Something wise(-ish)
I’m about to sound like the crotchety old man I promised myself I’d never become, but there’s something bothering me about the current wave of self-help.
It’s the idea that anyone who causes you stress, dysfunction, pain — major or minor — should automatically be cut off.
You see this kind of thing a lot in pop-psychology TikToks and therapy memes. A lot of creators seem to believe that any form of tension is automatically a) bad and b) the other party’s fault.
Of course, this is total baloney. And dangerously unnuanced.
But this is how a lot of people — especially (sorry) younger people, but even a lot of older folks — tend to think.
They feel it’s their job to protect themselves by removing themselves from challenging situations and arranging their lives in a way that creates as little distress as possible.
And look — I get it.
We all want less pain, not more.
This isn’t completely irrational.
What is irrational — and unfortunate — is cutting someone off before you try to work on the relationship.
Because yes — stress, dysfunction and pain are unpleasant, and they are always a sign that something isn’t working as well as it could.
But the experience of stress/dysfunction/pain does not alone tell you what’s not working, who’s to blame, or what the right solution is.
So when you jump straight to cutting someone off, you usually end up missing a crucial process that has a great deal to offer you (and the other person).
You also miss the reason that this particular situation entered your life — which is to reveal something meaningful about yourself, to show you something important about the world.
But that’s only possible if you’re willing to hang in the tension of an unpleasant experience.
(And if you’re actually interested in growing, of course. Which not everyone is. If that applies to you, no need to keep reading. More time for you to go cut off Aunt Carol and never look back!)
Of course, I’m not saying that you should never cut anyone off.
There are obviously people and situations you need to protect yourself from.
If you find yourself in a truly abusive relationship, in a potentially fatal situation, in a toxically dysfunctional workplace — by all means, run. That’s not avoidance; that’s responsibility.
What I am saying is: Investigate the impulse to lean out rather than to lean in, to run away rather than to move toward.
I've learned this through experience.
And through powerful books like "The Courage to Be Disliked" and "Daring Greatly."
The latter showed me how often we use distance as armor, not healing.
And if you don't have months to spend on these books, at least get familiarized with key ideas.
When I can't find time for full books, I use Accelerated to grasp these insights.
Ten minutes spent reading these insights can shift your entire perspective on a relationship.
They make you realize that sometimes what feels like self-protection is actually self-sabotage. |
Because outside of extreme cases, the impulse to cut someone off or leave a situation usually reveals a part of you that simply doesn’t want to deal with a problem, that doesn’t want to figure out who’s actually accountable for what, that doesn’t want to experience even more distress in the process of creating a healthier dynamic.
At a minimum, challenging relationships and distressing situations deserve some curiosity.
And if you do end up cutting someone off, it’s important to know that you did all you could to work on things. Otherwise, you risk re-experiencing the pain as guilt and regret.
We need to resist the urge to jump to the easiest possible solution — which is often to run — because it deprives us of our own growth.
We simply cannot evolve as human beings without some degree of pain.
Not all pain is inherently or completely “negative.”
We need to separate out “unpleasant” from “bad.”
We need to take a hard look at the stories we carry that tell us something is “bad.”
And we need to embrace the fact that being in true relationship — whether it’s with a person, a situation or ourselves — will always put us in touch with some challenging material.
What we do with that material, how we use it to show up differently in the world — that’s what ultimately determines the quality of the stress/dysfunction/pain that we feel.
But none of that is possible if we jump straight to, “Nope, sorry, I’m out.”
So if you find yourself wanting to cut someone off, take a moment and ask yourself:
Is this situation truly dangerous, hopeless or unsustainable? Or is there some possibility for progress here?
Why do I want to cut this person off so badly? What am I avoiding in myself — as well as the other person — by wanting to leave?
How can I try showing up to this person or situation in a new way that might change my experience, at least as an experiment?
And if you’re interested in hearing how this idea played out in a listener’s life…
Check out episode #1,107, where we took a question from a guy who was wrestling with whether to cut off his “emotional tornado” of a father.
In that segment, we talked about the right reasons to go no-contact with a loved one, how to interrogate the stories that inform these big decisions, and what that listener might be avoiding in himself by pulling away from his (objectively challenging) father.
This letter really captured the patterns that can degrade a relationship. It also brought to life the challenges of being close with someone dysfunctional, and whether we have more to gain or lose by staying close.
Have you found this principle to be true in your world? Struggling to make use of it?
Hit reply and tell me about it. I’m all ears!
On the show this past week
1117: Anne Applebaum | Inside the Fortune 500 of Modern Dictatorships
1118: Son’s Safety Vexed by Schizoaffective Ex | Feedback Friday
1119: Homeschooling | Skeptical Sunday
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