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Transcript

I Went Silent Every Time We Talked Future... And Almost Lost Us · Toxic Girls Zone

0:03
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome back. I'm glad you're here today, genuinely, because
0:07
Speaker 1: this one is a little different, and I think you're
0:09
Speaker 1: going to want to be sitting down for it. So
0:11
Speaker 1: this is a storytime episode. No list, no steps, no
0:15
Speaker 1: tidy conclusion waiting for you at the end with a
0:17
Speaker 1: bow on it. Something happened in my body a few
0:20
Speaker 1: weeks ago, and I have been sitting with it, turning
0:22
Speaker 1: it over, trying to understand what it actually was. I'm
0:25
Speaker 1: going to tell you exactly what happened, and I think
0:27
Speaker 1: somewhere in it you're going to find yourself. Right? Not
0:30
Speaker 1: a version of yourself you're proud of necessarily, but a
0:32
Speaker 1: real one. That's what we're here for. Okay, real quick
0:36
Speaker 1: before we get into it. My dog ate two socks
0:38
Speaker 1: this week. Two, not a pair because that would at
0:41
Speaker 1: least adjust the system. One from the laundry pile and
0:43
Speaker 1: one directly off my partner's foot. Mid-morning, no warning, no remorse.
0:47
Speaker 1: She's my emotional support animal and my cautionary tale at
0:50
Speaker 1: the same time. And I want that on record. Right,
0:53
Speaker 1: now that we've established a chaos that is my apartment,
0:55
Speaker 1: let's go. Here's what I want you to know before
0:57
Speaker 1: we start. This one is going to sting a little.
1:00
Speaker 1: I'm saying that with love. I'm saying that because I
1:02
Speaker 1: needed someone to say it to me and nobody did.
1:04
Speaker 1: Not a crisis, not a breakdown, just a specific sting
1:07
Speaker 1: of recognizing yourself in a pattern you thought you were past.
1:10
Speaker 1: So take a breath, grab something warm, and let's do
1:13
Speaker 1: this together. Now, talking about the future in a relationship
1:17
Speaker 1: sounds like such a mature adult thing, right? It's the
1:19
Speaker 1: kind of thing people mention in wedding speeches. We talked
1:22
Speaker 1: about the future together. We had a vision. You want
1:24
Speaker 1: to be someone who does that easily. You've read the books.
1:26
Speaker 1: You've done the therapy. I have three years of weekly sessions.
1:30
Speaker 1: a shelf that would make a therapist weep with professional pride.
1:32
Speaker 1: You're supposed to be past the part where future talk
1:34
Speaker 1: makes you go weird, but there's knowing and there's the body,
1:37
Speaker 1: and they are not always in the same room. I
1:39
Speaker 1: am telling this story because my body broke the agreement
1:41
Speaker 1: before my mind even noticed it was happening. Make sense?
1:45
Speaker 1: And here's the thing I want to say before the
1:47
Speaker 1: story actually starts. At 26, after the breakup that genuinely
1:50
Speaker 1: broke me, I remember lying on the floor of my
1:52
Speaker 1: studio apartment, not crying, just completely blank, not sad, not afraid,
1:57
Speaker 1: not anything in particular, just gone. Like someone had turned
2:00
Speaker 1: a dial down to zero. I didn't know at the
2:02
Speaker 1: time that going blank was a skill. A thing my
2:04
Speaker 1: nervous system had learned to do to protect me when
2:06
Speaker 1: feeling something felt like too much. I thought it was healing.
2:09
Speaker 1: I thought the absence of pain meant I was getting better. Yeah,
2:12
Speaker 1: it was not. I genuinely thought the blank feeling was
2:14
Speaker 1: personal growth. Reader, it was not. Okay, so the story
2:19
Speaker 1: starts on the balcony. One ordinary evening. Nothing special about it.
2:23
Speaker 1: No anniversary. No big conversation building up. My partner is
2:26
Speaker 1: watering the herbs I keep forgetting about. which is a
2:28
Speaker 1: recurring feature of our life together, and I'm sitting on
2:31
Speaker 1: the step with an iced coffee that's been going warm
2:33
Speaker 1: in my hand for about 20 minutes. Partner turns around
2:35
Speaker 1: and says something like, I was thinking about what the
2:38
Speaker 1: next few years look like. Do you want to talk
2:40
Speaker 1: about it? That's the whole sentence. Warm voice, completely relaxed,
2:44
Speaker 1: just a door held open. Right? I hear the sentence.
2:47
Speaker 1: I understand every single word, and then something inside me quietly,
2:50
Speaker 1: efficiently pulls down a shutter. I don't get up and leave.
2:54
Speaker 1: I don't snap or say anything weird. I just become
2:56
Speaker 1: very interested in a bird on the railing and say, yeah,
2:58
Speaker 1: maybe later, and the door closes. Partner doesn't push because
3:02
Speaker 1: partner never does. We finish the evening. I go to bed.
3:05
Speaker 1: I wake up the next morning and I feel fine.
3:08
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that should have alarmed me. I
3:10
Speaker 1: didn't feel relieved or nervous or ashamed about the dodge.
3:13
Speaker 1: I felt nothing about it. The protector had already handled
3:15
Speaker 1: it so smoothly, I didn't even feel it working. I
3:18
Speaker 1: wasn't panicking. I wasn't running. I was simply efficiently not there.
3:22
Speaker 1: That's the story of the future blocker. Sound familiar? You
3:26
Speaker 1: know this moment, right? You're mid evening with someone you
3:29
Speaker 1: actually love. And he says something about next year, a
3:31
Speaker 1: trip you could take, maybe moving somewhere, a conversation you
3:34
Speaker 1: probably should have. And the inside of your chest does
3:36
Speaker 1: something complicated, not quite dread, not quite longing, something that
3:40
Speaker 1: lands like not yet, not this, not here. And you
3:43
Speaker 1: find a reason to change the subject. You're so good
3:45
Speaker 1: at it. You don't even notice you did it. You say,
3:47
Speaker 1: I'm hungry. Should we eat? He probably says, sure. The
3:50
Speaker 1: evening continues. You both think everything is fine. One of
3:53
Speaker 1: you is right. My dad was kind the way a
3:56
Speaker 1: radio left on in another room is kind. You know, consistent, audible,
4:00
Speaker 1: but not quite in the conversation with you. We never
4:02
Speaker 1: talked about the future at home, not because it was forbidden,
4:04
Speaker 1: just because we didn't. Nobody sat me down and said
4:07
Speaker 1: futures are dangerous. It was quieter than that. The future
4:10
Speaker 1: was just something that arrived, not something you named or
4:12
Speaker 1: reached for or discussed out loud over dinner. I grew
4:14
Speaker 1: up in a small town where the future was sort
4:16
Speaker 1: of assumed to unfold the way weather does. You didn't
4:18
Speaker 1: plan it. You dealt with it when it got there.
4:21
Speaker 1: I prepared for futures the way I prepared for bad weather.
4:23
Speaker 1: by ignoring them until they were already happening, which honestly
4:26
Speaker 1: explained a lot about how I showed up at 22
4:28
Speaker 1: with one bag and a vague plan when I moved
4:30
Speaker 1: to the city. Can we see this? Yeah. Okay. So
4:35
Speaker 1: there had been smaller moments before the balcony that I
4:37
Speaker 1: had been, let's say, aggressively not registering. A friend's dinner
4:40
Speaker 1: where someone asked about our plans and I laughed a
4:42
Speaker 1: little too fast and redirected the whole conversation towards someone
4:44
Speaker 1: else's news. My sister saying, and I want you to
4:47
Speaker 1: know my sister has never once not told me exactly
4:49
Speaker 1: what she thinks. She said, you go weird when someone
4:52
Speaker 1: brings up next year. Has anyone ever told you that?
4:55
Speaker 1: I should have written that down immediately. I should have
4:57
Speaker 1: put it on a sticky note. I did not. And
4:59
Speaker 1: my partner had left a note on the coffee maker
5:01
Speaker 1: one morning that said, someday I want a kitchen with
5:03
Speaker 1: a window. And I thought, that's sweet. And then very
5:06
Speaker 1: carefully did not think about it again. The future blocker
5:08
Speaker 1: is quiet. It's efficient. It's easy to miss because it
5:11
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like avoidance, right? It feels like maturity. It
5:15
Speaker 1: feels like you're just keeping things grounded. My body had
5:18
Speaker 1: a signature for it though. A slight leveling out of
5:21
Speaker 1: feeling like, a dimmer switch being turned almost imperceptibly down.
5:25
Speaker 1: Not off, just less bright. And I'd gotten so used
5:28
Speaker 1: to that particular dimming that I didn't clock it as
5:29
Speaker 1: a pattern. I clocked it as being a calm person.
5:32
Speaker 1: You have a version of this too, right? He mentions
5:34
Speaker 1: something about moving in or you're at your sister's engagement
5:37
Speaker 1: party and someone turns to you and goes, you two
5:39
Speaker 1: must be next. And you smile exactly the right amount
5:41
Speaker 1: and say, we'll see and mean absolutely nothing by it.
5:44
Speaker 1: You're not lying. You're just not there. Later, you describe
5:46
Speaker 1: it as keeping things light. He might describe it differently,
5:49
Speaker 1: but he probably doesn't say so yet. Okay, we're getting there. Now,
5:54
Speaker 1: my best friend, the blunt one, the one who delivers
5:56
Speaker 1: hard truths and immediately orders dessert, she told me once,
5:59
Speaker 1: you talk about him like he's definitely leaving, even when
6:01
Speaker 1: you're talking about something totally unrelated. She was right. She
6:05
Speaker 1: is always insufferably right, and I mean that with genuine
6:08
Speaker 1: affection and also a lot of resentment. It's like you're
6:11
Speaker 1: already in the aftermath, she said. She said it the
6:13
Speaker 1: way someone delivers a verdict and then signals the waiter.
6:15
Speaker 1: Completely unbothered. No follow-up. Just dropped it and moved on.
6:19
Speaker 1: And I filed it away. The way I filed away
6:21
Speaker 1: everything that pointed at the pattern. Somewhere I could find
6:23
Speaker 1: it later if I ever decided to look. So, we
6:27
Speaker 1: are at the end of Act 1. And I want
6:29
Speaker 1: to ask you to stay with me, right? Because next
6:31
Speaker 1: up is the night my body said no so loudly
6:33
Speaker 1: I couldn't explain it away. And what my partner said
6:35
Speaker 1: afterward that I genuinely was not prepared to hear. It's
6:38
Speaker 1: the part where the story stops being about a bird
6:40
Speaker 1: on a railing. And starts being about something that goes
6:43
Speaker 1: a lot deeper. That's what we're getting into next. Okay.
6:47
Speaker 1: Sunday evening. My mom had called earlier. the usual long
6:50
Speaker 1: Sunday call, the kind where she asks how things are
6:53
Speaker 1: going and I say, fine, great, good. In that particular order,
6:55
Speaker 1: that means I am absolutely not telling you anything real.
6:58
Speaker 1: We hung up and partner had made dinner and put
7:00
Speaker 1: on something to watch and was asleep within 10 minutes,
7:02
Speaker 1: which is so consistent. I've started just watching whatever I
7:04
Speaker 1: want from the beginning because those 10 minutes of together
7:07
Speaker 1: viewing are basically decorative at this point. I'm sitting there
7:10
Speaker 1: on the couch, dog at my feet, watching a couple
7:12
Speaker 1: on one of those reality shows where someone has to
7:14
Speaker 1: stand in front of something that's almost an altar and
7:16
Speaker 1: say something true. And the woman on screen starts crying
7:19
Speaker 1: before she even opens her mouth. And my inner voice says,
7:21
Speaker 1: I would never do that. Not, I hope I never
7:24
Speaker 1: have to. Not, that looks terrifying. I would never. Like
7:28
Speaker 1: it was a point of pride, right? And my body
7:30
Speaker 1: went completely still. Not the smooth blank of the future blocker.
7:33
Speaker 1: Something more like recognition. A shiver that starts in the
7:36
Speaker 1: sternum and just sits there. I did not touch the
7:38
Speaker 1: iced coffee on the side table for a long time.
7:41
Speaker 1: The dog put her head in my lap and I
7:42
Speaker 1: stared at the ceiling and I thought, what exactly is
7:45
Speaker 1: it that you think would happen if you said a
7:46
Speaker 1: true thing out loud? And I did not have an
7:48
Speaker 1: answer that I liked. Partner woke up halfway through the credits,
7:52
Speaker 1: also consistent, and said, did anything happen meeting in the show?
7:56
Speaker 1: And I said, someone was honest and it got complicated,
7:58
Speaker 1: which was about the show and completely not about the show.
8:01
Speaker 1: Partner looked at me for a second with that particular
8:03
Speaker 1: calm look and said, do you want to talk? And
8:05
Speaker 1: I said, not yet. And partner said, okay, whenever. That
8:09
Speaker 1: was it. That was the whole exchange. Four words. Okay, whenever.
8:12
Speaker 1: Later that night, I opened my journal for the first
8:14
Speaker 1: time in weeks and wrote nothing structured, just the word
8:17
Speaker 1: whenever over and over, because it was the most frightening
8:19
Speaker 1: word anyone had ever said to me and I could
8:21
Speaker 1: not explain why. Make sense? I couldn't explain it then.
8:24
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try now. The dog sensed my emotional spiral
8:28
Speaker 1: and responded by stealing a sock from under the couch.
8:30
Speaker 1: Perfect timing. Genuinely her best work. I almost laughed and
8:34
Speaker 1: then didn't, which is its own kind of data. Now
8:37
Speaker 1: here's what I told myself in the days after that.
8:39
Speaker 1: I told myself I was being careful... not avoidant. I
8:41
Speaker 1: told myself I'd been in hard relationships, and I'd done
8:44
Speaker 1: the work, and this was me being measured, not closed.
8:46
Speaker 1: I told myself the future would come when it came.
8:49
Speaker 1: I had three years of weekly therapy and a shelf
8:51
Speaker 1: full of books that had given me all the right words,
8:53
Speaker 1: and I was using those words to build a very comfortable,
8:55
Speaker 1: well-lit wall. Right? The blunt fact is this. Knowing the
8:58
Speaker 1: theory and running the pattern are not opposites. They can
9:01
Speaker 1: happen in exactly the same body at exactly the same time.
9:04
Speaker 1: I had genuinely highlighted passages in books about avoidance while
9:07
Speaker 1: quietly planning how not to have the conversation. I'm not
9:10
Speaker 1: proud of that, I'm also like deeply unsurprised. And this
9:14
Speaker 1: is when my best friend came back into the story.
9:16
Speaker 1: I told her what had happened, the balcony, the word whenever,
9:19
Speaker 1: the journal. She listened, which she does not always do first.
9:23
Speaker 1: And then she said, you know, the part that keeps
9:24
Speaker 1: doing this isn't you, right? It's the part that's still
9:27
Speaker 1: waiting to get left. And that landed somewhere specific because
9:30
Speaker 1: I had spent years thinking of the avoidance as a choice,
9:33
Speaker 1: as self-protection with good reasons, as something I had elected
9:36
Speaker 1: to do with full awareness. The idea that it was
9:38
Speaker 1: a part of me doing a job I thought was
9:39
Speaker 1: essential and that it was working hard on my behalf
9:41
Speaker 1: with outdated information, that was different. That changed the texture
9:44
Speaker 1: of the whole thing, right? Because here's the thing. The
9:48
Speaker 1: future blocker is not a character flaw. It's not you
9:51
Speaker 1: being difficult. It's not you not loving him. It's not
9:54
Speaker 1: that you don't want a future. It's that a part
9:55
Speaker 1: of you thinks wanting one will cost you everything. And
9:57
Speaker 1: that part learned that lesson young from someone who is
10:00
Speaker 1: not your partner and doesn't know your partner and is
10:02
Speaker 1: working from very old information my best friend said it
10:05
Speaker 1: and i wrote it down and i read it back
10:06
Speaker 1: to myself three times and it still took weeks to
10:09
Speaker 1: actually feel true instead of just sounding true you know
10:12
Speaker 1: the difference yeah picture this he says i want to
10:15
Speaker 1: be with you long term And you feel something warm
10:17
Speaker 1: for exactly one second, something real, something that reaches toward him.
10:21
Speaker 1: And then the blocker arrives and you say, let's not
10:23
Speaker 1: get ahead of ourselves with a smile that ends the conversation.
10:26
Speaker 1: He thinks you're keeping things realistic. You think you're keeping
10:29
Speaker 1: things realistic. Neither of you is actually in the room anymore.
10:32
Speaker 1: He probably says, sure, you both move on. And the
10:35
Speaker 1: thing that almost happened doesn't happen. And the part that
10:37
Speaker 1: prevented it feels like it did its job. Sound familiar? Yeah,
10:41
Speaker 1: I know. So the decision. I want to tell you
10:44
Speaker 1: how the decision happened. because I think you might be
10:46
Speaker 1: waiting for a version of it that isn't coming. I
10:48
Speaker 1: was expecting a dramatic night. I thought there would be
10:51
Speaker 1: this moment where I finally felt ready, where some internal
10:53
Speaker 1: bell rang and I said the true thing and it
10:55
Speaker 1: felt like a movie scene. That is not what happened, right?
10:58
Speaker 1: What happened is I went out on the balcony one
11:00
Speaker 1: morning with my coffee, genuinely warm for once, and I
11:02
Speaker 1: looked at the plants I keep almost killing, like these
11:04
Speaker 1: herbs that are definitely not thriving. And I thought, I
11:07
Speaker 1: water these even though they might die anyway. I show
11:09
Speaker 1: up for them even without a guarantee. And I thought,
11:12
Speaker 1: I could do that once, just once. Say one true
11:15
Speaker 1: thing without asking for a receipt first. So that evening
11:18
Speaker 1: I found my partner in the kitchen mid-dinner prep. Absolutely
11:21
Speaker 1: not a romantic moment. There was something on the stove
11:23
Speaker 1: that smelled like garlic and ambition. And I said, I've
11:25
Speaker 1: been going quiet every time the future comes up. And
11:27
Speaker 1: I think it's because I'm scared, not because I don't
11:29
Speaker 1: want it. That was the whole sentence. Partner turned around
11:31
Speaker 1: and said, I know I've been waiting. Not finally. Not
11:34
Speaker 1: I told you so. Just I know I've been waiting.
11:37
Speaker 1: I had to leave the kitchen for a second because
11:39
Speaker 1: I hit somewhere I was not prepared for. Like I
11:41
Speaker 1: genuinely needed a moment by the sink to recollect myself.
11:44
Speaker 1: The dog followed me in and looked very concerned, which
11:46
Speaker 1: she expresses by sitting on my foot. Okay? The decision
11:49
Speaker 1: wasn't about the future. It was about whether I was
11:51
Speaker 1: going to let the future blocker run the relationship by herself,
11:54
Speaker 1: with no input from me, forever. That is a different
11:57
Speaker 1: question than whether I want a future. The part that
11:59
Speaker 1: protects you from loss doesn't know the difference between a
12:01
Speaker 1: threat and a gift. It uses the same shutter for both.
12:04
Speaker 1: It's working from a file that was written during a
12:05
Speaker 1: different relationship, in a different apartment, with a different person,
12:09
Speaker 1: and it has never been updated because you have never
12:11
Speaker 1: given it new information. Because giving it new information meant
12:14
Speaker 1: saying the true thing out loud, and that's exactly what
12:16
Speaker 1: it was designed to prevent. You see how that works? Yeah.
12:20
Speaker 1: It's a very tight loop. Here's what I had to
12:23
Speaker 1: let go of, and I want to be honest about
12:24
Speaker 1: how much this cost me. The version of me who
12:26
Speaker 1: didn't need anything from anyone. Who kept it light. Who
12:29
Speaker 1: was in a relationship and also mysteriously fine if it
12:31
Speaker 1: ended tomorrow. That version felt powerful. She had been necessary
12:35
Speaker 1: at 26 when I was on the floor of my
12:36
Speaker 1: studio going completely blank, and she had kept me functional
12:39
Speaker 1: through three years of therapy and two years of being
12:41
Speaker 1: single and figuring it out. She was good at her job,
12:43
Speaker 1: but she was still running things at 32 with 26 rules,
12:46
Speaker 1: and the situation had genuinely changed. She just hadn't looked
12:49
Speaker 1: up to notice. Right? The ego death of this pattern
12:52
Speaker 1: is that the part you're most proud of might be
12:54
Speaker 1: the part that's costing you the most. I grieved her
12:57
Speaker 1: a little, the close one. I'm not going to pretend
12:59
Speaker 1: I didn't. She ran a very tight operation and absolutely
13:02
Speaker 1: refused to take feedback. Classic. But I let her take
13:05
Speaker 1: a step back. I didn't fire her. She didn't need
13:08
Speaker 1: to be fired. She needed a new assignment. And that's
13:11
Speaker 1: what we're getting into next because we have now arrived
13:13
Speaker 1: at the second teaser and I want to set up
13:15
Speaker 1: what comes after it properly. What comes next is where
13:18
Speaker 1: this story stops being just my story and starts being
13:21
Speaker 1: the part I think you came here for. Because what
13:23
Speaker 1: I've told you so far is what happened. What comes
13:25
Speaker 1: next is what it actually shows. What the Protector is
13:27
Speaker 1: doing and why future talk hits differently than other kinds
13:30
Speaker 1: of hard conversations. And the one question I want you
13:32
Speaker 1: to sit with after this episode ends. The real one.
13:35
Speaker 1: The one that might take a few days to answer.
13:37
Speaker 1: That's where we're going. Okay. Okay. So here's where we
13:41
Speaker 1: actually are. The protector did her job for years, and
13:43
Speaker 1: I finally learned her name. Now what? Because knowing the
13:48
Speaker 1: name of the thing is not the same as knowing
13:50
Speaker 1: what to do when it shows up in your kitchen
13:51
Speaker 1: on a Tuesday, right? That's the part nobody tells you.
13:55
Speaker 1: The insight is not the arrival. The insight is just
13:57
Speaker 1: the beginning of the work. And the work is slower
13:59
Speaker 1: and quieter and more ordinary than any book made it sound.
14:02
Speaker 1: So let me tell you what this story actually shows,
14:04
Speaker 1: because I think you came here for this part. Parts
14:07
Speaker 1: work is the idea that we're not one single unified
14:10
Speaker 1: self making clean logical choices. We're made of inner parts
14:13
Speaker 1: that develop jobs early in life to keep us from pain.
14:15
Speaker 1: Make sense? Those parts are not broken. They're not pathological.
14:19
Speaker 1: They're loyal workers doing jobs they were hired for a
14:21
Speaker 1: long time ago, and they have not received a single
14:23
Speaker 1: performance review since. The future blocker is one of those parts.
14:27
Speaker 1: Her job specifically is to prevent the loss that came
14:29
Speaker 1: from reaching and not being caught. She doesn't update her file.
14:32
Speaker 1: She runs the same response to a Safecom partner who
14:34
Speaker 1: leaves sticky notes about kitchen windows as she did to
14:36
Speaker 1: whoever taught her that reaching was dangerous. She's not lying
14:39
Speaker 1: to you. She's just working from the wrong file. And
14:43
Speaker 1: here's what that means for you. The panic, or in
14:45
Speaker 1: my case, that smooth, blank nothing that felt almost like peace,
14:48
Speaker 1: isn't about the future. It's about what wanting something from
14:51
Speaker 1: someone once cost you. Your protector took notes on that experience.
14:55
Speaker 1: She noted the exact moment when naming what you wanted
14:57
Speaker 1: made you visible, and visibility came with a price. Maybe
15:00
Speaker 1: your dad was kind but hard to hold on to,
15:02
Speaker 1: always present in the house and somehow somewhere else in
15:04
Speaker 1: the conversation. Maybe the big love of your 20s left
15:06
Speaker 1: in a way that rewrote the math on hope. Maybe
15:09
Speaker 1: you grew up watching someone need and need and never
15:11
Speaker 1: actually receive, and you decided quietly that needing was the
15:14
Speaker 1: embarrassing part. Right? The protector took all of that in.
15:17
Speaker 1: And now she runs the same shutter for your current partner,
15:20
Speaker 1: who did not write those rules and doesn't even know
15:21
Speaker 1: they exist. It's not that you don't want a future.
15:25
Speaker 1: It's that a part of you thinks wanting one will
15:27
Speaker 1: cost you everything. And that part needs to hear something
15:29
Speaker 1: from you. Not a confrontation. Not a negotiation. Just, I
15:33
Speaker 1: hear you. You don't have to run this one. I
15:35
Speaker 1: have information you don't have. That's a conversation. It's short
15:38
Speaker 1: and it happens inside you before any of the outside
15:40
Speaker 1: conversations can actually land. Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so.
15:46
Speaker 1: Now I want to paint you a picture of how
15:48
Speaker 1: invisible this is in real time because this is the
15:50
Speaker 1: part that gets me. You've been in a relationship with
15:52
Speaker 1: a genuinely good person and you have described your future
15:54
Speaker 1: together in the passive voice for months. Things will figure
15:57
Speaker 1: themselves out. We'll see how it goes. Whatever happens. And
16:00
Speaker 1: you mean every word of it. It genuinely doesn't feel
16:02
Speaker 1: like avoidance. It feels like wisdom. It feels like you've
16:05
Speaker 1: done enough therapy to not be precious about outcomes. That's
16:08
Speaker 1: how good the protector is at her job. She has
16:10
Speaker 1: learned to sound like your healthiest self so you don't
16:12
Speaker 1: question her. I am not okay about how effective that is.
16:15
Speaker 1: Genuinely the audacity of a protector part who has read
16:17
Speaker 1: your therapy notes and incorporated them. I will die on
16:20
Speaker 1: this hill. That's the most advanced level of the pattern.
16:24
Speaker 1: And if your body shutdown response feels constant or uncontrollable
16:28
Speaker 1: or tied to something bigger than one relationship pattern... Please
16:31
Speaker 1: know that a therapist trained in parts work can help
16:33
Speaker 1: you work with this safely. That's worth saying once, and
16:35
Speaker 1: I mean it. What I'm doing differently now, and I
16:39
Speaker 1: want to be precise about this because vague advice is
16:41
Speaker 1: not actually advice. I still go a little quiet sometimes
16:44
Speaker 1: when a big future question lands. The protector doesn't just
16:46
Speaker 1: retire because I named her. Right? But the difference is
16:49
Speaker 1: I know whose voice that is. It's not mine. It's hers.
16:52
Speaker 1: Working from old data with total dedication. What I'm doing
16:55
Speaker 1: differently is catching the shutter before it closes all the
16:57
Speaker 1: way and saying something small. Not the whole speech. Not
17:00
Speaker 1: the five-year plan. One sentence. I want that too. Or
17:04
Speaker 1: that scares me a little, but I like the idea.
17:06
Speaker 1: Or even just can we come back to that tonight?
17:08
Speaker 1: The future blocker doesn't need to be dismantled. She needs
17:11
Speaker 1: a new assignment. Instead of blocking the door, she can
17:13
Speaker 1: stand next to me while I walk through it. That's
17:15
Speaker 1: different work, but it's available to her. You know? Here's
17:19
Speaker 1: the dare, and it's small on purpose. The next time
17:22
Speaker 1: your body goes quiet during a future conversation, notice it.
17:25
Speaker 1: Don't explain it away. Don't perform engagement you don't feel.
17:28
Speaker 1: Just notice and then say one small true sentence before
17:30
Speaker 1: you change the subject. Not a declaration, not a promise,
17:34
Speaker 1: just the next true thing. That's the whole instruction. I
17:37
Speaker 1: told my partner this new plan and partner nodded very
17:39
Speaker 1: seriously and then made me a coffee and left a
17:41
Speaker 1: sticky note on the counter that said, future, whenever you're ready.
17:44
Speaker 1: I cried a little. I'm blaming the dog. She was
17:47
Speaker 1: right there and she looked guilty about the sock situation anyway,
17:50
Speaker 1: so it worked out for everyone. Can we see this?
17:54
Speaker 1: Now I want to ask you something and I need
17:55
Speaker 1: you to actually sit with it. Not answer fast and
17:58
Speaker 1: move on. Who taught you that naming what you want
18:00
Speaker 1: is dangerous? Not who hurt you, though that matters too.
18:03
Speaker 1: Who specifically, maybe completely without meaning to, showed you that
18:06
Speaker 1: reaching too far meant landing alone? Your dad who was
18:08
Speaker 1: lovely and audible and somehow not quite in the room
18:10
Speaker 1: with you. A first love who got cold the exact
18:13
Speaker 1: moment you needed something real. A home where asking for
18:15
Speaker 1: things out loud felt like bad manners, like you were
18:17
Speaker 1: being too much, too visible, too loud about your own needs.
18:21
Speaker 1: The future blocker did not appear randomly. She answered something real.
18:24
Speaker 1: That is worth knowing, not to excuse the pattern, not
18:26
Speaker 1: to let the pattern off the hook, but to understand
18:28
Speaker 1: whose job it originally was, and to notice that it
18:31
Speaker 1: is genuinely not yours anymore. Right? The situation has changed.
18:35
Speaker 1: The job description no longer fits. And you are allowed
18:38
Speaker 1: to reassign. Okay, picture this. Your sister is in the
18:42
Speaker 1: middle of planning her wedding, which if your sister just
18:44
Speaker 1: got engaged, you know is currently all-consuming and wonderful and
18:47
Speaker 1: slightly terrifying to be adjacent to. And someone at a
18:50
Speaker 1: family dinner turns to you and says, you must be
18:52
Speaker 1: excited for your own someday. And you smile exactly the
18:55
Speaker 1: right amount and say, I'm just focused on the present.
18:57
Speaker 1: And everyone around the table thinks you sound healthy and
18:59
Speaker 1: grounded and evolved. And you are, partly. But underneath that smile,
19:03
Speaker 1: the future blocker just did her full routine and nobody
19:05
Speaker 1: in that room saw it happen, including you. That's not peace.
19:08
Speaker 1: That's a very quiet kind of absence. You know? I
19:13
Speaker 1: don't have a clean ending to the story. I want
19:14
Speaker 1: to say that up front because I think you deserve
19:16
Speaker 1: that honesty. My partner and I have had some of
19:18
Speaker 1: the future conversations now. They're not easy. I don't always
19:21
Speaker 1: stay fully in them. There are moments when I'm present
19:23
Speaker 1: and moments when I'm technically sitting across from someone I
19:25
Speaker 1: love and I've already gone somewhere else inside. The difference
19:28
Speaker 1: between now and a year ago is that I know
19:30
Speaker 1: when I've left and I come back, right? That is
19:32
Speaker 1: not the same as being healed, but it is a
19:34
Speaker 1: different life than the one where the future blocker ran
19:36
Speaker 1: everything unopposed and called herself wisdom and I just nodded
19:39
Speaker 1: along like she was my most mature self. I'm still
19:42
Speaker 1: learning the difference between a real danger and an old
19:44
Speaker 1: wound dressed up as instinct. Most days I can't tell immediately,
19:47
Speaker 1: but I'm asking the question now, and that is genuinely
19:49
Speaker 1: not nothing. Last week, ordinary Tuesday evening, partner asleep on
19:54
Speaker 1: the couch within 10 minutes, right on schedule, dog at
19:56
Speaker 1: my feet with a sock that is absolutely not hers,
19:59
Speaker 1: looking completely unbothered about it. Plants on the balcony still
20:02
Speaker 1: technically alive, which at this point I consider a mutual achievement,
20:06
Speaker 1: and I sat there and I thought about the next year,
20:08
Speaker 1: what I actually wanted it to look like, what I
20:10
Speaker 1: was actually hoping for. And I let myself think about it.
20:13
Speaker 1: I didn't turn the lights down. I didn't redirect to
20:16
Speaker 1: something easier. I just sat with it. It was small.
20:19
Speaker 1: It was quiet. It wasn't a breakthrough with music, but
20:22
Speaker 1: it was something and I felt it and I didn't
20:24
Speaker 1: leave the room. That's where I am. Baby, if you
20:29
Speaker 1: are in a relationship with someone good and you keep
20:30
Speaker 1: going quiet when the future comes up, I want you
20:32
Speaker 1: to hear this before you close this episode. The future
20:35
Speaker 1: blocker is not your enemy. She's not proof that something
20:37
Speaker 1: is wrong with you or that you don't love him
20:39
Speaker 1: enough or that you're fundamentally too damaged to want things.
20:42
Speaker 1: She's just working a shift that ended a long time ago.
20:44
Speaker 1: It's not that you don't want a future. It's that
20:46
Speaker 1: a part of you thinks wanting one will cost you everything.
20:48
Speaker 1: And the question, the one I want you to sit
20:50
Speaker 1: with after this is whether you're going to let that
20:52
Speaker 1: part answer for you forever or whether you're going to
20:54
Speaker 1: say one small true thing and find out what actually happens.
20:57
Speaker 1: When the future blocker speaks up next, can you thank
20:59
Speaker 1: her and then say one true thing out loud anyway?
21:02
Speaker 1: That's the question. Take it with you. Send this episode
21:05
Speaker 1: to the person who goes quiet in exactly this way.
21:07
Speaker 1: The one who sounds fine and means nothing by it.
21:09
Speaker 1: They'll hear themselves in it. I promise. Take care of yourself.
21:13
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you soon. This show is made by Obomedia.