Episode 6: Recognizing and Responding to Red Flags in Relationships

Episode 6: Recognizing and Responding to Red Flags in Relationships

Madeline, host of 'Becoming Sunshine,' discusses the challenging yet essential process of recognizing and responding to red flags in both friendships and romantic relationships. She shares personal experiences of friendship breakups, stressing the importance of setting boundaries, trusting one's intuition, and understanding that people must be willing to do the inner work to grow. Madeline emphasizes the need for self-worth and making decisions that align with one's highest self, while offering insights into maintaining integrity and eliminating relationships that no longer serve. She encourages listeners to focus on self-care and finding the right people who value and uplift them.

00:00 Understanding Love and Potential

00:52 Welcome to Becoming Sunshine

01:32 Personal Reflections and Life Lessons

02:20 Friendship Breakups and Red Flags

07:32 Trusting Intuition and Professional Challenges

13:54 Setting Boundaries and Self-Worth

18:50 Evaluating Relationships and Personal Growth

26:00 Final Thoughts and Gratitude

27:04 Closing Remarks and Call to Action

Transcript

Madeline: 0:00

Love is just such an intense emotion and you see this person and you see their soul and you see who they could be and how great they could be to you, but if they're not willing to do the work and get the help that they need, then you're really just in love with the potential or The idea of this person or an old version of this person that you fell in love with and it's not reality and you don't want to waste your time waiting for them to grow into themselves because that might not ever happen it really goes for friendships or romantic relationships. I think just seeing the signs and listening to them early on before, it blows up down the road and then it's like a huge mess and a way bigger heartache. Welcome to Becoming Sunshine. For those of you that know me, you know that sunshine has been an alias of mine for almost a decade now and sunshine also is me becoming my highest self and that's what this podcast is about. I'm here to help you understand yourself better and maybe learn some more about myself along the way. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm excited. Hey guys, it's Madeline. So you'll have to forgive me. My voice is a little bit raspy today. I've been feeling a little bit under the weather. Texas allergies are a thing. They're crazy. bear with me. Lately, life has been serving me lots of lessons. The lessons have been lessening, and I feel like there's been a lot of really similar themes lately and this whole year So at the beginning of the year, I asked the universe to basically remove everything out of my life and everyone that wasn't aligned In order to make space for everything that I was calling in I really want to make some changes this year. I'm in the midst of my saturn return. I just feel like I had so many goals and I finally knew what I wanted to do and I had an idea of the path to take me there and I just wanted the universe to help guide me and give me the little push that I needed and the growing pains have been real. I went through a lot of friendship breakups at the beginning of the year and I don't think friendship breakups are something that people talk about as much as they should. I feel like there's so much out there on TikTok, Instagram. There's so many books. There's so much literature on romantic relationships and those breakups, and of course that's a completely different type of heartbreak and I think it's necessary to have so many more resources, but friendship breakups are just as hard sometimes, if not worse, especially If, these people have been in your life for a really long time or these connections really meant a lot to you, even if it was at a time in your life that, maybe you're not in the same place anymore, it's still hard and in my case, I was friends with this group of girls for probably the past six years or so and, It was really difficult because for a long time I felt like we all were cut from the same cloth and found each other and built this little family, this sisterhood of girls and, realizing that wasn't something that, was gonna stay in my life was really challenging. it was really difficult, but when I think about it, there were a lot of little signs over the years. little red flags, maybe pink flags, maybe orange flags. little things over the years that I rationalized in order to maintain the friendship. I made excuses for, and some of that was, from convenience and I also just think we attach ourselves to certain outcomes and certain narratives and we trick ourselves into believing certain things in order to maintain those narratives and those timelines for ourselves, but I think some of the lessons I've been forced to learn recently that. If we just paid attention to those early signs, we could save ourselves a lot of heartache and time down the road, but I mean, it's okay. We learn lessons, when we're supposed to, and I just feel like listening to red flags or seeing the signs, recognizing the signs, trusting our intuition, and just accepting people and leaving them where they're at Those have been some of the biggest lessons I've learned recently. people grow and people change and it's okay, for not growing together. Things don't feel as aligned as they used to. I feel like the conversation started to change, our interests started to change. the things that were important to me weren't as important to some of those people and we just had different goals and that's okay and I feel like to being able to see outside your perspective is important, and I feel like sometimes people struggle with that. They can't see outside of their perspective and that's okay. it's been challenging and hard and, maybe down the road things, will be aligned again, but I think just taking stock of what something was and what something meant to you and being grateful for that and moving forward with grace for everybody is really the best way to be. It's crazy this fallout happened earlier in the year and it was really hard and then I feel like a lot of the lessons I've learned since then have been smaller little, reflections of this lesson. the universe will, Keep sending us the same lesson and it'll get louder and louder until we listen. in this circumstance I rationalize things and I let things go for maybe a little bit too long and then it eventually blew up and maybe if I had listened or just created a little bit more space and prepared myself for the inevitable, wouldn't it came as such a shock and it wouldn't have been so challenging when the fallout did happen and since so many people left my life, that had been a big part of my life for a really long time although it's what I was asking for from the universe, it's still hard and I think losing so many of those relationships has left me feeling a little bit ungrounded and I think when we're ungrounded, we don't always make the best decisions. We don't always use the best judgment maybe I've gone out a little bit too much. I put my faith in the wrong people or trusted people when I shouldn't have and there's been more little lessons, since then, and now I feel like whenever something's not aligned, or, I don't trust my intuition, or there's that little voice that says oh hey, this maybe isn't the best situation, this isn't the best person and I don't listen to it, it blows up so much faster and, the consequences and the repercussions are so much faster, and I'm like, okay. recently, in, my professional life, a friend of mine, we were, working with somebody and I didn't have the best feeling about them. I was like, oh, I don't know if we should trust this person and she vouched for him. and this is like a newer friend so again, it's like, whose judgment are we trusting? and I feel like trusting your own intuition and judgment is always best, but again, it's easy to want to believe certain narratives. it's easy to want to believe that things are going to work out, and in the end, we just wasted a bunch of time and lost a bunch of money and it was very frustrating and it's a difficult lesson to learn but again, If I had listened to my own intuition and I'm like, okay, this is not a situation that we need to be involved in or this isn't a person we need to be involved with we could have saved ourselves a lot of time it is what it is and like podcast before sometimes you have to run into the fire and sometimes you have to learn lessons over and over until it clicks and that's okay I got this advice from somebody close to me and it's great advice and basically she was saying, she gave me a big hug and she was like, listen, all you can really do is control what you can control and that's your reactions, your emotions, you can't control what other people do or what their healing is like. you can only take responsibility for yourself. I think a big part of that is recognizing situations for what they are and not what you want them to be and accepting that and moving accordingly. I feel like surrender is another really important theme in my life and sometimes it's challenging to surrender and let things be what they're gonna be and leave people where they're at, but you really can't control what other people do. You can control how they affect you, you can control the people in your life, you can control who has access to you and unfortunately, people are going to let you down, and they're going to disappoint you, and that's just a part of life, and this episode doesn't need to be like, super sad or debbie downer. It's just, sometimes when people let you down, it's like, okay, let me take ownership of this you know, sometimes it's out of your control and you trust people and you put faith in people and they let you down and people are human, it's not always malicious, but sometimes, it is maybe because you engaged in a situation or with a person that quite frankly was a little bit beneath you. That's okay, we make mistakes, we're human, we go through shit, and that's okay. I'm very intuitive and I feel like a big part of this for me is reading energetics and I feel like I see situations and I see people very clearly and on a deeper level, maybe even more consciously than they see themselves, and so if I see, someone's behavior and the way they move, and I see where they're operating from, whether that's a place of wounding, or ego, or whatever. I understand them, I understand where they're coming from, and so, I feel like the need to stay sometimes in this situation or, I have a lot of compassion for where they're coming from and I give them a lot of grace, but at the same time, that doesn't mean I deserve whatever outcome or whatever they're bringing, if someone's behavior is disrespectful or if their behavior is not moving out of integrity or a way that's aligned and just because I understand where they're coming from doesn't mean I need to stick around and that's not always the case, it depends on what this person means to me or, what I want out of the situation. I think sometimes again, I want a certain outcome, whether or not it's realistic. I like to stay de lulu sometimes, I think we all do, but it's just at the end of the day, who's looking out for my inner child? and when you think about it from that perspective, I think I would move a lot differently. I think I would leave people and situations a lot faster. it's good to be compassionate and have sympathy and be understanding and see outside of your own perspective, but It's like, why am I so concerned with taking care of others and holding space for others? Who's holding space for me and my inner child? it's crazy how many things in adulthood, how many themes in adulthood come back to healing our inner child, and connecting with ourselves is really just connecting and healing our inner child. I just, love learning about anthropology and psychology and neuroplasticity and energetics and it's all very interesting to me astrology, the whole thing. I love learning about people, understanding people, seeing where they're coming from. It's helped me in my own interpersonal relationships, but I sometimes forget to focus on my relationship with myself and I'm so worried about other people, and it's like, who's worried about me? Who's worried about my inner child and healing her and holding space for her, and it all comes back to accepting people and leaving them where they're at, and I think that's huge and understanding where someone's coming from is not the same as them working on themselves or healing themselves and people have to be conscious and willing to do the work and willing to heal themselves and not just like the spiritual bypass stuff where you know, they're very into spirituality but they're not doing like the deep inner work and they're not actually reprogramming limiting beliefs. They're not actually reprogramming blocks and they're not actually going through the nitty gritty and then there's people that are just trying to stay distracted and numb and that's not good either. That's not good for anybody I think sometimes you have to decide if someone is doing the work on themselves. with all of this, the most important thing is setting boundaries and setting standards for yourself, and I feel like through this process of healing and, letting go of relationships, reconnecting with people, old friends, making room for new friends and new relationships. I think sometimes when you're feeling ungrounded it's easy to have wavering boundaries and having boundaries and setting standards for yourself is everything. I think it's really easy sometimes to get caught up in where people are coming from and, seeing who they are, seeing their soul and the potential of somebody or getting stuck into a certain timeline or narrative with somebody because, who they could be to you and who they could be, if they healed themselves or if they got the help that they needed and they healed their childhood trauma, they healed their relationship trauma, they healed their intimacy issues, they healed x, y, z, it's easy to get stuck in those loops, but I think that's a dangerous place to be because you don't want to waste your time and energy on something that isn't reality and It can be really painful to walk away from a friendship or a romantic relationship or something that doesn't feel aligned but if they're not willing to get the help or do the work on themselves and have these conscious conversations and sometimes, you can even have these really conscious conversations with them and you can both be on the same page, but If the behavior doesn't change then It's really challenging I think you have to determine if something is aligned or not, whether that's friendships, whether that's romantic relationships, no one's perfect. Everyone has stuff that they're working through. I think it just is for you to determine, is this person meeting my standards? Is this person respecting my boundaries? with friendships or romantic relationships. I think it's important to have these conversations with yourself and these conscious conversations with these people. when you have to take action and walk away is if, they can't see outside their perspective or, the behavior doesn't change and that's when you start to self abandon for the sake of this other person and that's what I'm talking about. you see the best in other people and you see the potential, but who's holding space for you and your inner child? Who's protecting you and your needs? I think with romantic relationships especially, those can be some of the most difficult and draining because, Love is just such an intense emotion and you see this person and you see their soul and you see who they could be and how great they could be to you, but if they're not willing to do the work and get the help that they need, then you're really just in love with the potential or The idea of this person or an old version of this person that you fell in love with and it's not reality and you don't want to waste your time waiting for them to grow into themselves because that might not ever happen it really goes for friendships or romantic relationships. I think just seeing the signs and listening to them early on before, it blows up down the road and then it's like a huge mess and a way bigger heartache. and really at the end of the day, all we can control is our response to people and our actions and people treat us the way that we allow them to and the people that surround us are the people that we allow and whether that's business relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, we set the standard and if people want to remain in our lives, they're going to have to meet that standard and I think it's easy sometimes to want to give people the benefit of the doubt or, you see where they're coming from and you understand and so you're like, okay, I'm making excuses for them, rationalizing certain behaviors but I think when you do that, it's a slippery slope because that sets a precedent and then it's easy to rationalize it again and again, and then it changes the dynamic of the relationship. whether that's with friends or whatever and then that leads to resentment, that leads to mistrust, and eventually these signs early on lead to the downfall and the heartache in the end and I think if we acknowledge, like really acknowledge these early signs and have conscious conversations in the beginning and set the standard then, set the boundary, and then if the behaviors don't change, then it's up to us to walk away and move on or just take a step back It's so hard to do that, especially, when you've been friends with this person for years, you love this person, but you have to love yourself first, whenever we move from a place of deservingness and self worth, the universe rewards us, and whenever we're moving from a place of integrity, the right people will be attracted to us, and the right people will be aligned with us. Everything is about energy, and we're always vibrating at a certain frequency. And at one point, this person came into your life because you were vibrating at the same frequency. You were aligned and it doesn't mean that you, aren't going to be aligned again. people are constantly growing and changing and people go through stuff, like I'm not always my most amazing self. I fall off the deep end sometimes I spiral sometimes and, those ride or die friends are the ones that are there for you. The ones that are understanding the ones that hold space for you, but they're also the ones that keep it real with you, keep it 100 and I feel like if one of my friends, checks me like in a very loving way and is Hey, what's going on with you? Hey, blah, blah, blah, blah. and hold space has compassion. That's great. That's amazing and that's a really great friend. I feel like at the same time though, when you start to have less and less in common or you can't even have those conversations. you don't feel like it's a safe space to have those conversations. That's, I think, when you need to look at the relationship and maybe make a change or maybe take a step back and I think sometimes that's a hard realization, especially, if you've been friends for a long time or, you've been in a relationship with this person for a long time and I think just taking stock of where you're at and what the communication is like that's a huge factor of whether or not the relationship is salvageable at that point or if, you're in a place where it's even worth maintaining that relationship. sometimes I will sit back and get some perspective and, I think to myself, what am I really losing? not what has this relationship meant to me and what has it been, but what is it now? Does this person treat me with respect? Do we have fun together? Do we have aligned conversations? Do we have aligned interests? Do we want the same things out of life? Are we growing together? Do we have the same goals? Whether someone's in my life as a friend, or a professional relationship, or a romantic relationship, we have to be working towards a common goal. We have to be making each other better. We have to be growing together. We have to be growing in the same direction. And I feel like sometimes taking a step back and really being honest with yourself about that will give you a lot of perspective and it's okay, if this was an amazing friend or this was an amazing partner or this was an amazing professional relationship for a really long time. If it no longer feels aligned, that's okay and you can just be grateful for the experiences that you had and keep it moving. Life is about expanding and growing and it is hard to say goodbye to certain relationships, certain friendships, and it's amazing and it's rare, when people have friendships or relationships with people for like 10, 20 years and they can just pick up where they left off and it's amazing. I feel like a big part of that is there's different levels of friendship there's different levels of relationships with people and that's okay, too not everyone needs to be a ride or die friend. There can be the friends that you know, you like to have brunch with there's the friends that you like to go on vacations with there's the friends that you like to go to concerts with you like to go to dinner with that's okay It's okay to have different levels of friendship. I've learned this a long time ago you don't need to have your feelings for all the time because some friends are not going to be everything to you and some people are not going to be everything to you and really nobody should be everything to You have to be everything to yourself first and people have different strengths and I love that. That's what keeps life interesting. That's what keeps life fun, but I think when someone isn't respecting your boundaries or they're not adding to your life. They're not adding value you that's when you have to maybe make a change and that's one of the more difficult parts of life but that is just a part of life and I think no matter the relationship just taking stock in what value they're bringing to the table and what value they're bringing to your life is so important and things change and you might reconnect with this person down the road and that's amazing, that's great but looking out for yourself and protecting yourself and healing yourself and taking care of your side of the street is always going to be number one. You can't pour from an empty cup and you can't show up the best for others when you're not showing up the best for yourself. If you're around people that don't make you feel good, don't make you feel like your highest self, how are you going to show up the best for your friends? How are you going to show up the best for your partner? that's just something I'm working on and I'm realizing and I think sometimes it's hard to talk about this kind of stuff because, it doesn't feel good when you feel unsure about where certain people stand in your life and, if you made a mistake letting people go but I think if you're always coming from a place of integrity, a place of self-worth, a place of deservingness being like, no, I deserve better. I deserve to feel good. thinking to yourself after you're with somebody after to hang out with them. Do I feel lit up or do I feel drained? And I think if you're honest with yourself and you don't feel lit up, You didn't make a mistake and no matter what anyone else's opinions are about the situation, just staying true to yourself and trusting your own intuition and trusting that the right people are going to find you and that you're going to find your group, you're going to find your tribe, you're going to find your family, and trusting in yourself. That's the most important. that's really the only person that needs to believe in you is yourself. Plenty of people in life are going to tell you, you're wrong about something but as long as you believe in yourself and what you deserve, you can't lose. I hope that this episode has been helpful. I'm sure I'll make a lot more episodes on surrendering and trusting the universe and trusting yourself, most importantly and these are themes that I'm sure will come up again. thank you guys so much for listening. I appreciate you and I hope this episode connected with some of you. It's definitely been something I've been struggling with lately. on every front. On the relationship front, on the friendship front. the professional front. It's a lot. Life has been hitting me with a lot lately, but these are always when we learn our greatest lessons and we always have our greatest moments of growth. I've heard this before and I do believe it wholeheartedly that the universe tests us the most right before our biggest are about to come through. I know there's big things for me right around the corner and having gratitude for all of it, the good, the bad, the ugly, the challenging. I welcome it all, so thank you guys until next time. Bye. Hey guys, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode, remember to comment, like, and subscribe. Share it with your friends. It really does help me. You can also go to my website at becomingsunshine. com and subscribe to my newsletter. You can support the podcast there. Thanks again. I appreciate you guys so much and we'll talk soon. Bye!