knucklehead on a regular basis. And meanwhile, I gave her. Gave her my credit card and credit cards. She went out, went shopping, even I.

Didn'T go that far.

I let her use my. Then I had a 98 Camaro that I was like the fourth one that had on the lot back in the day. She took it to somewhere and it got keyed because somebody didn't like her. I've had my tires slashed because apparently she was dating somebody else that I wasn't aware of. And she didn't tell me about that. So I've had a ton of examples with my barbecue girl, which is why we refer to her as barbecue girl to begin with. Now, I haven't seen or talked to her in, gosh, probably 20 years. But it is probably one of the more difficult ones that I had in my life that I had that took me a while to break, break away from, you know, and it took me a solid year and a half to realize I was in a toxic relationship because I'd never really known what a healthy relationship was.

You stayed in it for a while.

Yeah, I mean, I just didn't know what I didn't know.

She wasn't the sole reason, but she was part of the reason I ended up becoming homeless.

So there's a whole lot going on there, more than it meets the eye. And I think that's probably where my passion for the subject actually comes from, because I see a lot of people, a lot of people who struggle more with having unhealthy relationships, whether they be toxic or just unhealthy, that hold them back from actually moving forward, that kind of challenge their personal identity on a regular basis. Challenge their self value, their self worth, challenge their potential of who they could be or what they could be. My barbecue girl used to tell me that I would never be nothing but a hammer toting. How'd she say it? Hammer. Hammer toting. Failure of a man.

I think, oh, my gosh, you'll never be nothing but a hammer toting to failure of a man.

Yeah. Meanwhile, she was driving everybody else's cars and living off everybody else's money. So go figure. So I jumped in with both feet. I jumped in with big. Both feet. And she was really mean to you, bro. Like. Like I said, it didn't start out that way. Remember I told you before, There's. I think we did it in the Face to Face video. There's. There's a couple different phases. There's the. The infatuation phase, if you will. It's the kind of attraction phase. Yeah. There's the anchor phase is like, I got my hook in you now. And there's the control phase. Right. So I made it all the way through all three phases. Just shy of getting phys Having physical stuff on a regular basis. I went through episodes over and over again of apology after apology after apology, many of them tearful and heartfelt. And I'll make it up to you, and.

If you'll propose to me, I'll accept.

On her part.

Yeah, I did. I was. Yeah. My dad, my brother was one of their least favorite people in the world.

Ended up when my finances took a really hard turn for the worst. Ended up moving into my. The mobile home that I had purchased. Okay. That I couldn't make the payments on. So my little brother Ryan moved in. Him and his then fiance moved in to take over the payments. And I rented a room in my own place for minimal money. Wow. And my brother disliked this lady so much that they almost got into a fist fight in the hall. She put a hole in the wall with her fist.

And then right after that, for whatever reason, I was still an idiot. I was still blinded. And as a result from being blinded and whatnot in the. You did it. Huh?

You did it.

He evicted me from my own place.

Oh.

That led to the homelessness start, and then my lack of financial accountability and stewardship and some other things happened. And then I. Shortly thereafter, I finally had my litter box moment and then never look back. Wow. So that's kind of my first toxic relationship problem that we had and what was going on and kind of moving through some things. But anyway, just to give you an idea, I know what it's like to be in a toxic relationship. I know what it's like to have your self esteem challenged. I know what it's like to be berated. I know what it's like to be lied to and betrayed. I know what it's like to have to come back from and restore a life after so much time, energy, and resources went in and trying to, quote, unquote, fix my relationship. You know, I watch my wife and I watch the show from time to time called Married at First Sight. Why you'd ever do that, it's beyond me. But anyway, we watch the show, it's entertaining. And almost every time, we can pick the toxic people out from the first.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. These people actually, like, see each other.

And then they meet each other at the altar? It's a TV show. What? Yeah, some of them have actually stayed happily married. But hey, anyway.

Stupidest thing I have ever heard.

Yeah. And I think some of the. Some of the people that were cast for it would also agree with you because some of them got in some pretty nasty stuff.

It's not hard for people outside looking into to see your toxic relationship. It's really not hard. I was told about my relationship being toxic, Gosh, three, five, six months in, when people started hanging out with us and stuff like that. So if these people have historically had your best interest at heart, then you probably should listen to them when they say, hey, look, that person's trouble. Right. And you should probably.

You should probably listen to them.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So that's a big part of that.

I've had people try to tell me that in the past, and then I was like, no, I got this. I mean, I can. I can fix it.

I didn't. Just as a quick reminder here, I mean, some of the mistakes that I made in doing this, believing an apology was real with no change in behavior in action. So I'm so sorry. I'll never do it again. I don't know what I was thinking. You know, I would. This one gets me. You know, I would never hurt you. I'm like, you just did.

Yeah.

Like, you know, that's like a telltale sign. Like, that's like toxic relationship 101. Right.

We should make like a list of just the lines. That would be really entertaining. Like, maybe like, put out a PDF that's just like, download the.

Yeah. I've got a. You know, I've got an ebook that I've had on my. On my hard drive that I've. That I think would be very beneficial. I mentioned it to you yesterday, matter of fact, to see if we can't get out to the marketplace.

But just on toxic relationships.

Well, it's moral conflict, but there's a lot of toxic relationship talk in it specifically. And I think it would bring a lot of value to the world. Another mistake I made was setting boundaries I refused to enforce.

Let us know if you want to see that, by the way.

Yeah, totally. So here's a boundary. Don't cross this line. And they take the step. You're like, okay. And you just. You just go, well, don't cross this line. Okay, well then don't cross this line. Right. You never reinforce. There's no. There's no.

You keep moving back and drawing the line.

Wait, there's no consequence.

In a cartoon or something where. So where one of the characters did that. What do you think?

Cartoons come from?

It was Tom and Jerry.

I'm not sure. But offering too many second chances. There's a reason they call it a second chance because that means there's been one and then two. Two should not equal 10.

Offering too many second chances. That would make it a second and a third and a fourth and a fifth.

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of different things, but what I want to talk about today is a lot more to do with how to position yourself to either remove yourself or distance yourself, if you will, from a toxic relationship. And there are steps you can take with the person on the front end to see if you can get them to respond to the initial steps. And if they respond, then there's a chance for that relationship to at least develop over time. If they refuse to respond to the first few steps and, you know, they're not going to respond to the next one. And now you just got a jet, so, you know, and healthy apology. So here's another thing I jotted down on my notes when I was trying to get ready for today's show. A healthy apology will always be followed by a consistent change in thought and action by the person seeking forgiveness. Okay. Which means if the person is going to apologize, then their behavior will change. Yeah. Toxic relationship behaviors rarely change. Where I say rarely noticeably change. Okay. When I think about my barbecue girl, I would get. She'd make a. She would apologize, she'd make a promise, and then she would make progress for two weeks, and then the cycle would just start all over again. Behavior changes happen over the course of months, not days, not weeks, period. Right. Behaviors don't change overnight. Now, granted, you could have an I surrender all moment and then go to and become a person of faith, and your behaviors could radically change overnight, but they're still not going to be perfect. You're still a work in progress. Right. So those are some of the things that I kind of think of. So here's the mindset that I think you need in order to kind of, like, really kind of go with this.

You have to be okay with saying goodbye.

You've got to be okay with saying goodbye. The longer you wait to say goodbye, the more damage is going to be caused. I will tell you that my barbecue girl experience.

Better prepared me for a future toxic relationship. I knew a little bit more than I knew before. I still got involved. Still got a little too. A little deeper than I probably would have wanted to get. And I was probably in my mid to late 30s, actually. It was right up until I met Karen. That I was starting to get really clear on what a toxic relationship was. Right. Because there's so many different things that on the surface seem like they're awesome, but when you look under the hood, you see the deception, you see the betrayal, you see the spending of money and all kinds of stuff. So.

Step one in dealing with a toxic person is actually having a discussion. Now, we mentioned before that people that are in a toxic relationship are toxic by nature. Historically, don't like to listen, which makes it difficult to have a discussion. So here's what I recommend. I recommend getting one to two more people involved in the conversation and have something that's kind of just short of an intervention. Right. You're gonna sit down, you're gonna have open discussion about the boundaries and what's going on. Okay. If they're open to the discussion, then you go to the next step. And the next step is to set healthy boundaries. Okay. Which means you can't call me after this amount of time. It could be, I'll see you on Saturdays, but nothing more.

It can be, you're not allowed to cuss at me at all. It could be.

Gosh, any number of things that are. That is a step out because you got into that toxic relationship step by step, by step by step by step. And you get out of one step by step, by step by step. Okay? Right. Basically, you're just turning around and doing the opposite of what you've been doing. Right. If a toxic person is not open to discussion, then you jet. Like, if you're not gonna. Even. If you're not even talk about it, there's no reason for us to. You and I to communicate at all.

Yeah. You just need to be like, all right, well, this isn't working.

Yeah, it's not working. Now, granted, there are some. Some pretty severe cases where there's some could be emotional and physical abuse that's more deep seated, that has to be addressed. But. And that's why I said in the last episode that maybe in those extreme circum circumstances, you began planning your escape over the course of a couple of months.

Right. Especially if you're really indoctrinated into this person's lives. You live with them. You know, it's.

So let me break it down for you. No one is allowed to hit you or put their hands on you, period. No one is allowed to violate you. Okay. No one is allowed to call you a rough piece of crap on a regular basis day after day after day. Yeah. If you allow these things, then you are accepting that as your standard. So step one for you is going to be raise your standard. Know that you're worth not being treated like that, right? You're not worth being hit, you're not worth being violated, you're not worth being cussed out or cursed at or told you're worthless on a regular basis. That is not normal.

That is not a normal relationship. A normal relationship has a tremendous amount of give and take, A tremendous amount of building bridges, A tremendous amount of adding value. A tremendous amount of having encouragement, empowerment, affirmation, A tremendous amount of putting your personal safety above theirs.

Those are semblances of a healthy relationship, okay? And if you're not seeing those things in the relationships that you have, then you need to look a look hardcore at your relationships, alright? So again, going back to the original ways to walk out, if I was going to take, turn around and take the first step, I'm going to try to open up a discussion in order to do step two, which is set boundaries, okay? If the boundaries are adhered to, then you can allow to continue that relationship at a level of distance, okay? So for example, I had a family member. Then every time I got around them, right? They had a victim minded, you know, I'm woe is me. Only you can help me, only you can save me. That is not healthy, okay? The quicker I realized it wasn't healthy, the quicker it allowed me to do what I need to do. Which put distance didn't mean I didn't stop seeing that person at all, right? But I didn't. You don't want to necessarily be around somebody that's got a constant cloud above their head like all the time, right? Because it ends up bringing you down to a certain degree and then you lower your standard, okay? So what I did was I created distance. I now see that person, you know, once or twice a year, right? And when I'm there, I love on them and I show them, I show them affection and all that kind of stuff. But for the most part the distance is what creates the health, okay? Now in the event that they don't accept the boundaries, then that calls for immediate distancing.

That in and of itself is a consequence of not adhering to a boundary. You don't want to constantly be taking that.

Fictionary, fictionary, whatever the word I'm looking for, fictional, fictional line in the sand and constantly moving it, okay? You're not allowed to curse at me lying in the sand, you mother, I'm out.

You see what I'm saying?

I said I will not Tolerate that. I will not tolerate that.

Period. You've seen me do this, not necessarily in toxic relationships, but you've heard me tell you specific boundaries. Don't do this. And if you do this, this is the consequence. That is a boundary. And what happens when you do it? You suffer the consequence. Right. Kind of deal. And that's the way it's supposed to be for emotional health, physical health, and mental health, okay? The final step is removal.

They're not open to discussion or they're not having positive discussions. They're not able to set the boundaries and do boundaries correctly. They're not adhering to the distance rules, even with court orders, which happens. Okay? So therefore, you remove them. You remove them from any semblance of them being able to attach themselves to you at any level. Social media, email, block them from social media, everything's blocked. You distance yourself, you change your numbers, and you move on. Okay? Now, in the extreme circumstances, all of that is more difficult to do on the front end, which is why I'm saying if you're on the extreme side of things and you're constantly being violated or physically abused or told you're a piece of crap on a regular basis, then you need to plan your escape, okay? In order to plan your escape, you need to know the basics. Okay? How can I earn a little money to push, to stash away? Who can I go to? And it may not be a mutual friend. Okay? Do not bring your quote unquote, mutual friends into the mark, because the first thing that person's going to do is go to your friends, your mutual friends, and say, hey, have you seen her? Have you seen them? Where are they at? Tell them I miss them and I love them and I'm gonna change. And all this garbage, complete garbage. Okay?

So you can't let the mutual friends in on the escape process.

I would much rather someone spend enough time playing an escape with people that are completely unrelated to their thing, that are deemed as healthy.

They're on their side, essentially, so they're.

There to facilitate the escape so that person can then get healthy and whole. There are nonprofits you can look out to, okay? So you can. You can search out some different nonprofits. There's women's shelters. There's actually men's shelters.

Really?

Yeah. I mean, because I guess it works. It happens, right?

So I don't mean to be prejudiced in any way.

No, not at all. I mean, but I mean, it's. There is a methodology. There is a method. Right? You may have to figure out how Far you're gonna. If you have to walk. Because sometimes these, these, these toxic relationships are so controlling. There's only one car and that the only person that controls that car is the person who's trying to keep you locked away. Right. You're not supposed to be locked away in anything. Right. You're not supposed to be in like we're already in a quarantine for this Covid stuff. Yeah. And people are at this point in time, they're getting pretty unhappy, you know.

Yeah. You know how supposedly all these toxic relationships are getting worse and worse and worse because people are just locked up with each other. It's a real test of how your relationship is if you're locked up in Covid right now.

Yeah. I mean, right now you're figuring out real quick is, is it something that you gotta be doing? Oh, yeah. So there's two ways to remove. There's the cutaway. There's the cutaway, which is the social media and the stuff we mentioned before, changing your numbers, changing all this kind of stuff. I've had some of my own children that I've had to educate and say, look, give this person no access to you, period. And they put that into place for a while and it worked really well for a while. And then, you know, it got a little wonky again and now she's having to do it all over again. Right. You see what I'm saying? When it comes to this other extreme side of things, local law enforcement, local shelters, local churches.

There'S entities that will help you in that process. And again, when I'm sharing this publicly, one of my long range goals with JOURNEY principals, the JOURNEY Principles Institute, is to create a underground railroad, if you will, for people that are in these situations. So we can get them help and get them whole. Right. We don't have it yet. So I'm not going to be able to help you, unfortunately right now get out of that situation personally.

But we can get you the information you need.

We can get you. We'll help you find the information for sure. Well, you want to, you want to message us privately on through our questionsroonyprinciples.com is just fine.

Yeah, 100%.

We'll do the quick research, we'll send you back some links in your area for people you can maybe reach out to and contact. We don't mind doing that a little bit. That legwork for you to kind of get you going. But essentially, when it comes down to breaking away from a toxic relationship, are they open to a discussion Are they willing to adhere to boundaries? How do they handle the distance? And if none of that works, remove, okay? Period, you got to remove.

Some other things I think you should consider. You need to put, this goes for everybody, people that are not even in a toxic relationship, okay? You need to put the safety of your health and your sanity at the top of the food chain.

Okay? You've got to make sure that you're taking the time to understand that you're worth a lot.

You're worth a lot. You're worth being here, you're worth possibilities, you're worth a purpose, you're worth a potential. And if you've been told you're not for all this time, I'm telling you right now, you are. I've lived it, I've breathed it, I've become it.

I'm not a know nothing construction worker who's just simply know nothing of a man.

I was willing to do the work and you can too. And if you'll do the work and you'll dig in deep, you'll have some pretty amazing things happen in your life. And that's. That is a testament to your value.

Okay? So put your sanity and your safety at the top priority, period. The moment those things started getting challenged or started getting unhealthy, you need to be looking, is this a toxic relationship? Where am I headed? Like, look at the behaviors of today and look 12 months down the road, five months, 60 months down the road, five years, two years, three years. Take the behaviors. If this doesn't change, where are we headed? And if you don't like the answer, then you need to do the other things. Discussion. Boundaries, distance, removal. Need to get serious about it, okay?

The other thing you've got to do is set consistent, healthy boundaries. We're going to put out some content on the boundary settings and stuff like that in the near future. But in the meantime, a healthy boundary will not jeopardize your emotional health, your mental health, or your physical health. Okay? Healthy boundaries do not allow for any of those to be damaged. Okay? So when you're thinking about setting up a boundary, what can you put in front of the perceived toxic person today.

To be protected mentally, physically and emotionally? Okay? And again, it could be distance, it could be removal, it could be some variation of in between based on the rating that you give them. Okay? The other thing is watch the fruit, watch the behavior. Inspect what you expect. You know what I'm saying? Like, inspect what you expect.

Are they adhering to the boundaries? Are their behaviors changing? Are they making Personal growth. Are they making things happen?

So inspect your expectations.

Yep. Inspect your expectations for sure. I'm sorry, I kind of ran away from the show, from Connor. Unfortunately, this is the.

No, no, no. I've purposefully been silent because first of all, this is something that I don't have nearly level of experience with on you. And then also I just. Something told me that, you know, you, you were on a roll there.

So I appreciate that. Hopefully we, hopefully everybody finds it helpful, regardless if you're, if you're like, for example, if you're not in toxic relationship and you're not surrounded by that, you still need the information. Right. Because I think it's what, one. One in five, if I'm not mistaken, is an abusive relationship. Wow. In some form, mental, emotional or physical, or a combination of both. Which means you know someone who is. Yeah. Okay. And you can feel free to just turn them on to the content. Yeah.

Yes. Send them our way says send them to the podcast. Send them to our whiteboard. Lessons are face to face. We're putting out a ton of content on YouTube.

He's making me do it every gram.

Yeah, I am. I wanna, I. I just think the thing is, is you have so many life mastery strategies that you've come out. You literally have just such an abundance of really good lessons. And I'm like, that's why I came to you. I was like, dude, we need to be putting out content every single day. Because like you said in a previous podcast, if we can help you as quickly as possible, then, you know, the quicker we can put this stuff out, the less people are gonna go without.

Mm. And less people are gonna get hurt in the process. But didn't mean to run away with the show, but hopefully you found the information valuable. Remember, if you are looking at a toxic relationship or you got one that you're trying to address. Discussion. Are they willing to discuss? If so, are they willing to set boundaries? If so, are they willing to let you put some distance between you and them while they're quote, unquote, healing and working on themselves and if not, remove. Right. So those are the steps. That's how you deal with a toxic relationship. You'll climb your way out quicker than you climbed your way in. As long as you put these things into place because you're aware the other thing you can do. The final thing, a little bonus tidbit as we're closing out the show is get started. Super clear on what makes you special. We have all kinds of self awareness tools. I invite you to take advantage of. They're all free. But get super clear on what makes you special and then start using that as your anchor to start giving yourself momentum and confidence to kind of step out and move out of those toxic relationships. Right? Yeah.

Go back and listen to some of our self awareness podcasts videos on YouTube. We do have some free personality assessments and things like that. And then we also have some additional things coming out in the near future that can help you take that to the next level if you want. For about under 10 bucks.

Yeah, for sure. All right, guys, we love you. We believe in you. We really believe in you. We believe you were meant to do something pretty awesome. We know that you're meant to help people. We know that you're meant to be more than what you've always known. And we hope we can help you find some of those strategies, those steps, and those tips here. So until then, we'll see you on the next journey Principles. Take care, guys. Bye. I'll see you in the next video. And please, if you don't mind and you enjoyed the Life Mastery content we're building, consider hitting the subscribe button and also hitting the bell so you'll be the first to get notified anytime we release new content.