Heal & Grow with Nickie
Join your host, Nickie Kromminga Hill, and her guests on a journey of personal stories and insights into healing and growth from past and current trauma. The focus is on fostering true connections through conversations centered around vulnerability and authenticity. The goal is to collectively heal and find opportunities for growth, promoting a sense of togetherness.
Heal & Grow with Nickie
53: Breakthrough
Have you ever wondered where your deepest insecurities originate? Today's breakthrough therapy session revealed a stunning connection between my recurring abandonment dreams and childhood experiences I'd never questioned.
What childhood "normal" might be affecting your adult relationships? Share your thoughts in the comments or reach out—I'd love to hear your story of uncovering and healing old patterns that no longer serve you.
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Hey everyone. I had a major breakthrough in therapy today, something that I think is going to maybe even just change my way of thinking for the rest of my life, and I really need to share it with you. Hello and welcome to Heal and Grow with Nikki. I'm your host, nikki Kraminga-Hill. Here we explore anything and everything that might support us on the journey to mental wellness, from hope to grief, possibilities to challenges, joy to heartache. Nothing is off limits. Let's reflect on our lives and discover ways to heal and grow together. I'm so glad you're here with me.
Speaker 1:Followed Smorgasbord Arts. Yet Please do, please do, please do. We have been applying to art fairs and they ask us how many followers we have, which is a total bummer and I hate that game, but we have like 33 followers. So if you could go to Smorgasbord Arts on Instagram and give us a follow, that would be so helpful. Thank you, so I had therapy today.
Speaker 1:I go to therapy once or twice a month. I started going to therapy when I was 16 years old and, with the exception of taking like three to six months off here and there, I've been going pretty continually. I am a huge therapy advocate. I really wish that everyone was like required to go, but you know I'm not in charge of things like that. Anyway, let me tell you what happened today. So, for some background information, I have been having dreams that Paul leaves me, having dreams that Paul leaves me, and it happens like one or once, twice, maybe three times a month. It's been happening for a while and it's incredibly disturbing. In real life I don't think that Paul is going to leave me, but in my dreams I pay attention to this kind of stuff because obviously I feel like I'm not addressing something that I need to be addressing. So my dream I had a dream last night which is why I brought it up to my therapist today and in this dream we were trying to figure out who gets to keep the dog and that was heartbreaking. And in my dreams I'm so sad and distraught and every time I wake up from one of these dreams it's awful because I know that it was just a dream. But I keep holding on to those feelings even though I'm awake. And about three or four months ago I told Paul about a couple of the dreams. He's like stop telling me these. They're so sad. So I've stopped telling him, but I've I've continued to have these dreams. So I thought I'm going to bring this up in my therapy session today. So I bring it up and I say, hey, I've been having these dreams for about six months and then I had like a revelation right there. Six months ago is when I applied for disability. So I apply for disability, the dreams start and I think they're absolutely related. They're absolutely related.
Speaker 1:I've talked before to my therapist about how my self-worth is tied to productivity. I'll say that again my self-worth for me, in my own eyes, in my own life, my self-worth is dependent on my productivity, is dependent on my productivity. Productivity meaning how much money I'm bringing in, how many jobs I have, or how many I have lined up Right now, how many paintings I'm producing because I'm prepping for art fairs and things like that. So, in my own eyes, if I'm not making money, getting gigs, painting, speaking, all of this stuff, I'm worthless. I'm contributing nothing to our partnership Slash, I'm contributing nothing to my community and, believe me, I know that this is common with a lot of people. But I also know that it's BS or at least I mostly know that it's BS and I'm really working to release, to release this that I have worth, even though you know I'm waiting for my disability benefits. I have worth, even if I'm having a really bad day and I can't get out of bed. I'm trying to reframe all of this and also today, in thinking of all this I'm I'm wondering where did these thoughts originate? There's got to be a place in my childhood somehow where I can look back and say, oh, I think maybe it started here and I remembered something today that sort of just like blew my mind and I really think is part of my worthiness productivity issue.
Speaker 1:So my dad was a social studies teacher in Minneapolis public schools for like 30 some years. He's had an incredible education career. He comes from a line of educators and education is incredibly important to him. It was also very important to my mom because my mom didn't have a ton of educational opportunities. She got her high school diploma and then immediately she went into I don't know what you call it like typing school, stenographer school, something like that and throughout her life she was always like ashamed and disappointed that she never got her BA, but she did eventually go back to school and she got her AA. Anyway, the point is that education is really important in my family and I don't know why my dad started to do this and I think I'm going to ask him the next time I see him.
Speaker 1:But starting in first grade, whenever I would do my homework, whenever I would fill out my homework sheets, I was then required to hand that over to my dad. My dad would look it over and make sure that it is 100% perfect. If it wasn't perfect, he gave it back to me and I had to correct my mistakes. And then, once it was perfect, he signed my homework every night, like with his name and the date. Now, this was never required, ever. This is just something that my dad decided to do. I think maybe because he's an educator and he wanted everyone to know that his kid was smart, or I don't know why. I'll ask him and I'll follow up. But this is, this was a requirement um first grade through. I think it dropped off at some point in middle school. It started up again in high school in a different way, which I'll tell you about in a second.
Speaker 1:But my dad's honey, my homework was so embarrassing to me because it was not required, it was not necessary. My teachers asked me what is this about? Why is your dad signing your homework? And I just would be like I'm not really sure. It's just important to him that I do this correctly, and the kids kids never made fun of me about it for it, but it it was something that some of them noticed and they would ask me about. And I I just I was so embarrassed about it and I used to try to erase his signature at the bottom, which was even worse because he had such like a firm grip on the pencil that there's no way I could erase it. So it looked like I tried to erase it. He also would go through and like if something was wrong he would make a check mark on it instead of just like telling me hey, you should look over this one again. And so I'm handing in my homework with check marks all over it and it was just weird and it was embarrassing and I felt crappy because I didn't know anybody else that did it.
Speaker 1:And then there was a time in high school I was a junior, I think it was before I went into the hospital I did a whole episode on going to the hospital in season one, so you could check that out if you'd like to, but it was before I went to the hospital and academically I wasn't doing as well as I normally did, which means that instead of straight A's, um, or even A's and B's, b's were acceptable A plus A, a minus B plus B. Those were acceptable. Everything else was not. So in like one or two of my classes I was getting a C, and this was unacceptable to definitely to my dad I don't know about my mom and so for months I had to carry around this little like yellow sheet every day and my teachers had to fill it out every day. Um, they had to initial it and then they had to put what my grade was that day. Teachers would ask me why am I doing this for you Especially? You know the classes that I was getting an A and a B in, and I just said, this is something that my family is requiring of me right now. A couple of times I forged it because I was so embarrassed that I had to, like, ask every day what my grade was. It's the same as it was yesterday, you know. So all of this to say is that growing up I had to have, in this case my dad, but like someone in an advisory position, someone of authority, saying this is my requirement of you. I want to make sure that you're doing the right thing. The right thing meaning whatever my dad thought was the right thing. That's what I had to do, and so my worthiness was about what I'm producing, what kind of grade I am producing.
Speaker 1:I think that that's what's going on in my dreams. Is that I? I am not producing right now? Um, we're broke, and we are broke because of my situation. I want to be careful to not say like we're broke because of me, because it's not me, but it is my medical situation. We are broke because I am waiting for disability benefits, which Lord knows when they're going to come, and when you are waiting for disability, you can only make a certain amount of income in order to qualify, so I have to stay under a certain amount. So, excuse me, we are broke because of me, because of my situation. Because of me, because of my situation.
Speaker 1:Now I want to like interrupt myself right now and just say Paul is so freaking cool about this. Like we talk all the time. When I applied in November, we had a ton of conversations surrounding it. We are checking in with each other all the time. We even have a financial advisor who knows about all of this and we meet with her once a month and she's actually more of like a financial therapist. So, like Paul and I are okay, it's my past personal history that is sort of interjecting its ugly head right now and it's showing up in my dreams, sort of interjecting its ugly head right now, and it's it's showing up in my dreams.
Speaker 1:I'm not producing money, I'm not. I'm not producing income, I'm because I have to stay under a certain amount of money. I'm not gigging very much or I'm not working very much, so I'm not producing. Therefore, my self-worth is suffering. I even I've been painting a ton and I like to show Paul my work and he's really great at constructive criticism and helping me out, so I like to share my work with him just because it's fun and because I'm learning new things and I'm exploring new things and I like to share that with him. But lately I've been like, hey, come look at my work so that I can show him. I actually did five things that I did. I did five paintings today. That's like the underlying reason why I'm showing him. So blah, blah, blah, shmash, shmash, shmash, blah, blah, blah, schmah, schmah, schmah.
Speaker 1:I had a really great breakthrough in therapy today and it's something I'm going to think about a lot and just reflect on, because it's big, it's really huge to me when I am able to pinpoint the origin of a behavior, and I think that this whole dad and school and signing my things and having to get good grades I think that that's the origin of this, and so that feels like a major, major breakthrough and that is why I wanted to share that with you today, that with you today, because I feel like, if you go back and listen to episode one episode one when I asked my dad a question about something that happened in the past go back and listen to that, because that's how I feel right now. In episode what is this like? 53, is that I just had another breakthrough about my behavior and how it's related to my dad. And again, I'm going to ask my dad about this and follow up with you all because I think it'll be really interesting to see what he says about this. But I feel like I just broke wide open today and made this brand new discovery and and now, because of that discovery, I can start to heal this part of me and then grow from it. Hence the name healing growth, nikki.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you so much for listening today and listening to all of that. It feels good to share that good news with you, that it feels good to share that good news with you, yeah, so thank you, thank you, thank you and, as always, thank you for healing and going with me today. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, health or professional advice. I am not responsible for any losses, damages or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.
