Hey everybody, happy Thursday.
Now today's question
actually comes from my website
Often when I'm in there
I usually am in there on
a Tuesday morning answering
your questions in the
"submit a video idea"
tab. I will pull out
questions from that tab
and hold them for a Thursday video.
So the question today is:
Hey Kati, how do we go about resolving
issues that might lead to anxiety in the
background with others, when we don't
really want that person in
our life anymore.
I'm going through a lot of
change and past relationships are causing
me anxiety. But I don't want to rekindle,
or put my energy back into,
those relationships.
I want to say sorry where needed
and in a gentle manner end the
relationship. This is especially tricky
with many narcissistic types in my life
and I find it, it's hard speaking to them
without giving proof of your rejection
of them", and in parentheses it says,
"also something I don't want to do is
hurt them or restart the emotional
abuse cycle". And I really want to talk about this,
because weve talked about rekindling
relationships, setting boundaries,
but we haven't talked about
what do we do
if we find past relationships are causing
us angst and upset in our current therapy
and we feel like maybe we can't move
forward or we're just feeling icky about
it and we're stuck.
So what do we do, because we don't want
them in our lives anymore,
but how do we move forward.
And the truth about it is that we don't
actually have to talk to them about it.
The people in our past, those assholes
that are giving us the anxiety now,
we don't have to talk to them and actually
say sorry, where it may put us back in
danger. And I know that sounds
like really dramatic, like
"Oh I'm not really in danger",
but you potentially could restart that
emotional abuse cycle, like the person
in this question stated.
Therefore know that you in no way have to
say sorry and try to nicely end the
relationship. That's an ideal scenario,
but in many I find the best thing we can
do is actually just talk it out in therapy
Journal about the loss,
journal about the things we're sorry about
Maybe write a letter.
Anything that disconnects them from us,
so we don't start that engagement again.
There is no way for them to get a hold of
us. And so my overall advice for this
question is: to, number one,
assess what's right for you.
You know: YOU! The one you're working on.
You're doing al this stuff in therapy.
Think about what's best for you, only you,
nobody else! Because we can never control
someone else's reaction or response,
to what we're feeling and thinking.
Yes, we can potentially reach out,
if it feels safe, if it's okay,
but if we don't know that,
if it could be potentially be more
hindering, pull us back into a really
nasty emotionally abusive relationship
or toxic friendship, whatever it may be,
it's going to pull us back
and it's probably not the best thing.
So assess that, think about it. Okay?
What's best for me?
Then the second thing I want you to do,
is to take time, so if you are considering
maybe talking to them.
I want you to journal about it
I want you to write letters you don't send
I want you to talk in therapy about what
happenend, how you're feeling.
Because often the anxiety and upset,
that continues to happen from past
relationships is just the fact that we
haven't been given the time
or given ourselves the time to process
through it and so we may be doing
a lot of the things I talked about
in that selfhate-video,
I'll link it in the description,
but where our brain like
takes all things we've done
we're embarrassed about or upset about
or we hate what we did and we feel really
bad and it like keeps replaying it.
Often that's something we have to work
through. Yes, we can say sorry we're
applicable, but if it's not safe for us,
we're going to have to process through so we forgive
ourselves. And the final piece of advice
that I have to give is: Give yourself time.
These relationships, this hurt, this anxiety
didn't happen over night.
The things you've gone through,
didn't just pop into your life.
So you need to give yourself the ability
to process through it.
Know that it is okay, it's okay to feel anxiety,
it's okay to miss them sometimes,
even if it abusive. That's all part of our
process. I find it the most beneficial
thing is honestly to talking it out with
a therapist, giving yourself the time
to process it and knowing wherever
you land on it, however long it takes
you to grieve it, to grieve the loss of a
friendship, to forgive yourself.
That that's your process and
however long it takes is perfectly fine.
I hope you found this helpful.
As always leave in the comments
what has helped you move past
those unhealthy, nasty relationships,
that we keep kind of feeling like
maybe we should say sorry or
we need to make amends in some way.
How have you gotten through past that.
Let us know and if you new to my channel
klick here to subscribe!
I put out twice a week
and you don't want to miss them.
And I will see you next time, bye!
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