Why 'Becoming the Opposite' Is a Bad Idea

Hello, everyone! If you're familiar with the Beyond the High Road podcast, you'll know it's rooted in honest reflections and grounded advice, especially when tackling the complex topics surrounding parental alienation. In this post, I want to explore the common suggestion given to alienated parents to become the opposite of the negative traits their children are being told about them. But is this advice truly beneficial?

The Pitfalls of 'Becoming the Opposite'

The idea of becoming the opposite of whatever negative traits your children are told you possess can feel overwhelming and even counterproductive. It's like having an invisible tether pulling you in every direction, demanding you reshape your life based on assumptions and accusations. This type of advice can lead to you living a bland, reactive life, constantly second-guessing yourself and your actions. It's exhausting and strips you of the autonomy you deserve.

Self-Reflection: A More Empowering Approach

Instead of bending backward to fit a mold others have created for you, why not delve into your own self-reflection? Take an honest inventory of your traits—the ones celebrated as well as those often critiqued. Consider whether they truly serve you or if they're worth altering. This empowers you to live truthfully and intentionally, not through the —often misguided— expectations of others.

Understanding Bad vs. Good

In a world where we categorize actions and people as either bad or good, we can limit our perspective, cloud our judgment, and stifle our growth. When thinking of your alienating parent or situation, consider that even reprehensible acts come from a place the perpetrator believes is right. This doesn’t excuse their behavior, but it can bring you peace, potentially aiding in more strategic, collected responses to conflicts.

Embracing the Full Spectrum of Self

As you navigate allegations or accusations, acknowledge the truth that everyone, including yourself, possesses a balance of good and bad traits. Understand that qualities perceived as negative in one context might serve a necessary function in another. You are not required to apologize for your entirety; you can celebrate your complexities and utilize them to enhance your life.

Avoiding The 'Exception Trap'

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking, "Alienated parents must be the exceptions to all the rules of balance." But viewing your situation through a 50-50 lens—seeing all experiences, people, and circumstances as a mix of good and bad—can bring about greater understanding and acceptance.

Finding Peace Through Perspective

Releasing the tension of a dichotomous view—good vs. evil—allows you to take deep breaths and navigate the world with clarity. It diminishes the power a situation or person holds over you and can improve your emotional well-being. When facing legal battles or other high-stress scenarios, humanizing those involved can be a powerful tool for remaining grounded and reducing stress.

Claiming Your Power

Ultimately, being dictated by accusations prevents you from reclaiming your life. By evaluating traits on your own terms, you gain autonomy and empowerment, leading to a more fulfilling life. It's about finding and acting from a place of self-assuredness rather than self-doubt.

Wrap-Up

Let go of the notion that you need to become the opposite of any criticism thrown your way. It's time to evaluate these traits on your terms to reclaim your narrative. And as you walk this path, remember to hold compassion for yourself. If you take anything away from this, let it be that your path to healing and empowerment is entirely your own. Embrace every shade of your being, continue growing, and find peace in your complexity.

Thank you for joining me on this reflective journey. Remember, you deserve a life that's about your journey and not constantly tethered by others' perceptions. Have a lovely day, and until next time on Beyond the High Road!

Episode Transcript

  You are listening to the Beyond the High Road podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 103. Stay tuned.

  Okay. So quick announcements is one Facebook live as always on Friday at noon Eastern time. Also on Thursday nights, I I've added a, I said it last week and I think I told you 8 PM, but it's actually 8 30 for by 8 30. I'm so tired every night, but, for right now it is.

TikTok live 8 30 on Thursday evenings 8 eastern daylight time. if you're on tiktok and you haven't followed me yet. Come on It's I think it's you can find me under beyond the high road coach. I'll put a link down for um, tiktok below then also if you are listening to this on the day it is released, which is actually Wednesday night, but technically will be like Thursday for a lot of you, listen, you have until Thursday, the 19th at 11.

59 to sign up for the early bird for the upcoming course. So if you buy early now, get your early enrollment, then you get 25 percent off of the whole course. And I don't know. I want to explain to that when you sign up for the course, you don't just get the six months, you're also getting ongoing lifetime access to, group coaching calls, right?

So it's group coaching calls. And also, an element of like, I fellowshipping sounds so cheesy, but you know what I'm saying? Like chilling with other parents, like minded parents. Okay. Okay. So there's that. So it's not just for the six months that you're in it. It's ongoing. If you so please, right? You have access to it for good.

there's two coupon codes when you go to the link when you scroll down there are two Coupon codes one is early bird one is early bird two all one word for either one of those early bird is for the pay in full early bird two is for the payment plan that is set up for you guys there So either way just make sure that you input that within the next thursday night 11 59 eastern time You to get you signed up for that.

I wanted to say too that, we don't just deal with only alienation in any of the calls that I,

host. I mean, yes, we do talk about that, but it's not as heavy or as, Like, ooh, as you might think now there may be the occasion where it is, but because alienation does kind of affect all the areas of our lives and our own thinking about those areas, I mean, we're talking about like your work, your relationships, like with spouse or current partners, your dating life, you're everything, just how you move about your everyday life.

That is what we're working on. . It's just becoming aware and teaching yourself how to think about all the little situations in your life that make up your mindset and your state of mind about your life moving forward. I talk later in the episode about studies that show like where depression comes from and it's not just from the catastrophic, I'll let you listen to it, but it's in the everyday nooks and crannies of your life that your The negative mindset, if it's there, will show up, and that's what ends up, affecting, infecting the rest of your life.

And so, this is what we take care of in the course, and then any sort of, um, one on one as well. So, that is all. I will let you get on to the episode. Have a lovely day. Also shit,

I am going to do, I needed to, I should have mentioned this before. I am going to do a workshop on the last weekend of this month It is going to be

A three part workshop on worrying and how to not worry, basically, um, when it comes to your situation of alienation and your children and what have you, because we as alienated parents, this is something that, um, I hear about a lot from y'all so I'm going to do that on the 28th of September, that Saturday, I'll probably do it at 1 PM, 28th of September, 1 PM Eastern daylight time mean, that's just a week and a half away. All right. Then.

 Hey y'all, I am here recording this on editing day because, my sound was all jacked up my microphone was off And so it sounded like I was talking into like it was all garbled.

It was awful I tried I spent the first two and a half hours today. trying to salvage The recording. So I didn't have to record it again, but actually what that ended up doing was just wasting a bunch of time. So here I am. Lesson learned. I think I've learned less lesson before and, um, I think in the past though, I did just try to salvage it.

Anyway, I, I, I think it's annoying to hear bad sounds, you know, when you're listening to a podcast. So, here I am. I'm recording it again. Um, second time's a charm. Wink, wink. Um, So today I want to talk about,

I haven't really titled it yet, but I have, um, an idea in mind and it's because of it came up in a bunch of different ways, but one on Monday, the other day I was. editing one of the modules in the upcoming course, and it's called roots.

The module is called roots looking at your own opinion of yourself,

I was talking about narratives, the narratives that we develop about ourselves and about all the other people in our lives. We have one, each one of us, you have, um, a separate narrative, or I also would like to call it a manual, for each of the players, people in your life, you have rules, a rule set that is usually unspoken, um, about how you want each person in your life to behave.

You also have a separate one for yourself. We all carry this like rule set of who we are, what we're about, but we don't usually, unless you've done the work, you're, it's unconscious. You don't even realize that you have those rule sets for everybody, right?

In those rule sets, you also, like, if you were, writing a play or you're writing a book or a, you know, a movie of some sort, you also assign a tone to each person in your life, And so I talk with parents a lot who have, you know, a specific tone for the alienating parent or alienating person,

they have a tone that they have assigned to their children. Sometimes they have a tone to their mom to their dad. And sometimes these tones are Uh, not helping them because we then look at anything written, you look any text that comes from them, email, any sort of communication with that lens, through that lens of, negativity, if that's the case,

so

in this module, I am encouraging y'all to become aware of what that tone is for each person in your life, and especially yourself, right? What have you,

 

um, Defined that you're capable of in the world. What have you defined the world as and how it works in general and how it works for you

 

what are you capable of accomplishing? What are you capable of accomplishing when X or Y is in the picture, right? All the different ways that we like rule sets that we have on the world it's just a tendency the brain's tendency because it likes to be efficient we usually want to classify things as bad or good or right or wrong up or down favored rejected and we do it by default subconsciously so Oftentimes, you're not aware of where you're limiting yourself, right, limiting others, where you are, limiting y'all together, when it comes to your, children that you love so much that, you know, have been alienated from you, but oftentimes, because of our black, white thinking, by default, we will further uh, Not meaning to, but further alienate ourselves because we've, we've already made the decision that things aren't possible for whatever, right?

So it's really, really helpful to become aware of what your rule sets are for you as you fit into the world.

So that, that was part of it, right? I was going through and rewriting the course, and I was writing about the, the polarity, the polar opposites, the way that our brains sometimes work and want to categorize things. And then I was thinking, because of a comment on a TikTok post, how we often, we are given a lot of advice from the quote unquote professionals about how we should navigate our situations of alienation and how we can, you know, drip love, which I love that.

I love that term. I think it's like so perfect. . But then the one that I have never really agreed with, I mean, I kind of agree with it. idea of it, I just don't love the way that it's said, is whatever they're accusing you of, become the opposite of that. Whatever the or your children are accusing you of, you show up as the opposite of that.

Listen, I do, I understand it, and I do like the idea. in a sense, like if there are areas of your life that you maybe should clean up and you want to clean up, I should say, um, then do that, right? If you are wanting to better yourself your goal has become to evolve yourself then of course you want to take all the things into consideration.

And like, sort of like, gather all the constructive criticism that you've gotten over the years, and even the things that your children have said, maybe even the alienator, and you put those all into like a pile, like a mental pile into a bowl. And then you sort through each one of the, these critiques and you decide yourself whether you want to keep them if they serve you or if they don't.

That's kind of what I'm asking those that are taking the course to do to make a list of all the positive and all the quote unquote negative qualities that they have so that, One, you realize that there's so much more depth to each and every person alive, each and every being on this earth, that we're not all bad or all good, but that we are a perfect combination of all of it. I'm not all good and I'm not all bad. Not even the alienator is all bad. Right? They are part good, part bad.

All of us are. That's what makes each of us quirky and interesting and, um, compelling or like magnetic, Is the fact that we have that combination and when we know and like acknowledge and lean into Even our bad qualities like we utilize those for good, that's when I believe that's like, you know, if you think about social media and the people that really lean into their quirkiness or even their age or whatever it is that might once have been judged or been caused to

turn somebody away or, make them irrelevant, maybe even. when they're leaning into that, knowing that this is something that maybe not everybody will like the audience that does like that is immediately attracted to that, when we're talking about qualities that or attributes, character attributes, if you whatever you want to call it traits.

We used to think that up until like, what, maybe 20 years ago. Or maybe even less. We thought that there were certain things that you were born with and that you had to keep them. And that was just who you were till the end of time. But it's not the case. You can change anything that you want about you if you want.

Right. But when you lean into like acknowledge, know all that you are today and decide intentionally what it is that you want to lean into and what it is that you maybe want to work on. So that pile of. Stuff the criticism that you've gotten over the years, or maybe that you just know about you on the inside, you look at it all for yourself and you decide, does this serve me?

Does this not serve me? Will this serve me at, sometime in the future? It did serve me in the past. A lot of the things are, um, that qualities that I had that I consider negative, or maybe not so helpful for me, they were at once very helpful to me. I did an episode back in the beginning of this year.

It was like of CEO mindset, CEO mindset of your life and I talk about this like you look at your qualities, all of the qualities and those thoughts, those beliefs, those behaviors are your employees.

And you are the CEO of your mind, right? And whatever's not working for you, you can just simply thank them for their service and allow them, like, let them go. Fire them, basically. it doesn't mean that you dislike them or that you resent them or that you need to ban them, block them, whatever.

It's just, thank you very much for all that you did for me. And now we're moving in a different direction, you know? Nothing has to be taken so seriously because clearly, the things that you may not like about yourself, they're not you, right, you can change them if you want, that you do that with your higher thinking but usually when we're talking about the alienating parent, it's, Or maybe even your children or whoever other hater out there that wants to define you by things that you've done or Moods you've been in or ways you've Behaved, right?

Reacted before. Um, that's what they do. They want to define people, haters. They want to say that you manipulative, that you are a liar, that you are whatever, right? They will find all the ways to make one isolated incident part of who you are. we all have our moments that, um, you know, we haven't behaved the way that we truly actually want to, but when we were behaving that way, we were thinking a thought that said that this was the protective thing to do. You know, so now if you and you did it back then, probably unconsciously, I mean, there are times where you're like, I know I shouldn't lie here, but I'm going to lie here because it's probably worth it for me to lie because the stakes were too high.

We've gone through that before, but now, if you decide on purpose what qualities you like about yourself and what qualities, even the quote unquote bad qualities, you know that have served you, and will serve you moving forward, then you can just embrace those things.

You know, and decide that they work for you on occasion, Not everything that is bad is actually all bad. It's just in the eye of the beholder. I was looking at this, article when I went down the, rabbit hole yesterday, right before recording, I have to put the link for it.

in the show notes. I was looking up bad versus good and how nothing is really that, and there's this , article from back in 2014 from Dr. Mike Brooks.

There's nothing either good or bad but thinking that makes it so, which is a Shakespeare quote from Hamlet. he was talking about how we will label something in our life. Oh, that's terrible. This was awful. Or on the other hand of things, this was amazing. This was the greatest thing or we think that about people in our lives too.

They're either good or bad or the most Loveliest kindest person in the world or the worst person in the world when you think of the most evil Uh, person in the world. I'm pretty sure that many of you are thinking about the person who's alienated your kid from you.

And though, yes, they are doing some pretty terrible things, even the alienator isn't all bad. Even serial killers aren't all bad. We all have a combination of each. And I know that, this isn't what the article was saying, I just got off on a tangent here. And I know that, parents, , are oftentimes resistant, to the idea because if they do that, then somehow they're excusing someone's bad behavior, right? That they're allowing somebody's bad behavior, but that's not the case. And here's the thing, unless you're like a lawmaker and you're in charge of, of punishing this person, which is a terrible job to have, because the emotion that you have to feel to, to, to be the one punishing anyway, that's a whole different topic, but it doesn't serve you to me when I think of If we're going to be talking about the person that's alienating my kid from me, when I used to think that they were evil and bad and sinister and calculated and manipulating and dangerous, and only that, Then I was always scared. I was petrified, to move through my life Because they were all those things.

They were evil. They were like all powerful in my world. But when I remembered that, no, that's not really the case. I learned this concept from my teacher a long time ago that he's 50 percent bad and 50 percent good. She's 50 percent bad and 50 percent good at the stepmom. Even though, and now listen, I'm not. a professor of psychology. I'm not a doctor of neuroscience. I don't actually know how even the, uh, disordered personalities brain really works and what the percentages are there, whether it's 50, 50 or not. But for me, for my own purposes and my own sanity, it works a lot better for me to think about it that way.

Yeah, he's doing some terrible things right now and his behaviors and tendencies I don't agree with them, and they, he behaves badly, poorly, but also I know he's not only bad, he does have good qualities. 50 percent of his qualities are good, and when I think of him that way and think of her that way, then it takes the sinister away from them, and I can relax.

I don't have to lose sleep at night, thinking that my daughter is living with two monsters. Do you know what I'm saying? Not because I want to delude myself by any means, but it does not serve me to stay up nights on end thinking about the sinister monsters that might be. And really, let's be honest, that's not, it's not really the case.

They're doing some terrible things, but they're doing them because they think that they're right. So, in their minds, what they're doing is good. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but on this topic, being like black or white, what if it's black and white? What if it's right and wrong? You know what I'm saying?

Again, not excusing what they're doing. I'm just saying for your own peace of mind to be able to see how things might be so from a different seat. There was actually also, after I recorded yesterday, I saw a, um, a post, a TikTok post, where this guy was, somebody else reposted it and they were talking about, this guy was talking about, How living in the United States, for instance, that it's only like 4 percent of the world, right?

The United States, we living here or wherever you're at most of the time. Well, United States is pretty cocky about it. So I will say that we think that the whole world operates how we operate and that whatever is happening in our society. It's just because it's what we see it's what our reality is so we just expect that the world's reality is that way when things across the world are so much different in very similar situations as ours, and then there's so many different situations all around so many different perspectives to see things from right so our it would be so,

I'm not only entitled, but ,

So egotistical, narcissistic even, to think that our way was the right way, or their way was the wrong way. Things are done all over the world in all different ways, and many of them, probably work. Do you know what I'm saying?

Our ways aren't the only right ways. And I'm not, now I'm not comparing that to our situations of alienation, but what I'm saying is, is that it might be helpful , if you want to find some understanding and stop feeling so, angry inside, you know, about the goings on of the world, the politics of the world,

and, of where you're, wherever you're living, in the United States, the politics are a fucking mess, . There's left and then there's right. And either side will not listen to the other side and either side. Hates the other side, if you're, like, extreme. Do you know what I'm saying? And what is a guess?

It gets us nowhere. It gets us divided. It, it keeps the arguments going. It keeps the war going. and people are so easy to, make themselves the exceptions to the rule, especially think of it with politics, you know, and I honestly politics and we go over to our own situations of alienation and how we think of it so black or white.

They're wrong. I'm right. They're evil. I'm good. I'm the one that's trying to do the good in the world, and they're evil. Again, I'm not saying that you need to agree with what they're doing. Absolutely not. I'm just saying there's a lot more context and story behind even somebody that you think is , doing and being wrong.

So, the sooner that we place our aim at understanding all of the, perspectives, sooner we find peace. In our own world because then we don't have to be the one that's making the judgments.

We don't have to like be Always right. It's pressure y. It's um, it's exhausting, And your mind stays very very closed. You cannot grow from that place You can't evolve from a place of like in an argument when you're trying to Explain all the reasons that you're right or when you're waiting for somebody to stop talking So that you could then Retort with all of the ways, like, all of your ba da da da da da, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, It does nothing for you. Even on your road to evolving, I do this myself. We will be wanting to get to our highest version of ourselves, but we have this one exception area and I have a feeling that a lot of us, that one exception is in our situations of alienation.

No, they're always going to be wrong and I'm always going to be right. Again, I need to keep stressing that I don't mean that you need to change your view to they're right and I'm wrong you can decide that you're, you want to stay thinking that what they're doing is wrong,

nobody is okay with child abuse, but it might help you to see how, from their point of view, they feel like they're doing the right thing. Not because we want to condone, but because then it can take the stress off of you so that you're not seeing them as evil and you're not losing sleep at night.

And so that you're not, you know, when this will also help is,

when you're, if you're going back to court or if you ever have to face them, one of the characteristics of alienated parents, the common characteristics is that we appear on the outside neurotic and, scattered, wanting to prove ourselves and , not organized with our thoughts, right?

Because so much has happened and we've gone through so much trauma, but if you want to feel calm on the inside grounded at peace, even in a quote unquote sticky situation, like being on the stand, let's say, being in court. The way that you do that is to de vilify the alienating parent, and even maybe the, uh, the opposing, uh, attorney, Take them down off that weird pedestal you might have them on as being, like, the source of all evil. And the way that you do that is by humanizing them and knowing that they are Both bad and good. There is good in them because there's good in every single living being. It's not just like a smidgen of good.

Like, think of it, just for your own sake, consider, anyway, thinking that, you know what, they probably are a close mix of 50 50. 50 It's in there. You know what I'm saying? Even when it's really hard for you, and the more that you can find, like, good or , non threatening about them, the easier it will be for you to see all, the whole perspective of the situation, So that you can, develop a strategy,

Going into, , a law suit or something like that, you want to be able to see all the angles. And this is the way that you do it. You take the stress away by making them at your level. You know, not below you, not above you, but everything is 50-50 50.

That is where you're going to be able to find your peace. Because when you think they have the advantage or you think that they're below you, you're, it's going to cloud your judgment. You know what I'm saying? So for that reason, I think it's great. Okay. Back to where I was. When we have that all black, all white thinking,

it skews your ability to see reality, just like the Shakespeare quote,

there's nothing either bad or good, but thinking that makes it so think about that. All the things out there are neutral until we assign the meaning to it, right? So this guy, like I said, I'll link the article below, but he was talking about,

how we can assign a bad or good to each situation and

in his case, before he ever became a dad, he always had this, like, fantasy or this dream of the day that he would be able to throw a football with his daughter. unborn son, right? The day that his kid was old enough to actually throw the ball, you know, across the yard or whatever. And so that day had come and he had built it up for years, right?

His son, he was so excited. He was going to go out and throw the football with his son they go out to the yard and Dad throws it to him, kid catches it. He's like, this is great. And the kid repeatedly kept, every time he would catch it, he would go throw it into the bushes.

And so dad would go and he went over to the bushes and he was like, this isn't how I wanted things to be. This is not the way it was supposed to work out. And at that point he was labeling things as going bad. This is against how he wanted to do it.

He wanted to do it this way, right? The way in his dreams. That was the good way. And so for however long doing that, his kid was not, just didn't want to cooperate. That wasn't the game for the kid. The kid wanted to throw it in the bushes and dad needed to go fetch it. And then they did that again, you know?

So finally he ended up coming up to the conclusion that, wait a second, maybe things aren't all bad or all good. Maybe this is just a new interpretation of the game. That it's all of it, right? This is life. And this is the way that me and my son at this point, anyway, this is the way that we throw the football.

It was just so cute. It's true. we want to define everything in our lives as being like one or the other, black, white, good, bad, and oftentimes, I mean, there are times where that can work for you, but I think when we're defining our life that way and. For instance, how I started this, how we show up in the world and our own qualities like that direction, Oh, you show up as the opposite of whatever the, they're, they're accusing you of listen.

If you had to keep up with all the things they're accusing you of and then continue to show up as the opposite of that, I think that's why so many parents feel so fucking stuck. Because you're constantly feeling like, I don't know what I can do. Is this going to appear like I'm being selfish?

I don't want to come off like I'm actually enjoying my life any, because then they're going to think that I am going and having fun without them. There's all these like ways that you're trying to interpret what your child is interpreting, How they're seeing it.

And so then you end up living this very bland, boring, I don't want to do anything. So I'll just exist sort of life. And that fucking sucks, y'all. You can't do that. I mean, you can do it. But that's probably why you're feeling stuck. Because you're so scared to live into the qualities that you do have. You know, you don't know who you are anymore?

Well, yeah, it makes sense. Because you're so, your inner compass is stuck in either the alienator or your children, Who are being coerced by the alienator. you're damned if you do and damned if you don't in that way. So instead of saying, I want to show up as the opposite of whatever the alienator is.

They're accusing me of you look at all of those things and it's a minor change really but It's a slippery slope. I think when we're constantly thinking Oh, yeah I need to show up is the opposite of what the alienator has told them about me Or the opposite of what my kid thinks about me That is so it's such a you you are Like I feel like you're constantly being pulled like if you're not you're not watching me right now I feel like there's like something You Attached to your core to your belly like a string and you're constantly having to shift the way that you operate based on what you think that they might be interpreting as it's just it's a backwards way of going about it.

So instead, if you decide you put all of those things into a pile and you decide one by one, okay, stubbornness, does this work for me? You know what? Sometimes it really does work for me. So I'm going to keep that quality about me. And anytime it comes up in the future, I will then have a response to that.

Like I've looked at this quality and I think it does work for me. And I'm sorry if you don't like it and me, but it really does work. If now you have that quality and it doesn't work for you in some areas and it does work for you in others Then you have now like a lot more awareness about how you want to address that quality moving forward Where you want to indulge in it and where you don't do you know what i'm saying?

It's just a a much more planned and intentional way To move about your life and that way you're not letting the alienator or even your alienated children You Direct your sale, like

direct your every single move. And then you feel like you have a lot more autonomy agency over your life moving forward, because you've taken all of the things that they've accused you of and all the things that maybe you don't like about yourself. That's really what I want you to do.

I don't want you to really. Make it about what they've said. I really prefer that you take what qualities and things that maybe you've heard constructive criticisms before and you look at those things, right? How do you want to behave moving forward? Right? All in like love, compassion for yourself. and even some tough love sometimes.

this way you will never feel like you have to look to the outside to determine your direction. Thank you. Also, , I think it can be really helpful for you mean, I've kind of been suggesting this the whole time, but how is it not black or white, right or wrong, but, And yes, and like, how are they right and wrong? Not just wrong. How am I right and wrong? because when we're so rigid in our thinking of they're bad. I am good. Then we're actually playing into the very thinking that we are upset. Our children are under the influence of, do you know what I'm saying? It's the same exact thing. We're playing straight into that splitting.

 

Also to the last thing I want to say about this bad good or the second to last thing I want to say anyway, is that, like I've decided already there have been some terrible things that have happened when I was a kid, right? They were terrible. I, I would never want to call those things good, alienation also not a good thing. And if I was looking at a spectrum, I would definitely not call, not call alienation. Um, neutral or good. I definitely would put it towards the bad area, right? There's child abuse going on. There's abuse definitely been done on me.

but When I was I'm thinking about back when I was in the other house I've shared with you guys a lot of times about how I was just expecting them and things to just come knocking at my door and good would just start coming into my world.

This is why for so long I resisted my teachers, this, the 50 50 thinking is because I thought, yeah, but for me, I think it's more like 70 30, like 70 bad, 30 being maybe good, maybe 25. 75. I didn't want to fall for the 50 50 because I had so much bad going on in my life.

And so, yeah, I was the exception to the rule. Alienated parents as a whole must be the exception to the rule because we have so much bad, and I don't know how you could say that there, there's any good to this. My coach at the time was like, yeah, but maybe, maybe it's that you're adding all the extra suffering on top. And so that is where that extra 20 or 25 percent is bad is coming from too. It's like, it doesn't have to be, it's optional, right? You don't have to suffer on top of the bad that already is. We are living in a world that bad shit does happen, right?

Unfortunately, there is some. Awful things that happen on this earth away from alienation. I mean, dark, terrible things that happen. And I know that, you know, that, you know, there's all kinds of cruelty. Oh my gosh. Speaking of like, there's that, just that Diddy thing going on in the news right now, but anyway, terrible things going on, unthinkable things.

That is what the human experience is. And it's awful. It really is. But also with that, there is. 50 percent good to even that out. But where I was back then was I was like waiting around for my, 50 percent good. Well, where is it tapping my foot? Okay. Well, I see all this bad around me. When's the good going to happen?

And then I realized that, wait a second, what is I'm the one that creates the other 50%. What if it's me, and the way that I affect you, and all the other people that listen to the podcast, or the good that I do during the day, or the good I have been making , for myself, and of myself, and my own daily life, and the way that I view just the little things that happen throughout the day.

I can either look at them, that's another thing this article was talking about, it was like, There are studies out there that show it's not the catastrophic things that happen in people's lives that cause depression. I mean, it can cause depression, bad things, big catastrophic things can definitely cause depression.

But it's more that those catastrophic things have caused the daily little things that happen. In people's minds to go negative, you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's not that alienation happened. It's the way that we have then thought about how the world works as a result of the alienation.

So then we make all the daily activities, all the things that happen. Like it rained on a day that we wanted to be outside. Oh, that's just because that's how it works in my world. we drop a bag of groceries. Of course, this only happens to me, Murphy's law, whatever you want to say. Right. It's those kinds of negativity, biased daily, The way that we're looking at our everyday world, that is what really causes depression. And that is actually what causes, what was causing the extra suffering on top of my 50 50 world that we all have. I was 75 25 probably because of my day to day thinking about the world. And so when I started to change my thinking inside about, on default, about how my world behaved, how the world was for me.

And how the world worked in general. Now, for sure, I see it as 50 50. It is. It's just all a matter of how I want to perceive it all. And that's what I want to offer to you guys, too. You know, it's all a matter of perception. And I know, I know, we talk about this a lot of the time. All the time. But it really is everything.

Your perception of this world will determine your experience in this world. It matters. So, that's what I have for you. You don't have to show up as the opposite of what they're accusing you of if that's not how you want to show up as. I get it if you have a strategy and that is what people have told you how to do, but then if that is the case, then make it yours.

Don't let them be the, your determining factor for why you're behaving the way you are, because you will never have your life back. You will always be looking at your life by how they are accusing or determining for you. You know what I'm saying? Take your power back. You decide. Okay. And see how they and whoever else in your life and you, you yourself, how you are good and bad, right.

And wrong. Black and white, all of it, not or, and It's not one or the other.

Y'all don't forget to sign up for the course between now and 11 59 on Thursday evening. Okay. That's it. It'll be done.

And then it goes up to the, the other price. Okay.

Have a lovely day. Now I have to go edit.