Transcript for:
Navigating Healthy Relationships for Growth

hi everyone welcome back to another podcast episode my name is Alicia Gogan the host of The Globe Secrets podcast where I help you expand your mind and become more self-aware so that you can glow up into the best version of yourself alright guys I am pre-recording this episode so when you listen to this episode I will be in Calgary living my best coastal cowgirl life so if you aren't follow me on Instagram definitely go check out my Instagram Alicia Gogan so you can see what I've been up to so if you're watching on YouTube I'm not really done up that much like didn't do my hair like just threw on this this t-shirt I literally just came from the coffee shop I was considering going to the gym but then I was like okay I need to charge my airpods so maybe as they're charging I'll just record this episode and I also had a situation not situation actually I had an example of something that I can use within this podcast happened this morning or I was discussing something with my friend this morning I should say regarding relationships and I think like I can totally use that and so I was like I think today needs to be the day that I record this but we need to talk about how to have healthier relationships because realistically on this glow up Journey if you are new here we have a series going on this summer all about how to go up into the best version of yourself mentally physically emotionally all of it spiritually everything and we need to talk about relationships and I think that a lot of us really struggle with having healthy relationships there's so much misinformation online there like relationships in general are just hard to navigate and I want to talk about some of the things to help you with developing healthy relationships with others I will say that this information I'm going to use examples when it comes to like intimate relationships and for me I date men so dating men you can obviously apply this to the opposite and also you can apply this when it comes to like friendships and stuff but we're going to be talking more about our intimate relationships now one of the things that I think a lot of us don't put enough emphasis on when it comes to having healthy relationships is becoming aware of who we are are in relationships what are our needs and what our wants are a lot of the times in society we go out and we date and we put a lot of focus on the man we put a lot of focus on what they want or what we should like how we should act in relationships everyone's saying like there's this standard there's that standard you have to say these things you have to play this game this that and the third but the thing is is everyone is so unique and so different and we all have our own relational history based off of our past and our earliest childhood memories and our memories our relationships towards our parents siblings school they really form who we are as people now and how we show up in relationships and we need to know what our needs and what our wants what are the things that we didn't get in childhood what are the things that we value we need to know these things so that when we go out and when we go date we can obviously express our needs and in our wants and we don't take things so personally if things don't work out in relationships because we understand okay maybe we're not compatible but I think a lot of the times you know you have the story of who you should be and what you should want in relationships and then when you go into relationship and things don't work out you might think that it's you you might be thinking that it's them and they're the problem when really there's just a lot of incompatibilities but there's honestly a lot of incompatibilities a lot of the times with people because they don't know themselves they don't know what they really need and what they want so I want to talk about some of those things and how to kind of explore who you are in relation to other people because I really do think the more you know yourself the more you're able to navigate relationships you're able to navigate life in general because you know what you want what you don't what you need what you don't need so I actually took this master class it's actually called masterclass I'm sure maybe some of you guys have heard of it online um very good self-development platform if you are looking to to learn anything about communication and relationships or personal branding like they have so many experts in different fields where they give you essentially a master class and one of the ones that I watched was from Esther perel I think that's how you say her last name but she and I've read some of her books I've listened to her podcast she is transformative when it comes to uh somebody who really understands relationships she is a I believe she's some sort of like psychotherapist like she's a therapist essentially she works with couples families things of that nature whatever she really understands relationships from a very healthy perspective and I like her take because she talks about the human desire in both men and women when it comes to having freedom but also still being kind of domesticated in a way and I know that's not the really the right word but it technically is it's like a lot of us we want security we want commitment we want protection we want all these things especially women right but on the other hand we do have this desire to go and explore and be free and how do we have that healthy balance within a relationship towards another person also towards ourselves so she really talks about the ebb and flow of honestly human desire and going out and feeling free and doing whatever you want but also still having more of that monogamous relationship that a lot of us still crave essentially she really teaches people how to have healthy secure attachment Styles if you guys don't know what attachment cells are there's many of them if I'm going to be talking about any of them I will be referring to anxious attachment Styles and avoidant attachment Styles because I do think that those are the most prevalent there is a book called The Power of attachment which is very very good I forget the author's name but I will have it linked in the show notes if you're interested in attachment Styles but anyways I watch her masterclass and she starts off with really understanding yourself and your history when it comes to being able to actually have healthy relationships so I made a bunch of notes so we're gonna go through them a little bit and this is something that you can journal on and something that I was able to think about as she was going through this but I definitely have explored a lot of these questions that she had posed to the audience and I think these questions are so good because it really can help you navigate relationships so first question she had was what is your family history like and I think this is important to understand because you tend to be usually like your parents or your family dynamic or you could be completely opposite but for instance my family AKA my household let's actually use household instead of family because family can be very very broad but my household we were married to ourselves and I don't mean like I was to myself and my mom was to herself and my dad was to himself which she kind of was but like obviously within our household we communicated and we were like a family as healthy as we could be or not whatever but in general like we kind of were a close knit closed off family we did our own thing my parents definitely did their own thing like they definitely were like the best friend type of couple like they went out and they so socialize but the end of the day like they didn't have like all of these extended family members coming in and giving them input on the relationship they didn't have a lot of friends that were like always coming around the house and chilling and you know very open household things like that there wasn't like these huge Family Ties we were just very to ourselves and I realized like that's how I am in my life like I I'm somebody who's more introverted I am not really an extroverted person although I absolutely can be and that's something that my parents were like too like they were they could be social if they wanted to but in General on a day-to-day basis they're kind of more introverted kind of kept to themselves like did their own thing and it's important to know if you're kind of more that introverted type of person or that extroverted type of person because okay well now when you go out and you date or you're in relationships you can start to see how Okay will this person be compatible with me or not considering I Know Myself and I am this introverted person or I am this extroverted person now this doesn't mean that you have to stay introverted if you were taught to kind of be introverted but for me I like being that introverted type of like keeping things to myself obviously I've had to learn how to open up sometimes that's very healthy but that's the dynamic that I feel safe in that's the dynamic that I kind of want and so if I go out and I meet a guy who I feel like there's something off well I can kind of check is this person even like is this person an introvert like me or is this person always wanting to partying wanting to go to vacations and wanting to do all these things and it's fine if they do but it's like how are they in relation to that vacation like are they somebody who wants to just go party every single night and go out and meet a bunch of people or on vacation are they somebody who wants to lay by the Cabanas and have a drink and be with his girl and just kind of relax and and listen to music okay well that's more my type of guy doesn't mean that I can't be with somebody who like wants a party all the time but most likely that might cause some issues and so when you are constantly fighting with someone buddy let's say you guys go on vacations all the time and like he's wanting to do completely opposite things it's not again to be like oh we have to break up but it's just to look and being like are we even compatible because realistically I'm an introvert and I want to live this certain way and it seems like you are completely different we don't need to demonize we don't need to be mad at the fact that this person is different it's just to look at the fact that we are different human beings and this doesn't mean that I have to tell you that you are a bad person or you're wrong because you want to go party or you want to do these extroverted things simply I've been taught and this is how I like to be which is a little bit more low-key so what is your family history what was your household Dynamic do you like it do you want to change it what is that just becoming curious because again you have all of your relationships that you have right now even the relationship towards yourself is all based off of the relationships that you've experienced in the past so if you're having trouble being in relationships having healthy relationships you need to look back at your history another question that she had asked was do you seek security or Freedom now this is something so important for you to understand about yourself but also to be able to see it within other people and for me I'm gonna just say see it in men now obviously it's important to know like do you want more secure relationships AKA do you want to be in a monogamous relationship let's say or do you want more freedom and you want to kind of like either your like open relationships or you just want to explore you know obviously depends on the stage of your life as well but it's way deeper than you just being at a certain age like I'm in my 20s I want to have freedom this that no it actually does come down to the relationships that you had towards your your parents so let me just give you an example of like what I want and why I want it when I was young I absolutely wanted Freedom which is in most cases a lot of kids want that you know a certain age if your parents are very overbearing You're Gonna Want Freedom you're gonna naturally want to go and explore and just like like have total freedom and for me personally I honestly felt like a slave when I was around my father so I really wanted Freedom now I wanted probably too much freedom because I had too much security and it wasn't even healthy security right I basically felt like I was in jail so when you feel like you're in jail what are you gonna want You're Gonna Want Freedom ten times more than it's like a natural normal thing it's normal for us to want to have freedom and to play and now I'm talking about a healthy secure attachment by the way like a secure attached person that has a healthy relationship with themselves and other people they naturally will want to go out and play but they also want to come back but when you feel like you were in a jail cell you don't want to come back from that and in fact the freedom seems so much better and so much like you all you want is that freedom same ways when you go on a diet instantly you want that cake ten times more instead of just knowing that you can have it whenever you want so really it's important to see some of your your Dynamics with your earliest caregivers or whoever you were around to see okay why is it that I want so much Freedom or why is it that I want so much security because this is what also happened to me when my father passed away and I kind of grew out of that wanting so much freedom I got to a point where I became very financially stressed my mother wasn't able to support me she wasn't really around I I lost that masculine um structure in my life even though it wasn't that healthy so I started to seek a lot of security again not a bad thing we all need it but I got to a point where I was in fight or flight all the time all I wanted was like I stressed about everything I stressed about money I stressed about my life which again understandable because I was in a state of literal like yes I have to stress about these things in a way but it became too much to the point where I was such a stress case that I would catastrophize everything I would literally be worried all the time I would have so much anxiety I'd be overthinking everything to the point where literally I had chronic diseases like I was very very unhealthy and that's also not a good place to be at but what I really just needed was a little bit more Security in my life but sometimes what we do in relationships we don't understand just how much we might be Opera reading out of this place of scarcity because of her childhood and then we expect our significant other to to provide us all of the security and and no matter what usually doesn't even end up helping because when you're in scarcity nothing really actually makes you more secure until you start to heal really but this is where our relationships start to go unhealthy because we're expecting somebody to provide us Security in which we never even got in childhood again it's not a bad thing that you might need a little bit more reassurance you might need a little bit more security and of course it's okay that you want let's say a monogamous relationship from somebody that's fine but it really is about rebalancing certain things in your life so you know how can I add some more masculine structure and more security within my life without asking somebody else to do it for me how can I bring more of that into my life and not just get it from my significant other same thing goes if you really want freedom okay well there might be a part of you that still wants a relationship well you know you have to understand that you being in this free-flowing whatever you're not going to be able to have been a monogamous relationship if you're acting like you just want to be free all the time but also in general it's important for you to know whether you want more freedom or you want more security because also you don't have to change this part of you like crazy right you might naturally you're gonna be somebody who wants a little bit more freedom or a little bit more security now this is important because you're gonna go out in the world and there's gonna just be some people who want that freedom okay well if you're somebody who leans more to wanting security you're gonna be struggling with trying to be in a relationship with somebody who clearly wants freedom and especially if they know they want freedom and they don't want to change that about them at all then it's like you keep pushing against a brick wall you're trying to date somebody who is clearly incompatible for you and I think a lot of the times especially women they don't understand who it is that they're dating when it comes to does this man want freedom or security now I will say I really do think a lot more men lean towards wanting that freedom especially if they have a lot of responsibility and especially though if they've already come from a family where there was a lot of uh suffocating in a way you know like the mom is always like mothering him and like dad's always telling him what to do again it's not really a bad thing it's just to understand okay well this person most likely is going to grow up wanting a lot more freedom and so you might think that it's like them wanting to literally not be with you but if you understand that person okay well maybe they just need a little bit more freedom more time more space and again you want to make sure that this person would even be compatible for you because you know there are men who just want freedom to the point where I want to sleep with everyone I don't want a commitment obviously we're not talking about those men but understanding your partner and realizing okay no wonder you want a little bit of freedom I don't have to even take it personally because it's not personal it's you wanting to live out a desire that you really weren't fully able to live out throughout your childhood and the same thing can be said when it comes to security there's a level of just wanting to be secure in relationships and there's a level of you just having an anxious attachment style and when you are anxiously attached and when you need somebody to validate you and to tell you that they're there and to not leave you on one hand that's not necessarily A Bad Thing to want to have somebody want you and validate you but I find a lot of women who are anxiously attached they have these high standards of what this man should be doing let's say texting you all the time and constantly telling you where he's at and all of these things but it's like the half or more than half of the reason why you just want those texts anyways is really out of a place of trauma is really out of a place of your anxious attachment style and understanding that that's not a healthy state to be in is to be anxious all the time now this is not to say of course you want to be with a partner who sends you a text and lets you know like where they're at even if they have a busy day and not go ghost for three days like obviously that's an normal healthy thing but you have to ask yourself the question well if I need somebody who to constantly text me all day and to tell me how much they like me and to like always be there that that is really not healthy because why is it that you can't sustain that on your own why can't you trust that this person is going to be there for you at the end of the day or whenever it is but when we don't know ourselves and we don't know we're anxiously attached or we need more freedom or security when we don't get what we want we just yell at the other person we just tell them they need to do more you need to text me more you do this okay well why is it that you want somebody to text you all of the time constantly updating you constantly just like being in your phone and like complimenting you or doing whatever and a lot of that is because you are anxious you are insecure and you need that constant validation to make you feel safe well that is not a healthy way to live life you should naturally be feeling quite at ease even when your partner is away working or not texting you this comes back to having a healthy secure attachment style a secure attachment style is basically this when you are a child and you're with your parent and you're going to the park when you see a bunch of kids playing you naturally want to go and play you want to have fun you want to like go explore right someone with a secure attachment style is gonna maybe look at Mom or Dad and be like can I go play like I really want to go play like oh my gosh and the parent says yes go play and you are going to trust that you can go play and that your parent is going to be there and so when you go play your head is not thinking about is mom or dad still there are they still gonna like me when I come back am I a bad person because I went and played oh my God X Y and Z you go you play you have an amazing time your mind is not on your parents your mind is literally with children right now or whatever it is you're doing and when the time is up to just like not be free anymore like okay I want to come back to like solidarity and I want to come back to comfort and security I'm going to come back because it's a natural desire for me to want to leave that freedom for a moment moment after I've had enough I want to come back to my parents and I know my parents are going to be right there and I'm going to feel safe and calm that's ebbing and flowing through security and freedom but unfortunately a lot of us did not have that relationship with our caregivers we literally sometimes our parents just left us and I don't actually mean at the park but you know whatever you can apply this to any situation but let's say our parent just wasn't there or they told us to go or they told us to go play when we weren't ready or we didn't feel safe enough in that environment but they said go do it anyways or again they weren't there when we came back or sometimes they were there sometimes they weren't that was my situation sometimes my dad would pick me up sometimes he wouldn't when he would tell me he was going to come pick me up at a certain time he'd be late all the time and it's no wonder that you end up being this anxious person because you have been taught to not know whether your parent is going to come and pick you up right now or not know if somebody's gonna show up for you and then on top of that what we do is we internalize that and then we think oh my God it must be me like maybe I'm the problem maybe I'm not worthy of daddy coming to pick me up every single day there has to be a reason like we we come to these conclusions at very young ages and then on top of that we learn to repeat these same attachment styles with friends with lovers with everything and even towards ourselves when somebody doesn't show up consistent for us in our lives we learn to not even value consistency at all or discipline and what can also happen is we start to have their relationship towards ourselves we don't show up for ourselves we don't value ourselves we don't love ourselves because we have been taught that that is how it is and realistically it's not you it never was you because this is what happens is your parents also have attachment Styles your parents also might have been avoidant or distant or anxious or X Y and Z and could only do so much so again it's just to really understand your history understand how you show up in relationships is there things that you can self-correct in a way how can I be a little less anxious in my relationships well one is going to be making sure that I'm with a partner who understands my needs and wants and I have to understand who this partner even is is he somebody who's very very avoidant and doesn't really want to communicate okay well that might not be good for my anxious attachment but on top of that doesn't mean you can never be with a guy who usually tends to lean on the avoidance sometimes because what you will find is once you do work more on your anxious attachment you will find yourself needing less and less reinsurance from somebody now another thing that she was talking about in the master class was are you raised for more autonomy or loyalty so essentially are you really the all about yourself more or do you put other people first more now I think what's important to know is why it is you are more autonomous or you're more loyal and usually it's some sort of trauma response in a way there's always light and dark sides to everything so you could just be a naturally loyal person and that's just who you are and that's great and it's not really this trauma response but a lot of the times the reason why let's say women will be extra extra loyal is actually a fawn response and a fawn response from the nervous system episode that we talked about is really you trying to people please you trying to not rock the boat by always showing up and always being there and always being a good girl never making mistakes because you learn how to do that around a parent but of course that's not really a healthy state to be in because you are a human being and like it shouldn't be that you're always adjusting and micro micro adjusting really to somebody's emotional fluctuations of life and really you should have certain needs and wants that need to be taken consideration before someone else as well it shouldn't always be no matter what this person is on this pedestal and I'm all the way down here but that's usually how you have learned to be in relationships so then you show up as this very extra loyal person and again it's not a bad thing to be loyal it's not you're gonna naturally fall on one side or the other but in general when you are to the point where somebody can be hurting you somebody can be literally disrespecting you and you're still going to be loyal like that's when you want to look at why am I like this this is not healthy and then on the other side being autonomous autonomy can move into selfishness very very quickly and I will be very honest with you guys and say I was very autonomous AKA I was very self-centered and very selfish when I grew up but that was also out of a trauma response because I learned to not really value relationships for many reasons one being um the family Dynamic that I grew up in but also I was in such survival mode that I really had no time to care about other people I had to care about how I was making money how I was going through college how I was getting my health issues like worked out and fixed really and so unfortunately my relationship suffered I didn't put a lot of emphasis and time about caring about other people I cared about being autonomous I cared about being just myself but not a healthy autonomous not just being able to like be on my own it was basically this mentality of everyone for themselves like there was no taking consideration of other people and realistically if you think about a family system a family Dynamic that's healthy a healthy Community you're always making sure that those people in your community are being brought in and you're taking care of other people and other people are taking care of you but I didn't have that I never valued family I never really valued relationships but as I got older and I healed a lot of my uh anxious attachment Styles not Styles but I heal my anxious attachment style and moving from scarcity and survival into more abundance and trusting and just healing energy I tapped into the desire within me that does want to connect that does want family that does want to take care of other people but it's sometimes hard to do that when you are literally in survival mode and so again understanding why it is you are the way that you are and learning okay can I self-correct a little bit and how if I self-correct will that allow me to have the actual relationship that deep down I'm really wanting because again there was a deep desire for me to actually have family and to take care of people and I want to care about people obviously I'm much different now but you know like I really want to take care of people but I just couldn't do it and I couldn't do it because I was in survival it's not because you're a bad person it's not because you're just this one way and like you can't change again it's gonna be up to you if you want to change or not but there's usually some sort of Desire once you start to become aware of how you are in relationships of wanting to you know care for other people and not be so one way but I think what can help when it comes to change is changing out of a place of x exploration for yourself and who you are in your story and changing out of a place of self-love versus self-hate because what we do when we realize oh my gosh I've been this selfish person oh my God I'm so bad like I have to change like I need to care about people more but if you don't know why you're even like that you trying to change from a place of Shame won't last and it usually won't last especially if you're in scarcity anyways because you'll always pick survival out of anything else even when it comes to you wanting to be free more or you want to be more loyal even if you realize you being super super loyal to somebody who disrespects you and you realize that that's not healthy you're still going to do that if you're operating out of a place of trauma because you're this is your your trauma response is your survival mechanism that's how you survive even though you might look at it and be like oh my God no being loyal to to default can be really bad for me like look at all the ways that it's so bad like I have to stop well there's a part of you that is convinced that being loyal is the way to keep you safe because you've learned how to do that in your childhood and so if you want to change that part of you to change it from a place of being like this is so effed up like I need to change now it's not really going to work okay another thing that she had asked in the class which I think is so good but she had asked what stories are you telling about yourself when it comes to you in relation to other people because this is really important you know especially if you are going through your past and you're seeing your attachment Styles and you're seeing your traumas and all of these things okay we can use that information to self-correct in a way to heal to show up differently in relationships but at the end of the day we don't want to use that story or stories as the reason why we don't get what we want in our lives especially when it comes to relationships so I'm going to give you a few of the stories that I was stuck in and some of them I was holding these stories on before I really knew my attention style and like all of my trauma and how my earliest childhood relationships were like the same as the ones I was having and then also even after I did a lot of self-reflection one of them was I suck at connecting with other human beings or like suck at connecting with men in general because I had a very hard time with being myself authentically with men because I struggle to do that even with my father because I felt like I couldn't because I really kind of couldn't and so I kept telling myself that story like it was so hard and I can't be myself and no matter how many times I get into relationships and I try I keep failing like having that story is not gonna actually help you become better at connecting with men like this is not to say that maybe you suck at connecting with men because you don't know how to be authentic because you feel afraid or you feel like you can't be authentic but you also don't want to tell yourself that story because what's going to happen is it's going to be 10 times harder for you to actually try to be your authentic self and take off that mask in relation to men to the point where yeah one little thing happens or let's say you have an opportunity to be a little bit more vulnerable in a relationship and then you don't do it because maybe you got scared then if you start telling yourself the story of like see like this is I just can't do it and this that well then you're never gonna get good and this is the thing when you are trying to be a better person in relationships just try not to let your angst your anxiety really take over um your traumas take over you're gonna you're not going to be perfect with it you're gonna stumble uphill you're gonna make a mistake when you make mistakes or when you see that that you've been acting a little bit out of your anxious attachment style a little bit too much forgive yourself self-correct don't tell yourself see I can never do it and oh my gosh relationship is so hard and I know it can be very very difficult another story that kind of piggybacks off that same one once I started to become very self-aware of how I am in relation to men mainly but even friendships as well I didn't have like the best friendships like I did my absolute best but I would just tell myself like I'm the one that doesn't get to be normal doesn't get to be herself doesn't get to be authentic I am too awkward it is gonna be too hard it is going to take me too long and I don't know how it is and I'm ever gonna actually be myself in relationships like those are the stories I was constantly telling myself and I think Esther wrote this I'm not sure I have it written here so I don't know if she said it or what but um you really have to break up with this story okay when you are aware of who you have been in relationships if you want healthier relationships but you have to believe that you can have them okay I understand that most people don't have healthy attachment Styles they are trying to navigate relationships as much as they can people in marriage like there's come on everyone usually has relationship issues okay but you need to stop telling yourself the story that you can't change that you can't have what you want it is going to take practice it is going to take you being aware of who you are and to self-correct but you can have better relationships the more I heal the more I work on myself the more I become self-aware the more I really analyze how I show up and I ask myself questions as to why did I just act like that why did I just get triggered from that what can I do to change this it has nothing to do with me trying to change somebody else in a relationship the more times that I've done that the healthier my relationships have been the better my communication has been but the thing is when we want to fix anything in our lives we are so black and freaking white with things we just think okay next relationship it's going to be healthy and I'm going to look for a healthy man and I'm going to be in a healthier person yeah until you get in a relationship and this person triggers the F out of your attachment style or your traumas or your whatever and you have to constantly work on these things it's not going to be like tomorrow you wake up and you're just deciding you're going to be in a healthy relationship with a secure person especially if somebody is in a more secure attachment style or let's say they are avoidant there's going to be things that come up in your relationship where you're gonna have to in that moment work with yourself and a lot of people will say this you know what it's too hard I'm just gonna heal on my own and I'm just gonna work on myself now of course there's always there's always room for you to like take some time for yourself maybe you've been somebody who's constantly in relationships and they haven't been working out and they're very toxic or whatever like maybe you have to learn how to have that relationship with yourself realistically the relationship you have with yourself is a very big reflection of what you're seeing on that outside world as well especially in relationships romantic as well but there is a lot to be said about you healing in relationships this is the thing and I was talking to my friend Joey about this last night actually when people realize they have crappy relational Dynamics what they want to do is they want to say screw it I'm not going to have relationships until I either heal myself completely which is an illusion or in general they're just like I'm not gonna do it okay well let's be real everything is relational and eventually you're going to want to be in a relationship okay if you want to be single for the rest of your life then this advice is not for you so we can't go to the extreme and say we can't we don't want to ever be in relationships and I'm going to use analogy of a car what has happened to you in your life is this you got a car that was not really working the best and you tried to drive that car and unfortunately that car drove you into a wall that car broke down that car did not get you from A to B to C maybe it got you from A to Z it was very messy it was very chaotic it wasn't the best experience driving the car it's the same thing as you being in unhealthy relationships okay things happened maybe you got hurt maybe whatever happened okay but instead of wanting to just upgrade the car and to look at why it was breaking down in the first place and and searching for a better car or saving money for the better car like doing whatever what we do is we just say I don't want to drive at all I do not want to drive a car at all I don't even want to drive I'm just never gonna drive ever but it's like realistically no you're gonna need to drive eventually now we're not obviously going to think about the fact that you can take transit and you can do Ubers and other people can drive for you just that no no okay let's just assume that there's no Ubers or Transportation you're gonna need to drive a car in fact you're gonna have to learn how to even be a good driver and you weren't really able to even learn how to be a good driver in this car because this car was not equipped to allow you to be able to be the best driver you could be and the same thing goes in relationships like you've had shitty relationships yes but in order for you to have a better Driving Experience AKA a better experience in relationships you need to find a person who is healthier you need to show up a better way you also need to look for things in which will help you in that relationship so same thing when it comes to a car like now when you go to a dealership you're going to be looking for are these interest rates too high does this have what I need like does it have AC does it do you know like how many kilometers does it have like how expensive is it like whatever ever it is you're going to need to look and see what you need and in order for you to know what you need to you need to look at your past for one but also to understand that the only way you're going to get better at driving a car and having a good car experience is you actually trying you actually doing and the same thing goes for relationships like there is just gonna be things that you're not going to be able to heal when it comes to being in relation to another person other than actually being in that relationship there's so many things that you don't get triggered about when it comes to someone else when you are single when you are single yes things can be great and you're never getting triggered but when you get into relationship and Trigger starts to come up a lot of people will be like oh my God no I can't be relationship or no you could work through those triggers and you can see why it is you're getting triggered in the first place and you can learn how to deal with them you can learn how to transform them you can heal so that you can have what you want which is a relationship hello we are relational human beings you didn't come into this Earth to go live on an island by yourself that does that's not how it works that's not how we have evolved that is just not what it is it's okay that you're getting triggered but it's like how you respond to that trigger is what's most important and so I truly do think once you start to become very very aware of who you are in relationships who you are in general it's gonna help you be able to develop empathy to understand when other people show up in a certain way in relationships whether that be friendships romantic Partners your parents whatever you can understand oh it makes sense why they really really love freedom or it makes sense why that person's very anxious and usually that really annoys me because they're so goddamn anxious and they want me to like constantly be reassuring them and whatever but I can understand why now this is not to say of course you're going to Aid them to um you know not heal in a way obviously you need to have certain boundaries but it's so much easier in life when you can understand other people and how they show up to help you navigate on what should you do in that relationship should I accept it should should I work with them or is this person just not for me but on top of that for you not to get so triggered by people just being themselves you know understanding that there's incompatibilities not taking things so personally as well that's another thing when let's say you're with a guy who is clearly pretty avoidant they want a lot of freedom they are clearly not wanting to commit you don't have to take it personally like it's you and you're not a good person or like they don't like me and I'm not pretty enough or like I'm not X Y and Z no simply they have wants and needs let them be okay understand that you have wants and needs as well this also can help you get out of toxic cycles and behaviors when you realize a person who's showing up toxically in your relationship they're most likely not going to change their ways until they work on their side of their relationship their internal relationship towards themselves but also you can see how you would be a match to that person as well and you can decide whether you want to change you want to heal and what ends up happening when you want to change and heal is that person usually goes away or that person can conform it depends but in general you you will bring yourself up to a healthier status in a relationship in general it's what's happened to everyone who does it it's happened to me it's amazing it can definitely be a lot of work and I think this also can just help you become the change when you understand yourself in relationships and people you tend to have more confidence within yourself you tend to not take things personally you tend to go for exactly what you want you tend to stop being so afraid to set boundaries and communicate which is what you need in relationships anyways and you stop looking towards everyone else to change and you just become that change and you show yourself what happens when you change is there becomes a reflection when you're at this higher status when you're at this higher value when you take care of yourself when you love yourself you will start to attract people who are on that same frequency but what we want is we want the shiny object we want the healthy relationship but we're not looking internally and to see how we are attracting this person how we are also playing a role in this toxic relationship it always takes two so I hope this episode made you think a little bit more about yourself and how you show up in relationships understand that it's a journey understand that I have absolutely been there like really I've had to do a lot of work when it comes to my relationships and I'm at a very good spot in my relationships right now because of this work that I have done I do think getting the book The Power of attachment can be very helpful to understand yourself deeper because there are different attachment Styles based off of your childhood and it obviously gives you ways in which that you can respond differently to new things in your life I also just think cultivating a healthy deep relationship with yourself can be very beneficial for you to pour into yourself for you to build up your confidence your self-worth to have goals to have projects to have a life to have friendships especially female friendships if you're a female for you to take time to detach especially if you're anxious testing out your ability to go and have fun and to be free and to take your mind off of a person or having that Spotlight on everyone else but yourself becoming that main care character romanticizing your life more these are all little things that will really help you heal that anxious part of you but also on the flip side to just own who you are right like for me I know my history and I know my anxious attachment style and it can definitely get flared up sometimes depending on the situation and I have done a very good job at emotionally regulating and like working on myself and whatever but there's still a part of me that does want security and so I'm owning that when I'm communicating my need within a relationship I am still saying like actually yeah I do still need some reassurance that you are here though like I do need that consistency I am looking for that security and that's okay that you want that of course by the way I wouldn't be communicating like that to a man just saying but I just mean in general like I would be communicating my needs I wouldn't feel ashamed about that but I would also understand that there are there is going to be a time where I need to regulate myself and I need to watch when I get a little bit too triggered and how you know that is asking yourself why is it that I'm feeling this way in the first place when somebody acts a certain way what does this make me feel and usually it makes you feel like something that you felt in your childhood so I think another good resource is to go back and to listen to the nervous system episode and de-stressing because you know even if you're not doing this in terms of relationships understanding how to heal your nervous system and being in fight or flight and Trauma responses and just having practices set up in your day where you are de-stressing and you're self-reflecting and you're journaling and you're having your routines it's gonna really help you be able to show up in a more confident healthy way in a relationship and what I tend to find especially when it comes to men men are attracted to women who have the spotlight on their selves actually and I don't mean in a very narcissistic way like I'm the best no one else can beat me and this that but seriously like it's so healthy and so attracting when somebody can see you just loving yourself so that's the takeaway love your your freaking self and know yourself I hope you guys enjoyed this episode don't forget I do have one-on-one coaching which I will open reopen I'm sorry when I am done with the Stampede so just follow me on Instagram if you're interested in that I also have Journal guides I have the heel to manifest I reopen the abundance mindset one I also have inner child Discovery Journal prompts so all the links will be down below I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode and I'll see you in the next one bye