Simple & Deep™ Podcast
Radical Acceptance Series: The Reason & Practicing Self-Love
Setting essential boundaries to foster healing and growth
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Setting essential boundaries to foster healing and growth
Facebook: Simple & Deep on Facebook
YouTube Channel Simple & Deep on YouTube
Instagram: Simple & Deep on Instagram
Share, Like, and Subscribe to this podcast.
We’d love to hear from you!
Welcome to the Simple and Deep podcast where we delve into attachment stories and intentional living. I'm your host, wisteria Edwards, and I'm thrilled to have you here with me today. We'll be exploring the depths of all of these topics together, sharing insights and unlocking the power hidden within your story. Let's get started. Radical acceptance means that we are tolerating something without judging it or trying to change it. It's about staying present and acknowledging that our experiences are just what they are. When we judge, you actually create more suffering in your life, and one of my new mottos is I will no longer participate in my own suffering. Are you participating in your own suffering? Keeping yourself stuck on purpose sometimes keeps us from embracing the next part of our story, the next place we're supposed to go, because there's grief, there's change, there's loss, and when that happens, it's hard, it's not easy and it's uncomfortable. So, familiar hell versus unfamiliar heaven. One of the things that I want you to do as we look through this as the next couple weeks unfold, I want you to do as we look through this as the next couple of weeks unfold, I want you to think about the reason and being able to label it like I feel, whatever you feel, and there's the feelings wheel again. They what did they do? What's a verb? Betrayed me. They hurt me, they ostracized me, they made fun of me. They don't care about X, y, z. So saying exactly what the fact is or how it makes you feel gives it less power over you. Naming things in our story is super powerful. And then explaining to yourself what happened I went into work and blank. I was driving on this day and blank. When my son came home from college, he blank, whatever it might be. But say the facts okay.
Speaker 1:And it's natural for us to resist this process because our nervous system thinks that there's a threat and there might be one, or there maybe was one. But then we have to ask ourselves is the threat over? Because our body needs to know it's over. So a lot of times, with children and with adults, I've said I need you to say to yourself it's over, it's over, I am safe, I am safe, I am loved, I am loved, I'm going to be okay, I can breathe, I can breathe again. And sometimes, when we are navigating really hard things, it is a big deal to just say today I breathed. Today I didn't cry as much, because that's part of healing.
Speaker 1:Healing is not this linear process that we think. It is constantly in motion and we never truly arrive the sight of heaven. We're always a work in progress. It may be a beautiful disaster, but the greatest thing I've learned is that the more vulnerable we are about that, the less it has power over us and it unites us as a human race, because we all have experienced hard things as a human race, because we all have experienced hard things.
Speaker 1:Then, once you do that, I want you to also think about identifying negative thought patterns. How are the thoughts that you're having influencing you and how are they influencing others? Can you not stop talking about this thing all the time? And when you talk about it and talk about it and talk about it, it's really not healing it. Because you need to be in a safe, kind environment with someone that's helping you with that. Because if we just rehash something, we traumatize ourselves over and over again. Our amygdala doesn't really know the difference between now and then. It just thinks it's happening. So we have to help ourselves.
Speaker 1:Come alongside If, for instance, you were in a car accident. As a child, you might be terrified to get in a car and as a wise adult, what would you say to that child? Sometimes bad things happen, like car accidents, but do they always happen? No, and that is the kind of thing that we have to do to guide ourselves. And then I want you to watch out for that magical thinking that I discussed earlier, like this person's going to be better at some point.
Speaker 1:He loved me once. They were yes, they do this to me a lot as my friend, but there was a time where she, like, really thought about me first and I was the first person she called. It's like this fairy dust should be flying down on us. Are we really thinking logically or are we having this magical feeling of, if I just hold on longer, where is our evidence? That's going to happen If the actions of the other person consistently show us different? We have to believe the actions and not just the words, because everyone can say one thing and do another so hard. Because I love words. As a writer, as a creator, I love words, I love lyrics, I love poetry. Words hurt me because I believe that if they were uttered, they were real, and your words have power to tear yourself down or to build yourself up. And so use your words for good, but recognize that words can hurt us if we believe every single thing that's uttered at us is true. So it's a fine line and that magical thinking is very present when it comes to abusive, narcissistic relationships or trauma bond, because they got in, because you're empathetic.
Speaker 1:You are not the toxic person, you are the person who has things that need to heal and it was like a magnet. So remember that as you go through this, that it takes real courage to lean in to things that feel gross, things that don't make sense, and then controlling what you can control. So that includes boundaries. Perhaps you cannot be friends with that person anymore, or you need to think about filing for a separation, or you need to leave a job. Whatever is going to help you grant the serenity. Where is the serenity? Where is the peace? Because we all want peace and if you cannot get peace where you are at, you're the only person who can change that for you. Circumstances can push you in a direction. Person who can change that for you. Circumstances can push you in a direction, but overall, you have the right and the ability to be in a place where you feel safe, heard, loved and seen.
Speaker 1:Be present with the emotions that come up. Like I said, pay attention to all of the things that go on in your body. Sometimes it's just closing your eyes and recognizing where do I feel what I feel right now. Just closing your eyes and recognizing where do I feel what I feel right now. Do I feel tension in my body? Do I feel an emotion, a sensation? Because, remember, we talked about last episode that our sensations come before our emotions. So something is happening to help us trigger back. So those are the two steps that I wanted to look at today so the reason something is happening and the practice of thinking about how we're speaking to ourselves looking at the problem with a little bit of a stepping back from it, with some objectivity, but also looking at it with compassion. You wouldn't put down a friend or a child that came to you in need. So looking at ourselves with that compassion is the greatest thing we can do to talk to ourselves, to make that secure attachment that we need, that we needed all along. I am super excited for the fact that you can connect with us at Simple and Deep to give us feedback about what you want to hear on the podcast, as well as your ideas or how you're implementing some of the strategies that we're giving you will be in the show notes, as well as all the resources that you can download to start applying these skills to you to help you live a full and beautiful, vibrant, intentional life. I look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1:So, as I said before, radical acceptance means that we are tolerating something without judging it or trying to change it. It's about staying present and acknowledging that our experiences are just what they are. Now. One of the founders of the DPT or dialectical behavioral therapy skills workbook that sort of thing she says that when we judge, you actually create more suffering in your life, and one of my new mottos is I will no longer participate in my own suffering. Are you participating in your life? And one of my new mottos is I will no longer participate in my own suffering. Are you participating in your own suffering? Keeping yourself stuck on purpose sometimes keeps us from embracing the next part of our story, the next place we're supposed to go, because there's grief, there's change, there's loss, and when that happens, it's hard, it's not easy and it's uncomfortable. So, familiar hell versus unfamiliar heaven.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that I want you to do as we look through this as the next couple of weeks unfold. I want you to think about the reason and being able to label it. Like I feel, whatever you feel. And there's the feelings wheel again. They what do they do? What's a verb? Betrayed me, they hurt me, they ostracized me, they made fun of me. They don't care about X Y Z. They don't care about X Y Z. So saying exactly what the fact is or how it makes you feel gives it less power over you. Naming things in our story is super powerful. And then explaining to yourself what happened I went into work and blank. I was driving on this day and blank. When my son came home from college, he blank. Whatever it might be. But say the facts, okay.
Speaker 1:And it's natural for us to resist this process because our nervous system thinks that there's a threat and there might be one, or there maybe was one. But then we have to ask ourselves is the threat over? Because our body needs to know it's over. So a lot of times, with children and with adults, I've said I need you to say to yourself it's over, it's over, I am safe, I am safe, I am loved, I am loved, I'm going to be okay, I can breathe, I can breathe again and sometimes, when we are navigating really hard things, it is a big deal to just say today I breathed. Today I didn't cry as much, because that's part of healing. Healing is not this linear process that we think. It is constantly in motion and we never truly arrive the side of heaven. We're always a work in progress. It may be a beautiful disaster, but the greatest thing I've learned is that the more vulnerable we are about that, the less it has power over us and it unites us as a human race, because we all have experienced hard things.
Speaker 1:Then, once you do that, I want you to also think about identifying negative thought patterns. How are the thoughts that you're having influencing you and how are they influencing others? Can you not stop talking about this thing all the time? And when you talk about it and talk about it and talk about it, it's really not healing it, because you need to be in a safe, kind environment with someone that's helping you with that, because if we just rehash something, we traumatize ourselves over and over again. Our amygdala doesn't really know the difference between now and then. It just thinks it's happening. So we have to help ourselves.
Speaker 1:Come alongside If, for instance, you were in a car accident. As a child, you might be terrified to get in a car, and as a wise adult, what would you say to that child? Sometimes bad things happen, like car accidents, but do they always happen? No, and that is the kind of thing that we have to do to guide ourselves. And then I want you to watch out for that magical thinking that I discussed earlier, Like this person's going to be better at some point. He loved me once. They were yes, they kind of do this to me a lot as my friend, but there was a time where she, like, really thought about me first and I was the first person she called. It's like this fairy dust should be flying down on us.
Speaker 1:Like, are we really thinking logically or are we having this magical feeling of, if I just hold on longer, where is our evidence that that's going to happen, if the actions of the other person consistently show us different? We have to believe the actions and not just the words, because everyone can say one thing and do another so hard. Because I love words. As a writer, as a creator, I love words, I love lyrics, I love poetry. Words hurt me because I believe that if they were uttered, they were real and your words have power to tear yourself down or to build yourself up, and so use your words for good, but recognize that words can hurt us if we believe every single thing that's uttered at us is true. So it's a fine line, and that magical thinking is very, very present when it comes to abusive, narcissistic relationships or trauma bond, because they got in, because you're empathetic.
Speaker 1:You are not the toxic person, you are the person who has things that need to heal, and it was like a magnet. So remember that as you go through this, that it takes real courage to lean in to things that feel gross, things that don't make sense, and then controlling what you can control. So that includes boundaries. Perhaps you cannot be friends with that person anymore, or you need to think about filing for a separation. Be friends with that person anymore, or you need to think about filing for a separation, or you need to leave a job. Whatever is going to help you grant the serenity. Where is the serenity? Where is the peace? Because we all want peace, and if you cannot get peace where you are at, you're the only person who can change that for you. Circumstances can push you in a direction, but overall, you have the right and the ability to be in a place where you feel safe, heard, loved and seen.
Speaker 1:Be present with the emotions that come up. Like I said, pay attention to all of the things that go on in your body. Sometimes it's just closing your eyes and recognizing. Where do I feel what I feel right now? Do I feel tension in my body? Do I feel an emotion, a sensation? Because, remember, we talked about last episode that our sensations come before our emotions. So something is happening to help us trigger back. So those are the two steps that I wanted to look at today so the reason something is happening and the practice of thinking about how we're speaking to ourselves looking at the problem with a little bit of a stepping back from it, with some objectivity, but also looking at it with compassion. You wouldn't put down a friend or a child that came to you in need. So looking at ourselves with that compassion is the greatest thing we can do to talk to ourselves, to make that secure attachment that we need, that we needed all along. I am super excited for the fact that you can connect with us at Simple and Deep to give us feedback about what you want to hear on the podcast, as well as your ideas or how you're implementing some of the strategies that we're giving you and that sort of thing, as well, as we're getting ready for our huge coaching academy and different courses that you can take. So I would love to have your feedback and that link will be in the show notes, as well as all the resources that you can download to start applying these skills to you to help you live a full and beautiful, vibrant, intentional life. I look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1:And perhaps we were in a toxic relationship where someone love-bombed us and we are now having this magical thinking that they're going to come back and show up as the person that they really were never that they were never really the person that we thought they were. So it's one of those things where we have to learn how to sit with the present moment, which is really difficult, but what we become is our best friend, our biggest ally and our person that's coming back and reparenting ourselves, so to speak, because we probably didn't have all of these things available to us through our caregivers. If they didn't have the skills to impart to us, there's going to be a huge deficit of what they can help us with. So now we're going to come alongside and become the person that we've been waiting for. Many of us are waiting for that perfect parent or that perfect spouse or that perfect friend to show up and honestly, at least in my own story and my own journey, I've learned that people do not love the same way I do and that my expectations of love, commitment, loyalty, all of those things are going to be challenged because everybody is carrying around their own things that they need to wade through and that will often clash with the reality of a situation we're in or something that someone does to us. But every situation can be looked at with a wise mind or a trauma brain and there's going to be ways that, as you start to become more secure, you're going to see that you'll be able to tell the difference, that frantic side of you or that side of you that wants to run and hide or make everybody happy. Right away. You'll learn that those are your trauma responses to a situation and oftentimes, friends, you're really not in danger, but it's activating something in your body that makes you feel as though you are right there in that moment and under a threat. So our last episode we looked at the first two steps, which were observe and the reality of the situation. We're going to look within ourselves and say, okay, something here is going on and I'm having a really hard time accepting it.
Speaker 1:A lot of times it's cognitive dissonance, what I believed about the situation or the person. And then what is the reality of it? So, for instance, you have a friend who you completely and explicitly trusted with some of the hardest things that you could bear, your deepest desires about a situation or your dreams and aspirations, perhaps people that were really driving you crazy, but at least you have that one safe place. Then, all of a sudden, you realize that this person has betrayed you, or this friend has not lived up to the expectations that you have. Perhaps the thing that this person did or said is something you would never, ever do, and it's going against your values and your core beliefs about what you believe a friend should be or a spouse, or what your child should do. And then there's the reality of what happened. So we have to take those two things and separate them and tell ourselves there is something that happened. That's the reality of what happened. So we have to take those two things and separate them and tell ourselves there is something that happened. That's the reality of it.
Speaker 1:And I can sit there and wonder why did it happen? Why did it happen? How can I change it? How can I change it? But the first thing we have to do is to observe it. This is happening right now and we think of the present moment as and when we are breathing. That is the present moment. I can't get a breath from yesterday and I can't take a breath for tomorrow, so our breath is really what's going to help us ground into the present moment. And if we do have insecure attachment or we've had traumatic events, we will disassociate from the present moment. We will either focus on the past or we will focus on the future and we will miss the beauty of the present moment. And oftentimes it's not going to be this elaborate thing, it's just going to be what is.
Speaker 1:And understanding that and holding on to that is a very powerful tool that you can give yourself, because you don't have to run from your present moment anymore, even if it's painful, because we can label it, naming it and giving it what it is right now and then seeing how we can influence it or change it, or perhaps we can't, so I don't know about you, but I grew up with a serenity prayer. My grandfather was immersed in AA my entire life, and so there is such beauty in that prayer. God, grant me the serenity, the peace, right To accept the things that I cannot change. So when we're looking at radical acceptance, there's going to be something about the situation that you do not have control over. And this is all about control, my friends. You're wanting to control the situation or the outcome, and you're wanting to make sense of something that has been either deeply painful to you or it's just thrown you off because something that you expected or believed in has been changed or assaulted. So it's super important that we recognize what we cannot change.
Speaker 1:This person told my secrets. I was in a car accident, my child left to go to college, okay. So those are things that are facts, and as we look at steps three and four today, we're going to need to know what is it a fact and what is an opinion. I have had to testify for children in court many times, and one of my friends who was in law enforcement reminded me, when you write your affidavits, if you're not going to go into court but a judge is going to be reading them. Do not include your opinions. Make sure that you're not full of emotions, just the facts, and those of us who are in education have gotten really used to that. What are we documenting to make sure that a child gets what they need?
Speaker 1:So this is really hard, but it is something that will absolutely serve you for the rest of your life when you know what is inside your circle and what is outside your circle that you can control. So you cannot control people's reactions to your boundaries, to what you're saying. You can control your reactions and your responses to them. You can control even when your emotions are big. You can find ways to sit with those emotions and work through them and help yourself co-regulate. You can do that. There are things that we just cannot control and there are things we can. So I will attach some resources to the show notes that you can download so that you can actually be thinking about these things, because you can listen to something like a podcast a ton of times.
Speaker 1:But if not, if you put pen to paper and you really start applying it to your life, that is when you see transformation. It's not going to just be through hearing me, but it's going to be through actually going through those exercises and mulling over the ideas and being super honest with yourself, because that's the biggest one is sometimes we just don't want to be honest about our current reality. So today's is the reason something happened and then practicing accepting our whole self, our authentic self, and that might be through meditation, through imagery, but it's really about seeing ourselves where we are at, but also seeing the fractured or hurt child within us. All of us have what we call an inner child or your baby self. Right, it's the person whom you have gone through life with.
Speaker 1:But when trauma comes in and we're going to say trauma is anything that developmentally on our developmental spectrum has happened that has taken away some of our value and our honor, it's going to be the places where we were out of control or someone imposed something upon us that our brain had a very difficult time integrating and so, therefore, it traumatized us, it changed everything that we see about us, and so those things that are developmentally traumatic are going to be things that happen over a long period of time. So if you are verbally abused by a parent and it's a consecutive thing, it's the scowls at dinner, it's the things that you would try to avoid as a child because they made you feel less than. It's going to be the ways that your parent chose one sibling over you. It might be the ways that you were bullied or ostracized out of social groups or settings. Those are the things we're talking about like the death by a thousand paper cuts. So those are going to be some of the things that are going to come up when you're trying to deal with a situation that you don't understand or something that has deeply hurt you.
Speaker 1:That child within you is asking for you to be what we call an empathetic witness to whatever is going on, because what traumatizes a child is being left alone in a story without an empathetic witness, without someone coming alongside us and saying, oh my gosh, that's awful, and one of the most healing things with what we do at Simple and Deep, but also so many other people that are learning how to do narrative trauma care is really just being able to empathetically witness a story and say, whoa, that's not okay, because we think it's normal, we think it's just what everybody experienced, until a safe person, a person that is secure, or just another human being looks at it and goes. That's not okay and all of a sudden, we feel seen, we feel known and we feel heard, and many of us just didn't get heard or seen enough, and so not getting enough of the good things that we needed is what developmental trauma is. So, as we look at the reason, something happens, so we're going to remind ourselves that there are causes for this reality, cause and effect. Right, this happened because this happened. For instance, you can look at a situation or a fight, let's say, that you have with a friend or a colleague at work. Yes, that was a triggering event, that something happened. We finally have this fight, but there's probably, if you look back at it, different situations or moments that influenced that situation that you're now in.
Speaker 1:For instance, there is a conflict at least for me, there was a conflict that I didn't come back to the table later and say here is what I saw, this is what I felt and this is what I will no longer tolerate. When you do that, you're able to say this is my line in the sand. So we will talk a lot more about boundaries. But really, boundaries are what keeps you and I safe it. This is my line in the sand, so we will talk a lot more about boundaries, but really boundaries are what keeps you and I safe. It's like my own lawn. And then how can I love you and me simultaneously when my helping you be loved overrides my ability to feel seen, known, heard and the ability to show up?
Speaker 1:Now we have an imbalance of boundaries, a boundary invasion, and any time that massive amounts of anger show up, it is often because someone has crossed your boundary, and if you don't know what that boundary is, then you're going to need to be super curious and notice, notice where your rage seems huge, or it should be huge and you like completely dismiss it, or you fawn all over it and try to make everybody happy, even though you have all this rage within you. That is a huge sign. That's a wound from your childhood that you need to go back and tend to. That is a and honestly, that's the one that probably burps the most. For me is that I'm just super pissed as soon as something happens and I don't really understand why. I just feel it everywhere, recognizing where you feel, something in your body and looking at that.
Speaker 1:So last episode we put on a feelings wheel that you were able to talk about somatically the body, where you feel it, in your body, when you have certain emotions and I would definitely encourage you to do that as well and then, once we say this has happened, what did I do to lead up to this? And there might not be anything. Okay, and I'm not saying that I'm not excusing abuse, I'm not excusing just disgusting behavior where people are just mean and spiteful. I'm talking about is there anything that I could have done differently that led up to this moment? And all you do is own it, just be like yep, I probably should have done this, but it's not getting in this coulda, shoulda, woulda spiral like it's hamster wheel that just keeps turning.
Speaker 1:It's just acknowledging it, naming it, pondering it, saying it out loud, writing it down right, because we want to learn from every experience we encounter. It doesn't matter how bad it hurts or how minor it feels. Each one of those experiences is basically just putting a layer on this cake of walking through life and deciding how we're going to respond to it. And we're just kind of human, so we're going to have mistakes. But the cool thing about this is that each time we have a moment that comes up like this that's similar the brain can help us if we give it the right way to think about things, and the first way is to just to acknowledge that it's happening. And then what do we do to contribute to it, if anything? Now, after we recognize that, we have to practice how we're going to respond to it, and some of that is really thinking about how would you respond to a friend that you deeply loved, who had made a mistake? Because perhaps we're in a conflict that we need to radically accept that we created?
Speaker 1:This is the thing that gets me in the most trouble. I say what I think. I get passionate about anything that has to do with emotional wellness for women and children, and I don't want to sit around and listen to people talk about things that I know are going to be unsafe or not helpful. I don't like to talk around a problem. I like to go at it hard and to know why, and that often is incredibly invasive to other people, and so with that comes resistance. So I have to decide is their reaction based upon just me being what they call abrasive, or is it that they are being challenged and wanting to see something different? It's taking their perspective, but it's not silencing my own voice just because it's different than other people's, and that's a really difficult place to be.
Speaker 1:So learning how to be kind to ourself. So if you were talking to someone who you deeply loved that was struggling with, perhaps, the mistakes they'd made or what someone had done to them, how would you speak to them? Would you chastise them? Would you criticize them? So that is where the practice comes in is learning how to speak to yourself. So what I learned how to do was to imagine and that's part of one of them is to imagine the little girl. So what I've done is and the little girl that was you, let me clarify that but taking photos of yourself from when you were little and having them accessible to you. What's great about phones is we can have them as screensavers, that sort of thing, and I have a lot of them on my desk. There's my dad looking like a hippie and me on my tire swing.
Speaker 1:But the thing you want to do is you want to think about that child, because that is who is within you and those wounds are the child. And the more immature the wound is and the response we have is the younger we were when it happened and we might not be able to remember all of it, because that's the difference between implicit and explicit memory implicit and explicit memory. But we can definitely think, and if we have children, then we can think about what they did at certain stages of their life. Or if we are teachers, that was wonderful for me because it helped me set up this business, because we see everything through the lens of a child, and so that's how we heal, because we were broken in relationship when we were children.
Speaker 1:So, as you look at these pictures of yourself, I want you to think about what you would say to this child about something that they did not understand. And so I call the little wistie baby girl. So I would say to her things like baby girl, I understand that this is really scary and, yeah, that is so hurtful that they did that to you. I thought they were your friends too. I am so sorry that they made you feel emotionally unsafe. I'm so sorry that they let you down, but I promise that I'm not going to let you down. They let you down, but I promise that I'm not going to let you down. I promise that I will be here to help you sort this out, because I'm the wise adult I started to tell myself that a long time ago and I tell that to my kindergartners all the time too. Or I'll ask them, I'll say, am I a wise adult? And they say yes, and I'm like, okay, then I will take care of the adult things and you can just be five or six, and it's not taking away their honor for wanting to be helpful.
Speaker 1:But we allow children to carry heavy burdens for us as adults. So I want you to lay down your burden and as you lay down the burden, I want you to have compassion for the child within you. So I'm going to include a guided meditation for you to be able to understand where you're feeling things in your body and to be kind to yourself. And guided meditations might feel really weird for you if you haven't done them before, but what I would suggest is you get to a quiet place and a lot of people that do meditation like you to sit sitting up and crisscross, and I actually love to do them laying down. To be honest, it's just my preference, and when we did them in kindergarten I would have them lay on the floor. So it's up to you, but I would definitely get to a place where you can be quiet for the amount of time that there is and just allow yourself to experience it, and if you find yourself wandering, your mind wandering just tell yourself I am thinking and you can bring it right back.
Speaker 1:But that is one of the best tools because when we are slowing down our breath and we are exhaling, our exhaling breath activates what we call the parasympathetic nervous system, which is where we have rest and digest. It's the place that we want to be. We want our nervous system to be able to go up and down and then recalibrate back, and those of us who are living with things like complex PTSD or that developmental trauma, the insecure attachments, all of those things that we talk about here at Simple and Deep, it's hard and our nervous systems got stuck in those places, and so what we're doing is we're creating a new pathway in our brains to figure out how we can feel safe and how we can become calm, and giving you tools and resources to be able to do these things without tons of expensive therapies. I'm a living example of going to therapy but then doing this hard work of journaling and looking for new resources and reading books and listening to podcasts. So if you're listening to this podcast or watching this. That is an amazing step in the right direction. And then I have things like an affiliation for virtual EMDR, which is a therapeutic tool where you can work on integrating some of that trauma.
Speaker 1:But the biggest thing is just recognizing that there are parts within you that have not healed yet. As we go through this process, I want you to give yourself a lot of grace, because we do participate in our own suffering. Radical acceptance means that we are tolerating something without judging it or trying to change it. It's about staying present and acknowledging that our experiences are just what they are. When we judge, you actually create more suffering in your life, and one of my new mottos is I will no longer participate in my own suffering. Are you participating in your own suffering?
Speaker 1:Keeping yourself stuck on purpose sometimes keeps us from embracing the next part of our story, the next place we're supposed to go, because there's grief, there's change, there's loss, and when that happens, it's hard, it's not easy and it's uncomfortable. Familiar hell versus unfamiliar heaven. I want you to think about the reason and being able to label it like I feel, whatever you feel. And there's the feelings wheel again. They, what do they do? What's a verb, betrayed me, they hurt me, they ostracized me, they made fun of me. They don't care about X Y Z. They don't care about X Y Z. So saying exactly what the fact is or how it makes you feel gives it less power over you. Naming things in our story is super powerful and then explaining to yourself what happened I went into work and blank. I was driving on this day and blank. When my son came home from college he blank. I was driving on this day and blank. When my son came home from college he blank. Whatever it might be. But say the facts okay.
Speaker 1:And it's natural for us to resist this process because our nervous system thinks that there's a threat and there might be one, or there maybe was one. But then we have to ask ourselves is the threat over? Because our body needs to know it's over. So a lot of times, with children and with adults, I've said I need you to say to yourself it's over, it's over, I am safe, I am safe, I am loved, I am loved, I'm going to be okay, I can breathe, I can breathe again. And sometimes, when we are navigating really hard things, it is a big deal to just say today I breathed. Today. I didn't cry as much, because that's part of healing.
Speaker 1:Healing is not this linear process that we think. It is constantly in motion and we never truly arrive the side of heaven. We're always a work in progress of maybe a beautiful disaster. But the greatest thing I've learned is that the more vulnerable we are about that, the less it has power over us and it unites us as a human race because we all have experienced hard things. Then, once you do that, I want you to also think about identifying negative thought patterns. How are the thoughts that you're having influencing you and how are they influencing others? Can you not stop talking about this thing all the time? And when you talk about it and talk about it and talk about it, it's really not healing it.
Speaker 1:Because you need to be in a safe, kind environment with someone that's helping you with that. Because if we just rehash something, we traumatize ourselves over and over again. Because you need to be in a safe, kind environment with someone that's helping you with that. Because if we just rehash something, we traumatize ourselves over and over again. Our amygdala doesn't really know the difference between now and then. It just thinks it's happening. So we have to help ourselves Come alongside.
Speaker 1:If, for instance, you were in a car accident as a child, you might be terrified to get in a car. And as a wise adult, what would you say to that child? Sometimes bad things happen, like car accidents, but do they always happen? No, and that is the kind of thing that we have to do to guide ourselves. And then I want you to watch out for that magical thinking that I discussed earlier, like this person's going to be better at some point. He loved me once. They were yes, they kind of do this to me a lot as my friend, but there was a time where she, like really thought about me first and I was the first person she called. It's like this fairy dust should be flying down on us.
Speaker 1:Like, are we really thinking logically or are we having this magical feeling of, if I just hold on longer, where is our evidence that that's going to happen? If the actions of the other person consistently show us different? We have to believe the actions and not just the words, because everyone can say one thing and do another. It's so hard because I love words. As a writer, as a creator, I love words, I love lyrics, I love poetry. Words hurt me because I believe that if they were uttered, they were real, and your words have power to tear yourself down or to build yourself up. And so use your words for good, but recognize that words can hurt us if we believe every single thing that's uttered at us is true.
Speaker 1:So it's a fine line, and that magical thinking is very, very present when it comes to abusive, narcissistic relationships or trauma bond, because they got in, because you're empathetic. You are not the toxic person. You are the person who has things that need to heal, and it was like a magnet. So remember that as you go through this, that it takes real courage to lean in to things that feel gross, things that don't make sense, and then controlling what you can control. So that includes boundaries. Perhaps you cannot be friends with that person anymore, or you need to think about filing for a separation, or you need to leave a job. Whatever is going to help you grant the serenity. Where is the serenity? Where is the serenity? Where is the peace? Because we all want peace, and if you cannot get peace where you are at, you're the only person who can change that for you. Circumstances can push you in a direction, but overall, you have the right and the ability to be in a place where you feel safe, heard, loved and seen.
Speaker 1:Be present with the emotions that come up. Pay attention to all of the things that go on in your body. Sometimes it's just closing your eyes and recognizing where do I feel what I feel right now? Do I feel tension in my body? Do I feel an emotion, a sensation? Because, remember, we talked about last episode that our sensations come before our emotions. Something is happening to help us trigger back. Those are the two steps that I wanted to look at today the reason something is happening and the practice of thinking about how we're speaking to ourselves. Looking at the problem with some objectivity, but also looking at it with compassion. You wouldn't put down a friend or a child that came to you in need. Looking at ourselves with that compassion is the greatest thing we can do to talk to ourselves, to make that secure attachment that we need, that we needed all along.
Speaker 1:You can connect with us at Simple Indeed to give us feedback about what you want to hear on the podcast, as well as your ideas or how you're implementing the strategies that we're giving you. I would love to have your feedback and that link will be in the show notes, as well as all the resources that you can download. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Simple, indeed Podcast notes, as well as all the resources that you can download. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Simple and Deep Podcast. I hope that you enjoyed our conversation and found it enlightening and empowering. Remember, by understanding attachment, engaging your story and living intentionally, we can transform our lives. Feel free to reach out with any questions you might have and remember until next time, take care of yourself, because you are important.