Latest / The Psychology of Relationships / Rewriting the Story You Learned About Love: How to Heal the Childhood Wounds Affecting Your Adult Relationships w/ Vienna Pharaon

Transcript

Rewriting the Story You Learned About Love: How to Heal the Childhood Wounds Affecting Your Adult Relationships w/ Vienna Pharaon · The Psychology of Relationships

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Julie Craftscheck, and I'm UASU.
0:03
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Psychology of Relationships.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Is your love life shaped by what you learned growing up without you even realizing it?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're not here to blame parents or rewrite the past.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We are exploring how early experiences, quietly shape the way we attach, communicate, and handle conflict in adult relationships.
0:25
[SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, we're joined by marriage and family therapists via an affair.
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[SPEAKER_00]: To unpack the five core childhood wounds, many people carry into adulthood.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We discuss how these wounds can show up as avoidance, people pleasing, or staying stuck in unhealthy dynamics.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And why these patterns aren't
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[SPEAKER_00]: flaws, but protective strategies formed early on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: From a psychological perspective, our core wounds influence our attachment style, emotional triggers, and beliefs about love and worthiness.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, once helped you cope can later limit intimacy and connection.
0:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Vienna shares how to identify the narratives driving your relationship choices and offers practical tools for healing.
1:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So your past informs you, but doesn't define your future.
1:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember to subscribe to the psychology of relationships on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And if this episode helped you gain clarity, we love a rating or a review.
1:19
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the psychology of relationships and you're listening to an episode that just might change the way you show up for love.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Enjoy!
1:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So we know our childhood definitely feeds into a lot of our adult behavior and some of us have opened that can of worms and some of us may still be exploring how do we even tap into that.
1:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But we want to get to the origins of who you are, the childhood experiences, but specifically childhood wounds.
1:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Woon's is one of those words that just like kind of hurts my soul, you've been saying out loud, but it's really the best articulation of what experience as children.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, Vienna Fairn is our guest today.
2:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So nice to have you back as a repeat guest.
2:04
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you?
2:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome.
2:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
2:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm great.
2:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And so happy to be here with both of you, getting a chat about this book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's the thing, the reason why I think this book has been so life-changing for me is because I always thought I had a perfect childhood.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing really stood out to me, but I realized that that was my way of protecting myself and you bring that to light in this book is that self-protection mechanism of kind of shoving all that away.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to bring it back up today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll dive right into how our childhood wounds play into our love lives as adults.
2:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's talk about this word wounds because how would you describe the difference between wounds and trauma?
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[SPEAKER_02]: I am glad that the word resonated with you so much.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I was very intentional about using that word.
2:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I think certainly many of us
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[SPEAKER_02]: have experienced trauma before, but I also think that that word can be overused and I also think that it doesn't articulate every person's experience, you know, I think it is much more likely to say that all of us have wounds than it might be for us to say that all of us have trauma.
3:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also think trauma is one of those things that a lot of people check out of.
3:22
[SPEAKER_02]: You wait to your point when you're like, I like a pretty good childhood, you know?
3:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And if there is something that's so glaring, then people are like, bad, this book isn't for me or this work isn't for me.
3:32
[SPEAKER_02]: But wounds for me, that I think is just a human shared experience.
3:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I hear that word, I normally think of a physical wound first, right?
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[SPEAKER_02]: That is, I would imagine how most of us think about it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, when we're kids, like, scraper-need, like, oh, there's the wound, right?
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[SPEAKER_02]: And a parent maybe comes around and cleans it up and puts a bandaid over it, tells you to let it get cemented.
3:57
[SPEAKER_02]: air than the bandit comes off and then you bang your knee up against the table or the chair and the scab falls off and it starts to bleed a little bit again, right?
4:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we sort of have that imagery when we think about wounds and it felt very important to bring that forward when it comes to emotional wounds, psychological wounds, right?
4:15
[SPEAKER_02]: That like these unseen wounds, there might not be that blood or that scab or that scrape, right?
4:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But like we all have a range of injuries where
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[SPEAKER_02]: every single time we come up against it might not be the chair of the table, but it's going to be our romantic relationships or our friendships or our bosses or colleagues or us in relationship with our parents or siblings as adults now.
4:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's like every time we come back into contact, we start rubbing up against that emotional wound.
4:46
[SPEAKER_02]: That's psychological wound.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They're harder to see as we know, but that's why bringing attention to this is so important.
4:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And for anyone listening, like, if you have any unwanted pattern in your life, if you get reactive ever, you can give advice that you can give advice that you can give advice that you can't take.
5:07
[SPEAKER_02]: You sometimes sabotage things, and we know it's self-protective, but you still do it, right?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Those are all really great indicators that you have unresolved pain from the past, that you have some type of wound that still needs your attention.
5:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do think Julia Gierpoir is like everyone, right?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Get's reactive at times, these unwanted patterns.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They were like, I promise I'll never do this thing again.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And then we're right back in the conflict, or we keep choosing and pursuing emotionally unavailable people to date, or whatever it might be.
5:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, those are the things that want our attention.
5:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I have been saying that patterns are pain's way of grabbing at our attention, right?
5:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, you just really just sit with that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's like whatever pattern it is that I continue to engage in, even though I really don't want to, even though I make those promises to myself, even though I can sort of understand it logically or rationally, but we keep finding ourselves back in that unwanted pattern.
6:01
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like patterns are pain's way of trying to grab your attention and get you to tune in further.
6:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad you bring that up.
6:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I think because the word trauma, I totally agree with you, it's like, we think that we need to have big tea trauma or something significant in our lives.
6:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It almost feels like you're misusing the word if it's not this big, massive thing that happened but all the things in our past greatly affect our present.
6:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You hear people say the past is the past.
6:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like why, in your opinion, is it so important that we do reflect on the past in our present?
6:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the past is only the past if it's resolved.
6:37
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the past is the present if it's unresolved.
6:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this idea that time will heal everything feels misguided, right?
6:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like time and intention might heal things, right?
6:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Time and tension, awareness, resolution, right?
6:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the things that need to intersect in order for us to actually not be controlled or bound by the past.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, like we don't need to spend that much time with it.
7:06
[SPEAKER_02]: But if it's unresolved, which I would say that so much is when we're kids, teenagers, even in our 20s, you know, it's like we tend to find the path forward.
7:18
[SPEAKER_02]: We tend to white knuckle our way through.
7:20
[SPEAKER_02]: through.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We tend to, like, brute force.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We survive.
7:24
[SPEAKER_02]: When you're four years old, you're not, like, let me witness my pain.
7:28
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, who do I need to be in order to be loved by my parent?
7:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like, you just get on with it.
7:34
[SPEAKER_02]: We survive that until we come to a point in our lives and obviously this could be it.
7:38
[SPEAKER_02]: any age for people but until we come to this point where we actually slow down and start tending to it and so yeah right like for most of us when we start stepping into this work and you say you started leaning into this like a year-ish ago about some like the family of origin stuff
7:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, some of the listeners here are like, oh, I've done a lot of this or those are like, I've never touched my family before and I would I'll tell you is regardless of where you are on the spectrum.
8:07
[SPEAKER_02]: There is going to be more for you to find here.
8:09
[SPEAKER_02]: There is going to be more for you to tend to.
8:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, this idea of just surviving our way through and saying the past is the past and that was so long ago and, you know, it doesn't have a hold on me is just one of the distractions away from us actually acknowledging ourselves and our story and truly honoring it.
8:30
[SPEAKER_02]: the amount of distractions we all engage with is pretty phenomenal.
8:34
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we're really good at distractions.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Totally.
8:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
8:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Really good at surviving, like you said, and something in your book that it's just so profound for me is you say life is not out to get you.
8:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Life is to heal you.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I think when we talk about wounds and traumas, people think all these things are happening to me.
8:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I have bad luck.
8:53
[SPEAKER_00]: These terrible things are happening to me and it's out of my control.
8:56
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're saying, actually things do happen to you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But now we have the opportunity to heal from those wounds.
9:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So can you explain that a little bit more?
9:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Why that's so important for people to hear?
9:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that sentence too.
9:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, it's not out to get us.
9:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Pain is not out to destroy us.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's not rubbing its hands together cynically and laughing every single time.
9:17
[SPEAKER_02]: We arrive at the yet again.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, that's not it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But pain is really clever, right?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Our systems are really brilliant and clever systems.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And pain doesn't want to be abandoned.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, pain doesn't want you to just get on with it and ignore what something felt like.
9:38
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't want you to just get on with life and never turn back around.
9:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And this invitation is not like, let's hang out in the pain and let's spend all of our time here forever.
9:48
[SPEAKER_02]: This is about a very intentional and deliberate.
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[SPEAKER_02]: practice because in that cleverness, that's why I say patterns are pain's way at getting us to turn back around.
9:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like pain will find the clever ways to bring you back into contact with it.
10:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I really believe that if pain were able to speak to us or it would be like, I promise I'm not trying to destroy your life.
10:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want you to acknowledge me.
10:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to be abandoned by you.
10:14
[SPEAKER_02]: If you could just acknowledge me,
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[SPEAKER_02]: and spend some time with me and witness and grieve alongside of me, I will loosen my grip, you know, like, I don't need to cling to you forever.
10:25
[SPEAKER_02]: As long as you see me and listen to me and hear me.
10:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And that doesn't require us to know every single detail about our story or what happened, right, some folks are like, well, I don't have these memories.
10:36
[SPEAKER_02]: That's okay.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We don't need to have all of the memories.
10:39
[SPEAKER_02]: But to just slow down and tune into the sensations, right, to tune into the pain,
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[SPEAKER_02]: that is when pain can start to loosen its grip.
10:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It can feel like a lot in overwhelming sometimes to turn back towards it, but I would say that that intentional step is actually what then allows us to turn back around and move forward without needing the patterns and those lessons to keep presenting in different shapes and forms through different people and experiences in our lives.
11:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think like another reason to why people suppress a lot of this past pain and you definitely talked about this in your book in detail of like how we don't want to blame our parents.
11:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And like you were saying like you had a good upbringing.
11:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're like, I should be grateful for that.
11:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not about blaming.
11:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's more about just looking at these past experiences when we were younger.
11:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you had this really great example in your book of just your past.
11:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you kind of like shed light a little more of like how you've been able to be like, okay, I'm going to examine my past but not be like, oh my god, my parents were the worst, you know, because I think there's a very different thing here.
11:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's so important right that we don't go into the space of throwing people under the bus, having to like annihilate them right it's like in fact I think it's part of why people sometimes stay away from this work.
12:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like we've got those narratives so they've done the best that they could with what they had or they were so much better than their parents were to them I should be grateful just respect them.
12:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think for others, it's like we're scared of opening up Pandora's box or, you know, seeing what it is that will find or we've gotten our relationships with our family to and okay enough good enough place and we don't want to disrupt that or maybe there's someone who's deceased and going back in feels really scary to bring something up and not even have the chance of reconciliation.
12:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And so like there's a lot of reasons why we might not want to.
12:36
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think there's a sense of tenderness when we know right from the start, like we're not here to destroy anybody, we're not here to throw anybody into the bus.
12:43
[SPEAKER_02]: This is truly about acknowledging you.
12:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And as you're alluding to, you sort of throughout the book, I remind us of context, right?
12:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also say that context is not an excuse.
12:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Our parents, the adults in our lives, our caretakers, they were tiny humans once too.
13:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were part of a system that was imperfect and flawed.
13:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And we know that there's a story there, right?
13:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, context is valuable without it being an excuse, and so for me, gosh, I was so good and distracting myself away from the pain.
13:17
[SPEAKER_02]: My parents went through a nine-year divorce process starting when I was in first grade.
13:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm an only child.
13:22
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a tremendous amount of high conflict, psychological abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, true paranoia, emotional flooding.
13:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Like,
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[SPEAKER_02]: Just like this tiny little human there by herself, no siblings to bounce anything off of, neither one of my parents ever repartnered or remarried so there were no other adults in the space either.
13:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I sort of fantasize about like that other adult kind of giving me the eye like, I know what you're going through and it's like, so there was just none of that recognition and acknowledgement and validation that what was happening was intense as it was.
13:59
[SPEAKER_02]: From my perspective as a tiny little human was that the adults were crashing and burning around me that they were not okay.
14:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And what that meant for me was that I believed I needed to always pretend to be okay because not being okay would be too much for that system to handle.
14:18
[SPEAKER_02]: whether that's true or not, they might sit here and be like, there was absolutely space for you to not be okay.
14:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But what's important about our stories is really about the way things get internalized by us, right?
14:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, as a tiny little human in that space, I did not believe that there was room for me to not be okay.
14:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what happened is, I
14:36
[SPEAKER_02]: started presenting as totally fine and unaffected and unbothered all of the time.
14:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I put a lot of energy into getting good at things, really good at the violin, and sports, and language, you know, and like that made it seem like I was a well-adjusted individual.
14:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I was doing well in all of these areas of my life.
14:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I was not a problem.
14:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I was not an added stressor or a burden to this family system that was struggling in a really massive way.
15:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And this needless little girl, I say, turned into a needless woman, right?
15:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Unsurprisingly, I was loved participating in the cool girl persona, which meant I'd zero boundaries.
15:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I was the same, like, unaffected unbothered.
15:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, totally, yeah, cool, right?
15:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
15:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And could never actually express anything.
15:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't even know what it was because I had never been taught or even understood how to truly tune into how I was feeling because there was never room for that.
15:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't until a relationship in my mid-late twenties where there was a big breakthrough.
15:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I hadn't had a number of breakthroughs prior to this, but there was a really significant moment where, you know, his ex came back into the picture.
15:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to be back with him.
15:49
[SPEAKER_02]: He was considering going back.
15:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the relationship with her versus staying in the relationship with me, and boom, there it was, therapist me, right, it was like, uh, totally understand, like, absolutely take all the time, you need to go for it, you have to go for whatever, like, and you know, again,
16:13
[SPEAKER_02]: over mine and I remember having a conversation with a friend and it all clicked in which is oh my gosh the role that I took on as a kid is the same role that I am in now in all of my adult relationships and that was the catalyst you know I got on the phone and you know removed myself from the relationship and
16:35
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, really never turned back.
16:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't this mic drop empowering moment.
16:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it was like a, I said what I needed to say while my palms were sweating and my, you know, was closing down.
16:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I was like crying on the bathroom floor for, you know, a couple months afterwards.
16:51
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's still set the track right for me to be like, this is the new way.
16:57
[SPEAKER_02]: of engaging and being able to at least start to express what is okay and what's not okay.
17:05
[SPEAKER_02]: For the first time, I had said, this doesn't feel respectful.
17:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I am not okay.
17:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel very affected by this.
17:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And for some people listening, they're like, that's easy to say.
17:13
[SPEAKER_02]: For me, that was life changing.
17:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Truly not hyperbolic right like that was life changing for people who have never said I'm hurt I'm bothered.
17:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not okay right like to have those words kind of out of my mouth was everything That was so profound now I have no trouble saying My husband is like I don't I never heard heard the version of you that hasn't been able to you know Express and share how you feel but yeah, that was a big pivot in my life
17:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And the layer on top of that, too, in your book, you talk about this moment where you felt like, okay, Connor truly has my back, is that he acknowledges you, he validates these experiences you've had.
17:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So the onus is on you to express it, but then having a partner who sees you for that, I mean, that's truly magical in a relationship, but when we're talking about these wounds and how they can show up in our relationships and love lives,
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, dive into the wounds, but generally how do they show up in our romantic relationships?
18:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, you're going to notice it wherever it is that you find reactivity, you know, like where we have friction and tension in our relationships.
18:27
[SPEAKER_02]: The complaints that we have, you know, I talk about this, something that John Gottman once said, right?
18:31
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like behind every complaint.
18:33
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, is a deep emotional longing, you know, emotional need.
18:36
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not being met.
18:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we can start to really understand, well, is that being driven from a place of not feeling worthy, good enough valuable?
18:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you questioning how important you are to someone?
18:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you feel like an outsider and like you don't fit in here and belong here?
18:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you struggling to trust this person?
18:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you not feel emotionally safe here?
18:57
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like those are the things that are generating
19:00
[SPEAKER_02]: these complaints or these criticisms or these ruptures that we're feeling and experiencing in our relationships.
19:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And so those are, you know, reactivity is one of the greatest indicators.
19:11
[SPEAKER_02]: It really points that arrow back to an unresolved origin wound.
19:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I mentioned this before.
19:16
[SPEAKER_02]: One of my favorites,
19:18
[SPEAKER_02]: you're able to give the advice to everybody else, but you can't take it, right?
19:22
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, oh my gosh, you're x-texting you don't care.
19:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Text back and then you're like, little thumbs up, moving really quickly.
19:29
[SPEAKER_02]: When yours is up, Alice, you can't see of that.
19:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, right?
19:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, we can see it so clearly and it's like, we have a depth of understanding about certain things, but when unresolved pain of our own is present,
19:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
19:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, uh, that wins every time.
19:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
19:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It wins.
19:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It beats out the part that's like, I know that this isn't the best, most aligned thing for me to do.
19:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
19:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, those types of things if it's repeated, right, are going to lead us back to unhailed wounds.
20:03
[SPEAKER_02]: The patterns, whether it's sabotage, whether it's something else, but like, the patterns, the unwanted patterns that you just can't shake.
20:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
20:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, those are the things that are, they alarm is going off.
20:14
[SPEAKER_01]: What I love, I just kind of had this revelation as you were talking is, you know, I think I also very guilty of feeling like just needless in relationships for so long until that shift happened.
20:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I state my needs, maybe too much, but I'll never apologize for that.
20:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of it was like I didn't dig deeper into what these wounds were.
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It was more just like, oh, I don't want to fight like my parents.
20:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just going to suppress my needs.
20:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I'm learning now from your book and this conversation, everything, is it actually goes deeper than that of how you internalized it.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think this is a good opportunity to walk through the main wounds that you've identified, that we all experience.
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the one that really, I mean, all of them resonate with me, but one that really hit me was the worthy this wound.
21:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So can you kind of go into that and share like what it is and show how this tends to play into data give relationships?
21:11
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a line in the book somewhere where I'm like, I'm kind of convinced now after doing all of this writing and you know research that all of us rub up against a worthiness wound at some point or another and obviously kind of on a spectrum and some people will really identify it with it more than others but in the what's your primary origin wound quiz that I created we've had over I think like 35,000 people completed it now and wow.
21:36
[SPEAKER_02]: absolutely worthiness comes in at the highest as the primary one.
21:41
[SPEAKER_02]: But you can have all five, you know, you can have up multiples here.
21:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I certainly have multiples.
21:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So, okay, the worthiness wound is when you grew up questioning your value, like, am I good enough?
21:56
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of times where worthiness can be, it presents when there's a condition to something.
22:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So for all the perfectionists, the pleasors, the performers, the comic relievers in the house right now.
22:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, this is where we tend to see a lot of that worthiness wound get activated, right?
22:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's in that condition of, if I am perfect,
22:18
[SPEAKER_02]: if I please, if I am successful at something like that is how I get love, connection, presence, peace, calm, attention, validation.
22:29
[SPEAKER_02]: From the people I want, it's the most.
22:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So whether that was straight A is whether that was great performance on,
22:36
[SPEAKER_02]: and athletic field and that's how you got apparent to love and connect with you, right?
22:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And that when those things were not happening or even just the threat of them not happening, right, was that everything that you wanted would be lost, right?
22:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So it really forces us into this space of I must be XY or Z in order to get connection, love, attachment, presence, et cetera, et cetera.
22:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think there can also be statements of harm, right?
23:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that uncommon for someone to say like, I had a parent who just told me that I was worthless, you know, that I like wasn't good enough.
23:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like, there are these statements of harm that happen.
23:12
[SPEAKER_02]: They're heartbreaking, right, to hear that.
23:14
[SPEAKER_02]: someone would ever speak to you that way of course that intersects with abuse right when people are speaking that way to you.
23:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But those are the things that begin to erode right our belief that we are indeed worthy, good, valuable, important in this world right.
23:32
[SPEAKER_02]: and so how that continues to show up today, you know, same.
23:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Pleasers, performers, perfectionists, right?
23:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You sort of hang on to that role and believe I need to be, look, seem this way in order to get the things that I want.
23:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I think when it comes to dating relationships, right?
23:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, who do I need to be in order to get that?
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
23:58
[SPEAKER_02]: How do I need to present?
23:59
[SPEAKER_02]: What can I reveal?
24:00
[SPEAKER_02]: What can't I reveal?
24:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
24:02
[SPEAKER_02]: All of that is attached to worth.
24:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
24:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, dating, we've talked about this.
24:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And we actually have a term for the we call the validation trap because dating activates all of that so much because you're basically putting yourself on display, especially the world of apps.
24:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's wiped on.
24:19
[SPEAKER_01]: What way are the other?
24:20
[SPEAKER_01]: To say, am I ultimately the core deemed lovable?
24:23
[SPEAKER_01]: which is of course going to activate those worthy of this wounds, right?
24:28
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you help people get out of that mentality understanding the wound that they're in?
24:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Because personally, I've been faced it like in a relationship of two years, like when my partner and I were struggling to get on the same timelines, it totally activated all of those.
24:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So many of us outsource our worth.
24:47
[SPEAKER_02]: What I would say is that a lot of this work is about in sourcing it, right?
24:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Having it be something that does indeed live within the inside of you, right?
24:56
[SPEAKER_02]: When it's outsourced, meaning I am worthy when this person commits to me.
25:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I am worthy when I look
25:04
[SPEAKER_02]: this way and not that way.
25:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I am worthy when a person swipes on me.
25:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are things put all of the control in somebody else's hands.
25:16
[SPEAKER_02]: You have no say and it's really problematic when we don't have a say in our own lives.
25:21
[SPEAKER_02]: How does one begin to work with this?
25:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's certainly not by telling yourself that you are in deep worthy and to me this is absolutely about going back to the origins of what makes you question it in the first place.
25:36
[SPEAKER_02]: How was it outsourced originally?
25:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And so for some of the examples that we've already been talking about,
25:42
[SPEAKER_02]: When you learned that you needed to dress a certain way, put your hair up a certain way in order to get attention from mom or in order for her to be happy with you.
25:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
25:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, that imprint's something.
25:54
[SPEAKER_02]: When you learn that someone is actually engaged with you when you've scored a hat trick, but could care less or doesn't even look your way when you didn't have any goals?
26:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that has an imprint.
26:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
26:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It's teaching you that you need to be a certain way in order to get the thing that you want.
26:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we have to move away from that and move towards actually witnessing how painful those experiences were.
26:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually acknowledging the impact what it took from us, what it robbed from us in the moment, how it put us on a separate path, the loss that's there, the feelings that we have around those experiences.
26:37
[SPEAKER_02]: which I think when we witness properly, it brings us to grief, which is just the authentic emotional expression of what is there when we start to see this pain through a clear, clean lens.
26:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's like tending to the origins of this pain.
26:55
[SPEAKER_02]: It has a poster just trying to solution and fix.
26:59
[SPEAKER_02]: How can I believe that I'm worthy?
27:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Anybody who has a word in this woman is going to tell you, yeah, it's true for everybody else, right?
27:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I talk to people all the time.
27:07
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, no, I, I, of course believe all of my friends, strangers, like, I believe people are, you know, and lately, where are the, it's just, I don't see that for myself.
27:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
27:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like, we are the one person that is not where the outside are with that.
27:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we know that it cannot just be, here's the solution and just believe it because you and you're born that way, you're born worthy and you're like, cool, prove it.
27:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like, it doesn't.
27:35
[SPEAKER_02]: integrate that way because there's been enough hurt, there's been enough to the wound to hold that as the narrative.
27:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah, in this is going to be the answer for any question that we have about a wound, right?
27:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, what do we do with it?
27:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It is like, yeah, we witness, right?
27:53
[SPEAKER_02]: We grieve and then there's these moments where we can start to pivot and choose a different path.
27:58
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, I have aworthiness wound as well and really where it came out like where it got exacerbated.
28:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll remember that I am the needless child turned, needless adult, totally fine, unbothered, unaffected, yet I got it.
28:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So my dad, when I was easy going, was like super present, super supportive, acts of service, like we had so much fun together like
28:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And I put like difficult meaning, like a teenager, like nothing really out of the ordinary, he would punish by giving me the silent treatment.
28:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes for days or weeks on end.
28:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And this really played into that worthiness piece because it continued to solidify.
28:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't express yourself,
28:46
[SPEAKER_02]: don't step out, don't speak up.
28:50
[SPEAKER_02]: When you have something that is disruptive to the other person, or they don't like it for whatever reason, then love, connection, presence, et cetera, is ripped away from you.
29:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Silent treatment is quite punishing.
29:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very painful and confusing and hard to sit with.
29:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's like, here was this thing that started, like, oh, you have to be easy going fine.
29:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like good quote unquote, right?
29:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Like be the good girl and then you can get what you want But if you step out in any way people leave.
29:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right?
29:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was important for me to identify Because it was like the thing that kept me so tight in that box for a long time on top of the role that I had taken on from You know, a really early age and so this book again as we work through the wounds is this invitation to really reflect and see
29:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like what do you identify?
29:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Where are your wounds?
29:45
[SPEAKER_02]: What are some of the stories that have contributed to this kind of conditional negotiation with the self?
29:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So the example you just said, I totally see that time back to the cool girl, 100% right?
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do you then go like, okay, this was the story of my past?
30:04
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not where I want to go currently.
30:06
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you make that pivot, a connection?
30:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I think many of us are familiar with the quote, that's attributed to Victor Frankall, which is between stimulus and response.
30:16
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a pause, right, and we talk about that.
30:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the pause, right, becomes this gateway.
30:20
[SPEAKER_02]: to our freedom.
30:22
[SPEAKER_02]: My thoughts are that when we spend time witnessing and grieving, what happens is we start to extend our pause.
30:30
[SPEAKER_02]: That means that in our current lives, in our relationships,
30:36
[SPEAKER_02]: when we have an intimate relationship with our story, with our pain, when we get to know it, when we know what the wounds are, when we are intimate with it.
30:44
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where, ooh, something happens, or, you know, somebody does a respond to us for a period of time, or we haven't had any connections on an app in week or whatever it is.
30:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And instead of just going to this space, that is automatic, we're actually aware, conscious in that space.
31:06
[SPEAKER_02]: We're like, I feel that sensation, right?
31:09
[SPEAKER_02]: That one that starts creeping up in my chest and through my throat and backs in my eyes or whatever it is, right?
31:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, and we actually lean back into ourselves, okay?
31:20
[SPEAKER_02]: What wouldn't this activate here?
31:22
[SPEAKER_02]: The word in S1, okay?
31:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, prioritization, right, your friend didn't message you back in a week, and now you see her on social media, having dinner with some of your other friends, and they didn't even think to invite you, and dada, dada, dada, dada, right, like, you know, it's like, okay, what's active here, right, and how do I tend to it differently instead of reacting from it?
31:54
[SPEAKER_02]: happens based on your resolution around these wounds.
31:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So when we're not aware of this stuff, what do we do?
32:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we send our friend a message that's like what the fuck?
32:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I can't believe you didn't invite me, or maybe we're passive aggressive, or we don't respond back to her for another two weeks to give her her lesson.
32:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, and that just perpetuates the pain, right?
32:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this work is, okay, when I can start to identify my wounds, when I can actually take that deliberate time to witness and grief, that's the work that then extends the pause, which says,
32:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, yep, I'm gonna have these moments, hey, to break it to everyone.
32:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately, we will continue to have these moments for the rest of our lives, where things rub up against our wounds, because the scar is there regardless.
32:39
[SPEAKER_02]: It's gonna touch it.
32:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It might not be as raw, but it's gonna touch it for the rest of our lives.
32:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's in those moments where we have the opportunity.
32:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, to move into behaviors and decisions that are healing led versus behaviors and decisions that are pained led.
32:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that you said that because I think as a grown-ass adult, sometimes this is what comes up for me.
33:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I'm above these wounds.
33:05
[SPEAKER_00]: These wounds are coming up because of societal pressure.
33:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm above it.
33:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I can control it.
33:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I can handle it.
33:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I'm worthy, but they still creep up, but there's that internal ego battle.
33:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I think it might be pride and ego at work here.
33:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're saying like, if we just step back and acknowledge the wound, it's not about judging it, it's about acknowledging our experience.
33:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm glad that you said that because I think so important for our listeners to hear that.
33:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to go into the dext wound because we have a few more to run the ruined.
33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: These all show up in dating and relationships.
33:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
33:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So the dext would, on our list, the long egg, I need to belong.
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to belong.
33:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us about that?
33:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Some people will resonate with this, which is, you grew up in a family system where there was this narrative, like, this is what we believe, okay, this is what we do, this is how we operate in the world and there's this sense of like, if you don't do or think.
34:10
[SPEAKER_02]: or be like we are right then you're on the outside.
34:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of times with belonging it's like the intolerance of differences, right?
34:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you can't think differently or you can't love differently or you can't whatever differently because it's not something that is understood, loved, accepted, appreciated by the other people in the system.
34:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And for example, somebody was like the black sheep in the family.
34:35
[SPEAKER_02]: That would be a very clear example of someone who didn't feel like they were a part of it.
34:42
[SPEAKER_02]: With belonging, it's really tough, right?
34:44
[SPEAKER_02]: As tiny humans, 100% of the time we will adapt, we will start there.
34:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Dr. Gavarmate talks about how when attachment is threatened, we will trade authenticity every time, right?
34:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So as kiddos, right?
34:58
[SPEAKER_02]: That like,
34:59
[SPEAKER_02]: attachment and authenticity are lifelines, right?
35:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But when attachment is threatened when we're a child,
35:07
[SPEAKER_02]: we will trade authenticity every single time.
35:10
[SPEAKER_02]: We must, we have to.
35:11
[SPEAKER_02]: It's our survival.
35:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we start at adaptation.
35:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So this loss of self can really start to come in when we must adapt in order to, belong would really be the wrong word here.
35:25
[SPEAKER_02]: It would be to fit in, right, to like kind of feel a part of something because the alternative is to threatening to us.
35:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this is where we hide, you know, we pretend, we hide, we adapt, we play Kate, you know, until a certain point.
35:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So we always start with adaptation, but for some folks, right?
35:44
[SPEAKER_02]: We might get to this place of rebellion, or it's so like the govt years, where we're like screwing
35:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care what you want me to wear, I'm going to do the exact opposite or I'm going to believe the exact opposite.
35:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to push your boundaries or test you in this way and be the exact opposite of who you want me to be.
36:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
36:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, the rebels can certainly be in this area as well.
36:06
[SPEAKER_02]: But anybody who just felt like who they are, who they were was just not received was not understood.
36:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And you don't have to be the same people.
36:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
36:17
[SPEAKER_02]: But like, that there was no curiosity or just acceptance, even if people have different beliefs, right?
36:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, when even if there is a departure, we can still have respect.
36:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I would say about people who have a belonging wound, right, is that
36:31
[SPEAKER_02]: there was so much adaptation that had to happen where there is this constant questioning of you know, who am I really?
36:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the rebel is just the it's the swing of the pendulum, you know, the rebel is just a path of opposition.
36:45
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not actually integration.
36:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And so even in that
36:51
[SPEAKER_01]: true.
36:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I could see this showing up in dating too of just like preserving this date self, you know, like the one that you're supposed to feel like I just act this way or I talk about this type of thing on dates because there are other ways that you can look at how belonging fits in in the dating of relationship space.
37:10
[SPEAKER_02]: it's interesting you say it because this is where I should put this point.
37:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Our stories and the things that have happened in our lives will be internalized by every single one of us in a very personalized way.
37:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So the three of us could have the same exact experience and I might personalize it as aworthiness wound.
37:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Julie, you might personalize it as a prioritization wound.
37:31
[SPEAKER_02]: and you might internalize it as a safety mode, right?
37:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that's very important because even Julia's your point where you're like, ooh, that kind of sounds like, okay, I'm gonna shape shift myself in dating and I'm gonna say that I do like this band when I'd have never even heard of them.
37:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna be like, oh yeah, I'm the cool girl and like, totally unaffected when we actually are.
37:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, we become who we think the other person wants us to be.
37:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And is that because I am only worthy if I present this way is that I will only belong here if I am that right can I only be prioritized by you if I present myself this way right so it can be nuanced right it is very nuanced
38:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I just wanted to say that here, because I don't want people to feel like, okay, I have to fit into this box and what, okay, this event happened.
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So it must mean that I'm going to present this way in doing it and relationships.
38:26
[SPEAKER_02]: It has much more like feel and fabric and nuance to it.
38:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I think when I'm gathering though, it's more like these are all the wounds that we can experience and how they mold into our dating relationships.
38:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, really are dependent on us in our story.
38:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So, like, looking at that with the belonging wounds, like what are some common stores if you internalize it that way?
38:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like that I'm always on the outside that I am not a part of something, you know, people who feel other, a lot, you know, in the belonging chapter, I actually bring societal stuff into it in that chapter specifically more than any other chapter because I think there's so much around otherness, right, when it comes to belonging, right, where there is
39:16
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the adaptation is not just within family systems, it's in society, it's in media, it's looking at like, here are the images that we grew up seeing as quote unquote beautiful and very specific look like now we have much more representation and
39:32
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, we're moving in that direction of like here's what love can look like and here's what's beautiful and here's what's this and here's what's that right and yes it's much more expansive but the people who are reading this book are the people who grew up at a time where they might not have seen that in fact they probably didn't right and so you know folks who any person of color that I've ever worked with if they grew up in an environment where they were surrounded by more
40:01
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, code switching that happens, which is not just with people of color, right, code switching can happen when, you know, you're at a private school, but you're there on a full scholarship and you have no money, but you're presenting as if you fit in here, but you don't fit in, right, so this idea that you're not meant to be here, you are different.
40:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
40:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, to think about the ways in which you feel like your differences are either understood or not understood, respected or not respected, honored or not honored.
40:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you have this overwhelming sense that they are respected, honored, seen, understood, like, then maybe you don't feel that sense of not belonging.
40:44
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you do feel that, right?
40:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, then maybe you do
40:49
[SPEAKER_02]: that belonging and you participate in that shape shifting in order to quote unquote fit in.
40:56
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a very intriguing wound for me because I thought I would identify with this one the most being Chinese American and growing up in an immigrant family where I was constantly told that try to belong to the other.
41:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We did not have a strong sense of belonging to ourselves, but try to belong to the others.
41:16
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when you go to school, try to be like the kids, when you are working, try to be just like your co-workers.
41:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And how that has shown up for me in my love life is yes, there's that performative aspect I feel like I need to be someone else to prove myself worthy.
41:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So the worthy news wound definitely pops up.
41:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But for the belonging wound, how it pops up for me is that I don't know what I want.
41:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I often find that I can make decisions.
41:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't know what I'm looking for in love, because I don't feel a strong sense of self, yeah.
41:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to belong and subscribe to someone else's ideology about love.
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really interesting.
41:55
[SPEAKER_02]: it is and very eye-opening to think about it in that perspective and yeah it's like by working so hard at being like others that loss in the relationship to self which gets to say here's what I like here's what I want here's how I feel right it's like it's not there you know and it's so you were so successful at it right you were so successful at being like others yeah
42:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
42:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it might have been successful for you at that time.
42:28
[SPEAKER_02]: But to be at this moment in life, to be like, oh, if I continue this way, what happens, I don't know myself.
42:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't know myself.
42:38
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, this is not a therapy moment for you.
42:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, oh, what did I open up?
42:43
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm really, yeah.
42:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, to think about where it is that you would actually do continue to do that.
42:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Julie is talking about stating her needs and doing that in the relationship.
42:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I feel like I want to state my needs.
42:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I just don't know what my needs are.
42:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I get a little bit lost in that.
42:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
42:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's very interesting to hear that on fold, because I've always been like, do I just not have a strong sense of self?
43:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, right, because you cannot be you, right?
43:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that was the message.
43:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
43:11
[SPEAKER_02]: You cannot be you.
43:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
43:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And part of what you're having to restore is what doesn't mean to be me.
43:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And like that was the message.
43:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely seeing how layered all of these to get and like how they're so unique to everyone.
43:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They are.
43:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know it like we don't have too much time left.
43:26
[SPEAKER_01]: But I want to go through the other the rewards.
43:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, okay.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to play to be to the other the rate because they also should not be forgotten.
43:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
43:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe we can go into the I want to be prioritized.
43:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so simply put growing up feeling like there were other things that were more important than you.
43:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So whether that was a work-a-holic parent or some other addiction in the household, whether that was a mental health challenge that took up a lot of space and energy, whether it was a sibling who had an illness and the adults were very focused on that child and not you.
44:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether it was just like high conflict couple where the conflict was actually the focus and just took up all the energy or, you know, a parent who there's a divorce and then they start dating kind of chronically constantly and they're wrapped up in their own dating life and never ask you about how you're doing or what's going on in your world anymore.
44:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's a lot of ways in which it can present.
44:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I usually, as we're sort of halfway through the wounds, it's like, this is where I tend to say to people, wounds don't have to come from abusive, negligent, malintended places, right?
44:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I have an example of a client that I share in the book, who I name Andre.
44:41
[SPEAKER_02]: He has a single mom, working multiple jobs.
44:44
[SPEAKER_02]: They go to church on Sunday together and get brunch together afterwards.
44:48
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's really it.
44:49
[SPEAKER_02]: She works double shifts every day, except for Sundays.
44:52
[SPEAKER_02]: and he could sit there in session and be like, her working these double jobs is her way of my artising me.
44:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
44:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, he could really rationalize that.
45:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But it wasn't until he could just say, I want to be prioritized through time spent with her.
45:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
45:09
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and this was, this is a heartbreaking thing because this is really an example of someone truly doing their best, right?
45:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
45:17
[SPEAKER_02]: But people can do their best and we can still have pain.
45:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And how, and that's so important, I think, to make space for that when we work so hard at protecting another, there is no way for us to properly honor ourselves.
45:32
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't honor your pain and simultaneously protect someone else.
45:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Period.
45:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I could definitely see how this can show up while dating.
45:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You kind of talked about the example of like your friend, you know, maybe he plays with other people like dating especially.
45:47
[SPEAKER_01]: There's prioritization all the time and feel like like those percentages evaporated out of thin air.
45:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what other ways do you see this one show I got for people.
45:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, sure.
45:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, even just like the cadence at which a person responds to you, right?
46:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, we had this idea if I were prioritized, you would respond with it.
46:06
[SPEAKER_02]: They wanted to, they would do it in an hour, 24 hours, right?
46:10
[SPEAKER_02]: If they wanted to, they would, right?
46:11
[SPEAKER_02]: If I were just a priority, you would show up on time.
46:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right?
46:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You wouldn't be 15 minutes later, you know, whatever it is, right?
46:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, there's so many different ways that you don't feel like you are important.
46:23
[SPEAKER_02]: somebody doesn't tell you where you're going and tell two hours before.
46:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like the seemingly little thing, but it's activating all the stuff from your fast.
46:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It can.
46:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right?
46:35
[SPEAKER_02]: It can.
46:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Or somebody who doesn't after you had a successful day and you both were vibing and you're like,
46:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we should do this again and then nothing happens for a week and then they come back around like, hey, and you're like, well, this doesn't feel like I'm a priority to you, right?
46:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like to think about the ways in which prioritization does get activated where you don't feel like you are important enough.
46:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And so whether it's dating, whether you are in relationship and, you know, somebody doesn't communicate something to you that you think they needed to, well, you didn't do that because I'm not like relevant.
47:07
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not you're not thinking about me.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
47:10
[SPEAKER_01]: The next one.
47:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Trust.
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: next trust.
47:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so trust is when we experience betrayal, deceit, lies.
47:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I think probably the one that comes to mind first for most people is if there was a fidelity, if there was an affair, we have people who gamble away in education fund, we have people who take credit cards out in their children's names, we have other things like, you know, a parent repeatedly making a promise and
47:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, adult who makes sweeping generalizations is like never trust a man.
47:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's like, you know, those types of things, right?
47:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It really will deeply affect us and kind of set the tone for, you know, can I trust the people closest to me, right?
47:56
[SPEAKER_02]: When they're especially when there is a betrayal, deceit or lie with those closest to us, it kind of sets the tone for, yeah, like, all people close to me are going to deceive me or lie to me or betray me in some way.
48:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Trust in safety, there's a lot of interconnectedness there, right?
48:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Because when trust is ruptured, you know, so is safety.
48:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And when safety is ruptured, so is trust, right?
48:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, again, it's important to read the book because I think some of the examples that I give there will really help the reader kind of connect to where there is a slight difference to it.
48:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, there isn't a connectivity there, because safety wound is when you're overall well-being is not cared for, considered, protected, respected, honored, right?
48:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, there is a lack of safety and security in that space.
48:43
[SPEAKER_02]: In that chapter, it's a tender chapter.
48:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about the absence of safety.
48:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We are often talking about the presence of abuse.
48:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I do talk about that there
48:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's like when there's a rupture and trust in a rupture and safety, a lot of times our walls can go up.
49:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
49:02
[SPEAKER_02]: We're very hyper-vigilant.
49:04
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't believe things or we're waiting for the other shoot-a-drop or, you know, we feel the need to like see who else are they texting?
49:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we start snooping.
49:13
[SPEAKER_02]: in areas like DMs or emails or text messages or there's just this constant waiting for something bad to happen and in that space right like there will be times where the wall is very low so for example someone who tries to create safety by fast forwarding a relationship so like I am safe if I can get you to commit to me right so
49:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, it can look a number of different ways, but a lot of times that wall will go up and so we have rigid boundaries or we don't become intimate like we don't share ourselves We don't share what's going on in our inner worlds because we have this
49:54
[SPEAKER_02]: feeling that someone's just going to use that information against us or they're just going to leave or they're not going to care about it and really emotionally tend to us.
50:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got clever and emerging the trust in the safety at the end here.
50:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like that.
50:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean that's super helpful and I can totally see the trust one showing up as someone who has that guilty until proven innocent mentality, the kind of, oh yeah, he said he will call me tonight, but let's see if he really does and then it ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy because you're looking for people to prove you right that they're going to abuse your trust.
50:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So we see that a lot with a lot of the
50:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think from this conversation, your book, I'm glad that, like, you know, we obviously just skimmed the surface.
50:42
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much more in depth.
50:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, people could get, but luckily there's a very easy way for people to get that information.
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think, you know, my biggest takeaway from all of this is
50:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I came at being like, the worthiness mood is like the one that's the biggest challenge for me, but I'm seeing how all the wounds can play in to what goes on for me.
51:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the point of like how it all shows up differently based on the story that you're identifying is so key.
51:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So this was kind of a great way to understand like, what do we all go through?
51:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, how do you start to reflect back?
51:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the parts that you were talking about of how it's
51:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't really do much to just say, like, oh, this isn't a big deal, or I should be above it.
51:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how do we really get into it?
51:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how do we dig into what was going on?
51:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know, for other people, like, I feel like I've suppressed a lot of stuff.
51:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And not because, like, it's like, super traumatic habit, but just, let's sure, because of age and because of just, you know, life experiences.
51:42
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's really how do you go back?
51:45
[SPEAKER_01]: in like face this and like look at yourself as this younger child and I remember we had another interview on this podcast and the therapist saying like sometimes with my wife, I'm not talking to my wife, I'm talking to the seven year olds that's sitting in front of me.
52:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think also having grace to yourself, but also the people you're dating with is we're all experiencing these wounds.
52:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is universal for all of us, and how do you do that work, but then also, you don't talk the root with people, whether that's a therapist or the people you're dating or your partner.
52:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's I think the healing can come in a partnership.
52:22
[SPEAKER_01]: For years, I thought like you have to be good yourself in order to attract, but we learned from your last episode.
52:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We had with you a cotter too, like that's the power of a great relationship that you can do this healing together.
52:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's why I wrote this book because I know that not everybody is going to go to therapy or has access to it or can afford it.
52:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, here's a place where in the comfort of your own home, you know, you can begin to peel back some of these things.
52:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very important to tend to this part for yourself because, yeah, to your point.
52:56
[SPEAKER_02]: You read all of these chapters because even if you don't think you have a wound, your partner might or your best friend might or your child might.
53:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And to begin to remember that everybody is carrying this around, right?
53:08
[SPEAKER_02]: That that everyone's behavior actually makes quite a bit of sense when we have the context of their pain around it.
53:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we love and care about someone, right, and there's reciprocity there, then we do tune into these stories with one another.
53:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's very important for us to begin doing some of this work at least on our own, right, to like identify it.
53:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that this book, you know, what a lot of people have said is that even though I am direct and, you know, I want us to face this,
53:34
[SPEAKER_02]: the book feels like I'm holding your hand and you're in therapy with me.
53:38
[SPEAKER_02]: It like it kind of feels that way and it's this really nice balance of having to take ownership and accountability and you're not being let off the hook there's grace and compassion though as well and so finding that intersection to me is one of the best ways to to do healing work so very excited that people get to read the book and so happy that I got to be here with the two of you.
54:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I think compassion is exactly the word I would use for this book.
54:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And I so appreciate how compassionate you are in describing these wounds.
54:10
[SPEAKER_00]: My biggest takeaway from the book in our conversation is that wounds are a very human experience.
54:15
[SPEAKER_00]: We are all going to have wounds.
54:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think during our childhood and maybe early adulthood, we're just putting on the band dates, just making sure that we don't bleed to death.
54:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But now it's a time, as we, I really think in art, late 20s and 30s, it's a time to address each bandaid, one at a time.
54:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's open up this one, see how this one's healing.
54:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It's bleeding pretty bad.
54:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I need to tend to this one the most, and that can be such a scary process.
54:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a friend who is,
54:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm peeling one of those band aids this year.
54:46
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, I'm finally ready to address this wound and take so much courage.
54:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's also something to acknowledge is that this is not easy.
54:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't happen overnight, but through your book and through your guidance, we can kind of take off those band aids and start healing the wounds together.
55:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for that.
55:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for writing this book.
55:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for this conversation, Vienna.
55:08
[SPEAKER_00]: We could go on for probably three or four more hours about people.
55:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
55:12
[SPEAKER_00]: and how they can show up in different ways, but I'm glad that we can at least give people kind of the surface level awareness look into what the blooms are.
55:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So if people want to get their hands on your book, where can they go?
55:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get this book anywhere that books are sold.
55:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So whatever your favorite book seller, you know, is it'll have it.
55:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find me on Instagram, mindful MFT as a marriage family therapy.
55:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So
55:35
[SPEAKER_02]: there are, you know, all the links for books and workshops and all the stuff that's going on.
55:42
[SPEAKER_02]: So that might also be something that's valuable for people.
55:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely.
55:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you haven't done so yet, subscribe to the psychology of relationships today.
55:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So you don't miss an episode.