The Issue Isn't the Issue — Overcoming Your Coping Mechanisms

I always thought the problem was the wine. Or the scrolling. The over-working. The over-functioning. I'd white-knuckle a promise to myself, last about four days, and crash right back into the thing I swore I'd quit. Then I'd hate myself for it.

None of it was ever the problem. It was the band-aid. The pain underneath — the grief, the relinquishment wound, the belief I had to earn my place — that was the issue. And you cannot willpower your way out of a wound.

This week, we're getting honest about coping mechanisms. Why each attachment style reaches for a different "drug of choice," how these loops hijack our brains, and the exact framework I use with my clients to break the cycle — without shame.

If you've ever felt broken for not being able to "just stop," this one is for you.

In this episode we cover:

• What addiction actually is, in Gabor Maté's words: "Don't ask why the addiction, ask why the pain"
• The 4-step loop that hijacks your brain — and why willpower keeps losing to it
• The three flavors of adoptee coping: Numbness, Replacement, and Rescue
• How anxious, fearful-avoidant, and dismissive-avoidant adoptees each numb out differently
• The 5-step Emotional Processing Tool to use the moment you feel the urge to escape
• A somatic toolkit for when the feeling is too big to think through
• A listener question from Hyejin, a Korean adoptee flying solo to meet her birth parents

A quote from the episode: "The behavior is not the issue. The behavior is the smoke. The pain underneath is the fire. And we've spent our whole lives trying to wave the smoke away."

The "Dear Claire" Segment

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Transcript

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For most of my life, I thought the problem was the toxic relationships, or the wine I couldn't stop drinking, or maybe it was the late night scrolling, or the overworking myself and perfectionism, or the people pleasing. I'd quit something for a couple days, just white-neckling my way through, and then I'd crash right back into it. And then what would happen is I'd hate myself for being too weak. And it really just took me a long time to understand that none of those things were the actual problem. They were the band-aid. The actual problem was the pain that I was trying so hard not to feel underneath them, underneath my coping mechanisms. Alright, today we are talking about coping mechanisms, why we have them, how they can just hijack our brains, and why each attachment style tends to numb out in a completely different way. So the dismissive avoidant adoptee and the anxious adoptee are reaching for totally different things, but it's the same wound underneath. And I'm gonna give you real practical framework for how to break the loop without the shame, without having to rely on just willpower, without quitting and starting over like a hundred times. And I'm also going to be answering a beautiful question from a listener named Hygien who is flying to Korea solo in June to see her birth parents for the second time. So if you've ever wondered how to walk into something that just absolutely scares you without abandoning yourself in the process, stick with me. Okay, let me just be really honest with you for a second here. Last week we talked all about boundaries and how when we feel out of alignment, almost always there's a boundary somewhere we're not holding. And so many of you messaged me after the episode or commented, like, okay, you could also see the boundary. The way that I'm coping with not having that boundary, okay, bear with me, like coping with wine at nighttime after work, the doom scrolling on Instagram and TikTok, the overfunctioning at work. That's the part I can't seem to crack. And I keep promising myself I'll stop, and I keep not stopping. What's wrong with me? Okay, I just want to say this with so much love. Nothing is wrong with you. Okay, you don't need fixing, and this is so common. Also, you are not weak, you are not broken, you're not lazy, and you're not a person without willpower. Okay, I think that it's important to tell you these things because what you are is a person whose nervous system has been carrying way more than it should have to carry for like a really long time, and the things that you're calling your bad habits are just the strategies that your subconscious has built to keep you alive or to keep you feeling safe when you didn't have any other tools. That's not a flaw. This is just surviving, it's actually brilliant. It's your body's way of surviving and adapting and giving you the safety that you need. And until we understand what's actually happening when we cope biologically, neurologically, and subconsciously, we're gonna just keep trying to fix the wrong thing. We are going to keep trying to wave the smoke away when the actual issue isn't the smoke, it's the fire that's underneath. So that's what we're doing today. We're going to go underneath and look at the fire. We're going to look at what is causing the smoke. Okay, so let's get into the framework. And I want to start with a definition here because most of us have a really limiting belief or a limiting idea of what addiction even is. Most people, when they hear the word addiction, they think of like the extreme stuff. They think about that alcoholic person laying in the gutter or in the you know subway station in Korea, just totally passed out. They think of like the heroin addict with the needles all around them, and so a lot of us just let ourselves off the hook. We're like, well, I'm not that bad. I just have a glass of wine or two or three every night, or maybe I just scroll for like two hours before bed, or I just throw myself into work whenever things get really hard, or I just shop a little bit too much, or gamble a little bit too often. You get the point. Okay, so what I want to read you is Gabor Mate's definition because I think it absolutely changes the game. He says, Addiction is any behavior that a person craves, finds temporary relief or pleasure from, but suffers negative consequences as a result of and has difficulty giving up. Let me say that again: craving temporary relief, negative consequences, difficulty giving up. It's not serving you anymore. Okay, by that definition, and I want to be really honest with you here, most of us have several addictive patterns, not just the obvious ones. We're talking about scrolling, people pleasing, overworking yourself, sex, love, gambling, gaming, codependency on other relationships, other people, shopping, sugar, approval, caffeine, even being busy, just staying busy, like chronically, perpetually never sitting still or never allowing yourself to rest. That is a coping mechanism. And guess what? I'm not naming any of this from the outside. For a long stretch of my life, my list looked like all of those, all of those coping mechanisms. Okay, I was drinking wine, I liked way too much wine. Shopping, I couldn't afford, I didn't need um smoking cigarettes until I quit at age 40, and then I that that nicotine addiction turned into a sugar addiction. Um, gambling, fawning, people pleasing so chronically that I didn't even know what my own yes felt like anymore. Workaholism, um, running my side business while I worked a full-time job, just so I never had to sit still. Um, love and sex as a regulating substance. Like I remember maybe over-sharing here, but I just feel like I I need to say some of these things because I have truly struggled with some of these things that we talk about on this podcast, and I just want to let you know that I have been there, like I've been down in the trenches. I was in therapy, you know, like a long time ago, and I had was struggling with a love and sex addiction, and my therapist sent me to a um Sex Addicts Anonymous group. It was like a 12-step program, like Alcoholics Anonymous. So I have been there, like I know what it's like to have these coping mechanisms. Like, I literally had one for every flavor of every feeling that I didn't want to feel. I had a story for every single one of them, and like it may have looked like, oh, I'm just a social drinker, I'm just a hard worker, I have good work ethics, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm low maintenance, I'm the easy one. So I really never had to look at what was underneath the smoke. And here's the thing that I really want to drive home today. The most important sentence of this whole episode, maybe um, I'm gonna quote again from Gabor Mate, and he says, Don't ask why the addiction, ask why the pain. I'm gonna just let that sit and land for a second. Don't ask why the addiction, ask why the pain. Because the behavior is not the issue. The behavior is just the smoke. The pain underneath is the fire, and most of us have been spending our whole lives trying to wave the smoke away, and we're like, why do I keep drinking? Why do I keep scrolling? Why do I keep overfunctioning? And the smoke just keeps coming back because the fire is still burning. Yeah? Are you with me? We're going to learn to take a look at the fire. Now, here's the second piece that I really want you to hear. Coping mechanisms aren't just about moving towards pleasure, they're more often about moving away from the pain, and we are biologically wired to do this. Our nervous systems are wired to move away from the pain and towards pleasure, and that's really how we survive. Okay, so when you feel the urge to reach for that thing, you know, the wine or the soju, the phone, to scroll, the snack, the fight with your partner, right? To get that um connection, to feel that connection, to feel something, the overscheduling, your subconscious isn't going. Oh, I just want to feel good. It's going, I want to not feel this, whatever this is. And at the moment you understand that the whole game changes for you because suddenly the question stops being, how do I stop drinking? and starts being, what am I drinking at? What is the pain I'm trying so hard not to feel? And so for adoptees, that pain often goes back further than most people. So just hear me out. It's the relinquishment wound, okay? That core wound of I'm not worthy, I am abandoned, I am unloved. Um, it's the loss of birth family, it's the loss of our culture, maybe, it's the loss of our language, our food, of a name, right? It's the inherited grief of our biological line, and it's the years of performing okayness, so we'd be allowed to stay. And our nervous systems have been carrying all of that, usually with no language for it. Like it's ambiguous loss. Like no one ever told me that that was what I was feeling. I had no language, I had no words for it. So this has been happening since before we could even speak, like pre-verbal. So now when when I stop and take a closer look at why I couldn't stop drinking, um, or why I couldn't stop checking my phone like every 15 minutes, or I couldn't stop saying yes when I meant no, I don't see weakness. Okay, I see a nervous system that has been white knuckling its way through a lot of unprocessed grief and finally found a way to take the edge off. That was just me trying to um take the edge off, not feel too much. And I just want to say that that's not failure, that's my body, that's my nervous system just trying to survive and move away from pain. And the work, the real work, is not to shame ourselves out of doing the coping mechanisms, it's not about the behaviors. The work is to slowly with kindness, with compassion, with love, give ourselves what we actually needed all along so that coping isn't necessary anymore. Okay, so let's get really practical for a minute because I want you to understand what's actually happening in your brain and in your body when a coping mechanism gets activated, because this is not a willpower problem, like I said before, this is your neurochemistry, and once you see it, you really can't unsee it. So there's a four-step loop that runs almost every coping behavior that we have. And I learned this from the work of Thais Gibson and her integrated attachment theory training at the personal development school. And I know I've mentioned her many times on the show before, and I'm gonna keep mentioning her because honestly, her work has just shaped so much of how I have been able to heal my own attachments and work towards secure attachment, but also how I work with clients and how I get them results. So she calls the BTEA loop. It stands for beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and actions. And here's how it goes: Step one is the stimulus. Something happens, an email lands, a text doesn't come, you see all the Mother's Day posts on social media, maybe, and like you haven't spoken to your mom in 10 years, and you get triggered. Um, maybe your boss sends you um a note and says, Can we talk? and you get all triggered, like you start thinking. Worst case scenario, oh my god, I'm being fired. You know the drill. I've been there. Maybe you have too. It could just be small, but it also could be huge. Step two is your perception because your subconscious takes that stimulus and runs it through your filter. Your filter is everything you've ever believed about yourself, it's your core wounds that are talking to you and that you truly believe on such a deep personal level, like inside your core, that's why it's called a core wound. Maybe it's I'm not enough. And the email lands and your subconscious goes, see, this is just more proof that I'm not enough. If your core wound is like I'll be abandoned, the unanswered text lands and your subconscious goes, see, this is them pulling away, like they left you on read, or they didn't give you an answer that you were looking for. Um, so I just want to say you didn't choose this. You don't choose this, like you're not saying, Oh, this is how I'm going to perceive this. It's instant, just like that. It happens before your subconscious mind. I mean, it happens before your conscious mind has a chance to even process and weigh in on what is happening. Step three, emotion. Now your body has a chemical response, it's cortisol, maybe adrenaline, that sting in your chest, the tightness, the heat in your face, maybe that feeling the uneasiness in the pit of your stomach, or for some of us, like total numbness. Like you can't even feel it, but your nervous system is jacked up underneath. Okay, maybe you can relate. And step four, the last step is the action. Your subconscious goes, we've got to get out of this. It's like running from the bear in the woods or the snake in the woods. We need relief. And now, so it triggers a behavior, it goes to pour the glass of wine, it goes to the app to scroll on, it eats the gummy, whatever it is that you do for your coping mechanisms. Um, maybe you go and open the fridge or eat the entire pantry full of snacks. Maybe you go and pick a fight with your partner or a family member. It says yes when you wanted to say no, and for a moment you get a hit. A little dopamine, a little serotonin, that sting fades, you know, or you finally start to feel something, and the body just settles. And then maybe like 15 minutes later, or an hour later, or maybe it's the next morning, the consequence kicks in the hangover, the shame, the credit card bill, the thing that you said you didn't mean and you can't take back, and the cycle just starts again and again. Okay, so let me just walk you through one of my own because this stuff is so much easier to feel when you can see it land in like a real life scenario. Um, just thinking back to a time, um, okay, this was during COVID, and um, during the pandemic, I remember just feeling so triggered um a lot by what was happening around me. They're Asian hate crimes spiking in the news. I was like at home just watching these like stories of elderly Asian women getting attacked in broad daylight on the news, like in New York City getting pushed onto um subway station tracks and getting pushed onto the train tracks, just horrifying things, um, like the shooting in Atlanta um at the spa, and so just thinking and going numb because there was nothing I could do about it. My nervous system had nowhere to put any of this, and just to be honest, I was coping using a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with it all. So the stimulus was I open my phone and I read the news, or I see the Facebook post or the news article, or I see a text from someone you know talking about it. It's the headline, another attack. My perception is my subconscious doesn't even pause, it goes immediately like you're not safe. The world is not safe, you don't have people in your corner, like you don't have family, you don't have safety, you don't even know who your people are, and you're completely alone in this world, you're completely alone in this body, and you're unsafe. Okay, and so the emotion that I was feeling was um thinking back, it was like heat in my chest, my throat closed, it was like constricted. I had rage with nowhere to put it, okay, and I had this like really uneasy feeling in the pin of my stomach, the helpless feeling I've lived with my whole adoptee life, it just amplified, turned all the way up. And so, with what was the action? I poured the wine, lots of it. In fact, I had like a box of wine because I was like, Well, I'll just save money, I'll just get a box of wine, and you know, also opening the shopping app. Like, I sit on on Amazon and just shop for everything that I didn't need. Like, I bought like entire like patio, furniture set, like rugs, decorations, makeup. Oh my gosh, I bought so much makeup, I didn't need all this makeup, I wasn't going anywhere, I was sitting at home. Um, every time I placed an order I didn't need, I just remember thinking, Oh, you know, I felt so disgusted with myself. But and it was just anything to get out of that body and to feel something other than pain. Okay, and so here's the thing 20 minutes later, the news was still happening, the grief was still there, that relinquishment wound was still affecting me. Okay, I was still feeling it subconsciously, but for that moment, my body had a target, it had a hit, and biologically, um, the loop, the subconscious loop, got rewarded, which means that the loop got reinforced. Okay, this is subconscious programming, okay, just not the kind that we want to do, it's negative um conditioning, and so the next time the panic came, my subconscious already knew exactly where to go to get that relief, and that's how every single one of these habits and behaviors gets locked in. Not because we're weak, but because the body found relief once or twice or a dozen times or hundreds of times, and now it just knows the way. Here's why I want you to really see this loop and understand the science behind it because it tells you exactly where the work is that's going to make such a big impact. It's not at step four. By the time you by the time you're taking action, that's way too late. By the time your hand is um pouring the glass of wine, or by the time you're already two or three hours deep on TikTok videos, your subconscious has already made that decision. So your conscious mind cannot just muscle its way through. That's why willpower alone doesn't work. So the real work that you want to do is at step two, it's at your perception, the meaning that your subconscious is making of that stimulus. Because once you can intercept that perception, once you can go, oh wait, that email isn't actually saying I'm not enough. That's just a story that I'm telling myself. And the emotional charge starts to soften, and when the emotional charge starts to soften, the urge to escape kind of softens as well. And suddenly you don't really need the wine to take the edge off, or you don't really need to scroll for two or three hours, or you don't really need to take that gummy. And that's the whole thing, that's the whole point of this episode. The work isn't fighting the behavior, the work is updating the perception that's sponsoring that behavior. Is it making sense? And there's a sentence I want you to memorize, okay? And you may have heard this before, talked about on the podcast. Genetics loads the gun, and our perception of our environment is what pulls the trigger. So you might have a genetic predisposition, okay? You might have a family history, or as adoptees, a lot of times we don't, but you might have a nervous system that just runs hot, like the Han. Yeah, you know, you just automatically feel that anger and feel that rage. And the good news, the unbelievable thing is you can update the meeting, okay? We can do that work for ourselves. That is what the second half of this episode is going to be about. I'm gonna take you through that work. Alright, before we get to the framework of doing the work, I want to name one more thing, and because this is the trap that almost Everyone who has unhealthy coping mechanisms falls into. And I want you to be aware of it before we actually go in to do the work. Now, this is something called ironic processing theory. And it was first studied by a psychologist named Daniel Wegener, and the easy way to remember it is what most people call the pink elephant rule. Or sometimes there's another example called the white bear rule. You may have heard both versions. Here's the experiment. So he tells a group of people, do not, under any circumstances, think about a white bear for the next minute. And what do you think they thought about immediately? Right? White bears constantly. Because like you cannot stop thinking about white bears because what's happening, the brain doesn't process the word don't, it just registers what comes after. White bear, white bear, white bear. So now apply that to your coping mechanisms. So if you spend all day thinking, um, I'm not gonna drink, don't drink, don't drink, don't drink, right? Your subconscious is hearing the word drink, drink, drink. And if you spend all day thinking, don't eat sugar, don't eat sugar, um, don't eat junk food, your subconscious is hearing sugar and junk food. Or if you tell yourself not to think about sex, what does your subconscious go to? I think you get the point. So you're conditioning yourself to crave the very thing that you're trying to avoid. Anything you fight, you feed. And that's why white knuckling never works, that's why the diets fail. That's why dry January often ends with February, drinking more than ever, because the more we fight, the more we feed. And the subconscious mind just doesn't speak in negatives, it only sees the picture that you're painting with the emotion that you pair with it. So if you've ever hated yourself for not being able to just muscle through this, you know, behavior change, um, please hear me. It's just it's not because you don't have the willpower, it's because willpower was never going to work in the first place. The brain is not designed to be defeated by fighting, it is designed to be redirected by replacing. And so, what we're going to do, and this is the whole framework right here, we are going to stop trying to not do the thing, okay? We are going to start asking what the thing is for. What need is it meeting? We are going to give ourselves a healthier strategy that meets that same need. So the subconscious doesn't have to reach for the unhealthy one anymore, okay? Because it's going to automatically have its needs met. And that, by the way, is why shame and judgment make addictive patterns worse. Okay, I think we've all been there. The shame and the judgment for the self-judgment is so bad. When we punish ourselves for the coping mechanism, we're adding more pain to the body, and what when the and what does that do to the body when there's more pain? It reaches for more relief, and so we end up coping about the coping. The coping is coping, and it's just the doom spot spiral, okay. And so I want to offer you this kindness and compassion towards yourself is the actual first step of healing. Not because it feels good, although it does feel good, I'm not gonna lie, but because the nervous system it literally cannot reprogram from a state of self-attack. Okay, it has to feel safe before it can change. So if you take nothing else from today, please just take this one thing away. Please be unbelievably gentle with yourself. The way you treat yourself during this process is the process. Okay, so now let's talk about how coping shows up differently for different people. Because here's what I see all the time in my coaching practice and with my adoptive friends. Um, they come in really just convinced that they're a failure, convinced that they're the only one with this particular flavor of bad habit. And the second I tell them which attachment style is most likely to do that exact thing, it's like they're just there's so much relief. They maybe cry because there's so much relief in realizing that thing that it's not our fault, okay? It's not a failure on us. This is just a pattern, and patterns can be changed. So I want to walk you through how each attachment style typically copes. Listen for yourself, and you might find yourself in more than just one. Just know that most of us have a primary, but the protective layer can really shift depending on the relationships. So, first the anxious adoptee, okay? The anxious attachment style. If you grew up with inconsistency, your caregivers were maybe sometimes available, sometimes not, and your nervous system learned to chase attachment. It learned to scan, read the room, it learned to perform for connection. And the way that adoptees tend to cope is by reaching outward. Okay, this is the anxious attachment. And so, what this looks like, it could look like checking your phone constantly, refreshing the text thread, people pleasing until you feel so drained, saying yes to things that you didn't want to say yes to, and codependent rescuing, like being the one who fixes everyone, who still shows up at 2 a.m. for for anyone, no matter what they um what they need or how draining it is on yourself, who runs herself just ragged to get love. Approval seeking, going on too many dates, maybe getting in relationships too fast, seeking validation on social media, ruminating about what someone meant by that one sentence and what that person is thinking about us. So here's the painful part for the anxious adoptee. The coping mechanism is connection seeking. So it doesn't even look like a coping mechanism on the outside, it looks like just being that good friend or a devoted partner. It looks like giving and giving and giving. But underneath it's a nervous system that can't feel safe alone, so it's really just outsourcing its regulation to other people, and those people will eventually disappoint you because no human can be the regulating presence for your nervous system needs at every single moment of every single day. Okay, that's codependency and trauma bonding. Now, the fearful avoidant attachment style, and listen, this is a lot of us in the adoptee community, this is the disorganized attachment style as well. Sometimes it's called that. Your coping is going to feel chaotic because fearful avoidance is the one that swings between anxious and avoidant. So one minute you're reaching, the next minute you're slamming the door shut. Like, get back, it's too scary. So, for fearful avoidance, coping often looks like extreme overfunctioning. The 80-hour work weeks, the endurance sports, you know, like going for runs for hours and hours and hours, the constant productivity that actually doesn't feel good, but it feels safer than sitting still. Because if you were to sit still, that means that you might have to feel something. And feeling is the most dangerous thing that your nervous system can imagine. And it also looks like this oscillation in relationships, like pushing really hard, or I'm sorry, pursuing hard, then pulling away hard, picking fights to create that distance, and then panicking a minute later about that distance, and then reaching back in. Um that's what it looks like. And controlling the externals is a c is the closest that a fearful avoidant nervous system can get to feeling regulated. So, what it looks like, and I just want to name this gently because it can look very extreme. Um, it can look like extreme self-numbing and private, maybe drinking alone, eating alone, scrolling alone, um, self-isolation because the public face is so put together that the private one has to find somewhere to drop that mask because it's so exhausting. Okay, even if it's only with the wine or taking that gummy just to take the edge off, whatever it is. I'm not judging here, I'm just naming it. And then there's the um lastly, there's a dismissive avoidant adoptee. So if you grew up with consistent unavailability, uh, like your caregivers were emotionally absent, or maybe they worked all the time, or they just couldn't be present and tune into you, um, they couldn't offer you that attunement that we really need as young children. Um, you may have learned really early on to rely on just no one. So you raise yourself in a way, and so your coping is also solo, it's about putting up walls, it's about it's not about other people, it's actually keeping other people out. And what this looks like, it could look like alcohol at the end of the day, it could be smoking weed, taking the gummies, food, especially when alone, long stretches of TV or maybe video games, online shopping, porn, um, anything that you can do by yourself that creates this kind of pleasurable little island where no one can ask anything of from you or of you, and you're not like you know disappointing anyone. The dismissive avoidant adoptee just numbs by retreating, okay, and this works until it stops working. So, also the dismissive avoidant has the hardest time recognizing the needs underneath because the whole strategy of being dismissive is to convince yourself that you don't have needs. So, when I ask a dismissive client or a friend, like what is the wine giving you? They go, I don't know, I just like wine. Like the disconnect from the body is so profound sometimes that they can't even locate the need. And I want to name where I land on this because I think maybe this will give you permission to land somewhere too. And um, I talk a lot about in other podcast episodes, um, my coping mechanisms and how I really struggled. So I started out early on, I I was a fearful avoidant, full blown. And you've heard me share stories of that, you know, on earlier episodes, the chasing relationships, the chaos, the swing between reaching for somebody and then also slamming the door because I was like, Is this too scary? And as I moved deeper into adulthood, my system actually shifted into dismissive avoidant for a long stretch. Because what I learned that over and over and over again of attracting the same partners, wow, yeah, that was like trauma in itself. So then I learned to go the opposite direction on the the opposite end of the spectrum. So what my system actually shifted into this dismissive avoidant for a long stretch of time, and on the outside, it did look like progress, it looked like less chaos. It it looked like I was more stable, more like I don't need anyone, you know. I was making a lot of progress in my career. Um, I seemed more accomplished and competent. I like was adulting a lot more than I had used to, but it was really just high-functioning everything, and the chaos didn't go anywhere, it just went underground, it got buried. And the hardest stretch for me was about 10 years ago when I just started to come out of the fog about you know my adoption, coming into consciousness. It was a lot, meaning I was really beginning to see what I'd been told about my story that it didn't quite match up to what I was feeling in my body, you know. The grief that I had no language for was finally pushing its way up, it was bubbling up rapidly, and it kind of just erupted like a big volcano. And I've shared this story um many, many times, but like I when it happened, I had absolutely no tools, so I numbed out hard. And so I used sex and porn, I used gambling, chronic people-pleasing, toxic, romantic relationships. Although they were they looked very different from the ones before. Um, I just you know, I got into more like transactional type relationships, um, so that I could compartmentalize, I wouldn't feel as much, and I kept choosing these because they felt familiar, and familiar felt safe even when it was hurting me. And also, I like I had no self-care, like no healthy habits. On top of all that, I threw myself into work. I just like I had this full-time job. Um, it was my you know, bread and butter, but then I was also starting to realize I had needs for you know like developing other passion projects, and so I started a meal prep business on the side, which I loved, but it was like 16 out 18-hour work days, and I just never sat still. I never sat still, I never had any opportunity or space, I never gave myself any space to feel anything. So from the outside, I looked like this successful entrepreneur, and from the inside I was just like running away from myself, and then I crashed and burned hard. Um, I reached a point I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't go to work, I couldn't keep performing, and it was in this moment finally where like I just threw up my hands, I said, Okay, Jesus take the wheel. No, um, I just I started therapy and where I couldn't where I started doing the actual self-love work and I let myself slow down enough to start to feel because the body had finally turned the volume up too loud to ignore. There was too much smoke to ignore it, right? And I knew that there was a fire underneath. I want to just say this if you're still running, running, running, if you're still in the version of you who has to be busy, who has to feel needed, who has to be useful, has to be doing, doing, doing all the time, please don't wait for the crash. You don't have to crash to be allowed to slow down. You can choose to slow down, you can give yourself permission before the body has to make you do it. Remember, when the body says no, when you're not able to say no in your life, your body will say no for you. Okay, and that is another quote by Gabor Mate. Okay, now there's one more thing I want to give you here because it really cracks something open for me when I learned through um Tyus Gibson's work. It's the distinction between numbing the body and self-soothing the body, and they can look kind of similar from the outside, they can even feel similar in the moment, but numbing leaves you more disconnected from yourself. Self-soothing leaves you more feeling at home in yourself. Um, let me give you some examples. Like the wine numbs, the warm bath soothes, the doom scrolling numbs, the walk in the woods or on the beach, maybe barefoot soothes. Working yourself to death, it numbs. Sitting on the floor with your dog and just breathing, that is soothing. The overfunctioning, the fixing, the perfecting, those all numb. Um, crying or laughing with someone safe and that soothes. So if you take away just one thing from this whole episode, let that be one of them. Before you reach for whatever's next, just ask yourself if this is going to numb me or is this going to soothe me? Because we already know what the body is going to need something. It's been carrying a lot, and we need to sometimes just put that down, that weight, that burden that we hold on ourselves, on our shoulders. The only question is whether what we hand it leaves us more at home in ourselves or further out. Okay. Um, now let's talk about the securely attached, which is the goal for us moving forward, right? It doesn't mean that we don't ever cope, we don't have coping mechanisms or behaviors that you know bad habits. But here's the thing: even securely attached people they learn to lean on coffee or a glass of wine or a good show, like binging on Netflix or something. But here's the difference they're not running from anything, they're actually intentionally choosing things from a regulated body with awareness and the um fact and the truth that the behavior it doesn't own them. Okay, they can walk away from it at any time. And here's why I'm telling you all of this: not to make you feel bad about yourselves, not to label you, not to self-judge, but because if you can turn on the lights in the house while you're trying to navigate your way through it, you can locate your way out much easier than if the lights are shut off. If you were blindfolded, if you couldn't see where you were going, right? The anxious adoptees exit is learning to come home to themselves instead of out to other people. And the fearful avoidance exit is learning to be still with themselves and like in tiny doses until the stillness stops being so scary. And the dismissive avoidance exit is learning to just reconnect to their own body, their own needs, their own felt sense slowly and with just a lot of patience. Alright, I want to tell you this: there is a way out for every single one of you, and it always starts with seeing yourself really clearly, without shame, with the self-love and the compassion and the kindness, with the soft eyes of someone who finally understands why you've been doing what you've been doing your whole life. Alright, so let me give you the framework that I promised you. This is the five-step emotional processing tool that I use with my clients, and I use them myself, just to be honest. And here it comes again from the work of Thais Gibson. So I'm going to put my own spit on it for adoptees, okay? But like the actual framework I learned from her. So this is what you do in the moment when you feel the urge to escape. That moment that you feel yourself reaching for the wine or your phone or the snack or that credit card to go shopping, the people pleasing, whatever. Five steps roughly takes two minutes, you can do it anywhere. Step one. I want you to witness your body, not the thoughts, the body. The first thing I want you to do is just stop, take one breath, and ask yourself this. Where is this in my body right now? What does it feel like? Maybe it's tightness in your throat, maybe it's like um tightness in your chest, or maybe it's heat on your face or your neck, maybe it's a buzzing in your hands, or it's just like uneasiness in the pit of your belly. Whatever it is, just locate it. You're not trying to fix it, you're just simply noticing it. Because the moment you witness that sensation, you become the observer of the sensation instead of trying, instead of being merged with it, you don't become that feeling. And a little gap is where your power lives. All right, step two. I want you to isolate the thought. Now ask yourself, what was I just thinking about? Okay, before you start to feel that sensation, what story was running in my head right before I felt the urge? Right before I reached for the wine or my phone. Was it maybe I'm not good enough? Maybe was it, oh, they're going to abandon me, they're gonna leave me, um, reject me, whatever that story is. Maybe it was I'll be alone forever. Maybe it's I have to fix this thing. Whatever it is, just name that story. Don't argue with it, just name it. Step three, we're gonna question the truth. And this one is maybe the most important part of all of the steps. Ask yourself this can I know with 100% certainty that this story is true? Is this thought that I'm having actually a fact? Or is this an interpretation maybe my subconscious learned a long time ago? Maybe to keep me safe, whatever. You will be amazed how often when you actually pause and ask yourself the question, that thought just collapses. Okay, we're poking holes in that in that um theory or that story that we've been telling ourselves for decades. Because most of our coping triggering thoughts are not facts, they're old templates and programs that we run without even thinking. Okay, now step four we're going to find the counter evidence. We're poking holes in that theory and that's I want you to find at least three pieces of proof that whatever it is, the opposite might also be true. So if the story was they're going to leave, I want you to find three pieces of evidence that you are loved, you are chosen, and you're safe. Okay. If the story was I'm not good enough, find three things that you've done really well today, maybe this week or this year. Three is a magic number because it's enough to interrupt the loop as it's happening. But more is better. So if you can come up more with more than three, that is great. Okay. Um, you're literally retraining your brain's filter and what neuroscientists call the RAS, RAS, the reticular activating system, and to start scanning for proof of the new story instead of just the old one. Alright, step five, the final step. Ask what is the need, and this is what most people skip. Okay, you're gonna ask yourself, what am I needing? What am I actually needing in this moment that I'm feeling and telling myself the story and reaching for the wine? No, it's not the wine, it's not the phone, it's not the snacks, it's not the gummy. These are all the strategy to get that need met, but you know what? It's not working for you, it's not healthy anymore. Okay, so underneath what is the actual need, and most of the time it's something like I need to feel comfort, I need to feel safe, I need to have rest, maybe I need to feel seen and heard, I need to feel held and loved, I need to feel like I am actually enough. And then only then you're gonna choose a strategy that gives you the actual need. How can you meet that need with a healthier strategy? So if the need is comfort, maybe this the new strategy you come up with is take a warm bath. Maybe get in your jammies, get under a soft blanket, and have like an amazing cup of tea. Maybe it looks like calling a friend who makes you feel safe or seen and heard. And if the need is just rest, maybe your new strategy is canceling the thing that you didn't want to do anyway, and just go to sleep early. If the need is to feel seen, maybe it's to um find a new strategy is to find spaces where you actually feel seen. Instead of the doom scrolling, like trying to connect with people who don't even know you, they don't know that you exist, right? If the need is to feel safe, maybe it's a walk, maybe it's a sunlight, um, to feel the sunlight on your face, breathing, um, feeling your dog's belly and like cuddling with your with your kids, whatever it is, find your actual need and then find that healthy strategy. Okay, here's the thing by the time you get to step five, the urge to engage in the unhealthy coping mechanism is usually softer if you go through the steps. I promise you. Most of the time, like 70-80% of the time, when I do this, by the time we name the need, by the time the um we we find out the strategy, the healthy coping mechanism strategy, the wine just doesn't actually sound that good anymore, okay? Because that loop got interrupted, the perception got updated, and the body got witnessed. Okay, we felt that feeling, that sensation in our bodies, and that feels better than anything else. Okay, the underlying need finally got named. And here's the magic that really just builds over time. Every single time you do this, you're reprogramming your subconscious, you are rewiring the loop. That's what we mean by subconscious reprogramming. So the next time the same stimulus shows up, the path of least resistance starts to be the healthier strategy instead of reaching for the wine or that bottle of soju. Now, it takes reps, it takes time, I'm not gonna lie, but the reprogramming work is real and it works. Okay, one last thing. Please, please just be kind to yourself when you forget. You are going to forget sometimes. You're going to reach for the soju, you're going to do the thing that you told yourself you didn't want to do, right? Because the um the pink elephant rule. Remember the framework though, and you're going to be maybe three bottles in before you go, oh wait, I was supposed to do that thing. That's okay. The work isn't to never reach or to never you know have slip-ups, the work is to keep coming back, and the reps are what reprogram you, not perfection. Okay, so remember practice makes permanent, not perfect. Alright, one quick add-on before we get to hygiene and um her amazing questions and um the Dear Claire segment, because the five-step tool I gave you it really works, but it requires some cognitive bandwidth. And some of you are just listening right now, going, Yeah, well, when I'm in it, I really can't think. I'm just flooded with emotion, I'm shaking, I'm dissociated, whatever it is, I'm gone, I'm numb. How am I supposed to question my thoughts when I can't even get into my body, right? How many of you can't feel your body sometimes? Because when the body is offline, when you're not able to access that felt sensation, you bring the body back online first. Okay, then the five-step is available to you, and it really works. Here is a short somatic practice for those moments that you want to get into your body, get really present. So I want you to keep this in your back pocket. This is called the 54321 five senses grounding practice, and it works because when your nervous system is just hijacked, it's like you're living in the past or maybe even the future. The senses pull you back into the present moment. Right now, I want you to think of five things that you can see. Okay, maybe it is the water that's on the desk next to you. Um, maybe it's the sky outside, maybe it's the clouds in the sky, maybe it's people walking by, maybe it's your hands and your feet. Okay, I want you to next name four things that you can feel. So maybe it's the chair underneath you, maybe it's the floor under your feet, maybe it's your clothes touching your skin, maybe it's the cool breeze that is, you know, coming from outside. All right, then you're going to name three things that you can hear and two things that you can smell. And lastly, one thing that you can taste. Okay, it just it takes like literally 60 to 90 seconds. What it can do, it can bring a flooded nervous system back into the room when almost nothing else will. Okay, so it gets you back into your homeostasis, gets you out of your fight flight, into your rest and digest, and makes your nervous system just regulated, makes you in get into your body. And so, um, and I learned a lot of this somatic experiencing work from Peter Levine. If you do any research, look him up. He has amazing books, Waking the Tiger. Um, but he's got a lot of really helpful research that he's done about this somatic experiencing. Okay, this brings me to our listener question portion of the episode. And I want to use our listener hygiene story to show you everything that we just covered and apply it. Okay, so Hygien writes, as a Korean adoptee, I never knew the true story of my origin until two years ago. Some days I still feel like I don't. I'm heading to Korea for the second time in June, solo. I struggle with feeling inadequate. Am I enough? Will they be disappointed if it's just me? Will I lose them again? Should I even try to get close to them? Oh, okay. Just breathe. Yeah, this is such a good question. And I really, I really feel you. Alright, so when this challenge arises, what do you feel in your body? And hygiene writes, my throat tightens, my body feels stiff and aches, my heart races. And what is the story your mind tells you in these moments? What do you make it mean about yourself? Hygiene writes, I can't truly trust myself or them. I revert back to being a child, just wanting their attention and affection. What if they leave me again? Oh, if you could feel 100% safe and secure in this situation, what would that look like for you? What are you really needing in this moment? I need reassurance that they love me, that they won't leave me, and that they don't just want me in their life for what I can do for them. And she writes, Mostly, mostly my birth father with the what can I do for him, especially financially. Okay, so my birth mother has never asked me for anything except to learn Korean. And so I just want to say, Hi Jin, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for the courage of getting on a plane alone, and thank you for being honest, and thank you for your your questions because I think um where personally I am not in this situation, I have not been in reunion with my birth family, but I can only imagine how this feels. And I know there's listeners who probably are um resonating with your question and with your situation. Here's what I want you to hold: you are walking in person into like your original core wound, right? Just doing this trip solo, just reconnecting with your birth parents. This is going to bring up these core wounds and it's gonna trigger you. And let's just say that most adoptees never get to do that, but the adult in you knows that this is going to be triggering and this is healing work, okay. The little girl in you is just probably feeling so terrified, right? And I'm gonna give you hopefully some direct guidance on a few things: the body, the story, the boundary, the money, and um the coping. Okay, so get ready. Hi, gent. Your nervous system is probably already preparing for this trip, like months out. Don't fight her, thank her. Okay, this is just listening to her, your body, and what is uh what what you're processing through. This is just information, okay. So thank her. Practice saying every time the throat tightens between now and June, just maybe put a hand on your body on your throat and say, I see you, I'm not leaving you, I'm not abandoning you. We're going together. That is the whole practice, okay. You're training your body to know that there's finally an adult in the room, like you're reparenting your inner child, okay. That is so important, and that's such a loving and kind thing that you can do. So, also the reverting back to being a child is not a flaw, like this doesn't mean anything except that the wound that was made as a child, um, this is how this is what turns up, this is what shows up when you get triggered. Okay, when your core wound is triggered, that's who shows up. It's whatever age you felt that originally, okay. So if you're five, if you were 10, 12, 16, whatever, um, that's who is showing up when you feel triggered. So she's not the problem, she's the reason you're going. Okay, the story that we update underneath that one, that story, they will leave me again, I'm gonna be abandoned. That's the original core wound or the template running or the program. Um, let's just question it, okay? Can you know that that's a hundred percent true? Oh what, you can't? You can't know that. Do you know that they're going to disappoint you? And could it be equally true that your birth mother asking only that you learn Korean is a love letter to you? It is. That is not a woman trying to use you. It's that's not that's a woman who's trying to get to know you and develop your connection even further. Okay, and that's probably like one of the best ways that she knows because it's really hard to learn English. You know, she's looking for more connection, she's not going to abandon you. Now, before you board the plane, I want you to do this. I want you to talk to the little girl inside of you. I want you to tell her very clearly, we are not going to Korea to earn anything, okay? We are not going to be the daughter who fixes things. We are going as we are, just as you are, as enough. You are 100% worthy and enough just as you are. So if anything that they want from us costs our self-respect, our dignity, our financial stability, our boundaries, we say no. Because we love her too much to let her feel used and to cross those boundaries, even by people who made her. Okay, even birth parents. I know this is really delicate, and I just want to offer you just with a lot of kindness, look at her and tell her that. Alright, decide your answer about money before you go, not in the moment, do it now. Do it from a set from a space of regulation in your body, okay. Do it in your own home, and you can love him and not financially have to support him, okay. Both those two things can be true. And the test of love is not whether someone asks, it's how they respond when you say no. This is boundary work, it's not saying no, no, no, just making people leave and kicking people to the curb. It's saying how you're going to respond and how you're going to and how they're going to respond if they say no. Okay, whatever you decide, decide it before you get on the plane. All right, number five is you're going to be activated the entire trip. Maybe not the total trip, but most of the trip, some of the trip, yeah, it's entirely possible. The urge to numb, to perform, to fix, to overgive, people please, whatever. It's going to be really, really enormous. Plan for it now and plan your strategies. So, one, you can know where you can go for 10 minutes alone. Maybe just hold space for yourself. Maybe schedule check-in calls with people you love, your friends, um, family members, safe people that can really um hold space for you. Three, pick the music that regulates you and have it ready. Okay, music, so grounding, um, breath work, meditation, tapping, do the five senses um exercise that I just taught us, and yeah, just use the tools, the somatic tools that you know and help get into your body, help get present. Okay, we don't want to be like dysregulated the whole time. And number six, don't post in real time, okay. Maybe just wait till you get back home or wait till you get back into a place feeling safe and regulated. Um, also eat on a regular schedule and get a lot of sleep. Even when your appetite is gone, you're you're gonna really want to have that that fuel in your body because your nervous system can't really regulate without food and sleep. It's just going to also like spike your cortisol levels, and you know, having that stress in your body is not good. So, also, I would love for you to build in maybe a debrief day on the other side. Like, don't jump straight back into your life, have some time to come back into yourself, come back into your body, you know, catch up on your sleep, debrief, process some of your emotions, and it's not gonna happen in just a one or two days. Just give yourself a lot of time for it to land, and the come down from a trip is like really real. And if you've experienced that on your prior trip, you'll know it sometimes hits really hard. So give yourself that space, and that's when we tend to see like coping mechanisms spike, and just be really aware when that's happening and reach out for help, but also use the tools that I've given you here in this podcast. All right, and the last thing is hygiene, you are going to Korea to meet your birth parents, and the person you're actually going there to find is you, and with that, you know, don't perform for them, be there for her. Whether they show up the way you hope or not, you really can't control that. But you are the one who finally gets to give that little girl what she's been looking for your city presence, your love, your compassion, your kindness, your willingness to not abandon her, even when it's hard, because that's what I think um we do a lot is that when things get hard, we tend to abandon ourselves, right? And I want you to know that you are enough, not because they say so, because you are you're worthy just because you're born, and so I'm just holding a lot of space for you. I'm sending you a lot of love, and um uh yeah, I'm so proud of you. Here's what I want you to hear before we close out. I want you to hear this. Your coping mechanisms were never your failure, they were your survival. The very best your nervous system could do at the time with what it had. There is a moment eventually in everyone's healing journey where the nervous system gets safe enough that it can lay them down. Not because we shamed it, because we finally gave it what it needed. So be patient with yourself. You've been working hard for a very long time, and I'm gonna offer you an affirmation that you could use. Um it goes like this my coping mechanisms were never my failure, they were my survival. I am safe enough now to lay them down and to give my nervous system what it actually needed all along. So thank you so much, every single one of you, for being here, for doing this work together, for meeting yourselves with the kind of love that you didn't get, maybe. Um, and thank you so much to hygiene for your courage and your honesty. I'm so excited to hear about your trip to Korea, and I want you to know again that you are enough. Give yourself permission to accept all the love and all the joy that your heart can hold. Before we close out today's episode, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you. Thank you for showing up for yourself today and for having the courage to do this work. Remember, healing isn't just a concept, it's a practice of reclamation. And to make sure that you never miss a step on this journey, please hit subscribe to the Dear Care Podcast. This ensures that you'll be the first to know the moment a new episode drops. It's also a sign of a commitment to yourself and for committing to doing the work on your journey. I would also be so grateful if you could just take 60 seconds to read and review the show. In the world of podcasting, your review acts like a lighthouse. It helps us reach more adoptees who are looking for this space to heal their attachments and find their way home to themselves and bring more joy and peace into their lives as well. Remember, this is a conversation, so if you have a question about your relationships, about your core wounds, about your manifestation journey, please submit it via the link in the show notes. By asking your question, you aren't just helping yourself. You are empowering every other listener who is likely struggling with the exact same thing. I'm so honored to be on this path with you. I cannot wait to do more of this healing work together. This is the Dear Claire Podcast, and I'll see you next time. Much love.