177. Your Guide to Relationships: How to Build Healthier Connections & Increase Self-Love feat. Jeff Kallil

Jan 26

listen to this episode:

Today's guest is Jeff Kallil— a life coach and entrepreneur who helps lead and manage five family businesses. As a life coach, Jeff is deeply dedicated to reigniting the spark of self-belief in others and rebuilding their self-worth— a mission born from his own healing journey through emotional and narcissistic abuse.

Jeff and I dive into the following topics…

+ Jeff's journey into the mental health space

+ His top four tips for starting college

+ The crucial role of self-esteem in college & how you can boost it

+ Signs that you should focus on improving your self-esteem

+ How our relationships reflect how we feel about ourselves

+ How fixing our confidence affects our romantic relationships (and vice-versa!)

+ Maintaining your self-worth after a toxic or abusive relationship

+ Advice on healthy relationships with others and yourself

+ so much more!

Jeff's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeffkallil/

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ Jeff's TikTok

+ Jeff's Youtube

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: Welcome to She Persisted. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton, a 19 year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of Penn. She Persisted is the Teen Mental Health Podcast made for teenagers by a teen. In each episode, I'll bring you authentic, accessible, and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness.

You can expect evidence-based, teen approved resources, coping skills, including lots of D B T insights and education in. Each piece of content you consume, she persisted, Offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle, while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.

So let's dive in this week on She persisted.

Jeff: Confidence comes from experience. So you have to go out based on your belief system, and face different things. Try new things. Fail at certain things.

Hello, hello, you guys, and welcome back to another episode of She Persisted. We have an incredible episode on relationships and confidence today. I think all you guys are going to find this really, really valuable. Our guest is Jeff Kalil. He's a life coach and entrepreneur., He specializes in self worth and self belief and how that then shows up in our relationship. So, you'll hear a little bit about his story, but this mission was born from his own healing through emotional and narcissistic abuse. And so, we talk about a ton of different things in this episode. We really tried to make this, like, a one stop shop resource for you. So we talk about Tips for entering college, how important self esteem is when you're navigating college, and also signs that you might want to work on your self esteem and that it might be lower than it could be.

We talk about how relationships really reflect how we feel about ourselves, and hand in hand with that, why fixing our is so important when it comes to our relationships. We also talk about maintaining your self worth after unhealthy relationships. Specifically toxic or abusive relationships and advice on having a healthy relationship With both yourself and others.

So again, one stop shop relationship masterclass for you I learned a ton in this episode and I hope you guys do as well And if you are struggling with confidence or showing up as your best self in your relationship This episode is for you and I really hope you enjoy it and as always share leave a review It really helps the podcast.

We are starting a new monthly giveaway where On Instagram, I'll post a little feed graphic and a story, and every month one of you guys is going to win a little Starbucks gift card, so you get a coffee on me. And all you have to do is send a screenshot of a review that you've left for the podcast. You can have additional bonus entries every time you mention the podcast in your Instagram story and tag at She Persisted Podcast if you post about it on TikTok and tag at She Persisted Podcast or subscribe on YouTube. So any of those things, just DM me a screenshot and I will every month show like a little wheel with all the people that have entered, who wins, and send that to you guys.

I think this is going to be so fun and I love my coffee ritual every morning. It's It's such a great moment of self care positives, and I think it'll be fun to kind of gift that little experience and treat and tie it to the podcast. So I'm really excited. I hope you guys enjoy. So go leave your review as you're listening to this episode, and I'll talk to you guys next week.

Sadie: thank you so much for joining me today on She Persisted, Jeff. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast.

Jeff: Grateful to be here, Sadie. Thanks for having me.

Sadie: Of course. I would love to start with your background and how you ended up in the mental health space, your story, how you started.

Sharing on social media, , and building a platform and how you got to where you are today.

Jeff: Sure. So, I think that my journey to this space has kind of been since, I guess, my day one, if you will. If I look back at my timeline as a human being, it's all been around emotional stability and understanding more of myself.

And, Dealing with external situations and circumstances, whether it be with people or situations that have put a hit on my heart or my mind and how to deal with them. And it was funny, I was just talking to a friend this weekend and saying how I've gone through depression and anxiety spells that some are last longer than others.

She's like, Oh my gosh, but you're always so happy all the time. And I kind of struck a chord with me because that's what we hear about people. In the news, right? That some of the very scary things happen. It's, oh, they were so happy and it's just such an internal fight. And so I think I can really pinpoint my day one, if you will, Sadie, to, to go back to that is when I transitioned to college and when everything changed.

My friends are different. I wasn't surrounded by my family. I wasn't surrounded in my own home. I had to make a decision to become consciously my own individualistic human being. And I think that put a huge toll on my, on my mind. And it led to a lot of self discovery work. And from there , that's, I think where it pinpointed and it became enthralled in, in it and how different communication nuances can change a whole entire sentence.

How the smallest things that you eat even can play a huge part into your mental health. And that's been probably the most recent understanding is how our gut health affects our brain. And then also the different human interactions and the people you surround yourself with and how they can enhance your mental health.

Or decrease it. And so I've went through a pretty extreme experience of that exact moment. , Probably five to six years ago now. And. I started doing the healing work for that in the pandemic. And when I did that, I was just sharing my journey and my story and the things I was learning. And that is where my social media into the mental health space kind of came together.

And that's where you will see me today.

Sadie: I want to talk to you about that transitional period of college because so many listeners are either already in college or it's on the horizon and it's a point that many individuals identify as being a shift in their mental health because there are so many things that change whether it's relationships.

a routine, it's just really a challenging period of time if you don't have a foundation in place. So, if you were to go back, knowing now that it is such a period of self discovery, you learn so much about yourself and there are so many things that you can't necessarily plan for. But with the context that you have now, what would your advice be to someone going through that transitional college experience?

Jeff: It's a great question. I think for me, if I were to go back in time in hindsight and say, Jeff, if you did these three things, right, you're going to have an amazing college experience. So make sure that you do them. Be one is. Define what your community means to you. So here's the general rule of law community builds health in people.

So if we know that now, just the question is what kind of community is that? Is it around music? Is it around sports? Is it around social settings, like potentially Greek life or the arts? It doesn't matter what it is, as long as you are willing to. Put the time and energy into building the relationships with those types of people because then you have similarities in what you care about.

And you can do that by looking at what was your community like in your high, in high school, middle school? What did you like? What didn't you like? What would you change? , what would you keep? And so it's establishing what does that community look like? And the second thing is understanding the part you want to play.

And so we all have characters that we kind of play as in our lives, whether there's a work version of me, there's home version of me, there's when my kids are three version of me and probably when my kids are 13 version of me, right? We have different dynamics of ourselves. And so I would, I would tend to say is.

The things that you didn't love about yourself in high school and before you get to let go, but the things that you do love about yourself, you want to try to find a way to double down on those things. And the way you do that is you don't look at the mere surface, is you need to peel back the onion and look at what are your core values.

Because that's what's going to take you into every aspect of your life. The community that you build, the people you surround yourself with, the relationship, romantically, the people that you connect with, and may even direct your entire career path. So number two is understand your core values, and really what matters to you, what you believe in most, that is your foundation, right?

And then number three is We've heard it said so many ways and one is, you know, get comfortable being uncomfortable. I'm going to tweak that just a hair and say uncertainty. And why I think that's a little bit different is uncertainty happens to us. More than us creating it. And when you go to college, it's just happening to you.

It's like, this is whole new realm and world, and you're not going to be comfortable. So getting comfortable being uncomfortable, it's like, okay, duh. But choosing to embrace something. Is it actually almost falling in love with it? Does that, that's the nuance that I kind of want to play in here is getting comfortable with something is very different than embracing it.

Embracing is like, I'm, I'm facing you head on. I love you for what it is. And I'm going after it nonetheless. And so being okay with that process, , because it is just that and being graceful with yourself during your process. Don't be so hard on, on yourself in terms of what you need to accomplish at the time that you need to accomplish.

If we can take baby steps along the way. Ooh, okay. I'm going to add a fourth one. Sorry, Sadie. The fourth is. In high school, middle school, what was consistent is that your life was written for you. You went to this class, then you went to that class, then you went to sports, then you went to music, right?

Then mom made you breakfast, lunch, and dinner. typical, I suppose. There's always different nuances. College, it's like, here's your blank canvas. Good luck. And so in that essence is you have to regiment your own life. Give yourself a routine, give yourself a schedule, and that will allow your mind to feel like it's making progress each day.

And when you make progress, that leads to happiness. And when you have the feeling of happiness, the other things have a harder time to sink in.

Sadie: Yeah, I love that last point. It's something I've touched on a couple times in the podcast and tried to explain where it's like, if you can just put yourself in autopilot on like a positive trajectory with your morning and your night routine and the classes you're taking and the things you've committed yourself to without actively every single day being like, how am I making progress towards my larger career goals?

It takes a lot of the mental stress out of it and it makes it a lot more sustainable to be like, okay, I am in college and there's like endless choice points as far as what I want to do with my life and moving forward, but I know I'm making progress because all of these like little micro moments are pushing me in the right direction.

Jeff: Hands down You just like when you said endless possibilities The first thing that came to my mind was like the cheesecake factory and like no matter what you order you already disappointed Because there's like 70 things on this dang menu and I can't I can only try one in good conscience So you are correct.

It's it's almost that ability to Really, really peel back what's important to you and knowing that and then doing the, as you mentioned Sadie, that little baby steps forward every day and you're like, all right, I feel good about this and I don't have food envy. It's

Sadie: great. Exactly. Exactly. You mentioned choosing activities that you like and leaning into those interests and I think a lot of that can be really tied to self esteem and how you see yourself.

You also mentioned how. You can let go of things from high school that maybe don't feel aligned or that you didn't love as much. , before we dive into relationships and those different dynamics, I would love to get your thoughts on self esteem and confidence and those belief systems because it can play such an integral role in How you see yourself and, and your confidence as you approach these different goals in college.

Jeff: Yeah, that's great. I, first of all, love that you split the two up. They're not the same, and we often think that one may be intertwined or, or, or layered on the other. But I have, I have found that self esteem, or what I've really started to talk about it as a self belief. And it's something that you really, really deep rooted believe about yourself.

It's your belief systems. And that's where self esteem comes from. The esteem is, I mean, to, to really play on the words, it's the steam that comes with the boiling pot of your beliefs. So whatever is boiling in your system is, is how you're going to project it to the world. And so we've heard the phrase, I mean, it's all over social media.

You have limiting beliefs, right? Limiting beliefs are a very real thing and ultimately one can either Focus on them to eradicate them, or they can double down on the things that they really believe to be true about themselves. I have found a little mixture of both to be true. When you're confronted with situations that feel like your mind is telling you you can't do something, you're almost always coming up toward a limiting belief.

It feels like a literal wall in your mind. And that is the greater predicator of success and happiness than confidence is. So if you look, if you look at even Google trends, hands down, the most search for terms between the two is confidence, hands down. How do I become more confident? But the problem is, is that's the external result.

The internal, the internal process is all in the belief system. So once you're working through how I can adjust my limiting beliefs, telling your mind, this is not true and this is why it's not true. And then here's the biggest kicker. It's understanding the root. If you chop off a plant at the stem, it grows back.

If you rip it out, root and stem. Then you have a fresh plot of dirt that you can plant something new. So you need to understand when, not why it happened, not why you believe this way, which so many of us will think, why do I believe this way? You go this vicious cycle of why, why, why, why.

Go back to when, when did it start? Because then if you can pinpoint that, you can challenge that thought, rip that out root and stem, and then tell your mind exactly why that's not true. Instead of why is it, it's why it's not. And this is because X, Y, and Z, then I usually take the affirmation process and write one to two affirmations for that specific belief to then fight against it.

And I always tell my clients that if your mind is actively fighting what you're saying, you're probably attacking the right belief. So it's, it's like. But if you beat down a wall hard enough, it will eventually break and you will fix your thought patterns. You will have belief in yourself and move forward.

Because remember our beliefs, our whole childhood is everyone telling us who we are. So some of that's really positive. Some of it isn't. And so you just have to fix some of it. And that's our responsibility as adults. Then from the confidence side, confidence doesn't come from saying affirmations in the mirror.

confidence doesn't come from just. sitting around believing that you're a legend for whatever reason. Confidence comes from experience. So you have to go out based on your belief system, which should be strong at that point, right? And face different things. Try new things. Fail at certain things.

But when you fail and you have a strong belief system, you don't fall and smack your head on cement. It's like, whoop, that's hard, but I still believe in myself. I'm going to get up and try again a different way. And then you build confidence in your ability to be resilient to circumstance. confidence comes from failing oftentimes with the backing of a belief system that doesn't allow you to fail, if that makes sense.

Sadie: I think one thing that's really challenging with confidence and self esteem work is how normalized our own perception of ourselves is. Like, I think if you have that certain beliefs for a really long time, you're like, well, that's just how I see myself. And maybe you hear how other people speak to themselves.

We are like, well, maybe that's not realistic, or maybe they're not. Fully telling the truth. How do you guide clients on when it might be time or it might be beneficial to do self esteem and confidence work? Because again, it is so subjective. It's one of those things that feels less directly correlated with your mental health.

Like if you Constantly have really low self esteem. Maybe that will lead to depression or anxiety about how you're perceived But it's not as direct of a correlation as some other symptoms that can kind of just like lay dormant for a really long time So, how do you guide people on when it's helpful to work on self esteem and confidence and when it's like, okay It's it's it's working.

Why fix what's not broken? And and kind of differentiating between one that is point worth focusing on or not?

Jeff: Sure. I think the best types of guidance and the best types of paths begin and end with the right questions. And so, often, my when my clients are saying certain things, or even like people DMing me, even friends , it's all truly based on my own curiosity.

I'm like Okay, can you tell me why you feel that way they're so used to telling their narrative Like this is my story and everyone's like, yes, that's your story and You know, but then you have somebody say wait that that's your story. But why? Yeah, exactly. You questioned the entire story which they're like, wait a second.

I haven't thought about It being any different than this and then they kind of go on with, well, it's because that's what I've, that's what my life's been told. They're like, why am I? Life's been living this way. , okay, but why has it been living that way? Because that's what happened. Well, why did it happen that way?

I mean, there's some times, Sadie, where I probably asked five or six times. I just keep making them peel back the onion until I hear something like, well, because my cousin did this one thing to me when I was a little kid and I didn't know what he was doing or what she was doing. And this is what happened.

I'm like, Oh, that's why. And like, that gives me a chill, kind of can bring me to tears thinking about that because people repress that stuff. And it might, I mean, I probably said it's, it could be so dark and it could be so simple, like a little kid being a little kid pushing around their little cousin and it had a deeper impact than any of them could have ever imagined, you know, but that is really what it comes down to is.

Really helping, helping them. No one likes to peel an onion. I just was chopping them up last night. I was fricking in tears. No one likes to peel real ones. No one likes to peel proverbial ones, but you have to help them do it. And when they're doing it, you're, you have their arm around them. And helping them navigate that.

And if I was gifted with anything, Sadie, it's, I just love humans. And so that part comes easy to me, just having my arm around them as we're walking through that journey. And that's how I guide them. So let's say we get to that place where they say the real reason. Say, well, do you remember what you were like before then?

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. but the truth is they often do. I was happy. I was more free. I was X, Y, and Z. Tell me what that looked like. Who was that person? So now they're starting to visualize that and then you just kind of plop that back into their life. So it's okay. That's that person.

What are the steps that you need to take to realize that version of you again? And then that's where I need help. I need guidance. I need to do the work. I need to journal every day. I need to go on a three month long vacation. Now, these are the answers. I'm not saying all of them are correct.

Sadie: but often Because I will go on a three month vacation immediately if that's a pretended

Jeff: solution.

Hands down. Well, and it can be. I caution people with that because that's external. And it's an external thing. You got to fix the internal cause you're taking yourself to Bali if you're going anyway, right? So you got to fix who you're traveling with first. And then maybe your reward is that.

So it's different context. We often talk about external rewards. Go date the other person after you get a breakup, go out and just get hammered. Go on a vacation, go external, external, external doesn't solve the problem. So long winded. Okay. But that's my answer to it.

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Sadie: No, I love that. I think what you just mentioned about the external being like almost a symptom of the internal issues is really powerful and I want to shift to relationships because at first glance you'd be like, well, relationships would just be a reflection of the internal.

But I think there's so much more at play there because it is both people's internal dynamics and belief systems that are adding to that. So walk me through how your internal competence Beliefs, almost like self actualization of yourself, kind of shows up in those relationships how that like internal and external can be explained for listeners who have never heard that perspective

Jeff: Absolutely, you must be really tapping into my mind because this is exactly what I am so passionate about the relationships with ourselves This is a direct reflection of the relationships we have externally, or I said it better, would be the opposite.

, who we are friends with, who we're romantically involved with, even our colleagues in our relationship with our work, direct reflection of how we feel about ourselves. And I say that because. If you think really through the entire concept of humanity, if you don't believe that you deserve love, who are you going to feel safe with?

The person that bolsters that belief. The person that doesn't give you love. If you believe That you don't deserve to be promoted in your work and you're never going to go anywhere other than your entry level position Then you will find a place that helps you realize that because we are seeking completion we are seeking a Bolstering of our narrative our bolstering of our story always like in anything we do validation is such a major topic right now for a reason but the nuance and all of that is Your feelings and your experiences and your beliefs are valid because you are feeling them with the asterisk of, and that doesn't mean they are the truth.

It can be both. I think that nuance is very hard to say in social media. , social media works because of its polarizing nature. , however, I feel that when I've spoken to my clients and they will try to say, why am I in this pattern where I'm finding selfish people or narcissistic tendencies, types of people, or people that are unappreciative of me.

And then we often find that that's how their mother was. That's how their father was. I mean, so often people are looking for comfort. They're looking for consistency. They're looking for things that are familiar to them. So if that's how they're used to being treated, then it makes all the sense in the world that they will find and attract things that are similar to them unless they intentionally make the decision to break that thought process.

That's usually where I come in, but unfortunately it's after they've had their heart broken after they've gone through a major breakup or a self worth shattering experience and they come and talk to me thinking that I'm solving their relationships and then they come to feel realize that my program has nothing to do with necessarily the relationship with anyone else other than themselves.

Yeah.

Sadie: I'd love to understand kind of how those two play into each other because I'm sure people listening are like, okay, I now got to go and do the work on my confidence and my internal belief system. How I'm speaking to myself, and there also may be like the relationships might be a reflection of that They're not as effective as they could be.

I want more from my relationships What is the process of addressing both of those? do you first work on the thoughts and the internal work or is it adjusting the relationships and then As you continue to change, like, the extra representation, the internal shifts as well, almost like a chicken and the egg question, but how do you work on both of those when they're both showing up as challenges?

Jeff: So, it's a great thought, and I think that there's, we, we would love a black and white. Answer and there's usually never a black and white answer within relationships because to your earlier point, Sadie, humans are gray. They're all from their different experiences and nuances and they come together as one eventually.

Right now. Here's what I will say to that. I believe that they both can be done simultaneously. I think if you want the greatest results, you focus on yourself first. That's why being single is such a gift. I mean, here's the deal I was single for 90 percent of my life, but then when I got into a serious relationship that moved quickly cause I knew exactly what I was looking for and what I wanted.

I had enough relationships where like. I had my heart broken enough where I knew what I didn't want, but it came later in my life. I was single all through high school. I was single pretty much all the way through middle school. Right? So I had time to self reflect. So I'm going to start with that. Self awareness is essential.

What do you care about? What are you interested in? Who are you? And why are you the way that you are? Like, do you know your tendencies? Do you know how you behave? Do you know why you behave the way that you do? Every time you go through an experience, it's asking yourself, why did I go through this?

Why did I act this way? Why was my reaction this way? What could I do differently the next time? That is all self awareness types of questions and behavior that you can work through to tweak the nuances and adjust. That's phase one. Now to say like, Hey, let's cut off all contact with all human beings while I work on myself.

Like, let's be a little bit more realistic. You might find somebody attractive and then you want to talk to them. And there's a time for protection and there's a time for, please stay away from me while I work through this. But then there's like. But maybe I should test the waters. So if you're testing the waters, what you can do is write down all the things that you expect in a partner.

And then maybe you write, they're confident. Okay. That could be six different things to six different people. What does confidence in a partner look like for you? What does kindness in a partner look like for you? Do you care that they have unconditional love or is conditional love okay for you?

I don't know many people that it would be, but write down why and what it looks like. While you're doing that, that's when you go back to your belief system, addressing the beliefs, addressing the limiting beliefs, and really understanding perhaps what happened in your childhood or early adulthood that created those beliefs.

And then fighting against them, then it's going into confidence, which is understanding your goals, understanding your, like, what do you want in your life? What do you want? And not just your like career. It's what do you want in your relationships? What do you want in your finances? What do you want in your family?

What do you want in your friends? And what do you want in your, your career? So it's a many different things. And then for me, if you're like me, it'd be, what do you want for your faith? Right? So it could be all these different things from that standpoint, understanding, okay, I want these things. Now, who am I to ensure that I don't lose myself as I go get them?

So I don't adjust with every partner I talk to. I don't change for every career I try to go after. That's establishing your core values, getting down to three core values that matter the most to you. Three to five, I'll give it. And then from there it's testing the waters, moving through experiences. So if you really want the chicken and the egg in a perfect world to simplify it, you'd be at a place where you are self aware.

you have a relatively strong belief system. You're not, you're not thinking devastating thoughts about who you are and telling yourself a terrible narrative and you're clear enough on what matters to you most and the goals that you have for yourself. That would be ideal. And then you would be able to find a partner that aligns.

To that. And the cool part here is they don't have to be the same as you then they don't have to have a hundred percent similar interests. They need to be aligned on your core values. And that's pretty much it. And maybe your goals. Or at least enough where they believe in you just as much if not more than you believe in yourself To help you continue to grow

Sadie: the other side of that coin that I want to ask you about is when things don't go In the ideal path and it's whether it's a reflection of not having done the internal work not sticking to those core values or those dynamics that are less than ideal and whether that's maybe just Just ineffective communication.

Maybe it's an unhealthy relationship. Maybe it's an abusive relationship. How do you work through that process and navigate that? Obviously, we have the steps for going into a relationship and setting yourself up for success and also doing the internal work so you can show up in the relationship how you want to.

Sure. But if you find yourself in a relationship where that hasn't happened up until this point and now you're dealing with the, Repercussions or ramifications of that. How do you navigate that? Especially because I feel like so much of those relationships can be interpreted as reflection of you. And like it doesn't have to be very tied to self worth, which can be so challenging.

So for clients that come to you and are in that position, what is the advice and guidance you give there?

Jeff: It's great. Oh, I think the most important thing here is while overarching the whole big picture, Is that our relationships are a reflection of ourselves. However, there are so many nuances that we can't just blanket statement that and call it gospel.

For example, in an abusive relationship, I don't care who you are. The abuse is not your fault ever. Ever. The people that are facing that tend to believe it is, and I know that only because of the people I've worked with and my own, but mainly when you see it from a third party perspective, it shifts. So the way I work through that, Sadie is two things.

One, you have to look at one thing first. What can you and can't you control? Believe it or not, that simple exercise opens many different windows and it's people think that they have so much more control over the things that they actually don't. They can never control somebody's actions. They can't control another person's reactions.

They can't control their words. They can't control their thoughts. They can't control the weather, their career, sort of. I'll get to that in a minute. They can't control everything to its full capacity. Now they do have control over slivers of each. So if you are going in screaming at your partner, do you think that might affect how they speak to you?

Sure. Yeah, right. That's, that's what you can influence. And so when you look back at your self, I always ask them, Hey Sadie, what could have you controlled in this situation? And usually it's somewhere like, my tone of voice was strong, I was kind and empathetic, , I was a little short, could have been a little bit more expressive of how I felt.

You know, so it's those types of things. So if you can, if you can confidently look in the mirror and say that you've controlled everything that you can. And they still acted the way that they did. Then you have two options. One, you call it a fluke and they had a bad day and they usually come and apologize.

Really, people aren't, people are people. They got their issues and people lash out. They don't mean to. But then the second is it's a pattern consistently happens. There's no change or growth. So when you have this, the ladder, you know where you stand. It's very clear. So now that doesn't define you as a person.

What then defines you is what are you going to do about it? So now it's clear. We've peeled back the onion. We've discerned the differences between what is really in your control versus what's not. Now are you going to make the choice with the cards that you have or are you going to choose to stay in the dynamic?

And I think that is really where it comes down to, is you have to get to a place, everyone knows they can break up with somebody, but they always feel guilty and it's because they're more worried about if they've made the right decision and they're worried about the other person's reaction. It has nothing to do with necessarily the actual breakup.

It's the reverse of it. It's right. That's what happens right at the end. And so my point in saying that is. If you can get it to a place where they know they're making the right decision, then ultimately they understand that the other person's reaction is not their responsibility. Then they can confidently make choices.

And from there, actually a breakup could enhance your self worth if you are doing it for the right reasons. Did you follow that? Because I was, I was a little all over the place on the

Sadie: map. No, it's definitely, there's so many questions that you post throughout that where I was like, that needs to be a journaling prompt that that needs to be written about.

And I'm definitely going to do a social media post with all the different questions you post throughout the episode, because I think there are so many things that require listeners to reflect on, like just what you mentioned with what do you want from the relationship? What can you control? What elements did you control or didn't you control?

And I, I think it It's really empowering to put so much choice in, in your own decisions, your own actions, and how you approach the relationship. And even if that means ending the relationship and stepping away because the other person's not being effective. And I think that is a really helpful anecdote to feeling hopeless in a relationship or feeling lost and overwhelmed and not sure what to do and not feeling like it's the right fit or that you're trying your best and things aren't improving.

And I think that's really helpful. Bye. Going through those steps and really focusing on what you're doing and also what you want from that relationship can be really empowering in that process.

Jeff: I agree you said it and i'm gonna i'm gonna add a word to that That is it's like Ruthless accountability for yourself Yeah, and it's it's accountability can be a scary word, but it shouldn't be we've just unfortunately made it as such It really means ownership Like, it's ownership of your life, it's ownership of your choices, and I mean, I had somebody tell me once that they were so accountable to themselves that if a rocket landed on their house they would say it's their fault for moving into the dang house.

Like, wow! I'm like, that is mind blowing to me. Right. A little crazy. But it was such an interesting concept that if you really wanted to I'm not saying you should, fam, but if you really wanted to, you could really decide to be accountable to almost anything. It's nuts, but having the balance of, back to your point, Sadie, of being in control of your dynamic.

from where you stand is, in fact, empowering.

Sadie: If there was one piece of advice, whether it's related to relationships or doing the internal work to set yourself up for success in relationships that all teens and young adults could be equipped with, what would that be? Wow,

Jeff: just one?

Sadie: I know. It's hard.

Jeff: It is so hard.

I think from a healthy relationship dynamic, I'm going to go on to a different pad here and say

Jeff: two things. It has to be two. One is effective communication. And I'll say it with this caveat. Communication at all. Even if not effective at first is better than no communication because when you don't communicate you brush things under the rug and then it festers and spreads

so communicate, try your best to say how things are making you feel, not what the other person's doing. And then last but not least on that one is never, ever, ever, ever keep score. I don't care what person is doing what more. If you feel like there's an imbalance, I'm going to go back to communicate through it, but show up, give it your all on each side.

And that way each side is giving 100 percent and so your cup is always full. And if you're constantly like looking at the scoreboard to seeing who's winning, it's made out to be a miserable life and that's with friendships or romantic relationships or family for that matter. Everyone has their strengths and you can't compare a football player to a hockey player.

They're different and so allow for the differences to flourish. And where there feels imbalance, just talk about it. Don't, don't judge, just talk about it. And then for the relationship with yourself, this one's a little bit easier. Always be working on yourself and asking yourself why, when, and how constantly.

And then while you're doing that, be graceful with your process. You didn't get to where you are in a day, you're not gonna get to where you wanna go in a day. Be patient with that and Love that. And it's okay that you're not where you want to be today because then if you're not growing, then you're doing the opposite.

There's no static. And so be proud of yourself for growing and ask yourself questions always. Be really curious about you. It's kind of freaky that we can live in our own minds all day and not fully know who we are. Yeah,

Sadie: yeah. It's also kind of fun. Yeah, it's definitely and such an interesting dynamic.

And I love both of those different areas of advice so much. I just cannot wait to share this episode and implement all of these different. Tips and tricks and insights. I feel like we just did a master class on relationships and self work and I know that everyone will get so much value from this. So if people want to continue to consume your content, learn more because this was barely scratching the surface of everything you share, , or work with you in the future, where can they

Jeff: find you?

They can find me, best place is on Instagram, , it's probably like my hub of my community and you can just find it by my name. It's Jeff K A double L I L, , and my program, YouTube, and everything else from there, it stems from the, the Instagram, so. That's the best place to find me to start.

Sadie: Amazing. Well, thank you so much.

This was absolutely incredible. And I am so grateful that you came on. She persisted.

Jeff: Thank you for having me, Sadie. It was so fun getting to know you and talking and look forward to hopefully join you again.

Sadie: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of she persisted. If you enjoyed, make sure to share with a friend or family member, it really helps out the podcast. And if you haven't already leave a review on apple podcasts or Spotify, you can also make sure to follow along at actually persisted podcast on both Instagram and Tik TOK, and check out all the bonus resources, content and information on my website.

She persisted podcast.com. Thanks for supporting. Keep persisting and I'll see you next week.

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