People pleasers get empowered, sneaky ways clever people control emotions, and end codependency

Transcript

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Welcome to the relationship success lab, the place for relationship empowerment and actionable tools. So you can let go of old wounds and create. A secure, trusting, loving relationship. I'm dot Sarah global award-winning expert relationships, psychologist, and consultants helping high-achievers on business leaders. To have happy and healthy relationships. Grab my relationship health quiz full free. In the link below to get started now. On with your journey to relationship success. Hello and welcome my relationship success tribes. So good to have you back because today we are talking about sneaky ways. Uh, in which we control emotions. Oh, that's bring it out so that all, so many people that I either wet quiff you come to me in clinic or people that I end up seeing posting on social media, various different messages. All about what do you do? The motions? And some tips out that are fantastic in terms of how we sit with emotions, how we read messages, because let spare mind. All emotions. All. All messages, right? All emotions have a message that we need to read, and it's up to us to be able to accurately read those messages. But unfortunately, Many of us, haven't learnt the language of emotions. So it's incredibly important that we actually understand what emotions are, how to deal with them. That a lot of people don't do that. And they attempt to process emotions. In quotation marks and they trend to. Uh, try and work through emotions in quotation marks, but they don't do it very well. And they actually end up controlling emotions in a very unhealthy way. So let's deal with this issue. And the reason why this issue is so important on this podcast is because when we are in a relationship. And we are not really regulating our emotions. We're not really processing our emotions very well. What happens is that we end up. Oh, washing outs on our partner, or we end up suppressing ourselves with our partner. We end up people pleasing with our partner. We end up. In this perpetual cycle of never feeling good enough with our partner and guess what? You're not actually in the relationship. What I mean by that is that you all so busy trying to figure out this maze that is called emotions, that you never actually turn up just as your self, without filter, without having to think too much without any of that stuff. Without all of these mental calculations, it's really hard for you to do that because you are busy trying to figure out. All of these different contingencies, all these different conditions, you trying to really figure out what it is that you need to do, that you forget that you just need to be. And that's because you've never figured out how to do in an easy way. Now. One thing. It's important for us to consider. Are the ways in which we can really. Cool stumpage in our relationship, if we are not processing our emotions correctly. So the damage. Might be that we end up. Uh, floating a lot on top partner. And I'm not saying you come back home from a bad day at work and you just set on the sofa and you just start ranting about your day. That's not what I'm talking about.'cause you know, every now and again, we all need a bit of a rant. That's okay. But no, that's not what I'm quite talking about. What I'm talking about is that we actually offload through outsourcing our emotions. Now outsourcing our emotions. Is a process when we do not know how to deal with emotions, I am feeling something. I'm feeling something it's intense, it's uncomfortable. I don't know what to do with that. I don't want to deal with it. I just want gone. And instead of me working through it so that I can actually get to the other side of the emotions. So it dissipates. I actually ended up taking this ball of energy, this uncomfortable ball of energy. That is the intense emotion. That's the distress. And I literally mourn shit at my partner. And I want you at my partner, hoping that they will fix it for me, hoping that they will have the answer, that they will be able to alleviate my emotional state. And the easiest way for me to describe this is if you imagine you are feeling anger or I'm monitoring you or feeling sadness, And let's say your sadness level is a seven out of 10. And you don't know how to process this emotion. So you want you at your partner. What ends up happening is like, if your partner is feeling sadness less than a seven, so less than what you are. You are not satisfied because they are not feeling the pain as much as you. And so you go on, you go on, you go on and you offload your offload, your offload, your outsource, outsource, outsource until they hit a seven or above. And let's say, you see your partner at an eight or nine, then brilliant. You've done your job because you've offloaded everything that's inside of. You owns your partner in the hope that they can deal with that. And somehow you believe inside of them, they have the capability, the ability that is greater. Later than you to deal with the issue. And so they process through the emotion. They help you regulate. And they just return the emotion to you in a nice, neat little bow. And you don't have to deal with that anymore because they're the one who owns the emotion. Now you offer free of it. This is really problematic. And this is what causes dependency, encouraged pendency. So the dependency would be me. Let's say, if I'm the person who can regulate myself and I'm outsourcing on to you, what would happen is that I then become dependent on you. I am hoping for dear life that if I give you this thing, my emotions, that you'll be able to sort it out for me. And so I don't necessarily love you, but I love your function. I love the purpose. I love. What it is that you bring to the table? What it is that you bring to the table is a bucket for me to offload my emotions and see that's what you're bringing to the table. And that's really harmful because I'm actually creating a dependency on you. And if this happens long enough and you're constantly accepting this, my partner who is, you know, trying to process all my emotions. Then it's a codependency that's being created because I need you because you're the one who solves my emotional problems. And mishaps. But. You also need me to need you. Because if I didn't need you, then I might just check out the relationship and guess what you've invested heavily in this relationship. You've invested heavily in making sure that I'm okay. And if I just walk out after you are depleted, you are exhausted. You've done this work for me and I leave. Then. That is devastating. Right. What I'm talking about it in black and white terms like this. It doesn't make sense. It sounds really intense. It sounds really bizarre. And you know, people often say to me, but why would I even do this? I'm going to revert back to the subconscious rule. If you've not heard me talking about it before, please rewind goose previous episodes because I talk about it. Lots. But subconscious rule is that 95% of what you do that includes your choice and partner. That includes how you deal with emotions. 95% of what you do. Is subconsciously driven. That means you don't actually think about it. You will also pilot. And you've done this in the past. It's worked well. It's served a purpose and therefore you do it again and again, and again and again, without really thinking about it. It doesn't actually cost cross through, into your conscious mind. So you're just operating on autopilot. So, therefore it's really, really problematic, but. Let's think about this a bit more. So. If you are constantly outsourcing chore partner. Then. You are creating a codependency that is not a healthy relationship. There is a difference between co-dependency on co-regulation co-regulation is to say. I'm here for you. I'm holding space for you. I'm holding space. With compassion, foil struggle. But. I can't be a rescuer. I'm not a savior. I can. Walk with you and hold your hand and see what it is that you're seeing. But I also really want to empower you enough. For you to feel good on your own. That is the key. I'm willing to walk alongside you, holding your hand. I I'm willing to hold you to hug you, to support you, to listen to you, run for a couple of hours, whatever it is that you need. I'm willing to do those things, but the objective isn't for me to constantly save you the objective isn't for me. To somehow appear bigger than you, because I'm not more intelligent than you are. I mean, sure. I might suggest something if you're wanting my advice, but. I'm actually here to try and empower you, and that's a much healthier position to be in, but also you empower me when I'm struggling as well. And so it's this idea of holding hands and walking side by side. If you're in the whole. Sure. I'm willing to climb down the hole and look at the hole with you, but I'm not the person to be blaming for, for the whole, but also I'm not the person who is somehow going to constantly rescue you, because if I'm constantly re-asking you in you, that also means that you are constant victim. And that's not an empowering position to be in. If I am a rescuer. Then you must ultimately be a victim. Because otherwise, why am I rescuing? And being a victim is not an empowering place. So, so this is really key that we need to consider. Are we, are we really being in a codependent relationship or are we being. In a co regulated relationship. Please be aware of this now. Let's rewind. I'm thinking about the sneaky ways in which we can attempt to control emotions, but we're actually not doing it very well. And I see this a lot with business owners, with entrepreneurs, with high achievers, with type a personalities. I see this a lot with people who are exceptionally driven. I see the slot reason being is that you guys have cava. And, uh, you're very intellectually intelligent. That means that you can think about things and you can think about things really hard until you get to a solution. But you almost use the intellect to try and intellectualize your way outfit, emotion. And intelligence in the cognitive realm. So this is like the Headspace, the things that we think about. And the stuff that we feel, I eat the emotions, the thinking and the feeling. They are two separate categories. They are not the same thing. If you are feeling an emotional problem, it needs an emotional solution. If you are thinking about a cognitive problem, You need a cognitive and logical solution. That is it. There is no. Uh, you know, cross barrier between the two. And that's really important feeds can sit at the right times when you can maybe lean upon one or the other. But it is important that you actually develop both realms equally. And. Uh, you know, I often, uh, say this with people and apologies if I'm about to offend any man out there, but have you ever walked into a gym and maybe you go into the weights section and in the weights section, you see 10 guys and they are all doing biceps and shoulders. That is all that they do. And they do this. In day out. And they ended up with big biceps and shoulders, but you scroll down and you look at that legs and apologies guys, but they've got really underdeveloped legs. Compared to the top half of them and it looks. I don't want to say comical because I don't want to make fun of anybody it's whole. Yeah. But, but you can see that there was a part of them that is underdeveloped compared to another part that is really developed. Um, this is exactly what I'm talking about is that some people work really, really hard on the intellectualizing stuff, on the thinking stuff, but the not so good at the emotional stuff. And guess what those guys would benefit from doing some squats. Those guys would benefit from doing like day, as opposed to just skipping like day and always doing shoulders and biceps. Right. But that's just, that's just truth. And so it's really about a sprint Singh. That's emotional processing. Now. Going back to the sneaky signs. So the sneaky sign is when somebody is really intelligent. And they've. Experienced something that is really painful from an emotional standpoint, that is really disruptive, that creates stouts and they are kind of scrambling around trying to find solutions. And they find solutions, but that solutions actually dig themselves a little bit of a hole or the, not really the ultimate solution. It's not really a solution that will clear the plate. Of this issue because this issue will come up again and again. So for example, I've got one client of mine who is incredibly intelligent and he's a business owner. And, uh, he's got many stuff working for him. He's built up his company done really, really well. Very intelligent, but every time we speak, he is avoiding this huge, huge pain. And part of the pain is that he lost. His wife. Um, he lost his son. Now that is huge. And. I can appreciate that there would be a lot of, um, mental barriers. As protective mechanisms because experienced something like that, but is obviously crushing those devastating. Huge trauma. But what's important to consider. And just to give you some more context. So I started working with the sky. Before any of this tragedy happened. And even before then, whenever there was a difficulty that happened in his life, in his work and his relationships and his family, whatever it is, whenever there was a difficulty. He went into hyper intellectualizing mode and he would set that debating. Oh, As long as anyone would debate with him, but he would sit there debating on how it is that he can solve the problem or how it is that, you know, certain things would be better. And you'd make some really good arguments. Great. But what he was doing, not getting in touch with any emotion. So it's really about the avoidance of emotions and. That's one of the biggest signs is when you know something bad is happening, but you immediately think about it in a logical sense. And you just get away from the emotion as fast as possible. So some people might then describe emotions as a nuisance that the kind of annoying that they're a bit of an inconvenience and they don't really do anything. But what's happening. That is that they are not reading the message. So for example, if you feel anxious, the message of our emotion is, Hey, The something that is uncomfortable here, there is some kind of threat. There's some kind of danger. There's something that doesn't make you feel safe. And what you're really needing is safety. If you read that message. Then you can logically think, okay, well, if I really need safety and the situation doesn't make me feel safe and how can I feel safe? What is it that I need to do in order to gain that sense of security and safety so that I know that I'm not in danger. And that's the way that we would do it, but we would have to read the message. All for example, if we experienced this emotion of Yeah. They don't shoot. If we read the message, the message might say. I feel like there's been injustice and I really want to be respected and I really want to be heard. I want to be valued. And if we write that message, then we can start considering, okay, well, how can I feel valued? And then that's the thing that we need to pursue. So reading the message is incredibly important because it gives us so much data. It gets gives us so much information and by reading the message, the emotion itself changes. So the emotion doesn't last forever. It actually lasts longer. If we don't read the message. Because what happens is we suppress it, but it just sends up in our spam folder. And our spam folder gets overwhelmed and we just never looked at it. We don't open it. We don't read it. Right. And th. It doesn't work. So we really do need to read the message. So that's really important. But often people will kind of express. Emotions being annoying. Or what they end up doing is that they will express themselves as having a fear of being a victim. And they actually go into overdrive mode. So they say, I really don't want to be a victim. I don't want to be a victim. I don't want to be a victim. Therefore buying. Uh, and they go into hyper responsibility. Nope. There's a fine line here because I think responsibility is key. I think responsibility is really empowering because the moment that you decide, okay, I'm going to be accountable. I'm going to take responsibility for what was going on for my life. That's when you're in college, because you don't waiting on anyone else. You're not waiting on somebody else's decisions to do something or not do something. In terms of how is it you feel, but you can actually take autonomy. In terms of how you feel, you can take that responsibility and that's incredibly empowering because then you can figure out what it is that needs to happen. For you to feel okay for you to feel held and safe, and that's also within the relationship as well. So for example, if you feel injured by something, Actually, how can you have that conversation honestly, and openly with your partner? And I'm not saying going into attack mode, but I'm just saying, how is it that you can be empowered with that? Because guess what? Your partner, isn't a mind reader. If they hit you. Sometimes we need to tell them because you know, we're all human, we all have blind spots and it's really about working through this and taking counts. Millsy on both funds. That's so important. But one of the other signs is I don't want to be a victim. I don't want to be a victim. I don't want to be a victim. And if you're one of those people and you go into hyper responsibility, you end up taking responsibility for things that are not your responsibility. So it's really confusing to figure out what's my stuff. And what's your stuff. And I take responsibility for everything. But also I ended up heavily suppressing, so I feel something and I immediately turn the off button on that feeling. Your partner will feel bad because your partner will feel that you want to touch from them. They will feel that you have dissociated that you have mentally and emotionally checked out with the relationship. And they're going to be injured by that because they will need to see it. They will feel it and that's not. Okay. So that's something that's really important for you to consider as well. Is how do you really, um, How'd you really allow yourself to. Approach this emotion and to feel this emotion and maybe it's three taking baby steps maybe is through journaling and just checking in with yourself one time a day. And asking yourself, well, how do I feel right now? And just writing that down. But in itself can be incredibly powerful and it just gets you that one step closer to really opening up the window and understanding your emotions. Right next sneaky sign. Is when you start experiencing emotions. And you fear that you'll be a burden to other people. And do you fear that expressing these emotions will then make you burdensome or make other people dislike you? And I often see this with Madden as well. So whenever man feels something. There are lots of messages out that the very contradictory, by the way that say men should feel and should express, and they should just turn up as their authentic self in a relationship. But then there are also a lot of messages that say, Hey, you don't do that. Fealty much at maybe say something, but not everything. And the reason is that that is still this really big. A real issue that men will be rejected if they share too much, if they all that crying, if they all dysregulated, if they are in distress, like there is a real risk around that. And. The risk is for a whole heap of reasons. I'm not going to go into just yet, but, but the reason why this is important to pay attention to is because what ends up happening is thoughts. This suppression comes out again. All we ended up going into people pleasing mode. And the people please a mode that can be. From man, it can be from women. Uh, but that's the moment when we fear that we're going to be a burden on somebody. So we don't express. We end up doing as much as possible to please the other person. And ultimately we never feel good enough. We all just on this hamster wheel of trying to make sure that everybody around. This feels okay. But when. Okay. And again, that's really problematic. And. When ever. You are experiencing any of these things. The key bit of advice I would give you right now is really ask yourself if I'm doing these things. Am I really turning up in the relationship. And I can hear some people saying, yeah, of course I am. Um, okay, great. Great. If you all, but I would really ask. All you really turning up in the relationship is in your true. Essence your true being, or is it just a version of you that turns up in the relationship? Is it just a version of you that is functional? That turns up is a version of you that is. The vision that's expected to turn up. And by set and you know, if that's the case then who K, that that might be fine, but we'll salsa really impulsive is considered the longevity of relationship. If you'll really wants in your relationships, you go the distance. We also have to consider, well, actually I am different to who I was last year two. I was 10 years ago. And I'll say, okay, I've grown, I've learnt stuff. I've done stuff. I've experienced stuff. So I am a different person and great that you're a different person. But with that comes different thoughts, different emotions. And so that's what makes up who you are that makes up your essence. And your partner is in the relationship with your essence. And so your essence has to turn up. It has to be that some degree. And sometimes it will be that more than other days. You know, sometimes I'll float traits. But it's really important that those elements of that, because that keep halts to who you all. Now, if anything I've spoken about in this absurd house resonated with you. I have got some really exciting news and I have got my very special, very exclusive Bali retreat. I'm opening up to the public this year. And it's in September and it is amazing. I'm sorry. Can't even tell you how excited I am about this. It is a wellness retreat. And we all going to be focusing in on everything mindset we all going to be doing. Watsa different workshops on healing, trauma, healing, the nervous system, but also how it is that we grow our essence. And how is it? We can set ourselves up for the best possible life, including the best possible relationship. If you all are interested in this. Please get in, touch my details all in the show notes below. And if you're wanting to go ahead and book an appointment, feel free to do that. Again, my details are in the show notes below. And I will see you on the other side.