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Welcome to the Stay or Go podcast, where we're changing the dialogue around divorce so that no woman ever stays in her marriage out of fear. Get ready to dispel myths, learn life-changing tools, and build a solid foundation in yourself from which to make your decision. And now your host, me, Britta Joe. Well, hello. Hi. Hi, my lovelies. So excited to hang out with you on this episode this week. As you might be able to hear from my voice, um, I have had some like shifts coming through over the last couple days. Some building excitement and opening around the future for myself, for my work. And um yeah, I'm just really sinking into and enjoying that right now. And so it's felt really exciting to be able to come to this week's episode, having a little bit more like oomph and excitement. And like, yeah, I can't wait to do this episode. Where, you know, my most recent ones have been a lot of like, ooh, uh I'm in the thick of it and I'm under resourced and I'm still, you know, I'm still gonna bring something to the table. But what I want to talk about this week actually came together today in this beautiful culmination of a couple just different things that I've been watching in myself that I saw in clients, and then um this amazing comment from an just one of my, I love all of my members in the community, but this this member especially like contributes in some really beautiful ways. And she had sent me a private message where she shared that she'd been dialoguing with ChatGPT. Actually, it wasn't ChatGPT, it was Gemini. I've got to give credit where credit's due, and exploring this concept of opening to exploration rather than expectation in her marriage. So she's um kind of in more of a stay space right now in her journey. And as she was sharing this, I just got really excited about this concept of exploration instead of expectation, especially because, as you guys know from last week's episode with me writing about control. Y'all, like the brother, sister, the sibling of control is definitely expectation. And um, maybe the third sibling in that trio is perfectionism. And I have really been exploring and noticing just how much these things are a huge part of how I relate and move through my world. Having these expectations of how I'm gonna show up that are linked to these very perfectionistic standards that, if I really examine, don't actually match being a human at all, but that, um, as I'll explore later, I definitely picked up in childhood. And then turning to my trusty tool of control to try and exact those expectations, those standards of perfectionism out of myself. And in today's episode, though, I wanted to talk about how, as I was thinking about this, I realized we have, for many of us, this double standard around letting other people in our life explore and, you know, having a lot of leeway, giving a lot of fuck around, find out space. Like you can fuck around quite a lot before you're gonna find out. Um, while holding ourselves to a much stricter expectation than we do, while denying ourselves that same exploration, denying ourselves that grace to grow, to stumble, to explore. Um, and I think I want you guys to be noticing like, you know, we do this with lots of areas in our life. We give a lot of grace to our children, allowing them to stumble and explore. Even when, you know, I think of like our parents, we often give a lot of space to our parents to still keep kind of fucking up and not being able to show up for us. Definitely with our partners. I look back and I'm like, yeah, I did a lot of holding myself to certain expectations and meanwhile letting my partner kind of really figure out what he wanted to do with his life instead of, okay, what do I want to do? And then even strangers, y'all, like we definitely can give more grace to people we've never met than even to ourselves. That is going to be the topic that we're gonna be exploring in this week's episode. And to start us off with diving in, I want to talk a little bit about where this pattern comes from, this double standard that we I would definitely say it's more heavily in women, this double standard than it is in men of really holding ourselves to high expectations that maybe we wouldn't hold for other people in our life, especially not for our best friends, right? Like we have so much grace for the people we love and our best friends and people in our lives, but we can be really rough on ourselves. And although this list is not going to be exhaustive, because I'm sure you guys could come up with a ton of other ones, but I did want to just hit a few bullet points of where I think this pattern comes from. So I'm gonna talk first about the cultural and societal kind of messaging that I think women get, um, and that just are aspects of the world we live in. And then I want to dive into the pattern coming from our childhood trauma and the overfunctioning we learned there, which is like the part I'm most excited to get into. But that part would be incomplete without also acknowledging that as women, I think we are under a very heavy burden culturally and societally, um, when it comes to double standards. So, first off, as I know many of us will relate to, we are raised as little girls to be agreeable, to be sweet and nice, and to be likable and nurturing. I think I'm totally remembering how in like our home videos, when I like up until the age of five in the home videos, I am like a little firecracker, like spicy, sassy, bossy. And um yeah, I think that was a lot for my mother. This is kind of that broken lineage we get from our mothers, because I think my mother was that way too, and really got ashamed and forced into that. You need to be a good girl, you need to be likable and nurturing. And so, what is she gonna do? But also, you know, project that trauma down into me as well. And you see it change in the videos. Like when I start hitting like six, seven, eight, and then on, I become much more reserved, much more composed, much more aware of like what are other people thinking of me and am I presenting correctly? Obviously, I didn't think about it that way back then, but that's what I was doing to myself. So, definitely this good girl idea and that good girls don't ruffle feathers. And for me growing up, it was like, and they certainly don't make mistakes. If you'd asked me, like, who do you want to be? I think it would have been like, I want to be somebody who doesn't make mistakes. I want to execute flawlessly. And I had massive shame around any time I did. Obviously, that was fueled through the reactions I got from my mother when I would make mistakes. But this overarching feeling of what is my goal as a woman in the world? What is my goal as a as a girl? And it was to be good, to be liked. And how we do that is often by performing to the standards that I'm gonna now talk a little bit more about. So, especially as you guys know, coming from a religious community, um, there is such a huge double standard in, I think in a lot of religions, because a lot of religions are patriarchal. Um, so in my religion for women, I mean, one of the things that I was thinking of where I was like, there's a double standard right there, was the modesty culture and the body shaming around women. Like that was not even existent on the men. I don't remember the men ever having conversations about like not showing their bodies or how they needed to be dressing. Um, and even if it was around the lines of like, you need to dress, you know, clean or put together. The proportion of that discussion compared to the proportion it was brought up and enforced with the women is like drastically different. So, right there, a double standard around how we think and talk about our bodies as women. Then I think of like all of the patriarchal influence that bleeds into all of that, which I'm I'm not, I don't want to spend this episode like going into all of this because these are all themes I weave in and out of the entire podcast. But a song that I felt represents this so beautifully is Taylor Swift's The Man. Do you guys remember that that song? Go watch that video, go listen to that song. I think it just encapsulates perfectly what it feels like to be a woman and to have things that as a man you would be celebrated for, but as a woman you are vilified for. So this is the patriarchal um double standard that we're raised in as well. Also, and this kind of ties into the religion piece, women were held up as these bastions of morality and virtue. And, you know, even outside of religion, these gender stereotypes that we have that, like, oh, men want sex more. And I think of myself now and knowing like what a deeply sensual and sexual individual I am, and how much being raised in a culture that told me, like, oh, men want that more than you do. You're not gonna want it, you're not gonna like it, that a good woman should not want those things, like, y'all, that created a very intense. Obviously, you know, if you're not that way and you don't fit that standard, then you have to take all of that and shove it down into shadow, and it has to become not a part of you. Um, and so that became an expectation, right? Well, if I'm a good woman, then I'm going to be virtuous and I'm not going to want those things and I'm not going to do those things. Another place that we see all of this double standard just right in front of us is the ways women are presented in media. Often women are very put together. We've got the stereotypes of like the perfect mom or the self-sacrificing wife, and these women who have it all, especially on Instagram, social media with our influencers, these women that present this very idealized example, this expectation, this perfectionistic, look at me, look at how I'm doing it all. Also, when it comes to media, y'all, male celebrities get sexier with age and gray hair, while female celebrities have to spend copious amounts of money restructuring their faces to try and look younger just in order to stay relevant in the industry. Um, another thing I thought of was that the cost of mistakes as a girl seemed to be much higher when it comes to, especially I was thinking of like pregnancy. And even the way we speak about that quote mistake, right? Of like saying, Oh, she got pregnant, instead of he impregnated her. Like so much of our language completely removes that element of the other person that was involved in that decision when it comes to an unplanned pregnancy. And quick side note if you all are like, oh my God, yes, this drives me bonkers, there is an incredible book by Gabrielle Blair called Ejaculate Responsibly, a whole new way to think about abortion. And I am obsessed with it. I think this should be a required book for all uh young men. It's definitely one that I've bought and um have been talking with my son about. He has, he has not read it yet, but I'm like, you want to be doing those kinds of things. This is the book you have to read. Uh, because we really, I want us so badly to change the way we think about that. And then finally, even within anti-divorce rhetoric, I think we have this expectation that is just not realistic, right? When when we believe that divorce is bad, inherent in that is this expectation that you'll somehow be able to get married to somebody and not grow, change, or go through things that may end up with enough time misaligning the two of you. So even within the anti-divorce rhetoric, I think we as women take on um, even we as humans, right? That can be extended to both men and women, this standard of expectation and perfectionism that, as you all know from that episode where I talk about the 50-year marriage, I just don't think is relevant to today's time and the way humans are evolving. Now, not only do we have all of that, right? I mean, that was an incredible list of items that we as women can use to uh create expectations and perfectionistic standards for ourselves. But, and this is the piece that I'm really excited to add to the dialogue today in the podcast. When we come from trauma in our childhood, we learn to take care of others emotionally. We learn that it is not safe to have our own needs and feelings. Um, we learn if I have a need, it's probably not gonna be met, especially if we have parents who are emotionally immature. And so we start self-the word that's coming to mind is castrating. That is not the right word. But you guys get the image. We start self-cutting off those needs. We start suppressing them, we start changing who we are to survive the environment that we are in. And especially if there is not emotional safety in the family of origin, or if it's even just unreliable, we develop that parentified state of, okay, I've got to take care of everybody else. I've got to be the one that holds it together. And I can remember specifically in childhood, like looking back, you know, if I lost my temper, if I didn't show up in the way my parents expected, it was like, it was like a double whammy because not only are you realizing, like, oh, I'm not, you know, this was a mistake. They're not going to be able to show up for me. I think that's happening on a subconscious level, but on a conscious level, you're layering on so much shame in that moment, right? Which your parents are layering on shame, and then you're layering on shame as well of like, man, why did I do that? Why, you know, why wasn't I able to make this work or to show up in the way that they expected from me? So through that process, compounding over years and years in our childhood, for many of us, we become the responsible ones. We become the achievers, the peacekeepers. And I would say, even for those of you that went through like maybe a rebellious streak, because a part of you was like, no, no, no, no, no. I still think there's like this twisted part of your psyche because a part of you still wanted that love from your parents. And in not getting it, we can start developing these deeper psychological, it like it makes me think so much of parts work, these protectors that come in and enforce a type of hyper-functioning from us. And that's where the control piece comes in, right? If we can just control enough, if I can just overfunction, if I can just be perfect enough, then I will be safe. And I do think for a lot of us, I know for myself, that became my identity. Like looking back, I didn't have an identity outside of that necessarily, of just trying to be the best I could be in the things that my culture and my parents had told me to be. That was my identity. And because that was my identity, I really lived and existed through my roles. You know, I am a daughter, I am a sister, I am a member of my church, I am a Mormon. And I based my worth and my value off of my performance or usefulness in those roles. So are we seeing? I think I feel like I can tell all of you, like, uh, yeah, this is this is me. This is why so many of us exist in the realm of like we're robotically going through the motions, we don't really feel like we're living, and we're wondering, like, why do I not feel alive? It may be because you're so deep in playing these roles, in living out these expectations, in trying to achieve these perfect standards of performance or usefulness for your work, your religion, for your spouse, for your kids, that you're not actually engaged in the process of coming to know yourself. And on top of this, as I mentioned earlier, when we have emotionally immature parents in childhood that cannot co-regulate with us, that can't meet our needs, in getting rid of the needs, our brain gets trained to think that getting smaller, wanting less, is safety. And I'm gonna have Alex link an article in the show notes in the community. Quinn dropped this amazing article that was shared. And I read it and I just like, uh, y'all, it's some, it's just really, really beautiful writing. And I think a lot of you will resonate with it. But she makes this point where she says, you know, her goal, I think it was that she'd asked her partner for more connection, like, hey, I want to be held more, or I'd appreciate hearing that you love me. And when he responded by being like, No, I can't do that, like I've already said it, you should know it. Instead of going, oh, this person can't meet my needs, the internal programming was so strong that she's like, Oh, well, the issue is me. The problem is me. I need to have less needs. I need to get smaller. So, really understanding that for many of us, we have been trained to think the issue is not necessarily that I don't have people that can meet my needs, or that I am trying to live an unrealistic standard of perfectionism. Instead, we go, it must be me, and I need to get smaller. Now, I want to share an example because this week, this was also what kind of drove. This episode. I saw this recently with one of my one-on-one clients that I was working with. And she was sharing how she had recently with her um partner mentioned to him, yeah, she had they'd been in this conversation and she had not responded in the way he wanted her to. And she was feeling exasperated because currently in their dynamic, she feels like she is really having to hold it all together for him right now. Like showing up, always the one holding space, always the one looking out for his feelings. And hear this tiny little thing of her not doing this little uh response in the exact way he wants it, and he's upset at her. So uncharacteristically, from her programmed, like, I have to hold it all together, she kind of lets it come out. And she's like, dude, this is like exhausting. She lets her anger come out. I feel like I always have to be the one holding space for you. And there is no space for me to be a human as well. And in that moment, right, we were talking about this too through this like beautiful imagery, that in that moment, she's finally, she's showing up vulnerably. She's showing up real instead of being the role self, which is continuing to like just give him everything he needs, keep showing up. My purpose comes from how much can I, how useful am I to him? How much do I not, you know, trigger him or make him upset? In that moment, she's like, I'm a fucking human too. And because her partner is emotionally immature, he cannot in that moment go, Oh, wow, you're right. I hear you. Like, tell me more. Oh, I haven't really been showing up. You're right, I've been going through a lot of stress and I've kind of been letting that fall on you. And then in that moment where he instead of responding empathically, which side note, y'all, we know that this is not a her thing. Because I was like, when you respond this way to other people in your life, can they empathically hear you? And can you work through this with them? And she was like, yes. And I was like, Okay, then this is not a you thing. But in that moment, what gets triggered when he basically says to her, like, I didn't mean it that seriously, or why are you getting so offended? Her CPTSD gets triggered. And her body and brain flash back to her emotional uh state of childhood, right? That's what our emotional flashbacks are. They take you back to a feeling of like what you felt like in childhood, and her brain goes, shit. What's most important is retaining the relationship with this person. And I'm sure so many of you will relate that this is the pattern that we get stuck in in our marriages, in our relationships, where we end up repeating the trauma of our childhood of trying to show up human, imperfect in our messy growth with partners who are not emotionally mature enough to hold space for that. And so we keep getting parentified. We keep having to suppress our needs, our feelings, our wants. We keep having to hold the expectations super high in order to keep that relationship with them. Now, you guys kind of have a picture of where this pattern comes from, right? We've got those cultural influences. We know a huge part of it. I would say, like, I can't give a percentage, but like massive, massive, massive. This pattern is created in our childhood with our trauma, with our parents. Now, how do you know if you are currently living from an expectation mindset rather than an exploration mindset? Okay. How do you know that you are kind of living in more of your coping mechanism responses from childhood than what we learn in CPTSD, which is, you know, managing that CPTSD to come into our adult brain and make choices that are actually aligned for us as adults. How you know these are some of the indicators is if you have chronic burnout, mmm, yeah. Y'all, five years ago, six, no, seven years ago when I started therapy, this was me. Such a deep, dark pit of tar and exhaustion, like so burnt out, lots of suicidal ideation, I was not happy. If you are massively people pleasing at the expense of yourself, saying yes to things you don't want to do, backing down on things that feel important to you to make other people happy. If you are always making choices in your life from a space of considering everyone else's thoughts and feelings first and what they need as well, instead of centering yourself, if you fundamentally believe that you are more safe if you are in control of everyone in your life and everything, that's a good indicator that you are in this realm of living in expectation. Um, I do think in childhood that was the case, right? If you could be in control of yourself, you were gonna get loved more. You were gonna get better attention and treatment from your parents. Because guess what, y'all? That love was conditional as fuck. Especially for emotionally immature parents that cannot handle anything that triggers them. They need you to stay in a very prescribed lane and box, right? But now that we are adults, y'all, we do not want to choose to stay in environments or with people that demand that kind of behavior from us any longer. Because that kind of behavior has real consequences for our mental health, our physical health, our emotional health, right? You'll notice if you are in the expectation mindset, if you have a lot of anxiety around, you know, being too much or being not enough. This is like the soundtrack for my life before the last like five years, it's still, it still plays in the background often. I have to catch when it's on. If you notice that your self-worth deeply fluctuates and is tied to doing, achieving, and fixing. And then finally, if it feels like it's just never enough, that you never feel like you can actually land and rest and like, okay, I feel safe. Things are good. Now I want to give a personal example because y'all, this is this is my jam. This is my work, is this little trifecta of control, perfectionism, and expectation. So a couple days ago, I had had what I would consider like a really perfect day with myself, with my kids. Just like I had shown up on point. I had held space for everybody, I had negotiated feelings, I had been this like well and resource. Y'all, we'd been out swimming that night in the pool. Oh, it was so fun. Like I was dropped in also to a lot of joy and just like this feeling of I am enough as I am. You know, we went out, took the boys to dinner. And even before that, like my middle son and older son were wrestling, and like as he threw him into the pool, my middle son's head hit the side of the pool. And where in the past I might have reacted more like, what are you doing? You know, and gotten really upset, as Joe said, you know, reacted out of out of anger to mask the fear. I didn't. I was like totally grounded in the moment, just like grabbed him. Joe and I handled it. I was gentle with everybody. I was like, accidents happen, like no shaming. It was like, yes, yes. And you know, I came off of that day like, yes, I am worthy. And then the next day came. And y'all, I was definitely like pre-my period. My period started today, thank God. Um, but pre-my period, so I'm feeling exhausted. And the next day, I was just the day did not go the way I wanted. There were lots of things that I was like trying to work through that weren't finishing up correctly. Earlier in the day, I'd kind of said to Joe, like, I feel exhausted and I really need to resource. And y'all, instead of doing that, I went and checklisted hard. I went and did all this stuff that, like I said, was not working out because it was definitely seeking that hit of like, look, I got shit done. I get to feel good about myself. And where that led me was to an evening where I was really grouchy. Like by the evening, I was grouchy. My oldest son had called. I was like short with him on the phone, which I rarely am like that these days. So it was a good little like red flag for me of whoa, what's going on? And then I sat out on the back patio with Joe and I was able to verbally ventilate and to talk about it and to kind of like, meow. That's the sound, that's what we call when I kind of get meowy, where I'm like, meow meow meow. I just meow. This isn't working and this isn't working, and I'm doing all this stuff for everybody. Um, and so that felt really, really good to like, okay, a little bit it felt good to like say that, but at the same time, it felt very vulnerable because I'm letting myself be seen in my imperfection by my partner. And sure enough, later that night as we went to bed, I was kind of in this, I'll get a little bit like spicy and um it's it must be like a little bit of a childhood thing for me, where I get like, man, I don't want to go to bed and I just want to like stay up and play and talk. And as we were doing that, I realized as Joe just gently like kept talking and spending time with me, I had a moment where I finally slowed down enough and I just started crying. And I realized how deep down a part of me was really scared that I wasn't enough. That here the day before, it was like, uh, that's me. That's you know, oh, that's me. And putting that in air quotes, that's the good me, that's the worthy me. And that today, with all of my kind of meowiness and my whining, that that wasn't good. And the vulnerableness of like, is my partner unhappy with that? Does he not like this? Does this annoy him? And in that moment, I kind of got to say that of like, I'm feeling really scared that um I'm coming across like annoying or whiny. And of course, because this is who Joe is, Joe was just so gentle around like, baby, I love you in all your ways. Um, you know, and just reassured me that this is, and actually not only reassured me of like, I love you in all your ways, but he really normalized my needs and my tiredness. He was like, of course you're tired. Of course you are feeling a little spicy and overdrawn right now because he'd gone through that day before with me, and he's like, This is this is normal. And he co-regulated with me and he didn't shame me. And in that moment, I felt like I could feel that healing happening for my neural pathways of okay, it is safe to not always have to be perfect. And this example with Joe leads me into this next section of the episode where I want to talk about having an exploration mindset instead. Um, and that this exploration mindset, I'm realizing I think it is actually so much healthier for us as humans. And honestly, y'all, I'm kind of like, I think this is what we were meant to have and thrive with more so than the expectations and perfection mindset that the majority of us, at least here in the, you know, obviously I'm speaking from US culture, the way we've been taught over here. So I can't speak for worldwide. But um yeah, let's let's dive in, let's discuss instead what I think the exploration mindset looks and feels like. Prior to my divorce, I would say I had never had an exploration mindset in relation to my life. I mean, really thinking back, like exploration and play and curiosity, and especially like a heavy dose of compassion for what it's like to be a human. If I think back through my life, I'm like, where was that? That was probably when I was like a little kid, right? Um, before that age of five, six. And when I started to realize, okay, I've got to really control everything. So in this way of being, in this what I'm calling an exploration mindset, a mode of operating through exploration, it is characterized by having space to try new things, to analyze kind of like what is happening around you, to decide from there like what you want to try, to be able to mess up in those moments, to try something and realize, okay, actually that isn't actually what I wanted, or that isn't what I thought was going to happen, uh, to be able to reflect after that in a space of non-judgment and without immediate shame, and be able to adjust from there without there needing to be any kind of self-abandonment or self-hatred during the process. And like I said, y'all, this is not a reality I really grew up with, you know, post the age of five, did not have this either in my marriage or in my adult life while I was married in Mormonism. But boy, is that I've realized what has characterized my life post-divorce. And I think this is what so many of you, when I'm on 90 minutes and we go into that space of like, what is the future you most want? And you guys come to me with like, I want to have freedom. I want to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it, and not have to report back to anybody or feel like I'm gonna get in trouble. And I'm like, yeah, I get it. I mean, especially I think for those of us that got married very young and maybe moved from narcissistic dynamics in with our parents straight into a marriage where we also feel like we are not treated and respected as a full adult. And there's a lot of just that parental dynamic of having to answer to your partner for your choices, feeling like you have to constantly defend or explain or justify yourself to them. This is a really, really big deal to get to have space to try, mess up, reflect on it, and then renegotiate and figure out and adjust what you want to do from there. And having gotten to live in the space, like I said, for the last five years, it is incredibly healing for your psyche. I feel like this has been, and you know, for me in my instance, that that space could only be created through divorce. I needed to have the space to do that on my own. But wow, has that allowed me the experience of getting to finally figure out who I am, what I actually like, uh, who I want to be. It sounds so crazy uh to talk about basically having to do an individuation process in your late 30s. I mean, I guess it started at my early 30s because I got divorced when I was 29. But that is what a lot of us are actually looking at, especially those of us that came from highly controlling environments in childhood where we didn't actually get to individuate. There was no space to figure things out through a more supported exploratory mindset. Also, when I'm talking about what exploration looks like and feels like, y'all, it feels like breathing room. It feels like your nervous system getting to finally come down out of the perpetual activated fight, flight, freeze, fawn. Like I have got to always be on. And I feel like there is a real shift from thinking, you know, how do I do this right? How do I manage everything into, and probably because of the space now, right? That that space that you have to get to try and mess up and renegotiate after that, you're able to move more into what am I feeling and needing right now first before you move into like, and what do I need to do? So that's the whole when control is our only option when um when our thoughts and our feelings in childhood are unsafe because our parents cannot make space for them. All we can really go to is that A-line. Like, I gotta take action, I gotta do stuff, and I've got to do it right the first try. And when we move into an exploratory mindset, we get to check in first with our body. We get to be more aware of our needs and allowing for the question, like, what actually feels aligned for me right now, instead of just what do I need to do and how do I need to get it done as, you know, quickly, efficiently, and perfectly as possible. Another aspect of an exploratory framework for our life is that you get to change your mind whenever you want. And I am still, I mean, obviously, y'all, I'm getting better at not always saying like healing this, because obviously the aspect of accepting that I have CPTSD is that that's never going away. And so it's more of a managing. So I think I'm going to be managing probably the rest of my life, this um moving away from the expectation mindset and way of living my life into the exploratory. And along with that will come the practice of giving myself permission to change my mind whenever I want. And y'all, I I still have so much shame around this because what I've realized is actually I like to change my mind a lot. Any of my, any of my close friends, Joe, Quinn, will tell you that the way my nature actually runs, Alex, my assistant, will tell you that I vary a lot. My energy varies a lot. I think it's because I'm a manifestor 6-2. If you go look at human design, the way manifestors energy runs. And and so I kind of have to wait. I I prefer to wait for energy to come in, to wait for me to feel energized and drawn in a specific area before I go in that area, which is why I thank God I am an entrepreneur and have my own work and get to define my schedule and my time. Cause I think anything else would be really, really difficult on my mental health. But along with that has been realizing I change my mind often. I will think, okay, you know, today's the day I'm going to do a podcast. And then I'll wake up and what we'll be presenting for that day is something very different. And I want to work through that piece instead. And the real, I think, gift that's come through in the last five to six years is that as I have, instead of abandoning that in myself, as I've realized, like, that's who I am, that's what it's like. I now negotiate better in my relationships straight out the gate. So with friendships, friends have learned, like, I don't really like to plan stuff way out in advance. I'll plan it, but I'll plan on like, you know, a couple of days ahead of time, checking in with like, am I really there? Am I really feeling still like I want to go do something? Um, and that's not always the case, but it is a lot of the time, and especially in my work. And honestly, I think you all can see what that has done for me on the podcast. Like, that is probably the single biggest. If you were to ask, like, what has made you the you that you guys hear through the podcast that you're all drawn to? I would say it's that I have gotten to have this freedom in my life to approach my Life and myself from an exploratory mindset and to shift into that really over the last five to six years to shift away from so much just harsh expectation, keep it all together into more and more of a curious, compassionate, and exploratory relationship and approach to myself. Now, I do want to say here, and I do want to bring in this part to the episode, because as I was thinking about this and sharing all of this and being like, man, this is so amazing. Like it, it's life-changing to live with an exploratory mindset as your framework for your life. But for many of you, especially in the process of considering divorce, I want to acknowledge that you may, for some of you listening, be realizing that in your marriage, you don't have permission to explore. And I want to take some time to speak directly to those of you that are maybe realizing through this episode, like you're hearing all this, you're like, wow, this sounds amazing. And you're acknowledging how much in your relationship that is not the case. And especially if you are the more emotionally mature partner in the dynamic, I see this a lot. I would say this is like predominantly what I see with those of you that I end up coaching and with women in my community, is if you are the more emotionally mature partner in the dynamic, often your partner cannot regulate their emotions or hold space for you in the ways that you can for them. And so, similar to that client I was talking about earlier, right? Who when she finally, you know, shows up in a more like, hey, angry human, this is what I need, speaking her needs and her feelings. When she did that, she was punished by her partner, you know, and you will see this through your partner withdrawing or blaming or shaming you, or, you know, there being chaos that erupts from that experience that you then have to mediate and work through and manage and get everybody back to baseline level whenever you end up deviating from the role that you have been placed in in the relationship and have to maintain to keep the relationship stable. And I know this is just a pattern that I see often, where women are responsible for the emotional states of their partners. This is what we talked about in the tragedy of heterosexuality. And so, yeah, it sounds well and wonderful, great, right? What I'm saying of like, it's so awesome when you get to explore and you get to discover yourself and you get to make mistakes and you get to change your mind. But if you have an emotionally immature partner, they cannot hold space for that. That is super triggering for them, just like it was probably for your parents. And so, what do you do then if that is where you find yourself? And this is where I think naming your grief and acknowledging what is so important. I was actually on a call today on a 90-minute with a woman, where we were kind of landing there towards the end when we talked about her future and what she most wants. You know, the realities of that is that that future is often best facilitated with a securely attached partner, someone that can hold space for her back. And so much of her core childhood wound is having to hold space, being parentified young, and then really, really holding that space in her marriage for her partner as well. And even though her partner's now changing, there is this feeling of like, and it's not even a feeling, as much as it's just like an acknowledgement of this person chose to not do their work. Yes, they're doing their work now, and there is a cost associated with that, which is that they are far behind where, you know, in her instance, her partner is far behind where she finds herself to be. And so there is still a lot of holding space that she will need to do for him if she decides to stay. Um, and acknowledging for her or for those of you that are in maybe a similar situation that this just is not a relationship where you can be fully human without consequences. And maybe not so much in this particular instance, because with this um person I was coaching, you know, her spouse is actually doing a lot of the work. Like, they came in, I think, at a better point. But I think of lots of women in my community and a few women that I coach one-on-one where like that is the reality, which is that their partners are not going to do the work to be able to be emotionally mature enough to ever be a safe space for them to explore in a way like I'm describing. And if that is the case, then the work is to grieve the loss of that relationship that you hoped for. It's realizing in this episode, like, oh wow. Um I and acknowledging, I really want to be able to live this way. And nobody taught me that that was possible. And as we've all probably seen in our parents and the other examples we grew up with in their marriages, most people just live in relationships that are filled with expectation and playing out role selves for the majority of their adult lives. And so if you are like, I don't want that. I want a relationship where both people get to evolve, both people get to grow, where we make mistakes, but we don't have to like judge and shame and tear each other apart about them. We get to, you know, consciously come to them with awareness where both people are doing enough of their work and developing enough tools that we can use those moments to grow together rather than apart. If you're acknowledging that's what I want, and what you're saying is your partner isn't capable of that, then the process is grief. And it is watching when your brain wants to take you out into that fantasy of like, but maybe someday, maybe they'll change, maybe this. And trying to really just be with yourself in the acknowledgement of what we're exposing in this episode, right? Of living a life based on expectations or living a life coming from a more exploratory framework. And that I honestly think to live a life from an exploratory framework as an adult, it just does. It requires a lot more of deep self-introspective work to give to yourself what your parents could never give to you. But the beauty in doing that is when you give that to yourself, then you break the cycle for your children. Like, like y'all, I've already seen this so massively. How with my children, I am approaching them and parenting them, especially like, oh my God, in the last month, I just saw a couple moments where I really showed up as a parent, which you know y'all is big for me because mothering has been my tough spot. But to see how much I'm approaching them with much more compassion and this exploratory, like, well, what are you feeling? What are you needing? Thank you, NBC, by the way. Nonviolent communication this summer really helped me so much with being able to approach them more with like much better tools around that. So if that is the case, and you know, this was the case for me in my marriage, I eventually had to finally accept that the environment I needed to really figure out who I was and what I wanted in this life and who I wanted to be with, I just was not going to be able to do within the framework of my marriage. As much as my um ex-husband at the time, like really, really believed and wanted us to be able to do that work together. I knew deep down, I just eventually knew like this is not, I will not be able to do this work here. And I could feel that's that soul call, that that was the most important work I would ever do. That if I got to the end of my life and I looked back and I hadn't done that work of coming to know myself, I was gonna regret it. So if this is the case for you, it is softening into realizing that sometimes the only path to exploration is outside the dynamic that you were raised in and may have like repeated and gotten married in as well, that is confining you and redefining this not as a failure, which is what so many of us do when we think of divorce, but instead as reclaiming what I think is your birthright. And the birthright is getting to live a life where you get to at some point explore without shame who you actually are and what you really want. And yes, in a perfect idyllic world, that would happen in your childhood. That should have happened when I was a kid and when I was a teenager. Like that's when that should have happened. It did not. I had really fucked up parents who could give me no really very, very little space to truly figure out who I was, who I wanted to be in my life. And so, you know what that got me? That got me a marriage where I was not my full self. And ultimately in my late 20s, having to make a really, really hard decision to align with choosing me over continuing to live a life of expectation. And that is not failure. I believe that is brave. I'm gonna get like a little bit emotional here because it is one of the most like terrifying, as I know so many of you that are going through it right now. It's one of the most terrifying things to go, I am worth that. I am worth taking that big of a risk, putting it kind of all on the line in the hope that I will come out the other side knowing myself more. But, and this was confirmed by the woman that I coached today on that 90 minutes, who I just has lived so much life, has shown up. I mean, we had very similar stories, and I was blown away by the amount of leaning in and really just like wanting to understand and figure herself out more. And it's been hard. And right now she's at a point in her life where it may, in many ways, you know, cost her everything. Very similar to me and the dynamics of like losing family over this, losing, losing the the world that you had created. And even as she was facing this and we were discussing, you know, this decision for her, she was like, at the very end of the call, she just says, you know, even though there's like been so much pain through the through all of it, you know, she said something like, I'm so proud of who I am, though. And even if there's pain still to come, that means there'll be growth and I want it. And I was like, Oh, you get me. You get the flavor of that energy that I don't even know what to call it. It's like a knowing, yes, this path is hard. Yes, it may cost me everything, but I want, I want to know myself that badly. And, you know, you guys know I'm still a major work in progress. I I love saying, I'm like realizing, and fuck yeah, you know, I want to always, for me, I think it will always be a work in progress, always like another layer that's shedding, always something else coming through. And and it hasn't been, you know, Sunshine and Rose, it's been dynamic the years post-divorce. But without a doubt, I could say along with her, I am so proud of who I am. And I would go back and do every bit of it all over again, even though it was super hard, because it made me who I am. And I get to wake up every day now knowing who I am. And it's not even like a, when I say knowing, it's not like a mental thing for me. It's a body thing for me. I got to embark on that journey to move into a space of exploration with my own self, exploration with my own life, trying new things, testing out things. I mean, guys, I have definitely gone and tested out a lot of the things that I was shamed for and told never to do. And, you know, that religion was like, it will ruin your life. And I get to live now every day, not feeling terrified about some amalgamous thing that if I go do it, will someday ruin my life, because I've tried those things and I've learned for myself what works for me and what doesn't. And that gives you a sense of like self-grounding and secure attachment to yourself, that I don't know if that can really be created or the thing that keeps coming to my mind is like purchased in any other way than just walking the path of individuation. And if you didn't get to individuate in childhood, then getting to be in an environment when you are an adult that allows for this exploratory mindset is key. Okay. And that was really for me when I got divorced. That was the key, is in getting divorced, I created an environment where I could make mistakes, where I could change my mind without always feeling like I had another person that was going to judge me or have opinions about that. I could try new things, and boy, did I try new things. As you guys know, like I went to Burning Man, I dated tons of people, I became a coach. I got to really explore and figure out who I am, and I'm still getting to do that. And gosh, if that was not, you know, I think that's really the piece that so many people don't understand from the perspective of those of you like listening to my podcast of like why divorce matters. Um, I think a lot of people, if you say, like, we're getting divorced, they just assume that the focus is like, oh, well, the marriage wasn't good or this or that. And yeah, that's that's a that's a huge piece, but it's a piece because it's the environment you live in every day. And if you live in an environment that's not supportive of your individuation and your personal growth, that is the cost. And that cost is really, really great if you're someone like me that felt this deep desire to know and understand and have really experienced life in a way that at the time I had no framework for. I wouldn't have said that when I got divorced. If you'd asked me, is it because you want to know yourself? I would have been like, I have no clue what you're talking about. But maybe, maybe I would have. Maybe I would have been like, yeah, that's part of it. Um, but looking back now, I realize that's really what it's been for me is it's been a huge journey of like, who am I? And getting to go on the journey to understand that. So, in closing out this episode, y'all, I want to leave you with really this call to reclaim your right when I said the birthright earlier, right? Your right to explore. Like this life is so vast, so amazing. I have lived more life in the last five years than I lived in my entire, you know, 29 before that. That is how much life can be lived when you are open to exploring. And to really have all of us start just gently, you know, tapping on these old beliefs and seeing if we can start loosening and releasing them, which are the beliefs that, you know, to be loved, I have to be perfect. And I want to tell you, y'all, you were never meant to be perfect. That is a lie and an illusion that we have been sold. And I swear to you, it does not bring the payout that we all thought it would. But instead, I believe you were meant to become. And to do that you have to take up space. You have to take up space with curiosity and messiness and honesty and vulnerability and change. This means, I mean, this is why when y'all come to me and you're like, my life feels that dryness, right? I'm not, it's not juicy. Where's the marrow in the bones? This is what I'm talking about. When we make space for these parts of life as well, we embark on exploring our lives rather than just performing through them. Now, like I said, for many of you, this exploration, the level of the exploration I am talking about, just might not feel available right now. Because, like I said, if you are in a relationship where your emotional maturity has ultimately become the glue that is holding everything together. And if your partner's stability like depends on your performance, then of course I want to just so compassionately say, of course, you have been stuck in perfect control expectation mode. Okay. Um, that is just the reality. And I want to remove like a lot of the shame and blame. It's like we then shame and blame ourselves that we're not showing up more authentically and honestly when it's like, yeah, that's because you're still in an environment where it's not safe to. So do not hold yourself, do not use this episode to beat up on yourself that you are not in a more exploratory life or showing up in a more exploratory way when you are still in an environment that is deeply reflective and similar to the one you were raised in. Okay. This is the whole, I'll watch my clients that have CPTSD and that are married to narcissistically wounded partners or even full-blown. And they will like internalize their inability, like, well, I should be able to show up and honestly tell him this. And I should be able to, there's a there's a spectrum there, y'all. There's a balance in understanding how much is it, you know, that I'm not actually showing up and being honest about what I need, which for those of you that have less narcissistic partners, that may very well be the case. The needing to speak up more, needing to just show up and be like, I'm doing it this way and I'm gonna make mistakes and I get to change my mind, and seeing if your partner can open to more exploratory mindsets as well. But for those of you that are in narcissistic relationships where your partner has To have you in this space to function, do not internalize that and make it about you somehow. If I could just be better, if I could just do more, if I could just, you know, say honestly what I'm feeling, maybe he would eventually get it. Okay. Um, because in those instances, it will absolutely feel terrifying to show up messy and tired or unsure as is normal in relationships with narcissistic people, because you will be attacked for showing up in those ways. So if that is you, I want to say clearly, you are not crazy for feeling stuck, and you are not selfish for wanting that to change, for just saying to yourself, I want to be in a relationship where I get to have space to be human, where I get to have needs, and I get to have a partner who cares about those needs and wants to meet them genuinely in empathic, emotionally connected ways. Not talking about partners who are like, well, tell me what you want me to do so that they can check the box and they can keep you where they need you to be. Okay. And if this is the case, remember that the tool for this is grieving, grieving that you are in a relationship that cannot make space for your full self. And that, y'all, I think that is the real pain that no one understands or talks about when they judge someone for considering divorce, you know, or or when our family or our friends don't get it, they don't get that very, very real pain that we are experiencing of having to sacrifice getting to be our full selves, or even getting to explore or learn what our full selves are to keep that relationship going. So if that is so, and that is why you're here, I want you to remember that your exploration is still possible, babes. Maybe not in this marriage. Okay, maybe not in your current dynamic, but it is possible. And I am living proof of that. And I would offer, you know, I did a lot of that exploration even while I was in my marriage, in the small ways that I could. That's when I talked about, you know, I went back to school for a class because I thought I was gonna go become a physical therapist. And I went and took a pottery class. And I started just stretching the boundaries where I could. I started exploring in the ways that I could. And that exploration is possible because it lives inside of you and that part of you that longs to breathe again, that longs to be able to play and be curious and be compassionate and change your mind and make mistakes. I want to reassure you that it is still there, waiting and ready for you. I mean, if you vibe at all with my podcast, I know that that part is still in you. That's why y'all are like, oh my God, what whatever you're saying speaks to me. It's because I'm speaking to that part. And so you start where you are at, right? For some of you, that may be the step of really realizing, like, okay, I am at a part where my soul is like, it is time. I am ready to explore. This container is not gonna work anymore, and it's time to grieve and move forward. For others of you, it may be going, okay, the jury's still out. I don't really know how much my partner can, you know, show up or not. So you move into the exploratory mindset and you start giving yourself more grace, more compassion, more letting yourself go out and try things and seeing if you like them. And if they don't work out, great. Now you know there's something that you don't like. You get to not like that stuff. I also want you this week, y'all, to practice noticing when expectation is running the show. When we are slipping into that perfection, that control, that go, go, go. I've got to keep it all together. And when that comes up for y'all, I just want you to take some deep breaths. Just notice, be like, oh, there it is. There's the expectation mindset. And just really gently and lovingly remind those parts of you, because this is our this is kind of tying into that parts work. These are just protectors coming up that are like, you have got to live in this way, or it's all gonna fall apart. And just gently inviting them into a little exploration instead, which can be just approaching yourself with a curious question. Like, ooh, we're feeling really tight right now. What's what's going on, babe? What's going on for you? Yeah, where, you know, where am I feeling tight in my body right now? Oof, there it is in my stomach. What am I going through right now? What's been going on today? And kind of just giving yourself that extra space to check in. And when you check in, to give yourself compassion and grace. Because y'all, you doing this work, I more and more, the more that I'm seeing, like the level of the work that y'all are doing, the level that I have done, we are rare and very special. That is that is my feeling about myself, about all of you doing this work. We are probably like 0.0001% of the population that is gonna show up for themselves in this way. So we deserve the utmost respect and compassion and love and care for ourselves because this is not what everybody else is doing. Y'all, there's a lot of people out there just cruising down their programmed traumatic neural pathways from childhood. So you get to be allowed to be a work in progress. We are not here to do this perfectly. You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to shift course. And most of all, I want you all to know, and this has really come from the last, you know, year and a half of dating my partner Joe, I I now this is, you know, this was just something I'd hoped for previously, but I know this now. I know that this is possible, and so I can say with certainty that you are meant to be loved, especially when you are not perfect. Let that land. Love is not like meant to be a conditional thing. We only earn when we are perfect. It is actually meant to be the thing that we are given most when we are not holding everything together, when we are our most human. And it is an incredible gift to give that to ourselves and to be brave enough to go on the journey to create that with ourselves and then to experience that with someone else. That has been by far this last year and a half the biggest like aha moment of this whole journey for me. Of like, oh whoa, this is what it can feel like when someone really, really loves you for you and their love is not conditional on how you perform for them. So, with that said, and just in case no one else has told you this today, from me to you, I want you to know that you are already enough exactly as you are, my loves. I am so grateful to have you all listening to the podcast. Every time I get on the community, every time I get to meet one of you face to face on a 90-minute, this is what is driven home for me over and over, is like y'all are amazing. You know, so many of us are just showing up massively in our lives and living with this perpetual feeling of not doing enough, never doing enough, or being too much on the flip side, right? And what I see is I just can't get enough of y'all. All of y'all with the mess, with the highs, with the lows. I am deeply touched and amazed by the many of you that I have gotten to meet. And what it has shown me over and over is y'all are already enough. And now we're just doing the work of giving you back your birthright, of getting to explore and discover that for yourselves. All right, y'all. This was an amazing episode. As always, I want to invite those of you that have been considering a 90 minute to go freaking schedule one with me. The 90 minutes are just an incredible opportunity to, and I mean, especially if you've, I'm like thinking if you've especially if you've been loving the podcast, it is life-changing to get to jump on with me and to have me work specifically on your story, on your ins and outs. It's not the broad brush strokes when we're on a 90-minute, it is the very specific, highly specialized, like tailored to you approach. So if that's something you have been considering, go do it. You know I want to see you. Um, I always get so excited when I click onto the session and I get to meet you for the first time. It's just it's super yummy. Also, things are popping off in the community right now. Um, this month, I'm really excited, kind of based off of the last two weeks of me being a little bit more depleted and dysregulated. We are gonna be just taking the month to meditate to Sarah, some Sarah Blondens from her Live Awake podcast, a bunch of the ones that I selected from there that are some of my favorites. And it's gonna be a yummy month of just dropping in and slowing down. I don't know about the rest of you, but this summer felt fiery and it was great in a lot of ways. And also, I'm feeling a little bit like, woof. Okay, I just want to slow down. I just want to be in my body. I just want to feel. And um, her meditations are incredible for that, along with opportunities for all of us to meditate together and then to get to share afterwards about what we're feeling and noticing. So I think it's gonna be a really yummy month in the community as well. If that's something you have been considering, you can text stay or go community all one word to 3377. And then for that 90 minute, you send it to the same number, 3377, but it's gonna be 90 M-I-N all one word. Also, if you are at a moment in your life where you are really wanting that deeper dive where you are looking for like life transformation, something that is not only going to help you make the decision and move forward with the foundation to launch you into the rest of your life, um, but that will teach you through that skills that are going to ripple out into every other area of your life, into your work, into your children, into your friends, into your family relationships. Consider coaching with me one-on-one. And you can find more details about that in the show notes where it says the deep dive. That is my one-on-one coaching container. We do that for three months. And yeah, the women that have coached with me in that will tell you it is life-changing. It is a portal that you will not come out the other side the same person as. It's something I'm very proud of. It's um an incredible opportunity to have me in your life for three months, um, coaching with you every week and then voxering with you in between. So it's incredible, just that's why I call it the deep dive, because it's me getting to go deep into your brain, into your life, restructuring it, building tools out with you, and really helping you make that decision and move forward. So if you're ready for that, go pop on over. Y'all, love you so much. See you next week.