Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 563 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! It’s good to be with you, I’ve been super busy lately with design work, which I just love. I feel like I am in my element when I’m making spaces beautiful, just like I do when I’m working on my podcast! I feel like that is making things beautiful too but in a different way. So I’m glad you’re here! We can make things more beautiful together, even if it’s just in our own lives, or maybe someone close to us. Our relationships are so important aren’t they? I’ve said it before that they are a huge source of joy and can also be a big source of pain too.
I was recently Listening to a video from Brené Brown, she was talking about how to find peace when a relationship ends without resolution, maybe it ended with silence or a slammed door. The hard part is that reconciliation isn’t possible, not because you don’t try but because they won’t or it’s not safe. So we drag around unreconciled relationships like emotional baggage. And so often we here people say it’s time to move on or you can tell they think you should be over it by now. But what if that relationship is your sister like in my situation or your mom like in a friend of mine’s situation. It can feel so unfair. Making peace doesn’t mean saying what happened was okay; it means saying you no longer want it to control you.’ Brene’ went on to say she used to think making peace meant letting them off the hook or saying, ‘It wasn’t that bad,’ or, ‘I’m over it.’ But that’s not peace. Peace isn’t soft; it’s not weak; it’s incredibly strong. Because real peace asks you to do something really hard: Peace asks you to accept what happened. Not approve of it, not agree with it, but accept that it changed you and that you’re not gonna wait for someone else to fix it before you decide to heal. We are wired for closure. We want to make sense of it, to hear that person say, ‘I was wrong.’ But if that day never comes, are we supposed to hold onto the pain, thinking, ‘If I stay hurt, it shows them’? Staying hurt doesn’t show them and it more importantly doesn’t protect you; it keeps your life small. But when you acknowledge and accept it, pain becomes just a part of your story, not the whole story, it gets a seat at the table but doesn’t run the meeting. That’s peace. It’s saying, ‘I’m choosing not to carry the weight of it every day.’”
I really think that what she did with those words was change in my mind what peace really means. I used to think peace was this fluffy, passive thing—like pretending everything’s fine. But she’s saying it’s a choice, a strong one. It’s not about forgiving someone who doesn’t care or saying their actions didn’t hurt. It’s about refusing to let that pain define you. I’ve been there, carrying the weight of a relationship with a sister that won’t speak to me or have anything to do with me over religion. I’ve hung onto my anger wanting her to feel my pain, I have waited for an apology that never came and is never going to come because she feels she is doing what God expects her to do. It’s exhausting using mental space for that. Brene’s point about being wired for closure really hit me. We crave that “I’m sorry” to make sense of the hurt. But holding onto that hope can keep us stuck. When I finally accepted that things aren’t changing, it didn’t erase the pain, but it freed up space for me to move forward.
Why does this matter? Because unresolved endings—whether it’s a friendship, a romance, or even a family rift—can weigh us down. Research shows we’re wired for connection, but when those connections break without closure, it’s like an open wound. We think staying angry keeps the other person accountable, but as she says, “They probably aren’t thinking about it, you are.” That’s the gut punch. I’ve caught myself replaying our last conversation over and over, and wanting to hang onto my pain, thinking my hurt somehow proves they were wrong. But it doesn’t. It just limits my life. Letting go doesn’t mean they’re off the hook; it means you’re choosing yourself. Studies back this up: holding onto resentment can increase stress and even impact physical health, like higher blood pressure. Peace isn’t weak, it’s one of the strongest most powerful things you can give yourself.
Eric and I were talking about this episode and he reminded me about a meditation that Jeff Warren guided us through on the calm app. Jeff was talking about how deep physical wounds when they heal still leave a scar, you may see that scar when you look in the mirror or when you turn your hand over. Emotional wounds when healed, they leave a scar too, but those scars may show up when you hear a song or see a picture or maybe even just when a thought pops into your head. He said when you see that scar of course it’s normal to remember how it got there but instead of reliving that pain every single time, you can say “oh yeah, that’s my scar. Because in a way that accepts that something happened but it also acknowledges that you’ve healed and I love that so much. We aren’t acting like nothing happened, but we also are no longer giving it power to wreck us. That’s powerful to me.
Sometimes a deep emotional wound can make you feel like a part of you is missing, but instead of dwelling on what’s not there, maybe ask yourself “ok, this thing happened, now what do I need to do to feel whole?” Because that’s our goal. We want to feel whole. Maybe it’s journaling, for me it was meditation and leaning into the family I do have, which is a lot and has been amazing.
You see the idea that the pain can still have “a seat at the table but it’s not running the meeting anymore” is key. You don’t deny the hurt; you just don’t let it take over your life.
Here’s your challenge for this week, pick one unresolved ending in your life. Maybe actually write down what happened and how it made you feel. Then, come up with one sentence about how you want to move forward. It could be, “I’m letting go of waiting for their apology.” But you also may not know the answer yet, so you can do what Tony Robbins always tells us to do and that is to ask better questions so that you’ll get better answers so maybe instead of feeling you need a plan immediately, you ask yourself “what is it that I need to do to feel whole? And then you Let that question marinate for a while and eventually your brain will give you the answer. Share this with three people who deserve to feel whole, I love you guys, I really do, I’ll talk to you in a few days!
