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Silencing Yourself In Relationships - what it costs you & how to find your voice · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate the podcast.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Finding the space for all of you in life and love.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Sally Ann Hartel, and this podcast is for anyone wanting to reclaim and liberate themselves in their relationships and their life.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are on your relationship journey, these conversations meet you right there in soulful, deeply supportive DNMs with me and interviews with other gorgeous humans, moving you from where you are to where you most want to be.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: A life and love completely aligned with your deepest desires to have it all on your own terms.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you're seeking a relationship and a life that lights up all of you, you're in the right place.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also like to acknowledge that this podcast is recorded on the traditional lands of the Wurrentry people and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging and acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode of Reflect, Proclaim and Liberate.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And today I'm going to speak about silencing, silencing ourselves, what it costs you to stay silent in your marriage, in your relationship, throughout your divorce, and even afterwards.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now I've been thinking about this episode for quite a while, and then recently I listened to Chrissy Swan speaking on the Imperfects podcast, and she was talking about how women particularly, or she felt that you know life is a bit like being in a whirlpool.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: You build a life, all the things, your kids, family, relationship, marriage, work, extended family, friends, and it's like everybody's running around the pool.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: The good old Clark, I think she talked about the Clark Rubber Pool, which um some of you will be old enough to remember, um, where everybody runs around and around in the same direction, and you build up the momentum of the water just so it becomes a whirlpool that just carries you, and you don't have to do anything.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the water just carries you.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And she felt like you know, she'd built a life or created a life, and it was it was actually just carrying her, and rather than rather than it being a life that she consciously chosen, um, the whirlpool of life carries you, you don't even know if it's what you really want anymore or if it ever was, or if you just got moved along by life, expectation, conditioning, all the things, but all the others in the pool, everyone else in that whirlpool of your life, keep moving you in the same direction, and the force of the whirlpool becomes so much that it's actually really hard to change direction.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that there's so much in that, including the fact that it gets to the point where it's just easier to go with the flow and to keep moving in the same direction and not step out, not question it, but just go with the flow.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure if Chrissy said this or if it was just something that I scribbled down when I was listening to it, but when we do that, when we just go with the flow, when we don't speak up, when we don't step out, a little piece of us dies.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: When we do that, when we go continue to just go with the flow of the whirlpool of our life, we are actually denying ourselves, we're denying or not even recognizing that we have wants, needs, dreams, desires, hopes for anything other than what that whirlpool is.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we're silencing ourselves, we're silencing not only our actual voice, but our inner voice too.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're silencing the inner voice that is trying to speak up and say, What about this?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't there more?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Surely there's more than just the whirlpool.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that so many of my female and female identifying clients come to me with or a version of this same issue, and it is the same regardless of whether they're in a relationship, in a same-sex, same-sex relationship, but I think somewhat less so there, um, whether they're in a hetero relationship with a male, whether they're in a relationship or marriage, or they're navigating their separation or divorce, or even they're out the other side and they're co-parenting/slash parenting with their ex, or if they're simply reflecting on the past and unraveling their relationship, their marriage, and the breakdown of what was once happier, even if it wasn't perfect, through unraveling and reflecting on all the whys, they very often say something along the lines of I didn't have a voice in my marriage, that what I said or whatever I said didn't really matter, um, or that that my thoughts or my feelings or ideas weren't really important or recognised.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that is not only by their partner, but by themselves.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: They don't recognize that they have wants, needs, feelings, desires outside of what the whirlpool is is dictating for them.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or they might say something along the lines of, I didn't, I didn't speak up, I didn't say what I wanted or what I thought or what I truly felt, and I didn't ask for what I needed.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or a really common one that I hear a lot is that I kind of woke up one day and thought, is this it?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is this all there is?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And Chrissy spoke about that in the episode of um of the podcast that I mentioned earlier.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of like there's a talking head song which I I recalled, and it's called Once in a Lifetime.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I did have to look it up.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, where and and the lyric is, and you may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife or husband or partner, and you might ask yourself, How did I get here?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of like that.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like waking up, as I said, and thinking, is this all there is?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is the whirlpool all there is?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Am I just going to continue to be carried by it, or am I actually going to be brave enough to listen to my inner voice to allow it and to speak up?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: The overwhelming theme that I see, or here I should say, that comes up again and again and again for women is that they didn't feel they had a voice and they didn't speak up.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or that they were just stuck on the wheel, stuck in the whirlpool, as I said earlier, not even acknowledging that they had things to say.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: They had wants, needs, desires, hopes, dreams.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or another one is they're stuck in a loop of argument.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: They ask, their partner nods, doesn't change, they feel let down, nothing changes, they feel let down, resentful, frustrated, they ask again, same response, nothing changes, and that resentment then builds and tips over into rage, which triggers an argument, and an argument which often involves the you always or you never accusations.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before I go any further, I really want to clarify here that I'm talking about unhappy or dysfunctional relationships and not a relationship where there's any abuse or manipulation involved.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: So otherwise healthy but unhappy or dysfunctional relationships not involving abuse.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Commonly I see that the issue for many women in relationship is not necessarily that we flat out don't speak up.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's that we don't speak up enough, and sometimes it's that we don't speak up in the moment, or that when we do speak up, we're not able to articulate effectively, we're not able to communicate wants, needs, eyes, whatever it is effectively.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Or when we do speak, our voice isn't given weight by us because we don't trust ourselves to speak, we don't, we're not anchored in our own power, so our voice is not given weight by by us, by ourselves, or by a partner.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: A voice is not valid or heard in the relationship dynamic, and this happens because we are conditioned, we are raised as girls, as women, even still in the 2020s, to not speak up, to keep the peace, to make sure everybody else is okay, um, and to sp and we and we tend to learn to speak around things, to not overtly address the issue, to not speak directly, to um actually speak indirectly.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're taught, we're taught to hint and suggest, never to demand, um, never to ask or ask again, which then turns into nagging or is perceived as nagging, um, and then can dip into that angry, ranting, yelling, shouting.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't ever learn how to speak up, it's a little unfair of us to expect our partner to just know.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bit like expecting him or her to be the mind reader, or or we tip into story telling ourselves that if he or she loved me enough, he would know.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not how getting needs met actually works in real life, and so many of us do revert to strategies that we learned as children to try and get our needs met in roundabout ways without speaking overtly, without asking directly.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: We drop hints or suggest or even resort to manipulation.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: We manipulate when we have a need that we want met, but we don't know how to get it met, we don't know how to ask for it to be met.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And here I'm thinking of a story I heard back around Christmas time about a woman who, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, used her husband's phone to search for the specific gifts or the types of gifts she was hoping he would buy her for Christmas, that she wanted him to buy her, so that you know his the algorithms on his phone would show hopefully show him more of the same in the hope he would get the hint and buy the thing.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's manipulation.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this woman obviously didn't have the confidence, the skill, the safety in her relationship, perhaps, to actually ask for what she wanted.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or you know, another example is the woman who goes silent with her wife, her husband, because the wife maybe has or hasn't done a particular thing or has done the thing, actually done the wrong thing and hasn't perhaps apologized.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that woman who goes silent, seething with silent anger, underneath which that is her feeling let down or betrayed and actually probably feeling unloved, which then in turn leaves her wife feeling frustrated and confused until one of them is either brave enough to ask what's going on here, or one of them explodes from that resentment, frustration, bottled-up rage because she was not able to speak up and ask for what she needed.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to know or we need to learn how to be able to safely, openly, effectively, directly ask.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Ask for the thing, ask for the gift, ask for the apology, ask for whatever it is.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if we are withholding our voice, if we remain silent, if we expect our partner to just know and it niggles at us, if not voicing the need, and then we tip into frustration, resentment, anger, and communicate from that space, many of us, most of us, certainly won't feel heard when communicating from that space.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: It actually takes a really secure, skilled, and calm partner to listen and hear if you are communicating from that space.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: A partner who's actually willing to love you in your fury and in your crazy, a partner willing to hold that space and remind you that you're loved, even in the anger, and to be able to reflect back to the storm of anger that you are and see actually there's an unmet need here, what's going on here, to hear that unmet need in the rage.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so for many, we have experience either in our current relationship or in our past relationship, hence they're an extend we are not heard, and that lived experience, whether it be in intimate partner relationships, family of our own origin relationships, many of us living through that actually stop speaking up.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: We stop trying to speak up.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: We learn, either as a child or lived experience through intimate partner relationships, we learn that there's no point, and we finally get to the point of screaming or crying or fighting about our unmet need and our partner still can't hear us.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as I said, of course they can't because it's really difficult to hear the underlying need through the rage.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I'm not saying that the frustration and the resulting rage aren't valid, they are, but communicating from that space doesn't help shift the dynamic, and it is patterning and conditioning that runs really deep.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you or perhaps your partner is or has been the one to not speak up, it can be really hard to change and shift the pattern and build build new patterning.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you're still in a relationship, it's actually an opportunity, it's an opportunity to grow into the new pattern together and you both need to be committed.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you're solo, whether you're needing to still communicate with an ex because you're co-parenting or parallel parenting with them, or if you're looking at creating something new in a future relationship, these steps will help you too.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can shift the dynamic in terms of the way you speak up and communicate with your ex-partner, even if it's been high conflict, even if they are difficult and challenging.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can control what you can control.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you can access your voice and start to speak up.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Know too that when you do that, if it's not in a relationship where you've where you're having the conversation about reclaiming your voice and speaking up, there might be pushback, there might be surprise.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: It will feel uncomfortable for the other person who is not used to you having a clear, direct voice.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So here are some steps to commit to.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: First one is to speak up in the moment.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'll qualify, it's not always appropriate, but if you can speak up then and there in the moment, don't wait, don't let it simmer, don't leave it until the 25th time it's happened, speak up when it happens, first time or at least second time.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, qualifying, sometimes it's not appropriate to speak right then and right there.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in a public space with other kids around, other kids, other people around, including your kids.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it can actually be best to come back later.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can, if it's appropriate, speak up in the moment.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And at times it is actually really important to speak up in the moment in front of others, for example, in front of your kids, so they know and they learn from their lived experience that speaking up and claiming what you need to say is perfectly okay.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: They see you modeling that brave and open communication.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: So speak up in the moment, do it respectfully, do it compassionately, do it from a place of curiosity rather than accusation.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Be vulnerable and be willing to speak up in the moment.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: It may be something like, oh, that comment really hurt.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or actually, no, I disagree with that.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I don't want to do that.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I'm not willing to do that.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or hey, I really need you to listen to what I'm saying.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Would you please stop what you're doing for a few minutes so we can talk?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So speak up in the moment, clearly, directly, state what you need, respond to whatever's happening in the moment if you possibly can.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: The next tip is to speak clearly and directly.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Calmly, clearly, directly.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Keep it to a few words, which I'm not always good at, as you know, if you listen to the podcast regularly.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: But keep it clear, calm, kind, and direct.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Drop out accusations, drop out you always, you never.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Just keep it to as few words as you can and really state what needs to be said.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Point number three is address the issue rather than attack the person.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that loops back to you always, you never.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Ask for what you want.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: State what you need.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, oh that comment really hurt, or no, thank you, I don't want to do that.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Address the issue rather than attack the person.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the next point is number four is ask for what you need.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Dot dot dot.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: I would really like a hug right now.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Can we spend some time together this afternoon?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Can we please clarify who is picking up Eva from soccer?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ask for what you need, make it really clear, and again, keep it, keep it short and sweet.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Remember too that as I said earlier, we're conditioned as girls, as women, and that good girl, that patriarchal conditioning for us runs really, really deep.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's so layered and so many nuances to it, but it runs really deep.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: It has taught us in many situations that if we speak up, if we speak directly about what's problematic for us, what's concerning us, uh, if we say directly what it is we want and what we need, what is okay and what is not okay for us, if we do that, we risk losing relationships, that we will be judged as difficult or as needy or as demanding, and we risk losing relationships.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, that's true.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: We might lose relationship.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: However, the relationships we lose are potentially the ones that we have with those who don't honour or respect our boundaries, who don't honour and respect our right to speak up and ask for what we want, to ask and expect our needs be met in that relationship.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're concerned about losing a relationship because you speak up, it's time to question that relationship.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're already questioning the relationship, if it's already unhappy, something needs to change.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And as I said earlier, the only thing you have the power and capacity to change is you.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're feeling the resentment, if you're simmering with silent anger, because you're withholding your voice, it is a sign that that needs to change.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've listened to previous podcast episodes, you also know that I talk about defining or redefining the container of your relationship, which then invites your partner, yes, even your ex-partner or your co-parent to step in to the new version of the relationship.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: But there comes a point when all the defining of the container, all the waiting for someone to step in or step up is actually pointless.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can only redefine the container and invite someone to step in for so long.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Telling yourself the BS story that your person will grow to meet you if it's being told over and over and over and over again is just that.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's bullshit.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you're constantly waiting for them to step up, to grow, to meet you, you are placing your own personal growth on hold.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hitting pause on yourself to allow them the time to meet you, to catch up with you, and that is self-abandonment.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if the gap between the two of you is widening or you'll feel like your life, your growth is on pause, it's self-abandonment.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And why am I saying that?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying that in this episode because when we start to claim needs that we haven't previously claimed, when we start to speak directly and clearly and ask for change, when we ask for what we want and someone turns around, whether that be your partner, your ex-partner, your sister, your whoever, friend, when that that other person tells us we're being mean, we're being selfish, we're being a bitch, we're being too demanding, we're asking for too much, we're being too much, what's really happening here is that we've stopped playing by the old rules, we've stopped engaging by in the same way.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: We aren't playing actually by their rules or behaving as expected.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're stepping outside the box that has been holding us back.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when we start to speak up, when we start to access our voice, if it's something that we haven't done previously in this relationship, it tends to make the other person, our ex-partner, our or our current partner, our sister, our father, makes them feel uncomfortable.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: When we're told we're demanding or asking too much, the message is really clear.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: That person is really saying, stay the way you were.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Don't ask too much of me, don't ask anything more of me, don't expect anything more from me because it makes me uncomfortable.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: It makes me feel emotions I don't know how to deal with.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And my comfort is more important to me than what you are asking for, what you want and need.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I matter more in this space than you do.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if you change, if you change the way you interact, if the if you change the way you access your voice and you bring that to a relationship regardless of who that relationship's with and you're and the other person in that relationship is not willing to change and meet you in the new space you've created, the new container for that relationship, then maybe that relationship isn't actually healthy for you.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: On the flip side actually speaking can make us uncomfortable.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to tolerate or we need to learn I should say to tolerate being uncomfortable in speaking while we practice, while we learn to access our voice and use it.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: We need to lean into the discomfort when what we want or what we need isn't being met and we need to tolerate the tension and the discomfort then that rises up in us when maybe our needs are in conflict with those of the other person, those of our partner or when speaking those needs out loud asking for what we want feels hard.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to lean into that discomfort and not run from it.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Acknowledge that while it might feel easier or simpler to just park it to shelve our needs so that we don't have to face that tension that we we can escape feeling that discomfort it's not a healthy long-term strategy.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is going to come back to bite you on the butt at some stage whether that be the simmering resentment or all our explosive rage it is self-abandonment to set aside our own needs in order to keep the peace or soothe our own anxious nervous system or soothe the anxious nervous system activation of our partner or our ex-partner we need to tolerate that discomfort and move through it asking for what we want claiming our right to speak to be heard to be seen and have our needs met setting limits all of this sure might mean that we lose the current relationship but is that current relationship is that current version of relationship worth holding on to if you can't speak if you're still in relationship and you're trying to reconnect you're trying to rebuild whoever your other person is needs to be able and willing and have capacity now capacity is a whole nother podcast episode on its own I'm going to speak to capacity in an upcoming episode because someone may want to meet you someone may have the skills and the ability to meet you but just not have the capacity to meet you at that time doesn't make them bad but if your person is not willing or able or does not have capacity to meet you in this work it might be that you need to be the one to redefine this relationship.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is it still something that you're willing and that you have capacity to continue to build on how much of the emotional labor of the relationship are you already carrying and if you're carrying more than half of the emotional andor let's face it domestic labour if you're holding more than half of the mental load of the relationship and for your family if you're doing all of this to make your relationship work and you're still trying to find a way to speak up I'm gonna hit you here with a hard truth that relationship's already not working and that's something that really needs to change now.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: That change can start by you digging deep accessing your inner voice and then bringing it out it can start by asking directly for what you want and what you need of course to do that you need to dig deep you need to go in inward you need to know what it is you want and what you need and of course that's where I will say coaching can be incredibly helpful.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: It helps deep down underneath all the layers all the lived experience all the conditioning and get to who you are and what you most want in your life and in your love and in your relationships.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Asking directly for what you want shifts things and it will feel uncomfortable and there may well be pushback from others particularly if it's new for everyone it's going to feel strange.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to feel uncomfortable but it is like a muscle the more you use it the stronger it gets and the easier it is to do ask for what you want rather than hint suggest or go silent expecting a partner to mind read or to guess.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Ask directly clearly and be clear in your own mind first and firm about where you will and will not compromise or make space for a different idea or a different opinion.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Again that's stuff we can work on in coaching together one-on-one get really clear on values wants needs desires and then explore how to speak that into your current relationship past we can't speak it into your past relationship but current or future relationship and remember to speak clearly calmly compassionately kindly directly from an empowered and curious space as I said flexing this particular muscle gets easier with time the more you do it the easier it gets and you'll be amazed how much stronger and empowered you feel you will I can almost guarantee you you will feel less internally chaotic or challenged or activated.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: It will help dial down your nervous system because suppressing your voice actually is triggering activating you are in that fight flight freeze fawn response all the time if you are pushing down your wants needs desires and not speaking them out.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you will start to feel better internally you will over time feel more confident using your voice speaking your truth declaring those desires wants needs and stepping out of that whirlpool that feeling of you just being carried along by life and not actually making conscious choices and decisions you will feel more empowered in advocating for yourself and that feels really really good as I said be aware that when you start to do this others who are not used to you doing this they're not used to you speaking up they will react and respond in overt and covert ways and ask or expect you to change back when we step up when we stretch when we grow it does make others uncomfortable and they will want you to step back and step down and stay quiet and here's the thing don't do it don't step back don't back down hold your ground speak your truth and allow them to be uncomfortable with it don't try to fix that discomfort they will either stretch and step forward to meet you and grow in tandem with you or they won't so just watch and wait and notice notice what happens when you genuinely wholeheartedly fully believe that you are not asking for too much when you fully wholeheartedly believe that what you want and need is important and it is valid that you are not asking for too much that you are not too much when you believe that on a cellular level deep in your bones in your head in your heart when you know that what you're asking for is not too much when you speak it when you ask for it and you expect it to be met it changes the game the gift of speaking your truth the gift of owning your needs the gift of asking for what you want is not necessarily going to be getting those needs and desires met they may be they may be met but they may not be and that actually leaves you with a choice about the ongoing nature of the relationship the true gift in speaking your truth the true gift in accessing your voice and allowing it to be heard is simply that it's simply that you spoke your truth that you were loyal to yourself that you did not abandon yourself you held yourself accountable to what you most want and need in your life and you loved yourself enough to speak that's the gift.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: The most self-loving thing you can do is to choose people who have the capacity and the willingness to meet you to step in rather than push back when things get hard or uncomfortable choose people who have the curiosity to go deeper with you and the maturity to do love and relationship in ways that resonate with both of you staying in that whirlpool might seem easier but making small our wants needs desires dreams hopes is it really worth it or are you willing to step out step out of the cruisy comfort of being carried by the whirlpool step out and actually claim what you really want.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: In closing if this is stuff that's really resonating with you I want you to know that I'm running a free online masterclass May the 5th 2023 all the details will be linked in the show notes.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: The masterclass topic is the one thing that you can do to heal your relationship patterns it will support you if you're in a relationship if you're disconnecting and unraveling from one navigating separation divorce or if you're healing from a breakup heartbreak and want to redefine how you do relationship in the future it will meet you at all of those points and I would really love to share some time face to face with you exploring this on a slightly deeper level.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: As always thank you for being here I really appreciate you sharing time and space with me and I hope you've got something from this podcast episode.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you loved it share it with somebody also would really love you to rate and review the podcast so we can get it into the ears of a whole lot more people who might need to hear it.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now I'm Sally Anne Relationship coach and you've been listening to Reflect, reclaim and liberate you can follow me on Instagram at ReflectCoaching and if you can think of anyone who would love this episode please please share it with them.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also be so grateful if you follow this episode so we can give it in just like you already reclaim and liberate themselves in the joints another episode of episode