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You Weren't Made Small, You Kept Walking Back In · Toxic Girls Zone

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, welcome back. Pull up a chair, grab whatever you're drinking,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and let's get into it. Okay, so this past week
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I was drowning in paperwork at the kitchen table with
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: my partner, and I truly could not tell you which
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: of us handled it worse, except I can, because it
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: was me by a significant margin. My partner had everything
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: sorted in color-coded sticky notes, calm as a person who
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: actually sleeps, just moving through the stack like a reasonable
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: human being. I, meanwhile, had built a full spreadsheet cataloging
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: every anxiety I had about a single missed signature, and
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I was calling that being productive. The dog stole a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: sock off the pile at one point, and honestly, I
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: felt seen. I felt like the dog understood the assignment
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: better than I did. Anyway, my partner made coffee, left
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a sticky note that said breathe with a little arrow
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: pointing toward me, and I read it four times, looking
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: for a hidden criticism that was not there. That's where
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: we are, right? That's the energy I'm bringing in today.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: None of that paperwork chaos is why we're here, though.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: We're here because someone found this episode, and I really
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: do think they needed it. Maybe that's you. Maybe you
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: sent it to yourself at two in the morning without
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: totally knowing why. Before we start, fair warning, okay? This
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: is going to hit somewhere you did not expect. You
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: might feel a little defensive in the first few minutes,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and that is completely fine. I need you to stay
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: with me anyway. The woman I'm describing today is someone
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I used to be, and she's someone a lot of
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: you are still inside of, quietly, going about your Tuesday
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: like nothing is wrong. I say that with love, I promise.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I also need to say real quick, my partner had
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: those forms done in under an hour, and I'm still
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: processing the emotional weight of a notary stamp. I will
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: be in therapy about the notary stamp. Moving on. Let
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: me set the scene for what we're actually talking about today, right?
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: You dated him and something about it felt intense and
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: real and chosen. He had opinions, opinions about the way
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: you told stories, the way you laughed too loud, the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: friends he thought were a bad influence on you. At
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: first you thought, okay, he's just honest and honesty is attractive,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: isn't it? So you started editing yourself before you even
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: opened your mouth. A small adjustment here, a quieter version
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of the joke there. You told yourself this was growth,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: that you were becoming more self-aware, more refined. You were
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: not shrinking. You were evolving. That's what you said. Then
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: one day you noticed you couldn't remember the last time
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: you said exactly what you meant without running it through
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: a filter that had his voice in it. Makes sense?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: You still defended him to your best friend. You said
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: things like, he just has high standards. She actually stopped
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: texting you about him for a whole week on purpose.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: And even that did not fully land yet because you
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: were still inside it. Here's the flip, and I need
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: you to really sit with this one. You weren't made small.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: You kept showing up to someone who needed you smaller.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: That's the thesis of today, and I know it's going
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to feel unfair for about 30 seconds, and then it's
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: going to feel true. Stay with me through those 30 seconds, right?
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Picture this. You're at a dinner with his friends. You
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: start telling a story. A good one. A you story.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: He does this small side smile from across the table.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: The one that means too much. The one you've learned
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to read like a language. You feel it. You finish
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the story, but you finish it quieter than you started it.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: You laugh at yourself before anyone else can. You make
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: yourself the punchline first because it's safer. He says later
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: on the drive home, See? You can be charming when
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: you dial it back. And you feel... I don't know, corrected,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: but also relieved. Like you passed the test. Yeah, that's
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the thing we're pulling apart today. You weren't made small.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: You kept showing up to someone who needed you smaller.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: And I know, the evolution you thought you were doing,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the becoming more mature, the getting better at relationships thing,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: it was actually a very slow disappearing act with really
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: good lighting. I say that having done it myself. I
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: say that having been proud of the disappearing act, which
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: we'll get to. The real question underneath all of this
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: is not, why was he like that, right? The real
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: question is why did you stay inside a dynamic that
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: required less and less of you with every passing month?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: And there's a harder question underneath that one. Why did
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: less feel like safety? Because it did, didn't it? There
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: was something almost comfortable about the smallness, something familiar about it.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Your body knew something was off. I promise you it did.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: There was a tightness before you called him, a small,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: almost embarrassing relief when he canceled plans, which you told
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: yourself was just introversion, just you needing alone time, totally normal.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: You told yourself that. You are not here because he
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: was a cartoon villain. Some of you were here because
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: he was charming and sometimes generous, and you could see
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the good in him so clearly it blinded you to
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: what was slowly disappearing. Make sense? And the hardest version
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: of this question, the one nobody actually asked out loud,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: is what did you get from staying small? I'm going
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: to let that one sit there for a second because
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: I think you know the answer and it's uncomfortable. The
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: relief when he canceled plans was so consistent, so predictable,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: that somewhere in the back of your mind you started
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: considering it a form of self-care. Which is a sentence
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I cannot believe I just said out loud, but here
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: we are. You're getting ready to go out with your
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: own friends. He makes a comment, nothing huge, just a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: small edit, a small observation about the outfit or the plan.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: You've heard versions of this one before. You change the outfit.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: You get there and you're a little quieter than usual
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: because his voice came with you, tucked right behind your
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: ear like a little passenger. Your friend says you seem
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: off and you say you're tired. On the way home,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you replay the whole evening and you decide, actually, you
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: did talk a little too much at one point. So
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: maybe he had a point. This is not a dramatic story.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: This is a Tuesday. This is the mechanism running on
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: autopilot while you think you're just being a more self-aware person.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Can we see this? Here's what makes it so hard
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: to name. Every single edit feels completely reasonable in isolation.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Of course, you want to be self-aware. Of course, you
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: want to work on yourself. Growth is good, right? But
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: growth that only ever goes in the direction of taking
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: up less space is not growth. It is disappearance on
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: an installment plan. And the worst part, the mechanism that
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: keeps the whole thing running, is this. You go home
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: and you're pleasant. He's warm. You feel close to him
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: and you think, see, it works when I just manage
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: myself better. That feeling of closeness after shrinking becomes the reward.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Your nervous system starts learning that smallness and love arrive
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: in the same package. That's the thing we're untangling. Disappearance
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: on an installment plan. By the way, not available in stores,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: but somehow you already signed up for the subscription and
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the billing is automatic. I was 26 when the relationship
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: ended and I genuinely thought I was devastated because I
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: loved him so much. I went into therapy convinced that
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the thing I needed to fix was my anxious attachment,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: my intensity, my too muchness. My therapist, who I will
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: love forever, let me talk for about six sessions. Let
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: me just go. Six full sessions. Then she asked one question.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: She said, do you actually miss him or do you
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: miss the version of yourself you were trying to become
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: for him? I sat with that question for an entire week.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to answer it, right? I went home
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and I pulled out my old journals from that relationship
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and I found a list, a list I had written myself.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Personal improvements. Every single item on it was a subtraction.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Less loud, less reactive, less needy. Not one addition on
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: that whole page. Not one thing to become more of.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Just less, less, less in my own handwriting. And I
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: had been so proud of writing it. I thought I
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: was doing the work. I brought that list to therapy
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: like it was a gold star homework assignment and my
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: therapist just looked at me with this specific silence that
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: cost me $ 140 and was completely worth every cent. That
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: bad afternoon with the journal was honestly a turning point
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: because I'd been editing myself for so long I had
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: genuinely started to think the edited version was the goal.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I thought that was who I was supposed to be becoming.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: The quieter, easier, less version. That was the destination. It wasn't.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Sound familiar? Okay, here's the thing about the inner voice
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: that runs this whole mechanism. The voice says if I
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: just get it right this time, if I just hit
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the right note, he'll finally be easy to love and
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: be around. That voice is what I'm talking about when
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I say anxious attachment. It's a pattern where you learn,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: usually early, that love has to be earned through performance
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: and adjustment. Safety feels like approval. Disapproval triggers a chase.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: So you become a very skilled adjuster, right? You read
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the room before you walk into it. You track his
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: mood the way some people track weather. You preemptively fix
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: yourself before you can point anything out, which feels like
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: emotional intelligence but is actually hypervigilance wearing a self-improvement costume.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Really good outfit though. Very convincing. The partner who withholds
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: warmth when you're too much is not teaching you to grow.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: He is teaching your nervous system that the space between
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: his approval and his withdrawal is home. And you get
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: very good at living there. You learn the exact wattage
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: of yourself that keeps him comfortable. Not so dull he
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: gets bored, not so bright he pulls back. You become
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: a dimmer switch operated by his mood. A dimmer switch
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: operated by his mood, which is a great metaphor and
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: also a genuinely terrible way to spend your late 20s.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Here's what that costs you. And we're going to go
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: there next. You start outsourcing your self-concept to someone who
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: had a vested interest in keeping you just a little
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: bit unsure. You stop knowing what you actually think. You
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: stop knowing what you actually like. The original version of
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: you starts to feel like someone you vaguely remember from before.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: You know? So coming up next, we go into where
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: this really started. Who taught you that love required you
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: to show up as a smaller version of yourself? And
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you right now, it's probably not who you think.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Stay with me. Okay, so here's the thing about where
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: this started. It didn't start with him. It started so
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: much earlier than him. And when I tell you this
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: next part, I want you to really sit with it, right?
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Because this is the layer underneath the layer. This is
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: what my therapist would call going one deeper, which sounds
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: relaxing and is absolutely not. My dad is one of
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the kindest people I know, genuinely. He's not a villain
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: in the story. He was just slightly out of reach
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: in a way that was very specific and very consistent.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Sunday dinners growing up, I'd come in and immediately take
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a reading of the room. Is he tired? Is he distracted?
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Is tonight a good night or a quiet night? And
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: when I hit the right note, when I was funny enough,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: easy enough, uncomplicated enough, he'd smile. And that smile felt
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: like winning. I'm not exaggerating when I say I was
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: doing emotional weather forecasting before I hit double digits. I
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: became a meteorologist of my dad's mood before I was 10,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: and I never once got the forecast exactly right, but
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I kept checking. Every single Sunday, You know, picture this
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: with me. You're a kid at the table, maybe nine
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: or 10, and you've already done the calculation. Tonight, you're
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: going to be the easy one, the fun one, the
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: one who doesn't need anything complicated. You tell the story
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: that gets the laugh. You don't bring up the thing
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that's been bothering you at school because you can feel
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: that tonight isn't the night for that. He smiles. The
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: warmth comes through and something in your little nervous system goes, yes,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: that's it. That's the formula. Store that. Use it again.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Can we see what happens next? Right? The equation just
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: becomes part of how you move through the world. So
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: when the ex showed up with his small edits and
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: his side smiles, that meant too much. Your system didn't panic.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: It recognized him. It said, oh, I know the setup.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I've been training for this one my whole life. The
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: ex didn't create the smallness keeper. He just fit perfectly
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: into a slot that was already carved. And honestly, he
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: walked right in like he had a key made. Your
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: nervous system probably felt something weirdly like home the first
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: time you pulled back when you were too much. Because
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that emotional temperature, that slightly out of reach warmth you
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: had to earn, that was familiar. Familiar feels safe even
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: when it isn't. Makes sense, right? And look, I get it,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I really do. It feels unfair to connect your dad
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: to your ex-boyfriend. It can feel like you're making excuses
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: for the ex, or like you're blaming your parent for
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: something he wasn't fully conscious of. I'm not saying either
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of those things. What I'm saying is that your patterns
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: have origins, and the origin matters, because once you can
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: see it, you stop thinking the pattern is just who
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: you are. It's not who you are, it's what you learned.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Those are two very different things, and one of them
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: can be unlearned. Sound familiar? Yeah. That's the part that
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: changes things. Now let's go one layer deeper because there's
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: something living underneath the pattern that I want to name
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: out loud. My sister, who has just gotten engaged and
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: says absolutely everything she thinks the second she thinks it.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: No filter, no delay, full volume always. She looked at
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: me at her own engagement party, glass in hand, sparkling something,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: big smile. And she said, you apologize for existing before
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: anyone even complains. And then she walked away to take photos.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: She didn't even wait for my response. I laugh because
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: what else do you do when someone hands you your
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: entire therapy arc at a party? But she was right.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: The concept I'm talking about here is what some people
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: call the shadow. Not scary, not dramatic, just the parts
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of yourself you learned were inconvenient. The too loud version,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the too emotional version, the one with opinions that don't
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: wait for permission and feelings that arrive fast and big.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: You didn't kill those parts. You just put them in
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a room and locked the door and told them to
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: be quiet because you learned through a hundred small moments
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: that the full version of you made things harder. The
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: ex didn't create your shadow. He recruited it. He made
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the arrangement official. Show up smaller and get warmth. Keep
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: the volume down and get chosen. And the cruelest part
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: is that the things you found inconvenient are usually the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: most alive parts of you. Your shadow isn't your damage.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: It's your buried treasure dressed up like a liability. Right?
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: So here's what it actually costs. And I want you
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: to hear this piece specifically. You lose the thread back
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: to yourself. Not all at once. Never all at once.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: It's always gradual. You stop pitching the idea at work
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: because you already hear his edit in your head before
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you even open your mouth. You cancel on a friend
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: because you don't want to have to explain where you
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: went or how late you stayed or why you're in
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a mood. You read a book he'd find pretentious and
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: you just quietly don't mention it. You start trimming your
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: stories before you tell them, cutting the parts that are
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: too specific, too loud, too you. The erasure is so
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: slow and so reasonable looking that by the time the
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: relationship ends, you're standing there holding pieces of yourself that
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: don't look familiar. You pick them up and you go, wait,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: when did I stop doing that? When did I stop
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: saying that? When did I stop being that? And the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: answer is always somewhere around month three or four. So
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: gradually you didn't notice. Okay. And then here's the part
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I really need you to hear, the part that's honestly
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the most expensive piece of this whole thing. You bring
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the edited version into the next relationship. The new person
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: never even meets the original you. He meets the post
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: him version, the cautious one, the one who has already
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: learned somewhere deep in her nervous system to take up
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: slightly less space as a default. And you call that growth.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: You call it being more mature. You say things like,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I've done a lot of work on myself. And some
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: of it is real growth. I'm not taking that away
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: from you. But some of it is just the edited
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: version of you wearing a self-awareness badge and shrinking you
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: call maturity is technically accurate if you're a wool sweater
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: in a hot dryer. Which you are not. You are
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: a person. Right? Here's the truth told straight. I'm going
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to say this plainly and I'm going to stay in it.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: He did not make you small. You had a wound
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: that made smallness feel like safety and you chose someone
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: who confirmed it. That's not a verdict on you. It's
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: not a character flaw. It's not proof that something is
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: broken inside you. But it is your responsibility, the part
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that comes after the wound. The fault lives in the wound.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: The responsibility lives in what you do now that you
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: can see it. Because here's the part that gets me
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: every time. Some of you are not even with that
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: ex anymore. He's been gone for a year, maybe two,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: maybe five, and you're still running his edits. He's gone
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: and you're still filing down the loud parts, still pre-apologizing,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: still arriving at places as a slightly quieter version of yourself,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: just in case. And there's no one left to even
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: hand the dimmer switch to. You're just holding it yourself.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: The habit of editing yourself for a man who left
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: is honestly the relationship equivalent of still buying his brand
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: of coffee three years later. You don't even like that coffee.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: You never really did. Yeah? The lie the habit whispers
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: is that the right person will love you once you
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: get the volume just right. Once you've smoothed the last
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: rough edge. Once you've become easy enough. And I need
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you to hear me on this. Okay, I need this
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: to actually land. You weren't made small. You kept showing
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: up to someone who needed you smaller. And the reason
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: that matters is because it means you have a choice.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: It always meant you had a choice. You just couldn't
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: see it from inside a pattern that felt like love.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: That's the thesis. That's the whole thing. And it's going
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: to feel unfair for a second, and then it's going
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: to feel like a door opening. Okay? So coming up next,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: we talk about what it actually looks like on the
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: other side of this. Not the fantasy version, the real version,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the one that starts on a completely ordinary Wednesday, and
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the three moves that start bringing you back to yourself.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Stay with me. Okay, so let's talk about the other side.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Not the fantasy version where you wake up one day
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: fully healed and glowing and unbothered. The real version. The
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: one that starts on a Tuesday when you're getting ready
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: to go somewhere and you notice you're not running the checklist. Right?
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: No pre-approval process. No filtering the outfit through someone else's
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: imaginary commentary. Just you, in the mirror, wearing the thing
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: you actually wanted to wear. That's it. That's what the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: other side looks like at first. Not a revolution. A Tuesday.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you what it felt like the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: first time I said something at full volume in a
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: relationship and nothing bad happened. I was maybe four months
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: into things with my partner. We were out on the balcony.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I was definitely overcrowding one of the plans because I
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: killed the last one and was clearly overcompensating. And I
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: had an opinion, a real one, not the pre-approved softened.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Let me just check how this lands first version. I
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: just said it out loud at full volume. And my
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: partner looked up and said, I love that you just
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: say what you think. And I genuinely did not know
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: what to do with that. I looked around. The dog
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: was there. I seriously considered that the compliment might have
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: been for the dog. Make sense? Because here's the thing.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: When you've spent years getting warmth as a reward for shrinking,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: warmth without the shrinking feels suspicious. It feels like a trick,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: like you missed a step, like any second now comes
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a catch. You're waiting for the edit. You're waiting for
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the small side smile that means too much. And when
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: it doesn't come, your nervous system doesn't immediately go, oh,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: great love, wonderful. It goes, wait, is this safe? And
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: you have to learn... Slowly, that the absence of tension
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: is not absence of love. It's just actually what love
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: is supposed to feel like, right? It runs on something quieter.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: No electricity from your self-management. No reward cycle attached to
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: getting the volume just right. Just you actually being there
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and that being enough. The secure partner doesn't need you
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: smaller to feel big. I want you to write that
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: somewhere because it sounds simple and it took me embarrassingly
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: long to believe it. Not on a sticky note on
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the mirror. You don't have to do all that, but
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: let it sit. The person who is right for the
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: full version of you is not confused by the full
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: version of you. They're not managing you. They're not doing
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: a slow renovation of your personality while calling it feedback.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: They're just there, next to the real one, and they're fine.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: More than fine. They actually like her. The version your
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: ex found inconvenient is the version the right dynamic finds interesting. Yeah?
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: That is not a small thing. So here's what I
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: want you to actually do this week. Three moves. Not
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: a 12-step program. Not a workbook. Not a whole thing. Three.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: And I'm going to dare you to start today. Not
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: next Monday. Not after you've thought about it for a while. Today.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Move one, find the edit. This week, catch one moment
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: where you change what you were going to say before
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: you say it. Not because of kindness, not because of timing,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: but because some part of you decided the original sentence
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: was too much. Write it down. What was the original sentence?
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Who would have heard the edited version and why did
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: they get the power to change it before they even spoke?
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: That's the first thread back to yourself. Sound familiar? Move two,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: say the thing in a low stakes room. Not to
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: the guy, not in the hard conversation, not in the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: relationship where the stakes feel highest. To your best friend.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: To your sister. To someone who has already proven they're
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: not going anywhere no matter what you say. Say the
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: unedited version of one opinion this week. Notice your body
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: before you say it. The tightness in your chest. The
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: little brace for impact. Notice what happens after. When no
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: one leaves. When the ceiling stays up. When your friend
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: just goes, yeah, totally, and moves on like it was
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the most normal thing in the world. Because it was.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: A 12-step program for unshrinking yourself would be great. Honestly,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: very useful content. But we're starting with one sentence this week.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Walk before you run back to your full volume. Right?
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Move three is the one that takes the most honesty.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Audit the inner editor. Close your eyes or don't and
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: think about the last time you shrank. Who was talking?
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Whose voice ran the edit? If you really sit with it,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: you can usually hear it. A tone. A phrase. A
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: particular flavor of disapproval. Give it a face. Is it him?
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Is it your dad on a Sunday at dinner? Is
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: it your mom in one of the cooler moods? Is
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: it a composite? A little of all of them packed
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: into one very efficient internal critic. Name it. Because once
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: you name it, it stops being the truth and starts
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: being what it actually is. A recording. A very old
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: recording playing on a loop that you never chose and
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: you don't have to keep listening to. You know? And
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: now I want you to picture her. The woman on
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the other side of this. She's not loud for the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: sake of it. She's not performing bigness. She's not making
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: a point. She's not doing a whole thing about how
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: unbothered she is. She is just present. She tells the
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: story at the volume it actually happened. She says the thing,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the real thing, without a pre-apology attached to the front
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: of it. She disagrees without bracing. She takes up exactly
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: the amount of space she actually needs. And she doesn't
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: run that number against someone else's comfort level. She's not
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: performing anything. She's just there. And honestly, she's not some
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: distant future version of you that you have to earn
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: your way to. Right? She's the version that was always there,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: just waiting for you to stop editing her out. She
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't arrive at this because she found the right man.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: She doesn't arrive at this because someone finally gave her permission.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: She arrives at this on a completely ordinary Wednesday, probably tired,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: probably not in a movie moment, when she decides that
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the edited version costs more than it's worth. That the
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: smoothed down, quieter, pre-apologized version is more exhausting than just
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: being the actual one. She is not CCing her ex
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: on every thought she has anymore. He doesn't get to
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: sit in on the meeting. She filed down nothing. She
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: just stopped filing. Yeah? And you can do that too.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Starting now. Not after the transformation. Now. Baby, here's where
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I want to land. This episode exists because I spent
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: years believing the shrinking was the work. That if I
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: could just get quiet enough, small enough, easy enough, I
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: would finally be loved without conditions. It took me a
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: long time, three years of therapy, two years on my own,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and a partner who kept leaving sticky notes that said
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: things like you were right about that, to understand that
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the shrinking was never the work. The work is finding
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: your way back to the version of you that existed
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: before someone convinced you she was too much. She wasn't
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: too much. She was just too much for him. And
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: that is entirely his limitation, not hers, right? So the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: question I want to leave you with, and I mean
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: really leave you with, sit with it on the commute,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: in the shower, while the dog is stealing something off
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the counter, is this. When did you first decide that
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: shrinking was the price of being loved? And what would
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: it cost you to stop paying it? Because that bill
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: has been coming out of your account for a long time.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: And you're the only one who can cancel it. You
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: weren't made small. You kept showing up to someone who
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: needed you smaller. And now that you can see it,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: you don't have to keep showing up that way. Not anymore.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: The version of you that was too much for him
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: is currently thriving, has very strong opinions about at least
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: four things, and has been waiting on you. If this
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: hits somewhere real, send it to a woman you know
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: who's still in there, still editing. Still buying coffee she
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: doesn't like. She needs to hear it. Follow along so
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: you don't miss what comes next. And take care of yourself.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I'll talk to you soon. This show is made by
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Ogle Media.