Should I Stay or Should I Go? How to Commit Without Losing Yourself

Brett: When someone comes to you with a question, "Should I stay or should I go?" What do you look for first? 

Joe: Yeah. So usually that falls into two buckets, right? The first bucket is the person who's constantly asking, "Should I stay or should I go?" Has been asking it through multiple relationships, multiple jobs, constantly in that question.

And then the other one is somebody who's been in a relationship for a while, and now they've come across this question, or they've been in a job for a while, and now they've come across the question. And so the first thing I look for is which of these two are the case. Now, there's something that's very similar about both of them, but there's stuff that's very different about both of them, and so that's what I first look for before we, like, look for any kind of resolution or how to get to the other side of it. 

Brett: Great. So how do you look for that? How do you tell which of these it is? 

Joe: Well, I just ask them. 

Brett: Okay. So I come to you, and I'm like, "Hey, I've been in this job for a while. I don't know if it's the right job. I feel like I should leave. But maybe I'd lose all the benefits and the money, and I don't know what I'd do otherwise." 

Joe: Yeah.

Brett: "Maybe I should stay. It's safer." 

Joe: Yeah. So the first thing I find out is, how long has this been happening? Is this something that's been occurring over and over and over again?

And then with those folks, I try to understand what's the background that allowed that to occur. So typically, the way that that pattern works is somehow or another, commitment felt really horrible. Commitment didn't feel good. And typically, what that means is that they were asked to be deeply enmeshed in a relationship with a parent or a teacher or a grandparent or something like that where you can't be yourself. You have to bend yourself around me, please me. You know, whether that's through, like, excessive guilt or excessive criticism or just something where it's like, "Oh, your job is not to be yourself. It is to please me," in a very deep way. We all get a little bit of that, but in a very deep way.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And so they are constantly scared of any kind of commitment because they know that they'll lose themselves in that commitment. And now that could be love commitment. That could be work commitment. But it's basically that is, like a fear of commitment, and that can be very compulsive, like a compulsive questioning.

"Is this right? Is this right? Is this right?" And maybe it's not there for the first three months of a relationship or a job, maybe four or five. Typically, it doesn't go more than three, and then it's just on like Donkey Kong from that point on. It's just like bam, bam, bam, constant, "Is this the right person? Should I be here? Is this the right job? Should I be here?" And so that's one thing. The other one is somebody who, been in a relationship for a while, "I like the relationship. Now, I don't know," or, "I liked the relationship, but now I don't know if I should stay or go." Or, "I've been in this job. I really dug it for a while. Couple years went by, now I don't know if I should stay or should I go." And that's like a different question that is being asked, and that's really more of a question of can I be more of myself if I stay or if I go? Meaning I've lost myself in this somehow, which means I'm not being myself in this relationship or job somehow. And is there a way for me to find myself in the job or in the relationship, or do I have to leave to get it? 

Brett: Yeah. So it sounds like it's two versions of the same thing. It's can I stay with myself or will I leave myself? And the former version is the prediction in advance on some level that I don't think I can stay with myself if I enter this commitment, this relationship, this job. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Friendship, it could show up in a lot of different places, I suppose.

And the other one is they didn't make that prediction, but they're finding it becoming challenging to stay with themselves after they've gotten into the job or relationship for some time, which means that maybe they've been abandoning themselves in some ways that they haven't recognized until it started to become painful.

Joe: Correct. That's right. And I would say that some level it might feel like can I be myself, it more likely feels like I'm losing myself into somebody. Right? Which is, it's the same thing, but there's a sense, felt sense of like, "Oh, I'm losing myself into this person," instead of "Oh, am I being myself?" Somehow or another, the feeling like I'm losing myself into this job or into this person is the thing that they're... It's like the felt sense of it. 

Brett: Yeah. So the way that we're describing it right now, it sounds like a very felt sense. There's a visceral feeling of feeling the fear of engulfment or the fear of abandonment or self-abandonment.

And you also describe, you know, this comes up as a question typically. Oh, should I stay or should I go? And often this comes with lists of like pros and cons and cost benefits and asking people for advice. And so underneath, when there's a lot of intellectual figuring out going on, what are some of the emotions that, the, kind of the emotional processes happening underneath? Aside from the visceral sense, what are what are some of the commonly avoided emotions in this situation? 

Joe: The most upfront sense is doubt, typically. Oh, there's just this doubt. And the doubt, unfortunately, when it's there, it's in both ways.

It's like, I doubt whether I should go, I doubt whether I should stay. I doubt if I'm gonna get what I want if I go. I doubt that I will get what I want if I stay. More specifically, I doubt I will feel the way I want to feel if I go. I doubt that I will feel the way I want to feel if I stay.

And so if you like, are, if you're in this pattern, should I stay in the job, should I not stay in the job, and some all-knowing being sat down and said you were like, "I know you're an all-knowing being." They're like, "Yeah, I'm an all-knowing being, and I will tell you that you will feel a lot better if you leave." The solution's done. You leave. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: I know you'll feel a lot better if you stay. "Okay, I'll stay." So it's really the question that they're asking is how do I know which way I will feel better? 

Brett: Or in which way will I feel in such a way that I can be with that feeling? 'Cause there are certain feelings that if I feel them, I'm going to leave myself or leave them. So it's really, it sounds like it's a question of, or a matter of being with, being committed to, being, like staying with parts of yourself, emotions, feelings that you haven't been acquainted with for some time or are very acquainted with resisting.

Joe: Yeah, either resisting or falling into somebody else not to feel. Yeah. Which doesn't quite feel like resistance, but yeah. And then the other piece that's really interesting is that a lot of folks, the way this question comes out for a lot of folks is will I get more growth if I stay or if I leave?

You know, there's this thing. It's kind of close to the trauma that I had as a kid, and if I stay here, maybe I can heal my trauma, but maybe the right way to heal my trauma is to leave here and to not be in this relationship, right? That's the other way that this question presents itself.

Brett: Yeah, is this a growth experience for me, or is this deteriorating me or damaging me? And that's a very good question to ask 'cause there's a lot of times you can stay with something in the name of growth or character building when in reality, it's masochism or- 

Joe: And there's a lot of ways you can completely avoid any kind of growth or character building in the name of, like, "I'm not gonna be in that trauma again." So both of those two things are super possible. And we'll talk about it in a bit, like how do you distinguish between those? 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: But the presentation is typical doubt. Underneath the doubt is, "I don't know how I'm gonna feel good. I don't know which one of these things I'm gonna feel good." And then the underlying question of that is, am I going to find myself either through enmeshment in you or leaving you? And the reality is that the way to be in a relationship that's healthy is to neither be enmeshed nor to leave. And there's some very direct ways to ask that that'll allow for a lot of clarity that we'll get to when we talk about solutions, but that's the real question that the person is in. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Is like, oh, enmeshment, leaving because I don't know how to be here and not be enmeshed, or I don't know how to not leave and not be enmeshed, right?

Brett: So let's ground this in some real-life examples of how this works. 

Joe: Yeah. Okay, so one will be somebody's been at a job for six to eight months, and they don't really question their job, and they come and say, "I don't know if I should stay or go. The environment's toxic, but on some level, I'm learning something, so I don't know if I should stay or go. This is the job of my dreams, but at the same time, my boss sucks. I don't know if I should stay or go." They typically, and I've had tons of clients do this, they have your pros and cons list. You have your, like, SWOT analysis. You're trying to figure out logically what to do. Typically, if you're in this thing, you're not feeling. You're, like, trying to, like, think your way through it instead of feel your way through it, and so that's gonna be far less effective. And you also feel like there's a way that you can know the answer that you can't know the answer to. There's really no way of knowing if your life is gonna be better if you quit the job or not quit the job.

So that's one way that it looks. And another way that it looks is, I'm thinking about a particular client I have, where it's literally 20 relationships, 30 relationships, and it's, "This is... I can't find the woman that does exactly what I need. Here are the seven things that I need for this woman for, to be perfect."

"Oh, wow, look, you found somebody." "Yeah, but they're not quite as good-looking as I was hoping for. Yeah, but there's a way in which she doesn't..." And now all of a sudden there's new criteria. "And I want the love because I want the connection, 'cause I want... But I'm really scared of that commitment because my mom guilt-tripped me, and now anything that's like a love relationship is going to be guilt-trippy."

Or, "Last time I committed to something, it was Christianity and my mom turned that Christianity or dad turned that Christianity against me and so now everything that I think about as far as commitment is like surrendering my soul to an idea that like abandons who I actually am." And so there's just this perpetual constant, "I can't commit. I cannot say yes or no." Yeah, you know, and they're constantly in this... It's almost like obsessive-compulsive in constantly questioning. And oftentimes that's I'm questioning the person, but I'm also questioning the job, I'm questioning if I should've started the company, I'm questioning... and what's odd is some of them can be incredibly successful, not with the marriage but in the job, in this constant questioning.

Brett: There's something else that's interesting here which you touched on a few times where somebody can be like, "Oh, this is actually my dream job." 

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: Or the, there can be some idealization, some, like pedestal kind of thing that goes on that like, "Oh, I actually want to be enmeshed and, engulfed and merge with this thing. I'm seeing something in another person or in the job that I don't think I have and you know, I'm learning so much in the job but, you know, it's really toxic. But I'm learning. There's something here for me." 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: How does that play into this? Like, does like the idealization and like devaluation thing show up like from psychology? Do you see in these people showing up with this pattern is it frequent that they're actually seeing positives that are maybe a little bit overblown and like chasing that? 

Joe: Yeah. They're chasing the future in either way. And so the future is always idealized or demonized. Right?

Brett: So they're leaving right now, their experience right now to be in some perfect future where they're gonna feel the thing they want and not the thing they don't want. 

Joe: Or horrible future. But if you're in the question, you're in the future. You're trying to figure out the future. Because the solution's only in the present; that idealization is there, but always in the future. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: That they can find some sort of future that's gonna take care of it without actually having to deal with it in the present. That's the idealization that's happening. 

Brett: So let's talk about dealing with it in the present.

Joe: Yeah. So if we take the category of folks who aren't constantly doing it, who aren't constantly worried about the enmeshment or the commitment, those folks, and it's, I think it's happened to almost every human being at some point that I know, should I stay or should I go? And the question that I'll ask, if you were to show up as yourself, uncompromisingly as yourself in this relationship or in this job and then find out what happens. Do they fire you? Do you quit? Do you leave the relationship? Do you become happy in the relationship? What happens if you're uncompromisingly yourself in it? And that just solves the problem for a lot of people because they immediately see that they have lost themselves in some form of enmeshment.

They haven't been themselves in some way, and they're like, "Oh, if I am myself, let's see what actually happens. If I say the things I wanna say, if I don't compromise on the actions that I wanna take, if I take the actions that I think are really important, if I draw the boundaries, will I leave? Will I get fired? Will I leave, or will it work itself out?" 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And what's interesting is that maybe 75, 80% of the people, it works out. 

Brett: Yeah. It seems like there's a common failure mode there, too, where someone says, "Oh, you know what? I'm just gonna be myself. I haven't been being myself."

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: But they don't, say, move all the emotion around that recognition, including the anger. And so then they show up to be themselves as a really spiky, resentful, like closed-hearted, defended version of themselves. And then that sort of proves that, "See? If I'm myself, I'm not gonna get what I want. I'm not gonna be accepted, and this was a bad relationship or job or whatever." 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: What do you have to say to that aspect of the pattern? 

Joe: Typically, those people have been resentful and spiky before because they haven't been being themselves, and so they're pissed. And so it's maybe more passive aggression.

Oftentimes, there is a little bit of upfront aggression, and it does happen, like, where they sabotage the situation. So that, that absolutely can occur. I think that most people see it and so anybody who's, like, looking for this kind of an answer most see this as, "Oh, you get to be free." You don't know if you should leave or stay in the job anymore. You don't care if you come or go, obviously, if you're deciding whether I'm gonna do it or not. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: So just go be yourself. Be free. And if you take that with that feeling of freedom, "Oh, I can say this because I don't care if I'm gonna leave." The perfect example of this was Buckminster Fuller. Perfect example of this, and, like, in a very intense way. He is depressed. He's like, "Fuck it, I wanna die." He's gonna walk into some cold lake and kill himself, and he has this idea. He's like, "Well, I could kill myself anytime. It could be today. It could be tomorrow. So instead of killing myself, why don't I do exactly what I wanna do because at any time, if it gets really bad, I'm just gonna, like, I can pull the lever and go out.

So before I just go out, why don't I just be exactly who I wanna be? And like, and Buckminster Fuller basically at that moment was born, and he just created all this amazing stuff in the world because he was now unrelentingly himself. And so it's a very similar thing. It needs to come with that sense of freedom. It's not proving anything to anybody. It's not a chip on your shoulder. It's, "Oh, I get to be myself and see if these people can handle it." 

Brett: Yeah. That speaks to the other side of idealization 'cause if you're idealizing, you know, the partner and then eventually feel lost in that idealization in that, or in the job, in that enmeshment, this is the other side. You can be idealizing the freedom. If I leave this job, if I leave this commitment, if I leave this partner, then I can be who I wanna be. 

Which is just projecting onto some future other state the thing that's actually available right now. But what is it right now that, like, how does the decision change if you were free right now? If you let yourself be free right now. In exactly the way you think you can be free if you do the one thing. 

Joe: Yeah, that's beautifully seen. And I think that's the other piece is that, that idealization of the future, it's like, nah, you're most likely, unless you do a whole bunch of work, you're just gonna repeat the pattern.

Oh, look, you're in another relationship where the same shit happened, where you have the weird same commitment issues where the woman is just as controlling as the last woman, or the man is just as controlling as the last man. Like, that's the most likely thing to happen. Unless you do a lot of work in between, you're gonna replicate that pattern over and over again. And so you're you're so right when you say, "Oh, it's an idealization of the future." Cause it's like, oh, maybe I should leave this relationship so I can go find another relationship that's just like this relationship and be in this exact same pattern again in two months or two years or two decades or whatever it is.

Brett: Yeah. What can be done? 

Joe: Well, so, yeah, before we go into what can be done, let's talk about the other, that other side of the pattern, right? Which is for the person who's, this is not a chronic issue, then the solution is like, "Oh, I can just be myself, and I can have that freedom."

For the person who's constantly questioning the commitment, constantly questioning the love, constantly questioning the job, then you have to look at what's the way that you're scared of getting enmeshed. What's that trigger? What's that thing? "Oh, I'm going to be with a woman, and she's going to say something to me. I'm gonna feel it as a guilt trip," or, "She's gonna guilt trip me, and now I have to sacrifice myself to make her happy." Until you can prove to yourself that isn't gonna happen, that obsessiveness is gonna stay. That compulsion is gonna stay of constantly questioning. So without a doubt, a way to make the relationship most healthy, if it's a non-abusive relationship, generally non-abusive relationship is say, "I'm committed to this relationship. I'm gonna do whatever it takes to make it work." That doesn't mean I'm gonna do whatever it takes to stay in the relationship. It means I'm gonna do whatever it takes so that we can stay in the relationship in a healthy way. That's real commitment to a relationship. That's real commitment to a job.

And if you're, like, fully committed to something, you have a higher likelihood of succeeding by a long shot, whether that's in a relationship or not. But that doesn't mean I'm committed to sacrificing myself to make you happy. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: That doesn't mean I'm committed to taking your guilt trips and bending myself to you so that we stay together. It means that I am committed to not being enmeshed in you, not leaving you. It's both. The commitment is to both of those two things. 

Brett: Right. 

Joe: And whatever we have to do to work that out is gonna be critical It obviously doesn't always work if both people don't have it. So that's another really big question that I'll ask folks. It's like, is your partner, is your job committed to working with you and growing with you or not? Because that's gonna have a lot of downstream effects. 

Brett: Yeah. So I wanna double-click a little bit on that idea of commitment 'cause that can get really, really hairy sometimes. The boss who's like, "I really want your commitment." And you're like, "I'm committed." What are you committed to? You named a couple of different things, but one thing that I heard is, "Oh, I'm committed to the relationship," but what that means is I'm not committed to leaving myself for the relationship. 

Joe: Correct. 

Brett: But then there's something else that you said which is that "I'm committed to not being enmeshed, and I'm committed to not running away."

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And there's some other third path in here that I've never explored 'cause I have not lived this relationship in this way yet. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Hence, I don't know how yet, so we're gonna discover together. 

Joe: Correct. 

Brett: And so what exactly is the commitment? 'Cause the commitment can't be to, "I'm gonna stay together forever no matter what." Cause you're committing to something you can't commit to then. You have to leave yourself if that's the commitment. So what is ultimately the deepest commitment here that somebody could commit to that walks that line between the staying and the leaving, the enmeshment, the self-abandonment?

Joe: It's I'm literally, I'm gonna stay in connection with you is what it is. 

Brett: Stay in connection with you. 

Joe: I'm gonna stay in connection with you. Even when I'm leaving, I'm staying in connection with you. 

Brett: Oh, yeah. 

Joe: It's you've done something that totally offends me, that's totally toxic, and I'm like, "Man, I do not wanna have anything to do with this." I'm coming to you and saying, "Wow, that was totally toxic. That was horrible, and I want nothing to do with this," and what am I missing? It's, you just yelled at me and you're super abusive to me, and I'm like, "I am right here with you when you cannot yell at me and not be abusive to me." Like, when you're ready, I'm not leaving you.

Brett: So it's not, this is not a commitment to a certain fairy tale version of a relationship, 

Joe: Correct ... 

Brett: or a commitment to we're not gonna have a fight, or a commitment to avoiding conflict, or a commitment to a job that looks good on LinkedIn. 

Joe: Right. All of those are the opposite of the commitment I'm talking about. The commitment I'm talking about is I'm going to stay in dialogue with you. I am not going to abandon you, but I'm not gonna abandon myself in every moment. 

Brett: And this reminds me of something we've talked about in the relationship series of, you know, a sign of a healthy marriage is each partner committed to their growth.

Joe: Correct. 

Brett: So there's a commitment to the relationship, and there's a deeper commitment to each person's individual growth. I'm committed to the company, and I'm committed to my career, and I'm committed to being myself and my growth. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And there's a commitment in there to work it out in such a way that I thrive, and staying with a company for a long time can be a really great way to build exponential rewards and thrive. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Same with a relationship. 

Joe: Yeah. And you can leave a company with that level of commitment or a relationship with that level of commitment. I mean, hopefully most of us know somebody who's gotten a divorce where that level of commitment stays, where it's like, "This isn't working out for you. It's not working out for me. This kinda sucks for everybody, and I am not leaving the connection. I'm not like abandoning you and saying I'm out, and I'm not falling into you and enmeshing." So I think that that's right. And then the other thing that you said there, which I think is really super important, I don't think you can not enmesh, and not abandon, and not grow. So growth is what it takes to do this kind of work. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: So there's one way to say you're committed to your own growth. The other thing to say is if you're committed to not enmeshing and not leaving and staying in a relationship, you will grow whether you like it or not. That's just how it's gonna work out.

Brett: Yeah. There's a way that this seems to boil down, where when we talk about enmeshment or leaving, there's like this approach and avoidance, which is just some of, like, the nature of our biological being. Like what are we approaching and what are we avoiding? And so often we can have situations where something that we want and something that we don't want are in the same thing.

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: In the same job, in the same partner. 

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: And growth involves going deeper into it and teasing apart, "Well, this is... I specifically want this. I specifically don't want this." And so that seems to me that that's actually one of the core foundational processes of intimacy, is like getting to know one another in such a way that you learn more about what you want and what you don't want via the other person.

And also learn to tease those things apart in such a way that you can have a very fine filter to allow in the love that you want and draw boundaries with the abuse or the criticism or the toxic work environment or the, hustle culture or whatever is not working for you. 

Joe: Yeah. That's a beautiful way to say it. Intimacy is a way to tease apart... you can say what you want. I would also say tease apart who you are. Right? That intimacy of like, "Oh, this is working for me. This isn't working for me." To be able to break that down into finer and finer detail is what uncovers what you are essentially.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And that's the promise of that kind of commitment, and it's where you go. And it doesn't matter if you're committed to be in relationship with another person or if you're committed to being in relationship with yourself or you're committed to a cause. To not leave relationship is to constantly be asked to refine what's working and what's not working for you. And, like in a weird way, what I would say is, like, somebody who is in a monistic environment where they're completely committed to their internal growth, what they're basically saying is, "I will not leave relationship with myself. I will constantly be looking at and teasing apart what is working for me in this moment and not working for me in this moment. What do I want in this moment? What do I not want in this moment?" And that will evolve. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah, the reason I say all that is because one of the things that I notice is that the folks who are chronically in that place of should I be here? Should I not be here? They're constantly, obsessing on that thing. One of the things that they're doing is they're constantly obsessing on their commitment to themselves as well.

" I don't know if I will be able to hold the boundary. I don't know if I will be able to not fall into the guilt. I don't know if I will be able to..." like, they're not actually in that same relationship with themselves, which is fascinating to me.

Yeah, there's also another piece that I see with those folks. We talked about one of the things about how to work with if you're one of those people who are, like, in that constant obsession. We talked about one way to handle it. I think there's another way to handle it, which is to really just work on the doubt.

And one of the things about doubt is that doubt is a great phrase. I can't remember where I heard it. Heard it, like, a year ago. Doubt is a sin of the heart, which basically means on some level, for you to constantly be in that question, you can't have an open heart, right? You can't constantly be questioning a relationship and actually be loving at the same time.

You have to stop loving somebody to question the relationship. And what I've noticed is there's this idea in society that, oh, if I love you, I could be taken advantage of. If I love you, you might hurt me or something like that. But the reality is when you actually are loving, you have to draw the boundary because you have to stop loving yourself and them if you don't hold the boundary.

Brett: Yeah.

Joe: So let's say, for example, like, to give it, like, a crispness, I'm scared of relationship with you because I'm scared I will be enmeshed with you because you're guilt-tripping me, and my mom guilt-tripped me, and so that whole thing. So I'm sitting here openheartedly loving you. You start guilt-tripping me. I have to shut down to be able to buy into that guilt trip. I have to, like, close my heart to be able to buy into that guilt trip. 

Brett: Or to be able to question it, the relationship. That's something that really struck me about something you just said. You have to stop loving to question the relationship. Yeah. Which is a different thing from you don't have to stop loving to draw the boundary. You don't have to stop loving to say, "This isn't working for me." You don't have to stop loving or being in connection to say "I'm gonna leave and come back when you're not yelling at me." 

Joe: Right, which is why the person on the other side of that perpetual question is constantly, like, chasing the person. That's the payoff. The payoff, if I'm always the one that questions, then I'm always the one being chased, which means I always kinda know you love me, like, you want me. But the person who's chasing doesn't know that you want them, so there's this kind of upper hand thing that goes on there. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: But the other thing is that, like, you actually, to question a relationship, you have to stop loving, but to draw the boundary, "Oh, wow, you're guilt-tripping me right now, and if I allow that, I'm going to, like, close down to you, and I don't wanna close down to you."

Just say that. Like, if you know that you can say that, if you know, like, in your bones you can say to somebody, whatever the thing is, let's say it's guilt, "Oh, wow, I am going to close, if I allow this guilt trip to happen, I'm gonna stop loving you, and I don't wanna stop loving you," that in itself can, like, change everything. Everything.

Yeah. So that's the other thing, is just to know that that doubt is a sin of the heart, and that if you question, you have to close your heart, and you're not loving them. And honestly, to some degree it's, I mean, people are gonna find, over and over again, the person who constantly doubts a relationship if they're in the pattern of chasing. And that's a whole nother podcast, but it's usually not good for anybody. 

Brett: So now I'm thinking, as we were speaking earlier about projecting freedom onto the leaving option, there's also a way that there's a projecting of the open heart. Like, people want naturally to live with an open heart.

Joe: Yep. 

Brett: And if there's context in which they feel their heart closed, that hurts. 

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: And so we're naturally gonna try to gravitate to the places where our heart can be open. An open heart essentially means the opposite of being numb. It means being open to feeling. It means being open to living experiencing the world, and we all want that. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And so when we have learned that we don't get to have that in certain contexts, then we're going to blame the other person. We're gonna blame the job. We're gonna blame the circumstances. 

Joe: Exactly, and then we'll be questioning, "If I leave, can I get that? If I stay, can I get that? I got some of that if I stay, but I don't get it all the time." 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And instead of, "Oh, I'm, right now, in this moment, not in the future, I am committing to having that thing. I'm committing to having that open heart with you, whatever happens." 

Brett: So another aspect of this too is that it seems like the closing of the heart is its own boundary.

It's a natural protection that we learn, that if I'm not consciously aware, we've all been in relationships where we weren't even aware that we were being manipulated or guilt-tripped or criticized. It just hit exactly the same way we talk to ourselves with a voice in our head or the way that our parents talk to us, and it just feels like it's the water that we swim in. But there's some part of us that knows that that's not okay, some part of us that knows that we don't want that. So what happens if we see the closing of the heart that you're talking about as the body's, as the heart's boundary? And as we listen to it, what makes my heart close? 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Then we can become more familiar and more intimate with ourselves in a way that helps us recognize, "Oh, these are the boundaries that I need to draw explicitly. This is the truth that I need to speak. And once I do that, my heart doesn't need to close anymore."

Joe: That's exactly the process. It's a beautifully put way. Yeah, so the idea isn't like, "I'm never gonna close my heart again. Ah." The thing is, "Oh, look, there's my heart. It's closing. That tells me there's something that I need to speak to. That means there's a boundary I need to draw. That means there's something that I need to dig through. Maybe even you and I can dig through it together. Oh, wow, I just noticed my heart closed. I don't know what's causing that, but I don't want it closed to you, so can we unpack that together?"

Right? That's the commitment. That's where the growth comes from. That's what we all want.

Brett: Yeah. And that's available whether you stay or leave. 

Joe: Correct. That's available all the time. And that's why if you're just gonna be yourself in the relationship, it all works itself out. 

Brett: Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. Thank you, Joe. 

Joe: Pleasure. 

Brett: Thank you everybody for listening to the Art of Accomplishment.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. We'd love for you to subscribe, rate us on your podcast app, share us around. This podcast is hosted by myself, Brett Kistler, and Joe Hudson. This episode is produced by Heather Falenski and edited by Charlie Garcia.

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