For the person who isn’t chronically questioning, Joe’s central move is disarmingly simple: show up uncompromisingly as yourself and see what happens. Say the things you want to say, take the actions you think are important, draw the boundaries — then watch whether you get fired, leave, or whether it all works itself out.
“What happens if you’re uncompromisingly yourself in it? And that just solves the problem for a lot of people because they immediately see that they have lost themselves in some form of enmeshment.”
By Joe’s estimate it works out 75 to 80% of the time, because the question was never really about the relationship — it was about having abandoned yourself in it. There’s a failure mode, though: showing up “as yourself” while spiky, resentful, and closed-hearted, which sabotages the situation and seems to prove that being yourself doesn’t work.
The key is that it has to come with a felt sense of freedom, not a chip on the shoulder. Joe cites Buckminster Fuller, who, on the edge of suicide, realized he could die at any time and decided to instead live exactly as he wanted — and was effectively reborn.
“It’s not proving anything to anybody. It’s not a chip on your shoulder. It’s ‘Oh, I get to be myself and see if these people can handle it.‘”
Related Concepts
- Be fully yourself and the relationship question answers itself
- Stay-or-leave is really the question ‘can I stay with myself?’
- Idealizing the future keeps you from what’s available now
- You must know you can leave to truly love
- Self-love dissolves relationship decisions rather than answering them
- Heartbreak is the mechanism of healthy boundaries
- Surrender into love prevents self-betrayal
- We find love when we stop fearing annihilation