#32 Gentle Nudge: Learn to Walk Away

In this episode of the 'Be the Sun, Not the Salt' podcast, hosts Dr. Harry Cohen and Connie Fontaine explore the concept of walking away from toxic environments, as described in Chapter 11, 'Learn to Walk Away' from Harry's book. Our discussion drills into the importance of gracefully extricating oneself from negative situations, whether they be physical, emotional, or conversational. With practical advice and personal anecdotes, the episode offers insights on maintaining composure, avoiding conflict, and making deliberate choices about the company we keep, especially during challenging times - and we've all got them!

Links & Resources

Be the Sun, Not the Salt - book

To explore the book, or for more episodes, information, tips and tools to live a more heliotropic life, visit us at bethesunnotthesalt.com and find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok.

Transcript

Harry Cohen: welcome to be the sun, not the salt, our podcast on how we can help each other in the world, be our best selves more often. I'm Dr. Harry Cohen, author of be the sun, not the salt. I'm joined by my co host, Connie Fontaine, all things be the sun, not the salt chief super spreader. And we're going to dig into the chapters in this book as helpful reminders of how we can do just that be our best selves more often.

Con 

Connie Fontaine: It's right. These mini episodes do help us be our best selves. They, they not just to talk to each other about being our best selves when we're doing it well, when we're not. And hope they're doing the same for you. Chapter 11, learn to walk away is interesting because it's similar to chapter 10, which is don't hang with cilantro, but there's a, there's a difference.

I mean, then what your intent was on these chapters. So let's, let's get into that because I think, I mean, just reference chapter 10, um, we talked about surround yourself with people [00:01:00] who brighten your outlook, be good company and keep good company. Sometimes it's hard. So there we go. Learn to walk away.

Chapter 11.

Harry Cohen: learn to walk away is a skill that we continually have to practice, which has to do with protecting our roots. And there's a quote in there, you know, be graceful, be kind. 

Connie Fontaine: And when you find yourself in the presence of salt, be gone.

Harry Cohen: Thank you. And that means don't overthink it. Don't complicate it. Just move away. Don't make a big dramatic deal about him, her, it, them, just do, do, do, do, do, do, do, just use your legs and walk away. Now that's an action and you don't have to do anything more than slide to a better environment. I find that incredibly helpful. Because it keeps me [00:02:00] focused on what's most important and avoiding 

Connie Fontaine: Well, and you mean figuratively, too. It's not just necessarily using your legs and walking away from a situation, but it's emotionally. Sometimes you gotta walk away from a feeling, a problem, a thing. I mean, sometimes it's a lot easier said than done for people, for sure.

Harry Cohen: And that also involves counting to ten, counting to five, counting to however many you need to count to, to regain your composure and do the next right thing. But this notion that you can leave the environment that is toxic for you, I believe is very helpful. There's many different types of mini. Toxic environments.

You can have just an exchange with another person and it can be icky salt on your roots, move away. You can work in an environment or a family. You're like, boy, this is not good for me. Good. Well, let's make a plan to get out of there, whatever it might be. So I think it's being mindful of your own [00:03:00] roots, mindful of the choice and the power that we have. To get out of there.

Connie Fontaine: And I think sometimes it's as simple as telling the person, I really don't want to go there. Let's, you know, let's not do this. I care about our relationship. So let's move on to something, you know, how about them tigers? 

A friend of mine always says that when he's joking around, he's that we're on a topic that we're just, everyone's going, what?

Yeah. So how about them tigers? That's his, 

Harry Cohen: cute. It's a, it's a cute, it's a playful, it's code for let's talk about something fluffy and delightful.

Connie Fontaine: Exactly. So you, you walk away. So yeah, let's say you have a situation and I think family, we're getting into the holiday, well first, we're still in election season, so that's always a hot topic. Um, we are getting into Thanksgiving, Christmas, all the holidays for people spending time with family. Let's talk about walking away.

Some of those examples.

Harry Cohen: So all of us are familiar with family minefields where certain topics [00:04:00] and people are guaranteed to be explosions. And now you, you're not an idiot. We, we know this, we all know this. So now how do we avoid those minefields? Feel victorious if you don't step on a mine, you know what I mean? 

You avoid Aunt Mildred. And I'm using Aunt Mildred 

in the spirit 

Connie Fontaine: in case there's, I'm sure there's some nice Aunt Mildred's out there.

Harry Cohen: exactly, this came from, uh, from, uh, Rachel Hollis. Everyone has an Aunt Mildred and that is the person that, no, there's nothing fruitful that's going to come from a conversation. That's the kind of mindset we have to have, especially during election season and family Thanksgiving and the holidays coming up, literally be thoughtful about, Oh, I don't want to go anywhere near that.

Good. Don't.

Connie Fontaine: You can celebrate yourself when you don't. I think, you know, it goes back to one of the conversations we had in one of the chapters about needing to make sure everyone knows you're right, [00:05:00] because there are times when you're right, you're not going to convince everyone you're right. So why are you doing that?

Harry Cohen: That's right. 

And I love that. And you know, and to your last point, that's a big one. Give yourself some high fives for avoiding a mess.

Connie Fontaine: Yeah, you get, you get, actually, I think you get extra credit. You know, you get more credit for walking away and avoiding a mess than you do by proving you're right. That's one point, two points for walking away. 

Harry Cohen: Love it. 

Connie Fontaine: So do we have anything today? Do you feel like you've got anything today you're going to need to walk away from?

Harry Cohen: Let me think. Let me think. Let me think. Um, no, not that I can foresee in terms of all the interactions I'm going to be having today. I don't see any. That doesn't mean that I won't find myself in one of those interactions and go, uh oh, exit stage left or check please. 

Connie Fontaine: Yeah, I think it's partly because you do surround yourself with good people and we, we try not to surround ourselves with people we [00:06:00] want to walk away from.

Harry Cohen: I think it's a, you know, a worthwhile point that we are deliberate about who we spend our time with. Very deliberate. So that's a great practice.

Connie Fontaine: So when we do, we don't turn on our heel and stomp away. That's not a good way to walk away. 

And I think you brought it up in the beginning of this, this conversation. It's be respectful, be kind, do it in the way you want to be remembered when you, when your back is all people see. I think I love the word that you used in the book, be graceful because that always helps me.

It's like, again, give yourself a pat on the back, be graceful and be the kind of person you want to be seen as when you walk away from those situations. 

Harry Cohen: let's do it. 

Connie Fontaine: Well, good. Well, hopefully this inspired you to walk away when you need to walk away. Please let us know if there was a particular instance you want to share.

Otherwise share this with somebody may leave a comment and definitely follow our podcast so that you get notified every time we drop a new episode. Thanks so much for listening.

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