Latest / Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce / 283. When Divorce Resentment Won’t Let You Breathe

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283. When Divorce Resentment Won’t Let You Breathe · Dear Divorce Diary: A Fresh Approach To Healing Grief & Building A Life Of Confidence After Divorce

• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about the one post-divorce emotion that refuses to leave quietly.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: You think you've processed it, forgiven, working on moving on, and then someone mentions his name or you see him smiling in some BS photo, and suddenly your chest tightens, your jaw locks, and your brain is on fire.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: That is resentment.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And today we're not pretending it's gone.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: We're getting real about why it sticks, how it sabotages your recovery, and the reframe that will finally set you free.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, love.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Dear Divorce Diary, the podcast helping divorcees go beyond talk therapy to process your grief, find the healing you crave, and build back your confidence.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Don Wiggins, a therapist, coach, integrative healer, and divorcee.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: Join me for a fresh approach to healing grief and building your confidence after divorce.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: In today's episode, the three of us are gonna share the moments that we could not let go, no matter how much therapy, tapping, or journaling we seemed to throw at it.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, the text message that sent Joy over the edge, the silent rage that Tiff TIFF carried through a healing phase, and the moment that I realized my resentment wasn't about him anymore.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: This is gonna be juicy.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then later in the episode, we are gonna talk about your tendency towards self-sabotage and the pattern that keeps resentment persisting.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna unpack the number one way women tend to block their healing of resentment.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then at the end of the episode, we are going to dig into the reframe that is gonna get you back on track every time resentment flares, where you're sort of ruminating on.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: So let's dig in to this action-packed episode.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning, ladies.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so my darling dears, we have all done our share of resentment.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Whether it was, you know, uh relationship-oriented, marriage or divorce-oriented, or you know, dances we did with our family members, or even each other at times, you know, like holy crap, resentment is such, I think, and anger in general, right, is such a forward emotion in the world right now, right?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: There's just so much anger, and I think there's so much misconception about how to unhook it.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And um so let's talk about it, right?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about our individual resentments um that we struggled to let go of.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Who wants to start or do you want me to start?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm volunteers should be.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: All of my girls are hunger game girls, and so we that's like the go-to phrase in our families.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: All volunteers should be.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think resentment is probably the least talked about in because it's it's kind of it's a layered it's layout with anger and shame.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: My resentment sent from he, you know, he like I needed him to do something, and it was it wasn't like a a desire, it was like I need you to pick up the girls early because I need to go do this thing, and he couldn't because he was had social plans.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the resentment of him leaving me holding everything, like I was the stay-at-home mom, and now I am single with three small children, and you get to go live your best life.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: But then there was shame layered with that because I was angry, but I was also shameful, like I should be able to hold like I am the mom.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: I have lived my identity as the one that kept it all together, and now I'm and now I'm not able to keep it all together because there's only one of me and I had a person, and no matter what of a shit he was at times, he was still there.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, like when the baby got a fever at 2 a.m., I could go to the store and get medicine if I was out.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And now I didn't have anybody, and so the resentment and the layer it was so layered for me and all the complex and complexities of not being rooted in myself.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm super excited about later on in the episode when we talk about how everything what I did to shift everything, but to me it was just because I was floundering in my identity because I was rooted in being his wife and being a being their mom, and now all of a sudden I don't have anything, and I don't even have the the little bit of help he was.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's such a common place where women get stuck in the overwhelm of having to process everything, and we do get very stuck in taking his inventory, right?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: And we are gonna unpack all of that downstream on this episode.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I think so many women can relate to what you just shared about being in that overwhelm, feeling burdened, feeling undersupported, and just being angry and resentful and not knowing how to navigate through that or shift it.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think makes a lot of sense.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: When he sent me that text message saying that he couldn't because he was going out.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, what?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you know today he clearly wasn't living his best life, right?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: But that's how it felt at the time.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of women feel that too.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: That you know, they see him moving on or they see him abdicating responsibility, and they assume that he's quote unquote happy or he doesn't miss you, or I don't know, whatever, but like none of that is actually true.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's all just ego defense, but yeah, that's how it looks.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I to be able to really move on and let go of my ex, I jumped very quickly into a new relationship, read massive attachment style issues.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: And um I could have this very sort of cutting way of describing his behavior and the things that led to our divorce.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: But when I got in touch with how I couldn't cope as a single person, not coupled in some way, it became very clear to me that this was a me problem because I was solving my resentment with him by just completely moving on and attaching to somebody new and in like a not a healthy person, not a healthy circumstance, not a healthy anything, right?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started connecting the dots that this was attachment style stuff, and it had more to do with early childhood than it had to do with him.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: And did he do plenty of things that were worthy of anger or resentment?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: But because I could start to see how unhealthy my choices were, it was like the opening for me to say, like, oh crap, I think there's so much more to this than the grudge that I want to hold.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't even call it a grudge, right?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: But like the, you know that tone of voice women can get like, well, let me tell you what he did.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like, let me tell, like, would you believe like that?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like a tone, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know, is it like holier than thou or it's like a sense of entitlement, I feel like something like that, right?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I could tell the story in the way that painted him as such a villain, but here I am actually I know crying on the floor so much, feeling such weight of loneliness or insecurity, right?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: And not being able to tolerate not having a person or a man.
• 8:59
  unknown: Yeah.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, wow, that's like two very different presentations.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like I would show one thing to the world, and then there would be this other thing, like that was really going on behind the scenes.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so that really started to get super clear.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, this resentment is is not, it's like um smoke and mirrors.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is that yeah?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it was so weird how, and now that I'm I'm actually like processing this live in my mind, and I'm like, wow, we were him and I were very similar in the way that we were dealing with things.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, post-divorce, once he got back from deployment, I remember once I made the decision to leave, I think he still had like six or seven more months to go on deployment.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: So him and his buddies decided that they were all gonna order Ducati motorcycles, um, which are the crazy ass crotch rockets from Italy, right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, like they all ordered these crotch rockets.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when he got back, he was seeking a very like adrenaline-fueled type of a lifestyle.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Him and his buddies would video record themselves doing wheelies and like all kinds of like stupid shit, like whatever.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I remember getting a phone call at two in the morning from his roommate saying, Hey, um, he is in the hospital, it's not great.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was in a wreck, somebody ran over him when he was in the road after he fell off the bike, right?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, like there was so much resentment in that moment because I kept feeling like over and over and over, I kept having to clean up his mess, even post-divorce.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And like, even you know, when I would exchange our daughter, like there would be random girls like every time, because we would be at a meet point and I would get out of the car, and I'm like, oh, who's this?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Who's this?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Who's this?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so there were all of these women that were being brought around my daughter as well.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the resentment of him being the fun dad, like just being able to swoop into town, spend a bunch of money, and leave.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was the one who was the disciplinarian, who was making her do her homework, who was setting down rules and guidelines, and like it, it felt like I was just the stick in the mud all the time.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that my daughter just saw me as like this blah person when like dad was like the shining star that would come in and just like rock her world.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But now that I'm like thinking about it when you're telling me this and all the decisions I made, the first person that I dated post-separation, he had a reputation in Myrtle.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: He was very well known.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he was in sales and part of the timeshare guys that like sit down on the strip and like they try to hustle these people in to like wheel and deal and get you to buy a timeshare.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So they would travel all over the US based on the season it was, and he just happened to be in Myrtle, and I met him.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And when I tell you that this guy where they had them living was in a storage unit that had been converted into like an apartment.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So at one point I'm sitting there and I'm in a fucking storage unit in a mattress on the floor, surrounded by a bunch of like 20 somethings that I have nothing in common with.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like this party party lifestyle.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what the hell am I doing?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was such a toxic relationship with him.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: We fought all the time.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was very jealous.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: He ended up stalking me for months after we broke up.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was crazy.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, What am I doing?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Anything to escape feeling.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was resentful, yeah, like about all of that.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: When really it was me.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was me and my own issues, you know.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: But that's the first time I've thought that him and I were actually dealing with it in the very same way, which is crazy.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, escaping from the underlying pain or the underlying insecurity.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Or yeah, Joy, I've heard you talk a good bit about being addicted to drama and you know what's the difference between drama and adrenaline, right?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's all in an effort to not feel the vulnerable mushy feelings underneath there.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a beautiful, beautiful awareness.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk a little bit more about all the ways that women block healing their resentment.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: We just sort of alluded to some of it, right?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like the things we do to escape what we don't freaking want to feel.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think as women, we, and I see this more and more in popular culture, we really say we're doing the work, we're um, you know, digging in, we're going to therapy, we're talking about the things, we're journaling, we're doing whatever, we're doing rituals.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: We tend to tell ourselves we should be over it, but we're really waiting for them to own how they hurt us.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: And and the them could be so many thems, right?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: It could be him, it could be um family members, it could be uh friends that rejected us during the divorce process, right?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: We really want them to see how much they hurt us.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so we sort of get stuck on needing to justify or defend our pain until someone else validates it.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so we, on the one hand, are doing all of these rituals in this healing work, but then on the other hand, are sort of avoiding actually looking under the rug for why um we need we need other people to validate our pain and we're struggling to validate our own pain.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: So we do this self-sabotage, right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because we don't want to feel what's under there.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, what have you noticed either with yourselves or with the women that we work with, that this really hyper focus on resentment and on what he's doing and what he's not doing, right?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: That it's protecting something, it's protecting us from having to take the next step in our healing journey, which is really around vulnerability.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: For me, him not being able to admit, apologize, that was huge for me.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: That was huge.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was like the apology that was never gonna come.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: There was no accountability, there was no responsibility for his part in anything.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's to me where my anger would fuel and my resentment would go because I'm like, I did not just imagine all of this shit that we have been through in X amount of years.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so what where I my heart goes out to women that we work with is when they're waiting on the apology and I challenge them and ask them, but if he told you he was sorry, would it matter?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Would it really, really matter?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know what?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Years down the road, ladies, I got that apology and it did nothing for me.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: There was a two-second dopamine hit that said, well, there it is, there's a validation.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: But guess what?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: On the other two seconds of that was, well, guess what?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't change anything.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the key.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: He was sorry, but his behavior never changed.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I always felt like I had to be his protector over the years and care for him and jump in to save the day.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: That never changed ever.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me, I went from um, I actually fell into a different hole.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I went from the resentment and um the anger to the victim, and this is what happened.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so like my identity actually pivoted to the victim, and I wrote that for a while because it was I'm too wounded, like I'm too wounded, I'm too wounded.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um look look at everything I've done for you, and this is how you repay me, and I gave you my best years, and all of these all these different patterns started to shift to a different season or you know, time and so like a different brand of resentment or a different brand of self-sabotage.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I went I had all these people that I would go and I went under the guise of venting, and I went under the guise of community.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would just unload and I would just go to these different people and unload all these scenes.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And one of my who I um looked at me and lovingly said that like your story will be redeemed regardless of the outcome of your marriage.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And when she said that to me, it was like this light bulb that hit like, oh, I I am I am the main character in the story, and it was like it was me, it was my responsibility.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was like this was such a light bulb moment, and that was the the moment that I was able to kind of see it as the big picture, and like how and and I've said multiple times on the podcast how someone asked me what I wanted my story to be, like I was responsible to my children for my story, but it wasn't until months later when this friend told me that it's actually my story, right?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: That it pivoted from now I'm not the victim, I am not the one that this has been done to, this is an opportunity for me to be, you know, like the phoenix from the ashes, you know, and the whole and so it was so pivotal to realize that it was I'm the main character of my own story.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: So what I'm hearing you say, I'm gonna introduce a concept here called the repetition compulsion.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: We all do this, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: We all are behaving from something called a repetition compulsion.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I hear that in that moment you started to see, like, oh, I don't have to keep repeating this compulsive behavior.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: So, and by that I mean we all have this unconscious tendency to repeat past traumatic events or behaviors in relationships, and it's an attempt to like subconsciously feel like we can master or gain control over the original experience.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, for any of us who have this relationship dysfunction and things that broke down, right, it's because it began in our childhoods where somewhere we feel like our relationship with our primary caregivers broke down in some way.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so we pick partners that subconsciously cause us to repeat those same patterns.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, if I can get this person to say I'm sorry, it will heal the original wound where the person never said I'm sorry.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Or if I can get this person to take responsibility for their behavior, it heals the original wound where my caregivers weren't being responsible for their behavior.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: So what I hear you saying is that in that moment, you were like, oh, I can let go of trying to fix or solve or change him.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: I can look at how I can solve my own stories.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Story arc, right?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like plot twist.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was like looking in the mirror and asking, like, am I sending this text out of needing the drama, needing the validation, needing like, is it what's my motivation in talking to this person and telling the story?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or what is my motivation in handling the situation like this instead of in a in a how a more um rooted, grounded way, right?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like how am I affecting the situation versus like I I I've mentioned several times, I was addicted to the drama.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: You actually mentioned it just a minute ago, but like I was addicted to the drama.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was getting hits off of being the victim, I was getting hits off of the attention that my story was bringing me.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until I kind of I kind of saw it and once you see it, you can't unsee it.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: So then everything gets through the lens of XYZ, right?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so being able to see my part in this story and what I was in control of.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um so in my experience, that what you just said, like once you see it, you can't unsee it, that resonates with me.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, once I could see that I was doing repetition compulsion, and once I could see that my resentments were actually very, very layered and ultimately were rooted in early childhood experiences with my parents, and I could connect all those dots, I could see it, but I still couldn't shift it.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I wonder how many of our listeners relate to that.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, okay, I can see that I'm doing this thing, but I still feel helpless or powerless over putting down the ruminating thoughts or like interrupting the pattern of hyperfixating on what he, she, or they are doing.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I still couldn't figure out how to stop that.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a place where many, many women get stuck in their healing journey.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: You've read, you've listened to all the podcasts, you've read all the self-help books, you've gone to the talk therapy, you've, you know, meditated or tapped or whatever, but like something still gets hooked or stuck right there in resentment, and it's like it won't unhook.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about the reframe that needs to happen, what women need to be able to tap into in order to actually finally shift it, right?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_02: So underneath anger is our way more mushy, vulnerable, scary, scary feelings, right?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: Anger is a feeling that feels safe for us because it feels like it's like there's some there there.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like anger has weapons.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like anger has weapons, right?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: We've talked about that.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like we could we can tell we can shame him and get validation and we can perceive like we're defending ourselves or hurting them, or right, like how many of us have had revenge fantasies?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: I know many of our listeners have revenge fantasies, but it's like that's all that's all a protection over what we don't want to feel, right?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk a little bit about the things that we don't freaking want to feel, we don't want to face, we don't want to tap into, we don't want to get in touch with because it feels too scary, too overwhelming, too vulnerable, and I might completely fall apart.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because this is really the key to release, right?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: Is getting what is under the anger.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so for me, that was really like I did not have a consistent sense of self.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: I did not have a grounded sense of worth.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: My worth was truly rooted in you approving of me, you wanting me, or you needing me, maybe is probably a healthier actually, like, or um my performance either at work or you know, as a housekeeper, like a homemaker, you know, it was very, very, very performance-driven.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so underneath all that anger was truly this like, I don't know how to feel okay unless you're okay with me.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that was way scarier.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: When I tapped into any of that, that felt like panic, that felt like insecurity, it felt like a bottomless pit.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: It felt like I was gonna fall and no net was gonna catch me.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: I can't even find all the language for the amount of panic or insecurity that felt underneath my anger.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it took me a lot of foundational work to really feel safe enough to even touch some of that stuff underneath.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: And even when I went to EMDR years and years and years later, I still often couldn't access it, right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: In IFS theory, I had exiles that didn't feel safe accessing any of those scarier feelings.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: This is where homeopathy was so, so, so key in being able to unlock a lot of that buried treasure, if you will, right?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: But for the women who feel like they can see the patterns but they still feel helpless to shift the patterns.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Tiffany, talk a little bit about what you notice with women in IFS, their exiles, and the difficulty accessing those parts that really need to express a lot of pain.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that over time, you know, you build up these protector parts, whether you're a caregiver or people pleaser.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I feel like as you continuously use those parts to protect yourself, they're angry with you.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: They are worn out, they are exhausted, they don't want to do that job anymore.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of times if they have seen over and over that you have put yourself in dangerous situations where they keep having to step in, they're not going to show you the exiled part.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: They do not feel safe enough with you, that you have enough self-energy to be able to uncover what's really underneath all of that pain.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it takes a while sometimes to access, sometimes it takes multiple sessions to even be able to touch the exile.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Some people have done enough work to where it's right there under the surface.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: What I see a lot about manager parts is a lot of them are they're very, very ready to let go, but they're not going to step back until they can trust that you stop putting yourself in continuous situations to put yourself in danger, whether that's choosing the same types of men, friends, you know, continuing to let family cross your boundaries, like whatever it is.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I start to see where you know people struggle with getting underneath of it.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: What would you like to see women start asking themselves when they catch themselves doing the ruminating thing about him or them, whoever the they is, right?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because there are so many people to feel resentment towards during divorce, right?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like your in-laws or your own family or the people who like so many, there's just so many losses, right?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so many layers of loss.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes attorneys, right?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like feeling like your attorney doesn't have your back.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's just so many ways in which we can focus on resentment.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's so many things going on in the world that sometimes we even hook our resentment on to like other groups in the world that we want to be angry with or focus on, right?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: So, what would you like to see women start checking in with themselves around?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: Or what would you like to see them reframing or asking themselves so they can get back into self-energy?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: What are some things that you have found helpful to like check your own ruminating thoughts or to get back on track in your own productive, healing feeling journey?
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times what I ask women, and it's so funny because all of my dating relationships started out the same.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's like on date one, I would trauma dump.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would basically tell them all of my scary shit.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, wow, if they stay, cool, like here we go.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and nine times out of ten, they didn't.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: If they were secure attachers, they ran from the hills for me.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was not a good healthy partner at all.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and normal, quote unquote, normal men could see that right.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I think it was about realizing that I was in this cycle.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes I would ask, like, why am I sharing?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that when I came into this relationship with my current partner and I was sharing with him traumatic things that I had experienced, I was sharing from a place of self and simply sharing for context, not for validation or for approval.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that was such a huge shift for me.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I was no longer scared of the outcome because myself said, this is a safe person who will love me regardless of what I'm sharing.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to share in this context just to be seen and understood, not to be approved of or validated.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a huge shift for me.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't feel the need to share at all either.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel this need to do this big trauma dump.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, I no longer felt like I had to protect or care for, or it was almost like I can't even explain it in dating, but it was almost like I wanted to be the woman they'd never experienced before.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like I wanted to be the reason they lived, breathed, like I wanted them to look at me as this elite repetition propulsion band.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like if they ever lost me, they would never be able to live.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so what ended up happening was in my first marriage, when I attracted someone like that, and then you continue to have a partner, ex-partner that has the suicidal tendencies and is constantly reaching for you as their protector and caregiver throughout the years, I was like, my God, what have I done?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because it's like now that's where my resentment came from is constantly feeling like post-divorce, I had to keep coming in and protecting and caring and saving.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And only when I broke that cycle and figured out how to walk away from that and that I was no longer responsible for for his wanting to live or him wanting to live a quality life or whatever it was, right?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like once I let go of needing to be like the one and only fixer and like this elusive thing that, like, oh my God, like if something happened to me, I would never be able to live without her.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't need to hear those things anymore.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: But you had to get in touch with some big, deep, scary, insecure feelings to be able to do that.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I didn't protect the people that I loved, I would be alone.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: I would end up gaining left.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that stemmed back into childhood.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I always felt this need to protect people closest to me, particularly my mom.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: She just was somebody that would let people walk all over her.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: She was very much a pleaser, she had a quiet demeanor, and she's changed drastically over the years, which has allowed me to relieve and step back.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: But in the beginning, no.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was always sticking up for my mom.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: Fear fear of abandonment, fear of being lost.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: Fear of being alone.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's at the core for so many of us, right?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Fear of being alone, unwanted.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: That must have been at the depths of um, but when you think about it, like the the the depths of the feelings that I think women have to process in order to release resentment, which it just doesn't seem like it goes together on the surface, right?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Is like, I think they're very young feelings.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's hard for women to realize that or pinpoint it.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like the the big scary that I have had to process over the years has to be the type of big scary that like three-year-olds and six-year-olds feel, like big scary, right?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's like I'm a grown-ass woman walking around in this world.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like my feet touch the pedals, I drive a car, I own a house, I like have a child, right?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: And the big scary that I have processed over the years, I think comes from a very, very, very young place.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I wish women would put the dots together that their resentment is actually covering that kind of stuff underneath.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: What stands out to you, Joy, about either your own journey or the patterns you see women do?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: How would you like to, what would you, how do you wish they would reframe there when they get ruminating on resentment?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: How do you wish they would reframe it?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: The moment when I've discovered I was the main character, right?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of asking myself why.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Tiffany just did a beautiful job.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Explaining like why am I sending this text?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I making this decision?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I and it all for me came down to that little girl wanting and needing to be chosen and protected?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the little girl that was never prioritized was never chosen is the easiest way.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: She was never chosen.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I sought part partners that didn't choose me that gave me just enough to be like, oh, I can subconsciously, like he he'll he I can get convince him to choose me, right?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like I can do all these things right, and then he's gonna choose me one day.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't actually that didn't actually work, right?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: So um jokes on me, but it was doing the work of choosing myself.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like when I was single, I didn't drink, I didn't consume alcohol.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't, I exercised every day.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: I did so many things intentionally to choose me and to process and to thematically work out.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't use that term back then, but like um I knew it was important for me to discharge, right?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so choosing me is what pivoted my story and that I created the safety that I in myself that I needed that I was looking for externally to validate me.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so when when you start making those micro decisions of eating something nutrient dense instead of Burger King, you know what I mean?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was it's it to start shifting what you're attracting and what what you allow to be consumed by your energy, right?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: So like does a marshal matter?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't that that marshal doesn't even register with me anymore.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, peace out, you know.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it is a million micro decisions, and you know, the way you tell it, it almost sounds like oh, and then there was a day that she realized she was the main character and a switch flipped, and then she stopped being insecure.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: But like, no, it's been layer after layer after layer, year after year after year, and it is it's like a crescendo over time, right?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's a million micro decisions, right?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I I mean, like, I'm I'm multiple multiple years out from my story, and yesterday was a pivotal day for me just because I was like, oh, I'm gonna choose to be me regardless of who's around me.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not, it's not a fuck you, I don't care.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's a I see you through a lens of if you're not able to come to the table, that that's a on you, but also I it's almost like um it's not a pity, but it's a I pray for you one day for you to be able to come to the table.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: I pray for you to see that there's more than this situation in which you have the the filter of your life going through.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um because it I'm multiple years out and I'm still in progress because it's a journey.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a journey, it's a journey.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's a journey.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love actually that we're recording the day after you had that, right?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: You um just a little context, like Joy went somewhere with her husband that in previous years you hadn't been included in because of all these reasons, like all these things, right?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: So here's the first year you get included in a thing, but you were able to hold walls of self.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: You were able to show up in with confidence, like grounded confidence, rather than I feel better than or I feel less than, and you were scanning the room, and maybe some of the people in the room were feeling better than or less than.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, there's backstory there we don't need to unpack, but like you were able to hold walls of self because of all these micro decisions you've made year after year after year after year.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's and super cool.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I will say this give yourself grace because if you don't have a perfect day and you choose to drink maybe two glasses of wine, or you know what I mean?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you when you choose something that's not necessarily serving, not self, just make sure that you give yourself grace.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, like great.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: I am gonna own that I just did that.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't a self-decision, but tomorrow I'm gonna strive to do better.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like it, you don't have to have perfection to be able to come to the table.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be accountable of that.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have accountability and consistency, right?
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think when when you um I've heard Abraham Hicks describe this, you know, in the law of attraction, like, what is the predominant vibration that you're offering?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like if we choose grace nine times out of ten, that's the predominant vibration is self-betrayal, right?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: But if we're um putting our best foot forward and three times out of ten, we have to give ourselves grace.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, well, the predominant vibration I'm offering is consistency, self-choosing self, right?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um not self-abandonment.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: What were you gonna add, Tiffany?
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was just gonna say, like, that's what I tell women that we work with that you know, it's not about perfection, it's about progress.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And not punishing yourself for, you know, choosing it and understanding that, you know, on the other side of this, there's still choices that Don, Joy, and I make every day that affects what we're doing and our healing.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: The difference is it's just having a very keen awareness around this is what happened today, this is why I chose to do this today, um, and this is how I can be better tomorrow.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I do, I understand the whole thing with resentment, and it it makes me, it makes me sad to encounter women who are holding on for the I'm sorry is in the forgiveness when really the person they need to forgive themselves.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so in the Thursday, yeah, in our Thursday premium episode, we're gonna look at the three journal prompts all women need to be able to sit with and answer and feel through in order to actually let go and move on.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so I love that you brought that up.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's not one of the journal prompts, like can I forgive myself, right?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: But it's journal prompt adjacent.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't wait for us to unpack those three questions that if you are struggling with resentment and you can't sit with and answer, fully answer these three questions and tolerate the feelings that go with them, letting go and moving on is just not on the menu for you.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm excited for us to record that episode.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: Next.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: All right, big announcement.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you are not a premium subscriber, we are launching premium workshops once a month.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: There will be a workshop that is only for premium subscribers.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we just want you to get involved, right?
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: There is so much we can learn on the podcast, but then we have to also do.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: And premium workshops and premium episodes in general are to help you take what we hear and what we learn about on the podcast and put it into practice.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: So, strong recommendation to become a premium subscriber and to jump into your healing at a different level.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: Attend the workshop and um kick your healing up to the next level.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: We love you so much.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: Peace.