Episode 123 – I F*cked Up, Again – Solo

Michael 0:05
what's up, gentlemen, this is Rising Phoenix podcast podcast about how to rise up after divorce. I'm your host divorce coach, Michael Rhodes. Let's get into

Michael 0:19
it.

Michael 0:21
Hello, and welcome to the show. This is episode 123. This is going to be a solo episode and I'm going to cover a few different things, but the main topic is going to be fucking up. More specifically what to do when you do fuck up. Before I get to that, I want to cover a few things. I've been trying to I think you may notice I'm not sure that have been trying to put these things out every Tuesday. That didn't work out this week, I was in a little bit of a funk. And I'll kind of talked about that a little bit. So

Michael 0:55
I was seeing someone for a little bit.

Michael 0:58
Three weeks ish. It was going pretty well. And but I did see some red flags

Michael 1:09
that I was very conscious and aware of. But I guess I maybe hoped that there would be a way to sort of, you know, resolve them or certainly handle them address them. Again, you know, back to some of my earlier episodes lately, in some of my struggles is been, you know, sort of having difficult conversations. And the win here is that I had a difficult conversation, I spoke my mind about a particular red flag. And it didn't go well, this particular person, and they ultimately ended it, but I think the catalyst was me addressing this particular red flag, I'm not going to go into too much specifics. I think that's probably enough. But it did it did suck it. But I gotta say, Man, the work fucking really does pay off because, yes, it sucked. It wasn't a pleasant experience. But a bounce back much, much quicker. Obviously, only three weeks isn't into there wasn't a lot of time to get attached. I mean, we I genuinely liked her physically, she was very attractive. But it wasn't, you know, a long term, obviously relationship. So there's, there's, that's probably part of it. But the other part of it is just the being mindful of where I was at and taking steps to move on and move forward. But the you know, not only is it the victory, is there a victory there? You know, clearly being able to bounce back, when you're rejected is a victory period. I don't give a fuck what it was. That's a victory. But the real victory, I think is in speaking my mind, and not ignoring red flags. And not only is that there's there the payoff and doing the work in those two things, right, being able to not only talk about a red flag, but identify it. And also then when something ends to be what again, not long term, so it's perhaps not apples to apples in terms of how difficult it can be to move on clearly, especially in a very long term relationship, but but just the ability to move on period and to see it differently, to see it not as a rejection, although it did initially, but to see it as an opportunity for growth, and I'm going to get to the meat of this fucking up is a huge opportunity for growth. So you know, it's not just those two things, that that's that's those are victories. Those are good things. But it's, it's the it's the self worth you gain from doing the work to be able to point out or talk about or address a red flag and not just sweep it under the rug, because she was very attractive and the sex was that if you do the work you won't be so desperate to be with somebody was it great to have someone to text every morning and every night? Yeah, it was pretty fucking cool. Was it awesome to have someone to have sex with that was super attractive? Yes, it was pretty fucking awesome. But did did it? Was it everything that it could be? No, not no. And therefore when it ends, I can go well, a wasn't perfect and it wasn't everything that I had hoped it would be and more importantly You know, be I'm, I'm, I'm going to be okay. And I'm worthy of getting something that I want. Now there is a danger I think for myself for sure of being too picky. But I don't think that was the case here. I don't think it was it is me being protecting myself by being super super picky? I don't think so. I think it was a legitimate red flag. And if you're in the discord server, you know what the fuck I'm talking about. If you really, if you're listening to this, and you're not in the discord server, if you're if you're trying to work on yourself to be a better man to $5 a month, I don't really think is a lot to ask. And there's some some changes are going to come up in the future. And we've been kicking around some things me and some of the other fellows in that group, about about some changes to the discord server, but it's God sakes, it's worth $5 a month. Anyway, I'm getting off track but so but but it did throw me in a bit of a funk for a couple of days. And so that's why this was delayed. But but I'm good now. It I was basically we I pointed out my my red flag that I brought up my red flag on the Saturday and by Monday or two, I guess yesterday, I guess it was Tuesday, she sort of ended it. And it's Wednesday. So I mean, I was in a funk. On Sunday and Monday, because I had I addressed this red flag and I can tell that it affected her she didn't like it. She didn't feel like I could see it coming in a way. And but again, that's not a bad thing. You know, ultimately, the rejection was was really rooted in me standing up for myself and saying, you know, I don't, I don't really like this thing here. And not about I mean, it was about her, but you tried to say it in that way. But you may not I probably could have handled it a little bit better in terms of the way that I brought it up. But long story short, I fucking did bring it up, it led to a rejection and that's, I'm fucking fine with that. And now initially, it was like, I wasn't doing cartwheels. Can't do cartwheels anyway, but, but I wasn't, you know, super happy. But, you know, again, reflection, work distance time. They allow you to see things in a and being able to get out of fight or flight and trees and fallen and they laid allows you to see things logically and logically, this red flag wasn't going to go away. It just wasn't no matter how hot she was, or how much fun the sex was, that red flag wasn't, it was clear to me, it wasn't gonna go away, she didn't see a problem. And that's fine. That's her, let her do her thing. It just didn't fit with me and my values and my expectations. And I'm gonna get I'm gonna get to expectations too. So anyway, I'm good. And and I am feeling very positive about how the situation was handled by myself. So fucking kudos to me. And again, it's really about the work paying off. So but sometimes, we don't feel so good about things, particularly our fuck ups in our mistakes. And I posted this, and I mentioned this, I think, in a couple of episodes recently, and I certainly certainly posted about it on my Facebook page, Michael rose divorce coach fucking up is your best opportunity for growth and for learning. And that's how you have to start looking at these things. Instead of saying oh, I fucked up again and beat yourself up. It's really more about saying oh, I fucked up what can I learn from it? And I know that's not easy because we we get in these these loops these these neural pathways get grooved into our brain and we fuck up we have this loop that says it's because I'm a piece of shit. Well fuck all that. So instead of doing that, and this isn't this isn't easy. This is the work right here you go okay, I did fuck up. I'm not a piece of shit. What can I learn from it in every time you fuck up, it might take you two days to get to that mindset and might take you a week. But eventually it'll get less and less and less than less. If you keep practicing it in all of this stuff, all of these things moving on you know, dealing with the holidays, dealing with her dating, dealing with missing the kids these all these things all take fucking effort to overcome. You can't just sit around and hope that it gets better. There are something Yes, things get better with time. I suppose that is true. But if you don't do any work, then when those things hit you again, then you're going to be faced with the same feeling same emotions and no way to really deal with them. So anyway, so you fucked up. Okay, step one is you accept it and you say that yep, I fucked up. And by the way, if you see me Looking down here, I took fucking notes on this one for once.

Michael 10:04
Because I think this is an important topic and two, I wanted to sort of hone out what what am I doing lately, that has helped me with these fuck ups that I've had and that I've made not this stuff with the female, some other stuff? And what have I been doing? And how can I hone it in and make it a little better even. And you're gonna probably hear episodes in the future where I do it a little differently. That could be anything from moving on to letting go to depression episodes, etc, etc. You know, again, that's the work you're constantly not constantly because sometimes you got to take a fucking break and just enjoy life, man. But if if you're always trying to find ways to get better you will. And that means some things that you do now will be different than when you do them in the future. So I reserve the right to change my process. So the next step in this process is by now there is a process called the Five why's you don't always have to use five, it might take two, it might take 10. I don't know. But you keep asking why. And I think the important thing is when you you get to the root of it, but but the root of it is typically how you felt. So how you felt dictates your actions typically. So let me let me read let you go through this, and then go back with examples. Let me do that. Let me just go through the steps. And I'll go back to the example as best I can to find something to allow us to go through these steps. And we can go through together here and you can kind of understand what I'm saying so, so get to the root get to your feeling about the fuckup. Again, this will probably go a lot better once I start using an example. But bear with me. The next thing I know this shit sounds woowoo or weird or whatever. But for fucksakes Checking in with your body. What was your body feeling when you fucked up? And I know that's hard. And it's nuanced. And it's practice. And it's why does it matter? Well, that matters because your body reacts in certain ways to your thoughts. And so if you can hone in on what your body is, this isn't easy, but it's it but it also gets you out of your fucking head too. And allows you to stop beating yourself up or examining everything because I'm definitely an over thinker over analyzers. So this allows me to go okay, break time, what was my body feeling? And if I can start honing in on this, then when I feel those feelings in my body, I can identify better what I was going through, so Oh, actually, I was fucking embarrassed right there or whatever. So check in with your body. It's fucking important. And then check your expectations. Did you check your so you get your root cause and then you balance that against sort of like what your body was feeling or what you were feeling? And then check it against your expectations. Do you feel it? Were you feeling embarrassed? Because you expected someone to treat you differently? Expectations are a gigantic, important part of I think life in general. And I don't mean the negative sort of you know, what does it What's that stupid fucking saying? It's not stupid, but I don't know kind of I really don't like it. It's, it's expect the best. expect the worst prepare. Prepare for the worst expect for the expect the best or whatever. I think that's what it is. I don't like that. Because I don't want to want to expect the worst. I just think that's I think that's so protection airy. I don't want to live shielded, I understand. Nobody wants to get hurt. And we got to protect ourselves in certain ways. But I don't want to expect the worst. Fuck all that. So anyway. So check your expectations and see how they align with why your feelings are hurt. You know, some of them were they hurt me because I felt disrespected. Well, why do you why are you disrespected, why expected that person to not do that thing or whatever. And we all know, come back to this a lot. You can't control anybody but you then the next thing to do is to check your root cause or you root problem with your attachment styles and your love languages. See if there's something there that doesn't jive or, or, or gives you more of an understanding of why it is that you were you're feeling the feelings you're feeling which is you know, hurt rejection, etc, etc. Those things and see how that bounces off your attachment style and your love language, languages. And for God's sakes, if you don't know these things, go find them. It's not hard to figure out your attachment style. And it's not hard to figure out your love languages, there's quizzes you can take. There's quizzes that are part of my program that you can take that will will spell these things out for you. And for fucksakes. Trust the quizzes, I mean, find a good one, take a couple of you want but don't if you get a result you're like nah, that can't be right. In you keep taking the tests, different quizzes or whatever and you get the same fuckin answer. Just Just accept it. Sometimes, we don't want to admit certain things about ourselves. But if we keep getting the same fucking results when we're trying to figure some things out, well guess what, then that's the answer. So and then then the last part of it is Rhian that, go through the scenario again and see where you can go differently. It's all about learning to handle these things differently, so that you don't fuck up. Or if you do, it's not as severe or you understand it better. And eventually you eliminate it's a process for sure. And part of that process is absolutely trying to reenact it in your head in a way that allows you to handle a difference. So let's go back and try and get some sort of example. So the other day in the group someone posted, I'm not going to name names the about that an argument with their son, and I think it was over a dog or something. So let's sort of work within that sort of framework. It could be anybody but let's say a child. You yelled at your kid, because you had an argument with your kid, and you said some shit you didn't want to Okay, so why did you do that? Okay, so I yelled at my kid, and hurt. And now he don't talk to me. Right? Okay, so that's your fuckup is, uh, yelled at the kid. Why did you do that? Well, I was angry. Okay, well, why are you angry? Well, because He disrespected me. Why do you think He disrespected you? Because I expected him to take the dog for a walk. And he didn't do that. And that made me mad. Okay, so he didn't meet your expectations. So why does that make you angry? or upset? Why did that make you yell? Because it's, it's hurtful because I expected him to, to do what I asked. And why does that bother you? Because because it's disrespectful. And what is about being disrespected? Well, it if you really look at this stuff, you could say, well, it bumps against my self worth. And it makes me feel like I he didn't respect he doesn't respect me because I'm not respectable. Like it's, you know, you know, it's a it's a deficiency thing. And so again, I'm getting ahead of myself, but you want to look at your attachment style in your love language is to try and sort of tie this shit altogether. So okay, so you felt disrespected, let's call it that you're you're in. And I think you actually should go deeper than that. So you were hurt by his. Because I think it's important to to get to the feeling your feelings are important. I felt disrespected, he hurt. He hurt me. A disrespect is a form of hurt, you know, he hurt my feelings because he didn't respect what I asked him to do. So I got pissed and yelled, do you want to yell? No, you don't. Okay? So the root causes is you felt hurt by his lack of respect. Okay. So you've asked a bunch of why's now in this in this moment, try and figure out what were you feeling? I know this is tough. But in your body was your jaw clenched? Did your face flush? These are all important clues. Again, this allows you to just take this take the time to even step out of, of your, your sort of ruminating and all this kind of bullshit that we all do. We all do. By the way, I am fucking really guilty of it. It allows you to get out of that and start thinking about other things and it soothes you, it calms you down. And then again, it allows you to sort of focus on something other than the frustration and hurt the the, you know, being pissed, being pissed at yourself, why did I do that? I'm such an asshole, etc, etc. And again, it also can give you clues to the next time you feel that potentially a flushed face, you can go oh shit, I'm feeling really disrespected right now. And then you can you can better understand yourself and then take steps to correct. And so now take that, that that route, that He disrespected me and take it against your expectations. My expectations are that I asked him to do something, he's going to do it and it's a fair expectation. But you can't always expect people to do what you want him to do. You just can't. It could have been maybe he had a bad day and you just don't even fucking know about it. It could be maybe he was sick, you know, and he didn't talk about it or you know, it could be many, many things. We really don't know. It's hard to climb in someone else's head. So your expectations. While they're not wrong, you expect someone to do something that you ask. It's just a clue that maybe if you adjust your expectations, I really want him to do that. And then you can have a conversation. Well, why didn't you do that as I've never been okay, I just forgot data guasha going on. Okay, or whatever. And I know that this sounds that's a lot more simple than some of these because when we're amped up, these conversations aren't gonna go that well. But that's all part of understanding where you're at. Okay, I'm frustrated and feeling flushed, I gotta walk the fuck away and calm down so I can have these rational conversations later on. When the fight flight freeze or fallen isn't occurring. And I'm in a logical thinking brain and I can I have a decent conversation. Okay, and so then we also want to look at I think it's really important to look at your attachment style and your love language. Now in this context.

Michael 19:59
I don't know that it exists. actually applies, but I still think it's a good analyzation to make. So perhaps you thought you think when you're disrespected it, it goes up against your attachment style, which is very anxious. And so if someone disrespects you, then that means they don't like you. And that causes you to have that anxious attachment. Right? And it's it that can lead to again, hurt feelings, which can lead to anger. And sort of same love language, right? If you know that, you know, words of affirmation is your thing. Then, you know, if him him not saying to you, Hey, Dad, I'm not feeling well, I can't do this today. That's also another clue like, hey, next time, buddy, just let me know. And I know this probably, I don't know what it is. But it might be making it really fucking complex, but like this fucking complex. And again, what am I not doing? In this moment, right now, I'm not having an argument with somebody and making another mistake. I'm analyzing it to prevent it. And understanding myself is a key to that. And so then lastly, we reenact it. We go, okay. I asked him to do that you didn't? What could I have done differently? Okay, well, certainly get out of this situation. If you're angry and arguing, yelling, stop yourself. Remove yourself from the situation again, reenact this shit in your brain, like you do anything your brain doesn't know the difference between you thinking about something and and actually occurring. There's studies that show this. I didn't pull any, any up, but go find it. And so if so, then you reenact this in your brain and you say, Okay, I asked him to do it, he doesn't do it. I get angry, I walk away, I calm down and go back to him later on. I try to understand why didn't he do that? In maybe there's something that you know, maybe he's going through something. And again and again, but you it allows you to have a good conversation with someone that can further the bond. Having good logical conversations creates a bond yelling and arguing through hurt feelings doesn't accomplish any fucking thing. But additional hurt feelings. So this is the this is the framework that that I've been using, not to this degree, to be honest with you, I really sat down and really thought about this one. And what are some ways that could expand what I'm doing? I was doing more doing that the whys. Why did this happen? Why did I do this? Why, why, why, and then trying to reenact, but I think it's really important to tie these things into your how your body is feeling. And again, I know it's different, and it's weird, and whatever, just fucking try, just keep trying until it can make some kind of sense. And then expectations, I think expectations are important. And if you have certain expectations of someone, then set that expectation set that boundary and say, Listen, boy, son, I really, it's really important that you do this, if you can't do it, just let me know. You know, obviously, if he ultimately doesn't do it, then you have to enact some kind of consequences. And those can vary depending on how you want to handle it. You know, from, you know, obviously the the relationship in terms of Does he live with you as the old? Or is the older as a younger? What can you do? What kind of consequences can there be, you know, if he's a teenage boy, you can take his phone or video games or what the fuck ever. But at least if you, you set the expectation and make it realistic, then you're not going to get pissed if it doesn't get met. And or if you had that expectation, and you say if it's not met, this is what's going to occur again, you're protected from protect his right, we're but you're the likelihood that you're going to have an argument that can be lessons because expectations and boundaries are set. And so you there's nothing to argue about. Sorry, kid, I told you, if you didn't do that this is going to occur. Again, there are many, many different problems and issues and fuck ups that we face. And it's, it's possible that this particular scenario doesn't apply to your current fuckup. Or to many of your fuck ups. I don't know, maybe you drink a lot. And there's a lot of layers to that. Maybe you yell a lot. Again, there's many, many layers to these things there's childhood. Can these fucking neural pathways the way that we've always done things are honed in from from, you know, much younger age. And so there's lots of reasons and lots of things that affect us. And it's not always possible to analyze every single one of them, but we can get some general themes. And the theme for fucking up is like a segway. This is an opportunity for me to learn. And that doesn't mean that you're going to learn it right away. It doesn't mean that you're going to correct the mistake from now until the end of time that you'll never do that again. You might it's possible. I can tell you that If you don't do this kind of stuff, and then maybe there are other ways find your own fucking way. That's one of the things that I stress to anyone that has been so awesome and gracious to pay me to coach them is my way might not work for you, but get just get in the fucking mindset that I'm gonna find a way that works for me and try some things. I think that this is a pretty good framework for dealing with fuck ups. But it might not work for you, you might say is checking in your body is bullshit. Okay, that's cool. I'm good. Fuck, I mean, don't do it, then I think that's a mistake. For further, the least reason is that it allows you to take a pause and stop ruminating and focus on something other than the fuckup itself. That makes any sense. So I think that's all I got. So it is Wednesday, the 22nd of November. Tomorrow is obviously Thanksgiving. And tomorrow will be the third anniversary of this podcast, I am going to do I think at least one if not two chats tomorrow in via zoom in the divorce support for men group. I know this is a very short notice. But if you're in the group, you're probably already aware. I'm gonna have some folks sign on to and join me and we're just going to chat and I'm gonna record it and probably put it out. I'm going to do one at 11am. Eastern tomorrow. And I'm going to do one in the evening as well, I believe because the one in the evening, I think is going to be a little bit more about the celebration of the third birthday of this podcast. I, part of me wants to do some reflecting right now. But I think I'll wait. But it is. I mean, three years. I was trying to find and I'll probably again, I'll probably bring this up tomorrow night. But I was trying to find the percentage of podcasts and make it to three years and I couldn't find any data. I know that I believe the one year mark only like 20% make it to one year I think or something like that. There are fuck ton of podcasts out there. And if you look, you'll see a lot with, you know, 10 episodes, two episodes 20 episodes, it's it's, um, it's not I think I've been pretty fucking transparent throughout this journey. And it's, it's not always easy to keep doing these things. I mean, I feel like I've got my seventh window, or whatever I do have, I'm speaking to a couple folks about coming on to psychologists to different episodes. One is dealing with depressive episodes. And fuck, I can't remember what the other one is. But and there's a few other folks that I still haven't ironed out dates and details. I also have not going to say exactly, but I've been talking with another podcast that has a huge fucking celebrity on it. That I'm super excited. We've had a couple different conversations and it sounds they've said let's do it. We're trying to hone out exactly when that is probably sometime in January, January it will be recorded. But I can tell you if you're my age is guest definitely. I hope this future guests definitely you will, you will know who that is. And, and they can speak to this topic and I'm fucking excited about it. But I don't want to say too much because I don't want to jinx it, but fucking I am excited. I hope I hope it works out. I'll keep you all posted. I think you probably just see it pop up. But hopefully sometime in January. I'll get it recorded and you'll see it. Anyway, so I think that's it. Thank you so much for listening. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to reach out. I also lastly, I will announce later tomorrow night that the new pricing for my coaching program, I'm only going to take two clients maximum and that is not some salesy bullshit. It's simply a matter of capacity, I don't have the capacity to do them more than two at a time. And so I'm going to, I'm going to set new pricing and talk about sort of how that's what it's going to look like. It's going to be a little bit different than the program but the program still sort of going to be the foundation of it. Because there's a lot of good stuff in that program. I mean, I just they're they're things that helped me and I'm gonna continue to do episodes on the program too. But you'll hear all about that I tomorrow night. So

Michael 29:59
I'm going to say Happy thanks Giving because you might not hear this till tomorrow or, or maybe after, I don't know. But Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Thank you so much for listening. As always take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Thank you so much for watching and or listening, says my separation in July of 2019. I have done an incredible amount of work on myself. I've had many different therapists, life coaches and went through different programs. I've taken all that I've learned and put it in my own program called forged by fire. If you are interested in having me help navigate your divorce, please visit my website Rising Phoenix divorce coach.com. I look forward to working with you

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