“Put Out That Fire”

How long can you last in a burning building before you can’t breathe, can’t think, and can’t recognize yourself anymore? That’s the question we put on the table, because “what attracts you” can still burn you, especially when a relationship or pattern started sweet and slowly turned toxic. 
I’m Dr. Lydia Michelle Young, joined by my co-host, Intercessor J’eanine Nichole, and we talk with real urgency about the moment you realize what you’re doing is not working and you’re done losing yourself. 

We unpack how emotional abuse, constant criticism, control, and chaos reshape your identity until you’re living from someone else’s version of you. Using the burning building metaphor, we ask the uncomfortable follow-up: why do we walk out, see the smoke, and still turn back for “more”? We connect that pull to the cycle so many people know by heart: break up, go back, try again, get burned again. Then we widen it beyond romance to other destructive fires like alcohol, drugs, pornography, and any toxic environment that keeps demanding your peace as payment. 

We also go where many people avoid, family. Sometimes the fire is inside the home, and we speak directly to parents facing a toxic relationship with a child, where distance can feel impossible but wisdom is still required. Our bottom line stays the same throughout: you are worth saving, you are worth fighting for, and it’s time to use the extinguisher. If this conversation hits home, subscribe, share it with someone who needs strength, and leave a review so more people find a way out.

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Transcript

Hook Questions And Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:01

How long can you last in a burning building? That's the going question. How long can you last in a burning building? Are you ready to draw a line in the sand? Are you ready to sleep again? Are you ready to laugh again? Are you ready to live again? I am your host, Dr. Lydia Michelle Young, here with my co-host, intercessor Janina Cole. This is Sweet Fire the Podcast, where our mantra is how to survive the flame when what attracts you burns. How to survive that flame, that that relationship, that addictive pattern, how to survive that flame. Um, what seemed sweet at first, what felt good, what sound good, uh, what taste good, how to survive that flame when you were attracted to that flame, how to survive it, how to overcome it, how to come out of it, how to uh make it and and succeed in life, how to become uh aware of your own value, your own worth, how to survive a flame, the flame when what attracts you burns. This is Wednesday, middle of the week. Um, and I'm your host here, and we're just uh we call Wednesday, middle of the week, midweek refreshing fire. This is a long intro. We're gonna get right to it. Come on, jump in, intercessor.

Losing Yourself And Finding Worth

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Come on, come on, jump in.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Somebody's on fire. Good evening, everyone. Yes, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Sweet Fire the Podcast. Um, those questions that you raised at the beginning, you know, do you want to sleep again? Do you want to eat again? Right? Those are questions that we do eventually have to come face to face with, that we have to ask ourselves when we come to the realization that what we're doing in life is not working. You know, that that relationship that we're in is not satisfying. We do eventually, all of us, if you live any kind of time, you you get to that point in life to where you do, you sit down and you ask yourself those self-imposing questions that are very uncomfortable to uh to come face to face with, very uncomfortable to uh to even answer. So definitely once again looking forward to to diving into another dynamic topic.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Absolutely, absolutely. Wow, it is true, uh, intercessor. We come to a point in life uh where you know we've had enough. We come to a point in life where we just can't take it anymore. We've come to a point in life where I know I have, I've lost myself. Um, and and it it was hard, uh, a real struggle, a real uphill battle uh to get to know me, my value, my worth, and not really to get to know it because I know my value and my worth, but I allowed myself to belittle who I am because of how I was treated, how I was talked to, how I was abused, how I um, you know, was at the mercy of someone else. Why? Because I was attracted, but then it burned.

Enough Is Enough Put It Out

SPEAKER_01 3:15

And so I was able to survive that, and I'm really thankful that you know this is what it what time it is. We talked about drawing a line in the sand, we've talked about uh breaking the cycle, but it's time to put out that fire. Yes, it's time to put out that fire, that attraction. It's time to put, can you jump in on that? It's time to put out that fire.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

It's time to put out that fire, absolutely. Anytime you're involved, you know, with anything in life, uh, an intimate relationship, uh, relate uh relationships on the job, uh, relationships in the fellowship that you may have, you know, lock arms with if you're a person of faith. Anytime that you find yourself in any type of relationship, even with your own family, and you find that you're losing yourself, you find that you know you may not truly know your your worth. You find that your identity that you've been living in, that you've been walking in, has been an identity that has been shaped by another. It's not the truth of who you are truly, you know who you're true who you truly are, who you're called to be. Anytime you're faced with those obstacles in life, with faced with those uncomfortable realities in life, it's time to put out the fire. It's time to extinguish it. It's time to put that fire out and walk away. So that you can, you know, begin to spend that quality time with your own self to get to know your own self. So you can, if you were a person who went into that relationship already knowing your worth, but you lost your worth along the way because you were trying to hold on to that relationship. You when you put that fire out, you give yourself an opportunity to spend time with yourself, to re to uh to become more intimate with yourself all over again, realizing your worth, realizing your value that you lost along the way. It's time to put out that fire.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

It's time, it's time to put, I mean, you've gone through it for years, you've gone through it long enough. We all heard the saying, know the saying, and many of us have said the saying enough is enough is enough. Love you, come to know you, value yourself, you are worth it, and we are here to remind you of your worth, to remind you of your worth, put out that fire, and and for many of you, and I heard this a little earlier, uh, it's really an urgency. We're speaking today with an urgency. Some of you are in an emergency situation, you've been dealing with chaos, you've been dealing uh with being criticized, you've been dealing um with the abuse, you've been dealing with your hand with hands being put on you, you've been dealing with this uh these types of uh situations for years, for a long time, going back and forth, breaking up, getting back together, you know, making a way of escape, you know, walking away, uh gravitating to your healing, uh gravitating to overcoming, and then we talked about this. Then you get the text, or you get the call, or you you know, you just can't uh seem to shake it when you hear from that person, you're drawn right back into the same trap. But put out the fire, let's fix the problem today. It's an emergency. And I'm gonna can I say this

The Burning Building Reality Check

SPEAKER_01 6:49

real quick? Absolutely. We talked about the burning building. Many of you are familiar with the burning building, it's a metaphor for that addictive relationship. Uh, how long can you last in a burning building? Really think about that. So when you're in a relationship which uh uh signifies the the burning building, you're an emergency situation. But we talked about uh having made a way of escape, or you you exit that building, you are you're out, you know, the building's up in smoke, there's nothing left but rubble. But uh why would anybody think about this? Those of you who are listening, why would anybody turn back, leave a burning building, and then say, No, I want more, and turn right back around and go back into that burning building?

SPEAKER_00 7:33

And that's that that's uh uh uh an interesting question right there because what you just asked, you know, saying I want more, I want more, I want more, but then you turn right back around and go into a burning building, right? It's almost like an oxymoron. How can you want more and expect to obtain more from a burning building? How can you want more and expect to obtain more from a relationship that's doomed to fail? How can you want more and expect to obtain more from somebody who's always criticizing you? How can you want more and expect to obtain more for somebody who's always abusing you, putting their hands on you? How can you want more and expect to obtain more from somebody who's always calling you out of your name? If you want more and you want to obtain more, then it's time to put out that fire. And again, this is for anything that

Toxic Patterns Beyond Romance

SPEAKER_00 8:25

is, you know, that's uh uh uh uh toxic. It's not just intimate relationships. You know, it could be a burning building, it can be uh a drug, it can be alcohol, it can be pornography, it can be, you know, uh relationships within the family. Because many of us, we, you know, we try to shape our identity around what our family around our family's expectations. And we we fight to get you know approval from family, and a lot of times the ones that we fight to try to obtain approval from within our own families, they either don't recognize your worth, they see your worth, but they're not trying to speak life to you to help you develop in your worth. And it can be very hard, we're talking about family, it can be very hard to distance yourself, you know, from that family because it's what it's family, but anytime, and hear us when we say this on this evening, anytime anybody is devaluing you, criticizing you, and not speaking life to you and encouraging you, they're doing just the opposite. It doesn't matter what their title is in your life, it is time to utilize that fire extinguisher because you are worth saving.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

You're worth saving, and you mentioned here uh in this particular session um how even within family members in your family setting, yeah. Within your home, uh a mother and a child.

When Family Relationships Are On Fire

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Right, a mother, a parent, and the parent's child in a toxic uh relationship that is on fire, yeah, that there's literally destruction, there's literally a heartbreak, there's pain, there's chaos, there's confusion, there's toxicity, a poison relationship. If you are one who is experiencing toxicity amongst your children or amongst a certain child of yours who who you actually gave birth to, it's difficult, it's painful, but um we're we're hoping that you would gain the strength, strength enough to fix the problem, remedy the issue, uh, address the issue, remove the elements, put out that fire. This is an emergency. This is serious, this is critical uh to your well-being. And so um, if you have anything else, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Anytime we have to, you know, utilize a fire extinguisher, that means it's an emergency situation. Anytime we have to utilize a fire extinguisher, it is because it is an emergency situation. And I'm feeling this on this evening, I'm sure you can't, you're feeling it as well. You know, there's mothers out there, there's parents out there, and the the toxic relationship is with your child, and it is extremely hard. It is hard, it is hard for you to walk away because, like Dr. said, you gave birth to that child. That child came from you from your loins, but your relationship, it's a burning building, it's toxic because your child doesn't, you know, uh realize your worth. Your child is not even trying to spend time to see your worth, to see your value. And the child is doing the uh completely opposite of what a child should do with their parent, and that is respect the parent. But like doctors said, you have to remove the elements, and sometimes removing the elements is removing ourselves from that situation, you know, removing ourselves from that situation. So again, this is an emergency emergency situation, and we're here to encourage you again. You're not you're gonna hear us say it over and over and over again because that's why we're an assignment here to help everyone to come to understand your worth. You are worth fighting for you, you're in an emergency situation, and it is time for you to utilize

Wisdom Help And Final Blessing

SPEAKER_00 12:38

that fire extinguisher.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Right, and um, one more thing. I appreciate uh your comments and what you've just shared. Uh, it's time for you to use the extinguisher and put out that fire. We've said this on previous uh in previous sessions how there are there are so many who have failed uh to make their exit uh from that burning building, from that situation. They remain there, they've gone back into the situation, back into the burning building, and then they didn't make it out. Yeah. Many have lost their lives. Yes, and not just toxic relationships or relationships that are intimate, but also parents have lost their lives at the hands of their children. We're not trying saying don't talk to your child, we're not saying what we're doing here today. We say this is a matter of an urgency, is for you to exercise wisdom. Yes, it's difficult, but for you to exercise wisdom, get the help needed so that you can protect your well being and protect who you are. Protect your child by using wisdom. Peace be to you, peace be to your house, and peace be to all you have.