Episode Transcript
Fawn: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Hello. Welcome to our Friendly World. Alright, guilt. You look guilty. I can see it in your eyes. You look guilty. Uh, that's me. Constantly do. You're guilty for
MATT: everything. I do. Everything wrong.
Fawn: No, no, no, actually. So we were on a phone call the other day and we had to get off because truth be told.
As always, we only speak the truth, but here's what happens. We, there are some people we have relationships with out of obligation. There's a certain way to behave and there's a certain chunk of time, there's a certain amount of investments and, energy and. Love that we have to put into something. True.
And it's, it doesn't make us feel good. It is really hard. It feels incredible. It feels incredibly hard.
MATT: It feels icky. Now, before we, before we [00:01:00] go too much further, Virginia, not you. Okay, let's go. Oh, no,
Fawn: no, this, none of our friends. Okay. But just, you know, the in general, we're just talking that. About. I can't talk today.
I cannot talk today. Help me out, Matt. There are relationships of obligation. Some of them are obligatory.
MATT: Yes, some of them are,
Fawn: and they don't make you feel good. You don't feel good hanging out with the people, and sometimes you are obliged to, you have to.
You have to be there.
MATT: Sorry, Jack,
Fawn: who?
MATT: In the little circle at the gas station, there are people who come and go, and then there are people who are mainstays, et cetera, et cetera. Sometimes some of those people aren't as fun to hang out with as others.
Fawn: Oh honey, you just called [00:02:00] somebody out.
MATT: I
did.
Fawn: Look.
You have two choices. One is you can say it doesn't feel good. It's really hard because you can call out exactly why it doesn't feel good for you to be hanging out together because you, the way you speak to me, it really hurts or it sometimes you can't do that because right. You are either faced with total denial.
Like, no, that's not true. Or whatever it is. Like what's another way it comes back at you? It's either they deny it or you're just brainwashed. You're crazy.
MATT: That does come through sometimes
Fawn: or Oh. Oh, okay. I see. And then they ignore it and they do it again and again and again and again. And eventually you have to pull out.
You have to get out. You [00:03:00] have to stop but sometimes you can't because it's another generation and you're related. Out of respect, you can't do it. Culturally you're bound. Correct?
MATT: With some people. Yes.
Fawn: So. The guilt comes in when you're like, okay, I'm going to just limit the time then, but then you feel so guilty because you're like, okay, I have to go now.
And then they're like, oh, of course you do. Do you know what I'm saying? Which is can come through two ways. Sarcastic, facetious, or sad, like they're sad. Oh, you're pulling away
MATT: and neither
one makes you feel good per se.
Fawn: So you feel guilty. So the time now that you have to be free from this, now you're spending feeling guilty.
You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. You're damned if you keep hanging out with them and then you feel miserable and then it takes you many hours or for, [00:04:00] for us days to recuperate
sometimes. Yeah.
And then when you limit yourself and you try to get out before it gets really bad during the conversation, during your time together.
Mm-hmm. You cut it off. And then you feel guilty, so you're still feeling bad. What is the cure? What is the cure? Matt? I mean, I don't know. For me, I have, it took me a very long time and many therapists to say, I'm out. I'm out. You know, No matter who it is, my parents family, even the relatives that I liked, I had to completely cut everybody off.
And I knew the consequences of it all. I knew the loneliness, I knew the lack of support, but I weighed all of it. And it took me a few decades to get to that level. And I had many therapists [00:05:00] telling me, get out, get out, get out. So it took me forever to follow this advice of you just, you have to leave and you cannot let the guilt get to you.
And one of the therapists, I had shared a, a poem with me and I wish I had kept it. I don't have it anymore, but it was something like the way the poem went was the person walks away, but then they hear these like crying, haunting cries and this haunting cry makes you stay. And as you're walking away, it pulls you back and you feel this tremendous guilt and it, it keeps pulling you back, pulling you back, but you just keep going one step further, one step further, and eventually the leash is gone.
The pull that it had on you, that guilt that, that, that rope. has no pull on you anymore. [00:06:00] That's kind of how the poem went, but I don't remember the words, but that's just the gist of it. Eventually, those voices, those haunting voices, stop. You don't hear it anymore.
MATT: That's interesting for me.
You've generally got, you've got a couple shots, couple opportunities to take a shot, so make it a good one. And then at some point you get what's called the empty jacket from me, which is kind of a judo term, which is kind of like you're facing an opponent, but the opponent, you can't do anything with him.
when you move to grab, there is no form, there is no substance. And that's the place eventually I take everything to. If it's an obligation, you know, I'm very compartmentalized, I'm very secretive. I'm very, a lot of varies and you know, and I know that that bothers the other person. 'cause they can feel that.
They can tell. Rarely does it ever affect behavior though, [00:07:00] because
I really wanna afford everyone the opportunity to change. But some people it feels like don't. So understanding the scorpion is the scorpion, understanding that, you know, odds are they're not going to change. I am. I'm not here. I'm here to take care of me, and I'm here to maintain my own respectability, my own honor by whatever code of conduct I have.
I'm not here to affect change in them, so I have to kind of let it go and. Then present an empty jacket and don't allow them to connect.
Fawn: I want to go back to code of conduct. Code of conduct. Let's, let's just do it this way. Code of conduct should be, how about if we make it be you are here to make the world a better place.
And when you do things, and I think this is part of what you said, Matt, when out of [00:08:00] obligation, you're there. You participate, they can also feel it. So it doesn't good feel good for them either. And chances are they feel the same way. But society dictates that we stay together. Society dictates no matter what,
we're family. I can still mistreat you and tell you horrible things, but we're family, so you can't walk away. Now, for me, in my case, I did walk away. Never went back. So, but that's me. Not everyone can do that. And here we go. And yet I'm still doing it with other people out of obligation. But the code of conduct I'm going to create is I will make your life better.
I will still offer you a platter of, of pastries. I will still offer you, whatever joy I can, um, kind of like if I could treat it as like flowers, like tossing you flowers, you know, but I'm going to limit that and joyfully walk, [00:09:00] walk my path and you are not on my path and I am not on your path. And every time the guilt comes in,
i'm going to focus on joy. I'm going to focus on the things that are on my path that bring joy.
MATT: And that's why oftentimes actually you're absolutely a hundred percent right. Well done.
It's, it's a subtle variant on the empty jacket. And I do offer this to others 'cause I'll joke around with them
in strange ways, like, you know, you pick up the phone and you give the wrong name or whatever silly thing you have, right? Without offering information, without offering them things that they could turn against you at some point. Without necessarily even providing any information, which is a very challenging, daunting path to go.
But I have this relationship with some siblings [00:10:00] and, and that's how it goes. And you know, as we've gotten to a point where they understand that I'm not interested on some level and I'm not going to let them connect on another level. And we have to either make our peace with that or let it go. IE stop communicating altogether.
Fawn: Do they know that though? I feel like, like I heard your brother once tell me he knows me so well that he knows me. I'm like, you do?? He really, I don't know if they believe that though. I feel like they think we are totally connecting. No, am I wrong?
MATT: Oh, I'm sorry. I was thinking about, I was thinking about my eldest sibling, actually.
Oh,
Fawn: yeah. Okay. I was thinking about, well, yeah, because I, I rarely talk to her, but,
MATT: right.
Fawn: But your brother,
MATT: but I, I do spend just enough effort keeping the communication line open just [00:11:00] enough.
Fawn: it's tough. Sometimes we can't fully do what I did. Which is just like end it all, as in like, I have no relationship with you anymore.
But, um, you, you have to keep a, a cap on it, a limit and not feel guilty. Guilt is horrible. It's worse than hanging out with someone who just ruins everything because that's what the guilt does. It ruins everything. Now you have what you want. You are on your path, and you can be free and and breathe a breath of fresh air, but the guilt won't let you.
It's suffocating. So knock it off, knock the guilt off. Focus. As soon as you feel it, focus on something different. Turn around. Physically turn around or look up or do a crazy move to make yourself snap out of it a crazy move being like, I don't know, just do a quick fast dance all of a sudden, or, or say something out of the blue [00:12:00] like la la la which is what I used to do.
Every time I had a bad thought or a thought that was very, stressful, I literally out loud would say, LA la. True. And it would switch my brain,
MATT: right?
Fawn: And sometimes I did it so often, sometimes I didn't know I did it. And my friends would be be like, what was that? I'm like, what? They're like, you just said la la la for no reason.
I'm like, oh, I, it was to shift my brain. It was to shift my thought and then other people started doing it too.
MATT: Nice. La la, la. But I do, I do like the tactic of be joyful. So for me, I'll tell a joke. My expense, their expense doesn't matter. I'll, you know, engage them on a whole other level talking about a quote unquote safe subject, like a movie or you know, a TV program or something.
You know?
Fawn: Don't you think when you do that you almost have to put a cap? A limit on that too, because they can totally still bring you down with that. Do you know what I'm [00:13:00] saying? You have to just lay, like, put that line out there, but have an exit strategy for yourself
MATT: oftentimes. Yeah, but I'll, I'll generally only offer out things that I'm not connected to, I'm not emotionally connected to in any way.
So it's, it's, it's a heck of a dance and I don't know, I don't know. It's, it's self preservation mostly. It, it, it is how I do.
Fawn: So that's it. Uh, just a quick little episode today. Don't feel guilty, friend. Do not be guilty. You are not guilty.
MATT: Be joyful.
Fawn: Let's, let's have some fun. There's nothing to be guilty about because you're a good person doing good things and.
If you feel like you shouldn't be hanging out with someone, and you absolutely need to offer, be a good host, but put a timeline on that party. [00:14:00] Put a timeline on that, get together and that's that. Treat it like work. Even like, oh, it is five o'clock, it's time to clock out.
Going home now. You know what I'm saying?
MATT: I do.
Fawn: And that's it. It's a tough thing. Guilt is also a huge downer and it's addictive. So knock it off. Just don't, just find something else.
MATT: Sounds good.
Fawn: Take a walk.
MATT: Okay.
Fawn: Alright. If you need us, we're here. Reach out anytime. Have a beautiful, every day
MATT: be well.
