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Love Your Life Show: Personal Growth, Mindset, + Habits for Busy Moms
Healing Tools to Break Free from Narcissistic Abuse
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Last week, in part one, we talked about three common behaviors many of us carry after leaving a narcissistic relationship: hypervigilance and people-pleasing, difficulty trusting our perceptions, and emotional dysregulation or numbness. -
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Hi, this is the Love youe Life show with Susie Pettit, certified life and wellness coach. Join Susie as she helps you with your wellness and mindset so you can live a life you love. Let's go, Warriors.
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Warriors. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Love youe Life Show. I. I am so glad you're here. If you listen to last week's episode, you know, we started a conversation about three common behaviors I see in myself and in so many of my clients that are showing up now in our lives. Maybe they're. Maybe we're doing them because we used to be in a narcissistic relationship. Maybe because we used to have an emotionally immature parent, which we're all emotionally immature. So basically, like, we're all probably doing these things in three in different ways. So put on your thinking cap, put on your growth mindset, and let's dive in. Because last week we was all about awareness to three common protective strategies. And this week is all about the healing. Now what do we do? All right, the three things that I do myself and that I see people doing protectively, hyper vigilance, self doubt, and emotional numbness or reactivity. If you missed that episode, episode 374, cue that up next for you. The personal and real life examples I give will help you so much. And let's keep moving forward with today because today, if you're listening live time, it's my birthday. And healing from this stuff is one of the greatest gifts I've given and continue to give myself. These things are not always easy, but the payoffs are massive. And I love them. All right. I love feeling safer in myself and in my relationships. When we were younger, we learned to do these things to keep ourselves safe. And as Maya Angelou famously says, now that we know better, we do better. So while the three things that I just mentioned were learned survival skills, they're not helpful to us anymore. And if survival seems too massive to you, like, that's just what we do as kids. It can be a little thing. And then we start doing their protective skills. And while they were pretty brilliant adaptations for the situations we were in, we get to learn new, more helpful and mature ways of being. We are an Earth school here. We are not little 13 or 18 year olds anymore. We want behaviors that fit the safer relationships we're in and the more connected, deep life we want to build. Okay? And if your brain just thought, but wait, I'm not in a safe relationship right now, that's very real and I need to Ask why not. I was in those relationships and felt very unsafe too. Are you still in the relationship because you're working to set boundaries and to see if the relationship will change? Well, the tips in this podcast episode are going to be awesome for you. Are we still in these relationships because we feel stuck and afraid and don't know what our options are? Then your first action is to push stop and get on my calendar. All right. I'll put a link below for low cost options I have for you. Because feeling unsafe in relationships is no joke and you need support. This is not something to do alone or with a podcast episode. All right? And let's keep going because that person pushed stop. And scheduling an appointment right now. Okay? And for all of us, this let's figure out what to do to break these old patterns. We have this first. I'm going to call it a healing step. Healing step number one is calming, Hyper vigilance and people pleasing. Right? We do these things hyper vigilance and people pleasing because we've developed an acute sensitivity to others moods and needs. We've constantly scanned for signs of disapproval or anger. The goal here, my dear listeners, is not to shut off that awareness. That's part of what makes you empathetic and a kind person. Right? The goal is to turn the volume down so you're not as exhausted by this constant scanning and constant checking. And you also stop automatically putting others needs before your own. So here are some things you can practice. First nervous system regulation. Hypervigilance lives in the body. Before you can change the behavior, you need to tell your body it's safe. Now try doing these one of these two things this week. All right. When you notice yourself feeling antsy because your partner is quiet and you so want to ask, are you okay? Is everything okay? Which is us trying to get something outside of us to tell us that we're safe. We're still look like we're just putting our authority outside of ourselves. We want you to tell you that you're safe. And so practice telling yourself and your nervous system you're safe with these two ways. One, place a hand on your heart. These are my two faves. Place a hand on your heart, drop your shoulders and take three slow deep breaths. The other thing I like to do is fold forward. Like stand up and do a forward fold. Let your hands hang down, your arms hang down and let it all hang out. Just sort of shake both of those. You are sitting signaling safety to your body. If you're in the Love youe Life school there's some neat graphics with a lot more ideas for you. And for now, like those two, just start practicing. Placing a hand on your heart, dropping your shoulders, taking three slow, deep breaths. When you notice that you're like, oh, my gosh. Okay, I'm feeling nervous because my husband's quiet or my kid is crankier. Take three deep breaths, right or forward fold. Let it all hang out. Just shake. Right? The next thing to practice here with this healing, hyper vigilance, and people pleasing is to practice a yes diet. We want to slow down how quickly we people, please. Hey, I had a 24 hour rule for myself when I was first starting this. So if someone asked me to do something, I would literally say, my coach has me on a 24 hour yes diet. So I'll get back to you tomorrow. If that's too forward or cringy for you, practice some version of slowing down the automatic self for yourself. Okay? Say, let me check on my schedule and I'll get back to you. I can't commit right now. I'll get back to you later or I don't know, right now. Like, practice saying these things. So in the moment when someone asks you and you notice yourself. Get it? You're like, ah, okay, you have something that's top of the, you know, sort of top of. I was going to say top of mind, but like on the tip of your tongue that you can just come out. All right? And if the request is via text, guys, please understand that that's like, even easier. You don't need to get back to someone's text right away. Soothe your nervous system first. Practice taking those three deep breaths first. Or do a forward fold first and then intentionally choose when you're going to get back to that text. Sit with it. Check in with yourself. How calm do you feel on a scale of 1, like you're so super calm to 10. And decide you're going to wait to respond until you're under a three, right? That those are two ways that we can start healing from hyper vigilance. Oh, wait, there's another option that works for me. I set an internal boundary with myself. Say that when my husband is quiet, I won't ask him if he's okay. All right, I let the silence Sit here, sit there. It's a good one to show you how healed you are with this. Like, if someone in your life is quiet or you notice they're like, you notice you're there in that hyper vigilance and you're spending so much time, like, what Are other people thinking? What are they doing? Oh, when she crosses her legs in that way, that means trouble. Or when she. Okay, this will tell you how codependent you still are. And we're going to practice letting them cross their legs in that way. Let your kid have a mood. Let your partner be quiet. Let your dad or whomever be crabby. All right? In healthy relationships, this is very important. We don't. In healthy relationships, we don't automatically assume it's our job to fix other people's feelings or that it's our fault. We need to practice that here and that that's something big I'd love for you to bring to coaching. All right, Healing step two. The second part here, how to learn to trust yourself. Years of gaslighting or having your experiences and opinions questioned leave people questioning their own experiences, judgments, and memories. All right? You might find yourself second guessing your feelings, seeking excessive validation from others, or really struggling to make decisions. Self doubt in this culture runs deep. And yet I'm telling you, with these small practices, you can make big progress from moving from self doubt to more self trust. We're trying to teach ourselves. Finally, we're trying to teach ourselves this, that. Actually, dear one, you know better than anyone else what's best for you. You know how you're feeling. You know what's best for you. Thank you very much. We want to start teaching ourselves that we have an inner guide that is so wise and supportive. I call it your inner warrior. And this healing step is all about learning to check in, check within first before we check without. Is that even a word? I don't know. But we want to check in before we check out, before we scan the room to see what other people are doing. So self doubt to self trust. We need to reconnect with our inner compass. And most of us don't even know us. We have shut this voice down for so long that we can't even hear it anymore. That was so me. I remember after my divorce, someone asking where I wanted to go for dinner and I was unable to answer. I was not with my kids. I was obviously not with my ex. Okay. But I, like, I was just like speechless. If they had asked, like, you know, where my sons like to go or where my ex husband would want to go or what, like those. I knew that and my brain was sort of like coming up with those things and I was like, well, shouldn't I want to go there? No, like, I want it. Like we want to start having opinions, having ideas. So what I call this healing step is practice making small decisions. Faster, faster. Start to normalize it. Like, oh, I can learn about myself. What do I like? Where do I want to go to dinner? What flower is my favorite? Right? One of the things I love giving people for homework is to try a new vegetable this week. Go to the supermarket, look at the veggies. Choose one. Don't overthink it. Don't look on your phone for what's the veggie? The best veggie to eat for a 53 year old woman. Okay, look at the veggies. What jumps out at you? Which one's looking interesting? And put it in your cart, get home, try it. One of two things is going to happen. You'll like it or you won't. And I want you to normalize it. When you don't like it, don't make it some big massive thing or some character flaw like you should have known. Like we used it. Like when we used to make mistakes. It used to be so big in our old relationships growing up, it was not safe for me to do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing. And now we want to make it okay for you to do the wrong thing or make the quote unquote wrong choice. Like who gets to decide if it's a right or a wrong choice. Practice making these small decisions faster. Go to a restaurant and don't look at the menu ahead. Order something. Don't like it. So what? Who cares? Your belly's full. You got the sustenance. Move on. Next time you won't get that. Learn about yourself. Learn. Practice making small decisions. This week, warrior, go to the library, pick a book, get home. Don't like it. Who cares? Normalize it. You're not awful. You're not evil. You didn't waste time. That's part of it. Return it. We want to show ourselves that we are now safe to make mistakes. We're safe to change our minds. Have your back. Don't say that was a dumb decision, Suzy. Now you have half a beet. You won't eat. No say okay, so you don't like beets. Good to know. I'm so glad you tried something new. Say to yourself, I'm so proud of you for trying to break this patterning. Sorry you didn't like that meal you chose. But go you for just choosing something. Another thing to work on to build self trust over self doubt. Limit the reassurance loop that we catch ourselves in. Okay, Most of us ask multiple people for their opinions before deciding something. Try limiting that okay, we want to eliminate it. Like, not limit it. Just eliminate it. If you're choosing a book or a veggie, like, that's a small decision. Just decide and be okay. As I just said, like, be okay. Make it wrong. But if you have a bigger decision, decide ahead of time and use some constraint in who you'll ask, right? Maybe you're, like, choosing a new place to rent or a new couch to buy or a new, you know, whatever. Okay, we'll decide ahead of time. I'm going to ask two people. I'm going to ask one person, and then that person that you ask, okay, look around at what you're asking for their opinion of do you. Like. Like, what they're deciding with that? Like. Like, look at someone who's living a life you want to be living. Don't ask me which couch to buy, because if you look at mine, mine say 12 years old, and I want a new couch. All right, look at someone who has the life you want to be living, who's doing the thing in a way that you emulate. Ask them, okay? They're not living these, like, little close life. Stop asking everyone and their mother for validation. Practice saying, what do I think? Do I think this is a good decision first? Let's do that. So we're practicing making more decisions, and then we're practicing asking. Being selective in who we ask and asking fewer people for their validation or what their opinions are on our choices. All right? You're like, do I look good in this? Ask yourself, do you look good in that? And have your opinion be the first one that matters. When I started practicing this, I noticed I still felt the need to talk it out and be like, well, I don't know. What should I do? So I would go into the bathroom and ask that lady in the mirror, hey, what do you think? Seriously? I do this because I had an external processor, so I wanted to get it out, but I was selective. I'm like, okay, I'm ask her. She knows. And who's that? Her? Me. So we're practicing more decisions this week and less external validation. Yay. All right, the third thing I want us to look at healing Step number three is healing from that third piece, the regulating our big emotions or reconnecting so we're not so numb. Our emotions are messengers. But after past that we've had, they can feel overwhelming or absent. Like, we're numb. All right. Many clients describe either feeling emotions very intensely. Like, we have that. Like, if it's hysterical, it's historical. Like, we're like, oh, my gosh, why am I so triggered over this, this little thing? Or feeling disconnected from their emotions and experiences. Like, they're numb. Like they can't feel it because then they're like, too afraid. Well, what would that mean? Okay. It's almost like they're watching their life from above. Both are very normal responses to the past you had. And now we want to make feeling feelings safe for you because that's what we are. Hey, human beings, we're here being. What does it feel like to be you? So our practice is we want to get better at feeling. If you're the type of person who feels calmer when they know, like, the why and what's going on in my brain and body, I'll link some episodes below on emotional intelligence. And all of us, we want to get better at feeling. And I like thinking of feeling. My brain works well in metaphors and thinking of feeling. Like a big wave. You're at a really wavy beach, okay? Like, you're standing in the sand and for maybe the first 10ft, there's just like gentle water going up and down. And then you get over that break and they're like massive, like, I don't know, 10 foot high waves. Okay? So when we're overreactive, we're up high on that wave, we're like, everything feels bigger. Okay? Oh, my gosh, this is crazy. It's totally out of control. If we're numb and disconnected, we're at the other end and it's like we're sitting on the beach with our back to the waves. We're like, no, I'm not even looking at the. Like, I'm not even getting enjoyment from looking out. Forget it. We, my dear ones, want to build the ability to be able to stand in the gentle rise and fall of the water. And to do this, we need to start checking in with ourselves and what those gentle, smaller emotions feel like in a safe way. So I like, I like having people practice the pause and check in technique at least once a day. Part of emotional intelligence is knowing that our feelings have a physical feeling in our body too. Like, we can say the word sad. I'm sad. And I also want you to note that feels like something in our body. We have a physical feeling that goes along with sad. And so I want you that the practice here would be to at least once a day check in with the human being that you are. Set an alarm or something. I have lots of strategies I can help you with, but at least once A day. Pause and ask yourself, what. What am I feeling? And name it with one word. Angry. Nervous. Happy. Anxious. Okay. Most of us don't know many words to label our emotions. So get. Learn. Build your emotional vocabulary. Part of emotional intelligence. I'll put a feelings chart in the show. Notes smbwell.com 375 Put it on your phone. Get better labeling it. Learning about yourself. What is it? What do I call this? Name it to tame it, they say. So you name it Anxious. That's step one. Step two, Describe it. What does it feel like in your body? If you were talking to a medical doctor, how would you describe the feeling you're feeling? Right, you have a word for it. But what does it physically feel like? Seriously, can you practice this once a day? What word describes how I'm feeling? And what does that feeling feel like in my body? It might seem small to you, but I can't tell you how much that will help you heal. Most of us are walking around like our heads are disconnected from our body. That's me. It's like my little head there. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, I get to the end of it. I'm like, wait, I wasn't even paying attention. I've been like, whatever. Okay, we're thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking. But are we stopping to feel? Usually not. It was unsafe for us before, okay. Which is what this podcast is about. And many of us weren't taught this stuff as kids. And today's a great place to start to practice this stuff. And I'm going to wrap this up here. The things I spoke of today will change your life if you practice them. If I were you, frankly, I'd go back to the beginning and re listen to this again right now, maybe with a pen and paper. We need active reinforcement in our head to reprogram the thinking we have from the past experiences we've been in. I've mentioned before how helpful it is to re listen to past podcast episodes. I re listen to mine all the time. All right? But most of us are surrounded by people in relationships that are thinking in the old ways that got us feeling in the way we're feeling now. As Oprah and I think Einstein said, you cannot solve your problems with the same thinking that created them. Which means rewiring your brain by re listening to podcasts like this and joining communities like the Love youe Life School, where you're surrounded by like minded, expansive thinking. People make a difference. All the difference, actually. If you're confused about which old episodes to re. Listen to or whether to join the school or not. Stop that. Stop. Confusion is a stagnant and toxic emotion. That's all. I mean, that is pure self doubt, right? It's like, oh, what should I do? Stop. Choose something. Take an action step. You've got this. Like, what's the worst that happened? You listen to an old episode and you're like, no, I didn't need to. Like, okay, listen to another one. Join the Love youe Life school. Okay. Get out after a month. Who cares? Like, do something. No more confusion, no more self doubt. No, we're healing from this stuff. You have got this. You are amazing. You are here to live a life where you can shine your light out. And some of these past relationships have us hiding our light. And I don't want that for you. I love you. I am so, I mean double, triple, quadruple thrilled that you listen to podcasts like this to support your amazing self. And now I want you to take the action steps. Because listening to an episode and one part, the next part is doing the action steps. And you're going to start to heal and do all this faster with support. I want that for you. Let's go, Warrior. You are such a light. Thank you for being here.
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Thank you for listening to the Love youe Life show. If you want to hear more from Susie and support the show, be sure to subscribe to this podcast on itunes. Also, leave a review and share this podcast with friends and family. Go get em, warriors.