Welcome to the Unfuck Your Relationships podcast.
I'm Michelle Panning, your host, mindset and embodiment coach and
mentor Trigger Queen, and founder of the Connected Woman
program. Think of me as your new ride or
die that's going to help you unfuck your relationships with
love, sex, business, and money. And just so you know, I
absolutely will not be blowing smoke up your ass just to make
you feel better. I just wanted to let you in on
that. So this is a space where I'm
going to be helping you have high as fuck standards for the
way that you lead your life and business.
I'm going to be sharing thought provoking conversations, potent
and direct truth bombs, and I'm going to take you behind the
scenes of my life and the lessons that I'm learning so you
don't have to. I genuinely want the women who
come into my world through listening to this podcast to
have it all because I don't believe in settling for
mediocrity because that's just not a reality in my world.
And I don't think it has to be a reality in your world either.
So strap yourself in, get comfy, and let's fucking go.
Hello, my loves, welcome back to the Unfuck Your Relationships
podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Panning,
and this is episode 211. So I know this is going to be a
very, very, very popular episode because we are going to be
diving into how to actually become secure.
There's a lot of fluff and all of the things out there, but
we're really going to dive into the actual tangible shifts that
you need to make that are going to actually help you come into
being a secure woman. Now, I have to say, I love that
you listen to the podcast. This is amazing.
Share it with all your friends. But just listening to a podcast
or watching a YouTube video or reading a book is not enough.
And if you have listened to any of the interviews that I have
done with my clients, you will find a common thread where they
talk about how embodiment has been the key for them actually
becoming secure. I've had women take the
connector women 234 times and they skipped out on the
embodiment calls and then they finally did them and they were
like, Oh my God, I see why you put them in there now because
they're actually life changing and they are the difference
between you repeating the same cycles over and over versus
actually becoming a secure woman.
It's not just the things that you talk about or the shifts
that you plan to make that, you know, I plan to join a program.
I plan to go to the gym, I plan to invest in myself, I plan to
go to the retreat. That's all well and good, but
until you actually make those shifts and commit, nothing
actually changes. And it is the shifts that
happened on a day-to-day basis when no one is watching.
Those are the shifts that add up to make a change.
Like if you were to think about weight loss, for instance.
It's you choosing to stick to your meal plan when you really
want to get Uber Eats. It's choosing to go for a walk
when you want to sit on the couch.
It's choosing to go to the gym when you'd rather watch Netflix,
right? And no one's clapping for you,
no one's applauding you, no one's patting you on the back
and saying like, good job 24/7. And it's the same with this
Becoming a secure woman in your love life, in your
relationships, in your connection with yourself is not
found in A1 off thing. It's like you have this big kind
of epiphany, these aha moments. This could be from the podcast,
This could be from you coming to the retreat.
Like that is literally fucking 20 years of therapy condensed
into three days. Let me tell you.
And you have that. And then it's the subtle shifts
that you make on a day-to-day basis, the shifts that we're
going to be talking about today in this episode that add up.
And you look back in a year's time and you're like, I'm a
completely different person. Like that is wild.
OK, so I want to start with talking about attachment styles
and what attachment is really about.
And this episode is really for the emotionally intelligent
woman. Like you've done work.
If you're listening to this, you've done some work, right?
But somehow you still lose yourself in relationships or you
attract partners who can't meet you or you run from
relationships. You keep self sabotaging and
you're like, Oh my God, I know better.
Why can I not do better? So I want to talk about that and
I want to start with attachment of what attachment is really
about because your attachment style is not your identity.
Can I just say that's the first thing?
I see this so often. I'm anxiously attached, I'm
avoided, he's avoided, She's anxious, she's disorganized, all
of the things and like slapping these labels on.
And whilst these can be helpful to give us context, you know,
this was one of the first things if you listen to my very first
episode when I got broken up with on the way back from a
tarot reading that said I was going to be with this man for
the rest of my life when I did that.
And then I went to Thailand right before my therapist at the
time had given me the book attached.
And so I read that and I was like, Oh my gosh, it gave me so
much language and articulation for how I showed up.
And that book really focuses on anxious attachment.
So, you know, it's great. But throughout the years, I
really saw that I was actually more fearful avoidant or
disorganized or anxious avoidant, however you want to
call it so. But before I recognize all this
and I did this work, I really saw how I was hiding behind this
label of being anxiously attached.
I act like this because I have anxious attachment.
I attract avoidant men because I have anxious attachment.
There was no responsibility on my end to do anything
differently because I have anxious attachment, right?
He doesn't have to do anything, but he's avoided.
So it's the same thing where it's like, I'm going to give you
some language and articulation, but don't use this as a get out
of jail free card for you to act however you want.
We still get to exercise choice, clock it, own it, clean it up.
We still get to take responsibility for ourselves and
there are plenty of people I've worked with thousands of women
and I've done it myself to shift from being anxious to avoid and
to secure, not necessary. Sorry, not in that order.
I just I just are avoided to being secure.
OK, So if you learned it, which an attachment style is learned,
you can unlearn it. And that's really what the work
when you come into my world, that's what you're doing,
whether it's listening to this podcast, following me on
Instagram or TikTok, working with me at the connected woman
come into the restricts, whatever it is, It's about
unlearning all the shit that told you.
This is who you are, this is who you have to be.
And you actually designing and Co creating a life with God or
the universe or whatever you believe in to show up in the way
that you want to show up. And so I say the secure woman as
kind of a like an archetype or like a reference point for you
to me. And that secure woman could look
different for you. And I so really feel into like
what you're secure woman is that I digress.
And I have whole episodes on this.
I'm not going to go like too, too too deep into it.
I just want to give you like a kind of brief overview of what
this feels like, right? It can feel like you're gasping
for air when love is distant, right?
When someone when you feel like someone is pulling away or
they're not like 100% consistent and your level of consistency is
unreasonable of what you expect in a relationship is
unreasonable. Whereas a secure person feels
like they're OK with closeness and they're OK with space and
they have reasonable levels for both, right?
So if someone with anxious attachment has an unreasonably
high expectation for the level of closeness they want to
experience. And so you will start to freak
out if you feel like someone's pulling away.
And The thing is, is that they may not be pulling away, but if
you even perceive that, you'll start leaning in even harder.
And then that could but even force a secure person to start
leaning away. I know that even when you know,
I started to become secure, if I feel someone like desperately
grasping and hanging on to me, it can actually shift me into a
little bit of avoidance. And you know, that can happen,
right? Someone who has anxious
attachment will over function a lot.
So you'll you know, if your partner's giving 5%, you'll give
95% and you're like, look, 100% of a relationship.
Yay girl math. No, babe, not girl math.
That's just not a sustainable relationship, right?
And in that you will overly take responsibility.
You'll over function, you'll over apologize, you know, and
and then you become resentful, of course.
And you will ignore red flags in the beginning because the
connection feels so good. And you'll hear this a lot.
Like, when it's good, it's good. You know, it's like, yeah.
But when it's bad, it's really fucking bad, babe.
Yeah. And the connection feels like
oxygen, like your your tie to this person feels like a need,
not a desire. Which then brings into the next
point of you mistake anxiety for chemistry, right?
Those butterflies in your tummy that like that giddiness.
And don't get me wrong, you always you want to feel excited
about someone that you're dating, but you really that like
up, down inconsistency, pulling away that is intoxicating to
someone with anxious, anxious attachment.
And you really equated that love equals proving yourself in
whatever way, proving that you are worthy, proving that you can
take care of them, proving that you can heal them, proving that
you're a good person, proving that you can be the person that
they've always needed. And this is you're going to be
the person to heal their heart and La La, La, La.
And you have based your entire sense of self worth on how
needed you feel by another person, specifically an
avoidance. Which brings me to the
dismissive avoidance. OK, so just the the anxious
avoider, the anxious attachment has a deep fear of abandonment,
right? And this is what people get
wrong about dismissive avoidance.
Well, I'll all attachment styles minus secure, right?
There's a deep fear of abandonment for a dismissive
avoidant as well. But it is so great that the
dismissive avoidant is not even willing to lean in at all,
right? So they're not willing to face
off with their desire for intimacy because the fear of
abandonment is so great that they're like no, no, no, no.
So what happens is they do crave connection.
That's a common misconception about someone with dismissive
avoidant attachment is that they don't crave connection.
That's not true. They've crave connection, but
only on their terms because their deepest fear, whilst the
deepest fear of the person who's anxious is being abandoned, the
deepest fear of the dismissive avoidance is being engulfed,
right. So having someone take up all of
their space and they lose themselves in another person,
they're very, very protective of their freedom, of their
autonomy, of their sovereignty. And so yes, they want
connection, but they want it on their terms.
You only want it on your terms, and that pairs with an anxious
attacher who's willing to completely fucking give up all
of their terms just to be with you.
So you can imagine how they go together, really, you know, like
a moth, like a flame, a moth to a flame.
And if you have dismissive avoidant attachment, you will
constantly be keeping 1 foot out the door so you're never fully
in and constantly. You may fantasize about previous
relationships. You may fantasize about what it
would be like for you to be on your own or for you to be with
someone else, or really penciling and fantasizing about
this quote UN quote perfect partner who is going to meet
your needs for space and freedom.
Or that you're going to meet this perfect person.
And then you won't have that need for space and freedom
because you'll just be like, oh, so rather than actually taking
accountability and responsibility for your own
avoidance of not wanting to lean into a relationship out of
fucking fear, you're like, Oh no, no, no, it's you.
You're the problem. You're too anxious and so you
will pawn off your responsibility.
Everyone does this right? The anxious attacher is pawning
off their responsibility here. You're supposed to make me
happy, right? The avoidant is person is going
don't make me unhappy. So don't have needs please,
because that makes me feel engulfed.
That makes me feel unmeshed. When you, when you're upset, I
feel responsible for your emotions and then I panic and I
walk away, right. So this person will start to
find faults like you'll, you'll find faults in other people.
You will find ways to withdraw your energy, physically,
emotionally, mentally, sexually, all the ways.
And you really use your independence as a shield, right?
I'm so independent and you say that you don't care, but you
secretly hope that someone is going to breakthrough this fall,
right? Again, that perfect person which
does not fucking exist. And so this person will
consistently prematurely leave relationships and the anxious
person will consistently overstay in relationships.
Then you have the fearful avoided, which is what I
discovered that I was because once I got into a relationship
with someone who was more secure, I was like, Oh my
fucking God. I don't have someone who's
avoided who I have to constantly pursue.
He's just here. I met my own avoidance and I was
like, ow. It turns out I'm deeply afraid
of being seen. I'm deeply afraid of intimacy.
I'm afraid of the consistency that is required in a
relationship. I'm afraid of having to actually
fucking show up for something, right?
So this is called the fearful avoidant.
Or you could also, if it's easier for you, you could just
call this anxious avoidant, right?
It's because it's both. And really, if I could sum this
up in a sentence, it's come here, go away, right?
There's a book now, it's about borderline personality disorder,
so that's a different issue altogether, but it's a book
called I Hate You Don't Leave Me.
And that's really what like a fearful avoidant is feeling
like. Don't leave me but also get the
fuck away from me, OK? And so this is one of the most
turbulent attachment styles to be in a relationship with
because there's a lot of inconsistency.
There's a lot of up and down, there's a lot of push and pull.
And you, if you have this style, you really fling between
clinging and shutting down and it can feel very disorienting.
I know for me it's felt like a curse to have it, you know, to
be like fuck, like I just feel like I'm so unpredictable.
And of course this comes from being raised in an unpredictable
environment, but I've had to do a lot of work to be OK with
closeness and with space. So it's, you know, the
dismissive avoided is working on OK, how can I be OK with
closeness because they're good with space.
The anxious person is like, how can I be OK with space?
Because they're good with closeness.
They're like, can't get enough, whereas the disorganized or the
fearful avoidant needs both. And so they're like, OK, I need
to become OK with closeness and I need to be OK with space.
Because the fearful avoidant is terrified of being alone.
They're terrified of being fully seen.
But it's also their deepest desire because at the core of
the fearful avoidant, their deepest fear is around betrayal.
And when I learned this, this is so pertinent to my journey.
This was so true because I saw where I was hyper vigilant of
where people would let me down. This was not just romantic
relationships. This was family.
This was friends. This was clients, mentors,
anyone, anyone. It was like, I know that I'm
going to be let down. I know that someone is going to
betray me. And so I would be hyper vigilant
to any sort, any kind of like lying or withholding of the
truth or anything. And eventually I would sabotage
my relationships because of that.
Now it's also a superpower because you know, I was just, I
had a friend around a few months ago and we were, you know, just
chatting and whatever. And then as she was leaving, I
noticed something was off with her.
And I was like, are you OK? She's like, yeah, I'm fine.
I'm like, Are you sure? Because I can sense that
something's off. And she's like, why are you so
good at this? Like, how do you always just
know? And I was like, drama.
I'm hyper vigilant to any sort of shift or change in
environment. So it's a superpower.
And it was also something that I had to to shift from being in
the shadows to being integrated and something that I could
actually leverage. That would be really helpful.
And if you want to kind of speak like a love language of the
fearful avoidance is to be deeply known, right?
They want to be deeply known. And this is also the shadow of
this love language is they want to be deeply known, but they
don't want to have to fucking tell you anything, right?
They don't want to have they want you to.
It's like I want you to read my mind, right?
And that's how I was operating when I was operating from the
fearful avoidant attachment. And so if this is you, you
really expect people to anticipate your needs, to read
your mind, but you're also afraid of being seen.
You believe that everyone's going to betray you.
And so you can imagine there's a lot of self sabotage happening
here. All right?
If you have been craving a full body transformation that goes
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So Awakening her is for the woman who's ready to come home
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And just so you know, the closer that we get to the start date,
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These retreats are designed to do them as a bundle.
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Michelle Panning. Otherwise, I can't wait to see
you there. Now let's get back to the
episode. Then we come into secure
attachment, which is what we are cultivating here.
And this is the premise of this is that you are OK with
closeness and space right now. This is not to say you should be
fine spending every single day, every single moment, every
minute, every second with your partner breathing down your
neck. And you should also be fine with
not speaking to your partner for three weeks on end.
No, it's like, obviously we have limitations or, you know,
certain standards or boundaries that you're going to have for
your own relationship, and that's perfect.
But you really feel like you're not worried if you don't hear
from your the guy that you're talking to for like hours.
Do you know what I mean? You're not worried that he's
going to cheat on you if he goes on a boys night out or you know,
he's working late or whatever. Obviously this goes without
saying, but if they haven't cheated on you before, if there
has been betrayal in this current relationship, then
that's a different story. You know you're not constantly
worried that they're going to abandon you with no sign that
that's actually going to happen, right?
You. You.
Actually you. If you're secure, you can
receive love without feeling the need to earn it or to prove
yourself. You stay really rooted in
yourself even when things feel uncertain.
You understand that your partner is someone that you can depend
on, that that's an OK thing that you would expect that your
partner is someone that you can depend on, that you can rely on.
You don't spiral with every mood shift.
You just, you know, I hear this all the time.
I don't know why I'm angry. I don't know why I'm sad.
And I'm like, who cares? You're having an emotion, just
feel it. I was at my osteo the other day
and I've hurt my right rotator cuff, like my shoulder.
And so he was working on it. And I was like face down in the
massage table. And I just said, I'm just
letting you know I'm going to cry.
And it was like, OK. And I was sharing that with a
friend and she was like, oh, like, what?
What came up for you? Why are you crying?
I was like, I don't know. I just felt like I had tears.
And so I just let the tears go and I don't ask myself why I'm
crying. Sometimes I it might be obvious
or I might get a little bit curious about something, but I
don't need that. I don't feel the need to
rationalize every emotion or sensation that I have, right?
Someone with secure attachment. You feel like you can express
your needs without feeling shame.
You don't feel ashamed for your needs.
You don't feel ashamed for your desires.
You don't feel ashamed for having standards or setting
boundaries. You're comfortable being told
no. You're comfortable saying no.
And at the end of it, you're not performing, you're just being.
You're just existing, right? And that's really all of this is
what we cultivate in the connected woman, right?
And the retreats like it's such a big, big part of this.
And so then what? How did we then come into being
secure? If you've recognized that you're
one of the first three attachment styles, what do we
do? Well, we move into healthy
detachment, which is not not giving a shit, which is where
more people, they get stuck, right?
Because they think that if I practice healthy detachment, I
mean, I don't care, which is not true.
Detachment doesn't mean that you stop caring.
It doesn't mean that you ghost someone or you suppress what
you're feeling or you. Yeah, yeah.
You, you go numb or you, like, put your feelings aside or you
act like you're above and all or whatever real detachment is.
I can care deeply and stay deeply connected to myself,
right? Which is where the anxious and
avoided both struggle. How can I care about someone and
stay connected? Because the anxious is like, I
care so much. I'm going to be all about you.
The person who is avoided is like, I care so deeply.
I'm afraid of getting lost in you.
So I'm going to be all about me. And so really secure energy is I
can care deeply about you and stay connected to myself.
It's also being able to hold the duality of wanting someone
without collapsing when things feel uncertain, right?
So it's being able to communicate and share and ask
questions and hold discomfort. And following on from that, the
detachment is being able to stay in your body even when
everything in you is screaming, fix it, fix it, fix it.
Oh my God, You need to. You need to.
You need to lock him down. You need to secure a
relationship. You need to get this.
You need to. You don't become secure by
building walls. You don't become secure by
panicking. You don't become secure by
needing to scramble and get some false sense of security.
You become secure by building your capacity.
OK, so now I'm going to talk about the four secure woman
shifts that I made in order to become secure and that I would
recommend that you make as well. So this is not about creating an
entirely new identity and like needing to get a new password.
That's not what this is. Although you may become
unrecognizable throughout this process, but like I said at the
beginning, this is not about a one and done thing that you're
going to listen to this one podcast and it's going to change
your life and you're not going to have to participate ever.
This is about having these micro recalibrations that actually
allow you to show up differently.
So then you look back in a month, three months, six months,
a year, five years, and you're like, wow, you'll read your
journal entries like let this be the thing, right?
Look back in a year from now and read your journal entries and be
like, I cannot believe that that's even how I used to see
things. Like I think about that now.
Wow, I can't believe that I used to do that or believe that or
say that or I used to act like that or whatever it is, right?
So the first shift is to move from performance to presence.
And what I mean by this is that if you're constantly managing
the dynamic between you and another person, you're always
trying to say the right thing or you're trying to be agreeable or
you're trying to keep the peace, you're not actually connecting,
you're not building intimacy and relationships are built healthy
relationships, I will add, are built on a foundation of
honesty, vulnerability, connection, intimacy.
But if you're doing all of those things of, you know, contorting
yourself to be someone else, you're not doing the things that
healthy relationships are built on.
You are performing and real connection requires presence.
And this is for every attachment style, not just the anxious one,
because the avoidant, and I'm just saying avoidant as a catch
all, but you'll understand what I mean, right?
The avoidant is going to want to, they tend to dissociate from
their body, right? So they want to, they want to
flee. They're like, let me get the
fuck out of here, right? I need space.
OK, I'm down regulated now I can come back into the dynamic.
Whereas the anxious person is like, the way that I regulate is
through you. So never fucking leave my side.
And so neither person wants to be in their body, which is why I
talked about embodiment, embodiment, embodiment,
embodiment. It's why the retreats are
literally so life changing because it's an intensive of
being in your body and building that capacity to be with
sensation. So then when you go into the
real world, it's like, I can handle this.
This is easy, right? And, and like I said, real
connection requires presence. It requires you to be present
with yourself and with the other person.
I remember when I was studying this stuff, like coaching, when
I was doing my, my certification in 2019, I remember my teacher
saying when you're with a client, you want to be, I can't
remember the exact percentages, but it was kind of like you want
to be like 60% over there and 40% in yourself, right?
So it's like 60%. I'm tuned into you and your body
and your nervous system and I'm looking at your somatic cues and
all the things. But I'm also deeply rooted in my
own body and what I'm feeling and what I'm noticing and what
I'm sensing, not from a space of, oh, I'm feeling triggered
about this, but just like, OK, cool.
Like what I'm sensing, Oh, I'm, I'm feeling like actually like
this is where we're headed in the right direction or we're not
or, or whatever it is, right? And so it's the ability to stay
present with another person while staying present with
yourself. The presence is going to be
terrifying if you've never feel safe, if you've never felt safe
to be fully you, right? So what this looks like is I
want you to stop yourself mid text or you're about to
communicate or you're about to say something and and ask
yourself, am I saying this to be liked or am I saying this to be
honest? Where am I actually coming from
here? Sometimes the most honest thing
is to say nothing at all. Crazy right?
It also looks like pausing before giving reassurance to
them or validating another person and checking in on what
you need first, right? Often times, you know, like
let's say that someone compliments us and we feel
really uncomfortable. So we're like, Oh my God, And
you, I love your dress, right? And it's just like hot potato
because I don't want to deal with the discomfort of receiving
a compliment. So I'm just going to put this
out there, right? And so checking in, OK, am I
saying this compliment because I believe this to be true or I
want to get the spotlight off me, right?
What do I need? OK, I'm just going to say thank
you. And then I'm going to regulate.
And it's also be being OK with silence.
It might be awkward, right? But that's OK.
And like I said, sometimes the most powerful thing is to say
nothing. So start going from performance
to presence is shift number one. Shift #2 is going from hyper
responsibility to shared relating.
So if you grew up in a household where you were constantly
managing people's emotions, managing your parents emotions,
your siblings, whatever it is, chances are you're doing the
exact same shit in your romantic life.
Or you. That was you.
And now you're terrified of ever doing that again.
So you're avoiding it as fuck. And you're like, yeah, I'm not
going to engage with anyone, right?
So you may become the therapist. You may become the fixer, the
one who holds everything, the person who's going to change
him, the person who's going to heal him, fix him all of the
things or like I said, running away from relationships
altogether. The difference is, is like love
is not love. If it costs you, you a
relationship should not compromise your relationship to
yourself. It's actually really
interesting. When I was running the connected
woman this last round live, many of the women who were in
relationships were saying, oh, like my boyfriend hates you.
He hates that I'm on these calls.
He hates that I listen to your podcast.
He's like, oh, are you talking to that Michelle chick again?
I fucking can't stand her. And I'm like, if a man is
threatened, if a person that you are dating or, or a parent or a
friend or whoever is threatened by you working on yourself to
start implementing and embodying higher standards for your life,
yeah, that's probably not a person you want to be in a
relationship with. If a person is actually going to
punish you for increasing yourself worth, they're fucking
threatened by that because they know that they're going to need
to step up or step out and they're like, no, can you go
back to being a pushover? I liked you better than so
that's just what I want to say. If any of you have partners that
are like, I don't like you listening to her, well, you can
fuck right off with love, right? So love should never cost you,
you. This could look like letting
someone else carry the conversation when you're tired.
Like, I love being in groups of three or four with my friends
because sometimes I just say, I'm like, hey, I'm tired, so I'm
just going to listen for a bit. And I remember going on a just,
it was just my friend and I when we went out for drinks.
And I was like, I'm honestly not feeling very chatty right now.
Is it OK if we're just silent for a little bit?
And she was like, yeah, that's fine.
Like, amazing, right? This also looks like not over
explaining your boundaries. No means no.
And that is enough of an explanation.
Thank you so much. Thank you for coming.
Thank you for listening. Yeah.
And let the relationship be mutual.
Relationship should not be a project that you have to fix and
do the most or, you know, take so much space from because
you're exhausted from being in the dynamic.
Like that's just not what relationships should be.
So looking at where you are overly taking responsibility for
you and the other person and your dog and the kids and all of
the things, rather than actually giving responsibility back to
the other person and taking responsibility for your own
life. Another thing that I saw in my
fearful avoidance was that I took responsibility for everyone
else and no responsibility for myself.
So, you know, if I wasn't eating well, it was because, Oh well,
I'm in a relationship and you know, he wants to get Uber Eats
and blah blah, blah. No, Michelle, that's a fucking
choice. That's a choice.
It's also a choice to overly take responsibility for someone
else's emotions and contort yourself and self abandoned and
all of the things so you're not stuck.
You're not in like prison with this person unless you are, in
which case that's like, kudos to you for listening to do people
in prison get to listen to podcast?
I don't know. OK, nevermind, let's talk about
shift #3 it's like going from emotional avoidance to embodied
expression. A lot of women think that
they're really chill. They're cool.
They're the cool girl. I'm chill.
You're not chill. You're, you're repressed, babe,
you're repressed. I love you, you're repressed.
I've worked with thousands of women on on this exact thing.
And and again, they're like, no, I'm just like, whatever, I hear
this. And my clients who have said
this are who are listening, will laugh because you know who you
are. When they say, yeah, I just
don't get angry. They're the same women who are
doing a full fucking rage release at the retreats.
And I'm like, yes, hey, yes, bitch, right?
Those same women who are resentful in their
relationships, they're the same women who immediately go into
tears when actually there's a lot of repressed rage there,
right? And so you'll downplay your
needs, you'll laugh off hurt. I've talked about the stupid
banter thing where it's actually just a guy nagging and being
really rude and disrespectful. But we're like, he's just being
like sarcastic, right? And you'll use sarcasm and
banter because vulnerability feels like walking into a
fucking fire. And you're like, no, thank you.
I won't want to do that at all. So really, it's about reclaiming
the softer side of you. That's the part that actually
does get hurt. Like, this was a huge part of my
journey of reclaiming my sensitivity.
I'm quite bold and direct on here, but I am deeply sensitive.
I'm very, very tender. I have a very squishy heart and
vulnerability felt like way too much for me.
So I would always make jokes and try to, you know, skirt around
what I was actually feeling. And so this shift is about
coming back into your body and letting yourself be seen in
whatever you're feeling. Letting yourself be seen in
anger, in hurt, in shame and guilt, in pleasure and joy, in
vulnerability. You know, I went on a date
recently and like was on the verge of a panic attack.
I was on the verge of the of a panic attack.
And I told my date. I said, I have to be completely
honest because it was beautiful. She'd, like, bought this, you
know, she'd gotten this, like, beautiful bottle of wine and,
like, steaks and all these sides.
And I was like, I'm so sorry. I feel like I'm going to be sick
right now. And she was so cool about it.
You know, she was like, OK, so don't, don't eat the fucking
steak. Don't drink the wine.
It's OK. No one's going to die.
I was like, oh, OK, And that's the thing.
But I could have, you know, shoved that down and tried to
pretend everything was OK. But I'm like, I'm trying to
build a connection with someone that I am going to be really
fucking real and be honest, right?
And So what this looks like in real time is that or saying, you
know, like, hey, that hurt my feelings instead of just making
a joke or laughing off the joke that they made or whatever it
is, right? It's naming your needs before
you explode. And this requires you to know
what your needs are, which requires you to be connected to
your body, right? It is you not apologizing for
having a feeling and then shift #4.
Is moving from self abandonment to self honoring OK And this is
out of all of them, this is the most important shift.
If you have made love mean I accept you and I will stay even
if you treat me like shit. You think compassion equals
tolerating everything because I get it.
I work with a lot of self aware women who have done, quote, UN
quote, done the work, except they refuse to be in their body,
right? It's like if you've done the
work, you're probably very compassionate and you have a lot
of empathy towards the people in your world and you understand
trauma and you understand childhood wounding.
And so you will give the benefit of the doubt a million fucking
times over, right? And you'll convince yourself
that once, once I fix myself, then I'll be ready, right?
Or like Taylor Swift says, once I fix me, he's going to miss me.
Like no, real love is not about self sacrifice.
It's about self honoring. And this is the most attractive
trait in another human being is them deeply loving themselves
and having reverence for themselves and taking care of
themselves. And that looks like choosing
partners who make you feel safe, not just and having butterflies
like I want you to have chemistry with someone, but
there's so much more. And it's also like walking away
from from chemistry when it costs you your fucking sanity.
If you are ChatGPT ING, what do you think about this?
That no, you've already lost. You've already lost not God.
OK. And moving from self abandonment
to self honoring is about not trying to shrink to make other
people comfortable, right? I'm not going to dull my shine
because you feel discomfort around that.
I'm sorry. Go do your own shadow work.
I have a program for that. So you cannot think your way
into secure love. You have to shift your
relationship to relationships. You have to shift your
relationship to men, and most importantly, you have to shift
your relationship to yourself. You have to embody it.
One breath, one pause, one moment, one of honest response
at a time. Your triggers do not mean that
you're broken. You're always going to have
triggers. You're always going to have
patterns, but they're invitations to meet the part of
you that has never felt safe before.
And relationships can be the most beautiful catalyst for
that, right? So I really invite you to make a
choice for yourself to stop taking care of everybody else,
every Tom, Dick and Harry, your mom, your dad, your brother,
your sister, your boyfriend, your ex, your ex-husband, your
like everyone and make a choice for you.
And I'm speaking specifically to the woman who is like, I want to
be at those retreats, but you're scared.
You're scared of the flight, you're scared of this, you're
scared of the investment. Like when is it going to be your
turn 2030? We're like, are we going to
actually do something different here?
OK, so I love you. This has been a really, really
juicy episode and I will see you next week and I will see you at
the retreats We do. We are running out of spaces for
private rooms. So if you want that private
room, hopefully we still have some by the time this airs.
But yeah, I love you. Have a beautiful week.
I will see you next week. Bye.
Thank you so much for tuning into the Unfuck Your
Relationships podcast. I hope this episode has sparked
something for you and has helped you to unfuck your relationships
just a little bit more. Please remember that you
actually do get to have it all in life, in love, and in
business. If you love what you learned, be
sure to hit that follow button so you never miss a future
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Don't forget to take a screenshot, share it on your
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See ya.