You are listening to the Secure Love Club podcast with Mi Watt, episode 10. Hey friends. Welcome back to the club. Today we are talking about desire versus discipline and expanding your capacity for discomfort when it comes to relationships. Many of you in my world, recently have been talking to me about being at this real sticking point where. You know, you are dating someone who is not good for you or you have an ex who you know was not good for you, was quite toxic. The relationship was quite volatile. There was a lot of up and downs. You are probably someone with an anxious attachment style and you're dating someone who is highly avoidant or even. Narcissistic and the desire that comes up within you to want to run back to this person and get back together. Even when you know that if you were to write down what this relationship was really like on paper, you would slap yourself across the face or anyone else would if you said to them, I wanna get back with this person. I first and foremost understand this experience because this was my reality with relationships for, I'm gonna say a good 10 years, pretty much since I was in my first relationship at 17. Actually, no, I lied. The first relationship, I didn't have this experience, but every relationship after that, I did. So from the age of about. 19, 20, up until, 20. Eight maybe, I think. Anyway, a long time. This was my experience where I was always dating the wrong people because I was so anxiously attached and at this point in my life, I didn't understand what that meant. I didn't understand the blueprint that I was operating from internally that was driving me to seek out these people who. Couldn't meet my emotional needs, who always made me question myself, who riddled me with anxiety, who always made me feel like I was too much, I was too needy. I was too emotional that I would never meet someone who could possibly meet all my needs because they had so many. Now are you nodding along because this is such a common experience and I remember that struggle. Of knowing one thing, knowing the truth, but then grappling with this undeniable pull that I felt to run back to this person because I thought, as soon as I get back with them, I'm gonna feel better. I just need them to be with me, and then my anxiety's gonna go away. I'm gonna feel soothed Pretty much every time that I felt this, I ended up running back to them. I would be the one to message them first, even if I knew that I wasn't in the wrong and they're the ones that had done the wrong thing. I would apologize for no reason. I. storm out and then I'd come crawling back with my tail between my legs. post something on my Instagram story hoping that they would see it and get the subliminal message or give me the attention that I was really craving all the things right, all the maladaptive, unhealthy ways that we act when we are quite literally desperate for attention, desperate to be seen, and. To please make this awful pain and discomfort in my body go away. The problem with this is that nearly every time when I would go back, the sense of relief was so short lived because after sometimes it was a few hours, sometimes it was a day or a week, inevitably. The distance would happen again. I would start to feel them pulling away, keeping me at arm's length, or I would get upset about something and not know how to communicate it. So I would act passive aggressive. I would give the cold shoulder and around and around we would go on this merry-go-round of hell that I didn't know how to get off. And if you are in this boat and this is how you're feeling, it's okay. I see you. I understand, and I'm here for you. And today we are gonna talk about this and try to unpack what is really going on here and provide you with some tips, some strategies, and even a little mindset perspective shift to help you to start to strengthen. And expand your capacity for discomfort in these moments, because that's really what it is that we need to be working on is A, understanding ourselves. And then B, expanding the amount of discomfort that we can withhold and move through so that we don't cave in at the. First sign of desperation at the first pull, and instinct. We have to run back to this person who we know is not good for us. Alright, let's dive in. I had this moment last weekend, which was very interesting because. I'm not seeing someone actively at the moment who's stirring up any anxiety within me or making me feel insecure in any way. But for some reason, I had this moment where I was, I was, I don't even remember what I was doing. I was walking around the house doing something and I had this instant flashback to the times when I was in an anxious and avoidant relationship, and I would be at home. Not with my partner and I would just get this flood of anxiety wash over my body. I could be fine one minute, and then the next bam riddled with anxiety. And I sort of had this similar feeling come over me. Last weekend. I don't know why, but it really got me thinking back to those moments and it made me question what was really going on in my head and in my body when I had that anxiety, when I wasn't with my partner. I remember thinking that, as I said earlier, it was this insatiable need to just have that person with me to be with them. And if I was, everything would be okay. This was stemming from a lack of. Security within myself and a real lack of knowing how to soothe myself, how to manage my own emotions, because from a young age growing up, I wasn't taught how to properly regulate my emotions. I had quite a tumultuous childhood where even though my parents were doing the very best they could, their emotional. Availability was at times quite unpredictable it didn't always meet my needs the way that I needed it to. So I developed this real sense of hypervigilance where I was always on the back foot. Always scanning my environment for danger. When my parents were there and they were available to me, I would always clinging because. What I had learned was that I don't know how long this is gonna last, or I don't know the next time I'm going to have this closeness. So I need to clinging on for dear life. And because I hadn't learned how to manage my emotions and self-regulate when my caregiver, my parent was not there, I was a mess. I was an anxious mess. And so what happens is we take this dynamic that we had when we were young with our primary attachment figure, and we carry that blueprint into our adulthood. So naturally, I kept seeking out partners who were emotionally unavailable, who were unpredictable and inconsistent in their availability to me in, in meeting my needs, in comforting me, in soothing me. In holding space for me, right? It's always, it was always unpredictable. So naturally, I carried that same pattern of when we're together, even if I'm being treated like shit, I'd rather be in their presence. I'd rather be with them because I can see them, I can touch them. I can more easily emotionally manipulate the situation, that sounds bad, but that's what we all do knowingly or unknowingly. But anytime we were apart, I felt completely out of control. Powerless and I didn't know how to manage my emotions. So even as a, you know, a woman in my mid twenties back then, I felt like a powerless child. And the other part of, you know, what makes it harder dating someone who's avoidant. Is that if you do express that concern and how you are feeling, they usually don't like it because they can't confront their own emotions within themselves. So how can they hold space for yours if they don't know how to hold space for their own, because it's quite common for people who are avoidantly attached to shut down their own emotions, to suppress, um, to avoid because they don't feel safe. Feeling their emotions. Which is why when you as an anxiously attached person who most commonly, we love to express our emotions, we like to talk about it, we like to have someone help soothe us. When you bring those two types of people together, it's a recipe for disaster. Because that's when they're gonna label you as too much. And so you then go, okay, I clearly can't express myself like this, so I need to just make myself smaller, minimize my feelings, and then I might be acceptable for my partner to have me around them. But then you still suffer, you still feel awful because you're not being your authentic self and you're not. Yeah, having your needs met, you're not being seen for who you really are. You are being seen for this diluted, watered down version of yourself that is palatable to this person at this point in my life, because I was so anxiously attached, the majority of my head space, and my focus was on my romantic relationship at the time because. it was my way of being in control. I thought the more that I can just think about my partner, think about the relationship, think of all the things I can do to maintain our closeness and our connection, the better, The more I will feel in control. But what that did was it's took away any. Mental head space or ability to focus on other areas of my life, let alone invest in them and actually show up for them. my social circle was quite small and the relationships weren't being nurtured as much as they should have been. I didn't have any hobbies. I would spend a lot of time by myself because I was so consumed by my feelings. This adds another layer to the sense of anxiety that I would feel when I wasn't with my partner, because I wasn't happy in my own life, and this was a really big pattern for me. I was always escaping my life through my partner. So then naturally when they didn't wanna hang out or they just, yeah, they wanted to be away from me. It was awful because I remember feeling so isolated. I felt pointless, unfulfilled, lost, truly, like I was just a, to quote Katie Perry, a plastic bag floating through the wind. It is quite sad when I reflect back on my younger self. I do feel very sad for her, I know she was extremely sad and felt a lot of shame. I. Around who she was, because I could feel people judging me. I could feel family members judging me. Friends of friends, judging me for, being so weak in relationships and why can't I get it right? Why does she date these losers? Why does she, accept this stuff? Why does she settle for it? There's such a sense of shame that comes with being. Really anxiously attached and not knowing why you are the way you are and why you keep attracting and settling and staying in these kinds of relationships. There is so much shame around that. So I made myself and my world very small, which again, to reinforce the point, just made it all the more harder to be alone and to not be with my partner. And that also makes for a pretty unfulfilling relationship imagine dating someone who derives their entire sense of happiness and fulfillment from you. if they don't have anything else going on in their life, or not really, maybe they have a job or maybe they're studying something, but you come together and you ask them, oh, so what's been going on? Like, how's it with this person or that person? Or, have you seen any friends lately? Have you done anything? And you're like, no. No, I just, you know, just really excited to see you. It's like, uh, okay, do we have much to talk about? It becomes a very insular, small reality and it's very painful and it's, um, it's very sad at this time of my life, my what we call window of tolerance, which is. A way to describe the state of when we are feeling regulated, calm, level-headed, we can think clearly and rationally our heartbeat is not jumping out of our chest. It's, level and normal. This is what we call our window of tolerance and your window of tolerance, depending on. Who you are and your awareness around all of this can be very small or it can be very wide. So picture a river, and you could have a river bank that is 10 meters wide, to try and get from one side to the other. Or it could be two meters wide. Mine was very small. It was let, let's just say for the sake of being able to understand this, it was two meters wide. And what that means is that when your window is very small, it doesn't take much for you to be triggered or activated and to move out of that window of tolerance. When we are triggered, we will move into. Hyper arousal, which is when we're in a fight or flight state, or we will go into hypo arousal, which is where we have more of a freeze response, where our minds and our mouth completely disconnect. We don't know what to say. We shut down. or we go into a foreign response, which is when we tap into people pleasing and we just do anything out that the other person wants to appease them and to make them happy. my window of tolerance was so small that it, it just didn't take much at all for me to be activated and to go into a state of anxiety, into a state of fight or flight. This was my reality for a long time. fast forward to 2020, which is the year that my healing journey really began. This is when I uncovered attachment styles. I learnt. Why I was the way I was, I understood my behavior patterns, and essentially the blindfold felt like it was lifted off my face, and I really began to dive deep into all of this. What I began to realize and to learn is that my window of tolerance was so small. Because as I mentioned earlier, I had never been taught or learnt how to regulate my own emotions. So what that means is when I am in a state of anxiety, fight or flight, how do I calm my body down so that I can come back into that window of tolerance, back into that space where I genuinely feel calm? I can breathe deep and slow and I can think clearly about how I want to respond. Because when you are dysregulated, that is when we do all sorts of crazy shit. That's when we don't make decisions that are going to serve our future self. Our survival instincts kick in and we will do anything and everything to feel safe. In this instance, that was. reaching out to my partner, or maybe for you, if you're not with them, it's reaching back out to your ex or that person that situationship that person who you know is not good for you, because you are so desperate to feel soothed and you want that sense of relief. And the only way you know how to get it is by getting it from another person. Which usually that person is that primary attachment figure. So when we are children, that's usually our parents or caregivers. Then when we are adults, it's our romantic partner. It's that person we have the deepest sense of attachment to. So what does all of this mean? It means that one of the most important and fundamental things that you can do for yourself as you are on your healing journey of going from anxious to secure is to learn how to self-soothe and regulate your own emotions. Through doing this, this is how, or partly how you are going to expand your capacity for discomfort. when we think of the window of tolerance being very narrow or small, the way we are going to expand that AKA expand our capacity for discomfort, meaning we can handle more discomfort before becoming dysregulated and triggered. Is through learning these techniques. I'm not gonna go into all of these self-regulation techniques, but some ways we can look at this is number one, simply by using your breath. When you are activated, you are not breathing deep and slow. You are breathing the same way that you would be breathing when you are running away from a tiger. Our brain is extremely primal, and so the way that we are having a physiological experience is going to signal to our brain that we are either safe or unsafe. In the moments when you are triggered, come back to your breath. The way I like to do this, the most simple and straightforward way is close your eyes if you can, placing one hand on your heart and breathing deep and slow into your belly, letting your belly expand all the way out. Breathing nice and deep all the way to the top, and then a big sigh out. Slowing down your breath is so important. You cannot breathe deep and slow if you're running away from a tiger, can you? No. So when you are able to do this, you're gonna slow your heart rate and you're going to start to signal to your brain that you are safe, that everything is okay. Another thing you can do is introduce some movement and some touch. One thing I'll often find myself doing naturally to soothe is some gentle rocking, either side to side or back and forth. And at the same time, you can pair that with some physical touch. So that could be a self hug. Literally wrapping your arms around yourself and hugging, it could look like crossing your arms over your chest and placing your hands on. Either side of your arms and rubbing up and down which is called havening. This is the same way that we would comfort a child. If you imagine you come down to their level and you place your hands on their upper arm and you rub up and down gently, it is a natural way that we would soothe a young child who's upset. And it's the same way we can begin to soothe ourselves as adults and calm our nervous system down, because when emotions are high. Intelligence is low, meaning we don't think rationally and we do all sorts of things that we might later regret. So that is the first thing is self-regulation, managing our emotions, and coming back to a regulated state in our body, in our nervous system. Then when you are in this moment, there are three questions I want you to ask yourself. The first question is. What do I feel I am not getting in this moment? Usually the answer is gonna be something like attention, comfort, love, something like that. Because we are always chasing a feeling. when you say you wanna see that person, your partner, your ex, whoever you are, actually just seeking a feeling on the other side of seeing them. So is it that you will feel validated? Is it that you will finally feel good enough that you will get the attention you're craving? What is it? And be real with yourself. There's no judgment here. Just be honest about what do I think? What do I feel I'm not getting in this moment? Once you've established that, the next question I want you to ask yourself is, why do I think that this need can only be met by them? And I want you to sit with this one for a moment, because initially your brain is gonna want to jump in and just be like, well, obviously I want it to be from them because they're my partner or because I love them, or whatever. But if you sit with it long enough, you may start to say, huh, well maybe they're not the only person who can meet this need. Maybe I can meet this need for myself. Or maybe I can meet this need through other people in my life. And then the third question is, if I could meet this need for myself right now, how would I do it? How would I do it? The reason I want you to ask yourself questions like this is because when you ask your brain a question, it can't help but go to work to find an answer for you. So when you are doing this, the key here is you are not allowed to say, I don't know. Because as soon as you say, I don't know, you just shut down your brain. Your brain goes, ah, perfect. I don't have to go to work. I don't have to think of an answer or find a solution. I can go back to sleep now. So we are not allowed to use the words. I don't know that question. Again, if I could meet this need for myself right now, how would I do it? if it was that I'm craving attention, okay, how can I redirect my attention to myself? Is there something I would love to do right now? Is there some sort of comfort that would feel really nice for me? Is there someone else that I can reach out to, to feel that sense of connection from and get attention from in a positive way, like a friend or a family member. Just start to get curious and let your brain provide you with the answers. This is about taking back your power and realizing that joy, happiness, and contentment are yours for the taking. You can do it. And the more you practice this, the more your relationship or future relationships are going to become a beautiful addition to your life that already feels whole and fulfilling, not something that you have to depend on entirely to feel okay. When you learn to meet your own needs like this, you are no longer anxiously waiting for someone else to do it for you. It's important to note that you are going to feel resistance against this in the beginning. Something that I always say to my clients is, imagine you are walking through a forest and you get to a fork in the road. There's two paths. One to your left and one to your right. Now the path on your left is extremely clear. It's well-defined. You can see the sidelines of the path, you can see it very clearly. And that path, you know where it goes. It leads to a destination that is very familiar, but not where you wanna be anymore. And then you see a path on the right. And this path is quite difficult to see. There's rocks and leaves and roots covering this path, but you can just make it out. And this pathway leads to a new destination, one that is not so familiar to you, but one that you know you want to arrive at in that moment, it's going to be very tempting to walk down the path to the left because it feels predictable, it feels safe, it's easy to see. But this is where you must challenge yourself and again, expand your capacity for discomfort by deciding to choose the path on the right. Because the more you walk down that path, the clearer it's going to become, the easier it's going to become, and the more that the other path on the left is gonna begin to become overgrown, and the roots are gonna cover that path, and you're no longer gonna want to turn down it. when you are making this decision, this is the final point that's very important, instead of employing discipline to make ourselves do the things that we know are good for us, but we don't really wanna do, we want to start to employ desire. Now, this means, again, allowing yourself to sit with some questions for a moment and sort of start to imagine. If I wanted to go down this path, how would that feel? If I genuinely wanted to and if I wanted to, why would I want to? So let's take the example of a relationship, of course. And let's say that you have a desire to reach out to an ex or a, a situationship, someone who in your life, who you've felt deeply attached to, but you know isn't good for you, and you don't wanna go there anymore, even though your body tells you it does, and you have a choice. There's a moment of anxiety, a moment of panic, you think you wanna reach out to them in that moment. I want you to stop, take some deep breaths. And ask yourself the question, if I actually wanted to sit with myself and find a way to meet my own needs, how would that feel? And why would I wanna do that? So let's find some possible reasons I want to do that. Because I want to become a more secure version of myself who is capable of meeting her own needs. I want to become the person who is confident in herself, who knows her worth and her value, and who lives as someone who knows that. She lives as someone who shows up in the world knowing her value, I want to be the person who does not settle for less than I deserve. I want to be the person who has a rich, fulfilling life and who chooses who she wants to be with rather than feeling like she has to cling to the first person that shows her attention. I want to feel in control of my life. I want to feel in control of my emotions. I want to heal. look at it from that lens. Notice how that feels in your body, how powerful that feels, how empowering that feels. Doing this is going to set yourself up for success and give you the best chance of starting to embody the version of yourself that you say that you want this work. Is not about finding some miraculous one size fits all, quick fix to becoming secure and competent. It is a continuous journey that requires you to stay present, to stay conscious to your old patterns, that want you to follow them again and again. And it's about making conscious decisions actively every day that are going to move you towards the person that you want to become. Is this gonna be easy? No, but I'm telling you this because I know you can handle it because I know that you are strong and you are tough, and you have this ability within you. Because if I can do it, you can do it. And what you see in me is also within you. take this onboard, listen to this as many times as you need, and find comfort in my voice. Find comfort in this message that I'm sharing with you. I promise you can do this. This is the time to bet on yourself to expand that capacity for discomfort and to find the reasons why. You want to step into that secure woman or that secure man, that secure person. Find the reasons why and let them be greater than the desire to seek instant relief and short-term gratification from someone who ultimately is not going to serve you. Alright, my friends, have a beautiful week and I will talk to you soon. Bye-bye. 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