What Are You Willing To Accept In Your Life & WHY? For Alienated Parents

You are listening to the Beyond the High Road podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 142. Stay tuned. Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, Shelby Milford, a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you. Stay tuned. Hey y'all. How are we doing today? So, one announcement, my one quick announcement is just that I just want to say thank you. We got a new review from Lisa. It says, "Wonderful show." She says, "As a PAS mother, this show has

provided support, healing, and inspiration. Thank you for your work." Thank you, Lisa, for your review. I appreciate it so much. So, if you guys are listening to the show and it's been working for you, like you're finding it helpful or supportive or whatever, I would love it if you would take a few moments to go over to Apple Podcasts, go to the show page, scroll down to like past the five episodes it shows or whatever, and then you'll see reviews, and then it'll say in little purple writing, write a review. And if you click on that, then you can write a review right there. If you're not an Apple user, you can do it. Also, you can still do it. You just have to do it from

the web. From the web browser, just go to Apple podcast, find a show, do the same thing. It's just going to prompt you to make an Apple ID. It's all you got to do is just put in your email and whatever, and then that's it. So, I would really, really appreciate it if you haven't done it yet. I know that we have many more hundreds and hundreds uh of listeners and we have 44 reviews. So, if you're enjoying, I would really appreciate it if you would go and say a few words so that other parents like us can find us. Okay? Thank you. And my promise to you is that I will the I will continue to make the show better and better, more organized, more helpful as the episodes

go on. So, there you have it. So, coming off of last week's episode, last week's episode we talked about creating a plan, having followed through so that you don't find yourself in a situation in with your alienation or otherwise where you are unprepared and unsure like unclear of your next steps. So what we now need to talk about is what we will accept, what you will are accepting in your life currently and what you want to accept moving forward. And this is going to go hand inand with your plan. If you haven't already, go back and listen to that one and even the one before that. Um because now we're getting into like you hopefully have an idea of what you

want to do and why you want to do it. And now we're going to look at what we're currently accepting, what we want to accept. And the biggest, the most important part of this episode is the why. Your compelling reason for all of it. The reason I think it's so important, this episode is so important, is because we as alienated parents, many of us, listen, the reason why we're all here as alienated parents is because we were not, I can't say all, but I'm going to bet that most of us are here is because we were not aware and we weren't setting these standards from the get back in the day, right? whatever we got with the person that would alienated our kids. We were not living by a set of

standards. We were not asking ourselves, are we willing to accept this kind of behavior in our life? You know, way back when the clues were coming up, like there were behaviors that at the time maybe didn't make sense to you, but you didn't understand why, and you kept thinking maybe it was you. And so then you kept putting up with it and resigning to things. And you know how that goes, right? And then the next thing you know you're in this huge disaster and now you need to split with this person or want to split with this person and here we are in alien nation. Right? It's because you were not clear with yourself. I was not clear with myself about the standards for which I

want to live by. Because back then for me, I don't think that I thought about being worthy or not worthy or having the the power or the um like the authority to say no to certain things in my life. Like I didn't think that that was something that I could always say. I I back then I I didn't think about it in these terms, but I just think that I thought I should get like take what I got and be grateful for what I got, you know, as opposed to living my life having agency and knowing what I like, what I don't like, what I want, what I don't like, what I will accept, what I won't accept in my life. So that nobody ever I mean this isn't my reason why but really in the end this way nobody will

ever be able to do what they did before. Before I was living like I said last week kind of all over the place sort of just out in the universe just kind of waiting for things to happen reacting when they did. in this way having a set of goals and the plan right and then of course what we will accept sort of like a credo if you will or like it's kind of between a credo and maybe a code of ethics or code of conduct there's probably a better term for what I'm talking about here the reason why I didn't title it like what are you willing to stand for what won't you stand for is because that to me infers that we're talking about outside of us externally, right? Circumstances, what

we're willing to stand for, what kind of behavior we're willing to stand for with our children or how much where we'll draw the line when it comes to what the alienating parent does and things like that. And yes, this by sort of default will take care of that stuff with all of the relationships in your life, but really it starts with defining that for yourself. We have most of us been accepting so much or resigning to acquiescing into so much in our life because we didn't make these decisions ahead of time before, right? Because we don't in the core believe, some of us don't believe that we're fully worthy or qualified or just even allowed like that we can afford to

shut anybody out or say no to certain things because what if that's the last time that those things are offered? Do you know what I'm saying? I'm sure there's a better way to say this, but that's what's coming out right now. So, it is what it is. And that's what makes this whole cycle repeat for you, for me, and whoever else is not doing this, right? Like for me over and over, this happened with relationship after relationship after relationship before the alienation even began is I didn't know that I was allowed to set standards for who I was with and who I wasn't. I just thought that I would just judge by how I felt with somebody. And then oh it was always way too late. And not and

this isn't just for relationships, romantic relationships. I mean for all over your whole life, right? But my pattern was always with a romantic relationship. I was going by my own feelings and what I was thinking in the moment. And then I was already so invested with the person that then I would find out all of the downfalls and it would be too late and then I would be stuck in this relationship that was not serving me for however long. and it was all this wasted time and all a sudden just living um unconsciously know and it got me nowhere really. It just got me at a lot of heartache and pain. And I think too when it comes to how we modeled to our children, even back when we were

together with our children's parents, right, when I didn't have a set of standards for the way that I treated myself, then that reflected on the way that I interacted with all the people in my life. And then my daughter was there to see that. In me, it showed up that I was basically kind of a doormat. like you just be nice to everybody no matter how they're behaving to you. I still actually believe that. But today I have a reason why and that reason overpowers all of the other um circumstances or situations that happen, right? Because I know why I'm doing it. That empowers me, leads me to where I know I want to go. I'm not doing it blindly. Does that make sense?

So today, I know that I do have a much clearer message that I can offer not only to my daughter from afar right now, but also to everybody else in my life. There's a reason why I'm I do what I do and what I why I don't do what I don't do. Right? Those reasons always stem back to me and what my ultimate goal is for me and how I choose to live my life. Right? This way, nobody takes advantage of me. I live my life feeling empowered and that's what I want to offer for you guys too. If you feel like many days that you feel slighted, taken advantage of or not appreciated, not seen, not valued and all the things. This this is your answer right here. Okay. So the

goal of this episode is to help you to examine what you're accepting in your life and why and then helping you to also focus on self-compassion and empowerment. Okay. So first we need to really define what accepting actually means right and what it doesn't mean. So acceptance is not the same as tolerating or resigning to. Those are both very passive actions. Resigning to and tolerating are both going to get you wherever I was just talking about feeling taken advantage of, used, abused, more alienated, more cast aside. Acceptance is about making space for difficult emotions that we have while still working towards our values and goals. Right? It's allowing and

accepting the circumstances that have already happened in our life to be present or to have been present. It's just saying I'm not resisting what is what has already happened. And I know we've talked about this. It's probably been a long time. So that's why I wanted to do a lot of these episodes sort of over more searchable, more accessible for you guys. But when we accept something into our lives, it doesn't mean that we're just lying down and taking it. I know, especially the regular listeners, y'all know that you've we we've gone over that a bunch, but I know that this this was a Sounds like there was a missile outside my window right now, you guys. It must be

like one of those fighter planes. I live right by like a really small airport that they do air shows. Anyway, um this was an area that bugged me for a long time was I don't want to accept what's happened and what is continuing to happen because I'm going to give permission to let them keep on going. And really, they don't need any permission, not my permission, that they've proved that time and time again, right? They're going to do how they do. My acceptance it was was a way for me to stop resisting, adding more resistance to what already was, right? And I learned that lesson from Byron Katie years ago. If you ever want any lessons on acceptance, go listen to some of her

stuff. She does it to a radical radical extent. And I am somewhere in between there. But I do, she really, she is so radical that it's almost shocking. Um, it was for me anyway. And so it helped me to look at my situation and say, "Okay, so she can accept what she's accepted. I can learn to accept what is in my life currently." Doesn't mean I need to aim for those things or have people do cross my boundaries more, right? It just means that I'm not going to actively resist and put my energy negative energy towards that stuff which actually um by not resisting and by not giving my energy towards I noticed that I was not then being offended so much right I wasn't opening myself up to more

mistreatment so it was like a double win for me not only was I feeling better on the inside because I wasn't feeling slighted and whatever because I was learning to accept what was and not fight the history that we can't change. But now also I wasn't opening myself to up to more injury because where was my focus? My focus was now on what my actions were. Right? Accept it. I can't go back in the past and try to change that. Let's just start making new. Okay. Acceptance is not resignation. It's not acquiescing to. It's not okay. Well, there's nothing I can do about it. So I guess this is how it's going to be. That is not acceptance. That is victimhood. For me, the difference between those two

is worlds apart. It's the difference between me finding joy in my life and me staying miserable. Me staying at the effect of my past and all the people that were going to harm me in my today and whoever might harm me in my future. I was stuck in freeze mode. when I was still resigning to living passively. And I don't want that for any of y'all be living passively in your own life, especially after all of our history. Now, it's time for y'all to shine if I mean, if that's what you want, you know, but that's how I live. All right, all of this has happened. It has to be for good. So, I'm going to go mining and find that, you know, and and and I make that come true anyway. Okay. So

acceptance is just allowing for what is and making this is the important part about it. I said it once but making room holding space for all of the difficult and messy emotions to be present even though you know in ourselves. So allowing for okay this is difficult. This is a difficult experience I'm going through. Instead of adding the suffering and resistance on top, we're just yes, it's difficult. This is acceptance. This is allowing for the difficult situation to be present in your own life because it already is. Healthy acceptance is conscious, not passive. It's a very intentional decision that you're making, which causes you to feel in control of your the situation. I'm setting a

purpose for myself through this and there is an end goal here. I'm allowing it so that I can get here. It's important because it helps you to set boundaries for yourself. Setting boundaries is essentially what this whole episode is. I just didn't want to title it boundaries because it again gives off the idea that we're setting boundaries against somebody else. And that's not really where my head is for this episode. this episode is really and really a boundary isn't what I just said. A boundary is all has to do with you but that's the interpretation. I mean anyway general interpretation um I think so it helps for you to set boundaries about your life and how you want to live

it. not ruling out necessarily, but what your goal is and what you're willing to bring into your life in order for you to get there. Okay? All right. The reason it's important to outline what you'll accept and what you won't is because it prevents resentment and burnout, which is exactly what happens when we're living in people pleasing mode zone. when we're doing all the things for all the people because we're coming from unworthiness and um scarcity sort of like I don't know if I can afford to not accept that into my life that's coming from a fear right and so that eventually after some time you notice that you feel burnt out and you resent whoever it is that you're doing these things for

because they're not providing anything back in return and then you're living your life for other people and not for yourself and it's a very powerless place to live. Okay. So acceptance is really about personal empowerment in the end. It has nothing to do with resigning to laying down as a doormat or acquiesing. So, the first question, and you guys, I'm going to I have a whole outline that I wrote up earlier today, and I'm just going to pop this into like a PDF form for you guys if you want a study guide, if you will, or just some writing prompts for journaling, so that you can start to set your own parameters, credo, however you want to think about it in your head, personal boundaries,

whatever for yourself moving forward. Guidelines for you to live by from here on out so that you can set your goals and continue on with the plan with some sense of direction structure. Like I was talking about last week, the structure is so important. And listen, if you would have talked to past version of me that Shelby, she would have been like, "Okay, all sounds good, but why do we need to make a plan? It seems like so much. I was not an organized person. Spreadsheets, organized, like writing things down, writing a a list of standards down and what I wanted to live by. That just seemed like a waste of time for me. I I think that a lot of that had to do with

when we're in consistent state of survival, we tend to only live by what we need in order to survive. And so, this is kind of an extra in our minds. That's how I was anyway. It was like, why would I need to do that? Right now, I'm concentrating on how to feed myself, feed my belly and maybe my kid and pay my the lights in my house. So, I would look at this as an extra. And I just want you to rethink that if that's you. And I wish I could tell the past version of me that same thing because having this written out will save you so much time, heartache, energy, money, all the things in the end. To have this written out and then keep referring back to it and like coaching yourself throughout

your days to remind yourself. And you're it's going to make sense in a just a minute why it's so important. But your inner dialogue will dictate your reality. The negative thoughts that we think on repeat all day long throughout our day become a theme and then they become part of who we are. So are you being kind to yourself? Are you kind to yourself on the everyday basis? How do you speak to yourself? Do you say, "Oh, I'm so stupid. I should have done this." Do you say, "Why do you always have to do it that way? Why do you always make this these same freaking mistakes?" Do you blame yourself for things? Do you blame yourself for the alienation? Maybe you know with the higher thinking that

it's not your fault, but your inner dialogue says something different to you on the everyday basis, right? Maybe I should have done it this way. I should have done it that way. I should have been more. I should have been less. I should have been right. all of that chatter that goes on in your brain that you will often times will go unrecognized because you've trained yourself to not think about it because when you think about it, what will you normally do? You will then judge yourself for thinking that way. And so then you double suffer, right? You're suffering because you're telling yourself that you're a piece of basically, right? And then you judge yourself for doing that. Oh my god, how

why am I talking to myself that way? That's just terrible. God, am I always going to be like this? Am I always going to hate myself? And then you have judgment about the hating on, right? Which doubles and then you could it could keep getting layered on from your own self, right? So, do you blame yourself? How does your negative the this is a question that I want you to answer in a journal that would help you anyway. How does your negative selft talk affect your actions? What do you do when you talk to yourself negatively? Let's say you're saying, "God, you always make this mistake." What do you do right after that? Like, how do you feel? Maybe you feel unworthy or you

feel annoyed with yourself or whatever. What do you do from that point? What actions do you take? What actions don't you take? Look at that. See what how your negative selft talk is actually affecting your dayto-day. Like in the moment when it's happening, you're driving and you're talking to yourself negatively. Oh, right. This is where I start feeling like about myself and then I go mentally and go back in the past and start like beating myself up for all the mistakes that I made along the way and how life is going to be hopeless coming up because I'm never going to be able to change anything. Become aware of that because when you make the decision to keep making

yourself aware, make that commitment to yourself, that's when change can actually happen. Change cannot happen when you're ignoring it the way that your brain has probably taught you to do. That's why I'm so big on doing thought downloads, you guys. Because when you're just thinking it in your brain, it's so easy to argue your way out of whatever shitty comment you just made to yourself or ignore it completely. Just stick it to the side because they go unnoticed. It ends up reinforcing that whatever you just said to yourself. And so eventually more times that you do that to yourself, push it away or argue your way out of it, the likelihood of it becoming a belief is

high, you know. So what inner dialogue are you accepting for from yourself and do you like that? Are you good with that? Does it serve you? Look at the actions that you're taking when you're saying those things to yourself. Are those things productive for you or they not? Um, this goes back to like, you know, things can be true, things can be factual, but if you keep repeating those to yourself and it doesn't cause you to behave in a way that you want, then why do you continue to subject yourself to to those facts or what whatever you're saying to yourself, you know, it doesn't matter if it's true or not. Does it help you? Does it push you and get you where

you want to go or not? You know, you get to decide what goes on up in your brain, the beliefs that you hold, the way that you you conduct yourself. And I know that sounds over simple, but so many of us, and I coach people all day long, every day, overlook the fact that we have so much control. We have we have so much power sitting inside of us. And this brain that we have is so powerful. It it really determines how you will experience your life, everything that happens in it. It's it's really important to become aware of what you're accepting inside your own ecosystem of your body of your brain. Your interpretations shape your everything. Okay. So are you the first point with

all of this with the are you what are you accepting from yourself is what is your inner dialogue and what are you accepting in your life that you like and what are you accepting in your life that you don't want to accept anymore and the next point is what about your commitments to yourself? What are you accepting from you? Are you keeping the promises that you make to yourself as far as like your self-care uh mental health like therapy coaching whatever it is that you're doing? Even if you're doing that for yourself and you're not going to either of those things, are you advocating for yourself like actively or is it more on a passive, could you step it up or are you

allowing yourself to like sort of slide, right? Um exercise, how are you treating yourself? Food, right? What are you accepting into your own life? Just like I was talking about last week, I think this is such uh a helpful point when it comes to setting and achieving goals is that I think we've all done this at least once if not many many many many times. This is sometimes a like ethereal pattern for us. This will start for a goal. Look at New Year's. People do this all the time. They make this New Year's goal. They're going to have this resolution. This is what I'm going to do. They set some lofty goal. They're all gung-ho in the beginning and then as time goes, they start not keeping the

promises they make to themselves, right? If it's a physical goal, I always go there first, but they they maybe decide they want to go out with their friends after work instead of going to the gym like they told themselves they would do. So, it's good in the first month and then it starts getting a little less and a little less and a little less because they're not seeing the results they want to see immediately. And so, they'll say, "Oh, one time's not a big deal. I'll just skip it now." And then you continually start to do that. That becomes the norm. And then once the skating out on your original goal becomes the norm. Then now you have dissociated with yourself, the future

you that you wanted to become and that goal that you set. So then you become apathetic towards that future you were working towards, right? You decide, oh, that goal really wasn't for me anyway. I knew I wasn't going to be able to accomplish it. And it's okay. it's really not important to me anyway. You push it aside and pretend like it doesn't matter. And that to me is the biggest betrayal to you that I think that we can as humans we can do is to cast aside the things that we really want for ourselves and make them like uh devalue them. You know, you know, we are all familiar with that from other people, but maybe you don't realize how familiar you've already been with

yourself doing that. So, are you keeping your promises to yourself? Why is it hard to follow through for you? Like, anytime that you go for a goal, what reasons do you have for not getting there? Is it because life gets too busy? And what is too busy? What is too busy for the goal that you've set for yourself? What are you saying? Are other people's desires or their needs more important than yours? I'm not saying I I think this goes case by case. Sometimes I will choose other people's desires or or their agenda over my own. If I have out like done weighed out the pros and cons and I'm choosing that on my own like I'm going to go ahead and do this for somebody else because it's more

important to me. I will get to this and I will set a different date, you know? So, I'm not saying across the board always choose yourself over other people. There are times but you making the decision because you're the one that defines what you're accepting and what you're not accepting, right? You'll set that standard for yourself and you can make it on a case- by case basis but like set that out for yourself like when is the exception okay and when is it not and will you ultimately get to your goal and how will that be when can you make up the time that you're now allotting to somebody else. Do you know I think it's it's really important to look at that. So why is it hard for you to follow

through? What are your reasons? If it's for somebody else, then look at it and then reallocate your time like at the end of the week or whatever else. Now, for your personal growth, which we kind of touched on a little bit with your commitments to yourself, but are you allowing yourself to grow and heal? Meaning like are you stuck in guilt or shame and you think that that's just a fact of your life and that's where you're always going to be? or are you committing to maybe having an experience of guilt or shame but acknowledging it and also coaching yourself through that? Like depending on what your goals are and what your plan is. Are you telling yourself that you're powerless, that you

have no moves, that you're being taken advantage of, or are you finding ways to empower yourself, your life moving forward? Right? Are you looking at your like your proactive steps, right? Are you focusing there or are you accepting in your life the easy way out by accepting blame, right? Or placing blame, which is always easier, of course, to to throw blame than it is to find the responsibility and then your way out, right? If we're placing blame, then we're going to keep ourselves stuck in a time warp. If we're not accepting, if we're stuck fighting, resisting the past, also stuck in a time warp. So, always are am I accepting this? Am I allowing for myself to be stuck here

focusing on on something I can't change? Or am I advocating for myself? Do I have my little trusty flashlight out and looking for the steps on the way out? All right. So now, what are you accepting from others in your current relationships? Are your relationships supportive or are they draining? This is just sort of like an audit on your life. And then after the audit, now we decide on purpose how we're going to live it moving forward. So that you can remind yourself throughout your days, hey, is this on my plan? Is this the way I want to conduct myself and my life moving forward? So any time that you're like unsure of what's next? And it'll save you a lot of time on like the confusion

and I don't know what this is directionlessness by saying, all right, does this align with my current standards for myself? So, all right. So, current relationships, are your relationships supportive or are they draining? The people that you're in relationship with, it are have you decided on those relationships? Are you recommitting to those relationships or are you in them because you feel like you have to be like because you're obligated? Do you tolerate disrespect or any I don't really love the word toxic when we're talking about a person because it's not actually very accurate and it can cause the person whoever's thinking about somebody else being toxic

them to feel toxic on the inside because when we say that person's toxic the second that you say that how do you feel to me like kind of angry pissed off and then I become toxic on the inside so I don't really love it but like the the behavior that you're allowing in your life, is it good for you? Is it pushing you where you want to go? Does it feel supportive and encouraging or even just not prohibitive? You know, is it worth it to you? The relationship and your efforts, are they worth it? It doesn't always have to be the other person that's bad or wrong, but maybe your role currently in whatever relationships or one or all the relationships, maybe you're not satisfied with the role that

you're choosing in those relationships, right? And so, how can you reassess and reshow up from here forward in in an intentional way so that you make room for all the other areas of your life that you want to place energy into. You know what I'm saying? So, like really look at it. This isn't again never about blame, but like and never about the other person being so toxic and they suck and whatever. However anybody else is acting, whether it's acceptable to you or not, that could just be about them, right? But whether you want to open up your gates to allow that in is a whole another thing. That's a you thing, a respect for you thing. You know, I always point at me when I say you, but

you know what I'm saying. Um, so what are you tolerating right in your own life? And does that serve you? Does it help you become more of the person that you're becoming? Um, boundaries. Here's that word. Are you setting clear boundaries? Why is again, why is it hard to say no to the people that are in your life that you're currently saying yes to when you know you don't want to say yes to them? You know, what's the problem there? What's holding you back? Finding that answer will help you to understand and assess the relationship in general. Again, we don't need to place blame or become unhappy with them. They're doing what they do, right? May you decide whether it is that you want to include

that or if you want to send set a boundary with them. It's their choice to do what they want. I'm going to give you an example here in a minute right after I finish this. But like you get to decide what you want to do moving forward. Sometimes that means that those people are not going to be in your life anymore. And that could be that you say no or they could be like, "Fuck you, too." And that's okay. That doesn't mean anything about you. When they say no, it means that they don't for whatever their reasons are aren't down with that. That's still okay. That doesn't mean that you should lower your standards to allow them back into your life because that's only dragging you down and

keeping you also in a time war, you know? So external expectations, are you living up to others expectations at your expense? Are you overachieving in other people's lives but not in your own life? Okay, the easiest way to look at this is if you always keep a lunch date or whatever and a commitment to other people and at the expense of your own commitments to yourself like I was supposed to do I don't know why homework just came up for me because I haven't done homework in I don't know how long but like I was supposed to do my homework for a class I was taking let's just say and somebody calls and says they need my truck that I non-existent but somebody calls and says they need my

truck in a hurry like now when I drop my homework to go help them in my classes tomorrow and now my homework isn't done is it worth it for me right or am I living my life for others at random expense super important to ask yourself these questions also I've got I was thinking about this earlier and I'm not sure why this is the standout example for me but this is the one that just kept coming to me. I know that we all set boundaries, like a proper boundary, but not even really called it that or known that that's what we're doing. And you guys, I haven't listened to it since probably it came out, but I do have a boundaries episode. I don't know. It's probably like in the ' 60s, like it's

been a while, but I'm sure it lines up with a lot of the things that I'm saying today. So that might be a good one for you to go to if you are interested in learning how to set a boundary and what that actually entails. But basically a boundary is if you then I right if you do blank blank blank then I will do blank blank blank. Right? It's a way to say, "I'm going to not be a part of this if you choose to be like that because you're a grown ass person or you're your own person, so you can make those decisions for you, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to be around to to be there like in the end if you're going to continue it." The first like the the most standout boundary, I guess I should

say, that I ever made without even realizing that I was setting a boundary was with my daughter's father. It was a defining moment and it was really the beginning of the end for me for a long time and now I look back on it and I'm so proud of what I did. Um, however, it well I'll explain. So without going into too much detail, my ex, my daughter's father was he and I had a let's just say a tumultuous relationship. When we were good, we were really good. But after drinking for the both of us, we would get sometimes get into these arguments. He was a violent person drinking. Let's just I'll talk from my experience. He was in my experience when he would drink

from the college on was a a bar fighter. Um the most passive bar fighter. I don't know how to explain that. But anyway, when we were trying to get pregnant with Scarlet, we were parters, I guess you could call us. Well, we went out to the spar one time and I just remember coming home and him being very violent with me and kicking me and uh I was not pregnant with my daughter. If I was, maybe I was only just like a week pregnant, but it was at the time where we were actively trying. And I sat on my bedroom floor alone in the dark. um hair in tears just like if this ever happens again. I made this promise to myself. If this ever happens again, I'm not going to fight

back and then we'll see whether it's him or if it's me. Because up until that point, I had been blaming myself. I was telling myself that I was antagonizing him, that it was my fault. Like I pushed him this far, right? And I know a lot of this is an experience a lot of people have, right? They think that it's their fault for somebody hitting them or hurting them in some way. And so I made this deal with myself and that's what I called it for years. I made a deal with myself that if he ever does it again, I am not going my hands are going to be at my sides and I'm not going to fight back. I'm not going to become violent. I'm not going to yell. I'm nothing. And

then if it still happens, then I know that I have to leave. And I didn't speak that promise to anybody because why would I? I was I was probably so ashamed that it was happening to begin with, you know, um and that I was accepting that into my life for that all the time that I was. We were together on and off for 13 and 1/2 years. The violence didn't start until the last few years of it with me anyway. So nothing happened again until my daughter was almost a year old. She was 11 months old. You know, we went out to this concert, Tristan Pretty concert, G Love Live concert, and I had a bad feeling when we went out that night. I had a that pit in your stomach, you

know, and I had no clue what was to come was with my friend Melissa and her husband and we went to this concert and we got home and lo and behold, he did it again. And I did not fight back. I kept my word to myself and I knew from that day that it was over. I knew it. I knew I knew it from then on. And so we slept in separate rooms and all the things and then there was like other things that happened in between. But that was the day that I was like this is this is not good. And that was a boundary that I created for myself without even realizing it. And I was laughing because kind of laughing I guess earlier because I was like is that the best you can do

Shelby like coming up with examples for you guys right now? Like that to me now I look back and like that was such a low standard that I had set for myself. That was my physical safety you know but back then I did not know to value my physical safety like I do today. This was like a bare essentials that should not I don't ever want to accept that into my life ever. But my life was so out of control in the way that I thought about myself. I didn't have parameters to live by. I was like, you know, all over the place like I was saying, I didn't think about things like this. I lived unconsciously. So, and that's why that moment stood out to me so much. I made this conscious.

This is the first time I think that I can remember that I made some conscious deal with myself that if he does this then I will leave. That is the perfect boundary. The reason I bring that up is because even back then me not knowing anything about boundaries and I had a long tumultuous relationship in itself with the word boundary for years to come after that and my own ideas of boundary means I can hopefully try to control the behavior of somebody else right but I didn't in this case with him because I knew that I could not control what he did but I could control what I did from there and that's the focus. I was so clear with that and there was no blame. I mean, I didn't like what he was

doing, but there was no room for me to blame him in all of that mess. It was just I don't want this in my life and I can't accept this anymore. That was like the purest form of it, right? And that's how I live my life now. Not just that, but there I have many more standards and boundaries that I have for my own self. But when I'm focusing on what I will accept and what I will do or won't do as a result of whatever if something happens like that then my focus is never on being taken advantage of or being mistreated and my focus is not on blaming the people outside of me. My focus is on me and what my purpose is, my goals. that that little shift makes all the difference in your whole

experience of your life and of your relationships when you're able to focus on what you you bring to the table and what you allow for you without blame. They do what they do. Here's my rules for me and my life. And when behavior like that comes in, it's you look at it more like it's not about the person at that point. It's just like, oh, this action is coming into my life and I don't do that action. So, I'm gonna move this way and I'm gonna communicate that to them and if they continue that, then that's on that action. It's just not allowed in my world because it doesn't help me to get to where I want to go. It keeps things clean and it keeps your head in the game as opposed to getting

stuck all stuck up sticky world of blame and what people have done to us. You know, it's a personal responsibility, accountability for yourself because it's what supports you. rules, personal rules for yourself are not to keep you away from things, but to draw you closer to what you want, you know, and it's so so so important to have that spelt out for you because when you do, when you inevitably come up to a situation where you're unconsciously like still living in the default thinking that you're working on changing, then you can consciously say, "Hey, we're not accepting that into our life anymore right Know I'm talking about like when you're talking to yourself shitty, you

know, like when you're like, "Well, you're such a jerk. Why did you do that?" Or, "You're so stupid." Or, "You're look so fat today." Or, "I don't know, whatever you say to yourself." Now, you can use your prefrontal and say, "Hey, wait a second. We already came up with a plan and this is our guideline for oursel." And we decided we're not going to put up with that talk anymore to ourselves. You don't have to be rude to you. I understand this is how we've been doing it our whole lives because we learned it somewhere. It served us at the time, but this does not serve our final goal anymore. So now we're shifting. We're pivoting. And now we're going towards that. So we're going

to have to let this kind of talk go. And that's it. It's not bad, good, right, wrong, the talk that you were doing before when you're talking to yourself shitty. I mean, um, it doesn't have to mean anything about who you are. Don't go like I was talking about earlier and then judge yourself on top of already talking to yourself so shitty. It's okay. that served you for whatever reason back in the day or you thought it did anyway or else you wouldn't have kept on doing it, you know, or you learned it from somebody. It's fine. That was your experience and not something that you're supposed to overcome. Now, set the intention for how you're going to behave moving forward.

Like I said, you will have to do this many many times over, especially when it comes to your selft talk because you're incorporating a whole new habit for the way that you speak to yourself, the tone with which you use on yourself in the everyday. And so a lot of this will go unnoticed at first until you keep like using your prefrontal cortex instead of like sort of interrupting yourself each time you use that language. It's like with a toddler, you know, like how if a toddler likes climbing or they like writing on walls or whatever, they pick up a habit until they get interrupted, not just once, but maybe sometimes over and over and over until they learn a new

way. It it is what it is. But if that toddler wants to not get sent to their room all the time and and live a life of punishment, then they probably want to learn a new habit to replace, but you are responsible for showing them that. Same thing here. you are responsible for showing your habit brain the new way. So, back to and I know I've been asking why throughout, but why do you accept what you accept? What are the root causes for overall? And what I wrote down here was usually it's because of fear of conflict. We don't want to make any waves. So, we just we're not accepting men. We're just resigning to laying down for passive stuff, right? when we're fear of conflict, desire to

keep the peace, guilt or shame about the alienation. We do this with our kids a lot where we'll allow them to do stuff because we think that we're responsible secretly. We're responsible for some of this to begin with. So, we let things slide with what we'll accept in our household or whatever. But by doing that, number one, you're not doing your kid any favors. Even though they'll love you and kiss you and call you George in the moment, right? Because they're getting what they want. That doesn't end up doing them any favors in the long run. Especially if you've already set out rules, guidelines for them to live by. And now you're going back. That just tells them that your guidelines aren't

really guidelines. They're meant to be broken, right? But also, you're not serving yourself in the long run because the message you're giving yourself is that your rules are meant to be broken, right? So, anytime you're doing anything from guilt or shame, it's always based in fear, right? And that's where I have my clients like take a beat, like take a minute. Don't act coming from guilt, shame, fear, all that stuff. Instead, ask yourself why. Okay? Why do I think it's important to give them that? because I feel guilty because I'm telling myself that I'm responsible. But how is giving them concert tickets or whatever is happening, right, going to make up for what I'm trying to blame

myself for that happened years ago? Those two don't add up. How can I love my kid and keep my word on my whatever, right? Okay. Um, another root cause, low self-esteem. Like I was kind of talking about before, I just let anything in because I didn't know when things were going to come back around for me. So, I should just you get what you get and like it sort of thing. And that's no way to live my life today. I refuse to live my life in scarcity that way anymore. You know, it's one thing to live out of necessity, but it's another thing to live from scarcity. I refuse. It doesn't matter if I have zero in my bank account. I will not live by just accepting whatever comes to me,

especially if it's underneath where I want to be, but it's not getting me where I want to go. I refuse. And when I set that standard for myself, it's amazing how things start to happen in my life. It scary as But when I set that standard and saying no, um I I want to argue with myself right now because I think it depends on what. So, we'd have to get into the a conversation about what's going on with you. You can always schedule a consult with me if you have something in particular in mind. So, of course, that's case by case, but yeah, I always never make your decisions from fear of scarcity. Base them coming from love and where you're wanting to go. You base

your your decisions off of scarcity and fear and you will find yourself in the same position or worse than you were in the end. Wasting time, wasting money, the money that you're likely trying to save. I can tell you a example over example over example and how that became true in my life when I was trying to save money on an attorney and got the shitty attorney and that shitty attorney ended up costing my case and costing me more money that I kept having to put out, you know. I mean, this happened all over my my life when I did this. That's why this is so important and writing it down to you guys. I know, like I said, if you're coming from um living in survival mode, it just doesn't seem it

seems non-essential to be spending my time to write down what I'll accept and what I won't because back then I knew I didn't have the trust with myself and I knew that I would betray every each and every one of the things that I wrote down until I decided that I won't accept my own betrayal anymore. I'm not going to accept that moving forward. you know, I'm not going to continue my life how I had and all of these these themes keep repeating and making my life a living hell, you know, no more. And so, it has to start somewhere. So, writing this stuff down, becoming very aware, sometimes uncomfortably aware of what you're allowing into your life, accepting into your life when it you

that's definitely not what you want. The awareness is sometimes could be it is the bottom. It's like, "Oh my gosh, what have I allowed thus far?" And that's okay. Acceptance is allowing for making room for the difficult emotions, you know, without making those difficult emotions mean something for your today and for your future. They're just emotions. It's okay. And it makes sense that I'm feeling these difficult emotions right now based on what I'm thinking. So now, let's change all that. Let's up the standards. This is how we want to live from here forward. Okay. Um what are you accepting from others? Okay. Why do you accept what you accept? What impact? Basically what I just

talked about here in my notes I've got what's the impact? How does accepting less than you deserve affect your mental health? How does it impact your ability to reconnect with your child? If that's even on the table right now. To me, as soon as I said that, I think that is always on the table. It just may not be on the timeline that you or I may want. I think the ability to reconnect with your child starts with your ability to reconnect with your child in your mind always, you know, because connection, all of that happens with the thoughts that you're thinking about them. Start there. But how does you accepting what you're accepting in your life, how is

that impacting you on a daily basis? How does it impact your the actions that you take or you don't take? How does it affect the way that you think about yourself? Like your own model of the world and what you're capable of, the caliber of goals that you set for yourself. Are you looking high enough for yourself or are you telling yourself that, oh, I'm never going to get there anyway, so I'm just not going to even try? That's living very passively and at the effect of the life around you. You're still basing your capabilities on what other people have done to you. And instead you want to shift that and start living your life based on what you are doing for you no matter what has

happened. Okay. So how to shift it? This is your compelling reason you guys. You want to shift everything from what you were accepting or tolerating in your life to what you really want to accept. You have to start with a why. like your reason, the thing that gets you out of bed every morning. The thing that keeps you motivated and this is different for everybody and you could have a a few different reasons. It doesn't just have to be one. Like I'm just thinking right now that Simon Sak is that who is start with why? I think that was him that did that. Um it's a great book. He was more talking about for corporations, but if you could tailor it to um you personally, I think it's a it's worth

the read anyway. It's a popular book. Your compelling reason is everything. That is the like the anchor to all of everything you do. Why you set the goal, why you're following a plan, and also the standards for you that you set for yourself while executing your plan. These are all like inner locked. They should be anyway for a surefire way for you to get to the goal and for you to create a life that you really feel has meaning. This is your way to purpose while waiting for your child children to come back. If you want to feel like there's some direction in your life that you are the master of your life, the shot caller, then you must have a reason, something that you get behind

every day. Like it puts a fire under your ass. But here's the biggest thing is that you want to make sure that your compelling reason is not set in the negative. Focus your attention on where you want to be. Paint that reality very clear for you in 6 months, a year, or even shorter increments if you like. You know, if you're want to do little bite-sized goals, you want to be very clear about the kind of life that you're building along the way in order to get the goal. Listen, like I said before, the goal, you completing the goal, like let's say I I was taught by my coach to set impossible goals, goals that you can never ever thought your wildest dreams that you can achieve because then you're

not so focused. You're focused on the goal always, but you're focused on collecting all the fails and not worrying so much about that, but building up like resilience and all the things that you need, the audacity and the the the courage and all the things to get to that goal because that's the kind of person that does get their goals is the person that believes is so crazy enough to believe that they can get there, right? So, I was always taught to just set the loftiest of goals and then you'll you'll get all these other goals in the meantime to trying for that other one, right? So, it just depends on how you work. Sometimes people don't like to do that cuz they think that they'll

never get to their goals and it'll just be discouraging. I read about it all the time. Don't set goals that are too lofty because it'll cause you to get burned out and, you know, feel like defeated early on. I don't necessarily think that that's true. It's really all a matter of perspective, but build out your life and what has to happen between now and then and what can't happen in your life between now and then. And that's also another way that you can look at what you're going to be accepting into your life. Like, I'm not going to be accepting or giving my energy out to relationships where maybe other people are needy of my time and it's not getting me helping me to get where I

need to go. Maybe those relationships are just going to be on hold for right now. while I do this, however it is, you know, be very clear with yourself now ahead of time so that when inevitably those things do come up, some distractions will always come up when you when you set intentions for a goal, then you already have an answer ready at hand for whatever does come up so that you don't waver on your decisions. You know, that sets yourself up for success because when you don't have an answer prepared for the objections or the things that distractions that come up, that's when 99% of the time that you will just find yourself taken off guard and be like, "Oh, okay." Right now, you

know what I'm thinking about is there was some like um social media post, I think it was maybe on uh Instagram or Tik Tok, I don't know, whatever. They say that a distracted person is most likely to say yes in a pinch like under pressure. So like if you're on the phone and or somebody's on the phone and you go up to them and hand them something while they're actively speaking on the phone, 99% of the people will just take whatever's they're being handed to them. Doesn't matter what it is because they're not thinking because they're too busy talking. So then they're end up standing there with some weird object. I forget what it was on this on the post, but it's so true. When we're not

prepared and some distraction comes up, most of the time then we're left standing there holding like a lunchbox in our hands that we don't need. And then now what do we do with that or a baby in our hands? What do we now do with this baby that's in our hands? We were just on the phone with somebody, you know? Hopefully that makes sense. But it's really important for you to just stay prepared and do this on the upfront. It takes you not long at all to do this. I mean, if you follow the prompts that I have for you, you will learn so much about yourself. Um, I've got some more prompts here, too, that I haven't read out, but you'll learn so much about yourself. Have the awareness

and be able to look at yourself, say, "Oh, yeah. I'm accepting this, and I'm telling myself that I need to accept other people's behaviors because then if I don't accept that, then they won't accept me. And is that how I want to live my life?" This gives you the opportunity to face those truths that maybe you don't otherwise really care to look at because it's um it's uncomfortable. But if you don't face these truths, your life will not change. That's the ugly truth. So face them sooner than later and watch your life change, you know? So that's what I have for you. the your compelling reason is so so so darn important. So make sure that you have one for every

goal that you set. And sometimes that compelling reason could be the same compelling reason and other times it's going to be it's going to change depending on what's going on for you. But always have one so that any time that you want to peter out on yourself or dissociate from whatever that goal is, you can hold yourself accountable. No, we're doing this because we said we would because of blah blah blah because we want the end goal. So, we're going to keep going on. It's okay. We knew this is how I talked to myself. We already knew that this was going to happen and I was going to start to go off my own team and try to fight against myself, but no, I'm sticking with this because this is

how I said that I wanted to do it. Do you guys do you know how many times I did this with the podcast to begin with in the first I don't know. I don't know probably year. I don't know a lot where I just wanted to like not What if I just didn't put an episode out this week? What if I just didn't talk about anything related to PA on the podcast? Like, I came up with all these different ways that I could just make myself fail because of course, why not self-sabotage? I've done that my whole life. Why not more, you know? But in the end, I knew that that for my goals, me doing that and quitting on myself ahead of time was only going to produce the same results that I've been creating

over and over and over for throughout my entire life. And I didn't want that anymore. I didn't want that. So, it was worth it for me to keep going. And I will tell you for the sake, there's not a day that's gone by that in the end, I haven't appreciated the past version of me for doing that, setting myself up for where I am today even. And so, the same for you. So if you want to live your life feeling in charge and with intention knowing that there's direction that you have direction moving forward that you are executing a wellthoughtout plan then decide on what are you accepting in your life are you doing that mindfully do you know why you're allowing this into your life and always

there are times where like I said I think I touched on it earlier is that there are times when you accept something into your life that's a little less than maybe you want for as a whole, but you know that the the outcome, the benefits outweigh the cons, right? The downfalls. So long as you know that you're making that decision that it's not being made for you and you're not being like held at gunpoint, even at gunpoint, you got a decision. You can decide not to do something, right? You just need to out. You need to look at it and see what's going to work for you in the end. You always find a responsibility in any situation. Any situation. There are always choices.

Outline those for yourself now. Okay. And so I need to come up with a quick link for you guys. So, beyondthehigh.com if you want this PDF with the prompts, the journaling prompts. It's um beyondthehigh.com/mystandards for life. Okay, that will be the PDF writing prompt link. I'll link it below, too. I don't know. Something's been happening really weird with my the linking and like all of my the episode descriptions. It's all lumped together in one big blob and it's supposed to be in paragraphs and like neat. And every time that I do it and I separate it and then I redo it and re-edit it, for whatever reason it ends up showing up as one big blob of letters. Like it's just all together and

so it's not very reader friendly. So I I don't I don't know what to do. But the link will be in there and will actually be like a clickable link. So, just look at it, but also just know it's beyond the highway.com/mystandards for life. Okay? All right, then guys, y'all have a lovely, lovely week. Don't accept anything less in your life than what you've outlined and knowing that it's your choice. Yours always from here today moving forward. Anything that happens now, like things can happen out there, but you always have a choice with what you want to do with it. Even if it's just how you're perceiving it, there's always a choice. Always. Okay. All right. Have a lovely week. Okay, I'm done.

Thanks so much for listening today. If you like what you're hearing and you'd like to hear more, please make sure to click subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Also, for bite-siz clips and tips, be sure to find me on Tik Tok or Instagram. See you next week.