Toxic Relationships: Why They Can’t Change—And What It Means for Your Growth 🌟

Are Toxic Relationships Holding You Back? Here’s How to Break Free
Why do some people stay stuck in toxic relationships, no matter how hard they try to change? Could the real reason have nothing to do with motivation? Join Dr. Amen Kaur in this eye-opening episode as she reveals what’s really keeping you trapped—and how to finally escape the painful cycles for good.

Drawing inspiration from Dr. Stuart Ablon’s groundbreaking research, Dr. Kaur explains why it’s not about trying harder but learning the right skills to create lasting change. She dives deep into the five essential skills for healing from toxic relationships, including:

• Communicating your needs and setting boundaries without fear.
• Regulating emotions like anger, sadness, and grief to find peace.
• Reframing self-doubt with cognitive flexibility to break free from toxic narratives.
• Problem-solving challenges like co-parenting with a toxic ex.
• Rebuilding trust and forming healthier connections after trauma.

But the real transformation begins with self-empathy and self-love. In this episode, you’ll discover Dr. Kaur’s simple yet powerful three-step process to pause, understand your emotions, and celebrate small wins on your journey to freedom.

Whether you’re dealing with a narcissistic partner, a toxic parent, or a controlling workplace, this podcast will give you practical tools to reclaim your power, heal from emotional pain, and build the life you truly deserve.

Don’t just survive—heal and thrive. Tune in now to take the first step toward breaking free, and share this empowering episode with someone who needs it. Ready for personalized support? Book a free one-on-one session with Dr. Kaur today and start transforming your life.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Toxic Relationships and Healing
• 12:17 Developing Skills for Healing and Thriving
• 19:21 Building Empathy for Self-Healing
• 27:18 Embracing Self-Love for Healing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you ever wondered why some people don't seem to change, no matter how hard you try and help them? My name is Dr Amon Kaur and we're going to be looking at this in more detail so that you can truly understand what's going on here. Sometimes we find it that we're stuck in the same painful patterns. It's not because you're not trying to make the change. You know you deserve better, but you can't seem to be able to break the pattern. Or you're saying that you'll change, but you can't seem to be able to stop. Or they don't seem to be able to stop. What if the key isn't motivation? We're all coming up to the new beginnings of 2025. What if it's not motivation at all, but it's having the ability, the skills, the tools and knowing how to make that change? That is important. And then also knowing when it's possible and when it's not possible to make that change, so that we can make the most of whatever it is that we've got to live with.

Speaker 1: 1:04

Sometimes I find that people aren't getting into new relationships because they have a belief system now that they just don't know how to be in a loving relationship. Today, we're going to be diving into something completely different way of understanding toxic relationships and how to heal them, inspired by the groundbreaking work of Dr Stuart Ablon, and by the end of this episode, you'll have practical tools to shift your perspective and take powerful steps towards freedom, self-love and becoming the most empowered version of yourself. So I know how draining it can be when you're stuck in the same cycles of hurt. We start to believe there's something fundamentally wrong with us, whether it's a narcissistic parent, a controlling parent or a toxic partner, or toxic relationships or a toxic box or a toxic workplace. It can feel like there's nothing you can ever do, that is enough, and that you just can't, no matter how much you try, get out of this. And one of the things we end up doing is we constantly end up trying to defend who we are or hiding parts of us. Who we are or hiding parts of us, because we feel attacked all the time, no matter where we turn. And the painful truth is we are being attacked. It's not just the toxic person in our lives or the people or the environment, but also the thoughts and the judgments that we carry. Because of that experience that we felt.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Have you ever noticed someone sends you a text or the toxic person sends something and they criticize. And then you find the next day you're now thinking about those criticisms, loop around in your mind, replay, replaying them, and we're in this talk to ourself like we're defending ourself in our own mind. We're trying to defend why we're doing what we're doing and trying to explain the reasons why we've ended up maybe making a few mistakes along the way and we end up through that, hurting ourselves. We're in that explanation. When we're defending ourself in our own mind, explaining ourself to other people, we're actually coming from a space of doubting our worth, doubting ourself, feeling like we're not good enough because of what someone else has said to us. And then we're playing the story in our own mind over and over again and all our energy goes into that. But here's the thing Most of us think that people act out because they're choosing to be difficult or hurtful towards you for a reason, as if there's a reason for it, there's an explanation that they have a right point of view, they have their own point of view, and that they're purposely and consciously doing that.

Speaker 1: 4:11

And it must mean that there's something wrong with us, that we aren't good enough in some way, otherwise why would someone be criticizing us? But what if we flip the script here? What if their behavior, even your reaction to it, sometimes stems from the inability to connect to our own pain, to understand and have empathy towards that pain that we feel when someone hurts us us? The truth is, whether it's a physical pain you fall over, you hurt yourself, you graze your knee, or someone emotionally or using words hurts you the pain is real. Whether you can see it or not, it's still the same effect. But what if their purpose isn't to cause you pain because you need to have that pain and that it's the right thing, for it's like a constructive criticism. What if they have an inability to connect to their own pain? What if they can't connect to their own pain? And that is the reason why they're lashing out?

Speaker 1: 5:28

The truth is, people who hurt others often lack the skills to understand their own pain and they can't then take the actions to make that change. They can't then have the insight to act differently and create the change that we all crave. So their inability to behave differently or in an appropriate way isn't reflected on your worth or whether you're lovable or your lovability. It's actually a reflection of their own internal struggle. It always is. Anyone that judges you is a reflection of their own internal struggle. They don't feel good enough, hence why they have to show the world they are perfect, because they believe deep down they are not. They believe it so much that they know they are not. Otherwise they wouldn't have a need to behave as if they're perfect to the world. Let me explain further.

Speaker 1: 6:33

Dr Stuart Ablon's research shows that people will do well if they can. This is so important. If you can, you will. This is so important. If you can, you will. This means that when someone acts in a way that hurts you or frustrates you, it's because they don't have the skills to behave differently in that moment. And this is the most important thing. And there's lots of sayings going around where, if people show you who they are, see it, hear it, acknowledge it. Because in essence, science is saying the same thing. From his research. Dr Stewart's research is saying that if people do well, if people can do well, they will if they can. And that also applies to healing.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Healing from trauma is not about being stronger or trying harder or just numbing it all and just continuing. It's really. Trauma has a purpose. It's there about learning and growing. It's literally in the brain. The trauma happens. The part of the brain that holds the trauma then passes it on to another part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is all about learning and growing, and then from there it gets integrated into the rest of the brain, where you start getting your insights, your awareness. It's all about developing the ability to have empathy and compassion towards ourself.

Speaker 1: 8:03

So truly, what healing is is having an understanding, understanding the emotional and relational skills that might have been blocked or delayed are because of the pain we've endured. Somewhere along the lines, if you're judging yourself and you're having to defend yourself and someone else is judging you, it hurts, it hurts. Let's face it, it hurts. It's okay to say it hurts, it hurts. So that is an emotional pain and that if we don't acknowledge it and we block it, then we don't allow it to process it and grow and learn from it and we don't have that understanding towards ourself. Like we would a child, if they fell over and hurt their knee, we wouldn't start bashing them and saying that you're not good enough because you fell over. The hurt is there and the best part is that you can build these skills when you've been in a toxic relationship. There's absolutely no way, if you haven't rebuilt these skills, that you will have these skills because you have been taught in that relationship to numb your pain, numb your emotional pain, your psychological pain, just so that you can survive. But you don't have to stay stuck in the cycle of hurt, of holding on to this pain anymore and not really understanding who you are. You just have to learn to love and accept yourself as you are and by doing that you become the role model to create change within yourself yourself. It's literally the thing from the main. Learning from being in a toxic relationship is can you learn to love and accept yourself as you are, just as you are? That is the key here.

Speaker 1: 9:59

So let's get clear on what empathy is and why, without empathy, people are toxic. Why, without empathy, people are toxic? Empathy is understanding and if you look at narcissistic brains, they actually show that they cannot make the connections in the brain for empathy. So this really links in nicely with Dr Stewart's research is that if people can, they will. Well, they can't.

Speaker 1: 10:29

Toxic individuals, narcissists, can't. They don't have empathy, so their brain is unable to understand you. That means they cannot have an understanding for another human being, another person. They don't understand, so they just want to. They block it. They don't want to understand. They don't have the means to reflect on their own pain. They lack the skills of understanding their own pain and that's where narcissism begins, because they have to avoid their own pain and they have to create an illusion. They have so much self-hatred, self-shame, all of those things. That's why you don't get narcissists.

Speaker 1: 11:13

They never do therapy, true trauma therapy, trauma healing, where they can actually heal the trauma that they're carrying. They just cannot go to their own pain and allow themselves to feel so they can heal, because they don't have that first step, which is understanding. They can't connect, they don't have the empathy to do that work. So most narcissists or toxic individuals won't do the therapy work. Even if they can, even if they have all the means, they won't do it. They'll have a part of them within them, just like. No, I don't want to do therapy work. I don't need to. I would rather just keep moaning to people over and over again or rant and rave, but I don't want to do that healing work. And sometimes it's very, very confusing for people that really, truly want to help. You're putting in all this effort to try and help them and they're not trying to help themselves, it's because they can't. They can't.

Speaker 1: 12:17

So the other thing that we look at in terms of doctor there's five key skills you need to really heal and thrive. The first one is being able to communicate. Trauma can make it hard to express what we need or how to set boundaries, and that is something that you will experience. Okay, if you've been in a toxic relationship, if you've ever struggled to say this isn't okay or even ask for what you want, I used to find that I would go to shops and sort of just make do with things, not really thinking about what is it that I truly want? Sometimes we don't know what we truly want or we think, oh, it's okay, it doesn't matter. Well, part of it is just learning to communicate what your needs are again, and so I think one of the best ways of learning to communicate your own needs is one, obviously, trauma therapy. But two just go into the shops and practicing asking for your needs in simple, everyday things like ordering a coffee in a specific way. Just asking in a loving way for yourself, without having to feel like you've got to do it in an aggressive manner or you have to put boundaries in place is so tough. It's just asking in a really nice way, what is it that you want? And just practicing that.

Speaker 1: 13:47

The second most important thing from his research is emotional regulation skills. That is so key because there's been so much trauma. The reason why we don't have emotional regulation skills in toxic relationships or after toxic relationships is we've accumulated so much trauma, emotional overwhelm, and we're storing it in a certain part of the brain and we don't know how to regulate and get in touch with our emotions again. I would add is that we need to regulate our own nervous system again as well, so release some of the anxiety, the fear, the depression that's all caused by the trauma and it's impacting your nervous system as well. So we need to learn how to manage feelings of anger, sadness and the immense amount of grief that we need to release as well. And overcoming this and learning how to regulate your emotions and your nervous system is the game changer for breaking toxic patterns and freeing yourself completely.

Speaker 1: 14:58

It's really the most important step, the first step to be able to release, because once you can have understanding towards yourself and what you've been through, you can then look at the next step, which is actually break down some of the thinking patterns that you might have and this is what Dr Ablon talks about is incognitive flexibility. It's about moving away from this black and white thinking that the narcissist has probably been saying to you, like you're not good enough, or if you make a slightest mistake, you feel like I'm a failure, and instead really starting to believe I am good enough, I'm always learning, I'm learning and growing. Instead of some of the thoughts that you might have like no one will ever love me, or I'm a loser, or I'm no good, whatever it is that keeps popping up is actually starting to break that down. So there's a bit more flexibility in those thoughts and they don't take over as much.

Speaker 1: 16:01

The fourth thing that he talks about is problem solving skills. Healing often requires navigating difficult situations and facing them and having understanding. If you're co-parenting, for instance, with a toxic ex, you'll have to develop different and creative ways how to approach these challenges so you can get your power back, and a lot of it is down to really understanding what they can are capable of and what they're not capable of. And unfortunately, they are not capable of having understanding towards your children in some of their decision making. Not like you. You like, for instance, a toxic person could quite easily get you to take care of the children. 95% of the time, lie and say they've been taking care of them 50-50 and not pay you a penny and not even pay expenses, because they lack the understanding of the impact that that would have on the children. They literally don't understand anything towards any other human being, even if it is their own children, and that is the truth of the matter and that's why they actually do the things that they do.

Speaker 1: 17:16

Because they lack that understanding is that social thinking skills like trauma can make it hard for us to trust others because we're coming from a space of not feeling safe all the time, and that actually impacts our ability to read social cues. But we need to rebuild these skills again so that we can learn how to create healthier connections, moving forward and actually really know who we should trust and who we shouldn't trust. Normally, when you have people that have been in toxic relationships, unfortunately they won't really trust the people that should be trusted and they do trust the people that shouldn't be trusted. They naturally go towards the people that aren't trustworthy enough or that are a bit more toxic, because it feels familiar, it feels comfortable and it feels less familiar being around healthy individuals, because it feels like, well, really, is someone really that loving or caring? Or they just love bombing me? Because it feels so alien. No one can be that nice. That must be weird, or this is really boring. This person is so boring because they're steady, they're stable. Just have a think of which of these skills resonates with you the most and then write it down and reflect on one way you can start looking at how you can develop this skill set moving forward, and if it is something that you're interested in doing because we've got 2025, if you want to heal, you want to learn more about yourself and heal, then please do book in a one-to-one. You can just go onto the link in the description, you go onto my link tree and you can book in a one-to-one session with myself where we can discover what is it that you need specifically to actually heal.

Speaker 1: 19:21

The third thing that I really want to bring up is empathy is a bridge to healing. It is. The most profound lessons is that the power of empathy for ourselves, not just for others, and this is really important for the empaths listening right now. It's the most important lesson is that you have the empathy, but you need that empathy for yourself and it will totally change your whole life. When someone behaves in a way that hurts us, it's easy to judge ourself or feel like we're not good enough and lash out and be hurt. Or what's getting in my way? What is this? Why am I judging myself? What is behind this judgment? Is it because I'm in pain? There's a part of me in pain. I promise you, if there's a part of you that's judging yourself like you should be doing better, there's a part of you behind that that is in pain. And what skills am I missing to be able to heal and connect with that pain?

Speaker 1: 20:42

Now here's the twist. It isn't about excusing bad behavior or staying in harmful situations. It's about freeing yourself from the resentment, from the pain, from the grief, from the hurt, and reclaiming your energy for healing. Empathy doesn't stop there. True healing begins when you can show the same compassion towards yourself as you show to others, especially for the empaths. If you've ever thought why can't I just move on? Why can't I just let this go? Why am I still thinking about this? Why is this still triggering me? You're doing the best you can with the skills that you have right now. The good news is, new skills can be built. Maybe you just need some new skills, that's all. You just need the skill of co-regulating or regulating or learning how to develop new relationships in a healthy way.

Speaker 1: 21:48

So take a moment today to journal about self-compassion. What does it mean to you? When do you need self-compassion? What can you say to yourself when you feel like you're judging yourself? Like I'm learning, I'm growing. I'm proud to take the steps I'm taking. I'm going to learn how to heal myself. I'm going to face my pain and heal that pain because I'm worthy of it. I'm going to stop ignoring it. Just think how would you feel and how do you feel when someone just ignores the pain that you're feeling?

Speaker 1: 22:26

When you look at cults or toxic environments, someone abuses you. But what about all the people that saw the abuse and did nothing? They stayed quiet and, if anything they tried to make out you were the one in the wrong, that you're the crazy one, that they basically hid and lied and helped the toxic person continue abusing. It's that pain as well, on top of everything else. It's not just the abuser, it's the system. It's the people that create the system to allow the abuser to continue to abuse. It's not okay. The system itself needs to be broken down, as well as the abuser, and that's one of the major problems. But he's actually acknowledging that there is a system, there is the abuser and that actually I have to feel the empathy and compassion towards myself, regardless of all of these other people, and find the people that understand you, that have compassion, that are there for you, that acknowledge you, that are there saying, yes, I believe you, I hear you. That's the key.

Speaker 1: 23:52

The next thing is we've got to start building your skills today. Every day that you stay, we don't acknowledge that there's a part of us that is still in pain. The more we kind of escalate the pain towards ourselves by ignoring it, then we become like the system that is ignoring the pain. So one is the abuse, that there's a part of you that's in huge amount of pain, but then two there's the way we cope is by ignoring it. But what I'm asking you to do is not ignoring it. So here's a simple three-step process to start building these skills.

Speaker 1: 24:32

First, empathy first, always. That's by understanding your own feelings and understanding your own needs. When emotions come up, pause. When you feel angry, pause. When you start defending, pause and ask yourself what is it trying to tell me, going to tell me? Is there a part of me that feels overwhelmed in some way? Okay, let me just create some understanding. I'm not pushing you away. I'm hearing Number two communicate. That is saying things like I feel overwhelmed right now when I'm feeling this way, where I feel like I'm being judged or I feel hurt, that I feel like someone is judging me in some way, that I'm not good enough, and what I need is because what we're trying to do is we're trying to get you to understand that your feelings are appropriate, the way you feel, there's pain and what is it you're feeling and what happened and what is it you need. This will help you when you start having these internal dialogues. This will help you when you start having these internal dialogues. It will help you then connect really to your true self a bit more, and what that will then do is it will start changing the way you view others, in the way they treat you, and you will find that you become more aware of the impact that other people are having, and you'll go towards the people that actually provide you with your needs, rather than the people that ignore your needs and make you fulfill their needs.

Speaker 1: 26:29

The next thing is I really want you to focus on the small wins. Nothing changes overnight. Focus on the small wins. Nothing changes overnight. Yes, we're going to change for 2025, but celebrate every single little thing that you do. Anytime you recognize what's really going on within you. How are you really feeling Every time you do something that creates more healing for yourself? These are all incredible wins and actually it can change the course of your life moving forward. Every time you connect, you understand, you have empathy, you heal truly heal not just talking about it, but truly heal the emotional pain through understanding and compassion You're making a huge step forward.

Speaker 1: 27:18

Healing from toxic relationships isn't easy, but it is absolutely possible because the brain is constantly changing and the most important thing here is not about being perfect. It's about building the skills to create the life and the relationships you deserve and learning to love and accept yourself just as you are, as you being you, and if this has resonated with you any way, shape or form, please share it with anyone you think might need it. And if you're ready to take your healing to the next level, please check out my link and book in a free one-to-one with me and we can look at what healing it is that you specifically need. I get so many people tell me oh my gosh, this session has helped me like no other session I've ever done.

Speaker 1: 28:15

In one session, you really understood me. I understand because I know I've been there myself and, as always, I want to remind you. You are worthy of love, peace, joy and healing is your birthright. For you to feel whole, complete, whole, complete, perfect. Being you is the most beautiful gift. Until next time, I want you to know that you are so worthy of love. Please love yourself, sending you so, so, so, so much love Till next time.