Sharing a truth we think will be displeasing, inconvenient, or disappointing brings anxiety, guilt, and even fear. If it’s not absolutely necessary, we often don’t share it at all. But sometimes, we have to say something someone doesn’t want to hear.

To manage this conflict, we develop all sorts of strategies, the most common of which is to apologize for who we are and how we feel. We apologize in a thousand different ways… for having an experience that’s not OK for someone else. While apologizing, we often throw ourselves under the bus and criticize ourselves as a gift to the disappointed listener. We blame ourselves and feel guilty—for not being able to offer a more likable truth and likable us.

So, too, we justify our experience and explain, usually in multiple ways, why it makes sense for us to feel the way we do. We twist ourselves into all sorts of distorted shapes and perform high-level mental gymnastics to convince the other person that our truth is valid, understandable, and shouldn’t make us unlikable. And therefore, why they should give us permission to own it.

If apologizing and justifying don’t assure/save our likability, we move on to other strategies, attempting to explain why our truth should be OK for the other person. Not just why we’re justified in feeling the way we do, but why wanting what we want is actually a good thing and will work for the other—not just us (which would be unacceptable).

If plans A, B, and C don’t succeed at making everyone OK, we start rolling back our truth. We agree to a more likable version of what we need, or we abandon our truth altogether and agree to whatever is better for the other person to keep the peace and retain our likability.

In learning to communicate more authentically, many women struggle with the actual language to use.

Women ask me all the time: “What do I actually say when they ask me why I can’t or don’t want to do it?” “How do I explain my truth when it’s not OK with someone else?” “What do I say that’s not nasty but also doesn’t apologize for or cancel what I want?” It’s strange, but we don’t learn the language of sharing and standing in our truth.

To start with, something women are never taught is this: “No” is a complete sentence. Even though we think “No” needs to be followed up with a thousand other words, justifications, apologies, and sweeteners, it doesn’t. It’s a stand-alone word.

While an unadorned “No” may be the most direct, sometimes it just doesn’t feel right to only say that. And so you can also say things like: “That doesn’t work for me,” “I actually don’t want that,” and “I’m not comfortable with that.” These are just some examples of words we can use when sharing displeasing truths. Adding in “right now” can also soften the blow of delivering a difficult truth, as in “That’s not going to work for me right now.” Play with it; the skill is to keep your words short and simple, say less, not more, and stick to what’s true for you.

At the end of the day, the way to stop taking responsibility for other people’s responses to your truth is to practice not taking responsibility. Even if you still feel to blame, guilty, and desperately uncomfortable on the inside, the idea is to keep your mouth shut and refrain from reacting to that guilt. As you stand there with your mouth shut, not rushing to apologize or make it more comfortable, it can be helpful to repeat a mantra inside your head as a way to distract your mind from instinctively apologizing or justifying and also support yourself in this change process. “I’m not responsible for their feelings,” “It’s not my fault,” “They can figure it out,” “It’s not my job,” and “Say nothing” are mantras that may prove helpful. Use whatever keeps your mind occupied so you don’t react in the old habitual ways. This is a skill that gets easier with time and practice.

The notion that you are responsible for everyone else’s feelings is also a shared belief in our culture. That said, there’s a good chance you will be actively blamed for your unwanted truth and accused of causing the other’s upset. When someone tries to engage you in this way and insists that you’re responsible for their feelings, you can actively choose not to bite the hook, not to engage in this codependent system. You can stay quiet and silently repeat your mantra inside your head as many times as you need, which may be hundreds of times. You can also repeat your initial words out loud, “That doesn’t work for me,” “I’m not comfortable with that,” or just simply “No”—but without the apology that instinctively follows it.

The reality, however, is that we do care about other people’s feelings and don’t want others to be upset. We’re not unrelated, and it often doesn’t feel right not to address another’s experience, particularly when it’s in response to our words. Not all of this is about our conditioning; we are still human beings who care about other people.

And yet, there are ways to empathize without abandoning yourself, rejecting or distorting your truth, and fixing their experience. If it’s true, you can say things like “I’m sorry that this is upsetting or disappointing for you” (which is different than apologizing for your truth). Or perhaps, “I wish this weren’t difficult for you to know,” or some other sentence that attends to their experience, but without taking responsibility for it, making yourself guilty, or trying to make them OK. The point is to be intentional and deliberate about your words—to not engage in the entangled and archaic system that holds you back and disconnects you from your authenticity and power.

Despite what you’ve been taught, you are not responsible for other people’s happiness.

When what you want is unwanted, you’re not to blame and don’t need to apologize. Learning to speak your truth and then to stop speaking—not to sweeten, adjust, or abandon your truth to make it “work”—is one of the greatest skills you can learn. Know this too: When you get the hang of staying silent after sharing an uncomfortable truth, of not fixing what’s unlikable, that gap of unfilled space can shift from feeling scary and awkward to feeling exciting and empowering. You are literally standing on new ground and, most importantly, standing in your own shoes and showing up as your authentic self!

The post Stop Apologizing For Your Truth appeared first on Nancy Colier.

At the same time, pay attention to how it feels to be reliant on your relationship and your partner’s state of mind for your own well-being. Notice what it’s like to ride the roller coaster of staking your equanimity on the current relational weather. How does it feel to tuck away or ignore your own needs so as to keep your partner happy and keep the peace?

No matter how familiar, manageable, and even necessary such behavior may feel, living it is never easy or comfortable—not when you start asking yourself what it’s actually like on the inside. In order to change the behavior, you need to get in touch with the suffering that comes with it—what it’s really like to choose a relationship with your partner over a relationship with yourself.

Investigating core beliefs

Once you become aware of your own behavior and the suffering that comes with it, the next step is to investigate the core beliefs that lead to it. Do you, for example, believe that it’s selfish to consider your own needs, or that being a we means there can be no me? Are you perhaps convinced that the relationship would not survive and that your partner would leave you if you stopped taking care of their needs so attentively or were more than just a “giver”? Or maybe the core belief is that no one really cares about what you need, and certainly not if it conflicts with what they need? For many people, what underlies this behavior is the belief that they simply don’t matter, aren’t good enough, and don’t deserve to have their own wants and needs considered, much less taken care of.

The core beliefs that sit below such behavior are often painful and related to early life experiences. Given this, it’s necessary to bring not just curiosity, but profound compassion to these deeply rooted belief systems that bleed out into everything else you think and feel. If you’re trying to change this behavior without investigating the core beliefs that drive and sustain it, and how you came to believe such things, you’re just trimming the weeds without pulling up the unhealthy roots. You may be able to temporarily change the behavior, but eventually, the patterns will return, because the deep-seated storylines beneath them haven’t been healed.

Investigating core beliefs can be a tricky, difficult, and painful process; it’s not something you should or even can do alone. Because you probably still believe the beliefs you’re attempting to unearth, it may not be possible to spot them, as they are baked into the lens through which you’re looking. We can’t see the thoughts/beliefs we’re holding as absolute truths—not if we still think they’re true. It’s helpful and often necessary to work with a professional to help support and guide you through this meaningful process.

Taking action

Breaking free from codependence is about more than just awareness; it’s about action. You need to practice independent behaviors, otherwise known as not being codependent. That is, setting boundaries and actually saying “no”—out loud.

We’ve been taught that unlimited and unconditional giving without any boundaries—pure selflessness—is somehow spiritual, a form of divinity. But unlimited and unconditional giving can be, underneath the spiritual narrative, a recipe for being a doormat. It can mask what’s really a difficulty in setting boundaries and taking care of yourself.

Along with setting boundaries and saying “no” out loud, you need to practice paying attention to your own experience, asking yourself (frequently) what you want and need in any particular situation, how you’re feeling, and what would take care of you in the present moment. The idea is to make yourself a destination, and ultimately, befriend yourself—as counterintuitive as it may feel to treat yourself like someone who matters. You practice telling the truth, your truth, and being more honest about what you think, feel, and need. You try out a new model for love—taking the risk of experiencing what it feels like to show up authentically in your relationship and let your partner meet a (more) real you.

In essence, you practice not controlling the relationship and deliberately not fixing what feels like needs fixing. It may seem like you might literally die if you don’t fix it. Still, don’t fix it; you won’t die, nor will your partner, and they may even fix it for themselves. Your work is to get more comfortable with the uncomfortable, which means closing your mouth, sitting on your hands, or doing whatever it takes to refrain from jumping in to fix and control what feels not okay.

Baby steps and self-compassion

Remember, however, that you didn’t get this way overnight and you won’t not be this way overnight. Like every change process, it starts with baby steps—one small situation, one passing conversation at a time, and little changes one moment at a time. These baby changes add up and lead to big changes in who and how you are. As you embark on this process, one thing is critical: self-compassion. Wherever you are on this journey toward independence, and regardless of whether your baby steps are those of a toddler or a track star, and heading forward or temporarily backward, one thing matters most: that you be kind to yourself and stay on your own side. As it turns out, treating yourself like you matter begins, first, in this change process.

Feeling codependent is not fun; it’s painful and anxious-making—destabilizing. You’re constantly in a state of uncertainty and insecurity, not knowing if the ground is going to disappear beneath you. We don’t choose to be this way, so stop blaming yourself if you are. That said, it’s important to honor your intention to evolve, and the courage it takes to change this ultimately limiting behavior. Shift the unconditional, un-boundaried giving that you offer others, and turn it around: Offer it to yourself in the form of unlimited kindness, forgiveness, and compassion for however you got to where you are and however your path will unfold from here.

The post How to Become Someone Who “Matters” appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Jane, a client, was heading out to see her stepfather. She had described him as someone who talked incessantly about his importance and the remarkable things he’d accomplished (a lot of which weren’t true). At the same time, he’d never expressed curiosity in Jane or followed up on anything she shared. He often spoke about issues on which Jane was far more an expert than he was, yet he never acknowledged her expertise—and certainly never asked for her input.

In her stepfather’s presence, Jane described feeling like she didn’t actually exist as a real person who had her own life. As she painfully explained, “He’s never actually used the word ‘you’ in a sentence, referring to me; it’s as if there’s no me at all, or certainly not one worthy of interest.”

In the four decades she’d known him, he’d never said anything nice or remotely complimentary, not about her, her kids, the life she’d created, or who she’d become. There had been one argument between them, years back, during which her stepfather had spewed all sorts of negative things he thought of her and her “behavior” over the years.

While he seemed to know almost nothing about her, it was clear that he had long carried an extensive and ugly narrative about her. As Jane succinctly put it, “I’ve never felt like I’m with someone who actually likes me.”

But Jane’s mother had passed away, as had her biological father, and both of her husband’s parents were gone, too. Jane continued the relationship with her stepfather because she wanted a grandparent for her children. And indeed, her stepfather would show up a few times a year for her children, to bring presents for holidays, which Jane appreciated since there was no one else to provide that role.

Jane was conflicted; she wanted the relationship with him for her kids, but she was also aware that every time she was in his presence, she felt shut down, frustrated, enraged, and helpless. No matter how grounded and confident she felt going in, she knew, after decades of lived experience, that being with him would feel dreadful and poisonous.

She would feel unloved, irrelevant, misjudged, and dismissed. At the same time, she would feel cut off from anything remotely authentic in her. Her words would come from anger and resentment, rage at being ignored and simultaneously misinterpreted.

She would also feel aggressive, as if she were injecting herself into a space where she wasn’t welcome. She also knew that, regardless of how she tried to stay open, her heart would close up immediately, without asking for her permission. She would enter a physiological state of self-protection and survival—fight or flight.

Even when she was aware, she still felt unchangeable and profoundly sad. She knew too that it would take a day or two for this toxic residue to pass through her. There was no way around it—whatever emotional trauma was retriggered in his company had to be digested by her nervous system, heart, mind, and body before she could feel entirely free once again.

Over the years, Jane had tried countless strategies to change her experience: psychological, spiritual, physical, practical, and everything else. She wanted, understandably, to find an approach, attitude, practice, technique, frame, mantra, rosary, anything—she even tried changing her attire once—to make it less painful and dysregulating to be with this highly triggering person.

After years of therapy and hundreds of self-help books, she was still looking for a way to feel less defended, hurt, and enraged—and more like “herself” in his company, like who she was with everyone else in her life.

Ultimately, Jane was fighting with her own nervous system and with reality—a fight we never win.

What made matters worse is that Jane blamed and shamed herself for not being able to control how she felt in his company. At 52 years old, she felt she should be able to manage the relationship in an easier and more mature manner, that the whole thing should be less disruptive and traumatic for her. She took the fact that it didn’t get easier as a failure and further evidence of her immaturity.

Her self-blame was then echoed by her partner, who responded to her suffering by asking her, “Isn’t there a time when you just let it go and move on?” And, just as unhelpfully, he reminded her that she already knew all this about her stepfather and the kind of person he was, so she shouldn’t be surprised or bothered by it.

So then, how do we get out of this cycle—endlessly seeking strategies to fix our experience and make it different from how it is? And, furthermore, how do we stop shaming and blaming ourselves for feeling the same way we’ve always felt around certain people, even after we’ve fundamentally changed in so many other ways?

In part two of this series, I’ll offer a new frame for what moving on and letting go can mean, and I’ll suggest new strategies for taking care of yourself when emotional trauma is your reality.

The post When You Keep Getting Triggered by the Same Person (Part 1) appeared first on Nancy Colier.

In this series, I’ve been looking at the experience of living with a partner with anger issues, as well as ways to shift your thinking so as to maintain peace of mind, regardless of your partner’s state of mind. Now I want to offer some practical strategies, things you can do to keep yourself separate and protected in the face of your partner’s anger.

When it comes to separating from your partner’s anger, the simplest strategy is to do just that: Separate yourself, by leaving the space where they’re angering. By removing yourself, you’re inviting (and requiring) your partner to sit with their own anger without you there to absorb it or put it on. You can exit the space tactfully, with or without words, but if it feels right, you can tell your partner that you need to remove yourself from the conversation—just for now—for your own peace of mind. You might say something like, “I understand you need to vent, and I get and respect that…and…what I need right now is to not be in this; I need to feel safe and calm.” Or perhaps, “I’m not comfortable (or okay) with what’s happening here, but perhaps we can talk more about this later, when it might be easier to talk through for both of us.” With some practice and determination, you can learn to do this calmly and directly. Speaking up for yourself and establishing your own experience in the face of their anger is important, and a powerful and effective strategy for shifting the anger experience. Speaking up for your own needs in the face of anger is not easy. You didn’t get to where you are in this relationship overnight and it will take time to undo the unhealthy patterns. Start with baby steps, be patient, and stay the course.

You may have forgotten that you can be the agent of change at any moment in your life. You can change what’s happening and remove yourself from harm’s way; you can give yourself what you need. One of the beautiful things about being an adult is that you have the power to take care of yourself when someone else is not taking care of you. Use that power wisely.

When faced with anger, however, our body often freezes, as part of the fight-flight-freeze fear response. Like a deer in headlights, we remain frozen as the truck hits us head-on. But remember this: No one has the right to make you sit for an emotional eruption or attack because that’s what they need to do. No matter how your partner may try to make their issues your issues, you have the right to take care of yourself, and remove yourself from any interaction you don’t want to be in—no matter what. It’s a mightily powerful technique, to simply say ”I cannot do this right now.” And to say it without apologizing, elaborating, invalidating or explaining it further—that’s a game-changer.

It goes without saying (but I will say it anyway): If for any reason your partner prohibits you from physically removing yourself from their anger, then you need to separate from this person in a more concrete and definitive way, now.

Getting in the habit of creating distance in the face of anger, and actively taking care of what you need, is life-changing. It’s defining your own separate and independent space, internally and externally—from within the relationship. It’s reminding yourself that what you need also matters. Ultimately, it’s taking control of your own well-being, which is everything.

It’s important to create not just physical separation, however, but mental and emotional independence as well. When your partner is caught in their anger, and possibly spewing it at you, focus your attention on a single intention: not biting the hook, not getting engaged in their spinning. It can be helpful to silently repeat to yourself: “Don’t bite the hook,” “Don’t go there,” “Stay here,” or some short mantra that helps you stay grounded inside yourself. If it feels useful, you can also visualize a shield around yourself, made of light, armor, gold, or whatever suits you, and see their anger bouncing off of you.

Simultaneously, you can reflect your partner’s anger in a neutral but kind way, saying things like “I hear you,” “I get it,” or “I see how upsetting this is—for you.” These acknowledging statements can help your partner feel heard, but without your getting entrenched, taking the blame, or taking on their experience. It offers empathy while keeping your partner’s anger at arms’ length—from you.

Perhaps the most obvious strategy, but one that’s often avoided, is to initiate a conversation about your partner’s anger—with your partner. It’s surprising how few people actually do this, precisely because they’re afraid of the anger that raising the issue will trigger. As a result, you’re bullied into silence and held hostage by their anger. But addressing the anger directly, as its own issue, can sometimes help. Be mindful of your timing, however, and initiate the conversation when the relationship is intact and calm. Most people with anger issues know they have them, and thus will marinate with your words and concerns in their own time.

Before you have that conversation, however, write down examples of when their anger felt out of control to you and what you experienced as a result. Come prepared, and use the words “for me” a lot. If your partner becomes angry, as feared, you can explain that what’s happening right in that moment is exactly what you’re talking about and hoping to improve. It’s also wise to seek professional help from a couples therapist or counselor, to have a neutral and trained person in the room who can help navigate the situation. Remember: You didn’t cause the your partner anger issues and you can’t fix them on your own. Ask for help.

It’s also wise to seek your own therapy when you live with someone with anger issues. Investigating and acknowledging your own feelings is often the best thing you can do, for yourself, and paradoxically, the health of the relationship. Your own therapy can help you separate and protect yourself from your partner’s anger issues; it’s a powerful opportunity for becoming emotionally independent.

Even with all these strategies in your pocket, anger can be frightening and disturbing. Anger triggers neurological changes and alters the chemicals in your brain and body. There are real, physiological challenges when anger is coming at you, which can disrupt your ability to respond from your wisest self, and sometimes to respond at all. As you embark on this path and try out these strategies, be vigilant, most of all, about staying connected with yourself and treating yourself with kindness. Meet the intensity of your partner’s anger with the intensity of compassion—for yourself. Let your self-compassion be its antidote. Don’t judge or criticize yourself for being affected in whatever way you’re affected, or for not being able to respond perfectly. You’re human and related, which means other people’s behavior affects you. Refuse to add more anger to your reality by getting angry at yourself. Anger is tough… stay on your own side.

Anger is a big deal, and needs to be addressed one way or another in a relationship. The way anger is managed needs to work for both people in a relationship, not just the angry (or angrier) person. At the end of the day, creating a healthier relationship with an anger bully involves giving their anger back to them to work with, allowing (and requiring) them to contend with their own unresolved stuff. Simultaneously, it’s about taking charge of your own well-being, and not leaving your peace and well-being in anyone else’s hands.

What they don’t tell you in relationship school is that you don’t need your partner to be okay for you to be okay. And not only that; you don’t need to share your partner’s experience in order to understand or care about it. Ultimately, we’re all responsible for our own well-being, and once we realize that, we also know we’re in the best of hands.

The post Do You Feel Like A Hostage to Your Partner’s Anger? appeared first on Nancy Colier.

At the most basic level, belonging is survival and safety: if we’re not part of the herd, we’ll be left behind and unprotected, which means we’ll die. But these days, belonging is less about physical survival and more about surviving emotionally. We need to belong to something larger than ourselves in order to feel safe, valued, connected, and ultimately, well.

Community is something we belong in and to. It can feel particularly important to be part of a community during the holidays when we come together with our “people” to celebrate rituals and express gratitude for one another. For many people, there’s a greater longing and also an added pressure to belong to a community during this season.

Being part of a community is sometimes viewed as evidence of a good life; to some degree, it is an important factor in a good life and overall contentment. Interestingly, the word “community,” when broken down, has “common” as its root and “unity” as its suffix. And indeed, community is a place where we share and benefit from a common unity with others.

In recent times, however, our community experience has changed profoundly due to our world becoming an online world. In part because of COVID, but also because our world happens on screens now—in a virtual universe. Social media has become our new shared space, the place where we socialize and create community. We don’t gather in person, face to face, as we used to. And furthermore, we don’t seem to think it’s necessary. And yet it is–so necessary.

At one time, the makers of technology may have intended for it to bring people together and create community and a richer experience of life. Regardless of the original intention, however, the system (strengthened by the pandemic) has turned on itself. Recent studies have found that despite being more connected than ever, people feel more alone and less a part of community than ever.

In my book, The Power of Off, I wrote:

“Sadly, with technology we risk winning the world but losing our village. We can be part of a community made up of people all over the world but not talk to the few people who share a bus stop with us every morning. Though known about by everyone, we are increasingly known by no one.”

According to research conducted at the Center for Cognitive & Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago, the more face-to-face interactions we have, the less lonely we are, while the more online interactions we have (the sort that doesn’t lead to face-to-face contact), the more lonely we are.

When the waitress at the local diner asks us if we want our ‘usual’ or the coffee cart barista notices that we weren’t there the morning before, such experiences make us feel seen, connected, and, ultimately, content. Our need to belong, to feel part of something larger, is met at a primal level when we are part of a physical, real-life community.

Being together and sharing space with other people becomes part of our cellular makeup in a way that’s different, emotionally and neurologically, from sharing something at a distance through the computer. Our body absorbs and retains in-person experiences on a deeper and more integrated level than online experiences. A hug, holding another’s hand, physical touch, all of these kick-off endorphins in our brain, which make us feel good, and which the online community doesn’t offer. Bodies respond to other bodies. The heart responds to direct human contact.

In-person community is also good for us in unexpected ways. For one, it makes us more flexible as human beings and also more empathic. In the physical world, we have to work with and consider others in a way that online relating does not require. Now that it’s possible again, we have to change out of our pajamas, leave our homes, and interact with the world.

Real-life community forces us to get out of the bubble of not just our living room but also our own minds and the narratives we tell ourselves. It demands that we work with others and not just bunker down in our private universes, convinced of our own ideas and thoughts.

Equally important, the physical community offers the opportunity to stretch emotionally and sometimes even to do something hard. Joining a group online or gathering with people over Zoom, for the most part, asks very little of us. Often we can leave when we want to; we can give half our attention and tinker with other projects while it’s happening. In some sense, the online community allows us to be the laziest and least evolved versions of ourselves, physically and attentionally.

Real-life community, on the other hand, challenges us to raise our game and do hard things; it not only demands the effort of leaving the house and showing up physically, but it asks that we show up attentionally present as well, actually there, which is not the easiest and most convenient path to which we’ve grown accustomed.

But the case for all this is in the “boots on the ground” reports. Most people describe a sense of contentment and security when they experience themselves as being part of a shared physical world and physical, real-life community. These same people report feeling empty, unsatisfied, and lonely after hours of participating in virtual communities, precisely the opposite of the experience they crave, and that face-to-face community creates.

I’m not suggesting that we throw away our virtual communities; they serve an important purpose in our lives. And yet, we need to honor the nourishment that comes from spending time in physical community—out in the actual world. In order to reap this nourishment and contentment, however, we need to consciously make time to be together, face to face. Only we can make this happen for ourselves.

So, with a new year on the horizon, and the limitations of the pandemic easing, why not make this the moment to reenter life in an intentional, self-caring, and wholehearted way? Why not give yourself the gift of real-life community, now that you can—the fulfillment of being with other people in union?

You can start with baby steps; take a walk with a friend rather than spending an hour texting “together;” join a class or group that meets in person; go to your local bookstore or community center for an event, or attend a service at a spiritual center. Regardless of what ends up sticking or becoming a habit, I promise you this: real-life physical community, face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder, heart-to-heart interaction, in union, holds the possibility of nourishing you more than any other choice you’ll make in 2023.

See you out in the world…

The post It’s Time to Get Off Our Screens and Back to Real Community appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Most women, and moms, in particular, struggle with the belief that we’re not good enough. We feel like we’re failing our children and failing to live up to some image of a perfect mom who’s selfless, has no needs of her own, and exists only for her children. Some of this remains as a remnant of the role women played in the family in previous generations.

Although our culturally conditioned idea of who we should be no longer fits into modern life, in which women work outside the home, our idea of the perfect mom remains unchanged. And maybe more importantly, despite our image of perfection frequently conflicts with our own well-being, we continue to shame and blame ourselves for not being who we imagine we should be.

Mom guilt is built on an idea of who we should be—not who we are. From the time we’re little girls, our emotional safety, acceptance, and approval are built on our ability to be selfless and take care of other people’s needs. The better we are at taking care of other people, the more we’re liked, which makes us feel valuable—and makes us like ourselves. Being a mom is the ultimate test of our caregiving abilities; how much can we give ourselves away in service to our children, which then is the ultimate test of our worth?

When Jenny was packing her kids into the car for yet another weekend trip this past summer, each of which took enormous effort and cost (and wasn’t that much fun), it suddenly dawned on her that she was doing all of this to live up to some idea in her head of what a good mom should be and what she should offer her kids in the summer.

And yet, she also realized that she didn’t want to do it, and truth be told, neither did her kids (or the dog!). No one in that car actually wanted to be going away for another “family” weekend; no one wanted this “perfect family life” that she was forcing. She was enslaved by some archaic story of what was supposed to happen in the idyllic months of summer by being perceived as a “perfect mom,” having a “perfect family,” and offering her kids a “perfect life.”

In a revolutionary moment, she decided to put the car in reverse, unpack the trunk right then and there, and start living in what was true rather than some idea of what should be. She decided to step out of her imaginary story and into reality.

At any moment, we can step out of the story we’re telling ourselves about who we should be and in that moment, invite and welcome the mom we really are.

Tips for Breaking the Mom Guilt Habit

• Become aware of your inner voice of guilt.
• Breaking mom guilt starts with awareness, noticing how and when you’re “should-ing” yourself with a dose of shame and blame for failing to live up to some idea of the mom you should be.
• Notice the thoughts that you are not enough and how your inner-mom critic criticizes you for not being someone you’re not.
• Consider your well-being.
• When you recognize that you’re spinning in the mom guilt narrative, drop out of the story of who and how you should be and consider who and how you actually want to be—in this moment, this situation, and this life.
• Take the bold step that it is, as a woman and a mom, to stop assuming that you should be invisible. Remind yourself that your wants and needs matter. Put your authentic self back into the story.
• Ask yourself what takes care of you in this situation and what serves your well-being. What would happen if you allowed your well-being to matter, too, not just your children’s? Is there a way to take care of both you and your child?
• Remind yourself to keep coming back to the present moment.
• When you’re lost in mom guilt, you’re distracted from the present moment. You’re not with your children, which is ultimately what good mothering is all about.
• When you catch yourself mom-guilting, get fierce with your mind. Tell your inner critic to stop telling you what’s wrong with you.
• Focus on modeling for your kids what it looks like to be on your side. Focus on what you like about yourself and what makes you a good mom. Let your kids meet who you actually are, as opposed to a tortured version of yourself trying to be someone else.
• Practice self-compassion.

Remember, being a mom can be an exceptionally difficult role. Some say it’s the hardest job in the world. We all fail our kids and we’ve all been failed by our own moms (and dads). Thankfully, humans are resilient; our kids find a way to be OK most of the time. That’s reality. So, keep your shortcomings in perspective and remind yourself of all the things you do right, not just those things you think you do wrong.

Use whatever you don’t like about your parenting as an opportunity to grow and be more mindful rather than an opportunity to judge yourself. Remind yourself that you’re doing the best you can, even when there’s room for improvement. Moms, like all human beings, are works in progress; being the best mom you can be today that’s the goal—with all the shortcomings and gifts that that includes.

That’s enough.

The post Recovering From Mom Guilt: Dropping the Never-Enough Mom Story appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Men struggle with guilt, too — it’s a human emotion — but this post isn’t about men. It’s also not about guilt in a universal sense, as it relates to original sin. It’s about women and our habit of feeling guilty for pretty much everything.

What I see in my office day in and day out is this: women believe that everything that’s “wrong” has ever been “wrong” and will ever go “wrong” is their fault. If something or someone else isn’t okay, we’ve done something to cause it and are thereby responsible for fixing it. At the same time, women feel guilty for needing anything for themselves. The truth is women feel guilty most of the time, for most everything. Guilty is just our normal state.  

In trying to understand why this is, let’s take a step back. From a neurological standpoint, females tend to be more relationally wired than males. This isn’t always the case of course, but in general, the studies support that females are biologically designed to be attuned to other people’s experiences, to feel their pain, perhaps to be able to care for their offspring. If we look to science to understand women’s propensity for guilt, we might consider that females come into this world with neurochemicals that stimulate nurturing, bonding, and empathy.  But our empathic wiring isn’t the problem. Rather, the porblem is that we turn this beautiful quality of empathy, with which we’re gifted, into the self-destructive habit called guilt.  In essence, our natural attunement to other people’s experiences becomes something we use against ourselves; we’re bad if we fail to protect everyone else from suffering, or put another way, fail to keep everyone else happy.  Our capacity for kindness and connection transmutes into an unkindness we harness against ourselves.

At the same time, through our cultural conditioning, we’ve learned we can best achieve emotional safety and belonging by being likable. And so, we spend a lot of energy trying to be pleasing, which, if you’re female, means keeping other people happy.

When other people aren’t happy, when others perceive something as “wrong,” it means that we have failed. We’re then in danger of being rejected and criticized, thereby losing our place of belonging. Taking the blame for other people’s experiences becomes an emotional survival strategy. It keeps us likable.

So too, we assume everything is our fault to maintain control. If we’re to blame for everything and we’re who broke whatever’s broken, then we can also fix it. We can do better, be better—and we will, which will make everything okay.

But what if we can’t make everything okay by fixing ourselves What if things can go wrong for reasons we can’t know? What if everything isn’t our fault?  That would mean that life isn’t entirely in our control.  It would mean that life happens on life’s terms, not ours.  It would mean that we’re not the (negative) center of the universe.

For many, this is a scary idea. We avoid recognizing that things just happen for infinite reasons–even if it means living in constant guilt and self-judgment–rather than face the fact that much of life isn’t in our control or even about us.

Paradoxically, guilt is also a way of keeping us from having to feel what we feel. When something isn’t working in our lives, focusing on all the reasons we’re to blame–and what’s wrong with us–keeps us from experiencing the feelings related to what’s happening. While feeling responsible and guilty is painful, it successfully avoids the pain that might be properly associated with the situation. And so, we stay stuck in the rumination and negative looping about our brokenness, but we don’t process the feelings that would help us move forward.

But perhaps most importantly, when we get caught in guilt and self-attack, ruminating on our guilt, we abandon the possibility of purposefully addressing what isn’t working.  We get waylaid in the familiar and comfortably uncomfortable narrative of our failings.  We’re then distracted from the most important question: how to improve what isn’t working. We surrender the chance to chart a course forward.  We’re stuck in the old guilt and shame muck, and we end up with the same old question we always end up with: “What’s wrong with me?” It’s a question we know all too well.

So, how do you break the cycle and change your inner narrative?

First, you didn’t learn to be guilty overnight and you won’t break the habit overnight either. But as with everything, freedom begins with awareness. You start by noticing, in small ways, your propensity to blame yourself, the ways you personally dive into the guilty rabbit hole. And, when you notice yourself falling, you start catching yourself in mid-dive or may even pre-dive. 

If your 11-year-old tells you she’s sad because she has no friends, maybe you notice that you immediately start figuring out how you’re a bad mother, and haven’t modeled good enough social skills, and all the reasons why you’re to blame for turning her into a social outcast.

As soon as you notice that you’re turning against yourself and diving into the self-blame hole, stop and do something different: Offer yourself kindness instead of criticism. Try a new path. Instead of going down into the old, stagnant, guilty rabbit hole, treat yourself differently.

How to Make Different Choices

If any of this sounds a little too familiar, you can try this two-part process:

Step 1: Feel how the situation feels. Feel the situation, not how it feels to be the cause of it. For example, how do you feel knowing your daughter is sad because she lacks friends? Simultaneously, notice if your feelings toward your daughter (or whatever situation) change when you aren’t guilty of having caused it.

Step 2: Turn your attention to now. What can you do to improve the situation that’s not working? In this example, how can you improve your daughter’s relationship with other kids? Turn your focus from what’s wrong with you to the present moment and how you can create positive change.

When guilt becomes a habit, it causes suffering and stagnation. But guilt is a habit we can break; we don’t have to feel guilty all the time. We don’t have to throw ourselves under the bus when something is wrong. Things can be wrong without our being to blame, or responsible for having caused it, or having to fix it.  As revolutionary as it might sound, things can just be “wrong” without us being wrong.  But for the guilt habit to change, we must choose to create a different internal dialogue and attitude towards ourselves. So, make that choice; make that change, and pay attention to who you are and who you become when you stop telling yourself that you’re broken!

The post The Guilt That Women Suffer appeared first on Nancy Colier.

But over time, I realized that despite all the thinking humanly possi­ble, there were important questions in my life that I couldn’t know and couldn’t solve, not yet anyway. This truth was unavoidable and irrefut­able. I had to admit and accept that, with all my pseudo-knowing, my proposed and attempted solutions, I was still not any better off. Any knowing I had thought myself into was illusory. The more I tried to know, the more I felt like I didn’t know. On the other side of that admission and acceptance however, I found something unexpected…utter relief.

We live in an age of reason and science. We worship information, research, and logic so much that we named our era for it: the age of information. To reason is to think, to use the rational mind, understand, and make sense of our world. Over time, we’ve put more and more eggs in the reasoning basket, betting on thinking to save the day. The thinking mind is the road to salvation. At this moment in history, we’ve lost interest and, to some degree, respect, for all the other ways of knowing: bodily, intuitively, experientially, and so forth—all the ways we can know other than through thinking and logic.

When I present material as a public speaker, despite three decades of professional experience with human beings and their thoughts and emotions, I am almost always asked what MRI studies or research I can offer to support my observations on human behavior. Reason and scientific proof have been anointed as our kings. Thinking, we believe, will solve whatever questions and challenges life presents. And, with technology exploding, our faith in and reverence for thinking are only intensifying.

Living in the Question

“The only true wisdom is in knowing we know nothing,” said Socrates. A lot has changed in the 2,500 years since Socrates uttered those words. Our society now seems to disagree with the great philoso­pher on the issue of knowing. Here, in the 21st century AD, we believe that we should and can know everything. Our unceasing need to know the answers along with our unwillingness to accept the unknown sit at the root of our excessive thinking, and our anxiety.

Mystery, in our society, is not a real thing…it’s a flaky or woowoo thing. Not knowing the answer is not an acceptable answer. We’re taught from the time we’re born that knowing is good—we are good, worthy, if we have the answers. “You should know better” is what we hear when we’re young and have done something wrong. We feel shame and inadequacy when we don’t have the answers: It makes us feel weak and defective, vulnerable and lost. Not knowing is a form of failure.

At the same time, knowing feels safe; it feels like we’re in control. With the answers in place, we don’t have to face the impermanence that underpins our life, the reality that everything is constantly changing, whether we like it or not. We don’t have to feel how out of control we really are as human beings on this mortal and mysterious journey. As a result, we do a lot of faking it, “impostering,” when it comes to knowing. Simultaneously, we rush to answers that aren’t true or sustainable. We’ll do anything, essentially, to not reside in the unknown.

But despite what we’re conditioned to believe, life is forever deposit­ing us in situations where we cannot know and don’t have access to the answers we want, don’t know the way forward, to say nothing of the larger not knowing—what we’re all doing here, existing, in the first place. Given the frequency with which the experience of not knowing or at least not yet knowing shows up in life, we would be wise to learn how to inhabit it and, even better, to do so with a sense of acceptance and relaxation rather than judgment and fear.

It may feel unfamiliar, unwise, and even dangerous to sit with a chal­lenging, unresolved situation, to not know what it means, what we need to do about it, or how to get out of it. Uncomfortable though it may be however, it behooves us to learn how to not know, to feel what it’s like in the not knowing, and to await more clarity and the arrival of a path through. Living in the question, if we can drop our judgments about it, can become its very own place to reside. With practice, we can learn to actually relax with not having the answer.

When we offer ourselves permission to not know, we allow life to reveal what it wants to reveal, in its own time—without forcing it. The questions then, remarkably, become their own destinations. What’s more, we find that not knowing is a place that, if we have the courage to trust it, can deliver deeper and wiser solutions, real solutions, paths forward that are more reliable than anything we can mentally muscle our way into knowing.

Surrendering to living in the questions feels like dropping through a trap door. Suddenly we are deposited into the present moment; we have permission to be here, to experience what life is like—now. We have permission to get interested in the experience of this reality and allow the answers to reveal themselves on their own timeline. Just for now, we don’t have to do it all ourselves, don’t have to push our way through with our mind, as we’ve been taught. Relaxing into the questions, unexpectedly, allows us to join a larger unfolding, a process bigger than ourselves, and thankfully, one in which we don’t have to be respon­sible for controlling our life at every turn. At last, it isn’t up to only us. Living in the questions, no matter how uncomfortable it might feel, is living in the truth, which, once we get the hang of it, contains its own safety and trustworthiness. The safety we experience in the truth, however, is not because we have all the answers or because the truth is comfortable (the usual markers of safety), but rather because the truth is inarguable…because the truth is what is. Surrendering to not knowing means planting our feet in moving ground and accepting that we’re in a process without a known outcome and that the process is the destination for now.

The post How to Relax When You Don’t Have the Answers appeared first on Nancy Colier.

Why we get stuck in negative thinking loops

Thinking gives us a sense of agency, makes us feel less vulnerable and afraid, less at the mercy of change and what we can’t control. We don’t know another way, don’t know how to let go of what we see as our lifeboat. We are so heavily invested and reliant upon thinking as the way to keep ourselves safe that we don’t stop for long enough to get a glimpse of a way of living that doesn’t necessitate constant thinking.

We hold the deep conviction that thinking will make whatever we’re thinking about better. It’s ingrained in us from the time we’re born: Thinking is the solution—to every problem and non-problem. But what if it’s not? What if the premise at the center of everything we believe and do is faulty? What if thinking, the way we do it, is actually the problem, not the solution?

People often ask me if it’s possible to recover from chronic overthinking. The answer is yes, it’s possible. But in order to recover, you have to be ready to fall out of love with your thoughts and with your thinking process. You have to stop believing that your thoughts are the most important thing on Earth and, of course, the absolute truth.

Furthermore, you have to hit rock bottom—your bottom. You have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired, anxious, frightened, stressed, distracted, unhappy, and all the rest of the states of mind that your thoughts inflict upon you. In short, you have to get fed up with your thinking process and what the voice in your head is shouting or whispering at you. You have to find a new way of responding to your thoughts when they arise and a new way of thinking about thinking.

How to stop overthinking

The first step in breaking free from overthinking is making a commitment to listen to your own mind. In other words, to make the leap from being the one doing the thinking, the thinker, to the one the thoughts are talking to, the listener (or, if you choose, non-listener). When you’re caught in a thought loop of any kind, what you’ve lost is space … the space between the one listening to the thoughts and the thoughts themselves. When you’re caught, your thoughts don’t appear separate from who you are. Thoughts are you, and you are thoughts.

But the moment you recognize what’s happening inside your mind is the moment you start to feel relief. Acknowledging the presence of thoughts, ironically, allows you to feel disentangled from the thoughts and the whole thought tsunami. With awareness and acknowledgment, suddenly, there’s a separate shore from which to observe the thoughts without being drowned by them.

It is helpful in this acknowledgment, too, to give a name to your negative thinker or thinkers. When you label this voice of negativity inside you, it lightens and further separates you from the negative messages. Naming creates space.

You can use different names, too: one for your catastrophizer, the one who reminds you of everything that could (and will) go wrong (I call her Aunt Mathilda); one for your self-critic, the one who reminds you of everything wrong with you; one for your grievance keeper, who reminds you of every injustice anyone has ever done to you, right down to how the bus purposefully splashed you this morning. If you like, you can match the kind of thoughts to the names of people you’ve known who remind you of such sentiments. What’s paramount is that when the thoughts arise, you take a moment to acknowledge the voice with its proper name: Oh look, it’s Aunt Mathilda, here to tell me that I’m going to fail and that it will all end in disaster. Thank you for sharing, Mathilda. Now you can go!

When you recognize that the negative thoughts have (or are trying to) seize your current reality and that your present moment is being injected with this toxic content, you can name this truth as well. You might take a moment to pause and consciously offer yourself a dose of compassion right there, at the center of the storm. You can acknowledge that you are really trapped in the thoughts, down the rabbit hole, and suffering, wishing you could get out but not knowing how to do it. This compassionate pause, stepping back and acknowledging your own experience at that moment, is, in fact, critical in the process of breaking free from your self-inflicted unkindness.

The most important discovery in freeing yourself from excessive thinking is recognizing that your thoughts are not you. You, and all of us, have what is essentially an out-of-order computer firing all day and all night inside your head. Sometimes, that out-of-order computer tells you interesting things or maybe helps you put together a grocery list, but for much of the time, it’s spewing out contents that are not particularly helpful and often harmful to you. That said, it behooves all of us to expand our awareness when it comes to our own thinking and start deciding for ourselves which thoughts we want to engage with and how we want to be treated inside our own minds.

The post Putting the Brakes on Overthinking appeared first on Nancy Colier.

For the first year of the pandemic, couples actually managed well. The physical and emotional consequences of the virus, being cooped up in the house together, the losses endured, fear, anxiety, financial instability, all of it was handled, by and large, with compassion and patience. Many couples, in fact, grew closer and more appreciative of each other over the first year of pandemic isolation. And yet, something has definitely shifted.

Perhaps it’s the fallout from all the time spent together, or all that required compassion, but what’s showing up in my office right now is a whole lot of impatience—and conflict. Particularly, that is, when it comes to what’s safe, how to re-enter life, and at what pace.

Two couples who disagree about COVID

Chloe and Zach are struggling. Both are vaccinated, but for Chloe, being vaccinated means she has the green light to get back to normal life; COVID is in her rearview mirror. It means she can go out to restaurants and events without fear. She still wears a mask when she goes to indoor events, but for the most part, she is living a post-COVID life. Her husband Zach, on the other hand, doesn’t trust the vaccine like his wife does. He is still anxious about breakthrough infections and avoids all indoor events, even masked. After Chloe attends in-person events, which she has started to do (alone), Zach spends a period of days quarantining in their small studio apartment, so as not to be potentially exposed to the virus. His anxiety about getting sick from COVID was only mildly eased by the vaccine, and he is definitely not ready to join his wife in regular life, and not ready to take advantage of all the possibilities that are opening up.

In another example, Steve received the vaccine as soon as it came out; he never gave it a second thought. He understood that it might not be foolproof, but felt the benefits far outweighed the risks. Steve trusted what the scientists and health organizations were saying and was ready to roll up his sleeve, and move on with life. He was particularly excited about being able to travel again with his wife, as this had been one their favorite activities as a couple.

Lynn, however, who had grown up in an authoritarian country, felt differently. The idea of having to take a vaccine and show papers in order to be able to participate in daily life made her distrustful and afraid. In addition, she followed a rigorously healthy diet and what she called “toxin-free-lifestyle” and simply didn’t want the vaccine in her body. All this to say, Steve was vaccinated and Lynn was not.

Learning to hold differing truths

I’m not here to discuss the rightness or wrongness of any of these choices regarding COVID. For each of these individuals, the virus and vaccine elicited very different experiences and feelings, all of which were real and true for the person experiencing them. Each of these well-educated and well-informed individuals had heard the science and arguments in every direction. They already knew everything I could tell them in terms of stats and studies.

The problem that needed immediate attention was the fact that their differing feelings and beliefs about the vaccine made it impossible for them to resume their pre-COVID life as a couple. They could no longer go out to restaurants, attend events, travel, or do any of the things they used to enjoy together…to live as a couple in the world, either because of not having been vaccinated or not feeling safe to do so.

As a result, the partner who is ready to re-enter life generally feels resentment, judgment, and anger toward their partner for depriving them of the chance to enjoy life again, and for feelings that they deem as crazy or overly-anxious. Their partner’s experience is something that needs to be fixed (hopefully by me). At the same time, they feel fear and sadness over potentially losing their partner, and the person they want accompanying them in normal life. Simultaneously, the partner who chooses not to be vaccinated, or is still anxious even with the vaccine, feels judged, pathologized, and blamed. They feel that their experience is not heard or allowed; they feel rejected.

My intention in this situation, which is appearing more and more frequently these days, is not to persuade anyone out of their truth or convince them of any other truth than the one they hold. Rather, it is to help the couple find a way to be together with their differing truths—to reinvent who and how they will be a couple in their new post-COVID incarnation. If that’s possible…

If you are in this situation, regarding COVID or any other highly impactful life choice, the first thing to remember is that you are not the keeper of The Truth. It’s not up to you to decide what your partner’s experience is or should be. What’s true for you is true and what’s true for your partner is also true—even when the two truths are radically different.

The beginning of a new relationship is joining these two differing truths with an and not a but. Until you can meet your partner’s truth with curiosity and some degree of friendliness, real progress will be stymied. So, step one is to meet your partner’s truth, to try and understand their experience, not judge, pathologize, or blame it. And not blame them for holding you (both) back from life, assuming that if they chose to, they could have a different truth than the one they have. This truth that you are rejecting, no matter what you think of it, belongs to someone you love, and therefore is a truth you must be able to allow.

The second step is to talk about how you want to be together or if there is a way to be together with your differing truths. Are there other ways to enjoy each other as a couple, to feel enjoyment and intimacy? These are hard conversations but conversations that need to happen. If your partner is not willing, for now, to join you back in the world, or welcome your experience as it is, what will this new reality mean for you as a couple? Furthermore, what are the losses that will come with this new reality. These losses need to be recognized and honored, without blame.

At the same time, remember that whatever situation is happening right now, it will pass. Your relationship existed before COVID, and it can and will exist after it’s through. If, that is, you have the courage to allow your reality, your partner’s reality, and your new reality as a couple, to allow all of them to exist right now, as they are.

The post When COVID Threatens to Break Up Your Relationship appeared first on Nancy Colier.