Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 83. Understanding Codependency and Boundaries after Divorce to Stop Obsessing Over your *Jerk Ex

Transcript

83. Understanding Codependency and Boundaries after Divorce to Stop Obsessing Over your *Jerk Ex · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hi love, it's the holidays, which means you need extra support, so producer Joy and I pulled together a handful of our favorite episodes to share with you this season.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: In this next episode, I teach you a profound tool for getting relief from the obsessive thoughts to do with your ex, which also has a secondary benefit of unblocking all the positive manifestations you've been working on.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Hi love, this is Dawn and you're listening to Dear Divorce Diary with my coach, dawn, where we explore the post-divorce life and you, the woman who lives it.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: We cover everything from trauma during and after divorce to feeling like a stranger in your own life and the new frontier of life as a single woman.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Cozy in for the conversations you've been longing to have about this new life.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: In this episode, you're going to understand how unprocessed emotion leads to the obsessive thoughts.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I'll also teach you how to process.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I will also help you understand how breathing techniques can help get you off the obsessive thought roller coaster.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: And then, finally, the mindset shift you need to make in order to finally be free from the obsessive thoughts.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Let's dig in.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Hi love.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, I had a listener ask me recently about their difficulty with not being able to stop thinking about their dickhead ex-husband, look at me with the cursing right out of the gate and having trouble moving on because they keep kind of ruminating over all the things, but especially then the way that it ended.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: And so this idea of I can't stop thinking about it.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I want to, but I don't know how is what we're talking about today?
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: So good, right, okay, when you can't stop thinking about it, there's a number of things we want to dig into and poke around about, to explore the whys in the house.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: When we're what I like to call looping on a thing, it's because there's something there for us to learn explore, release, do differently, expand, right.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: So this conversation is about being able to kind of poke and prod around your mind, body and figure out the why behind the loop.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: So when you're looping about something painful, the first thing I want us to explore is is there stuck or blocked emotion that needs to be processed or worked through?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Now, I have had many people over the course of my career say but what does it mean, dawn, to process an emotion?
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: What does it mean to release an emotion?
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: And I think that it makes a lot of sense that this is kind of a hard thing for people to wrap their head around.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about a little bit today and help you have one of those releasing experiences.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: But have you ever had this moment where you're like I know I need to cry, but I can't cry, and then eventually the cry comes and then you feel better?
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: It's like that, right?
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Sometimes things are stuck emotionally inside of us and we sometimes we know it and sometimes we don't know it, and its stuckness is blocking us from being able to move forward, as this listener said to me, right, I want to move forward.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So then we're like okay, but how do I get it to process through, how do I get it to move?
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And is it actually like a blockage in a pipe?
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's actually like a blockage in a pipe.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Like, imagine, inside of your body, energetically, there is a literal blockage and the experience of life, the things that are coming to you as a result of this experience, can't blow through you to completion because it's blocked off.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Now, why would emotion even get blocked off?
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, so, so many reasons, and and exactly how many reasons?
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: And the complexity of those reasons to me is like beautiful and elegant, but sometimes it's blocked off because you don't rest enough.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's blocked off because your body is lacking the nutritional components that it needs to be able to detoxify energetically or emotionally from your body.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: You know how.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: You know that your kidneys and your liver detoxify your blood and your urine and whatever right.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: But there is so much about our body that is also detoxifying energy and emotion and if you didn't know, now you know so.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: So sometimes it's because you don't have the rest needed to do it.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's because you don't have the nutrition needed to do it.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's because, environmentally, maybe, you don't have enough support, or enough yeah, let's call it support.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Right, there's not enough support in your environment to do it, and so it's just not right.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: There's so much about how we work through things that is intentional, whether you know it or not.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Love Like.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I assure you that the complexity of our mind, body, spirit is so on point that if that emotion isn't coming, or if you're looping on what your ex-sitter didn't do, there is a reason and it is going to come when you are ready.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: So if you sense that you're hearing me talk today and you're like, hmm, something's telling me, this is me Don's calling me out, I feel called out.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I have some emotion stuck somewhere in a tube, and I don't know what that means, but I think I need to process it through, right?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Then how do I do that, don?
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: So glad you asked.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: So what I recommend that is so powerful and so effective is that you create some space.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: If now is that time, if right now, in this moment that you were listening to this podcast, you have space, then go with it.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: If now you've got your earbuds in but you're prepping dinner for your kids while trying to get their homework done, don't go with it now.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Make a note to come back to this later when you have space, right?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: So first things first.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: We got to know where we are in space and time.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: So make some space.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Take care of your body's needs, meaning pee, eat, sleep right, and come to the space fairly hydrated and rested as best as you can, right, with some space, and then start breathing, breathing on the thing you've been looping about that you can't stop thinking about how it hurt you, how wrong it was, how fucked up it was, and breathe with it Slow and deep, like that, and you breathe with it slow and deep for long enough that something is going to start to surface.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Don't breathe slow and deep for five cycles or 12 cycles and say, don, it isn't working.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Love, I need you to be more patient than that.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I see you.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I need you to breathe slow and deep for maybe half the length of a therapy session.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: That would be good and right, because when things are stuck and they need the space to be able to get unstuck, that's your job is to create the space.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: And so what you're doing when you're breathing slow and deep is you're relaxing everything.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: So like, think about being constipated, right, and how everything would be constricted and tight and stuck.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: When you breathe slow and deep for long enough, eventually every little thing in your body, every cell in your body, becomes open and available to release, which is a beautiful thing.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Now we don't stop there.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: You're gonna breathe so in deep as many cycles as it takes, while thinking about the thing you've been looping on, and then, when you notice it starts to surface, you cross your arms over your chest, like you're like crisscrossed with one hand on each shoulder, and then you do what's called a butterfly tap, where you just tap left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, and you just tap like that as long as it feels right, and then you stop and you see what comes up.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: And then you tap some more and then you stop and you see what comes up, and you just go on like that until much like other times in your life or in your children's life, where whatever it is that's surfacing is complete or feels complete, and the reason we wanna make space for it is because there may be a lot in there.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: When we're looping about something, there usually is a lot in there.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: The beautiful thing about what I'm teaching you, though, is this is such a thorough and complete way to deal with things that when you do this work, as intense as it is, you will move the needle dramatically.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: It's like being the most constipated you've ever been and having the best poop of your life emotionally.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, I went there, and so it may come with a lot of hmm, what feels like distress, right?
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, feelings get big.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: You're gonna have a lot of upset thoughts and things like that.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Let's go into the next thing we need to explore to understand how to stop looping and get unstuck.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Now, when you are experiencing painful feelings and you're thinking distressing thoughts, and all of this shit is flowing through you.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: It's really important that you keep this thing in mind, that all of this is happening for you and not against you.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And I cannot emphasize this enough, because when you do this work with the idea that this is happening against you, you will feel worse, not better.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: You will feel suffering and not relief.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: You will have probably nightmares and you will experience dissociation and like horribly painful things.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: But if you do this work, if you come to the slow, deep breathing and you come to the emotional pooping with the thought, with the thought that this is happening for you and your job is to get the shit out of the pipe so that you can better let in the good stuff that's meant to come to you, when you come to it with that mindset, so much changes for the better, everything changes for the better as you step along the path right.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: And I think this distinction that I'm making right here is what often gets lost in therapy and other healing modalities.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: There is a victim consciousness that is so prevalent in the world, where the world wants to pity you.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: You poor thing.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't have to go through that, and I'm not here for that, because this isn't about what you should or shouldn't have to go through this somehow, some way, love.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: You've been praying for this.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: You've been asking for this.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: You've been asking for things to get better.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: You've been asking for things to shift.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: You have been asking to grow, to change, to have a better life than the life that you had eight minutes ago or eight years ago.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: And this moment that's unfolding for you.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: You've been praying for it.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Now you've got to decide.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Am I gonna trust the being to which I pray or am I going to hold in my hands an insistence that none of this is fair?
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: And you will find people to support you either way.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: You will find people that say this is fucked, you shouldn't have to be going through this, it's not fair.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And you will find people who say screw that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: That mindset is holding you back.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: You can go as far as you want.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Your life can get as good as you want it to be.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: The universe always has your back.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Go with it.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I'm the latter.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I'm the latter.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I'm always going to say you were built for magnificence.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: You are pure magic.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: This is happening for you, not against you.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: So bring that mindset to this looping space and notice how that mindset creates some curiosity.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So you know, to our dear friend who was looping about her ex-husband and what he did or didn't do on the night of their disillusion hearing I wonder.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I wonder how all of that is working out for her, because it is all working for her, in her favor, and it's got some beautiful organization to it.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: And I'm so curious what that is See.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: So, when we come to it from a place of faith and trust and belief that the price of my new life is letting go of the old one, the price of my new life is releasing victim consciousness, the price for all the magnificence that I daydream about when it's three o'clock at work and I'm like I can't do this anymore.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Right, the price of all of that, what you want is letting go of this old way.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: So get really curious about what it's all about and how it's all working together, because it's the most amazing puzzle.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: And so that's the next key piece, about getting unstuck when you're looping on painful thoughts about a person or people right Now.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: The third thing we want to really attend to when doing this work to get unstuck, to stop obsessing over a particular series of thoughts is if you've come to the work and you've breathed so in deep and you've butterfly tapped or journal or EFT tapped or whatever methodology you use to actually have the emotional poop, and you've come to the work with the correct mindset that everything is working out for you and you still have the thoughts for surface Great Me too.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: It means we're successfully human with monkey minds, right.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: It means that the thoughts that we have are really habitual, right.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Our minds grab for familiar habits and patterns, familiar content, familiar ways of thinking.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Changing our belief systems really boils down to changing our thoughts, and changing our thoughts means having some fricking discipline around what we think, and there is not much.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: You do more in a day, maybe breathing, maybe your heart pumping, right, but those things are unconscious.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Then think you think more than you do anything in a day, and the majority of the volume of what you think is based on false premises, based on flawed thoughts.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: The majority of the thoughts you think are flawed, meaning they can't be proven, they there's some error built into them.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: They're like if you put them under a logic microscope they would disintegrate, right?
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: So when you do this work and you still loop, what then you need to know is it's time to create some discipline around what you think and why.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: So first, I think it's useful to just understand that the majority of the thoughts we think in a day are flawed, right?
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Because then I get really curious about well, I wonder which ones are accurate and which ones are not, because that might be helpful in how I move through my day and make my decisions right.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: So just by acknowledging that a fraction of them are correct and a fraction of them are incorrect makes me curious, which makes me want to step back and observe them and sort them.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And sorting thoughts is incredibly useful, and when you're sorting them the ones that are to do with this content that you're kind of obsessed with you have to get really intentional about changing the channel and creating a different mental trend.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Now you may say how I've tried and I can't, and like I get that right, but maybe part of why you can't is because you skipped steps one and two, or maybe part of why you can't is because you're missing the motivation to do it.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: In step three, Let me say more.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: So when I talk about motivation, everything that you want, everything that you have been praying for, you have to open yourself up to allow it in love, and for you to allow it in, you have to feel good.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Good things can't come to you in the way that you want them to come.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: When you're pinched off from love, when you are bitter, when you are resentful, like, think about the people in your life who are bitter and resentful and think about.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Do they have rich lives with lots of love and rich connection and deep meaning, or do they seem kind of isolated and bitter and suffering a lot?
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Right, if you want all of your prayers to be answered, your job is to get happy, and I would guess that when you're looping on the thoughts, you're not feeling happy.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: And so if you become the mechanism for your prayers to be answered, if it's not like, well, did I pray enough and the fancy man in the sky is going to deliver the things because I was a good girl, that's not it.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Right, that's somebody's version, but it's not it.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: If you know that we attract what we are, then your job when you're looping on the negative, dark thoughts is to say I can't have what I desire if I don't change this mental habit, then you have some freaking motivation to reach for a happier thought.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Now, in the beginning this is tricky and I sometimes recommend people do kind of radical things to change the channel in their mind when the loop happens, and that's because at first the work it's kind of clunky, you know.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: So I said to someone just in session last week when they found themselves looping on the thought to start singing happy birthday, and it was like silly, right.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: But sometimes I think the sillier we make a thing, the easier it is to get happy in the moment they're trying to switch off of a painful thought, right.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: So if you're like, oh, my husband is such a douchebag and he did such a fucked up thing to me and oh, I'm doing that thing to on Sunday Happy birthday to me, it's like so silly you can't help but kind of chuckle to yourself and so you can turn it into however you want to turn it into, but all you have to do is get off that thought and onto a different thought, preferably a thought that makes you feel really good, and when you've been going through a really hard time there's not always a lot of great thought menu options.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Many of them are painful and you've been making a lot of negative predictions.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: If this, then that probably you know bad things are happening, mm-mm, Mm-mm.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: We can't negatively predict and get happy.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: They don't go together.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: So then back to happy birthday we go.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: And so let's recap when you're looping mentally on something and you're struggling to move forward, the first thing you have to really understand is there is very likely stuck emotion in there that needs to be processed.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: So make the space, use your breath, butterfly, tap until you feel complete.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Make sure you do that with a very clear, convicted mindset that this is happening for you and not against you, and then, when the thoughts come back in the future, sing happy birthday AKA change the channel to something more joyful, more joyful.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: If you do these things, your life will dramatically change dramatically I know it's already dramatically changed.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: It will dramatically change for the better.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: It will become all the things you fantasized that were possible from divorce and I know that many of you did not choose this and you didn't want it and you agonized over it or you got blindsided by it.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: And still this all remains true.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: You were built for greatness and divinity and personal power and well-being.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: You were not built to suffer love.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: You were built for well-being, and I know that you're here for a reason and I know that this conversation was meant to be, and if you have questions about them, send them on.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I would love to answer your questions.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I would love to answer your questions about making these shifts happen.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I love you so much.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Peace, dear Divorce Diary is a podcast by my Coach, john.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: You can find more at MyCoachJohncom.