Recovering From Co-dependency, Perfectionism, & Shame

Being willing to be open to the possibility that comes your way and not being married to what I thought the outcome was supposed to be for what my life was to look like. Being willing to say at this point right now I am finishing up my bachelor's degree. I'd already accepted going into the master's program and at that point before I even started knew I wasn't going to be a professional elbow player. I knew I was going to change gears.

Welcome to the Thrive Her podcast. I'm your host Amy Sanders. I'm a fitness and wellness pro, mom, stepmom, second wife, and master certified life coach. I'm here to help you manage your mind so you can uncover the most potent version of yourself and create a thriving life you love.

Hello, hello everyone. We are here with another episode on the Thrive Her podcast and I have an amazing guest with me. You guys know that I always say, have amazing guests because there's so many amazing women out there that I just feel like I need to bring them all on here. So I have Melissa Bennett-Hines with me today and she is a therapist that specializes in a different kind of therapy that we're going to talk today about.

I'm going to let her introduce that. And she has been in this industry for over 20 years. She has helped so many people, but the people that she focuses a lot on are C-suite executives who appear to have a lot of experience in the field of fitness and they are stuck. They're stuck in their old relationship patterns.

They're stuck with perfectionism and codependency. And those are the things that we're going to talk about today. We're going to probably specifically talk to the women since this is mostly a women's podcast, but how we get stuck in codependency and shame and all of these things that keep us from moving forward. So welcome to the podcast.

I'm so excited to have you here and hear from you and all of your expertise. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself as we get in? Yes. Thanks, Amy.

That was a lovely introduction. I am a Gestalt therapist and most people I speak with, most people I talk to, including patients who come to me, don't know what Gestalt is. They don't even come to me because this is my expertise. They come to me because of what I can help them with.

So I would love to share a little bit about what I do and what I do for them. I love to talk about the work I do and the therapy that mainly I practice. Yeah, it's different. So I want you to.

It's different and it's changing lives. So yeah, tell us more about it. Well, when you hear all of this, you might not think it's all that different. So Gestalt is a German word.

Let's just start with the word in and of itself. It's a German word for which there's no direct English translation. It is best understood to mean pattern or shape. And what we're interested in as Gestalt therapists is what has, not exclusively this, and I'll backtrack a little bit from here, but what our patterns have become both that are good and healthy and within our awareness and the ones that are not within our awareness and probably the things that people come to me for, which are the patterns that are out of their awareness and keeping them stuck.

Let me go back and give you a little bit of history and you'll have to, excuse my throat clearing because I'm having some allergies today. It's just part of it. Yeah. So the person most attributed to Gestalt therapy is a man named Fritz Perls.

And Fritz was born at the turn of the 20th century. So the late 1800s, early 1900s. He lived in Germany. He was Jewish as well.

And he served in World War I in the trenches. And trench warfare, was some of the most grotesque, horrifying conditions that they lived in while fighting a war. And he came out of that with what we would call today PTSD. And he recognized that that war had an effect on him.

He knew that he probably didn't have, we know he didn't have the language for it that we do today, but he came from a line of lawyers. That was in his bloodline and the expectation that his family had for him. And what I like to say about Fritz was he was a total rebellious person. When he came back from the war, he said, absolutely not.

I'm not going to be a lawyer. So he completely interrupted that intergenerational pattern in a profession. And he ended up going to medical school and he studied with Freud and was a patient himself. And he was a patient himself.

And he was a patient himself before he ever entered into medical school. And that was really his foray into the profession. And when we understand where psychotherapy comes from, some of this is going to make a little more sense. So when we talk about Sigmund Freud, he was a German physician and he was a doctor, right?

Doctors come from a medical model. And what they're interested in is disease and pathology. And so when a pathologist looks at a cell under a microscope, what they're looking for are abnormalities. And that was the medical model.

And that's what Freud brought to psychoanalysis. How he viewed the human being was from a perspective of looking for disease, looking for abnormalities that varied from the norm. And he labeled them as sickness. And Fritz Perls was the first person to dispute what Freud was theorizing in his work.

He did it publicly. He caused pandemonium at a conference when he spoke outwardly about how his beliefs about Freud's theories were not correct. He was told that if he publicly disputed Freud, he would never have a career. He will never work.

So I really appreciate what Fritz did for our entire mental health care system. Being a Jew in Germany, to avoid Nazi persecution, he and his wife fled at the time of the outbreak of World War II and they went to the Netherlands. I think they had their first child there. And then from there, went to South Africa where he served in the army during World War II, treating soldiers for what we call today PTSD.

After the war ended is when he immigrated to the United States and he landed in New York. That is where he and his wife were born. And he was born in New York. Fritz Perls and his wife are both very well known for the development of this therapy.

His wife is Laura Perls. And so they brought all of their knowledge, all of their experience and expertise and all of the hands-on research they did, right, and develop a theory from there. And what was so interesting about Fritz Perls is what he saw as how we frame it today is like Gestalt therapy is a growth model or a health model as a person who suffers from AIDS as a result of people's family species, or attitudes towards AIDS with respect to their own health. It's something really That he saw as more of a opposed to a disease model of treatment.

And he really believed that we do what's in the service of survival at the time we're in that environment. So he was interested in looking at the person in relationship to what was going on around them in the field. And that can be environment, family of origin, you know, friend groups, religion, politics, society, anything, pollution, right? Anything about the environment that would affect that person.

And so the beautiful thing about Gestalt that I love is because we're always considering the field, the way we practice is always changing because it's always in relationship to our own evolution, our own self, as well as the people that are coming to us that are, they have their own field around them, right? So it's really a study of that person and their environment. Now, getting back to the health and growth model, what we all know is that we have a lot of people that are coming to us that are, you know, you know, we all know that we have a lot of people that are coming to us that are, you know, we all do when we're young, right? In our families of origin, we learn how to operate in those families.

We learn from our parents, if it's okay to be loud, if it's okay to be, right, have fun, play, blow bubbles in the house. We also learn if it's not okay to do that, right? So we learn in that environment, how to get along in relationships in the world. And at that time, that's healthy.

That's correct, right? That's all in the service of survival. Now, what happens is most people grow up, move out of that family, very likely to start their own. But often what happens is what was learned at that young age, they continue to do because what was probably within their awareness at one point, or maybe not because they were so young, has now become out of their awareness.

So yeah, autopilot. So what gestalt therapy does is we use various tools and techniques. One is somatic awareness, so what is happening in the person's body as they're telling you something, how they feel, what they notice about movement that they're making. It's also interpersonal.

So what's happening in the relationship between us, how that person is receiving me, how I might be affected by the client that's sitting with me and talking to me. And we are not only encouraged, but told that our use of self and the tool that we bring as a human, to this work is the most important tool that we have. So we are encouraged to use our emotions, use our experience when it's clinically appropriate to do that with that client. And so part of it is sharing that experience.

Some of it is just useful for me as a therapist, when I'm sitting with somebody to know what it's like to be with them and kind of checking in with myself as I go along about what I'm experiencing. And it's also known as a confrontational therapy. And I think that's a really important tool that we have. And not to confuse that word with, you know, being aggressive, but to point things out when we notice them.

Yeah, point out, oh, I hear you have said this before, when you were talking about your boss at work. And now here it is coming up again with your mom. And I noticed that you did the same thing with your husband. So it's kind of about pointing out things that we're noticing, it could be pointing out movements people are doing with their body, tapping their foot, whenever they talk about somebody.

And the last thing I want to say about it is it's also a creative therapy. So what most people know, if they know anything about gestalt therapy, is they'll know what is called the empty chair experiment. And it's a creative therapy in that it's filled with experiments that we try with people. And I don't know all of these experiments.

I know a couple that are textbook. And then it becomes creative because it evolves. The therapy evolves between the therapist and the client as to what is coming up in their session. So that's where the creativity falls on us that gets co-created in the moment.

So I hope that that explained a little bit about what I do. I could go off on many tangents and talk about it, but it's exciting to talk about it and share it with you. Yeah, you're super passionate about it, which I love. So that's one thing on the podcast that I love to just show people like living in your passion and doing things that you're passionate about brings so much joy, not only to you, but the people around you.

And that is, you know, before we hit record, you're talking about how much she loves her work. So I know she's so passionate about it. So as we shift a little bit, is there something in your life that sent you down this path to become a therapist? What does your history look like as you ventured into this industry?

Mm-hmm. Great question. I think there were influences looking back that I can pinpoint, but I would say that the thing that shifted for me was when I went into therapy for the first time myself. And the person who suggested that to me, it came from a very dear teacher of mine.

My background is in classical music, so I studied at a music conservatory. For many years and my family, I come from a line of musicians and I was really overwhelmed. I was about 21, 20 years old at the time. I was extremely overwhelmed and stressed out and struggling with my, I play the oboe, struggling with my instrument.

And I had a big concert coming up and I went into my lesson and sat down on my teacher's couch and I just started to cry. And he was such a dear friend. He was such a warm, loving human. And he just sat with me and we just talked and at the end of that talking, before we kind of shifted gears and got our instruments out and actually started working, he said to me, have you ever considered going to a therapist?

And I was completely mortified that he would have suggested that. Well, yeah, because doesn't that mean that there's something wrong with you? Like when people have therapists or coaches or anything, it means that there's something wrong with us. At least that's what culturally it was for a long time.

It's becoming more accepted, but that's what it was. Yeah. And I was 20 years old at the time. So this is 1993.

And we do not have the language or the acceptance stigma around mental health care was still and is today in certain parts of the country for sure, but it is lessened. And I remember saying to him, oh, I don't need that. Like, and little. Did I know that it was a seed that got planted?

You know, I never imagined, but he said to me, this is what changed my mind. Amy was, he said to me at the time I was living in New York city and he's like, look, Melissa, there's two kinds of people in New York, those in therapy and those who need to be. And that statement coming from that man who I revered and admired so much. And.

That normalized it for me. And that was my foray into the room. Subsequent to that, of course, many things in my life occurred, you know, losing I've lost my first love died. My mom died when I was pretty young.

I was 22. So before I made this shift I had already lost my mom. And I think those losses really impacted me in a way that I couldn't ignore myself anymore. I couldn't ignore my grief because it was.

So painful and it was so deep. And I was so young at the time that I needed help desperately. I cried for four straight years after my mom died. That's at least how it felt.

And I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't already been connected with a therapist. Yeah. And so, you know, I think it's just life and being open, being willing to be open to the possibility that comes your way and not. Being married to what I thought the outcome was supposed to be for what my life was to look like, being willing to say at this point right now, I am finishing up my bachelor's degree.

I'd already accepted going into the master's program. And at that point, before I even started, I knew I wasn't going to be a professional elbow player. I knew I was going to change gears and I chose to keep studying. I wanted to keep studying with my teacher.

I loved what I was doing. And I knew that there was something. More that I was being called to. Yeah.

And you tuned in, which I mean, I applaud you on that because you're in your twenties and you're going, you know, those are some major life changing events that had happened to you and you tuned in. I know that when I was in my twenties, I was really good at putting myself last, being the biggest people pleaser ever make sure everyone else is happy. And when I got in their nudges, I would. Like, ignore those.

So anyway, just saying, Hey, you were doing it. So you were, you were listening, you're tuning in, you're seeing that there was something more for you out there as we shift gears a little bit. So in your, in your therapy and all the things that you practice, there are those three things that continually come up that we talked about at the beginning of the podcast, the perfectionism, the codependency and shame, which we have talked a little bit about that on the podcast. But I don't know that we've ever talked about all three and how they go hand in hand and a little bit about them.

And like, even with us women, before we hit record, we had an amazing discussion. I was like, we got to hit record, but we talked about how, like, as women, what would you say if you might know it, but what would you say is the percentage of women who struggle with one or all three of these things? If you were to like, just throw a number out. I have not done research to read statistics of any.

Studies about how many women, but I'm going to make a guess. Almost all. It's just a guesstimate, which we definitely between the two of us think it's definitely in the high nineties. Yes.

I I'm saying almost all, I want to say all, all, all women struggle with these because this is the role. Yeah. Yes. Perfectionism.

Shame. Yeah. I mean, I look at those and I'm like, at some point in my life, every single one of them. Absolutely.

And some of them continue. They come back and I'm like working on it again. Yeah. I'm a coach.

That's done a ton of work on myself, right? You're a therapist and it's still. It's something we can struggle with. So why do you think that is as women?

Well, if we look at the traditional role that I hope is changing. Yeah. And it's changed a little bit in my lifetime, but I think we have a long way to go. The traditional roles of cisgender females in this country.

And then we also are going to have to talk about the role of men too, because that impacts our role, but our role for many, many years, and I think for many people, still women, women in particularly still today is to be the nurturer, right? The caregiver, traditionally the ones that stay home and this goes on all over the place. Still, they don't, they sacrifice career. They sacrifice dreams and hopes to stay home and have kids and raise the family and take care of the house.

Right. And now I think there's been a shift to, well, yeah, women have careers, but now the expectation is you still have to have those traditional roles. They have careers. You still have to.

And they do everything else. It's like now you're a career woman, plus you need to take care of everything else. Right. And how many.

How many dads do we know do that? How many are like stay-at-home dads and have a career? I mean, I don't know anybody. I'm sure there are some out there.

Um, but I think with like men, that difference is that for them, there's been a lot of permission granted to do one or the other. Oh, you're a stay-at-home dad. They don't also have careers. They're an anomaly in, you know, staying at home, but for women, there's been this expectation.

That we don't give something up that we're expected to do. So if we want to do something else, you can, but you're going to have to do it all. You're going to do it in addition to. In addition to.

One other thing I want to add here. Maybe this is a tangent. I don't know. But in America, I have heard that when it comes to first world countries, we're also one of the only, if not the only country that doesn't also have extra health.

So women in other countries that are first world countries. Have help within the home to help them with their kids, whether it's their moms, their, um, other caretakers, like other people are helping them run the home and watch their kids. And yet here in America, we're like, actually, you just have to do it all and be nurturing and loving and not go crazy and be the perfect wife and dot, dot, dot, like continually the list goes on. Right.

Be the, and it's interesting that you, you just use the word perfect. Right. So. In that role, there's this, I think, expectation that we do it a certain way, right?

We do it perfectly. And what does that even mean? Right. What does perfect mean?

Perfect means, um, that you look a certain way, right. That you have it together. You behave a certain way. Don't be hysterical.

Don't, don't get out of control now. Right. Um, don't be emotional. Why are you so emotional?

Why are you crying? What's there to cry about? Everything you have everything to cry about, you know, maintain a certain way, you know, continue to try to look young, even though we're all aging, you better not age as a woman, right? Because once you age, once your hair has changed color, once you start having those wrinkles and you are of no longer age of childbearing ears, our culture is done with you.

Yeah. Right. Women I've seen in my practice repeatedly come to me in an absolute crisis when their kids are grown and they, they don't know what they like to eat. They don't know what they like to do.

They have no idea how to spend their time. They have sacrificed every aspect of their life for their husband, for their children, for their family. And they, the children go off and leave, of course, right. But then they're left and they present as not even really so much depressed, but excruciatingly anxious because they don't, they don't know what to do.

They don't know what to do. And, and everything they've been told that they're supposed to do and what their, um, role is and what their purpose is, is gone. Which is so sad. It's incredibly sad.

It's, it's absolutely heartbreaking and it's so hard for them to break out of that. So what I do find often is, oh, they take on other things that occupy their time, right? Rather than really looking at what has happened and what is going on and addressing your inability to sit still and be with you and pay attention to what's happening. And asking yourself, inviting yourself into those conversations about what do I really, what do I want to do?

What do I want to do with the rest of my life? How do I want to spend my time? What is of interest to me? And if you don't know what that is to try being willing to try out some things, you know, and you've spent 40 to 50 years not trying anything new, it's really scary to imagine even.

Doing something alone by yourself, maybe without your husband for the first time that like taking a trip, getting on a plane, even just going to visit a friend who lives across the state. You know, that's the codependency, right? Where they're just so codependent on making sure everybody else is happy. Like if everyone else is happy, then I'll be happy.

But then the shame that comes with that. I mean, the amount of women that I have heard talk about mom guilt. Oh, I wasn't the perfect mom because that mom. Is baking brownies with her kids after school.

And I don't have time for that. I'm like, why, why is that what a perfect mom is? Like if you're baking brownies with your kids after school, that equals perfect mom. And also, yeah, just perfect in general.

What even is that? But when they start to break free from that and try and become a little more dependent or dependent, independent, independent, independent, there's also shame and guilt that come up like that. It's not okay. Right.

So there's shame and guilt. There's shame and guilt around how you're not good enough, right in this role, then when you're on your own and you don't know what to do without this, there's shame and guilt, because you don't know who you are. Yeah. And, you know, I want to clarify, like, what is codependency simply stated, it's the sacrifice of your own needs for somebody else, you know, so when you give up what you want when you give up your happiness.

Right. And, you know, all of a sudden, that's the sacrifice of self that you make. Yeah. So you're saying that you've been doing it for, for someone else's gain.

So they can have, right. So when we do that, you know, there's a lot of shame that goes with that, you know, because there's a sacrifice of self that you have to make. It's almost an annihilation of your true spirit to say, well, that's okay. It's self-betrayal really.

Right. Yeah. You're betraying yourself, which. Mm-hmm.

Your spirit does. Mm-hmm. does feel that yeah it does react whether you are recognizing it or not yeah and if you treat yourself like you don't matter if you didn't start out believing you don't matter you'll believe you don't matter when you're done right because we learn how we treat ourselves we learn from the things we tell ourselves we learn from the actions we take they impact our emotional well-being our mental health and our spiritual health absolutely so the question I have for you is women I think culturally especially women of religion women that are you know very active religious women they have been taught and I would say programmed to feel like that that is you know that is how they're supposed to be like it's not okay to want like let's serve other people let's help other people this is the role that I'm supposed to be playing and I'm supposed to be supposed to show up in and so they are almost conditioned to believe that no this is this is how it's supposed to be for me I don't know if that's very clear but how how do we help those women see their values see that it is okay to not self-betray like to be like wait this doesn't feel good to me and get curious like why this doesn't feel good to me why am I doing it mm-hmm yeah that is it's difficult Amy um my first like response is well do they want to make any changes yeah I mean that's a good question right because they might be fine with it yeah and there has to be a willingness right and then and a vulnerability that they show up with to even question what they've been told and that's really hard because you're not just um be you're betraying there's betrayal on so many levels there there's betrayal of probably family right especially if you're from a family um that is religious or I'm very connected to the church so if you go against that you betray the family there's the next level up which is betray the church mm-hmm right and the expectations the church has put on you um fear that you'll be somehow unlovable rejected not accepted anymore um and then there's the ultimate betrayal of your betrayal of God right right the church has taken on this authority in um handing down like uh almost like delivering the message of God and also the punishment and the judgment you know and so I think that for women who have grown up with that absolute programming um it is really difficult to change those patterns that were learned and also change their mindset around that they have choice that they don't have to feel so much shame about their existence they don't have to answer to somebody else they don't have to remain quiet it's okay to speak up it doesn't mean um anything other than you're speaking up you're speaking your voice which if we were to speak our voice and we were to stand in our power not from a place of anything negative but just from a place of positivity and like this is who I am and I am proud to be who I am how powerful would we be as women I mean the world would completely be a different place completely because women have so much to offer um not saying that men don't saying just that we do because we are like even though you know we might be conditioned to be more nurturing or whatever like we are by nature more nurturing it becomes a problem when we're betraying ourselves right when we are turning into more of a codependent person and letting all that other stuff come up mm-hmm yeah yeah I think that the the the qualities that women bring in their events you know going back and come back to their flight it's okay but it's disgusting and their relationships are tremendous. And but what they do is they bypass themselves.

Right, right. So they're busy caring for caring about nurturing, loving these other people, but they completely forget that they are in a relationship with themselves, first and foremost. And how different would it be if you had a strong relationship with yourself? In addition to the relationship with all of your other family members and friends and etc.

Yeah. And I mean, how powerful would we be? It's immeasurable. Like, it's immeasurable.

Like, I just like it blows my mind. I see it all the time. And hopefully anyone that tunes in here knows that that's like, that is my passion. I want you guys to see what you're capable of how amazing of a human you are, and that you are different, you are unique.

And that is beautiful. And you have things on your heart that you should find and discover and go after because as we as we stand in our power, and as we take some of that back, as women, it truly, truly ripples to so many people, because we have that power. I mean, like the the woman, have you heard the analogy, the man is the head and the woman is the neck of the home, but she can turn that head anyway, she wants, you know, the woman is the heart. The mom is the heart of the home.

I mean, there's a lot of truth to that. But when we turn away from us ourselves, and we minimize what we are and what we can do. It just it's, it makes my heart sad. I'm like, guys, you are worth so much.

Yeah, the only person that keeps you small. Is you? Yeah. You know, and I ask often in the work I do, what's what's going to happen?

Like, what will happen if you share how you feel? What would happen if you expressed what you wanted to do? Or what you even the simplest little things that aren't so simple and little but like expressing where you want to go to dinner, expressing what you want for dinner at home, you know, and, and that can feel really scary. And fear is just a feeling.

That's it. It's just a feeling. It's not the truth. It doesn't mean there actually is something to be scared of.

I think some women there are right, there's some unsafe situations. I'm not talking about those women where it would be unsafe to them. Right. To speak up.

But really, how is that fear accurate? Like, it's a feeling. It's feelings are real. They happen, like we all have fear.

But is that really the what's the worst that's going to happen? And most of the time people are like, well, he might not like it. Okay, well, what if he doesn't like it? Well, then we'll have to hear about it.

What might he say? Yeah, well, he'll just complain. You know, he won't like it, but he'll eat the whole dinner. And then and then what?

And, and a lot of the time, I am not kidding. They're like, well, nothing. Nothing will really happen. I mean, nothing will happen.

Well, then what are you so afraid of? Right? So I think normalizing that fear? Because it is hard.

It is hard to change things up. It is hard to do something different. It is hard to speak your truth and use your voice and power. But really, what's the worst that will happen?

If you do? I mean, you're telling me this, and I coach on this too. And I'm in my mid 40s, which I hate to admit now, by the way, like what? But I am trying to I'm trying to not hate admitting that.

But anyway, I mean, I am in my mid 40s. And it has taken me this long within the last few years to start truly using my voice. And I'm a coach who's done a lot of work on myself. And it's barely like, that that is okay.

I mean, I was I was in a childhood where it wasn't we would get in trouble, like it didn't feel safe to speak my voice. And so that is what I learned then. But it's like, it's taking me this long. I mean, I've been out of my childhood home since I was 18.

Yeah. You know, so it is hard. It's like, I still sometimes like, catch myself, which I'm with somatic work, you'll listen, once you start tuning into your body, you'll listen, it'll start talking to it's like, for me, when I'm not using my voice now, my throat gets super, super heavy as if someone's like choking it. And, you know, I've done work where I'm like, I recognize that now I listen, but I'm like, Oh, what am I not saying?

Which then helps me say it, but it's been work. And it's still like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, it's still scary. But I love that you normalize, like, it is a feeling. Speaking up as if, you know, that that might be a little scary, but then what, like, nothing I had had a hard conversation as last night.

And again, it came up, and I had to tell him, you know, now we have a different relationship, or we talked about all the things. So I'm like, okay, my insides are knots, my heart is pounding. And my throat is tight. As I start this conversation.

And he's like, Amy, you are okay. It is safe. We can talk about this. Like, okay, I'm just telling you this still comes up.

He's like, why does it still come up? So I'm like, but recognizing I just make it okay. You know, and at the end, the conversation was fine. He was supportive.

He had my back. But even still, it can be hard. Yeah. And you know, Amy, I don't think it's abnormal that women are just starting to be able to use their voice.

And I really don't. I am amazed when women who are younger who are even showing up in therapy and working on this stuff at an age where I just didn't even recognize that that was a possibility. Yeah, you know, as independent as I am, and have been, and I've made some decisions that really kind of went against expectations and my role. I really struggle with that.

And I think that's a really important thing. I don't want to struggle to say no, I'm a people pleaser. I don't want people to be upset. I don't want to hurt your feelings.

I don't want you not to like me. Those things are important. And they're also none of those fears that you won't are even true. And I've learned that and it's taken me I still work on it.

I'm 50 half a century. Still working on being able to say what my truth is for me. And you know what the other person can deal with it. My job is not to take care of anybody else's emotional experience in the world.

My job is to take care of mine. And I can say things in a way that are kind. Right? I don't have to be mean when I set boundaries.

I don't have to be cruel. When I have limits. Or want to say no. And that doesn't mean that even if I say it in the kindest way, somebody else might not have any feelings about it, they likely will.

But that's not my job. Right? My job is to take care of me. You know, and it doesn't mean that I'm selfish.

It means that I care enough about me. I care so much about our relationship that I'm going to take care of me first. Because if I don't, you are not getting the whole version of me. You're getting a fractured version of a human being that is it is a not a complete picture.

So to me now, even though it's hard to sometimes have those conversations, I owe it to me to show and I owe it to the other person to be fully present. Um, and really, the other thing about it is, I've had these I've had conversations that are hard. So many times, I still get scared, I will still get anxious. Me too.

And here's what I do. I remind myself of all the times I was anxious. Because there's a lot of them. And remind myself that I survived every one of those conversations, whether it was with a partner, a friend, a sibling.

A boss, right? I survived every one of those conversations. And as a matter of fact, it never turned out nearly what I thought it would. Never.

It never does. It actually goes pretty well. And I survive it every time. And every time you do that, you build a muscle, right?

It's this kind of like working out when you're like trying to work on getting like bigger shoulders or work on your biceps, like it's gonna be pain. Yeah. And the more you do it, the stronger you get, the less painful like you go back and you can do like those 15 reps at whatever number of pounds were like nothing, right? So it just takes practice and it takes time.

And it's okay, because we're, you know, be kind to yourself. We were taught to keep our mouths shut. You are programmed to follow and not lead. You are programmed to serve and not be served.

And so standing in your power of doing something different is scary, you know, and you can do it. You can do it. Believe in yourself. You can do it.

You can. And the, the more you do it, of course you build that muscle like you talked about, but your soul for me, when I do it, I actually have to have a hard conversation today after this recording. Yeah. So actually this was helpful.

I'm like, I can remember like this. I was like, actually all these times I've survived and it's okay. You know? And the reason why I'm having this conversation is because, um, I'm, I do not want to self betray.

And so it's like, I am going to upset someone by, you know, not inviting or inviting or whatever. Anyway. I'm like, okay, so if I don't invite, I'm going to upset someone. So then my people, pleaser goes crazy, right?

Oh no. Like she's gonna feel bad, but I'm like, but if I do invite without having a hard discussion, then I am going to not feel good because of how the energy will be, you know? So it's like, I have to, but what I've decided is, I don't know. I'm telling you guys on the podcast, but what I've decided is like, if I have a hard conversation with this person, then I will have not self betrayed.

This person will be invited. They'll have the opportunity to experience certain experience with us and also know my boundaries. So it's scary, but that is like, I'm like of all the outcomes, I'm like, okay, anyway, but yeah, it's still scary. It's like, okay, these nuggets that you've said, we can take these, we can take them in and it, it all works out.

It's all. Yeah. Never as bad as you think it's gonna be. Yeah.

It never is. We play the worst case scenarios in our head every time. Always. We always think it's gonna be the worst thing ever.

And yeah. And the only person, you know, you harm in not speaking your truth, Amy, is you. But exactly. Right.

And like you set yourself up to feel bad about yourself for not say, saying what you needed to say. You set yourself up to be resentful, you feel shame, right. Um, and it's not gonna be that bad. It's not gonna be that bad.

Well, good. I'm gonna take that with me. Just take a breath before you do it, but remind yourself, you've done this before and you'll get through it. And it's fine.

And also just knowing that that's how I'm going to do it feels powerful, that I'm thinking of me. Well, also thinking of this person, while also thinking of best case, like, okay, what is, what is a win here where it feels good to me? Cause what's normal, like my history is just people please self-betray, which I think a lot of women can speak to that and hear it and relate. So I know we've been talking a while and you have definitely given us some nuggets of wisdom.

How would you wrap up with just saying like one extra nugget or one way that these women can thrive in their lives? I put you on the spot too, by the way. You did, you can tell too, cause I'm over here thinking like, you know, I think how I would like to finish this is maybe to respond to something you said you know you said oh i'm a coach oh i'm 40 mid 40s i think you said 45. i have all this experience and it's still hard as if you're doing something wrong and what i want to say is this is hard for all of us no matter how many years of experience no matter how old we are that some of these old ingrained patterns are still difficult for even the most experience like i'm an expert but you know i also have struggles and i will continue to work on them and that makes me very qualified to help you with your struggles because i'm actively participating in that relationship with myself but you know this is not beyond you you know there's no one else out there that is so much more equipped than you no you know we all have wounds and it's okay to be struggling you know and you know ask for help ask for support find someone who can meet you where you're at and and really you can be vulnerable with and ask them just to listen just to be provide you with a space to share what you're going through because you don't want to be the one that's just there for you you don't want to be the one that's just you don't want to be the one that's just there for you you don't want to be the one that's just don't have to go through all of this alone and you can draw on other people's power as well absolutely thank you so much thanks for being on the podcast and everyone we have her information in the show notes so if you want to click on all of her stuff she's there um did you want to share online or share real quickly what your website is it's sure yeah um i would love for you to come check out my website and uh get to know me a little bit more and see what my practice is like it's www.

melissabenetheims. com it is her name basically it is my name and it is also in the show notes so thank you so much for being on and guys we will see you at another episode bye thanks for having me bye hey if you enjoyed listening to this podcast you've got to come check out my signature program thrive her academy this is where we do real coaching and inner work transformation you teach you how to apply the strategies and mindset tools we talk about here on the podcast so you can create that life and business that you love for more information go to www. amysanders. co forward slash services again that is amysanders.