And What Else?

Moving from Self Sufficiency to Interdependence

• Wendy O'Beirne (The Completion Coach)

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Feeling trapped in a cycle of emotional whiplash, where the fear of relying on others keeps you isolated? Discover how childhood experiences with emotionally unavailable caregivers shape our adult lives, creating a barrier to forming deep, meaningful connections. Join me as we unravel the complex web of trust issues and the nervous system's role in this emotional tug-of-war. This episode promises to guide you to a breakthrough understanding, revealing how the absence of witnessing emotional repair in our formative years plants the seeds of anxious attachment and avoidance.

Together, we'll explore how these ingrained beliefs can lead to self-isolation, people-pleasing, and fawning behaviors that hinder true love and support. By recognizing these patterns, we aim to dismantle the fortress that keeps genuine relationships at bay. This is an invitation to reframe your perspective on self-reliance and connection, offering practical insights into creating healthier bonds and repairing relationships. Tune in for a transformative discussion that paves the way for experiencing authentic connections and a renewed sense of trust in yourself and others.

If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and subscribe! And if you want to learn more from me, come and say hello on Instagram @thecompletioncoach or via email at wendy@thecompletioncoach.co.uk or find out more about working with me on my website, thecompletioncoach.co.uk.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to and what Hails the podcast with me, wendy O'Byrne, also known as the Completion Coach, and today we're going to talk about the wound that comes up that says I can't rely on anyone, and we're going to be talking about how and what that does behind the scenes, because it's quite a sneaky one, it's an exhausting one, and it's not just about people who are outwardly independent or hyper self-reliant, if we call it. This is showing up everywhere. So people who are in relationships, in friendship groups, in your teams. You might have people around you all of the time, but in the back of your mind you're still waiting for the shooter drop or bracing for the end that you think is coming, or subtly expecting disappointment. It's complex. It doesn't just create distance. It also creates this constant swing between desperately needing and craving connection and pushing it away the moment it feels unsafe. It's the nervous system saying I want to trust, but I don't know how I don't think I can. So we're going to have a look at this and have a look about how that's keeping you stuck at the moment.

Speaker 1:

As always, the belief and the roots of it are likely coming from childhood, and this is still heavily linked to emotionally unavailable or emotionally immature, caregiving, and quite frequently it's heavily linked to never seeing repair. Never seeing repair, never seeing emotions get dealt with or situations be repaired, only ever witnessing emotions causing conflict. I think that's the key here. That's the key that we want to just keep in place, because there's an unpredictability. Fast forward that to adulthood and the belief hasn't gone anywhere the belief that emotions and other people and emotions and conflict are unpredictable. So, even though you're now an adult, even though you're now in relationships, even though now you're externally doing really well, in other people's eyes, that wound is still running on a loop in the background. That wound is still running on a loop in the background, which is where you know it just feels unsafe relying on other people. Hence I can't rely on anyone. You can be deeply connected to somebody and they're really open with you, so it feels like connection, but you can't really open up in return.

Speaker 1:

The moment somebody does something that feels even slightly off, your system goes into shutdown. You're likely somebody that pulls back or pushes away, and then, when you push away, you feel distance, you feel guilt and you swing back into deep connection. So you've probably created people pleasing and a fawn state, feeling that any time that you have pulled back, any time that you have created distance, any time that you've pushed on anything. So even if you've said something that you think feels like confrontation, even though it's not, and you think it has felt like you pulling away or you pushing back, then you will likely swing into fawning and people pleasing and trying to bridge the gap, get somebody back in to feel that connection and closeness again, because it feels bad when it's away, because you don't know how to repair and because you haven't learned or witnessed or been shown growing up what repair looks like. Healthy repair.

Speaker 1:

You think repair is people pleasing and fawning, which has you on to avoidant. I'm out, you know you're dead to me. There's no in between there's no healthy connection. It's either this really heavily attached feeling or this very avoidant feeling, but it continuously swings. It's not like it's, it's not visible, always to other people, let's put it that way. So the anxious attachment comes from the people-pleasing element of you that's fawning, and then the avoidant is the. I need to get out of this. Create distance, yeah, no, and in between we don't know what to do with the balance. It either feels like we're too far in or we're too far out and we're constantly navigating that gap, because somebody once described it to me as a state of emotional whiplash.

Speaker 1:

But it's these moments that is creating the safety myth that being on your own feels safer, that being on your own feels safer, the being on your own feels safer, your nervous system relaxes. When you get out, you will tell yourself that you can't rely on other people. But what you're doing is creating a bit of a fortress where nothing not actual love, not deep friendship, not true support can really get in. And that starts to create the idea I'm on my own. And it also really ties back into that childhood wounding of loneliness, even if you were surrounded by people, the idea and the feeling in the nervous system of loneliness. So the wound doesn't just protect you, it creates the very outcome you're trying to avoid, as wounds do, as our protective parts, as we'll call them in this, do. They think they're protecting you, but they are creating the very outcome you're trying to avoid and trying to dress it differently. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because when you assume people are always going to eventually let you down, you over function, take on everything yourself so others can't or don't have to step up, you're always expecting the worst and unconsciously pushing people away, and you struggle to communicate your needs, which leads to your needs never being seen or met, which just creates this ongoing falter in relationships, in teams, in anything that you're trying to create, which just says, see, this is why I don't trust anyone and this is what creates what we call nervous system chaos.

Speaker 1:

So these people are the people externally that look like they've got their shit together. Don't forget that externally people think they're great, that they are somebody that never really struggles, that somebody doesn't really have problems. They're the go-to, the solver, the fixer. But internally they have what's called high-functioning anxiety, which is where their body is constantly in fight or flight mode, scanning for threats, waiting for the moment it's all going to fall apart, even when things are good. They can't relax. Even when it's not their fault, they feel like something's about to become their fault. So everything externally, you see, being on time, is just running from the nervous system. You know the perfectionismism traits, the having their shit together traits. All of this is an external presentation to hide the internal chaos and these people can barely rest because if they rest they feel like everything's going to crumble. But also it is that moving out of fight or flight.

Speaker 1:

The very idea of calming that nervous system is overwhelming. It feels too much. It feels like, if they get still, they're going to have to deal with what they're not dealing with by being in constant motion. If they get still, they're going to go internally and have to deal with stuff where they're so busy dealing with external stuff. They've been able to avoid it to date. You know, the very connection they're looking for within themselves is the very thing they're avoiding at all costs. So it will show up everywhere.

Speaker 1:

And these are the people studying self-help in every fucking book and podcast and falling down rabbit holes and trying to get logic, looking for ways that they think they can be fixed, but hopefully it's a real quick fix that nobody will see them having. They're doing things, but they're doing it. They're doing it in a way that they're trying to bring it up to logic without going into the internal chaos. And that's because it is a wound right. It doesn't feel safe to go into the body. It doesn't feel safe to slow down. It doesn't feel safe to trust people with any part of you, and that's very real. But the trust issue is actually a self-trust issue, because you know that you're always abandoning yourself. And so there's so much within this, so much within this and this is a short podcast.

Speaker 1:

This is an overview of the people that are saying I have to do it on my own. The people who feel that they can't rely on anybody. The people who feel unseen, who feel unheard. Even when they think they have told people what's going on or have shared, they feel as if it's completely and utterly ignored, walked around and over, dismissed. They've felt their whole life feeling unseen and unheard, apart from when they are being helpful, apart from when they're fixing things, apart from when they're doing all of the busy work where somebody is recognizing that or telling them something about them that feels rewarding, that feels as if they're being seen and heard in some way and that in itself becomes a self-soother. As well as being a self-soother from being seen and heard suddenly and told that you're good, in some way, it's also soothing them because in being so busy, they don't have to be still and busyness stops the emotions and the feelings. Busyness means they haven't got time for that. Busyness means they'll do it later, get around to it later when in reality, later will never come because they're exhausted. Reality later will never come because they'll keep pushing it until I'll do it tomorrow, I'll get around to it. I'm going to do a big thing around it on Saturday.

Speaker 1:

All of the things they tell themselves but they're not doing it day to day. I cannot tell you on a day to day basis. When I speak to people who tell me that nothing has changed for them, and when I dig into it, they are not doing any of the practices none. They are never, ever looking to regulate their state, they are never going in, they are never slowing it down. They will be the people that are telling me all of the things they have consumed but none of the things they have actually done themselves. And because doing the things for themselves, prioritizing their state, prioritizing, going within, prioritizing, doing all of this is the very work they will avoid at all costs by being really busy doing everything else.

Speaker 1:

It is about how you're going to experiment with safe reliance, how you're going to just start small, how you're going to experiment with safe reliance, how you're going to just start small, how you're going to just take one step, how you're going to just learn to trust yourself. The distrust is because you said you were going to do all of these things, but you don't do them. You scroll you text, you ask somebody else, you do something else else, you consume something else and internally, your body is screaming when are we just gonna fucking do this? And so we build self-trust by going inwards and meeting ourselves, experiencing what we need to experience. I know I am a broken record, I know it, but it doesn't matter how many times I say this. It's crazy. How many people don't hear it? Who will take something else from what I am saying and miss that part?

Speaker 1:

And that part is you have to start to build trust with yourself by doing what you said you would do, by stop consuming and searching and by going within, learning to create safety in going within, starting small and building up so that regulating your state, being really aware of your state. This is not to stay 100 regulated. I don't think that exists. This is about just noticing where you are in your system by being able to bring it down a notch when you need to, and you need to because you stay at the high end. So you might be seeking more dopamine, more of the adrenaline, more of the things that pump you up, rather than the things to really slow you down and bring you in and just really just be. And in doing that and experiencing yourself and just noticing where you're at and then looking to see what you need looking to see what you need and then meeting that need is about how you build that self-trust which creates this capacity for you to handle things differently in other areas of your life.

Speaker 1:

And I say this on repeat also, but it's not to reach a perfect life or a problem-free life. It's to build the capacity to deal with your problems differently. It's to build capacity to take new action. It's to build the capacity for more of what you do want. It's not to eradicate all problems. Okay, you're not going to build a problem free and shakable confidence, razzle, dazzle, unicorn filled existence.

Speaker 1:

But you are going to be able to notice oh, do you know what? I wouldn't trust me right now because I'm in a state that's massively in fight or flight. I'm about to do what I've always done. I'm about to withdraw, I'm about to shut down, I'm about, I'm about, I'm about and really just start to figure out what's going on. And once you've processed and experienced that internally, it's then about how you would then work yourself into only making decisions, only making the big decisions when you know that you're in a really connected state, when you're really grounded in yourself and taking action from a place that is your centered self, more centered self, because when you can start to do that, you will know that you can rely on other people, and the story that you can't is just keeping you in a space that feels like safety, but it's not, and it's keeping you in a space where it keeps you closed and keeps you thinking the only thing you can do is be on your own, and that's not true. So I would love you, love you, love you to dig into this episode and really think about it. Think about where you feel safe to let others support you, think about how you trust yourself and it's really interesting because there will be areas that you trust yourself.

Speaker 1:

Now. I bet you trust yourself to get shit done. I bet you trust yourself to put your back against the world. I bet you trust yourself to do the hard things other people won't do. I bet you trust yourself to do whatever it is that needs to get done that day.

Speaker 1:

However, do you trust yourself to honor yourself? Do you trust yourself to honor yourself? Do you trust yourself to stay in things and open up to people and share more of yourself. Do you trust yourself to do what you said you would do for yourself? Can you trust yourself to slow down? Can you trust yourself to open up? Can you trust yourself to open up? Can you trust yourself to slow down? I said that one twice because it's the most important to go in. Can you trust yourself with yourself to do what you need to do for you, but also what you want out of your life and not do what you've always done? Not busy yourself to such a degree that you're again back in the intense, back in the adrenaline fueled, back in the under pressure and just keeping yourself under that pressure continuously? Can you take the pressure off? I'm going to leave that with you, as always. Please feel free to message me, wendy, at thecompletioncoachcouk, if you think this will be of use to somebody else. Forward it on and I'll speak to you soon.