Leaving Is Only Half the Battle

This episode talks about the most important work you can do to feel better after leaving a toxic relationship. What we all discover upon leaving is that you don't bounce back to being a happy person again. It takes work to get to that place again. This episode will give you a starting place for doing this work and feeling better. 

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Transcript

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Hey, my friends, today we are going to talk about the very important topic of being nicer to yourself. This is one of the things I struggled with and that I've seen every single one of my clients struggle with when they come out of a toxic relationship. We are all really mean to ourselves, and none of us are mean to other people. We reserve all the mean stuff for ourselves. And I'll hear my clients tell me this, almost like it excuses this behavior, like, Well, I'm not doing it to anyone else. It's not hurting anyone anyone else, so it's not really a problem. Except that it is Because you are someone. You can't say that you don't hurt people if you hurt yourself, because you are also people. I would do this all the time too. I would never say to someone else the things that I said to myself, like I just wouldn't do that, because that would be a horrible way to treat someone. But me? Well, I didn't count. Maybe it was because so many people treated me badly and got away with it that I just kind of felt like it was okay for me to receive meanness. I didn't count myself amongst people. Because I could recognize that this wasn't a good way to treat people. But I wasn't in that group. I was other. Part of healing from a toxic relationship involves rehumanizing yourself. You have to begin to see yourself as human again. I tell you, it was revolutionary when I started to see myself as human again. Like it felt revelatory. The first time I had the thought that I had just as much of a right to exist as anyone else, that felt like a bomb dropped on me, like whoa. I have just as much rights as anyone else. I'm not better, but I'm not worse either. I am also a human who deserves basic human dignity. If it is a horrendous way to treat someone, I count as someone so it is a horrendous way to treat me. My wants and needs are just as important as anyone else's. When you're used to putting everyone else's needs ahead of your own, the idea that your own needs also matter just as much is revelatory. No one else has more of a right to be comfortable than I do. I am not less than. And neither are you. You have just as much of a right to exist as anyone else. No one else's feelings are more important than yours. Your wants and needs matter just as much as anyone else's. You deserve the same basic decency you expect yourself to give others, because you are just as human as everyone else is. And it's so important to come to that understanding, to really understand it. Like you can know logically that, okay, yeah, sure, I'm a human being, but you don't really know it until you know, in your bones and in your body, that you are not less than anyone else. That you deserve the same rights as anyone else, that being mean to yourself isn't okay. And it's okay if that doesn't feel real at first. Like I said, when I first had that realization, it felt revelatory, but more than that, it felt almost rebellious. Like I was making some kind of grand stand that might be challenged, because part of me wasn't 100% sure. And I had felt inferior for so long that the idea that I might not actually be inferior, felt subversive. It felt like I was saying something really radical. I almost felt like I might get in trouble for believing this. Like it was a really wild idea for someone who always saw themselves as less than and who, for many years, did not even question that. So it's okay if at first you don't see yourself deserving the same respect from yourself that you give others. Just start to play with the idea. What if I deserve just as much kindness as everyone else? What if being mean to myself really wasn't different from being mean to someone else? What if I counted just as much as everyone else? What would that look like? How would I change? What would I do differently? Just start to lean into that space, lean into that possibility and play there. Use your imagination. As a kid, I loved playing pretend games. I actually think pretend games are really useful in healing too. I use pretending a lot when my desired beliefs are just a little too out of reach. I'll pretend to be someone who already believes what I want to believe. I've done this with the belief that I am likable and people want to be around me. In the times that that felt really unbelievable, I played pretend that it was true and acted like it was true. And the more I pretended, the more it became true. Because I started acting that way, which brought me about the result that I wanted.If it feels too far fetched to consider that being mean to yourself is not different from being mean to other people, try pretending that it is. Pretend that when you are mean to yourself, it is no different than if you were mean to a stranger or even a friend. Something else to try to really get yourself to start to feel this is to get a picture of yourself as a small child. Everything you say to yourself, you also say to that picture. This can be a really effective way of shifting how you think about the way you are treating yourself. It really serves to highlight just how wrong it actually is and how much you don't deserve it. This is some of the most important work you will do, my friends. Because you will not feel better until you do. We all know from being in those toxic relationships how miserable you become when someone is nasty to you, day in and day out. It's the same if the one being nasty to you day in and day out is you. You will continue to feel like shit as long as you are in a toxic relationship with yourself. No one talks about how in getting out of a toxic relationship, you actually have to get out twice. Once when you leave the other person and get away from them, and once again, when you change the way you treat yourself and stop emotionally abusing yourself. I'm not saying this to shame anyone. This is my journey too. But that's how I know how important this part is. You can't feel good while you're being mean to yourself. It's just not possible. It's worth putting energy into, because unlike our exes, we can't leave ourselves. We actually have to change ourselves in order to feel better. We have to change the way we talk to and treat ourselves. We have to change the way we see ourselves and what we think we deserve. All right, my friends, if you want help with this, make sure to use the link in the show notes to book a session with me. Until next time, be well.