#41 Gentle Nudge: Take the High Road

Ever felt like you deserved to stay mad? 😡 In this episode of Be the Sun, Not the Salt, Dr. Harry Cohen and Connie Fontaine unpack Chapter 20: “Take the High Road”—a powerful reminder that holding onto anger only salts your own roots.

Key takeaways:

• 🌟 The high road is for YOU: Letting go of petty negativity isn’t about the other person—it’s about freeing yourself.
• ⏳ Work through it: Whether it takes two hours or two weeks, give yourself grace as you move toward letting go.
• 🧠 Don’t “feed the bad wolf”: Gossip and venting might feel good in the moment, but they rarely help in the long run.

Connie shares a relatable story of waking up still mad and realizing she needed to take the high road for her own well-being. Harry offers gentle nudges on how to stop fueling anger and bitterness—and why compassion for yourself is key when it feels hard to let go.

Perfect for anyone who’s ever struggled to move past frustration or resentment! Tune in for practical wisdom, heartfelt stories, and your weekly reminder to rise above the salt. 🌞

(Mini-episode, major inspiration—perfect for your next walk or coffee break!)

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

[00:00:00] 

Dr. Harry Cohen: Welcome to our gentle nudges series. Today we're going to talk about chapter 20. Take the high road.

Connie Fontaine hard to do, but necessary. 

Dr. Harry Cohen: Connie, you and I were just talking about this yesterday. Would you mind sharing your beautiful story from your working with this chapter

Connie Fontaine Oh, a couple days ago. yeah,

 Tuesday morning, you know, we were going to record and as I was prepping in the morning over a cup of coffee, you know, I read take the high road and I thought, Yeah, I'm just not ready to take the high road yet.

I woke up, I went to bed mad at somebody. I woke up really mad at somebody and, and I just, I knew that I had to work through it. I used to not be able to do that. I used to just say, yeah, well, I deserve this. I deserve to sit and sulk in this, in this pity party. But I knew I needed to work through it. It took me a couple hours though.

And that's when I called you guys and said, yeah, I just [00:01:00] can't, I just can't. I'm not, I can't record today. And that's the reason why I didn't feel genuinely able to take the high road in the moment. Um, I think the good news is I, I knew I wanted to work through it, and I think what's different about this story is this isn't about taking the high road with the other person, although that's important.

This is about taking the high road for myself, I needed to just get over myself. I needed to not work through that pissy, petty. feeling because it was just salting my own roots. I felt grumpy. I just, I looked in the mirror, I looked grumpy. So yeah, I mean, I think taking the high road for, for that morning was all about myself.

And I loved that the work itself literally reminded me of it as I opened that chapter. Sure.

Dr. Harry Cohen: we record this, because your story is everyone's story and I don't even know what you're pissed about and It doesn't matter. What matters is that you didn't give in to pissed and petty and it took you two hours. My [00:02:00] life's goal is to take it to get to two seconds. Well, sometimes it can take two minutes. I know people that it can take two hours, two weeks, two years or two decades. And, you know. The work the beautiful work of this is I want to get to the high road. I know how to get there It's gonna be treacherous, but I want to get there Sometimes we have to work harder to get there and sometimes it's easy to get there But my wish and hope for anyone who listens is like, oh, yeah, if you don't know what the high road is We'll ask somebody because they can usually tell you They can tell you, you know, don't be given into piss and petty and wanting to announce to the world What a no goodnik that person is and see if you can find your way back to I know Oh there but for the grace of god go I or They were probably having a bad day too or whatever it is that keeps us holding on to our own You petty [00:03:00] negativity and wish to want to extract a pound of flesh from somebody.

Connie Fontaine It doesn't, it just doesn't matter if it's, um, I deserve to be mad. That person is true. It doesn't matter because it just makes you feel worse. I mean, I physically felt worse. I didn't sleep as well. All those reasons are the reasons to learn, to let it go faster. And I've gotten way, I've gotten a lot better at it over the last several years.

This one was, took me a little while, but, um, I would urge everybody to think through that. What are the times that you just, you let yourself hang on to that feeling and and realize that there's no good reason to do that. It doesn't make you, and you're not going to get that person back by you feeling bad.

That's the reality. That person isn't probably even thinking about it at the moment. So, um, take care of yourself and, and take the high road for your own self.

Dr. Harry Cohen: Totally. And there's all kinds of quotes around this. I think, um, vengeance is in, uh, retribution and, you know, unbridled anger. When you hold a hot coal, you're the one that gets burned. Stop it. Let

go. You know? Um, [00:04:00] It's hard to do so give yourself compassion if you can't get there as quickly as you would like or quote unquote Should

this is not a should trip.

This isn't like hey, you should take the high road nanny nanny nanny You should

know better. Look, I think we all know better. So give yourself grace know what it means to take the high road for you and Don't deny what you feel and don't feed the bad wolf Don't fuel the piston petty and wanting to shout from the rooftops how angry you are

at the no good nick who did you wrong.

Connie Fontaine Right. I mean, don't, don't kid yourself. Sharing that no good Nick story isn't is going to make you feel better maybe in the short term, but it's not going to make you feel better in the long term. And if you look at people's faces around you, you'll realize they're looking at you like, why are you sharing this with me?

I'm sorry, you're upset, but this isn't my fight. So yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't do us any good.

Dr. Harry Cohen: And I've [00:05:00] learned, I didn't really do this very much, but I've certainly learned to be mindful of whatever I post because a lot of postings are about, did you hear, did you see, did you hear, would you see, can

you believe it? And people love to gossip. Gossip is an ancient and very delicious vice. And it also has some function socially to connect

people, but it can be very, very damaging to relationships. So be, be careful about gossip because it's very tempting to talk in the town square about you know who. It's just entertainment, but can be dangerous if, you know, you let yourself go to the dark side

Connie Fontaine Yeah,

or even when you pile on to somebody else's dark side. I mean, really all we're doing is stirring each other up and salting each other's roots, salting our own roots. It doesn't feel good to just fester in negativity.

Dr. Harry Cohen: Well, I hope this inspires [00:06:00] somebody to think and act to take the high road in their own life when they're tempted to hang out in the lower road of whatever that might be.

And we're all in it together. So help somebody out. If you see them, give them a hand.

Connie Fontaine That's right. And let us know, did you, did this help you? did you find the opportunity to take the high road lately? Please listen, share, comment, rate us, on any of the platforms you listen to us on. So thank you very much. Thanks for listening.