Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Ready to lose 40 plus pounds without giving up happy hours, weekend brunches, or date nights. Then it's time to uncover the hidden link between binge eating and toxic relationships. And finally break free from both. Welcome to the Hungry for Love podcast with Jillian Scott. Y' all ready? Let's go.
[00:00:24] All right, today we are going to dive into this topic of people pleasing.
[00:00:29] And there might be some things that I say that might be a little triggering. So I'm just gonna put that out there at the very beginning.
[00:00:36] But I really wanna encourage you to listen all the way through. Because while there are some things that can be a little triggering and we can be a little resistant or it can spark some defensiveness, I say this with love because when we can better understand what's happening, what's playing out, and why, we can better address it. We know how to solve for it. We know what we wanna do.
[00:00:57] So, people pleasing. And one of the ways I will talk about it as over functioning, but what if I told you that your people pleasing habit was really just a desire to control other people?
[00:01:10] I'm gonna let that sink in for a second.
[00:01:13] What if your people pleasing habit was not a good thing?
[00:01:18] What if it was really, at its core, a desire to control other people?
[00:01:24] Now just breathe, okay? Because I know for many of my listeners and myself included, this thought of us being controlling, it's like, no, no, no, no, no. My parent, my ex, my spouse, they are the ones who are controlling.
[00:01:37] But really, if we can drop the defensiveness and we can drop the judgment, we can recognize how this is actually playing out and why this keeps the cycle going. Because really, this desire for control stems from a place of survival.
[00:01:53] Okay? So we're gonna let go of the shame, let go of the judgment, but we have to get out of denial and acknowledge the truth if we want to move forward.
[00:02:03] Let's start with that premise and also. Now let me explain. Because this survival mechanism was deeply ingrained, it's likely what you learned as a kid, and it is truly that it's how you learned to feel loved, praised, valued, be a part of the family.
[00:02:21] So before we dive into all of that, though, let me just explain a couple other things and how else I see this. People pleasing is a maladaptive coping mechanism. That is just a fancy way of saying it's an unhealthy way of dealing with stress, negative emotions, or difficult situations. And often it's other people's stress, their negative emotions, difficult situations that involve other people, or. Or that really activate your own nervous system. Another way we can think about it is it's an unhealthy way of dealing with your dysregulated nervous system.
[00:02:56] These types of coping mechanisms, they'll provide temporary relief, but they ultimately lead to negative consequences. They don't actually solve the problem. They just keep toxic cycles and dynamics going.
[00:03:09] So you'll hear me use the word people pleasing and over functioning kind of in conjunction, because people pleasing is really, I am responsible for somebody else's emotions.
[00:03:20] I am responsible for their thoughts, their emotions, their actions. And this is often where we get caught up. It's like I'm responsible for their emotions and therefore then their actions.
[00:03:33] So it's not just about making somebody feel good, it's also about preventing somebody from feeling bad. When we even just look at this term of people pleasing, I really like the term over functioning better because it's this over responsibility that we have trying to control someone, trying to control their emotions. And often it's so that we don't feel the brunt of it. It's so we don't get yelled at, it's so we don't get the silent treatment. It's so that we can get our needs met.
[00:04:00] And it's not just about pleasing and making them feel good, but that is one of the aspects. So number one, it's, I am responsible for making somebody feel happy, people peaceful, content, joy, proud. Like I am responsible for their positive emotions and I have to make sure that I do the right things so that they stay in this positive mood or this positive energy, positive emotion. For many of us, this is what we learned as a kid.
[00:04:26] So when a parent came home, you knew you had to be on your best behavior.
[00:04:29] Certain things need to be done around the house, certain tasks needed to be done. You had to act a certain way. You weren't allowed to cry, you weren't allowed to be angry, you weren't allowed to feel certain things, right? It was very much like you had to control yourself in an unhealthy way. You couldn't be authentic and your real self. You had to be the person that they wanted you to be.
[00:04:51] And this is really interesting because growing up and moving around so much, going to five different high schools and then moving every one to two years, really since the time I was 15, I very much learned how to be a chameleon. It was like, who do I need to be in this situation or at this school in order to make friends, in order to be liked, right? And it was like, who do you need me to be? I'll be her.
[00:05:17] On one hand, I could see that as a gift. I could easily jump in and find friends. I could easily be friends with a variety of different people. But it made it a little bit harder at times to really recognize and define who am I at my core. I know when it comes to dysfunctional marriages, and a lot of people talk about it from the place of like they lose themselves.
[00:05:36] And as I was thinking about it, I don't know that I necessarily lost myself because I don't know that I ever really found myself or really stepped into my own since like 8th grade. I think I was really my own and very independent and fun and joyful. And I think that was really like me being myself, being very vibrant and lively. And while there were still aspects of that that played out throughout the rest of my life, 8th grade was the last time I really remember being me. And ever since then, there were at least these little subtle underlying subconscious patterns, because it wasn't conscious, it was very much subconscious.
[00:06:13] Who do I need to be in order to fit in? Who do I need to be for the boy that I have a crush on so that he likes me? Things like that. And that's okay. That's what we learned sometimes as a kid. We learned this. Sometimes it's as a young adult, like as a teenager, into our young adult years.
[00:06:30] And then it often typically gets perpetuated in adulthood, in marriage, of course. So your internal programming is likely very much like mine. And really, by the age of seven, I learned what I needed to do, who I needed to be, how I needed to show up in order to be loved, valued, appreciated, a part of the family.
[00:06:51] I learned what I needed to do in order to achieve that. I had to earn it, I had to work for it. I couldn't just be myself, I couldn't just be a kid. At times I. I had to show up in a certain way. And this is because I had very dysregulated parents and likely grandparents. Because there are intergenerational cycles of trauma, you likely had that too.
[00:07:12] So if you grew up in a household where your caregivers, whether that was parents or grandparents, where they were dysregulated, you became responsible for needing to regulate their emotions. They made you responsible for their emotional well being.
[00:07:28] You learn to do that, you learn to regulate their emotions so that they could love you better. It was so that you could get your emotional needs met, you could be loved, you could be accepted. You were a better part of the family, a better part of the community.
[00:07:44] You got the better version of them, you got the version of them that wasn't yelling, wasn't screaming, wasn't stressed, wasn't giving you the silent treatment. You learned how you needed to show up in order to get your emotional needs met because they, they grew up likely with parents who didn't know how to regulate their emotions, who had a lot of unprocessed, unhealed trauma.
[00:08:04] And it just gets passed down generation to generation.
[00:08:08] These cycles keep playing out.
[00:08:10] This aspect of over functioning is so deeply rooted, it is so deeply ingrained in us because for many of us it really did start as a young kid, and I can see how mine started as a young kid with who do I need to be in my family in this small container once in high school and moving around so much, it was like, who do I need to be to fit in, to be liked, to have a good experience?
[00:08:35] Just knowing that this is the pattern and part of this is also having a lot of compassion and self love.
[00:08:41] It's normal that these patterns are going to keep playing out for a while. I still was catching some over functioning and people pleasing habits in my life this year.
[00:08:51] Like it's still, it still plays out sometimes and that's okay. The key is that I'm learning from it and I'm learning to catch it faster, number one. I'm also learning to see it in more areas.
[00:09:03] So not only did this show up then as a kid, but because you were trained that way, because that's how you knew to survive, you then likely got into a long term relationship or a marriage or maybe multiple marriages where this same dynamic continued to play out even if it's not what you wanted. I remember when I was 12 and this was such a pivotal time, I remember thinking to myself, I am never gonna marry anybody like my stepdad.
[00:09:27] And if I do, if God forbid some reason I do marry somebody like him, I am gonna run. The first moment I notice it, the first second I am going to run and I'm going to leave because I refuse to raise my kids the way that I am growing up like this right now. There was this deep conviction and I forgot about it for a while.
[00:09:46] And something happened around year nine of my marriage where I remembered that and I was like, holy shit, I've married my stepdad.
[00:09:55] And while I didn't run right away, I did eventually choose to leave.
[00:10:01] And I'm really proud of that. And that is something that not a lot of women will say about choosing divorce.
[00:10:08] Not a lot of Christian or religious women Will say, because that goes against a lot of what the Bible or the religious teachings say.
[00:10:17] But I am really proud of the fact that I left and I can see these cycles that played out as a kid and what I learned and how I learned to survive was what ended up happening and how I learned to survive and play the role in the marriage.
[00:10:33] And so it's the same concept of boiling a frog, right? I think many of us have heard this. You don't put a frog in boiling water to boil it, right? You put it in cold water and you slowly raise the temperature.
[00:10:44] That's often what happened is we got sucked into a love bombing type of dynamic where now this other person is meeting our emotional needs. We finally feel seen and loved and valued and appreciated on this really deep level. It feeds your soul, their attention and their time and their love for you. The words, the physical touch, the acts of service, like, whatever it is. And we think, this is everything I've been looking for.
[00:11:12] And I think romance novels and fairy tales and even movies, like all of the Nicholas Sparks books and the ones that they turned into movies. I was like, holy. This is why we have such problems, like, as women, as millennial women. This is why we are so screwed when it comes to relationships and better understanding why things work. Because we have been told and taught that a good girl can change a bad boy if you just love him hard enough, if you just keep showing up as your authentic self, you can change him rather than letting him be him and choosing a healthy partner. Because the bad boy rarely changes. If anything, he's going to change you.
[00:11:50] And that's typically what happened, is our brain knew how to survive from childhood. It knew how to survive and adapt to that type of dynamic as a kid. And so we learned and we knew. This is how I show up. Because typically in marriages, there is a pot boiling.
[00:12:06] For me, it was. Things seemed fine and then it was like the moment we got married, it was like a switch flipped. It was like all of a sudden, year one was horrible, just terrible. Like, I could not understand it. And it was so confusing because dating and being engaged that year and a half seemed so good. And as I look back, I see some really big red flags. I couldn't see em at the time, but there were really only a couple.
[00:12:33] There were not a lot. And then it was like all of a sudden, the pot was boiling.
[00:12:38] Now the problem was I knew how to survive. I knew how to please. I knew how to appease. I knew how to give in. I knew how to Surrender control. I knew how to not ask for what I wanted. I knew how to take the blame. I knew how to make everything my fault. I knew how to stuff down my emotions.
[00:12:53] I'd already learned all that. And because I was used to that on some level, and because I had worth and attachment revolving around this other person and him choosing me. And I'm special because of him, and my worth and value is tied up in some way with him.
[00:13:09] I didn't want to walk away.
[00:13:11] I couldn't. There were also massive abandonment wounds from childhood that I didn't even realize were a problem.
[00:13:19] So there were a lot of reasons why I couldn't walk away.
[00:13:22] It's wild to see how. Of course, it was so hard to break up with people. Even now, I recognize how hard it has been to walk away from certain relationships and certain people.
[00:13:32] Now, I would say over the last year, I've done so much work on myself in that area. But prior to that, when I think about the relationship prior, there is this thought of, but I can save him. I can rescue him. My love will forever change him.
[00:13:47] Nope. No.
[00:13:51] Oh, little Jilly Bean. Good intentions. Really good intentions. And also, that wasn't the only story playing. And I think this is important when we recognize and we can see recurring patterns, recurring themes. Is seeing it now in real life. It's like there were times when I got sucked in with love bombing, and I couldn't see it until after a divorce or the end of a marriage. And then it was, I got sucked into love bombing. And I couldn't see it until after the breakup. And then it was, I got sucked into love bombing. And I started to question, maybe this is love bombing. But it felt so good. So I wanted to stay in denial. I didn't want to look at it. So I was like, okay, nope, we're just going to pretend like that's not it.
[00:14:28] And then after that, to recognize, to get pulled into love bombing and to see, oh, holy no.
[00:14:34] And to walk away and to walk away faster and learning how to meet my own emotional needs so that I can do that. Because that's part of this dynamic is I have to make them happy. I have to prevent them from feeling negative emotions. I have to control and manipulate them so that they can meet my needs, so that I can get my needs met, so that I feel loved and valued and special and needed and wanted. That's why we do this. It's why we did it as kids. It's why if any of you have a savior complex, because I Definitely could see this in myself at times too. It's like if I could save them, especially when it comes to a romantic relationship and a partner, if I could save them, then they'll love me the way that I want them to, the way that I'm craving.
[00:15:22] We crave the attention and the love and feeling special and wanted and desired.
[00:15:29] We are so hungry for love. We are so starved for love and affection.
[00:15:36] But we keep looking to other people to meet that need for us.
[00:15:41] And that's why we get stuck in these loops. It's why we keep repeating the same patterns over and over. It's why if you've dated or married multiple dysfunctional people, multiple toxic people, this is why.
[00:15:53] It's not because you're broken. It's not because you're flawed. It's not because you can't find a healthy man. It's not because healthy men don't exist, because I guarantee they do. They are not unicorns, they are not leprechauns, they are not this mythical creature. I guarantee they exist. And there are a lot more of them than we realize. But when we are operating at this low level survival mechanism and we want to keep playing in these dysfunctional patterns, we don't see them. We aren't aligned because they are playing like up here at the top, they're not playing down at the bottom. Stuck in these karmic cycles, these karmic loops, they have leveled up.
[00:16:28] And your opportunity now is to level up as well.
[00:16:31] So let me get back to my notes here because I do have an outline I'm trying to follow.
[00:16:35] All right. This is important though, just to recognize I'm responsible for making somebody else happy. I am also now responsible. If they feel something negative, it's now my fault.
[00:16:46] So if they feel a negative emotion, it's my fault.
[00:16:49] And if it's my fault that they're either feeling something negative or they are not feeling something positive, either one, it is my responsibility to fix it.
[00:16:58] This is why I call it over functioning.
[00:17:01] We feel guilty, we feel bad, we feel responsible for causing them pain, for not creating the positive experience for them that we were supposed to.
[00:17:11] So we feel like we are a bad person and it hijacks your nervous system because that's how you were groomed. It's what you learned as a kid. It's what you learned in this relationship.
[00:17:24] This word, grooming, often refers to sexual abuse and exploitation. And while yes, there can be that in these types of marriages as well, in these types of relationships, the way that we are trained. It's like we are groomed to fit into certain roles, certain models, certain behaviors. It's this slow boiling of the pot of minimizing, justifying, excusing, bad behavior, blame shifting. Like, when we really look at the description of that word, when I look at that, it really revolves around abuse.
[00:17:56] And that's what happened. That's what happened to many of us in relationships. We were groomed to believe certain things, to take on certain roles, to take on this responsibility of meeting somebody else's needs. And it plays One and one, right? Cause it's. I need them to meet my emotional needs. Of course they need me to meet theirs. In our brains, it makes sense. We're like, okay, yep, I need them to make me feel loved and make me feel pretty and make me feel special. So of course they need me now to do that for them. So we fall into this trap, and this is where we have the opportunity to break free. But I've noticed for myself as well how when it's a really big, heavy emotion like anguish or suffering or grief, there's this extra pull.
[00:18:41] It's like the savior complex really comes out. I've gotta save them. I've gotta save them from themselves, from this negative experience, from this negative emotion. So if it is this deep heartbreak, anguish, agonizing thing or event, we feel the pull because of our trauma. And then on top of, if any of you are maybe like me, and we are very much empaths, not just empathetic, but true empaths. And the way that I saw this and noticed this was within my human design. If anybody has questions about it, I'm happy to share more about where to get your free chart, how to better look at this and identify it. I'm happy to connect you with other people who are more specialists in that field. But for me, when I look at my human design and my chart, the way that I'm wired, I. My core root centers are all open. My will center is all open, where I find my value and worth, completely open. Like, I am so open to experiencing other people's emotions.
[00:19:37] This is why I will cry watching a movie or reading a book. Like, this is why I am moved by other things happening. It's because I have this ability to take on the emotions of others around me. And just like with any other superpower, you can use it for good or you can use it for harm. And this is where it's like, okay, I have used this not from a productive, healthy, useful place in the past. And it's been used against me. And now when I take ownership of it, now it's like, okay, I can use this for good. And one of the ways it comes out is in my coaching and in how understanding and compassionate and empathetic I am. Not just because I've gone through it, but because I have this deep level of being able to sit with somebody who's going through something hard and hold that space with them, to feel it with them, to help them feel seen and heard and not alone. I don't need to save them from it. I don't need to save you from your emotions or your human experience, but I can sit with you in it and I can feel it with you. And I can show you other better, healthier ways of achieving goals and living this life here, this one precious life that we are given every day that we wake up and we are breathing, it's another day, another opportunity that we have to do something incredible, to do something meaningful.
[00:21:00] Going back to this people pleasing, over functioning aspect, right? If their emotion or lack thereof is my fault, it's now my responsibility to fix it. So I now have to fix it. And if they are angry and now they're yelling, screaming, cussing, throwing things, punching walls, if they are now doing things and it's my fault, not only is it my fault and I feel bad and guilty, but now my nervous system is completely hijacked and dysregulated. And now I'll do almost anything, not just to please them, but it's like to try to get them to stop. I am trying to control their emotions and control their actions because I feel responsible for them and because I'm trying to get my own needs met. And if this person is typically the one responsible for meeting my positive emotional needs, I need them to, I need them to calm down. I need them to love me, I need them to forgive me, I need them to tell me I'm a good wife.
[00:21:53] And of course we experience this as kids.
[00:21:56] We have no other option but to rely on our parents for so many things.
[00:22:01] But when we cry or whine or we are dysregulated because we don't know how to do that yet. And our parents never learned how to regulate their emotions and their nervous system, they lash out, they respond in ways where it's like we learn it wasn't safe to feel it.
[00:22:18] And this is where it all comes down to is it's not safe to feel.
[00:22:22] It wasn't safe as a kid, it wasn't safe in your marriage. It's not safe to feel this emotion. It's not safe to cry. It's not safe to have this experience.
[00:22:32] So what do we do? We eat, we drink, we surf social media, we turn on a movie, we avoid, we buffer, we stuff it down.
[00:22:42] It is a survival mechanism and that's okay. We can have so much love and so much compassion and so much gratitude, too, of thank you body, thank you brain for helping me to survive these extremely difficult situations.
[00:22:55] Doesn't mean that it was always bad. It never was. That's why we get stuck in them, is because it's not all bad. But I was reading through a request for coaching the other day and it was a guy reaching out and he was like, the highs are really high. When it's good, it is really good, but when it's bad, it's really bad.
[00:23:13] And I responded to him because I was like, look, I don't know that we're going to be the right fit. Because you want to save a toxic dynamic, you think that there is still a possibility to save this and really, you need to walk away now. Not everybody is open and at a place where they can see that. And sometimes I think of it as like, I'm just going to be planting some seeds. But in my mind, when it's really good, but then it's also really bad, that is a clear sign of some form of abuse happening. Usually there's emotional and verbal abuse at play. Like it is a toxic dynamic, it is not healthy. I did a podcast a while back on confusion and how confusion is often a sign of emotional abuse. When you feel really confused, it's they do this, but they also do that. They say this. They say they love me, but then they also say I'm a horrid wife. When we have this confusing dynamic, clear sign of abuse. Just like when it's really good, it's amazing, but when it's bad, it's horrible.
[00:24:10] That's another sign that this is not a good healthy dynamic.
[00:24:15] And so not only do we need to learn how to meet our own emotional needs, so that we can stop turning to other people and dysfunctional people and dynamics, we can break free of these cycles, but it's also so we can stop turning to food to regulate our bodies and our nervous system.
[00:24:31] We stop turning to food to make us feel better, to alcohol to make us feel better.
[00:24:37] When we allow other people to fully own their thoughts, their emotions, their actions, we have to let go of our need and desire to control how they feel or what they think or what they do what they say, how they say it. The attitude we have to let go of so much and we have to increase our willingness to feel rejected, abandoned, guilty, misunderstood.
[00:25:07] Our ability to self soothe and re regulate our own nervous system instead of looking for someone or something to do it for us.
[00:25:15] So the solution to over functioning like the solution for all of us recovering people pleasers is I have to learn how to better allow and process my emotions, my thoughts, my actions and fully own them 100% own them, not make anyone or anything else responsible for them. Radical responsibility.
[00:25:37] This is a sign of a mature person. This is a huge sign of growth.
[00:25:43] So you might ask yourself, what emotions do I tend to resist?
[00:25:47] And sometimes it's low level emotions. It's like disappointment. That was one of the biggest, most pivotal things that I realized with business where I was like, holy shit, I keep blocking myself because I'm afraid of feeling disappointed. It's not even that bad, right? Like on the grand scheme, when I look at all these other emotions, it's like a low level emotion, but it's okay. Notice our aversion to feeling disappointed, especially when we feel like we've spent so much of our life being disappointed and so much of our life feeling disappointed in ourselves.
[00:26:17] Feeling like a disappointment to your spouse or your ex, a disappointment to your parents. Sometimes it feels or it seems like on the outside it's just this little low level emotion, but it holds a lot of weight.
[00:26:28] So have some compassion with yourself. But we've got to be able to look at it eyes wide open.
[00:26:35] What patterns or habits are you not wanting to admit, look at or address where are you still in denial?
[00:26:44] This can bring up a lot. This is hard.
[00:26:47] But when we have the willingness to hold space for the hard parts, for the shadow sides, for the ugly parts of us that we don't want to look at, we just want to stuff down when we can be there for those parts too. We learn to love ourselves and love those parts of us, those parts that are just wanting to keep us safe, just wanting to keep us alive.
[00:27:09] That is part of true healing.
[00:27:11] It's learning that you have got your back no matter what.
[00:27:15] One of my words for this year was the word resurrender and it comes from the song by Hillsong. If you haven't listened to it yet, I highly recommend it. It's such an amazing song and I heard it when I went back to church. I started going back again last year and found my home church. I love it so much and I had to take a Break from church for a little bit.
[00:27:35] Then I heard the church's name three times in one week. And I was like, okay, God, I get the picture. I'm like, all right, I get it. I'll go. And from the very first weekend, I knew it was home. I knew that was gonna be my church. And I was the crying lady. Probably all of last year, like, every single weekend, pretty much.
[00:27:56] There was just. There was a lot of emotion I was dealing with and processing, but I really held onto this word of resurrender. Life didn't look like what I thought it was at that point.
[00:28:08] Being 39, heading into my 40s, divorced, single mom, life's not looking like what I thought it was. But this resurrender of my life and my wants, my desires, and giving that all to God and trusting that he has me on a path for a reason and not moving until he tells me otherwise.
[00:28:30] And this is how I thought of and how I saw my divorce was. I wanted to wait until I had the conviction that was the right next step.
[00:28:39] And that's part of why I moved states.
[00:28:41] It's part of why I didn't stay in North Carolina, was because I didn't feel convicted to stay. I didn't feel like that's what I needed. I didn't feel like moving was necessarily the right option. I didn't feel convicted to move. But I knew that staying was not what was being asked of me.
[00:28:57] And it made it just a little bit easier to follow through when I had that conviction and that belief. Because there were times when the fear would come up, and it's that conviction and that belief, not just in ourselves, but in a higher power, that gets you through.
[00:29:13] And I let my conviction be greater than my fear. And I keep going back to that. This is where God has me. This is where he has me, at least for now. And I'm not getting off this mountain until he tells me otherwise.
[00:29:27] And you can trust yourself and you trust that you can hear messages from God. And this was such a huge, pivotal turning point in my relationship with God, was no longer asking him to tell somebody else who could then come tell me. Like, hey, God, if you could just tell this other pastor, if you could just tell this person to just randomly walk up to me and be like, I have a message from God.
[00:29:47] It changed. And it was like, tell me, show me, Speak to me.
[00:29:52] I'm listening, and I can hear you, and I trust your voice.
[00:29:56] And I can trust that I'm getting the right message when I need it.
[00:30:00] And sometimes we have to tap into that.
[00:30:05] And so this conviction of like also plays into not giving up on yourself, not throwing yourself under the bus.
[00:30:14] It plays into truly having your own back. To be able to look at the hard stuff, the hard patterns, the things that would typically evoke shame and self doubt and fear and anguish, and to learn to feel it all.
[00:30:29] Because when you feel it and you can process it and allow it, that's when you can start to tell a different story.
[00:30:37] So when you can rewrite the story and rewrite it from a perspective of a place of power and how you can use it for you.
[00:30:44] But the more that you learn to process and allow your own emotions, the more that you can allow other people to experience theirs.
[00:30:55] You can allow them to feel their emotions because you know it's not going to kill them because it didn't kill you.
[00:31:03] And I see this play out in parenting too. It's like, the more I can regulate my emotions, the more I can hold space for my son when he's having a meltdown, the more I can be there for him. I don't have to yell at him. I don't have to send him away. He doesn't have to go to his room.
[00:31:18] There are still boundaries. So he can be angry, he can be upset, but he doesn't get to scream, he doesn't get to hit.
[00:31:25] And often what comes after that, when I hold that boundary too, is he starts to cry. He's learning how to process and feel his emotions. He's learning how to talk through it. He's learning how to manage his own body and his own responses.
[00:31:38] And that's part of my job, is to help him do that. But I can't do that if every time he has a meltdown, I have a meltdown.
[00:31:44] Now I just keep repeating generational trauma. Now I just keep repeating those same cycles of the past.
[00:31:50] And I know that he feels safe to have these emotions with me, to express these emotions with me. And it's hard. It's hard being the safe parent sometimes.
[00:32:00] But I also know that this work is helping me to be a better person.
[00:32:04] It's not just about me parenting him better. It's about refining and redefining me and my capacity and my ability to hold space.
[00:32:13] So we can do this. We can allow other people to feel their emotions and to fully own their emotions, their actions, their stuff. We do this with parenting. You can do this with a spouse or an ex spouse, in dating, with a boss or an employee. This permeates every area of your life, and this doesn't mean that you're being a bitch. I think that's a big thing, especially for those of us who are used to people pleasing, used to giving in, used to making other people happy. And the moment that we stop, it's like, ooh, I feel like I'm in my bitchy era. And I remember telling a friend this and she was like, or maybe you're just learning how to enforce boundaries.
[00:32:52] And what feels to me like being a complete bitch is actually healthy.
[00:32:57] It's just a healthy level of I own my emotions and my actions and I'm going to allow somebody else to own theirs. This is often why there gets to be such friction as one person starts to heal in a marriage or a dynamic. Two people are in this toxic dynamic and one person chooses to heal. One person levels up, one person chooses not to play the game or be in that dynamic. But if the other person doesn't, if that second person doesn't level up with them, if they don't want to go on that journey, if they're not willing to hold space and look at that, their shame, their wounds, their shit, and work on it, the marriage can't work. It can't last. That's why it often ends is because one person is no longer playing that game. They are vibrating at this higher frequency. They are energetically in a different place. They stop meeting the needs. And then the person who's not getting their needs met, they are very angry, very bitter, very disgruntled, and they're upset that you won't play down in this karmic loop with them. They're very upset that you are aren't going to stay in this dysfunctional pattern. But when you find that freedom and you find the peace and you find the conviction and you choose to stay there, it creates such a better experience of life.
[00:34:08] And this doesn't mean that it's done forever. Like I just said, I am still finding aspects of people pleasing coming up in my life.
[00:34:15] And it's okay. I'm learning to see it, I'm learning to catch it, I'm learning to identify it better and better, faster and faster. Just like we do with overeating and emotional eating habits.
[00:34:27] It's not about, oh, I wake up and magically one day I've forever stopped emotionally eating.
[00:34:32] It's, we learn to catch the habit faster, we learn to see the patterns, we learn to break it sooner. And we have to have so much love and so much compassion to look at it.
[00:34:43] We have to let Go of the shame.
[00:34:45] We have been ruled by shame for so long. In fact, I guarantee that's why we have been over functioning for so long, our entire lives. Because we are simply trying to avoid the shame. My encouragement and my challenge to you is to allow yourself to feel it. What if you let yourself feel the shame?
[00:35:04] What if you took a couple deep breaths and put your hand on your heart and closed your eyes and just noticed what was happening in your body, your breathing, your heart rate, what's happening in your throat, in your head, in your chest, in your stomach and really tune into your nervous system response because that's often what has us over functioning.
[00:35:32] It's the shame, it's the abandonment, the self doubt, the things that get triggered in our bodies, the emotions that we feel like we can't allow, we can't feel, we can't possibly contain.
[00:35:44] We don't want to feel it. We don't know how to regulate. And the way we've learned to regulate is to try to control somebody else so that they can come back and meet our needs.
[00:35:54] It's why we look to food, it's why we look to alcohol. It's why we turn to a dating app. It's why we stay stuck in these patterns for so long.
[00:36:02] It's why these two things go hand in hand. It's the exact same pattern. And at the core it's changing how you think and see yourself.
[00:36:11] It's your willingness to expand your capacity to feel especially negative emotions.
[00:36:17] And it's learning how to meet your own emotional needs instead of making someone else responsible for them.
[00:36:23] That's how you go forward. That's how you heal. That's how you break free.
[00:36:27] That's how you create a life so good it blows your mind. A life so good you don't need an escape from it. And it's exactly what I can help you do.
[00:36:37] If you are ready to do this, this is the best time.
[00:36:40] Now let's get started. In November, in December. Let's start now. Don't keep putting it off. Stop kicking the can down the road. Let's dive in, let's jump in, let's go for it. And I'm going to show you how to truly enjoy the holidays. And as you are on this healing journey to make peace, but to do the actual work. Not just to take time, because time doesn't heal all wounds.
[00:37:03] We have to be actively working on rewriting these stories, on rewiring our brain, on re regulating our nervous system.
[00:37:12] And I am the best person to help you.
[00:37:15] Your next best step is to schedule a free consultation.
[00:37:18] You can go to bodyyoucrave.com schedule and get on my calendar and let's talk through what this would look like for you because I promise there is true healing and true freedom on the other side.
[00:37:32] All right, thank you for coming to my extremely long TED Talk on redefining people pleasing and how I see it. The next episode we are going to talk about people pleasing as it relates to food and the holidays in particular. Because I think this is really interesting. I woven the weight loss side a little bit in terms of why we can be reaching for food from that emotional standpoint.
[00:37:54] However, there's also an aspect of people pleasing around food and we see it pop up a lot during the holidays and this is the best time to be open and looking for it. So join me on the next episode. It's gonna blow your mind and it's gonna be so good as we head into parties and Thanksgiving and Christmas and all of these things where there might be some expectations to eat or eat a certain amount or a certain type of food and how to feel confident in your ability to manage your own emotions even when other people are dysregulated.
[00:38:27] All right, have a great week, y'. All. Here's to creating the life and body you crave.
[00:38:37] If this episode resonated with you, it's time to break free from destructive cycles around food, alcohol and toxic relationships. Your next step Book your free Break the Cycle call where you'll finally see why your binge eating and relationship patterns are so deeply connected and how to break free from both for good.
[00:38:57] You'll walk away with fierce clarity and a game plan to step into a life full of fun, adventure and self love. Grab your spot now at www.bodyyoucrave.com BTC.
[00:39:12] It's time to break the cycle. I'll show you.
