Tired of Being The Bigger Person? Watch This (for Alienated Parents)

As an alienated parent, if someone has ever told you to just be the bigger person, there is a very good chance that your whole body had a reaction. Like, excuse me, the bigger person again. So, they get to lie, manipulate, withhold, rewrite history, violate boundaries, and act like a flaming dumpster fire. [laughter] And my job is to what? Smile, breathe, journal, light a candle, become an emotional room. You are listening to the Beyond the High Road podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 198. Welcome to Beyond [music] the High Road, a podcast dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. [music] I'm your host, Shelby Melzford, a twice

certified life coach specializing [music] in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then [music] this show is my love letter to you. Stay tuned. Listen, I am not against emotional adulthood as you guys know. I'm definitely not against regulation or restraint. Obviously, that is a huge part of my work. Restraint matters. Sometimes restraint is the difference between acting from your wound and acting from your values. But if being the bigger person has started to feel exhausting, I don't think that that automatically means that you're doing it wrong. I think it might mean that restraint has done its job and now it's time to define

power differently because power cannot only be measured by what you don't do. And I want to be very clear right from the top that I am not making fun of taking the high road. You know, obviously my entire body of work lives in this conversation. Most alienated parents I know have taken the high road more times than anyone will ever see. Not because it was easy, not because they didn't have anything to say, not because they weren't furious, devastated, heartbroken, or completely over it, but because some part of them knew that if I let this pain sit in the driver's seat, I may create damage that I can't undo. Right? That's where so many of us sit. that matters. That's not weakness and

it's not passivity either. Not being a doormat. Sometimes it that what I'm talking about is the most spiritually muscular thing that you can do. But here's the problem, y'all. When being the bigger person becomes your entire identity, it can start to feel less like power and more like a prison. And if the only feedback that you ever give yourself is good job, you didn't react. Eventually, your soul is going to say, "Okay, but what are we actually doing here? What's going on?" So, let me name what I think so many of you are tired of. You're not just tired of restraining yourself. You're tired of feeling like you are the one that has to be conscious for everybody. You're tired of being the

one that has to pause, think it through, manage your nervous system, consider the long-term impact, protect your child from adult chaos, not take the bait, not say the thing, not become cruel, not collapse, not chase, not explode, and not make it worse. You're tired of feeling like everybody else gets to live unconsciously, but you have to be evolved. And listen, I get why that feels unfair. I understand it can feel like why am I the one doing all this work? Why am I the one listening to podcasts, talking to professionals, taking the tests? Maybe you're going for regular drug testing. Whatever it is, the psych evals. Maybe you're thinking that why am I the one that has to

question every single one of my reactions. I I'm the one that has to try to communicate cleanly. Maybe you choose to try not to project your pain onto your kiddo, right? And maybe you're just desperately trying to not let this turn you into somebody that you don't recognize. And if you've had those kind of thoughts, I don't want you to shame yourself for them. They make sense 100%. Right? But here's the shift. Your consciousness is not a punishment. You don't have to see it that way. Your emotional responsibility isn't a sentence. Your ability to pause, to reflect, to choose, to repair, to regulate, and to grow is not actually the burden. The burden, y'all, is when

you start believing that I have to do this because nobody else will. That belief alone will make your growth, all of your hard-earned growth, feel like a prison. It will make maturity, acting like the mature one, feel like a punishment. It'll make healing your healing feel like one more thing you have to do because everybody else won't. And that is where the resentment creeps in. Not because you're wrong for growing. And definitely not because being the bigger person is bad, but because you've started relating to your own power, inner power, like it's an unpaid job. Because restraint itself, we're going to go back to the restraint. It had a purpose. So restraint is sacred

when it protects what you value. Some examples like not escalating conflict, right? Not using your child as a messenger, not letting one moment of panic create long-term damage. Not handing your pain to people who can't hold it well. We've all learned that lesson at some point. Not becoming cruel because you're hurting. That's another way. All of those are great. And there are versions of you that restraint protected you from becoming, right? It protects your relationship with your child from becoming the dumping ground for adult pain. It protects your nervous system for from confusing urgency with wisdom. And sometimes restraint protects your dignity, too. Not the fake kind of

dignity where you pretend nothing hurts. the real kind where you know I could go there and I'm choosing not to because that's not who I want to be. Right? You I I'm sure that there have been uh many instances that that is true for you. There are things that you could have said that would have been true and still not helpful. Messages that you could have sent that would have been understandable but still not been aligned with your core values. There are reactions that you could have justified all day long and still regretted tomorrow. That is why restraint matters. It gives you a pause between the wound and a move. Restraint is not weakness. It's not passivity. Definitely. It's not

being a doormat. Sometimes restraint is one of the most powerful choices you can make. But restraint was never meant to be the whole house. It was meant to be a doorway. It was meant to help you to not burn everything down while you were in acute pain. It was meant to help you stabilize. Meant to help you stop handing the microphone to the most panicked part of you. But if you stay there forever, if your entire life becomes organized around not reacting, not escalating, not needing, not saying too much, not feeling too much, not being too much, eventually restraint starts to feel like disappearance. And that's when parents start to get resentful. Not because restraint is

wrong, but re but because restraint by itself is incomplete. A life built only around what you refuse to do will eventually feel empty. Even if you're doing all the right things, you can be very well behaved and still not be free, still not feel free. Let me say that again. You can be very well behaved using tons of restraint and feel still feel caged. Basically, what I'm saying is is if the only question that you ask is, "What should I not do, then your life gets smaller." That's the whole point of this episode, y'all. Restraint is not defined by the thing that you're resisting because that keeps your attention organized around the problem itself. Even if you're

behaving beautifully, y'all, your inner world will likely still be centered on not reacting to them, not being triggered by them, not letting them win, not making it worse, not spiraling, and not needing too much. And that is exhausting because it's still a life organized or oriented around avoidance. I think for a while what should I not do is a very necessary question like should I not send this should I not respond right now should I not say this to my child should I I mean this is what all the advice that we hear from all the professionals don't send this don't say that right should I not engage with that message should I not go down the rabbit hole all of these are good questions you

know they create some space for you they slow you down. They keep you from letting one activated moment write checks for your future self that your future self has to cash, right? But at some point, the better question becomes, what am I building? What are my values? And what am I building? What kind of mother or father am I becoming in this season? What kind of human am I becoming while I wait, while I grieve, while I actively hope? Right? While I don't know what's going to happen next, who am I becoming here? What am I choosing? Because if all I know is what I'm not going to do, my life is still being shaped by the thing that I'm trying not to react to. So that

is actually the shift. That's the next level. Not reaction, not suppression, but giving yourself direction. Because a life built only around not making things worse is not the same thing as a life built around making things meaningful. So the next level is obviously not to take the low road. Right? The next level like I've been suggesting is direction. What am I moving toward? This is the questions that you ask yourself. What do I want my energy to be in service of? What kind of parent do I want to be? even in the absence or in the transition depending on where you're at in your situation. Okay. What kind of person? These are the questions you ask yourself

in the moment where you're teetering on do I be the bigger person? Do I take the high road? Maybe like if you're feeling that it the whole situation is unfair and that you're getting cheated, these are the questions that you ask yourself. Okay. So, what am I moving towards? Like I said, what do I want my energy to be in service of? What kind of person do I want my child to encounter if and when reconnection comes? If you guys are not in contact right now or what kind of person do I want my child to encounter when they come home for the weekends, whatever it is, what would I build if my life were not organized around reaction management? Direction instead sounds like I'm not going to let this

experience decide the size of my life. It sounds like I'm going to become emotionally trustworthy with myself, right? Not perfect, not endlessly calm, not fake, peaceful, but trustworthy. I'm going to earn my own trust and those of the people that I love and you, you know, but really it's about you. Direction also sounds like I'm going to build a life that [clears throat] my child could someday walk into and feel the steadiness of just just by seeing it. Not by having to prove anything, but just because of the energy in your home. Because of the energy of how you live your life, how you lead instead of follow or duck and hide. You know, direction can sound like too, I'm going

to keep becoming continue to evolve into somebody that I continually respect even if no one else is clapping. And I know that you guys that it can sound unfair like really I have to be the one that grows. I have to be the one that come becomes intentional. I have to be the one that manages my mind. Why can't they? And my answer is is that you don't have to. You get to. Not because they deserve it, but because you do. You deserve to live inside of a mind that is not only organized around defense. You deserve to live inside of a body that is not only bracing for impact. You deserve to live have and live a life that is about much more than just not becoming reactive than keeping your cool and

being the bigger better person however you say it to yourself but taking the high road. You deserve to have much a bigger fuller life than that. A bigger person being the bigger person is not just the one who doesn't explode not just the one who rolls with the punches. The bigger person is the one who decides where their life force is going next. And listen, please do not hear me saying when I'm saying all of this, don't be angry. Be better than anger. You know, I'm not saying that at all. Anger is not the enemy. Anger is information, y'all. Anger's energy. Anger is often the part of you that still knows something sacred was violated. Okay? I don't want you to

shame your anger. I don't want you to bypass it. I don't want you definitely don't want you to slap a gratitude sticker over it and call it healing because I think that that's what so what so many of us feel like has to happen in order to like swallow it and move on with our life. Like we we had to take all the punches, got beaten to a pulp, and then we just have to get up and walk away. It doesn't have to be about that. You don't have to think about any of this in that way. That's what I think tires so many of us out. The problem is that anger by itself is a terrible long-term what what do I want to say here? It's a terrible longterm architect for your life. It can point it

can alert you, right? It can say pay attention. This is what matters. Absolutely. That's what anger is there for to show you what you value most. But it cannot by itself design the whole building, the whole house. Because if anger is always in the driver's seat, y'all, even righteous anger, your life will still be being driven by the injury. So power is not just having like empowerment. It's not just having the perfect comeback. It's not finally getting everyone to understand. It's also not being able to prove point by point why it makes sense that you're hurt. Power is being able to say this mattered, this hurts, this changed me, changed my life even and I've still gets

to decide what happens next for me. Power is not the absence of emotion. Power is a relationship, a close relationship with all of the emotions. all of your emotions. Power, emotional adulthood is what I call it a lot of times in the episodes. Power is being able to feel something real, right? Without immediately handing it the keys. It's regulation, right? And that's why I keep coming back always to my management, not as a cute little tool, y'all. Not as a quick fix, not as a tiny hack, but as a way of life. Because your mind is where your life gets interpreted. It's where it gets created. That interpretation that you practice becomes the light that you live

from. It becomes your reality. So if you are tired of being the bigger person, I get it. I am not telling you to just keep smiling, keep swallowing it, and keep regulating while everybody else stays the same. That's not the message here today. The message is please do not let your emotional adulthood become something that you resent. Do not make bitterness your personality because in the moment you feel like it makes sense. It It's understandable that you would. They've taken the low road and I've taken the high road and it didn't work for me, right? They just kept going low while I tried to stay high. But at some point, y'all, bitterness stops pointing at what happened before and it starts

shaping what happens next. So do not let your ability to pause, to choose, to reflect, and to grow become a punishment in your own mind. You are not doing this for the person who hurt you or who continues to hurt you even. You were not doing this even to prove that you're good, that you're the good parent, that you're better than what they say. You're doing this because you are the one that has to live inside of your body. Not only in your body, but in your mind, in your choices, your future that you're creating and in your relationship with yourself. Being the bigger person doesn't mean that you have to absorb the most. In my eyes, the bigger person is the one who

refuses to hand over who they're becoming. And that is not weakness, y'all. That is power. So, y'all take care and have a lovely week. This was a quick one today. summersized episode.