This episode is about how to cultivate better relationships post-abuse.
Book free mini session: https://calendly.com/gerdungmelinda/minisession
Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
Find out more about my work: www.melindagerdungcoaching.com
Book a session with me: https://calendly.com/gerdungmelinda/coaching-session
---
Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
---
This episode is about how to cultivate better relationships post-abuse.
Book free mini session: https://calendly.com/gerdungmelinda/minisession
Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
Find out more about my work: www.melindagerdungcoaching.com
Book a session with me: https://calendly.com/gerdungmelinda/coaching-session
---
Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
---
Welcome to drop the bags, bitch, the podcast where we talk about healing from traumatic marriages and divorces. I'm your host, Melinda Gerdung, certified life coach, domestic violence survivor and THE divorce coach for women who want to get over their ex and live their best life. Hey, my friends, I hope you all had a great holiday season. So probably not at the time you're listening to this, but at least at the time of recording, we have just come out of the holiday season and starting to get back into real life. And I wanted to share a little bit with you about how my Christmas holiday went. that is not setting a boundary. Right, boundaries are for protecting yourself, not punishing other people. And I was wanting to punish him. So I let that sit for a while. And then I asked myself, Okay, well setting a real boundary, you know, might be a good thing. What would that look like in this situation? Right? What will you do if someone is rude to you in your house? Well, the simple answer is that if someone is rude to me in my house, like I'm not going to keep hanging out with them. Like that isn't the vibe that I want in my life. And then part of me immediately protested that I can't do that because he's family, I can just uninvite him because that would be putting my grandma in the position that she has to choose between me and him and she's going to choose him. But just like tolerating it really just did not feel right. So I've thought about it some more. And the thought about is the sharing of some DNA a good enough reason to keep someone around that detracts from the quality of your life. Like if it is so cut and dry. For everyone else. Why is the sharing of DNA clogging up the cut and dryness of it? And then I started thinking about what would be the ideal for me. And it was something like In my ideal holiday, I would only spend it with people I was in mutual adoration with, like, people that adored me and that I adored in return. And funnily enough, DNA doesn't actually make that criteria. And right now, I don't have anyone in my life that is like that, except for my partner, and my dogs. And spoiler alert, that's who I like spending my time with the most. But then I had to wonder like, what if it was always like that for me? Like, what if everyone in my life was just that great? Like, what if love was always the basis of every interaction? And then I asked myself, well, why don't I have people like that in my life? And the short answer is, because how my family is like, I never tried to cultivate relationships with people outside of my family. Because if my family was this bad, it seemed to reason that people who weren't, you know, supposed to love you would be even worse. But then I asked myself, like, what if that wasn't true? What if that ideal could be a reality, and it was just a matter of spending the time and effort to cultivate that, but I for sure, am not going to have anything better when I'm clinging to the old nasty stuff. Like there isn't room for the ideal relationships, when my time and energy is being taken up by shitty relationships. And it would take some bravery on my part, and some self belief in the possibility of forming better relationships in order to let go of that family relationship. But it might be worth it in the end. Like, if I could have my ideal, then maybe it is worth the cost. And I'm not in a hurry. Like, this isn't a rash decision. But it is interesting to me. Right, the possibility of having that type of relationships I want is an interesting possibility. And I think that it's one that I would like to explore regardless of what I decide to do about my grandpa. And I wanted to share this with you, because I'm always saying how in order to have the romantic relationship you want, you have to both believe it is possible for you, and you have to not settle for less. And this is like a real life example of that principle, albeit not for a romantic relationships. But it's the same principle, right? It starts with the belief. And that's kind of where I'm at now with this, right, the door of possibility has cracked open, and I'm starting to play with the idea of a future that has amazing friendships in it. friendships that contain a level of love and a level of interest Missy that I have never experienced before, something that I have no basis in the past to anchor my belief to. Right, and then the next step will be to action on that belief. Right, I might go out and meet people and let myself vulnerable, be vulnerable and not allow the pattern that I have of pushing people away to play out. But instead proactively stopping that pattern. And then who knows, at one point, I might end up with the kind of relationships that exist now as only an ideal in my head. And this is how it's done. My friends, this is how I do it. This is how I did it with my romantic relationship. And now this is how I'm going to do it with friendships. I'm always practicing what I preach. And I don't, I don't ever ask anything of my clients that I'm not doing myself. And so I would invite you to consider how you can use this formula in your life for getting the results or the relationships that you want. Right? Because relationships can be so tricky for survivors of toxic relationships, right? Whether it's your family of origin that has that toxicity, or romantic relationships that have had that toxicity or friendships, if you want to have different types of relationships in your life, it's going to require breaking the existing pattern that's there. And the first step will always be believing that you can have better believing that better is possible for you. And then acting on that belief and not allowing the old patterns to creep back in. And this is what I'm doing in my life as well. And I'll let you know how it goes. But I'd invite you to take the time to evaluate the relationships you do have against what is your ideal and seeing how it would be to apply this formula to your relationships. All right until next time, my friends be well. Hey my friends. If you're ready to get serious about your healing, I have a video of exactly how to recover from a toxic relationship. You can download it at Melinda Gerdung coaching.com/subscribe See you soon