The Journey of Self-Discovery in Love
In this podcast episode, Jennifer Lehr revisits episode 3 and explores the profound lessons that relationships teach us, emphasizing the importance of self-love, understanding people-pleasing behaviors, and the impact of family history on our relationship dynamics. She discusses the necessity of setting boundaries, the role of self-talk in healing, and the importance of creating healthy environments for children. The conversation delves into the steps needed to recover from unhealthy relationship patterns and the significance of kindness and empathy in choosing the right partner.
takeaways
Relationships provide valuable lessons about ourselves.
People pleasing often stems from childhood experiences.
Self-love is essential for healthy relationships.
Choosing a partner requires kindness and self-reflection.
Family history influences our relationship behaviors.
Unresolved childhood issues can lead to repeating patterns.
Setting boundaries is crucial for personal well-being.
Self-talk can aid in recovery from past traumas.
Creating a safe environment for children is vital.
Addressing fears of abandonment can improve relationships.
Chapters
00:00Kirsten's Journey
01:36Relationships Are Our Biggest Teachers
03:11People Pleasing
05:13What Kind of Partner To Look For
06:18Family History
08:41Awareness, Acceptance, Action
10:20Self Talk
11:00Leaving A Relationship for the Children
11:43Impact on Children
12:17Questions for you
13:08Introduction to Weconcile and Relationship Building
Transcript
Jennifer Lehr (00:00)
So
People pleasing happens when we've grown up in an environment where we have to stay tuned in to what the other person is feeling, thinking, doing. Because in order to stay safe, we have to sort of modulate ourselves to what they need.
I wanted to get deeper into the issues that Kirsten brought up in episode three of the Yearning Heart podcast
Kirsten's journey
offers valuable insights into overcoming relational challenges and embracing personal empowerment.
Her experiences highlight the transformative power of self-reflection, boundary setting, and prioritizing self-love.
We all deserve to be treated well. We all deserve self-love. We all deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. And when that isn't happening, we have to look deeper. What is going on? What are my attachment wounds? What did I grow up with? How has my self-worth been impacted? What was it like for me to be a child?
These are all really, really important things to look at if you want to change a relational pattern or change a relationship that isn't working.
The first thing I want to talk about is how relationships are often our biggest teachers. So what does that mean? It means we have experiences when we have relationships and we feel things, we feel pleasure, we feel pain. So suppose you're in a relationship with someone who is critical, that doesn't feel good. And as you go through that experience, at some point you may say, I don't want this, I want, just.
I don't want this. And you may realize that you aren't strong enough to leave or you're so in love you just don't believe you should leave. But over time when you're dealing with relationship issues, you begin to understand that if things aren't right, either the relationship needs to improve or you want to start over and do something different.
relationships are profound opportunities to learn about
we want to be treated.
And then we also learn that we can't just turn it on a dime. In order to make our relationships better, we have work to do inside ourselves. And sometimes this happens in couples therapy, we do this work. And other times we do this work alone, even if we have a partner or outside of a relationship. And any of those three scenarios work depending on your situation. But what we're trying to do is change ourselves so that we can
attract in the right relationship, whether it's with the same person or a new person.
People pleasing. People pleasing happens when we've grown up in an environment where we have to stay tuned in to what the other person is feeling, thinking, doing. Because in order to stay safe, we have to sort of modulate ourselves to what they need. We can't just be ourselves or
things might happen that are not good for us as children. And people-pleasing sets up a really difficult dynamic because as an adult, we will draw in people who don't respect us, who we continue to focus on them and their feelings instead of also having a focus on ourselves and what we need.
People pleasing often is rooted in a fear of abandonment and low self-esteem.
And again, these often come from childhood issues.
A child may need to develop the skill to read emotional cues.
cues, again, that's tuning in to what's around you instead of into yourself.
And that often comes from fear because yeah, you want to tune into other people for sure. But if that is your modus operatus, if that is what you do mostly, then it's often coming from fear because you're neglecting yourself in order to make sure the other person is happy and doesn't reject you, abandon you, or do something else that you don't want to have happen.
Now, to get out of people pleasing, we have to develop more self-love. And self-love means that we are embracing our imperfections, we are aware that we're not perfect, but we care about ourselves anyway. We don't have to be perfect.
And we also have self-acceptance
When you are embracing your imperfections, it means you are accepting yourself. It's okay that I'm not perfect. And perfectionism is a huge, huge issue.
Now, another thing to talk about is this idea of what kind of partner do we look for? What kind of partners are good for us? And some of the main things that help us is you want someone who's kind, you want someone who is capable of self-reflection. They can look at themselves, they can apologize, they can say, I shouldn't have said that or I shouldn't have done that or I didn't mean to hurt you. Those are all things that are really important if you are looking for a partner.
And you want someone who can be kind. Kindness is so incredibly important in a relationship. Kindness, empathy, and compassion.
Ultimately, and this goes back to people pleasing, we cannot keep another person happy if they're fundamentally unhappy in themselves. We might be able to cheer them up or make them feel good for a moment, but we're not responsible for another person's That is not our job. We want to be kind. We want to be supportive, but we are not responsible for the happiness of another person.
While family history doesn't completely determine your relationship trajectory, it has a definite impact on it.
Family history has everything to do with the attachment patterns we develop. It has to do with our self-worth. It has to do
whether we become people pleasers or not. It has to do with what boundaries we know how to hold and what we accept in terms of behavior.
When there are difficult family situations, kids often blame themselves and take responsibility for their parents' failures. And this happens, you know, when I'm working with people and they say, I had a great family, but their whole life is not going the way they want it to, you know that there's a part of them that has split off that has said, I'm going to protect my family.
and has taken the responsibility for that. I was bad, I didn't do something right. And it shows up as people saying, I had a great family. Yeah, you might've had a good family in some aspects, but in another aspect where they failed you, you have not given that back to them. You're saying it's because of you. Children are not responsible for what happens in their families. The parents are.
And when we have unresolved childhood wounds, we often have repeating unhealthy relationship patterns. Now, if you wanna have a healthy relationship, this stuff has to be sorted out. It doesn't disappear, it doesn't evaporate. And different people do their work in different ways. some people go into more depth.
therapy, some people can change, you know, do more cognitive behavioral work, but regardless, You don't get rid of childhood wounds that are impacting how you relate without the ability or the desire or actually doing the work of looking within and figuring out why do I keep drawing this kind of person to myself or why am I in this pattern? What am I doing that's contributing? Those are the keys to figuring it out.
environments often suppress their feelings. And then later in life, that becomes a huge problem. Feelings are part of life, and feelings are part of being in a relationship, and feelings are part of knowing who you are.
Awareness allows us to recognize the behaviors that we have that are rooted in attachment wounds. It's the first step in acknowledging these behaviors, like people pleasing or excessive codependency or putting up with criticism or abusive behavior. All of that comes from attachment wounds. And in order to...
transcend that we first have to become aware of it. The second step that we need is acceptance. Acceptance means that we know this is part of us. We're not trying to get rid of it. We're not saying, no, no, no, I'll just snap my fingers, I'll be different. Acceptance means we know, we've agreed that there is something going on here.
that we need to change.
So What are the steps to recovering from a bad relationship cycle?
Self-reflection and identifying triggers, bad behaviors we put up with, bad behaviors that we actually enact.
Boundary setting. So we would need to set limits. And if we're in a really, really bad relationship that is not fixable, we not only set limits, we leave.
Choosing healthy connections, which means building up support systems with people who support us, people who are healthy, and that's whether that's in a group, whether that's friends or therapy, it's finding the support we need.
Self-talk.
Self-talk means we're using affirmations. We're saying things to ourselves to support ourselves. We're not criticizing ourselves. I'm such a bad person, blah, blah, blah. We're saying, you're a good person. You didn't deserve that. It'll be okay. Self-support is a way of creating a ground under ourselves.
so that we don't flip-flop and freak out and torture ourselves every time we feel shame or we feel like it's our fault. It's part of the process of recovering from what is probably a less than optimal childhood.
Often, we wanna make our relationships work, especially if we have children. In some cases, it isn't possible if you're dealing with abuse or addiction. and the person you're dealing with is unwilling to change. Then in that case, divorce can be better for the children
self-worth, anxiety and trauma when they're exposed to violence, addiction, abusive behavior.
When we leave environments with those things going on, we are creating a healthier environment for our children, even if they love the other parent, even if they don't wanna leave the other parent.
Now, another thing that really affects children is if they're being raised by care givers who have narcissism, sociopathy,
I mentioned addiction, and they do develop survival mechanisms such as hyper vigilance, such as the ability to read the room. And while these skills may ensure safety in the short term,
They undermine authentic self-expression and they lead to prioritizing other people's emotions instead of their own.
so some of the issues that come up as we talk about this, these topics are, are you afraid of being abandoned? And how does that impact your behavior? What are you doing so that you aren't abandoned? Are you tiptoeing? Are you afraid of, you know, just being
Do you compromise your needs in order to keep the connection going? What would it look like if you didn't compromise yourself? What would it look like if you took the risk and just let yourself say what you were feeling? Yeah, you might get into a big fight and you would have the chance to be yourself and see what happened and you know what you're gonna do about it.
So I hope that you found this helpful and check out the podcast with Kirsten, which was episode three. It's on YouTube and also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Jennifer (13:10)
Thank you for joining me in this podcast. I hope you found it both interesting and informative. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe. on whatever channel you like to use. You can also find me on social media, usually under WeConcile. And just a reminder that we have a relationship app called WeConcile out to help you create your best relationship. And it's in both the Apple App Stores and the Google Play Stores.