Latest / Conversations with My Walls / On whimsymaxxing, nervous systems, and how your last relationship set you up

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On whimsymaxxing, nervous systems, and how your last relationship set you up · Conversations with My Walls

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Morgan and this is Conversations with My Walls,
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  SPEAKER_00: episode 6, Whimsymaxing, Nervous Systems, and How Your Last Relationship Set You Up.
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  SPEAKER_00: The relationship between our inside and outside worlds is best represented
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  SPEAKER_00: by our nervous system, especially when it overlaps with our attachment styles.
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  SPEAKER_00: Coming up,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to reveal a cautionary tale I didn't know we need to look out for,
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  SPEAKER_00: and how pulling up a chair is about to get a whole new meaning.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Being needed doesn't get a bad rap like being needy does, but it should.
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  SPEAKER_00: When does offering a shoulder to cry on become a cycle of the Phoebe Buffay vs.
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  SPEAKER_00: Joey Tribbiani-ism of there's no unselfish good deed?
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  SPEAKER_00: Support isn't solving someone else's problems.
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  SPEAKER_00: Support isn't always supposed to be for your benefit.
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  SPEAKER_00: The one who needs help is shamed by onlookers, and God forbid they actually ask for it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Where the reliable person is seen as the one who is needed, the rock, the provider, the alpha.
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  SPEAKER_00: But why don't we look deeper at them?
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  SPEAKER_00: Why make perceived neediness the problem when the person swooping in
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  SPEAKER_00: to quote unquote save them may very well be a wolf in sheep's clothing?
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  SPEAKER_00: Not a predator,
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  SPEAKER_00: but so in need of control that they hide their own needs from the world and put
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  SPEAKER_00: and project it all on the other person.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're only the alpha when compared to the needy.
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  SPEAKER_00: Take them out of the equation and they're left to fend for themselves on the Greek hierarchy.
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  SPEAKER_00: It might as well be relational whimsy-maxing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Savior complexes feel like this internet trend,
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  SPEAKER_00: where people bedazzle themselves in their go-to matcha cups.
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  SPEAKER_00: As Vivian Tu pointed out in an Instagram reel when talking about it as
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  SPEAKER_00: a recession indicator,
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  SPEAKER_00: We think we're giving ourselves a luxury or control over a status we don't have,
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  SPEAKER_00: but there are other ways of finding it that don't involve the sticky glittery pieces
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  SPEAKER_00: of plastic going from surface to landfill.
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  SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of an episode of Modern Family where Phil ends up in a spa
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  SPEAKER_00: after fighting with Claire.
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  SPEAKER_00: All the women there teach him that she just wants him to listen,
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  SPEAKER_00: not solve all her problems for her,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is the external bedazzled solution of the two.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's where I believe relationships can take a page out of the principles of community.
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  SPEAKER_00: Community isn't codependency, it's supporting, uplifting, and most importantly, listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: The internal act of hearing and feeling heard,
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  SPEAKER_00: being heard,
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  SPEAKER_00: Why can't being needed and being needy be like a two-person support group,
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  SPEAKER_00: where it fluxes between the two?
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  SPEAKER_00: There are gentle rules and boundaries inherent in that space,
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  SPEAKER_00: the rec center folding chair circle of it all.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have taken the title of Dolly Alderton's book,
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  SPEAKER_00: What I Know About Love,
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  SPEAKER_00: and realized it's more of an impermanent, evolving statement.
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  SPEAKER_00: I swap it around in my mind, What I'm learning about love.
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  SPEAKER_00: What I'm figuring out about love.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is the cautionary tale I didn't think existed.
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  SPEAKER_00: When you love someone,
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  SPEAKER_00: sometimes who,
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  SPEAKER_00: and most importantly how they loved someone else before you entered their life,
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  SPEAKER_00: is more important than the obvious question of are they over them?
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  SPEAKER_00: Because it's more complicated than that.
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  SPEAKER_00: To know intimate details about someone's past is like holding a key to their soul.
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  SPEAKER_00: Where others are stuck peering through the keyhole trying to shed some light
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  SPEAKER_00: on them, I can open the door.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let all the light in.
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  SPEAKER_00: But there is a responsibility in that.
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  SPEAKER_00: It feels like sacred knowledge.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to protect the innocent by changing names and some specifics
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  SPEAKER_00: and tell you about my friend Bill.
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  SPEAKER_00: Bill was married to Mare, and they had a dog.
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  SPEAKER_00: After their divorce, Bill ended up with the dog and the other rescues they took in.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is telling because people would expect Mare would have gotten the dogs.
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  SPEAKER_00: I never met Mare, so I acknowledge her side may be very different.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's important to note.
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  SPEAKER_00: But this is about Bill and what he shared.
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  SPEAKER_00: Bill said he took care of Mare.
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  SPEAKER_00: All the things in life she wasn't good at, he swooped in and compensated for.
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  SPEAKER_00: He loved being needed, even though he realized it was codependency.
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  SPEAKER_00: He cooked and cleaned, scripted interactions out for her.
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  SPEAKER_00: In his eyes, she was emotionally unavailable yet reactive.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not only that, he worried about Mare.
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  SPEAKER_00: While they never fought,
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  SPEAKER_00: she'd get herself in reckless situations,
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  SPEAKER_00: confrontations with others, altercations, mostly after drinking.
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  SPEAKER_00: She began to distance herself from him, getting lost online.
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  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, Mare massively broke Bill's heart.
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  SPEAKER_00: Were the details of the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, of the relationship?
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  SPEAKER_00: Was tainted with a lot of questionable activities.
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  SPEAKER_00: The chaos that preceded that event was very real.
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  SPEAKER_00: Bill decided he wouldn't tolerate any of it anymore.
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  SPEAKER_00: Especially when Mare revealed that she withheld things from him for nearly a decade.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was then that he and Mare fought more than they had before,
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  SPEAKER_00: as what was hidden beneath the codependency unearthed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Regardless of the morality of her actions,
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  SPEAKER_00: her actions told him that he couldn't control all parts of her anymore.
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  SPEAKER_00: And because of this, Bill told himself never again.
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  SPEAKER_00: The relationship was done, they went no contact outside of sharing the dog.
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  SPEAKER_00: He wanted someone he didn't have to worry about, who didn't pretend, just to be with him.
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  SPEAKER_00: He wanted someone who would share the load,
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  SPEAKER_00: a true partner, who Not a codependent or someone to fill the void.
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  SPEAKER_00: A true healthy dynamic.
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  SPEAKER_00: But his body and his entire nervous system said otherwise.
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  SPEAKER_00: Where he had the capacity for chaos and dysfunction,
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  SPEAKER_00: he didn't for calmness, despite what he told himself.
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  SPEAKER_00: Telling isn't rewiring.
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  SPEAKER_00: We don't just want what we want, what we think we deserve.
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  SPEAKER_00: What we want and what our body feels safe around are very different things.
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  SPEAKER_00: To many people, chaos feels safest.
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  SPEAKER_00: Calmness is scary.
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  SPEAKER_00: Regulation is scary.
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  SPEAKER_00: When they actually get what they want and deserve,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's terrifying because it forces them to look at
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  SPEAKER_00: the one place they've been avoiding, inside themselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because to them, chaos is control.
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  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make sense, but they're used to making it make sense.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's an emotional form of sensory seeking.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what I watched being what broke Bill in another try at love.
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  SPEAKER_00: Having someone stable and calm and loving to reciprocate was too much for him.
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  SPEAKER_00: Receiving was too much.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not being in control was too much.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to be mad at Bill for turning away from the thing that would finally break
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  SPEAKER_00: the pattern and understand why he chose comfort instead because it's so very human.
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  SPEAKER_00: Loving someone emotionally unavailable amongst the emotional chaos
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  SPEAKER_00: of his own co-creation taught him this firsthand to replicate it and crave it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But discomfort is the only way to grow.
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  SPEAKER_00: Comfort is the only way to stay where you're at.
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  SPEAKER_00: Comfort holds on, clings.
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  SPEAKER_00: Discomfort lets go of those unhealed, insatiable nudges.
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  SPEAKER_00: I find my comfort while snuggled in bed and through self-regulation,
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  SPEAKER_00: the meditations, tarot polls on YouTube, somatic therapy sessions.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I'll never quite get the concept of finding comfort in a toxic pattern, yet I don't judge it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was close to being there in a relationship where I had to do all the heavy lifting.
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  SPEAKER_00: Except I didn't like being needed.
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  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to be a savior.
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  SPEAKER_00: But we all can grow to like and want to be the things that we start out resisting.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it mostly is dictated by our childhoods and how much we've worked on listening
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  SPEAKER_00: to our inner child.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our unhealed inner child can trick us into thinking we deserve to suffer.
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  SPEAKER_00: But our wise self knows that suffering,
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  SPEAKER_00: as Ram Dass puts it,
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  SPEAKER_00: is a signal bringing awareness to where the mind is caught and attached.
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  SPEAKER_00: Chaos and control abolishes the ability to have a healthy way of giving in a relationship too.
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  SPEAKER_00: Chaos borders on a transaction as it's an unspoken agreement to constantly negotiate
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  SPEAKER_00: with emotional instability.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's how avoidant people get in long-term relationships to begin with.
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  SPEAKER_00: The opposite of faith isn't doubt.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's control.
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  SPEAKER_00: What Bill has done is let go of faith in himself that he is enough,
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  SPEAKER_00: that he doesn't deserve to suffer and can let go in the safety of another.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I'll always hope that he finds a way to open that up for himself one of these days.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is all to show us what can happen when we choose chaos.
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  SPEAKER_00: We can lose ourselves in it and confuse it for love.
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  SPEAKER_00: Chaos is not love.
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  SPEAKER_00: An affirmation even the most chaos adverse like myself need to be reminded of
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  SPEAKER_00: when choosing a partner.
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  SPEAKER_00: I needed it so much in fact that I turned it into a piece of art,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is dropping in my shop alongside this episode.
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  SPEAKER_00: So be sure to check out the show notes for the link if you need that reminder
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  SPEAKER_00: on your walls too.
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  SPEAKER_00: The first love we lose in chaos is the love we have for ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: So for Bill and anyone else who sees themselves in Bill,
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  SPEAKER_00: I wish nothing more than for him to pull up a folding chair in front of a mirror
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  SPEAKER_00: and tell himself what he is most afraid to hear from and give to another.
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  SPEAKER_00: A big, genuine, secure, I love you.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Substack.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Morganlindsaynelson.substack.com If you become a free subscriber over on Substack,
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: you will get extra bonuses that aren't available anywhere else,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: so be sure to join the community.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are wanting more art in your life,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: head on over to my art print shop,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: morganlindsaynelson.com,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: where you will find the companion art print for this episode, Chaos Is Not Love.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, be sure to decorate your walls and your thoughts with intention.