Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
Charles and Dan are just two guys talking about relationships, masculinity, and authenticity. Join them as they discuss books and media, as well as their (sometimes messy) personal stories, to encourage men to join the fight for their mental, physical, and emotional health--because a world of healthy, resilient men is a thriving and more secure world for everyone.
Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
The Let Them Theory: You Won't Change Them
In this episode of Mindfully Masculine, Charles and Dan unpack Chapters 14 and 15 of The Let Them Theory—and the uncomfortable truth that you can’t force anyone to change.
We dive into why pressure backfires, why rescuing keeps people stuck, and how the most powerful form of influence comes from backing off. From partners and kids to friends and coworkers, if you’ve ever tried to “fix” someone, this one will sting a little.
Highlights include:
- The real reason people only change when they’re ready
- How rescuing prevents rock-bottom moments that spark growth
- Why the urge to fix others says more about you than them
- The ABC Loop: Apologize, Back Off, Celebrate
- Deciding if it’s time to accept… or walk away
If you’re tired of banging your head against the wall trying to “save” someone, listen in. This conversation might be the reset you didn’t know you needed.
A is apologize Like apologize for what? What did I do wrong? Probably the way you've approached this in the past, pressure you've provided Exactly yes, either yeah, by what you've said, what you've done, the resentment you may have built up from not seeing the change after so many conversations about it, there's probably something to apologize for. Yeah, to say, even if it's just hey, I've not handled this the best way that I could, and that's not saying I'm a bad person, that's not saying I did all these things wrong, it's just hey. I regret the fact that in the past I've banged my head against the wall trying to solve this problem in a way that wasn't going to work. Sorry about that.
Charles:Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles. Today, dan and I are diving into chapters 14 and 15 of the Let them Theory by Mel Robbins. These chapters hit hard on one of the toughest truths in relationships you can't make anyone change. We'll talk about why pressure backfires, why people only change when they're ready, and how to move from rescuing and controlling to actually influencing in a healthy way. If you've ever felt stuck watching someone you love repeat the same patterns, or if you've been on the other side of that pressure, this one will land for you. Check out mindfullymasculinecom for all our episodes and anything else we feel like sharing Enjoy.
Dan:Hey Charles, good morning, good morning Dan, how are you?
Charles:I am great how a little exhausted it's been. Uh, it's been a busy couple of days.
Dan:I'm sure I don't have to tell you that taylor swift has announced her new album oh, you did need to tell me okay, uh, and so you've been busy listening to it don't.
Charles:Is it the day? No, no, it's only. It's only been announced. It's not. It's not released until october 3rd and it's causing you sleepless nights. Available for pre-order, but, okay, a lot of the um, the swifty talk, my, my instagram feed is just full of all taylor swift accounts and all of the easter eggs and conspiracy theories and everything trying to figure out. You know what it's going to be about. Who's going to be producing the tracks?
Charles:there's a lot going on yeah, and last night she was on the kelsey brothers travis and jason have a podcast, okay, and she was the special guest she's I don't think she's ever done any podcast before, so this was the first time and she was on there to announce the name of the album, the track list, when it was going to be released and, uh, I've seen quite a few women comment online where she's like taylor, the most amazing, unbelievable thing taylor swift has ever accomplished is getting me to listen to a podcast hosted by two men, and to those swifties who feel that way, I would like to say we also have a podcast hosted by two men. We will talk about football far less than the kelsey brothers will uh huh.
Dan:We'll talk about football far less than the Kelsey brothers will Uh-huh. We'll talk about emotions and feelings, a whole lot more, that's true, uh-huh.
Charles:They've only had Taylor Swift on their podcast one more time than we've had her on ours.
Dan:Good point, good point, okay, so it's one. Nothing, all right, right.
Charles:And so, yeah, I'm just and I'm not saying I love Taylor Swift as much as her boyfriend travis does. Obviously that would be insanity would it yes?
Charles:but I could make an argument. I love her as much as jason kelsey does, so I, uh, I will be. I will be sharing this clip, uh, on social media, trying to encourage some of my fellow swifties to listen into our podcast. But yeah, it's uh. The life of a showgirl will be released on October 3rd. Now, I'm not like a a collector Swifty, I'm not going to order. You know, all four versions of the vinyl and all four versions of the CD, and I think she's even releasing a cassette of her album. Oh, good for her, I like that.
Dan:Yeah, that's great.
Charles:But uh, yeah, I will. Oh, it's cool. I will just be listening on my YouTube music premium subscription. Yet I have I'll be looking for the eight track. So I don't think she's making one of those, but she lost me.
Dan:Yeah, there it is. Maybe it doesn't take much for me, though.
Charles:Maybe I could reach out to her, but I was remembering the last, the last time she released an album the tortured poets department. It just happened to coincide with that weekend. I went up to Omaha to eat some steak and go to their amazing zoo and just walking around a brand new city you've never been to listening to some new music that you're excited about. That was a good experience. I had a lot of fun doing that.
Dan:So question for you when you hear those songs again now, does it bring you back big, exactly where you are in the zoo at the time?
Charles:Yeah, zoo, or crazy I was walking.
Charles:Yeah, all the music does I get that? Yeah, yeah, I get that a lot too. When, you know, I re-listened to a lot of my favorite audiobooks over and over, yeah, like, yeah, the jack reacher series, the that's, that's really the only fiction that I listen to regularly. Whenever he and that guy churns out a new book, you know every year and, uh, I'll go back and and start the series, you know every four or five years or so and listen to the audio books again and uh, yeah, it's like the images that pop into your head of, like, oh, I remember, you know, driving to Jacksonville listening to this chapter of the book and I, I remember what car I was in. Uh, sometimes I remember what I was wearing. It's just that the way your those senses come together to rebuild All the connections in the neural network.
Charles:Yeah, that's crazy, but yeah, I uh, yeah, I get that with music too, obviously more, probably more with music, but uh, yeah, that, yeah, it's going to be exciting. I don't have any plans to be anywhere on uh October 3rd when it comes out, but uh, yeah, maybe maybe some sort of a work trip or a conference or convention will pop up where I'll be able to uh listen to it in a novel place. But anyway, yeah, so I'm unabashedly excited about uh more music from my favorite always something good for us I like absolutely.
Charles:All right, let me have a sip of coffee and then we'll start talking about today's episode. How dare you? All right.
Dan:Charles, how do you like your coffee?
Charles:Well, we actually talked about this on way back when we first started the podcast. I had decided that I wanted to change two big things for gosh 2022, I guess it was. I wanted to learn to like tomatoes and I wanted to learn to like drinking my coffee. Black Tomatoes have been harder. Yeah, If we're. I mean there's less seeds in coffee. I get it. That's true, there are less seeds.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:And I have found that you can find decent cheap coffee coffee easier than you can find decent cheap tomatoes.
Dan:Yeah, for sure. I mean the restaurants. It's hard to figure out the quality of the tomatoes I usually in the supermarkets. If you get the like, you get little flavor bombs, like the cherry tomatoes, and if you get, sometimes, the organic kind or and the redder they are typically, the more flavor they're going to have, yeah, so I do, or the redder they are typically, the more flavor they're going to have them.
Charles:So I do. There was a while where, um, I was at either a whole foods or a fresh market or something like that, and they had the little little vines of that's the ones I was talking about. Yeah, yeah, so I got those and then I would uh, when I was making like my eggs and sausage, in the morning, I would roast like three or four of them. That's nice, yeah, and when, when they got roasted to the point where they started to split that, that was a nice little enhancement to my uh, to my breakfast. But yeah, I just I wish I could develop more. I'm pretty much at the point now where I will not ask someone to leave tomatoes off of a taco or a salad.
Dan:Okay.
Charles:I'll just go ahead and tacos, especially, or burritos, right, I'll just go ahead and eat the diced tomatoes and it's fine where five years ago I wouldn't? There's no way I would. I would tell as I had, they had all right it off. But now it's just like okay, this doesn't taste so bad that I'm gonna either inconvenience myself by removing it from the app that I'm ordering from or telling somebody to leave it off. But yes, I like. I like my coffee black. How do you like yours Black as well?
Dan:Black, but I've been adding a little bit of I like it a stronger and adding a little bit of almond milk to it just to kind of lighten it up a little bit. So yeah, nothing crazy, but I appreciate going out with friends or whatever and they will get. Let them have sips of their crazy concoctions and stuff like that.
Charles:But yeah, have sips of their crazy concoctions and stuff like that. But yeah, for me it's just gonna be black. Now I don't get black coffee at starbucks anymore because I find that their brewed coffee always tastes burnt to me. So starbucks I only will get americanos. Yeah, because those just taste milder to me, for whatever reason yeah, me too, and their brewed coffees do yeah so, all right, good talk, we'll see how much of it stays in all, all right.
Charles:So this was a. We got a couple of chapters here, 14 and 15 about working on other people when you when you want, dare I say need other people to change. Mel Robbins in her book the let them theory talks about how to deal with that situation. I wasn't going to, I was going to say how to change other people, but she doesn't really I wouldn't say she attacks it from. Here's how you change other people. It's more of here's how you adjust and deal with the situation when you feel like somebody needs to change.
Charles:Yeah, chapter 14, the sort of the. The key message of chapter 14 is people are only going to change when they feel like changing themselves. And I would say if, then because there've been a ton of ways in my life, even recently, where it's like I really want to change this, like I I really do want to change it, I mean it. I try to set up a process and a system and it's still really, really hard. Yeah, We've talked about that on podcasts before. When you look at how hard it is to change yourself, how are you going to apply that to somebody outside of yourself? You can't.
Dan:It's really difficult for even yourself. For me it's. It's kind of like we talked about motivation this morning. Right, it's like a really a blip on the radar. It's a real, it's an urge, spike, a spike. Motivation is a spike, and that's the problem. Is that motivation and I think she mentions in one of the chapters is if you're not feeling enough pain from doing what you're doing, you're not going to change. Or if your drive isn't strong enough, consistent enough, to want to stop doing what you're doing, you're not going to do it. So, like you know, I've said I want to change, I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do this, and then it's just like, well, it's not strong enough or it doesn't last long enough for you to actually do what's uncomfortable, to make those changes.
Charles:Yeah, and so we'll. We'll get back to getting other people to change first. But when one of the thoughts I had when I was listening to this chapter this morning on the drive over was, um, in my case, the times that I've been able to pull off significant long-term change, it's been one of two things, ideally a combination of the two. One you get to that level of just either you could call it disgust or fatigue or whatever where you're just like I can't live this way anymore, you just can't do it.
Charles:The pain the pain is there, yeah, or even if it's just, even if it's not like when I was walking around 40 pounds bigger, I wasn't in any kind of pain compared to where I am now. It was just, yeah, it's just, even if it's not like when I was walking around 40 pounds bigger, I wasn't in any kind of pain compared to where I am now. It was just like. This is annoying, like you know. Getting out of breath by putting my socks on, like that's something I had, that was happening to me every day, like bending over having your belly fat push up into your lungs, where it's like, okay, I've got to hold my breath while I put my socks on. It's like that wasn't a painful experience, but it just ground me down day after day. And then also the way I looked in the mirror and it's like a whole bunch of things that I was exposed to all the time. At one point I finally said that's it. I've had enough of this, I'm not going to tolerate this anymore.
Charles:But it was also, you know, I did have fairly vivid memories of in high school and college. You know, me and my friends would like literally stay up all night playing full court basketball, just running back and forth. It's like so I know what it's like to have the capacity to do that and I remembered what it was like and so, yeah, there was. I couldn't gaslight myself into believing. Oh well, you're 35 years old, it's natural for you not to be able to put your socks on. Good, oh, got a breath. Got it.
Charles:But, yeah, also also the fact that, okay, I'm in this you know weird transition period of being going from a married guy to being a single guy, it's like this That'll wake you up on so many fronts. Yeah, it's also like let's just big change. Yeah, here's, here's a way I can feel better about yourself, or at least better about yourself when you want to change, whether it's you know how much you consume alcohol, or getting into therapy or losing weight or giving up smoking. If you just put yourself into a group of people that the sole reason that they get together and socialize is because they're all trying to overcome the thing that you want to overcome, that's powerful, it's extremely powerful.
Charles:And I've I've found that through the men's group that I go to, it's like we're all there to work on pretty much the same thing and talk about how working on it this you know, we get together once a week and talk about how working on it for the last seven days has gone. It's so much easier when you've got that and I don't know exactly how that I mean with, obviously, alcohol codependence. It's like, okay, there are groups specifically made for overcoming those challenges with trying to drop some weight or get better at managing your finances or there are other areas where it's a little harder to see exactly organically how you can find that tribe of people. But that, yeah, I really do say that if you can both get to the point where you're disgusted and plug yourself into a group of people that are trying to accomplish the same thing you are and just spend as much time around them as you possibly can, yeah sure.
Dan:It's going to make it so much easier from being in that group, just from casual conversations even in terms of how I'm handling it, how I'm thinking about this. I struggled and this is the way I solved it Right and just that. The amount of additional knowledge to get that from somebody firsthand is.
Charles:Yeah, and it does a lot for feelings of you know, loneliness and isolation to the. The one of the phrases that people in recovery use a lot is the idea of hearing your story coming out of somebody else's mouth and how, how enriching that is and how inspiring that is. Like, oh, this guy's, this guy's going through the same thing I'm going through and he's. He's figured out a way to deal with it for the last week, so maybe I can too.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:So that's uh. Yeah, those are two, so we'll get back to you. Know, how do you, how do you get somebody else to do that? Well, you kind of don't. And you know they've either got to decide okay, I'm sick and tired of living this way or I'm going to plug myself into a group of people that are accomplishing the thing that I want to accomplish or, like I said, ideally both of those things, and really all you could do is set up the environment for them in non-invasive ways that make it as easy as possible for them to come to those conclusions.
Dan:Yeah, and I'm not sure if you want to get into this point, but but?
Dan:but she also talks about modeling the behavior that you want to see in that other person. So in a way, you are kind of doing what you just said, which is you're not creating a group, but you are creating at least one other person in their life that is going not necessarily going through what they're going through, but is modeling the change that you want to see in that other person. So at least it is, and hopefully you're doing it in a way where you're not making them feel bad about not being where you are but you're modeling it and you're not necessarily forcing it down their throat.
Charles:You're showing them how to do it and then letting them figure out. It's a friend, a kid, a partner that you think there's something big that they need to change. That's going to be an opportunity for either some pretty nasty conflict or it's going to be an opportunity for some pretty high quality connection, and that connection can come from the empathy of, I guess, one of two things Either they're struggling with something that I have not yet done myself, so it's easy for me to understand how difficult it must be for them because I haven't done it either, or it's going to be. They're struggling with something that I struggled through and figured out how to get to the other side of. So I still know how hard it is because I've had to do it myself.
Charles:Yeah, and so I think either one of those ways I mean we'll take, you know, quitting smoking, for example it's either you know you think they need to quit smoking, but you're still smoking, and then it's like, okay, well, I haven't stopped this myself. So I know, you know, if, if I think it's important for them to stop, but I'm still doing it, well, then yeah, clearly it's hard to do, Otherwise I would have. I would have stopped doing it myself, Sure, and if you did stop doing it and you're waiting for them to stop and hoping that they stop and it's like okay, well, even if you thought that it was easy for you, you still do have to kind of acknowledge I had either a process or an experience that changed my thinking on it, even if it happened in a moment. You went from the identity of I'm a smoker to the identity I'm I am no longer a smoker and in that context it was probably.
Dan:You were probably in a situation where somebody else wasn't pressuring you and forced you to do it right. Most likely most likely. And even if they, and even if they were, how did you feel in that environment?
Dan:probably not good, yeah so either the idea you they came down so hard on you that you had no choice but to comply right, which feels bad every time, and and mel acknowledges that's where she came from, where she was basically like forcing her kids to basically or other people to like do these changes, and she acknowledges that she raised her children in a way that kind of helped bring about more anxiety, which she had herself.
Charles:Yeah.
Dan:Instead of really just allowing them you know, giving them the support around them, dealing with the consequences of feeling anxious so she tried to solve their anxiety. For example, she's talking about how her daughter would come and try to sleep with them. Uh, she was really young and her husband was livid with her because she allowed her to do it for like six months in a row and all it did was she. You know, her daughter was scared of sleeping in her own bed. She tried to sleep with the parents and mel facilitated that, instead of letting the daughter figure out how to be okay sleeping in her own bed right and because of that, she, she, you know, she admits she did it the wrong way.
Dan:She basically that and then later in life, the daughter wasn't given, didn't have the tools to deal with anxiety in other situations yeah, she was teaching her daughter.
Charles:yes, you're right to be scared to be in your own bed. Right, because I'm giving you this way out and obviously, if you didn't need this way out, I wouldn't be providing it and you didn't figure out your own way out. Yeah, I was. I was reminded for that section, thinking about you know when, when my ex-wife and I got our dog and it was like you know, you get an eight or 10 week old puppy and you try to trait, crane them so that they sleep in their crate overnight, it was just non-starred crying and whining. But you know, we, we were both on the same page of okay, do we? Do we want a week of rough nights or do we want 15 years of a dog that doesn't know how to behave? It's good you had that, that, that insight to really, you know, to look at it that way, we were both and we were both on board with it, whereas, like, we are not going to, we're going to, we're going to just and how'd that work out?
Charles:It wasn't. I mean Holly was an amazing dog Cause she I mean she listened to my ex and I. We took her through training. I mean, when it comes to pets, especially dogs, I believe a trained, obedient dog is a happy dog because they're not freaking out all the time, because they don't understand where they are, like an untrained dog thinks it's in a pack with no leader. Yes, so the uh and yeah, same with with kids. You know it's not. They need to understand that there are calm, rational minds in control of the situation. And by indulging them with I'm scared to sleep in my own bed. That's not the message you're sending.
Dan:If they don't have the tools to figure out how to handle it. Right, right, so, or at least they need to develop those, and that's the mission there, right?
Charles:Yeah, and that's what?
Charles:Uh, yeah, one of the things I thought about, um, when I was listening to this was, you know, the, the impulse that we have to control other people's behavior and modify other people's behavior.
Charles:A lot of times, that comes from, you know, a lack of security on our own part, where we are not willing to take on the reality of okay. I either need to be okay with tolerating other people's behavior or I need to remove myself from the situation. And that's when it's very important and very difficult to be able to set those limits of okay. I need to be really honest with myself about what's a deal breaker and what's not a deal breaker, because if it's my, my hubby's carrying around some, uh, some visceral fat that I know is going to lead to problems 20 years down the line, and, uh, I wish he was in a little bit better shape. Or my husband gets drunk too much and gets verbally abusive with me, I mean, you got to decide, okay, which, which of these is tolerable, which of these can I say, all right, he's going to, I'll let him handle himself, and which one is it going to? I'm going to? Let me get my ass out of the situation.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, I mean I think, yeah, it's a physical threat.
Charles:I mean it's a no brainer in that case. But it's hard, you know, most of the time it's not that cut and dry, it's not that black and white Right.
Dan:So, for example, if you know your child grows up and becomes an adult and then is in debt and has lots of credit card debt and you see your parent basically give them big sums of money to kind of pay off that credit card debt, what happens next we all see, right, yeah, and I think a lot of it is comes back to the previous chapters she talks about is we are all really children.
Dan:As adults, we are really just children in terms of our emotions. As the, the loving parent, a lot of us don't have the ability to handle our own discomfort and emotions. That it's going to require to say no, I'm not going to give you that money to bail yourself out of this debt, and you need to. She talks about having the ability to say okay, look, you got to put some conditions down and go look, you know what, I'll loan you this money, but it's got to be paid back in such a fashion, or you need to do X, y and Z type of thing in order to really start to, I guess, change yourself. If you're not willing to do that and feel uncomfortable when you enforce those boundaries, that's where I think a lot of us give in and say, all right. Well, the screaming kid. I can't deal with the screaming kid in the grocery store, the toy store.
Dan:I'm just going to buy that food or that toy for them because I can't handle it Right.
Charles:parents of friends it's always been the ones that are like basically, I am an unlimited source of conversations and hugs, but other than that, I'm not giving you anything else unless I decide that it's the right thing to do for you. Whether that's money, a car, co-signing, a loan it's like I'll evaluate those on a on a case-by-case basis, but the only thing you can absolutely count on me for is hugs and conversations, and yeah so, so many of the time, so much of the time, I've seen people struggling with negative behaviors or addictions and it's like you know, right before they're gonna hit rock bottom, a parent throws a mattress or a trampoline underneath them when, in reality, the only thing that would have slammed into the ground and broken was the bad behaviors. It wasn't going to be the person.
Charles:That's good, I like that, but then you toss that magic. Yeah, it's like, okay, live to fight, spend drink, shoot up, whatever.
Dan:It is another day no-transcript, and realizing that if we do anything in terms of putting pressure on them, trying to force them to change, it really is a reflection of ourselves that we need to change the things about us that we need to change so that we can handle them struggling and feeling the consequences of their decisions and of not changing.
Charles:I've watched so many reality shows, documentaries about addiction and how people are able to get out of it, where there'll be a situation where the family is just like I especially resonate with when the dad does this like I would do anything to help him or her, I would do anything to get him off this stuff, I'd do anything to blah, blah, blah. And then the counselor or the doctor will be like, okay, well, what you need to do is get as healthy as you can for yourself. Get into a program like Al-Anon, where you understand what it's like to live with somebody who's got an addiction. Get into codependence, anonymous, get into a group like that. And it's like so many of these guys are like I'd walk over broken glass for my little girl.
Dan:it's like, okay, we'll get in therapy oh, hold on, it's like, oh, my like this expert is telling you the one thing that you could do that would actually help.
Charles:Yeah, like, uh, you know, I don't think that'll actually work, so I'm just gonna not do it keep doing it my way.
Dan:yeah, the irony, though right, is this like, oh, I can't, I can't do this little change, and yet you expect this other person to do this monumental change.
Charles:But the people that have something going on that you think is so important that they need to change. The most valuable thing you can give them is the version of your presence where you're at your own, healthy, healthiest, best, absolutely, yeah. So, whatever it is that you've got going on, even if it's, you know, something completely unrelated to the issue, that they need to change. But it's very easy when it's like okay, well, I want them to be in better shape, so I need to be in better shape. I want them to be in therapy, so I should be in therapy.
Charles:Sometimes it's not one-to-one like that, but you've got something. You know the fact that you're spending your all, you're all this time around somebody that has a problem so big that you think it needs to change. Yeah, that does shine a light on yourself, like, okay, I've got some work to do. There's no way anybody who's complaining about my partner needs to change this. Anybody vocalizing that complaint to themselves or others. They're not at 100 out of a 100 when it comes to their own mental health. There's just no way, because none of us are. But any of us who might be close to that 100, 100, we're not spending our time complaining about other people needing to change.
Dan:Yeah, right, yeah, you know, and I think if you really love that person, use some of that energy, that that anxiety you have of them doing what they're doing. Use that as some fuel and fire to do the thing that's difficult for you. That could be one of your whys, of why you are going to do that change and that might keep you going. It might be a little bit more than that spike of that motivation, right? It's day in and day out you're seeing this person struggle. That's a lot of spikes of motivation of why you should go out and become that person that you want that other person to be.
Charles:Sometimes focusing on other people's problems as a way you can distract yourself from not doing the work that you need to do in your own life and just kind of ask yourself is there a chance I might be doing some of that? Is there something big that I wish I was working on, but it's? It feels too hard, so it's easier for me to tell them about what they need to fix. Absolutely yeah, I, I know I've been in that position before. So okay, here's let's get into what does work. Uh, the ABC of influence. Accept their current state, their timeline, their readiness level, their autonomy. Be supportive without pressure, available without pushing, patient with the process and consistent in your own actions. Create a safe space for change, opportunities for growth, positive environment and natural motivation. So there's a couple ABCs in here. The first one is that ABC of influence. The next one is the ABC loop of here's how you can actually influence them in a positive way.
Charles:A is apologize, like apologize for what? What did I do wrong? Probably the way you've approached this in the past, pressure you've provided Exactly. Yes, either yeah, by what you've said, what you've done, the resentment you may have built up from not seeing the change after so many conversations about it. There's probably something to apologize for, yeah To say, even if it's just hey, I've not handled this the best way that I could.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:And you know that's. That's not saying I'm a bad person, that's not saying I did all these things wrong. It's just, hey, I. I regret the fact that in the past I've banged my head against the wall trying to solve this problem in a way that wasn't going to work. Sorry about that Way to start any important conversation with somebody. Yeah, hey, dan. First let me apologize.
Dan:Yeah, because you're being vulnerable, you're putting yourself out there first.
Charles:Yeah, so that's, I agree with her on that technique. Then second one is back off and observe their behavior.
Dan:So apologize to them, say what you've done wrong and then mean what you said by backing off Absolutely. Right If you don't back off and it's kind of like, well, just apologize.
Charles:Yeah, what kind of apology, sorry.
Dan:What do?
Charles:you mean the pressure Sorry for all the pressure that I've been putting you under to change this and the pressure will resume tomorrow morning. No, that's not going to be helpful in accomplishing the goal whatsoever. So back off and observe, and she said sometimes I think she said minimum of six months of backing off and observing, because it takes, because they're not going to believe it at first, even even if they're not openly saying I don't believe you're sorry, I don't believe you're going to back off. Yeah, it's like you've got to show them over an extended period of time like no, I'm serious about changing the way that I behave about this issue.
Dan:I mean that's the thing, right? If you've been behaving this way for years, words don't mean nearly as much as actions and you may have pre-programmed their mind and their assumptions to feel and to look at you as somebody who provides pressure in this area and I know actually it happened with my sister is. For many years I would pressure her to try to change her, like the way she handles finances, and you know, recently I've backed off or in the last few years, whatever, I've definitely backed off, but even this casual conversations. Now she's very reluctant to talk to me about financial stuff and she's said different phrases and words that have led me believe that she still thinks that I'm gonna be judgmental about it and I have tried to reassure her. I have reassured her that that's not the case and that this is different. But you know what I've not done, I've never done like a formal apology, so I'm gonna do that the week's time I talk to her. All right, let me talk.
Dan:That's a piece that I didn't learn about until this book. Yeah, ironically, she's the one who told me about this book. Oh, yeah, yeah, Okay, that's her way of manipulating, controlling me, to try to get me to apologize.
Charles:Yeah, son of a, there's this great book called. You might want to paste particular tess in chapter 14. Yeah, megan, yeah, I, I definitely. Uh, I like to think I've mellowed out with. I mean, you wouldn't be able to tell by listening to this show, but I've mellowed out with how judgmental I am with people, certainly a lot from college, young adult years and uh, yeah, I'm.
Charles:I am sure that even when we talk to our friend Rob my friend from college, your friend, since I provided that link to you and our friend of the show he's been on a few times I'm sure that there are probably some topics that we get into when he and I are discussing things, when he is probably prepared for judgmental 22 year old Charles to rear his head about things and that could be a bit of a bummer.
Charles:And uh, yeah, I, you know. But I find with most people, you know when, when you go from, we just live life and you have successes and failures and you get chewed up and spit out a little bit, most people tend to get less judgmental with age, and then I mean, I guess some generations, then you get really old, you get less judgmental with age and then I mean, I guess some generations. Then you get really old, you get super judgmental again, so hopefully I can avoid that one. But yeah, so observe the behavior and really that's good for both you and them, because if you're, if you the backing off part, not only does it increase the chances that they'll actually change the thing you want them to change, but the act of backing off is also good for you because you don't feel like so much of your identity is tied up in whether or not they choose to do this thing that you've told them is important to you.
Dan:Or your feelings are no longer tied to that as much either Right it's. I feel if you're investing time and energy in trying to control something and control something you can't control and it's not giving you the results that you want, yeah, that's not great for your emotional state.
Charles:The last one is celebrate progress while modeling change and celebrating the little victories is something we learned quite a bit from with the tiny habits as well. And we learned quite a bit from with the tiny habits as well, and I would just say you may have an impulse. I especially think about this because of my own experience where, with kids, when you're trying to, I think some parents can go a little over the top with celebrating little victories to the point where it feels weird and cringy and disingenuous. And I think that could probably be the case with partners and friends as well, where you know, just a very kind of for me, what would work the best is a very low key approach, like, hey, I noticed that you, uh, you've been doing some work in this area and just wanted to, just want to let you know I've noticed good for you.
Charles:The D and E is, uh, what we've alluded to a little bit already, which is decide if this is a deal breaker. Is this behavior truly unacceptable? Can you accept them as they are? What are your true non-negotiables? And I've yeah, I've counseled and advised friends in situations where it's like I'm not happy with my partner and my relationship. I was like, okay. Well, what's the plan You're going to? You're going to get happy or are you going to stop complaining, because those are the only two things that are really in your power to do? You know, option three of I want to snap my fingers and have them change all the things I don't like. Well, okay, you can want that if you want to, but if it was going to happen, it would have already happened, so that's not on the table. So are you going to develop within yourself a way to say I am truly and honestly okay with this the way that it is, or are you going to remove yourself from the situation? Because, in many cases, those are the only two choices that you have Learn to accept it or learn to leave it, and so many of us, though, we're just like. I'm not going to do either of those.
Charles:The thing about boundaries is, the successful implementation of a boundary is unrelated to whether the relationship continues to exist or not. Yeah, you set the boundary, you maintain the boundary, and then whether or not the relationship survives is just a symptom of the choice you've made to set and hold the boundary. And if you you've chosen the right boundary, you vocalized it and you've held it in the right way, then, whether that person's still in your life or not, it'll work itself out and you'll know that it's the right, the right choice. Yeah, so, okay. So that's that's where we are with chapters 14 and 15.
Charles:I felt like most of what she had to say in here was pretty good, the only thing that I I it did seem to she focused a little bit more on doing things like backing off because of how it affects the other person, where I tend to say do the backing off because it's good for you and whether that affects them, changes them or not, it's the right thing for you to do for yourself offer the apology, back off and then go ahead and celebrate the little victories and that's the right thing to do, whether they ever change or not. Oh yeah, and just adopt this pattern of behavior and then decide. You know whether this is assuming you're doing those things and it never changes. Are you still okay with the relationship? If the answer is no, then you know, after at least the six months that she recommends of backing off. Then you could decide whether you should stick around or not.
Dan:Good point.
Charles:And I mean, you know, depending on how dangerous or disruptive the behavior is, maybe you don't give it six months. I mean, if it's something that is really harming your mental or physical health, then it's either, you know, stop this right now, if this ever happens again, I'm out of here and then and then deliver on that promise, right. But if it's something that you think you can live with, give some time to see the change. Because again, if hey, I'm going to, I'm going to back off. And again, if hey, I'm going to, I'm going to back off. Like, okay, I mean, even if a really honest person says that who's been nagging you for a while, it's just it's not going to come natural for you to believe that they're actually going to back off. Like, I believe you want to back off, I believe that you think it's a good idea.
Dan:But, just like you, want to see the change in me. Like I need to see the change in you, yeah, in me. Like I need to see the change in you yeah. I think I think the key here would be to verbalize the apology, not the backing off right, it's, I think.
Charles:I mean, I think the commitment to back off should be part of the apology yeah you know what I mean. Just to say, hey, as long as they'll also let, all the nagging I've been doing is wrong and I'm not going to do that anymore that's something like okay, that's different versus I'm, you know my concern was You're going to sit back and stare at you to see if you change, to come across that way.
Dan:Or come across that you're not going to support them anymore. Certainly Could also mean hey, and that's not the case here. You're still there to support them in whatever way you're comfortable with, obviously, but in a way that is not going to be you forcing that support on them. It's them saying hey, I'm providing the space here, Right, If you need support.
Charles:Yeah, I see what you're saying. You don't want to make it sound like I'm washing my hands.
Dan:Exactly, yeah, right, right, you know, yeah, that's exactly what I'm trying to say.
Charles:Yeah, sorry for not realizing this was a task, so now I am done with you. You don't want to come across that way. I agree, all right, so let's stop there and next time we will, uh, come back with chapters 16 and 17. Sounds good, thanks, dan. Thanks for listening to all the way through this episode of the mindfully masculine podcast. If today's conversation on change and influence resonated with you, share this episode with a friend who might need it, and remember you can always find our full library of episodes, audio and video, at mindfullymasculine.
.jpg)