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32 | When Healing Becomes Another Place To Hide · The Messy Middle Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Messy Middle, the podcast for women navigating the raw, confusing, lonely aftermath of narcissistic abuse and emotional control.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm Erica Leon, trauma-informed abuse recovery coach, mom of five, and creator of the six keys to unfuckwithable.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: If you're picking up the pieces, questioning everything, and trying to remember who the fuck you were before you were so carefully erased, you're in the right place.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to this episode of The Messy Middle.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be an interesting one.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: So here goes.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: This episode is about how healing can become another hiding place.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: As you know, I'm already irritated with the word healing.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know what to replace it with, but it's so overused and saturated and it's pissing me off.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: But I can't think of another one right now.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: So I have been thinking about making this episode for a while because I have to be a little bit careful with it.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: So I've been trying to say it without pissing anyone off.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: But when is that gonna happen?
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Honestly.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: The last thing I want is for someone to hear this and think I'm saying don't go to therapy or don't read books or don't learn about your nervous system.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: That is not what I'm saying at all.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: I've built my career around personal development.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: So I've seen all of those things change lives, and I've watched people completely transform through understanding abuse dynamics, boundaries, nervous system work, somatic self-trust, and regular therapy.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: So this is not an anti-healing episode.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: It's almost the opposite, actually.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: It's about something I have noticed because pattern spotting is my gift and my curse after thousands of conversations with my clients.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the very thing that starts out by really helping and kind of rocketing you into a new level of progress slowly becomes the place we hide.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's a really uncomfortable thing to admit.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: If you're judging yourself, it'll be even worse.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: And I want us always to approach this with no judgment because all the things we do are for safety and survival, and we have to be kind to ourselves about these things, they are normal and natural.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Because hiding inside healing still looks like healing, right?
2:31
SPEAKER_00: You're listening to another podcast or buying another book or doing another course.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I am a fiend for that.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: And I make courses, I have a lot of them.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Just I think because I just got fed up with repeating myself rather than I wanted to be some big course creator.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: You might be filling another journal or learning some other technique, and on the surface, that all looks incredibly healthy, and sometimes it is, and it's an amazing way to hide in there sometimes in the folds, isn't it?
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Being a perpetual student, because it looks very admirable from the outside.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: So, what a great place to just camp out and not actually take action.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: So let me explain it to you all because I'm not calling anyone out here, I'm just bringing attention to things.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: On the surface, it all looks incredibly healthy, and sometimes it is, until one day I find myself gently asking a client, can I ask you something?
3:36
SPEAKER_00: What action are you avoiding while you're preparing to take action?
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because sometimes without even realizing it, we have become these perpetual students of our own lives, always learning, always understanding, always analyzing, self-inventory, belly button, I think you call them navels, or is it the other way around?
3:59
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember, but navel gazing, always preparing for something, but never quite stepping into the bit that actually changes everything.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: The action.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: The nervous system loves preparation.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I find fascinating about the nervous system is that it isn't particularly interested in whether something is good for you, it's interested in whether something feels familiar because it sees things in a very black and white way, and to protect you, it wants to keep you safe by keeping you the same.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: And preparation feels incredibly safe.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: So think about it.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: Reading a book about boundaries doesn't require you to disappoint anybody or feel that hot rush of like you're gonna puke and your face is all flushed.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Listening to a podcast about self-worth doesn't require you to tell your mom no and step off, for example.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: Watching a video about red flags doesn't require you to leave the relationship or to actually add up the red flags in the people in your lives and make some choices.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Learning feels productive and it feels responsible, it feels like you're doing something and you are, until that learning quietly replaces actual living and action.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's when I start paying attention because there does come a point where another insight isn't going to be what changes your life.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: One difficult conversation might, though.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: One boundary does, one decision often does, one phone call might, one application, a date, a weekend away, an honest conversation with you, even.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: That is where life starts actually moving.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Not because knowledge isn't valuable.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that it is, it's amazing, but knowledge was only ever supposed to be the bridge, it wasn't really supposed to be the destination, like where you stay.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Transformation.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: And I sometimes wonder whether we have accidentally confused understanding ourselves with changing our lives.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Because understanding is beautiful, it's powerful, and you have to do it first.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, shining the spotlight on the thing is the first step to anything.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Awareness is the first stage of everything.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: So I don't want to deny you it, it's beautiful, it's got to be done.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: It's knowing where that stops and action starts that people find really tricky, especially as that action has been conditioned in you to feel like there's a punishment that will follow.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's the first time you've ever had language for what happened to you.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: I remember that feeling like it was yesterday.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: It was expansive, almost ecstatic.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: And you might have discovered narcissistic abuse or coercive control or things to do with the nervous system and trauma responses and people pleasing, and you go thoroughly and gloriously down the YouTube rabbit hole.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, it feels amazing.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: And you suddenly realize, oh my god, I'm not crazy.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And that moment really matters.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: I can remember where I was, I can remember how it felt, and it was many moons ago now, but I would never minimize that.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: I want that for you, I love it for you.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And eventually, understanding stops being the thing that's missing.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: You know why you people please in the end.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: You know why boundaries feel uncomfortable, you know why dating feels terrifying, you know why your nervous system keeps scanning for danger, and you know.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: And the question changes from why do I do this to am I willing to do something different now?
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And they're really different questions.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: You can even feel it if you ask them to yourself.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole different energy.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: One is quite scary if you're in the perpetual student phase, one asks for curiosity and the other asks for courage, and that is much more expensive.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Healing starts feeling productive, and I think it's where this gets really sneaky because healing does give you something many of us haven't felt for a really long time.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: It gives you progress.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: Like if you finish a book off your audible or whatever, an actual book, then check, right?
8:18
SPEAKER_00: You complete a program, check, you fill out another journal, check, you watch another masterclass, check.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: You have another breakthrough, another session, check.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: It all feels amazing, and you are growing and you are learning and you're becoming more self-aware and all those wonderful things.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: And here's the question again, I have to be that guy, the bad cop.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: But I do sometimes have to ask my clients what's different in your actual life though?
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Not in your understanding of your life, but in your actual life, in your random Tuesday.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: Do you still answer the phone every time the fuck with calls?
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Do you still apologize when you've done nothing wrong?
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Do you still explain your boundaries for 45 minutes, hoping somebody will finally approve of them?
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Do you still abandon yourself to keep the peace?
9:11
SPEAKER_00: Because if nothing's changing outside the notebook, it's worth becoming curious about why.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: Not judgmental ever, remember.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: We love ourselves, we respect ourselves, we give ourselves a ton of grace because this is how this works.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Everything's to protect us, and it's really normal not to want to take actual action.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: It's terrifying.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: It can feel like it will kill you, and that's really what the nervous system boils it down to.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: But the good girl simply found a new job, is all.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And this really gets me.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: It makes me kind of sad because I don't think the good girl disappears when the relationship ends.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: That good girl conditioning sticks around, and she's incredibly resourceful.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: She just finds a new way to earn approval.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: So before she might have been trying to become the perfect partner or the perfect wife, daughter, employee, friend, whatever.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Now she's trying to become the perfectly healed.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: The woman who never gets triggered, or who always is regulated.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Her nervous system is always regulated.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't spiral.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: She communicates beautifully.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: She's completely healed her inner child.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: She's transcended her past.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Can you hear it?
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Can you?
10:25
SPEAKER_00: But she's still trying to qualify for love.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: She's just changed the subject.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And my heart breaks a little bit when I see it because she's working just as hard.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: She simply might be wearing yoga pants instead of walking on oak shells.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: But it's maybe I just need one more.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: And this is where I sometimes smile a little bit because I recognize it, not just in clients, but in myself.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I just need one more book, one more workshop, or one more piece of information before I'm ready.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: But ready for what?
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Ready to live?
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Ready to leave?
11:06
SPEAKER_00: To finally trust yourself, to finally love yourself, respect yourself or apply for a job, be ready for a date, ready to say no, what?
11:15
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes one more quietly, again, becomes another year and another.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: And it's not through any lack of work ethic on your part, by the way, at all.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: And it's not because you don't want a lovely life and to feel freedom, it's just because your nervous system has discovered that preparation feels safer than actual possibility of doing this in real life.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: So, what action are you avoiding?
11:45
SPEAKER_00: This is probably the question I ask myself most these days.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: It's not what else do I need to learn, but what action am I avoiding while I keep learning?
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Because the answer is usually incredibly revealing.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's making a doctor's appointment or joining in the gym or deleting that number or telling someone to go fuck themselves, go into your first meetup, might be finally admitting I don't really think this relationship is ever going to become what I've been waiting for.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: It's just not good enough.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: And change starts becoming real then because you have duh trusted yourself enough to act on what you've known for a while.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: And there comes a point where healing, that bloody word again, asks something different of you.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: At the start, it just might be asking you to understand.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: It's really good to know what happened, to understand what happened to you, to understand why you reacted the way you did, what was happening behind the scenes.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Especially with abuse, it's so freeing to understand that this has a pattern, that these people do this to people on road, all the same.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: They go to school for it or something.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: It's good to understand your nervous system, it's good to understand patterns, abuse dynamics, your childhood.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: All of that understanding is incredibly important.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: In fact, for many women, it's the first time in their life that their life has ever made sense.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: It's the first time someone has said, Oh, no wonder you feel like that though, no wonder you're exhausted, or no wonder you don't trust yourself.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: And that understanding is the beginning of everything.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: It's like a boom.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: But eventually, you might need to start asking something a little bit different.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Not do you understand, but do you trust yourself enough to live differently or to try something different?
13:43
SPEAKER_00: And it's very uncomfortable.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And though they are two completely different stages, by the way, when you really break it down.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people don't realize they've already crossed that bridge because they're still standing on that side of understanding and actual life being different is waiting on the other side.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: I promise you, you don't need another sign.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: I sometimes think about that.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: How many people are out there quietly waiting for certainty?
14:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, like when people say if you want a child, like you're never ready, no matter even if you're planning for it, or when someone is that you love it is leaving this earth that you can prepare for it, but you're never prepared.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: You never get that certainty.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: You have to actually experience it, and it changes everything.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: I wonder how many of us are waiting for one more sign or one more confirmation, or one more conversation, or one more bloody podcast.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: Here I am on a bloody podcast telling you about all of this, or one more course, one more moment when everything suddenly clicks.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: And I do really understand that because certainty feels safe.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: But life very rarely gives us certainty before action.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe in that split second where you've had that self-preservation kicked in and you have almost like a second sight and you know you have to do something.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: But more often than not, certainty arrives afterwards, after you've maybe set the boundary or left the relationship or applied for that job, or gone on that date, or started saying no to people, and you might look back and think, Oh, I can see now that I was ready.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: I can.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: But you almost never feel completely ready before that happens.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: That's maybe a cruel myth we've been sold, you know, one of those bullshit rules that readiness comes first or it should.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: And in my experience at least, readiness often follows courage, not the other way around.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: And the life you're waiting for and learning for, praying for, hoping for, and creating is not on the next page.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: I wish I'd probably understood this more a long time ago and had someone shake it into me, but your life probably isn't hiding in the next book.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: It probably isn't waiting inside the next podcast either.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: It probably isn't sitting in the next journal prompt because your life is like out there.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: It's in those awkward conversations that make you want to throw up.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: The shaky boundaries when you first start, that first lonely weekend after saying no, and fighting through missing someone when you virtually have to sit on your hand not to call them and start that whole shitty cycle over again.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Could be the holiday you need to cancel because you felt really guilty about the money, or the new friendship you maybe almost didn't have because you were convinced nobody would really want to understand what you were up against.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: And so many more that I can think of.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Maybe like an afternoon where you chose to rest instead of earning your exhaustion, you know, going and going.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: And that's where your life is.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: It's out there.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: It's doing little things, actually doing them, even though you feel scared.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Doing it when your voice shakes, as they say.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that learning doesn't matter, please don't misunderstand.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: I love learning, it's my passion too.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: But learning wasn't really supposed to replace the actual living, it was just meant to prepare you for it.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: And hey, you might have even graduated without realizing it.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: I wonder how many people are still sitting in a classroom after they've passed an exam.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Not because they just sit enjoy sitting there, but the classroom feels familiar.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: And out there, life is unpredictable.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Out there people can disappoint you, they can fuck you over, they can shake your whole worldview, and out there you might make mistakes.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Out there, you have to trust yourself.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: The classroom feels safer.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: There's another lesson, another worksheet, another breakthrough.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: It's very predictable.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: It's got structure, another thing to learn.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: It'll keep you busy until you feel like the bravery is coming for you one of these days, or you'll feel more ready when, or you'll feel more brave when.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: It's never going to be like that.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And maybe what you're currently calling not ready is actually just grief about leaving familiar behind.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: And when you've been in a I can say it again, I hate the word, the healing journey, and if you've been in that for quite a while now, you could almost forget what it was like not to be in it.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: And it was never really meant to become your whole identity.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: And this is the last thing I really want to leave you with.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: I'll stop yapping, but healing is just something you do.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: It isn't who you are.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: You do it when you need it, but surviving is something you already did.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: You did it.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: You did.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: It isn't who you are, something you did.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: Being abused is something that happened to you.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: It's not who you are.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I think we have become so fluent in the this language, like healing language, psych language, that we forget to become fluent in the actual language of living.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't know anyone who survived this that doesn't know how to analyze themselves and has been doing self-infantry since they can remember.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Everyone knows how to explain themselves when they've been through this.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Over-explain, if anything, we know how to identify triggers.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: When someone asks what brings you joy, we pause, nobody has a fucking clue.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Because you've likely spent so long studying the wound that you've forgotten to explore the whole woman, the whole person.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not making fun of this, and I don't think that's a failure.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: I think it's simply the next iteration is to become curious about your actual self.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: And remember, I'm never saying this from a place of your broken.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: You are the fuck not.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And it's just becoming finally free enough to discover who you are without constantly trying to fix yourself.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: And I will leave you with my one question.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to rush into action.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to do anything that makes you feel super uncomfortable.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes a little bit of uncomfortable is good.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: And certainly not because I think there's some finish line called healed.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: There definitely is not.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: I just simply want you to ask yourself this.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: What action have I been postponing while I keep preparing?
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's tiny, maybe it's huge, only you'll know, and you'll immediately get a sense of what that is in your gut.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: But if you've been listening to podcasts or reading books, obviously you're listening to one right now, and I'm glad, doing the courses and learning all the things, understanding all the patterns, and you're still waiting for the permission to begin your life.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if you've mistaken that preparation for safety.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Because I want you to imagine that there comes a point when your healing quietly whispers in your ear, I've taught you everything I can.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: Now I'd love to watch you go and live.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: And you're definitely not going to have a triggered free life.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have difficult days for sure, and you will definitely need to come back and learn something new time to time.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: You can always learn, you can deepen understanding of things you already know, you can get the foundations and the basics brilliantly set in your mind so that they become natural and your body.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: You will come back and learn something new, we all will.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And that might be where healing finally stops being something you study and just becomes the way you live, the way you be.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself what action it is you're postponing while you keep preparing, and then choose a small part of that task and do it.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: It should feel uncomfortable and tingly, but in a way that jumping into a cold pool does.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: It's exhilarating when you've done it.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you sweethearts.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: I am gonna leave it here for you.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: As always, please ask me anything you would like, and I'll answer your questions in episodes further down the line.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to contact me at all, please do.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: All my details are on the little podcast thingy.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Sending you big hugs.