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Podcast Ep.8: Inappropriate Remarks To Singles, Do You ‘Get Over’ Abandonment and Abuse?, Guilty or Not Guilty?

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Woman asking, "Why are you still single?" and other woman thinking, "Why are you so nosey?"

It’s that time of the week again – there’s a new episode of my podcast, The Baggage Reclaim Sessions. I can’t believe it’s been eight weeks already!

Here’s what I cover in episode 8:

Those inappropriate and insensitive remarks to singles: When I was single, I felt like one of those bad date clowns because I would see people at social events and they’d expect to be entertained with my latest dating debacle. I also found that like a lot of people, I was questioned a hell of a lot about my choices and had my private life prodded and poked into. Turns out, not much has changed since then and I really feel for singles who encounter this so I offer my take and some suggestions for not letting these folks get to you.

Do we ever ‘get over’ abandonment and abuse?: This is one of my most frequently asked questions but it’s a question that needs to be rephrased as we may be tasking ourselves with something that gives us the impression of arriving at a particular destination. I talk about what has helped me alter my perspective and heal.

Why do we keep saying how guilty we feel?: I talk about guilt and the importance of not just ascertaining whether you’re actually guilty of something but also ensuring that you don’t end up bathing in guilt (and avoiding taking action) and instead, use the emotion to do something positive that will help you to learn from the experience and move forward.

Listener Question – Should I tell my friend’s friend how annoyed she is?: When a friend complains about a mutual friend who you’re not that close with and you feel badly for him/her, it can be tempting to get involved to help your friend address the situation and feel better but don’t – the messenger is likely to be shot!

What Nat Learned This Week: I do wonder why I have a paper diary and a calender synced up across all devices if I still end up overscheduling myself because I’m looking at a day rather than looking at the context of the week. Doh!

You can listen to this podcast below. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe on Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher or via a podcast app on whatever device you useIf you’re new to podcasts, find out more about what they are and how to subscribe with this handy guide.

Leave a comment or post on Facebook and please do subscribe. If you know someone who would enjoy it, please help spread the word. It all helps! Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. If there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know! Nat xxx

The post Podcast Ep.8: Inappropriate Remarks To Singles, Do You ‘Get Over’ Abandonment and Abuse?, Guilty or Not Guilty? appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.


Life’s Trials Reveal A Part of You That You Didn’t Know Existed (& Why I’m On A Break)

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Nat Baggage Reclaim feet in sand

In case you hadn’t guessed already, I’m taking a break. I’m currently on the Spanish island of Majorca on our annual holiday and will be taking some more time out on my return so that I can continue to reboot but to also catch up on some behind-the-scenes stuff.

Eleven years ago, I didn’t know, love or like myself very much and it culminated in me being told that there was no cure for the disease that I’ve now been in remission from for ten years as of this month (yay) and that I needed to go on steroids if I didn’t want to keel over by forty. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to have kids and as you all know, I was also grappling with woeful taste in relationships and chronically low self-esteem due to the way I saw myself in relation to childhood experiences. I kept looking for love in the wrong places, searching out my father and even my mother in Mr Unavailables.

I’ve been on one hell of a journey since I walked out of the consultants office in August 2005 with my head held high, determined suddenly for the first time in my life, to fight for myself. I needed to get in command of me. I had no clue how I was going to get better or how I was going to improve my life and I’ll be honest, I got home and thought, Oh feck! What the hell do I do now?, but fear of going down a road I’d already been down or never actually living and enjoying the life I’d been given, far outweighed my fear of taking action.

I made a commitment to myself that I must honour for the rest of my days: to love and take care of me.

If we want one of life's tests to come to an end, we have to be willing to recognise and heed the lessonMy life has changed beyond recognition and I have been guided and supported by trusted folk who have stretched and mentored me as well as a wonderful gang of people around the world who have been following my journey at different stages. I am incredibly blessed but do you know what I’ve discovered over this past couple of years in particular? A part of me, which has been revealed as my work has gathered pace and visibility over the years, has been playing it small.

For anyone who still thinks that self-esteem is a destination, I can attest that it’s very much a journey and that along the way, life will throw you pop quizzes, walk the lines, or lots of these all together in your own Road of Trials, where it feels as if you keep being tested and you’re almost going, Are you fecking SERIOUS? Have I not been through enough? I’m still tired from the last go-round! Do I need to remind you about what I went through in childhood or the heartbreak I’ve been through or my last Road of Trials? This is not fair! I’m a good girl. Why can’t you go after someone who does “bad” things?

The thing is, you end up being tested in such a way that you not only learn a hell of a lot along the way that will help you to live and love better in the future or to even cope with whatever the future holds, but you also as a result of going through these trials and tribulations, discover a part of you that you did not know existed. It’s more of you to love.

Everyone goes through life’s tests, no one is exempt. Also, to be fair, if we want to stop sitting the same ‘ole tests, we mustn’t be hard-headed and keep insisting that our way is the “right” way or the only way, especially when we’re not getting the results that we want.

I’ve been through a series of experiences, particularly over the past couple of years but overall for about four years (pretty much ever since I made what felt like a Not That Big of a Deal Decision But Really It Is, about who would walk me down the aisle) that cracked me open in a different way. In some respects it feels as if I’ve battled with some flying monkeys and The Wicked Witch of the West! I was tired for a while and weirdly, it energised some of my work. But it did start to get on top of me emotionally. It felt oh so subtle at the time, but some of these experiences reminded a much younger part of me that ‘grown-ups’ (so older folk, namely relatives) cannot be trusted. Many, many moons ago, Little Nat, who was probably around 2-3 at the time, thought that she wasn’t loved and that she had to be strong, clever, pleasing and the responsible one at all times and at all costs. She was always alone in a way because she didn’t dare say how she really felt. For a long while, those feelings went away and Big Nat felt like she was cracking life, but a series of what felt like unrelated things happened and on one of those times, it must have been as if, on a subconscious level, Little Nat stood beside me in the room and went, “Ha! I TOLD you! I knew this was going to happen!”.

When you know how to take care of yourself, you know how to be there for others from a healthy place. Invest in you.

So I leaned even more into self-care and increasing my self-awareness, so understanding why I would take my mother and mother-in-law’s behaviour so much to heart. I wanted to know that I can pull me back, utilising my own tools and what I share here through Baggage Reclaim as well as allowing me to be nurtured and supported. It has not been easy although it has definitely had some uplifting parts to it. I have cried a lot over the last year or so but I’ve needed to. I’ve needed to go through this and no doubt it will fuel the next phase of the BR journey and in fact, has played a massive part in the 30-Day projects and talks that I’ve been doing.

But for now, I need a little time out because as a result of what I’ve learned and how I’ve been changing, how I’ve been working behind-the-scenes, no longer feels comfortable or right on for me. Nothing bad is going to happen–quite the opposite–but I need some time to implement the changes I need to make so that I can show up in the way that reflects where I’m at and where I’m headed but also so that self-care remains at the heart of all that I do. If you’re on a course, or subscribed to anything from me, or due to see me soon, you will still hear from me plus the likes of Facebook and Instagram will still be updated, it’s just a little pause on the blog posts and podcast.

The post Life’s Trials Reveal A Part of You That You Didn’t Know Existed (& Why I’m On A Break) appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.

This isn’t love: You’re in pattern, they’re in pattern

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It’s so hard when I witness someone who keeps throwing themselves in the front line of pain by repeatedly returning to a toxic relationship or not leaving it. It’s not just because I’ve done it myself and it felt like a gradual exorcism of the past I’d veered between burying and blaming me for; it’s because of what it means when you’re in this situation:

That you just don’t love or like yourself that much.

The amount that you don’t like and love you is directly proportionate to how much you claim to like and love the other party.

Everything is riding on this person and it’s a vicious cycle of, “Yes, treat me this badly because I’m worthless and deserve it [because of everything I believed about myself even before you came along]”, and “No, treat me better. Change for me so that I stop being in pain from what you’re doing to me and from what I’m doing to myself by being with you. You can’t just up and leave and be with someone else after everything I’ve sacrificed and after everything you’ve put me through”, and so the pain continues.

The thing is, this just isn’t what a relationship or love for that matter, is all about. Pain, sure, but definitely not love.

If you loved you more, would you still love the person who doesn't treat you with love, care, trust and respect?

You need to part ways.

It is painful, horrific actually in some ways, and downright ‘inconvenient’ when you consider everything you’ve done, everything you’ve suffered through, and the ‘dream’ you have for this person, this relationship, and you, but you need to part ways.

It doesn’t matter who does it but please, whoever does, grab the exit. No, you don’t know what’s in front of you (us humans never do anyway) but better to be experiencing the clean pain of grieving the loss and recalibrating so that you heal and become more of who you are, than the ‘dirty’ pain of remaining in the toxic relationship.

You each represent something to the other that neither of you can really be around. It reflects what remains unresolved from your pasts.

The mistake is assuming that what someone is doing to you is because of you (something about you or something you said or did), and while there’s no doubt that not liking and loving you and the consequences of that (lack of boundaries) provides a fertile ground for this type of relationship, it’s not the cause of the effect (their behaviour and the totality of the relationship).

Sure, you have little or no boundaries but even if you had The Best Boundaries Ever TM, they would be who they are, just not with you.

Love doesn’t make you less of who you are or cause you to languish in deep pain while you massacre yourself on the relationship. Old unresolved wounds, deep pain, long-standing patterns–that’s what causes this.

Blaming you for other people’s behaviour is a trap because you act from a place of believing that you could have done something to prevent what they’re doing. You’re just not that powerful–I hope that if you were, that you’d use your powers for wiping out poverty, war and disease. And you know what? You can’t change their pattern and their past.

You’re in pattern, they’re in pattern.

Two people who are throwing their own unconsciousness at each other and dancing through a painful pattern.

Sure, it can feel ‘special’ to decide that they’re only like this with you or that they’ve been worst with you, but they didn’t just fall out of the sky into 2016 and get ‘provoked’ into being ‘like this’ for you.

They’re just a stand-in for who you weren’t originally able to get whatever it is that you’re looking for.

They don’t like and love themselves either, even if they carry on as if they’re the centre of the universe. They’re that way because they don’t like and love themselves and it’s their carefully constructed, habitual framework of thinking and behaviour that’s helped them to cope (but isn’t healthy). At some point they’ve vowed that they will ‘never something’ again and you’re bearing the brunt of that.

Every time you tell this person that you love them, that you want them, that you miss them, that you’re sorry for what they’ve done, and that you’ll do anything to be with them/have them back, you’re actually reinforcing all of the underlying reasons for their own self-dislike and self-hatred.

toxic relationship quote

They know that they have not ‘earned’ that love. They know that they have not treated you well and that you are mistreating you to prop them up.

You’re giving them a Get Out of Jail Free Card for avoiding responsibility, again.

Be your true self and they’d give you a hard time and blame you for their discomfort. Obey them to the letter and they’d give you a hard time and rip on you for not having enough self-respect or claim that you’re ‘not doing it right’. They behave badly and you call them on it or express any form of discomfort, and it becomes about their discomfort with your reaction. What the what now?

The relationship has to end sooner rather than later, because by doing so, you’re forced to confront the pain that’s driven you to this person and to this relationship. You take responsibility for you instead of blaming you ‘for them’ and then trying to get them to make you feel better about it.

It’s also because they have their own journey to make. Depending on their backstory, they might, through the pattern of their relationships ending, be forced into confronting their pain and addressing their issues. It’s possible that they’ll experience very difficult and painful consequences that curtail them.

But there are also some people who walk amongst us who don’t know how to love and in fact cannot love because they don’t have empathy.

Their ‘task’ in life is forcing people who don’t like and love themselves, who over-empathise and who ‘over-feel’, to like, love, empathise and feel for themselves.

They teach people who think it’s their ‘job’ to make people love them and who have personalised what parents, caregivers and others have done or failed to do earlier in life, that it is not about them and to take responsibility for themselves so that they can live their lives with empathy, compassion, tolerance, love, care, trust, respect, and integrity.

Without these experiences, as painful as they are, you would be bumbling around blind to the pain, untrue stories, and habits that are holding you back not just from being who you truly are, but also from being in a mutually fulfilling loving relationship.

You would continue the pattern and keep wondering what’s wrong with you.

If being with someone has forced you to confront every ugly thought and feeling that you’ve been stuffing you and persecuting you with, as painful as it is, be thankful that it’s out. You are in the process of liberating you.

Your thoughts?

The post This isn’t love: You’re in pattern, they’re in pattern appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.

Advice Wednesday: Should I Let My Ex Know About My BPD Diagnosis?

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Stephanie asks: One year after my ex broke up with me, I have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. We had issues; I was clingy/jealous, he was avoidant/promised more than he could keep. I offered to seek treatment, spend time apart and try again, but he said he needed a “clean break” and since then he has ignored me whenever possible. I haven’t been involved with anyone since as I am terrified of being left by and/or hurting another person. I am also not over his lack of empathy after the breakup (blanking me in the streets). Weeks after, he started dating someone new and they’re still together.

I don’t want to resume the relationship but wonder if I should inform him about my diagnosis as it contributed to things. I wonder if him ignoring me and jumping into a new relationship is his way of protecting himself/forgetting past hurt. He knows I’m truly sorry and in treatment. Do you think it would be useful for him to understand that I have a mental disorder? I don’t want him to feel absolved from everything because “I’m crazy” either. We’ve had no contact in 6 months.

 

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I imagine that this is a very vulnerable time for you as you navigate your diagnosis. Now that you have an explanation for some of your thinking, emotions and behaviour, there is undoubtedly a period that follows where you press rewind on your mental tape, watch back previous events, analyse your own actions and his, and wonder how different things would be if you could turn back time and you were both aware of your BPD. There can also be a temptation to assume that because your actions were in part influenced by the BPD that ipso facto his actions were too, and that’s not to discount that there will have been an element of that but if everything is put on your diagnosis, you won’t see the woods for the trees.

If a relationship forces you to confront something painful and to finally take care of you, it's a blessing in disguise.In order for you to begin to truly take care of you in and out of your interpersonal relationships and to move on from this experience which has clearly hurt you a great deal and pushed on your abandonment and rejection buttons which will be very heightened by the BPD, it’s critical that you where possible, distinguish between disorder-led behaviour and thinking versus what is being influenced by the actual circumstances that you’re in. I say this because I’ve heard from many thousands of people who were clingy and jealous with an avoidant, Future Faking partner who also have experiences in their backstory that contribute to fear of abandonment and being involved with people who fit a type that taps on old issues and allows them to continue in a pattern where they can try to right the wrongs of the past, gain validation, and try to fill voids created by their needs being inadequately met by their parents/caregivers. The overwhelming majority of these don’t have BPD and I say this to you because I don’t want you to write you off.

The degree to which you needed to gain some independence in your life (emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually) so that you can be interdependent in your relationships reflects the degree to which he needed to allow himself to be more depended on (not codependent) so that he could be interdependent in his own relationships. As a result of your involvement with him, the pain, fear and guilt that came to the fore and the way in which you reacted prompted you to seek help and get a diagnosis—you needed this breaking point.

It is not ‘easy’ to be in an unavailable relationship whether it’s a matter of two emotionally unavailable people doing the awkward tango of their issues or whether it’s full-blown toxic chaos. This relationship must have been incredibly stressful for the both of you. I know that he did not handle things well and that his lack of empathy has hurt you deeply, but your relationship will have been triggering not just for you but also for him. This is not to excuse his behaviour but more to recognise that he’s on his own journey and that he may deal with his feelings and past in a very different way to you. His breaking point may look very different to yours. He may have decided to press the reset button and move on as quickly as possible and that has meant that he has gone to lengths to ignore you.

You say that you wonder if him ignoring you and starting a new relationship very quickly is his way of “protecting himself/forgetting past hurt”? I say, how long is a piece of string? It might be anger; it might be not wanting a scene whether that’s fear of his own behaviour/feelings/words or yours; it might be shutting out due to guilt and shame; it could be trauma; it could be that he has a parent/caregiver that elements of this involvement reminded him of. You have to go back to the top line data: you described him as being “avoidant” in the relationship and that means he’s bound to be avoidant out of it.

Many people bounce from relationship to relationship to avoid confronting the feelings that surface at the end of a relationship around loss and vulnerability but his past hurt doesn’t entirely relate to you. Sure, there will be some baggage allocation for what went on between you and him but believe me, he has plenty of other stuff in there too.

This relationship was triggering for the both of you. Ultimately you were both relating in unhealthy ways and that will have dragged each of you down. As you already recognise, it’s the right thing that you’re no longer together.

It’s hard enough when you have a fear of abandonment but this will be incredibly heightened by the BPD but no doubt there were factors that pushed you over the edge. You are not “crazy”. Did you say and do things that you regret? Sure but who hasn’t? Acknowledge the different experiences along your journey that have led you to this juncture. Have some compassion not just for your present self but also for those younger versions of you that have been dismissed as “crazy” or “needy”.

You have taken responsibility for you and that is a massive step. You are taking care of you and the bulk of your energies need to be devoted to that.

If you let him know about your disorder, you need to be absolutely clear on your motivations. If there is no agenda and you’re giving him that information with no expectation of what you will get back and more a ‘gift’ for what you think is his peace of mind, knock yourself out. If however, what you really want is to divulge your diagnosis in the hopes that he’ll display more empathy and even feel guilty about his behaviour so that you can feel less abandoned and hurt, halt. You have no control over how absolved he feels of anything. He might already feel that way. If you’re going to explain and apologise, do so because you have it to give. In this way, no matter how he responds, you will feel more at peace because you know that you did what you did from an authentic place where you considered his feelings and yours too. You will then be able to get the support you need to deal with situations like him ignoring you.

What you’re looking for from him is something that you need to give you: empathy, understanding, patience, tolerance, forgiveness. Focus your efforts on getting as much support as possible which will nourish you. Get educated about your disorder. If there is anything in your past that contributes to your fear of abandonment, working on this in therapy and treatment will help you to build your self-esteem and calm down some of the triggers so that you can lead your life. One day you will be ready to try again with a relationship but for now, you need to build a relationship with you and be choosy about who you allow into your Circle of Trust.

Even without a disorder, millions of people worry about being hurt or hurting others. I can’t promise that you won’t be hurt or even that you won’t hurt others at times–we all do–but with the right support, you will be able to forge relationships.

Have you been through something similar to Stephanie or been the partner? What [compassionate] advice can you offer up?

Each Wednesday, I help a reader to solve a dilemma. To submit a question, please email advicewednesdayAT baggagereclaim.com. If you would prefer your question to be featured on the podcast, drop a line to podcast AT baggagereclaim.com. Keep questions below 200 words. For in-depth support, book a clarity session or coaching.

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The post Advice Wednesday: Should I Let My Ex Know About My BPD Diagnosis? appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.

About Unconditional Love

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Trying to fix others isn't going to fix us. If anything, it's going to create way bigger problems due to making our happiness contingent on someone living up to the picture and the plan we've painted in our mind.Love can seem very complicated and painful but the truth is, it’s only like that when we use our feelings to try to control the uncontrollable. We say that we love someone and next thing, we’ve rolled out a whole load of expectations about who and what we think that person ‘should’ be and do due to the fact that we love them (or that they’re supposed to love us). So, with family, we do the things that we think fulfil the role of dutiful daughter/son etc., and we expect them to play their part(s) because we, after all, have met our obligations based on the assumption and expectation that [what we’re being and doing] is required in order for them to be who we want them to be. This is a hangover from childhood where we see people and in fact life, as being a reflection of our worth, of what we think we did or didn’t do.

When we continue to experience frustration with loved ones not living up to our expectations, it spills over into other interpersonal relationships such as with friends or romantic partners because we often unwittingly, although sometimes consciously, try to pursue our unmet needs via these other relationships.

Life is a teacher, something I talked about in episode 87 of the podcast, and so it’s always trying to open up our awareness and perspective so that we can amend the assumptions, judgements, stories and yes, expectations that are holding us back from being in fulfilling relationships that reflect the truest version of us.

We get out of payback mode where we’re expected to be rewarded with something and instead, loving someone means truly knowing and understanding them and wanting the best for their happiness and fulfilment without expecting anything in return.

Love means doing and being because it’s who we are, not because we’re trying to create the right conditions to get what we want from others.

 

We can’t expect from others what we’re not prepared to do for 1) us and 2) them.

It can come as quite a surprise when we’ve spent a lifetime looking for validation in one form or another from our family, to discover that actually, we have loved them conditionally.

When I’ve fallen into the trap of expecting my mother to grant me my wish that she change into someone else altogether in exchange for my love, I’m not loving her unconditionally, and there’s a level of irony there because part of my old struggle is feeling that I was not loved unconditionally and that when I was less than perfect, this is why I was experiencing unwanted outcomes and why she wasn’t being the type of mother that, well, ‘everyone else’ has (they don’t).

When I do things out of obligation in my head and then carry on as if I’ve made a sacrifice that she or anyone else for that matter, ‘owes’ me for, it’s unfair.

 

My intention in those times wasn’t shady but my pattern of people pleasing seemed like it was such a noble thing–you know, me sacrificing myself for others, ahem–but my recovery from being a people pleaser has centred on taking responsibility and removing the hidden agenda, whether it’s about reward or me trying to avoid something (conflict, criticism, rejection, disappointment).

I don’t like being made to feel guilty whether it’s by me or by others, so it should come as no great surprise that others aren’t too keen on me doing that to them.

It’s acceptance.

Like when you see your alcoholic father or dysfunctional mother and instead of growing impatient, lecturing, monitoring them, meddling, side-eyeing, eye-rolling, huffing and puffing, feeling helpless due to not being able to control their problems and life, self-blaming, and silently cursing and resenting them and you for them not being different to who they are yet again, you instead hold space for what is and stop carrying on as if it’s your responsibility to fix them. It isn’t.

All we need to do is love them. That’s it. Just love them.

 

That’s actually what we’re afraid of because if we truly accept and love imperfect people who we’ve previously unwittingly expected to be perfect and/or to spontaneously combust into someone else, it means that it’s what we have to do with us too.

It means that we have to give up suffering.

It means that we have to give up this vocation and accept that even if it was far from pretty and in fact, traumatic in parts, that was our childhood, that was our family.

We’ve got to stop trying to fix them so we can feel as if we’re making things right with us. We can make things right with us and move forward even if our family still do all sorts of feckery. I’ve learned that I’m not disloyal or a ‘bad’ daughter/granddaughter/niece/friend or whatever for not subscribing to someone else’s version of OK– I’m just me.

As I explain in Love, Care, Trust and Respect, “Just so we’re all clear, unconditional love isn’t love without boundaries, which is codependency and self-destruction due to it reflecting our lack of self-love. When we love and like us regardless of what is happening externally, we love others authentically because we have the healthy boundaries to do so. Unconditional love is about choosing love the actions, mentality and attitude through all seasons and conditions, not loving someone no matter what they do to us.”

In this way we learn that unconditional love starts at home.

We stop accepting disrespect from ourselves and choose instead, to love us, especially on those occasions when we err and not just when it’s easy to do so because life is hunky-dory.

We accept us now instead of delaying it until we’ve ‘fixed’ certain things about us or achieved a goal. Less than perfect people live, breathe and achieve things every day, so waiting for some arbitrary moment in the future is not only redundant but it reeks of moving the goalposts.

When we’re genuinely striving to come from a place of self-acceptance (aka respect), we become conscious of where we’re doing things that represent playing a role that essentially amounts to self-rejection (doing things with the aim of trying to get others to fulfil what we feel are their obligations to us, halts self-acceptance).

We can then chill out because we’re not taking responsibility for other people’s feelings and behaviour and personalising what they do (or don’t do) so much that we reject ourselves and our truth.

We don’t reject happiness to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.

We stop self-rejecting due to people and life being less than what we would prefer them and it to be.

We also, when we choose to start accepting us right now and through all seasons and conditions, we won’t remain around those who don’t accept us and who we can’t accept.

Choosing love, incidentally, isn’t just about loving people in the sense that we do our loved ones; choosing love also means acknowledging where we want different things to others and where yes, we don’t like who someone is or what they represent and then choosing to accept them as they are, which is in the highest good for all parties involved because we don’t pretend to be something we’re not and we come from a place of respect.

That might mean acknowledging that we don’t have a deep and abiding love for a parent like some other people do but that what we do know and feel is true and that ultimately, we want the best for them but don’t see us as being responsible for it. We might love them because they’re our family and through all seasons but won’t feel that we have to put up with anything and everything out of love.

Love flourishes where people know the boundaries.

Your thoughts?

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The post About Unconditional Love appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.

Podcast Ep. 88: You’re Not The Boss of Me!

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When we find ourselves around people that represent a familiar and painful dynamic from the past, it's an opportunity for us to see what we couldn't see before.

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On this week’s episode of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, I talk about making work, a business, money, co-workers, romantic partners, friends, something, the boss of us, so much so that it’s a surrogate parent.

I explain:

  • Why feelings of inadequacy that had crept up on me around being my own boss, flagged up to me that work and even money had become my surrogate parents
  • How we get into a cycle of measuring how well we’re performing with our surrogate parents by whether we like the outcomes, in turn, letting this dictate our happiness and also how adequate we feel, feeding this inadequate parent equals inadequate child mentality
  • Why making people and things into surrogate parents where we’re striving to be ‘enough’ or to get ‘more’ represents, ‘I’m not being enough for you to be enough for me‘, and ‘I’m not being enough for you to give me more‘.
  • Why what seem like the ‘rigours’ of, for example, a job, business or relationship along with internal and external expectations, can symbolise structure that looks like the past or structure that we never had–we might follow the so-called rules to the letter to be OK and look for people within the structure to affirm this or, we might resist the structure due to its unfamiliarity
  • Why a work environment can be particularly triggering because the job, boss and your co-workers can end up replicating a dynamic like parents and siblings or even a school environment
  • Why when we keep coming up against issues, we’re being invited to see what we couldn’t see before
  • How concerns like, Am I liked?, Am I being mean?, Am I doing it right [to get what I want]?, What will it take for them to give me safety and security?, and How can I control uncertainty and the unexpected?, are flags that we’re giving our power away and taking ourselves out of alignment
  • Questions we can ask ourselves including:
    • Which areas of my life bring up panic, grasping, comparison, feelings of resentment, inadequacy, helplessness, powerlessness, and ‘outsider’ feelings?
    • Where am I replicating the familiarity of the home dynamic? If it feels familiar and painful or even discomforting, it’s a call to wake up.
    • Where am I trying to plug a gap?
    • Where am I trying to prove a point or right the wrongs of the past?

Links mentioned:

 

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The post Podcast Ep. 88: You’re Not The Boss of Me! appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.

Rejection and disappointment are wounding when you were willing to give you up

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Society has conditioned us to believe that abandonment of the self at the mere whiff of romantic interest or a potential relationship is normal. We think it’s the cost of finding love, so we’re willing to exchange loss of self for someone else’s company or promises. It’s so embedded in the culture that many of us don’t realise that we are not and haven’t been ourselves. That is until the relationship ends abruptly or we wake up knee-deep in an unhealthy or unfulfilling relationship.

The problem with trying to become what you think someone wants you to be is that you stop being who you were when you met, never mind who you actually are. 

Based on a minimal understanding of that person’s attraction to you and who they are, you abandon yourself. You take their interest along with the feelings and sense of potential it engenders, and you blend, morph, adapt and basically edit yourself to fit with who you think this person is or could be, or what you think you will get. It’s pure fantasy.

Do you know why it hurts so much when you experience rejection and disappointment despite the lengths you went to to be ‘good’, to be their ‘perfect partner’? It’s that the ‘fake you’ didn’t ‘win’.

You then wonder what you’re doing wrong and possibly tell yourself that maybe relationships aren’t worth the effort. That they hurt too much. It’s like, Wait, so even the version of me that accommodates everything they want and need gets rejected? Wow, I really must be unworthy. See, this is why I can’t let my guard down and be myself. If they won’t love the fake me that caters to their fantasy, what chance does my unworthy self stand?

Healthy, loving relationships allow you to become more of who you really are, not less of it. If you can’t be who you really are without romantic interest, then the version of you that you become isn’t authentic. It’s you being afraid.

Don’t give you up.

You came into this world already worthy, already ‘enough’; various internalised experiences, messages and self-criticisms and judgements convinced you otherwise. Maybe, instead of thinking that relationships not working out is proof positive that you aren’t enough, let them awaken you to the truth that abandoning you to pursue ‘worthiness’ isn’t necessary. By choosing a loving, caring, respectful and trusting relationship with yourself, you will value you too much to dismiss your needs, values and boundaries. And yes, it will take time. Still, if you choose that relationship with you, you will choose it with others by extension.

The post Rejection and disappointment are wounding when you were willing to give you up appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.

The self-abandonment of compartmentalising other people’s shady behaviour isn’t worth it

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Sometimes we compartmentalise a person’s behaviour and focus on our feelings or the picture we’ve painted in our mind. The back and forth with our ex continues even though they still insist that they don’t want us or a relationship. We claim that we love ‘the person’, not ‘their actions’ even though we don’t receive love, care, trust and respect.

Separating this person from their behaviour means that we might rationalise that they’re not rejecting us. We fervently believe that they share our feelings and desire for a relationship. An unfortunate series of obstacles causes them to reject the type of relationship we’d like to have with them, right? So we remain invested. We think we know better and then use this to build a case for holding out for the fairy-tale ending.

Hell, we might reason that half-interest and being used for sex, an ego stroke or whatever, or them being willing to take our calls or reply to texts is a sign that they want us. Or we might argue that these mean that they’re not outright rejecting us so we’re still ‘in’.

We want to believe our feelings and the illusion, but we need to believe the pattern.

The need to compartmentalise someone to continue engaging with them doesn’t bode well. It’s denying, rationalising, minimising, excusing and presuming to avoid dealing with the truth.

But given that we co-create our relationships and they also need to be co-piloted for them to be healthy, we can’t act as if the person and their behaviour are separate entities. In fact, by separating the person from their actions, we separate from (and abandon) ourselves.

We have to love the whole person in reality and also be willing to love and take care of us at the same time. The fact they still toy with us, get back together (and then go again), hang around, use us for what they can get, doesn’t mean it’s ‘love’. Compartmentalisation causes destabilisation. And while it hurts to face reality and let go, on the other side is a life where we can be fully ourselves and fully loved.

The post The self-abandonment of compartmentalising other people’s shady behaviour isn’t worth it appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.


Love isn’t a reward for being a good person, and we don’t like this

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There’s this really pervasive belief that everything that does or doesn’t happen in our life comes down to worthiness and effort. It’s why when we don’t get what we need, want or expect, we default to the reasoning habit of blaming it on not being ‘good enough’. On some level, we believe that only some people deserve love and good things.

Thanks to our underlying feelings of low self-worth, we’ve spent most or all of our life overcompensating for our supposed lack of enoughness with the likes of people-pleasing, perfectionism and settling for crumbs. And as a result, it makes absolutely no sense to us when someone we deem to be a ‘bad’ person is loved or enjoying good things.

This sense of unfairness can become all-consuming, fuelling resentment, envy, contempt, shame and depressed feelings. We don’t recognise where this person’s experience highlights the mental gymnastics we engage in to continue with patterns that aren’t serving us.

‘Love’ isn’t about being a good person. It’s not a reward.

It’s only by removing the pre-requisite for a stellar performance, an unblemished record, of faultlessness and perfectionism, that we experience the vulnerability and extent of love.

If anything, knowing that love isn’t a reward for being a good person should be liberating. But for a lot of us, it isn’t.

We don’t like the antagonists in our story to be loved, to have good things (or at least not before us) because it upends the lies we’ve told ourselves. We definitely don’t want them to do well in life without having to break themselves as we do.

Saying we’re not ‘good enough’ and acting like love is a reward gaslights the hell out of us. It puts us in a double bind.

We say that everything we don’t like about our life is about our lack of worthiness, about not getting rewarded for being good, for our efforts. But we love people who are not always ‘good’ to us. We do. Hell, we love people who inadequately parent us, who don’t be and do enough.

So, either we don’t really love them, or we know deep down that all the things we blame on our worthiness aren’t our fault. They’re certainly not an I-must-accept-less-for-the-rest-of-my-days kind of thing.

We also know deep down that we don’t have to do all of, for example, the people-pleasing. Continuing, though, lets us feel in control and anaesthetises us against the pain of the stories we’ve told us about ourselves and our experiences. It numbs the pain of what we’re doing. We also get to keep chasing the reward and the absolution we didn’t and don’t need in the first place.

If love isn’t a reward for being a good person, for doing all the things, who would you choose to be? Go do that. It’s more honest. It’s more loving.

The post Love isn’t a reward for being a good person, and we don’t like this appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.

Some Parents Couldn’t Be Who We Needed, and We Need to Forgive Ourselves

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There are so many humans struggling due to believing, on some level, that they’re not good enough because of childhood experiences. We misunderstand painful and uncomfortable events, and they become the story of who we are and can be. Regardless of whether we believe we had a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ childhood, we then judge ourselves as unworthy and inadequate because of our old unmet needs. Cue being over-responsible and turning ourselves into people-pleasers, perfectionists, overthinkers and overgivers. And this emotional baggage continues to play out in adulthood, affecting our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual well-being.

It’s time to recognise, though, that there are other reasons for us having been inadequately parented that have nothing to do with our worthiness.

Some parents had/have such low feelings of self-worth and fear of failure and disappointing us that they’d rather not try at all. They did the bare minimum, the best they could, when coming from that headspace, or they left. They may have emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually abandoned us even though they were ‘there’ for all intents and purposes. Or, they left.

Some parents were very loving but sometimes sheltered us too much. Or they inadvertently gave the impression that we were responsible for their happiness. There may have been this pressure to be good, to achieve, to only have pleasant feelings. We may have started to believe that we needed to be perfect or who we thought they needed or wanted us to be because of how invested and interested they were in us.

Some parents had parented their parents and/or siblings. It made them exhausted and old before their time. Then they inadequately parented us because they were still playing The Good Daughter/Son/Sibling. They quite simply didn’t have enough bandwidth to go around. Playing roles created inner conflicts, including fear and guilt about stopping.

Some parents thought that given how shit their own childhood experiences were that anything they did was ‘better’ even if it wasn’t much or great. In fact, some thought that all they had to do was show up because it’s what their parents did.

Some parents believed that their focus on success, providing and pushing was all of what parenting entailed. They didn’t have time for emotions, possibly because there wasn’t room for them in their own upbringing.

Some parents were so afraid of being like their own parents that they went from one extreme to another. They overcompensated, controlled, gave too little structure, or bailed altogether.

Some parents didn’t become aware of how certain things bothered them until they became parents. And some of these parents’ trauma manifested in their parenting without awareness of what was happening. Hell, some parents were traumatised by the childhood they claimed was “great” or that they couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about.

Some parents were so abused, neglected or deprived that they did the same thing to us. We might be the first generation to break a longstanding cycle within our family.

Some parents were still so angry about their role in the family and where they felt they’d been wronged that they were immature parents. They treated us like siblings (or even their parents) to compete, argue with or rebel against.

Some parents didn’t feel capable or worthy of receiving love, so they pushed us away.

Some parents felt overwhelmed by our needs because they’d never had their needs met. And some were very “It’s my time now” and made up for lost time. They put all of their needs and wants ahead of their child, making them unreliable, unstable and, yes, sometimes selfish parents.

Some parents (and caregivers) were really passive. It was their pattern to not stand up for themselves. It meant that even though it may not have been what they intended, they abandoned us when we needed them the most. Or we just didn’t feel safe and secure with them. We may have felt more responsible than our parent. Through their inaction, they may have turned a blind eye or left us exposed to danger from the other parent or a caregiver.

Some parents were overwhelmed by their roles, day-to-day life and the past. They anaesthetised their pain, fear and guilt with addictions, affairs, compulsions or overwork.

Some parents and caregivers did terrible things that no parent, no person, should do because they’d shut down. They’d lost their compass and/or were re-enacting their childhood torment. Some had undiagnosed disorders. Some were diagnosed but hid it. Society, our community and our own family, failed to protect us.

Some parents inadvertently communicated that something was wrong with us because they were so critical of themselves.

Some parents thought we were better off with someone else. They believed that someone else would give us a better life than they could.

Some parents were so used to not feeling their feelings that parenting threatened the status quo.

There are so many reasons that explain why our parents may have inadequately parented us. None have anything to do with us.

Many of our parents and caregivers, even with the best of efforts, and especially given the time they were raised in (and the time when we were), struggled to break free of old roles and their trauma. We were all raised during the Age of Obedience.

Our parents also had emotional baggage. Some of them still do and are out here on these streets acting out. It’s why there’s such a thing as family estrangement.

We like to think that a parent should change when they become a parent. We imagine that our arrival should make them spontaneously combust into a healthy, loving parent. There’s a sense that all of their problems should fade away or that, at the very least, our goodness should make up for it. That’s a lot to put on us, on a little kid. And it’s also a lot to put on our parent(s).

Our parents are (and were) humans first and foremost.

They were once children themselves with their own personalities, characteristics, circumstances, resources, level of abundance and backstories that explain who they are and were. Whoever they failed to be for us was not our fault. Our worthiness isn’t to blame. Our assessment of our faults is and was incorrect.

Recognising the journey they travelled and what contributed to their pattern of behaviour isn’t an excuse to use against ourselves. It doesn’t mean that what we went through wasn’t painful. What it does mean is that we need to and have to stop making it about us.

We have to stop carrying the blame and using it against ourselves. There is no need for us to accept crumbs, to keep persecuting ourselves over old judgments and misunderstandings. We need to stop holding ourselves hostage in shitty and unfulfilling relationships and hiding from our potential and purpose. We need to stop settling for crumbs and mistreating ourselves so that we can cut back on people-pleasing and burning out from expecting too feckin’ much from ourselves. Some parents weren’t (and aren’t) who we need(ed) them to be, but we can forgive us by taking better care of ourselves. The self-care of how we lead our lives will set us free.

The post Some Parents Couldn’t Be Who We Needed, and We Need to Forgive Ourselves appeared first on Baggage Reclaim with Natalie Lue.

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