When You Feel Disappointed By Those You Love

you are listening to the Beyond The High Road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 65 stay tuned welcome to be on the high road hi guys it is the 26th of December look at this little guy I've got going on over here oh I had my hair up earlier I just came back from lunch with my father it is his 76th birthday today a crappy birthday to have as a kid like being I can just imagine for him being a kid and having your birthday the day after Christmas I know for me when I was a kid with him I would always bundle them together oh Merry Christmas happy birthday and I would always like regift Smurfs or whatever I had that they had given me and I'd been like here you can have this

one but so anyway yeah his birthday is December 26th I have one other friend that her birthday is on the 26th as well back in Austin her kiddo and mine are five six days apart my daughter's birthday is on June 1st and her son's birthday is on June 6th I believe something like that my daughter was 3 weeks old when we moved to Austin and so our babies came up together and they tracked on all of their Milestones together and even like at their checkups what their one month three month six month all those checkups they tracked on their head and their height percentile I think they were always the same but then my daughter was always in like the 95th or 97th percentile in her weight she was

like I was a baby it was just like so amazing I used to love it but anyway the mom my friend yeah her birthday's the 26 too so I always thought that's so unfortunate I guess there are pluses and minuses to everything right it's been an interesting holiday to say the least frustrating is definitely one of the words that I would use and probably will use for a long time to come remembering the Christmas of 2023 I have learned so much during this time about myself and about how I want to move like where my priorities are going forward you know what I'm saying and in fact one of the stories that I have from this weekend I'm going to tell you towards the end of

the episode I'll save that for the last one but what we're going to be talking about today is when people disappoint when your loved ones close friends family members when they do things that yeah disappoint let you down make you think things that aren't nice and are challenging right when people are acting in ways that you wish they wouldn't especially when it comes to those close to you that you don't want to have ill feelings toward or maybe even acquaintances like in the last example that I'll give you a little later this was somebody that was a newer friend and she did some things that caused me to think thoughts that words helpful and also caused me to

re-evaluate whatever friendship we might have been starting but yeah so that's what I want to talk about today I am not necessarily addressing the alien meeting parties just know that but it doesn't mean that you can't apply it to them if you feel it's fit I I am meaning it to be applicable towards those that you are thinking are your supporters you know what I'm saying not the alienator not the disordered Personality yeah okay some quick examples I can think of are like if you've not been invited to a social Gathering that you thought you should be or you wanted to be when maybe you even asked about the event and were lied to or maybe somebody wasn't there

for you the way that you thought they might be or the way that you wanted them to be when something happened in your life when people talk about you behind your back not just with alienation which we I'm sure I could probably speak for all of us and say that definitely we've had our fair share of thinking that other people are doing this whether they are or not I don't know whatever but this is something that we all know is when people are gossiping behind your back another example I can think of is like when you've told something to somebody in confidence hoping that they would keep it to themselves and they didn't they shared it with another person it caused you to lose trust in

them caus you to re-evaluate your relationship status or how you wanted to move forward with that relationship we spoke a few weeks ago about old pain old resentments so if you haven't listen to that one that would be a good pairing for this one the examples I'm going to provide you with today I was jotting down notes earlier for this episode I was like when have I been disappointed in my past but one of the first things that came up for me was my mom I'm sure a lot of us can relate to this where a very close family member following alienation has done or not done things that caus us to feel unsupported two separate issues incidents came up the first one was when I still had my

daughter let me just give you some background of my mom my mom is a devout Catholic radically Catholic she is a chaplain like she is very big into her Catholicism and I although I did my first communion I was never confirmed I don't believe all of the things that Catholics believe in fact I find this is not bad or good and I don't want to get into a discussion about religion for sure because whatever you believe is amazing and fine and in fact I have come to today my belief is God is in every religion right and that no belief is wrong or bad or less than another Faith at all so that's where I stand today and but when my daughter was young very young three four really my mom started

to impose her beliefs on my daughter and at first it was not a big deal to me because I thought what harm could it do my mom has her beliefs and that's okay until it became a little bit intrusive and she would call almost nightly and want to recite the rosary with my daughter the more she was insistent often making the conversation centered around Catholicism the more I decided that I didn't want that it just was much let's just say that it was just much any reason I had would have been a good one because it's my daughter but I had a lot of really solid reasoning for it and it was not because her belief was wrong and my belief was right it was that I wanted

my daughter to be able to make her own decisions about what she wanted to believe when she came of age right and so I wanted to leave things more open-ended for her also providing her with all the information that she asked for or that I gave her that was around right but my mom would more like if you're not Catholic then you're going to hell you must convert to Catholicism or you will go to hell and for four and five and six and seven-year-old I didn't agree with this and so I asked her to not to please discontinue having these conversations with my daughter because it got to the point where every birthday every holiday every phone call every everything was

surrounded with Mother Mary and you get it right it was much and so I asked her to stop to please cease all of this craziness because the expectations were becoming very high and I felt there was a lot of pressure being put on my daughter and so one the summer of my daughter's she was just turned seven I allowed her to go visit my mom for four or five days it was with the understanding that my mom did not impose her Catholicism on my daughter and that they didn't go to every day and that all the things and I'm sure you can guess what happened so I had a lot of words to say about that and then I had no words to say because I stopped speaking with her I was very upset with my mom for

this because in my mind she was undermining me my authority I was really upset about this so much that I didn't speak to her for I think close to a year maybe even longer yeah no this was years I I didn't speak to her until after the whole Fiasco happened with my daughter going over to her dad's a year after that and so then after a few months of speaking with her again and us being on better terms another thing happened and she was going behind my back and speaking with my ex and like doing it without letting me know I know why she was doing it she was doing it for a good reason she wanted to maintain contact with my daughter and the only way to do that she couldn't go around them she had

to go through them so I get why she was doing it it was the way that she went about it and then a few things that happened as a result of it and how my mom handled it with me so again we went on a Hiatus of not speaking for another long time at least a year in my mind I wanted my mom to behave differently I often found myself saying this isn't how a mom should act no Mom should undermine her daughter's Authority with her own child no mother should put their child in the adult role so in both those situations I really believed my mom would needed to behave differently and until she showed that she could behave differently I couldn't in my mind I couldn't remain in contact

with her right she was acting out of line and it was unacceptable and therefore because she can't act right I cannot interact with her I refuse to interact with her and that works fine I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with that I think that can be sometimes seem like and maybe is the the way that works best for you to say they're going to act in ways that are unacceptable for me in my life and so therefore I'm going to bring me in my life away I'm going to take my toys and go home and I'm not going to hang out with them anymore or interact with them anymore that can work and here's the reason I don't love that method is because by having to discontinue a relationship

that means that you have to discontinue the relationship you have to go through a lot of trouble in order to stay away to avoid I don't believe that is the best way to move forward for me no matter who we're talking about but especially when we're talking about like a immediate family member or somebody that's married to an immediate family member that I think can be energy consuming to do the avoiding so instead what I now do is I clearly State my boundaries after they've crossed a boundary I let them know like with my mom if you go and speak with my ex again without letting me know then I will not entrust you with any part of my life I would still continue a relationship with

her meaning that I would still converse with her whenever she called but I would not be sharing with her personal details of my life not because I have anything to hide but because I choose not to invest myself in that way with her does that make sense and so now since I've done that for instance just the other day she called and text Ed to let me know that my daughter texted her a thank you for the gift my mom also called me a few days before Christmas she did tell me after the fact but she tried to get me the day before and said Hey listen I hope you don't mind I've sent a gift to your daughter and here's what it was that is not something that I asked for I

did not ask her to report back to me anytime that my daughter contacted her or that my mom sent her a gift that is purely my mom's initiative to be proactive about that for me I do app I really appreciated her communicating with me about those things it's an added bonus but I think because I was very specific with her before about my boundary once we did resume communication and I stopped punishing her then it was clear and then from there forward she's been very respectful with me to me a lot of times people don't understand where we're coming from for instance when I was sharing with my buddies back in Austin about my mom communicating with my ex without my

knowledge and some of the other things that were happening my friends were like I wouldn't speak to my mom again I could have found a lot of people to agree with me that my mom was out of line right 100% I still to this day I don't love the way that she acted I absolutely don't but because I hadn't drawn a boundary up till that far there was isn't anything for her to go on now one would argue they should just know this is common sense and I'm sure many of you have gone through situations where you're like that's just etiquette 101 they should know not to do abnc yeah maybe clearly just like I was sharing in that that recent episode about old resentments they were thinking a thought

that caused them to believe that what they were doing was the right thing so in my mom's mind she was doing the right thing for the right reasons she didn't have any standards to go by there were no bumpers until I drew them for her till I communicated them to her so I think that is really important to consider when we're talking about somebody that's let you down before a lot of times we expect people to live by our manuals for them those Rule books are usually completely unspoken and we just expect them to know and if that is the case for you when somebody lets you down it would behoove you to share those rules with them and they don't need to abide by them if they're adults they get

to act however they want to act and if they want to abide by these rules because they value the relationship with you and they think that these rules are great and blah blah blah then great but if they don't then they don't right nobody has to follow the rules that you have in your head for them then for me too just knowing that it is a set of rules unspoken rules that you expect each person in your life to live by is I think can be funny sometimes but also it puts things into perspective just because you think that it's common knowledge it is etiquette 101 they should know it's common sense it maybe isn't for them clearly it isn't if they have let you down and they haven't done

the thing they have disappointed you if you want to remain in relationship with this person or really honestly if you want to spend the least amount of energy possible and feel good on the inside you have to communicate with them what your boundaries are when they cross them I wouldn't just go yelling out to people what your boundaries are whenever you become friends with them hey so don't do this don't do that because that's weird I mean you could do it but it might by the way if you hit me then it might be weird awkward they might not be friends with you but when people come close to crossing a boundary or one once they have always you must state if you then I

if you do blank then I will do blank and the reason I will do blank is because when you do that the story I tell myself is blah blah blah and that story causes me to feel blah blah blah we discussed that the other day I know that you all can recall something where somebody has either talked about you behind your back or you heard through the gra Vine that somebody has been gossiping about you that they have been saying this or that you're not a good parent that because of the alienation you did this or you did that it happens it's going to happen people are going to gossip no matter what we're talking about and in fact what do they say all press is good press

I feel like if you're not being talked about then you're not doing enough things out there like being talked about whether it's bad or whether it's good if you're not being talked about bitched about persecuted judged then I think that you're not sticking your neck out enough go do more things get talked about more for all the reasons but really not only will it cause you to worry less about what people are saying because they're going to talk haters going to hate also I don't think we learn anything I don't think we grow When We're Not Making Waves and it doesn't have to be like the instigating kind of waves but just standing up for what you believe in taking Chances with regard to your

creativity your passions what you believe in and let me just add this is not the topic of the conversation today you guys know that when I say this I don't mean go squawking about alienation if you're not yet healed in whatever area you might be squawking about okay I I don't think that's going to serve you or any body so when you are making the waves just make sure that you're doing it coming from a place of love doing it because it's truly what is in you and and you feel that it might be helping other people because that's what I truly believe and I know I've shared this with you before I believe that we are all here to share our experiences with others it's sharing our experience

strength and hope with one another to help one another like you are going to be a little bit further ahead than the next person and they're going to be a little ahead than the next person and so it's just like a constant exchanging of experiences right and the wisdom that we acquire throughout as a result of the the adversity that we go through if we're just repeating the same old things every day in and day out the less we're sticking our necks out the less we grow you know you're going to always have the good with the bad is all I'm saying that's nothing profound there but it is true so I'm still coaching myself on this last example so you're going to be

seeing it real time cuz I'm still pretty raw about this basically what I'm trying to say is I am just as human as the next person and I think it's probably good for you to see that because then you'll also see that like with my situation with my daughter her father and stepmother there was a time when I was bent out of shape about every little thing that they did very activated very life is unfair this sucks and every email that came through I would go into an immediate trauma response impending doom feeling wondering what might be in the email when I open it up and I would be exhausted after reading whatever it was in there sometimes it would actually be nothing really other times it would

be a big freaking five pager filled with belittling remarks so I have been there I just happen to have been so methodical and diligent about coaching myself when it comes to that area because it was such stress response after stress response I didn't want them to consume my time anymore and my head space my bandwidth anymore so I really did a lot of work with my coach and then on my own later on basically normalizing their behavior the big things I seem to have under control but when it comes to this one example you'll see I'm still going through it so a couple days before Christmas I got a text text from somebody that I know I would call her maybe a newish friend acquaintance

somebody that lives a couple neighborhoods away and we run into each other often when we were walking our dogs she's also divorced she does not have kids but she works from home full-time and she was the one that told me about Rover dogs today like I knew about it but I never was never a thought in my mind she texted me a couple days before Christmas Christmas and said hey I'm wondering if I can engage in your petsitting services now at the time that of her texting she was visiting her family for the holidays and she let me know that she just acquired a puppy from a rescue but she's out of state said puppy is in state she was going to have a friend go pick this puppy up and she

wanted to know if the puppy could stay with me so I reluctantly agreed she asked me what I charged I told her I know where she lives she's a friend of mine we can discuss it later I didn't want to do it and I was only really doing it because I felt like it was the quote unquote right thing to do this is what a nice supportive friend would do for another friend I would want somebody to do this for me that was my initial thought right so I accepted the puppy got dropped off seven months old this puppy not house trains horrible case of diarrhea had the the whole time he was picking five with the other two dogs it was a mess and this friend out of town never once called me to say thanks

she just kept texting saying oh I hope he's not adding any added stress that's that was her wording I hope he's not adding any added stress to your holiday and I of course I didn't respond to that because how do you respond to that and then I found out in passing text passing she was like oh yeah so if I would if I were coming home tomorrow as planned then blah blah blah suggesting that she was not coming home on the day that we agreed upon which was today I was none too pleased long story short I didn't have to say much to her because through texts I was able to take my time and respond in the way that I wanted to and very clearly to her and so I basically

let her know that she needed to have the dog picked up on the day that she we agreed upon which was today during this time over this weekend I wanted to batch record episodes all of January's episodes and today's episode I'd plan to do that all day on Saturday and Sunday and I didn't I couldn't because I was dealing with this puppy I wanted her I expected her to show up on the day that we agreed upon I expected her to let me know when she knew that she was not going to be showing up on the day that we agreed upon I expected her to do a lot of things that she did not do and so I spent most of my time over Christmas grumbling being pretty pissed off resentful it consumed a lot of my time

over the holiday and it didn't need to so I was bummed I was super bummed that it ended up being like this that you know she chose not to call looking back on it I fell back into this role that I played while now I'm not saying that she is this but I fell into this role that I played while with my narcissist act the last guy and also the role that I played with my parents and probably the role that I played with my daughter's father but I don't really remember so well about that but it was that I was working really hard in order to maintain like this H estasis this maintain peace within the relationship or within the status like the interactions I found that I was the one

initiating all of the conversations oh here's an update about your puppy here's pictures here's this here's that and I would just get these very minimal responses it seemed very reminiscent of what has happened and the role that I played in my past again I'm not saying that that's what she is I'm just saying that the dynamic on my side of things seemed similar very similar and I didn't love that know what that was about in fact I felt bad when I did voice what I needed to happen moving forward regarding somebody picking up the puppy today I felt bad I was like oh I probably should have you know just taken the puppy and continued on I caught myself going there and then I was like

no that's not what you should have done you have been bending over backwards for this puppy and for this absent friend and I started thinking I was like if it was me who off to the puppy while out of town out of state I would have driven back the day that I acquired said puppy definitely the day before I said I would come to pick up the puppy because that's just how I do and but I can't expect everybody else to do what I think is right that is where I got stuck I was stuck in she should behave differently everybody else would agree with me that she is acting entirely selfish and weird and dismissive and not okay this is proper etiquette proper friendship

proper relationship etiquette and by the way this poor puppy you know all of the things I had all of the complaints but I don't know her side of the story I don't other than she said she was sick and that's why she wasn't driving home so who knows maybe her reasons are good it doesn't matter because you know what I'm not the one to judge I could judge it's with well with within my rights to judge but it doesn't cause me to feel good when I do judge so I stated what I needed and it actually happened the puppy got picked up by the friend that dropped the puppy off and puppy is now at a vet's office getting barded there and yeah that sucks for the puppy I do love puppies but also I want puppies

around when I don't have a ton of work I planned on working batching these podcast episodes for y'all and that actually takes care of my mental health to do that takes care of my workload throughout the month all that stuff was put on hold for puppy an absent puppy owner and so I'm really happy with how I handled that I still haven't been the offer to pay me has not been extended since I said yes but whatever the money is not important in my mind I'm still like but that's what people do that's what considerate people do is to just offer I may not take it but the fact that she hasn't offered is right now it's bugging me but she has a different story about that so I do feel

let down but what's letting me down is not what she's done necessarily it's my story about what she's done I've been talking with you guys about this a lot lately it's not the hellacious things that we think that they've done the inconsiderate hurtful whatever you want to say things that they're doing like people can act I don't know what's happening behind me let's say I did actually want a puppy around right now maybe I've been craving having a puppy around and because I didn't really want to batch these episodes this weekend and so I was looking for any excuse a puppy is a great distraction from that stuff if that was my standpoint and this puppy would have come in I would have welcomed

this puppy being here and not felt put out when she lacad desically told told me that she wasn't going to be returning home as planned as we agreed upon that could have been a welcomed extension of distraction for me if I really wanted the puppy to stay right so it is definitely not that she's not back yet that is causing me to feel let down or disappointed it's my story it's what I'm making it mean to me I was making it mean that she was in considerate of my time because I had other things to do because I needed to back to these episodes because I needed to get on with my life I have a at home business and I need to care for myself I have other animals that I care for my own animals

that I was not paying attention to so I made it mean that this puppy was an inconvenience so it's not what she's done it is what I've made it me and it's the same for you and me and everybody else so anyway people are going to behave how they want to behave and you can either continue to entertain it like I did all weekend and luxuriate in the misery of your story about whatever they're doing or you can decide that it's just it's only my story it's really only my story about what they've done and that's okay now that doesn't mean just because it's my story I like my story I'm okay with it I still truly believe that I don't love how she handled it as I mentioned just a couple

minutes ago I probably won't continue to put a lot of energy or time into the relationship with her I did learn a lot here she didn't make good on her end of the bargain our agreement and so I won't continue to make agreements with her right and that I think is also self-care but it doesn't mean that I have to run from her avoid her shun her or School her let her know what a terrible person she was and the bad choices that she's made people are going to people Live and Let Live it also doesn't mean that I won't when we have a see each other in passing that I won't say hey this bothered me and here's why I think that is the healthy thing to do is to not push it under the rug but also I don't

need to actively yell or get angry with her I can just let her know because I think that without communicating it it is just a set of unspoken rules that you have for a person right then you're also not behaving and like if I was to not communicate with her and I was yelling at in my mind yelling at her for not communicating with me that I'm doing the exact same thing she's doing in a different way still the same thing I'm not being honest with her about where I was coming from about how I feel about this right I don't need to shove it down her throat I can let her know just say yeah I don't love that but act however you want because because you're an adult

there is Free Will so hopefully you can use that with your situations that maybe you have after following the whole holiday and the whatever family events you might have gone to or just with friends maybe you're still feeling disappointed or let down by some of your close relationships so maybe you can apply it there and just know that it's not what they've done it's your story about it it's what you're making what they've done mean and it's not to blame it's there's no blame here it's just knowing where your fence ends and theirs begins right so that's all I have for you today I hope you guys have a lovely New Year's happy New Year and I want to know what you guys have decided for your

2024 what are you going to create in 2024 like I was I brought up the conversation last week what is going to be different for you in 2024 how are you going to show up what are you going to create what do you want to work towards okay all right yall take care thanks so much for listening today guys I'm honored that you chose to share your time with me if you like what you've been hearing and you want more come join me in the new monthly membership where we take the concepts that you hear about here and using a logical framework you learn to apply them to your specific situations upgrading your thoughts and your life even while experiencing the grief of alienation for more information go to

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