July 20, 2025 • 31 mins
Some people seem to have a toxic gravitational pull that affects everyone around them. And whether you're with them or not, they are either on your mind or in your space. Getting away from their influence can feel impossible.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
These are my personal opinions. Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well-being.
(00:11):
This is going to sound like a bash, and I don't mean it to sound like a bash because I have a certain respect for the dead. Where am I going with this?
My stepfather died a couple months ago, I think now. and I talked about it on an episode back then.
If you're not familiar, my stepfather was an alcoholic, and he was with my mom for 40 years.
(00:36):
It was an abusive relationship in many ways. and they got divorced eventually, and he was still a very toxic energy, a very toxic force in my entire family.
Everyone in my family was affected by him, and he ended up dying from his alcoholism, his liver failure, I think, and cancer.
(01:02):
I mean, he developed all these ailments and diseases, and all because, or at least in my viewpoint, all because he was mistreating his body so badly.
So, you know, it caught up to him.
Now, he did live quite a long time.
He lived right up into his 70s, so I'm just assuming he just had one of the most resilient bodies that a human could have
(01:28):
to tolerate the excess level of abuse he did to himself.
And so that's neither here nor there. but the reason I bring him up today is because when I talked about him, when I talked
about his death, I had these feelings come up.
I had accepted that he was going to die many years ago, and I had mixed feelings about it because he's people that I really care about.
(01:57):
And some of my feelings were centered around the relief that it would give the family to not have him around anymore.
And I was kind of surprised when I heard that he had passed, that it didn't strike me hard.
I think it's because I had already accepted that he was gone in many ways.
(02:22):
He was definitely gone from my life because I was the only person, or I am the only person that doesn't live around the family, which is a thousand miles away.
And the rest of my family had to see him every now and then, and they had to deal with him in whatever way they did.
My point about what I'm talking about this morning is, again, this is not trying to bash him or anything like that. but when
(02:48):
we went on vacation, it was just a few days after his service, so I missed that service.
And I don't think I would have gone anyway, my own personal decision there. but I missed that service and was able to connect
with people up there after the fact.
And there was a different energy, there was a different feeling, there were thoughts the way we talked.
(03:15):
He didn't really come up in conversation because he no longer existed. and it was just something that had been on everyone's
mind for so long that when he died, I think he took all the conversation about him with him.
It was a relief in a very subtle way, and that surprised me because I thought it would be just something that everyone would be elated by.
(03:41):
And it took me some time to reflect on this, and I believe what happened was that everyone was just tired.
We were all just tired of dealing with his existence.
And again I'm not trying to bash him, all due respect, because he's now paid the ultimate price. He's gone, and that's his journey.
(04:05):
And my journey and our journey as a family has been to include him in our thoughts in a way that when we have a conversation
with each other, he always came up. And now he doesn't.
He only comes up in a way that affects us because he's not here.
And I'm not saying that we're celebrating.
(04:26):
I'm saying that I'm just amazed what happened after he died.
I honestly thought there would be just this huge relief, but it just turns out that everyone just so exhausted from dealing
with him. there's just this very subtle shift into another emotional state and another state of mind. It's like a marathon, I guess.
(04:51):
If you ran a marathon and hours later, you finally finished, at least for me, if I ran a marathon, I would be freaking exhausted. It would be completely exhausted.
And because of that, I wouldn't be jumping up and down celebrating.
I'd be sitting down or I'd be walking it off or something. And that's the feeling.
(05:14):
That's the feeling that we get or we got when it happened.
And that's the sense I get from my family.
And so the reason I brought that up is because when Asha and I were on vacation, I saw an old friend from high school up there,
and I haven't seen him in years. We just lost touch.
(05:34):
And suddenly he was right behind us on another table.
Actually, I think I mentioned this in a previous episode, but he was right behind us on another table.
And I said, what what are you doing here?
Oh my God, I haven't seen you in years." And he couldn't, he didn't recognize me at first.
And then we immediately started talking and had a great conversation for about a half an hour.
(05:55):
And he told me something that just brought back that feeling I had when my stepfather was alive.
He said, you know, I really liked your stepfather.
We hung out, but he got me drinking." Now, I'm not blaming my stepfather for getting him drinking. That was his own choice.
(06:17):
But I found it interesting that he told me that he said he got me drinking and it got a little out of control.
So I had to find a way to stop doing that because I was drinking too much. So kudos to him.
He he started drinking more and more, and it got out of control, and he decided that's not the kind of life he wanted to live.
(06:39):
He didn't want to be out of control and be drunk all the time or whatever it was.
And he made a choice to stop.
But there's this feeling, these thoughts and these feelings came into me thinking that there he is again.
There's my stepfather affecting somebody else in a negative way.
I know that sounds like bashing, but I'm just being honest.
(07:03):
I'm being transparent here that those feelings came up again.
It wasn't like I was angry with him.
This is just like a fact, like this fact came up.
I guess there's a little bit of emotion in there too, but this fact came up that here's another example of him being this
vortex of misery, as I used to call him and apparently still do.
(07:27):
Here he is affecting someone's life I didn't even know about.
One of my best friends from high school, he affected his life too.
So after I left New Hampshire, he hung out with my stepfather for a while, and then he started drinking more and more with
my stepfather, and he said it got too much.
(07:49):
Again, I'm not blaming my stepfather for this.
I'm not blaming my friend for this.
My friend actually did the right thing.
He realized he was drinking too much and made a decision to stop. So it's all responsible.
He took responsibility, and it was a mature attitude that he took, and I'm so proud of him for doing that because some people have a hard time stopping that.
(08:13):
But again coming back to the way my stepfather affected not only my family but everyone that he met.
Just about everyone he met, he has affected in a negative way, and I'm just realizing this sort of in the last month, how
it wasn't just our family that was and the friends in our life, our family's life, and how he has affected them too.
(08:44):
And I'm going to back off now and stop talking badly about him. It's just something I noticed.
There's just something I noticed inside me, and it made me realize that yes, there are people out there that just have this
gravitational force that pulls people into their world or into their problems.
(09:09):
And in the case of my stepfather and others, he was toxic in many ways and also sick in many ways.
And when he showed up in someone's life, he affected their life, and it's usually in a negative way.
I'm not saying it was all negative.
He probably had people that he enjoyed being around, and they enjoyed being around him.
(09:30):
But every story that I've heard, it's usually something like, oh he did this. Oh, he did that. Oh, he owes me money.
Oh, he did that," you know, and so on and on and on.
So these are the kinds of things I've heard over the years that even after I got out of that family environment where he was around, I kept hearing about.
(09:55):
And I had to do a lot of healing, you know, myself regarding the relationship I had with him.
And then I had to go to the second level of healing, which it sounds like I might still be going through, which is how he affected the people I care about. And those people are still affected.
So he is now gone from this world, and these people are still affected. And so that still affects me. If they're hurt, I'm hurt.
(10:25):
And so I'm sharing this because there are people like this in the world.
And maybe they don't even know that they're doing it.
Maybe they don't know that they are the cause of a lot of other problems in other people's lives.
And so they continue showing up the way they are.
And then the people in their lives continue ending up in their proximity and being affected by the way they are.
(10:52):
And if we have somebody in our life like that, it can change how we show up.
They can change how we feel, can change what we think and what we do, can change our plans because we don't want to be a part
of whatever they have going on in their life.
(11:14):
Because some people, whether they know it or not, are unhealthy to be around.
And that's just an unfair thing for me to say. It really is. Because we all have problems. We all have maybe some dysfunction.
You know, maybe not all of us, but I'll speak for myself. We have dysfunctions.
I have dysfunctions that other people may look at and say, you've got a problem.
(11:40):
You can't look at your stepfather with unconditional love, for example." Believe me, I have.
I have looked at him with unconditional love, and that's the best way I was able to let go and let him be.
And let him be who he is toward others and hope that they could look at him with unconditional love and also give themselves
(12:02):
unconditional love enough to protect themselves from this toxic element in their life.
I'm not saying that they have to do this.
Some people will invite others into their life, and they're okay with it. They deal with it.
They have their own way of dealing with it.
(12:23):
I personally didn't want to be around him, and so I moved forward.
So when we have somebody in our life that does have a lot of toxic qualities, sometimes we feel stuck.
Sometimes we feel like there's nothing we can do. They are who they are.
They will show up when we don't want them to show up.
(12:44):
They will say things that we don't want them to say, and there's nothing we can do about it.
And it's very hard, especially when they're not in control of themselves. My stepfather drank a lot.
So when he was drinking, he would say things that were quite embarrassing.
He would also do things that were quite violent, and you didn't want to be around him when he was in that way.
(13:08):
And he also developed what some people call wet brain, which is when they're sober, they still show up with a lot of the same qualities as when they're drunk.
And when that happens, it's even more difficult to communicate with them and try to get through to them, and you're just riding their wave, essentially.
(13:30):
And we have to be careful whose waves we ride.
We don't want to ride the wave of a toxic person, but that's what we end up doing a lot.
Like the most toxic person in a work environment usually is the center of everyone's attention.
That is usually the most influential person in the environment.
(13:53):
Because A, we don't want to be around them. So B, we avoid them.
And C, when they want something, we just want to give it to them really fast to get rid of them. Maybe that's you, maybe that's me.
And D, maybe if we get rid of them because we give them what they want, they won't show up again.
So basically every single day, every hour of every single day at work, we're thinking about them.
(14:19):
Even if it's in the background of our mind, we're thinking about them.
That's what I did when I was around my stepfather.
I thought about him all the time, even at a lower level.
I go, "I don't want to upset him.
Oh, I don't want to say the wrong thing." And it wouldn't stop.
We just go through every single day thinking about the toxic person, hoping that they don't show up in our life in some way, shape, or form.
(14:45):
And so that's why I see toxic people as the center of gravity.
They are pulling us in, even when they're not around.
Even when they don't say a thing, the gravity still pulls us toward them. What is that about?
(15:08):
What in the world is causing that?
As I reflected on the relationship I had with my stepfather and what healing, if any, I needed to do, and there was healing
to do because I wasn't sure at first.
I thought once I left it would be fine, but nope.
Once I left, I still had healing to do.
(15:29):
But as I reflected, as I figured out some of the stuff that I needed to heal.
I learned why some people are such a gravitational force in our lives.
And I talked about this in another episode as well.
It's that we haven't learned what we needed to learn so that they aren't in our lives anymore. And I don't mean physically. I mean mentally. I mean emotionally.
(15:59):
Because even a toxic person who has this gravitational pull to suck us into their misery, and in turn making our lives miserable,
even those kind of people that are in the world, or in your family, or in your home, even they won't affect you if you have done some healing in yourself. Let me reword that.
(16:26):
Even they won't affect you as much when you've done some healing.
In a previous episode, I talked about how there are some people that are still in your life and still bother you because you
haven't done some healing or you may not have done some healing in the way they bother you.
For example, I wanted to avoid my stepfather mainly because I was poor at setting boundaries with him.
(16:53):
When I learned to set boundaries, it became a lot easier to deal with my stepfather.
That doesn't mean he disappeared from my life.
It meant that he didn't bother me as he used to.
And in some cases, he didn't bother me at all.
I still didn't want to see him, but being able to set clear boundaries for myself and be able to enforce those boundaries
(17:17):
for myself and for others that I cared about, when he showed up, it was a lot easier to be around him.
This is why in that previous episode I talked about how sometimes we need to heal something in ourselves or improve something in ourselves or evolve something. Make it better.
(17:38):
If you're good at boundaries, maybe you need to get better with these people at least.
They show up differently not because they're different, but because you're different.
When you're different around these people, they might end up showing up differently later on because you are not having the same that you used to.
(18:00):
So when my stepfather shows up and he does something that really pushes my buttons and pushes my boundaries, and I can say,
back off, you're being disrespectful. back down because you are not allowed to go there and stop talking to my mom like that."
If I ever had to stand up for myself or for others, it was a lot easier, which means he didn't affect me as much as he used to.
(18:29):
That's what I meant in a previous episode, is that sometimes we need to heal or learn something new or evolve what we already
know to make it better, to improve it, to make it stronger, to make us stronger. so that when we're around people that are
typically the ones that take away our power, we get to keep it.
(18:49):
That's the way I look at it, is that we can walk around with power, with our own power, or we can let other people have it.
I know we're not letting them have it, but in a way, that's what it feels like.
When my stepfather showed up, I let him have my power. How did I do that?
I was meek, I was submissive, I was avoidant, and I was a people pleaser. and I did everything I can to avoid inciting what
(19:17):
I used to call drunk dad behavior.
And so if I avoided all those things, I was also avoiding my own growth and my own healing and everything I need to look at in myself.
And I'm not saying you should do this.
I'm not saying that if there's somebody in your life that you can't stand being around or causing big issues, that you need to do any of this.
(19:40):
I'm saying that this is how sometimes we inadvertently allow certain behaviors in our life.
And that doesn't mean you're doing it on purpose. this doesn't mean that if it's happening to you, that it's your fault.
It just means that there may be a way to improve your situation by improving yourself or healing something in you or getting
(20:00):
past a fear or insecurity inside yourself.
So that when you are. around somebody that is a vortex of misery, that sucks you into their drama and sucks you into their
dysfunction and toxicity, when you're around somebody like that, that you can handle it better.
In fact all the healing that I've done in my life is just to be able to handle the challenges that still exist in my life. I mean, handle them better.
(20:27):
And there are still challenges that come along that will probably need resolving in myself when I face them.
I'm sure there will be future challenges that come up that I will need to face, that will highlight something that I need to work on in myself.
And that will be important, and it will suck.
(20:48):
It will be something I don't want to do, but it will be a growth opportunity.
But the good news about that, it's really good news, is that the more you work on this stuff and heal the things that you
need to heal, and work through the fears and insecurities that you might be carrying around, the more you do all of that,
the easier it will be to feel comfortable in your own skin, to be able to do it again, and to reach the next level and the next level.
(21:17):
The higher difficulties, like a video game.
Like, okay, the next level is going to be harder, but you already have these skills, so let's take these skills into the next
level, and then we can beat the next boss or beat the next series of.
And we take these skills with us as we work on them. and this is why it's important to work on ourselves, to improve ourselves,
(21:40):
to make sure that when somebody does show up that's a real challenge, that we have the tools that we need to at least not
only tolerate it and not be resilient to it, but to actually be able to process it in a way that doesn't bring us down and cause us to release our power. What's our power?
(22:03):
Your power is your ability to make decisions that are right for you.
That's how you step into your power, where you know that there's a decision that you want to make, and making it because you know it's right for you. That's power.
That's at least how I define it.
What's powerless is knowing you want to make a decision but believing that you can't make it or not making it because you're
(22:31):
afraid. and you might have every right to be afraid. there might be something to fear. but when we're afraid to do something
that's right for us, that's when we lose our power.
And so I see empowerment like that, is the ability to make decisions that are the best for us, that are right for us, so that
we can move forward feeling comfortable having made the decisions that we know weren't made from a place of fear, but a place of power.
(22:59):
And when you make decisions from a place of power, they're, I'm going to say, 99.9% the right ones.
When you make a decision from a place of fear, those kinds of decisions, I don't even have to tell you the percentage, are
usually the ones that keep you where you are or take you back into a place of less power or no power.
(23:26):
You can have no power with some of the decisions you make, and then you walk away from that decision feeling just as bad or worse than you did before.
I have a friend who's an entrepreneur who said, always do things that move the needle." I love that phrase.
I'm going to repeat it until I'm dead because every time I sit at my desk, I ask myself, or not every time, but a lot, I ask
(23:51):
myself, does this move the needle?" Does me scrolling through social media move the needle? What's the needle?
The needle could be anything that you're working on. It could be a project.
It could be your personal growth and development.
It could be something to do with money.
It could be anything that is forward momentum or progress in your life.
(24:14):
And so if I wanted to make money and I'm scrolling through social media, just reading mind-numbing stuff, I can ask myself
or remind myself, is this moving the needle?
Is this moving the needle in my business?
Is this moving the needle toward making as much money as I want?
Or is it keeping me in place?" Or when somebody disrespects me and I back off, I don't say anything. I just let it be.
(24:40):
Does that move the needle in my own personal growth and development?
Does that move the needle in my ability to honor myself?
Am I doing the things that will show the world how I want to be treated?
Is that needle moving in that direction?
Because it sure doesn't feel like that if I don't say a word.
And I know we can't do that with everyone.
(25:01):
We can't enforce our boundaries or whatever with everyone because some people are too difficult to deal with, and they'll
only get worse if we make the decisions that are right for us. and we do have to be very careful who we pick our battles with.
But in most cases in work and relationships and life in general, at the grocery store or in your neighborhood or wherever,
(25:23):
in most cases, we have the opportunity to make decisions from a place of power and give ourselves a chance to keep our power
so that we can move the needle toward growth, toward progress, and make the next time we deal with something like this a little bit easier.
Maybe a percentage easier, percentage point easier.
(25:46):
Because every time we choose to take a step back and make a decision from a place of fear or insecurity, and we might lose
a bit of that power every time we do that. the record's the wrong way, and we're moving the needle backwards. and we're going
to either stay where we are or end up even further back than we want to be.
(26:10):
And so that's what I've been thinking about.
That's the stuff I've been reflecting on regarding my stepfather's passing and how he affected all these people, all these
people that I love and myself and how we have shown up in his life and the decisions that we made while he was alive, while
(26:30):
he showed up in our lives and where that kept us and where we went or didn't go if we stayed in the by doing nothing or acting
out of fear or making decisions that really weren't right for us, but were more right for him. So we didn't incite bad behaviors.
(26:51):
And again, you pick your battles wisely, but you know, I'm six, four and he was like five, eight.
So I was afraid of him all my life.
And for him to be a threatening force to me when I'm in my forties and now fifties, I look at that and think, what, you know,
(27:12):
he's now a short old man, no offense to anybody out there, but this is the mindset I had to develop is that I'm this tall adult male and pretty decent shape.
And he's a frail old man who shouldn't really have an effect on my life anymore because I'm not the same person I was anymore.
(27:32):
But my perception of him was from that child's point of view of always being afraid of him.
And so that's something that you might need to tackle inside yourself where you have this childhood perspective from this
adult person that you are now, and that you might be holding on to something really old that doesn't apply anymore.
(27:55):
That's what I had to figure out.
I was holding on to this old stuff, these old fears, these old beliefs, these old understandings of how the world worked and
how I would be affected by him.
If I actually said my truth, if I actually told him how I really felt, because when I got older, he was no longer that threat.
He was just hard to deal with.
(28:16):
And as I healed more and more, it was a lot easier to deal with him.
So my inner child needed some guidance to be able to face this person that I'd always feared and make peace with my adult
self so that this person could no longer have any power over me.
(28:38):
And I think that's a much better place to be than where I used to be.
And I only wish the same for you to be able to keep your power with anybody that shows up in your life that may have a tendency to take it away.
Stay strong and thanks for listening to The Overwhelmed Brain.
(28:58):
I'm always grateful to the patrons of this show, Paige, Stephen, Ashley, and Brad this week. I appreciate you.
Thank you so much for your contributions.
And if you find value in the show like these patrons do, head over to moretob.com and there's a way to give back over there. Thank you again, patrons.
And for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship, listen to my other podcast called Love and Abuse over at loveandabuse.com.
(29:22):
And if you know you're the difficult one in the relationship and you want to change that about yourself, join the program
that is helping a lot of people heal over at healedbeing.com.
And with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions.
And remember, that's where your power is.
And be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want.
(29:45):
Always take steps to grow and evolve. You are powerful beyond measure.
And above all, and this is something I absolutely know to be true about you, you are amazing.
These are my personal opinions. Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well-being.
(00:11):
This is going to sound like a bash, and I don't mean it to sound like a bash because I have a certain respect for the dead. Where am I going with this?
My stepfather died a couple months ago, I think now. and I talked about it on an episode back then.
If you're not familiar, my stepfather was an alcoholic, and he was with my mom for 40 years.
(00:36):
It was an abusive relationship in many ways. and they got divorced eventually, and he was still a very toxic energy, a very toxic force in my entire family.
Everyone in my family was affected by him, and he ended up dying from his alcoholism, his liver failure, I think, and cancer.
(01:02):
I mean, he developed all these ailments and diseases, and all because, or at least in my viewpoint, all because he was mistreating his body so badly.
So, you know, it caught up to him.
Now, he did live quite a long time.
He lived right up into his 70s, so I'm just assuming he just had one of the most resilient bodies that a human could have
(01:28):
to tolerate the excess level of abuse he did to himself.
And so that's neither here nor there. but the reason I bring him up today is because when I talked about him, when I talked
about his death, I had these feelings come up.
I had accepted that he was going to die many years ago, and I had mixed feelings about it because he's people that I really care about.
(01:57):
And some of my feelings were centered around the relief that it would give the family to not have him around anymore.
And I was kind of surprised when I heard that he had passed, that it didn't strike me hard.
I think it's because I had already accepted that he was gone in many ways.
(02:22):
He was definitely gone from my life because I was the only person, or I am the only person that doesn't live around the family, which is a thousand miles away.
And the rest of my family had to see him every now and then, and they had to deal with him in whatever way they did.
My point about what I'm talking about this morning is, again, this is not trying to bash him or anything like that. but when
(02:48):
we went on vacation, it was just a few days after his service, so I missed that service.
And I don't think I would have gone anyway, my own personal decision there. but I missed that service and was able to connect
with people up there after the fact.
And there was a different energy, there was a different feeling, there were thoughts the way we talked.
(03:15):
He didn't really come up in conversation because he no longer existed. and it was just something that had been on everyone's
mind for so long that when he died, I think he took all the conversation about him with him.
It was a relief in a very subtle way, and that surprised me because I thought it would be just something that everyone would be elated by.
(03:41):
And it took me some time to reflect on this, and I believe what happened was that everyone was just tired.
We were all just tired of dealing with his existence.
And again I'm not trying to bash him, all due respect, because he's now paid the ultimate price. He's gone, and that's his journey.
(04:05):
And my journey and our journey as a family has been to include him in our thoughts in a way that when we have a conversation
with each other, he always came up. And now he doesn't.
He only comes up in a way that affects us because he's not here.
And I'm not saying that we're celebrating.
(04:26):
I'm saying that I'm just amazed what happened after he died.
I honestly thought there would be just this huge relief, but it just turns out that everyone just so exhausted from dealing
with him. there's just this very subtle shift into another emotional state and another state of mind. It's like a marathon, I guess.
(04:51):
If you ran a marathon and hours later, you finally finished, at least for me, if I ran a marathon, I would be freaking exhausted. It would be completely exhausted.
And because of that, I wouldn't be jumping up and down celebrating.
I'd be sitting down or I'd be walking it off or something. And that's the feeling.
(05:14):
That's the feeling that we get or we got when it happened.
And that's the sense I get from my family.
And so the reason I brought that up is because when Asha and I were on vacation, I saw an old friend from high school up there,
and I haven't seen him in years. We just lost touch.
(05:34):
And suddenly he was right behind us on another table.
Actually, I think I mentioned this in a previous episode, but he was right behind us on another table.
And I said, what what are you doing here?
Oh my God, I haven't seen you in years." And he couldn't, he didn't recognize me at first.
And then we immediately started talking and had a great conversation for about a half an hour.
(05:55):
And he told me something that just brought back that feeling I had when my stepfather was alive.
He said, you know, I really liked your stepfather.
We hung out, but he got me drinking." Now, I'm not blaming my stepfather for getting him drinking. That was his own choice.
(06:17):
But I found it interesting that he told me that he said he got me drinking and it got a little out of control.
So I had to find a way to stop doing that because I was drinking too much. So kudos to him.
He he started drinking more and more, and it got out of control, and he decided that's not the kind of life he wanted to live.
(06:39):
He didn't want to be out of control and be drunk all the time or whatever it was.
And he made a choice to stop.
But there's this feeling, these thoughts and these feelings came into me thinking that there he is again.
There's my stepfather affecting somebody else in a negative way.
I know that sounds like bashing, but I'm just being honest.
(07:03):
I'm being transparent here that those feelings came up again.
It wasn't like I was angry with him.
This is just like a fact, like this fact came up.
I guess there's a little bit of emotion in there too, but this fact came up that here's another example of him being this
vortex of misery, as I used to call him and apparently still do.
(07:27):
Here he is affecting someone's life I didn't even know about.
One of my best friends from high school, he affected his life too.
So after I left New Hampshire, he hung out with my stepfather for a while, and then he started drinking more and more with
my stepfather, and he said it got too much.
(07:49):
Again, I'm not blaming my stepfather for this.
I'm not blaming my friend for this.
My friend actually did the right thing.
He realized he was drinking too much and made a decision to stop. So it's all responsible.
He took responsibility, and it was a mature attitude that he took, and I'm so proud of him for doing that because some people have a hard time stopping that.
(08:13):
But again coming back to the way my stepfather affected not only my family but everyone that he met.
Just about everyone he met, he has affected in a negative way, and I'm just realizing this sort of in the last month, how
it wasn't just our family that was and the friends in our life, our family's life, and how he has affected them too.
(08:44):
And I'm going to back off now and stop talking badly about him. It's just something I noticed.
There's just something I noticed inside me, and it made me realize that yes, there are people out there that just have this
gravitational force that pulls people into their world or into their problems.
(09:09):
And in the case of my stepfather and others, he was toxic in many ways and also sick in many ways.
And when he showed up in someone's life, he affected their life, and it's usually in a negative way.
I'm not saying it was all negative.
He probably had people that he enjoyed being around, and they enjoyed being around him.
(09:30):
But every story that I've heard, it's usually something like, oh he did this. Oh, he did that. Oh, he owes me money.
Oh, he did that," you know, and so on and on and on.
So these are the kinds of things I've heard over the years that even after I got out of that family environment where he was around, I kept hearing about.
(09:55):
And I had to do a lot of healing, you know, myself regarding the relationship I had with him.
And then I had to go to the second level of healing, which it sounds like I might still be going through, which is how he affected the people I care about. And those people are still affected.
So he is now gone from this world, and these people are still affected. And so that still affects me. If they're hurt, I'm hurt.
(10:25):
And so I'm sharing this because there are people like this in the world.
And maybe they don't even know that they're doing it.
Maybe they don't know that they are the cause of a lot of other problems in other people's lives.
And so they continue showing up the way they are.
And then the people in their lives continue ending up in their proximity and being affected by the way they are.
(10:52):
And if we have somebody in our life like that, it can change how we show up.
They can change how we feel, can change what we think and what we do, can change our plans because we don't want to be a part
of whatever they have going on in their life.
(11:14):
Because some people, whether they know it or not, are unhealthy to be around.
And that's just an unfair thing for me to say. It really is. Because we all have problems. We all have maybe some dysfunction.
You know, maybe not all of us, but I'll speak for myself. We have dysfunctions.
I have dysfunctions that other people may look at and say, you've got a problem.
(11:40):
You can't look at your stepfather with unconditional love, for example." Believe me, I have.
I have looked at him with unconditional love, and that's the best way I was able to let go and let him be.
And let him be who he is toward others and hope that they could look at him with unconditional love and also give themselves
(12:02):
unconditional love enough to protect themselves from this toxic element in their life.
I'm not saying that they have to do this.
Some people will invite others into their life, and they're okay with it. They deal with it.
They have their own way of dealing with it.
(12:23):
I personally didn't want to be around him, and so I moved forward.
So when we have somebody in our life that does have a lot of toxic qualities, sometimes we feel stuck.
Sometimes we feel like there's nothing we can do. They are who they are.
They will show up when we don't want them to show up.
(12:44):
They will say things that we don't want them to say, and there's nothing we can do about it.
And it's very hard, especially when they're not in control of themselves. My stepfather drank a lot.
So when he was drinking, he would say things that were quite embarrassing.
He would also do things that were quite violent, and you didn't want to be around him when he was in that way.
(13:08):
And he also developed what some people call wet brain, which is when they're sober, they still show up with a lot of the same qualities as when they're drunk.
And when that happens, it's even more difficult to communicate with them and try to get through to them, and you're just riding their wave, essentially.
(13:30):
And we have to be careful whose waves we ride.
We don't want to ride the wave of a toxic person, but that's what we end up doing a lot.
Like the most toxic person in a work environment usually is the center of everyone's attention.
That is usually the most influential person in the environment.
(13:53):
Because A, we don't want to be around them. So B, we avoid them.
And C, when they want something, we just want to give it to them really fast to get rid of them. Maybe that's you, maybe that's me.
And D, maybe if we get rid of them because we give them what they want, they won't show up again.
So basically every single day, every hour of every single day at work, we're thinking about them.
(14:19):
Even if it's in the background of our mind, we're thinking about them.
That's what I did when I was around my stepfather.
I thought about him all the time, even at a lower level.
I go, "I don't want to upset him.
Oh, I don't want to say the wrong thing." And it wouldn't stop.
We just go through every single day thinking about the toxic person, hoping that they don't show up in our life in some way, shape, or form.
(14:45):
And so that's why I see toxic people as the center of gravity.
They are pulling us in, even when they're not around.
Even when they don't say a thing, the gravity still pulls us toward them. What is that about?
(15:08):
What in the world is causing that?
As I reflected on the relationship I had with my stepfather and what healing, if any, I needed to do, and there was healing
to do because I wasn't sure at first.
I thought once I left it would be fine, but nope.
Once I left, I still had healing to do.
(15:29):
But as I reflected, as I figured out some of the stuff that I needed to heal.
I learned why some people are such a gravitational force in our lives.
And I talked about this in another episode as well.
It's that we haven't learned what we needed to learn so that they aren't in our lives anymore. And I don't mean physically. I mean mentally. I mean emotionally.
(15:59):
Because even a toxic person who has this gravitational pull to suck us into their misery, and in turn making our lives miserable,
even those kind of people that are in the world, or in your family, or in your home, even they won't affect you if you have done some healing in yourself. Let me reword that.
(16:26):
Even they won't affect you as much when you've done some healing.
In a previous episode, I talked about how there are some people that are still in your life and still bother you because you
haven't done some healing or you may not have done some healing in the way they bother you.
For example, I wanted to avoid my stepfather mainly because I was poor at setting boundaries with him.
(16:53):
When I learned to set boundaries, it became a lot easier to deal with my stepfather.
That doesn't mean he disappeared from my life.
It meant that he didn't bother me as he used to.
And in some cases, he didn't bother me at all.
I still didn't want to see him, but being able to set clear boundaries for myself and be able to enforce those boundaries
(17:17):
for myself and for others that I cared about, when he showed up, it was a lot easier to be around him.
This is why in that previous episode I talked about how sometimes we need to heal something in ourselves or improve something in ourselves or evolve something. Make it better.
(17:38):
If you're good at boundaries, maybe you need to get better with these people at least.
They show up differently not because they're different, but because you're different.
When you're different around these people, they might end up showing up differently later on because you are not having the same that you used to.
(18:00):
So when my stepfather shows up and he does something that really pushes my buttons and pushes my boundaries, and I can say,
back off, you're being disrespectful. back down because you are not allowed to go there and stop talking to my mom like that."
If I ever had to stand up for myself or for others, it was a lot easier, which means he didn't affect me as much as he used to.
(18:29):
That's what I meant in a previous episode, is that sometimes we need to heal or learn something new or evolve what we already
know to make it better, to improve it, to make it stronger, to make us stronger. so that when we're around people that are
typically the ones that take away our power, we get to keep it.
(18:49):
That's the way I look at it, is that we can walk around with power, with our own power, or we can let other people have it.
I know we're not letting them have it, but in a way, that's what it feels like.
When my stepfather showed up, I let him have my power. How did I do that?
I was meek, I was submissive, I was avoidant, and I was a people pleaser. and I did everything I can to avoid inciting what
(19:17):
I used to call drunk dad behavior.
And so if I avoided all those things, I was also avoiding my own growth and my own healing and everything I need to look at in myself.
And I'm not saying you should do this.
I'm not saying that if there's somebody in your life that you can't stand being around or causing big issues, that you need to do any of this.
(19:40):
I'm saying that this is how sometimes we inadvertently allow certain behaviors in our life.
And that doesn't mean you're doing it on purpose. this doesn't mean that if it's happening to you, that it's your fault.
It just means that there may be a way to improve your situation by improving yourself or healing something in you or getting
(20:00):
past a fear or insecurity inside yourself.
So that when you are. around somebody that is a vortex of misery, that sucks you into their drama and sucks you into their
dysfunction and toxicity, when you're around somebody like that, that you can handle it better.
In fact all the healing that I've done in my life is just to be able to handle the challenges that still exist in my life. I mean, handle them better.
(20:27):
And there are still challenges that come along that will probably need resolving in myself when I face them.
I'm sure there will be future challenges that come up that I will need to face, that will highlight something that I need to work on in myself.
And that will be important, and it will suck.
(20:48):
It will be something I don't want to do, but it will be a growth opportunity.
But the good news about that, it's really good news, is that the more you work on this stuff and heal the things that you
need to heal, and work through the fears and insecurities that you might be carrying around, the more you do all of that,
the easier it will be to feel comfortable in your own skin, to be able to do it again, and to reach the next level and the next level.
(21:17):
The higher difficulties, like a video game.
Like, okay, the next level is going to be harder, but you already have these skills, so let's take these skills into the next
level, and then we can beat the next boss or beat the next series of.
And we take these skills with us as we work on them. and this is why it's important to work on ourselves, to improve ourselves,
(21:40):
to make sure that when somebody does show up that's a real challenge, that we have the tools that we need to at least not
only tolerate it and not be resilient to it, but to actually be able to process it in a way that doesn't bring us down and cause us to release our power. What's our power?
(22:03):
Your power is your ability to make decisions that are right for you.
That's how you step into your power, where you know that there's a decision that you want to make, and making it because you know it's right for you. That's power.
That's at least how I define it.
What's powerless is knowing you want to make a decision but believing that you can't make it or not making it because you're
(22:31):
afraid. and you might have every right to be afraid. there might be something to fear. but when we're afraid to do something
that's right for us, that's when we lose our power.
And so I see empowerment like that, is the ability to make decisions that are the best for us, that are right for us, so that
we can move forward feeling comfortable having made the decisions that we know weren't made from a place of fear, but a place of power.
(22:59):
And when you make decisions from a place of power, they're, I'm going to say, 99.9% the right ones.
When you make a decision from a place of fear, those kinds of decisions, I don't even have to tell you the percentage, are
usually the ones that keep you where you are or take you back into a place of less power or no power.
(23:26):
You can have no power with some of the decisions you make, and then you walk away from that decision feeling just as bad or worse than you did before.
I have a friend who's an entrepreneur who said, always do things that move the needle." I love that phrase.
I'm going to repeat it until I'm dead because every time I sit at my desk, I ask myself, or not every time, but a lot, I ask
(23:51):
myself, does this move the needle?" Does me scrolling through social media move the needle? What's the needle?
The needle could be anything that you're working on. It could be a project.
It could be your personal growth and development.
It could be something to do with money.
It could be anything that is forward momentum or progress in your life.
(24:14):
And so if I wanted to make money and I'm scrolling through social media, just reading mind-numbing stuff, I can ask myself
or remind myself, is this moving the needle?
Is this moving the needle in my business?
Is this moving the needle toward making as much money as I want?
Or is it keeping me in place?" Or when somebody disrespects me and I back off, I don't say anything. I just let it be.
(24:40):
Does that move the needle in my own personal growth and development?
Does that move the needle in my ability to honor myself?
Am I doing the things that will show the world how I want to be treated?
Is that needle moving in that direction?
Because it sure doesn't feel like that if I don't say a word.
And I know we can't do that with everyone.
(25:01):
We can't enforce our boundaries or whatever with everyone because some people are too difficult to deal with, and they'll
only get worse if we make the decisions that are right for us. and we do have to be very careful who we pick our battles with.
But in most cases in work and relationships and life in general, at the grocery store or in your neighborhood or wherever,
(25:23):
in most cases, we have the opportunity to make decisions from a place of power and give ourselves a chance to keep our power
so that we can move the needle toward growth, toward progress, and make the next time we deal with something like this a little bit easier.
Maybe a percentage easier, percentage point easier.
(25:46):
Because every time we choose to take a step back and make a decision from a place of fear or insecurity, and we might lose
a bit of that power every time we do that. the record's the wrong way, and we're moving the needle backwards. and we're going
to either stay where we are or end up even further back than we want to be.
(26:10):
And so that's what I've been thinking about.
That's the stuff I've been reflecting on regarding my stepfather's passing and how he affected all these people, all these
people that I love and myself and how we have shown up in his life and the decisions that we made while he was alive, while
(26:30):
he showed up in our lives and where that kept us and where we went or didn't go if we stayed in the by doing nothing or acting
out of fear or making decisions that really weren't right for us, but were more right for him. So we didn't incite bad behaviors.
(26:51):
And again, you pick your battles wisely, but you know, I'm six, four and he was like five, eight.
So I was afraid of him all my life.
And for him to be a threatening force to me when I'm in my forties and now fifties, I look at that and think, what, you know,
(27:12):
he's now a short old man, no offense to anybody out there, but this is the mindset I had to develop is that I'm this tall adult male and pretty decent shape.
And he's a frail old man who shouldn't really have an effect on my life anymore because I'm not the same person I was anymore.
(27:32):
But my perception of him was from that child's point of view of always being afraid of him.
And so that's something that you might need to tackle inside yourself where you have this childhood perspective from this
adult person that you are now, and that you might be holding on to something really old that doesn't apply anymore.
(27:55):
That's what I had to figure out.
I was holding on to this old stuff, these old fears, these old beliefs, these old understandings of how the world worked and
how I would be affected by him.
If I actually said my truth, if I actually told him how I really felt, because when I got older, he was no longer that threat.
He was just hard to deal with.
(28:16):
And as I healed more and more, it was a lot easier to deal with him.
So my inner child needed some guidance to be able to face this person that I'd always feared and make peace with my adult
self so that this person could no longer have any power over me.
(28:38):
And I think that's a much better place to be than where I used to be.
And I only wish the same for you to be able to keep your power with anybody that shows up in your life that may have a tendency to take it away.
Stay strong and thanks for listening to The Overwhelmed Brain.
(28:58):
I'm always grateful to the patrons of this show, Paige, Stephen, Ashley, and Brad this week. I appreciate you.
Thank you so much for your contributions.
And if you find value in the show like these patrons do, head over to moretob.com and there's a way to give back over there. Thank you again, patrons.
And for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship, listen to my other podcast called Love and Abuse over at loveandabuse.com.
(29:22):
And if you know you're the difficult one in the relationship and you want to change that about yourself, join the program
that is helping a lot of people heal over at healedbeing.com.
And with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions.
And remember, that's where your power is.
And be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want.
(29:45):
Always take steps to grow and evolve. You are powerful beyond measure.
And above all, and this is something I absolutely know to be true about you, you are amazing.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.