Old coping mechanisms no longer work...

In this episode of Spiritual Unraveling, hosts Nate and Ashley explore the challenges of letting go of old patterns and coping mechanisms that no longer serve them. They discuss the journey of awakening to new realities, the dynamics of codependency, and the importance of grounding and authenticity. The conversation delves into the discomfort of change, the power of contrast in personal growth, and the necessity of purging old behaviors. Ultimately, they emphasize the significance of practicing humility and balance as a means to connect with one's true essence.

Transcript

Nate (00:03.066)
Welcome to Spiritual Unraveling with Ashley and Nate. And on today's podcast, we are going to discuss the way in which our old behaviors or coping mechanisms or ways of being in the world are no longer working as effectively as they once did. And we are coming to this topic with

an authentic honesty about how things in our own life are reflecting this back to us that once we step far enough onto this path of awakening, really start to get brutally honest with ourselves, it becomes more and more difficult to continue to live old patterns, old ways of being.

with this new reality. just doesn't resonate. We won't have the same kind of feeling of relief or response. It feels like

Nate (01:17.861)
these old patterns which used to be comforting are just no longer comforting. And I guess, Ashley, we were talking about this at the beginning, how we're seeing it in our lives in different ways, but for you and I, one clear and big topic that we've talked about many times is that we are kind of recovering, self-admittedly recovering people pleasers, and that this orientation

outward to other people in this fear of rejection or of disappointing other people, and then adjusting or morphing yourself to situations to please other people, which is what codependency often leads to, or it did in my life at least, it just doesn't resonate. It feels really incongruous. It feels like I'm not being true to myself and also,

It feels like it is backfiring actually in a lot of ways where I think maybe because I'm aware of it now as a pattern, it's like I can't fully commit to it. And then other people sense that. And so it ends up leading to awkward conversations or interactions with family members or close friends or partners. And the only thing that I feel like I have found is to just

be more honest, more transparent, more authentic, and really own your feelings. And for a recovering people pleaser, that often is the solution is to orient inward first and then find alignment before you interact with other people, especially in emotionally charged situations where you feel like, where you recognize that you can't please everybody and that everybody has their own path.

and it's important for you to be in alignment with someone and to choose the right path for you and to give them the grace and the power to make their own choices, even if they don't align and even if they disappoint other people. So that's just one example. Ashley, know you have some. How are you experiencing some of these?

Nate (03:44.255)
Just old patterns or different ways that you've used in the past or are you seeing it maybe in other people? Talk to me a little bit about that.

Ashley Henderson (03:52.87)
Well, it's it well, one, just want to say I think you always articulate codependency patterns so well. And so I want to just highlight some things that you said about the patterns not working. And I think to really when you've said this before, but just to rearticulate that codependency is a game of control.

It's a game we play to seek control and safety. And it can be perceived as something different. And we can tell a story to ourselves that it's something different. We just want to help. But the truth is, it's a game that we learned to play early on for a very good reason to create a sense of safety and protection. And there's all sorts of games.

identities, patterns that we created early on. And what feels like is available right now and has there's a lot of momentum towards seeing these patterns as we as we as we're seeing more of the patterns that exist on a global level as we see more of the truth underneath or behind the scenes.

We can look, we can use that as a invitation to look behind the scenes in our own psyches to start to unpack in a very neutral, non-judgmental, actually quite loving and compassionate way, the games that we're playing with ourselves and the games that we play with each other. And that it's

It feels to me like the field right now is inviting us in a way it's signaling to us that it's safe, that we don't need those protections anymore, that the pursuit of safety over the pursuit of authenticity or truth isn't compelling in the same way that it was, that the truth is actually compelling in a whole new way.

Ashley Henderson (06:16.66)
So I'm feeling myself, I mean, I've had some experiences lately where I almost feel like the truth is just spilling out of me in a way that's sort of beyond my control. It's almost like there's an override switch right now to my people pleaser or to my little girl who's the vigilant one creating those safety.

mechanisms, those safety. So I don't know. I'm finding that there's a little momentum here for

coming back into the body to check out is this a story? Is this a game? Or is this the truth? And we started this conversation before we got on today because you're wearing a bracelet. And I asked you, it has beads on it with letters, and I asked you what your bracelet said, and it says ground. And I do think that as

You know, we've been talking about grounding now for a long time and the practice that we do, all the practices that we do have a grounding quality to them. And the more we ground, the harder it is to be in the story, the harder it is to be in the game. The easier it is to see the truth, the closer we are to our truth, not the, you know, what's the truth. It's just our truth.

And how do we know that? Because we're in our bodies and our bodies signal us when we're in truth and when we're in a story. so the practice is leading us to this time where the more grounded the field is, the safer the field is to just be ourselves. It's kind of exciting. think the

Ashley Henderson (08:23.202)
You know, a lot of people right now are talking about purging, you know, the the year of the snake coming to an end and a lot of purification and purging. But this is for this. It's for this. It's for this revelation or the reclamation of

of our own embodied space to experience our own.

unfolding of our own truth and divinity. Something like that.

Nate (09:02.582)
Yeah. Well, I just that I totally agree. And I and I want to just recognize that there as you were you were pulling for words, this this stuff is ephemeral. Right. So it becomes very kind of difficult to put language around this. And I think sometimes when we use language. It's missing, it's sometimes missing part of it, because what you're talking about there is

just a deep, deep, powerful knowing and embodiment. And when we talk about grounding, I know that it can sound a little woo woo, or it's, it can, it just can invoke lots of different things, but at its essence, what you and I are talking about when we're talking about grounding, and I think what most people who are kind of talking about this practice are talking about is becoming,

re-remembering and re-embodying and being more and more yourself. Not what society has taught you to be, not anything else, not the things that we do to control, to please other people, any of that stuff. So the idea of grounding is just very simply bathing more and more in your essence, in like coming deeply and in fully embodying

who you are. And then when you do that, you become like, just like you're planting a flag right there and you're like, this is me, this is my energy. And the kind of beautiful mirroring part of that is that I think the earth and the universe will also reflect back to you inner strength. It's like it bolsters you as well. So you get this.

part of that earthing and grounding thing is that when you come into your inner power and strength, it really is reflected back to you in the way that other people interact with you, the way that you feel and all the different aspects of it. So that was one thing that jumped out at me. And I think the other thing that I wanted to say is you and I, we lead people pleasing as one of these

Nate (11:28.124)
areas in where we're finding that we just can't do it anymore. But I want to open this up to everybody else who might be listening and that might not be your edge. So the invitation here as you're thinking about this topic that we're talking about is to with real honesty and love and grace, look at the areas of your life where things just don't seem to be working the way they used to.

That's a really good indicator of your growing edge. Like, I used to do this and it just doesn't feel good anymore. And we were talking about how there can be some disappointment and some sadness and loss there when old ways of being no longer work, frankly, it's disorienting. But in that same moment, you're gifted with this opportunity to

look at that from a different perspective and say, okay, if this isn't working anymore, then something new is emerging. And we're so funny because our kind of egoic mental brains fear change and fears the unknown, but all of the best things come out of the void. They always come out of not knowing what the new thing is. And as we're talking about this and figuring out

like where our growing edge is, yeah, honesty coming out and saying, well, what would it be like if I was just really authentically me in the situation and I didn't cater to the situation or to the person? That's scary because it's new and it's also a powerful transformation point. And it completely changes like you and the dynamic with the other person because now you're not giving them the same feedback.

And I've had this happen with I feel like sometimes I'm in the middle of this process. So and I want to be totally transparent here. I am by no means where where I want to be on this journey. am baby stepping it every every day. And sometimes I fall back and sometimes I have big moments of revelation and it's beautiful. I coming out of the holidays, I noticed one of the

Nate (13:53.735)
strange things for me was to not be orienting to other people in conversations so deeply and to not be giving my power away in conversations. And it created a bit of tension. It's just kind of conversations that kind of stall out or people not knowing how to relate to you because your energy is different. So

I guess I'm bringing this up because this transformation can be messy and it can be kind of confusing because you get these different signals which is why, coming back to grounding, we always encourage coming back into your body, into your center, and to know what is right for you because what's right for you often isn't necessarily...

what is gonna make other people totally happy. So, I just as like a personal example, I had that with family members where we just get into conversations and I know the beats and the patterns that are expected of me. And then this year I wasn't doing it and it got kind of weird. And then I have to kind of sit with that and that's okay. feel like that's like an indicator of, hey, this is a new.

Dynamic that's happening and it's a little awkward right now because it's not practiced and let's find out where it goes. don't know what do think.

Ashley Henderson (15:27.799)
Yeah, no, I think that's a good example. You said a lot of things in there. Like one, I think you were talking about working with the mind to get more in alignment with practicing authenticity. And I think that can be a good strategy if you're not feeling like that authenticity is

It's like a way to practice is by getting the mind into those questions, holding those questions. thought that was, you know, interesting. And then, and then the other thing that I think you're pointing to that I was, I was starting to talk about, but lost the thread was the purge that, that a lot of the things like, as we move out of the old pattern, we're going to feel uncomfortable. We're going to feel the feelings that we created the pattern to avoid. So.

So a lot of the, I think purge and purification are great words because you can imagine that there's gonna be some really uncomfortable feelings you'd have to move through or allow to move through you and integrate. And I think a big one for, I mean, the big emotion or experience that I think we've all been avoiding.

It's not just people-pleasing. There's so many ways to avoid what we want to avoid, right? But it's fear. Really letting fear. I've had probably the biggest year of allowing fear to move through my body. And if I have a context in my mind, if I'm working in a practice or in a process,

where I know that I'm looking at old patterns and that they were patterns of protection and that they were there to protect me from really intense fear or really intense shame or abandonment or whatever it is that we were avoiding, then I can hold those emotions as they come up with neutrality. And that to me is where the grounding practice comes in. Because the grounding...

Ashley Henderson (17:41.315)
I mean, I think you were saying it really well and that grounding is really sitting in your own energy, but you have to be careful with that because the mind can create a story about what your own energy is based on your identity. And it isn't that it's actually what you were saying, which is the void, you know, that, you have, that, that your own ground can just be the space where you're, you're

I don't even know how to say it, impulse arises. And so that everything else, every story that the mind concocts, isn't that. And the more we can stay in that neutral space, which is what I'm talking about when I talk about grounding, and we can be in a space of allowing and listening and receiving.

then we can really observe the mind trying to pull us away from that, pull us into a story to create a feeling of safety because the ground, like you were saying, is really the unknown. But that can get really exciting. We've talked about this before. That space of neutrality and receiving

Ashley Henderson (19:06.541)
the, this is where it gets confusing, the truth of who you are, as it emerges in a moment to moment way, you can just listen, then you really start to, the stories don't work anymore. The codependent stories, the patterns, the protections, the operating systems just start to fall away on their own. And the relationships that are based on those patterns will either change or they'll fall away.

because there's a new emerging, like the impulse, I think for authenticity becomes so enticing and so delicious. I mean, it's our birthright to be in our aliveness of the present moment. And so that's what the, that's what just what the practice is about is like, okay, I'm present with my experience. You know,

Can I just stay neutral with it to see what's here, to be with what's here?

Nate (20:12.646)
Yeah, I love that. And it makes me think about contrast. This is a lot of this is a game of contrast where you and I are getting ready to go into another silent retreat and a big part of what happens in these retreats. And I'm by no means an expert. This is only my second. I'm very excited, but it happens daily when you meditate and you get a

big, big dose of it when you do something like a silent retreat, which is you can really get high contrast situations between the egoic thinking, socialized mind and what you were discussing, which is that grounded, sovereign, authentic, in your energy aspect of yourself, which is kind of hard to talk about in

because it doesn't have words. It's actually more of an essence. And everybody, that's why sometimes I use soul song. I know it's kind of a silly term, but I like that idea because it's like you have a resonant pattern or energy that you emanate out into the world. And when you do that, it gets, you know, it has all these positive benefits. You get reflected back to you and your interactions.

you have synchronicities, all of these different things. But it can be difficult to get in there and access that true essence. And the high contrast situations that happen during meditation, during retreat, allow you to just see it with a lot more clarity. Like, this is thinking, this is not actually me. And then when you're in your essence, it just becomes

I don't know. It's like awareness is such a big part of this. So am I sitting in me or am I sitting in everything that has been told about me, the story of me? And they're very different things. I and I did want to go back and also highlight and mention that the purge and the idea of that and that that is very true. Once we change patterns, we will have a period of time

Nate (22:40.174)
where people, situation, things will move out of our lives and it is uncomfortable. was actually, when you were talking about it, it was making me think about just actually fasting and the process of physically fasting. And when you do that and you just water fast or fast with very limited kind of caloric stuff, what you realize is that the first day or two is so uncomfortable.

because your body is basically detoxing and purging all of this stuff that is unhealthy. You stop putting stuff in and then what is left inside of you, often these like for physical purposes of detoxing, know, heavy metals and toxins, they're all leaving your body and it is uncomfortable. You get headache, you get all this stuff. And that is mirrored very much in the process of becoming

truly authentic, stepping into the void, you will feel that people in situations and things in your life that aren't for your highest good, that are potentially toxic, are going to leave and the process of them leaving is not comfortable. So just like when you're fasting, you get the headache and you get a little bit of like that flu-y feeling when it's happening socially, you're gonna feel...

like you're disappointing people, sometimes you're gonna feel like you've been slimed by social situations. And so I just, I'm saying all of this to kind of, normalize that and to also, I think it's important to not sugarcoat that this process does carry with it some difficult aspects. the, just like with a real fast, after day two, you move into this beautiful, blissful,

place of I'm not eating, I'm just drinking, my body is clean, I'm getting purified, and you're really bathing in your own essence. And it's such a beautiful feeling. And I think that is also mirrored when you start shedding these old behaviors and patterns. There's an after that uncomfortable detox, you start to sit in your own energy and things reorient and it can feel a lot more pleasant. But you have to push through that hard part.

Nate (25:03.907)
I don't know, what do you think about that?

Ashley Henderson (25:05.659)
Well, think all that's right. I love the comparison to a fast, because I think that's exactly. I think it is kind of what it feels like when you're doing a fast. You prepare yourself for the discomfort, because it's just part of it. And you're moving out of sort of automatic behavior and automatic. I think there's a lot of you're disrupting the system.

And the same thing happens with meditation practice and spiritual practice is you're disrupting the system. And so eventually, if you commit to a practice of presence, these things are going to sort of happen on their own, just like a fast. You don't do the purging on the fast. You just stay. You just stay.

with just the water or you know, you don't react to the headache or you don't react to the hunger. So, so in a similar way with meditation, we just, we practice staying and returning to presence again and again and again. And a lot of times those things that are not true, the aspects of you, the relationships or whatever that are not in alignment with

your energy or the present moment or your truth or whatever, they start to just kind of purge on their own. There's nothing really to do. So except for continuing to just allow, but like a fast, you would allow for hunger feelings. That's sort of obvious, right? When you practice meditation, you know, you allow through those purges, you allow through the detox, you allow through the discomfort.

Um, and then the, know, there's a real, well, I'll just share this, the insight that came to me this week, which I love, you know, when insight comes into the body, it feels so revelatory and, but it's also like just kind of an obvious thing, but, but it did feel this week felt really revelatory. I, I was, um, driving with my son, my son is 16 and, and he was practicing driving and he was

Ashley Henderson (27:31.789)
you know, as sometimes 16 year olds can be sort of being like, I know what I'm doing. And I was, I was giving him some tips, slow down, you know, things like that. And, and he was pushing back a little bit. And when, when we pulled over,

We had a really good conversation about humility and how in this situation, know, humility is really important because he doesn't know how to drive. And I do know how to drive. Right. so like to operate with humility would be to take in, you know, this, this feedback in the moment, that it's really going to be supportive to him and that pushing back, he might have, we were talking about it later that

You know, if you don't have humility when you're driving, could almost, the universe could almost give you an experience of an accident or something to force you into humility. And that's grew in this conversation with my son, who does a lot of humility practice. It's just, that is just something that he in this lifetime is interested in. And we talked a lot about how, you know, the universe is always coming into balance.

Like we're always being invited back into neutrality and balance and humility where we're not in one polarity or the other. We're sort of holding it all in this equilibrium in this balance. And so if you practice balance, then you're less likely to be given those experiences that, you know, we would call them as negative experiences. If we're off balance, the universe is going to bring us back into balance. Right.

So this real embodied kind of revelation of why do we practice? Why would I practice neutrality? Why would I practice sitting in silence? Why would I practice finding spaciousness or tuning into my awareness? It's because it is actually the reality.

Ashley Henderson (29:55.319)
And so when we're practicing being in the reality, we don't have to kind of get knocked over the head to get us back to reality. I just thought that was a clue. all came out from this driving experience that was sort of unpleasant, but got us to a really cool conversation about why we're practicing it.

Nate (30:13.697)
Yeah, I love that. I love that example too, because I also have a younger teenager not driving yet. I'm not ready for that. But I do find that as well with just talking to my daughter and having those interactions. And I often am reflected with humility back to me about

Ashley Henderson (30:22.255)
You

Nate (30:38.71)
how just being open to a different person's perspective and this dynamic that is often presented in our culture at least, which is that the adult knows best. I like your example because this is actually a really good example of the person with experience does lead the way because a car is a very big deal. But then I have been having these emotional interactions with my daughter around.

just honoring her different approach to life, her feelings, and having those same kind of moments of clarity and humility for myself about saying, well, maybe I don't know the best way to handle this because I'm not you. I don't have your lived experience. And I'm gonna be humble here and understand that I'm also new at being a parent to a teenager.

But I think underneath both of these kind of ideas, which you were getting to, is the goal, not the goal, I mean, I think ideally these swings that we have become less and less dramatic in our lives. So when you're kind of completely unaware of

your coping mechanisms, your controlling, your patterns of behavior with other people. You have situations that blow up and you have big swings, big emotional swings and you don't, sometimes they blow up so big you can't even pick apart like some NTSB safety officer. You don't even know how the thing happened. You're like, how did this crash happen? It was so explosive. just, you just kind of have this emotional outburst with somebody or some interaction and then.

You don't always glean the information, but when you have an awareness practice and you slow things down and you start to get on this path of really being self-reflective, then the hope is that we come into ourselves more and more in these beautiful moments where we course correct. They're less extreme, but they're actually more poignant.

Nate (32:55.017)
Like because you're really aware and attuned and you're giving so much grace and sovereignty and presence to the other people in your life. You're not trying to control them. And it's just a very, I don't know, it's a very beautiful and different way of orienting and living in your life. And to kind of come back to what we started with in terms of old patterns of behavior not working.

when you do step into these new patterns of behavior, like you did having a not overly heightened or emotional conversation with your son on the side of the road around driving, which is like, I have the memory, I have like a physical memory of that conversation with my parent, right? You are changing the dynamic and we are just slowly each time we do this, each time we accept the invitation of change of.

reorienting to the world of being more ourselves, more authentic and interacting with other people with that aspect of ourselves. It's again, it's causing this ripple effect and it's, you you are a great example to your son in that way. And he is so dynamic. Like he's just imagine that energy that he's already bringing is going out into the world. He's going to be.

These kids are bringing such crazy energy and this is like, I'm saying all of this because it's a good reminder to kind of going back to our fasting analogy. This is what gets you through that process and you don't have to work as you said, you just allow. And we say this all the time, allow, surrender, accept. And that is part of what happens. And the beautiful aspect of that is that it can create these wonderful

opportunities for reorienting and allowing situations to not get explosive or not get, not go down old paths, they go down new paths. I don't know, I guess what I'm saying is that these life changes that we're making also have big effects on everything else because we take ourselves everywhere we go and we have

Nate (35:19.548)
all these interactions and if we're constantly bathing in our own authenticity and we're reflecting that back to other people, it's giving them the permission to do it as well. And that's how we really change the world is getting more and more people to be embodied, to be themselves, to not operate out of fear or control.

Ashley Henderson (35:42.583)
Yeah, I think that's like actually a really good place to stop today because I think we started with this kind of acknowledgement that there is an invitation in the field right now to go inward, to find your ground, to come into your own inner knowing, to connect to your own resonance. we're not, you know, it's not going to work.

to look outside of yourself for your ground any longer. In all the patterning, in the codependency for us, for maybe some people it's addiction or scrolling or whatever. It's these false, they're like false illusions of grounding. It's a false sense of self. And so there's a real invitation, I think, to the actual just practice of.

grounding of going inward. And it can be hard when the news, there's so much happening in the world. It can be hard when we're, have access to media and information. So finding those practices that really

get you into spaciousness and allow you to have connection to your inner, your inner voice, I think are just more crucial than ever. But also I don't even want to say it that way. I think the invitation is here. It's just step stepping into it. I think we were there and, and it's okay to let go and really operate from that inner knowing.

More and more and more, as much as we can. Yeah.

Nate (37:32.584)
I like it. Yeah.

I like it. Okay. Well, there it is. The invitation that I feel like we're constantly giving people. Come more into your essence. All right, everyone. Thank you. We'll see you next time.

Ashley Henderson (37:50.543)
See you next time.