Speaker 1: 0:12

Welcome to Roots of the Rise with me, sarah Hope. Yesterday we talked about how sometimes being the bigger person means staying. It doesn't always mean walking away, but sometimes it really is time to walk away from relationships. So how do you know? Let's go over some of the big reasons why it might be time to let a relationship go.

Speaker 1: 0:45

My husband says that I hold on to relationships too long. Sometimes. He is definitely one of those people who is capable of saying nope, this person has crossed the line one too many times and now I'm done, and then he can just walk away. Me not so much. I have a tendency to hang on for probably way longer I can admit it than I should, and really that stems from what else? Childhood stuff, right. I know what it's like to be abandoned. I know what it's like to be rejected and I never want to be the cause of someone feeling that way. Yes, I know I can't make anyone else feel anything without their permission. That's a whole other episode. But let's be real. We know that our actions impact other people and I just never want to be part of making someone feel unloved or abandoned. So I tend to hold on, even when relationships are toxic. However, that's not healthy. It's not healthy and it's something I've really had to kind of like work through and wrap my head around. It takes a lot for me to be able to end a relationship. So I think it's important to recognize that sometimes it is appropriate to walk away, and I want to go over some of the big reasons. You know some of the big red flags that say maybe now's the time.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Now, look, this is not a complete list. It's also not a checklist. You know you might be in relationships where one or more of these things is true, but that doesn't absolutely mean it's time for you to go. Some things we can come back from. Sometimes. Open, honest communication can heal deep wounds. Both people have to participate, both have to be willing to change, both have to acknowledge that the problem is the problem, not the other person. And, of course, severity matters. You know there's a difference between telling your spouse a little quote, unquote, white lie, like you went out with the girls but really you just went shopping by yourself because you needed some quiet time, and having an affair. Right, there's a vast, there's a spectrum. So, with all those caveats understood, let's dive in.

Speaker 1: 3:04

So let's begin by just getting the most obvious one out of the way physical abuse. It is never okay, it's never warranted. It is always a reason to walk away. Now, some people actually give me a little pushback on that, because what if the person is only physically abusive when they drink, for instance? Well, do they drink every day? If it's a problem, it's a problem. If it's happened once, there is propensity for it to happen again and help needs to be sought.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Now, look, we can love people through their challenges, but sometimes we need to love them from afar, and keeping ourselves safe is paramount. This can be really hard, which is why getting support from friends, from family, from community is so important and necessary. But physical abuse it's a deal breaker. This is something that really needs to get addressed immediately and resolved before. At least physical proximity, let alone emotional proximity, can be considered. Similarly, emotional abuse, if you are in a relationship and this could be spouse, but it could also just be friendships where you are constantly disrespected or humiliated, belittled, condescended to, that's not okay. Even if it's quote, unquote, only in private, it's still not okay. This breaks people down into shells of themselves. What we need is the opposite. We need to feel supported and loved. We need people in our lives who build us up, who say I believe in you, you've got this. Our friends, our spouse, you know they should be our biggest cheerleaders, not the external expression of our inner fears and doubts.

Speaker 1: 5:04

And I know this can get tricky because, you know, sometimes in families, for instance parents, you know we can go against their expectations. They can want us. I mean, goodness for me, right? I was supposed to be a concert violinist and a lawyer. That was the life path that my parents wanted for me. So being able to say to them that my parents wanted for me, so being able to say to them, no, sorry, I'm not going to law school, I'm just going to go learn how to teach Pilates and run a small fitness studio Like that, was not well received. That was an immediate cause for I'm wasting my life, I'm ruining things. You know why did they spend all that money on my education? If all I'm going to do is quote, unquote just that. They made it very clear that I was making very bad choices and what a disappointment I was.

Speaker 1: 5:55

Yet again, that is not supportive. You know it's okay to express your opinion over someone else's actions, but there are loving ways to do that and really hurtful ways to do that. So in some situations it's very difficult to walk away, and after we go over these reasons why we might want to, we'll talk about some of the things you can do if you feel like you can't. But before we do that, let's move on to number three, which in some ways is really closely connected to emotional abuse. So number three is not having any safety issues or trust in the relationship. This could be everything from what we were just speaking to this sense of not being able to be yourself with someone, to having someone actually infringe upon your trust something like an infidelity or gambling all the money away or something like that.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Do you have people in your life that you can't be fully honest with, who you feel like you have to hide either all or parts of yourself from. There are levels here. Certain friends can bring out certain aspects of ourselves, and that can be kind of beautiful. I think one of the big disservices we do is when we expect our spouse, for instance, to be our everything to fill every need. They don't have to do that. In order for you to have a really incredible, solid marriage, I don't need my husband to go on meditation retreats with me. I have awesome friends to do that with. I don't need all of my friends to want to go do a sweat lodge with me. Some are going to be into it, some not.

Speaker 1: 7:38

And let's be clear that you don't need to have to share every aspect of your life with everyone in your life in order for you to have safety or trust. What I'm talking about here is when you are afraid to talk about parts of yourself with those people, when you feel like you're going to have lunch with this person and you need to be on guard. You need to be careful that you don't let some opinion of yours slip right. When you don't want to mention that you went to a meditation retreat because you're afraid they're going to judge you for that. You don't want to mention who you voted for because you think they will disown you. These aren't reasons to just point blank end the relationship, but it may mean that you need to reassess the quality of that relationship. Part of this is about having a strong emotional connection to feel safe enough to be vulnerable, which is not going to happen if you don't trust the person to love and hold all aspects of you, if you have to subvert who you really are. Pretend to be someone you're not in order to be loved, might be time to walk away.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Another thing that we want to be watchful of. Another thing that we want to be watchful of is an inability to effectively communicate. Look, we all get tongue-tied sometimes. You know we all have trouble finding the words to communicate sometimes. But in order for a relationship to work, we have to be able to communicate. And this can be hindered if we have not done the inner work, if we haven't sorted through our baggage from the past, for instance, if we haven't figured out why we get triggered when the other person shows up five minutes late to lunch, or if they don't call when they're going to be late, or whatever.

Speaker 1: 9:30

If we're unable to communicate what's going on with us, if this other person is unable to communicate what's going on with them, it this other person is unable to communicate what's going on with them. It makes it exceptionally difficult to fix issues, which brings me to number five, which is that relationships require effort from both sides. It takes two to tango. There's only so much one person can do. At some point we have to acknowledge when a relationship is no longer aligned with us, we recognize it. We say I've done everything I can, I've worked, I've adjusted, I've met you where you're at, but it's not working for me. You're not meeting me where I am. I need you to put in effort too, and if you won't, I'll have to leave, not out of anger or resentment, but because I refuse to live in a way that feels unfulfilling and inauthentic.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Sometimes in relationships one person grows while the other person doesn't, and sometimes that's okay. One person might be providing stability while the other evolves, and it remains mutually supportive and mutually loving. But other times we grow in different directions. We realize we've spent so much energy preserving the other person's comfort that we've lost touch with our own truth. And when that happens we have to be willing to walk away, not to punish or teach a lesson, but because we've learned to our own value. We've learned who we really are and what we really need. Someone wisely said I don't walk away to teach people a lesson. I walk away because I learned mine. I'd rather adjust my life to your absence than adjust my boundaries to accommodate your disrespect. And disrespect doesn't have to be overt. It can simply be a refusal to take accountability to one's own mistakes and to one's own role that they play in the relationship. In the end, choosing ourselves isn't selfish, it's necessary.

Speaker 1: 11:39

Just briefly, I think it's important to note that the presence of one or more of these red flags does not necessarily mean that we absolutely must walk away. Sometimes, yes, 100% it does. But sometimes all that's required of us is reestablishing really solid boundaries boundaries, sometimes, just firming up our boundaries, is what's needed for us to be able to maintain relationship with that family member that drives us crazy. Now I am certain that we will do a whole episode probably many on boundary setting, but for now it can be something as simple as limiting how much time you spend with that person. It could be something as simple as bookending the experience, meaning that you have like one friend that you talk to who kind of hypes you up on the way in and is like you can do this, you're going to get through this. Remember to do these three things when you know your crazy uncle starts spouting off his racist rhetoric. And then have another friend that you call on the way out who helps you kind of process the whole thing and how it went and how you're feeling. You know, sometimes that's enough, sometimes just having other relationships that are super supportive can help us really get through that challenging interaction.

Speaker 1: 13:07

If we either can't walk away or we're not ready to and that's a really important other aspect of this to acknowledge Sometimes we're just not ready to walk away, and that has to be okay. We need to acknowledge, we need to give ourselves some self-compassion for our inability to walk away from relationships that aren't serving us. It's important that we wait until we are really ready. If this person has been in your life for decades or whatever, if they have meant so much to you at a certain point in your life, I would hope that you wouldn't just throw them away without really seriously considering, really seeing if there was something that you could do to mend the relationship. If it matters deeply to you, then it deserves reverence, it deserves time, it deserves you thinking about how can I make this work? Is there any way that I can make this work? And once you've done that, once you're really ready, if the answer is no, then you walk away. So just to recap the five big reasons why you might want to end a relationship Physical abuse, emotional abuse, not having safety or trust in the relationship, having an inability to effectively communicate. And not having mutual reciprocal effort. But note what I did not say, which is having different opinions, and that's what we're going to start next week off discussing.

Speaker 1: 14:50

Like or subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss it. Have a great weekend and remember know who you are, love who you've been and be willing to do the work to become who we want to be. I am an Ayurvedic health practitioner, spiritual counselor, meditation teacher, energy healer and biodynamic craniosacral therapist, with thousands of hours of training in these modalities and more. I'm here to help you discover as many different ideas, therapies, philosophies, spiritual concepts and inner development tools as possible in order to help you become the healthiest, happiest, most authentic version of yourself possible. I'm excited to be on this journey with you. It can be hard at times and there are moments you may feel stuck and very alone. I'm here to tell you you're not. Come with me, let's learn and grow together.