It’s that time of the week again! The third episode of “The Baggage Reclaim Sessions” podcast has just become available.
Each week I cover topics around empowering you to discover and reclaim the great you that already exists, offloading excess emotional baggage, and navigating dating, interpersonal relationships and tricky situations.
I also feature a listener question plus I share something from that week that has helped me to know and care for me better.
Here’s what I cover in episode 3:
Trying to speed up a relatively new relationship due to fear of uncertainty: Why do we do it and how to calm down before you end up sucking the joy out of your experience.
The critical parent and the influence it has on your relationship with criticism: How excessive criticism can train you to be an exhausted perfectionist and people pleaser, the type of people you can end up gravitating to and how recognising what’s behind their critical ways can be the beginning of transforming your relationship with criticism and seeing you in a more compassionate light. This is the post I mention on dealing with criticism and conflict.
Why boredom can be code for ‘fear of having to spend time with our own thoughts and feelings’: After I got talking with somebody who goes on dating sites and apps out of boredom, it got me thinking about how we can end up doing destructive things when we’re not engaged in living our life because we don’t like who we are or how we’re feeling.
Listener Question – Do you have a couple of quick tips for dealing with passive-aggressive people? This listener is struggling with a nightmare coworker who says one thing, does another… and won’t own up to it.
What Nat Learned This Week: I’ve realised that the amount of time we spend putting off something that we need to do is far greater than the amount of time that it takes to do it plus when we put off what we think are awkward conversations, they too often end up being far less awkward and dramatic than we predicted.
You can listen to this podcast below.
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Leave a comment or post on Facebook, and please 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
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Is there a way to just read your podcasts as I always have? I much prefer reading plus I sometimes do this at work and I can’t have volume on my computer
Hi Joan. Unfortunately due to the length which renders it unsuitable for the blog and the amount of time, I can’t provide a transcript but the blog will continue as normal. The podcast is just another platform for BR, like Facebook, You Tube, Vimeo etc.
Once again great advice Natalie!!
The critical parent advice really did help.
Back in February last year I met an Assclown, it was a barely there relationship where he treated me without love, care trust and respect and made me feel so worthless. After this hurtful experience I decided to delve into my past and find out why I felt so unlovable, why I felt like I deserved this treatment and why I was seeking validation from the wrong people.. From lots of research I realised that my problems I had about myslef were due to my mother.. She constantly puts me down, criticizes me and I have always been seeking validation from her which she never gave to me. When I look back the guys I had attracted reflected my mother.
My mother is highly narcissistic and the Assclown also was too.
As painful as it is I’ve had to distance myslef from her as her constant criticism, lack of empathy and put downs were having a huge effect on my well being.
Even though my experience with the Assclown was a negative one I have turned it into a positive, I have boundaries now, I have accepted my mother for who she is and also accept she can not be the mother I wish she could be, I have great friends who respect me and I respect them, I’ve gone No Contact with the Narcissistic Assclown and will remain No Contact but most of all Im learning to like and love myself and realise I deserve to be treated better than the way I have been..
I’m so greatful to have found baggage reclaim.. Thank you Natalie
I empathise and you know what? In the end, you learn how to tap into that mother part of you by speaking to and treating you in the way you wanted from her (not mimicking her incidentally) and by also surrounding yourself with other positive female energy. Forgive yourself for not being perfect and for not being able to stop her. Her actions bear no reflection on your worth as a person; she’s very disordered.
Fantastic podcast, Natalie! The critical parent section really resonated with me. Thank you so much for your insights and tips on how to respond to people in healthy, appropriate ways. To have the ability to not just recognize the behavior, but to have tools/strategies to respond is extremely helpful. It helps alleviate the anxiety about having to face/deal with the situation.
Thank you Veracity! xx
In my case, my relatives were critical of me and I had not been aware of it only until now! They made me feel I was not enough. Put down my body type (whether I was fit, too fit, or not fit enough – it was just never right, whatever that was, while they themselves were out of shape!), my choice of clothes, and my lifestyle. As I have been healing and mending internally all of my past, I realized what else happened with the last ex: I tried to finally win. To prove I am worthy and let him choose me. Now looking back, he treated me the same way my relatives did all my life. Criticized, picked on, and put down. Subtle and “friendly teasing,” but so damaging in aggregation and with time. So it’s not just the parents who do it (my didn’t – they were just absent emotionally and physically), but other relatives who are close to us. What came out of it that I put strong boundaries and the moment they try criticizing me and put me down, I assert my values and boundaries. Interestingly, they withdrew and also when they do communicate, they are polite now and don’t cross my boundaries! Or not as often. They know what response they will get from me now, who used to nod her head and politely brush it off and even laugh at myself with them. No more.
You have drawn your line and that opening isn’t there for them to step into or to step into to as great a degree as they have previously. You’re so right about it being damaging in aggregation. It creeps up on you!
Natalie,
This is another exceptional podcast. This one was packed with even more tips. I loved it. Your podcasts are helpful to me like Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday. If I continue to listen to your podcasts I will be better prepared for my next romantic relationship.
What you said about being present really resonates with me. It connects with what you discussed about us occupying who we are (really important when it comes to boredom). We have to be comfortable with ourselves. This is major work from where I sit, but worth it. I have found myself in a state of boredom with all of my ALONE time. It leaves me with too much time to think about my fears and hurt. I have come up with two ways to address this boredom ASAP. I hope it works.
This podcast also prompted me to handle three things that I had been putting off. I jumped up right after the podcast and knocked these things out. As you said while you are talking about doing it you could have it done. ACTION. Feels so good to get those things done. Thanks for the motivation. I truly love the format of your podcast. Oh I manage a large group of people and I have clients from so many backgrounds to deal with. I loved the stern advice about how to keep passive aggressive types focused (stay focused on the issue at hand and the facts)and down to the detail you provide about documenting (I do that all the time). Thanks for the reinforcement.
Little brother Sean has the audio down. Sounds majestic. It must be nice to have family involved in your labor of love. If Oprah still had her show I bet you would be invited in to share your knowledge on relationships.
Thank you for every second you dedicate to doing the blogs and podcasts. They keep mending the hole left in my heart. One day it will be better. Things are going to change.
I am going to do some self soothing as you suggest for now and address this boredom. BIG HUG for all your work.
MJ
Oh wow Mary Jane! I’m honoured! 🙂 Do let me know how you get on with your couple of new strategies. The boredom was turning anxiety into a pastime for you – like a gap filler. Self-awareness is vital and is a first key step in breaking your pattern – you can’t break what you don’t know and you are picking up on your motivations.
It is indeed nice to have my little bro helping me out. It’s been really good fun. I’ve never done anything like this (involving a family member in any way) so it’s another way of stretching myself plus he gets to use his experience and talents.
Glad that the advice on passive aggressives resonated! Good luck!
Loved this podcast! They just keep getting better and better!
Thank you!
Found BR two weeks ago after being dumped by dingdong#2, again. Natalie, your site is great, I’ve already purchased and read Mr. Unavailable and No Contact. You have offered some new insights into this crazy cycle, i.e. something in me needed to “win”, and being EU myself, hmm?
Dingdong#2 dumped me after 7 years for the first time Feb 2014. We had begun a business together, so I had to get lawyers, CPA, etc involved in trying to unwind. It was one year to the day of settling 6 year Equitable Distribution from Dingdong#1. So it was like starting the whole bloody process all over.
#2 (lol-just made the potty comparison) came along in the midst of getting divorced from #1. In hindsight, and per Nat’s writings, I can see now that it was an unhealthy way of my feeling better. But we were friends from high school and I was the love of his life (lol – should have written the love of his “lie”), when he showed up and love bombed me, my self esteem from divorcing #1 was a negative 10. It felt like prince charming had arrived! His Future Faking was award winning, he wanted my assurance that he wasn’t just my “rebound”. Ha ha!
Before I knew what was happening, I was deeply bonded. It was the “normal” crazy making cycles as detailed on this site. Then in Feb 2014 #2 dumped me. I did not lay eyes on him for four months. As we were dissolving the business, I did have to speak with him regarding some legal issues, but I was moving on. I had even met a nice guy and gone on a couple of dates. I was heart broken, but what can you do? The last thing I wanted was to be with another AC who rejected me like #1, been there, done that.
Then #2 started coming about again. He has a house close by that was/is trying to sale and needed my assistance. I was inclined to help him sale the house, because I had more equity in it than him. He started emailing old pictures, texts messaging, lyrics to songs, pleading with me to talk to him, etc. I finally agreed to speak with him one day, where he admitted he’d make a BIG mistake. After I told him I had met someone, he left with his tail between his legs, but amped up the love bombing 100%.
Heartfelt (except that would imply he actually has a heart) tears, flowers, songs, poetry, long handwritten love letters, apologies, and long drawn out confessions of what a rascal he’d been. During our time apart, #2 came to see the relationship demise was “his fault”. #2 even manipulated my friends, who disliked him to begin with, to assist his getting me to talk to him in person for a second time. And then, low and behold, on his knees and with Crocodile tears streamming down his face, #2 proposed with a stunning diamond ring! OMG, I can see in hindsight, he was so desperate to win/control at all costs, he was willing to marry me!
I fell for it! It was everything I had been waiting to hear for 6 years! While I did not accept his proposal, I did tell him I would think about it. I wanted to wait and see if this “change” was for real. (btw I did keep the ring, it will pay for a nice vacation, or extended therapy.)
I bet you know the end to this saga, it went on like this for long enough for me to stop seeing nice guy and and slowly everything returned to “normal” destructive cycle again, cumulating with his dumping my forgiving butt, over the phone, …..WEANIE, again!
I am so pissed! Of course with him, but much more with myself! How could I have been sooooo stupid to let this Ass Crack hurt me, AGAIN. WTF is wrong with me?
That said, it has be 2 weeks NC again, with his being a complete AC regarding the final few dealings with the business dissolution, mostly his threatening to declare bankruptcy, leaving me financially holding the bag if I do not untangle per his direction. He owes me a great deal of money, which I probably will never see.
I have had many angry thoughts, making a video of burning his furniture a blaze in my front yard, but then that would only feed into his story of how “crazy’ I am. I feel crazy alright! But amidsth my craziness, I thought of this:
Today I am watching GaiamTV. A show comes on where David Wilcock is discussing how humans have been secretly forced into breeding with aliens, resulting in hybrids walking among up disguised as humans!
Eureka ladies, I have figured it out! That’s what the problem is, they look human, they smell human, at times they even act human, but actually these ACs are just mutants from the planet Endor that have secretly invaded earth and are trying to destroy us! Lol, but in the struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, light always wins! As Moma said all her days, there, there, dear, this too shall pass!
Thanks for listening. Princess Leia Organa
Ok you may or may not get to read this as its a bit later, I got around to listening to a podcast Natalie – at first I found it really difficult to keep focused and kept drifting – I think I do this with reading but have become used to re reading the bits I’m drifting on to re focus – this happened until the section on critical parents/inner critics in the middle – beautiful – I can connect to your description and relate to this experience completely – a great unravelling of the cause and effects of critism and what helps to diminish its affect.
I am unravelling this with increasing energy for it now and learning to keep practicing self validatation = making your own mind up on what is acceptable/needed and simulataneously forgiving myself for not being perfect, has been crucially important in my own development (with a lot of blips along the way)
I found I didn’t even need my parents to be present for the criticizing after 30 years or so – I would do the extreme severe harsh critic job for them and others anyway – having had so much training and also set myself up regularly to fail by doing exactly what you say – telling myself I couldn’t do things really I suspect I can, but having few experiences to draw from where I actually succeeded without their being conflict/serious envy from my mother/brother and further critism downgrading all successes or achievements.
In order to do a replay for them to play the critic – I found a way of sort of minimizing their damage, by doing part of the damage to myself first – without realizing that is/was what I was actually doing. I had taught myself it was safer /better this way.
I am currently being helped to undo some of the negative language I often don’t even recognise as negative but tell myself it is ‘honest’. I think you are right – it is the context which is important – if you are always being negative about yourself and doing yourself down or always being perfect and running yourself up – you have no responsibilities or failures – this is never going to help anyone in reality in the longrun.
I am often negative about my abilities partly as a way to lower others expectations in order to minimize my contact with critism – I have recognised my parents/family trigger is their own anxiety/fear of loss of control and realized first their severe form of control – and that is where they and myself have reacted from rather than a reasoned detached balanced approach to building worries that set up failure – instead of ‘what if you tried this time anyway?’. Such a lovely but powerful question – I’m going to gently try to remember that, thank you.
I wasn’t able to complete the full podcast through drifting but valued what I heard and think my personal key to podcasts, is shorter sections at a time…
I’ve listened to this podcast 3 times now. I prepare by dimming all the lights and I sit and listen like people used to do with old time radio. I forgot how much I enjoy listening with no other distractions….you know, rather than driving or riding a train or doing chores at the same time.
Very interesting observations for me. I do turn most everyone I deal with into authority figures…I did not realize that. And I was disappointed by life lessons that showed me that life is not a meritocracy. I recently watched a youtube star who said that one has to realize that to win you do have to compete..that many things in life ARE a competition and you need to realize that. I realize I have always sought to NOT compete….that I have learned that competition is bad and that I should let the other person have all the wins.
I also enjoy being in a classroom, and maybe that is because it is a place of happiness for me, because that is where I do receive strokes. It’s the only place I feel community, and yes, that community is always with the instructor. It is OK to be smart and attentive and interested and vocal when I am in a classroom. I’ve never felt that way outside of a classroom.
Another thing I’ve begun wondering about myself lately is what IS my personality. What is MY personality. I don’t think I have one. I’ve learned to let other people display their personality and my role is to play the sidekick. I’ve noticed my mother always assumes much of the personality of the current man in her life. I also notice she adopts MY life to a degree. A new habit I’ve cultivated is to NOT tell her much about me….and I have a new emerging sense of ownership of my own life since doing so.
Looking forward to more listening.