RE-RELEASE: KC Davis—What to Do When Someone Can’t Love You the Way You Want Them To

Summary

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Self-Conscious with Chrissy Teigen

Episode: RE-RELEASE: KC Davis—What To Do When Someone Can’t Love You The Way You Want Them To

Date: December 25, 2025
Guest: KC Davis, licensed therapist, bestselling author of Who Deserves You’s Love?

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Overview

In this candid and heartfelt conversation, Chrissy Teigen welcomes therapist and author KC Davis to discuss the complexities of love, boundaries, and emotional safety. Together, they examine why relationships sometimes hurt, how childhood patterns influence adult connections, and the struggle between caring for others and caring for oneself. With a blend of personal storytelling and therapeutic insight, the episode offers listeners reassurance and a toolkit for healthy self-regulation and boundary-setting—especially when someone can’t love you the way you hope.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Challenging the “Deserving Love” Narrative

[01:38] KC Davis:

• The real question isn’t about whether someone “deserves” your love; it’s about whether the relationship is working for you right now.
• There is too much moralizing around relationship decisions (“Am I weak for staying? Does leaving make me strong?”).

  “Someone doesn’t have to be bad for you...they don’t have to be wrong for you to be wrong together.” — KC Davis [01:57]

• Evaluate if staying or leaving violates your own values, prioritizing your responsibility to yourself over external pressures.

The “Villain” Trap in Breakups

[03:23]

• People often feel compelled to paint their partner as “the bad guy” in order to justify leaving, which can lead to unnecessary conflict.

  “It’s almost like when you want to break up with somebody so you have to turn them into the bad person.” — Chrissy Teigen [03:23]

Misusing the Language of Narcissism

[03:40] KC Davis:

• “Narcissist” is overused, especially online, to describe exes or parents.

  “None of us have ever met somebody with true narcissistic personality disorder that didn’t develop that from deep trauma.” — KC Davis [03:50]

Hard Relationships vs. Unsafe Relationships

[04:08], [04:13] KC Davis:

• All relationships have “screw-ups,” but ongoing mistreatment (where hurts are not addressed) becomes emotional abuse when control, coercion, or degradation are present.

  “If someone’s throwing dishes at you, that’s not what we mean by relationships are hard.” — KC Davis [04:16]

Three Categories of Relationship Harms

• Screw-ups: Occasional, honest mistakes.
• Mistreatment: Patterns of hurt ignored or dismissed.
• Abuse: Mistreatment escalates to degradation, humiliation, coercion, or controlling behavior.

Childhood Dynamics Shaping Adult Relationships

[05:38]–[08:09]

• KC Davis and Chrissy Teigen recount how their relationships with their fathers and early experiences imprinted lasting beliefs about worthiness.
• Both reflect on seeking validation through being “chosen” or “liked,” not necessarily genuinely liking their partners.

  “Do I even know what it feels like to like someone? Or do I just know what it feels like to like being liked?” — KC Davis [07:25]
  “I pretty much just brought my toothbrush...and I live here now.” — Chrissy Teigen [07:34]

Recognizing Emotional Abuse in Everyday Relationships

[08:24] KC Davis:

• Emotional abuse is different from ordinary arguments; it’s when someone weaponizes your vulnerabilities against you.

  “It is not normal for you to fear that if you are vulnerable...your weaknesses will get weaponized later to harm you. That’s not psychological safety.” — KC Davis [08:24]

Family Responsibilities & Cultural Expectations

[10:19]–[12:39]

• Chrissy shares her experience of being criticized for placing her father in assisted living, balancing her joy in caring for her parents with cultural and familial expectations.

Boundaries: The Reality and the Grief

[14:12]–[21:41] KC Davis:

• Many confuse expressing needs (“I want you to be more present”) with setting effective boundaries.
• True boundaries are about maintaining one’s selfhood, even if the other person never changes.

  “A boundary is about understanding where I end and you begin.” — KC Davis [20:20]

• Sometimes, after honoring your responsibility to a parent or partner, what remains is accepting grief for what you can’t change.

Vulnerability and Public Perception

[25:10]–[26:30]

• Chrissy discusses the risk of public misperception when sharing family struggles, urging listeners (and the media) for grace in understanding the nuance of complicated relationships.

  “We haven’t had a falling out...I’m trying to fix this very complicated relationship that I think everybody has...” — Chrissy Teigen [25:48]

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Memorable Quotes

• KC Davis:

  "We’re not only trying to decide is this relationship right for me, but...what does it mean about me if I stay?" [01:57]
  "Most people's reasons why they behave badly are sympathetic." [04:01]
  “When you admit mistakes and your partner uses them as ammo—that’s not safe.” [08:24]
  "If you could show up in that relationship and be exactly who you are authentically...you are being boundaried." [19:41]
  "A boundary is about understanding where I end and you begin." [20:20]
  "It’s not about fixing that heaviness, it’s about shifting your efforts from changing the other person to caring for yourself." [22:41]

• Chrissy Teigen:

  “I loved being on somebody’s arm and looking like a prize...I never really thought about whether I liked the people.” [06:29, 07:34]
  "I don’t think I’ll ever be able to change that." [29:16]
  “We haven’t had a falling out...I’m trying to fix this very complicated relationship...” [25:48]

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Toolkit Segment – Practical Exercise: Emotional Self-Regulation

[30:51]–[37:32] KC Davis

Purpose:
To help recognize, de-escalate, and recover from emotional dysregulation, especially during conflicts.

Steps:

1. Recognize Your Triggers
   • Notice physical signs (tight chest, shallow breath, etc.) and feelings of urgency.

     “If we know that we have a sensitivity to feeling like we’re not good enough...identifying where and what in your body begins to tell you.” — KC Davis [31:06]

2. Stabilize Your Nervous System
   • Use “box breathing” (breathe in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4).
   • Activate your vagus nerve:
     • Place something cold on your chest or neck
     • Hum or rock
     • Try mammalian dive reflex (cold water on the face)
   • Grounding: Name five things you can see, four things you can hear, etc.
   • Sensory distraction: Eat sour candy, hold something hot/cold.
3. Self-Soothing Mantras
   • Avoid unrealistic affirmations; instead, affirm what’s true:

     “This hurts. This really hurts.” [36:45]

   • Remind yourself: “Just because this feels urgent doesn’t mean it is.”

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Closing Insights

• Ultimately, setting boundaries is not about changing others, but about maintaining honesty, accepting limitations, and respecting both self and others.
• Some grief may last, but focusing on self-compassion and realistic expectations brings relief and healing.
• Both Chrissy and KC model vulnerability, demonstrating that even those who seem put together are still working on complex, lifelong emotional challenges.

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Notable Timestamps

• [01:38] — KC Davis reframes “Who Deserves Your Love?”
• [04:13] — Hard relationships vs. unsafe relationships
• [08:24] — What’s normal hard versus emotional abuse?
• [14:12] — Boundaries: What they are and aren’t
• [22:41] — Accepting grief, shifting efforts to self-care
• [30:51] — Emotional self-regulation toolkit

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For anyone wrestling with giving, receiving, or redefining love—especially within complicated family ties—this episode offers a gentle, honest roadmap for honoring yourself, setting healthy boundaries, and finding compassion for your own needs.

Transcript

[A]

You're listening to Self Conscious with Chrissy Teigen, an Audible original podcast. Join me as we explore the cutting edge of health, wellness and personal growth with the world's leading experts and thinkers. From inspiring stories to actionable insights, our conversations aim to help you lead a healthier, happier and more productive life. We all want to be loved. But sometimes we think that love means giving ourselves away just to be chosen. We tell ourselves, if I try harder, if I'm more patient, more easygoing, more understanding, then I'll be loved the way I want to be. Kasey Davis knows that story well. She's a licensed therapist, a best selling author, and her new book, who Deserves yous Love? Is about how to tell when a relationship is safe and when it's slowly undoing you. It's about setting boundaries that protect, not punish. And it's about why you don't need to fix yourself first to deserve real, respectful, lasting love. As someone who's had to learn in vain very real ways what emotional safety looks like, this book really shook me and it will do the same for you. Casey Davis, welcome to Self Conscious. I'm so excited that you're here because sometimes somebody comes to speak to me at the exact time that I need them to. How can you tell people out there listening right now, how can they tell when someone doesn't deserve their love, even if you still love them?

[B]

In some ways, the name of my book, who Deserves yous Love is a bit of a bait and switch. Because the truth is, that's not even the question we're trying to answer. That's the question we're wanting to answer. But someone doesn't have to be bad for you. They don't have to be wrong for you to be wrong together. And I think what's hard about making relationship decisions is that there's a lot of moralizing advice out there where you're not only trying to decide is this relationship right for me or not? But you're dealing with a lot of messages about what does it mean about me if I stay in this relationship? Does that make me strong? Does that make me a coward? Does that make me weak? Does that make me have no self respect? And we shouldn't have to. Especially as women, we shouldn't have to be battling both of those things at the same time. So everyone deserves to just sit down and answer some questions about what they want in their life, have someone to help them look honestly. Because we want to make decisions about relationships based on information that might happen later instead of information that we have right now. What is this doing right now? How is this person behaving right now? And then just looking at our values. Would it violate my values to stay in this relationship right now? Would it violate my values to leave this relationship right now or to put more distance between us right now? And it's really not about whether that person deserves you or not. It's about whether that relationship is working and your responsibilities to yourself and to other people. We all want to feel like we've met our responsibilities to other people, but if your responsibility to somebody else is in conflict with your responsibility to yourself, we have to have a way of thinking about which one of those trumps the other.

[A]

Yeah. It's almost like when you want to break up with somebody so you have to turn them into the bad person.

[B]

No, exactly.

[A]

You're giving them permission. You start fighting more, you start aggravating them them more. And then finally when they're bad and they lose it, you're like, I'm out of here.

[B]

Yeah. Like everyone's ex is a narcissist right now.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It's such a thing. Oh, my gosh, you're so right. That is really like a. Yeah, that's going far on TikTok now. Everybody's parent and everybody's exes and narcissists.

[B]

And I've asked my therapist friends too. Like, none of us have ever met somebody with true narcissistic personality disorder that didn't develop that from deep trauma.

[A]

Wow. Really?

[B]

Yeah. Like, most people's reasons why they behave badly are sympathetic.

[A]

So tell us what the difference is between a relationship that's hard and one that is unsafe.

[B]

I love this question because I think we hear that term relationships are hard work. Relationships are hard work. And for sure some of us need to hear that because maybe we tend to drop people if they're not perfect or we're looking for some unobtainable thing. But I find that sometimes we hear relationships are hard and. And we don't have a good sense of what's normal hard, and then what's not normal hard. If someone's throwing dishes at you. Like, that's not what we mean by relationships are hard. So the way it's a little bit easier with physical violence, that's a little bit more black and white. But the way that I distinguish it is that when you think about relationship hurts or harms, there's really three categories. There's screw ups. All of us screw up and say things that we don't mean and do Things that hurt the people we love. And then you have mistreatment, which is that if somebody is continuously doing something that hurts or harms you and you've brought it up to them, and they just refuse to look at it, they refuse to change, now we're looking at some mistreatment. What makes something abuse? So when we go from unfair to unsafe is if you have those two things there, the hurts, the harms, the refusal to address. And there's an element of degradation, humiliation, coercion, or control. That's when we're no longer dealing with a safe relationship.

[A]

Have you been in toxic relationships yourself?

[B]

In my head.

[A]

What inspired this whole thing?

[B]

My dad and I both had addiction issues and had a really toxic relationship growing up that imprinted what I thought about the world. I'm not worthy. I'm especially not worthy of the attention of a man. But to get the attention of a man would be proof that I am worthy. Which means that when I was looking at potential suitors, I never matured to the point of being like, do I enjoy this person? Do they enjoy me? Do I like them? It was more about, what's this person's status in the hierarchy? And if I can get someone who I think is better than me to deign to look down on me and think that I'm worthy, then that will feel so good. And that was what drove my relationships for a long time.

[A]

If you look at somebody's parents, you get a direct reflection of exactly how they are, exactly why they are the way they are. I mean, it's a really incredible thing to look at. I'm even trying to rack my brain as to how my relationships even ended before John or why they ended. And it's hard to remember. Hard to recall. But I do remember always loving, feeling like the good girlfriend. Listen, I, like, worked at Hooters growing up. I loved being on somebody's arm and looking like a prize. And so I think that my earliest relationships were that. And I think I had two really solid ones for maybe two years each around 17, 18, and then met John. So I was kind of quickly thrown into, like, my lifelong partner. But, yeah, it is so weird to think about how your parents can affect you in a relationship.

[B]

Well, and it's hard because it makes you go, do I even know what it feels like to like someone? Or do I just know what it feels like to like being liked?

[A]

Yes. Oh, absolutely. I liked being liked. And when it did come to relationships, I mean, I pretty much just brought my toothbrush, I put it in the holder. And I live here now. And it was just that. And we were thrown into a relationship. And I cooked and I cleaned and I tried to be as good as I could, and then I. Oh, my God. Yeah, I never really thought about that fact. I don't know if I really liked the people. Oh, my God. Are they listening out there? Hi, Matt. Hi, Reg.

[B]

Which, like, all of that.

[A]

I hope you're happy because I really had a great experience with you guys. Oh, my Lord. Tell us, what's one thing you wish more people knew about? Emotional abuse inside normal relationships.

[B]

So it is not normal for you to fear that if you are vulnerable with someone, that your weaknesses will get weaponized against you later to harm you? That's not normal. That's not what we mean when we say relationships are hard. We all say things out of anger. We all sometimes lash out when we feel insecure or when we're angry. But when you're with someone who has a pattern where, you know, if I admit I made a mistake, if I share something about myself that maybe I feel embarrassed about or that I know is not great. Like, a great example is if you, like, make a really big mom screw up and you're just so ashamed of the decision that I made or of the action that I took here. I know that hurt my kid. I know that was, like, a bad move for me. If you share that with your partner and it becomes arsenal that they whip out later to be cruel to you, that is not safe. That's not psychological safety. Again, not that we never make mistakes, but you should not feel like your partner is wearing an ammo belt of all of your deepest insecurities and fears that they're just gonna whip out to harm you when you're in the middle of an argument, they should be safeguarding those things even when they're angry. And we should be doing that, too.

[A]

I'm thinking of it because I'm like, oh, this doesn't relate to me in any relationships. But you said family. For you, your father. Yeah, for me, family as well. So I guess that's what's so fascinating about your book, is that it's not just about relationships that you have that are husband, wife, romantic. Yes.

[B]

How could we ever think that we could talk about romantic relationships without talking about our family and our friends?

[A]

I have a weird list of unwritten rules that I need to live by no matter what. And one of the biggest ones, and the one that comes up in therapy the most for me is taking care of my parents. And listen, my dad lives in assisted living just down the street, maybe 10 minutes. He is happy as a clam. He's taken care of, well fed, thrilled. But anytime I post that I'm going to visit him or something, I get a lot of shit about having dumped him off somewhere, basically. And that you're Asian, how could you have done this? And it's a gut punch every single time. Even though I know the situation better, of course he's my father. I know he needs care that I couldn't give him personally at this house. He also, I don't think, wants to be around like two toddlers and screaming kids. And he just wants to chill with his parrot and be fed. We do have plans for him to come move in with us. Like, my parents lived with us for goodness. Let's see. When John and I got engaged, we moved them from Thailand to come live at our home. And they lived with us for many, many years. And they were very much a part of our lives. Their bedroom was right next door to the kitchen. We saw them all the time. And then they ended up getting a divorce and my dad went to assisted living and my mom moved to Thailand. And I have this set of rules where my parents were both there for me. And I do love taking care of them because it makes me really happy. I can't discern the difference between I'm filled with joy because I enjoy doing this. Plus I'm supposed to be doing this, so it all just makes sense that I'm doing it. That's what I feel.

[B]

If your relationship with your parents does not violate your values to be in that relationship, then you meeting what you believe to be your responsibilities to them, if that, like, that bringing you joy.

[A]

Is awesome, like, but also incredible sadness in some regards too. I love taking care of my parents, but I need them to be my parents still. I still need a moment. I still need her to be a part of my family and life without it just being about what I can do.

[B]

Are they able to be those things?

[A]

My dad despises asking for anything. Oh, my God. And here's the weird thing. It's actually really annoying that my dad doesn't want to ask for anything because things get worse and they spiral and they spiral to the point where I'm like, you haven't gone to the dentist for however many years and you don't want to ask for anything. But it's stressing me out because I know you're not taking care of yourself and it would be so much easier for Me to help you. It would be easier on me. It'd be easier on you. And then I have the kind of complete polar opposite with my mom, which is like, she, you know, raised me, and my dad was always on the road, traveling a lot for work. And me and my mom grew up really, really, really close to super bonded. And then I don't really get a motherly relationship that I would want, that I see a lot of my friends getting or that I see sometimes older women in John's family or that are around us in the house, the way that they will take care of me or be there for me. I don't experience that with her, but she lives in Thailand and she's living her best life, and I'm happy for her and I'm happy to take care of her, but I need that part that is going to be my mom still and take care of me.

[B]

So what's your question?

[A]

I don't know if I have a question, because I'm not gonna stop doing it. This is what I'm stuck with in therapy, is that we can talk about it all we want. I'm still gonna keep taking care of her.

[B]

So are you wondering if you continuing to take care of her even though you feel like you're not getting what you need and deserve from her is not right? Or maybe is you not having boundaries or is you settling, like, is that the fear?

[A]

I don't know if there is a fear. All I know is it weighs heavily on my heart all the time, and it's something that I never stop thinking about. And basically every therapy I ever have, no matter what I'm upset about that week or the past month or what the scenario was, it always goes back to somehow her and that. And it just creates this heaviness. And as much as, like, I'm very good at blocking things out, too, like a master at it, as much as I can say, I don't care, it's fine, it's fine, I don't care, it's fine. I even feel it, like, right now, like, it's just, ugh, there's a weight there, and I want it to be better. I don't think it can. I don't think it ever will be, because I've had this fight before. It'd be a totally different situation if my mom and I didn't ever talk about this or think we hashed it out. You know, I went to Thailand on a big trip. Honestly, I'm only talking about this because I've always been like, really scared that she's gonna overhear something that I'm talking about and feel bad about it. And then I look at, like, the way that John's able to talk about his family and his past with his mother struggling with addiction and leaving. And my mom left us when. When I was younger as well. And they are able to talk about it and be so happy and positive, and it was a time in their life. And she is back. She's wonderful grandparent to our kids, wonderful mother. Just such a joy and such a light, whereas I've been the person that doesn't talk about anything, and it's not serving me. I really feel at this point, it's beneficial that even if she does hear this, hopefully this can finally break this, because it's been going on too long. But basically, I went to Thailand two spring breaks ago with all the kids, and we finally, like, on the last day of the trip, had this huge talk where I was begging her, mom, I know that you need certain things from me, but I need you to know that I still need you. Yes. I'm almost 40, and I need you to be my mom. Still. I still need to be taken care of. And we cried and we hugged, and it was huge, and it was groundbreaking because we've spent so many years of our life not talking about anything. Never talking about when she left when I was, like, 13 or so. All my most important years. We don't talk about that. We don't talk about anything. And it's because I don't want to stir the pot, and I don't. My therapist thinks it's because I'm secretly trying to make sure she doesn't leave me again, but she has. Physically, yes. And mentally. And I don't really know how you could have that big of a talk with somebody. Your book is a lot about boundaries and where I opened my boundaries and I was like, I need you. I need you to be here and parent me and be there for my kids. They love you so much. And to me, it'd be so different if we had that talk in Thailand and everything changed. And all of a sudden, I was getting phone calls and little packages now and then, or checking in, like, hey, I saw that you got this job or you got this. That's so cool. Congrats. When I've had a whole life of never hearing stuff like that from her, I thought that talk would change everything, and it just didn't. And so when you open up yourself enough to finally let somebody know, your biggest issue in your heart and soul and throughout your body, and then nothing happens of it. The most I can do is say, okay, fine, I will take care of you because I love you and because you're family, but I can't give you anything else because you don't want anything else or you aren't showing that you want anything else.

[B]

Yeah. So this is what we get wrong about boundaries a lot, is that it feels like opening up to our mom and saying these things, like we're like, I need to draw a boundary. Right. This is the boundary is that I'm not getting what I need, and this is what I need, and something needs to change. What happens when we think that's the boundary is that when they don't respond to it, we go, well, it didn't work. It didn't work. What do I do now? It didn't work. Yes, but if the boundary is less about trying to get your mom to change and more about you being able to hold onto yourself in the face of your mom, in the face of her emotions, in the face of her weaknesses, in the face of her potential disapproval, in the face of her potential disinterest, if you could show up in that relationship and be exactly who you are authentically and not have to always make nice and say, like, this is an open wound and it bleeds, and you're not bringing the conversation up over and over and over with the thought that if I make her feel badly enough about it, I can make her change.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But instead, what is motivating those conversations is my responsibility to you as your daughter is to be honest with you. And my responsibility to myself is to stand up for myself and to honor my wounds in that way. You are being boundaried and knowing. And this is so hard because, like, I have this with my dad too. Like, my dad and I have a good relationship now, but it was hard to talk in the book about the ways that he emotionally abused me. And thinking, what is he going to think when he hears this?

[A]

Yeah. What can you tell me a little bit about that? Right. I think I'm gonna go through it.

[B]

In a few months. That's what boundaries are about. A boundary is about understanding where I end and you begin. And I recognize that me talking about what it was like to be affected by an adult's behavior when I was a child, those are things that I need to talk about. And I have a responsibility to be respectful to my dad as I talk about it. But his feelings about his behavior are not my responsibility to mitigate for him.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't bash him. I don't trash him. I was very respectful in the way that I talked about it. So I feel like I met both my responsibilities to myself to be honest and authentic and my responsibilities to him. Because that's what our responsibilities are to our adult parents. Right. Is just to be honoring and respectful and make good faith explanations when they don't understand something. But when I know that I've done that, his feelings about his behavior and his feelings about my feelings about his behavior are not my responsibility to manage. And that is hard because that makes you realize that there's nothing else that you need to do in relation to your mom but grieve that you might never get what you need from her.

[A]

I thought about it for a long time if I was okay talking about it, because to so many people, we are like two peas in a pod. And I do love her so much. And as I said, as much as I try to pretend like I don't care, it clearly, like, weighs on me. And it's just gotten to the point where, like, it's been sitting inside me for so long. And I think I can do this forever. I can play the long game with this of never speaking and just supporting. And mentally, I can be okay with that, but my body feels it. I know that for a few days after a therapy session or whatever, going on a retreat or whatever, there's a few days that I can't even get out of bed because it weighs so heavily on me.

[B]

Yeah. And it's not about fixing that, making it not weigh on you. It's about changing where your efforts are. Because often we fall into this trap where your efforts are trying to change her. And if you had never had a conversation with her, I would say you probably have not yet met your responsibilities to her. Right. But now you've had it. Yes. And what we want to do is continue to have the same conversation with someone that we've had over and over and over, thinking this time the conversation will end differently with them changing. But it won't. And so instead of focusing your efforts on how do I change her, now you focus your efforts on how do I care for myself as I'm meeting my responsibilities to her. Because I do want to continue to see her. But now I know that I need three days after I have a therapy session where I talk about this. We want a solution for how badly it hurts, how much it sucks, and the grief that might be there forever, but it's actually about building our Distress tolerance and knowing that, like, this is a normal part of life and we can use our efforts to care for ourself and be tender with ourselves and to give ourselves the kind of compassion that our inner child needs that it's not getting from somewhere else.

[A]

God damn, though. I am so good about pretending nothing ever happened.

[B]

Yeah. What do you think you get from that?

[A]

I know that if, like, I planned a trip for tomorrow to go see her, to bring all the kids, I can pretend everything is wonderful.

[B]

Mm. And it's working in some ways, otherwise, you wouldn't be doing it. So you have to ask yourself, like, what's working about it that it makes it so tempting to do?

[A]

I guess it's just not creating anything else that I have to worry about. Like, I'm worried about saying something that will forever. I'm like, what's gonna happen? She's not gonna talk to me. Like, that's already happening. I think this is the first time I've probably realized that it doesn't serve me well, because what I feel in my body, even talking about it is so heavy that the choice I'm making right now to talk about it can't be worse.

[B]

When you say it doesn't serve you, that's what it's about. Because sometimes we try to answer these questions by, am I doing the right thing or the wrong thing? And it's really not about right, wrong, good, or bad. It's about, is it working or is it not working? Because sometimes it does work to not address something with someone.

[A]

The other angle I have of this is that even talking about stuff like this, while I really hope it resonates with people that might have issues within their family or. And I think that good will outweigh the bad. I know that this is going to get picked up as a thing because my mom and I were so close, and she lived with us, and she was very much in every video and a bit known herself that there's gonna be stories out there that we've had a falling out, and then she's gonna see that. And just for the record, we haven't had a falling out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm trying to fix this very complicated relationship that I think everybody has in their life, whether it's a spouse, loved one, mother, father. And so I would just ask anyone out there that wants to write about it for a little grace and know that we are still human and still a family. And so I just hope that people don't take this and run with it and make it something that it's not. It's just a complicated mother daughter relationship that I think exists within so many of us. And hopefully something will come out of this, I guess.

[B]

Well, I can tell you from here that you have done nothing but speak respectfully. And with honor in my head now.

[A]

I'm like, oh, my God, like, I am in trouble.

[B]

No, no, you, you, you. In my opinion. And. And I just. I resonate so much because this is what I went through with deciding to write about my dad. I had to go to him and say, I want to write about this. How do you feel? And I had to call a friend and say, I've said some very bold, obvious stuff in here.

[A]

Can I Have you reacted to it? Did you guys have a big talk?

[B]

We did have a big talk. I was so nervous and I called a friend and said, here's what I've written in the book. Here's to know. I'm scared of what he's going to do. And I'm not sure if I'm scared because I believe that I have done something wrong or that I have not been respectful enough or if I have done my responsibility. And he's just a separate person than me and he might be upset about it anyways. And so I had to have some friends read it and come back to me and say, casey, you have treated your father with honor and respect in this book. And so I just wanted to give that to you. Listening to you talk about your mom like you have absolutely talked about her with honor and respect. And the love that you have for her is so obvious. And knowing that that's what boundaries are about. Because the only thing you can control are your feelings, your emotions, your decisions, your obligations, your understanding of the world, your responsibilities to other people. And whether or not you have met your responsibilities, you probably need outside input. But they will never be entirely dependent on what someone else thinks. They. If you've met it. And so at this point, you've met your responsibilities. It's well within your right to talk about some. Like, you can just decide, I want to talk about this. That's where you end. That's where your responsibilities end. And so your mother's responsibility to manage her emotions about that is her responsibility. The media's responsibility to have a modicum of integrity and decorum. That is their responsibility. And we can't control what they're going to do. And that's what boundaries are about. People want to make it about scripts, about whether you say yes or no, about telling people you can't talk to me that way. But at the end of the day, it's just a correct sense of self, of knowing I've met my responsibilities and it may not change the outcome. And I might just have to know this is going to be full of grief, and this is hard.

[A]

I hope to God one day I get to the point where I don't say, oh, I should have done this, or maybe I should be doing. Or maybe I'm the one that's supposed to be reaching out. I'm the daughter. But then I'm like, no, the mother should. Like, I make all these rules in my head.

[B]

Well, you might, but it's not your responsibility to get everything right always and be perfect. Yeah. So that doesn't mean that you haven't met your responsibilities.

[A]

Yeah. I still wake up wondering what I'm doing wrong. I don't think I'll ever be able to change that.

[B]

So when we are born, we don't have boundaries. We are the same entity as our mother. And developmentally, we don't see our parents as different than us for years. And when you hear people talk about differentiation and this belief that you realize, like, wait, my parents have lives. They have emotions that aren't about me.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And that's why the wounds that we get in early childhood, especially pre age 6, are so impactful, because we don't have a sense of where we end and where our parents begin. We're just all one big thing, that if our parent is mad at us, we don't have the boundaries to go, my parent is a different human being than me that is experiencing the world outside of my existence. And maybe they had a bad day at work. We can only go, my parent is mad. What have I done wrong? My parent is mad. I must not be good enough. And that is normal. And in a parent child relationship where you have appropriate rupture and repair, that's actually how a child learns that they are a different person than you.

[A]

And now for the toolkit. Each episode, our guests distill their expertise into practical and actionable insights. Today, Casey Davis takes us through an exercise focusing on helping us self regulate in moments of personal crisis.

[B]

The majority of the decisions that we regret or the decisions that kick off patterns that aren't working for us, we make in a state of emotional dysregulation. So when your friend, partner, mother says something that kind of activates you and you feel that I'm gonna say something back, I'm gonna take the headshot.

[A]

Oof. Sorry, dad. That's Me and my dad.

[B]

So the big question is, well, how do I stop doing that? And it really is about emotional regulation. So I'm gonna take you through an exercise on how you can help yourself emotionally regulate when you're in the middle of a conflict or a fight. So the first step is that we have to become aware of when those sensitivities are being triggered. If we know that we have a sensitivity to feeling like we're not good enough or if we know that stuff with our mom is a big sensitivity, identifying where and what in your body begins to tell you. I might spin out if this keeps happening. So for me, it's a tightening in my chest, right?

[A]

Yep. Same and little red dots. And my hand becomes stuck to my heart. I don't even realize it.

[B]

Well, and breath, too. Like, you even just took a breath just then. It's like sometimes our breath gets shallow, and there's often a cognition that happens. And for me, it's always a feeling of urgency. I have to do this now. I have to say this now. We have to work this out now.

[A]

Sometimes I look back, and if I had just given myself five seconds of breathing, it wouldn't have come out this way. I say that every time, but it's so hard.

[B]

And we. It sounds like we're both people that tend to, like, escalate up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But some people will shut down.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so they have to kind of recognize when. It's like, I'm starting to not feel my body. I'm starting to want to run from the room or shut down. Right. And so that's half the battle, is just like recognizing when you're in that moment instead of just moving on to whatever you want to be doing. So then the second thing is that we want to stabilize our nervous system. Right. So your nervous system, when it's moving towards that fight or flight, it thinks that you are in danger, and it is doing what it was evolutionary meant to do, which is take all the oxygen away from the part of your brain that is responsible for reason, and send it to your heart so it can pump blood really fast, your muscles, so that you are stronger and faster, and it increases your reaction times, which is great if you're trying to fight a bear, not great if you were fighting your husband. And so there's a few things that you can do. For some people, breathing is a big one. I'm a big fan of what I call box breathing. You breathe in for four, hold it for four, breathe out for four, and then hold it out for four. And going in your nose and then out your mouth. Going in your nose and out your mouth helps you steady that breath. And what that does is that it tells your brain to turn the oxygen back into your brain. Because naturally, when we panic, we go, that's your brain sending all of that oxygen to your body. Right. So we slow it down. We begin to tell our body, nope, we need that in the thinking part of our brain. Also, there's this nerve that goes literally down the center of your body called the vagus nerve.

[A]

Oh, my. I've been hearing so much about the vagus nerve. Can you explain it?

[B]

It basically is one of these, like, central nerves that if you can kind of like, tell that nerve, interfere with the messages that it's sending, you can almost, like, hijack your nervous system in a good way. And there are some funny ways to do that. Like, one is if you put anything cold on your breastbone, on your neck, on the back of your neck, it can help your nervous system start to chill out a little bit. Right. You can also hum. So your vocal cords are very close to your vagus nerve. And so there's a reason why, like, a lot of autistic people hum.

[A]

They.

[B]

Are naturally reaching for this coping skill that is soothing, and they're literally soothing that vagus nerve.

[A]

There have been times where I can barely remember, but I know that just felt better even doing it through pain, physical pain, anything. Yes.

[B]

And so same with rocking, like, all of those things that it's so fun to watch autistic kids, because it's like, they know that inherently that, like, that will calm their nervous system. And we can do those. Those same things. We have this thing called the mammalian dive reflex, which means that as a mammal, if we submerge our face in cold water, we have this instinct to lower our heart rate and increase the oxygen because we're diving. We know that other mammals will do this. And so lowering your heart rate will help calm out that nervous system. There's your classic grounding exercises. What are five things I can see in this room? What are four things I can hear in this room? Something I can taste, something I can touch. And then also sensory distractions. So eating something sour is something that you can do if you feel a panic attack coming on.

[A]

I have a whole drawer of sour candy. Yeah.

[B]

It's actually very helpful, putting your hands in hot water and then cold water. And this is also the time where you wanna, like, respectfully disengage with someone to go do this. Right. The third thing Is now we wanna go to self soothing. This is when we wanna use a mantra. But we wanna use a mantra that works.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

We don't wanna use like, I am okay today and everything's fine.

[A]

Right? Yeah.

[B]

Is just the words, this hurts. This really hurts.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

As though you're giving yourself permission. Like, this really hurts. Because that urgency feeling of I need to do something now, I need to do something now, I need to do something now. Is kind of that like fight or flight. I need to defend myself. But if we remind ourselves. Just because I feel like I'm in danger doesn't mean that I am. Just because this feels urgent doesn't mean that it is. Just because I feel like I'm being attacked doesn't mean that I'm in danger. And we have to literally verbally say these things to ourselves. This hurts. And this is emotional pain. It's not going to physically harm me.

[A]

I really feel like I needed this chat right now more than ever. Thank you so much for being here on Self Conscious in my bedroom. Thank you. I appreciate it so much.

[B]

Thank you for having me. Of course.

[A]

It's gonna be so helpful for so many people. It.

[B]

I hope so.

[A]

Casey, I want to thank you for joining me today on Self Conscious. Who Deserves yous Love by Casey Davis is available on Audible. Until then, tune in, turn on and feel better. This is Chrissy Teigen and you've been listening to Self Conscious, an Audible original podcast. This has been an Audible original produced by Audible and Huntley Productions, hosted by Chrissy Teigen Written and directed by Jimmy Jelinek Executive Producers Jimmy Jelinek Chrissy Teigen Executive Producer for Audible Stacy Creamer Head of Creative Development at Audible Kate Navin Chief Content Officer Rachel Giazza Copyright 2024 by Audible Originals, LLC Sound Recording Copyright 2024 by Audible Originals LLC See.