Ever leave a conversation feeling oddly exhausted? This episode takes a real look at relationships that quietly drain your energy and how to step back from them without turning it into a full-blown conflict. We start by asking the hard questions: does this connection actually support you, or does it leave you depleted?

We talk about the importance of slowing down and regulating your emotions before making any big decisions. Creating distance doesn’t have to be dramatic. Sometimes the healthiest move is letting a relationship fade naturally, especially if confrontation feels overwhelming.

We also unpack the fear of being seen as the “bad guy,” and why prioritizing your mental health isn’t selfish. The episode closes with a reminder that forgiveness is about freeing yourself, not excusing anyone else, and that building a circle of people who uplift you is one of the most powerful forms of self-care.

Takeaways:

1. It is imperative to conduct an emotional audit of our relationships to identify those that are detrimental to our well-being.
2. Engaging in difficult conversations is essential for dismantling unhealthy relationships and reclaiming personal peace.
3. We must prioritize our emotional health and establish boundaries to prevent the erosion of our well-being.
4. It is acceptable to remove individuals from our lives who drain our energy, even if it may paint us as the villain in their narrative.

Chapters:

1. 00:00 - Welcoming the Guest
2. 00:29 - Navigating Difficult Relationships
3. 18:27 - Releasing Resentment and Moving Forward
4. 36:50 - Reevaluating Relationships: The Importance of Trust
5. 42:11 - Emotional Maturity and Accountability in Relationships
6. 57:37 - The Importance of Accountability in Friendships

About the Host

Angela Anderson Knittle is a corporate trainer, theater director, mother, and natural guide who finds wisdom in everyday moments. She brings heartfelt clarity into conversations about connection, compassion, and personal growth. Angela’s Living Room is where her lived experiences become gentle, honest insight for anyone wanting deeper relationships.

Podcast website: https://angelas-living-room.captivate.fm

If You Enjoyed This Episode

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Come on in.

Welcome.

Oh, I'm glad you're here.

Please come in and have a seat.

Let's see where the conversation takes us.

So.

So how do we go about removing people from our lives without destroying things, without burning bridges, without catastrophe?

Right?

Start with quiet clarity.

Really take inventory.

Really do an audit of your relationship.

We do not make permanent decisions on heightened emotions.

We talked about that earlier, right?

Don't make decisions on heightened emotions.

We want to give ourselves time to be calm and to make these choices from an emotionally regulated space from where we are.

We may still be upset about the situation, but we can't be at peak anger.

We can't be.

When we're at the height of our emotional response, we need to make sure that we have given ourself the chance to calm down.

Whether we go for a walk, we sleep on it, we go talk to our mama, to our best friend, we pray about it, we meditate about it.

Like, whatever your vehicle, whatever your choice is, make sure you've calmed yourself down.

And then you're asking yourself, are they taking more than they give?

Do you feel drained or small or anxious after time spent together?

Is the relationship simply not aligned anymore?

Meaning are they holding you back?

Right?

Is it the group of friends who just wants to drink and get high and play games?

Or are you surrounding yourself with people who have goals, ambitions, drive, who are.

Who have a plan, who are working their plan, who are motivated in their own lives?

I'm not sure who originated the quote, but I'm just going to throw it out there because I've heard a dear friend of mine say it repeatedly.

And it is we are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with.

The people that we surround ourselves with are the ones who have the most impact in the choices we make and the journey we take.

Okay, so who is in your top five?

And are they moving you along your journey, or are they the obstacle you're trying to overcome?

The clarity step is so important because it helps ensure that you act calmly rather than emotionally.

When we react emotionally, as opposed to responding, responding with thought, we don't often get the outcome that we want.

Reactions can be damaging not just to the relationship, not just to the other person, but to ourselves.

Right?

Because sometimes what comes out in the heat of a moment in a reaction isn't true to our values, isn't true to how we really, really think about a thing.

Our feelings, while valid, are not facts, right?

So we want to make sure that the feelings have time to calm down and they're not clouding the facts.

And as I said, I'm a vibe girl.

I'm an energy girl.

If somebody gives me a bad feeling, I trust that bad feeling, but I look for the facts.

If it's somebody in my circle, I'm gonna hunt down the facts to support the feeling.

Those feelings have to be founded in something and I need to know what it is before I can remove that person from my sphere of influence.

Right.

From their ability to impact me.

I have to, I have to do the research.

Okay, next up.

It doesn't always require a grand announcement.

It doesn't have to be a big thing.

You don't.

This is not the airport.

You do not need to announce your departure.

This is flight Angela Knittle departing from this relationship.

This is a one way flight.

We will not be returning.

Thank you for your time and attention.

No, we don't have to announce it.

Sometimes we can simply match energy.

If the problem is that you're constantly asking them to join, to do, and they're never wanting to engage, stop asking.

It's real simple.

It's real simple.

And if it's just inconsistent or only when it's their idea or when it's their need, just stop making responding to their inquiries, to their requests a priority.

Let the text go unanswered.

Let them go unread.

Don't reply when they invite you.

Politely decline.

Say that you're, oh, you already have a commitment at that time, so sorry.

Right?

Who knows, Maybe you need to trim your toenails or wash your hair.

Maybe you need to alphabetize the vegetables in your pantry.

Who knows?

There are all sorts of priorities in the world, right?

But be busy, don't be available.

Keep it light, keep it cordial.

Doesn't have to be nasty.

Just, just don't be available.

Allow a natural distance to grow.

If they're really not that gauged engaged in the relationship, then this is the easiest route to take.

Nobody's feelings are hurt.

You just let it drift.

And this has happened to us naturally.

How many times in our lives, how many people were you close with for a period of time?

And then something changed, whether their job changed, whether the schooling or the project or the program.

Maybe somebody moved, maybe somebody got married, maybe somebody got promoted, promoted.

Whatever happened, right?

Families get started, life happens, and people naturally drift apart.

If somebody is not serving you first step, let it just naturally drift apart and end.

Now, sometimes.

This can be really hard for our people pleasers, right?

Because you, you see that text alert come up, you see their name Flash up on the caller ID and you feel like you have to.

And man, you don't.

Let me be the one to tell you you don't.

And here's why.

This is somebody who has been running negative in their account with you.

You're not at this point because they've shown up and been a good friend to you.

If you're at this point, it's because this relationship has not been equitable.

Right?

You're at this point because you feel the need to break away because it's not healthy for you.

So to reach this point point, You have to hold yourself accountable to your boundaries, to your standards and for yourself.

It is incumbent upon you to prioritize your own peace.

Nobody is going to prioritize your peace for you if you don't.

Okay, how deeply in debt are you willing to let somebody go before you say, I'm extending no more credit?

Okay, if this person was taking money from you instead of just taking your time and energy, how often would you be willing to pull into your wallet and pull out the 20, the 50, the hundred that they're asking for and not paying you back?

Continuing a relationship that is running in this type of deficit, you are the one who are paying the fines and penalties on this account.

You're the one carrying the emotional baggage because they're not there, making deposits, picking up that emotional load that they're supposed to help you carry in a mutually beneficial relationship.

Right?

So how does a people pleaser do this?

Love yourself first.

If you don't respect yourself, your own time, and you don't recognize the value that you bring to the relationship, you're going to allow somebody to continue to take advantage of you.

But every time they take emotionally from you, picture pulling a hundred dollar bill out of your wallet and handing them to it.

How many times would you do that before you say, enough, I can't sustain this?

Protect your own peace.

People will typically sense the shift when you stop engaging, you stop replying and you stop being available.

And it avoids unnecessary conflict.

Because as I said, if we're at this stage where we're calling them out of our circle, where we are breaking ties, I'm assuming that we've already had conversations with them saying, hey, my needs in this relationship are not being met.

If you're not telling them, making requests of them, giving them opportunities to show up for you, and then you're going to surprise them, they're not going to know where this is coming from.

But if you have had those conversations, if you've Done the pre work to get here to where we're going.

No, this isn't working for me anymore.

You don't have to explain it any further because you've already done that.

You did that part already.

You can just go distant and quiet and let that, let that space grow between you.

Sometimes you have to have the conversation.

Sometimes, especially if it's family and not just friend, acquaintance, co worker, sometimes you have to go there.

Or if the nature of the breach of the relationship is that they're trying to control you, generally just quietly going away isn't going to work because they're going to try to control you.

That's the thing, right?

So you have to have the conversation.

And again, we're going on the precipice that you have expressed your needs in this relationship that you've, you've said, said, I need the freedom to go hang out with my friends.

I need the wear what I'm going to wear, make the choices I'm going to make, right?

If it's a control situation, if it's a family situation and you can't just disappear in that relationship, sometimes you have to have the conversation.

Be honest, be kind.

This isn't about inflicting damage.

This is about maintaining peace and setting boundaries, right?

This is also not the time to have an airing of grievances, right?

If we're at the making a break point, grievances have been aired, you've told them what's not working, you've given opportunities for them to change the behavior, and you're still in an unequitable relationship, unequally yoked in the relationship.

Somebody's giving more, somebody's taking more, and it's not reciprocated.

Okay?

Be honest, be kind, but don't.

This isn't time to regurgitate the list of cons that you have cultivated, right?

Instead, what we're going to do is say something where you are taking ownership for this decision.

I've been needing to focus more on my own energy and priorities lately.

So I'm going to be pulling back.

It's not about you.

This is where I'm at in my journey.

Make it all about you.

And I'm going to tell you this right now.

They may not like it.

I know, shocking, right?

They may not like it.

And I'm.

Here's an uncomfortable truth that I'm going to lay out there and something that you might have to wrestle with a little bit.

And I will tell you, it wasn't until I reached the age of 50 before I could fully embody this.

So this is some emotional growth required here.

It is okay to be the villain in someone else's story if it protects my peace.

It is okay for them to be mad that they will no longer have access to you.

It is okay for them to be upset that they're no longer going to be able to use you for your energy, for your emotional regulation, for your errands, for your resources, for your time, effort, energy, love, care, compassion.

They're going to be upset about it, most likely, and that is okay.

They don't have to be happy with your decision.

They don't have to agree with your decision.

It's your boundary to maintain, okay?

But it is perfectly acceptable to be the villain.

Because here's the thing.

I may be the villain in their story, but I'm the lead in mine.

I'm the lead in my story.

And my choices are not always going to align with other people's expectations.

My choices are not always going to align with other people's desires or plans.

And that is is okay.

It's okay.

That does not rewrite my story just because they're not happy with my choices.

Unless they gonna show up and stop paying my mortgage.

They don't get to pick for me.

Right?

Unless they gonna pay my bills.

You're gonna pay my cell bill.

Then you get to decide when I answer it and when I don't.

But as it is, I pay that.

It is okay to be the villain in someone else's story.

We want to make sure that we're keeping our tone respectful.

We want to be clear.

And this is not about blame.

We're past that.

We're past that.

This isn't a blame game.

It doesn't matter whose fault it is.

It's where we're at.

It is where we're at.

So this next step.

This next step is a doozy, my friends.

This next step is about the release.

And we all know how important a good release is.

Release your resentment privately.

You cannot let the relationship go cleanly.

If you're hanging on to anger and resentment.

If you're choosing to shift your path, right?

If you're removing that person from walking on this journey with you.

Do not continue to carry the traumas that they tried to give you and the resentments with you.

Leave their baggage with them.

Don't take it with you.

Now, does that mean I want you to go find them and, you know, itemize.

Give them an itemized listing of everything they've done wrong?

No.

But you know what?

I do want you to do.

I want you to take that itemized list and I want you to write it down on a piece of paper.

Whether you're going to write a letter to the person themselves that you never send them, it's not for them.

It's not about them.

It is for you.

But get it out of you.

A letter, a poem, prosecution essay format, bullet points.

If you want to put a PowerPoint presentation together on all of the reasons that they sucked in the relationship, do it.

Do it.

Print it out and then burn it, release it, let it go.

Another thing, sometimes we need a physical manifestation of the act, right?

So something you can do, Go find you a cinder block or grab a couple gallons of milk or water or other liquid, right?

Something heavy.

And I want you to take it and I want you to hold it.

And I want you to walk around your neighborhood, walk around your backyard, walk in circles in your house if you have to.

But I want you to carry that burden until your arms burn.

And every step you take carrying it, think about all of the things that they did to you in that relationship.

Everything you resented, everything that frustrated you, everything that hurt you, every betrayal.

Think about them with every step as you carry that burden.

And when your arms can take no more, set it down and let it all go.

And leave the weight of that behind you.

Let it go.

Get it out of you, right?

If words aren't your medium and putting words on paper doesn't work for you, sketch it out, draw it out, paint it out, create it out, Right?

Purge what is no longer necessary in your space.

Do your deep, clean, right?

Release the resentment.

Because here's what we don't fully appreciate about resentment is that if we leave it in our systems, it changes, it mutates and it turns toxic inside of us.

And that resentment, that toxicity, isn't hurting the person who hurts you.

It is only hurting yourself.

It's like drinking poison and watching for the other person to die.

It doesn't work.

The only way you free yourselves from these nasty, toxic, unproductive relationships is to learn the lesson that it was trying to teach us and release the resentment and the anger.

The goal is to forgive quietly.

You don't have to announce your forgiveness to them.

The forgiveness isn't for them.

They don't need the relief that your forgiveness will grant them.

Them.

It's not theirs.

They didn't earn it, right?

The forgiveness is forgiving yourself for tolerating that relationship.

Forgive yourself for making the choices that brought you there.

Forgive yourself.

Forgive.

Not to reconnect with them, not to make them feel better, but to allow yourself to move forward freely and better than where you started.

We should be learning from every single relationship, especially the ones that end.

Each relationship we end is teaching us something.

So in all of this, I also want to encourage you to stay open, Not attached.

Right?

We're going to stay open.

Not necessarily to that person, to that relationship, but open to relationships, open to connecting, open to finding somebody who is going to fill your cup, make a deposit in that bank.

Right?

And especially when we're talking family, when we're talking really deep, meaningful relationships that we may have outgrown or that are no longer serving us, Letting go gracefully means that we can leave the door open a crack because we're making this change, because we're on a healing journey, because we're trying to improve ourselves.

We want to grant grace to folks, to make their own journey to grow themselves.

Kind of hypocritical to think that we're the only ones who get to grow, evolve and change.

I am not saying that you have to give your abuser an in back to you.

That's not what I'm saying.

But I'm saying that if you see someone has grown, has changed, has evolved, just because you remove them from your life at one point doesn't mean they have to stay out forever.

Reconnections are a real thing.

I have a friend who has one of the most beautiful love stories I've ever heard.

It is precious.

I'm not going to name names.

So she's not outed, but she married the same man twice.

Not back to back, but twice.

He was her first and her third husband.

First time they got married young, fiery, tumultuous.

Alcohol might have been involved.

Right.

That relationship ended in divorce.

It needed to end in divorce.

She healed, went on, married somebody else, was married to them for a while.

That marriage ended and after the ending of the second marriage, reconnected with husband number one and discovered that the problematic behaviors that had caused the first divorce were no longer play.

They had sought therapy and removed substances.

And she will tell you that while she married the same person, it's a completely different man the second time around.

And now they are madly in love and happy and supportive and living the life they always wanted to live together.

But it took separating, growing and healing apart and then coming back together later.

So putting out boundaries and removing your direct connection to somebody isn't necessarily throwing the relationship away forever, especially if they choose to continue to grow and evolve and change themselves.

And there are all kinds of different ways that people can turn their lives around, right?

Whether it is giving up substances, maybe it's finding the right substances that work for you.

Sometimes getting properly medicated is the appropriate thing, right?

Sometimes.

Sometimes it is.

They've had a spiritual awakening and they have found the deity that speaks to them and helps them make better choices and be a better person.

Right?

All kinds of different ways that people can change and alter their path and improve themselves.

And separated for now does not have to mean separated forever.

So leave yourself open to those possibilities.

You know, some folks, it's worth monitoring from afar to see how they're doing.

And this is going to be highly individualized, right?

Each and every situation.

I personally recommend that you develop a council of elders that you trust that you can talk to.

Elders don't necessarily need to be older than you.

In this context, I'm referring to wise people, not necessarily older people.

But with age sometimes comes wisdom.

So each and every one of us at some point in our life have realized that someone was not aligned with your growth.

Boy, I've got a few of these and my own experience and trying to decide which one to share and how to share it has been one of the most challenging pieces in putting today's topic together.

I think the one that I'm going to talk about was friendship.

It was a very dear friendship.

We were friends for quite a while, and we met in the workplace, and it was fun and funny, and we had a similar dystopian sense of humor.

You know, Gallo's humor ran strong in both of us.

But.

This person was stuck in a very destructive cycle of relationship with her children's father.

And, oh, it just made that relationship really, really difficult because I was watching somebody I cared about being treated very poorly.

It was never physical to my knowledge, because your girl has a hard line when it comes to domestic violence.

And I will call the police every single time.

And I don't care if you get mad at me for it.

That's just my stance on it.

I grew up in an abusive household, and the number of times I wish somebody had had the courage to call the police for us, I can't even.

I can't even quantify them.

So I am that person.

I will intervene.

I will step in.

I will protect.

So it was never that, but it was very manipulative.

Expecting her to drop everything and cater to his every need, but being unwilling to do a single thing on her behalf.

And just the cycle of her accepting that treatment and being okay with it and making Excuses for it.

You know, in the beginning, I was profoundly empathetic and I'm a solution oriented person.

So I was trying to find ways to help her improve the situation.

And at one point I realized that it really didn't matter what I had to say.

She was not willing to change her situation.

She was stuck in that cycle and was going to stay in that cycle.

And I could either accept that, that that was going to be the dynamic that it would be the constant, the fighting, the making up.

The fighting, the making up.

And listen, if that's what makes you happy in your relationship, there are some very spicy people who just enjoy the contention, the argument, the heightened emotion is what it's all about.

And, you know, I'm not here to kink shame.

Whatever turns you on, turns you on.

Okay?

If yelling and calling each other nasty names is how you do, you boo.

I'm not going to judge it.

But when you ask me for advice repeatedly and ask for help and then kind of shove it back in your face and then get mad when you try to hold them accountable to the choices they said they wanted to make.

And you can only do that so many times before it.

You have to pull back, you know, it becomes very draining on you emotionally and very frustrating to watch somebody continue to allow themselves to be disrespected and to be overworked and underappreciated.

And if you love that person watching it now, I to this day remain open.

If she were to ever reach out and say, I've changed my choice, right, I'm not choosing that anymore, I would absolutely be here.

But I did have to tell her that I couldn't participate in this cycle any further, that it had reached the point that it was hurting me to watch her live this cycle and I had to pull away.

And she wasn't happy about it.

She felt abandoned and betrayed.

And that broke my heart.

But it was costing me an ulcer.

Her relationship was giving me an ulcer.

That just doesn't work, right?

It just doesn't work.

It was having a physical impact on my body.

So we had to stop.

We had to stop.

This show runs on the sweat of fairies and wood sprites and strong coffee.

If you'd like to support the fairies and wood sprites or just buy Angela a coffee, we would all appreciate it.

The fairies know she can be testy without caffeine and nobody wants that.

Head to coffee@kofi.com Angela's living room and the fairies will thank you.

It's never easy when you have to distance yourself from someone.

It's always a hard choice to make.

But hard choices are important.

And if we neglect our duty in making those choices, we are surrendering our control over what influences us.

And I am personally not into letting other people control me.

That's just me.

I know.

Shocking to one and all.

So now that we have culled our circle of influence, how do we repopulate our tribe?

Right.

How do we grow a community that is supportive and that meets those needs and is appreciative to what we can pour into them and is willing to pour back?

Like, how do we build that community?

And we'll talk about that when we get back.

Welcome back from that brief supposal interruption.

Oh, if you are watching the video feed of this, the shenanigans are real.

Anyway, my One of the joys of being in Angela's actual living room is every once in a while, Angela's actual life will make an appearance.

So there was Mr. Knittle briefly, but now that he has his sandwich and soup and is back in to continue his convalescence, is recovering from spinal surgery.

So we were talking about replenishing our tribe.

Like, how do we build a collection or collective of people who share values, share morals, share drive?

Right.

People who are just as happy to pour into you as they are to receive what you have to pour into them.

Right.

People who step up when they're needed and don't ask for more than they're willing to give.

How do we find those people?

Well, it's important to know what qualities it is that we're looking for to help us determine if that new person is worthy of being a part of our inner circle.

That should be a very select group that you invite into your circle to influence you.

Right.

So the qualities that we want to look for, we're going to start with some trustworthiness.

This is the kind of person who will keep your confidence, who will follow through on their word.

If they say they're going to do it, it gets done.

And this is the person that you can count on their integrity even when you're not around.

You should be able to trust them with your partner, even if you're not present, because your partner should also be as equally as trustworthy.

If you cannot trust your peoples to spend time together, then they're really not your peoples.

And that's a hard truth for some of us to face.

But I trust my husband implicitly.

I trust him so much that at one point in our marriage, his job, he did some side work as an Uber driver.

And his most consistent clientele were the strippers from the local strip Club.

At 2 o' clock in the morning, when they finally closed and their shift ended, most of them need transportation home.

It was reliable, steady work.

And I never one time worried that my husband was going to make a poor decision that situation, because I trust him, he trusts me, and we value our marriage enough not to risk that for a temporary thrill.

So it was never even a thought.

If you don't feel that way about the person that you're with, that's something to reflect on.

We'll save that conversation for another day.

Authenticity.

They need to show up as their real self.

No masks, no games, no artifice.

You want people who are real because if they are really themselves around you, that allows you to really be yourself around them.

And that's where true connection and bonds can build.

Next up, we're going to talk about emotional maturity.

How do they handle disagreements?

Can we not be aligned on a topic and still love and respect each other?

All right, how about their own mistakes?

Can they recognize when they make a mistake?

It is really hard to build an authentic, real relationship with somebody who can never acknowledge when they messed up.

I screw up all the time and I will admit it.

In fact, I am usually the one who will announce that I have made the mistake before anybody else has a chance to notice.

I have found in professional settings, it is much easier that way.

Right.

Disclosure is always preferable to discovery because when I disclose what happened, I get to pick the frame that we put it in.

If you discover it, you get to choose how it's framed.

That kind of dishonesty, it just.

It doesn't bode well in a relationship.

Right.

It's always better to say the hard thing out loud and then just deal with it and be able to move on from there.

Right.

Can they own their own mistakes?

Can they acknowledge when they've screwed up?

And can they communicate and respond rather than react when they are frustrated, upset, or not having their needs met?

Right.

Are they grown up enough to say, hey, I'm disappointed that you responded like that, or it hurt my feelings when you said this to me or, you know, you choosing to do that makes me feel a certain way.

Right.

Can you have those conversations and not be faced with defensiveness?

Right.

And not feel defensive in turn when they raise those same concerns to you?

I think what?

Yeah.

All right, next up is a topic that has come up frequently and we're talking about reciprocity.

The relationship feels balanced.

Both give and, and receive care, support, effort, energy, attention, love, understanding.

Empathy, right?

Like you show up for each other.

Is there consistency?

Their actions align with their words over time.

They don't shift based on convenience or circumstance.

Right?

That they.

That they are authentically themselves on a consistent basis.

Empathy.

Empathy is so important in relationship because empathy is all about understanding where somebody is coming from, understanding their feelings, being able to place yourself in their shoes.

Even if it's an experience that you haven't had personally, that you can.

That you can.

That you can understand how they're feeling in that moment, that you can get down there with them and say, hey, I see you and you're not alone.

Alrighty.

I believe that we were on empathy, right?

This is the ability to genuinely care about how their actions affect others and that they're willing to understand your perspective.

Having empathy means you're willing to see it from somebody else's point of view.

That you acknowledge that your perspective is not the only one in any given situation.

Right?

That somebody else's experiences are also legitimate and valid and worthy of consideration.

And to know that the actions you take affect people around you.

People who lack empathy are very hard to be in relation with.

Right?

Because it becomes all about them.

Shared values.

Now, here's an interesting one.

You need to align on the big things.

Loyalty, honesty, right?

Kindness, desire for growth, a general direction that you want to move in together.

Right?

Those sh.

But that does not mean that you have to agree on every bullet point on the ballot, my friends.

Right?

You can disagree profoundly about a lot of things as long as the core values aligned.

Okay?

You can have a household where the partners vote for different parties and they still love and respect each other.

It's a thing.

It happens in my marriage, right?

We don't necessarily align on all of the same topics, but he respects my point of view, I respect his point of view.

And we know that there are certain topics we just don't engage in discussion on because neither one of us are going to control the outcome of the national conversation.

So there is no point in continuing that conversation in our bedroom, right?

It doesn't belong there.

So what we do align on is respect for each other.

We align on loyalty and trustworthiness.

We align on honesty with each other.

We align on our financial goals together.

So the big things, those things, we align on the trivial things, the external things, those don't affect our day to day.

And we just have those conversations respectfully and infrequently.

All right?

Positive energy that they uplift rather than drain that they challenge you to grow and they celebrate your wins without jealousy, right?

How they perceive you and receive you is important, right?

That what this positive energy does, this isn't just about being bubbly and I'm happy, I'm giggly.

Ahaha.

I'm positive.

Woo hoo.

We're not talking about the silliness.

We're not talking about, you know, the marketing version of positive energy.

When I'm talking about positive energy, I mean energy that charges you, energy that lifts you, energy that challenges your growth.

So interesting thing, if you are growing a tree from a seedling and you plant that tree in a place where it is protected from the wind, that tree will grow, but it'll be impaired in its growth because what the wind does to the sapling is it teaches the tree how to be strong, right?

So the more it gets challenged in its growth with the wind, right?

The more storms that it survives, that it makes it through, create a stronger, thicker trunk, a more robust tree.

That challenge that, that resistance makes it stronger over time.

So positive energy that stimulates your growth is challenging you to improve yourself, to be better, to do better.

Not by criticizing what you are, but by inspiring you to become more.

All right?

And jealousy is real important to keep an eye on in a relationship because it's a real thing.

It can crop up suddenly out of nowhere, and when it takes root, it becomes pervasive and it can poison an entire relationship.

So jealousy occurs when we think somebody's getting something they don't deserve or they didn't work hard enough for.

And we need to be real aware of ourselves in those moments when we feel ourselves being jealous.

We need to ask, what is it that we're jealous of?

Right?

What's at the core of that?

Whenever we feel those types of negative emotions, it's an opportunity to look inward and find out what's the root of that darkness, where's it coming from?

It is founded somewhere in prior betrayal or trauma.

So you're going to want to trace that back and see what that's coming from.

Because if you let it go unanswered, unexamined, it can get real nasty and it can ruin an otherwise good relationship.

So just be careful about that.

You want to make sure that the people you invite into your circle are that positively charged energy, and you want to make sure that you're maintaining that positively charged energy.

All right?

And the last point that I want to talk about is accountability, all right?

That they can be honest with you and receive honesty from you without it being an attack, right?

What am I talking about here?

They need to be able to call you on your bullshit.

Because sometimes, sometimes what we're doing, what we're saying, what we're thinking is bullshit, guilty, done all the time.

And the people who love me check me on that.

And I require that from my inner circle.

I don't need yes people.

I don't need people who are just gonna yes me to my failure.

I don't need that.

I don't need people who are gonna yes me to my sabotage.

I don't need that.

I need people who are going to encourage me to be the best I can be and call me on it when I'm not doing the work, Call me on it when my thinking isn't right.

Offer me a different perspective.

Offer me a different perspective.

My bestie and I, this is, this is our golden gift.

It's accountability.

And she will call me up and tell me what her husband had done and why she's mad at him.

And then she says, so am I right or am I.

Do I need to, do I need to look at this another way, right?

Tell me if I am overreacting here?

Because that's usually how it is.

It's like, am I overreacting?

Am I righteous with this?

Am I justified in my response?

My feelings are super hurt right now.

And sometimes, sometimes I'm like, girl, he did what?

Yeah, no, that's not acceptable.

And he needs, he needs to take accountability for that.

He needs to apologize for that and there needs to be some restitution.

That is not acceptable behavior.

Right?

And sometimes these are not her favorite times, but sometimes the answer is, well, you know, while that may have not been the best way for him to express that to you, he does have a point.

Right?

He does have a point.

And let's just, let's just step back for a second and let's look at it from that side of the table, right?

And, and that's just, I mean, that's marriage, right?

That's long term relationship, is sometimes you are overreacting and you can't always hear it from your partner.

That's why you need a good tribe of friends who you can call up and go, okay, so is this an appropriate response or am I out of line here?

And then be willing to receive the feedback because if I tell her, you know, he kind of has a point, she might go bitch white.

Really?

Yes, really.

It's not, you know, I could lie to you and make you feel better, but that's not going to help.

Your situation.

Right.

I expect my friends to, to call me on it when I'm not acknowledging the truth of a situation.

See, I am the giver of chances, and so where I am typically held accountable is holding my boundaries firm.

Right.

She's one.

She'll call me on that.

She goes, oh, we're going to do that again.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

You know.

No, no, you, you've got a point.

Okay, Yeah.

I said we weren't going to do this again and here we are.

So what are we going to do about it?

Accountability is key.

Having somebody that you trust to tell you when you're not right is important.

Somebody to tell you that they can see you're really not giving it effort.

I mean, yes.

Do we want a passel of friends who are going to pick up their pom poms and cheerlead for us?

Absolutely.

Love that.

I, I am a pom pom holder myself.

I will rah rah with the best of them.

I will, I will lift you up.

But if you're one of my inner circle, I'm also going to call you on your bullshit.

And I'm going to tell you, you know what, that it's not.

It's.

This ain't it.

It's not.

Okay.

We're not going to do that.

And those are not easy conversations.

Hard conversations, they're called hard for a reason.

Right.

But you have a choice.

You can be uncomfortable for a conversation or you can be miserable for years.

I would rather take the 15, 20, 30 minute conversation and have peace for years.

Those hard conversations, man, the challenge is worth is so much easier just to bear down, get through it.

Now, that doesn't mean you have to jump into them unprepared, make sure you've done your work, do the inventory, do the internal check, and then sit down and have the talk.

Neutral spaces are good out in public, not bad.

Right.

It kind of gives you an incentive to stay regulated when you're out.

Right.

But have the conversations, and I don't mean a text message.

Hard conversations need to be held voice to voice, preferably face to face.

But if not that, if, and especially if that's not safe, it should be voice to voice.

All right, folks, now that we have defined some qualities that we're going to seek to build our tribe with, I want to round off today's conversation with unexpected friendships or connections that ended up being great.

And I've got, just off the top of my head, three that I can come off with.

And in no particular order, I'll start off with Rosemary.

Rosemary is the owner of a local community theater and somebody who, over the past several years, has grown in to be a dear friend.

And it was the chances of chance meetings.

I went and auditioned for a show with another director at another theater, and it didn't pan out.

And he, a couple days later, shared my name with another director who was trying to cast a show.

And I got a random DM from this random woman asking me to come and audition for a show.

I show up and meet this new person in the in one of the conference rooms of a local hotel because their theater wasn't even finished being built out yet.

And that audition, six years later, is a dear friendship.

And she introduced me to the world of theater in a way I never would have anticipated.

I mean, that's a phenomenal story arc, but that is a surprise friendship that came out of a random connection.

Now you want to talk about random connection?

A little over a decade ago, a friend of mine invited me over to a Game of Thrones viewing party, right?

We were going to eat good food, drink numerous cocktails, and be shocked and awed at the happenings in Westeros.

Okay?

And by chance, a individual was at that party who, during that engagement, during that party, I mentioned that I was hosting a cooking club.

And our conversation led me to extend an invitation to this individual to join.

Come join us at cooking club.

Which then broadened the group even more, invited him in to that, and 10 years later, he's now helping me produce this very podcast.

Right?

Who would have ever thought that a random chance meeting at a series viewing party would turn into a business partnership a decade later, right?

A shared love of Buffy the vampire Slater Slayer that got brought up in passing during a work exchange led to a friendship that is older than my son.

All right, My girl, Heather.

We happened to be assigned seats next to each other and then were assigned training projects together.

And we bonded over Buffy, and the friendship bloomed from there to the point that she was present in the room the day my son was born.

And we are still friends to this day.

We get together a couple of times a year, go check out a play or go to some craft workshop or do some other fun activity together.

And she remains one of my besties.

And she is someone who has always been there when I've needed, someone to talk to, when I've needed to just get away.

She's always had a sofa I could crash on.

She's been a dear friend for a long time, right?

My sister from another Mr.

I met because our moms worked together and clicked and became friends.

And the next thing you know, I am auntie to her kids and she's auntie to mine.

And you know, good people are out there, but you have to clear the toxic ones out to make room for them so that you have the energy to give to those happy, healthy, fulfilling relationships.

Right?

Choosing your people with purpose, with intention, helps ensure that you have a village to go on your journey with you.

This way we're not walking alone and it makes the journey that much better.

Guys, I want to thank you for tuning in to today's conversation.

I in case you couldn't tell, I have a lot of thoughts about this subject and I was so happy to have you listen to them today and I hope that some of these thoughts help you cultivate happy, healthy relationships.

So you gonna get started on your inventory now?

Until our next conversation.

It's been really great chatting with you today.

I always appreciate it when you stop by.

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Have a great day.