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July 28, 2006 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
36:07
350 Breaking With Corruption Step By Step - Part 3

Telling them...

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Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well and stuff.
It is back to slightly low-tech recording.
Every now and then, Windows just doesn't seem to like my microphone.
So, not the end of the world by any stretch of the imagination, but what I would like to do is to continue on with the slightly interrupted, but we hope for good reason, series on how we might conceivably get rid of a corrupt family of origin.
A defooing. Now, you will get, when you sit down and talk with your family, as we talked about in Part 2, you will get a whole series of objections from your family, a whole series of things which are to say, it's wrong for you to do what you're doing.
It's wrong for you to want to take your time off from your family.
It's wrong for you to want to withdraw in any way, shape, or form.
And you will get lots of stuff like that.
Now, you don't have to fight.
You don't have to fight with them at all.
You don't have to disagree with them.
You can use two techniques which are pretty powerful and effective when you don't feel like debating with someone.
One is called fogging and the other one is called broken record, and they're sort of related.
But one of the objections that you'll get, which we'll deal with in a little bit, one of the objections that you'll get is something like, well, if you don't see us, I mean, even if you just say, I'm going to take a couple of months off and so on, that's all you need.
All you need is a couple of months breather and you'll be out.
But if they say something like, well, what if you just never see us again?
You'll really regret it.
Then you just say something like, yes, I probably will.
So you don't offer them any kind of, you don't say, no, I won't regret it because then they'll start arguing with you.
And you don't say, yes, I will regret it because then they'll have leverage to get you to commit to seeing them again.
It's like, okay, we'll take a month and then we'll meet at this restaurant on such and such a day because we don't want you to regret not seeing us and so on.
So, if you say, yes, I probably will, and that's it, then there's nothing for them to spar with, right?
I mean, it's like shadowboxing.
There's no particular position by which you can be engaged in, right?
Where you can lock gears with someone and get engaged in family dynamics, right?
So, you simply say, yes, I probably will, or you, yes, I possibly will.
It's certainly a possibility, right?
That's all you say. When it says, you're just a bad person, yeah, it's certainly a possibility, right?
What are they going to say? How are they going to argue with you?
You're specifically not engaging in a position with someone, and this is a useful technique in general.
So if somebody says something really bad about you that is designed to make you feel bad and thus acquiesce to whatever it is that they want you to do, so somebody at work tries to chuck something onto you and you resist or say no, and then they say, well, you're just not a team player, and you say, yeah, that certainly could be the case.
Right? Basically, it's a way of saying FU without saying anything like FU. It's like, your opinion is so ridiculous that I'm not even good about arguing.
Like, if you've got little kids and they say, I think the world sits on the back of a unicorn, you say, well, that's very interesting, right?
You don't say, are you crazy?
The world doesn't sit on the back of a unicorn, it's a turtle.
So, just don't engage.
You don't engage with people.
And if they give you all of these reasons, like you're a bad kid, you're this, yeah, that certainly could be the case.
Yes, I probably am.
And that I find to be a very powerful technique for defusing the inevitable escalations, right?
Because what your family is going to want to do is they're going to want to get you engaged in a fight so that they can humiliate you, so that they can escalate things.
Because the false self is exquisitely sensitive to slights and insults, because as I've mentioned before, it's predicated and based on the real existence of slights and insults.
So it's very touchy.
The false self always wants the last word.
Always, always, always. Your parents don't care one bit whether they see you again.
This is just for those with corrupt parents.
They don't care whether they see you again.
I mean, they do want you around as a sap to their conscience, but you can play that role without even being in the room.
That's just something that's important to understand.
You don't need to be there for your parents to use you as a sap to their conscience, as a way of saying, yes, I never did anything bad.
In the past. I absolutely am now convinced that it is rain that causes my microphone not to work on Windows, because it is every single time I have to switch to my Zen Vision M that it's raining every single time.
Which is great, because this has much more susceptibility to background noise, so that's good to know.
That's good to know. Just think of me as Poseidon.
The underwater god of some sort of wisdom.
So, your Parents, if they can win this argument, and this really depends on how strong you're feeling during this particular encounter, but your parents, if they can maneuver it in such a way that they can perfectly frame it to themselves that you're just a bad, an ungrateful, mean-spirited kid, then they'll be relatively content to let you go.
Like, if for the rest of their days they can say, I don't know what happened to Or, Johnny, he was so sweet and maybe he fell in with the wrong crowd, blah, blah, blah.
Who knows? But they'll come up with something.
As long as they can frame it such that you are a bad kid or have turned into a bad person, then they'll be willing to let you go because they can comfort themselves with the memory that they did the best they could and you were just ungrateful and mean.
They can get all the pity in the world from their friends.
They can get everything in the world that the false self needs in terms of self-pity and approbation and rage and all that kind of stuff.
So they'll be willing to trade you for that.
But what they will want to do is to have the last word and to call you a bad, ungrateful, mean-spirited son or daughter or sibling and then walk out, slam the door and basically say, good riddance.
I mean, that's likely what they will be content with.
That may be not what you are content with, and that's a danger, but I'm not going to say that it's possible to vault that in one conversation.
So, if you are going to be susceptible to feeling bad about leaving your family of origin, if they have the last word and tell you that you're bad, and storm out and have the last word, and if you're going to feel incredibly thwarted and humiliated, then you're going to have a problem with closure.
You're going to have the urge to go back and to try and win the argument.
Or, even if you don't go back, unless you really fight this, you're going to feel like you did a bad thing that was necessary for your mental health, but was still ungrateful, and you're going to feel bad whenever people bring up your house, your family, and all that kind of stuff.
If them getting the last word and slamming you down the black pit of iniquity as a bad child and storming out triumphant or whatever, if that is going to give you a lasting residue either to go back and win the fight or to feel bad about the conversation and its results for any considerable time to come, i.e. more than a day or two, then you may want to be a little bit better armed as to what is going to occur with these people when you're in conversation with them.
That I think would be a good thing to have because that way you can at least block that and you can end up with some kind of stalemate that's going to work for you psychologically.
So I thought I would spend a few minutes going over some of the objections that you're likely to get from your parents when you say, I need to take a break from this family for a couple of months and I don't know when it's going to end.
And they say, you know, well they're going to say, well when is it?
They're going to try and nail you down, right?
When is it going to end? How much time do you need?
What is the time frame?
So I don't know. I definitely know I need a couple of months and I'll contact you when I want to get back in touch with you.
Then they're going to say, oh, so we're just supposed to sit around and wait, are we?
Is that what we're supposed to do?
No, you can do whatever you want, right?
So they're going to try and paint you as the picture of the guy who's whim-based and bullying, right?
Because that's what we call projection, ladies and gentlemen.
And so when they say, oh, so we're just supposed to sit around and wait, it's like, I mean, it's up to you what you want to do.
I certainly can't tell you what to do.
And I certainly wouldn't suggest sitting there staring at the phone, but, you know, your life is your own.
You can do whatever you like. So you want to make sure that when they try and corner you into somebody who's giving orders and being arbitrary and bullying, like we're just supposed to sit around and wait, that you reassert that, no, they can do whatever they want.
Absolutely up to them. And then they're going to say, but...
And then they may get teary and ungrateful.
And they may... Sorry, teary and self-pitying.
This may be a little bit more on the mom's side, they may see.
But what did we do?
What did we do? And I say, well, I can't really have that conversation because I'm not exactly sure.
It may not even be you.
That's what I need to figure out.
But I do know that when I do spend time around this family, I'm not particularly happy.
And that may be because of me.
It may be because of my immaturity.
But what I want to do is to figure it out.
I either want to have a better time with my family or find some other way to make it work for myself, but I don't want to end up in this situation where you guys aren't getting the best of me, I'm not getting the best of you, so I need to figure it out.
Yes, I have some complaints about this family, everybody has complaints about everyone else, so that's not the central issue, but I just need to figure out what's going on, and I need to kind of isolate the variables to some degree.
I need to sort of figure out, is it, like, spend time on my own away from my family so that I can figure out what's going on.
So, no, it's not a matter of blaming you guys or making you the bad people.
I have complaints. I'm sure you have complaints as well.
But what I do need is to figure out what's going on on my own and then figure out where I'm going to go from here.
Were we such bad parents?
Well, I don't know. That's one of the things that I'm trying to figure out.
But my primary goal is not to judge you as parents.
My primary goal is to achieve happiness for myself, which is, I'm sure, what you want from me as well.
This is going to make me happy.
This is going to relieve stress for me.
It's going to give me a new lease and appreciation of my life and my relationships.
So I would appreciate it if you would support me in something that is very important to making me happy.
You don't have to support me.
I mean, you can do whatever you want.
I would certainly appreciate it if you did support me in this, but you don't have to.
Oh, but where is this coming from?
It's that free domain radio board, isn't it?
That thing you, that website, those podcasts, that chatty big forehead guy.
And I'm like, well, sure.
I mean, I definitely have listened to some interesting stuff about the family.
But this is more of a diagnosis than a creation, right?
I mean, it's been a while since I've been perfectly satisfied or even somewhat satisfied with my family relations.
And, yeah, I've listened to some interesting stuff that has something to do with it.
But this stuff is not anything that created the problem.
It's just sort of helping me identify and isolate it, right?
I mean, you guys do want me to be happy, right?
They're going to have to say yes to that.
Because if they say no, then they won't be able to storm out in self-righteousness, right?
So, yeah, they... Yes, we want you to be happy, but we can provide you that happiness.
It's like, well, that may well be the case, but that's not what I'm experiencing at the moment, and I'm not saying that's your fault.
Again, you can get into it if you want with them, but I would recommend not doing so, because it's just going to cause escalation and leave you with a bad taste in your mouth.
But say, no, I just, I need to sort of figure it out on my own and then figure out what we're going to do from there.
But, you know, something needs to change for me.
Something needs to change.
Now, I'm not going to ask you to change because I don't think that's fair.
Well, first of all, I can't ask you to change because change has to come from you if you wanted it and if you felt it was worthwhile.
But I sure as heck can't ask you for change because I don't even know if it's you.
Maybe it's me. Maybe I have a significant problem and can't relate to anyone, but I sort of need to take some time off from my relationships to figure out what's going on.
I can't fix this within the relationship because I can't ask you to change and I don't know what to change in myself.
So, a break will do me good.
I'm sorry if it's upsetting to you, but you do want me to be happy.
This is what's going to help me be happy.
So, that's sort of my decision.
Now, then you're going to get, well, what about all the great things we've done?
I mean, you could, right? If they have.
What about all the great things that we've done for you?
We helped you move. We helped you paint your house.
We helped you mow your lawn.
We gave you foot rubs. We bathed your feet in scented oils.
We give you scalp massages.
We teach you yoga.
We do all of these great things for you.
Do they count for nothing?
For nothing? Well, I mean, my response to that would be something like this.
Sure, I appreciated all those things.
I absolutely did. But I'm assuming that you didn't do those things in order to create obligation on my part.
Because if you did, then I'm not really going to appreciate them.
The only way that you get me to appreciate those things is if you don't use them against me as obligation and guilt mechanisms.
I don't mean guilt mechanisms, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, well, you kind of are bringing those things up.
And bringing those up as a way of creating obligation on me kind of takes the whole gratitude out of it.
Then it just kind of looks cheap and manipulative.
I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying that's how it strikes me.
So if I were you, I mean, you can do whatever you want, but if I were you, I wouldn't bring up the nice things that you've done for me, because then it seems like you're trying to create an obligation on my part, and then it doesn't really seem like it's so generous, right?
If I give you a gift out of the generosity of my heart, and then I get angry when you don't give me a gift back, then it really wasn't out of the generosity of my heart, right?
Then it was just sort of like a trade, right?
So... That's something else that I wouldn't bring up if I were you about all of this nice stuff.
You can do whatever you want, right?
But telling me all these nice things you did for me won't help your case at all.
Now, you're going to get to the biggie at some point, right?
And at some point you're going to get to the specific biggie.
And the specific biggie is that you must see, well, are we just never going to see you again?
Well, you'll get that. It's like, well, I don't know.
I can't tell you. I'm sort of going on a path that I need to go on in order to become happy.
But you've noticed that I'm not that happy around the family, right?
You've noticed that I'm not springing up with joy around the family.
And they're going to have to say yes.
Because if they say no, then if they say no to that question, have I seemed happy around the family?
If they say, oh yeah, you've seemed really happy around the family, you can say, well, this is one of the reasons that I need to take a break.
Because frankly, for years, I've been unhappy around this family.
And nobody's noticed. And that's, you know, that could be my fault.
Maybe I'm just not communicating it.
I'm certainly communicating it now and not having that great a time doing it, but it could be in the way I'm communicating it.
Who knows? But the fact that you think I have been happy when I haven't been happy is one of the reasons why I need to sort of figure out what the heck is going on in my relationships.
Because that's not a very good feeling when people don't even have a clue that you're not happy at all.
And if they say, yes, you have seemed unhappy, But you're so stubborn, you're so willful, you're so unaccommodating, you're so philosophical, you're so judgmental, you're so this, you're so that.
You're like, well, yeah, that could absolutely be the case.
But it might not be the case.
I can't tell for sure.
Because, you know, when you're sitting inside it, it's like, oh, but we know.
We've known you since you were a baby.
We know exactly what's wrong with you and how to fix it and so on.
It's like, well, okay, but then why is the relationship still so unsatisfying?
Well, because you don't listen to us.
Okay, well, if I'm supposed to listen to you, then surely that's something reciprocal, right?
I mean, that would make sense, right?
Then you should also be listening to me.
And I'm telling you that I'm not happy in my relationship with my family, and I need to figure out what's going on.
And to do that, I need to take a break, but you're not listening to me.
So, it's probably not the best thing to say, to say that I should listen to you and then everything will be fine.
Because you really haven't listened to me at all.
So, this is all part of the mess that I'm trying to deal with, right?
Which is that everybody's telling me how I should live to be happy, and I'm telling people stuff as well, but nobody's, you know, let's just say nobody's listening to each other, so I sort of need to figure out.
Because, you know, when you tell me what I need to change, it kind of comes across like insulting.
It's not like coaching and encouraging.
It comes across like, I'm pig-headed, I'm stubborn, I'm judgmental, I'm insecure, I'm neurotic, I'm...
You know, whatever you've come up with, whatever they say, it kind of feels like an insult.
It doesn't feel like very motivating to want to change.
It's like, well, do you think you're motivating us by talking about this now in this way?
They say, well, no, but I'm not trying to change you.
I'm not trying to motivate you to change.
I'm telling you what I'm going to do.
And I thought it was nicer to do it this way than to simply stop returning phone calls, which would make you worry.
I don't want to punish you.
I don't want to make your life a living hell.
So I'm telling you, like out of the goodness of my heart, if you want to see it that way or not, it's up to you, but I'm telling you that's what it is.
I'm telling you what I'm doing so that you don't worry overly, right?
So when you don't hear from me and I don't come to family events and I don't answer the phone if you call, you'll know what's going on.
I mean, I could just vanish and take the time that I need, but I'm choosing to do it this way and you can get mad at me or not, it's up to you, but I'm telling you that this is what I need and this is what I'm doing.
What can we do to change your minds?
It's like, well, this problem has been a long time in the making, right?
I'm now 30 years old, or however old you are, so this problem's kind of been 30 years in the making, and so there's nothing that you can do in the moment that is going to change anything, because 30 years in the making is not a problem that can be solved in the moment.
And if you want to get really sophisticated with them, like if they're really smart people, you could say something like this.
Well, If you would be willing to change based on this rather extreme situation where I'm going to have to take a break from the family, if it's gotten to this point that you will only change based on this kind of seat-of-the-pants endgame, like it's gotten to this point and now you're willing to change, that is not going to be anything satisfying to me.
Because let's just say that over the past ten years or so, I've asked for some changes in this family which have not been forthcoming.
That could be because they were totally unjust to ask.
I don't know. That's one of the things I'm trying to figure out.
But I've asked for certain changes or requested certain changes or maybe demanded certain changes.
I don't know what you've done. And they've not been forthcoming.
Now, if they are forthcoming now, then it's certainly the case that they could have been forthcoming at any time.
They could have been forthcoming at any time.
Because if you can make these changes, but you didn't make them because I requested them, then that's sort of one of the problems that I need to sort out by taking a break from this family.
Which is, why does it have to get to this sort of extremity in order for people to listen to me and to make a change?
Because this is not something that I enjoy doing.
I know it's not something that you enjoy hearing.
But if this is where it has to get to in order for a change to be committed, then the change doesn't really mean that much to me.
Because it's such an extremity, right?
This is such a, you know, okay, well, if you're going to take a break from the family, then we'll change.
Well, the fact that it has to get, like, to this is exactly why I need to take a break from this family.
Now, they may ask you for specifics.
What have we done specifically?
Tell us what we've done.
Tell us why we're such bad parents.
Tell us what is so awful that we've done that you just can't see us anymore.
And just understand, they're not concerned about you not seeing them, just so you sort of fully understand that.
They're not concerned that you're not going to see them.
They're concerned that they're going to have to find some way to explain to other people that you're not going to see them.
And that's why they're trying to hammer you into coming up with specifics.
Once they get you to come up with specifics, they will be able to engage you, and then you will end up in a yelling match, and they'll end up storming out with self-righteousness.
They can say to their friends, I don't know, he just kind of went crazy on us.
Maybe he's lonely, maybe he's frustrated, and maybe there's something going on.
Maybe he's on drugs, I don't know.
But boy, oh boy, you know, we have these other two or three of his brothers and sisters.
We're all having a great time.
He's just always been a black sheep and then he got into this philosophy or whatever you want to call it that's very anti-family and he's under the sway of this kind of stuff and so we don't know.
Gosh, it was terrible. What a scene it was.
We had to leave. He got so angry.
And then they'll be able to point to the other siblings who are totally betraying you, by the way.
Once you break with the family, if the siblings all go over anyway, yeah.
They're totally breaking with you.
Yes, they do have to choose sides.
Sorry, that's the case in life.
You do have to choose sides.
You can't just play every side of the fence.
That's the determinism and free will thing.
I don't care if it seems irrelevant to you.
You kind of do have to choose sides and hopefully it won't just be your choice.
So, they will ask you for specifics.
And you can give them specifics if you want.
I wouldn't if I were you.
Just say, well, it's not about specifics.
It's about stuff in general.
Well, what stuff in general? Well, that's one of the things I'm going to try and figure out.
I can't tell you because I don't know.
I just know that I'm not happy in my relationship with my family.
Well, but we need to be together to work that out.
It's like, well, but we've had lots of time together and it hasn't worked out, so I need to try something different, right?
I mean, you know, that old definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again but expect a different result.
We've been doing this thing for 30 years and it hasn't worked out, so I don't think that...
It's going to work out if we keep seeing each other.
I need to try something different. And then they're going to say...
And this is sort of interesting, right?
Because then they're going to say...
They're either going to say one or two things.
Probably. Who knows, right? But they're going to say, well, we had no idea you were this unhappy with the implication that you're hiding something.
That the problem is you, that you've been keeping things from them and yet you're unhappy because you're a secretive and insecure person, right?
They're going to say that kind of stuff, right?
They say, well, that's interesting.
Have you noticed me laughing and smiling a lot around the family?
Have you... I mean, just out of curiosity.
Have I seemed to be very...
No, you always seem very miserable and very down when you come over.
And so we just figured there was something wrong and you'd tell us about it if you wanted to.
So you never asked.
No, we wanted to respect your space, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, oh, okay. Well, that's great.
You want to respect my space.
You don't want to probe.
So take that approach now.
I mean, this is your principle of doing things, right?
So if I'm hanging around the house moping and you don't want to intrude because you want to respect my space and I'll come to you if I want something or if I want to talk, you'll be there for me, well, this is exactly what we're doing now, right?
So you can catch them in this.
Because they're going to have a problem when you say that you've been unhappy for many years, they're going to have a significant problem.
Either they noticed it and did nothing about it, which is pretty bad, I think, Because that indicates a kind of callousness and blindness that's important to understand.
So they're either going to have to say, oh yeah, we noticed it, but we just didn't care, which is sort of a good reason as to why you're not spending time with them for an indefinite, if hopefully extended, if not permanent, period of time.
Or they're going to have to say, we didn't notice anything, in which case that's also a reason why would you want to spend time around people who don't even notice that you're depressed around them, right?
I mean, that's not a very good relationship.
If Christine is even mildly down, it jumps out at me like a geyser.
So, if they didn't notice, now they may, they will probably say, if they're more sophisticated, they'll say something like, yes, we noticed, but we wanted to respect your space.
In one way or another, that's how it'll come across.
And that's very helpful for you.
Because, of course, if they want to respect your space, then that's all you're asking them to do now, is to respect your space and wait for you to come to them.
They can't very well say, well, we ignored your depression for X number of years because we wanted to respect your space, and then say, well, if you want to take time off from the family, that's bad, and we need to know exactly why, because that's not following the same principle.
You said respecting my space is very important, that's why you didn't probe me about my sadness, and that's all I'm asking now.
You can't sort of switch stories on me now and say, I mean, you can, but it just looks kind of silly, right?
So, there's so many ways.
And practice, practice, practice is key, people, I'm telling you.
You really don't want to go into this ring without warming up and practicing for quite some time.
Like an athlete, right? 99% of their time is practicing.
And I would certainly practice this for a good number of hours.
Roleplay back and forth with a friend.
Try it on the boards. Ask for responses to...
You know exactly what your parents are going to say.
You know everything about them more than they know about themselves.
Far more than they know about themselves.
And... Then they're going to say, can we call you in case of an emergency?
This is going to be the next thing that they say.
Can we call you in case of an emergency?
And you can say, well, define emergency.
Well, somebody gets really sick.
Somebody's going to die. It's like, yes, you can send me an email if somebody's going to die.
Somebody's about to die.
Yes, you can send me an email.
But no calls. But what if, what if, what if, what if?
Just say, no. That's the rule, right?
I mean, you can break the rule. You can call as many times as you want.
I'm not going to change my number. But I'm just telling you in advance what my preferences are.
You can either respect my preferences or you can run roughshod over them.
I'm hoping that it's only going to be a couple months so I can figure out what the problem is.
It's all me and we can return to things and it's going to be a lot better because I figured out what my issues are and we can all be happy as a family.
But I have some suspicions that it's not all about me, that it may actually have something to do with the behavior of everyone else in the family.
It may not be everything, but it's going to have something to do with it.
And I'll tell you this right up front, just so you understand where I'm coming from.
I'm giving you a specific request.
It's not a command. It's not an instruction.
It is a request because I can't control your behavior.
I request that you respect my need for space for a few months so that I can figure out what's going on and how to be happier.
That is going to make me a lot happier in one way or another.
I am making a specific request for a lack of contact for a couple of months or until I figure out what's going on and get in touch with you.
I don't know how long it's going to be. Let's not open that up again because I don't know.
I'm making a specific request for a consideration from this family.
Now, if this family rides roughshod over that specific request and denigrates me for making this request and insults me for making this request And then calls to pretend that that request does not exist and keeps calling and all this kind of stuff.
If y'all do that, then I got to tell you, that's not going to help the case of what's going on in terms of this relationship.
It's certainly not going to help any suspicions that I might have that this family doesn't really listen to me or doesn't really respect my views, right?
I'm putting forward a view that says, I need some space, I need some time.
And if everybody denigrates and doesn't listen to that, then I've kind of got my answer as to why I'm not happy.
And I don't want to go there.
I can't control that.
That's up to you. But if you all don't respect what it is that I'm trying to do here, how it is that I'm trying to fix my life and become happier, if you don't respect it but just ride roughshod over it, or denigrated or insulted or offended by the fact that I want to do something for myself to make myself happier, Then I'm kind of getting a bit of a clearer picture about how this family works and maybe why I'm not happy.
So, I mean, how I view this is up to you.
I don't have a choice in how I view you.
That's your choice about how you act and how you behave.
So, if my wishes are not respected, then that tells me a lot about my family.
So, I mean, oh, are you threatening us now?
You can certainly perceive it any way that you want.
I'm simply telling you the facts that I would prefer...
That my wishes be respected in this matter.
If they're not respected in this matter, it's going to have negative consequences.
Just as if you asked me to do something and I flat out insulted you and denied, we're not insulting you, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, well, I'm not saying this is how it feels to me.
But if you were in a situation where you asked me to do something and I denigrated and ignored your request, you probably wouldn't feel very good.
Well, but that's what you always do, blah, blah, blah.
You know what? You're right. I'm just thinking.
That this is a case where you get into engaging.
Yeah, so you're right. This is not the way to go.
You probably felt that too, right?
That we started to get into things like being insulted and so on.
So backtrack that.
This is a good example, though, of what not to do.
This is why practice is so important, right?
I'm not too bad at this, having done it a couple of times with family members.
But it is still very tempting to make a case.
To make a case and try and prove it to justify your actions.
But that's certainly not required.
This is required with people who are good to you and you love.
But it's certainly not required.
You don't argue property rights with the mugger, right?
I mean, that's not somebody who's into rational debate.
So this is a good example.
You might want to rewind that and just see where it went.
But certainly I think it's valid to say that I would prefer that my needs and opinions and requirements in this matter be respected.
I think that's a fairly valid thing to say.
Because you want to try and own a little bit.
If you're going to get into this debate, you want to own the language.
They're going to call you selfish, and you're going to say, well, I just want my wishes to be respected.
Once you get respected in there, then by denigrating your wishes, they're showing disrespect, which is probably something they've always asked for.
And... So, the sort of wind-up of all of this, and there's lots of things that can go back and forth about this, specific questions that you have, you can maybe post them on thefreedomainradio.com forward slash B-O-A-R-D board.
And... You can get sort of group responses on how best to handle those kind of objections.
But your ultimate goal, of course, is whether they storm out or not, whether they get so angry, whatever, and do it at their house so that you can leave, right?
Don't do it at your house because otherwise you're going to have to ask them to leave and then they'll say, no, we're going to stay until we work this out and then you're going to get stuck.
But first of all, stay with your feelings.
Stay vulnerable. If you burst into tears, that's perfectly fine.
That's perfectly healthy. If you lose your temper...
That's perfectly healthy. Don't be insulting.
Don't be denigrating. But if you lose your temper, that's perfectly healthy, perfectly acceptable.
And all I'm trying to say is that your goal is to get them to understand that you're not going to talk to them for N number of months.
N being once you figure it out, if it is all your fault, which it's not.
All of this is artful bullshit, just so you understand it.
This is talking your way out of a trap.
If you can talk your way out of a hostage situation, By lying, then you say whatever comes to mind that's going to get you out, right?
So this is all artful bullshit, right?
You're saying, hey, I've got to go figure out what the problem is.
You know exactly what the problem is, but you just don't want to engage.
You're saying, hey, I just need a couple of months, but I can almost guarantee you that it's going to be forever.
And so this is all artful bullshit just to get you some space to figure out your feelings to do with your family, to figure out if you miss them.
That's pretty important, right?
I mean, do you actually miss them?
When they're not calling you, when you're not obligated to see them, when, you know, stuff isn't going on.
You need the room and the space to figure out your feelings.
It's all very, very important.
So, from that standpoint, I would very much encourage you to just do whatever it takes to get that point across.
Now, if they say, well, we're going to call you every day and we're going to do this and we're going to do that, they say, fine, well, I have call display.
You can do whatever you want. I'm telling you that I'm taking time off from this family.
This is not a request. The request is that you respect my wishes and don't call.
But the request to not be in communication for a while is not a request.
Not a request at all. I'm telling you what's happening.
And you can fight it tooth and nail, or you can respect what it is that I'm saying and make it a whole lot easier.
If you fight it tooth and nail, then it's going to be forever.
I mean, it's not going to be a couple of months.
Your only chance is, oh, are you threatening us?
No, I'm just telling you how it is.
I'm not threatening you. I'm not threatening you at all because I'm not asking you to change.
If I'm asking you to change, if I'm saying, if you don't do jumping jacks, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, then sure, that's a threat.
But I'm not asking you to change a damn thing.
Well, you're asking us not to call you.
It's like, that's very true.
That's very true. So I'm asking you not to do something.
That's not exactly a very powerful threat.
Don't do jumping jacks.
Or I'll whatever. But you can take it however you want.
I'm telling you what I need.
I'm telling you what I need. You can respect it or you can not respect it.
Now, if they're a particularly sophisticated kind of parents, they might say, well, let's all go to family counseling.
And be like, yeah, that may be a good idea, but I have to work on myself first.
Because it may not be a group dynamic.
It might be completely my fault, right?
Although it's not. It's your parents.
But, oh, it might be completely my fault.
So I'll go work on it myself and figure things out, blah, blah, blah.
And, boy, I tell you.
So they storm out or don't storm out.
And if they storm out, get angry, call you whatever, whatever, and storm out.
Then just sit there and feel how you feel.
That this is what happens in your family when you try to make a request.
It's not extravagant. You're just asking for a couple months and no contact.
It's not a ridiculous request, right?
I mean, if you're in a marriage and you say, let's do a trial separation and the person screams at you, then, you know, asking for a trial separation was a damn good idea, right?
So, this is a very instructive situation to go through with your family.
Very, very instructive.
Situation to go through with your family.
So if they are helpful and respectful and understand things, fantastic.
Then, you know, go get your therapy, work things out, figure things out, and then, you know, maybe you'll find out that you were contributing or whatever.
I doubt it because it's your parents and they had all the power and control for the first 20 years of your life.
So the relationship is defined by their actions, not yours.
But maybe that's something I haven't taken into account.
It probably is. But I would be very surprised if it turned out to be you.
But what I would say Is that if they're respectful and kind and decent about it, then fantastic.
Take your time, figure out what's going on, and maybe then you'll miss them and feel the urge to call them and want to get back together with them and be happier thereby.
Wonderful. Couldn't be happier.
Fantastic. If they get stormy and mad and angry and petty and vicious and whatever, right, then this is kind of your answer, right?
Okay, well, I'm making a request to this family, right?
This is why it's important to be engaged with people.
That's why I say don't run away from the cage.
Run to the center. That's where the manhole is to get out.
You want to put requests...
Put requests out and see how they're handled.
What happens in this family when I make a request?
I can virtually guarantee you that very bad things are going to happen.
So then we are in the situation where you have some space and we'll do a podcast this afternoon and we'll figure out what may be productive ways to do, things to do with that space, with that reprieve, with that get-out-of-jail-free card you've got for a couple of months.
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