Safe To Be Seen
Join Brandon & Darci as they share raw human stories that were never meant to be hid. This is a space for truth, a home to the soul. You are safe to be seen - and to see.
Safe To Be Seen
The Survival Patterns That are blocking intimacy
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Most people believe relationship problems are communication problems.
But what if the real issue isn’t communication — it’s survival patterns wired into the nervous system?
In this episode, Darci and Brandon explore the hidden nervous system adaptations that show up inside relationships — including defensiveness, emotional withdrawal, control, and self-abandonment.
These behaviors are often labeled toxic or dysfunctional, but in reality they are protective strategies the body created to maintain connection and avoid pain.
You’ll learn:
• Why defensiveness is often a nervous system response to perceived threat
• Why some people emotionally withdraw when conflict appears
• How control develops as a strategy to avoid vulnerability
• Why self-abandonment is one of the most common relational patterns
• How these survival patterns block true intimacy
When we understand the patterns running beneath our behavior, we stop blaming ourselves and our partners — and we start creating relationships built on safety, awareness, and repair.
Because most people aren’t toxic.
They’re patterned.
And when those patterns become conscious, they can finally be rewired.
Holos Healing: 30 Days of Somatic Meditation: https://darci-burke.mykajabi.com/offers/FXbMNHJ7/checkout
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I think that a lot of couples think that conflict means there's something wrong with their relationship. And it's not. Like you are going to trigger each other throughout your relationship. It's the way that you take the moment to pause and recognize what is happening in that moment, and you choose to respond instead of react. And becoming really aware of the patterns that show up in those situations, your individual patterns and how they are disrupting your intimacy and connection with each other. And I think we've come to a place where like we recognize that. And so I don't think that couples have a community problem. I think they have a pattern problem that they're not recognizing voice and that they're not able to change that because they don't even know that it's a pattern that's actually creating there.
SPEAKER_02So much of our lives are shaped by scripts we never consciously chose. Patterns around love, success, safety, and belonging. And at some point, those scripts stop working. What once protected us starts to limit us. Safe to be seen is a space for honest conversations about that moment when your body knows it's time for something new. We talk about what it means to build safety first, so growth, intimacy, and expansion don't come at the cost of yourself. This podcast is about updating outdated identities, softening survival patterns, and learning how to stay present through change. We're Darcy and Brandon, and this is Safe to Be Seen. Well, we enjoyed some amazing weather this weekend and had the opportunity to be outside a lot. One of the things we did, we went on a long walk with our dogs. It was so pretty out, so beautiful.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's like the best time to be in St. George. Yeah. I think spring kind.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_03Outside of the Ality, which we're all suffering with right now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So at the end of toward the end of our walk, we something came up for us that we wanted to share today. We're gonna be full, vulnerable, and um practice what we preach and let our listeners have an inside sneak peek into our world. And at the end of this walk, you started to discuss um with a lot of enthusiasm and excitement and energy a new project that we are jointly working on together. And what happened?
SPEAKER_03You don't want to say?
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, I don't want to dominate the mic. You can talk. Why don't you tell your side of the story?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, I um yeah, I expressed wanting to like get going on this project and like in that moment to like, let's do this right now. Like let's go have like a planning meeting, like let's get this going.
SPEAKER_01And it was Sunday, by the way.
SPEAKER_03It's a Sunday.
SPEAKER_01And um I had to throw that in there just real quick.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because that plays a that's part of it.
SPEAKER_03And um how did you respond? See what I said and knowing you said.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, with your energy and enthusiasm toward this project, I I love that. This is a project we're both really excited about. And co-creating it is gonna be amazing. The thing is, is I have like, I just happen to like at this moment in time have a lot going on in regards to some other projects and creations that I have in the works, as well as you know, trying to plan a vacation that we have internationally, some international travel that we have coming up. Um, and some just some other things. I just so when you came at me with like, hey, let's get going on this project, in fact, let's let's go right home when we finish this walk and have a planning meeting. And it's Sunday, and uh like I'm just like ready for my Sunday to be nothing but relaxation and rest and connection and you know, just to my usual Sunday, like I don't work on Sunday. Um and I just I felt this this uncomfortable stuff come over me. And I was like, oh my gosh, I have all this other stuff I have to do. How does she not see that? How did how is she like throwing one more thing on top of me? You know, this is what I'm like feeling. Um and we got into a little we don't, it wasn't like a it's not like a fight. We've come a long way.
SPEAKER_03Less we have. I actually sorry.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I was just gonna say it was just like, you know, we had we went through like a little rupture and then had the opportunity to work on our repair skills. And yeah, you know, that's really what it's all about is um I think it's really important to like one of the big lessons that I had to learn and that I I I try to help men understand that I work with is that conflict is okay. I know it's really uncomfortable, but it's okay. Like intimacy is strengthened in the conflict. It's just what a lot of men do is they forget that they are in full-blown protection mode in that conflict. And when you're in protection mode, you your nervous system is literally thinking there's like there's a threat. And so in that protection mode of trying to keep you safe, it's really, really difficult to fully see the other person, to fully hear them. Um it's really difficult, quite frankly, for love to flow when there's protection. Protection is born out of fear, and fear and love have a really difficult time, if not impossible, occupying the same time and space. So yeah, it's just yeah. Well, what do you want to add?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, I think we both um I felt like you were projecting your fears onto me, and you felt like I wasn't like seeing you. And so we were just not seeing each other in that, and we became a little bit activated. So I actually feel like we actually repaired in the right way because we recognized when we were both getting a little bit too activated and said, okay, like let's take some time apart for a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Like wait, who said that? You or me?
SPEAKER_03Me and you know, we'll come back to each other later when we've had some time to process and regulate like calm down, regulate, like look at the bigger picture here. And so we did. We took some time apart and then um came back and said, Are you ready to are you feeling ready to repair now? And we both were. And then we were both able to communicate to each other like what we were individually feeling, not you made me feel this way, you did this. Yeah, it was this was what I was experiencing, this is what I was perceiving, this is what I was feeling, and then just to be able to like listen to the other person and have the emotional maturity to say, Yeah, I can understand how you might feel that way. I'm sorry for any time during that conversation, I didn't make you feel seen, I didn't make you feel understood, you know, and so I think that a lot of couples think that conflict means there's something wrong with their relationship. And it's not like you are going to trigger each other throughout your relationship. It's the way that you take the moment to pause and recognize what is happening in that moment, and you choose to respond instead of react.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And becoming really aware of the patterns that show up in those situations, your individual patterns and how they are um disrupting your intimacy and connection with each other. And I think we've come to a place where like we recognize that, like when one of us is getting defensive or one of us is projecting, or when one of us is like feeling overwhelmed and we're like expecting our other partner to like read our feelings and our emotions, and you know, and so I don't think that couples have a communication problem. I think they have a pattern problem that they're not recognizing fully and that they're not able to change that because they don't even know that it's a repeated pattern that's actually creating their disconnection.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And so today we wanted to talk about like what are what are survival patterns that people individually carry that are creating um that are disrupting deeper intimacy in relationships. And how to, we if we had time, we can help. We can talk about like how to um interrupt those survival patterns. But um I think it's I think all like you talk about like toxic survival patterns, I think all patterns are toxic because they're disrupt, they're disrupting your life in every way.
SPEAKER_02Protective patterns, you mean? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Survival patterns, they're yeah, they are all toxic. They not only are affecting your intimacy, they're literally affecting your health.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, people talk about having autoimmune or anxiety or depression or um all these symptoms that our bodies are expressing. And like regulation is a part of that process that you don't stop there. Once you feel regulated, that's when you work to rewire the patterns that are creating your reality. And I think that's where a lot of people get stuck in self-development and in healing. And there's such a big like um talk these days about regulate, regulate, regulate. And yeah, that's a big part of the process. But if you just stop there and continue to live inside the same survival patterns, nothing will change. You might feel karmal, calm, calmer, but your reality really won't change. So I think it's important to start by meaning, like what are, what even is a pattern, a survival pattern. How would you define a survival pattern?
SPEAKER_02Well, I I I look at it as a mechanism or a method or a way by which a human being has adapted to certain stimuli, certain circumstances, certain people, certain environments, whatever it is, in order to protect. And I view it, Darcy, as like these survival patterns, these toxic patterns that show up in relationship over and over and over again. Like it's funny, you know, you might you see it's like when you see a um, I don't know, like a 70, 75-year-old um couple, like a couple that's been married probably for like 50 plus years, and you see them getting up. I you know, like my grandparents, you know, seeing them getting little spats, little arguments, these little things that, you know, they're just you can tell they're just like pushing each other's buttons, and it's so fun. Like some of them just live on forever.
SPEAKER_03Like keep repeating the same argument.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, or or or the same pattern, whatever it is. But what I'm saying is I I look at it, Darcy, like, you know, imagine a young warrior going off to war. Well, when he goes, he has the imminent threat of death. Swords, spears, arrows. And so he's he's literally covered from head to toe in thick plated metal armor. That's great. Like it's hard to move in. It's hard, like he can't be as athletic and nimble and mobile as normal, you know, without it. But that's okay, that's the trade-off. The trade-off is I don't want to catch an arrow in the heart, so I'm gonna wear this huge breastplate, you know, to cover my heart. Well, when the war ends, if that young warrior comes home to his young wife and children, imagine him deciding that he's just he's gonna leave that armor on. He's still scared. He's still like looking over his shoulder, like is it is it safe? So he keeps the armor on. Well, his kids, his little kids come up to give him hugs and they're hugging his metal armor. They're not able to touch him and really connect to him. And his wife is completely shielded and blocked off from his heart because he's got that big metal breastplate on. And it it's the same way. And he like these protective patterns, these survival patterns that become toxic in relationship, they had a good purpose at one point. Like that's really, really important to remember. As you begin to increase your awareness around your patterns, it's really, really important to not just dump a whole bunch more shame on yourself or not enoughness, or we're you know, I'm not worthy, or whatever your wounds, like just understand that those patterns exist for a reason. You make sense.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And maybe it could be that you know, if we're sticking with that analogy, you needed that armor at some point.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02You don't the real uh growth I I found, Darcy occurs when you begin to just simply uh be aware that oh, that's that's that pattern again. Those are those feelings again. I'm really uncomfortable. I feel threatened, I feel scared, I feel like I need to defend myself, I feel like I need to argue, blame, you know, prove my point, whatever the pattern is, and just stopping. It could be uh connecting to your breath, that's what I like to do, as like one of my go-to number one things. It could be going on a walk outside, it could be so many different things to just kind of give yourself a little bit of space between stimulus and how you're going to respond, however, you need to do that. And as you do that, more and more and more you start to realize that yeah, that that pattern, it it had good use at one point, but I don't need it anymore. It has no more use for me. In fact, just like the young warrior, that very same armor that saved my life is now completely blocking my intimacy and connection with my people.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Really good analogy, the warrior story. It's really good. Um you don't choose your survival patterns. They often develop in early childhood as a way to protect you from emotional pain, abandonment, or unpredictability. And like you said, they were adapted at one point. They helped you survive environments that you grew up in to maintain connection, to maintain belonging, to maintain acceptance. So that you're right, they did serve a purpose. But the problem is that those patterns keep on repeating until you become aware of them and until you actively work to reprogram that repro reprogram them inside of your nervous system. And the way that they interrupt intimacy is because intimacy requires emotional availability, it requires um vulnerability, it requires being seen in your authentic nature. And survival patterns are only focused on safety and predictability. Yeah. You know, we we run on these prediction codes. You know, our nervous systems weren't designed necessarily to keep us happy, they were designed to continually predict the future based upon past events. So if in the past to maintain love and connection and belonging, you had to um avoid being vulnerable because maybe when you were vulnerable about an emotion, you got criticized. Um, and so our protective patterns, like I said, they served a purpose at one point. But the longer they run in your system, you will prevent like the intimacy that everybody so deeply wants in their relationships, and they think if I just communicate better, then we're gonna feel more connected. And communication is a part of it, but it's the way that you're communicating and the way that you are projecting and the way that you are perceiving the situation, which is completely different than your partner.
SPEAKER_02That's a really good point that you make that like because some people might be like, well, why it's it like they it I I remember for myself, before realizing the pattern, like before getting there, it's like you you think that it's just your partner is difficult. Your partner's difficult, like it's like this glaring bright light on your partner of all of their shortcomings and weaknesses. And it's like they're difficult, they don't communicate, blah, blah, blah. They you go on and on about why you're not connected deeply or why your intimacy sucks, why your sex is terrible, whatever. I love your point that like it's really we gotta bring it back and say, okay, why? This isn't just an argument. This isn't just like like you said, a communication skills issue. Like maybe we should we take some communication skills classes? No, no, that's not what this is, is this is destroying your connection, your intimacy, and your sex because those things intimacy, connection, and sex, great sex, require truth, uh vulnerability, accountability, and presence. Like you cannot have that deep intimacy and connection and that incredible sex if you don't have those things.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, these patterns, they destroy those. When you are stuck in a survival pattern with your partner, your romantic partner, there's no emotional truth. It's all covered up by stuff that's not, it's not, it's illusions and lies, and like you said, stuff from your past that's being projected onto the present, the present and or a future that you're like terrified of. It doesn't allow for truth, these patterns. They don't allow for vulnerability because when you're stuck in that like reactive survival state, protective state, you're not vulnerable. You feel threatened. So you put your armor on. You're not gonna open up your heart, you're not gonna be vulnerable, and you're not gonna, without emotional truth and vulnerability, there certainly is no accountability. And if you're not able to be present in the moment in in your body when the discomfort is through the roof, there's no intimacy. There can't be.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yep. And that's why I think most marriages end in divorce. Yeah. Because of survival patterns, honestly. Yeah, and then I think that's a huge reason why couples end up separating and divorcing, because they cannot they cannot get out of those loops. They don't recognize the loop that they're in, they're just projecting their shit on. The other partner, blaming the other partner, not taking accountability, not doing the inner work of changing their in their patterns, that is preventing um deeper connection, intimacy. So you want to first, you want to start off by talking about one of those, one of the patterns?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'll I'll talk about one that I see showing up all the time in in men and including myself, and that is exactly what happened yesterday on our walk, and that is defensiveness. I think that defensiveness is just like it's like the first line of defense. It's it's defense. First line of that protection where you you feel attacked, you feel criticized, you feel like someone's picking on you, someone's coming down on you, and so you argue, blame, try to prove your point, try to prove the other person wrong. However, your defensiveness looks, it completely shuts down intimacy. Because your defensiveness it doesn't allow for you to like in your effort to protect yourself, you you don't you you stop seeing the other person. You stop considering like why they would have done or said that, or you know, maybe there's a good reason, or it's just like it shuts it down. And it's very prevalent, and it it's rooted in like essentially a shame wound, um, uh, or a wound of like I'm not seen. Because you feel like whatever the person did or said is like they might as well have just told me that they don't see me and they don't care. And then you like put up your guard, you put up, you put on your armor, or you put up your feathers, whatever you want to say, and like it's on. You're gonna defend yourself, you know. And uh I think that it's really important in all of these, uh, you know, consideration of all of these patterns, Darcy, to remember that it's not I don't like to look at it as um like these these patterns, they they they in my opinion are not showing you that the relationship is broken or or messed up or unable to be repaired. They sh they just expose the truth. Yeah, they just expose the truth, and then it's like, okay, what are we gonna do about this? Like, is our we love each other, right? Yes, okay, so are we going to work on these patterns? You know?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And I think defensiveness is what causes fights to last days on end, where both people just end up defending themselves without really trying to see each other. And I think that what breaks these fights from going on for days is when one person in the relationship can pause and share one vulnerability. That kind of like breaks down the walls and softens it when one person can just start it off by sharing a vulnerable truth instead of defending, saying, Yeah, I just didn't, I wasn't feeling seen in the moment. Or um, I really want to spend more time with you. How can we make that happen? Or um this was reminding me of something that happened in the past that I didn't feel safe in. You know, that really helps soften those defenses and can help like reorganize the entire framework of that rupture if just one person can just share one vulnerable truth. And I've seen that happen so much in our relationship, where like the the fight or the rupture actually comes to a stop when that can happen. So um, yeah, I think defensiveness is like a huge one. I think it's like the go-to that everybody initially starts out with.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, it's like your little kids playing in a sandbox, and little Susie comes up and steals my dump truck. And I'm like, no, you're not gonna do that. And I defend myself and I make sure that she stays away. Stay over there in your corner, Susie. That's fine when you're in a sandbox and you're four years old. But when you're 34, 44, 54, and you're in a romantic relationship and now you are a grown-ass adult. Those kind of patterns, they need to be, they need to be handled. And um, you know, I I see defensiveness, Darf. We can end here and then move on to the next pattern. But I see, like for me, for for I think for men, defensiveness arises so prevalently and strongly because there's a big disconnect between what the man hears and what he feels. And what I mean by that is a man's the words coming out of his woman's mouth, they might not be harmful at all. They might not be threatening or mean. They might just bring to his awareness something that needs improving, something that's that he did wrong. Or some form of correction. It might. But what the man so the man hears that, those words, but he feels, he goes back to his six or seven-year-old self that feels those emotions of so he hears you did something wrong. He feels you're not worthy. You're not enough. And it's just this like, it's just really difficult, it's hard to explain, but it's this like it's a it's like uh it's one of the the core masculine wounds that most men deal with. Is the the shame wound, the not enough wound, and defensiveness is his like go-to pattern to to protect himself.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And all that's happening at a subconscious level. Like all of our patterns, our beliefs about ourselves, our beliefs about the world, our emotions, that's all at a subconscious level. And the subconscious wakes up 95% of our behaviors. That's what's creating our reality. So you may react in defensiveness and not even know why. Not even know why you have a core wound of not feeling enough. That's where that deep inner work comes in.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Of if you're not able to recognize that on your own, then hire somebody to help you recognize where that core wound came from because that really helps soften it and helps reduce shame. And it just helps you understand yourself better. Yeah. You know, we're programmed. We are unconsciously programmed by the age zero to seven, our programming based upon the emotional dynamic, the how safe we fell in our home, how safely connected with our caregivers. You're programmed to see the world in a certain way. You're programmed through your patterns. And you become, you become like this unconscious participant in your own life.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You don't even know why you're showing up that way. You don't know why you're so reactive, why you're defensive, why you abandon, why you're a perfectionist, why you have OCD. You know, you just think, I guess this is just the way that I am, you know? And becoming a conscious creator of your life, where you're conscious of this was my internal programming, this was my conditioning, this is the way I was domesticated, these are my patterns that I developed to maintain love and connection. I'm aware of those now. And now I consciously get to choose to change those so I can actually be the creator of my own life and live a life that is true to me. And it's so important in healing, it's so important in relationships. I mean, it's it's your life.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And those people are running their life based upon conditioned programming that they did not consciously choose.
SPEAKER_02Good point. Really good point, babe. Like the pattern itself is just potentially destructive, yes. But the real problem is when it goes underground and it goes on, like you're unaware of it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So yeah. What what's uh a survival or protective pattern that you can think of that you want to talk about?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I want to talk about self-abandonment. Self-abandonment is a big one, particularly in in women, where um the core belief behind that is is that it's kind of like what you just mentioned, that if I am fully myself, I will lose connection. And it stems from early childhood experiences where you maybe expressed an emotion or you expressed an opinion and you were criticized or you were shut down, you were invalidated. So your nervous system at that time learned I have to abandon part of my truth, part of my needs, in order to maintain connection, in order to maintain belonging, in order to maintain love. Like it's brilliant, actually. It's absolutely brilliant and the most loving thing of our nervous systems to do as we're developing as and as we're growing up. And self-abandonment appears as people pleasing, as overgiving, as becoming the caretaker, as not feeling safe to express your emotions, not feeling safe to express your needs, not even having an opinion about anything, just being so completely agreeable that you completely lose contact with your authentic self. And I think that is the most saddest thing about self-abandonment is that you're actually in a relationship with somebody that you don't even fully know. Because they have, you're only seeing them through a filtered lens of their approach at maintaining connection with you. And I just think that is so sad and so disrupted that you lose so much touch with your authentic self in order to maintain that connection, in order to maintain that belonging with somebody. And it often gets looked at as they're just super nice and they're self-sacrificing, self-sacrificing, and that's like praised. And so it like continually repeats because it's like, oh, I'm getting like approval for this, I'm getting notice for this, I'm getting love for this. And so it keeps on repeating until pretty soon you end up with an autoimmune disease or severe anxiety or deep resentment. That's what self-abandonment does. It creates this static, this unseen static underneath the surface of resentment. Because you're not able to fully be yourself in your relationship. So it's a big one. It's a big one, I think, for women, especially self-abandonment.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That one I can see being like not only everything you said, but like you know, you think about the tragic situation that both of you and I have seen fairly frequently where we might meet an old, and you're right, it's uh it's a lot of times it's women, it's maybe an older woman. Maybe in her 70s, last chapters of life, who never really became aware of of this pattern of self-abandonment. Where, but from the outside, you and I have been able to see and talk about, discuss people that we know where it's like they don't even they have lived their whole life abandoning themselves to try to maintain connection that they don't even know themselves. Not only does their partner, like you said, their partner doesn't know them, but they don't know themselves. They don't know what their interests are, they don't know what they like, they don't know what their dreams are, because they have devoted their entire existence to other people. And that you're right, like the world applauds that as noble, as service, as love. And yeah, it's just it's so sad.
SPEAKER_03The connection you're trying to maintain is not even with the real you. Yeah. And that's why it's so tragic. You don't even you lose so much deep touch with your authentic self, and your partner doesn't even know your authentic self. And intimacy requires authenticity. It requires the real version of you showing up.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You have to truth. You have to have truth in order to have deep intimacy. And so it blocks that. Yeah. That's how it blocks deeper intimacy inside your relationship is you're not even real the real you, your partner doesn't even know the real you. It just becomes so performative.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And neither of you know it really, most of the time. You're just stuck in it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. I've said this before, but I hate it when people say stuff, praise women for being self-sacrificing. I hate it. I think it's so damaging. And I think that if you go into a relationship expecting your wife to sacrifice all of her needs, sacrifice all of her desires, sacrifice all of her career ambitions, sacrifice her very being in order to please everybody, in order to make sure everybody's happy. Like the emotional labor of managing that type of environment in your home is exhausting. To make sure everybody's happy, to feel responsible for everybody's emotions. You lose so much touch with your own essence and your own being. And real intimacy does not require that. It does not require you to self-abandon in order to maintain love. Real love lets you be who you are. Real love lets you express your needs without fear of the other person judging you or wanting to disconnect from you. Real love applauds you in your ambitions. Real love doesn't expect you to manage each other, manage each other's emotions. That's not real love. That's management, that's performance, and that is protection.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we really got the wool pulled over our eyes by the world on that one. Like that's that's what we're we're indoctrinated and conditioned with all that stuff from the time that we're born through music, through media, through even like our own, you know, the people in our lives who model who are supposed to be modeling this stuff for us. Like we're we're we're shown and told over and over and over again that if you love me, you will sacrifice. Like you will give up something of yourself for me.
SPEAKER_03It becomes so transactional. That's not that's not love. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it's like I know obviously there are scenarios where that might come into play. Like, gosh, it's like someone needs an organ transplant or something, you know, something like where you're like literally giving a chunk of yourself to someone for their for their good. Of course, that's beautiful. But yeah, in this way, in this pattern, this unconscious pattern of like trying to gain acceptance and belonging and and love and like and doing it all while just completely self-sacrificing and self-abandoning, that is not that's not good.
SPEAKER_03It's not, and it's not it's unfair to your partner too. It's unfair to them because they don't even know they're real you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it just it's no wonder women carry 80% of the autoimmune disease in this world.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no kidding.
SPEAKER_03It is no wonder.
SPEAKER_02Well, not only on top of the societal and cultural conditioning in this regard for women, you know, barefoot and pregnant, cleaning, cooking, taking care of all the kids, making sure they're happy and healthy, and making sure the husband's happy and healthy. And like, but on top of that, the religious influence that we had in Mormonism.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh, it's like it's incredible that you women can break free from that and like find your find yourself and be like, no, this is this is me, this is what I want, this is my life. Yes, I am full of love. Yes, one of my most beautiful sacred roles and titles is mother and wife. But guess what? I also have a life to live.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That was that was a big part of my story. But yeah. Like I definitely felt like my role was to self-sacrifice in order to make everybody else happy, in order to support everybody else. And you were always awesome about like supporting me in my dreams. And like, I never felt like I had to self-abandon in that way of like not wanting to pursue. Like, you were the one who was like, No, you're graduating from college. You know, you you were the one that um took a job at a meat market for a summer so that I could finish my internship. You were the one that carried my backpack plus yours for an overnight hiking trip so that I could pass a class when I was pregnant. So I I appreciate that so much that you you were the one that was like so supportive of me starting starting my nonprofit. Of year after year leaving for weeks at a time to go across the country and leave you with the kids so that I could do something that I was passionate about. And I have always just like so deeply appreciated that and loved you, loved that about you so much, honey. So thank you for being that way. Any self-abandonment ways that I was showing up was because of Mike, my internal programming that taught me that like that's how I need to be in order to like show up in this role that I'm expected to be in, or I knew no other way. Like nobody knows any any other way, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, we're not here to assign blame, but it wasn't, it was like a perfect, we're like we were a perfect storm because you were programmed and conditioned, like you just said, to be a self-abandoner. And I was conditioned and wired in a way that I like needed a lot.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And so you want to know what uses your partner, your subconscious, your partner.
SPEAKER_02That's true. You're like your nervous system gets wired and then you like seeks out like has these antennae sticking out, like looking for someone who matches that signal.
SPEAKER_03No, it's you're exactly right. That's exactly what happened.
SPEAKER_02I know that's why when I saw you at that dance in 1997, from like 40 yards away in the dark, I could barely see you, but I was like, you were like glowing.
SPEAKER_04Aww.
SPEAKER_02And I was like, you beeline to her. I gotta find out who that is.
SPEAKER_03I'm so glad.
SPEAKER_02No, it's just it's crazy, but that's that's how it happens.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. True intimacy requires being known. It requires you to express a need, it requires you to express an opinion, to be able to say no. Yeah, you know, and you know, when you grow up in an environment where it's like, like for me, like in Mormonism, when you grow up in an environment where it's like, if you have a different opinion outside of like what Mormonism teaches you about the way that you should be, that's not safe.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So that's where you get programmed. I'm not saying this is how it was necessarily in my home. Like I felt safe voicing opinions and sharing my emotions with my parents. But I did get that conditioning in my in the religious context of like, don't go outside this box of like what we're teaching you about what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a mother. And heaven forbid, don't like disagree with the doctrine.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know? So or the leadership. Or the leadership. So you learn like, okay, like this is what I need to do to maintain belonging. Like, yeah, I'll disagree with all that you're saying. I won't become a critical thinker and think for myself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You just shut all that down.
SPEAKER_03You just shut it down. But that it overlaps in other areas of your life.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So we can go on and on about the patriarchy without. Let's do that another episode.
SPEAKER_01Okay. We better move on.
SPEAKER_03Before we go on, I want to share a resource with you. Many people ask me how to actually start working with their nervous system in a practical way, especially if they feel stuck, anxious, or disconnected from themselves. So I created my somatic repatterning audios as a place to begin. They're designed to guide your body into safety and help shift the patterns that keep you looping, not through force, but through real embodied change. If that feels supportive for you, the link is in the show notes. Okay, back to the episode.
SPEAKER_02I've got emotional withdrawal because I'm I picked the ones I picked are they hit close to home for me, but they're also they're survival patterns that I see like all the time in men. So emotional withdrawal is simply, you know, you think about let's just go back again to a little boy who maybe got his his heart broken in some way. Maybe let's just use the sandbox. Susie comes over, steals my dump truck in the sandbox, and I start throwing a temper tantrum. I start screaming and crying and kicking, and and my mom comes over. This is, of course, hypothetical, mom. This isn't, I don't know if this really happened, but not. But my mom comes over and says, Brandon, big boys do not cry. In fact, why don't you go sit under that tree for a little while over there until you can stop crying like a big boy and come out like a big boy and be ready to, you know, what do you stop being a girl? Stop being a wuss. All these things that we're told as boys.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, or I hear from dads calling their little boys pussies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like that's so harmful and hurtful.
SPEAKER_02It's like pretty soon you've got a boy who realizes very quickly, because he's smart. Oh, okay. Well, I see obviously, in order for me to maintain connection with these people on whom I depend for my safety and my protection and my food and my clothing and everything else, I have to shut down my emotions. I have to disconnect completely from my heart. And guess what? That doesn't go away. So you go throughout your life, that boy turns into, at least physically, a man, enters into a relationship of some kind with a woman, and he's not all of a sudden gonna flip a switch and be like all lovey-dovey, open heart, vulnerable, authentic. It just doesn't, it doesn't happen that way. Like that, that man is still a little boy emotionally. A little boy who is terrified, a little boy who was told that his emotions were not accepted. They were not okay, they were too much. And on top of that, he was called all sorts of names or pejoratives that were like demeaning or like were supposed to like throw shade on him in some way, like he was something was wrong with him because we're having emotions.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You see how like men have a terrible, like I feel the work that men must do to be integrated and initiated and like to live a life that is truly aligned with their heart and their soul is it's hard. Yeah. Because it's just too easy for a man to, you know, so so conflict comes up in a relationship. What we're talking about here is a man who goes silent, who maybe even like literally leaves, like she can't deal with it. Or you might deal with a man who you know, there's an interesting twist here on this one, Dars, and that is that the world does accept very, very, very openly one emotion.
SPEAKER_04In men from men.
SPEAKER_02Do you know what it is?
SPEAKER_04Anger.
SPEAKER_02Anger.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02For a man to show anger, that's okay. That's totally acceptable. It's expected. We see it in we see it on the roads, we see it all over the place, everywhere. Sports, sports, and it's like that anger that's being expressed by that man. It's it's really it's in disguise. It's being disguised as anger, but you know what it really is? It's fear, it's sadness, it's resentment. It's any it's shame. Any number of other emotion that he was taught as a young boy was not okay for him to show. Was not okay for him to feel. So it comes out as anger because somehow that's okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So how is that pre how is that pattern preventing deeper intimacy and connection?
SPEAKER_02Well, one thing that's we talked about the the requirements for deep intimacy and connection it are vulnerability, emotional truth, safety. And when a man shuts shuts his heart down, disconnects himself from his emotional truth through silence, through whatever means. Or maybe through excessive use of anger because it's actually disguised as those other emotions, like I said. There can be no safety in a relationship. There's no vulnerability, there's no at best there will be no vulnerability. There will be no truth because he's not he's not connected to his truth. Yeah. But at worst, sorry, at worst, there will be no safety because perhaps his disconnection from his emotional center, his emotional truth, or his excessive use of anger in situations that really in a healthy scenario would would actually be a different emotion. It's going to affect the safety felt in that relationship. And that if there's not safety and there's not emotional truth, there's no intimacy.
SPEAKER_03All right. So I have another question for you.
SPEAKER_02Am I being quizzed?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if I've ever gotten your um perspective on this. I have my own opinion, but I'm curious like what your perspective is. So part of the masculine energy is that protective energy, you know, holding the space for his family, for his wife. And I think part of that an attempt to like being the protector, being the strong one, is okay, it's my job not to show fear. It's not to show sadness, it's not to show vulnerability, because then it's going to make the people in my life that I'm expected to protect not feel safe. So, how does a man like maintain both those like energies? Like one being safe to express emotion, but also like not wanting to instil fear or unsafety with his wife or his kids.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's not easy. But I mean, sometimes it just depends on the situation, babe. Like sometimes I have found myself in an attempt, an honest attempt, to be vulnerable, to open up that channel for the free flow of like love and connection and be vulnerable, be real. I've I've found myself oversharing. For sure. I think there's I think there's over vulnerability.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and what I mean by that, I don't mean keeping secrets, especially from your person, your partner. What I mean is like sometimes you can just you can say too, you can say too much. And you can like instill or perpetuate or amplify the negative of a situation when you didn't need to. So no, it's true. Like a man wants, a man doesn't uh it's this, it's this catch 22 that men deal with, Dars. It's it's men like we want to be real, we want connection, we want intimacy, but we have uh we've been wired and conditioned that the display of any kind of softness or emotion other than anger makes us weak.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so I don't know. I don't have a definitive answer for you. I can tell you that it's I try to just get, I try to be in a place where I am in really intimate and sacred relationship with my own fears. Because I find when I'm when I'm in that space of I'm aware of my fears, very aware, but I'm but but I but I welcome them. I welcome them and I see them as teachers. I'm not trying to escape them, numb them, distract from them, pretend they don't exist, or let them get the better of me in like derailing me from my my mission. I try to just like they're there for a beautiful reason. And I think when you're in that space as a man, it's not that you don't have fears, you're a human being. But when you you don't try to push your fears away, I think you're in a good spot to know how to deal with them. I think you're in a good spot to know when to share about them with your people. You know? Yeah. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I think too that um I think you need to consider that consider the audience. Like you share way more emotional truths with me than you would with the kids. Yeah. Because for obvious reasons, they're not developmentally ready to be able to really be able to experience that and feel safe yet. So I think consider the audience. Like I've had some people come to me, like in awful divorce situations, who like tell everything to their kids.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like, don't do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you gotta be wise with your vulnerability.
SPEAKER_03Involve your kids in that type of drama, you are adding to the traumatic situation and what it already is.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So consider the audience. And I would also say that um your kids need to see you, they need to see an example of how to manage your emotions. And if you're not able to like express them and manage them, how are they supposed to learn how to do that? They're learning from you of how to feel, of how to express. So I see nothing wrong with being able to communicate to your child, you know, I was, I was feeling sad in that situation. That made me feel sad. And then to be able to see you properly and in a healthy way express that sadness. Even like that situation made me upset. Like I I was feeling a lot of anger over that. And then to let them see you, especially as a man, a healthy way of expressing that anger. Like, can you imagine what that would do for kids? To not only one feel safe in their bodies, to feel their emotions and to express them, but to have a helping model of how to be with their emotions in their body and how to express them. That's so important. So I would say don't hide your emotions. Consider the audience, how much you share, like you said, but don't hide them. Like let your kids see you manage your emotions in a healthy way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I want to just add before we move on to the next one on this one, Darce. Um emotional shutdown or withdrawal in a man is oftentimes it can look like he's got it all put together. It can look like he's stoic, cool under pressure, calm in the storms. But that it can simply just be he's completely disconnected from his emotions. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I just want to add that. Like it's complicated, you know. Men can they can be so disconnected from their heart, but yet be praised by the world as like stoic and having it being able to hold it all together when things are you know hard. So it's it's just it's a tricky one. And the other thing I wanted to add before moving on is that, you know, in a relationship, a partner, like if a man tries to give that false impression that like he's he's good when he's not, and so maybe he just goes silent, maybe he actually physically leaves for a while, or whatever the case, however, he's like withdrawing emotionally. Um but the problem is, see, the partner is gonna feel like in that type of situation with a man like that that is emotionally withdrawn. I gotta imagine, and you can, if you want, speak to this. But it seems to me like the partner in that relationship would feel like my emotions are just way too much for this guy. Like I can't, I can't bring my truth to this, to this table because this guy's gonna like completely shut down or leave or go silent, you know. So it's a tricky one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure. Um, the next one we wanted to talk about that I think is also a really important one, is the pattern of control. And control develops in early on in environments where there was maybe emotional volatility, things were really unpredictable. And so you become really hyper-aware of situations, and it's like you're trying to manage outcomes before they go wrong. And so you develop this pattern of wanting to control, and that can look like trying to control your partner's emotions, trying to control everything in your home, becoming really OCD about behaviors, um, you know, correcting people frequently, micromanaging. Um, and underneath the surface of control is just anxiety. Control is the nervous system's attempt at calming the anxiety, but it's just creating more anxiety. And that can that that can disrupt intimacy because um it's making the other partner feel like I need to be managed and I am not safe enough to like be free in this relationship because you are micromanaging every single thing that I do. It's basically you saying to your partner, I do not trust you. So um you have to become really good at like letting people have their emotions without trying to control them, letting mistakes happen, letting your partner make choices without you managing them. And it's going to feel very uncomfortable. All of these patterns that we're talking about, when you're repatterning, it's going to feel so uncomfortable. You're going to want to retreat back to your old ways. But if you really want to change that pattern, you have to sit, like you talked about, sit in that space between the stimulus and the response. That means you're going to have to sit with the discomfort without going to a pattern to try to make that discomfort go away. You have to become really good at being uncomfortable and then choosing the opposite of that pattern. And you have to do that repeatedly over and over and over again until this becomes who you are. So at the root of control is anxiety, wanting to predict um outcomes in order to feel safe.
SPEAKER_02One of the things I think we can end on for talking to men is that there are three questions that I think men can ask themselves when they are in this pattern. Whatever the repeating pattern is, there they notice that they're in it. Ask yourselves, men, these three questions. What am I protecting right now? And just sit with that and breathe. And just notice when you're in the midst of this conflict with your partner, whatever that looks like for you, what exactly are you protecting? Number two, am I trying to win or am I trying to connect? Because you sometimes can't have both. Sometimes if you're trying to win, win an argument, prove a point, you know, be the right one, that's oftentimes going to destroy connection and intimacy. So are you trying to be right? Are you trying to win? Or are you trying to connect? And number three, can I stay present with emotions that are very uncomfortable without trying to control? That's the hard one for men. Because when a man feels uncomfortable emotions related to his woman, it takes him back to his childhood and it touches on all those wounds that that little boy had of you know, shame, unworthiness, lack of initiation, all of the masculine wounds. And so, yeah, those those three questions. What am I protecting right now? Am I trying to be right or win? Or am I trying to connect? And number three, am I able to stay present, fully present, while feeling extremely uncomfortable?
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm. Those are great questions for both men and women to ask themselves in order to repattern. And I would add to that, like, you if you want to become familiar with your patterns, what's the first thing you do when you are experiencing discomfort inside of your body? Like, what's your pattern when you feel this discomfort? Do you defend? Do you control? Do you self-abandon? You know, that's that's your pattern, thing that you repeatedly do over and over and over again when you feel discomfort. And I think, you know, the whole process of like in relationship, it's not to strive for perfection. It's the process of becoming aware of your patterns and gently shifting them. So that the whole goal of your relationship, the whole goal of when you are in disagreement or ruptures is throughout all of this, how can we still maintain connection with each other and how can we still see each other? And it's about learning how to stay present during discomfort, discomfort, express your truth without um comparison, being able to regulate your emotions instead of react just automatically, and to repair when disconnection happens. Because the depth of a relationship is not revealed when things are going perfectly, and when you're on when you're both happy and everything's going right. Like your relationship is revealed. Like the depth of your relationship is revealed when things aren't going well.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03When you're noticing distance, when you're when you're in a rupture and you don't know how to return to each other. That is the relationship right there. That is how deeper connections and that is how intimacy is formed is when times aren't good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so true. You know, Darce, men rarely, I think, shut down because they don't care. They shut down because they just they don't know how to be with those emotions.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they were never taught.
SPEAKER_02They were never taught. Like They make sense. Men make sense. I know we've we've got our issues. We've got a lot of work to do. But it's not that we don't care. It's that we we weren't we weren't shown. We weren't modeled. We weren't taught in most cases how to sit with and properly live with discomfort.
SPEAKER_03I don't really think anybody to be honest with you. Like I feel like our whole entire culture is organized around what can I do so I don't feel discomfort.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And we're like bombarded continually with things that are coping mechanisms and things put in our face all the time to avoid being with ourselves. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02To distract ourselves.
SPEAKER_03Trains, media, like all the political shit going on, like all of the distractions in our lives, all the things that are keeping us in a state of fear. It all attempt to stay connected to ourselves and stay connected to our truth. And it's kind of like getting out of the matrix.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03And seeing things as they really are. Getting out of the matrix could be another episode that we could do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Man, just remember this the armor that protected you as a little boy is now suffocating your relationships.
SPEAKER_04Aho.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Love you.