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40 | The Day You Realize You Aren't Waiting Anymore · The Messy Middle Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Messy Middle, the podcast for women navigating the raw, confusing, lonely aftermath of narcissistic abuse and emotional control.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Erica Leon, trauma-informed abuse recovery coach, mom of five, and creator of the six keys to unfuckwithable.
• 0:15
  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.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everybody, welcome back to the messy middle.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Erica Leon, and this episode is about the day you realize you're not waiting anymore.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let me explain.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Something I notice a lot with my lovely women that I work with, and I notice, and I don't always point it out immediately, because I quite like watching them realise it themselves.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be talking about her life, maybe something's happened at work, or she's telling me some ridiculous story about the kids, and halfway through I'll think, hang on, you haven't mentioned him.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And six months ago he'd have been somewhere in this story, what he'd think about it, or something he said about this activity, or whether he knew, or whether it might somehow get back to him.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And now she's just telling me about her life.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I sit here thinking, ooh, look at you.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Cause there's that stage of recovery that maybe doesn't get that much airtime.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because we talk a lot about the leaving and the boundaries and the nervous system regulation and rebuilding self-trust.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we've talked about all of those things here.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, understanding basically what the fuck happened to you in the first place, which is a biggie, and we always do spend a lot of time on that.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: They are all important.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: But even after relationships physically ended, there's still can be this strange sense that something hasn't quite finished.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're waiting, kind of suspended.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think most women would describe it that way.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're certainly not waiting for the man to come back at all.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um for some of my clients, most actually, if he appeared at the window, they'd probably call the cops.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: But it's subtler than that.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: It might feel like you're waiting for the whole thing to finally make sense.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Underneath some of that, my people tell me, and I certainly remember the feeling of just wanting them to understand the way they hurt you, your kids, and with all of their selfish ways, what that really translated to in real life.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that can feel like you really want it to make sense.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that feeling of thinking you know somebody so well that you spent all this time with them and you thought they were your bestie and they had your back.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And with all of the behavior that you saw during the breakup and after, you can't quite marry those two people together, that they are the same people.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And there's almost this hope that he'll see reason and at least apologize.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think people really underestimate how much you can want acknowledgement from someone you have absolutely no desire to reconcile with.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can be completely done with the relationship and find that person hideous and still have this tiny place inside you that thinks surely one day he's gonna look back and realize what he did and have regret for the impact of this on the kids, on the person who had given you so much for multiple decades.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Surely one day he will see this, he will realise it.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he'll finally understand that you weren't asking for too much, just human dignity, and that you weren't crazy, that some of the things he did caused enormous damage, and to many people too.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And after relationships where reality was constantly being argued with, and there was gaslighting and blame shifting and history being rewritten all the time, I understand so much why that matters so greatly.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: You've spent years sometimes being told that something didn't happen quite the way you remember it, even though you were fucking standing right there.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So there can be this fantasy that eventually the argument will end because the other person will concede and they'll finally say, Yes, that did happen.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry too, because I have some really bad news.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: They may never say that.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And very likely they won't.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they do, after a really long time and a lot of changing circumstances.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I have seen apologies arrive years later.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Occasionally they're meaningful.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I wish you could see my face right now.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: My eyes are so far up into my head, they're almost in my hair.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And occasionally you just read them and think this is much more likely, wow, 600 words and you haven't actually taken ever responsibility for one single fucking thing.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: That has to be a skill, right?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the rather satisfying thing I see a lot way down the road is where people who are either Switzerland, or they were kind of with him, as it were, reach out and say, I'm sorry, oh my gosh, I see it now.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: We are sorry.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as a couple.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want the truth of your experience really sitting in somebody else's inbox waiting for approval, not him, not them, not his family, nothing.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is something I come back to again and again in my work.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You were there.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know what your life felt like in that house.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know what happened when you tried to talk about things, what happened when you said no, how many times you tried to repair something that kept breaking in exactly the same time and place, and how many times he may have said he was not cheating and was not doing anything behind your back and wanted a fair and equitable divorce, you've lived it.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Getting to the point where your own knowing carries enough weight, that is huge.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is self-trust at a very deep level.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're way beyond do you want chicken or salmon?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, practicing that and feeling it in your gut, like we've talked about here.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're really talking about do I trust myself to know my own life?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it does sound like something everybody should automatically possess, doesn't it?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then you spend years with somebody who can turn a conversation you literally just had into an entirely different fucking conversation, and you realise perhaps not.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't necessarily stop with him either.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're waiting for his family to understand, oh my god, his family.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: This one I see this a lot, and I understand that frustration and that heartbreak, actually.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: You would really not think in a million years that they would not see what he's doing right under their nose.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like willful denial, willful delusion.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I've actually witnessed women spend years wringing their hands about surely his mom knows what he's like.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've talked about it, she was the one that brought it up to me.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe she does, and maybe she doesn't.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Families are fascinating because people protect the story that allows the family to keep functioning.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes for them not to admit that this person is very harmful out there in the world, and they have no intention of stopping.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if acknowledging your experience means somebody has to revisit 30 or 40 years of their own experience with this person, they may naturally be extremely motivated not to do that.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the woman who leaves can become terribly inconvenient and a really good common enemy for everyone.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: She's saying things everybody else has organized themselves around not saying, so they stick with the version that costs them less.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's human nature, right?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's rat psychology.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And all of that can be incredibly painful.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: But there is a point in the work where I find myself saying, How long are we going to make your piece wait?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: for this jury of people, because some people aren't going to understand, and some aren't actually confused either.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's difficult information, it's hard to hear, and it's hard to process, and it's also really useful.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think the children are probably the hardest part of this, especially for the moms.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I hear one day they'll understand a lot, and they may.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Children grow up, and they're super smart by the way, even when the perpetrators are pretending that the kids see and hear nothing like they like to do, it isn't true at all.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: They do start seeing things through completely different eyes when they witness it, no matter what you say.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: They have adult relationships of their own when they grow up.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps they become parents, and sometimes pieces of their childhood suddenly make sense in ways they couldn't possibly have understood when they were ten.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen incredibly validating moments come from that.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I get a little bit nervous when anyone's piece is parked somewhere in that future, because now the children have unknowingly become some kind of member of the jury, also, and they had a different relationship with this person.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Their father may have behaved very differently with them than he did with their mum.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't buy that when you're all living in the same house so much, but it is possible.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody lives a very close connected life, even if they are physically together.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: They may have seen pieces and completely missed others, and that's one of the hardest things to accept, particularly when they've been told things about you that aren't true.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: There is something almost primal, isn't there, about wanting to defend yourself when your own children are being given a distorted version of who you are.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And of course you want to correct it.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: That is human nature, and there are times when you absolutely need to deal with what's happening, particularly when children are being harmed and manipulated.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: But underneath all the practical decisions, I want the woman I'm working with to develop this incredibly solid place inside herself that says, I know who I am as their mother.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And because children can be confused, they can be furious with the safer parent, often much more so.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they say things that absolutely rip your fucking heart out, and I can attest to that.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you've still had to know where your feet are, you've had to be strong in your feet, you've had to be the adult many times, which is hard when you just really want to cull up in a ball and do the ugly cry.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I have sat with women through this, and sometimes there is no clever technique.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're just holding on to what she knows while everything around her is really noisy.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: You just like I'm always saying to everyone out there that I work with, be steady in your feet.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And over time she does get better at it.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody else's version of events doesn't automatically pull her out of her own version.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then oof, we've got the whole nother topic.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have the new girlfriend.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been through one of these divorces, you may already be laughing with me because sometimes she appears approximately 17 minutes after the separation.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And by Thursday, she's met the kids and she's received four documentary series about the ex-wife.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: She's crazy, she's bitter, she keeps him from the kids.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Poor man has tried absolutely everything.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you're sitting over here thinking, Oh babe.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: There can be this little part of you waiting for the day she finds out.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: She'll see.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, she often and mostly does.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have certainly seen the moment where the new woman eventually contacts a previous woman and essentially says, So, funny story.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: But she may not or she may not reach out to you, but she may absolutely have your same experience.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And who knows, maybe their relationship is different, right?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe she does stay, maybe she thinks he's wonderful.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: My little disclaimer here is personally, in all of my work, I have never seen that work longer term, but you can do with what you will with my information because it's just my experience with my clients.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually I think there's enormous freedom in realizing that her experience does not get to edit yours.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: The same goes for what he does in his next relationship.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: This messes with a lot of people.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: You see an ex apparently having a really good life and behaving beautifully with somebody new, and that old thought creeps in, that old programming.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why couldn't he just be like that with me?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it goes somewhere painful, maybe it was me, because that is what you've likely been taught for decades.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: You have no idea what goes on inside their relationship, by the way.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't know what goes on inside anyone's relationships.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But let's say, just to follow the trail for argument's sake, that he really has changed.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: I genuinely believe people can change.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: My entire bloody career would be rather strange if I didn't, wouldn't it?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I, as a disclaimer, don't believe narcissists or abusers, I will just rather call them abusers.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe they do change.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think they're capable, and I don't think they want to, because what they do gets them all the results that they need.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think it stems from entitlement and a sense of ownership, and I don't think there's any reason that they would change.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: But even if we're imagining a world where they did, his growth five years later doesn't travel backwards through time and changed what you experienced.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Your history with them remains your history.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to keep checking for evidence, and checking can become a funny little habit all of its own.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Having a quick sneaky look at social media.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Are they still together?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Reading into everything you see, their pictures and the words and who comments, and where have they gone now?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, you're essentially conducting a completely unpaid, longitudinal study into whether karma has arrived yet.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: The karma that everybody talks about, which can feel probably really annoying at the time when you're distraught at the lack of consequences on his side, and someone says, Oh, don't worry, karma will get him.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Largely over time, if karma is what everyone says it is, that does seem to be the case in my experience, having done this for so long now.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: But everybody promising women that karma is definitely coming and it's definitely going to get him, it can also almost unconsciously set another imaginary finish line, which can then cause you to be in a little bit more suspended animation.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when he gets his karma, I'll feel so good, I'll feel like I've been freed from this, released from this, and none of that is true because closure is an inside job.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I do understand the impulse because we want justice.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: I am a justice warrior, I can a hundred percent understand it.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have always been that way, and it literally burns me in my stomach.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I worry about the whole world and all of the shit that's going on in it constantly.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we all do.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: When somebody has behaved appallingly and caused enormous damage, there's something deeply satisfying about imagining the universe suddenly presenting them with the invoice.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes people behave terribly and appear to go on to have perfectly pleasant lives.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's really fucking annoying.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And injustice is real, it is very real, and it can eat.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with women who've done terribly financially after divorce.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was and still am one of those.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, I'm good now, and I look that way to all intents and purposes, but it is more than a decade that I have lost where I could have been building wealth and I could have had so much more free time.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I could have had time with my kids when they were little instead of the complete stress and traumatic nightmare that it was worrying how I was going to feed them.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And now I've had to play drastic catch-up for more than 12 years.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: That has stolen more than a decade from what I was able to do financially.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that is money stolen from my kids.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's money stolen from financial security of their life.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I see this with women every single day in my job, every single day.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And women who haven't received support that they're entitled to, who've watched the ex spend enormous amounts of money elsewhere on other new family that's incoming, even the kids that aren't theirs while their kids suffer and struggle while arguing all the time for basic expenses for their own kids.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like they don't want to pay half of the baseball because they didn't really pick it.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: I have lived pieces of that myself, and I am in it every day with my clients.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm never gonna sit opposite a woman experiencing genuine injustice and tell her that everything happens for a reason.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Get fucked with that.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the reason is that somebody is an appalling scumbag who is only guided by their selfish impulses and needs and has absolutely no conscience and should never have been a parent to start with.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Boom, there we go.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if there's a legal remedy, use it.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: If money is owed, pursue it.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Protect yourself and your children in whatever ways are available to you.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere in that process, another question might start bubbling up and becoming important.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: How much of my future do I want tied to watching his?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because wanting somebody who caused enormous damage to experience consequences is very human.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've felt it, I understand it, I think we all do, but I also know that I don't want my ability to be okay, depending on whether another person eventually suffers enough.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's still an enormous amount of power to hand someone else.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want my life back.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: All of it.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I really hope that you do too.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think for a while after these relationships, freedom is naturally understood through contrast.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: You notice what's gone, the control isn't there, the atmosphere's different, you're not on high alert, your shoulders aren't up by your ears all the time, your jaw isn't as clenched, or you realize you can make a decision without somebody turning it into a three-day event where you have to justify up and down why you did the thing.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that comparison can be really important because you're beginning to see just how much you were carrying.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then something changes.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to compare quite so much anymore.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the bit I notice with clients first.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Something happens that once would have occupied half of our session, and she'll suddenly go, oh yeah, he sent some ridiculous message on Tuesday.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I want to have trumpets.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: If I was techie at all and knew how to add trumpets to the word anyway, at this juncture, I would have, do you know how much I love and anyway?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Six months ago there was no anyway.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: The message was the whole day.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: It changed how her body felt.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: She drafted a response, she deleted it, she ran it through Chat GPT, she reread the message, reread his message, sent it to me or a friend or twelve and try to work out what the hell he was doing.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And now he sent some nonsense, she says.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I dealt with it.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, you'll never guess what my son did.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there thinking, there you fucking are.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't always say it because I just love watching these shifts arrive before somebody's named them, but her attention has definitely moved.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And attention is an enormous part of this.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you've lived through abuse or high conflict, another person's behaviour can occupy huge amounts of internal real estate, even when they aren't physically in the room anymore or even in the house anymore.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And slowly your own life starts taking the space back.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's work and the kids and your friends, but you get interested in something completely random.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like Love Island or I don't know, needlepoint.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're dating.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe Luca from that last episode has somehow survived the editorial process and is hanging around with his protein powder.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: But your life gets bigger.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And one day something wonderful happens and you don't imagine him seeing it.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: That one gets me.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think in fact, I know.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us understand the fantasy after someone has diminished us.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: One day you'll see.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see how well I'm doing.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see what you lost.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: You'll realize you were wrong about me.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, sometimes spike.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is excellent starter fuel.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: I am all about it.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I am not above it, and I encourage it 100%.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like gas in your tank often.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Righteous wretch.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: We need more of it.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: But if the thought of making somebody regret losing you gets you out of bed and into the gym for three months, fine.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Use what's available.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: We'll take it.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't want him owning shares in that fabulousness that you're creating.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want him having that forever.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, you're doing it because this is your fucking life.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's nobody left to impress.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there should not be either.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where I think your life stops being an argument you're trying to win.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: That phrase kept coming back to me when I was thinking about this episode.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because after you've been criticized and accused and diminished or completely misrepresented, you can spend years gathering evidence for the defense, for your defense, really, without even realizing you're doing it.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: You build a great life, and this little part of you is like, see, you become a fantastic mom despite everything he's had thrown at you, would kill most people.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there's that same little C, you survive without him.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: See, and at some point you stop presenting that evidence, and that's all.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know who you are well enough that somebody else's opinion doesn't automatically become an emergency.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And God knows this doesn't mean achieving complete self-knowledge.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Some mornings I can't even find my fucking glasses, but your feet are underneath you, and then the work gets to be more fun.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you can look back on all those really hard times where you're in the meat grinder and you don't feel the pull of them quite so much.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why it becomes my favorite phase with my peeps, because the conversation starts changing.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: At the beginning, especially after abuse, sometimes we are just trying to get somebody through that meat grinder.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're dealing with the nervous system, understanding abuse dynamics and working on boundaries and trying to get through this week without her entire body launching itself through the roof.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then later I can be sitting with the same woman talking about a business she wants to build, or a move, or a trip, or something completely outrageous she's quietly wanted to do for 20 years, and I love that because now I get to bring out another part of my toolbox.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: We might use visualization or neurolinguistics, there can be meditation, light hypnosis, energetic work, whatever actually fits the person in front of me.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole energy of the work has changed.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're creating it's much more magical.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's that alchemy part.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love it so much.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: All that self-trust we've been building suddenly has somewhere to go.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Boundaries start protecting a life that she actually wants now, she's built it, and her intuition is not just warning her about danger anymore.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: She can use it to move toward things like a magical magnet.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Even nervous system work changes because sometimes the body needs help tolerating good things too.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be surprised how much that comes up, actually.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: When you have expansion and all of these good things, it can be very hard to trust that they will stay after you've experienced what you have.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: There comes expansion and excitement and being seen and making more money and falling in love and feeling just lighter, having possibilities, and that is so fascinating.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'll ask women at this stage, okay, what do you want?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And she looks at me like I've asked her to explain maybe quantum physics and Mandarin.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you spent 20 years answering what does everybody need from me, desire can feel like a foreign language.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we really get curious.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have to.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have to play with it.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe she tries things and she hates them.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: We've already covered salsa dancing in the last episode.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes discovering you absolutely fucking hate salsa dancing is excellent progress.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no shade to salsa.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think it's amazing.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that's everyone's cup of tea.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: But there's this point where the future stops being somewhere she hopes she'll eventually be healed enough to reach.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's already in it, she's participating, she's doing it.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you necessarily notice the moment that happens.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: There probably isn't some cinematic morning where you throw open the curtains and do a Julie Andrews and announce, today I am free.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: That would be awesome, actually, to live next door to that chick.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Probably tiring, but awesome.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's more likely that you book something six months away without really thinking about it too much and doing a whole analysis on it.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or you make a decision and later you realize you didn't mentally consult someone who hasn't lived in your house for three years.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or you might have heard some good news about him and think, huh?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Then you forget about it because you're out of milk.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I absolutely love that.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because freedom becoming ordinary, I think, is the best possible outcome.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: You don't wake up every morning thinking about how free you are.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: You just make coffee, you work, you tell someone to put their fucking shoes on, and you send your friends something inappropriate, and there's of course there's memes, and you make dinner, and you watch rubbish TV if you want to, and it's just your life.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: You go out for a bike ride, you hug your doggie, you chat to your neighbours, and there will still be things that hurt, of course there will, because life is always doing that.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: But something involving your kids might knock you sideways years from now.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: You might fall in love again, discover a whole cupboard of shit you thought you'd dealt with, and hey, welcome back to being human.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: But you don't have to finish quote unquote healing before you participate in your own life.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: You get to heal while you're living it.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: You do your thing, you ugly cry, you slide down the wall, you remember all these things and walk.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually some of the things you work so hard on stop feeling like techniques.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think, ooh, I'm using my boundaries every time you say no.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: You just say no.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Your intuition doesn't need a fucking announcement at that point.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: You just listen to yourself.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: The work becomes part of how you live, and maybe that's the day you realize you're not waiting anymore.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it it sounds simplistic, except it probably isn't a day at all, right?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a day that comes with any kind of fanfare, it's probably just some random Tuesday when you suddenly realize that the life you thought was waiting somewhere on the other side of all of this is the one you're standing in, actually.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps the biggest sign or the greatest sign that you've got your life back is that eventually it stops feeling like a life you got back.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: It just feels like yours, and that's the best.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And before you go, I really don't want to give you another thing to work on this week.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: I feel that we've done a lot, but aren't we always always doing the work?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: So there's just one thing I'd like you to notice.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Think about yourself in the middle of the worst of it.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: You remember the real shit show.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go digging around there for ages.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're only visiting.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to put you back in the whole nervous system trauma of it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Look at your life now and find one ordinary thing that you do today as the woman you are today, that the woman back then would have found so difficult to imagine.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: It could be something ridiculously small, like maybe your phone makes a noise and your stomach doesn't drop to your toes anymore.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you enjoy an evening alone.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: You actually really enjoy it.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you handled something this week that six months ago you would have thought you definitely couldn't get through without having a meeting with 18 people.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever comes up, leave it alone.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're not turning it into any kind of like gratitude diary practice.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're definitely not making a fucking worksheet, okay?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just give yourself a second to notice what that was.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just feel it for a minute.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Go, wow.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Give yourself a second to notice that I'm already here.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then carry on.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: That is it.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's something I want people to know about working with me also before I dip out and stop yapping.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think coaching and this type of work is often associated with something being wrong.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, of course, I work with most of my clients at first when they're in crisis.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've been beside people through some of the worst and absolutely brutal, shitty chapters of their lives.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I also have clients I've known through several versions of themselves.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And some of my favorite work with them happens when nothing is actively on fire anymore.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're stronger, there's more trust in herself, and suddenly we have this completely different territory available to us.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's completely different.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the question becomes, what do you want to do with your life?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I bloody love that question.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because now we can talk about what you're building and what you're curious about.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: We get to explore the bits of you that maybe haven't had much airtime before.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the work becomes really expansive.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I personally don't believe healing happens according to some tidy little 12-week schedule.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've had clients where we've worked intensely, then I've essentially told them to go away and live for a while because they don't need another bloody coaching session right now.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of the work too.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: You should accept nothing less.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody who actually assesses you for you.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you'd like me beside you for whichever chapter you're in, you can a hundred percent do that with one-on-one coaching or lasers laser sessions.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: All the details are in the show notes.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: But wherever you are right now, I hope eventually there comes some ordinary random Tuesday for you when you realize you've quietly stopped waiting.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're not waiting anymore.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe nobody ever gave you that apology you deserved.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, get used to it, because that is very unlikely.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people around you probably still don't understand, and you've probably lost a bunch of your original friend group, and maybe some of your family, and certainly is family.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a bunch of them that don't understand.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And still, along the way, their understanding became less interesting than what you were about to do next.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: That life that once felt like an argument you desperately need to win and justify just became that lovely life that you now have because you're too busy living to keep arguing about any of that bullshit.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I'm sending you so much love, and I will see you in the next one.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget, if you want me to answer your questions, send them to me at the address that's listed, and I will answer your questions in an episode.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Take care of yourselves.