Why You Push People Away

What do you do when you realize you have gotten tired of relationships?

That happened to me in 2017.

At 38, I was fed up.

I was tired and defeated.

I had tried, and it was hard no matter what circumstance I found myself in.

It was hard with my wife. It was hard with my kids. It was hard with our employees. It was hard with my customers and business partners. It was hard with my friends.

What is the Common Denominator?

In 2017, Kelley and I extended our entrepreneurial journeys. We owned and operated a gym and had employees to manage operations, design and marketing, and property management. Our network marketing business was growing fast, and we found ourselves on platforms and stages to make a real impact.

We entered into a partnership to expand our gym and build a new facility.

We were booming, and I had a vision of big goals and recognitions.

And I was falling apart.

I didn't really know I was falling apart, though.

My friend Andy actually shared it best when he recounted the person I was at that time during a leadership workshop I conducted last week.

“You were intense. You had the air that you had more important things to be doing and places to be. There was no vulnerability or ability to connect or relate to you. You were unrelatable. I thought I had nothing in common with this guy.”

I remember that I was tired of relationships, but what was really true was that people were tired of me.

They were tired of the person I showed up to them as.

Just as Andy shared, he thought, “I have nothing in common with this guy.”

I was the problem—not my wife, not my kids, not my customers, not anyone else!

But Why?

We all fall into patterns of operations. It's a safety mechanism of habit our brain utilizes.

My guess is it happens to you a few times a day.

You are driving down the road, just thinking and processing, and then you come to a stoplight and are in total shock.

You have been driving for seven miles and don't recall any of it. You have no recollection of the cars you passed, how fast you were going, or the turns or lane changes you navigated.

You got to your destination and have no clue how you got there.

Your subconscious mind took over and operated for you.

I learned from my podcast guest, Thais Gibson, that our conscious mind is responsible for 3-5% of our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and actions.

Let me say it more thought-provokingly: sub-consciously, we act, believe, and emote 95-97% of the time.

Yeah. 95-97% of the time.

For the most part, the A-hole you work with is acting subconsciously, and they aren’t trying to make you mad or demean you 95-97% of the time. Your spouse only does things to make you angry 3-5% of the time!

Back to what Andy observed, most likely, I was acting subconsciously in those situations where I was intense, obtuse, callous, or distant. I was subconsciously guarding myself because subconsciously, I (as I now know) was trying to protect myself.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Ok, one more mine shaft to explore.

A few years ago, I had a heart-to-heart conversation with my mom. To keep it short and sweet, we haven't had many deep heart-to-heart moments in my adult life. It is what it is.

She told me we lived with my aunt and uncle for a few months when I was around 2 and my older sister was about 5.

What makes this more intriguing is that I vividly remember sitting on a porch husking sweetcorn when I was about that age. Yet when I told my mom this story, she couldn't place it.

It didn't match any home or house we lived in. For all she or I know, it could have happened when I lived with my aunt and uncle.

I do no recall living with my aunt and uncle, so you can guess my surprise when I learned about this in my 40s.

As Thais and I discussed, it is not a stretch to recognize that some of my subconscious actions were driven by my experiences when I was two.

I was protecting myself from being left or abandoned in relationships. As I have learned and read, much of our subconscious mind is conditioned and programmed before our 3rd birthday!

We spend all day, every day, reacting to stories and situations that we can't even remember without knowing we are reacting to them.

That is why we push people away and get tired of relationships!

The Solution

Do the work. Dig the ditch. Find the root.

We must do the work to find the basis on which our subconscious operates. Only when we know why can we start to reprogram. It's not all about others; it's about us. And we must do the work. We don't have to do it alone, though.

I am constantly reminded of the relationships, such as those with Andy, that have seen me evolve and helped me identify how I created barriers in my relationships.

The transformation only came after I was tired of hard relationships and started to listen and reflect.

I asked with curiosity why things were the way they were.

I created a framework for my process, Awaken the Leader Within. This 12-part series was about how I worked through my fears and insecurities, how I owned how I showed up to others, and how I took steps to remove the toxic mindsets and beliefs of my subconscious.

If you are like the person I was when I was tired of relationships and found ways to push people away, I encourage you to go through the framework and start to do the work to become the leader all the people around you need you to be.