Latest / Toxic Girls Zone / You're Not Too Much, You're Keeping Them Out

Transcript

You're Not Too Much, You're Keeping Them Out · Toxic Girls Zone

0:03
Speaker 1: Okay, so I've been sitting with something all week and
0:06
Speaker 1: I can't not talk about it. It showed up in
0:07
Speaker 1: a conversation I had and then it showed up again
0:09
Speaker 1: in something my partner said and then it showed up
0:11
Speaker 1: in the status meeting I hate, which, rude, I don't
0:14
Speaker 1: need that kind of clarity at nine in the morning, right?
0:16
Speaker 1: But here we are. Fair warning before we get into it.
0:19
Speaker 1: You're going to want to argue with me on this one.
0:21
Speaker 1: I'm asking you to hold that reaction just for a
0:23
Speaker 1: little while and keep listening. This is not the episode
0:27
Speaker 1: that tells you to shrink yourself. That episode doesn't exist here.
0:30
Speaker 1: Not once, not ever. This is the one that asks
0:33
Speaker 1: a different question. Not why are you so much, but
0:36
Speaker 1: why is the wall so well decorated, right? Because most
0:38
Speaker 1: of us who were told we were too much at
0:40
Speaker 1: some point didn't go home and fall apart. We went
0:42
Speaker 1: home and built something and then we built something else.
0:45
Speaker 1: And we got very, very good at building. I'm talking
0:48
Speaker 1: about the gallery wall, the promotion, the five-year plan, the
0:52
Speaker 1: savings account that doesn't embarrass you, the whole thing. The
0:55
Speaker 1: wall is gorgeous. It has good lighting and a clear
0:58
Speaker 1: vision for Q3, right? But it's still a wall. And
1:02
Speaker 1: today I want to talk about what's on the other
1:03
Speaker 1: side of it. Here's the thing. Your success is real
1:07
Speaker 1: and it's also the most socially acceptable hiding place available
1:10
Speaker 1: to you. I'm going to say that again because I
1:12
Speaker 1: know your face just did something. Your success is real
1:15
Speaker 1: and it is also a hiding place. Both of those
1:17
Speaker 1: things are completely true at the same time. That's where
1:19
Speaker 1: we're starting today. So who is this episode for? It's
1:23
Speaker 1: for the woman who has everything lined up and keeps
1:25
Speaker 1: wondering why love feels like the one thing that doesn't cooperate.
1:28
Speaker 1: For the woman who sends her own car, books her
1:30
Speaker 1: own trip, handles her own feelings, and then wonders why
1:33
Speaker 1: he stops reaching for her. You know her, right? Maybe
1:36
Speaker 1: you moved to a big city at 22 with a
1:38
Speaker 1: suitcase and a plan, and you built a life. You
1:41
Speaker 1: got the job, the apartment, the promotions. Your calendar is full,
1:45
Speaker 1: and your savings account is doing just fine. And then
1:48
Speaker 1: someone gets close, and something in you starts itemizing. Everything
1:51
Speaker 1: you've done alone, every decision you made without help, every
1:54
Speaker 1: hard thing you handled. And it comes out almost like
1:56
Speaker 1: a warning label. He starts to feel like a variable
1:59
Speaker 1: in a system you already solved. Like, why would you
2:01
Speaker 1: add an unknown to an equation that's working? Sound familiar? Yeah,
2:05
Speaker 1: I thought so. And this is the part where I
2:07
Speaker 1: need you to stay with me because it's not your
2:08
Speaker 1: success that scares him. It's that you're using it so
2:10
Speaker 1: no one can reach you. Okay, picture this. You're on
2:14
Speaker 1: a second date. He's great. You're having a good time.
2:16
Speaker 1: Things feel easy. He offers to pick you up. You
2:18
Speaker 1: already have a car on the way. You say it's fine.
2:20
Speaker 1: I've got it. He smiles. But something small closes in
2:23
Speaker 1: his face, almost like a door he was starting to
2:25
Speaker 1: open just quietly went back to shut. And he stops
2:27
Speaker 1: offering after that. He stops suggesting, stops reaching, stops trying
2:31
Speaker 1: to be the one who handles something for you, right?
2:33
Speaker 1: And you tell yourself he just wasn't that into it.
2:35
Speaker 1: But that's not quite what happened, is it? I'll tell
2:38
Speaker 1: you what happened to me. At 24, I got a
2:40
Speaker 1: raise the same week. A man I was seeing said
2:42
Speaker 1: I was a lot to keep up with. I framed
2:44
Speaker 1: the raise, I deleted his number, and I told myself
2:47
Speaker 1: I won. I did win. I also used that story
2:50
Speaker 1: for the next four years every time someone got close
2:52
Speaker 1: enough to feel risky. I added it to the highlight
2:54
Speaker 1: reel I played in my head, this whole internal awards
2:56
Speaker 1: ceremony I'd run whenever someone tried to suggest I might
2:59
Speaker 1: need something I didn't already have. I'm obsessed with how
3:01
Speaker 1: clean that story felt. It was airtight. I was right
3:04
Speaker 1: and he was wrong, and I had the paperwork to
3:06
Speaker 1: prove it. Make sense? Yeah. Except that's not the whole truth.
3:11
Speaker 1: Ask yourself this. When did being capable start meaning being unreachable?
3:15
Speaker 1: Because there's a moment for most of us where those
3:17
Speaker 1: two things quietly became the same word in our heads.
3:19
Speaker 1: And we didn't notice because it felt like growth. It
3:22
Speaker 1: felt like healing. It felt like finally being enough. Right?
3:26
Speaker 1: I want you to hold that question today because we're
3:28
Speaker 1: going to spend this whole episode tracing it back to
3:30
Speaker 1: where it started. Now I want to name what's actually
3:33
Speaker 1: happening in the body and in the brain when this
3:35
Speaker 1: pattern runs. And I'm going to use a framework that
3:37
Speaker 1: I think is genuinely useful here. It's called parts work.
3:40
Speaker 1: The basic idea is that we're not one single self.
3:42
Speaker 1: We're more like a collection of parts. each one with
3:44
Speaker 1: a job to do. Some of those parts are creative, joyful, curious,
3:47
Speaker 1: and some of those parts showed up to protect us
3:49
Speaker 1: from something that hurt. The protector part is the one
3:51
Speaker 1: I want to talk about today. This is the part
3:53
Speaker 1: that learned at some point that if I need no one,
3:55
Speaker 1: no one can disappoint me. It made a deal. And
3:57
Speaker 1: the deal was, I'll carry everything myself and I won't
4:00
Speaker 1: be left waiting. Right? That sounds like strength from the outside.
4:04
Speaker 1: It looks like capability, like drive, like a woman who
4:06
Speaker 1: has her life together. But that's not all it is.
4:09
Speaker 1: And I want to be really clear about what this isn't.
4:11
Speaker 1: It's not advice to earn less or want less or
4:13
Speaker 1: do less. It's not about finding a man who isn't
4:15
Speaker 1: threatened by a woman who makes good money or has
4:17
Speaker 1: her own opinions. That's not the question we're asking. The
4:20
Speaker 1: question is whether you are the one doing the threatening
4:22
Speaker 1: to yourself, right? Whether the protector part is using your
4:25
Speaker 1: ambition as a sign that says entry not required. Your
4:28
Speaker 1: ambition is yours. It's good. I love that you have it.
4:31
Speaker 1: The protector is the part wearing your ambition like a
4:33
Speaker 1: costume that keeps everyone just far enough away. Here's what
4:37
Speaker 1: that looked like for me in real time. Picture me
4:39
Speaker 1: at my weekly status meeting, the one I genuinely cannot stand.
4:42
Speaker 1: Running the room, everyone nodding. I'm very good at this,
4:45
Speaker 1: I'm not pretending otherwise. And then my partner texts. Something like, hey,
4:48
Speaker 1: how are you doing today? And I answer fine without
4:50
Speaker 1: even looking up. Because I'm in full armor mode. Right?
4:53
Speaker 1: And the problem is I never took the armor off
4:55
Speaker 1: when I sat down for dinner that night. I just
4:57
Speaker 1: stayed in it. The protector doesn't clock out. It genuinely
4:59
Speaker 1: doesn't know where the time clock is. It has never
5:02
Speaker 1: once in its life punched out at five. Name it, okay?
5:05
Speaker 1: Not your ambition. Not your personality. The protector. Call it
5:09
Speaker 1: what it is. That's actually your first move. You're not
5:11
Speaker 1: broken for having built the armor. You built it because
5:13
Speaker 1: something early on gave you very good reasons to. We're
5:16
Speaker 1: going to get into what those reasons were. But for
5:18
Speaker 1: right now, just know that there is a part of
5:20
Speaker 1: you that put this armor on with your best interests
5:21
Speaker 1: in mind. And it has been very, very faithful to
5:24
Speaker 1: the job. Right? Maybe a little too faithful. Maybe you
5:27
Speaker 1: forgot to check whether the original threat is still actually
5:29
Speaker 1: in the room. So what comes next? Four steps. We're
5:34
Speaker 1: going to notice the armor, figure out where it came from,
5:35
Speaker 1: let someone see past it, and then practice staying when
5:38
Speaker 1: it gets uncomfortable. Those four things in that order, that's
5:41
Speaker 1: where we're going today. And the first one, noticing, which
5:44
Speaker 1: sounds simple, is genuinely the hardest because the armor has
5:47
Speaker 1: been on so long it has your shape. It thinks
5:49
Speaker 1: it is you, right? But it isn't you. And that
5:52
Speaker 1: distinction is everything. The body always tells you first. The
5:57
Speaker 1: jaw tightens, the shoulders come up, the answer comes out
5:59
Speaker 1: before you've thought it. Step one is noticing the armor
6:01
Speaker 1: going on, not stopping it yet, just seeing it. When
6:04
Speaker 1: someone offers help and your chest does a small refusal
6:06
Speaker 1: before your mouth does, That's the armor. When your partner says,
6:09
Speaker 1: let me handle dinner, and you're already mentally running through
6:11
Speaker 1: how you do it differently, that's the armor. It's fast.
6:14
Speaker 1: It's been practicing since before you had a word for it, right?
6:17
Speaker 1: And it's really, really efficient. Here's mine. In my mid-20s,
6:21
Speaker 1: I chased men who were unavailable. I know that sounds
6:23
Speaker 1: like the opposite of building armor. It sounds like longing,
6:25
Speaker 1: like need, but it was the exact same thing. Choosing
6:28
Speaker 1: someone who couldn't really show up meant I never had
6:31
Speaker 1: to show up fully either. I was very busy being
6:33
Speaker 1: in love with potential. The kind of love that always
6:35
Speaker 1: has somewhere to go, always has a next conversation, a
6:38
Speaker 1: next version of him, a next reason to stay in
6:40
Speaker 1: my head instead of in the actual relationship. It's exhausting work,
6:44
Speaker 1: and it kept me completely safe. I've done this on
6:46
Speaker 1: some variation at least eight times. It's embarrassing. Okay? It's
6:50
Speaker 1: a little embarrassing. But we're being honest today. Okay, picture
6:54
Speaker 1: this one. You're getting ready for a date. You look great.
6:57
Speaker 1: You feel good. You're actually kind of excited, which is rare,
7:00
Speaker 1: which is worth noting. He texts that he's running 10
7:02
Speaker 1: minutes late. And something small and cool slides over your face.
7:05
Speaker 1: Not rage. Not even real annoyance. Just a quiet little click.
7:09
Speaker 1: You file it. One point against him already. The case
7:12
Speaker 1: is being built and the date hasn't even started. Right?
7:14
Speaker 1: The protector's in the courtroom and it hasn't even met
7:16
Speaker 1: the guy yet. This is the one I remember clearly.
7:19
Speaker 1: I was in therapy, probably the second year of it,
7:21
Speaker 1: and I wrote in my journal that I was drawn
7:23
Speaker 1: to men who were projects. My therapist said that sounds exhausting.
7:26
Speaker 1: I said it keeps things interesting. She said, or it
7:28
Speaker 1: keeps you in charge. I drove home. I did not
7:31
Speaker 1: respond to that. I did not sit with it. I
7:33
Speaker 1: reorganize my entire closet at midnight, by color and by season,
7:36
Speaker 1: full both. The protector is also, it turns out, an
7:39
Speaker 1: excellent interior designer. It will find something for you to
7:42
Speaker 1: do with your hands so you do not have to
7:43
Speaker 1: feel the thing. Right? Okay. So that's noticing. That's step one.
7:48
Speaker 1: The next time someone offers to help you with something,
7:50
Speaker 1: pause before you answer. Just a second. Notice that the
7:53
Speaker 1: refusal comes before the thought. Notice if your body already
7:55
Speaker 1: said no before your brain got there. That's all. Just notice.
7:58
Speaker 1: You're not fixing it yet. You're just watching the armor
8:00
Speaker 1: do its thing. right? Because you can't change what you
8:03
Speaker 1: hadn't seen. And most of us have been seeing the
8:05
Speaker 1: armor as ourselves for so long. We've stopped looking at
8:07
Speaker 1: it altogether. Here's what's coming next. Step two is where
8:12
Speaker 1: we trace the armor back. And I want to warn you,
8:14
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about where this actually started. We're
8:17
Speaker 1: going to see a face, maybe more than one. And
8:19
Speaker 1: I think you'll recognize the room. That's next. My mom
8:22
Speaker 1: called last Sunday, like she does. And she said something
8:25
Speaker 1: she said a hundred times. She goes, you've always done
8:27
Speaker 1: everything yourself. Even as a little girl, I never had
8:30
Speaker 1: to ask twice. And she meant it as a compliment.
8:32
Speaker 1: She was proud. She still is. And I heard it
8:35
Speaker 1: this time differently than I ever have before. Right? Because
8:37
Speaker 1: step two is tracing the armor back. Not to blame anyone.
8:40
Speaker 1: Not to make your mom the villain of your healing journey.
8:43
Speaker 1: But to understand the logic. The protector built itself out
8:45
Speaker 1: of real information. And that information came from somewhere specific.
8:49
Speaker 1: So let's go there. In a house where my dad
8:51
Speaker 1: worked long hours and was kind, genuinely kind, but hard
8:55
Speaker 1: to reach, I learned something without anyone teaching it. I
8:58
Speaker 1: learned that needing people put you in a waiting room.
9:00
Speaker 1: You waited for him to come home. You waited for
9:03
Speaker 1: the mood to be right. You waited and waited, and
9:05
Speaker 1: at some point you got very good at not waiting
9:06
Speaker 1: by deciding you didn't need anything. Make sense? That's not
9:10
Speaker 1: a dramatic conclusion. That's a completely rational decision made by
9:13
Speaker 1: a small person with the data available to her. The
9:16
Speaker 1: protector looked at the evidence and said, okay, if I
9:18
Speaker 1: become someone who needs nothing, then no one's absence can
9:21
Speaker 1: hurt me. And honestly, solid strategy for a nine-year-old. My
9:27
Speaker 1: mom is warm. Her warmth just had weather. Some Sundays
9:30
Speaker 1: she'd call and it was sunlight. Easy, lovely. She'd laugh
9:33
Speaker 1: at everything. Some Sundays there was a front moving in.
9:36
Speaker 1: You could feel it before you said a word. So
9:38
Speaker 1: you learned to read the sky before you said anything real.
9:41
Speaker 1: You got charming. You got capable. You learned to be
9:44
Speaker 1: delightful in a way that did not require anyone to
9:46
Speaker 1: take care of you. Because delight was safer than need. Right?
9:49
Speaker 1: And that worked. That actually worked really well for a
9:52
Speaker 1: long time. Until it didn't. Picture this. You're maybe nine
9:56
Speaker 1: or ten years old your dad's not home again you
9:59
Speaker 1: don't make a thing of it you just go to
10:00
Speaker 1: the kitchen and you start helping with dinner without anyone
10:02
Speaker 1: asking your mom turns around and she says what would
10:05
Speaker 1: I do without you and you feel proud you feel
10:07
Speaker 1: so proud and you also feel very very alone and
10:10
Speaker 1: you file that away as the deal be useful and
10:13
Speaker 1: you are loved be capable and you belong don't need
10:16
Speaker 1: anything and no one will ever have a reason to
10:17
Speaker 1: leave you didn't choose that deal It was the only
10:20
Speaker 1: one on the table, right? The protector just signed it. Now,
10:24
Speaker 1: here's the thing that gets complicated. That deal followed you
10:27
Speaker 1: straight into your adult relationships. He's not home by a
10:30
Speaker 1: certain time. Something closes in you before you've even checked
10:32
Speaker 1: in with yourself. She doesn't call back right away. You've
10:35
Speaker 1: already decided you're fine and you didn't want to talk anyway.
10:38
Speaker 1: Your partner asks how you're doing and the word fine
10:41
Speaker 1: is out of your mouth before the question even finished landing.
10:43
Speaker 1: The protector generalizes. That's what it does. It took the
10:46
Speaker 1: rules it learned at home. And it applied them everywhere,
10:49
Speaker 1: to everyone, forever, because better safe than sorry was the
10:52
Speaker 1: whole point. Sound familiar? I asked my partner once why
10:56
Speaker 1: they kept leaving the sticky notes on the coffee maker.
10:58
Speaker 1: Just little ones, morning, have a good meeting, the pasta's
11:01
Speaker 1: in the fridge. And I asked why, kind of briskly, honestly, like,
11:04
Speaker 1: it was a logistics question. My partner just looked at
11:06
Speaker 1: me and said, I just wanted you to know I
11:08
Speaker 1: was thinking about you. And I said, you could just
11:09
Speaker 1: say that. And they said, I know, but I thought
11:11
Speaker 1: you might be able to hear it better in writing
11:13
Speaker 1: at first. Yeah. They were right. I could. The protector
11:17
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do with a voice saying it,
11:18
Speaker 1: but a piece of paper on the coffee maker at
11:20
Speaker 1: six in the morning that it could let through? Simple
11:22
Speaker 1: as disarming like that. The protector part logic works like this,
11:27
Speaker 1: and this is the concept I want you to hold
11:28
Speaker 1: on to. The part concluded very early that capability equals
11:31
Speaker 1: safety and need equals risk, right? It took childhood data,
11:35
Speaker 1: real data, accurate data for that time in that house,
11:38
Speaker 1: and it turned it into adult relationship rules. You were
11:40
Speaker 1: not wrong to build it. You were resourceful. You were smart.
11:43
Speaker 1: You were surviving something that felt uncertain. The problem is
11:46
Speaker 1: the protector didn't get the update that you're not in
11:48
Speaker 1: that house anymore. It's still running the old operating system.
11:51
Speaker 1: It does not know that the person across from you
11:53
Speaker 1: at dinner is not your dad coming home late. It
11:55
Speaker 1: only knows what it learned. And it learned to be very,
11:57
Speaker 1: very good. My dad was kind. He was present when
12:00
Speaker 1: he was home. He was just also frequently not home.
12:03
Speaker 1: And the protector did not have time to hold both
12:05
Speaker 1: of those things at once. It was too busy building
12:07
Speaker 1: a resume. Write that down if you need to. It's
12:10
Speaker 1: not that your parents were monsters. It's that the protector
12:12
Speaker 1: made a simple rule out of a complicated situation because
12:15
Speaker 1: simple rules are what keeps small people safe. And now
12:18
Speaker 1: that rule is running your second dates and your text
12:20
Speaker 1: responses and the way you said fine just now. Right?
12:23
Speaker 1: So here's what I want you to do. Write down
12:25
Speaker 1: one sentence. Just one. The thing you learned about needing
12:28
Speaker 1: people when you were small. Don't make it pretty. Don't
12:30
Speaker 1: edit it. Don't frame it as a lesson or a
12:32
Speaker 1: growth moment. Just write the raw version. The thing you
12:35
Speaker 1: actually concluded. I'll wait. Well, I won't actually wait, but
12:38
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Do it after this. Now,
12:42
Speaker 1: here's where you're going to push back on me. And
12:43
Speaker 1: I get it. I really do. Because the armor doesn't
12:46
Speaker 1: feel like armor. It feels like personality. It feels like
12:48
Speaker 1: the thing that made you who you are. And you're
12:50
Speaker 1: not wrong. The drive, the self-sufficiency, the capability, those are
12:53
Speaker 1: genuinely yours. I'm not going to sit here and tell
12:55
Speaker 1: you that your ambition is a wound and you should
12:57
Speaker 1: soften up and wait by the phone. That's not what
12:59
Speaker 1: this is, right? But the part that cannot let someone
13:02
Speaker 1: carry a box without commenting on how they're carrying it,
13:04
Speaker 1: the part that pre-explains her decisions like she owes a
13:06
Speaker 1: courtroom a defense, the part that turns every relationship into
13:09
Speaker 1: a performance review, where she's both the employee and the manager,
13:13
Speaker 1: that part is the protector. That's not you. That's protection
13:16
Speaker 1: wearing your face. The armor has been on so long,
13:19
Speaker 1: it has your shape. It has your exact taste in
13:22
Speaker 1: shoes and your specific brand of dry humor and your
13:24
Speaker 1: way of entering a room. It's been method acting for
13:27
Speaker 1: years and it is very, very convincing. Even to you.
13:30
Speaker 1: Especially to you. The difference between identity and defense is this.
13:34
Speaker 1: One of them relaxes when you're safe. Right? Right? And
13:37
Speaker 1: one of them never does. One of them can sit
13:39
Speaker 1: on a balcony on a nice evening and just be there.
13:42
Speaker 1: And one of them is already scanning for exits, drafting
13:44
Speaker 1: contingency plans, making sure no one clocks that she doesn't
13:47
Speaker 1: have this completely handled. You know which one is which.
13:51
Speaker 1: Picture you and your partner on the balcony, the plants
13:53
Speaker 1: behind you that you keep almost killing are somehow still alive.
13:56
Speaker 1: It's a nice evening, genuinely nice. And your partner looks
13:59
Speaker 1: over and says, what do you need right now? And
14:01
Speaker 1: you say, I'm good. I'm always good. And you mean
14:03
Speaker 1: it and you don't mean it both at the same time.
14:06
Speaker 1: And they don't push it because they've learned not to.
14:08
Speaker 1: And you feel a small relief and also something quieter
14:10
Speaker 1: underneath it. Something that sounds like, I wish you had
14:12
Speaker 1: pushed it. Right? I know you know that feeling. I've
14:15
Speaker 1: lived in that feeling. The cost isn't that you scare
14:18
Speaker 1: men away. I want to be really clear about that
14:21
Speaker 1: because that framing puts it all on him and his
14:22
Speaker 1: fragile ego. And that's not what we're doing here. The
14:25
Speaker 1: actual cost is that you scare away the possibility of
14:27
Speaker 1: being fully known. You end up loved for what you
14:29
Speaker 1: do and not for what you carry. Your partner stops
14:32
Speaker 1: asking how you are because the answer is always fine.
14:34
Speaker 1: And fine is a door that doesn't open from the outside.
14:37
Speaker 1: It's not your success that scares him. It's that you're
14:39
Speaker 1: using it so no one can reach you. And that loneliness, baby,
14:42
Speaker 1: is its own specific kind. It's not the loneliness of
14:44
Speaker 1: being alone in your apartment on a Saturday. It's the
14:47
Speaker 1: loneliness of being in the room and behind glass. He's
14:49
Speaker 1: right there. You're very impressive. And also very far away.
14:54
Speaker 1: Picture this. You're at dinner out, a nice place, the
14:57
Speaker 1: kind of dinner that looks like connection from the outside.
15:00
Speaker 1: Your partner is talking, you're nodding, you look present. You're
15:03
Speaker 1: actually already three steps into planning a work thing, running
15:05
Speaker 1: through the deck in your head. And they say, you're
15:08
Speaker 1: not really here tonight. And you say, I'm here, I'm
15:10
Speaker 1: right here. And they don't push it. And you feel relieved.
15:13
Speaker 1: And then a minute later, hollow, right? The armor is
15:16
Speaker 1: a great dinner companion. It orders confidently. It makes excellent conversation.
15:20
Speaker 1: It splits the check without any drama whatsoever. But it
15:23
Speaker 1: doesn't let anyone in. And the hollow feeling is the
15:25
Speaker 1: real you noticing the distance and not knowing how to
15:27
Speaker 1: close it yet. Some of you listening have done everything right.
15:31
Speaker 1: You went to therapy, you read the books, you did
15:33
Speaker 1: the work. You know your attachment style and you can
15:35
Speaker 1: name it in real time while it's happening, which is
15:37
Speaker 1: genuinely impressive. And you still feel like no one really
15:40
Speaker 1: knows you. That is not a coincidence. That is the
15:42
Speaker 1: protector wearing the therapy vocabulary. Understanding the armor is not
15:45
Speaker 1: the same as taking it off. And I say that
15:47
Speaker 1: with love because I did this for years. I used
15:50
Speaker 1: insight as a very sophisticated delay tactic. My best friend
15:53
Speaker 1: eventually stopped answering my texts about a man I was
15:55
Speaker 1: overanalyzing for an entire week on purpose. And when she
15:58
Speaker 1: came back, she said, you already know what you need
16:00
Speaker 1: to know. Stop using the analysis to avoid the decision.
16:04
Speaker 1: She was absolutely right. The armor in a therapy voice
16:06
Speaker 1: is still armor. It's just better at sounding like progress. Right?
16:11
Speaker 1: So step three, and I'm going to dare you here.
16:14
Speaker 1: This week, let one thing be done for you without
16:16
Speaker 1: correcting how it was done. That's the step. Not a
16:18
Speaker 1: grand emotional revelation. Not a vulnerable conversation that goes perfectly
16:22
Speaker 1: and ends in a hug. Just one thing. Let it
16:24
Speaker 1: be done. Step three is letting someone see past the
16:27
Speaker 1: armor on purpose. and it's the hardest one because it
16:29
Speaker 1: requires you to do the exact thing the protector exists
16:31
Speaker 1: to prevent. You have to be a little helpless, a
16:34
Speaker 1: little uncertain, a little need-having, in front of someone who
16:37
Speaker 1: might respond badly, and you cannot control the response. That
16:40
Speaker 1: is the entire problem and also the entire point. You
16:43
Speaker 1: can't guarantee the landing. The protector hates that. The protector
16:46
Speaker 1: is already drafting a contingency plan for how to let
16:48
Speaker 1: someone in, and honestly, that's so on-brand I can't even
16:50
Speaker 1: be mad. Right? Letting someone see past the armor doesn't
16:54
Speaker 1: mean falling apart at the table. It doesn't mean leading
16:57
Speaker 1: with every fear you've ever had on a Tuesday. It
16:59
Speaker 1: means saying I'm tired and I don't know what to
17:01
Speaker 1: do about this instead of I've already handled it. It
17:04
Speaker 1: means accepting the dinner your partner cooked without immediately silently
17:08
Speaker 1: noting the one thing you would have done differently. It
17:10
Speaker 1: means staying in the conversation about how you're feeling instead
17:12
Speaker 1: of pivoting to a plan because a plan is action
17:15
Speaker 1: and action is the armor's favorite place to live. For
17:17
Speaker 1: the woman who's new to someone, this might just be
17:19
Speaker 1: saying I like that when you like something instead of
17:21
Speaker 1: playing it even and staying cool. For the woman who's
17:24
Speaker 1: been with someone a while, it might be I need
17:26
Speaker 1: something tonight and I don't know exactly what it is.
17:28
Speaker 1: That sentence is terrifying to the protector. Say it anyway. Yeah?
17:33
Speaker 1: Picture this. You and your partner, end of a hard week.
17:36
Speaker 1: They've made dinner again. The good pasta, the one with
17:38
Speaker 1: the lemon. You sit down. And instead of jumping up
17:41
Speaker 1: immediately to do something useful, to refill something or wipe
17:44
Speaker 1: something or be productive in some small way that keeps
17:46
Speaker 1: the armor busy, you just sit. And you say, thank
17:49
Speaker 1: you for this. I really needed it tonight. And you
17:51
Speaker 1: mean it. And they look at you, not like they're
17:53
Speaker 1: surprised exactly, but like they just got a glimpse of
17:55
Speaker 1: someone they've been hoping to meet. Like a door opened,
17:58
Speaker 1: just a crack, and the light came through. Right? That's
18:01
Speaker 1: the whole step. That's it. That one sentence. I needed
18:04
Speaker 1: it tonight. An ordinary week with step three looks like this.
18:08
Speaker 1: Your partner asks what's wrong, and instead of nothing you say,
18:10
Speaker 1: I had a hard day and I don't want to
18:11
Speaker 1: fix it yet, I just want to tell you about it.
18:13
Speaker 1: And then you do. You just tell it. The dog
18:16
Speaker 1: steals a sock mid-sentence and your partner laughs and you
18:18
Speaker 1: laugh and the story gets completely derailed and it doesn't
18:20
Speaker 1: matter because the armor wasn't in the room. The dog,
18:23
Speaker 1: for the record, has no protective part whatsoever. He just
18:25
Speaker 1: wants the sock and he asks for it with his
18:27
Speaker 1: entire body, ears up, eyes locked, zero ambiguity about what
18:30
Speaker 1: he needs. We could genuinely learn something, right? After a
18:34
Speaker 1: moment like that, your job is to stay in the room.
18:37
Speaker 1: Don't immediately become useful. Don't find something to wipe down.
18:39
Speaker 1: Just stay. Let your nervous system collect the receipt. Nothing
18:43
Speaker 1: went wrong when you needed something. File that. Your protector
18:46
Speaker 1: needs that data. You sent a text that said picking
18:49
Speaker 1: up groceries need anything. And instead of just going and
18:52
Speaker 1: coming back with everything solved, perfectly purchased, independently completed, you
18:56
Speaker 1: actually waited for the answer. You let the errand be
18:59
Speaker 1: a conversation instead of a performance, right? That is so
19:02
Speaker 1: much smaller than it sounds and also so much harder
19:04
Speaker 1: than it sounds. The protector wants to just handle it.
19:06
Speaker 1: The protector is very efficient, but efficiency is not intimacy.
19:10
Speaker 1: Getting everything done alone is not the same as being
19:12
Speaker 1: in a partnership. And your nervous system knows the difference
19:14
Speaker 1: even when the armor has convinced your brain it doesn't. Okay?
19:18
Speaker 1: Here's what's coming next. Step four. We're going to talk
19:21
Speaker 1: about the trap. The moment when the self-work itself becomes
19:23
Speaker 1: the new hiding place and what actually waits on the
19:25
Speaker 1: other side of the armor when you finally decide to
19:27
Speaker 1: let it rest. And I think you're going to recognize
19:29
Speaker 1: the trap because it's sneaky and it wears such a
19:31
Speaker 1: good outfit. That's next. And that's the trap. That's exactly
19:36
Speaker 1: where we're going next, right? Because step four is the
19:38
Speaker 1: one that catches you off guard. You think you've done
19:40
Speaker 1: the work. You think you're past the armor. And then
19:42
Speaker 1: you realize the work itself has become the new room
19:44
Speaker 1: with the closed door. Step four is practicing staying when
19:48
Speaker 1: it gets uncomfortable. Not just once, not just on a
19:51
Speaker 1: good week when your nervous system is regulated and your
19:53
Speaker 1: partner is being sweet and everything feels manageable. I mean
19:56
Speaker 1: staying when something he says lands wrong. Staying when you
19:58
Speaker 1: feel uncertain about where things are going. Staying when the
20:01
Speaker 1: protector shows up at the door with her whole argument
20:03
Speaker 1: ready and her briefcase full of evidence that this is
20:05
Speaker 1: exactly why we don't do this. Your job isn't to
20:08
Speaker 1: fire her. Your job is to say, I hear you,
20:10
Speaker 1: I see you, we're staying anyway, right? So my experiment
20:14
Speaker 1: was small, because small is how you actually do it.
20:16
Speaker 1: For one week, I stopped pre-explaining my decisions to my partner.
20:20
Speaker 1: You know that thing, right? Where you give the full
20:21
Speaker 1: case before anyone has even asked for it? Like, I
20:24
Speaker 1: know we watched something like this last week, and I
20:25
Speaker 1: know you prefer the other genre, and I know it's
20:27
Speaker 1: your turn to pick, but I just thought maybe, and
20:29
Speaker 1: on and on. I just said what I wanted. The
20:32
Speaker 1: first night I said I want to watch something silly.
20:34
Speaker 1: Not the whole dossier of justifications. Just, I want to
20:37
Speaker 1: watch something silly. My partner said okay and turned it
20:39
Speaker 1: on and fell asleep 11 minutes in, as they always do,
20:42
Speaker 1: every single time, without fail. And nothing needed to be defended.
20:45
Speaker 1: Sound familiar? That's it. That's the whole step sometimes. You
20:49
Speaker 1: say the want. Nothing collapses. This step is about repetition, though.
20:54
Speaker 1: You practice staying. You practice not performing. You practice being
20:57
Speaker 1: someone whose value is not the running list of everything
20:59
Speaker 1: she has handled this week. Because the armor comes back,
21:02
Speaker 1: and you need to have enough reps in the body
21:03
Speaker 1: that when it does, you have a different option available.
21:06
Speaker 1: Pick one thing this week where you let yourself be
21:07
Speaker 1: average on purpose. Not bad, not checked out, just average.
21:11
Speaker 1: You don't run the meeting and take the notes and
21:12
Speaker 1: send the recap. You do one of those things and
21:14
Speaker 1: let someone else do the rest. Notice what your body does.
21:17
Speaker 1: Notice whether the ceiling falls in. My bet is it doesn't, right?
21:20
Speaker 1: I tested this at my weekly status meeting, the one
21:23
Speaker 1: I genuinely cannot stand, the one where everyone nods and
21:26
Speaker 1: the agenda hasn't changed in three months, and I always
21:29
Speaker 1: leave feeling like I age slightly. I let a coworker
21:31
Speaker 1: take the lead on something I usually own. I stayed quiet.
21:34
Speaker 1: I did not correct the framing when the framing was
21:36
Speaker 1: slightly off. Something in my chest was uncomfortable for the
21:38
Speaker 1: entire hour, like a small fire that kept wanting me
21:41
Speaker 1: to say something, fix something, reassert something. I also did
21:44
Speaker 1: not die. My coworker did fine. The ceiling stayed up.
21:47
Speaker 1: The protector was genuinely shocked. And my partner fell asleep
21:50
Speaker 1: before the second commercial break that same night, so the
21:53
Speaker 1: armor didn't even have time to process it. It was
21:55
Speaker 1: over before I could build a rebuttal. Yeah, that's the goal, actually.
22:00
Speaker 1: Now here's the trap that lives inside the work itself,
22:02
Speaker 1: because this one is sneaky and I have been fully
22:04
Speaker 1: inside it and nobody warned me. Sometimes the self-work becomes
22:07
Speaker 1: the new armor. You know your attachment style. You know
22:10
Speaker 1: your protector's origin story. You can name the pattern in
22:13
Speaker 1: real time, out loud, with real vocabulary while it's happening.
22:17
Speaker 1: And you are still not letting anyone in. You're just
22:19
Speaker 1: narrating the armor now instead of wearing it in silence.
22:22
Speaker 1: Knowing the theory is not the same as doing the step.
22:25
Speaker 1: The understanding doesn't do the work. You have to put
22:27
Speaker 1: the book down and be a little bit available and
22:29
Speaker 1: a little bit scared and do it anyway. The woman
22:31
Speaker 1: who uses the work to hide is still hiding. She
22:33
Speaker 1: just has better vocabulary. Right? I read every book on
22:37
Speaker 1: that shelf. I know I talk about that. And I
22:40
Speaker 1: still needed my best friend to tell me I was
22:41
Speaker 1: being armored at a birthday dinner before I could see
22:43
Speaker 1: it clearly. Understanding didn't get me there. She did. Blunt,
22:47
Speaker 1: slightly annoyed, I'm saying this because I love you, she did. Actually,
22:51
Speaker 1: she once stopped answering my texts about a man I
22:53
Speaker 1: was overanalyzing for an entire week on purpose. just went
22:56
Speaker 1: quiet on me. When she came back, she said, you
22:59
Speaker 1: already know what you need to know. Stop using the
23:01
Speaker 1: analysis to avoid the decision. She was right. I was
23:04
Speaker 1: using insight as a delay tactic. I was so fluent
23:06
Speaker 1: in the language of healing that I could talk about
23:08
Speaker 1: the armor forever, without ever taking it off. The armor
23:11
Speaker 1: wears a lot of different outfits. That week, it was
23:13
Speaker 1: wearing a journal and a highlighter. Make sense? And if
23:18
Speaker 1: any of this is landing in a way that feels
23:19
Speaker 1: bigger than a podcast episode can hold, I want to
23:22
Speaker 1: say this once. If the protector part feels immovable... If
23:25
Speaker 1: the fear of being seen is genuinely affecting your ability
23:27
Speaker 1: to be close to anyone, not just hard, but stuck,
23:30
Speaker 1: that is worth talking through with a therapist who works
23:32
Speaker 1: with parts or with attachment. A real one, in a
23:35
Speaker 1: real room, or close enough to one. The armor in
23:38
Speaker 1: a therapy voice is still armor, but a good therapist
23:40
Speaker 1: knows the difference. Just putting that out there, okay? Now
23:44
Speaker 1: let's talk about what's on the other side, because I
23:45
Speaker 1: don't want to leave you standing in front of the
23:47
Speaker 1: armor without at least telling you what the view looks
23:49
Speaker 1: like when you put it down. The other side isn't
23:51
Speaker 1: a woman who has dismantled everything she built. She hasn't
23:54
Speaker 1: gotten smaller. She hasn't earned less or wanted less or
23:56
Speaker 1: pretended not to be impressive. She's impressive and also available.
24:00
Speaker 1: She can run the meeting and then come home and
24:02
Speaker 1: say today was hard and mean it. She can book
24:04
Speaker 1: her own flight and also reach for someone's hand in
24:06
Speaker 1: the dark. She has done a lot alone and she
24:08
Speaker 1: has decided, consciously decided, that she doesn't have to anymore.
24:12
Speaker 1: That decision is not weakness. That decision is the bravest thing, right?
24:16
Speaker 1: Picture you on the balcony with your partner, evening, just
24:19
Speaker 1: sitting there, The plants are behind you, and listen, one
24:22
Speaker 1: of them has actually survived. Not because I got better
24:25
Speaker 1: at plants. Because I forgot to overthink the watering schedule
24:28
Speaker 1: for like three weeks, and apparently that was exactly right.
24:30
Speaker 1: The armor was too busy with something else to intervene
24:32
Speaker 1: in the plant situation. And there you two are. Not
24:35
Speaker 1: doing anything useful. Not solving anything. Not being impressive at
24:39
Speaker 1: each other. Just sitting. And you don't feel the urge
24:41
Speaker 1: to list what you accomplished today. You don't feel the
24:43
Speaker 1: urge to prove you're not a variable he needs to manage.
24:46
Speaker 1: You're just there. And it's enough. Can we see this?
24:50
Speaker 1: This is not about finding someone who isn't intimidated by you.
24:53
Speaker 1: It's about becoming someone who is no longer trying to intimidate.
24:56
Speaker 1: Even when she doesn't know that's what she's doing. The
24:58
Speaker 1: secure version of you doesn't need to prove her independence
25:00
Speaker 1: in every interaction because she isn't afraid of losing it.
25:03
Speaker 1: She knows she can be known and still be whole.
25:06
Speaker 1: She knows needing something doesn't cancel everything she's built. She
25:09
Speaker 1: has the receipts. Her nervous system has the receipts. Nothing
25:12
Speaker 1: went wrong when she was soft. File that. Right? And
25:16
Speaker 1: then there's the trap of using the work to run
25:18
Speaker 1: one more loop. I know I just named it, but
25:21
Speaker 1: I want to say it one more time in plain
25:22
Speaker 1: language because I almost missed it in myself. There is
25:25
Speaker 1: a version of doing the work that is still a performance,
25:27
Speaker 1: a smarter performance, a more self-aware performance, but a performance.
25:31
Speaker 1: You're performing healing instead of just, you know, being a
25:33
Speaker 1: little bit available on a Tuesday. The work is supposed
25:36
Speaker 1: to lead somewhere, somewhere ordinary, somewhere small, somewhere like I
25:39
Speaker 1: just wanted you to know I was having a hard
25:41
Speaker 1: night set out loud in a kitchen while someone is
25:43
Speaker 1: making dinner without a footnote explaining the attachment theory behind it.
25:47
Speaker 1: That's it. That's the whole destination. Yeah? Baby, I want
25:51
Speaker 1: to say this to you directly. Your success is yours.
25:54
Speaker 1: Nobody is asking you to put it down. Not here.
25:56
Speaker 1: Not ever. The promotion is real. The savings account is real.
26:00
Speaker 1: The life you built from a suitcase and a plan
26:01
Speaker 1: is real. And it is also not the thing that's
26:03
Speaker 1: keeping love out. You're not too much. You've never been
26:06
Speaker 1: too much. You're just keeping them out. And now you
26:08
Speaker 1: know how. And now you know where it came from.
26:10
Speaker 1: And now you have four actual steps to try. It's
26:12
Speaker 1: not your success that scares him. It's that you're using
26:15
Speaker 1: it so no one can reach you. And the best
26:17
Speaker 1: part is, you can stop. Not all at once, not perfectly,
26:20
Speaker 1: not without the protector making a whole production about it.
26:22
Speaker 1: But you can stop. One ordinary moment at a time. Right?
26:27
Speaker 1: So here's the question I want you to sit with.
26:29
Speaker 1: When you list everything you have built, are you proud?
26:32
Speaker 1: Or are you making sure he knows he isn't needed?
26:34
Speaker 1: Because there's a version of you who is extraordinary and reachable.
26:37
Speaker 1: She's not somewhere in the future, some future self you
26:39
Speaker 1: have to earn your way into. She's already there, behind
26:42
Speaker 1: the armor, waiting for you to decide it's safe enough
26:44
Speaker 1: to come out. The armor can wait outside. It'll be fine.
26:47
Speaker 1: It's very self-sufficient. It'll reorganize itself by color and season
26:50
Speaker 1: while you're gone. It doesn't need you either. If this
26:54
Speaker 1: one hits somewhere real, send it to a friend who
26:56
Speaker 1: has built the most impressive life and still feels like
26:59
Speaker 1: nobody really knows her. She might need to hear this.
27:02
Speaker 1: Follow along so you don't miss what's next. And tell me,
27:05
Speaker 1: in whatever way feels right to you, what is your
27:07
Speaker 1: armor wear? What outfit does it put on when it's
27:09
Speaker 1: trying to look like something other than fear? I want
27:11
Speaker 1: to know. Take care of yourself. I'll talk to you soon.
27:15
Speaker 1: This show is made by Opal Media.