How Do I Know When To Stand and Fight and When To Let Go?

2026 is going to be an awesome year. Wegot some pretty cool stuff coming up.First off, we got Foundations ofRecovery. This is our flagship program.We're starting it in January. This isfor anyone, man, woman, or couple whowants to come and reclaim their heartfrom shame, trauma, and betrayal. Westart off with an education on all sortsof principles. Give you the commonlanguage. We feed you from a fire hosein terms of all things recovery. It issuch a great start to recovery. And weget to the roots of things, Tyler. Thisisn't like any other program. Like, thisis our healing journey in process. AndFoundations is where we begin. If youlook at the value that you're gettingthere to kick off a good recovery withall of the right education, all of theright language, and a team to get youstarted while also being directed byBrandon and myself through the wholeprocess. What a deal. So, we if you'reinterested, if you're struggling, ifyou've been wanting to do something fora long time, jump into this. This onlycomes around every so often and we wouldlove to have you there. Click the linkin the description to sign up for it.And to make it even sweeter, we're alsoincluding a raffle for a free pass tothe Radiant Dawn retreat. Anyone whosigns up for foundations will be addedto the raffle for that free radiant dawnpass. If you're a man and you sign upfor foundations, your name still getsentered and you can give that pass awayif you win it to any woman that you wantto. So, what you're saying, Tyler, is ifyou sign up and participate infoundations, you could possibly go toRadiant Dawn for free.That's exactly what I'm saying, which iscrazy because Foundations by itself isalready an insane value.Man, I sound so salesy,but it actually is awesome. So, comelike come to Foundations. And even ifyou don't come to Foundations, sign upfor Radiant Dawn. I It's beyond therapy,the best healing experiences that youcan have. Click the link below and comejoin us.How do I know when to stand and fightand when to let go?What's up you guys? Welcome to theTherapy Brothers podcast. I'm Brandon.I'm Tyler. We're brothers.We're therapists. We're not afraid ofyour questions. So bring it.[Music]Okay, let's read a a review first. Itsays, "Your podcast has helped me somuch and I've never found such usefulcontent elsewhere. I've also found yourresource to be far more helpful than oneto one counseling. Thank you so much forall the effort."Well, thank you. That's a really nicereview. Um, just remember this isn'tcounseling.I know. Um and and and you may just nothave the right counselor yet eitheror our podcast is awesome.Maybe we're justboth both both work. Umyeah. Well, we regardless, we appreciateyour review. Thank you for yourwillingness to reach out to us and letus know that we we do love hearing fromyou.Um I got a story for you, Tyler. Um, youknow, it's probably similar story toothers that you've heard, but um, I wasI was on I-15 and I was merging ontoI80.Mhm.And there's this really tough mergewhere people are trying to get on StateStreet and then people are trying to getover I8.That exit is brutal.Brutal. And so I'm trying to get over toget on to I80 to stay on the freeway andthis guy gets right on the corner of mycar and will not move. Will not let meover.He's going to force you off the stage.He's for and that's exactly whathappens. And so I put my hands up likecome on like let me in. Let me over.Well he didn't like that. And this dudewas driving a minivan with his wife inthere and some of his kids.And uh I set something off inside of himlike it was major. And so he flips meoff. He's and and he's just standingright next to me and we end up stoppedat the light at the bottom ramp rightnext to each other.Jeez. and he's he's asking me to get outof my car and to fightright there at the stop sign.And his wife starts yelling at him like,"Knock it off. Like, stop. Like, knockquit. Like, what are you doing?" And andI got to admit, my my response to thatwas I started laughing at himand at his behaviorsum which amped it up even more. Right.Yeah. Andof course,yeah,you're like mocking him. You're likebasically like same dude, you've alreadylost. You're driving a minivan.I was sincerely amused though at likeYeah. I'm like, you're you're driving aminivan with your family. Like youexpect like are we really going to dukethis out, you know?Umwell, that might just be an indicator ofwhere his masculine hearts at. He's gotno place, no other outlet, so he'smaybe or or you know, maybe he just hada bad day. Maybe he was just fightingwith his wife on the, you know, and thenhere I am trying to get over and he'sjust projecting it onand he doesn't know you're trying to getover. He knows you raised your hands athim like what are you doing?Yeah. So he's all in the right in hismind for sure. All maybe all this otherstuff's happening in his life and all ofa sudden all of that anger is ispinpointed on me, right?Um now why am I telling this story? Umthe you know you got to know when towhen to fight and you got to know whento let things go. Would it would it havebeen the right thing for me to do,Tyler, to to say, "Yeah, get out of yourcar. Let's clog all the traffic behindus while you and I, buddy, fist fight,right?" I mean, there's probably a pieceof you that might have enjoyed thatyourself. And and as you're telling thestory, I'm actually thinking like, dang,I've probably been the dude in theminivan many times, you know?But either way, let's let's get back tolike what you're saying. Of course, inthat situation, this is a pretty clearexample of like according to thequestion we're doing for our podcast ontoday is, "Yeah, that one you probablybetter off staying in your car. Let itbe." Like, it's pretty clear that likethe best thing for me to do is toprobably smile at the guy um you know,and and turn the the other cheek, turnthe other way, and let and drive offand just let it be what it is.Let it go. Right.Um, so what's the difference betweenthatand a time when maybe I need to step upand maybe I need to have my voice heard,have my truth spoken, you know, and andand and to be able to actually say,"Yeah, let's fight for something here."Yeah, that's that's the golden question,right, Brandon? It's like, how do Idiscern when I'm supposed to stand in mytruth and die on the sword, like die onthis hill, and when it's better to live,to fight another day? And um maybe letme let me give you an example ofsomething going on in our lives rightnow and you can kind of break it downwith me here for a second.Um my daughter, my second daughter, sheapplied to be in student government andshe um came home Friday. She was intears. She didn't make it. They did theannouncement. She didn't quite make it.And the way that the student governmentwas set up is that it had five differentcriteria where they had to do a video.They had to do an interview with thefaculty and the other student body. andthey did a project. They had to show upto certain things and there was uh thethe student vote. So each was a 20%weight, right?And to your daughter, like this this isa big big deal.It's a big deal. She spent she spentreally like probably the better part ofa month every day after school puttingtogether her video, putting together herproject. She took it seriously. Therewere deadlines that were supposed to bemet that she met and with all of thisstuff. And so she put her heart and hersoul into it, which I love about that. Ilove seeing people put their heart andsoul into things. But she comes home andshe's disappointed. You know, she'sshe's in tears and she's crying, which Idon't blame her for because it's hard tohear and it's hard to have it over theintercom at school, you know, and tofeel rejected and things. But she camehome, she and she said, "I'm just goingto cry for a day or two and I'm going toallow myself to be sad, but maybe it'sbetter for other people to have a chanceand it's going to be okay and my life'sgoing to go on." And that's kind of thediscussion I had with her. And so she'sin a place of kind of I'm gonna let itgo and accept it,resolve, let things go.And my older daughter comes in about 30minutes later from school. She'scurrently a senior and she's on thestudent council and she's been part ofthis whole process. And right when shewalked through the door, she was fumingmad. She's like, "This isn't right.There's people that got in above Lexithat didn't even turn in some of theirprojects. Like, how do they have morethan more points? You know, it's a 100point scale. How do they have morepoints than her?" like this isn't right.I'm going into school and I'm going totalk to those teachers and we're goingto get out all the files and we're goingto we're gonna and she's like I'm fixwe're going to make this right and I'mgoing to confront it and um and honestlyI'm hearing my daughter my my seconddaughter and me being kind of like thismoral dude like I'm the guy who likestops in a parking lot and tells someoneelse, "Hey, you just stole that person'sparking spot. You probably got to getout of it." You know, like that's me. SoI'm getting I'm getting on board withMadison, my my oldest daughter, and I'msaying, "Yeah, Maddie, that's a goodidea. you should go in and confrontthose faculty members and do this. Anduh and then my wife's standing therelistening to this whole thing unfold.And she finally chimes in and she says,"You know what, guys?" Maybe she had themost head of reason at this point, butshe says, "You know what, guys? I lovethat you guys are passionate and thatyou want to stand up for things that aretrue." And she said, "In this in thissituation, it's probably better to justlearn how to be a gracious loser. Wedon't want the Patrick family known asthe family that just pouts and complainsevery time they don't get their theirown way. And you know what? Life's goingto be okay. Lexi's going to move on.She's going to have other opportunities.This isn't the end of the world. And Iheard my wife say that and I thought,dang, like she's right. But but I'mright. LikeYeah. Is is she right? Right.Yeah. We're both right, aren't we? Likestanding up for truth is not is not abad thing,right? But also um being a graciousloser is also a good thing,right?Both. You're right.Both are good. So, um, when do you know?I I mean, Tyler, I think that this thisquestion is actually a question aboutboundaries, um, healthy boundariesbecause you think about in anyrelationship that we have, especiallywith our spouse, um, or our parents orwhoever it is, um,you when people say, "Brandon, Istruggle with my boundaries." Whatthey're saying is, "I struggle to knowwho I really am." and and and they'resaying I struggle with this question. Istruggle to know when it's it's time forme to step up, to be honest, to to holdthe line or it's time for me to to be abit more patient and let things go,right?Um and and for me, here's here's a clearindicator of of of an answer to thisquestion. It's about resentment. So ifif something happens and I'm able tosay, "Okay, I'll let that go and then Idon't and it eats at me and I and I feelused, I feel abused, I probablyshouldn't have let it go. I pro Iprobably should have done somethingdifferent, reacted different, respondeddifferent because there's an emotioninside of me saying something's stillnot right. Something's still not okay."Yeah.Right.Yeah. Yeah. And maybe I'm not going tobe able to go fix it.So this is hindsight, right? This is onthe back end.This is in the after. This is in theaftermath. And and maybe it's and maybeyou're not going to be able to go backand fix those things sometimes. Butthat's where resentment then gets stucksometimes,right? But you can learn from that forthe future, right? So you can askyourself like let's take an example withmarriage for example. Let's say thatyour spousenever shows any appreciation ever,right? This is not a real life examplefor me at least. Um, so you're you'rejust feeling used and taken advantage ofand and just like used over and overagain. Okay. If you shut up and and justkeep doing what you're doing and keepfeeling used, what's going to happen toyour marriage?Well, there's there's a couple things.You either have to you're either goingto have to deal with letting go of yourresentments because you're choosing todo those things and just allow it to bewhat it is or you're going to bemiserable until you say or do somethingdifferent.Yes. Until you be honest. Right.Right. And so if you keep feeling thoseresentments and you're not able to letit go, then it might be time to step upand say, "Hey, this is what I'm feeling.this is what I'm experiencing and thisis what I'm needing um to be differentfor us and and it might a ton ofconflict might come from that.Yeah,it it it but that still might be theright thing to do, right?It might be better to have the acute andeven very big conflict than to have along-term slow drain through resentment.You're going to have the pain eitherway.Yes.But but maybe in that in that situationit's time to fight. You know, it's likeI'm thinking in a broad historical senselike think about the revolutionary warof this great amazing country that we'reliving in.Um George Washington.He's always references like the greatestgeneral of all time, right? Because ofwhat he did to help found this amazingcountry that we live in. And yet, if youreally read the history and and listento the history,um he spent much of the war setting up,working hard, getting ready for battle,and then in the last minute pulling outand running away. And he pulled out andran away multiple times until the timingwas right for him to take a stand. Andthen he won a decisive battle andshifted the tide of the whole war.That's that's an interesting analogy,you know, and and sometimes that I thinkwe we we end up in those kind of samespaces where we either fall into thecategory of like I'm going to die onevery like hill that there is like wehave a fight over like where we're goingto put the laundry basket in our house.It's like why you know why why are wegoing to do that? But then there's maybesome other things that really are worthsaying, you know what, I don't know ifthere's a good quick answer to this, butwe have to continue to have an ongoingdiscussion about like, let's say, hey,look, maybe we're both a couple from adifferent religion and we both feel verystrongly about the religion that we thatwe're living in. It's likethat dialogue has to continually be hadand there's probably going to be somesurrender and some give and take, butthere's also going to be some thingsthat are important enough to continue tohave the dialogue around. Well, I thinkI think Tyler that you get to the cruxof the the the answer to this question.It's all about integrity. Is I if youcan answer the question when I steppedaway from that, I'm still in myintegrity. Like when I when I didn'tfight the guy on the side of the road, Iactually was more in my integrity100%.than fighting the guy on the side of theroad.And when you say in your integrity,you're basically saying in your truecharacter.In my true character. So, so if I if Ifought the guy not in my integrity, howwould I have felt afterwards?Afterwards, you would have felt sosmall. You would have felt so stupid.You would have been thinking like,"Dude, I just got my butt kicked by adude in a minivan."And I allowed myself to step into thatdrama.Yeah. So, I was in grad school and uh Iwas I was uh I I went to the Universityof Hawaii. Loved it. It was amazing. Um,but I was a minority. I was the only LDSkid there. I was one of two white malesin the program. And um, I I'm sitting inthis class. And in the class, they startgoing on this off on this conversationabout how wonderful abortion is, justhow great abortion is, and and why it'sso horrible that they take away women'srights. And, you know, it's a socialwork class. So, um,it's pretty heavily slanted towards thatdirection.Very liberal, very, you know, and andthat's not my view at all.You view it differently.And I realized I was a man on an island.Like, I was this white male guy thatbelieved that abortion wasn't okay.sitting in a social work class and andand they spent the good part of thatclass with with group think witheverybody with with no opposingviewpoint at all.And um I was driving home um I had todrive across the mountain through atunnel and I felt sick. I just felt Ifelt like I had been um kind of abusedand taken advantage of. And they hadn't.They hadn't at all.They didn't know. They just that's justtheir perspective.But I realized something inside ofmyself is I sacrificed my own integrityby just sitting there quietlyand not making waves.Not making any waves and not sayinganything. And that feeling is is is thefeeling that we get when we don't stepinto our truth. Right.Yeah. Yeah. I'm picturing the the thescene from Braveheart with Robert theBruce when he commits to William Wallacethat he's going to be there for him andthen he betrays him and backstabs himand then he afterwards has that momentof like what have I just done? I didn'tact in my character. And he goes back tohis own father who told him to betrayWilliam Wallace and says I will never dothat again. Like there was something inhim that broke where he knew that hehadn't acted in his integrity. And thatstory that you're sharing, Brandon, likethat's a that's a pretty powerful storybecause you you're walking out of thatclass and you probably did again ifwe're balancing this idea of well,should I fight or should I just let itgo? You were trying to avoid the pain ofhaving to have the difficult discussionof bringing up a new perspective and andbe the only person maybe in that roomthat might have that perspective.So, I got to tell you another anotherstory really fast. same thing sitting ina class graduate school and I can'tremember the topic but it was similarand the whole group think started happeneverybody started agreeing and it wasvery different from my viewpoint andthis one courageous girl was like Itotally disagree with that um I don't II do not believe that at all and it wasincredible because the instant that shesaid that three more students said yeahme do that that she gave them permissionto to voice up and to to speak and thenall of a sudden we had a good discussiongoing on just because she stood in hertruth. She was well what she did is sheshe created space for others to feelcourageous enough to share their ownperspectives. And and I would bet thatthat class was much more rich even ifeven if there was some conflict in thanthe class where you sat there and didnothing and then walked out and said,"Well, dang."Isn't that a metaphor for marriage?Marriage is much more rich when whenboth parties are willing to show uphonest and authenticand stand in their truths.Um but so so so there is a balance herebetween letting go things like thelaundry basket.This is truly a dialectic.Yeah, for sure.Yeah. the in a marriage, the middleground is that I should be able to letgo of all of the things that my wifedoes that bother me that she's not goingto change or that she can't changethat that that don't impede on yourintegrity and your boundaries,right? I I heard this one time thatsaid, you know, in the context of my LDSmission, there's a book we had to readthat said, "How do you deal withconflict with your we get assigned a apartner companion for months at a timesaid, how do you deal with conflict inthat companionship?" And the answer was,if it doesn't have anything to do withyour eternal salvation, let it go.Yeah.You know, it's like, okay, so thelaundry is probably okay. Maybe my wifecould let go of the way I load thedishwasher, you know. Um,you guys have that one, too.Oh my gosh, the dishwasher. I don't knowhow many marriages ended because of thelaundry or the dishwasher. Um, no, butreally like it's like there's otherthings that are really worth standing upfor and saying, "No, there are someprinciples here that we do have todiscuss and and I'm willing to love youenough to share myself so that you knowmy heart and I want to hear your heart."Yes.And we might not ever get right. Whatdoes John Gottman says? What that mostmarriages have seven fights or so thathappen over and over again that neverget resolved through the whole marriage.Yes.Maybe they're still okay to have.Yes. Yes. And it's a way that you youlearn how to to know each other and getto know each other is through thosediscussions, right?But if one party or the other is justshutting up all the time and smiling andresenting and and and just just justnever standing up, never standing intruth, that's not even a relationship,right?At all,right?So that is the healthy balance. So Ithink if we were to answer our ownquestion, if I'm going to be resentful,it might mean I need to stand up a bitmore. If I'm fighting too much, maybe Ican look at the things that don't haveeternal value and let go of some things.Yes.Um,any other principles thatCan I add another one? Yeah.Don't fight someone else's battle. Andwhat what I mean by that is sometimesyou'll have emotions come up and you'llsay, "Gh, that doesn't sit right withme." Or for example, my daughter atschool had an issue with a teacher andshe came home and she was complainingand and what the teacher was doingwasn't wasn't cool, wasn't okay.Um but but and I feel like in myintegrity as a dad, it's my job toprotect her.Right.Of course.But I realized that what what theteacher was doing wasn't wasn'tegregious enough for me to to go to theschool and say that's not okay. that'snot okay. So, I had to back off and say,"This is not my battle. I'm not going tofight this. It's not my battle." Butthen what I did was empower my daughterto go fight that battle is to goactually address it with the teacher andbe assertivekind of plan with her how to do that.Yeah. So, it's not my battle. I need toback off even though my emotions arecoming up and I want to do somethingabout it. Right.Right. Yeah. I'm thinking of my owninstances where I think I probablyoverstepped my bounds just a few monthsago with my own daughter and and theissue at school.Yeah.And maybe I'm the reason why she didn'tget on to student council.So, this comes full circle.Maybe I'm gonna have to let that go now,too.I think Tyler, I think um the harderthing to do sometimes it's really scaryto step into truth. like it's reallyscary to voice up. Um, and it's reallyscary to to have conflict and sometimesit's extremely difficult to let go andand to you know I had an instance thisweek where um we were talking tosomebody who who we were we were lettinggo actually at our practice andwe asked for feedback and and she toldus how horrible we were and this andthat. The truth is is there was a lotthat went on from her side of things andI wanted to just kind of drill her andtell her this is this is like you needto look in the mirror this the and thereality was was the objective of themeeting was to say it's time to move on.We got that objective met and I neededto just bite my tongue and shut up andlet her say what you asked.Let let her say it and move on, right?And that's what I did. And at the end ofthe meeting, I felt like that was theright thing to do, but it it it wantedto come back and get to me.You wanted to be bitter and angry andthen harbor resentment towards her, eventhough she's now gone,right?And even that guy that wanted to fightme, part of me was like, you know what?Like, I should have I should have stuckit to him. I should have But but lettinggo and surrendering can be hard becausewhat that means is it's it's the samewith forgiveness. What what that meansis you don't have control. You don'thave control about about what they'regoing to experience or what they'regoing to learn or how it's going to be.You don't have control of that. You haveto hand that to God and then yousurrender it. You let it go.And the truth is is that in your in bothof those accounts, whether it wasletting that that person go or whetheryou're sitting at a stoplight on StateStreet now, even though you want to beon I80,it was what it was. Like the reality lether go. You asked her for feedback. Shegave you feedback. You're at StateStreet. You You got forced off the exit.Yes.What's it going to do for you?Lexi did not get in student government.Lexi didn't get in student government.And no matter how much we complain, wecan maybe go do some complaining. At theend of the day, we're going to have tolet it go.Yes. that that's you know or or or livein suffering because you're inresistance your whole lifeor increase our own suffering becausewe're unwilling to accept the reality ofour situation.You got to know when to hold them andknow when to fold them.Kenny Rogers, man. Thought we were Kennyinto the mix.But but Tyler, I think maybe one lastpoint here isit's kind of the beauty of of of the wayGod created this life a little bit. It'sthe way we get to know oursel is a lotof this stuff you can see in hindsightwhat would have been the best thing todo. Um but through the struggle theinterpersonal struggles that we havewith others we start to develop anunderstanding of who we actually are andand I think that's awesome. I think Ithink that struggle is good. What Iwould say is if you're a person who'salwaysplacating, a person who's always actingin fear, that I if you've listened tothis, I hope that you actually considerstepping into truth. If you're a personwho's always got to have the last word,always got to speak up. I hope youyou'll consider shutting up a littlebit.Bite your tongue.Bite your tongue and and and and justlet some things go.Learn that there's probably a healthybalance in the middle.Yes. depending on the principles thatare in play.All right, Tyler, excellent uh excellentpo principle. I think if you can learnthis one thing, it'll bring a lot ofpeace to your life.Oh, lots reduce a lot of suffering.Yeah. All right, you guys. Please likeand subscribe and and uh share thisepisode as well if you found it useful.We'll see you guys later.[Applause][Music][Applause][Music]