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I wasn't planning on doing a regular episode today. I wanted to do something a little different because I've been thinking about how much my life has changed in this last year alone. And I'm not just talking about circumstances, I'm talking about me as a person, the way I think, the way I love, the shit I tolerate, the way I respond, the way I see myself, the way I see other people. And I have come to the realization that some of the biggest changes in my life didn't happen because somebody told me something beautiful. They happened because I finally accepted something that hurt: a hard truth. Something I didn't want to hear, of course, something I didn't want to admit, and something that pissed me off when somebody else said it. Or something I probably known for years but wasn't ready to accept. And baby, once you know, you can't unknow. So this isn't going to be one of those 10 beautiful lessons that transform my life stuff. No. Some of those lessons I had to learn were ugly. Some cost me relationships, some made me look at myself differently. Some made me realize that people I loved weren't good for me. And some made me realize I wasn't always good for me either. The part that people that's the part that people tend to leave out. You know, sometimes the person standing between you and the life you say you want is you. So today I want to give you some of the hard truths that changed my life. And not because I think you need to agree with every one of them, but because maybe one of them is the truth that you've been avoiding. And if it is, then don't get mad at me. Take it up with your journal. Welcome to this special episode of the Quietest Kept Podcast. I am Shanti Boswell, aka Shanti B, aka Journal Bay. I am a master certified mental health coach, author, speaker, and your journal bae. And if you've been listening to season three so far, you already know that babe I ain't been playing with y'all. We have talked about the person you might have been if nobody hurt you. We've talked about the children we used, we used to be still making adult decisions today. We've talked about wanting to be chosen, we've talked about the lies that we tell ourselves to stay comfortable. So I wanted to interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for something that's a little different. You know, it's not going to be one big lesson today. We're going to have a conversation, me and you. And bring your journal too. Because I'm going to give you some truths that change me. Now let's get into it. So, hard truth number one. Sometimes you're not confused, you just don't like the answer. Didn't I just talk about this? But it belongs here because this changed my life. There were situations where I kept saying, I don't know what to do, but really I did know what to do. I just didn't like the choice that I had to make. And there's the difference. You know, sometimes you know the relationship isn't working, you know that friendship has changed. You know you don't trust them anymore. You know you need a boundary. You know the job isn't good for you. You know you need help. You know you need to apologize. You know, but the answer comes with consequences, right? So we call ourselves confused or because confused lets us delay action. But sometimes the question isn't what should I do? Sometimes the question actually is, am I willing to do what I already know needs to be done? And that right there will change the conversation real quick. Number two, loving somebody doesn't mean they belong in your life. Oh, baby, this is the one. I used to think that love was enough. If I love you, we should be able to work through anything, right? If we're family, we should be able to work through anything. If we've been friends for a while, we should be able to work through anything. No, that ain't even it. Love is important, but love doesn't automatically create compatibility. Love doesn't create emotional maturity. Oh Lord, I wish it did. Love doesn't create honesty, love doesn't create accountability, love doesn't create safety, love doesn't make somebody respect your boundaries. And sometimes you can genuinely love somebody and still realize I cannot keep living like this. That doesn't make the love fake. It means love isn't the only thing required for a healthy relationship. Some people have loved each other deeply and hurt each other terribly, and both of those can be true. That's maturity when you're able to see that and admit that. Being able to hold two truths without forcing one to erase the other. I love you and I don't trust you, right? I love you and we are healthy together. I love you, and you don't get unlimited access to me. I love you and I choose me too. And that's the last one that changed everything. Number three, people can only give you what they have the capacity to give. Now that truth right there helped me stop making certain things, taking certain things so personally, because I used to take all kinds of stuff personal. But once I realized that, certain things I don't take personally anymore. You know, there were things that I wanted from people like accountability, emotional availability, understanding, affection, communication, and apology, honesty. And sometimes I kept thinking, if I explain it better, maybe they'll understand. Or if I tell them how much it hurt, maybe they'll care differently. If I give them one more chance, maybe they'll finally show up. But what if they don't have the capacity? And that's not me calling them a bad person, but capacity matters. Some people have never developed the emotional skills required to give you what you're asking for. And if you cannot squeeze, well, no, it ain't an if, you cannot squeeze emotional maturity out of somebody. Oh Lord, you can't. You can't coach somebody into accountability when they don't believe they've done anything wrong. You can't force emotional intimacy with somebody committed to avoiding themselves. You heard that. You can't have a healthy conversation by yourself. And here is the part that changed me. Their inability to give it does not mean I have to stop needing it. I'm gonna say that again. Their inability to give it does not mean I have to stop needing it. Well, you can't read me. You're listening. So rewind it and listen to it as many times as you need to. Their inability to meet the need does not mean the need is unreasonable, and that's something I used to think. But sometimes you simply have to stop shopping at a store that doesn't sell what you're looking for. Number four, an apology doesn't always come. Now, this one is hard, especially when you know somebody did you wrong. You waiting and waiting and rehearsing what you're gonna say when they finally admit they did you wrong. You imagine a conversation, it you know, it's to say something goes some like, I should have never done that to you. You didn't deserve it. I was wrong. I'm sorry. And maybe they never say it. Or worse, they remember the whole situation differently. Now what? Are you gonna put your healing on hold until somebody else develops self-awareness? Because that's a hell of a lot of power to give somebody, and nobody deserves your power like that. Forgiveness when you choose it isn't saying that what happened was okay, and healing doesn't mean pretending it didn't matter. But there came a point in my life where I had to realize I cannot make my peace dependent on somebody else's apology. Some people are not sorry, some people will die on the hill thinking they were right. Some people know they were wrong, but they still won't say it. Some people apologize but never change. Some people are dead, literally. Some people are gone from your life, some relationships are over, and you may never get the apology. But guess what, ladies? You still deserve to heal. Hard truth number five. Understanding why you are the way you are doesn't give you permission to stay that way. Now, this one is for my healing people because baby, we can learn the language. I have abandonment wounds. Okay, I'm a people pleaser because okay. My childhood taught me, okay. Well, I have a trauma response. Okay, now what? Because self-awareness is beautiful, but awareness is only the beginning. That wasn't the finish line, sis. I can understand why I shut down during conflict. Now I have to learn how to communicate. I can understand why I don't trust people. Now I have to learn discernment instead of treating everybody like they're guilty until proven innocent. Hello. I can I can understand why I overgive. Now I have to stop doing it. I can understand why I struggle with boundaries. Now I have to practice saying no. I can understand why I react the way I react. Now I have to take responsibility for the impact. Your story deserves compassion, but your future deserves accountability, and that is a hard truth. Because eventually, healing is going to ask you, okay, you know why. What are you gonna do differently? Number six, sometimes you have to forgive yourself more than once, and this one matters to me because people talk about self-forgiveness like it's one big beautiful moment. You write yourself a letter, you burn it, you cry, you play some music, and voila, forgiven. Baby, no, that's not how that works. Sometimes you forgive yourself on Monday and you have to forgive yourself again on Thursday because something is going to remind you. These thoughts are gonna come up. I can't believe I stayed. I can't believe I allowed that. I can't believe I didn't see that. I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I heard them. I can't believe I wasted all that time. Listen, you were making decisions with the version of you that existed then. That doesn't mean every decision was good. Accountability still matters, but you cannot go backward and give your younger self information she didn't have. You can only decide what today's version of you does with what she knows now. Know better, do better, right? Self-forgiveness isn't always an event, sometimes it's a practice. Number seven, some people benefited from the version of you that had no boundaries. Who, child? When you start healing, everybody isn't going to clap for you. They are not gonna be happy for you. They're gonna some people are gonna be mad, they're gonna start calling you different, and they might be right. You are different because you used to answer every call on the first ring. Now you don't. You used to loan the money, now you ask questions, you used to show up every time, and now you check your capacity. You used to let things slide and now you address them. You used to explain your no. Now you just say no. You used to let guilt change your answer. Now guilt can ride in a passenger seat, but it doesn't get to drive. Of course, the relationship changes. The old relationship was partly built around your lack of boundaries, and this changed something in me because someone being upset about my boundary doesn't automatically mean my boundary is wrong. Sometimes their reaction is simply information, and when I say that, I mean, let's say I set a boundary that I'm not going to uh pay this bill, and the bill is a hundred dollars a month. I used to pay it, but I decided this next the next month that comes in, I'm not paying it no more, and I let that person know that their reaction may be okay, I understand. Or what you mean you're not paying for this? You've been paying for, and their reaction is simply information. That don't mean I'm gonna change my mind. All right, number eight, being needed is not the same as being loved. Now, this one will come back in another episode because it deserves its own conversation, but I'm gonna touch on it a little bit right here. Some of some of us feel valuable when people need us. We're the solver, the fixer, we rescue, we give, we provide, we listen, we show up. Everybody knows who to call. Everybody depends on us, and somewhere along the way, being needed starts feeling like proof of love because you know, but people can need you and not know how to love you. People can use your gifts and not value the person carrying them, they just want you for your pimp juice, right? They don't necessarily want the person, they want your gifts. People can depend on your availability and never ask whether you're exhausted. And if your identity is built around being needed, you might keep people dependent on you without even realizing it. Because if they don't need me, who am I? And that right there is worth journaling about. But like I said, we're gonna touch on that a little deeper later on. Number nine, you can be the victim in one story and the problem in another. Nobody likes this one, but I do because it's true. You know, somebody can hurt you terribly, and you still can hurt somebody else. You can have trauma and you can traumatize people, you can be betrayed and betray somebody. You can have an emotional, emotionally unavailable parent and grow up to become emotionally unavailable yourself. You can hate how somebody spoke to you and later realize you speak to people the same way. Healing forced me to look at myself, not just what did they do, but what did I do? What patterns did I repeat? Where did I cause harm? Where did my wounds bleed on people who didn't cut me? Where do I owe an apology? Where do I need to change? That right there is grown woman healing because accountability isn't self-hatred, it's not, it's not you saying I'm terrible. It's saying I did something I don't want to keep doing, and that's where your power lies. Because if I can own it, I can change it. Number 10, you don't have to keep being who you needed to be to survive. If you listened to season three so far, you knew this one was coming. Strong, independent, overachiever, people pleaser, caretaker, fixer, emotionally detached, always prepared, always in control, always okay. Some of those versions of us deserve a standing ovation. For real. They got us here. But baby, all those versions of us are tired, and sometimes we're asking an old survival strategy to build a new life. The version of you who learned don't trust anybody may have protected you once, but how can she build intimacy if she don't learn to trust? The version who learned never need anybody, that might have protected you, but now she struggles to receive. The version who learned keep everybody happy, that might have kept you safe, but now she doesn't know who she is. You don't have to hate those versions of you. Thank them and then tell them I got it from here. All right, so you know I wouldn't letting you leave without homework. Here are your journal prompts. Five questions. Number one, what hard truth about myself have I been avoiding? Because accepting it would require me to change. Don't make this about them, make it about you. Number two, who am I still waiting to become? Somebody they have repeatedly shown me they are not, and what would acceptance look like? Number three, what behavior have I been explaining with my trauma that I now need to take responsibility for changing? Compassion and accountability. Number four, where am I still confusing being needed, chosen, or tolerated with being genuinely loved and valued? I want you to sit with that one. And number five, what version of myself helped me survive but no longer fits in the life I'm trying to build? Name her, thank her, and ask what needs to replace her. All right. So what I'm unlearning is this just because someone, someone, something, sorry, just because something was once necessary doesn't mean it has to remain permanent. I can change, my boundaries can change, my relationships can change, my mind can change, my standards can change, the way I love can change, the way I allow people to love me can change. The way I speak to myself can change. Changing doesn't mean the old version of me was stupid. She was surviving with what she knew. But I know more now. And when you know more, eventually you have got to do something with it. So if you're listening to this episode thinking, Shanti, how did you even get to some of these realizations? That's exactly why I wrote my book, Quiet is Kept. The book isn't a story about a woman who always knew better. Hell no, I ain't know shit back then. It's about what happened, what I believed because of what happened. It's about the choices I made, the relationships, the mistakes, the hurt, the survival, the breakdown, and eventually the healing. I wanted to tell the truth about my life because I know somebody else is living inside of some of the same silence. And maybe reading my story would help them look at theirs differently. So if you're loving these conversations but haven't read quite a skip yet, go get the book. And as you read it, don't just ask what happened to Shanti. Ask, where do I see myself? And that's where the book gets personal. And if this episode didn't just make you think, but made you realize, okay, I know what my pattern is, I just don't know how to change it. That's where coaching comes in. Because knowing you're stuck and knowing how to move are two different things. We can work together to look at the patterns, the beliefs, the behaviors, and decisions that are keeping you in the same place. But I'm gonna tell you now, I am not coaching you into blaming everybody, and I'm not coaching you into blaming yourself either. We're looking at what happened, what it created, what belongs to you now, and what you're going to do next. Because awareness matters, but you already know my saying, staying stuck and cute. So if you're ready to work with me, visit shantib.com and check out my coaching options. Now, before you go, I want you to do me a favor. If one of these hard truths hits you, send this episode to somebody. And not in a shady way. Don't be messy now. Don't send hard truth number seven to your cousin with this is you. Don't start no shit and then blame it on me. Send the episode because the conversation is worth having. And when you share it, tag me and tell me which hard truth hit you the hardest. And you can also subscribe to the Quietest Kept Podcast wherever you're listening, so don't miss the next episode. And if you've been listening for a while and haven't left the review yet, go leave me one. Those reviews help more people find the show and actually listen to it. So before we go, I want to leave you with one more hard truth, maybe the biggest one. Your life can change when you find when you're finally willing to stop protecting yourself from the truth. Not when everybody apologizes, not when everybody understands, not when everybody supports your decision, not when you're no longer scared. Not when you have every answer, because you probably ain't gonna ever have every answer. Sometimes it starts with, I know, I know this hurts. I know this isn't working, I know I deserve something different. I know I need help. I know I was wrong. I know I need to apologize. I know I need to stop. I know I need to start. I know. And maybe today you don't need another podcast, another book, another TikTok, another opinion. Maybe you just need to stop arguing with what you already know. Because one of the hardest lessons I've learned is this the truth may hurt your feelings, change your plans, cost your relationships, and force you to meet a version of yourself you don't recognize yet. But a lie can cost you years. And baby, we don't have years to keep wasting pretending we don't know. I'm Shanti Boswell, also known as Shanti B, and this is the quietest kept podcast. Keep healing, keep choosing yourself, and keep telling yourself the truth. And I'll talk to you next time.