Ever found yourself in a relationship that left you feeling drained, disoriented, or downright hopeless? Join us as we delve into the intricate web of toxic relationships with our knowledgeable guest, Bre Wolta, a relationship clarity coach who emerged from the murky depths of her own toxic relationship stronger and more insightful. Together, we explore the many faces of toxicity, be it in romance, family, or work, shedding light on the red flags and emphasizing the essential role of emotional availability in nurturing a healthy bond.
From the ashes of toxicity, we rise towards healing and growth. Bre introduces us to the world of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), a scientifically backed somatic tool designed to heal and empower. We learn how tapping can signal safety to our bodies, regulate our nervous systems, and reduce stress responses. Discover how EFT can serve as a compass to navigate your emotions, interrupt the trauma reflex, and escape the vicious circle of toxicity. Tune in to this enlightening episode packed with invaluable insights and tools that will guide you out of the shadows of toxic relationships and into the sunlight of self-empowerment.
More about Bre Wolta:
More about James Marrugo, LPC:
https://morningcoffeecounseling.com/
If there are questions you want answered or topics you want me to cover, send me an email at
James.Marrugo@MorningCoffeeCounseling.com
Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay
Ever found yourself in a relationship that left you feeling drained, disoriented, or downright hopeless? Join us as we delve into the intricate web of toxic relationships with our knowledgeable guest, Bre Wolta, a relationship clarity coach who emerged from the murky depths of her own toxic relationship stronger and more insightful. Together, we explore the many faces of toxicity, be it in romance, family, or work, shedding light on the red flags and emphasizing the essential role of emotional availability in nurturing a healthy bond.
From the ashes of toxicity, we rise towards healing and growth. Bre introduces us to the world of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), a scientifically backed somatic tool designed to heal and empower. We learn how tapping can signal safety to our bodies, regulate our nervous systems, and reduce stress responses. Discover how EFT can serve as a compass to navigate your emotions, interrupt the trauma reflex, and escape the vicious circle of toxicity. Tune in to this enlightening episode packed with invaluable insights and tools that will guide you out of the shadows of toxic relationships and into the sunlight of self-empowerment.
More about Bre Wolta:
More about James Marrugo, LPC:
https://morningcoffeecounseling.com/
If there are questions you want answered or topics you want me to cover, send me an email at
James.Marrugo@MorningCoffeeCounseling.com
Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay
Music. Hello and welcome to another episode of Mental Health, without the Bullshit. I'm your host, james Rugo. For this episode, we're going to talk about toxic relationships and EFT, which we'll get into more, but before we get into the meat of the conversation, I have a guest who needs to introduce herself. Go ahead and let the listeners hear your voice.
Speaker 2:My name is Bree Malta. I'm a relationship clarity coach and EFT and the clearing work certified practitioner.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you for that. So, bree, what made you get into this line of work in the first place?
Speaker 2:That's such a big question, james. So I'm a relationship clarity coach and I specialize in working with women who are trying to make sense of a mindfuck, of a toxic relationship. So when you've left something that's toxic on some scale of toxicity, it's really confusing to realize what that was. Maybe you had been being gaslit or manipulated and you've lost your sense of self. And you come out of that and you're like what happened? How did I let that happen? Where did it go wrong? There's so many questions in between, the grief of all of that as well.
Speaker 2:So I went through a relationship like that that I was in and in the beginning it felt like that too good to be true, fairytale, like oh my god, I met my soulmate, type of feeling and it was too good to be true for a few months, maybe the first better half of the year. And then things started to change and I recognized myself justifying his behavior a lot, or feeling like I was the one at fault for all of the fights, feeling like I was too needy, too much, too emotional, like everything turned into an argument. It was walking on eggshells like to the utmost degree and I was just slowly feeling very, very hopeless is the best word hopeless on what was going wrong, and I was so committed to him being the person that I was going to marry that I was like I'm going to figure it out. So I was doing therapy for me. I was trying to figure out my own stuff, I was trying to figure out his stuff. I was doing therapy for both of us. Like it turned into a glaring example of codependency and me taking on way too much responsibility for everything. And so, as it was a slow process to recognize the red flags and then, once I started to see them, it was like took even longer to accept what was actually happening.
Speaker 2:And to leave was the hardest decision I ever made. Like I was in such emotional turmoil around if it was the right decision, if I had given it enough time, enough effort, if I had tried hard enough and I had spent almost four years with this person. So it was like, well, I'm throwing away all of that time and I'm not getting any younger. Didn't want to get on the dating apps. Like the whole thought of being having to start over with somebody was so terrifying. Didn't want to be alone, had zero self confidence to think that I could even find somebody else. So leaving was a feat.
Speaker 2:And then the separation post separation, his narcissistic, which I'm I'm diagnosing I don't know if that's true of him or not, but his behavior fits it to a T His narcissistic rage came out.
Speaker 2:And it was a very scary and even more confusing experience because he had flipped like 180 degrees into this, this malicious person that I was I didn't experience in the first part of our time together, so that was very scary and very confusing on what what was happening.
Speaker 2:So, in moving through my healing journey, my experience, when I got to the other side, I was like I think I could help women do this. I think that I could put together a container, a safe container, where these women could come and feel like they weren't alone and make sense of what was happening. And for me, when I started finding clarity about myself and finding clarity about who he was and what he was doing, like, it was like so many ahas, and that opened the space to integrate the experience and really move forward, so that he wasn't taking up space and having control of my mind for any longer than you know, any longer than he had been. So that's where my passion comes from. So that's where my passion comes for helping women make sense of what doesn't make sense and become the best version of themselves, really rebuild that self worth, that confidence, so that they don't go back into something like that ever again.
Speaker 1:Man, that's one hell of a story you have in it's it's. It's thanks for your vulnerability and authenticity there. It's hard to admit you've been through some shit in life, but you found some positivity out of it and you're looking to help other people who are in or have been in your situation just heal and grow, which is beautiful but also challenging, because it also makes you look in the mirror of things that you've been through. As part of the process and as as a psychotherapist, I know that a lot of times when I see my clients, I also see pieces of myself and I don't always like what I see, but it's also part of the process to just understand that it's. It's okay that it's a piece of you. It doesn't mean it's all of you and that's absolutely wonderful. As far as toxic relationships, this is something that I've done work in as well with some of my clients, but I'm curious how do you define the toxic relationship?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that term is thrown around everywhere and to me relationships are on a spectrum, right. So we have on one end, a healthy relationship. We have on the other end a toxic relationship. And the way that I define toxic relationships is where, the majority of the time, you are feeling confusion and hopelessness more than love and happiness. And we're talking about percentage of time here, because in any relationship there are moments of confusion, there are moments of feeling hopeless that you'll be able to figure something out or be able to say the thing, or whatever. But if the overarching like energy of the relationship is that that hopeless, confused, anxious, painful place, then something's not right. Because you're in a relationship, you're inherently choosing to spend the majority of your time with somebody else. So having that time be one that is in more of the energy of love and happiness is how you know you're in a more healthy relationship as opposed to the alternative.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's a wonderful definition. It's a great way to for listeners to frame their current relationships. As far as you know how many hours I spend with this person and what emotions come up, what sensations am I acknowledging when I'm engaging this relationship? And you're right, toxic relationships it's a term that's being thrown around a lot always. It has been for a while, probably more so since since COVID, and we're all kind of just in isolation, you know, in one or another, or isolated with another person and whatever that looked like for those dark times. But relationships is also just a vague word because there's so many different kinds. And I want to get a myth out of here and ask you a question which has an obvious answer but are toxic relationships only romantic relationships?
Speaker 2:No way, and often when you're experiencing toxic romantic relationships, you're also experiencing toxic work environments and toxic friendships and toxic family relationships, and it's it's a level of familiarity that you know right. You might be with with somebody who is more extreme than those the other people in the other relationships, or vice versa, but typically if you're in relationship with somebody who's toxic and you're putting up with the behavior of somebody who's more on the narcissistic spectrum or just manipulative and unavailable in general, then that's a part of you. That's true in all of your relationships 100%.
Speaker 1:A lot of times when I work with someone and I notice they're having toxic relationships, I'll label it and say this relationship you're describing to me sounds toxic, and they'll be confused. They're like, well, I'm not dating this person, we're neighbors. I'm like, yeah, that's still toxic. There's little to no value or benefit in this relationship and it's not even neutral. It's just like you're always upset, always angry or hurt or feeling betrayed, and they're often shocked. They're like oh, I can't believe I'm in a toxic relationship. And I'm like well, anyone can be in a toxic relationship, because it's just a relationship and we're in relationships with all different kinds of people for different reasons.
Speaker 1:If you ride the public transport, you're in a relationship with anyone in a bus. It's a brief relationship, but there's a relationship there that could be toxic for the 30 minutes you're there. And it's worse when those relationships are more fixed and are alive, such as family or colleagues or relationships with people at management and our companies, because that environment is harder to change. You pretty much have to exit that environment which, as you mentioned earlier from your own personal story, that's not always the easiest thing to do and it's not always feasible either. There are people who are in a toxic relationship and are actively stuck because they don't have the resources or the means to exit their environment, so they kind of just have to survive it for a while, which is a really miserable and extremely shitty place to be For a lot of us. We don't know we're in them. What are some of the red flags you notice in toxic relationships?
Speaker 2:Definitely the confusion. So I remember almost every conversation I had with my friends was trying to figure out something that had happened with my ex. Why did he do this? Why did I do that? Why can't I set this? Why can't I speak my needs?
Speaker 2:I would stew on something and try to prepare for a conversation for like a week or more at a time, because I knew that in the conversation with him I was going to get confused and I was going to forget my point and I was going to like it happened so many times in the conversations where I would just be like what the fuck are we even talking about anymore?
Speaker 2:Never mind, I'm not upset anymore because I don't even know why I'm upset. It was like word salad in my face and it was so disorienting that I shut down, like I went into a trauma response and shut down. So feeling confused, especially after conversations, when you're not able to have any type of completion conversation or any type of clearing conversation, like there's something that happens, there's the rupture and then there's never a repair, there's just a. You're being dramatic or we already talked about this, or why do you always have to keep bringing problems to the table Like those are the types of things that I heard from him that it was like true enough, especially with my low self-worth, where I was like maybe I am making too many problems or maybe we did talk about this and I just don't remember and it was so insidious, the gaslighting that happened in those conversations More 100% In hindsight.
Speaker 1:what are some of the traits that you look out for in people?
Speaker 2:now To see if they're toxic.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, definitely. Being able to take accountability, that's a big one. People who are narcissistic cannot they cannot take accountability in an authentic way. So it's also being able to discern what is true empathy and what is true like genuine apology or genuine accountability, and what is a manipulation, because sometimes they'll say I'm sorry, but it'll be it'll. They'll be like a tail ender to it or there'll be some sort of consequence because they apologized, or there'll be apologizing because we just can't get over it or whatever it is. So being discerning on like, oh, this feels like a genuine, this feels like a person who can genuinely connect, and part of connection is is being vulnerable and taking accountability. And if it feels off, if something feels like heebie-jeebie, like trust, that trust that, even if you can't name why you don't like interacting with that person or why it feels not good, that there's a reason why you're feeling that it's not good.
Speaker 1:I like that. What I often tell my clients, in as well as what you had brought up, is a person's ability to be emotionally available. Narcissists tend to lack that, and because they're not emotionally available, they're also lacking in empathy and just emotional understanding or willingness to understand. On an emotional level, everything becomes concrete logic and just bypasses the emotional component of a person's psyche and their existence. So I often tell my clients, regardless of why this relationship exists, if someone's emotionally unavailable to you, it increases the likelihood of toxic behavior, because once we lack emotional availability, we just stop giving a shit for our impact on someone else's emotions and that's empathy. It's when you give a shit about your impact on someone else's emotional well-being, that's empathy. It means you're looking at it from their perspective. So it's a way to keep yourself in check, to have checks and balances and to establish boundaries of what is or is not okay.
Speaker 1:When you're lacking in empathy, you don't have boundaries, which means anything can be okay and you don't give a shit. So then you just do whatever the fuck you want. As I often tell my clients, if you know someone in your life who's just emotionally unavailable, or if you're emotionally unavailable, perhaps you're the toxic person in everyone else's life and because you just don't give a shit. So then you just do whatever you want, without really concerning yourself with your impact on the people around you, because you don't even think about how you act or behave or your responses might have an emotional impact. You're lacking in mindfulness, for whatever reason right too narcissism, or just the fact that you're so caught up in your own bullshit you just stop caring regardless. You're increasing the likelihood of engaging in a toxic and unhealthy relationship.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the boundary thing is big. That's another thing you can do to sort of gauge what type of relationship you're in when you set a boundary. If somebody respects it or at least respects you enough to be curious about your boundary and what you need, whether or not they like it right, they're open to having a conversation versus somebody who you know deflects or makes you a punch, you see, punishes you somehow because you've said the thing or even thought that you could take space, or how dare you? You know those types of responses. It's like that's a lot of good information about the type of person that you are with or interacting with 100%.
Speaker 1:This is something I talk a lot in terms of toxic relationships is boundary work, and it's always surprising to me that when I tell someone who's in a toxic relationship or that they're being toxic, part of it has to do with boundaries, the lack thereof, or just like the simple lack of respect for your own boundaries or someone else's boundaries. They're always surprised when explaining it. It's like if you really give a shit about someone or something, you set up boundaries to protect it. And if someone's sending someone, you care about saying boundaries, regardless of if it's with you or just the world in general. When you give a shit, you'll, you'll just respect it.
Speaker 1:It's not about whether or not you enjoy the boundaries, just the fact that this is something they do for themselves, to keep themselves happy. If you give a fuck, then you'll support their boundaries or at least explore to try to have some common ground understanding as to why this boundary needs to exist, without pushing on a reason to get rid of it, but more of just exploring their worldviews and their their perceptions. And when we have relationships with people who don't give a flying fuck about our boundaries, that's a toxic person because they don't give a shit. They like the empathy to be like oh you know, when I cross people's boundaries, like how does that make them feel? Well, they don't care. So then they just your your boundaries, just like this, it's background noise. They just fucking bypass it and move on and leaving you feeling like what the fuck happened here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're dealing with somebody who is narcissistic, boundaries mean you're less malleable and they need you to be malleable so that they can control you. So it's an inherent like it's an inherent I'm losing the word right now but it's a threat to them. If you start becoming more of your own person and standing up for yourself and saying no, and saying this isn't okay, you're no longer that, that controllable person, and then you lose you. They, they can't get what they need from you.
Speaker 1:I love that you brought that up, because it's completely true. As someone who who's worked with several narcissists on a therapeutic level, that's. One thing I noticed is when I set a boundary with a client who is a narcissist, their immediate reactions they get pissed at me and that's that's exactly how I sometimes check. You know narcissistic traits or tendencies or, depending on their reaction, and I'm like you're full blown narcissist. Like this is clinically diagnosable. At this point, because of this disproportionate reaction to me, just setting a very simple boundary Could be something simple. Like me as a therapist, my time is valuable and I say you have to be on time for these sessions. At 15 minutes it's a miss session and you know that's it. Like I don't give a shit. I have to. I have other things I have to do, have other clients. I'm not holding space just for you alone.
Speaker 1:And I've had clients blow up at me be like, well, what the fuck? You know what about my time? I'm like you didn't respect my time by showing up on time. I have clients before and after you. This is like work. This is, this is what I do. You know, if you're not going to let someone show up to one of your meetings 15 minutes late, are you? So why should I wait for you for past 15 minutes and then push everyone else off? Now I know exactly where you are. Like I'm setting a boundary. You don't get here 15 minutes after the appointment starts. I'm counting as a miss session and we'll just have to see you next time.
Speaker 1:And I've had several clients have an issue with me setting that boundary and trying to manipulate my time and make excuses or put it on me and it's like no, no for one, it's in the paperwork you signed it to. I told you in three I'm a person and my time has meaning and value to me and so that you're absolutely right, one way to check you know someone's narcissistic traits or tendencies is to set a boundary. That is relatively simple and, you know, harmless. Not to try to use a boundaries way to gas like people, because narcissists will do that too, but just to see, well, this person respect it. How do they react?
Speaker 1:Because narcissists prey on people who lack boundaries and lack assertiveness, because those individuals are easier to, as you mentioned, manipulate. And the more boundaries a person has, the harder they have to work to manipulate you and the less value they see in it and the more upset they get about it. And that's a perfect way to test you know how healthy this relationship is is by setting a boundary and letting that person react and not taking responsibility for it, because that's another thing I see a lot of people struggle with. They said a boundary and then it's their fault for setting the boundary, and now I shouldn't have one, because I upset my partner and I'm just like fuck your partner. That's their emotional shit. They need to figure out on their own. Fucking time You're trying to take care of yourself, they can either get on board and support you or maybe you want to reevaluate this person's existence in your life. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it's so hard. I just want to name, like, how, how much of how much energy it takes to set a boundary with a narcissist, especially when you come from not liking setting boundaries or never having set boundaries before. Like the ideal situation when you're learning something is to be able to set a boundary and have the positive reinforcement of someone being like oh yeah, I totally understand. Yes, like whatever, whatever response is ideal. But when you set a boundary with a narcissist, it's always your fault, you're always doing something ridiculous. So you have to have such a strong sense of self and conviction in what you are setting a boundary around To not be spun around in that.
Speaker 2:So that happened to me over and over, where I would finally get up the courage to try to set some boundary or speak a need or whatever, and just be shoved back, shoved back down like metaphorically in this case, just told I was being ridiculous, you know. And then, because it's not a skill that you Really have honed yet or have a lot of confidence in yet, you're like oh yeah, I didn't do it right. Oh, like, I'm not gonna do it again because it's not worth it. I have so many clients who say that it's not worth it. It's not worth it to, to speak, my needs. It's not worth it to set the boundary because the backlash takes so much energy to deal with or to deflect like it's just, it's intense.
Speaker 1:You brought up something super important and you use the the phrase sense of self. Man, toxic relationships will Deprive you of your sense of self. How would you define a sense of self? Because, as a therapist, this is what I help people discover is themselves, their own identity and their own, uh, awareness of this relationship they have inside their own head. But From a someone who's been in a talk for a relationship and your sense of self was completely Fucked up for a while because of it, what? How would you define a sense of self?
Speaker 2:I don't know about a definition, but I know how I found it again.
Speaker 2:Yeah and what I use, what I use now with my clients, is helping them identify what their values are, what their needs are and what their wants are. And when I first went through this exercise, I was. It was really hard. It was really hard to sit down, to be like what do I value? What does that even? What does that even mean? What do I value? You know? And and really starting to treat myself with the same Level of curiosity that you would when you start dating someone you're like what do you like to do, who are you, you know, and these types of questions around how you like to Orient your life or how do you spend your time.
Speaker 2:I think that's a really important thing to me, because if I value communication and that transparency and communication, then if I know that for myself and I'm in a relationship where we can't have communication or Communication ends with them yelling at me, then I have the understanding that, like, my experience is not matching what is important to me Experience or remove myself from the interaction.
Speaker 2:So the boundary in that case then can become clear of like, if you continue to yell at me in conversation, I'm going to leave, I'm going to walk out of the room I'm going to whatever you're going to do.
Speaker 2:But if you don't know that that's important to you and you don't know that it's okay for that to be important to you Even if it's not important to the other person.
Speaker 2:That's the part where you have to Really validate for yourself what your needs and your values are, because If you're with somebody who who can't meet your need or doesn't share the same values, they're inherently going to be like, well, that's stupid, that's not important, and it's like it's not important to them, but it is to you and that matters. So you have to be able to understand that for yourself and then articulate it with With confidence, that like it's okay that this is important to me and not to you and maybe this relationship isn't going to work because this is a big part of my identity and life and it's not for you. And choosing people who are more aligned with your values will help you feel like you're swimming downstream, like there's inevitably going to be the rapid and the rock right that you have to maneuver, but if you guys are already in the same direction, in the same boat, it makes things a lot more useful.
Speaker 1:You perfectly described my personal definition of you know that identity component, a sense of self. For me, how I define it is being able to Name and identify things about you as an individual. You know, this is what I like, this is what I value, this is what's important to me. These are my boundaries. I'm Funny and sassy and I'm introverted. I'm also a big fucking nerd. Like those are ways to identify who you are as an individual. It's basically a sense of self. Is describing yourself from a third person perspective and understanding you know who that person is is a sense of self, and that's what gives people the courage, when they understand themselves, to affordance of the world with authenticity and A sense of safety and control over themselves. It's it's empowering. And so, even though you didn't have a definition, you you described it In its whole by the process you've been through and rediscovering who you are as an individual, despite you know the people you have in your life, because those things come and go, regardless of who these people are.
Speaker 1:Your environment changes throughout your life countless times, but if you stay firm In who you are and what you're about and are able to identify within yourself, then you always have that sense of self to rely on, and that's that's something that can cannot be replaced. It cannot be bought. You have to find it. You know, through teaching and coaching or therapy, or you know, fucking off into another country for a couple of months to just like find yourself and Explore who you are. There's millions of different ways to develop a sense of self. No, no, no ways, right or wrong, and just see there works for that individual or it doesn't. That's also part of it is how do you want to discover your sense of self? Because it's. It's never the same for two people. I love that.
Speaker 2:That was a beautiful way you described it.
Speaker 2:Thank you, yeah, and and growing up in the way that I did and I'm sure a lot of people did it's, you know, fitting in and and being chosen was more important. So then it was more important than taking the time to figure out who I was and building that confidence. It was like I'm just going to chameleon into whatever I need to be For that person to like me or for this to work like. I'll pretend I like sports and I'll pretend that I Whatever else I'm pretending to like put the mask on and, you know, just play the part. And when you do that, you you don't know who you are outside of a person, which is also dangerous, because Then who are you if you're not in that relationship? Like if you're putting your entire identity and validation and sense of self In this relationship and then that relationship ends, that's going to leave you feeling a lot lower than if you had that sense of self and can validate yourself independently of the person.
Speaker 1:Love that. I often talk to my clients about validation and that if you can validate yourself, it's like a renewable energy source that's free and you stop giving a shit if other people give it to you. So you have less transactional interactions with others because you're not trying to gain validation like it's a currency, so then buy something with it is why I ask my clients, like, if someone else validates you, we assume that's like how you get paid in validation. The fuck are you trying to buy? I don't get it. You're buying friendship with what they're giving you. That's like where's the logic now? Now, this is making less sense. But if you just validate yourself, like you just go get your own money, you kind of just stop giving a shit what other people are like have, because it's like you have it for yourself. And this ability to validate yourself, it's people to underplay how extremely important this is.
Speaker 1:I talked to almost every client I work with about you know, self acceptance, self love, self compassion being able to validate yourself, because then you stop trying to get things from other people, you start having more authentic relationships and it puts you in a place of giving, because when you create a surplus of love for yourself a year. It's easier to just love other people and then they give you more. That's the interesting part. If you give for yourself and end up having so much that you give to others, you end up getting that in return, even though you don't need it. I don't need your acceptance, but thank you for it. Now I have even more to give to then someone else or back to you, versus if you're trying to get something you won't give to yourself. It creates a really weird power dynamic in your relationships which creates toxicity.
Speaker 2:Right and inherently like energetically. If you, if you validate yourself and have confidence and you know, don't give fucks about people who don't understand those concepts, then you're not going to attract people in. That can't validate you. But when you do have those, those capacity, then you do start attracting different types of people into your life who are probably more similar and probably more emotionally available and probably also have overflowing cups of like you're awesome, let's like, hang out, you know so you're. When we're seeking validation, we're coming from a very low vibrational, needy victim place and so we attract people who are going to reaffirm that. We attract people who are going to be emotionally unavailable or who are going to cheat on us and leave us and reaffirm that everybody leaves. You know, it's like the, the energy of it is so interesting. When you start to shift this from internal and give yourself that energy source, everything outside shifts. It's, it's wild.
Speaker 1:You mentioned something important, which is this self perception of being a victim. Narcissists, in particular, can smell victims like you know blood to a shark. They will find you miles away and just come get you. If you walk out into the world and have this perception that you are a victim, you're going to be a victim and you maintain that you're going to invite people who are looking to victimize you, and Narcissists in particular, they love that. That is. That is, that's pure addiction for those individuals. They love you. They're not in love with you. They love that you're a victim and then they could just use that to their own personal gain. And you're because you're a victim. That's your label. You're going to just continue to become victimized and you are more likely to attract individuals who are going to victimize you by walking out into the world like that.
Speaker 1:When I talk to clients about this, this is the extremely difficult topic to cover and we won't fully be able to get into the depths of this because this is, I mean.
Speaker 1:People spend years out of their life working on, you know, victim mentality and feeling like a victim and how to find empowerment. But when, when we do cross that barrier from you know, I've been through some shit that doesn't make me a victim, I just been through some shit and they start having empowerment and confidence and self assurance and they're asserting themselves. They start noticing all the narcissists or, you know, toxic relationships or like breaking out in allergic hives and having really adverse reactions or just leaving them all like on their own. I'm like, yeah, that's like you're putting that out there and because you're putting it out, someone wants to buy it, they'll buy into this and they will just take everything you have and leave you with fuck all because they don't care. How did you move past that for yourself? As far as finding that assertive sense of self, that is not a victim, but just a person who's had, you know, hard experiences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for me there's a difference between being a victim of something and then staying in and then staying in victim mentality. So there were behaviors of his that I was definitely victim to that were definitely not okay in any sense of the word.
Speaker 2:And what I was able to do after leaving that experience was see these different things and ask myself what was my part Like? Not and I want to be careful here and not saying that you, you are to blame for your trauma but I was at fault for not holding boundaries with him. I was at fault for taking too much responsibility for his behavior or the relationship. I was at fault for not using my voice and speaking up and speaking my needs.
Speaker 2:So when you can see the parts that you can take accountability for, you can change them, which inherently takes you out of the victim mentality, because victims feel like they don't have a choice. So when you can see like, okay, I need to work on my boundaries, I need to work on using my voice, and you do, you put effort and intentionality into that, then you are taking control of your own experience, which inherently takes you out of that victim place. But to see that, to not like to resist the temptation to be like he's a narcissist, this is all his fault, I'm the victim pour me, you know, and it's like to see that you have a piece in it. I remember that moment in my journey and I was like fuck.
Speaker 2:Yeah it'd be so much easier just to blame him. But if you do that, then you're just going to attract another one Like, and it's like, how many are you going to go through before you see your part and start shifting your part?
Speaker 1:I love that you touch on something I've talked to my clients about, which is the difference between being responsible and being at fault. Not everything you're responsible for is your own fault, but even though it may not be your fault, you still have responsibilities to yourself, and that that never changes Right. Plenty of people have trauma in their own personal shit. A lot of people's trauma is not their fault. They didn't do anything. They were literally minding their own business and something terrible happened, like they didn't even invite it. It just fucking happened to them. It's not their fault. They are still responsible for their own trauma and what to do with it, healing from it.
Speaker 1:You're responsible to yourself, but you cannot control your environment. You're not always at fault within your environment, but that doesn't change your responsibility. You have to yourself. Which is what you're describing is a narcissist is going to do what narcissists do. You're still responsible for how you respond to a narcissist, but their behavior is not your fault. They are responsible for their behavior. They are just really good at convincing you otherwise, and that's not your fault either, but you're still fucking responsible for what you do with this information, how you respond to this person, how do you respond to your own emotions, your own boundaries.
Speaker 1:That's that never changes. And but that's the hard part of being human is you're responsible for a lot of shit, and most of it's not even your fault, like you really have no control over it, and that's that's what makes it so hard. Because, you're right, it is easier to just be like I'm not responsible for this bullshit that person is. That's the easy route, which is understandable, but it's not sustainable, because you're still responsible for you as an individual, regardless of your faults, and so, really, whoever's at fault is almost fucking irrelevant, because it's that you, the individual, you have to handle your shit, regardless of who's at fault. So then you can point your finger at yourself or someone else or the fucking universe at large. It won't change anything. You still have to deal with it. And that's that's where people get, get caught in the struggle of like I don't want to deal with shit. That's not my fault, no one does. But that's the problem. We don't have a choice.
Speaker 2:It's going to direct your life. Exactly it's going to direct your life, whether you approve of it or not. So yeah like I think it was Carl Young said until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you'll call it fate.
Speaker 1:Yes, ooh, look at you, with, with, with, the huge quotes.
Speaker 2:It's I love. I love that quote so much because it's so fucking true. Like that, our trauma is the driver behind all of our behavior, and when 95% of our behavior comes from the subconscious, that's scary, yeah, scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that ties back to that sense of self. Like you have to find out what is in your subconscious, spend time with yourself, you know, have a, have a healthy relationship with yourself, because people can have a toxic relationship within themselves and it's it's honestly that's common, like if you, everyone experiences a toxic relationship and it's not always from other people. The most likely culprit is literally the person looking in the mirror. It's it's your fucking self that creates most of the toxic relationships, because you're probably a toxic person to yourself and that's not a healthy ecosystem to thrive in. And so, even if you've never had a narcissist in your life or someone who's abusive and manipulative, you at some point you're going to do that to yourself, you know, out of desperation and confusion and loss and not knowing I also do and then you know you're the toxic person you have in your life and that's the worst, because you can't run away from yourself Now.
Speaker 1:Now you really going to have to look in the mirror and start asking a lot of questions, setting boundaries. You know I've had plenty of clients practice setting boundaries themselves and they have a typical narcissistic response just anger. And I'm like you really are just super. Talk to yourself like look at how you treat yourself. This is, you don't need shitty people in your life. You could just hang out by yourself. Then, if that's what you wanted, or you could do the healthy thing and be loving, compassionate and accepting and supportive. At least you could just support yourself and being healthier. And that's another form of toxicity that we often just overlook.
Speaker 2:Yes, which? Please get a therapist or a coach or something to someone to help you with that, because absolutely that's a lifelong, like unlearning.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I love that Before we started recording, you had mentioned being in a heightened state from talk to the relationships. What is that describe that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the nervous system. The nervous system activation of being in something where you're literally in survival mode all of the time. So if you think about the survival reflexes of fight, fight, fight, freeze or fawn, we move into those responses when our amygdala, our reptilian brain, is activated because we're sensing danger in our environment. So when you're with somebody who is dangerous, physically or emotionally or psychologically, somehow something is not safe, you're walking on eggshells because you can't put your full foot down. You're inherently living in this part of your brain. That's so. It has four options, right? So we have, we're not using our full capacity, our full brain. We don't have as much access to our rational brain or our emotional brain to make sense of things. It's like we're gonna run, we're gonna hide, we're gonna freeze, we're gonna, we're gonna fawn, like that's what we're gonna do in order to survive. So when you're in these situations, you don't always know that that's what's happening, but that heightened body sensation, the sweating, the anxiety, the butterflies, the tightness in your chest, the lump in your throat, like those are all signs that you're, you're getting ready for something, you're getting ready for survival. And so if you're never bringing that back down, there's a problem, because this.
Speaker 2:This system evolved to help us. You know, when the bear is coming at us, our system goes into hyperdrive. We get more blood to our limbs, we get less blood to our brain, more focus like we're trying to survive, and that's great for that moment, and then the bear leaves and then we come back down. But if we're never coming back down, this cortisol is just pumping through our bodies, activating inflammation, activating all of these other stress responses, internally causing illness, causing sickness causing I mean cancer at the utmost right. There's so many diseases that are linked to stress and if you're never bringing your stress down, not only is it, it's adverse to your health physical health but, like your mental health, your, your ability to enjoy life goes out the window because you're surviving.
Speaker 1:I love that. What you're describing is various symptoms and presentations of trauma. That is, if any of this right now, what she just described, is like fuck, that's me, that's trauma. It's a hard thing to accept and acknowledge. It's. It's incredibly hard to just label it like that and for those of you who are a little shocked right now, I'm sorry. That's just the honest truth. Please, you know, seek guidance and help, because you don't have to deal with this bullshit on your own and I advocate that people don't. I trauma is overwhelming and it's not healthy to deal with it by yourself anyway. But that, that, what you're describing the nervous system, the cortisol, all of that that's the umbrella term that we use is trauma. Those are what it looks like, that's what it feels like, that toxic relationships on a level of frequency, consistency and intensity can and most likely will cause a diagnosable form of trauma. We won't get into all of them because there's a bunch, but that if you're noticing this about yourself or in someone else, that's a trauma response. It is.
Speaker 1:Your brain has been forced into a position of surviving for so long it stopped knowing how to exist in any other form and just as you have described for all of us here. It's super fucking bad for you to live like that. You're supposed to live like this in brief moments and I don't mean like an hour, I mean like minutes, like if you're like this for more than half an hour, something's fucking wrong. Either your environment is completely fucked and you need to actually get out, or something is just. You know, something happened to your brain on such a level your brain doesn't know how to get out of that state anymore. We often see this in people who come back from war, where they're just in that mode indefinitely, like it just flips, something flipped in their brain and they're just stuck there. And it requires a lot of work. And you see this from toxic relationships people who've been through car accidents, child abuse, like a lot of things, and caused this. You know natural disasters, right fires, tornadoes, floods, any, almost anything can cause trauma and when it's prolonged, such as a toxic relationship, people also have workplace trauma. You know their boss is a narcissist and being manipulative and abusive and you know just nasty and they work there for years on end and then like they can't get out of there. That's trauma. If you're experiencing any of that, yeah, start looking for something to help you out. That's you know another professional of some capacity to help you work through this, because that's exactly what you're experiencing in that heightened state. That's where the trauma comes from.
Speaker 1:It's when you're supposed to be in a heightened state for minutes. I don't know the medical science behind it, but it's not supposed to even last a day, like it's not supposed to. Your body's also not equipped to live like this, definitely, which is why you had mentioned studies have shown that prolonged heightened states cause so many health problems is because your body is not supposed to be this overwhelmed until, like you know, the immediate danger is over, which, from an evolutionary standpoint, a bear right. Like wildlife, crazy, random shit happening in the world.
Speaker 1:Those moments right even when they happen in modern days, like when people live through shark bites or bear attacks or floods like they don't last hours at a time or days out of the week, like it's it's like 10 minutes or less, and, like you, either live or you don't. But like your body is not supposed to be like this for a long period of time. So you're absolutely right this heightened state, the central nervous system got to take care of it. Otherwise, yeah, you're leading yourself or being led down to a place of trauma and really really deep pain. Absolutely, that was wonderful.
Speaker 2:I will say that before I realized how bad it was the relationship that I was in, I was having really random physical things happen. And after we like tried couples counseling for a hot second and in my individual session with her she took me through the trauma. She diagnosed me with PTSD and she's like have you had any physical symptoms? And I'm like, oh my God, like I'm losing hair, I'm having these weird rashes, like it was. My body was literally like bitch, go, like get out of here. This is not, this is not working anymore. And we know that the body, the body's signs come after it's tried really, really hard and really long to to regulate. So it had gotten to a point out of several years that it was like okay, we're finally like showing outwardly what's happening internally. So if you're in these types of relationships and you have these unexplainable physical things happening, that's another sign to seek a professional test help you piece out some of what's happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. Thank you for that vulnerability. So many people who have a trauma diagnosis. It's very difficult to share that and I know you know that's a piece of your own personal story and your authenticity. It's very courageous of you to just admit that you have had a diagnosis and that was trauma focused, and that you work through it because it's it's very powerful for others to understand that it's it's fucking okay to be diagnosed with PTSD. It's not the end of the world. It just it's a way to inform the individual that, like this is what you're going to deal with. This is the steps you need to take to get away from this, to heal and recover and to grow from this.
Speaker 1:But this this is what, why and what is happening to you is we have a name for it post traumatic stress disorder, ptsd, formerly known as shell shock from you know World War II and everything that people went through. You know during World War I and during World War I and two of Vietnam war, we call it shell shock. But it's now known as post traumatic stress disorder, ptsd, which is a term being thrown around a lot. But you know, when people actually have a concrete PTSD diagnosis, it's some, it's serious shit should not be ignored and, as you personally experience it, it wreaks havoc on your body in ways that actually doesn't make sense. But that's the sign that something's really fucked because it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:And that's another way to understand that. Like your environment, for whatever reason, is literally killing you slowly. Like people don't lose hair for no reason. That's that's. You know that doesn't happen for a long time in life unless there's something medically going on. But then that's not a healthy sign. That, like your hair is dying for no good reason, you're not doing anything. Like that's visible. Like death is upon you faster than it should be. Like go talk to someone. Something's wrong, you know. Don't ignore the fact that you brush your hair or like you get out of the shower. You're like the fuck is this wookie sitting here?
Speaker 2:Like this wasn't like this last year. Yeah, yeah, what's changed exactly, exactly Death is upon you. That's not it. It was true, it was very true.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I want to be mindful of your time. Do you have more time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we could go a little over.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Yeah, one thing you had brought up was EFT. What is that?
Speaker 2:EFT is my favorite thing. It is a evidence based somatic tool. It stands for emotional freedom techniques and essentially, in the most simplistic explanation of it is it helps to signal to your body that you're safe. So we're literally tapping and activating different points on our face and our torso and our hands and that activation is sending the signal to your amygdala to like okay, to chill. It's like we're coming back down. We'll bring in the stress response from a 10, down to a five, down to a three, and like it's signaling to your body that you're safe.
Speaker 2:So physically being able to signal to your body that you're safe through your body and not through trying to convince yourself you're safe, is a different experience. So it helps to regulate the nervous system and a lot of people use this tool when they get really activated. So they have a trigger, some sort of response in the environment or stimulus in the environment that causes that, that that habitual response in your body. It's like I got the email from my boss and I all of a sudden can't breathe. Okay, something I didn't choose to not breathe, that, just something that happened in my body because of the what happened in my environment. So, again, if you're just living in that state of like. I can't breathe, I'm just going to get through my workday and go faster and you know, avoid, avoid. You get stuck on your heart, your nervous system is stuck on. So tapping will help you bring the trigger response down. And why I love tapping is because it combines psychotherapy, the talk therapy, with body based intervention. So while you're signaling to your body that you're safe, you also are talking through what's happening in the present moment to give it space. So emotional freedom technique it's, we're trying to free the emotion and to free something. You have to look at it, you have to give it, you have to give it space, because otherwise you're like I shouldn't be feeling this anxiety, I shouldn't be feeling this anger. You know I'm being whatever I'm being oh too dramatic and you just push it down and push it down and gaslight yourself. But if you can bring space to what is presently happening, even when it feels uncomfortable, by regulating the nervous system, you can feel unsafe.
Speaker 2:Quote, unquote emotions safely and and we have gotten so. I don't know what the right word is, but we categorize emotions as good or bad. Angry is bad, betrayal. You know, feeling betrayed is bad, feeling anxious is bad. Happiness is good, joyful is good, gratitude is good and it's like, okay, some of them feel better to experience than others because some of them are a higher vibration, literally in our body. That's why when you're happy you feel light and when you're sad you feel heavy. So we've categorized these as good and bad and we've been told by society and our, you know, generational trauma or whatever, that we can't feel those things, that emotions are bad. So our immediate response most time is to not want to feel it because it doesn't feel safe.
Speaker 2:So if you can show your body you're safe while you're addressing the thing that's bringing you in anxiety, give that anxiety space, you will see your nervous system shift. And when your nervous system shifts, more capacity of your brain turns on, because we're not just in those four options of survival. So you can access your higher self. You can access you know, if you've done parts work, it's your self energy. You can access the rational problem solving part of your brain, your emotional part of your brain, and you can make sense of things. And when we can make sense of things we can integrate the feeling and the experience and then it no longer controls us. It's like it's such a powerful tool that puts the power literally in your hands, in your fingertips. So you can use tapping by yourself and you can use tapping in, you know, with a practitioner for different reasons. Either way, you're getting the nervous system regulation. So it's it's my favorite thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so much passion in there. I've heard of EFT tapping. I've never really looked into it, I've never experienced it myself, but I do know that this is the thing people do and, from what I've been told, there's a lot of emotional benefits to it, as people have this sense of relief, freedom, lightness to them. You know all the things that we try to find more of and, from your perspective, how does EFT help with healing?
Speaker 2:It helps us be able to feel what we need to feel because we stay in our analytical mind. We stay we this analogy that I have of holding on to this analytical buoy. You're in the middle of the ocean, the storm is raging and you're just white knuckling this analytical buoy trying to understand. You know, you're in taking intellect, you're understanding boundaries, you're understanding attachment styles, you're understanding codependency, you're you're in taking the information about those things.
Speaker 2:But we get stuck because we don't feel safe enough to let go of the buoy, go down to the bottom of the ocean and sit there for a minute and feel what we need to feel about whatever's been happening. It's like if I can understand narcissism, then I can heal from it. It's like no understanding is part, and then that understanding leads you to be able to feel the depth of the sadness and betrayal and aloneness and whatever you need to feel, and we have to feel those things in order to move past them. So if you can feel more safe doing that, it's like let go of the buoy. Eft gets to be the oxygen mask that allows you to breathe and feel safe when you go underwater and then you're going to come back up. Right, we're not staying under there forever, but it's like we need that tool to go down to then be able to come back up and be out of the storm.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's what I also describe is traditional talk therapy with clients is we have to examine and look at your emotions, but they also need to like come out there, designed to come out physically. So not letting them out, it festers it just. It just rots inside of you. There's there's really no benefit to it whatsoever. From your experience because I've never experienced EFT and you've admitted that you've done your own personal therapy and other forms of you know growth and healing how does EFT differ from traditional talk therapy, like what I do?
Speaker 2:It's, it will challenge you to be aware of your body. So with EFT we're also we're also identifying the sensation that happens in your body when you're having the emotional reaction. So back to the anxiety example it's like when I get overwhelmed and anxious, I immediately can't breathe, I immediately feel like there's a ton of bricks on my chest. And we don't always pay attention to our our somatic sensations that are attached to our emotions. But when we do that, that sensation can help guide us in that, in the tapping experience to, because that sensation will go up and down depending on what we're talking through or moving through. Sometimes it changes location and then you are like, why is this pain in my left shoulder? And like thinking about the pain in your left shoulder will connect a different part of the story. And it's so interesting to use the body this way, because the body really does keep the score to. To speak directly to Bessel van der Kolk's book, the Body Keeps the Score. It's like we hold this trauma in our body and so not only does it help act as a roadmap to where you can go next in trying to identify what's happening, but it's also letting. It's letting go of those, those habitual responses that have become so ingrained in your experience.
Speaker 2:So, for me, I was really good at talk therapy. I was really fucking good at understanding why a plus B equals C, and I was stuck on the buoy. I was like, why do I understand codependency? Why am I not changing, you know? And I needed to incorporate something in my body to help me feel the shift, because it's also immediate feedback. That's something that you're doing is working, and for those of us who are perfectionistic or like to be doing their things right, it's really nice to have that immediate feedback of like oh, I gave space to feel a sadness, I felt it really hard for like four minutes and then it, I cried and then it went away. You know, it's like you feel more in control of, of having a tool that you can use whenever that heightened thing happens, as opposed to waiting to see your therapist until Friday, you know.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's a wonderful explanation. I'm a firm believer that there's so many different ways to grow and heal and you know I love traditional slack therapy but I don't think it's the end all be all of people's journey throughout their mental health and I always advocate to add, you know, different modalities, different types of treatment, alternatives, because there's there's all kinds of things out there and the EFT tapping is something I'm learning more about and I appreciate you telling me about it. How do we, how does someone know it's working? Because that's something that's always important to me when I, when I speak about you know growth and healing and this whole process. A lot of people think that if they just do it they'll be better, and now we try to tell clients of mine like we need to look for signs that what we're doing has any result or value from your perspective. What should people expect to see if they engage in EFT?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me in my journey it was. It was awareness around these patterns that I had. So, for me, when I feel really overwhelmed, I get the lump in my throat and I start going really fast, Like I literally speed up everything I'm doing and try to multitask in all the ways and when I could stop and do some tapping and get curious about, okay, this is happening. I'm feeling this in my body. I recognize part of me is really scared right now and being able to piece it down from from this big overwhelm feeling to like, oh, this little part of me is really afraid that we're not going to be okay for whatever reason, and having a tool to help get to that conclusion is really helpful. So that when I felt that sensation in my body, I knew that that's what it was and I had more of a direct way to connect with that part of me because I felt safe to stop in the moment and do that.
Speaker 2:So it's it's building your capacity of awareness to recognize when you get into your trauma loop, when something happens in the environment and you respond reactively habitually, it's like you have to interrupt the reflex. You have to put something else in there as opposed to the normal behavior that you try, you try to bring on to soothe yourself, but it doesn't because it's a trauma behavior. So, instead of moving faster and therefore creating more of my play and therefore feeling more unsafe, it's like I can stop. I can understand this part of me and I can ask this part of me like, Okay, what are we afraid of? What do we need?
Speaker 2:And it's it's much. It's a much more compassionate way of sitting with yourself, as opposed to all of the judgment, all of the criticism that happens at the end of the trauma response loop, when it's like, oh my God, this happened again and I'm such an idiot and why couldn't I just send the right email, or whatever. It helps. You have that moment of pause. So, if you're able to recognize these moments in your life where you get spun up, you get your trigger, your stress responses up and you recognize Okay, I'm sweating, I'm feeling shortness of breath, whatever it is. When you're able to take that moment of pause, that to me, is the measure of you're really doing something different, You're choosing a different behavior.
Speaker 1:That is wonderful. I know we're running out of time. We both have our lives to live. This has been an amazing experience. We have this outline that we made to talk about. This was very particular topic and there's a lot of things we couldn't fit into this episode. If you ever want to come back and actually finish this outline, or if there's things you want to add to this outline and do another episode, you are more than welcome anytime to talk about, talk to relationships, eft tapping or anything else you're involved in that you want to put out into the world.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for your time, your energy and all of your wisdom and guidance and even teaching me about eft tapping and its benefits for persons you know healing and health and recovery. Thank you, most of all, for your vulnerability. You're a person who went through your own talk to a relationship and you had your own struggles and you've been very, very forthcoming with your personal experience and that's so relatable for others who you know on the other side of the spectrum who haven't gone through what you've gone through and are still stuck in it or still in the early stages of trying to rediscover themselves and heal. You're a beacon of hope for these individuals who are probably questioning, cannot ever get to a place that's healthy, but you are the prime example that, narcissists be damned, you could still live a happy, successful, fulfilling life. So, yeah, you're a fucking rockstar and thank you Before we sign off. If someone wants to talk to you, someone wants to learn more about you. See what kind of stuff you're putting out into the world. How can you be discovered?
Speaker 2:I'm most active on Instagram. It's lucid to living with Bri, and I'm sure we'll link things here or my website. There's a contact form on my website that you can get in touch with me as well, and I just want to say thank you for those kind words as well. It means a lot to be able to be in a position to speak about this clearly and from a place of having healed from it, and to help other people feel like they're not alone is my bigger mission, so thank you for that reflection.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. It's been an absolute honor and a blast to have you here and I'm so thankful that we met through some random networking event almost a year ago. Now it's turned into such a wonderful relationship with you and I've been able to see you grow and expand and you're doing your own coaching now, helping people recover and heal as you have, and I think you're one of the best resources I've met for that. So, thank you. I'll put all of that information as far as how to find you into the link. I'll link all of that into the description of this episode. Any final concluding thoughts as far as any messages or guidance for people who are currently struggling. It just needs something to give them more hope than anything you want to finish out with.
Speaker 2:I think you knowing and really feeling in your heart that you're not alone in the experience, and if you're having the thoughts like, am I crazy or am I the toxic one, I can almost say with certainty that you are not. And so knowing that those thoughts are typical of those who are being gaslit and being sort of intentionally spun around to believe that they're not good enough or too much, whatever the case is. So if you are experiencing those things like, don't isolate, reach out for support, whether it be from me, from a coach, from a therapist, for a trusted friend, a trusted family member, because the more that you isolate, the deeper that hole is going to get.
Speaker 1:Absolutely true. Thank you for that, for all of you who listened all the way through. Thank you, this is it, and I'll catch you next time. Thank you, bree.