Hello, welcome back to another episode. This is Lolly, your host of the Shadow Body Podcast. I have a cold, can't get rid of it. I sound a little bit coldy, but here we are. I've been like avoiding coming on here and recording an episode for you, so you didn't have to put up with my shenanigans. However, there is so much I have brewing inside of me, and I cannot wait to talk about it. And I'm overdue. I need a another episode. I've been quite sick for a while, actually, and moving through some crazy sensations around that because yeah, being sick is like not only taking me away from business and and being productive, which has its own stories, but it actually like reveals all of the things in which I'm not looking at. And within my relationships, I've taken a long, hard look at like the places in which I have been swimming in some murky waters. So in the way that I see and feel, experience the body, it's like through this lens, I'm like, yeah, this is murky. There's some congestion, some stagnation here. Um yeah, what's being asked of me in this place of refinement? And what I've discovered is that my protective walls are like shattering. And it's one thing to say that, but it's another to actually feel it happening in real time. Like if you can imagine a cyclone running through the shoreline and just destroying the um the sandbanks and also creating so much more space on the beach, you can imagine like this happening internally. And like, of course, the ocean is like full of debris and and uh and earth matter, and it's all murky and and and it takes a while to sort of settle and clear up again, which is the feeling in which I'm I'm having uh this experience inside. And it's just about letting it all sift through and and settle in its own time. There's no herbal remedy at the moment that is making the impact I need. Well, it is on a subtle cellular level. It's it's just taking its slow time. And it really feels like such a privilege to be able to sit with every moment, every unfolding as my body expresses itself and reveals to me just what I'm meant to look look at, like even in my dreams and the people in my life, just lots of things for me to see hold and um is it relish in? Yeah, relish in. I'm in a place of discovery. So today is probably a cringy episode about codependency and co-regulation and the difference. I think it's an important topic when considering going into relationships. I'm talking about codependent relationships, what they feel like, and then the adjustment that is made through co-regulation, which is something we look for in our work as somatic therapists. But because this is the relationship edition on the Shadow Body Podcast, and I'm diving into all things uh dating as a somatic therapist, we're gonna start with a little bit of a personal story around this topic. I have a tendency to be a serial dater, so like one relationship to the next. And I mean, this is the first time at 37 I'm having my own place to be with me. And while that's not always easy, it's just finally at 37 I get to just sit with myself and all that comes up around that without the other person informing my experience. And while that's not easy, it's quite beautiful, profound, and I've got plenty of space to finally like just feel myself and like hear things. I can finally listen. So for me personally, someone who is quite um introverted, a bit of a hermit, and and very much so in uh the feeling body, it's really great for me to just see myself for the very first time in this way. What a treasured gift I don't think many folks get. And so I have been uh just asking myself to stay in this experience for a while. Not that I'm not open or ready for another relationship. I, you know, am actively saying out loud, I am open to love in all the ways life will provide it for me. So I don't have an agenda. I don't know where this is going. I kind of trust my life experience will unfold as it wants to. So heart is open, and I am focusing on nourishing my body, focusing on nourishing my business, my relationships while in this place, but of course it comes up with old codependent tendencies. And while it's not the same, and I'm watching effectively how somatic therapy has allowed me the capacity to be in relationship without the need to make anything happen, or to manipulate the person into something that I want them to be for me. Or um vice versa, like manipulating myself so that the person I'm in relationship to uh sees me in a particular light because there's an agenda to to be together, right? There's an agenda to make us into something. And my God, does it feel so good to just be able to sit in the experience? Because I need connection, right? Like I need connection and intimacy. It's a biological need for all of us to source connection, to be with people, and so the question becomes can I be can I actively cultivate connection without the need to be dependent on someone else's emotional state to feel my own worthiness, safety, and trust? And like for me that's that's the the perfect place for the ultimate freedom, especially if you're recovering people pleaser and like if you're a recovering codependent, where you actually need someone to feel safe within yourself um or to feel worthy within yourself, this can be a huge revelation. And so, you know, I'm I'm very much so in reverence to somatic therapy for giving me this opportunity to just be here in this experience and to stay in connection to stay with my people and in relationship in the way that it wants to present itself now. And like that means the relationships are moving a whole lot slower than I would probably be able to uh support in the past, right? Like so relationships now are instead like moving in a direction of okay, so what's our next chapter? Where are we going? What's our life story to what's happening right now? What sensations live here now? How do we want to be together without the end goal? Right. And I'll just be completely honest, there are some folks that I've been dating that don't have that capacity. So I've had to really hold my own and like stay embodied in my experience and my truth and my understanding of like where I'm at and my beliefs around that, and just like I can stay in the sensations of somebody wanting me to be somewhere else other than where I am, meaning maybe in a relationship with them or to move in a more committed uh dynamic, like and then knowing like when it doesn't necessarily feel like my experience, being able to speak and like respond to that. So that's also like a challenging place and uh a place of tension that I've been navigating, which is quite amazing. Again, as a recovered, recovering people pleaser. Um when someone is asking something of me, do I just like jump ship and say, Whatever you need, um, I'm there, or do I say, wait a minute, this is actually true for me, which means I have to respond in this way. Now, can you meet me here? Or where can we compromise? And like sometimes there is no compromise at all. And that's also okay. Um not all of us can come to that compromise or that meeting point, and we have to let that experience also be true and okay. But what I wanted to talk about today is like a particular relationship without divulging too much into this person, right? Because I've got to be a little bit more uh respectful, but there is a dynamic that I'm in engaging in where we both have similar sensations around like this. We've come out of serious relationships and don't have a need or desire, like there's just not that part in us that says, I want to be with somebody. Like it's just not there and it's not like it's the end of the story, but just that in itself, like, can that be okay for right now? And of course, my stuff comes up there, like, but hey, why can't you see me as like the one you know? Like, I'm so used to it being all or nothing and wanting someone to decide that I'm the one to make the choice to pursue me and um anything else is wrong. And I've had to like rewind a little bit or step back and say, wait a minute, why not be here for this moment? Here why not navigate this place where it's not necessarily a definite choice to be together, but there's still amazing sensations of connection and there's an amazing moments of just being together, right? And like, isn't that enough? And then I begin to wonder like how many times have I rushed this process so that I can be with someone to to make that choice, like we are each other's person or not, right? And does that like lead to upheaval or premature uh premis premature decision making that doesn't in fact create like the relate the longevity of the relationship? How important might it be for me to experience this place where we're not choosing each other, but just appreciating the experience of being together when we are together? And so the unfolding of our dynamic is so slow, and I find that fascinating because is it slow or is it natural? And have we been so conditioned to move into relationships so quickly to lose ourselves so quickly because we somehow have been conditioned or programmed to believe that it's either we're in a relationship or we're not, there's no in-between state, there's no place for dancing or flirting or really getting to know each other, and how long does it take to get to know each other? I'm kind of baffled by this idea because if I know my body, if I really listen to it, it takes so much time in a session with a client to really attune each to each other. It's not one session and done. We are attuned, co-regulated, and we get somewhere together. I mean, while sometimes it might very well happen, building a relationship, establishing trust with a client, with a human body is not an overnight experience. Like we've put such crazy expectations on the body to just get it. Oh, there's a problem, a symptom. Let's manage it, let's biohack it, let's uh let's eliminate it. Right? Or just open yourself up, just open yourself up and surrender and just trust, we say. Well, communicating to the body like that is ineffective, it doesn't happen like that. There are conditions in place that must be in place for trust to happen, and it takes time if we move at the pace of the body. And so I'm curious around this dynamic because I'm wondering. I'm like, if we are just unfolding into the experience, which we have been for almost a year now, I'm watching us get closer so naturally, right? I'm watching us become something else, like our dynamic is becoming something else, a new body, a new ecosystem. And there's different flavors that like get dropped in, you know, like a little cinnamon here, a little salt here, and then there's like tension that seems to dissolve like permanently, like there were things that were happening in between us that was like causing a sense of like freeze or uncertainty where I just wanted to run away. And I thought, well, let me just give this some space between us, you know, like not make it a thing. Like, let me just step back, not make it such a big thing where I have to react. And I did that. And when it was time, I started to walk back towards this relationship, this dynamic, and like feel us differently. Like there was something that was alchemizing itself without my me needing to dissect it or have a you know a conversation around it. It just kind of changed, and I that reminds me that change happens organically. We don't have to bring in the mind so much to make everything such a thing and a label and a diagnosis. We can, or a um uh a love language or a relationship type. We can just say, let's give this a little bit of space, allow it time uh to change, and like that's the practice of of silence, of spaciousness within relating. And so I'm watching us unfold into our dynamic even further at such a slow pace, but asking myself, like, is this slow or is this just organic? How much do we cut off this process because we dive right into a decision to be together for life? What is this sense of urgency? How much are we missing? And is this sense of urgency preventing us from the long haul? The potential of being together. And so I don't know, I don't have the answers to this. I'm a 37-year-old woman that just separated from her ten-year marriage. But I am curious about why marriages actually, in fact, don't work. The divorce rate is through the roof, and there is a problem with relating at the moment. We feel so far disconnected from each other that we've developed these like love languages and relationships type relationship type and we've used our trauma responses to um to navigate or put to structure how we relate to each other. If all that is happening, then something isn't working, and so I'm curious about like what does it actually take, and is it gonna take this dating process, the time to experience one another without the agenda to support us in the sustainability, the longevity of our togetherness? So we talk a lot about this in this work in somatic therapy. Like I I I'm supporting my students and like like experiencing the session without the need to fix them, without the need to take them somewhere, then who do you become? A steward of the present moment. A steward of the present moment, someone so deeply present to what's happening right now in reverence to it, allowing it to unfold as it so naturally does anyway.

So, who do we become in relationship without the need to get anywhere?

So I'm curious, like the jury's app. You know, it's been a while of me exploring this way of being, you know, in connection with this person, and I'd be interested to see like where it goes because we've been able to explore these places more organically. I don't know, what do you think? So there's another piece I wanted to talk about within the the codependency realm. Like there's the needing to fix someone or to make somebody into something that we want, which is quite controlling, right? And and it's fear-based. It's how we get safety. We we think we can gain safety by controlling someone else's body.

And like that just breeds codependency.

There's a a collapse there, overreactive, right? It's something our body is doing to fuse together through the lens of distress. It doesn't it doesn't work, right? There's over-efforting, there's shallow breathing, there's heaviness, tightness, it's there's a constant leading and it's exhausting us. Like I need you to be okay so I can feel okay, is what it sounds like. So, how do we establish these places of trust and intimacy? We have to learn how to be in the experience, and that's what we learn in in somatic therapy. How to be in the experience in the natural of folding. I just have to name like my cold is like really coming online right now. I'm sorry for for the sound of my voice, but here we are. I think we're getting somewhere though. I really like this episode. I there's another piece that I'm trying to get into, and it's it's around locating ourselves in relationships. So that means whether I'm in conversation or I'm standing with someone, am I able to locate my own breath, my own body while communicating or being present to someone else's? Now this is one of the most challenging things for our students initially because they want to like fix someone, where they want to, you know, get them or please them or make them, you know, into something that uh feels better. But I ask our folks to like lean back to locate ourselves while being in relationship. Like this happens through posture. This happens through breath and awareness, and it takes time, but it's a sense of autonomy that we are are developing, right? Like I've got me while I'm here for you. I've got me while I'm here with you. I feel that you are like with me, right? You are here with me, and I can stay with the sensation I'm not alone, but I still feel myself. This is our co-regulation state. This is a wonderful way to learn to be with each other, but it's it starts with us locating our own breath and body while being in relationship with the person in front of us. And like I highly recommend just practicing this, right? Like, just practice standing or sitting there and breathing and feeling sensation while you are listening to the body in front of you. Just keep doing that and just notice how things change. Notice how the words you use change. Notice how you respond might change, how your relationships evolve and change. It's the most incredible, tangible practice, I believe, like is out there. And like that's what we're doing here. Developing a sense of autonomy, agency in ourselves as we are in relationships, so that we can be in the experience together without the need to have an agenda or an outcome. Because I think the need for this outcome that we're all imagining in our minds, right? We have no idea what the outcome is. We've like decided based on like whatever we've believed or have been told is right, where we should be in the world. Like we should be married, we should have a house, we should have three kids. Things are supposed to look a certain way for us to be of value, for us to be worthy. And I know a lot of us women carry this, and it just takes us away from the unfolding of our own aliveness. There's there's an infancy stage in our relationships, uh, um emerging that happens, but it brings, it's gotta bring up, of course it brings up all of our our stuff. The person is a new mirror, and our our stuff will show up. It's not all amazing, it's not all good. And are we able to locate ourselves as this person is shining a massive mirror to us? This work takes time, and we have to slow it way down. I think we have to slow it way down in order for us to be or find the relationship, the life story, the love story we are all like begging for. The dating experience is the place to circulate the energy. First and foremost, to allow things to compost themselves, to allow the relationship to birth and to create whatever it is because the two bodies came together, right? Like we know that two bodies coming together. The iteration itself has a particular creation process that can never happen anywhere else in any other iteration. It's such a sacred place. Like the sensations that live between you, the ideas that live between you, the collaboration, the love, the care. Everything is new because you arrived together. And so it's gotta be something that we take more care around. So I'm in I'm in love with this dating process. I'm watching myself so intimately and like meeting people and like discovering something new about who I am in each and every moment, and like while being single is agonizing at times, I'd love to share my life with someone at moments, you know? Like, of course I would. Does it feel right for me to just jump in to anything right now or to like actively search for the person? No, I'm I would actually much rather be here where I am right now. But what I am discovering is my need for connection is vital. And so I'm very deliberate about where my connection points are and how in which I choose to spend my time. And it's such a body experience, right? I'm letting myself expand, like grow into, build capacity around these places of connection and safety, and just learning who I'm becoming. Like, what am I growing into for the next chapter or the next relationship? This is a chapter in itself, isn't it? Like, see, then here I am again, like skipping this part as if it's not the chapter that I wouldn't be in the next chapter unless I'm with someone. I just want us to start reframing like this process, like choosing it differently because relationships in general are like the most challenging pain points, and yet we all still like need them. We're begging for them, like our lives revolve around who we're in relationship to, and it's never ending. So I think becoming more intelligent about our approach with relationships is imperative, like very needed right now, and it's gonna require us to know body, to know how to be with body without being so hyper-vigilant about it and like obsessed with its symptoms and fixing it and curating it and biohacking it so that we stop doing that to our people. We stop biohacking each other, constantly focusing on their problems and fixing and forming the bodies in front of us. Ooh, that's another thing that's really happening for me, and like I owe it to this practice as a practitioner, just like embodying this work, getting so good at uh like not needing to fix the person in front of me. And like that, that has been a long journey in itself. My god, I used to be such the expert diagnosing everyone and all of that, but like to truly see someone and and this person in particular that I'm in relationship with and just not needing them to give. Give me any more than they are at capacity to give. And like not being resentful about what I'm not getting from them, not depending on them to provide me what it is that I need, and learning how to locate it myself. Oh my god, is that just so freeing for me, right? Like it's it's freeing for me to feel this way. This isn't about them. But I'm tired of feeling resentful because the other person can't give me what I need. And then trying to tell them or communicate so that they get it over and over and over again. And no, this isn't like just laying back and saying, Oh, you can't provide me for with what I want. Um, that's okay. It's about this is what you have clearly stated as something you can offer and what you cannot. And I'm gonna buy into that or not. So now I've chosen to be here. I don't have to be here, but I'm choosing to be here. And so there's no resentment in that. I'm not gonna sit here and try and tease and pull and manipulate more out of your body when you've clearly stated what it is you can create and not create with me. And so, like, there's real clear communication in that and understanding that on both ends we're not moving towards a relationship, but we are interested in being in the experience together. And he said something so beautiful like, can't we be in the experience and let its story unfold? And I'm like, if that's not somatics, I don't know what is. Bless him. He doesn't even know what I do for a living. I mean, many people don't know what I do for a living because it's something you can't explain, but I hear people speaking and and sharing all of the time as if they already know, and this is just a perfect example. He already knows. Mo we all already know this work. Like it's our innate nature to be in relationship in this way, and we've lost we've lost our ability to be here because of I mean, colonization, really, uh, the patriarchy, like claiming each other, deciding how a man and a woman are supposed to show up in a household. It's probably the first problematic uh framework that we've been sold. There's a lot of uncovering and sifting, a lot of new relating happening, relational healing taking place. And I think somatics is here to hold that for us. And it's so beautiful, like it really is here to steward our bodies beyond this threshold, through this threshold, and into a reality where we are more so in that sensory experience within ourselves and with each other, and that means being of this present moment, that means being here, being in this body, and it just feels so much better. I'm so grateful for this practice. And yes, I'm teaching people how to be somatic therapists, but it's like I'm here to show you a new way of life, a new way of living, a new way of seeing and perceiving, a way that feels better for us. That sense of urgency, that constant fixing, that agenda-oriented approach to living is killing us. It's destroying us. And the first place to notice where it's destroying us is in our relationships, in our households, in our families. I don't know about you, but this work is where it's at. I'd love to quickly share before I close this space that our new cohort for the somatic therapist practitioner training, it's online. It shows up in or we begin in November. Uh, we have a few spots left. I'd love to have you if you are ready for this work in the way that I am. We actually do offer a couple's somatic therapy training next year, which I'm so excited about. Um and yeah, lots happening at Innerloom. If you have any questions, just email me innerloom at somatic innerloom at gmail.com rather, or message me on Instagram. Let me know how this episode landed or didn't land for you. I just am here to guide, here to support, and always wondering, like, hey, is this is this making sense for people? Can I should I do more? So I'm always appreciative of your feedback. Um, but thanks for sharing your energy, committing the time to be here, and I am sending you all the love in the world wherever you are. Bye.