When Friendship Becomes a One-Way Street | Episode 455

When Friendship Becomes a One-Way Street | Episode 455

Waking up with back pain after you finally clean up your sleep hygiene is a special kind of frustrating. I’m Justin, and I’m talking through what it’s like to go to bed earlier, sleep longer, and still start the day sore, stiff, and not operating anywhere near peak performance. We get honest about the mind-body link: how physical pain can ripple straight into mental health, patience, and motivation, even when you’re doing the “right” self-care habits.

Then we move into the bigger life stuff: hard decisions that you can’t always talk about publicly, the reality that hindsight is always 20/20, and the confidence it takes to act anyway. I walk through a clear example most of us recognize, realizing a friend or acquaintance isn’t supportive, isn’t kind, or simply doesn’t show up, and the uncomfortable question that follows: do you keep the relationship going, or do you end it? If you hate confrontation like I do, this part hits home.

We also talk about boundaries in professional and business relationships, especially when money is leaving your pocket and the other side isn’t holding up their end of the bargain. The core takeaway is simple and hard: trust your gut, use the evidence you already have, and give yourself permission to say, “enough is enough,” without spiraling into guilt or worry.

If this connects with you, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review so more people can find these mental health, trauma recovery, and self-care conversations. What’s one boundary you wish you set sooner?

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Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome And Big Mission

1:32 Sleep Hygiene And Back Pain

8:00 Hard Decisions And Hindsight

12:00 When A Friendship Stops Working

17:13 Saying Enough Is Enough

26:07 Closing Thanks And Share Request

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Transcript

Welcome And Big Mission

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes 0:02

Hi everyone, it's Justin. Uh just wanted to uh reach out here on this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Uh thank you for joining us, whether you're watching and listening here in the United States or across the world. Uh without you, we want to have a show. Uh and if you can give us the big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, those would be fantastic to help us reach our goal of helping at least 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. And if you can do us another huge favor, again, another free thing that you can do to help us, uh, and that is to reach out to 25 or 50 of your contacts on your phone, let them know about the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast that is centered on uh mental health, trauma, recovery, helping others, and again, that huge goal of helping over three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. Uh, just an amazing time to be to be alive and uh just trying not to take any day any time for granted, which is something that is very easy to do. Uh and and part of that is we talk about self-care, we talk about getting enough rest each each night uh as best as we can. And gonna just touch on like one one topic, and and we can laugh about it a little bit. So my sleep hygiene has is has really been pretty not great uh for a long time. Going to bed late, sometimes waking up early, others sleeping in, and not really taking advantage of the full fullness of of the day. And part of that uh with getting that extra rest, and I don't know if this all ties together or if it doesn't. I'm just gonna give you what I'm experiencing. Uh so number one, uh I'd say so out of the seven days of the week, probably like maybe three to four, maybe four uh times a week, I'll wake up with just this uh aching back pain, and I've never had, and I know I know I'm getting older, so I'm susceptible to uh you know uh growing pains, not in the sense of children getting growing pains and and growing and that, but uh I feel like I'm getting older and older and older by the day, and I am, we all are. And so this back pain is just very uncomfortable. So then I try to readjust how I'm sleeping. Uh so I don't know if I'm sleeping out of the wrong angle. Uh I'm not sure, but it's something I haven't experienced before uh with this uh this better sleep hygiene where I'm going to bed earlier, and for the most part I'm waking up a little earlier, and sometimes I wake up a little bit earlier because of the back pain. And it's uncomfortable. Uh I don't mind, I I I guess waking up a little bit early, uh earlier uh with this better sleep hygiene, uh, just uh having that back pain just really has me uh you know sometimes just like, oh my gosh. Uh so I'm wondering how many, how many of you out there watching and listening uh have the same thing, you know, sleeping you know, awkwardly on our sides or in a different at an angle, or I'm still trying to figure out like what's the best best way. So I don't know if it if part of it is that because of my better sleep hygiene that I'm sleeping longer, so closer to nine possibly ten hours a night, if just that amount of time by itself alone is uh part of this, so I'm not really sure. Uh but it's frustrating because on one hand I'm getting you know, the sleep hygiene is getting much better, and then on the other hand, you know, this this you know back pain and soreness uh is really impacting me. Um so just wanted to start with literally uh you know human human uh let's say human issues, growing issues, um getting older issues, uh, and wondering if anybody else, uh any other viewer, listener has and is experiencing this this type of soreness and and pain, where it's like even when I feel it and I try to turn maybe the opposite way, it's still there for a while. So very, very interesting, and and it has to do with mental health because not able to uh I'll say operate at like peak performance level, uh and and it just affects my mind too, because it you know the soreness really affects me, um, and and so I have to take my time, you know, getting getting up, getting started in the morning. Um, and so we just wanted to start there on kind of the human condition, uh the uh the anatomy uh uh of uh of kind of getting older and it stinks this part. It is not a whole lot of whole lot of fun. Uh okay, so let's let's move further into our episode today. There's times in our lives when we make decisions that are very hard. And I can't share what unfortunately I can't share what those are for me at this point, may be able to comment at a later later time, but right now uh just not not able to. But it's pretty pretty, you know, uh pretty deep things, situations, events that have occurred and part of part of me I I I I've I haven't always had the confidence, uh I guess, as a way to kind of get started here is you know, we think of you know each other as you know, we're gonna live forever, even though we're not, and that we make the best decisions that we can with the information that we have. And that is no different than what I'm talking about here. The only difference is this has huge impacts on certain situations, events. However, those changes and the effect on the you know these the larger larger events that I'm referring to is kind of a big a big deal. And having the confidence to make the decisions to actually go forward and do it is a different thing, right? They say hindsight's always 2020, where where we look back on a particular decision, a particular event, a particular experience. And so we look at look at that and go, wow, I wish I would have made this decision, or I wish I would have made that decision. Excuse me. So hindsight's always 2020 to be able to be like, oh well now it now it makes sense. I should have did this or I should have done that. So what I'm talking about now is things that I've done in the near term that were hard decisions, but good decisions. Let's just put it this way. Let's say let's say we have a friend that we've we've had for, I don't know, some some length of time, and they're they're just they're constantly either being mean uh not there when we need them or any number of things. And we feel like we don't have that support from this particular friend, this hypothetical friend. So we have the we have the decision to make. Do we continue with this friendship or being colleagues or acquaintances? So do we continue or do we stop that? Right? Like if we don't feel better or on par after conversations with said person for whatever period of time it is, then maybe that friend isn't a friend. And so it would be a hard decision to make to say, hey, sorry, I I just don't I don't I don't think this friendship is working for the both of us and it can be a hard decision to make right, especially somebody like me who is I don't like confrontation, and so to go through with excuse me. For those those watching, my my dog just kind of attacked me in a good way. She's not intending to hurt me. She um then for those listening, you're just hearing uh hearing jingle bells, uh, which is around um our our dog's neck. But um so there's this decision that we have to make at some point. It's either working or it's not and what I'm talking about is more of kind of that acquaintance type of uh type of relationship and so as I I I can't get into specifics right now uh my message is if you find yourself in these types of situations be confident. Be confident in your gut, your intuition. Something feels off, maybe something is off. Meaning there there's there's just something that doesn't feel right. Uh don't feel that the again that the relationship is, you know, if you if you're asking for help and you're not getting it you have to make make a decision to just go again, go with the sheep and just follow like everybody else? Or do we say enough is enough? And so recently that has been a reality for me, for the organization is, you know, enough is enough. And as hard as it is to to do it, and like I said, I'm not not good at confrontation, but when there's a third party or somebody or an organization they're trying to you know work through some things and they aren't holding up their end of the bargain, that you can have that confidence to say, okay, this isn't working out and not worry about it. I mean, I worry all the time, but sometimes like this, you have to be confident with the decisions that you make. Not every decision, again, hindsight's always 2020. It's always easy to look back and go, I should have done this, I should have done that, blah blah blah. But in the moment when the decision needs to be made, and right, each one of us has human characteristics and we have feelings, and when we don't feel that those are being met, especially if we're paying somebody for a service, we should have all the confidence in the world, all the confidence in the world to do what? All the confidence in the world to make a decision for ourselves, maybe our organizations if we we have one and not to feel not to feel bad about making that decision. Hard to make it, very hard. But there's something called I've had it. And enough is enough. We've all been part of conversations and of friendships and different professional relationships and where others have told us, right? One reason or another, oh this isn't gonna work, you know, interviewing for a job. I mean, that's what I'm trying to do now. Part of uh part of what I'm doing. And then I get the you know, the dreaded, oh well, you know, thank you for applying. We're no longer hiring fish position, it's been filled. Uh and so that sucks. And so as those organizations and and people do those things, and as those messages come through, it should empower us that when we have the opportunity, if needed, to do the same, especially when you when we're spending our own money, we should feel empowered to make those decisions. To say, you know what? I've had it. This business decision, this business relationship is done. And here. Are the reasons why and sometimes we don't have to give the reasons, they're obvious. But recently, for me, I've had so much, so much evidence. Okay, Lucy. Hey Lucy, I know you like seeing yourself on TV. Yeah, I know you do. I know. You want a belly rub. Please stop. Please stop. Thank you. Thank you. So let's try to worry less, right? Let's when when things aren't working up. Okay. Thank you. Lucy. That's it. That's that that's enough. I'm gonna have to sit you down, okay? Want to sit you down. Thank you. So that uh that there's a song there called, Don't worry, be happy. Hard to easy, easy to hear, hard to do. Because then once we make a decision, we look back and go, Oh, did I make the right decision? Don't worry about it. If you have that gut feeling, you have that feeling in your heart that things just weren't working out, and you're paying lots of money. You shouldn't have to feel bad. You shouldn't feel bad. Because if you're paying somebody, that means there's there's money leaving your pocket and my pocket for somebody else. And if they're not holding up their end of the bargain, we absolutely have the ability to say, no, I've had it, this is enough, and I no longer need your services. I'll be able to comment more on this at a later time, but wanted to definitely share what's going on in real time. And to be empowered to make your decisions. That if you are gonna have to pay, is gonna actually do their fucking job. Apologies for the language there. So thank you for joining us on this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Uh, if you can give us the big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, uh, that will greatly help us reach our goal of helping at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. Help us reach over 3,000 cities across the world and help us reach over 300 countries, territories, provinces across the world. We're well over 110 countries, well over 1,100 cities worldwide. And it's all because of you. Thank you for watching, thank you for listening, and if you can reach out to 25-year contacts in your phone, let them know about the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. If you can Etsy on it, you can voices for voices on it. So hope you have a great day, and we will see you on the next episode of the show. Bye for now.