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41 | Learning to Love What's Missing · The Messy Middle Podcast

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Messy Middle, the podcast for women navigating the raw, confusing, lonely aftermath of narcissistic abuse and emotional control.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Erica Leon, trauma-informed abuse recovery coach, mom of five, and creator of the six keys to unfuck withable.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you're picking up the pieces, questioning everything, and trying to remember who the fuck you were before you were so carefully erased, you're in the right place.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hello there.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the messy middle.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is your host, Erica Leon, and it's lovely to have you back with me.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to talk about learning to love what's missing.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: How to turn the absence of crisis into freedom you can actually feel.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that sound lovely?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into that.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Think about something being missing from your life.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And for once, I don't mean something you need to go and fucking find, like a project, because you're not complete yet in some way.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean something that used to be there all the time and now it isn't.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I started thinking about this because I've noticed it in myself at different points in my life, obviously, and I see versions of it with clients every day too.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's when you finally get some peace, you get actual peace.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this weird period where instead of your whole body immediately going, Oh, that's lovely, it doesn't.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Something feels slightly off.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: It makes you fidgety, it makes you nervous, it's prickly, and you're thinking, What is happening?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Almost like something is about to happen.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're dreading something, or the shoe's gonna drop, and there's almost this vacancy, that feeling where your shoulders are up to your ears, as I'm sure you all know very well.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you can't even tell what you're waiting for.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually hard to dig into why do I feel like this?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing's going on.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had periods like this myself.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a mom of five boys, as you know.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to me for a while or you know me, so let's be very clear that prolonged periods where absolutely fuck all is happening for me are not exactly a major feature in my life.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: If only it's one of the things I fantasize about that is silence.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, but then I'll probably miss it when it's gone.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I've had enough of them briefly to recognize the feeling.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, particularly after you've been living in proximity to somebody controlling, critical, judgmental, volatile, somebody whose moods affect the whole bloody house.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you know that well too.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: You get used to spikes.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Your body knows the spike.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: The text comes in, the atmosphere changes, there's a tone in somebody's voice, and you know immediately that we're off, right?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can feel your body mobilizing before you've even consciously worked out what's happening or what's about to happen.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when you've lived like that for so long, it becomes part of your texture of life.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day it's just gone.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes a while for all of that chaos to settle down for you to feel this weird feeling in the space and actually be able to dedicate time to noticing it and then digging into it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're at this phase now, this is what I'm gonna help you with.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not yet, then maybe this can be inspiration for you because at some point it will happen.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what I now know, and I want this to itch in your brain because I wish I had had that.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as you know, all of these episodes are just things that I have noticed in my own life and clients have noticed, and I thought this is worth sharing.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if it isn't applicable to you, obviously, go to the next one.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the absence-I really want you to hear this, so etch it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're gonna etch it.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I repeat, the absence of something unhealthy doesn't always immediately feel like the presence of something healthy.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think people out in the general world, you know, all of us, we have this idea that it's black and white.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not actively being abused anymore, if you're not in recovery from abuse, the absence of the person and the proximity to your abuser or the bad relationship or whatever it is you're escaping, we kind of look at it in a black and white way.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, it's not there anymore.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: So if I don't have that, why do I still feel weird?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's very much a gray area subject.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people categorize things, they like to do that, but this is the truth.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: The absence of something unhealthy does not always immediately feel like the presence of something healthy.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it just feels like an absence, like something's missing, something that you can't work out, and that is quite stressful for people who've been in any kind of toxic or controlling or overtly critical relationship.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you've had that in your background, it feels very uncomfortable to have an absence that you don't really understand.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And technically, something is missing, right?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank fuck.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: The criticism is missing, the monitoring is missing, that feeling of needing to account for yourself isn't taking up the same kind of space anymore.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: But your body doesn't necessarily slap a label on the experience and go, congratulations, this autonomy.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very conscious process that you would have to be reminding yourself of.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Your body just might notice that the familiar thing didn't happen.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's fascinating because we spend a lot of time in healing work learning to recognize what happens when we're activated, right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: We all know now about being activated.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know people use the word triggers a little bit too much, I think, but you get what I mean.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: We know about triggers now.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about fight, flight, freeze, fawn, faint and fine.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: We learn to notice the knot in the stomach, the racing thoughts, the tight chest, whatever your particular body likes to do when it thinks something's gone sideways or is about to go sideways.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really useful.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I teach that stuff.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know this, if you know me.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think we need to get equally good at noticing, especially in this stage, the moment the not never arrives, right?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's important because the evening that you might have where your shoulders stay down, or the decision you make without having to prepare an argument for it, we've all been there.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: The 10-step argument, like you're preparing as though you're an attorney just to go home and tell your partner that you bought something that was over budget or whatever, because those moments they don't really announce themselves, right?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's no event.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And human beings are really good at noticing events.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're much less practiced at noticing non-events.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: You notice when somebody walks into a room and the atmosphere changes.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: But do you notice the whole Saturday afternoon where the atmosphere stayed exactly as lovely or neutral as it fucking was?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because you were busy having a Saturday and great, good for you.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, that is the goal.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, I don't want you wandering around your house every five minutes thinking, oh my god, nobody's criticized me for 23 minutes.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so healed.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: But there can be a period where I think it's really valuable to deliberately notice because your system has spent a really long time learning what danger feels like.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it would be excellent in this phase to spend some time teaching it what the absence of danger gives you.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And those two things are very different.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I want to give you something you can actually use, because I don't want this episode to amount to you should appreciate more peace.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you should appreciate your peace more.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Erica, Captain Obvious, groundbreaking, I'm sure.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I think there is a little process here.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've started thinking of it as recoding the absence.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been working with clients to that effect.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And all I mean by that is that when something unhealthy doesn't happen, instead of letting your brain file that moment under nothing happened, you give the absence a meaning.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll give you an example.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine you've spent years with somebody who comments on what you're wearing.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's subtle, maybe it isn't.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: But you come downstairs and there's like this look or a comment, you're wearing that.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: It could be like a critical parent, it could be a partner, whatever.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes maybe they even say it's supposed to be a joke.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever form it takes, over time you start anticipating the response.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you look at yourself before you leave the bedroom, and you're not only thinking, Do I like this?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there's another person in the mirror with you.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: What will they say?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Will they think it's too revealing?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Does this make me look fat?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is he gonna make some comment that ruins how I feel in it?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or she, and then that person is gone.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And one day you get dressed, you walk out of your bedroom, and absolutely nothing happens.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the moment I want.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's the moment I'm talking about because it's incredibly easy for that moment to disappear.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, nothing happened.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's nobody there, right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So just carry on.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But hang on a minute.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: What did you get because the comment didn't happen?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I want you to think about.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you got to stay feeling good in your clothes.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you got to leave the house without suddenly seeing your body through someone else's eyes.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you changed your outfit anyway because you actually fucking hated it, fine, but it was your decision.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're looking for.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: The absence of criticism, it gave you expression.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: It gave you choice.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you catch that moment, don't only understand it intellectually, let your body get some of that information too.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Scan it.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: What's different?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your stomach stayed soft instead of you sucking it in or bracing everything.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you didn't brace at all.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you walked out the door, realized 20 minutes later that you hadn't thought about your body once.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's information.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Your body needs experiences of safety, not merely an impressive understanding of the concept.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And all of this can be incredibly ordinary.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I love about it.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's understanding that there's a space because of what didn't happen, a space that's filled with possibilities, which we'll get into.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine you spend too long in Target or wherever you go, and you don't get a text saying, Where are you?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe once upon a time that absence would have felt strange, like something's bugging you, or you've forgotten something, or you left the stove on.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: That weird feeling.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And now I want you standing in the aisle with a completely unnecessary candle, thinking, Oh, autonomy.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Delicious.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Take your fucking time.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Smell another one.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: You make plans with a friend and nobody sulks about it.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's not nothing.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: You just experienced freedom from emotional punishment for having a life outside the relationship.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Heaven forbid you should show attention to anything or anyone else.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that's a bit of a mouthful, so you don't have to announce that over dinner that right now I'm experiencing freedom from emotional punishment for having a life outside the relationship.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: But your body can register.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: It can think to itself, I can go.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've been invited and I can go if I want.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Personally, I hate peopling, but whatever you do, you.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I think we sometimes move too quickly.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're so keen to get quote unquote better.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're so keen to build the new life that's like this outward demonstration to everybody that we are peeled, we're better now.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're so keen to build that.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're asking, what's next?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, with my job, I bloody love what's next.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying don't do what's next, but there is a whole stage, obviously, of my work with people that is about creation.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love getting into desire and possibly an all other delicious alchemy that happens once we're not spending every session trying to get through the fucking meat grinder.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm advocating for here is before we fill the space, can we have it?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Can you actually just experience the fact that the space belongs to you?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's being created by a series of your choices where you are reclaiming yourself.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because otherwise, I do think there's a temptation to immediately cram something into it.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Another project, another relationship, somebody else who needs saving.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or my personal favorite, a 12-step morning routine that begins at 4:37 a.m.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Just what you need, isn't it?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly you might have escaped one form of pressure and built yourself into another one that includes a fucking hydration tracker.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: But can we just have some room?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is something I have had to learn myself hard, I might add, and constantly.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you're used to a lot going on, and again, I remind you, five sons, work, life, the various spectacular plot twists that life has handed me, and I'm sure it has all of you.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: There can be a weird feeling when the intensity drops.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: My brain can interpret the absence of urgency as ooh shit, what have I forgotten?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody else out there?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is anyone raising their hand or nodding?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: There must be something is what my brain thinks.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Who needs something?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: What am I missing?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: What am I supposed to be doing?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the answer is nothing.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Which my sweet boys do actually say.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing massively important.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sit on the sofa.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it seems like there's an alarm.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you with kids, but the minute my ass touches the fucking seat, someone will say, But no, just me, fine.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: But nothing, nothing is wrong.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody needs rescuing.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't an emergency quietly developing somewhere because you sat down, although tell it to my kids, they really need that memo.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we can become much more than merely tolerant of that state.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I almost want you to get greedy for it, to crave it.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to become a connoisseur of the absence of bullshit in your life.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm laughing, but really learn the texture of your own piece.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: What does your house feel like when nobody's controlling the emotional weather inside it?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just I want you to drink it in, really delight in it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: What happens inside you when you realize you can change your mind and nobody turns it into a huge fucking argument or a character flaw or some way to berate you?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's delicious, isn't it?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: How does it feel to have a thought all the way to the end without somebody interrupting it or dismissing it or telling you why it's wrong already?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's a huge one.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Those are riches.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Revel in them.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I really mean that.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let yourself luxuriate in the things you were denied for so long.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to earn the right to enjoy their absence by doing something impressive with the freedom.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Lie on the fucking sofa for all I care.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Take up all of it, the whole thing.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes we talk about safety as though it's this very solemn therapeutic state.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then, like, safety can be pleasurable.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's important.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system isn't just there to avoid danger.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to feel good in your body.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to experience ease.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to discover that peace isn't this bland porridge version of being alive.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: There can be so much pleasure in it once you learn how to perceive what's actually there.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because what initially felt like empty space is so far from empty, it's not empty at all.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's yours.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's your possibility to do with whatever you wish, to construct whatever fantasies you wish.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Things you want to try, things you want to do.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's lovely, isn't it?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is where another transition starts happening, also, because at first you might be noticing freedom through contrast, like we're talking about here.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nobody criticized me.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have to explain that.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: The old thing is still the reference point, and that's completely fine.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a transition between noticing what's missing and alchemizing what's missing.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it is how you learn to do this, but eventually something shifts.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: You stop thinking I can do this because no one's stopping me, and it becomes I chose this.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very different kind of freedom.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: The person who used to restrict you isn't even required for the sentence anymore.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's nowhere in your peripheral vision, even, mentally speaking.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And now we get into that territory that I really love because you've got all this capacity.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Women who've lived through prolonged crisis often have a fucking astonishing amount of capacity.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can run a household while managing someone else's moods, you can look after kids, you can work, anticipate problems, and somehow remember that one of your gazillion children needs a red t-shirt for school on Thursday.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're basically running NATO over there.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And whilst it doesn't get any recognition or the recognition that it should, I hope you know that's what you're doing.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think all the capacity simply disappears when life gets quieter, and nor should it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: I see so many incredible women balancing everything, doing this amazing job, and doing it with an abusive partner effectively shackling them down.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're away from them.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: That proximity obviously takes a while to get used to, that lack of proximity, and it brings you this space, and here we are.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do with the space?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: How do you reclaim it and turn it into something amazing that serves you?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a fantastic and interesting phase.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because now you get to decide what it's for.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting to me.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because survival does teach you to respond, and obviously, something happens, you deal with it.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing happens, you deal with that.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Life sets that agenda.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when the crisis finally stops setting the agenda, there's this strange moment of uh okay, what now?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where I think our tendency is to mistake urgency for purpose.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: If there's always a problem, you always know what to do next.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: A quiet life asks something totally different from you, doesn't it?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: It asks you to generate some of your own momentum based on what you like or what you feel drawn to.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us have got really unfamiliar with that through not being able to do it for so long.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you don't want this.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't want to for a while generate your momentum.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: I fully support this.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: You've been through hell and you want to spend six months pottering around your house and reading books and developing really strong opinions about throw pillows and loving on your pets and your plants.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing, fantastic.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need you to monetize your freedom or to become an entrepreneur because you survived something.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: For fuck's sake, can a woman leave a terrible relationship without immediately launching a personal brand?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, have the quiet.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: But at some point you may notice something beginning to bubble up, and that thing is not urgency, it's desire.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a really different fuel.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of my favorite transitions.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I love watching all my clients do it.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I loved when I was in it, although I didn't know until I look back on it somewhat, you might be the same.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And early on, so much of my work with people is responsive.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Something happened.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: How do we deal with it?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get her body settled enough so she can think and have a little space?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: What's hers?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's his?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: What's conditioning?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's an old wound?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then I notice that the questions change somewhat.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: We start talking about something that she wants.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: There might be a business idea she's had for years.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe she wants to travel.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe she wants to date or have fabulous sex that she wasn't really used to.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oof, I love that one.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or absolutely not date anybody because she has discovered that having the whole bed to herself is magnificent.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And isn't it?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, I love it.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're creating.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's something really different.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I use a lot of the other work I love so much the visualization, neurolinguistics, light hypnosis, and the energy stuff.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because We're not only helping the nervous system come down from something anymore, we're helping it to expand into something.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: It can really be whatever shape you want.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can build your life to where you fit and you feel it accordingly.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is a completely different experience.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Excitement can create a sensation in the body too.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: So can being visible.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Success, love, possibility.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when you've spent years using your intuition to detect what might go wrong, it's almost surreal to start asking, what might go right?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, I fucking love that question.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is where the alchemy does happen.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Alchemy isn't pretending the crisis was a gift.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really not interested.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: I become less and less interested every frickin day in putting glitter on suffering.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know people like to wrap things up in little bows and make you feel better when you're sad and say stuff like, you know, none of this could have happened if you hadn't gone through that horrific thing.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: I that pisses me off now, but anyway, that's a side note.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's taking what exists now, the capacity you built, the self-trust, all this newly available space, and deciding what you want to make with it.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Energy that used to go into anticipating someone else's reactions can become creative energy.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to force that transition, it just starts happening because there's room.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a phrase I keep coming back to with this for years, urgency pushed you.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, desire will pull you.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, isn't that lovely?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where I want us going.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the first part matters because if you don't learn to recognize the absence as something good, you can spend your time trying to recreate the sensation of urgency simply because urgency feels like a something.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see what I mean?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's really important if you don't do this part that your entire existence will just revolve around you unconsciously, recreating this urgency because that feels like the something that should be there.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I really want to be careful here.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you're addicted to chaos, that pisses me off as well.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: That phrase gets thrown around far too casually for me.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's particularly helpful to tell a woman who spent years adapting to someone else's volatility that now she's got some bloody addiction to it.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Go fuck yourselves.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think, of course, your body learned a pattern because that's what bodies do.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's programmed for your survival.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very black and white about that.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it just pisses me off when people say that.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: But now it can learn another one, another pattern.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: We can teach it.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: This quiet means something.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is what it feels like when no one is fucking with me.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is what my shoulders do when I don't have to constantly brace.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is how my brain works when half of it isn't monitoring another adult.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is what becomes available when I'm allowed to be fully here.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: See where I'm going with that?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually you don't need to translate it anymore.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: You just simply live there.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's beautiful.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe one day you're sitting in your house and nothing particularly interesting is happening.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Kids are doing whatever they're doing if you have kids.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're making tea or coffee.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's some washing you should probably deal with.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And your body isn't waiting.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's no invisible clock ticking down to someone coming home.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: We've all been there.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: No atmosphere you need to monitor.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're just there.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to recognize the enormous privilege of that ordinary moment.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not privilege in the social media kind of scolding sense.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean this is precious, is what I mean.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is a state human beings should be entitled to far more often than many of us are afforded.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: To exist without being constantly judged, to have room inside your own mind, to feel your body at rest in your own home, your safe space.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you fought your way back to that, please don't dismiss it as nothing.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing happened?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe nothing happening is exactly what your body has been asking for.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe once you've learned to feel everything contained inside that nothing, you get to ask, What would I like to happen now?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where things get really interesting.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And before you go, I want you to try recoding the absence this week for yourself.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And don't turn it into another fucking self-improvement project, please.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just catch one non-event.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Something that used to happen that didn't happen now.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you made a decision that nobody questioned, or you spent an afternoon exactly how you wanted, or your phone lit up and your body stayed completely calm because you already knew it wasn't that person anymore.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Catch one.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then ask, what did I get because that didn't happen?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's the important part.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Give the absence a positive name.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe what you got was autonomy.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was a feeling of expression.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you simply got to stay peaceful for the rest of the afternoon and not have intrusive thoughts.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, take a few seconds and let yourself actually experience it.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Feel the feeling of that flooding over your body, this safety and peace, and have actual real gratitude for what is missing and what that creates.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't analyze your body, just feel it.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just notice what your shoulders are doing.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's an exhale you didn't know you were holding, or let the experience register that you're teaching yourself this is what the absence means now.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then enjoy the fuck out of it.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's the practice I want you to do over and over.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're listening to this thinking, oh god, I know exactly what she's talking about, but I don't know how to get from knowing it intellectually to actually feeling different.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: That is a huge part of the work I do every day.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because insight is fantastic and I love insight, of course, but you can understand your patterns beautifully in your brain and still have your body running an entirely different program underneath you.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's why my work I have never believed is just about talking.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to do somatics, you've got to take into account your body, your nervous system, your conditioning, and all of that stuff.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And depending on what you need, we could work with your nervous system, neurolingutics, somatic practices, visualization, energetic work.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we just need to sit together and figure out what the fuck is actually happening underneath the thing you keep experiencing.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then later the work changes.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, that's so exciting, and I adore that too.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: We start using all the reclaimed capacity for creation for you.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want now?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: What might your life look like when it isn't organized around someone else's reaction?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: That alchemy right there.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: So if you would like me to actually get you through this personally, you'll find I've linked our one-on-one coaching and laser sessions in the show notes.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: You are free to reach out and see if I have spots.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: But for this week, don't go looking for something else to fix.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Look for something that's missing.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: The criticism that didn't come, the argument that never happened, that horrible feeling in your stomach that just wasn't there anymore.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when you find the empty space where it used to live, don't rush to feel it.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Have the space.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Stretch it out.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Get greedy for it.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually see what you want to create with it.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I have constantly witnessed and felt sometimes the most beautiful thing happening in your life is the thing that finally isn't happening.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I'm so glad that you are here tuning in.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you want any questions answered in a future episode, please leave them for me.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And contact me with any questions that you have.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Take care of yourselves, and I will see you next time.