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39. Codependency after Divorce is Renting Self Esteem From Other People - The Brain Chemical you NEED to break this cycle · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Hi, love, this is Dawn and you're listening to Dear Divorce Diary with my coach, dawn, where we explore the post-divorce life and you, the woman who lives it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We cover everything from trauma during and after divorce to feeling like a stranger in your own life and the new frontier of life as a single woman.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Cozy in for the conversations we've been longing to have about this new life.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Hi, love, it is Valentine's Day and girl, oh girl, do we have an episode for you?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: This is definitely gonna be the episode all about love, but not in a way you've probably ever heard it before and I cannot wait to unpack it all with you.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: So Valentine's Day, super commercialized, all about love that's a bunch of nonsense.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Right about getting us to spend money and fit into some ritual that serves no one.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: It's not even fun to go out to dinner on Valentine's Day.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: The restaurants are slammed and like there's nothing real.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I've never really enjoyed Valentine's Day.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Do I have a trauma from a high school boyfriend to do with it?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Sure, i'll cop to that, but I have never really kind of come around to like cherishing Valentine's Day and I think it's because that really is not.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: It's not an authentic, aligned celebration of love In an authentic, aligned celebration of love.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Every day truly is Valentine's Day, and so, while you're feeling some type of way today, love I get it.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: But let's solve for that, because at the end of our time together, i want you to be feeling very different about today and where today is headed, deal.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about how often we struggle with the urge, the visceral, palpable, tangible, energetic craving to be right and maybe, more importantly, to not want to be wrong.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: So maybe you can play with that a little bit.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Is it that you really want to be right or is that you're terrified to be wrong?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Notice the difference between those subtle energetic difference.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Right, and so there is so much about the urge to be right or the fear of being wrong that is tanking your joy.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: It is virtually impossible to care about being right and to be deeply happy.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Sure, maybe you can have some moments of joy, but I'm talking about deep, peaceful sense of secure well-being, happiness.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: It is virtually impossible to care about being right and to be deeply happy.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: So what do we do about that?
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Because so much of how we move through life is in a way where we're constantly kind of sorting, all day long, our thoughts, our feelings, our choices, our relationships, our interactions with people into the category of right or wrong, and we do that because it is woven into kind of our culture and society.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: So we have governmental legal laws, we have religious laws.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Then we have our social laws of etiquette how to act and how not to act.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: There was so much in my Instagram news feed this weekend about I think it was like the New Yorker or something like that.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I probably got it wrong, but that was teaching us in this kind of new era that we're in what's right and wrong from an etiquette perspective about tipping and ghosting and dating, and it was just so interesting to read like because you could go buy a bottle of water from a stand and they're going to ask for a tip on the bottle of water.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Do I have?
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: is it proper etiquette to tip or not tip on a bottle of water?
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: So there's all these rules in life and we're constantly sorting.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Is that right or wrong?
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: right thought, wrong, thought right, feeling, wrong, feeling right.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Was I right or wrong in that interaction is am I right or is he right?
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: He's wrong, right, you're alone today, on Valentine's Day, and it must be because he's wrong, and that is so much of why you're ginned up today, because you're feeling like today is a point of just sharper suffering and it must be most likely because he's wrong and you're right And that feels like shit.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: But as long as you are chasing that kind of binary way of viewing life, you will not feel sustainable, deep peace or happiness.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Now there is some interesting information out there about how our brains function with this activated right wrong thing going on.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Did you know that you cannot simultaneously be in a state of anxiety and a state of relaxation?
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Now that may sound really obvious like thank you, captain, obvious Don, but take a moment to sit with that.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: You cannot simultaneously be in a state of anxiety and a state of relaxation.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Now we are going to talk more on the podcast about the role regulating our central nervous system has in whether or not we are in a state of relaxation or anxiety.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Because, love, it is nobody's responsibility but yours to regulate your social central nervous system and to notice whether or not you are in a state of anxiety or relaxation.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: And now I want you to think about, when you are sifting and sorting through life and you're using this kind of binary measurement of right or wrong?
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: what is going on?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Are you in a state of anxiety or are you in a state of relaxation?
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: And, more importantly, do you notice that when you feel validated around, being right, does that help you shift out of anxiety into relaxation?
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: temporarily?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Temporarily is the key.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: We rely heavily on validation from outside sources to move us from anxiety into relaxation.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: But the thing of it is is until we figure out how to do it all from inside, we can never own our own happiness and peace Right.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: We're always leasing it from the next person's validation.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: It's like we can't ever just own it.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: No matter what It's like, i better have somebody nearby who can tell me if I'm OK or if I'm right or if I'm wrong, in order to feel that state of relaxation.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Otherwise, the anxiety creeps back up.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: But wouldn't it be better Like, think about, like, owning your home outright, no mortgage, no rent, no monthly payment.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: What kind of piece would you have if you owned your home outright, versus if you had to constantly pay a monthly fee, you know, via the price of needing something from the outside in order to feel happiness or peace?
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: This episode is all about learning how to own that happiness and peace.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Now, when you are in that sifting and sorting and you're feeling the urge to be right, notice there's an internal tension that comes up.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: That internal tension, love is the same as the same as the same thing.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Love is the activation of self abandonment.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: And self abandonment is the opposite of being your own Valentine or feeling feelings of love.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Right, when we abandon ourselves, when we abandon the truth of what we're experiencing, of what we know, of where we are in our own development, of who we are, and when we start to consider that who we are or how we're experiencing something is wrong or bad, we are abandoning ourselves.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And when you take the bait and you abandon yourself in exchange for honoring where you are in a process or who you are as a person, that activates that experience of anxiety, of tension, of feeling like, of shame, of guilt.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Right, all of a sudden there's this whole nervous system dysregulation process.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: That is just the first domino has fallen And more often than not, we opt for some attempt at pleasing both them, whoever they are, and ourselves.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Right, it is not real to be able to abandon yourself to please someone else and please yourself at the same time.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: That is not actually compromise, right?
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Compromise is a beautiful thing.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: But compromise is when you are still staying true to yourself.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: You're not abandoning some very real need or expression of your own right.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: You know that line from Sweet Home Alabama the movie I freaking love it where the dad says to Reese, her character says well, darling, you can't ride two horses with one ass, right.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: You can't be people-pleasing and honoring the truth and not abandoning yourself.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: You cannot be people-pleasing and not abandoning yourself.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: People-pleasing is an act of self-abandonment.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So let's tie this all back together.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Right, when you need to be right versus wrong.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: You are activating this anxiety versus relaxation.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: You are activating this internal tension of of am I okay?
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: What do I need to do to get okay?
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And you're often abandoning yourself in order to satisfy somebody else, so that you can get the hit of validation, so that you can move from anxiety to relaxation.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: But all of that is garbage because it's all renting your happiness from somebody else.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: And so where do we need to shift?
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Well, so glad you asked.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: All of that needing a validation in order to feel okay, in order to feel like you're right, is actually a dopamine hit.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: So we know that trauma, including divorce trauma, obviously early childhood trauma, you name it right We get a dopamine hit from repeating trauma patterns.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Did you know that?
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: We know that we get a dopamine hit from eating chocolate, from scrolling on Instagram, from drinking the wine, from you know all that feel-good chemical stuff that is kind of numbing, that relieves the anxiety really quickly.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: That's all that really numbing dopamine stuff.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, i feel anxious.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Somebody validates me, i get a feel-good hit and now I can move into relaxation, but, like we said, it's temporary.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: So how do we switch from dopamine in the brain in order to feel relaxed to something more sustainable where you can never suffer again on Valentine's Day?
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: The answer love is oxytocin, and I know you know that chemical because it is the love hormone, and I know you love the love hormone.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: You crave the love hormone.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: It's the thing that when you're alone in bed and you just wanna snuggle someone, that's the craving you're longing for.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: When you look at your puppy the way I look at Lilaput when you look at your children, when you are falling in love, when you're feeling bonded, all of that is oxytocin and it is so freaking delicious.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And the key is to cultivate oxytocin within you, between you and you.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: So when everybody talks about self-love and that feels confusing, let's boil it down to the chemical of oxytocin, because I can teach you how to promote oxytocin in your own brain and body.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Does that feel easier If I just say, hey love, here's this list of things to do in order to promote oxytocin, and then you will be less critical of yourself, you will feel less internal tension, you will feel less like you have to abandon yourself and please other people.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: If you cultivate this oxytocin hormone and stop chasing the dopamine hustle, most of our brains in our kind of really technological age are toggling a lot between the dopamine hit and the amygdala, which is the almond shape part of the brain inside of our emotional processing system, the limbic system.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And the amygdala is that kind of primal fight, flight, freeze, all of the really basic human emotions anger, rage, fear, right.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: We toggle very, very much between the amygdala activation trauma causes the amygdala to be on overdrive.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: It actually can cause it to grow and be overstimulated and then dopamine, and most of us don't realize that those are the two states that we're toggling between central nervous system, hypersensitivity, hyperactivation, amygdala activation or dopamine to self soothe.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: And I just want you to take a moment to reflect on that and realize how much that is probably activated in your existence And to truly get to states of relaxation, sense of wellbeing, sense of security in the world.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: We talk a lot about the tools to doing that EMDR and EFT, tapping and meditation and yoga, body movement, getting outside vitamin D, spirituality, a sense of well-being through connecting with that higher power that lives inside of you all the time and listening for that voice.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: But notice how much of our time we spend toggling between those other two states versus promoting this third way, this relaxation way that comes from a place where you own your real estate of peace and joy.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: So now oxytocin is the love bonding chemical And that is how I want you to spend this Valentine's Day is saying like I'm going to claim my happiness, my peace, my love, real estate, and I'm going to do as many oxytocin oriented activities that I can today On Valentine's Day, to me, with me, for me and PS probably other beings too because oxytocin is a bonding, it's a bonding hormone.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: So you're not going to do this just with yourself, but primarily noticing that this is going to come from you to you, with you and the people that you love that are available to you today.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: So think about activities that involve bonding.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: So every time I'm posting Lilaput the puppy on stories on Instagram, it's because I'm feeling oxytocin.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Right, i just look at her and I'm feeling oxytocin.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: So all that bonding right.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: When, in a post divorce world, i focus so much on having popover friends popover friends, my popover friends, were friends where I could just pop over and climb in bed with them.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: That's all oxytocin love, right.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: When you, when one of your favorite parts of the day is snuggling with your kids and watching something on Netflix, that's oxytocin activation.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: When you are creating, think about this.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: When you are creating whether you are, because you love doing it, preparing a meal for your family not when it's like 8pm after soccer practice and you're grinding it out and you're exhausted that's not what I mean.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I mean like when it's Sunday afternoon and you've got a glass of Chardonnay and Frank Sinatra playing.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Now you know what our Sundays look like sometimes, right, and you're preparing a meal for your family, that's oxytocin.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: When you are painting or playing music or writing or journaling sometimes, or writing, what do you love to create?
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: When you're quilting, when you have a friend who's been crocheting, when you are creating something, love, you are in flow, you are connected with your inner being.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: That is self-love and it's oxytocin When you are activated in kindness and compassion.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: So what are the things in life where you feel that sense of compassion for someone else, something else, right, whether it's rescuing the animals or it's picking nails up off the ground?
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to show you how.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Producer Joy does this on Instagram stories later today, which is really last week.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Time is not real.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: When you're doing something that has you tapped into kindness and compassion, that's oxytocin.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: What is good is oxytocin because that's in that realm of kindness and compassion.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Now, yoga and meditation and probably EFT tapping if I had to really think about it are things that allow us to tap into kindness, compassion, oxytocin.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: They're very self-caring When we are in the positive cognition part of EMDR that is absolutely building in kindness and compassion and oxytocin into our consciousness.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: So huge chunks of our healing modalities are driving at cultivating oxytocin.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Now, interestingly enough, i did something last year that I have never talked about on the pod that I am fixing to tell you about.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: That boosted oxytocin for me and it was a game changer and it's why, all of a sudden, law of Attraction was able to resonate with me more.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: So last summer I worked with a shaman directly to have her supervise me using mushrooms magic mushrooms and I did a several hour experience with her where I used mushrooms to help facilitate healing from trauma and a deepening of my sense of wellbeing.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Now there is a strong link between all of those psychoactive, psychedelic properties, whether it's MDMA meaning ecstasy, or psilocybin or right and oxytocin.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: So, oh, look at that, all of the research we're seeing come out about how mushrooms or those types of treatments can help with trauma and anxiety.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Because, remember we said in the beginning of this episode, you can't be in anxiety and relaxation at the same time, and relaxation is really, at its core, oxytocin, and those types of treatments promote oxytocin.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, look at that, that is fancy stuff.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Now, i grew up in a highly critical environment where being right was not an option for me, right It was just.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Everything was always right or wrong and I typically wasn't the right thing.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And so maybe, if you can relate to being in a highly critical environment, whether it was when you were young or it was in your marriage or it's in your own brain PS, if the critic is in your brain, it came from.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: You were taught that right.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: So when we have this really active inner critic.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: The solution to that is oxytocin, is loving eyes, loving eyes, and so whatever we can do to promote that sense of relaxation, to move the needle on criticism, because being in that, in critical spaces, is that somebody, somebody really needing to be right or to not be wrong.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: So just notice that any critical environments that are still going on currently in your life right, if you have girlfriends that are highly critical or family that's highly critical or a boss that's highly critical, just notice that that is going to be counteracting your necessary oxytocin And it's gonna be activating all of that anxiety stuff.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I want you to think about the times in your life where you are able to see other beings through deeply loving eyes.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: So whether that's someone you have been in love with, it's a family member, it's a pet, it doesn't matter, but I want you to find those loving eyes and how it feels to embody loving eyes And I want you to practice seeing yourself, especially in the places where you feel shame or you feel anxious or you feel unworthy or you feel some type of way, through loving eyes.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I know there are many places where we are encouraged to feel shame and to feel wrong or bad, but I want you to notice that the true healers throughout the course of time, throughout the ages I don't care how far back through history you look the true healers that have been written about that we still celebrate and study today.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: They did not use criticism love.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: They looked at people through their own eyes and through their, through the eyes of love, and saw only their greatness.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: The most powerful healers through the course of history did not use criticism, they used love.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: They tapped in to oxytocin, and that is our lesson Today, on Valentine's Day and every day in between.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Each Valentine's Day, it is our calling to heal ourselves through loving eyes and to know that each time you do it, you are getting an oxytocin hit and you are no longer relying on dopamine or something outside of you to heal you.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: All of healing comes from removing the energy blockages that have come as a result of criticism, self rejection.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: You are worthy of love and belonging and I am so grateful that you are here and I want you to know that you belong here with me and me with you.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, i will be your Valentine.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: The Divorce Diary Dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by My Coach, john.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: You can find more at MyCoachJohncom.