John Delony

Does it make you a bad person in your eyes if you respond to demands for your time at regularly scheduled intervals?

Okay.

So...

The way Dr. Kennedy frames it, and I love this, is guilt is a very important, I'll even call it good emotion, that happens inside your body when you violate your values.

You're not doing that here.

But when your dad cuts you off because you said, hey, I'm not coming over tonight to whatever, bring you ice cream.

or I'm not driving you tonight at eight o'clock to change your oil.

We can do that on Saturday when I told you I was coming over.

What you're doing is you're taking his anger, his frustration, his temper tantrum.

You're taking it from him.

You're shoving it into the middle of your chest and you're choosing to feel his feelings and you're calling that guilt.

You know what I'm saying?

In fact, I go one step further and say, you feel guilty because you've become somebody that you don't trust because you keep having a bunch of imaginary conversations with them.

I'm going to tell them this and this and a, you'll never tell them.

And, uh, you're like, I'm going to quit going over there and you keep going over there.

So your guilt is actually, you're violating your own values, which is,

I'm an adult woman.

I'm worth having a love life.

I'm worth having friends.

I'm worth having my own world.