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How To Tell If Your Boundaries Are Actually Fear In Disguise · Toxic Girls Zone

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome back, my loves. No guests, no interviews, just you
0:07
Speaker 1: and me and something I genuinely think you need to
0:09
Speaker 1: hear today, even if part of you is already scrolling
0:11
Speaker 1: ahead looking for the exit. Today, we're talking about how
0:14
Speaker 1: to tell the difference between a boundary that's actually protecting
0:16
Speaker 1: you and a demand that's controlling the whole relationship out
0:19
Speaker 1: of fear. And I'm going to say this once up front,
0:21
Speaker 1: if you've heard this kind of thing before and moved
0:23
Speaker 1: on without really sitting with it, that's fine. That happens.
0:25
Speaker 1: But if you haven't, but this time I want you
0:26
Speaker 1: to notice which sentence makes your chest tighten. That's your clue.
0:29
Speaker 1: That's the one for you. Okay, so here's my honest
0:32
Speaker 1: warning about this episode. You're going to finish it and
0:34
Speaker 1: immediately go check his location just to test the theory?
0:37
Speaker 1: I know. I've done it. It's embarrassing, and I'm telling
0:39
Speaker 1: you in advance so we can both just laugh at
0:41
Speaker 1: ourselves a little and then actually do the work. This
0:44
Speaker 1: one's called the push-pull player, and if that phrase already
0:46
Speaker 1: made you go, maybe, then stay with me, right? The
0:50
Speaker 1: pattern we're talking about is fearful avoidance, and it's the
0:53
Speaker 1: quietest trap going because it looks exactly like having standards.
0:57
Speaker 1: From the outside, from your own inside voice even, it
0:59
Speaker 1: looks like clarity and self-respect and knowing what you want.
1:02
Speaker 1: That's why it's so hard to catch. You hear yourself say,
1:05
Speaker 1: I just don't settle, and you believe it. And sometimes
1:07
Speaker 1: it's true, but sometimes it is the most convincing costume
1:09
Speaker 1: fear is ever worn. Pay attention, because we're going inside
1:12
Speaker 1: that costume today. So who is this episode actually for?
1:16
Speaker 1: It's for the woman who pulls someone in. gets them close,
1:19
Speaker 1: feels the warmth of it, and then finds a reason,
1:22
Speaker 1: always a reason, to create a little distance right at
1:24
Speaker 1: the moment things start feeling genuinely good. Not when things
1:27
Speaker 1: go wrong, when things go right. You know that woman, right?
1:30
Speaker 1: Maybe you are that woman. I'm that woman. I've been
1:33
Speaker 1: that woman in enough relationships to fill a really humiliating
1:36
Speaker 1: journal that I do not let anyone read. She's not
1:39
Speaker 1: the openly anxious texter who's double and triple messaging at
1:42
Speaker 1: two in the morning. She's not reading as clingy or
1:44
Speaker 1: desperate as she reads as independent self-possessed like she's got
1:47
Speaker 1: her whole life together and she's just deciding if you
1:49
Speaker 1: get a seat in it but underneath that she's running
1:51
Speaker 1: a silent test every single week sometimes every day and
1:55
Speaker 1: she's so good at it that she's convinced herself it's
1:56
Speaker 1: discernment she's not the cold avoidant who genuinely doesn't feel
2:00
Speaker 1: much she feels everything that is the problem she wants
2:03
Speaker 1: the relationship so badly it scares her and the fear
2:06
Speaker 1: and the want have been living in the same place
2:07
Speaker 1: inside her for so long she can't always tell them
2:09
Speaker 1: apart yeah The push-pull player is often described by people
2:13
Speaker 1: who love her as passionate, intense, hard to read. Those
2:16
Speaker 1: are the kind words. The less kind ones, which she
2:18
Speaker 1: has also heard, sound more like hot and cold or
2:21
Speaker 1: I never know where I stand with you. And she
2:24
Speaker 1: hates hearing that because she does know where she stands.
2:26
Speaker 1: She just can't always let him stand there with her.
2:28
Speaker 1: That's the part that's harder to admit. Make sense? Picture this.
2:33
Speaker 1: You've had a really good evening, okay? Like, genuinely warm.
2:37
Speaker 1: The kind of night where it felt easy and close
2:38
Speaker 1: and you were actually present. And then the next morning...
2:41
Speaker 1: Or sometimes that same night something shifts. You say, I
2:44
Speaker 1: just need a little space and you mean it. You're
2:46
Speaker 1: not lying. But what's underneath it is I am terrified
2:48
Speaker 1: that this is real. He's looking at you and he
2:51
Speaker 1: genuinely doesn't understand because last night you were right there,
2:54
Speaker 1: warm and open. And now there's this pane of glass
2:56
Speaker 1: between you that he can't locate or name. He looks confused.
3:00
Speaker 1: Your inner voice goes, if he really wanted this, he
3:02
Speaker 1: would try harder to get through. And that right there,
3:05
Speaker 1: that inner voice sentence, that's the one we're going to
3:07
Speaker 1: spend today inside of, right? Fearful avoidant attachment is what
3:11
Speaker 1: happens when love and danger got wired together early on.
3:14
Speaker 1: Not necessarily in a dramatic way, not necessarily in a
3:16
Speaker 1: way you'd point to a name. Sometimes it's subtle enough
3:19
Speaker 1: that you've never even clocked it as something that happened
3:21
Speaker 1: to you. But your nervous system got a very specific
3:23
Speaker 1: early lesson. And the lesson was, the people who love
3:26
Speaker 1: you are also the people who can vanish on you
3:28
Speaker 1: emotionally without warning. And so your nervous system, being brilliant
3:32
Speaker 1: and protective, made a decision. It decided to be the
3:34
Speaker 1: one who controls the distance. And that decision has been
3:37
Speaker 1: running your relationship choices ever since. mostly without your permission, right?
3:42
Speaker 1: And here's what it's not, because this matters. This is
3:45
Speaker 1: not just being difficult. This is not being picky or
3:48
Speaker 1: complicated or too much. I want you to hear that clearly.
3:52
Speaker 1: The push-pull player is not a problem personality. She's a
3:54
Speaker 1: nervous system that never got the chance to learn that
3:56
Speaker 1: love and safety could exist in the same place at
3:58
Speaker 1: the same time. Those two things, love and safety, got
4:01
Speaker 1: split apart somewhere early, and everything since then has been
4:04
Speaker 1: her trying to get both without ever fully trusting that
4:06
Speaker 1: she can, okay? Now here's the practical shape of today.
4:11
Speaker 1: Four steps. Notice the flip, trace the trigger, sort boundary
4:14
Speaker 1: from demand, and practice the repair. We're going to go
4:17
Speaker 1: through all four and we're going to go slow because
4:19
Speaker 1: speed is where this pattern hides. It needs you to
4:21
Speaker 1: move fast, to react before you can think, to be
4:23
Speaker 1: halfway out the door before you've even asked yourself why
4:25
Speaker 1: you stood up. So we're slowing down on purpose. Yeah?
4:29
Speaker 1: Step one is noticing the moment you flip, not the aftermath,
4:33
Speaker 1: not the story you build around it afterward. The actual moment,
4:35
Speaker 1: the exact second you go from wanting him close to
4:37
Speaker 1: wanting an exit. And I want to tell you something
4:40
Speaker 1: important about this step. It is faster than a thought.
4:42
Speaker 1: Before your brain has formed a single sentence about what's
4:44
Speaker 1: wrong or what he did or what this means, your
4:47
Speaker 1: body has already made the call. Something lands, good or bad,
4:50
Speaker 1: but usually good. And your body responds first. So this
4:52
Speaker 1: is a body step before it's a mind step. Notice
4:55
Speaker 1: it in your chest, that tightening or the breath you
4:57
Speaker 1: hold without meaning to. Notice it in your hands, the
4:59
Speaker 1: phone you put down because you were going to reply
5:01
Speaker 1: warmly and then something stopped you. Notice it in your legs, honestly,
5:04
Speaker 1: the physical urge to go for a walk you don't
5:06
Speaker 1: actually need. That urge is data. Sound familiar? Here's the
5:11
Speaker 1: part that surprises most people. The flip is usually triggered
5:13
Speaker 1: not by something bad, not by something he did wrong,
5:16
Speaker 1: but by something unexpectedly good. He says something that sounds
5:19
Speaker 1: like a real future, something that implies you're still together
5:21
Speaker 1: a year from now, and your body goes cold. Not warm, cold.
5:25
Speaker 1: He's been especially sweet all weekend, attentive and present and
5:28
Speaker 1: easy to be with. And by Sunday night, you've picked
5:30
Speaker 1: a fight about something so small you can barely remember
5:32
Speaker 1: it by Monday. That's the flip. And the goal of
5:34
Speaker 1: this step, step one, is not to stop it from happening.
5:37
Speaker 1: It's only to name it in real time. You can't
5:39
Speaker 1: fix what you can't see, right? So first you just
5:42
Speaker 1: see it. You say to yourself, I just flipped. No
5:44
Speaker 1: explanation required yet. No therapy speech to yourself. No unpacking
5:48
Speaker 1: in the moment. Just the name. Picture yourself in the kitchen, okay?
5:52
Speaker 1: You're doing something ordinary, he's nearby and he says something warm.
5:56
Speaker 1: Something small that lands with real weight, like he's assumed
5:59
Speaker 1: you in his future without making a big announcement of it.
6:02
Speaker 1: And your shoulders go up. Just a little, but they
6:04
Speaker 1: go up. Your hands find the counter. You're not upset
6:07
Speaker 1: about anything. You're not hurt. You're suddenly very busy with
6:10
Speaker 1: a glass of water. That movement toward the counter, that
6:13
Speaker 1: small body shift away from him, that is the flip.
6:15
Speaker 1: And step one is noticing it before you've invented a
6:18
Speaker 1: reason for it. Can we see this? I want to
6:21
Speaker 1: tell you about the beginning of my current relationship. When
6:23
Speaker 1: I first really tried to do this work in real
6:25
Speaker 1: time instead of just in retrospect. Because retrospect is easy.
6:29
Speaker 1: Retrospect lets you understand yourself beautifully about three weeks after
6:31
Speaker 1: you've already done the damage. Real time is harder. So
6:34
Speaker 1: I would have a great evening with my partner, like
6:36
Speaker 1: a really good one, easy and funny and close. And
6:38
Speaker 1: I would wake up the next morning and start scanning.
6:41
Speaker 1: Not inventing problems, genuinely looking for one. I told myself
6:44
Speaker 1: that was discernment. I thought, I'm being careful. I'm not
6:47
Speaker 1: rushing in, I'm being a grown woman who learned from
6:49
Speaker 1: her past. That is a very clean story, and I
6:52
Speaker 1: believed it completely. It was only when I started tracking
6:55
Speaker 1: the body sensation first, this specific cold feeling that would
6:58
Speaker 1: settle in my sternum, that I noticed the scan always
7:01
Speaker 1: happened after something good. Never after a hard evening. After
7:05
Speaker 1: a good one. After closeness. And I had to sit
7:08
Speaker 1: with that for a while because it didn't make sense
7:09
Speaker 1: with the story I'd been telling myself. My partner said
7:12
Speaker 1: something to me once, in a really quiet moment. Not
7:14
Speaker 1: an argument, just an honest observation. You always go somewhere
7:17
Speaker 1: else right after things feel close. Not accusatory, just true.
7:22
Speaker 1: And it landed. I had never seen the flip from
7:24
Speaker 1: the outside before. I'd only ever seen the aftermath and
7:27
Speaker 1: called it my standards. Yeah? I called it being realistic.
7:30
Speaker 1: I called it protecting my peace. I called it knowing myself.
7:33
Speaker 1: All of which are genuinely good things, by the way.
7:35
Speaker 1: I want to be clear. Knowing yourself is actually good.
7:38
Speaker 1: Protecting your peace is actually good. But I was using
7:40
Speaker 1: the language of self-possession to describe what was actually a flinch.
7:43
Speaker 1: And the cold in my sternum was the flinch. And
7:45
Speaker 1: step one was just agreeing with myself that, yes, that's
7:47
Speaker 1: what this is. That's enough for now. Just that. You
7:50
Speaker 1: with me? So the question I want to leave you
7:53
Speaker 1: sitting with right now before we go any further is this.
7:57
Speaker 1: Think about the last time you went a little cold
7:59
Speaker 1: or started a small fight out of nowhere or felt
8:01
Speaker 1: the urge to create distance on a day when, if
8:03
Speaker 1: you're honest, things were actually going well. Where in your
8:06
Speaker 1: body did it start? Not what did your brain say
8:09
Speaker 1: about it? Where did your body feel at first? Because
8:12
Speaker 1: next we're going back to where that feeling was born
8:14
Speaker 1: and why it has been posing as self-protection your whole
8:16
Speaker 1: adult life. Step two. And this is the one that
8:20
Speaker 1: wants you to skip it because it feels like old territory.
8:23
Speaker 1: Stay with me anyway, babe. Because the push-pull player almost
8:26
Speaker 1: always thinks she's already done this part. She's read the book.
8:28
Speaker 1: She knows about her childhood. She's talked about her mom
8:31
Speaker 1: in therapy. And yet the flip keeps happening. Because knowing
8:34
Speaker 1: where it came from and actually tracing it in the
8:36
Speaker 1: body in real time are two completely different things, right?
8:40
Speaker 1: So here's where it starts for most of us. Not
8:42
Speaker 1: in the first relationship. Before it. A parent who was
8:45
Speaker 1: warm one evening and then just gone the next. Not
8:47
Speaker 1: physically gone. Emotionally gone. Without warning. Without explanation. Or being
8:51
Speaker 1: praised and criticized in the same breath. You're so smart.
8:54
Speaker 1: Why can't you just apply yourself? A love that felt
8:57
Speaker 1: like weather you never knew what you were walking into.
8:59
Speaker 1: And your nervous system, which is very efficient and very practical,
9:02
Speaker 1: solved this by deciding to be the one who controlled
9:04
Speaker 1: the distance. If I create the problem, I can also
9:07
Speaker 1: fix it. If I leave first, I don't have to
9:09
Speaker 1: feel the leaving. Sound familiar? I was 18 when I
9:13
Speaker 1: started doing this consciously. I did not know that's what
9:15
Speaker 1: I was doing, obviously. My first boyfriend was steady. Kind.
9:19
Speaker 1: He texted back, he showed up, he was consistent in
9:21
Speaker 1: a way I'd never really had close up. And I
9:23
Speaker 1: was restless inside of two months. Not because he was boring.
9:26
Speaker 1: Not because we had nothing in common. I left because
9:29
Speaker 1: steady felt suspicious to me. Like, something was wrong that
9:31
Speaker 1: I couldn't see yet. Like, I was missing the catch.
9:33
Speaker 1: That is embarrassing to say out loud, I know. But
9:36
Speaker 1: it's true. And then I spent most of my 20s
9:39
Speaker 1: chasing the opposite. Men where love felt like turbulence, where
9:43
Speaker 1: I was always trying to figure out where I stood,
9:45
Speaker 1: always a little off balance, always working for it. And
9:48
Speaker 1: that felt right. That felt like love. Not because I'm broken,
9:51
Speaker 1: but because my nervous system had been calibrated to believe
9:53
Speaker 1: that closeness and uncertainty were supposed to come together. Study
9:57
Speaker 1: didn't feel safe. It felt numb and unavailable. felt alive.
10:01
Speaker 1: Makes sense, yeah? In the worst possible way. Here's the
10:05
Speaker 1: cruel trick, my love, and I want you to sit
10:06
Speaker 1: with this one. The push-pull cycle doesn't feel like fear.
10:09
Speaker 1: It feels like emotional intelligence. It feels like having high standards.
10:13
Speaker 1: It feels like being the one person in the room
10:14
Speaker 1: who refuses to settle, who sees things clearly, who knows
10:17
Speaker 1: what she wants. And the protector part, the part that's
10:20
Speaker 1: running this whole show, built that identity on purpose. It
10:23
Speaker 1: dressed the fear up as discernment so you'd never question it.
10:26
Speaker 1: So every time someone asks you why you pulled back,
10:28
Speaker 1: you have a very reasonable answer ready. And the answer
10:30
Speaker 1: is never, I got scared. It's always something about your
10:33
Speaker 1: needs not being met. Or the situation not being right.
10:35
Speaker 1: Or timing. Right? And I want to be fair because
10:39
Speaker 1: sometimes those things are genuinely true. You do have needs.
10:42
Speaker 1: Timing does matter. But the push-pull player says those things
10:45
Speaker 1: most loudly, most convincingly, right after someone gets genuinely close.
10:49
Speaker 1: That's the tell. Not whether the complaint is real, sometimes
10:52
Speaker 1: it is, but when it shows up. Watch the timing
10:54
Speaker 1: of your doubts. Watch whether they spike after a hard
10:56
Speaker 1: moment or after a soft one. That's information, yeah? Here's
11:01
Speaker 1: what this pattern costs you over time, and I'm not
11:03
Speaker 1: going to soften this part. It costs you the continuity
11:05
Speaker 1: of a relationship. Good periods get interrupted by manufactured problems.
11:09
Speaker 1: Not big dramatic blow-ups necessarily, just enough friction to reset
11:12
Speaker 1: the closeness meter back to a distance that feels manageable.
11:15
Speaker 1: Partners who actually want to be close start reading that
11:17
Speaker 1: pattern as disinterest. And eventually they believe it, because you've
11:20
Speaker 1: shown them the same thing enough times. Okay? It costs
11:24
Speaker 1: you the ability to receive comfort. When something genuinely hard
11:27
Speaker 1: happens in your life, a bad week at work, a loss,
11:30
Speaker 1: a scary thing, you don't let them in all the way.
11:32
Speaker 1: Because full access feels like too much exposure. So you
11:35
Speaker 1: take the comfort a little bit, just enough to say
11:37
Speaker 1: you let him be there, but not enough to actually
11:39
Speaker 1: feel held. And you wonder later why you felt so
11:42
Speaker 1: alone in it. Right. It calls you the version of
11:45
Speaker 1: yourself that actually wants love. She exists. She's just buried
11:49
Speaker 1: under the strategy, under the managing, under the testing. And
11:53
Speaker 1: here's the one you probably don't want to hear. Sometimes
11:55
Speaker 1: it calls you genuinely good people, not the unavailable ones,
11:58
Speaker 1: not the ones who are never really in it. Good people,
12:00
Speaker 1: steady people. People who showed up week after week and
12:03
Speaker 1: tried to find you and couldn't quite get there. Picture
12:06
Speaker 1: this for a second. He has tried to be close
12:08
Speaker 1: for three weeks. You've been warm, then cool, then warm again.
12:11
Speaker 1: One evening, not in a fight, just quietly, he says,
12:14
Speaker 1: I can't tell if you actually want this. He's not
12:16
Speaker 1: being dramatic. He's not manipulating you. He is just telling
12:19
Speaker 1: you what he sees. And he's not wrong. That's the cost.
12:22
Speaker 1: That's the one that lands. Step three. This one is
12:26
Speaker 1: the most practically useful thing in this entire episode and
12:29
Speaker 1: also the hardest. So I want you to actually stay
12:31
Speaker 1: here with me. Sort boundary from demand. These two things
12:34
Speaker 1: sound identical when the push-pull player says them, but they
12:36
Speaker 1: are completely different in origin and in what they do
12:38
Speaker 1: to a relationship. A boundary sounds like this. If a
12:41
Speaker 1: conversation becomes cruel, I'm gonna leave the room. Notice what
12:43
Speaker 1: that sentence is about. Your action, your behavior, what you
12:47
Speaker 1: will do. A demand sounds like this. You need to
12:49
Speaker 1: initiate plans at least three times a week so I
12:51
Speaker 1: feel wanted. Notice that one. It's about what he must
12:54
Speaker 1: do so that you can feel okay. You with me
12:56
Speaker 1: on the difference? The push-pull player uses demands constantly. Sometimes loudly,
13:01
Speaker 1: sometimes very quietly, sometimes so quietly, she doesn't even hear
13:04
Speaker 1: herself doing it. She frames them as standards. He should
13:06
Speaker 1: just know. If I have to ask, it doesn't count.
13:09
Speaker 1: And that last one, that's the demand in its most
13:11
Speaker 1: sophisticated disguise. Because what you're really saying is, I need proof,
13:15
Speaker 1: but I won't tell you what the proof is, because
13:16
Speaker 1: then I can always move the bar. And you can.
13:19
Speaker 1: And you do. And it's not because you're manipulative, babe.
13:21
Speaker 1: It's because no piece of proof ever actually reaches the
13:23
Speaker 1: part of you that needs it. The nervous system that's
13:26
Speaker 1: been running this show doesn't update on evidence. It just
13:28
Speaker 1: asks for more. Right? So step three is this. Your
13:33
Speaker 1: inner voice says something like, if I have to ask,
13:35
Speaker 1: it doesn't count. And instead of acting from that, you
13:37
Speaker 1: write it down. You get a notebook or the notes
13:40
Speaker 1: app on your phone or a sticky note, whatever you've got,
13:42
Speaker 1: and you write down the thing you've been quietly requiring
13:45
Speaker 1: of him, the unspoken rule. And then you ask yourself
13:48
Speaker 1: one question. Is this about what I will do? Or
13:50
Speaker 1: is this about what he must do for me to
13:51
Speaker 1: feel okay? Picture yourself sitting at your desk, notebook open,
13:55
Speaker 1: writing the rule you've been enforcing silently for a month,
13:57
Speaker 1: maybe longer. That moment of actually seeing it written down
14:00
Speaker 1: does something. It removes the plausible deniability. You can't call
14:04
Speaker 1: it a standard once it's in your own handwriting asking
14:06
Speaker 1: for evidence of safety. Okay? And here's what that looks
14:09
Speaker 1: like in a regular week. Not a crisis, not a blow-up,
14:12
Speaker 1: just an ordinary week. He doesn't bring up the trip
14:14
Speaker 1: you mentioned two weeks ago. The old move, the one
14:17
Speaker 1: your nervous system reaches for automatically, is to go quiet
14:19
Speaker 1: and see if he notices. To make your silence a test.
14:22
Speaker 1: To watch whether he cares enough to find what you buried.
14:24
Speaker 1: And that silence is a demand. It's saying prove you
14:27
Speaker 1: were paying attention without me having to tell you I
14:29
Speaker 1: need that from you. And if he doesn't pass the test,
14:31
Speaker 1: he probably doesn't even know he's taking it. Right? The
14:35
Speaker 1: new move is step three in action. You ask yourself
14:38
Speaker 1: what you actually want. You want to know the trip
14:40
Speaker 1: is still real. That's a need you can state plainly,
14:42
Speaker 1: without performance, without punishment built into the delivery. So you
14:45
Speaker 1: bring it up. Hey, I was thinking about that trip.
14:47
Speaker 1: Are we still planning it? And he says, yes, absolutely.
14:50
Speaker 1: And here's the part that's actually harder than the asking.
14:53
Speaker 1: You let that land. You don't immediately scan it for subtext.
14:56
Speaker 1: You don't wonder if he's just saying it to manage you.
14:58
Speaker 1: You don't file it under things he said that he
15:00
Speaker 1: didn't follow through on. Not yet. Not when nothing has
15:02
Speaker 1: happened yet. You let it be enough for now. That's
15:05
Speaker 1: the practice. Small. Ordinary. Tuesday. Yeah? So right now, before
15:11
Speaker 1: we go any further, I want you thinking about the
15:13
Speaker 1: unspoken rule you've been running in your current relationship, or
15:15
Speaker 1: your last one. The thing you've been quietly requiring that
15:18
Speaker 1: you've never actually said out loud. The bar you've been moving.
15:21
Speaker 1: because the next part is where the real repair happens,
15:24
Speaker 1: and I want you warmed up for it. Also, fair warning,
15:27
Speaker 1: there's a trap in the work itself that looks exactly
15:29
Speaker 1: like doing the healing, and it's the one the push-pull
15:31
Speaker 1: player is most likely to fall into. So don't skip ahead. Okay,
15:35
Speaker 1: step four. This is the one that actually changes things,
15:39
Speaker 1: and it's also the one that requires you to be
15:40
Speaker 1: a little brave in a way that feels genuinely embarrassing.
15:44
Speaker 1: So let's go. Step four is practicing the repair. And
15:48
Speaker 1: I want to be really clear about what that means
15:50
Speaker 1: because it is not what you think it is. It
15:52
Speaker 1: is not sitting him down for a conversation. It is
15:54
Speaker 1: not sending a voice note with your full emotional backstory.
15:57
Speaker 1: It is not explaining the fearful avoidant pattern to him
15:59
Speaker 1: so he understands you better, which I've done that. It
16:02
Speaker 1: does not land the way you hope. The repair is
16:03
Speaker 1: smaller than all of that. Step four is about what
16:06
Speaker 1: you do in the 30 minutes after you've already gone
16:07
Speaker 1: cold or started a fight you knew wasn't really about
16:10
Speaker 1: what you said it was about or sent a text
16:11
Speaker 1: that was a little too sharp and you knew it
16:13
Speaker 1: when you typed it. The experiment is this. Go back.
16:16
Speaker 1: Just go back. Right? Not with a therapy speech, not
16:20
Speaker 1: with 10 paragraphs of explanation that make it about your
16:23
Speaker 1: childhood more than about him. Just say, I think I
16:26
Speaker 1: got scared and I pushed you away a little. That's
16:28
Speaker 1: the whole sentence. Maybe if you've got it in you,
16:30
Speaker 1: you add, I'm working on it. That's it. And then
16:33
Speaker 1: you stop talking and you feel what happens in your
16:34
Speaker 1: body when you've said it. The shame comes first, that squirmy,
16:38
Speaker 1: hot feeling of being visible, of having handed someone the
16:40
Speaker 1: map to the inside of something you usually keep locked.
16:43
Speaker 1: And then if you let it stay without immediately backpedaling
16:45
Speaker 1: or over-explaining, something underneath the shame. A small relief. like
16:49
Speaker 1: putting something heavy down. Yeah. I'm going to tell you
16:53
Speaker 1: what this felt like the first time I did it.
16:55
Speaker 1: My partner and I had had one of those evenings
16:57
Speaker 1: that was almost too good, warm and easy and real.
17:00
Speaker 1: And I woke up the next morning and by noon
17:02
Speaker 1: I had manufactured a small cold distance, nothing dramatic, just
17:05
Speaker 1: that particular tone, the one where you're technically present, but
17:08
Speaker 1: not actually there. And my partner asked, Hey, are you okay?
17:11
Speaker 1: And my old move was already loaded. I'm fine, just tired.
17:14
Speaker 1: But I had just done step three the week before
17:16
Speaker 1: for the first time. the notebook, the question about whose
17:18
Speaker 1: action it was. And I thought, okay. I said, honestly,
17:21
Speaker 1: I think last night was really nice. And I think
17:23
Speaker 1: I got scared and I kind of pulled back this
17:25
Speaker 1: morning and my partner just went, yeah, I felt that.
17:27
Speaker 1: And then nothing blew up, nothing. We just kept having breakfast.
17:31
Speaker 1: That's the thing no one tells you. The repair is
17:33
Speaker 1: often so much smaller than the wall you built to
17:35
Speaker 1: avoid needing it. The dare here, and I mean this
17:39
Speaker 1: as a literal dare, is to send the one sentence
17:41
Speaker 1: repair before you talk yourself out of it. Not the
17:43
Speaker 1: long one, not the explanation, one sentence, Now, Let's talk
18:12
Speaker 1: about the other side because I think this is the
18:13
Speaker 1: part that either excites you or makes you nervous and
18:16
Speaker 1: both of those reactions are useful information. The other side
18:18
Speaker 1: of this work is not a woman who never needs space.
18:21
Speaker 1: She's not endlessly available. She doesn't dissolve into the relationship
18:24
Speaker 1: like she has no edges. The other side is a
18:25
Speaker 1: woman who can feel the fear and stay in the room.
18:28
Speaker 1: She can say, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed tonight without
18:30
Speaker 1: turning it into a test about whether he'll respond correctly.
18:33
Speaker 1: She can receive a kind word and let it land
18:34
Speaker 1: instead of immediately looking for the catch. You know? She
18:37
Speaker 1: can have a boring Sunday afternoon where nothing went wrong
18:40
Speaker 1: and no one is performing and nothing is being proved.
18:42
Speaker 1: And she can let that be enough. That's not nothing.
18:44
Speaker 1: That is actually the whole goal. Picture a Sunday where
18:47
Speaker 1: nothing happens. You're together. It's quiet. No one is being
18:50
Speaker 1: especially charming. No one is winning anything. You feel the urge,
18:53
Speaker 1: because you will feel it, to stir something up. To
18:55
Speaker 1: ask a question that has a little needle in it.
18:57
Speaker 1: To bring up something from two weeks ago that's been
18:59
Speaker 1: sitting in your back pocket. And you feel the urge
19:01
Speaker 1: and you let it pass. You don't act on it.
19:03
Speaker 1: You just sit there and let the ordinary, quiet, not
19:06
Speaker 1: particularly cinematic moment be a moment. That is earned security
19:09
Speaker 1: and practice. That's the other side. not a highlight reel.
19:13
Speaker 1: A Sunday? Make sense? I need to tell you about
19:17
Speaker 1: a trap. Because the push-pull player is smart, and smart
19:20
Speaker 1: people find smarter ways to run the same pattern when
19:21
Speaker 1: the old version stops working. Here's the trap. She starts
19:25
Speaker 1: doing the work, and she uses the work as another
19:27
Speaker 1: form of distance. She's always in the middle of a realization.
19:30
Speaker 1: She's always processing something. She says things like, I'm not
19:33
Speaker 1: ready to have that conversation, I need to sit with this.
19:36
Speaker 1: And the sitting never ends. If your healing has given
19:38
Speaker 1: you a more sophisticated vocabulary but zero actual moments of
19:41
Speaker 1: closeness in the last three months, the healing has become
19:43
Speaker 1: the new wall. I say this with love. I genuinely do.
19:47
Speaker 1: The work is supposed to open you, not give you
19:49
Speaker 1: a better way to stay shut. Right? If the fear
19:52
Speaker 1: of closeness feels overwhelming and the pattern goes back to
19:55
Speaker 1: something that happened early and left a real mark, please
19:57
Speaker 1: talk to a therapist. This work is easier with support.
20:00
Speaker 1: And that's not a weakness. That's just true. Outside of that,
20:03
Speaker 1: what I want you to notice is whether your process
20:04
Speaker 1: is moving you toward connection or away from it. Process
20:07
Speaker 1: that closes the distance. Good. Process that becomes the reason
20:10
Speaker 1: you never quite arrive. That's the pattern wearing a new outfit. Okay?
20:14
Speaker 1: And the push-pull player will absolutely try this. I tried this.
20:17
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing in retrospect. And here I am telling you anyway. Baby. Baby.
20:23
Speaker 1: You are not broken. The push-pull player is not a
20:25
Speaker 1: broken woman. She is a woman who built something incredibly
20:28
Speaker 1: clever under impossible conditions. She figured out how to want
20:31
Speaker 1: love and manage the risk of it at the same time.
20:33
Speaker 1: And for a long time, that strategy kept her safe.
20:35
Speaker 1: The work isn't about dismantling her cleverness. It's about giving
20:38
Speaker 1: her a new job. She can notice the fear. She
20:40
Speaker 1: can name it. She can say it out loud instead
20:42
Speaker 1: of acting it out. And then she can stay in
20:44
Speaker 1: the room. That's enough. You don't have to be a
20:47
Speaker 1: different person by the end of the week. You just
20:48
Speaker 1: have to be willing to feel the flip and not
20:50
Speaker 1: run from it this time. That is the whole thing.
20:53
Speaker 1: So here's the question I'm leaving you with and I
20:55
Speaker 1: want you to actually answer it. Not in theory, not
20:57
Speaker 1: for the version of you who has this all figured out,
21:00
Speaker 1: but right now for the conversation or the moment that's
21:02
Speaker 1: actually sitting in your chest. Are you drawing a line
21:04
Speaker 1: to protect yourself or are you drawing a line to
21:06
Speaker 1: make him prove he'll stay? Those two things can look
21:09
Speaker 1: identical from the outside. They can feel similar on the
21:11
Speaker 1: inside too at first. And only you know the difference.
21:14
Speaker 1: Sit with that. Write it down if you need to.
21:16
Speaker 1: And if you've got a friend who is brilliant and
21:18
Speaker 1: passionate and impossible to pin down in a relationship and
21:20
Speaker 1: she thinks it's because she has high standards, send her
21:23
Speaker 1: this episode. You might be doing her the most useful
21:25
Speaker 1: thing anyone has done for her in a long time.
21:28
Speaker 1: Follow along so you don't miss what's coming next. And
21:30
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you soon. This show is made by
21:33
Speaker 1: Oboe Media.