In today's episode I respond to three powerful listener questions. We explore how to deal with toxic people in any setting, how to deal with trust in relationships and also how to deal with the very human experience of guilt. This is a special episode where I go deep on some very real issues that touch all our lives at different times. If you want to grow in relationships, work and your own sense of emotional and spiritual wholeness then you will be encouraged by this episode.

Grab a free copy of my book Bridging the Gap here:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf

Enquire about booking Jonathan to speak:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/jd-speak-opt-in

Find out about coaching with Jonathan here:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/coaching

Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.

Once again, welcome to the daily podcast.

Great to have you with me here in the studio.

Hope you're doing well.

Wherever you're listening in the world.

This weather is terrible yesterday.

My son and I are out on the motorbike.

We were trying to get north.

And I have never experienced wind like it.

We were hidden to this small town.

And literally got blown across the road in, uh, into the other lanes.

It was quite extraordinary.

So, uh, wherever you are in the world right now, I hope you have nice weather.

I hope it's sunny.

I hope it's humid and temperate and, uh, yes, indeed.

I hope you're enjoying, cause it's been a long start to the winter here, but, uh,

You know, always a chance to get outdoors and do stuff out of the studio today.

I'm going to, uh, get across and do some mountain biking with

my son, which will be great.

I did some crazy stuff.

The last few days I did.

I've done back-to-back hundred kilometer rides the last two days and yesterday

I'm just completely wrecked myself.

I know many of you go, why do you do this?

And I go, I'm not a no.

It's just kind of, I get up each day and I just want to do stuff.

I want to just keep moving, keep moving forward, keep improving as best I can.

You know where I live.

There's this old guy.

He must be in his look, gotta know.

Seventies, even old.

Um, any people who are in their seventies who just got offended.

I'm really sorry.

I didn't mean old.

I mean, older, older than me and, uh,

He is phenomenal.

He mid-winter.

I see this guy every day in his shorts.

He wears shorts.

Uh, he's got a beanie on, so he's got a head covering, but that's about it.

And he's just running up these crazy hill.

He's barely moving.

Like he's just shuffling up the hill.

But full props to him, you know, like, you know, some of us can still do, uh,

You know, really big distances and.

And we can try and fast, but just to see this guy out there at sort of, you

know, mid seventies in the freezing weather, just still banging it out.

So as I've been saying a lot in recent podcasts, it doesn't matter.

What you do, it just matters that you're doing something.

You know, we're all gonna have different levels of physical activity,

but, uh, I'm big on this lately.

I just think we are made to move, uh, culture and technology have allowed us a

certain level of experience at the moment.

It's very easy.

To, um, to stay comfortable to stay where you are push so out.

And as I pretty much sound every episode, you're not going to feel like it.

Most of the time.

The, uh, the good stuff comes afterwards and I should qualify something.

Cause lately I've been talking a lot about how the body leads the mind.

When you're in a negative emotional state.

Often, what will happen is that you, you will never think your way

into doing what you need to do.

You'll never suddenly think about it rationally and go, yes, I really

need this exercise or I want to go and do that for my health.

But once you start to move, once you just make yourself move things happen.

So that's the basis of my mantra that the body leads the mind.

You need to just do the thing first, and then your mind comes on board later.

But I want to actually add an interesting paradox to this because I think there's

a, a certain level of reciprocity here.

There's a reciprocal relationship between the body.

And the mind yest the body leads the mind.

So we often need to just act, take the action first.

And then, then a mind comes on board afterwards and tells us how

brilliant we were for doing it.

But we also need to realize that the, um, the mind also leads the body.

How is it possible?

How can these two things exist at the same time in parallel intention?

Well, the answer is because often when you're out training

or when I'm out training.

And I'm doing something hard.

The bodies in play.

Right.

You're doing stuff, but the mind actually has to override the

experience of suffering and pain.

I'm not encouraging you to go and experience suffering and pain.

I'm encouraging you to speak to your healthcare professional

before you do anything.

But it is interesting that this is weird.

Sort of symbiosis happening where we need that catalyst.

We need to get started physically.

We just need to move now knowing that we won't feel like it, like, you know,

getting on the mountain bike later today.

It's just not going to be super pleasant for those first few minutes,

but afterwards it will be great.

But once I'm out there going up a hard hill.

The bodies out in action, the bodies come to the party, but then

sometimes the mind then needs to step, step in and push the body along

and get the body to ignore or to.

How do I say this without getting sued?

Uh, get the body to keep going when the body just wants to stop.

So do you see this interesting relationship here between, you know,

we need to take the action first.

And then once we're out there and we want to quit, then the mind

steps in says, no, we keep going.

We keep going.

Cause it is phenomenal.

What the mind can actually do, how the mind can, you know, the

body almost always wants to quit.

Right.

Our body constantly wants to give in and wants to wants comfort.

It wants food.

It wants rest.

So this is fascinating relationship.

I really like it.

And I was thinking before about, um, Mel Robbins book, uh, the five second

rule, I've spoken about it before she talks about what psychologists and

scientists refer to as activation energy.

That often, if you want to get out.

And by the way, today's message is not about physical training and just

sort of just, just how it got started.

I got some good stuff coming for you.

Hang in there.

But she talks about activation energy.

Which is often, you know, when we have to do something that we don't really

want to do, whether it's physical, whether it's work-related, whether

it's parenting or relationships.

Often when it is activation energy, we just need enough energy to get started.

And once that momentum kicks in, then we get going.

One way to think about it would be like a snowball and the top of the mountain.

Right?

You think of the devastation that could cause by the time it reaches

the bottom, but it doesn't need a lot of energy to get started.

Does it a little roll off the top of that hill?

A little tiny bit of activation energy and then the momentum kicks in and off you go,

it's a good metaphor for physical training for changing anything in your life.

Sometimes.

We don't take action.

We get daunted because there seems so much ahead of us that we just think,

how are we ever going to get there?

But what we need is activation energy.

We just need to start.

And you should get that little bit of momentum going or some things happen now.

Let's get started.

Uh, please subscribe, hit that subscribe button.

If you haven't already done it.

It is awesome though.

Podcast numbers are going up every single day.

So I really appreciate it.

If you could subscribe.

And, um, if you could leave a review, if you just leave a review

somewhere, wherever you're listening, Spotify, apple, podcasts, Google,

whatever it is, leave a review.

That'd be great.

And, um, please check out the show notes today.

In the show notes, you will find how to get access to my book.

Bridging the gap for free.

You can find out how to book me to speak and, uh, you can find it how to

come across to the YouTube version.

I've been posting some of my training in the YouTube version.

So you can actually see me stuck halfway up a hill in a freezing Gale.

If that's a, if that's your thing, so friends take out the show notes,

please make sure you subscribe.

Let's jump in.

Uh, this is the, I guess right about the third in a series of

listener questions that, um, you know, it's been great people.

Have I reached out a week ago and said, Hey, tell me what you want me to cover.

And I want to hit three today.

I'm going to try and be brief.

Uh, three separate listener questions.

One is about how we deal with toxic people in the workplace.

The second one was about how we deal with relationship trust issues.

And the third is how we deal with the experience of guilt.

So isn't that interesting.

Just humans, all these different challenges we face.

But, you know, I could say that all of us at some point

have faced one of these, right.

We've all had difficulties with toxic people.

We've all had challenges in relationships and we've all experienced guilt at some

point, unless you are perfect at which point you do not need this podcast,

you are free to stop listening now, but for the rest of us, let's press on.

Let's press on toxic people, a couple of points.

The first thing we have to, you know, w what are we talking about here?

We're talking about the office psychopath psychopath.

We're talking about sociopath's.

Um, my understanding.

I think if I got this right, the difference between sociopaths and

psychopaths, just in case you want to check who you're working with.

Uh, sociopath's I think have no sense.

Of their impact upon others.

So you'll often get sociopathy merging with narcissistic personality disorder.

So this'll be the kind of people that they just don't get it.

They just fundamentally do not in any way understand.

That there.

That they're bullying the rudeness.

They disrespect they're undermined.

They just don't get the fact that it affects other people.

Totally just don't have that apparatus.

Um, and then, you know, you couple that with a narcissistic personality disorder.

Where their essential filter is nothing other than themselves.

So they don't filter the world through how do I support those around me?

How do I meet other people's needs?

It's just completely through the filter and lens of self.

So a few thoughts on toxic people in the workplace.

Many of us seem to make a kind of pact.

I think where we sort of think, well, I would leave.

I would change, but I can't.

Why don't you tell yourself a story that you cannot change your

workplace or go somewhere else, then you can get locked in that story.

My point, being that there are times when we need to leave, there are

times where we just go, you know what?

There is no avenue here.

This is not going to change.

You do not have to sign up for abuse or trauma or pain every time you go

to work or school or wherever it is.

When you're dealing with extremely difficult people.

There's no.

Cosmic law that says your job is to put up with terrible treatment

for any significant period of time.

So what are your options?

Um, the first thing is to decide, I think whether you want to confront or avoid,

so avoidance is kind of basic local.

What is the least I have to do.

Uh, to be functionally able to work or tolerate this person.

And you've got to weigh that up.

If it's kind of borderline, if you go look, I don't really

have to see him very much.

I just try to ignore them.

I'm going to avoid them and that can work.

Like you can just go look.

Basically on balance.

I just need to.

Let's talk about allocating time differently.

You just allocate time differently to spend less time around them.

You minimize every point of contact.

And you may get to the point now, again, I'm not sanctioning abuse

or bullying or any kind of psychic, emotional, psychological violence.

I'm just saying that there are some people you can go.

Yep.

You are a complete.

You're just, I can't help you.

I can't reach you.

I can't change you, but I'm just going to make sure I minimize your impact upon me.

So that's one strategy.

So that's the avoidance.

The second is to confront.

Whether you confront directly or whether you confront over the

top, so you confronting directly as you just call them on it.

And you, you know, if you're psychologically strong enough

to do that, you're emotionally strong enough to do that.

Then you've got to weigh that up again.

Don't put yourself in a position where you're going to be.

The recipient of more toxicity.

But sometimes it's just that point of confrontation that they just kind of it's

the old schoolyard bully thing, right.

They just suddenly realized, hang on, this is one person who ain't backing

down and then they cut you the slack and, um, you can get a significant shift.

The other one is to confront over the top, which is to go to

people above them, if possible, and say, look, this is happening.

This is intolerable.

Here's a list of recent interactions.

You know, this has to change.

You know, and a lot of stuff about toxic people is culture-based so

in terms of organizational culture, so you're not going to masters

in leadership and management.

Right?

So the one thing I learned in that master's program was that really the

fish rots from the head down right.

I'm sure.

You've all heard that before that a.

Really that toxic.

Uh, behaviors are usually tolerated in a cultural sense within an organization.

So, um, people are in some way protected or sanctioned or even encouraged to be

brutal and to be toxic in which case that's an organizational culture problem.

And there's very little, you can do to change that unless you are at the

top of the organizational pyramid.

So that puts you back again.

In the situation of, well, if I can't change this culture, if I can't confront

over the top, if I can't go to a.

Uh, CEO or principal, whatever it is that I need to talk to,

then this isn't going to change.

And also remember that if you're dealing with toxic people, you had,

you know, often the effects can be like ripples on a pond, right.

It can affect outside your work.

So you can take that stuff home.

You can start to get depressed, anxious.

You can start to get snappy and over-reactive with your family.

So, again, you're not bound to put up with it.

So summary.

Confront or avoid, depending on the factors that I've discussed.

Um, realize that, you know, life is paradox that we both long and short.

You know, it's too short to be hating your work and to going somewhere every

day where you're feeling really unhappy.

So I would encourage you to, to weigh that up, talk to people that

love you, talk to people you trust.

Change what you reasonably reasonably can change, but I would

just say, do not tolerate it.

It's it's just awful.

And, and you know, at least at the time I'm recording this,

employment's at a 50 year high, so there's plenty of work out there.

If you really decide this is not cool, because there are

people that love going to work.

There are people who go to work places without toxic people where they're

really positive work environment.

Again, we're back to that leadership question.

So.

That's the thing about a toxic people.

If I've missed anything, if you'd like clarification, just please reach out.

Um, you can email me@jonathanatjonathandoyle.co, and

I can take this deeper, but that's my initial thoughts on toxic people.

Uh, as I've got older, I'm probably much more likely to confront quickly.

You know, I'm a big believer.

Um, it just in my personality that, uh, I tend to go hard and go early, which

is if I can sense that something's.

Is unpleasant, um, in a, in a, in this kind of context, I go early.

I just call it early and have my battles early, rather than lie awake

at 2:00 AM for months on end, wondering what I'm going to do differently.

So.

That's my thoughts on toxic people.

Let's talk about the second question.

Relationship trust.

It was a beautiful question.

Uh, from a lady who talked about, you know, just, I mean, reading between the

lines that obviously suffered, I would imagine some form of betrayal or hardship

in relationships, and they're finding it very difficult to trust people.

Totally get it.

Totally understandable.

It is a reasonable, psychological response to emotional trauma.

I know that word gets thrown around a great deal, but.

You know, it is quite a traumatic event.

If you've had your trust badly violated.

Or relationships haven't worked out the way you want.

It is hard to use a metaphor to get back on the horse to

try again and again, and again.

Here's a couple of thoughts.

The first one would be to do the hard work of analyzing what went wrong.

If there's a pattern here, humans are brilliant on patterns.

So when I'd confronting things about.

Relationship problems and difficulties is to go, okay,

what happened here objectively?

Am I contributing in any way to this.

I'm not doing the blame, the victim thing.

I'm just saying.

Do I hold beliefs?

Do I have attitudes?

Do I accept things that I shouldn't accept or I ignore things that I should

confront that are seeing these patterns repeat that that's confronting work.

It's hard work.

You might want to do that.

Work with someone who loves you.

With someone that you trust, whether it's just conversations or, you

know, you can get, um, you could get a counselor and sort of say,

look, this pattern is emerging.

What is it in me?

That is.

You know, Allowing this pat not causing it, not saying that you're the, you're

the cause of it, but just saying what patterns or beliefs do I have that

are relevant in this circumstance?

And again, regulation has no that my take on the whole therapy

counseling thing is that usually.

Uh, or you end up with a good narrative, you end up with a good

understanding of what's happening.

But the crucial part is that we get steps.

We get actually actionable things that we can do differently in the world, because

if we don't do different things in the world, we tend to get the same results.

You know, years ago, Tony Robbins gave a great example of this.

He told a story about a woman who was dealing with justice issue.

She'd been through.

All these different, you know, problems.

In relationships and she just couldn't trust.

You just literally was not able to, to trust.

And he gave her the metaphor of driving, you know, down a, a twisty

mountain road, you know, that, uh, you know, imagine lots of hairpin turns

and there's a fair bit of traffic.

And.

It was quite an interesting metaphor.

He sort of helped her understand that the only way that you can do that

drive anywhere you can get anywhere.

Is to basically trust that everybody on the other side of the road

is going to stay in their lane.

That, that if you don't know that, if you just suddenly think that someone's going

to flip across the line straight into you.

Then, you know, you're not able to drive you're, you're paralyzed, you're immobile.

So he sort of gave her this metaphor to help us see that eventually.

You just have to trust that that people are going to do the right thing.

And again, if you've been through difficulty, that's very hard

to do, but I would say that.

We're in the realm of risk.

The.

The beauty of human relationships also requires risk.

It also requires stepping into the unknown and trusting.

Yes.

It's the old saying that a ship is safe in the Harbor, but that

is not what the ship was made for.

You know, the ships are made to cross the oceans.

I remember on my wedding data at 22 years ago.

I was so nervous.

I was genuinely nervous.

I was like almost thrown up.

I was so nervous.

I love Karen.

I knew that, that this was this the, you know, The most wonderful person and most

wonderful relationship that we'd had.

But I was aware of what I was about to do.

And I had this profound sense of like, this is for life.

This is no going backwards.

This.

I took that risk.

I had to step into that space, despite the fact that I was afraid and people could

have you to be afraid on your wedding day.

I was, I was genuinely nervous cause I.

I've often said audiences.

I understood the enormity of what I was doing.

And so I guess what I'm saying here in terms of relationship trust is

it's the risk despite being afraid.

It's the risk.

It's the decision that yes, I could get hurt, but I'm going to step into

the current and the stream of life.

I am going to risk.

Being hurt.

Now again, concentrate.

This is not about being frivolous.

This is not about going.

I'll just try again and again and again, you know, you don't want

to keep retraumatizing yourself.

So you're holding intention.

These two, these two parameters, one is doing the work to

discover what might be a pattern.

That you could change in terms of relationship disappointment.

And the second is deciding that yes, I could get hurt again.

But I must take the step.

I must take the step into this possibility.

All right.

I hope that's helpful.

Let me know what you think on that one.

And finally as promised, we are talking about guilt I'm on, I know

that I'm going longer than usual.

So I want to wrap this up.

Guilt is an incredibly important human emotion.

I have spoken about this for years.

If we do not have guilt.

Then we all basically become sociopath's.

We all.

Basically are incapable of.

Uh, evaluating our choices and behaviors and realizing that things

we have done have hurt others.

So let's please understand.

That guilt now is, is, is a useful and important human emotion.

So here's a delineation.

We are going to delineate between guilt and shame.

Very important distinction.

Very important to have this in your toolbox for life.

Guilt is, um, I have done something wrong.

Shame is I am bad.

So, this is a very important delineation between the

experiences of guilt and shame.

Guilt means there is a standard that you hold either

consciously or semi consciously.

Sometimes we have standards that we're not completely across.

But guilt means there is a standard.

There is something that you think is important or valuable.

In being human, that you have transgressed that you have done something against

what you know is a reasonable sub subjective and objective standard.

Shame is a belief that you are fundamentally bad.

So Freud, basically a lot of Freud's were kind of blurred some of this

and the Freudian concept of guilt has permeated culture in the sense that.

We're told not to regret anything, you know, have no regrets.

No, we should have regrets.

If you don't have regrets, something's really wrong.

Because you have to have regrets there's choices.

You've made this things you've done that have hurt you and hurt other people.

They're called regrets.

So, let me, I'm going to, I'm going to take that in a

direction and just a second.

So the first point is to delineate.

We don't want shame.

Okay.

We want to move beyond shame.

We don't want shame in our lives.

But guilt when it prop, when it crops up is can be.

An extremely important and useful human experience.

Why.

Because it calls us to a couple of things.

One is to making a men's.

Y, you know, look at alcoholics anonymous in those 12 steps.

One of them is this thing about making a men's right where you, where you

go back and you make a list of all the people that you've hurt and you

try as much as you reasonably can.

To fix it.

To, to make up for the things you have done.

So.

The first good thing about guilt.

Is it's going to help us as much as possible too.

Make changes to, to do things differently, to go back to

people and say, Hey, I am sorry.

I upset you.

I did this.

It caused pain.

I am sorry.

And often to say there is no excuse.

I would love to tell you that it happened because of these factors

and maybe there is some context.

But in general, it happened because I made these choices and I've hurt you.

And I'm sorry.

So Gilt allows that sort of, uh, ability to restore relationship to bring healing.

It also allows us to evaluate our behavior and make significant

changes going forward.

You know, then the nagging sense of guilt goes, the something I'm

doing that is not calling me to my highest level of functioning.

Now, when none of us are in our highest level of functioning all the time.

But guilt can have an important role in helping us grow, helping us develop to go.

Yeah, I did that.

And when I did that X thing, I felt worse.

I felt unhappy.

I felt like I'd broken a boundary that I shouldn't have broken.

So do you see its usefulness?

Last thing I wanted to say about guilt is there is a time to move

beyond what's happened in the past.

See, the problem with guilt is guilt and shame.

Like I said before, can masquerade masquerade as each other.

So sometimes we can hold onto guilt for so long that we never moved beyond that.

We just feel we can never get beyond something we've done.

And it's always there.

I think eventually we have to accept.

Uh, limited nature.

We have to accept our frailties.

We have to accept that we are sinners.

We seem.

You know, Romans, what is it?

Romans?

To Romans 12, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

No one, no one in this planet.

Um, Except maybe the good Lord himself has ever been without sin without

guilt, without failure, without transgression, we all carry it.

But there comes a season where we have to have let Gilt done its work.

We have, we have been honest, we've evaluated who we are.

And look again, this is another thing of guilt that if you do

the work of guilt, You get self knowledge, you go look, lift yourself.

You will do certain things.

And you get self knowledge about it.

And then you look at the situations or the people that can trigger these

choices and behaviors in you that you don't want in your life anymore.

So you begin to make these changes.

So.

There is a time to move beyond it because ultimately eventually when

guilt moves into shame, it is what I call a nonproductive emotion.

It is a nonproductive emotion.

By nonproductive.

I mean, eventually it retards your life.

It locks you out of relationship.

It keeps you stuck in a place where you move towards self-loathing and shame,

and you never let yourself off the hook.

And sometimes you can tell yourself, well, you deserve it.

I deserve to feel this way because I did this X thing.

But eventually the call of the human life is to love.

The call of the human life is to growth.

The call of the human life is to development.

And so if you don't move beyond the work of guilt eventually

into eventually self-forgiveness.

And you may want to seek forgiveness in a spiritual sense too.

But eventually staying trapped in it.

Doesn't allow you to love others the way that you would love

you would prefer to love them.

Oh, I've got to stop there.

So there's a lot to all of this, right?

We're at 24 minute mark here, much longer than usual.

But, uh, I hope some of that's a blessing to you guys.

We've talked about toxic people.

We've talked about relationship trust, and we've talked about.

The experience of guilt and shame.

So move beyond it.

Friends.

Do the work of guilt.

Recognize your limited.

Human nature.

You know, we are angels.

We are capable of such beauty and wonder and selflessness and generosity, and

then we're also capable of dumb stuff.

So let's accept that about ourselves.

Try and limit the dumb stuff, make amends when we do it and

then move forward, recognize our weaknesses and then move forward.

All right.

Wow.

That's a long one.

All right.

Uh, please subscribe.

If you liked any of this, please subscribe.

If you've got somebody in your life who's dealing with toxic

people, relationship issues, or guilt, send them this, say, Hey.

Oh, I guess that's awkward now.

Isn't it?

Cause.

If you send it to a friend, they'll go.

Why did you send me that?

Do you think I have problems with guilt or anything?

I'm a relationship failure.

Anyway.

Just send it to somebody.

You never know.

You never know.

You never know how it's going to bless somebody.

So please subscribe.

Go check out all the show nights, go and grab free access

to my book, bridging the gap.

Ah, well, I love you guys.

I really appreciate the fact that you're listening.

I hope you've learned something today.

It's been a joy for me to do it.

My name's Jonathan Doyle.

This has been the daily podcast.

And you and I are going to talk again tomorrow.