Older and Wiser (6) entails Eschewing unnecessary Emotional Entanglements, Respecting Your Own (and Others’) Freedoms

In “Older and Wiser (4) Defending Ourselves against Thieves and Psychopaths”, I revisited the importance of being aware of manipulative/psychopathic people: 1) identifying them, 2) separating from them, and —most importantly—having a 3) protective strategy that is both automatic and passive.

I learned the importance of the third tactic last year in 2025 when a California accountant stole $16,000 from me; I was good at tactics 1 and 2, but I did not have tactic 3, which is the only one that could have saved me and my money from this psychopath pretending to be an accountant. Be sure to see “Older and Wiser (4) Defending Ourselves against Thieves and Psychopaths” if you don’t already know what I am talking about. I'll say it again here: part of your protective strategy has to include a component that is both automatic and passive because otherwise the other systems rely completely on your awareness and attention and a 10-second laps and attention or energy can leave you vulnerable to being robbed…or worse. These are things our parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles should've taught us, but unfortunately, that usually doesn't happen.

In today's episode “Older and Wiser (6)”, I'm going to add to that conversation by encouraging emotional cleanliness, and specifically the avoidance of what has been called "emotional residue" which is an extension of the dependency and codependency that most of us learned when we were growing up and which was especially common in the 1970s in the 1980s as evidenced by a bunch of sappy ballads that encouraged us to look to other people for our emotional satisfaction and personal completion. All you have to do is expose yourself to music from the 1980s and you’ll get the impression that humans are marsupials that cannot live without attachment to each other.

• You take my breath away.

• I don’t want to live without you.

• Every breath you take.

• Sweet surrender

• If you leave me now….

When I learned the concept of “emotional residue” from Rick Jarrow’s CREATING THE WORK YOU LOVE, suddenly I could see it everywhere, especially in my family, especially from my mother.

Then I could see it everywhere—everyone’s “gifting” had a hook in it attached to emotional strings that never let go.

When I saw it in myself, I immediately tried to change course and break the pattern of what I and all of us have learned.

In fact, per Nietzsche and this brilliant summary video:

The entirety of Western Civilization is built on—yes, the obvious slavery and exploitation of resources and laborers—the emotional slavery and “spiritual debtors prison” that we can hardly escape from.

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One of my favorite videos is this candid realization that when people leave, that’s fine.

Here is the original link:

@bkharthun“Your loss!” #yourloss #myloss #dontcare

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