Why You Keep Tolerating Bad Behavior & How to Stop Being Mistreated For Good!

Do you find yourself making excuses for behavior that hurts you?

Do you stay quiet to avoid someone's reaction, even when something feels wrong?

Do you feel emotionally drained after certain interactions, yet keep showing up anyway?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be tolerating mistreatment without even realizing it.

In this episode, we're exploring why so many good, caring, empathetic people accept treatment they would never wish on someone they love. We'll discuss how childhood experiences, nervous system conditioning, and fear of disconnection can train us to ignore our own needs, dismiss our feelings, and remain in unhealthy dynamics far longer than we should.

You'll learn:

✨ How your nervous system can mistake what's familiar for what's safe

✨ The difference between empathy and self-abandonment and how the "empathy trap" keeps people stuck

✨ Why boundaries often trigger pushback and why that doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong

✨ The hidden inner healing that occurs when you stop betraying yourself to keep others comfortable

✨ How choosing self-respect over approval transforms your relationships, self-worth, and sense of personal power

This conversation is a reminder that healing isn't becoming cold, hard, or selfish. It's becoming unwilling to abandon yourself for the sake of connection. Because the moment you stop tolerating what hurts you, everything begins to change.

For FREE Resources, 📖 Book Link, 📝 Quizzes, 👚 Self-Love Merch Shop, 🗣️ 1:1 Mentoring and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

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🌿 Self-Healing with Kristen Brown is recorded live on the Noom Vibe app — a space dedicated to whole-person wellness to live longer, happier lives. Guests are welcome to join the stage to share their experiences, ask questions, and be part of the conversation. 

To join Self-Healing with Kristen Brown LIVE, download the FREE Noom Vibe app on both Android and Apple devices. We'd love to see you there! 

🌱 Some guest segments may be edited out due to poor audio quality or moments unrelated to the topic to create the best listening experience. 

*This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or mental health care.

Transcript

Kristen 0:00

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to Self-Healing with KB. In this podcast, we begin the journey of returning to our whole and complete selves through healing from the inside out as we shift our inner world, our behaviors, and our lives transform. In today's episode, we're going to be exploring how to stop tolerating mistreatment. You're going to learn signs that you're tolerating too much, how this behavior came into place, the empathy trap, and how to break this cycle. This podcast is for information and educational purposes only. If you are struggling physically, emotionally, or mentally, please contact a medical or mental health care provider. If you're interested in my free resources, my self-love merchandise shop, my social channels, or my book link, my link tree is posted in the Noom Vibe profile and in the description on other podcasting platforms. A lot of people tolerate mistreatment. This is not new news. You, by far, are not alone. So many of us are putting up with behavior over and over and over again. We know it's wrong, we know we don't like it, yet for some reason we can't seem to break the cycle. It's important to understand that we don't tolerate mistreatment because we're weak. It's because somewhere along our journey of life, we learned that keeping connection felt safer than honoring ourselves. This often starts in childhood. We learn to minimize our feelings, to overexplain, to keep the peace, to be understanding, to don identities or masks, if you will, that make us feel acceptable or likable. Or we learned how to absorb hurt because conflict felt dangerous, because love felt conditional, or because your needs were consistently overlooked. Standing up for ourselves was absolutely a no-go. We may have tried it, but the consequences were often worse than what we were willing to deal with. And so learning to tolerate mistreatment was the brain's way of helping us survive or get our needs met. And we came into this space organically through our environments, our traumas, our dramas, and our experiences. Human beings are incredibly adaptive creatures, and that adaptation will take over. This is because we are wired to survive. And over time, our nervous systems can begin to confuse what's familiar with what's acceptable or with what's safe. This is why often, when we weren't respect respected or protected in childhood, we often as adults attract partners who treat us the same way. Our brain recognizes the behavior of these individuals and says, Oh, this must be right. Oh, this must be correct. I recognize this. This feels like quote unquote home. And I don't say that in a positive way. So even when something feels painful, there's a hidden part of us that says, don't make a big deal out of it. Or don't speak up, or maybe I'm just being overreacting, maybe I'm just being too sensitive. Oh, they they didn't mean it. That's just how they are. Or, you know what, I should probably just try harder. Maybe if I am not acting the way I'm acting. Or my favorite, well, they had a rough childhood. None of us wake up one day saying, you know what? Today I'm gonna be a doormat. I'm gonna be sure that everybody else gets their needs met and are happy, and I'm just gonna keep accepting all of this BS that is coming my way because this is my job. It doesn't happen that way. So please know that all of this came into place organically. There is nothing fatally flawed about you. You are not alone. One of the most important things here to understand is that you are not alone. Many, many, many people have tolerated mistreatment, including myself. There's a reason why I became an author, a blogger, a YouTuber, a coach, and a mentor. And it's because I figured a lot of things out on my journey. And today we are going to be talking about how to get out of this. But first, we're going to jump into the signs that you may be tolerating mistreatment. Now, for many of us, we might already know this, but you could learn something new here. Most of the time we know that we're tolerating mistreatment, but sometimes we don't. We don't see it as quote unquote tolerating mistreatment. We don't see it as black and white as that because it's so natural for us. It's so organic for us to accept it because we had to accept it in our past. We taught our brain that this is what we do. We accept this type of behavior rather than speaking up, setting boundaries, honoring ourselves, respecting ourselves. So, and sometimes I will say this too is we understand it in some arenas, like maybe a particular relationship where the person is really aggressive and we know that they're just heinous and they're treating us so badly. Like it stands out like a sore thumb. But there's these little micro disrespects that happen along the way, too, that we may kind of overlook. And as all things on this healing journey, this is about starting the steps forward and letting it unfold and letting it unpack. Because at first, for me, it was the big grand gestures and behaviors and things that people were doing that were not okay, that were mistreatment, that were disrespect, that was something that no person should ever deal with. I had to recognize those first. To me, it was the big loud screaming behaviors first. And then eventually, I, you know, as I started to heal and as I started to truly love myself and treat myself well, I can't express that enough, you guys. That is the key. Loving ourselves well is the key. Treating ourselves well is the key. So once I started doing that for myself and I started setting and maintaining boundaries with certain behaviors with people, then what happened was those behaviors went away. But then these little micro ones started to surface. I started to go, well, that didn't feel good either. But my body was so out of touch with recognizing mistreatment that I only recognized the big stuff at first. And then once that was cleared out and my system was calmer, then I got the little pokes from the other stuff as well. And then I started to set my boundaries around those types of behaviors too. So please know we're all works in progress. We're all works in progress. Rome wasn't built in a day, nothing was built in a day, except a fort in the backyard. But other than that, we really don't build things in a day, especially when it comes to self-help and personal development. It takes time. So understand that this is going to look the way it's going to look for you. That's it. It's just going to look the way it's going to look. And allow yourself to unpack this as fits for you. You could just nail it all from the go, or this could be a two or three year process for you. The key here is to trust yourself to go within to connect with yourself. Okay, some signs that you might be tolerating mistreatment. This is about paying attention to how your body feels around certain people. Our body, our nervous system, will often recognize mistreatment before your mind fully recognizes it or admits it. So getting close to yourself and understanding. Are you feeling anxious around certain people? Are you do you walk into a room and somebody's in there and you feel your body clench up? Are you waiting for some type of explosion or attack from somebody constantly? Do you feel like you have to overexplain yourself to certain individuals? Are you careful with your words? Are you uber careful with your words because you're afraid to initiate something or spur something on in somebody else? Do you feel emotionally drained after dealing with certain people? These are all signs, everyone. Do you silence yourself to avoid certain people's reactions? And here's the thing: if you've silenced yourself to or censored yourself to avoid certain people's reactions, oftentimes the brain can't tell the difference between who's safe and who's not safe. So then we take that on consistently and we silence and censor with everybody. And you see what we've done? We have disowned ourselves. We have moved away from ourselves. We have abandoned ourselves. Another sign is do you keep your thoughts and opinions and feelings to yourself? Do you feel like you must earn basic kindness and respect? Are you walking on eggshells around certain people? Are you cringing when somebody says words to you? And sometimes your face may not even be cringing, but your inside constricts. Again, these are all ways that your nervous system is recognizing mistreatment. And it's so important that we get in touch with the body. The body keeps the score. The body knows. So paying attention to those things. You know, when I was in the throes of just dealing with everybody's ish, no matter what they said or did to me, when I was in the throes of that, I knew I didn't like it. That was kind of all I recognized was, ugh, God, that was annoying, or oh, that person, or oh, you know, it was kind of more like in a blaming scenario, is what it felt like to me. And there was some really, really heinous mistreatment that I was um accepting way back in my younger years. And I didn't even have that, to be honest with you. I just kind of got scared and weird and never really said anything to them or even admitted it to myself. It was just like, oh, my body react to it, and that was kind of it. But as I grew and I started to recognize that I never really thought, I didn't know that I could actually speak up. I didn't know that I could set a boundary or I could say, hey, stop raising your voice to me or whatever it was, whatever it looked like in that moment. I just, it didn't even occur to me. And this is why it's important for us to understand that we are so innocent. We are teeny, tiny baby humans on this journey. And we don't know things until we know things. Just like a baby didn't know how to spoon feed itself until it did, or a baby didn't know learn how to crawl or know how to crawl until it learned, or it didn't know how to walk until it learned. We don't know things either, even as adults, until we learn. So it was through my healing that was kind of the first step for me is when I really started to love myself and work on myself. Then those things started to stand out to me like a sore thumb. And the reason why that happened is because on some level, I was mistreating myself. So there was this very blurry, fuzzy line when recognizing the behaviors of others. There wasn't a sharp delineation. There wasn't, this is how I treat me, and the polar opposite, this is how you treat me. It was all kind of blurred together. Does anybody relate to that? That it all kind of blurs together. Maybe that's not the case now for you. So many, yes, Amani said yes. Yeah, for sure. I know you get it, Amani. Okay, we got Dinga, and I think it was at Lisa. Oh, yes, and Jeannie too. And Jessica. Hi, Jessica and Anthony. Hey, everybody. Thank you for being here. Yeah, there's this weird, it's really hard to describe in real time, but it's almost like we just we don't like it, but we don't really know. Like we don't really know that there's another option because we never had another option. So this is where, as adults, this is how we become sovereign. And that is through our agency. That is understanding that we have choices, that we get to decide now that we're not at the mercy of the elders, the actually physically bigger and stronger people than us, the smarter people than us, the people whose brains are fully formed. We are not at their mercy any longer as adults. This is a massive, massive shift in our healing journey. When we start to understand that we have power, but we are going to keep functioning from that same level that we've always functioned on until we decide, hey, I got some power. I'm an adult now. I don't have to put up with this stuff. There's this huge movement right now where there are people who are moving away from their toxic and narcissistic and abusive type parents. They're moving away from them. And then people are giving like them all kinds of heck for this. You know what? They finally decided as an adult, I don't have to put up with this anymore. I put up with this for 25 years or however long it was. Some people, my gosh, I I literally know people who have left their childhood homes at 11 years old, where they were just like, I can't do this another minute. I'd rather be out there braving the tundra than to be in this situation. So at some point in our journey, we must make that decision that, you know what, I'm better than this. I'm worth more than this. I don't treat people like this, and I don't deserve to be treated like this. This is going to move us into the empathy trap. Yeah. You're talking to a worldwide empathetic woman here. I mean, it's my God. My heart's as big as Arizona, and I love people, and I am so empathetic. I understand how just how people must feel on our walk this morning. I was telling my husband about a prime time Australia, but it wasn't that. It was one of those things, and it was news magazine things, and it was talking about this story. I won't go into the whole story, but it was so sad and traumatic. And I told him this morning in my heart, I was just grabbing my heart. I'm like, that poor child. She was 15 years old when this basically her whole family was taken out, if you know what I mean. I can't. I am so empathetic. But the problem, my beloveds, with empathy is that we have oftentimes have very low self-protection. We're just like wide out in the world. We're just like, we're just full on out there just empathizing left and right. And empathy is a beautiful thing. It's so incredibly connecting in relationships. It makes people feel understood. But man, we can do this at the expense of ourselves. Absolutely. Because what happens when it comes to tolerating mistreatment is we will extend endless, endless grace to those people. And we keep accepting what's unacceptable. I know this for a fact about myself because I would always look at people's history. Always. Well, you know, that person was adopted. They have the abandonment wound, or I'm thinking a particular individual in my life, or this person, this, or this person that, whatever it was, I would look at that and I would feel so sorry for them. And I would be like, I understand why they're why they're acting this way. It makes perfect sense to me. And be and that was it. It just stopped right there. I didn't go any further with it. Now, here's the deal, you guys. Empathy can live in the same house as boundaries. We can understand, but we have to be willing to draw that line with someone and saying, listen, in our in my own head, I never said this to somebody, but listen, I understand that your father was abusive, or that you were abandoned by your mother, or this happened, or that happened. And this behavior is unacceptable. You can't treat me this way. Now, like I said, I never straight out said it like that to somebody, but I had that understanding within my own head. It made sense to me. It was like, okay, I had to learn, literally learn it like I was learning my A, B, Cs, that people don't get to treat me this way, that this is not okay. I had to tell myself over and over again, this is not okay. And I even had to go to other people sometimes, where I would say, Hey, someone's doing XYZ. And sometimes before I even finished my sentence, my friend would say, What? That is not okay, or that is completely unacceptable. And I would hear them and I would agree with them, and I was happy for the validation. But then oftentimes I didn't do anything because I wasn't there yet. I didn't know. I still had some learning and some strengthening to do. I still had some perception shifts that needed to take place within me to really position myself. When I look back on all the things that I've accepted, it's mind-blowing to me. And then when I think about my friends that I know absolutely would not have put up with something like that, that was mind-blowing to me. But being the curious cat that I am, I would ask myself these questions like why does my friend Kelly, is there no way that she would have allowed blank blank to happen to her? There's no way. Man, that girl would have spoken up, she would have said this, she would have set that line, and she would have called it a day and let the chips fall where they may. Why is it that I say, hey, that's wrong? Hey, I didn't like the way that felt, but okay, I'm just gonna keep being friends with this person or act like nothing happened. I had to investigate. I had to go within. And part of this was my overempathy, but a lot of it was people pleasing too. It was not wanting to ruffle feathers or to be the bad guy. Oh gosh, I didn't want to be the bad guy. As is the story when my best friend, you guys know that story. She followed my husband into the bedroom. She threw her leg up on the wall while she was wearing a mini skirt and tried to hold him in the bedroom. I came around the corner and she just laughed it off. And I looked at my husband like, what in the hell? And she walked down the hallway and he pulled me into the hallway bathroom. He goes, Don't make a big deal. Don't make a big deal. Now, is that interesting? Hmm. Why did you not want me to make a big deal, bro? Hmm. I still will never know the answer to that question. But so what did KB do? She conformed. She didn't make a big deal. I in fact, to this day, I never said anything to that friend. We're not friends any longer for other reasons. We're kind of similar to this, but I never said anything. It's interesting. I look back at those things and I don't look back with judgment. I look back with awe. I look back with understanding, and I look back with gratitude to where I am now. So please also know this for you. You will look back and you will say, Wow, how far I've come. How far I've come. And that's what self-love does. Self-love doesn't let us judge ourselves, it lets us observe ourselves where we can look back, and we can have so much understanding and empathy for that other version of ourselves, that scared version, that protected version, that guarded version, that people-pleasing version, whatever version it might be. We have so much understanding because we didn't know what we do know now. We're gonna go ahead and bring up Amani because she's in the cute. And then I will dip into how we break this cycle because it's so important that we start working on breaking this cycle every buddy. Hey Amani. Hello, beautiful.

Imani 20:46

Yes, um, this is another good conversation topic. And you know, I can relate to it because, you know, growing up, I wasn't allowed to have a voice. I wasn't allowed to have discussions with my mom. It was her way or the highway. You know, and so I allowed myself to be emotionally stunted coming into adulthood. And I didn't want to make waves either because I was still trying to feel like I had to prove my existence to others. Like, it's great that I'm here. Don't beat up on me. It's great that I'm here. You know, well, okay, I can't be myself, I'll stop being myself. And like you said, you end up like losing a piece of you every single time you make that compromise until you get to the point that you no longer recognize yourself anymore. And that's how the point I got to was I don't recognize myself anymore. Because I was trying to please and placate everyone else so that they didn't have issue with me. Because being me was the issue with. Or or so you thought. Yes. And it wasn't until doing, you know, current work is that it's not I was the issue, it's the situation I was in was the issue. Because they didn't understand. Or you know, being common, we run from what we don't understand. We don't ask questions, we don't inquire, we run. And that's such a fine line to define is that it's not you with the situation you happen to be a part of, or it's the presence that comes with you that causes also a disruption because it makes them have to take a look at themselves when they're not ready to. But I know for myself, I had to learn over time that every time I don't say anything, I'm letting them know that the silence also is an answer. That I'm going along with it when I don't say anything, that I'm giving my consensus when I'm really not. And I've had to learn that it's actually more respectful to me to go ahead and speak on, even if it does cause an unsettlement in the conversation. But at least I know I'm doing what's best for me in a respectful way.

Kristen 22:58

Yes.

Imani 22:59

In time.

Kristen 23:00

You're being your own best parent and advocate and caregiver.

Imani 23:04

Oh, yes. And then also, too, the more you do that, yes, they're gonna get some pushback at first because they're not used to you being that way. They're used to you being the safe, docile person that they're used to. So you're always gonna be pushback at first, but over time, they end up respecting you more because now you're defining your boundaries. You're sticking to your defined boundaries, you're not towing the line and moving the line every single time to fit every situation. You're doing what's best for you, and you're saying yes to yourself. Uh-huh. He's like, You're basically telling me I made a mistake creating you every time you disrespect yourself, every time you don't value yourself, every time you don't love yourself, every time you don't honor yourself. You're basically telling me, the creator, I made a mistake with you, and I don't make mistakes. So stop putting so much energy and try to prove me wrong.

Kristen 24:18

Yeah, it brings up a thought for me. If we really look about all of creation and how beautiful everything is, why on earth do we look at ourselves and go, yeah, but when it came to me, that was a flaw. You know, there is there is no flaw. We need to see ourselves through this divine lens that we are so purposeful and beautiful.

Imani 24:41

Yes, and that we all matter. And I know from my experience, a lot of times we become product of our circumstances and environment. So if we're constantly shown that, yeah, you don't matter, you're not valuable, you're not this, we take it on as a banner. That wait a minute, that's not true. Even though I know deep inside it's not true, why did I go ahead and agree to it? Mm-hmm. And it's all about, as you said, you don't love yourself, you don't respect yourself. But the more you grow that muscle, man, the more you're gonna shine, the more you're gonna stand out. And at the same time, you're gonna give other people permission to do the exact same thing. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm shining, and I want.

Kristen 25:34

And one candle lights another candle, lights another candle, lights another candle, and it just keeps going. I want to circle back to something Imani said, a small challenge. And that is, as a child, when her voice was stolen for her, and she was not allowed to have a voice. At some point, Amani, you said, and coming into adulthood, I allowed myself not to have a voice. And I'm gonna say, at that stage, at that age, you didn't have a choice because it became automated inside of you. That is what your brain learned to do. So at that point, I wouldn't say you were allowing yourself. I would say you didn't know. You didn't know that there was another option. Same thing as me. We don't know, you guys, because we're trained into that. Now, once we have the awareness that we are adults and that we do have power, and then if we still choose not to, well, that's allowing ourselves not to, isn't it? But we have to give so much grace and understanding to that little person inside of us that was taught a certain way, that this is how it is, this is how it goes, this is what's expected. And then we move into adulthood, that's still in place. That's still in place until we listen to someone or something or some billboard sign or a magazine or a podcast or this one, whatever, where someone says, Hey, you got some power, brosis. You have some power. You're not at the mercy of those quote unquote bigger folks anymore. Your authority figures, the adults, the elders. We're not at the mercy of them anymore. And now we get to choose. All right, we're gonna be moving into breaking the cycle. And what I'm gonna talk about with this is what's actually involved. Now I'm gonna go into boundaries, but that's a little later. This is really about setting a core foundation of how to break this cycle. This is the perception shifts that need to be in place so that we can stop tolerating mistreatment. The first one is believing that your feelings matter. Your feelings are equal to everyone else's. There's no exception here. Your feelings are important, they are specific to you, they are designed for you, they are your guideposts, they are information to how you can best take care of yourself. Yours matter is equal to Steven's and George's and mine and Amani's. To anybody in your life, no, there's not, oh, your golden child sibling that their feelings matter more. No. Everybody equally matters. You're in a business and somebody gets paid 50 bucks an hour and you're getting paid 17. Does a 50 bucks an hour person's feelings and emotions matter than you? No. Whether you're homeless sitting on the corner or you're sitting in a multi-billion dollar resort, does the billionaire's feelings matter more than the homeless person? No. We are all created equal. The next one is that we have to understand that if we don't set boundaries and we don't start speaking up, this is important, resentment builds. And resentment is the number one relationship killer. And resentment also promotes us acting up. And then we're deemed the bad guy. So think about this. If I'm not speaking up, setting boundaries, and maintaining and holding these boundaries, I'm gonna build resentment. I'm gonna start acting nasty because we do when we're resentful. I've done it a million times. When I started to get resentful, I'm bink, bim, bim, bimp, bank. You know, I'm snippy, I'm snarky, sometimes I'm sarcastic, and I feel justified. I have always felt justified. Oh, well, that person because XYZ that they're doing, so I now am justified of being a jerk. No. All of that could have been bypassed if I was speaking my boundaries, setting them sooner, and holding them. The next one is to get comfortable with disappointing people. Get comfortable with disapproval. Get comfortable with the eye rolls, and you think you're all that, and you're so smart, and you're so awesome, and oh, you think you're more powerful than everybody else. Who are you? You're changing. There's something wrong with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I say it like that because that's what I had to say to me. I had to go, you know how you move your hand like somebody's talking, you know, you move your hand up and down like that, like an open mouth. I'd be like in my head, I had to change this perception inside of myself. I had to understand that people were going to kick and scream and they're gonna say all kinds of things, and they're gonna try to make me wrong. And I had to see it as blah, blah, blah. That's one of the main perception shifts that need to happen. This is what's going to be involved. That's why I love perception shifts. Because when a truth comes in, when your soul recognizes a universal truth, a capital T truth, something changes inside of us when we choose to adopt it, because we can recognize it and keep moving on about our day, eating our sandwich. But if we recognize it and we stop and we feel it in our heart and we let this roll around a little bit, we're like, yeah, okay, that makes sense. The mind just learned something. And actually, when you're feeling it and you're thinking it, that's heart-brain coherence. That's when there's a real resonance and that sticks. And the next one is, ooh, biggie, biggie, biggie, biggie. Stop romanticizing potential over reality. They are acting the way they are acting. It is what it is. You're seeing what you're seeing. Accept it. This is the truth right now. I am queen of seeing potential. I see into the hearts of people. I love people. I know what they're capable of. I can see their gifts and their talents and their strengths. All of that just shines at me like a beacon. And I'm like, I can probably help them. You know, I'm gonna help them. I'm I'm gonna love them so much. I'm gonna show them who they are, and they're just gonna grow and just be the best version of themselves because of me. And it happened never. Ever. I was just getting pounded deeper and deeper and deeper into the ground. But I kept seeing them, I kept knowing, no, it wasn't until I accepted the reality, this person is mentally, emotionally, physically abusive, whatever it was. Maybe they're just disrespectful, however, you want to categorize this. When I sat with myself, and I've had to do this, or I've had to sit with myself and have a real come to Jesus and go, you know what? This is what this behavior is. I researched, I listened to things, I watched YouTube things, I did all of the stuff. And there was a point where I had to sit back in my chair and go, holy smokes, this person is emotionally abusive or verbally abusive or whatever it was. And that was a sad reality to me because I knew once I had that ownership that that meant that that I had to set some serious boundaries with this person or not stay. And I love the person and I wanted to be with the person. But you guys, if we keep, if we keep thinking about potential and we keep thinking about, well, you know what, they they just get there. If I just say it louder and stronger and more and calmer and nicer and with whipped cream and cherries and you know, a steak on top, they're gonna finally get it. Nope. People don't get things until they're darn good and ready to get things. Period. Now, I will say, by setting and maintaining boundaries, if they're a person that loves you enough and values you values you enough, they will start to change. But not because we're telling them to. Done. The second it showed up, I hung up the phone, I left the place, wherever we're at, whatever. But I had to really act. And through that action, these people who, by the way, are in their own programmed and conditioned habit. They're in their own programming. They're doing the same thing they've always done for whatever reason because it worked for them at some point. Doesn't mean it's specific to you, but it worked for them at some point. They had to get to the place where they were like, uh, this isn't working for me anymore. That's why boundaries serve both parties. That's why they're so incredibly amazing. The next one is to understand another, another in-your-face reality. Yes, Don said, Amen, sister. Yes. Here's the next one is understanding that love without respect is not healthy love and real love. I know they say they love you, they sometimes buy you gifts, or they do this, or they hug you and hold your hand and do all these things, and you think, oh, this is love. No, real love, capital L love doesn't do that. Capital L love. Think about that passage in the Bible. I'm not a Bible person, I don't read the Bible, but I've heard it in many a wedding. Love is patient, love is kind, love is generous, love is, I could go on and on. That's what healthy love is. Healthy love does not want to hurt other people. Healthy love cares about people's experience of them. That's what healthy love is. Healthy love takes ownership. Healthy love is willing to change themselves. Sometimes it doesn't happen overnight because somebody's in a pattern or habit, but that's what actually healthy love is. The next one is to um, okay, Amani said 1 Corinthians chapter 13, the love chapter. Okay. Thank you for anybody who's interested in that. You've probably all heard it at weddings too. The next one is to understand that consistency matters more than promises. Someone actually doing the thing matters more than promises. I can tell you, you guys, I had, there's one of my relationships looking back on, and people said, Why did your relationship end? And I said, lifted my hand above my head, and I said, Because we had a stack of unhealed problems, unfixed problems. And those were my partner was unwilling to heal, shift, grow, change, evolve. They were unwilling to take responsibility. They were unwilling to look at themselves. We need to see more than promises. We need to see more than 6,000 I'm sorries. I've gotten to the place right now, you guys, where I don't even really want an I'm sorry unless there's action to follow it. If someone says, I'm sorry, I recognize I hurt you and what I did, I'm gonna, I'll try to do better next time. You know, that that type of thing, yeah, that's cool. But if it's I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, ad nauseum, just save it. Save the oxygen that's in the air between me and you because I want that oxygen. I'm not being disrespectful. This is where Kristen Brown is at on her journey. Do not blow air at me that you don't mean. I don't like to waste my time anymore. And you guys have to keep in mind, I've been practicing this stuff for 15 years. So this is the level I'm at now. Because some of you might be going, Christinoma, Gad. Well, you know, it took me a long time to get here, but I will also say on the tails of that, that all of my relationships are beautiful right now. They weren't always. And that I can tell you for sure, because I'm always very, very real with you guys. You we are humans. I got all the same ish going on that a lot of you have. I did not want to hear any more promises. I didn't want to hear any more I'm sorry. I wanted to hear, this is why I did this, this is what I'm stuck at. I keep doing this thing, or my emotions get like that, or I'm overwhelmed. And I don't know. Get to the core of it for crying out loud. Get to what's causing it. Share that with me. Let me know that you get it. And then we need to see that consistency. And the last one is this is a big one, hard to hear sometimes, is to be willing to start grieving relationships that you hoped would become different. There's a point where I have spoken my truth, I have set boundaries, I have maintained boundaries, and things were not changing. And I started to grieve the relationship. I started to really understand I'm here. I will be in this for the long haul. I love you. I like the friendship or the relationship in whatever form it was. And this is really not changing. There's no real change happening here. So I started to grieve the relationship. Some I grieved myself right out of the relationship to where it literally, my first husband, it was eight o'clock on a Wednesday night. I just looked at him and I just said, I'm done. That was it. Out of the blue, I'm done. And I never looked back. I sobbed my head off right smack in the middle of my king bed for probably an hour. I didn't know what my life was going to look like, but I never, I never went back. It just was out of nowhere because I had grief to the point where I didn't care anymore. And I still loved him. I still to this day, I do. And we were friends for the longest of time until he got another relationship. And that let's just say it just changed the dynamics a little bit. And that's the other thing is we can love people and we cannot be around people. We can love people and we can let those people go. So sometimes we need to be willing to start grieving and just understanding that this may not ever change. All of these things set us up for being able to set the boundaries, for being able to move closer to our to ourselves and to stop abandoning ourselves. And when we start to do these things, what happens is when we start to love ourselves unconditionally, when we start to give ourselves what we've been trying so hard to get from other people, that's when our self sense of self changes. We start to see ourselves as worthy rather than unworthy. Don, I see, I'll be right with you. Our self-concept changes, our inner worlds change. We're no longer held hostage to what other people think of us. You become willing to do whatever it takes to protect and honor yourself. And all of this starts to become natural rather than something you have to force. And I go into this at length and so much more in my book, The Recovering People Pleaser. If you guys are interested in that book, a spiritual guide to reclaim your true worth and attract the love you deserve. You can find that on all major bookselling sites, Amazon and other things. It's also a direct link on my link tree in my profile here on Noom Vibe or in the description on podcasting platforms. Alrighty. We're going to go ahead and bring up Dawn. Welcome, Dawn. It's the first time we're going to be chatting. I'm so glad you're coming. Hey, Dawn. Hey, how are you? I'm doing great. Thank you.

Dawn 41:31

You're on a roll, sister. I tell you what. And it's like everything you're talking about, I just so relate to. One thing I was thinking about, when you don't have a good example of what decent relationship is, you have no idea that it's not healthy, especially if you have low self-esteem. And like I've mentioned, it's at first I thought I was the problem. You know, if only this, if only that, and not you just you're not realizing that you're not the one with the problem. When it's family, it's really hard to let go. And I like what you said about grieving because with me, I had to grieve the loss of my children. And they're both alive, but I cannot tolerate their behavior. Here I escaped an abusive marriage and thought I was gonna save my kids, and they both have personalities like my ex. And it's like, oh, DNA, darn it. And it was really hard because of the expectations that you carry with you as a mother, and we're gonna have Christmases together, and we're gonna do this and that because I treated them so well and loved them unconditionally. And it's just it really sucks when it doesn't turn out the way you thought it was. And I really like where you're going with this.

Kristen 43:07

That's a hard thing to wrap our head around, too, especially as mothers, when we're the ones that have to make that. I I've not had to do that, but that is that's a very difficult thing because we are, we are literally wired to nurture and to be with our babies. But sometimes, yes, we have to make that very powerful choice, very difficult but powerful choice for ourselves. And it's not just DNA, it's modeled behavior. You know, that's what they saw. And and if you had that type of partner, was that their father that was like that? Well, yeah. Narcissist, abusive. And they've been wounded in that as well. So they're you know, they're the walking wounded who haven't turned within and worked on themselves either.

Dawn 43:50

But I thought I was gonna save them.

Kristen 43:52

And I could I know, yeah.

Dawn 43:55

It's hard when it's both your kids, too.

Kristen 43:58

Mm-hmm. I understand.

Dawn 44:00

And you know, like I just wanted to say that I think especially when it's family and you don't have good role models too, because my parents were both teachers and very strict, they didn't communicate. So here I thought, well, I can talk to him, you know. So but if you start putting yourself first, it really changes things.

Kristen 44:26

It really does. And I know you know this because I hear it all over your your answers on the questions. I'm like, Dawn's been through some stuff and she's done a lot of work. I can tell. Thank you. A work in progress. We all are. That's right. Thank you for coming up today, Dawn. Is this the first time on my stage? Have you spoken to me before? I don't think we have, but I have not. That's not the first time. Great. Well, you're gonna be getting 300 vibes. Woo-hoo! Happiness. Yes.

Dawn 44:56

It's it's like they say you're exactly where you need to be. And with Noom Vibe, I just happened to be in the right places to deal with things I was going through. And I love that it's not judgmental. And and you can talk freely, and there's so many people that that understand what I've been through and what you've been through.

Kristen 45:26

Yeah.

Dawn 45:27

And you get the acceptance in a way that you've never had before.

Kristen 45:32

Yes, Dawn. I I'm telling you, I don't think there's any other social community, I don't know what to call a social community, out there like this. It is, it's curated, it's very carefully watched. They are very careful about who they allow to speak. There's an energy that they want here on Noom Vibe. There's a way that they want this to be. And we have guidelines and things about topics and whatnot to keep it a very safe space. And I appreciate you saying that, Don. That's a like one of the best compliments, even though I don't own the app. I'm not the manager of the app or any of the you know things regarding the app. I'm just a speaker here. But it's a huge compliment because it's something I'm very proud to be part of this app because it is such an amazing and beautiful community. All right, we have our sister Robin.

Robin 46:26

Hello, it's been a long time I've talked to you. I listened to you, but I just haven't had a chance to chit-chat. It's all good. Thank you for coming. You know, I I want you to know 100% you are in the right place, and this is where you can uh get the support that you need. I know firsthand, people know a lot of my stories, um, and I am happy to have this community. I I'm gonna bring this up. Some people know this story and some people don't, but you know, I kind of been dealing with adult children this treatment, you know. Um, so I've done a lot more self-reflecting, and it's about me now. Has to be. So when you put first, 100% Don. When you put yourself first, you'd be surprised, and others will say you lose, you might lose people, right? What does um does Lois say reason, season people of lifetime? Reason, season, life season of life. Yes. So you know that people will enter our lives for whatever reason. Now, my 29-year-old daughter just said, you know, why do you think my father didn't talk to me anymore? Why do you think he just stopped talking and I waited, I listened to her because I didn't know, you know, if she wanted me to actually give her an answer or if she was just spewing it outward. But, you know, I I I know that he's a different person and everybody changes, and we all have our own things that we're focusing on in life, and maybe that's what he felt he needed to do. He wanted to move on and just be himself. I will never abandon my daughter, but I'll be very clear with her about mistreatment because I'm your mother. I'm sorry. So when I get pushback, I I'm very clear about, I don't know who you think you're talking to or who you think you're you know going to be mistreating, but she actually went and found a roommate. Why are you moving out? I laughed because I gotta your release, your lease is ready to be renewed. I laughed so hard because they're just getting finished with these darn closets in my house. So the onion smell is gone. They rebuilt the entire closet, just putting up the shelves, repainted it. The smell's gone. I'm not really, I don't think I'm really gonna stay here because I don't want to live with these two lovely children. I love them. I love them to death. I just they're not the roommates I would enjoy having. So that's great. She found a roommate. Yes. So I I keep encouraging her not to move in with her cousin. I think it's a you know, and I can only say what I want to say, but I don't think you're gonna be happy moving in the same kind of the same scenario because I'm not happy. I don't want a house that you walk into and everyone knows you certainly have a cat because I'm not about that. So that's not my cat. And I'm going to Connecticut this weekend to see my little baby puppy. So I'm gonna have a little extended weekend, and I'm not gonna allow them any mistreatment there either. You listen, did you hear that, Cecilia? I am I am not gonna have any mistreatment because I have my boundaries now and I have my pride and my self-respect. There's a lot to be said for self-respect. And when you focus on yourself, Dawn, just like you said, then you things start working out.

Kristen 49:57

They really do.

Robin 49:58

And everything, like CeCe says, everything's always working out for me. You know, we have this one one life. We're trying to get to our higher vibration, and sometimes you get to cut people loose if they're not helping you meet your goal. Where did I learn that? Oh, from my good friends here on Noom Vibe. I couldn't do it without you. Um, just continue to listen. Love you. You take care.

Kristen 50:26

Okay, and have a great weekend and happy Mother's Day to you, Robin. I'm sure Connecticut is absolutely gorgeous this time of year. Okay, let me see. Oh, we got someone else in the queue. Let's go ahead and bring in our beloved Sharon Abeda. Well, hello.

Sharon 50:40

It's really interesting when you're talking about your own mistreatment. And it's it is your own mistreatment. When we don't realize it's not other people mistreating us, it's us mistreating ourselves. But when we start taking care of ourselves and we truly start nurturing that true essence of who we are, we don't allow mistreatment.

Kristen 50:59

Exactly.

Sharon 51:00

But I think also when we don't understand when we allow others to mistreat us, it stops growth everywhere. Not only growth for us, but growth for the person we're allowing to mistreat us. Everybody stop, you know, and I care people don't like boundaries. If I'm setting a boundary, that's my boundary is not about you, it's about me. It's about me taking care of me. And if you care about me, wouldn't you want me to take care of me? So then you also learn how you gauge relationships. Is that person who's mistreating you, are they really in the relationship? Is there really any is it really based on a love thing? Because we we can mistreat people we love. That's not what I'm saying. But when you're on this growth, are they happy for your growth? And sometimes it's because nobody likes to change roles. That's right. We get so stuck in the roles. Yeah, and it makes it so much more difficult. But I think when we start setting those boundaries, and we not only talk about you understand that when I set a boundary, it's not just about me, it's about you, it's about our relationship, it's about making it better and stronger and healthier. So then the other person feels like there's an engagement. But sometimes we set boundaries, but we never explain it. And when we don't explain it, they just feel hurt or like rejection or whatever. But I think if I'm gonna set a boundary, I and if I explain it, this is about me, or I feel like, you know, when you speak to me, that feels like a mistreatment or whatever. However, I'm interpreting it, then if the other person is willing to listen, and my thing is invite them in on the journey.

Kristen 52:40

I think that's excellent. Yeah, I think that's excellent. Because earlier, I'm not sure if you were in the room, you were probably busy, but I was talking about what's often involved is a perception shift. Like sometimes we need to build these perception shifts first. And one of the things that you were talking about, oh, when I'm gonna lose it right now, is it real love? Is it really somebody loving you if they're not allowing you to take care of you? And that's a big perception shift. When I started to explain to people, here's my boundary, here's what I'm doing, because I need to do this for me. Interestingly enough, people started to understand that when it was really about I'm doing this for me, I'm not doing this because I hate you. I'm doing this because my soul, my spirit, my person doesn't thrive under that condition. So I need to remove myself from this thing or what have you. And people started to like, you can almost see like a little light bulb. It's a mini light bulb. But then it was like the little mini light bulb going off, like, oh, that kind of makes sense to me. Here's another thing, another byproduct of this is that they'll start to practice it too, because they watch you practicing it.

Sharon 53:46

And you know, if we plant those little seeds and you walk away and you give it time to grow, you'll see that person come back often and you'll hear different words that they use or whatever. So you know that there's an impact and there should be impact in our relationships. We should be modeling things, we should be encouraging others. And you know, I do love what uh Don and uh said about the app itself. And and you're right, this community does that. It allows us to learn how to stop that mistreatment in a way that's healthy. And how do we build those relationships? You start your circle starts to shrink as you start to care more about yourself. And the more you love yourself, the more you really are about nurturing yourself and then shining that onto others. But your circle, that tight circle, becomes smaller because you're not expending as much energy for things that don't matter as much.

Kristen 54:38

What I always say, Sharon, is they will either grow or they will go. Exactly. You have a fabulous day. Love you, sister. Thank you so much for coming up. Oh, yes. Everything everything Sharon said. Let's just put a little exclamation point on that. As we wind down, I'm gonna talk about what's the boundary part of this. Most of us have heard the phrase, we teach others how to treat us. Pretty much heard that by now. But here's the thing: until we're willing to stop tolerating the ish, it will continue indefinitely. Please know that. And sometimes it gets amplified. People will keep doing what they're doing and then they will add to it because subconsciously they know that they can. And so if it's somebody who's really in the area of selfishness or taking, they're just gonna keep upping the bar. They're just gonna keep doing a little bit more, a little bit more because you're letting them. So why not? They're not over there thinking that it's wrong or bad. They're just getting their needs met in whatever way it looks like. It is highly unlikely that your person is gonna have some random awareness one day and they're gonna realize that they're being disrespectful or they're being selfish or they're being cruel or they're being abusive, or whatever, unless there is a consequence, unless they have to feel the consequence. And that is typically through your boundary. It can be through your verbal boundary where you're finally saying, uh-uh, this is not okay. Or it could be from you walking away. It could be from you limiting time with them, it could be mid-conversation on the phone and they start that crap. You say, Okay, I'm gonna check out now and you can talk to me kindly. Let's talk again. Click. When they start to feel the effects of what their behavior does, and again, we often get pushback, so that may, that may be part of this. Understand the pushback is normal. Okay. When they start to feel the effects of it, is where if they are going to shift, heal, morph, grow, change, evolve, that's where it's going to start happening. It's highly unlikely that they're magically going to wake up one day and say, wow, I've been mean or I've been nasty or whatever it might be. Boundaries are often challenging for us because when we stop tolerating certain behavior, people who benefited from our lack of boundaries may react negatively. They may push back. And here's what's also likely true is that that pushback worked in the past for them with us. They are going to keep doing what they've always done. It's just going to keep happening. And here's a news flash for everyone. Pushback does not mean the boundary is wrong. Please understand that it's a natural mechanism of people to want to push back because the brain's going to want it to be exactly the way that it has been. Now you're changing the game. And you're changing the game in the most meaningful and important way. You are finally choosing yourself. So pushback is a natural part of this. So understand that. People are going to push, they're not going to like it. They might call you names. They might try to make fun of you or minimize you or say, oh, you're so big and great, and oh, you're so smart, or um, who are you to tell me that? Or what? Who knows? Sky's the limit. There's a gazillion personalities in the world. The key here is understanding when someone is disrespecting us, it is our responsibility to change the dynamic by teaching them this no longer works with me. Oh, yeah, Cher just said they play the victim too. Yep. Oh, God, that's the worst. You set a boundary with their bad behavior and all of a sudden they're the victim. It's like, excuse me, but it happens. And we have to be willing to ignore that and push that aside and let them be the victim and still hold our line. And we'll get stronger. This is this is what's important. We will get stronger. Okay? They must know that this no longer works with me, whether we show that through words, but most importantly through action. And this is what I call action boundaries in my book, The Recovering People Pleaser. This is the follow-through. If words aren't working, we need to follow up with behavior. So what happens? This is the best part. What happens when we stop tolerating disrespect? What is actually changing on the inside of us when we stop abandoning ourselves to maintain connection? Number one, you've made yourself matter. Now that sounds trite, it sounds too simplistic. What does it really mean? Well, this is sending a powerful message to the brain and body that actually shifts our energetic frequency. We are filling our own worthiness cup. We are saying that we matter. And that is the new jumping off place for our behaviors and our personality and how we show up in life. Remember, if we think we don't matter, that's the jumping off place. Our behaviors and words or lack of words or whatever is going to reflect that space. But when you finally make that shift where you say, you know what, I matter, my feelings matter, my physical body matters, my mental health matters, my emotions matter, my nervous system matters. That was the biggest thing for me is my nervous system. Holy moly. Then we shift our energetic frequency, and then guess what happens? Everything is energy, and energy matches energy. So when we upgrade that frequency, we start attracting better experiences to us. Ding ding ding. The next thing is that your worthiness cup fills. Oh yeah. We often are looking outside of ourselves to feel important or to feel valued. And we're doing this in vain. We're doing it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, hoping that somebody can fill this void that is inside of us. But this void cannot be filled by external sources. It just can't. But when we stop, and this is just one aspect of filling the worthiness cup, but when we stop tolerating bad behavior, when we start respecting ourselves, remember that respect and protection of self is the second self-love tenant, as explained at length in my book. When we start doing that, that's actually love coming towards self and our worthiness cup starts to fill. And once again, we have a new foundation that we're, that we are acting, behaving, and speaking from. The third one is that we become more clear. Remember, I said way back in the beginning of this talk, I said, at first I only noticed the big, gnarly things that people were doing to me. But over time, once I those were healed and you know, people stopped doing them, then I started to notice the little nudges of disrespect, we become more clear. We just have to be willing to step into this. The more that you do this, the more that you're gonna train your brain that this is normal for you, the fear is gonna start to dissipate, and you're gonna get momentum moving in a direction. You just keep going. And once that momentum is moving, we don't go backwards. Because now we have taught ourselves that we matter, that we're worthy, that this is not okay, and we are willing not willing to abandon ourselves any longer, and we're gonna do whatever it takes to take care of the self. That's a huge message. You have now changed from a doormat to a person who is worthy of respect. And the next thing is you will always choose self-respect over approval. Once we start healing our inner world, self-respect is gonna come first. We're gonna stop, we're gonna care less. I gotta let the dog out, he's making noises at the door. We are going to, you won't go outside. We are going to care less about getting that approval from the outside world because we are gonna understand on the deepest level that the most important thing is that we get our own approval, that we are taking the most beautiful care of ourselves. Remember that boundaries are an act of love. Boundaries are not becoming cold, getting defensive, getting snarky back, yelling at somebody because they're yelling at you. That's not a boundary, you guys. That's lowering your behavior to their behavior. I don't want to match that type of frequency. And I've been there, I've done it, I've done all these things, you guys. No bueno, super no bueno. This is coming to a place where you're unwilling to betray yourself just to keep somebody else comfortable. You are no longer willing to accept the poor treatment because you know what you deserve. I want to thank you all for joining me today. I know that you have many other places that you could spend your time and you choose to spend it here on Noom Vi with all of us. I am on Monday through Friday at 9 45 a.m. Pacific time, 12 45 p.m. Eastern time, right now during daylight savings time. If you're interested in any of my free resources, I've got tons of free resources. I have my self-love merchandise shop, my social channels, my YouTube channel, all kinds of things on my Link Tree. You can find that in my profile here on Noon Vive, or you can find it in the description on other podcasting platforms. And as always, I want you to remember that you matter. You are the only person that can shift this dynamic in your life. But the good thing is, the cool thing is, you have the power to do so. You have the power. We are more powerful than we think. And once we start stepping in that direct direction, even if our legs are shaking and our voice is shaking, but we do the thing, man, that just sends us in it on a completely different trajectory than the one that we were on that was not serving for us. Much love, everyone. I'll see you tomorrow.