How to Change the Subject to Protect Your Peace (and Your Relationships) | #42
How to Change the Subject to Protect Your Peace (and Your Relationships) | #42 Daily Dose of Dawn 🌞
Learning how to change the subject can be a powerful emotional regulation skill—especially when you’re dealing with polarizing conversations, toxic people, or relationships you want to keep without sacrificing your sanity. In this Daily Dose of Dawn, Dawn Super shares how changing the subject helped her protect her peace while navigating difficult conversations with a romantic partner, a boss, and a parent who held very different beliefs. If you’re highly empathetic, easily overwhelmed by other people’s emotions, or stuck in conversations that leave your stomach in knots, this gentle mindset strategy can help you preserve your mental health, maintain boundaries, and stay on your own side—without confrontation or guilt.
WATCH HERE or READ below
At one point in my life, I had a romantic partner, a boss and a parent all shared very different beliefs than I did on certain subjects.
This video is going to talk about how I learned to protect my peace and my relationships with one simple skill – changing the subject.
We are living in very polarizing times. Those of us who overflow with empathy can find ourselves not knowing what to do with our feelings.
If you find you’re getting caught up in how others feel or cornered by toxic people, comment Deeper and I’ll drop some links for you.
Ok, I’ll start by saying, if three people witness a car accident – they will each give a different version of what happened. Why? Because they saw everything from their own perspective.
This is the same for literally everything in life. So, here’s how I use that when things get sticky – especially with people I want to keep in my life. Whether it’s something simple or a complex issue that carries a lot of weight, people make decisions the same way you do – through the lens of their past and experiences.
So, what does this strategy look like in real life? I’ll use my mom as an example. I loved my mom, rest her soul, but we did not see eye to eye on many things. Some things my mom would get on board with – like trying the paleo diet, she lost a lot of weight and was happy. On other, contentious topics, I just knew I wasn’t going to change her mind and I needed to stop the frustration.
My mom had certain things that she really loved. The work she did with her church, her dog, her patio and cooking.
When we would end up touching on a topic we didn’t agree on, I would use the things she loved to help change the subject.
“I hear you, mom. How are things with Father Stu?” Immediately she’d light up and start some raving story, contention forgotten.
Or, “Hold that thought. I wanted to make Golumpki and I can’t remember all the ingredients.” Which put mom into problem solving mode – comment forgotten.
This worked 100% of the time and it enabled me to have long, lovely chats with my mom.
“Everyone deserves the dignity of walking their own path.” Judith Orloff – I repeat this every time I think I can save someone from themselves lol
Why do we want to learn how to do this? Because when we feel bad about what’s going on in our lives, we feel bad inside of ourselves. Think of it as protecting yourself… from yourself.
All our feelings come from inside of us so when people upset us, we are technically doing it to ourselves. Took me forever to get that. No! It’s them! They upset me!
But, like George Carlin once said, you can’t defeat hunger by taping sandwiches on your body – nothing outside of you can make you feel better. You do that for yourself.
I remember once asking a psychic, how do I keep people from barfing their drama on me. She said, just excuse yourself. I asked, isn’t that rude? She asked, why are their feelings more important than yours?
Can you see how these mindset magic strategies can help you navigate the tough relationships in your own life?
When you get to a point where your feelings have your stomach in a knot, remember that we’re the people who protect our peace because in doing so we protect ourselves mentally and physically.
Wanna go deeper? Check this one out:
Get the Daily Dose Delivered for FREE!
Get a How To Live Happy Matters magnet in the mail when you do!
(US Addresses only)
Just real talk, reminding you that happy matters, that you matter
