Self

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Megan: Have you ever been in a situation where you reacted badly and felt ashamed of it later? Let's say that a friend or a loved one made a comment that hurt you in some way, and you lashed out an anger, putting an end to the conversation.

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Megan: Maybe later, when you had time to cool off, you came back and apologized for your angry outburst.

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Megan: That's a good start, but there's more that can be done to repair after conflict, and even to prevent the conflict from happening. In the first place, this is one small change that can change everything about the way we communicate and interact with others.

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Megan: Hello, beautiful humans, and welcome to the midlife revolution. I'm your host, Megan Connor, and the title of today's episode is self.

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Megan: But based on my introductory comments. You might be confused about how the title merges with a discussion about healthier communication, especially during conflict. I gave the example of the angry reaction, because I have certainly done this many times in my life, and I think it's something we can all relate to.

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Megan: But anger is a healthy emotion, and I don't want to suggest that there's never a time or place for it. In fact, expressing our anger in healthy ways, keeps us from staying stuck in painful emotions, and can actually help us to heal faster.

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Megan: Learning. To express anger in healthy ways is a practice because anger can be a complicated emotion. I want to get curious for a moment about some of the reasons that anger comes up, and how we can feel like anger takes over and prevents us from reacting the way we would like to during conflicts.

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Megan: Anger's a secondary emotion, meaning that behind our anger there's almost always an underlying reason that we're angry. It could be fear, rejection, humiliation, or even frustration.

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Megan: And sometimes it's easier to be angry than it is to talk to someone about what we're really feeling underneath that anger, if we're feeling wounded by somebody's words expressing our true feelings.

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Megan: might feel even more vulnerable or exposed. And there's a part of us that wants to keep us from feeling even more pain.

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Megan: That brings me to a very interesting and groundbreaking healing modality developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, called internal family systems or ifs.

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Megan: Ifs is an evidence-based form of psychotherapy that helps patients address the wounded parts of themselves, and those parts sometimes take over and run the show when conversations or relationships feel unsafe.

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Megan: This modality reminds me of the movie inside out, back in 2,015. It was a Pixar film that tells the story of Riley, a young lady who leaves her quiet country house and moves with her parents to the big city. Anybody who has ever had to pick up and move, understands that that experience can be really traumatic for a young child.

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Megan: and Riley experiences a lot of mixed emotions over this move, and we see everything in the movie from the perspective of her emotions.

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Megan: So joy is in charge. But joy is also joined by sadness, fear, anger, and disgust.

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Megan: And sometimes, despite Joy's best efforts, one of the other emotions takes over, and sometimes Riley's choices are a result of those takeovers

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Megan: much like it's portrayed in the movie ifs, explores the theory that we all have a self with a capital S, that is our truest, most authentic form.

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Megan: We also have parts that play different roles in the way that we relate to ourselves and to others, and some of these parts have been wounded in the past. Dr. Schwartz posits that because we live in a rugged individualistic society, most of us are more comfortable, minimizing or denying the level of hurt we've experienced than actually addressing the hurt. So these wounded wounded parts get

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Megan: stuffed away and sometimes abandoned

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Megan: in ifs. These parts are called exiles.

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Megan: Carl Jung referred to these parts as our shadow side and other therapists call dealing with these parts our inner work.

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Megan: In other words, when we don't address our wounding, we are literally denying our own experiences and making the wounded parts of ourselves feel unacceptable and unwelcome.

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Megan: I'll do more to explain parts and how to heal them in a later episode. But today I want to return to the focus of self

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Megan: in his book, no bad parts. Dr. Schwartz reveals that just under the surface of these wounded parts is a self which cannot be hurt.

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Megan: knows how to heal both internally and externally, and has characteristics which represent the highest and best of what we can become as human beings.

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Megan: He refers to these traits as the 8 C's of self leadership.

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Megan: And I'd like to touch on each one of these today

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Megan: as we walk through these traits, I'll give some examples from my own healing journey to help illustrate how these characteristics can help us heal our relationship with ourselves so that we can then have healthier external relationships. As well remember that the midlife revolution is all about small changes, so I'm not asking anyone to absorb and practice all 8 of these characteristics at once. My hope is that you'll pick one thing that resonates with you and feels safe to try

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Megan: and feel free to save and share this episode so that you can come back to it when you're ready to try. The next thing.

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Megan: The first CI encountered in my therapeutic process was curiosity.

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Megan: One of my therapists asks me to pause and take a moment whenever I started to feel overwhelmed by a big emotion

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Megan: rather than reacting to the emotion. She just wanted me to get curious about what I was feeling.

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Megan: This was really difficult at first, because in my home, growing up. Reacting was a defense mechanism and, pausing, felt very dangerous like I was setting myself up to be attacked.

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Megan: After practice. A lot of practice. I was able to start being curious in the moments by myself.

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Megan: and then later, in conversations with other people

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Megan: for me, this started with saying, I don't like the way that feels.

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Megan: and later evolved into being able to name the emotion I was feeling in the moment like saying, I'm feeling really sad right now.

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Megan: and now I'm able to speak up and say something you just said made me angry, and I want to take a minute to think about why, before I respond, and then I'll take a minute to think about what's behind that anger? Is it shame? Is it fear? Is it guilt?

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Megan: Is it frustration? Is it abandonment? Is it rejection?

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Megan: Of course these tactics all take different forms, depending on the situation and the gravity of the conversation, and whether or not it's feasible to pause in the conversation. If the person you're speaking with is activated as well, it makes it even more difficult to try and pause for yourself.

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Megan: but it's my intention to have the ability in all of my relationships to get curious about my emotions and to be able to respond in a way that both honors my perspective and feelings and respects the level of the relationship as well.

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Megan: I also try to bring to this an awareness of

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Megan: my level of connection with the person that I'm related to. For example, my partner, I'm able to have very meaningful conversations with. We have lots of guardrails around our conversations, and we also give each other the space and the ability to take those moments to examine how we're feeling as things come up rather than kind of bantering back and forth out of our activated cells in an emotional way.

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Megan: There are some people in my life that I fully recognize are not on the level where they're able to accept

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Megan: pause and space for me, and they're not able to

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Megan: execute positive space for themselves. So when I go into a conversation that I know is potentially going to be activating or harmful. I try to meditate beforehand, and and that just is a fancy word for thinking. I try to think beforehand about how I would like the conversation to go. What's the most important outcome for me? And what do I want to make sure to hold space for for the other person.

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Megan: and if I can take the time to do that before I make a phone call or have a difficult meeting. It sets me up for success, and then later, I can unpack the emotions that came up. And why? So? It's not going to be possible to do this in the moment every single time. But I'm my intention of my hope is that the people with whom I have the closest relationships, that this is how things will go.

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Megan: It doesn't always go perfectly. Of course, there have been many times when my right reactions have been less than ideal, or when I have to go back afterward and readdress something in a healthier way. And when this happens, I try to journal about my reaction as soon as I can, so that I don't spend a lot of time ruminating about. I want what I wanted to say instead. In fact, a lot of my

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Megan: lack of sleep sometimes has come from trying to revisit these conversations and reframe them in a healthier way, and I find that for me personally, if I take the time to write about it. It sort of empties my brain and gives my brain a chance to relax and rest, so that I can have a better sleep, and I don't end up waking up at 3 o'clock in the morning, thinking, oh, that's what I should have said

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Megan: in general, getting curious about our emotions and reactions allows us to look at ourselves from a new perspective, and instead of engaging in negative self talk, or shaming ourselves for the feelings that come up.

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Megan: Curiosity reminds us that in order to heal our emotions, we need to understand where they're coming from, which leads me to the next see which is compassion.

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Megan: It's often easier for us to have compassion for other people than it is for us to be compassionate towards ourselves, especially if we had parents, teachers, or other caregivers who did not show us a healthy level of compassion growing up

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Megan: as a former former people pleaser. One of my therapists asked me to try an exercise

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Megan: whenever I was feeling guilty about taking a course of action that seemed selfish to me, and I was stuck, considering everyone else's feelings over my own. She asked me to consider what I would tell one of my children if they were in a similar situation.

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Megan: In that case I was easily able to come up with a clear and direct solution that was in the best interest of my child, even if it meant potentially negative consequences for someone else.

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Megan: Incidentally, this is another of the ways I learned to hold people accountable for their actions that harmed me. And it's

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Megan: another way that I learned to create healthy boundaries, but we will come back to all of that in another episode. The reason I mentioned this strategy, though, is because it's one of the ways that I learned to have compassion for myself.

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Megan: and not just for others.

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Megan: It was usually easy for me to give others the benefit of the doubt to accept their apologies and allow for second and third and fourth chances for them. But I didn't feel right about doing that. For myself. I was used to harsh criticism, and so I developed a harsh, inner critic that frequently told me to suck it up, get over it, stop being lazy and work harder.

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Megan: When I started developing self-compassion, I finally allowed myself to rest when I needed to. I started developing and holding health dear boundaries.

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Megan: and as a result of caring for myself. In this way I was better able to care for others as well. You know the idea of put your own mask on before helping others. When you're in an airplane, they give that in the safety, briefing every single time. And why does this make so much sense on an airplane, but it's so hard for us to apply the same logic to our lives and relationships on the airplane, we think. Well, Duh, of course, if I don't put my own mask on. I'm gonna pass out from lack of oxygen, and then I won't be able to help anybody.

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Megan: However, I will say

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Megan: every time I do an episode that advocates for this kind of self care like taking care of yourself before you try to help other people and advocates for introspection and self-compassionate behavior. I get comments from people who think the way that I used to that. This is all very selfish. I even had one comment or express that they felt sorry for my children

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Megan: having a mother who is so focused on cell-cell self.

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Megan: However, I want to challenge you and me and all of us to understand that having compassion for ourselves is one of the keys to healing.

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Megan: If we can have compassion for the parts of ourselves that have been wounded. We can understand why they make us feel angry, or unstable or overwhelmed.

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Megan: Having compassion for those parts of ourselves, I think, is the first step

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Megan: in helping them unburden and heal.

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Megan: I also wanna point out that it's very likely if someone lacks compassion for me, it's because they've not learned to develop self compassion either. So it doesn't bother me when people make make negative comments about the ideas I discuss, because maybe they just haven't developed that skill yet. And we're all in different places on what we're learning on how to heal.

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Megan: Our true self is calm.

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Megan: They approach the problem, knowing that there's no emergency here. They know that there's time to stop.

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Megan: consider.

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Megan: and reflect.

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Megan: When we're around high conflict people, or when we've learned through experience.

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Megan: we can come become hyper, vigilant, and we're constantly assessing our surroundings and watching people's mood and listening to their tone of voice and looking at their behavior for any potential danger. In fact, a lot of people who come from chaotic upbringings and are around people who are high conflict

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Megan: develop the skill of reading people as a defense mechanism against that high conflict area, and they start to change their behavior, to avoid setting off the high conflict person or getting in an argument with us, it can really leave us feeling perpetually unsafe, as though our mind always has to be engaged in threat assessment.

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Megan: So one of the first things my Emdr therapist taught me was a calm place. Exercise.

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Megan: When he started it almost sounded like a Harry Potter reference, because in Harry Potter, in order to produce a protective, protective spell. You had to think of a very, very happy memory

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Megan: in my case, though my therapist asked me to think of my favorite place in the world

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Megan: someplace that felt peaceful and happy and safe to me.

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Megan: He asked me to notice all of the sensations of that place. What's the temperature? Are there any textures to feel? What are the sounds and the smells?

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Megan: The idea was that after each emdr session I would go to that place in my mind experience all of the sensations that were there remind myself that I'm not in trauma anymore, and that I am safe.

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Megan: So

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Megan: I close my eyes and I'm on a busy street corner in New York City.

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Megan: It's a chilly winter evening, and I'm bundled up for a walk outside.

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Megan: I'm holding a steaming cup of hot cocoa that evokes the smells of my childhood. Saturday mornings.

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Megan: The yellow cabs zoom by. There's steam wafting up from the subway crates, and horns are honking sporadically as I cross the street to the southwest corner of Central Park.

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Megan: I'm passed by joggers and dog owners and people walking at New York speed, but I walk slowly, and I take in the sharp, cold air and the smell of hot dogs and pretzels. The snow crunches under my feet as I leave the path to sit on my favorite bench next to the duck pond and the little stone bridge.

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Megan: The edges of the pond are cloudy with soft ice that's just beginning to form, and the ducts huddle together in the center of the pond.

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Megan: They glide along effortlessly, but under the surface their webbed feet are furiously working to stave off the freezing water.

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Megan: As I look up towards the sky I hear the crackle of the tree branches coated with a thin layer of ice. As they sway in the breeze.

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Megan: all the other sounds become dim around me, and I feel both alone and surrounded

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Megan: by beauty, by nature

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Megan: by humanity

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Megan: and by piece.

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Megan: Here I can meditate. My true self lives in that place of calm.

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Megan: and I remind myself that she is always there, just under the surface of whatever else is distracting me from always being in that place.

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Megan: She is confident she has a knowing about her.

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Megan: This knowing is a deep sense of self-confidence. The confidence that comes with the experience of successfully presenting and executing a plan for healing.

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Megan: Emdr is such an interesting modality because it plays out differently for everyone. I've talked about this before in other episodes, but Emdr stands for eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. It's a mental exercise that takes you through a traumatic experience or event, and it helps you carve new neural pathways so that the event is no longer associated with negative emotions.

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Megan: The therapist will ask you a series of questions, including what negative beliefs you developed about yourself as a result of the traumatic experience and what positive beliefs you want to have instead.

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Megan: so different. Emdr therapists practice this modality in different ways. But it's essentially a way to replicate the eye movement that happens during rem sleep.

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Megan: and they'll either do this by waving their fingers back and forth, or you'll watch a dot move back and forth across the screen, or there's also a light bar. My favorite way to do it is that I would hold these little electronic pulsars in my hands, and they would alternate pulsing. So go pulse, pulse, pulse, pulse, that way. I could close my eyes, and I could still get the eye movement experience

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Megan: because I was able to envision things a lot better with my eyes closed, and it helped the processing go a lot faster.

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Megan: So, while deconstructing the traumatic event, the provider will periodically stop you and ask what you notice, making sure that your experience is evolving eventually into something positive. And you don't get stuck in that traumatic place, then they will help you focus on the things that will help the process move forward.

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Megan: And I eventually got to the point where I didn't want my therapist to stop me anymore.

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Megan: I knew what I needed to focus on, and the stopping and starting just interfered with the continuity of what I was experiencing.

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Megan: I remember the first time that I was aware that I knew exactly what I needed.

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Megan: and I told my therapist. Just let it go. I'll let you know when I'm done.

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Megan: When the session was over, my therapist told me he knew in that moment that I was having an awakening. He said it was really cool to watch in real time

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Megan: after that session. I never doubted that I would be okay, because I knew exactly what I needed in order to heal.

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Megan: and I believe that all of us know

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Megan: and know deeply what we need to heal.

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Megan: And I believe we can access that, knowing if we practice the 3 C's, we've already discussed.

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Megan: The fear first was curiosity about what we're feeling, the second was compassion.

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Megan: for why? We might feel that way.

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Megan: and the third was calm, taking the time to release the emotions we are feeling, or ask them to step back so that we can come back to them after we've centered with our true self, and finally recalling the confidence that we already know that we already know how to heal.

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Megan: and we already know what we need to do in order to heal

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Megan: Dr. Schwartz notes that these were the first 4 C's that he

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Megan: looked at in his patients, or he noticed in his patients when he started working with the different parts of people, and as he continued to work he also realized that the true self embodies courage.

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Megan: clarity.

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Megan: creativity, and connectedness.

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Megan: And I'll just touch on these last 4 before going back to recap everything that we've discussed today. I know it's a lot to absorb at once.

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Megan: Courage! It takes courage to sit with our difficult emotions and confront the painful memories that caused the wounding. In the first place, as I noted in the beginning of the episode. It's a lot easier to be angry or to direct our anger at others than it is to do the work it takes to examine our motives and our behavior.

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Megan: But if we don't take the time and effort to do this work, we will stay stuck in the cycles of getting triggered by words and experiences, blaming our feelings on other people, blaming our feelings on what happened. Instead of looking at ourselves.

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Megan: for example, when someone criticizes me, I could accuse them of being bitter and unforgiving, or I could look at why, that criticism bothers me so much where I even come up with the words bitter and unforgiving.

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Megan: If I keep getting similar feedback from different people, I could tell myself the story that everybody just misunderstands me, or I could get introspective

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Megan: about whether there's any truth to the feedback

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Megan: again. Each of us has an innate courage, but it may take us asking fear, guilt, and shame to step aside for a moment in order for us to get back with our 2 selves and access that courage.

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Megan: Our true self also has a quality of clarity about them.

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Megan: Many times our brains get flooded with uncomfortable emotions, or we get really foggy when we're in a difficult conversation. And I've also heard people describe a feeling of hearing like a white noise or a static when they're being triggered into reliving old hurts. It's almost as if there's a part of us protecting us from absorbing what's being said because it could be potentially hurtful.

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Megan: I used to describe this to people in my experience as trauma brain. I'd be in a conversation with someone.

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Megan: and at first it happened a lot in therapy where they would express an idea that was contrary to my trauma programming, and I'd be interested in it, but then my brain would swat the idea away before I could absorb it into my Psyche.

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Megan: I'd have to say, I'm sorry. Can you repeat that my trauma brain kicked it out.

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Megan: and that's one of the ways that I access my true self, asking for repetition and taking a second to breathe and focus. So I can have the clarity I need to take in new ideas that challenge my views of myself and others.

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Megan: Finally, creativity is perhaps one of the qualities that I get the most pushback on when I suggest that everyone universally has creative sensibilities. But I'm not just talking about arts and crafts time or musical abilities, or the things we typically think of when we think of someone as creative writers, actors, directors.

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Megan: I'm also talking about the ability to think outside of our dogmatic training, or what's always been done

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Megan: and come up with new solutions to old problems.

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Megan: In a past episode. I talked about knowing that my marriage was unhealthy, and the only thing I could think to do in that moment was to leave and move in with my sister. There was a sense of safety about that idea, cause I knew she and her family were safe people. I knew I would be welcomed in the community, and I knew that they had resources so I could find a job and have a sense of belonging.

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Megan: I was just thinking in survival mode just about

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Megan: taking care of the basic essential necessity human needs.

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Megan: I wasn't capable at that time of coming up with a more creative solution, because my true self was buried under too many layers of trauma.

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Megan: But when I came back to that problem later, I was able to come up with a plan that worked well for what I wanted to accomplish, and also considered accommodating the needs of my children and

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Megan: the reaction of my former spouse, and what it was, gonna take for us to move forward legally and financially, and to consider all of the different complicated aspects about getting divorced. I never could have done that until I cleared away some of those layers of fog and trauma that were keeping me from coming up with these sorts of creative solutions.

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Megan: Now to address the other side of it. One of my favorite quotes from Rene Brown is, she said. There's no such thing as creative people and non creative people. There are only people who use their creativity, and people who don't.

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Megan: Unused creativity isn't benign.

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Megan: It lives within us until it's expressed.

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Megan: neglected to death

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Megan: or suffocated by resentment and fear

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Megan: we can access our creativity when we're able to ask the fearful parts of us again to step aside for a moment and allow us to express our thoughts

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Megan: and our emotions and our ideas without shame. I think a lot of times when people say that they're not creative, it's because they're afraid. If they engage in an authentic creative expression that they're going to be judged and rejected or made fun of. And all of those fears are valid and real, and I've experienced a lot of that myself.

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Megan: in fact, almost every single time as a teenager that I performed, whether it was singing or playing the piano or acting, or any of those things I was. There was always an underlying anxiety about how people were going to judge me, and it really hindered my ability to enjoy my creativity because I started developing this perfectionistic

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Megan: toxic perfectionism where I felt like everything, had to be perfect before I presented it to someone, and if I made a mistake while I was performing, I got super critical of myself, and shamed myself for not getting it perfectly right. Some of this was also fueled by my

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Megan: high demand, religious upbringing, and by my family system, which didn't make allowance for mistakes or individuality. So it was really hard for me to express myself as a musician, because I felt like I had to stay in a little acceptable box where I didn't act flamboyantly. And it it

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Megan: really hindered my creativity because I didn't want to appear to be over dramatic, and I didn't want to appear to be arrogant or self-aggrandizing, and so a lot of my creativity got stifled because of the programming that I received as a child.

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Megan: Then, later, as an adult, as I was able to address that toxic perfectionism I was able to start enjoying my musical talents just for myself, rather than believing that it was an outlet for me to gain acceptance from people, or to gain accolades.

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Megan: or a way for me to prove that I was acceptable to my parents in the past. I felt as though they were paying for my piano lessons and my singing lessons, and so I felt like I had to develop that talent to the very highest of my ability to sort of pay them back for that, and that whenever they asked me to sing or play, or perform, that, I was obligated to do that because of their contributions to it.

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Megan: and I was finally able to to start giving some pushback on that. But it was really painful to do.

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Megan: I had Sunday dinner with my parents almost every Sunday for probably at least 15 years, while we lived in the same vicinity, and they always wanted to see my kids, and I enjoyed getting together up to a certain point, and when I started to heal and become intolerant of certain behaviors, those dinners started to become really uncomfortable for me, and one of the dynamics of those dinners was that often we would finish dinner, and I would go to play the piano.

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Megan: I didn't realize this at the time, but connecting the dots from my teenage years and from later on in my adult life, I realized that going to the piano was a way for me to escape the painful family dynamics that I felt a lot of the time.

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Megan: And so, after these family dinners as an adult, I would go to play the piano as that means of escape. But it was also a way for me to give back to my parents, because I knew they enjoyed listening to me play, and they would request their favorite songs, and I would oblige, and I sort of started to feel like this circus monkey who was like performing for their food.

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Megan: and I remember there was one Sunday where I just did not want to engage in that pleasing behavior. I was becoming intolerant of that behavior in myself, and my mom asked me to play something, and I said, It's not a good time. I just don't feel like it today.

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Megan: and I can't remember the other person that was at the dinner. It was somebody who was related, but not a super close family member. Maybe they were visiting from out of town. And so I felt an even added pressure, because when someone's visiting, we do our best for them, we wanna put our best foot forward, and if they ask for performance we should give it to them right.

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Megan: But I was feeling really sad about betraying myself, and so I did not want to do it. So this other person again asked if I would. Oh, would you please just play one thing, just play one song, and I said.

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Megan: I'm sorry. It's just not a good day, and I don't feel like it.

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Megan: I think I got 2 more pushbacks on that from my mom subtle hints. She she always like to give subtle hints about. Hey, I would just I would be so great. Oh, it would just make it a perfect Sunday if you would just play this one song, and I started to get angry about it because my my boundaries were being violated and my wishes were not being respected.

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Megan: and it got uncomfortable. It really got uncomfortable. I think it was one of the first times that I refused to do something

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Megan: that my mother was asking, even after several rounds of pushback, because sometimes I would just eventually give in. But I was at a point where I was ready to hold that boundary. And I did. And I wanted to bring up the the fact that it's uncomfortable, because, as you start to do this work, you're gonna encounter people who do not like the fact that you are putting boundaries out there.

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Megan: They want things to feel comfortable and safe. They want your relationship to continue to be the same way. And you'll find that if you're in a relationship with someone who's got narcissistic personality traits or who has manipulative tendencies. They are not going to like it when you start to stand up for yourself and honor yourself in this way. So I just want to prepare you in advance. There are going to be some uncomfortable conversations.

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Megan: but leaning into that discomfort and learning to seek out that discomfort in order to be in a healthier place is one of the markers of a very healed individual. If you're in a place where you're able to give that pushback, it means you've done a lot of work on your own ego and your own wounded parts, and you're getting to a much healthier place. So I just want to reiterate it's not always going to be easy. It's not always going to go smoothly.

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Megan: but it's one of the best ways that we can honor ourself and show up better for other people. When we're the most healed version of ourselves, it gives other people permission to heal as well. When we hold boundaries, it gives other people permission to hold those boundaries as well. So if you're the cycle breaker, if you're the scapegoat, if you're the only one in your family who's doing this so far.

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Megan: I commend you because that's really hard work to do. If someone else has gone before you and sort of started to hold boundaries with a toxic personality. It makes it a little bit easier for you to do the same. But again be prepared for some pushback. I at 1 point in my family. I, you know, had held some boundaries with my relationship around my mother, and I went no contact for a while.

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Megan: and one of my cousins.

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Megan: started to exhibit some of the same boundary, holding behavior with her mother, and her mother's comment to her was, Don't become the Megan of the family.

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Megan: and when my cousin told me that story I was like hell. Yes, be the Meagan of your family. I was so excited about that. I'm like, yeah, ever follow my example. I mean not to put myself out there as such a wonderful person. But I did it. I did it for myself. I did it to heal myself so I could be a better mother and a better partner and a better everything

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Megan: right. But the fact that there were other people. Noticing that behavior and not liking it.

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Megan: I enjoyed that. I enjoyed it a lot because it meant that unhealthy people were finally being challenged, and

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Megan: I think unhealthy people should be challenged, and if it feels uncomfortable because you're the one being challenged.

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Megan: we'll talk about that in a minute about how important it is to take that feedback in and that criticism in.

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Megan: So the last quality of Dr. Schwartz's model of the self-led individual is connectedness.

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Megan: Our true self has the ability to connect in authentic ways, not only with other people, but to connect with all the parts of ourselves, both the healed and the unhealed, and allow all of them an equal seat at the table. An equal voice and an opportunity to express their needs and desires.

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Megan: Connection requires vulnerability, and the wounded parts of us tend to avoid connection because of its potential for further harm. This is why some trauma survivors may self isolate or even develop agoraphobia.

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Megan: Other survivors may go in the opposite direction, pushing people away with criticism or anger, and even self sabotaging relationships, because connection feels unfamiliar and scary.

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Megan: I can relate to this. I had a boyfriend in high school who was one of the kindest and most compassionate people I had met up to that point.

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Megan: and I eventually had to break up with him, because his attention and willingness to accept me as I was felt so uncomfortable to me.

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Megan: Even now I'm still working on the part of me that expects to be abandoned and has a tendency to disconnect and isolate.

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Megan: I'd like to leave you today with an example of what it looks like to practice showing up as the true self.

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Megan: I talked about this episode. I talked about this example in my first episode alone, but I wanted to revisit it now with the application of what I learned.

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Megan: So I've mentioned to many of you before. My partner, Samuel, and I share the same birthday, not the year, but the actual day.

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Megan: and we've been together for a few years, and we had spent a couple of birthdays together, and so I sort of had this expectation, although it was unspoken by either one of us that we would spend our birthdays together.

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Megan: and last year he just a few weeks before I made, I think, maybe even 2 weeks before he told me that he wanted to spend his birthday alone

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Megan: in Montana, and we live in Texas.

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Megan: and

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Megan: I had a really hard time. With that

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Megan: the

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Megan: abandoned part of me

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Megan: wanted to push him away

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Megan: and then

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Megan: sabotage the relationship.

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Megan: My immediate reaction was anger. I was very angry that he wanted to separate for me on the most important day, and all I was thinking about was, well, he's one of my favorite people on the planet, and I want to spend time with him on my birthday.

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Megan: I wasn't thinking about what he needed or wanted. I was only thinking of my own needs, and I felt I felt abandoned in that moment, so I was angry, and then I was sad. I spent some time crying about it, and then I had to get to a place where I had to radically accept that this is what he needed, and it was important for him to have his needs met as well.

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Megan: And then I had to formulate a plan and say, Okay, if I can't have my first choice of spending time with my partner. Then I need to come up with an alternate plan. So what would I do if I could do anything in world that I wanted to.

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Megan: and I decided that

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Megan: I wanted to get out on the water on a kayak. Just be out in nature. And so I ended up going camping overnight by myself, renting a little kayak.

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Megan: getting out on the water for a couple of hours, taking a hike.

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Megan: and then cooking a nice dinner over the fire for myself, and it turned out to be the best day of my life.

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Megan: because I did a lot of my favorite things. I was in a place where I was out in nature. That's one of the ways that I connect to my spirituality. And just, you know, breathing in

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Megan: waterfall type air, looking at nature, taking a million pictures of the same bird, with nobody telling me that they're bored, and they want to get on with what they're doing, taking a detour on the hike to go see something different and not worrying that someone else is going to be annoyed or tired, or whatever it is. So

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Megan: it ended up being a really positive thing, not just from the aspect that I had a great day, but from the aspect where I said, Okay, if somebody doesn't meet my expectations, then I can meet my own expectations.

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Megan: Now, when my partner makes an effort to differentiate from me.

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Megan: and wants to either spend time alone or with other people.

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Megan: I recognize that the first story that I tell myself is not true.

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Megan: It's that wounded part of me that abandoned part of me speaking up, and then a protector part doing the pushing away and self sabotaging. It's

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Megan: it sort of shows up like fine. If you want to go, do something by yourself. Fine. Go ahead. You do that. I'm going to do something really fun that you would miss out on. So I'm going to pick your favorite activity and go do that.

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Megan: And then you're going to be sorry that you didn't come with me.

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Megan: So those are kind of the spiteful. First you know the the abandoned part pushing up and saying, Fine, go away, leave!

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Megan: And then the protector of the self sabotage, saying, I'm going to sabotage the relationship by hurting you

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Megan: and then engaging in that behavior. Error makes me feel guilty, and then a firefighter fighter. Part of me encourages me to isolate and numb by watching social media or by shopping, or by, you know, using substances, or whatever your favorite way is to numb.

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Megan: Instead.

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Megan: I'm able to recognize that as a story that the abandoned part of me tells me.

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Megan: and I recognize it, that it's not true. And all of this now happens in a split second, and I'm able to say.

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Megan: the abandoned part of me makes me feel terrible about this situation. I don't like it.

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Megan: but I recognize that it's not your intention to make me feel bad or to abandon me.

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Megan: So I want to ask that part to step aside.

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Megan: and I want to have some clarity while I listen to you. Tell me your true meaning and intention, and I don't really say it. In those flowery words.

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Megan: He'll just finish making a statement. And I'll say I recognize that a wounded part of me wants to react. So I'm just gonna listen to what you have to say, and I want you to just be clear with me about what your true intentions are.

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Megan: Then, after they make a statement, I can say what I hear you saying is, and I repeat back what they've said, as I understand it, just to make sure that the wounded parts of me aren't interpreting something incorrectly, and then I'll say I'll restate it, and then, I'll say, is that correct? Or am I misunderstanding something? So it becomes this dialog where the parts have space to be heard within me, but they don't run the show. Externally, they don't react

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Megan: in this example. Dr. Schwartz calls this the unblending of the self from the wounded parts.

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Megan: So this week I want to challenge you to pick just one thing to focus on whether it's the practice of getting curious about your emotions, or finding ways to be compassionate with yourself for the feelings that come up or the reactions that you might have.

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Megan: I want to encourage you to take the time to write down what you notice, so that you can use it as a guide to come back to when you're ready to take the next step.

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Megan: so that you have some ideas of

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Megan: where to move forward and how to move forward

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Megan: when we have confidence in our ability to heal, and the knowledge that we already know how to heal intuitively it creates a sense of calm within us.

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Megan: It's the piece of knowing that, no matter what happens, we will absolutely be okay, because our truest self has the tools to heal from anything that might come our way.

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Megan: we can find the courage to be introspective, and shine a light in the places that we might have previously been afraid to look.

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Megan: We have the ability to approach this work with clarity and access our creativity, to come up with new ways of seeing ourselves and our emotions.

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Megan: Finally, I know that this work will lead to a greater ability to connect with ourselves and others in authentic ways rather than out of a need to fill our time and space with media, or with people or other things that validate us externally.

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Megan: These small but revolutionary changes will help us to learn to love ourselves better, and the ultimate goal is for us to be self-led or motivated to enlightenment by our truest and most authentic self. And it's the best way that we can have a positive impact on the people in our lives, and make the world around us a healthier and happier place to exist.

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Megan: I'm excited to hear in the comments what you pick.

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Megan: and to hear how it worked for you. If you're willing to share with others, I would love for you to reach out to me, either here on the Channel with a comment, or by emailing me at megan@thirddashverse.com, and I can send you a link to appear in an upcoming. Ask Megan, live. So I'm hoping that the community will get together and share their ideas of how you incorporate these 6 C's into your intentional practice of healthy communication.

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Megan: and, as always, the best way to support the channel is to like this episode, subscribe to the Channel, share it with others. I also have channel memberships available now. And that's a way to offset the expenses of the editing and all of the things that I pay for the subscriptions and services the software that I pay for to create these episodes. So if you want to subscribe as a Channel member that will help

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Megan: a lot in keeping the channel moving forward, and eventually I will get to the place where I'll be able to gift some channel memberships. There is some content that is available only to channel members. But as always, if there's something you find that is restricted to members only, and it's something that you need or want to consume. Please reach out and contact me because I'm happy to give you a link to consume that content.

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Megan: I realize not. Everybody can afford memberships, and I don't want to restrict the content that people need out there. So please make sure that you reach out to me again. My email address is Megan. At third dashverse com.

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Megan: Third dash first. Com is also where you can find information about my coaching services, and I always want to meet with somebody

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Megan: for a few minutes, 15 or 20 min before they sign up for coaching, just to make sure that we're a good fit for each other, that I

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Megan: am able to help you in some way, and to see what your goals are to see if there are resources that I can bring you, and if they're not, then I can refer you to someone else, or to another place where you can get some help and the resources that you need in your journey.

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Megan: Another one of the services that I offer is to help people find a therapist. I have a free guide on some of the questions that you need to ask a potential therapist before you hire them for the job of caring for your mental health that's available on my website.

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Megan: And I'm also able to help people find a particular type of therapist. For example.

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Megan: if you're interested specifically in Emdr, if you're interested specifically in ifs therapy, there's lots of different healing modalities out there I can help match you with a modality that makes sense for you, and then help you find a provider in your area that either takes your insurance, or that has a sliding scale payment plan and somebody that you can really connect with. I'm really passionate about helping people.

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Megan: People find therapy services. And eventually, when the channel starts to turn a profit, all of the profits that come for the Channel are going to go into my nonprofit organization, which helps pay for therapy services. There will be more information about that coming soon. It's not quite set up and ready to accept 501 c. 3 contributions yet, but we will get there.

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Megan: and as always, I really appreciate your help and support in this journey of trying to have healthier conversations and healthier relationships. Remember that a revolution starts with just one small change. So if you can change one thing, I would love to hear about it and hear how it's had an impact in your life and the lives of the people that you love. So take care of yourselves and be well, and I hope to see you again very soon.