Latest / Celeste The Therapist / EP 525 Why does love Feel so Hard EP 2 of 3

Transcript

EP 525 Why does love Feel so Hard EP 2 of 3 · Celeste The Therapist

0:01
Hey, hey, thank you all so much for joining another episode of Celeste the
0:04
Therapist podcast. My name is Celeste, I'm a therapist from Boston, Massachusetts.
0:09
If you've never been into my podcast, thank you so much for giving me a try. What
0:13
I do is I talk about things that we go through and I help you think about ways
0:17
that you can deal with them. One of the things that I found in my over
0:20
20 years of working with people is that we tend to get stuck and
0:24
we become our worst enemies. And so through
0:27
this podcast, you're able to kind of learn new
0:30
things, When you leave the podcast, you literally
0:34
will have practical ways that you can work on challenging yourself, challenging
0:38
some of the ideas. I encourage you to
0:41
have a notebook, a pen. Also, now with
0:45
these episodes, you can actually download a PDF of what
0:48
I'm talking about if you wanted to follow along that way as
0:51
well. Today, we are on episode two. We've
0:54
been talking all about love. This podcast releases
0:58
every two weeks. Two weeks ago, we started with
1:01
the understanding of love, like where does love come from? So
1:05
if you are coming in this episode and you did not watch
1:09
the first episode or listen to it, I'm also on
1:12
YouTube as well, so you can watch or listen to these episodes. If
1:16
you haven't listened to it or watched it, I encourage you to
1:21
go to that first episode first to get
1:24
the background of the understanding and the origins of love. This
1:28
book right here is where we're basing this podcast episode series
1:32
on, All About Love by Bell Hooks. If you're watching me on YouTube, you
1:35
can see the book. I was able to break this
1:39
up into three different sections to break it down for
1:42
you. Love is one of the hardest things I think
1:45
that we find ourselves struggling with, not just love
1:49
and partnership, but love with ourselves. And there's
1:53
this misconceived notion of what it is, what it looks like.
1:57
And today we're gonna talk about some of the common struggles that come
2:01
up in relationships. This is a really
2:04
good episode. You know, my episodes are between like 30, 45 minutes.
2:08
I wanna keep it. I want to
2:11
try to keep it there. This one is a pretty heavy,
2:15
I think, heavy where people will get a lot of epiphanies about
2:19
themselves and about love. Last
2:22
episode, again, understanding love and its origins.
2:26
Today, we're talking about the struggles. We're breaking
2:30
this episode up into three parts, right? Common struggles and
2:33
relationships, the societal and personal barriers to
2:36
love, and love versus attachment, my favorite one. Because
2:42
you'll understand why it's my favorite one. I work with people, I love people, and
2:47
love versus attachment is something that I don't think people realize
2:50
just how much there's a difference between. So
2:55
we're starting off with the common struggles in relationships. One
2:59
of the first struggles that we're listing, it's not in no
3:02
particular order, is fear of vulnerability. So
3:06
in relationships, people struggle with being vulnerable. So vulnerability
3:11
is so important if you're gonna have deep connections because it allows
3:15
for mutual understanding and intimacy. But the reason
3:18
why it's feared, because people are afraid of rejection, they're
3:21
afraid of judgment, or they may be afraid of getting hurt. And
3:25
it could be manifested in ways like avoiding intimacy, being
3:30
passive aggressive. So I also
3:33
have a series that I did just before this one, Healing Your Inner Child.
3:38
And when you've struggled with some past stuff, it will
3:41
show up heavily in relationships. I
3:45
tell people when hard conversations happen in relationships, it
3:49
allows for you to be more vulnerable. That's where the healthy piece of
3:53
the relationship can come from if you can work on
3:56
being vulnerable. But before you could be vulnerable with a partner,
4:00
It's so important that you're vulnerable with yourself. And I
4:03
know just because I work with people for a living, most of us
4:07
are not even vulnerable with ourselves. We are afraid
4:10
to cry. We feel like something's wrong with us. If we cry, if we
4:14
make a mistake, we're not talking to ourselves. We do not
4:17
even have a relationship with ourselves and we're jumping into
4:21
relationships. And so, unfortunately, You
4:25
don't have a relationship with yourself, you're not vulnerable with yourself, it's
4:28
going to be extremely hard for you to do that with a partner. Why
4:32
is vulnerability so important? It allows you
4:35
to have intimacy, it allows trust to happen, it
4:38
encourages you to be authentic in relationship, and it creates empathy, right?
4:42
All of these things are so important when
4:45
it comes to being in a relationship. Now,
4:49
how does fear of vulnerability manifest in relationship? So
4:54
if you are struggling with being vulnerable in your relationship, avoiding
4:58
intimacy is something that might come up for you. Emotionally
5:02
withdrawing, so keeping things to yourself, not
5:06
speaking up, you know, not speaking up, keeping
5:09
things to yourself, you're creating for a
5:12
system in your relationship for it to keep going,
5:16
kind of like we can still get older, right? I'm 43 years old. But
5:20
if I'm not working through my stuff and I'm finding myself
5:24
struggling, some of the ways that I operate, I can act
5:27
like a 15-year-old, a child. You ever say like, damn, why
5:31
are they acting like a child? Or sometimes you may even feel like I'm acting like a
5:34
child. In relationships, unfortunately,
5:38
again, a lot of this stuff is going to come up when
5:41
we are finding ourselves struggling or triggered,
5:46
but also we might find ourselves withdrawing. If you're withdrawing in
5:49
a relationship, how are you building together? It's hard
5:53
to build together if you're withdrawing. How do you
5:57
tell your partner what you want if you don't speak up
6:00
and say what you want if you're struggling emotionally? it
6:04
creates walls. So you might find yourself building walls. And
6:09
the more, I want to say this about the building walls piece, we
6:12
can build mental walls and it's a protection, right? For
6:16
some people, they literally have had to do that because life
6:19
was so hard. And so they had to do things on their own.
6:23
And as you get older, You building walls,
6:27
it really starts to feel safe. It's your safe space. But
6:31
then there's this conflict, right? Because you're in this, quote unquote, safe
6:34
space, but there's more to life that you want. There's more in
6:38
you that you want to do, that you want to share with the world. There's this purpose
6:41
inside of you. But the walls that you build, it
6:45
feels like, right? Feelings come and go. The walls
6:48
feel like they're the best place to be. And in order
6:52
for you to work through that, got to work on being
6:56
just a little bit uncomfortable. I know you're probably uncomfortable now with the
6:59
walls that you built, but what you know is better than what you don't know,
7:03
right? Believe it or not, fear of success, that's
7:06
a real thing, to fear success. If you've never watched people be
7:10
successful, if you've never felt successful, if
7:13
you felt like everything was wrong and you want to try to make that step
7:17
to change, there's this real battle that goes on within you
7:21
because you're introducing something foreign to your system. That's
7:24
a real thing that can happen. And so in relationships,
7:28
if you're struggling with vulnerability, how it can manifest, you
7:32
find yourself building walls. And you know what? When you start building walls,
7:36
Some of the ways that you see things can look a little faulty, right?
7:40
It can look like, do
7:43
they really love me? You know, they could have said something or done something
7:46
that may not have been related to you. And you'll find yourself reacting
7:50
to it in a way that feels so heavy, but it
7:53
really may not be about you. But in your mind, your
7:57
mind is taking all the old information, the old tape, and
8:01
it's telling you, yeah, look at what Celeste is doing. I think she
8:04
has a problem with you, right? You
8:07
avoid conflict. You might find yourself avoiding conflict. So I don't want
8:10
to speak up because I don't want to get this person mad. You know, conflict isn't
8:14
a bad thing, but maybe you've watched conflict be
8:17
a bad thing. Maybe when you spoke up about how you felt or
8:20
what you needed, your needs weren't met. So you're like, you know what? I'm not going to say
8:24
nothing. You start finding yourself seeking external
8:27
validation, right, social media, through other people.
8:33
Learning how to create validation within yourself is such a powerful thing.
8:37
And then you might even find yourself isolating socially. So these are some ways
8:40
that you may find vulnerability, how fear
8:44
of vulnerability can manifest itself in your life. Now,
8:50
oh, I got to get this off my screen. Okay. Now,
8:55
another comment. So we just said vulnerabilities are common struggle in
8:58
relationships. Communication issues is a huge struggle in
9:01
relationships. So open and honest communication is so important
9:05
to create a healthy relationship because it allows for
9:08
trust Ensuring both partners can
9:11
feel understood and valued. It allows the couple
9:15
to express needs, address concerns, and work together as a team. When
9:18
communication is effective, partners can prevent small issues
9:22
from escalating major conflicts. I'm
9:26
a communicator. I talk for a living. Not that that's the reason
9:30
why I communicate well, but it's been easy for
9:33
me to talk. My partner is not the best communicator. He
9:37
doesn't talk. I've been married for 17 years,
9:41
dated for five, so we've been together for over 20 years. I'm so old.
9:44
I remember I would say things
9:48
and he wouldn't speak back. I remember one time I decided to
9:51
text how I felt, and then he text back. I was
9:55
like, oh snap. he
9:58
actually has something to say. It felt like he didn't have things to
10:01
say or couldn't respond. And also I had to
10:05
learn to give him space to gather the words in
10:08
the language to say what he needed to say, right? When
10:11
it comes to communicating in a relationship, It's
10:16
not like the movies. I talked about this on the last session. It's not
10:20
like the movies. You don't just grow up and you just live happily ever
10:23
after without any work put into it. On
10:26
the last episode, I talked about the garden, right? A
10:30
beautiful garden, those people that have really nice
10:34
vegetables or flowers, and they're so beautiful. It's
10:38
not happening because it's just sitting out there and nobody's bordering
10:42
it. They're not making sure it's getting signed. It's
10:46
happening because it's being tend to. Part of tending
10:50
to a relationship means you have to learn how to communicate. You
10:54
may not have watched it done. Again, the last episode
10:58
is so important to watch as you're listening or
11:01
watching this episode because depending on
11:04
how you grew up, your way of communicating might look
11:08
like what you were exposed to, might look
11:11
like how you were treated. And so just because that's
11:15
the way it was doesn't mean that's the way it always has to be. You
11:18
can create change in your life and your relationship and the way
11:21
that you do things and not allow yourself to feel
11:25
like because you weren't exposed to something or because you've never seen
11:28
it that it can't happen, right? So, communication
11:34
issue barriers, right? So, people make assumptions. I
11:37
was notorious for that, right? Again, you built this mental wall in your
11:41
head, you start to believe the lies that's happening,
11:44
right? And it's not your brain's fault. Your brain is taking the information
11:48
that it's been exposed to in the past, what it knows, and
11:51
it's pushing it up on the forefront. If I don't give my mind
11:54
new information, my mind's going to always feel like it
11:58
feels unless I give it something new. So, Assuming
12:02
you know what your partner thinks or feels without explicitly asking
12:06
can lead to misunderstandings. This happens all the time in relationships, especially
12:11
the explicit conversation when me and Jeff would
12:15
do our relationship podcast. He
12:20
would talk about explicit how people in relationships have
12:23
these things where it's like, did they say it or
12:26
do you think it's supposed to be that way, right? There's these ways
12:30
that you think relationships should look like and instead of you
12:33
talking and having a conversation about it, you assume. And you
12:37
create so much conflict that doesn't need to be there. Communication
12:41
issues and barriers, being defensive, right? It's
12:44
hard. Your ego doesn't want you... My ego doesn't want me to say
12:48
that, like, yeah, you know, I kind of messed up, you know? And
12:51
so when you are having a conversation, if you're bringing stuff up to
12:54
your partner, It's important to
12:57
be mindful that it doesn't mean
13:01
that you intended to make this person feel
13:04
that way, but this is what they're saying, right? And
13:07
that could be hard to do. It's hard to allow yourself,
13:11
especially if it wasn't your intent, to hear like, well, when
13:14
this happened, I felt used
13:18
or I felt like you didn't hear me out. And
13:22
saying it that way actually is better than saying, when you did this, I
13:26
don't feel like you was listening to me, right? But
13:29
if you say like, when this happened, it made me feel this
13:33
way, you know? being mindful
13:37
of the defensiveness that you may find yourself feeling when
13:40
you're having a conversation with your partner. Criticism, so
13:44
constantly criticizing a partner's personality or character rather than
13:47
discussing specific behaviors creates a hostile environment
13:51
and makes the other person feel attacked and devalued. Stonewalling.
13:56
This involves withdrawing from the conversation entirely.
14:00
I'm not even going to talk about this physically or emotionally. It
14:06
can include to giving the silent treatment, changing subjects, or walking away.
14:10
If you want to work on having a healthy relationship, and it doesn't mean
14:13
that you always got to continue talking in the heat of the moment, but
14:17
to not talk, to not communicate, to just be dismissive, it
14:21
creates problems in relationships. Again,
14:25
a lot of us weren't taught how to have a conversation. If
14:28
you grew up with a single parent, if you grew up where there was always arguing,
14:32
if you grew up with people not talking to each other, you
14:36
might find yourself struggling with listening or having a
14:39
conversation. And then the last one is contempt. So showing contempt
14:42
through sarcasm, cynicism, eye rolling, hostile
14:46
behavior. or hostile humor
14:50
is a significant predictor of relationship failure. It conveys a
14:54
sense of superiority and disrespect towards the partner,
14:57
right? And some of these things, you know, pay attention to, are
15:01
these happening in my relationship? Is this something that I am doing, right?
15:06
And you may wonder, you know, if this is something that's
15:09
happening in my relationship, is this something that I'm doing? Why? Why
15:12
is it happening? Again, your exposure to love and
15:16
what that looks like can create a
15:19
system where it's comfortably uncomfortable for
15:22
you to be in a situation that may not be the healthiest for you.
15:26
I know that. I work with
15:29
people. We stay in these relationships that aren't
15:32
the best for us. A lot of times, because I've been working with people for
15:36
a long time, I look at some of their history and I
15:40
can have this, I don't know, I
15:43
tell people I'm not that smart, but when it comes to hearing people's stories
15:47
and making connections, I can do it like this. It's so easy. I can hear your
15:50
story and I can understand what's going on. I
15:53
have a sense of some of the symptoms that you're dealing with. Don't ask me how, it's
15:56
just part of my purpose. I'm very gifted in that way. If
16:01
you grew up in systems where certain
16:05
ways of communication happen, It's not
16:08
that your parent or caregiver said, hey, Celeste, I want you to stonewall, I
16:12
want you to be passive-aggressive, I want you to be silent. It's
16:16
not like they had a dialogue with you to say that, but that's what
16:19
you was exposed to, so you started to do that. That's
16:23
just the way that you learned how to do communication
16:26
or do relationships. Another huge
16:31
struggle when it comes to relationships is
16:35
past trauma, right? So unresolved past
16:39
trauma can cause conflict in relationship by damaging trust,
16:42
disrupting emotional regulation, and triggering defensive reactions like
16:46
fear of abandonment, that was like huge for me, or
16:49
emotional shutdowns. To address this, recognize that
16:53
trauma can manifest as difficulty with intimacy,
16:56
communication issues, or heightened reactivity. So when
17:00
it comes to past trauma, right, Trust and safety
17:04
issues are so huge. And going
17:08
back to healing your inner child, when you start
17:11
to understand, a lot of times when I'm working with people, they
17:15
will not make the connections of what's happening
17:19
now and how it relates to the past. I'm
17:23
the one who's kind of bringing up, well, this
17:26
sounds similar to that. Do you think that has something to do with it?
17:30
Sometimes people just start crying. I've
17:34
worked with people that are struggling with the behavior and
17:37
as we begin to work through some things and your thoughts
17:41
start breaking up because everything that's happened to you is still
17:44
stored in you. That's why I don't understand how you
17:49
try to escape the pain, but can you really escape something that
17:52
you've been exposed to? And I'm working
17:55
with people about an issue that they're dealing with in the present. And
18:01
I've had people break down crying because some of
18:04
the past trauma comes surfacing up and they
18:07
start to understand where the behavior is
18:10
coming from. It's like, I
18:14
feel so much like, I feel emotional talking, I feel so
18:17
sad for people when that happens. There's
18:20
this mixed emotion because I'm sad that they have to go through this
18:24
and feel this deep pain. What
18:27
keeps me there because it's not all the pain, the pain is so hard
18:31
to be a part of. What keeps me in these spaces with people
18:34
because I know that this is the beginning of
18:37
their journey. The only way
18:42
to go now is up. Once you expose or
18:46
become clear of what's happening with you, Now
18:49
you can actually deal with it. We run away from
18:53
pain and I understand our brain is designed to keep us
18:56
safe, to run away from pain. You get
18:59
into a healthy relationship, but then you've had hard relationships, your
19:03
mind is going to have you run away from that healthy relationship because
19:07
guess what? Last time you was in a relationship, it didn't work well. so let's
19:10
run, right? And then you self-sabotage, right? And so a
19:14
lot of times, we've had such deep-rooted pain,
19:18
and then we struggle with trusting people, right? We struggle with
19:22
that connection. It's hard to make a connection because it
19:25
doesn't feel safe. Emotional
19:29
dysregulation, so trauma survivors may experience intense emotional
19:32
responses that can feel uncomfortable, making it
19:35
hard to manage conflict constructively, right? And
19:40
relationships is where we're triggered the most. I
19:44
always say to people, if the emotion doesn't feel like it's fitting the situation, there's
19:48
probably something deeper going on, right? And
19:52
when it comes to being in a relationship, you might find yourself on
19:56
an emotional roller coaster, and it creates so much hardship
20:00
for the relationship. We're two different people from
20:04
two different backgrounds. And I say, as
20:07
I'm looking at, I have this book called Relationship Goals, A Guide to a
20:10
Healthy Relationship. And it's important
20:14
to understand who we are, what we are coming to the table
20:17
with, not just for ourselves, but so we can talk
20:21
to our partner about it. A lot of times we're not talking
20:24
about what we need or what we come to the relationship with
20:28
because guess what? We're not even clear on
20:31
what it is. We just know we want to be in a relationship. With
20:35
past trauma, there's a communication breakdown that can happen. Unresolved
20:39
trauma can make it really difficult to communicate your needs and feelings
20:43
effectively, which creates more misunderstanding and
20:46
more conflict. Another issue with past trauma, intimacy
20:51
challenges can come up, right? So trauma can make
20:54
it really hard for you to be emotionally or physically intimate with
20:57
your partner because it can trigger feelings of
21:01
fear, of vulnerability, right? And then the last one
21:04
is like defensive reactions. You may react to perceived threats with
21:08
this fight or flight response, right? People
21:12
would be like, oh, they said they're going to leave me. I
21:16
was dating my husband. I remember I would be like, oh, he's going to leave. I had such fear
21:19
of abandonment. And you're just going to leave me. And
21:23
we was dating. And he was like, all right, bye. He just was
21:26
like, I don't have time for this. And that was the last time I said it
21:29
because I was like, he's serious. He
21:32
means business. But unfortunately, sometimes with
21:36
relationships, And him doing that forced me
21:40
to look in the mirror. It forced me to look
21:45
in the mirror and I had to be like, okay, you got to
21:48
get your stuff together. And unfortunately, sometimes that
21:52
doesn't happen. Partners will feed into the
21:55
stuff. And then nobody's getting things done.
21:59
It becomes this vicious cycle that happened, right? I feel like that's
22:02
where the toxicity starts to come in, right? Where now
22:06
it's like, oh, you're going to leave me? No, no, no. Okay, what do you want me to
22:09
do? And then next thing you know, one
22:13
person's unhappy, trying to do everything to keep that person
22:16
happy. When joy and
22:19
happiness and peace, like, If
22:23
you can't do that by yourself, to expect somebody to
22:26
do it for you is crazy work. You have
22:29
to learn how to create that stuff within yourself.
22:33
Having a partner should be an added bonus. But
22:36
unfortunately, we don't realize we're looking for our partner
22:40
to fulfill some void that we haven't even learned
22:44
what that is for ourselves. I
22:48
think about my relationship, I definitely feel like I was looking for
22:51
that void to be filled. I wouldn't say I was doing it
22:55
consciously. This is me looking back on the relationship and
23:00
thinking about how the way I felt so intensely had
23:04
nothing to do with the current situation, but there was so
23:07
much fear that was riddled in me and I allowed fear
23:11
to create very impulsive decisions, emotional
23:15
dysregulation was happening all the time. But I had
23:18
to look within, I had to work through my stuff in order for
23:22
that change to take place. So
23:27
we just talked about some common struggles in relationships. There's
23:31
some also societal and personal barriers to love, right?
23:34
Let's face it, like we are very much
23:37
influenced by society and we may not even realize it.
23:42
So society expectations like rigid gender roles, cultural
23:45
stereotypes, and traditional relationship can hinder authentic
23:49
love by pressuring you to conform to predefined behaviors,
23:53
limiting your ability to express who you are. I'll say
23:56
that again for the people in the back. There's these social expectations
24:00
like some gender roles, cultural stereotypes, and
24:04
traditional relationship norms can hinder authentic
24:09
love by pressuring you to conform to predefined behaviors
24:13
and limiting your ability to express who you are. A lot
24:16
of times we don't know who we are, we don't know what we want, we're doing things based off of
24:20
what society says we should have. Some
24:24
of you are in really unhealthy relationships because
24:28
of cultural norms, because of traditional values.
24:33
These pressures can lead to emotional suppression, unequal
24:37
dynamics in relationships, and a sense of being unable to
24:41
find love if one doesn't adhere to specific, often
24:45
contradictory rules. That's a hard way to live life, right?
24:50
My first chapter in my book, Relationship
24:54
Goals, and I always, it's a really small book as you can
24:57
see, and I always forget to talk about it. I made
25:00
this book in 2019, but it's really small, but
25:04
I broke it up into eight different sections.
25:10
So this is relationship goals, a guide to a healthy relationship. The first
25:13
section is who am I? If you're getting into a
25:16
relationship not knowing who you are, you're already kind of
25:20
at a loss if you don't know who you are. What are my boundaries? That's
25:24
important. Then, I understand
25:27
this. Now, I'm in a relationship. Now, what are we? A lot of
25:31
times people in relationship and one person feel like we're dating, the other person says, I'm
25:34
not dating. We need to have a conversation. We're not talking anymore.
25:38
People aren't talking. Then what do I bring to
25:41
the table? The good, the bad, the ugly. I need to understand what I'm bringing to
25:44
the table. Those are the first four parts of
25:48
this book. Understanding
25:52
who you are is such a powerful thing because nobody can tell
25:55
you who you're not. And when you understand who you are, when you
25:59
understand your value, it'll be hard for you to get into
26:02
a relationship where people aren't respecting who you are.
26:06
They're not respecting your boundaries. How could somebody respect boundaries
26:09
if you don't even respect yourself or give
26:13
yourself boundaries and know what they are? And a lot of
26:16
times I think we are rushing into a
26:19
relationship without looking at ourselves
26:23
individually and what we need. When
26:27
it comes to gender roles, so a lot of times men
26:31
are socialized to suppress emotions while women
26:34
may be discouraged from showing strength or assertiveness. Authentic
26:38
love requires emotional vulnerability, which is stifled by these norms, right?
26:44
I mean, it's self-explanatory. A lot
26:48
of cultures, especially in America, men are very socialized to
26:51
suppress their emotions. Happy wife, happy
26:54
life is crazy work. Even
27:00
men continue to adhere to those kind of
27:03
standards, but it creates a really hard relationship, especially
27:06
in heterosexual relationships. Unequal division of
27:10
labor, so traditional roles can result in women handling household
27:14
child care duties disproportionately. even
27:19
in seemingly egalitarian relationships. A
27:24
lot of times, this is something that I didn't... I
27:27
grew up in a single-parent household and I
27:30
found myself doing everything and it was
27:34
just this gender role thing. I remember I got so overwhelmed and I remember he
27:38
was like, well, you didn't ask for help. He didn't think to like,
27:41
oh, let me help her do this because that's not what he's seen take place.
27:45
I didn't think to ask because I just assumed this is what I was supposed to do. We
27:49
have to have hard conversations, especially when kids started showing
27:53
up in the picture, right? Things started changing. But I
27:56
know when I look at the audacity of me to try
27:59
to do everything, it's because of some of the societal... things
28:04
that I thought was supposed to be that way. With
28:08
gender roles, there's also the power dynamics. Norms that
28:11
frame men as dominant and women as submissive can create power imbalances
28:16
that are difficult to overcome, even for couples who consciously
28:19
reject them. Even if you're consciously aware of
28:23
what's going on, you can still find yourself moving
28:29
in alignment with the way society norms are,
28:33
right? So really be aware. And then there's a cultural stereotype.
28:36
So behavioral judgments, like for instance, society often
28:40
labels women negatively for expressing their sexuality, while
28:44
men may be seen as experienced. Similarly, women
28:48
in leadership might be called bossy while Men
28:53
are assertive, right? I hear
28:56
this a lot of times. Harmful assumptions, so
29:00
stereotypes can lead to harmful judgments, such as
29:03
associating certain minority groups with being inherently more sexually
29:07
available. And then discrimination and fear, so individuals in
29:10
the LGBTQ community plus relationships, for instance,
29:14
may face fear of discrimination, of violence hindering their ability to
29:17
express their love authentically. These are some societal and
29:21
personal barriers to love. And the more you start
29:25
to understand these nuances, right? Again, love is
29:28
not just like, oh, like I have this feeling, it's so nuanced. And
29:33
when you start to develop an understanding of it, I feel
29:36
like life and love will start to
29:39
look different for you. And I'm not just talking about loving somebody,
29:43
I'm talking about even when it comes to loving yourself. So
29:47
how do these hinder authentic love? So hiding who you really are,
29:51
right? If you can't be who you are, it's hard to operate
29:55
in life. Quiet violence. So hiding one's true
29:58
identity and needs in a relationship is described as a form of
30:02
quiet violence that can harm both individuals in the relationship.
30:06
And then strained communication. So You may be unable
30:10
to communicate your needs and feelings openly, leading to misunderstanding
30:14
and resenting your partner. When you can't express
30:17
what you need and you don't say it either, you
30:21
might start feeling like, well, why don't they know? They can't tell how I'm
30:25
acting, or I might act a certain way in hopes that they see who I am or
30:28
see what I need. That's not
30:31
fair to yourself, it's not fair to your partner. Conflict
30:35
and disapproval. Deviating from norms can lead to conflict within
30:39
the relationship and social disapproval from family
30:42
or community members. These are some ways how
30:46
societal and personal barriers can hinder authentic
30:50
love. Now the last part of this section
30:54
is love versus attachment. And
30:57
again, we're coming from the framework of bell hooks book,
31:01
all about love. So this is just a
31:04
reminder from the first session of this series. Bell
31:09
hooks, the core difference is that love is conscious. Remember, it's intentional
31:13
in action. So focused on nurturing growth
31:17
in oneself and others, whereas attachment or cadexus
31:21
is an emotional investment rooted in need, dependency, and
31:25
often a desire for possession or control. So
31:29
this love versus attachment is important because a lot of times we
31:32
think it's love but we're actually attached and we're attached to
31:36
something that's very unhealthy that we're masking it as love,
31:40
right? So love, right? So if
31:43
you're watching this as you can see, Action and choice, so
31:46
it's a verb, not just a feeling. So the ingredients is
31:50
true love is a blend of specific actionable ingredients. So it's
31:53
care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, all
31:58
expressed through open and honest communication. Love
32:01
is nurturing growth, so genuine love supports the spiritual personal growth
32:05
of everyone involved. If you're in dynamics where
32:09
your partner doesn't want to see you grow, you don't want to see your partner grow, you're struggling
32:13
with their growth, if a relationship hinders growth or involves abuse,
32:18
it is not love. Emotional, financial, sexual, physical,
32:22
right? If there is abuse in
32:25
a relationship, it is not love at
32:29
all. A lot of times, and it's not just physical abuse,
32:32
it's financial abuse. There's so many ways that
32:36
people are staying in situations with partners and
32:40
they're telling themselves, but they love me. If
32:43
we're looking at this definition of love, nurture, and growth,
32:47
I'm going to say it again because this is so important. Genuine love supports
32:51
the spiritual and personal growth of everyone involved. It
32:55
can't just be you being the person to give, give, give, especially black
32:59
women. I see this all the time. We will put everything on
33:02
our shoulders and then we'll feel bad if
33:05
they feel bad. They can do something. Your
33:09
partner can do something. to harm you and
33:12
you'll find yourself struggling and still feeling a need to give, give,
33:16
give. We don't owe people our
33:20
everything. We owe ourselves our everything. Again,
33:24
when you know who you are, when you have boundaries, when you know your values, it'd
33:28
be hard for you to stay in a situation where love
33:31
is not there. You'll be able to identify it better when you're giving yourself
33:35
that love. Freedom and justice. Love is inherently linked
33:39
to freedom and justice. It cannot co-exist with
33:42
domination, abuse, or oppression. Love cannot
33:47
exist with domination, with
33:50
abuse, or with oppression. That is not love. What
33:54
it probably is, is attachment. And this is the next slide. So
33:58
attachment or cathexis A feeling,
34:01
not a choice, right? I always say people think of, oh,
34:05
love is a feeling. No, that's attachment. I'm sorry. Attachment describes
34:10
the process of investing. investing feelings
34:14
or emotions in another person. It is often an
34:17
involuntary emotional response we may have little control over. I say
34:21
we may have little control over a lot of times some of the ways and partnerships that
34:25
are formed that are not healthy. There's some
34:29
foundation of it from your childhood or from friendships. Again,
34:33
if you looked at the first episode, it's not just your home
34:36
life that could have created this like really jacked up sense
34:40
of love. It could be in the school environment. It could
34:43
be your friendship. It could have been your first relationship that kind
34:46
of transform you. So this is not, you could have had a loving household,
34:51
a loving home, but then these other influences, it
34:54
could have been TV, so many different things, right? Attachment
34:59
is rooted in need. Attachment is often about the needs the
35:02
other person fulfills for us, making the relationship transactional.
35:06
This can lead to possessiveness, fear of abandonment, and focus of
35:10
self-interest. Attachment can
35:15
coexist with abuse, right? I just told you love cannot coexist
35:19
with abuse, attachment can. So bell hooks argues
35:22
that many people confuse cathexis with love, leading
35:26
them to stay in relationships that are actually abusive or neglectful because
35:31
they are still attached or have intense feeling
35:35
even if loving actions are absent. That
35:39
intense feeling is not love. Potential
35:45
for control. So while love involves respecting the other's
35:48
autonomy, attachment can lead to grasping, demanding, and
35:52
desire to control the partner to ensure one's own
35:55
needs are met. Just be mindful.
35:58
This is a lot as we're talking about attachment and love, but
36:02
I think it's important if you are struggling in
36:05
your relationship. Y'all know, if you've been listening to this podcast for
36:09
a long time, you know how much I love talking about
36:13
relationships because I feel like people misunderstand
36:17
what it is and it's something that a lot of us are seeking. We
36:22
haven't had healthy, We
36:27
haven't watched people have healthy love relationships besides
36:32
TV or reality, even if we want to
36:35
call that healthy. And so I think the
36:38
more we get to understand this idea of what love is,
36:42
the more we start to love ourselves. the
36:46
relationships that we're in will look differently, right? Not just intimate
36:50
relationships with our friends, with our family, right? It
36:53
just starts to look differently. My life
36:59
20 years ago was completely different than what it is. There's so much
37:02
that I don't accept or would ever accept at
37:06
this stage in my life. It's not because I got older. It's not because
37:09
I'm a therapist. It's because I changed up my mindset about
37:13
love. I changed up my mindset because of how I treat
37:16
myself. When I started treating myself differently, it
37:20
was so hard for me to allow anybody else to treat me otherwise. My
37:25
system wouldn't let me because I'm giving myself some good love, so
37:28
why would I allow it? Why would I allow somebody to do something different
37:32
other than that? So an attachment can
37:37
feel intense, right? These intense, why? It just feels
37:40
so intense. I feel so attached to this person. Yeah, that's the
37:43
key word, attached. It's not love, you're attached. But it lacks
37:46
the foundational action of care. I need y'all
37:50
to get this. Respect and a mutual commitment to growth.
37:54
Mutual commitment to growth. It's not what bell hooks
37:58
consider true love. So attachment can
38:01
lead to unhealthy relationship dynamics through insecure attachment
38:05
styles like anxious and avoidant, which can cause issues like
38:08
dependency, fear of intimacy, trust problems, and poor communication. For
38:13
example, an anxiously attached person may become clingy and seek constant
38:16
reassurance, while an avoidant person may distance themselves and emotionally and
38:20
avoid vulnerability. This last part, I just wanna quickly talk
38:24
about these two attachment styles. Attachment styles can be a whole podcast in
38:27
and of itself, but I feel like I would do the love relationship
38:32
struggle a disservice without like bringing up these
38:35
attachment issues that we find ourselves having. So there's this
38:39
anxious attachment, right? Dependency and insecurity, you'll
38:43
find yourself feeling jealous and poor communication, right?
38:47
a lot of people are anxious attachment. And if you match
38:51
up with avoidant attachment, oh, my Lord. So,
38:54
people that are avoidant attachment, emotional distance,
38:58
right? You're not really talking, right? So, imagine if I'm
39:01
emotionally distanced. So, avoidant attachment, emotionally distanced,
39:05
self-sufficiently, very independent, can do everything, conflict avoidance.
39:10
And these attachment
39:14
styles, they're created through
39:18
different situations, different ways that life happened to
39:21
you. These attachment styles became your, quote-unquote, safe
39:25
space to be. If I am emotionally distanced, guess
39:29
what? Nobody can hurt me. If I am conflict avoidant, guess
39:32
what? I don't have to deal with conflict. I avoid conflict outside, but
39:36
guess where the conflict is happening? All up inside of me. This
39:41
other one I learned about when I was doing this research. It says it came out
39:44
in 1990. I
39:47
have never heard this attachment style, but I'm not in the attachment space.
39:51
People that are in the attachment space probably have, but it says
39:54
disorganized attachment. So it
39:57
says emotional turbulence, so characterized by a conflicted desire
40:01
for closeness and simultaneously fear of it, leading
40:05
to erratic, unpredictable behaviors. Disorganized
40:08
attachment has trust issues. There's a profound difficulty in trusting
40:12
partners, often stemming from a childhood with trauma or abuse.
40:16
And then there's this intense emotional swings. Individuals may
40:20
swing between intense emotional states of love and hate,
40:23
which can manifest in explosive or controlling behaviors. This
40:27
is definitely an episode on attachment styles I
40:31
want to do, because I think it's important for us to understand. Again,
40:35
if we have this attachment style, it doesn't mean that this is the way
40:38
it always is going to be. It doesn't mean that we can't work on creating change. None
40:42
of that is true. But when it comes to
40:47
love versus attachment, it's important to understand some
40:50
of these attachment styles. If anything speaks to you, do further
40:55
research, start to get more clarity. Let
40:59
this be the opening to you beginning to open up the
41:02
door and understand yourself. That
41:06
was the second session of the
41:09
struggles in relationships. We're going to have a
41:12
homework assignment. Excuse me. And
41:17
I'm going to share the
41:20
homework assignment with you. If you're a visual person, you
41:23
can either watch it on YouTube, you can go to my website, download it. You
41:26
can find the link in the show notes. But I'm going to share this
41:29
assignment with you. So understanding reoccurring
41:33
patterns in relationships. So the objective of this one is to help you understand and
41:37
reflect on reoccurring patterns in
41:40
your relationship that may lead to conflict and to connect
41:44
these patterns with your understanding of love, right?
41:48
That's what's going to be the objective of this, right?
41:52
So I'm going to start from the beginning. Ready? If
41:56
you're taking notes. So take a moment to think about your past
41:59
and current relationships, right? Consider any reoccurring themes or
42:02
behaviors that seem to lead to conflict or misunderstandings. I
42:06
want you to ask yourself questions like, do you often find
42:10
yourself in arguments about the same issue? Are there specific
42:14
triggers that consistently lead to disagreements? Do
42:17
you notice a pattern in how you or your partner respond to
42:20
conflicts, right? That's the first part. The
42:24
second part, write down specific examples. So
42:28
once you've identified a pattern, write down specific
42:32
examples where the pattern has played out in your relationship. For
42:36
example, include the context of the situation. So what happened?
42:39
Who was involved? Your feelings during the conflict. You can
42:42
use a feelings chart for this. Like, get specific with the feeling. The
42:46
outcome of the situation. So how was it resolved or if it
42:50
remains unresolved? The next part
42:53
to this homework, reflect on your own understanding of
42:57
love, right? After documenting your examples, take
43:00
some time to reflect on how these patterns relate to your understanding of
43:03
love and consider these prompts. And you can use
43:07
the last, the first homework assignment episode is
43:10
related to this part. So how do these patterns influence
43:14
your ability to give and receive love? Do
43:17
they stem from your early experiences of love and attachment? And
43:22
then what do these patterns reveal about your beliefs or
43:26
fears regarding love? And then I
43:29
want you to consider these next steps. Think about what changes you might want
43:32
to make in your approach to relationships based on
43:36
your reflections. And are there new strategies you
43:39
can implement to break these patterns and foster healthy
43:43
connections, healthier connections? This
43:50
was really dope. This was a great episode. I love love. I
43:53
love talking about relationships. I just
43:57
want people to love themselves. I want people to
44:00
understand themselves better before getting into really
44:04
dysfunctional relationships. What's next? Next episode,
44:09
the last part of our series, we're talking about cultivating self-love
44:13
and healthy relationships. We talked about the understanding of
44:16
love. We broke down some of the struggles that come up in relationships. Now,
44:21
you might be like, but Celeste, what do we do? I
44:24
want you to know this is an ongoing process. You're never
44:27
going to stop learning how to continue to work on
44:31
love and loving yourself. Healthy relationships aren't
44:34
built overnight, they're built with intention. Where
44:39
do you find me? You want to follow me? Follow me on all podcasting platforms.
44:43
If you are listening to me on YouTube, I'm on all podcasting platforms,
44:47
but social media, Instagram, I have my business page. I
44:51
do have a wellness center in Stoughton, Massachusetts called Shifting the Way
44:54
You Think. STWYT, you can find me on Instagram and
44:57
Facebook. I have a podcast page, Celeste.the.therapist. That
45:04
is my podcast page. My personal page is Celeste.the.therapist. You
45:09
can also find me on TikTok and on
45:12
both my wellness center and Celeste.the.therapist.
45:17
And my website
45:21
is CelesteTheTherapist.com and STWYT.com.
45:27
And then I also have two books if you're watching me on YouTube. I have this
45:30
guided journal right here, and then I
45:33
have a book called Relationship Goals that I self-published in
45:37
2018 and 2019. So thank you all so much
45:40
for rocking out with me. I appreciate you. If
45:44
anything I ever say resonates for you, understand you have the power to create change,
45:47
but first you have to have faith to believe in yourself. Because when you have faith,
45:50
when you start believing in yourself, I promise you nobody can take it away from
45:54
you. Until next time, beautiful people, I will talk to