Dr. Ramani: If You're Thinking About Going No Contact With a Family Member - Listen to THIS (How to Know If It's Time To Walk Away)

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26:55Jay Shetty:that's a really interesting take of not announcing it i couldn't agree with you more i think sometimes we want to put in the big announcement and that almost feels like the why isn't that strong and actually you're right that the more natural way of doing it is i used to see them every week now i see them every month and now i see them every quarter and now i don't see them maybe once a year if that i think we also underestimate and i can speak about this from experience that i found when i've been in this position i didn't do this as a technique but even though i did not speak to this one person for around two years when i didn't did talk to them again i found that the relationship was so much more respectful from their side because they realized there were real consequences to that behavior and that's something i never realized before, I always felt being a loving, compassionate, empathetic person would be the thing to help them change.

27:45Jay Shetty:When I realized that no contact, even though I didn't use it as a technique to change them, I did it to protect myself, that changed their relationship with me because they now realized. And initially when I stopped talking to them, their reaction was like, well, why did you stop talking to me? What's going on? And my response was, because I don't want to be treated that way anymore. And they said, well, what do you mean? Like, you know, we have these conversations and then tomorrow we forget about it and move on. And I was like, oh, okay, that's how you think the rules go. And I was like, well, to me, I don't want to tolerate that anymore.

28:17Jay Shetty:We didn't talk for two years. And then all of a sudden, now when we connect, which isn't very often either, but now when we do, they know it can never get to that level because there's real consequences to that. And that doesn't always happen though, Jay. Sometimes people will go no contact for, you know, the protective, really healing reasons. And if they are in the wake of the person again, the person will say, how dare you? Or I can't believe you abandoned me. Or do you not know how everything I did for you? How can you be so ungrateful? In some ways I tell folks, I'll say, can you believe this?

28:50And I said, yes. And if anything, you just got a huge piece of data. And it is a piece of data that confirms that that decision, what you observed, what you experienced, what you saw here was absolutely accurate. You know, so I mean, I think all of us doubt ourselves. We're like, maybe I'm not seeing this right. Maybe I'm overblowing this. That's why in my book, and it's not you, I write, I call it going into the tiger's cage. I'm like, go back in the tiger's cage. See how that works out for you. If it's not that big a deal, it's a little kitty cat. Pet it and have a great time. But if it's a tiger, it's gonna slash you up again.

29:21And so if it does, you're getting some good data there that you did see this right. And if anything, it really makes you a greater steward of your own intuition and your own body and how you communicate within yourself. You saw this. For a hundred reasons outside of you, it felt uncomfortable. Like I said, I'm sharing my own experience. Mercifully, it's not my parents. I found my way. I may have lost my mom, as I've told you. And I found my way, you know, with my clunky way with my dad. So fine there. But in this other relationship, for a long time, I saw it and I saw it and I saw it. But when it came to the ultimate thing.

29:56I thought I was right all along. And then ironically, just in the last few days, I was speaking with another family member who then gave another piece of evidence. And I was like, I was really right. Then I'm walking around pumped up like, oh, why don't I so intuitively smart? It wasn't at all ego. It was actually soothing. Like you read this right and it's okay to keep yourself safe. But it is so hard, Jay, when the pressure of the world is family is great and estrangement is bad. And I shudder to think how much human potential we've lost by people who couldn't give themselves for a variety of reasons the permission to detach from a harmful relationship and just remain separated from themselves and silencing themselves because they felt that pressure to keep engaging with something that didn't feel safe.

30:47That's the real tragedy of this.

30:49Jay Shetty:I agree with you. And I think though that it's those of us who have that empathy and have that compassion and have that loving nature that find it the hardest to do. Yeah, of course. Because you think you're being ungrateful, but every time you engage with them, you always come back wounded, right? That's right. So it's like you think you're being ungrateful. So you're like, no, I've got to be grateful with this family member, this parent, whatever it may be. So I'm going to stay connected. but then every time you're around them you come back crying wounded hurt upset whatever it may be physically ill yeah and then you recover for a few days and you think oh no i was just overreacting it was just a cat and now go back to the tiger's cage as you beautifully put so many of us keep going back to that because it's in tic not hans words it's better to have familiar pain than unfamiliar pain and so we'd rather have that familiar experience and stay close to someone who's bad for us than have the unfamiliar pain of, I don't know what life looks like if I don't talk to them.

31:47Jay Shetty:How does someone figure that out and actually have the courage to say, no, I need to do what's right for me? This is where Gabor's words so ring for me, is that there's no path free of pain. I think people do believe, Jay, one of these paths is more pain-free or easy, so they're both really, really difficult. And familiar pain is tough. We talk about stuff like the trauma bond and all of that. That's familiar pain. We know how to navigate familiar pain, right? We know where the hazards are. We know exactly what to look for. It's terrible, but we know how to navigate it. The unfamiliar pain, well, that's terrifying.

32:21But what people don't always realize, the pain of not abandoning, not silencing, not suppressing yourself, okay? You would say that, why would those things be painful? Because my gosh, your true self, That's some dangerous stuff. You've been told, how dare you? How dare you is very much a connective tissue in a toxic relationship. Now, though, what's happening is a person is living more in congruity with who they are, what they're about. They're connecting with healthier people. I mean, there are some people out there who don't have healthy ties in their life, which is painful, very painful. But I want you to contrast what the time with this person you're thinking of going no contact with, in contrast that to spending time with someone who is attuned and it's mutual and it's reciprocal and it's safe.

33:05And people say, they're categorically different experiences, right? And why is that? Well, can you show up as your real self? Of course I can. I can be me. I don't feel judged. I don't feel shamed. Sometimes just seeing that contrast. But then when people are talking about the obligations, the familiar pain, as it were, it's also understanding where those are, how they act and really as tools of social control. But above all else, the point I make is, these paths both hurt. Only one of them though does carry the dividend that you will actually get to live as your authentic self, which is going to improve your health just like that.

33:45Jay Shetty:There's such a sense of sometimes if you've never experienced safety, you don't even know what it feels like. And I think sometimes when you find a safe new relationship, whether it's a partner, a friend, a roommate, whatever it may be. And then you all of a sudden go, oh, wait a minute, this is what safety feels like. And now you have the realization that what you had before was unsafe. And that's when you come to the decision that, oh, I need to go no contact because now I experience what a relationship should look like. And I didn't know that before. And what gets so challenging is, unfortunately, like I said, people talk too much, right?

34:22The people will then go to the no contact person or system and said, I now saw this. This is what healthy feels like. You know what they always hear? Those people are just saying what you want to hear. We're your family. We tell you the truth. You don't like to hear the truth, but we tell you that truth. They're not going to tell you that. That's nothing, nothing. They get into this divide of now the people who are harming them are saying, even that's not real. That's a gaslight. But there is this sense, we're telling you the truth. The truth is painful. We're not going to trick you. We don't want you to go out in the world and look foolish.

34:56So for people to get themselves out of those places, the fact that they're even entertaining ending contact for some period of time, if not forever, to me, that's a quantum leap in healing because they're even entertaining the possibility that there's an option other than this abusive mess that this relationship is.

35:13Jay Shetty:You're never announcing your no contact. You're not telling the other person. You're doing it yourself. Naturally, you might find that person reaching out. And that person might start saying things like, why are you ignoring me? Why are you avoiding me? Why haven't you come over for a while? And I feel like that's a weak point for someone. How does that person hold their ground without getting into explaining and getting lost? Like, what have you sound as being helpful? It's so challenging, Jay, because if the person really doesn't respond, right, the person's reaching and saying, hey, why aren't you responding this, that, and the other?

35:45The person who's chosen to end contact will be accused of ghosting that person. And we view ghosting actually as avoidance. And I do want to put in this point about avoidance. Something I'm hearing in sort of the pushback on people who make the choice to go no contact, people who are estranged from their families, it keeps getting framed as avoidance. Is there a subset of cases where it is about avoidance? Sure, like I said, that 27 % is a mucky number, if you will, right? There are people who are saying, I don't want to have an uncomfortable conversation, so I'm just going to do this. But in many, many people who are going no contact to feel safe, they've attempted to have the uncomfortable conversation dozens and dozens of times.

36:24And remember, the people who are the harmers, who are uncomfortable, unsafe, whatever they are, they're likely not aware, right? Or they've come up with a blame shifted, you know, this isn't my problem, it's a your problem thing. But they feel entitled to access to this person who's kind of drifting away. If they completely block contact, they will be called ghosting, to which I said, then let them say you're ghosting. But I understand that's hard. People are saying, I don't want to be characterized like that because that's not who I am. I wouldn't do this in another relationship where this is not happening, okay?

36:56Whatever you say to that person is not going to work. Some people will say, okay, I didn't want to announce it, but I am going to say to them, like, this is not healthy for me. This is not safe for me. Personally, I have an example I'd gone through quite some time ago. and it was more in the friendship realm, there was nothing that could be said without it escalating into something actually quite terrifying. And then it had to end, right? That person then went on to terrible things to many, many people I thought respected me and just said, is it what we call sort of a smear campaign? So you had to tolerate that.

37:30So if you didn't communicate the way that person wanted and it always ended up in the same place, you have to reconcile radical acceptance that if you attempt to say, this has not felt safe, I don't feel like I can be myself oh blah blah blah psychobabble does your therapist tell you you're going to come up against that wall so you have to be girded against that maybe you have again tiger's cage maybe seeing that one more time like this is why I want no contact and you'll push to that I'm not I'm just simply not responding to this anymore and I don't like when people say I wish you well because we don't always wish people well and I think we pay karmically for all of that hypocrisy you don't even just say I wish you well because I'm thinking of some of the people I've gone on contact with, I don't wish them well.

38:12I don't wish them ill, but I don't wish them well. So I tell people, don't say I wish you well because you're putting something out there in the cosmos that just isn't vibing the right way. You might just say, listen, I can't do this anymore. Now you have put a punctuation mark on it. You're saying, I'm exiting stage left. Like I'm out of the scene at this point. At that point, I will bet you any amount of money, Jay Shetty, right now that that person you've gone no contact with is going to paint a terrible picture of you to the world. These things, I almost view it as like, almost like a hero's journey.

38:46All these bridges and fires you have to cross. Like there's gonna be a smear campaign. There's gonna be the same old accusations. There's gonna be this. Yes, these are the terrible crumbling bridges you have to cross. And all of this was exactly what you were afraid of. No pain-free path. This path is every bit as painful as we knew it was gonna be. So this should be confirmation you knew it would be. But now you are no longer in contact with someone because it would forever be this mess. There was something I had read where a person was taking a stance about how, oh, people are being too easy about no contact.

39:19We're not giving people a chance. And they're giving the example of somebody who has like really problematic political views and makes you feel really uncomfortable, but then said, oh, but they make great dessert. So you can still have contact with them and focus on the dessert. What? But this person might be saying terrible, bigoted, or awful, or hurtful things that have respect to your child, or she or someone dear to you, or what you do for a living. And just because they can make a hell of an apple pie, that to keep this kind of mythology of family going, I don't buy that. I think it's, again, it's almost an existing societal construct that family means self-abandonment.

39:59I don't think it needs to be that. I do think that people can, again, experiment with no contact is how I've always put it with the clients and patients I work with. And I've never seen anyone come to this decision easily. Every single person will say, grief, grief, grief, grief, regret, grief, grief, grief, shame, grief, grief, guilt, grief, guilt, grief, and then peace. But my God, it was a hell of a path to get there. And even still, they'll say, I'll see families, a person with their parent, a person with their friend, a person with whomever, and I'll look at that with envy because I don't have that.

40:35These are not easy decisions. But those punishers, sure, I guess it's a little easier for them, whatever their journey is. And yes, there are people where it's avoidance. Those are great candidates for therapy to figure out. Because usually people who are in that avoidance mode are very scared. They're scared to make any move. And in a way, it makes sense because every move is going to be painful.

40:54Jay Shetty:It's almost like if you choose no contact, it's grief, regret, guilt, shame. And if you choose to stay connected, it's pain, stress, pressure, fear. Right. But it's also, Jay, societal belonging. Oh, look at you. Oh, wow. It looks like you guys had a great trip together. What a great picture of all you together. Oh, our family's great. And you're now living this lie. I think that eats you up. But that societal, yay, that's a hell of a bomb. Yeah, it goes a long way. It's almost like that societal validation covers over some of those cracks. And that's why we stay in those places that do so much damage to us.

41:35The shame now is carried internally, right? Versus externally. Okay, I have nowhere to go on Thanksgiving. And I don't have really a family anymore. and the world is wondering like, well, I wonder why they don't talk to their family because their family seems to be getting together, but they're not. You have to endure all of that. That's also an external shame too. But the staying in it, that's the internal shame. And that internal shame will eat you up alive.

42:01Jay Shetty:Whenever I have conversations like these and I get to with yourself who sits with people and works through these challenges with them and I get a glimpse into what people struggle with them what's in their mind it just expands your radius of compassion like it just it just it just makes me go oh my gosh like people are dealing with so much like when you have a family member who says i don't want to come to something usually everyone in the family is just thinking oh what they've been what's wrong with them like why are they being difficult for like what's the big deal we're just all getting together and it's like you don't recognize that there's something that obviously has struck this person and whether you think it's big or small it's valuable to them and it feels like the person who did the thing gets away with it and never is reprimanded or made accountable.

42:48Jay Shetty:And then everyone else who's kind of an innocent bystander is actually pointing fingers at the person who's been wronged and going, come on, stop being difficult. It's just a family dinner. Conversations like this help because, and I hope everyone's getting what I'm saying, is that if you're not one of those people who's doing the no contact or doing the harming and you're kind of in the middle of just hearing your family go through stuff, be that curious, supportive person who goes, hey, what's up? Like, why don't you want to, because that person's just never had that. They've had people either tell them to get over it or move on or, hey, it's just a family dinner.

43:20And as I said, Jay, the challenge is that there's sort of two different ways this happens. Maybe even three, if you count the people who are just avoidant, the people who are punitive. And then of course, the people who've gone through this really anguishing path, they'll say, I desperately wanted this to work out. Every child wants nothing more than for their parents to be their heroes. And they will turn themselves upside down and inside out and craft false narratives to turn the people in their lives into heroes because that's how children survive. But when the children are harmed in those spaces or not protected in those spaces, those narratives dog them into adulthood and that sometimes this is it.

43:57And I think we should be having a much, much more nuanced, balanced conversation about what no contact is. Because right now, they're sort of like what's considered the societal right way. Not all families are good. They really aren't. Many families are harmful. And I wish we lived in that candy-coated world where all families were safe. They sure as hell are not. And many people listening to this say, no, they're not. And that the complicated process someone goes through. But ultimately for me, as a psychologist, I can't tell someone to go no contact. It's a decision they make for themselves and that at best as therapists, we hold their hand.

44:39Good therapy is when a person is making choice for themselves as uncomfortable as it is. Ultimately, the parent can't swim for the child. The child has to swim themselves. The child has to ride the bike themselves. The client has to feel that they've made this decision themselves as terrified as they are and live it. And I'm going to tell you now, I have to see in my practice, granted I focus on a unique area of the narcissistic relationship, the vast majority of people I've seen make no contact decisions from a place of harm reduction, safety, protection, all of that, it has ended up quite well for them.

45:15If they're thinking about no contact, would you encourage them to think about a time frame rather

45:19Jay Shetty:than forever? Listen, when people use the word forever, I always know I'm dealing with someone very anxious, right? Because it's a catastrophizing term. I don't know what the hell forever is. So I'm saying, let's take the word forever out of our vocabulary. For the foreseeable future, you're not going to have contact with this person. And you can see a sense of lightning there, right? Because forever feels so, so big. But for now, you're not. You're not going back and forth. You're not responding. And there is often a go in the devices and you block the capacity. I know in my case, when I tried to go into contact, then other family members were getting in there, trying to contact me on behalf of that person.

45:56Then I had to go and block. And then I came to find out that you could contact me on my computer when I thought I'd blocked your number on my phone. It's like, that's a glitch. And then it's the emails. And then you start realizing, wow, there's a lot of ways to contact me. You have to meander. Sometimes people will send you a letter by mail. You become much more discerning on which phone numbers you pick up. It can feel like an onslaught for a while. And many people with whom you go no contact with, especially if entitlement is a big pattern, they feel entitled to you. They feel entitled to an explanation.

46:26And there's a part of me that even when I'm hearing a client say, I'm thinking, how interesting they want an explanation that they couldn't figure this out. I have to tell you, Jay, and this is not a frequent circumstance I've seen, but it does happen. And I really feel for people who are going through this. They will say somebody went no contact with me and I have no idea why they did it. They'll say literally, I have no idea. One day they just dropped out of my life. I have a situation like that in my own life where someone went no contact with me. And we had one last weird conversation where literally it was, you are never to get in touch with me again.

47:06How could you have done this? I told you not to do the thing I did. They said it to you. Yeah, I can literally tell you that I was on the 10 freeway. Like, it's so clear to me because it was such an undestabilizing conversation. And I never heard from them again. It's what is now we're in 2026. It was at least 2014. And this was a person I was tight with, right? I will go to my grave, not knowing what exactly happened. I have no doubt that this person has a very clearly constructed sense.

47:36Jay Shetty:But that doesn't make you a narcissist, yeah. No, I don't think, oh, Mindo, that's all for debate, I'm sure, by some people, maybe by her even. Yeah, that's what's so interesting, right? Like, it's like, how do you know whether the story you're crafting about someone is true or not? Because it's true in your head. I'll be frank with you. Jay, for this person, if they felt my life feel safer, better, stronger without Ramani in it, then I say go with God. To me, the only win I think in the world is that people feel safe in their bodies, in their psyches, in their souls, and they can express themselves.

48:16The thing I'll never understand what I did, right? I have a hint of it, but it seemed like a strange thing to be upset about. And I knew there was other things happening in this person's life. Sadly, subsequently, I came to find out that this person's life had fallen apart in many ways. So they might have had some sort of, I don't know, some other issues going on. But I also don't think I can be so superior and say, oh, maybe she had a breakdown. Maybe I did do something that offended her. I don't understand it, which probably makes her think I'm an even worse person. So I have no doubt many people have had the experience of someone just cutting them out.

48:48And I think that's muddied this conversation because there's people out there, you and I are both saying here, we've had someone just poof, disappear and feel very absolutely justified in the reason for not being in touch with us. People hear this conversation, they say, no, people don't just get to disappear from our lives. And I'm like, well, apparently they do. And then we have to reckon with what that meant and maybe look inward. And it did for me personally, I have to say, I looked inward quite a bit and say, what do I need to monitor about myself? Because I kind of understood what the person was saying, but I also kind of didn't.

49:24So I don't think I was changed substantially as a person, but it was always a bit of a head scratcher and it will always be a head scratcher.

49:30Jay Shetty:When do you know it's time to cut off a toxic family member? I think it's different for everyone, Jay. I don't know that there's a moment of knowing. I will say in my particular case, there was an episode that happened. A thing happened that was so reprehensible, But very frankly, if that reprehensible thing had happened without the context that led up to it, I wouldn't have gone no context. Totally, yeah. So it wasn't the one event. It was the accumulation. And this event kind of cemented that all those data points up till then was in fact the thing. All the times I tried to say, maybe not, maybe not, maybe not, maybe not.

50:06Oh, definitely. It may be an event that was preceded by a lot of other proximate events that felt this way. It may be that you literally feel like you're getting sick. I would also say, Jay, people have to pay attention to what I call the natural experiment. And the natural experiment happens when something intervenes and we don't have contact with them. Who knows why? Life goes on and one day you lift your head and you say, I haven't talked to them for six months. And that was actually, this has been really nice. And you notice the difference in your life. I'll even give you a small example. It was a holiday of some kind.

50:44I don't know, Thanksgiving, Christmas, something like this. And the very, very problematic person in the family system was being a little bit petulant and tantrum-y and decided not to come to the main event. It was like a dinner or something. And some of the family members were sad. They're like, no, no, you should come. And another family member who had ultimately been the person responsible, I think, for getting them right now said, they said they don't want to come, and let's honor that wish. And they said, no problem. Okay, you don't have to come. they all got together the group that got together had the most magnificent time two of them noticing like this is amazing like and they noticed it was simply that person not being present it didn't necessarily lead to no contact but my point about the natural experiment is sometimes the world comes together to create a circumstance and you see the wow when they weren't at the wedding it was so much easier when they weren't with at the dinner it was so much easier when I didn't have to include them in the decision.

51:43It went like clockwork. You see the differences when this person isn't around, but also by being apart from them, you might say, it's funny, I don't feel exhausted when I wake up anymore. My stomach isn't hurting me. I'm not getting migraines as much. You may literally have changes in your physiology as this stress goes away. You might find that you're sharper at work. But I don't know that there's ever a moment. I think that there is often an episode that makes you say, oh, hell no. It's really only people who are more manipulative and petulant and really immature that would end it over one episode.

52:25Here's the rub, though. Here's the problem. Let's say the big event happens, and that's when you say, I'm not I'm not going to be in contact with them and men anymore everyone around you thinks it's just the one event they don't realize it was a trajectory of stuff they'll say oh come on now you're going to go no contact with someone over one thing and they're not able to hear that no it actually was about 1500 things but this was the this was it's like the closet rod I always use that analogy there's one last piece of clothing you put on that closet rod and it all collapses. It's not because that was a heavy piece of clothing.

53:00It was just the last piece that that rod could hold.

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56:06Jay Shetty:When I think about it in my life, it's always been that way. And I liked your almost step ladder of maybe not, maybe not, maybe not. Okay, definitely. Like that's the kind of thought process that a rational human being goes through. It's like, no, I don't think it is. No, I'm giving them grace. And then it's like, oh no, okay, I get it. What do you say to the people that say, but they're your family? This is a challenging question because it's culture. I'm South Asian from very traditional Indian family. I work with a lot of South Asian clients. I work with a lot of Middle Eastern clients, a lot of Latino clients, like where family is like family.

56:38It's capital F. It's a blood thicker than water construct. product. We've hit it from different directions. You know, one of which is it's really luck who your family is. This idea that somehow this group of people, imagine you get on an airplane flight, like all those people supposed to be your best friends. It's luck that you walked on that one, you bought that ticket, not the other. No, these people aren't going to be with the next five hours and then bye. I'm not going to see you again. It is a bit of luck and some people a bad luck. It's sort of a random sequence. But the issue of family, I think more than anything, it's to hold space for that.

57:11To not say, oh, who cares if they're a family? They are your family, and this construct matters. For some people, it's a core value. For other people, it's been an organizing element for them. For many people, it's the idea if you're not part of a family system, you're actually deeply unsafe. And so if you're unsafe without a family system, and if your family system is unsafe, again, you're sort of in this damned if you do, damned if you don't, kind of catch 22. So it's to hold space, empathy, awareness that family does matter, making this decision all the more difficult. And then it's paying attention to how are you, there's differences, there's natural experiments.

57:48How are you feeling when you're not with them? I never hold a no contact agenda for any human being on the planet. I really don't. You're gonna get there or never get there on your own time. When that pressure gets lifted for a person, it opens up a lot more decision-making because then they can say, yes, this is family and yes, this is harmful. But the very first time a person's able to look at another human being, family member or not, and recognize that I don't feel safe with them, meaning I don't feel like I can show up as myself. I have to be walking on eggshells around them. I am happy when they're gone.

58:24I'm relieved when they're gone. Once you actually have that, say those words to yourself, maybe not to anyone else, it opens up something different in you. Because now you're willing to acknowledge that. So you're caring for yourself by acknowledging something doesn't feel good. Because I think that if we go too quickly with like, oh my gosh, they're right, they're my family, we're going too quickly. It's just sitting with this doesn't feel good. That's step one. And then you're going to give yourself permission to feel that. And then over time, you will recognize that, yes, they are family and they're unsafe.

58:59More than one thing can be true at the same time. Yeah. and how to navigate why there are all these things true at the same time. How do you make a decision that works for you? And it can be a stop start. You go out of contact for a little while. You find that too difficult. You have children. You want them to meet some members of the family. You're back in contact again. And it kind of, again, there can be an ebb and flow to it. But it's a very, very complicated conversation. For many people in many parts of the world, no contact is simply not an option. and so I always say that you can then it's a concept I wrote about in the book too called soul distancing that your physical body can be present and you can nod politely and you can talk about the weather and you can say what a nice dress you have but that most important part of yourself you don't have to abandon it you can actually be a really protective custodian how are you doing what's new with you not much I get up I go to work it's everything's fine you can really do that all the while being consciously aware of like oh you don't get to look into this this isn't safe but so you can find those ways to navigate but this only works only works if you take care of yourself which means you prepare yourself ahead of time you give yourself rest after time you maintain healthy connected spaces in your life you have meaningful and purposeful activities in your life you have to live give yourself permission to live a whole life if you're going to keep participating in those spaces.

1:00:25I view it as almost like a spiritual form of no contact. Like you don't get to be with all of me. And I think that can be one way people can navigate these family spaces. But for those who really did feel like physically violated in their family spaces, that may not be enough. And sometimes it's that person who goes no contact is the first person who breaks an intergenerational cycle too. They may be the most powerful warrior in that system who says enough is enough. and that may sometimes be for example I've seen this in family systems where people came out about their sexuality about gender and they faced a lot of pushback and they're like you would rather I do not live in accordance with who I am and that process of coming out is where people will lose people and then that concept of chosen family which the LGBTQ community that was their term where so many people came out and were rejected and hurt and abandoned.

1:01:18And so I think that there's something to listen to that sometimes at those moments of absolutely a person who goes to that saying, this is who I am. And they're told, oh, well, we're not going to love you. That's another process we can watch from. And many people painfully having to go into contact at those times too.

1:01:36Jay Shetty:Yeah. I was going to ask you, what do you do if you can't go no contact? And you answered some of the options there because I always talk to people. I love the soul distancing idea. And I often talk to people about the idea of for every one person in your life that is like that if you can't get away from them make sure there's three other people that are people you do open your soul to that you can open your heart to that you can be authentic with because yes i appreciate that there may be a family member that you can't do that around but you can choose three other people friends who become family that you allow yourself to be yourself around and that outweighs that that three to one ratio kind of helps with the pressure of that one person.

1:02:17And it's challenging, you know, because if you look at all the great trauma writers out there, Judith Herman, you know, Gabor, all of them, trauma that happens in relationship can only be healed in relationship. And whether that relationship is therapy, whether that relationship is trusted friends, this is not a walk you can walk alone. People have to become safe again. And that's one of the challenges of having to remain in contact with someone harmful. People remain unsafe, so you do need counterweights to that. And it is hard because once a person's been through harm through a family, through people who should have been trusted, what gets lost is discernment.

1:02:51It's a sense of nobody can be trusted or I don't know how to trust people and above all else, I can't trust myself. And that can make it hard to build healthy social contacts outside of a system where you're feeling compelled that maybe I should go no contact, but I can't. And I really think though part of this is because we shame people who go no contact instead of really hearing their story and often how painful it is. And even yes, sometimes it's a mystery and understanding that sometimes, yes, it's punitive, but to understand the backstory on it so then we can think about it more clearly.

1:03:24Jay Shetty:Yeah. I wanted to ask you a couple of quick segments on what no contact is and what it isn't. So what's the difference between no contact and having a fallout? Having a fallout might be that they go for a little while not talking to each other because they did have a big conflict and it's almost like they need to re-regulate, they need to reintegrate, but there's an understanding that you will come back together when cooler heads prevail, right? Whereas no contact tends to be something that's coming more from one person. Generally, again, the kind of protective no contact I'm talking about, it's definitely something where it's somebody who's been through, is trying to protect themselves.

1:04:00It's usually a very one person in a relationship. The other person may not be experiencing that need at all. It's really the person being harmed. And whereas a fallout is usually a product of a conflict where people are trying to regulate and find a way to talk about it. That feels different to me. What's the difference between going no contact and silent treatment? Ah, so the silent, oh, the almighty silent treatment. Silent treatment is aggression. You know, we don't think of it that way, but it really is. Some people argue that people do the silent treatment because they're so overwhelmed by an interpersonal situation that they shut down.

1:04:34That's not how I understand the silent treatment. Silent treatment is typically a tactic. You're not doing what I want. I'm not going to talk to you. I mean, as far as like you could be dinner with a group and say, could you ask Jay to pass the sugar to me? You know, it's that. You know, I am not going to, you're not going to get a response from me. It's manipulative because what it typically does, especially in things like family systems, is it results in the win for the silent treatment person is the other person breaks and often may even apologize just to keep the communication happening. In silent treatment, the person's often still very present in your life.

1:05:12They're like in the same house or in the same office or coming to the same things. They're just not talking to you.

1:05:17Jay Shetty:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And what's the difference between no contact and then not talking to someone using it as leverage? Or is that the same as silent treatment? I think that's like the silent treatment. The silent treatment, yes. There's something coercive about it. And many people will say, especially when their parents use the silent treatment, young people will say when they were a child, their mother or their father would use no contact. And they would say, I wish they screamed at me because at least they were looking at me. And they would share these heartbreaking stories of how they would leave their parents notes saying, I will do anything you ask.

1:05:48I'll do anything you ask. What is that parent doing? They're literally shaping this child to be fully subjugated. The child is so terrified of the abandonment of silent treatment. And many people experience the silent treatment as an abandonment that we almost get trained to capitulate to a harmful person who realizes the powerful quality of that weaponry and other people don't notice it. When someone's screaming at someone, we know that's not all right. But when someone's silent treatmenting, again, with kids, it is a devastating approach with kids because the child feels so abandoned, which brings up so much terror for them.

1:06:21Jay Shetty:Are we getting better at setting boundaries or are we losing our ability to repair relationships? We're getting worse at our ability to repair. Boundaries is a complicated conversation to me because especially the space I work in. when you try to set a boundary, for example, in a narcissistic relationship, it's like self-harm at that point, right? You're almost, I always say to people, when you try to set a boundary with a narcissistic person, you've actually just harmed yourself because you've told them what upsets you. So you've given them the playbook. Do this and now I'm really gonna get upset.

1:06:53Don't do that.

1:06:54Jay Shetty:That's so dangerous. To me, boundary setting's a very internal process. Once you understand how these relationships work, to understand how much time you can endure this for, what are your no-fly zones? If this comes up or they do this, then that's my sign to sort of disengage, step back and exit because there's really no way to healthfully communicate about this, especially with someone who's trying to bait you. But I have to say in the same breath, we are also not that good at repair. I think there's a lot of ego in the world right now. I got to make my point. I've got to be right. I think platforms like social media haven't helped.

1:07:26People want to be right. And I also think part of it, this is one of my personal Dr. Romney theories, I don't know if it's true, but I'm going to stick with it, is that the world's so litigious, especially in the United States. Everyone's afraid of being sued. So you don't want to admit you did anything wrong. If you admit, well, then you see. So that seeps into the groundwater of interpersonal relationships. Admit nothing. You know, that puts you on your back foot. You lose your power. As soon as you bring the word power into a relationship, it's no longer about love. You know, that's it. You've lost the love part of it.

1:07:54That love and power don't get to go in the same sentence. I think that because of this, this need to be right, the challenges with accountability. In fact, and I think people feeling when people have even been hurt, they want to get power, right? That's how they feel safe again. So all of those things mean that we are really bad at repair because the first part of repair is to be accountable and people aren't good at being accountable. And some people are afraid if they are accountable, they'll be rejected. Yes. So there's so many other dynamics kind of woven in there that I think we're terrible at repair.

1:08:25And when we can do it, it's actually profoundly, profoundly powerful. And I, again, I'm saying I screwed up with a friend back in the summer when I was going through the worst time of my life. I had no right to speak like that. I am so sorry. I'm not even, and the other part of repair we were talking about before, you can't make excuses. so I could have easily said I did this because of this this and this you may get to that at some point but that can't be part of the apology I'm so sorry I spoke to you in a way that you did not deserve I am so sorry I hurt you and I haven't done it since so in that way that repair has worked for us and she said she was smart enough to say you're going through the worst time of your life I don't expect you to be graceful so you see it's a dance you have both players have to be in it.

1:09:13That's a healthy relationship, but healthy relationships have ruptures. We're repaired. Now we can trust each other even more is the point. So I think that the issue is we just don't learn. I think actually little kids are better at repair than anyone. They're in school and they're taught like, you can't just take the chalk from him. And you have to say, I did take the chalk roughly. And then the child will parrot the teacher. Somewhere around puberty, we lose it. and then it floats into ego.

1:09:44Jay Shetty:I think the biggest mistake we make in relationships is we think we can cut someone off, but the real reason is because we don't want to have a difficult conversation. Sometimes, sometimes. So we don't want to have the tough conversation. And I'm not talking about all the established reasons we've talked about. And we know that people don't do no contact in a flippant way. But sometimes we've chosen not to repair because we just don't want to have a difficult... And there's the avoidance. It's that avoidance piece. And I think that's why that avoidance piece is often overlaid on the no-contact conversation.

1:10:17Because that is the case. I think there are two different issues. But I do think that in some cases people say, this is so uncomfortable for me. I'm willing to lose this relationship than to feel this uncomfortable. And that's a tragedy. Because then you're missing the bounty of human experience. But listen, I can understand it though for people who grew up in spaces where conflict was downright dangerous. people were brandishing firearms or yelling or screaming or there's domestic violence, I can easily understand where that avoidance comes from. And then that becomes really deep seated trauma informed work on what conflict isn't always terrifying, but to degrade that from how the body hurts from it, it takes a minute.

1:10:57Jay Shetty:Yeah. Have you ever experienced people who've gone no contact and then experienced a lot of grief and regret? People who go no contact, especially if there's not a lot of, you know, clanging and yelling and I'm never going to talk to you anymore. So there's no clear demarcation point. Most cases, I'm not hearing this. I'm not hearing people six months in saying, in fact, they're saying, I'm relieved. I'm really relieved. You know, it's pretty rare. More what I've heard more of, Jay, is people have gone no contact and someone gets sick or is dying. And their bigger question is, I don't get a second chance at this?

1:11:33Am I going to regret not making an attempt at a goodbye? No one can answer that question for you, but you're right. You do only have one crack at this. And in those cases, some people have rolled up to check in and say their goodbyes. And the person who's dying was just as ornery and mean as ever. And you know what people said? They said, I wasn't upset. In many ways, I listened to my heart. I showed up and it only confirmed the decision I made for the last 20 years. In some cases, there is a moment, there's a connective moment. I think that's pretty rare, you know, that there's, I'm so sorry for everything I did.

1:12:07People want the deathbed confession. It's pretty rare in these cases. Sometimes people go expecting nothing but to say, I can't do this again, so at least let me show up. But by and large, once people get to that initial can I, I can, by the time people really make the protective no-contact decision, They have been harmed so many ways that it is a relief. It's a relief. Flipping the roles, if you're the person who's been cut off

1:12:34Jay Shetty:and you genuinely want to repair the relationship and now recognize that you've made mistakes, what's the right way to go about it? We can't attach our actions to outcomes, meaning that you may say, I really want to let them know. I see everything I did. And do it all the right ways. Don't excuse. Don't defend yourself. Do it right. Take accountability. Figure out a way to get it to that person, whatever that may be. And then that's it. It's almost like you've put something, you've thrown a feather to the universe and you just don't know where it's going to land. You definitely don't want to be insistent.

1:13:14You don't want to feel entitled to a response. You don't want to keep attempting to reach the person through different ways and haranguing them. That's just going to re-perpetuate the whole problem that there was initially. But I mean, you can find that way to get the communication out there and see how it lands. And you know what? And this is the hardest thing that can happen as part of the human experience. A person may receive that. They may even feel at peace from hearing that. And they may never tell you. You have to keep it real that maybe all you've done is try to put that repair in the world, and maybe the net result of that is you've relieved something in someone else, but you may not ever be privy to that.

1:13:56Is forgiveness always healthy? No. You know how I feel about that. Hell no. And I'm so tired of this fetishization of forgiveness. There's a voluminous psychological literature, spiritual literature, that shows it's good. But then there's there's studies on the shelf that people don't always pull off that show that when forgiveness is repeatedly offered in situations where the harmful behavior is repeated, the forgiver actually experiences negative psychological consequences. I think the challenges with forgiveness is people do it from a place of fear when they do it from a place of being shamed.

1:14:37You'll see in spiritual communities all the time, what is wrong with you? You're dark-hearted. how dare you don't forgive, it will lighten you, maybe it will and maybe it won't. I have seen people heal brilliantly without forgiving and if anything they'd feel like forgiving this person feels like one more form of self-abandonment. Because the fact is, Jay, in many cases of trauma, abuse, relational trauma, what happened has changed the person being harmed their emotional DNA forever. It is a heavy burden that has to be carried that affects how a person trusts the world, how they go into future relationships, how they even trust themselves.

1:15:17It's an effing legacy that a person carries their whole lives. That may not always be forgivable. And forgiving someone is not going to press the accelerator on healing. Some people will say, I don't even know that I ever forgave them. I'm now indifferent to the whole thing. I've done my work. I'm in a different place. Forgive? Maybe, maybe not. And I think one of the challenges is, because I've had this debate with people, they say, I think you and I are, I think you are talking about forgiveness, but we're not using the same word. One of the dictionary definition of forgiveness is to cease to feel resentment.

1:15:53I don't know how many people who forgive actually have ceased to feel resentment. I don't. I can think of a handful of relationships in my life where the wrong, the wronging changed me forever. Changed me forever. I go through the world differently. I don't forgive that. I will, I resent that. I resent how I still sometimes have to go through the world, feel unsafe in the world. No. And I'm healing just fine. And I, and I've seen, I, countless clients have said that moment of you and some other authors saying we don't need to forgive was an absolute pivot point. Because what happens when you make it forgiveness, all your damn work is going into forgiving a perpetrator instead of doing the healing work inside yourself.

1:16:36You get there, don't get there. You can heal if you forgive, you can heal if you don't forgive. But if it's performative and it's being done in the name of self-abandonment, it is going to set you back.

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1:19:52Jay Shetty:when it all comes down to like yeah forgive them and move on and heal and like you said it feels it can feel too early it can feel too forced it can feel too holier than thou like i talk about it all the time with the things i've been wronged with where i'm like i was recently in india with my spiritual teacher, and I was speaking before he was speaking to a group of people. And I quoted him in something I'd learned from him. And then he very expertly referenced it, but then redefined it on stage without making me feel bad about myself, which is very sweet of him. And he's so learned. He's mid-70s and has been a monk for like 50 years or something.

1:20:34Jay Shetty:So he has more wisdom than I could ever even try to gather, but also has this beautiful way of helping me in the moment without. But so I always thought that spiritual gratitude was this idea that you had to be grateful for everything that happened to you. And I always struggled with that idea because I couldn't and I would try and I really pushed myself and I would do this spiritual work and I'd be like, I can't be grateful for that. Like that doesn't make any sense. I would wonder why I would struggle with it. And sometimes you can beat yourself up spiritually about it. You can feel like you're not good enough in the community, whatever it may be.

1:21:08Jay Shetty:He said, you don't have to be grateful for everything that happened to you. You can only be grateful for what you have left after what happened to you. And that slight adjustment has like changed my heart. I'm like, oh, of course that makes sense. Yes. I can be grateful for the fact that after that happened to me, I'm still alive. I'm breathing. I've got this, I've got that. I don't have to be grateful for the experience of the event. Correct. Correct. I know it sounds like common sense when you say it, but to me it was like a remarkable, and I'd only learned this like three months ago, and it's like light bulb moment i was like oh wow like i've just been trying to walk down the wrong road and then that's how i feel about forgiveness like forgiveness is this idea of like you at one point will feel so much love for this person and you're like completely like and i'm like i'm not sure that well i've never seen it i would love it's a beautiful idea it's a beautiful concept but i've never seen it as love maybe someone even gets to the point of neutrality maybe but love for that person like that's god level stuff and you know we are mere mortals right?

1:22:04And I think that the challenges, and I've seen this with people, people who are survivors of domestic assault, sexual assault, emotional abuse. No, absolutely not. Because you know why? They need to encode within themselves that this, all of the this that that person was, is harmful. Because that's how we as human beings can be safer, but still be able to find safety in other human beings. When I tell you what a razor's edge that is to balance on, this is why trauma healing is so challenging. But finding love in harmful experiences, no, yes, love for yourself that you are so strong that you could get up and get out of bed the next week.

1:22:43That's what I tell my clients. Like, you got out of bed today. Like, go you.

1:22:47Jay Shetty:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Dr. Romani, I want to end with some real life scenarios that we got sent in. So we're going to get your reactions to these. So a parent says, I have no idea why my child stopped talking to me, even though there were years of conflict. Why do some parents genuinely believe this? And what should the child do if the parent really has no idea why they went no contact? And this is from the person asking this, is the parent? The person asking this is, no, it's the person who's gone no contact because they're asking why do some parents genuinely believe this? And what should the child do if the parent really has no idea why they go no contact?

1:23:24So remember what I was saying before is that this idea is that there are people out there who say, I genuinely don't know. And I think they genuinely do. And I think in other versions, it's not they generally can't, they generally won't. They won't see what it is, right? And whether they think that their simple apology should have been fine, or they should be forgiven all their transgressions, whatever it may be. The challenge for an adult, and I'm assuming this is an adult child, the challenge for an adult child in one of these situations is that the temptation is to sit down and lay out a reckoning of everything this parent did wrong.

1:23:59It's going to get absolutely nowhere. And I think that in a situation like that where it's very clear, the transgressions are many and discernible, that the fact that they can't see it is probably a contributor to why you've gone no contact. Because people can mess up, as I've been saying, and say, that was not cool. If the parent had said, I am so sorry we are no contact, and I fully understand how years of da-da, da-da, da-da have resulted in this. I'd really like to redouble my efforts to make change in these spaces because I miss you. That's a different conversation. But this parent's like, I don't get this.

1:24:36If they don't get this, you ain't gonna be the one to turn on the lights.

1:24:40Jay Shetty:Well said, really helpful to just know where you're likely to stand. Okay, someone goes no contact with one parent and suddenly siblings, aunts, even grandparents start pressuring them to fix it. How should someone handle that kind of family backlash? This is a tough one because this is what I'm saying. It's very difficult to isolate and go into contact with just one family member, especially if the family system is relatively close linked. Within that group of grandmothers and aunts and siblings and all of that, even that group is heterogeneous. Some of those folks are safer and maybe more psychologically aware than others.

1:25:14If there's even one person in that group you feel that you could actually have a safe conversation with, without it becoming, again, a laundry list, but rather say, after years of this, this, I don't feel safe. And I have found that I just, I can't do it anymore. And maybe give a sprinkling of reasons. And so this was not a decision I came to easily, that all the things we've talked about. So please understand where I'm coming with this. And I'm the first to understand how difficult and inconvenient and everything this is for everyone. I love you dearly. I didn't want that, but I also can't do this.

1:25:52All right. Hopefully there's one person. Here's where we go. There's no pain-free path. There's going to be no version of this where everyone in the family signs off on it. There's just, it just doesn't happen that way. So if you could have that one person who can say, even one person who bears witness and gets it, even if it's still chaotic, you might still, you may feel a little less like you're losing your mind and at least feel heard. But I think that that pressure, you have to have sort of few stock answers like, I hear you. I love you. And I understand why this is hard for you. But please also understand why this would be hard for me.

1:26:26I can't. I can't do this. But I thank you for reaching out. And I get it. And I know this is hard. You can give an empathic response. The thing I would discourage people from doing is turning this into a battle every time.

1:26:37Jay Shetty:Okay, well said. All right, this one. A client says, my parent was emotionally harmful, but they also paid for my school and helped me financially. How should they decide if they should go no contact? Okay, money don't buy emotional indulgences, folks. They don't. And many, many unhealthy family systems will say, we paid for school, we helped you with rent, we bought you a car. So they're putting a dollar value. So apparently if you spend$100 ,000, that buys you 20 years of abuse, 15 years of gaslighting. No. I think that that transactional model is something that, yes, again, more than one thing can be true at the same time.

1:27:15They did pay your tuition and their behavior is psychologically unhealthy and doing harm to you. And both those things are true and you don't owe them anything. Listen, Jay, I've been doing this work long enough that I have seen parents, when their kids go no contact, they've sent their kids a bill, itemized. Pages and pages of invoices. This is what this cost. This is what that cost. This is what your, the health insurance that we paid for you. One case, it was a person, I don't even know what they did to anger their parents, but they did, they were distancing themselves. And it came from a lawyer's office in a very itemized way.

1:27:50All of it was broken down. Like it was like tuition costs, the health insurance that they had to carry when they were a kid costs. They had every little thing detailed and like help to give them for a down payment, whatever. And there was the bill. and they said you can work with our attorney's office on an on a low interest payment plan well i mean it was unenforceable as you could imagine but can you imagine so i think that it is to understand that more than one thing can be true that to be a parent is to have financial responsibility they paid for those things and they're harmful the one it is not it's not a

1:28:24Jay Shetty:transaction have you experienced the opposite in your office where kids are somewhat taking advantage of their parents or try you have it you've experienced that version absolutely and here's when we see especially in an emerging adult especially who has narcissistic patterns and feels owed something so what they'll say is my parents were terrible and maybe the parents weren't great and say they're going to pay for it okay so i'm going to willingly take financial advantage when they offer me stuff i'm going to take it because at least that feels like reparation to them yeah because they're now doing the opposite of what you just said which is an incredibly unhealthy psychological dynamic because it's not going to address the wound.

1:29:00But if it is, and listen, some people might do it from a place of deep, deep hurt of saying, I need to get something out of this. And at least if I have some money so I can secure a safe place to say, I'll feel more whole. But they often don't feel more whole. If anything, they'll say, okay, at least I have a place to live. But it still came at this cost. And if anything, it keeps that trauma bonded sense of, well, now I owe them because I took their money.

1:29:21Jay Shetty:Someone goes no contact then finds out their parent is sick or dying how do you decide whether breaking no contact is worth it this is a decision you're largely making for yourself because it's unless you're some magical physician you're not going to probably change the course of things for them and i tell people whatever decision you make have realistic expectations you're probably not going to have some cinematic moment of forgiveness you may very well get a moment of anger you could potentially get a moment of indifference. You may have a moment of tremendous guilt and grief of how has it come to this?

1:29:55It's always going to be unpleasant. There is no right answer, but there's really a short term to do what needs to be done. And I don't know that there is a right answer. For some people say, I ended contact with this parent a long time ago. We've not been in each other's lives. This feels performative to me. They're going to pass. They could have easily passed without me knowing it. And in some cases, people say, I'm going to go because I still have to live a life after this. And yes, it would have taken a different path, but they say to be my whole self, I at least want to say goodbye as imperfect as this was.

1:30:27I just tell people, it's very hard to do things free of expectations, but the less you're going in with a narrative and a sense that, what if it goes this way? What if it's going to go the way it goes? But the idea that you're going to get some, like I said, deathbed confession working through is probably quite unlikely and to be very clear on what your motivations are going in because again

1:30:48Jay Shetty:there is no right answer no pain-free path okay two more last two after months of silence a narcissistic parent suddenly becomes loving generous and attentive how can you tell if it's worth to let them back in how would you encourage someone to stay strong in their boundary or think about that in general yeah i think that in a case like that is get away from the idea of games games playing and get more into what feels right and safe to you. Because again, you know what the game's going to be. If you say no, oh my gosh, I'm being so nice to you. Nothing's ever enough for you. If you say yes, you might get pulled back into the system.

1:31:23That's why I'm saying any period of no contact should be a time of healing. Because if they do come back and you've done your work and then they are nicey nice and you're having realistic expectations about it. And then that nicey-nice starts descending into manipulative, manipulative, you're able to say, here we go again, and I can disengage again. Because I think the challenge with trauma-bonded relationships is like all the lights go on immediately, and we're right back into that really stuck, self-blaming, self-abandoning space. But if we can say, I'm going to show up here as my whole self, I know that they can't handle hearing anything about me, so I won't.

1:32:00They're going to be nicey-nice, I'll keep it superficial. And some people might, exactly what I said, sometimes no contact can go into this sort of new wave of the relationship, which is much more superficial, sort of cordial, with zero expectations. And you kind of get in and you get out. It's sort of like a meet and greet at that point. And that might be, your parents might just like the optics of saying, look, I got together with my kid. And you then might have come to a more reconciled place of it. I just want people to get away from the whole magic kind of hallmark moment that it's all going to be perfect and work its way out.

1:32:35The fairy tale is not likely to happen. You wouldn't have gone no contact for no reason. That happened for a reason.

1:32:42Jay Shetty:Okay, final one. Someone who's no contact feels pressure to invite a narcissistic parent to a wedding or let them see a new baby. What should actually guide that decision? What feels safe to you? How do you want to preserve that day? How do you want to preserve this moment? How do you want to move forward? But because it's your day, it's your wedding day, it's your baby, these are your moments. And there may be, what gets complicated is, for example, there's a sibling or a grandparent who desperately wants this person at the wedding, and you're very fond of the sibling. You're very fond of that grandparent.

1:33:17A wedding is two people. I think there's a meaningful conversation that should happen between the two people getting married. The baby has two parents. That should be a meaningful conversation between those two people, the key stakeholders in this entire experience. So as I keep bringing it back to the sense of safety and authenticity, some people will say, I hope I never get married again. So I wouldn't, I may want this person here, but I have to be realistic about what this looks like. I don't want them to have a role in this day. So it might be, I don't want them involved in any of the ceremonial stuff, but they can come.

1:33:50Other people say, absolutely not. This would cast too long a shadow. It's a no. But I do think people need someone to walk them through this. This is where therapy becomes crucial. That a therapist has no skin in the game, right? That's where friends may have their opinions and family members, but a therapist, they just want you to have the healthiest version of that day. And I think that this is where having that professional guidance with enough time leading up to it. So once again, you're not abandoning you to make this family system work on what is a very, very important time for you. And if you do decide like, oh, I'm going to have them there to maintain the radical acceptance, the realistic awareness, the realistic expectations, that's a very personal choice.

1:34:35But if it doesn't feel safe, no is a complete sentence.

1:34:42Jay Shetty:dr romani thank you for being so clear for being so vulnerable for being holding this space for such a difficult conversation it really is such a difficult challenging conversation that it's pulling at people's heartstrings it's playing with people's emotions it's affecting their mental state their physical state i mean this is such a a conversation that has so much gravitas to it in in your life and where it will go. And just thank you for creating such a wonderful space for us to learn and be curious and think about it. I feel like I've gained so much understanding for myself, but also for the people that are struggling in between this decision, or maybe you've made it and you're questioning it.

1:35:22Jay Shetty:And so I really hope that this becomes an episode that people send to their family members, their friends who are struggling with these things. And I hope that Dr. Ramani's work continues to guide you through. You can find Dr. Ramani all across social media. Every platform will put all the links to her books in the caption as well. Dr. Romani, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, such a joy and really grateful to learn so much from you. Thank you. Thank you. If you enjoyed this conversation, you'll love my episode with the world's leading relationship therapist, Esther Perel, where we talk about why your ego is ruining your relationships and how to date more effectively.

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