This transcript was created with AI and has had some light editing. Please forgive transcription errors. Thank you!

If you're tired of feeling never enough, of constantly being derailed by your own fears or the reactions of others, then you are in the right place. I'm Deb, a licensed psychologist, and this is Blooming Outside the Lines, a podcast dedicated to women who've spent their lives trying to stay within the lines of what's acceptable, who've never felt good enough and who are ready to break free and bloom. Let's talk about how you can build a solid foundation connected with your strength and your wisdom. Before we start, I need to make sure that you know that the information I share with you is just that. It's just information. It's not meant to be a prescription for what you should do or meant to replace the advice of any of your healthcare providers. It also doesn't mean that we have a professional client-therapist relationship.

 Hi there and welcome. Today I want to talk about something that I think most of us are thinking about, at least at some level, as we do this work of separating our worth from the approval of others. And that is that we do care what other people think about us. I want to normalize that fear and then share one of the beliefs that seems to keep the reactions of others so important to us. 

First and foremost, I want to be clear in saying that of course you care what other people think. We all care what people think of us. Caring what others think is both healthy and important in maintaining relationships. It's probably in our genetics to care what others think of us as we are social beings and rely upon each other for survival, and so getting along and not alienating other people or fear of doing that is most likely part of our survival wiring. 

Here is the distinction. Yes, caring what others think is normal and healthy. Letting the opinions of others or their approval determine our worth or our value, not so much. These are two different things.

And for most of us, they get intertwined and confused, leaving us looking outward to be sure that we are okay. Being aware of the thoughts, feelings, and needs of others in relationships is essential to maintaining relationships. And that is different than using that information to determine who we are or what is okay for us to do or be. They're two different things. 

I've talked before about our history as women, and how approval kept us safe. And today I want to talk about what we might consider to be or think of as a supporting belief. so we might think of this deep connection between safety and approval as the tabletop. And then that there are other beliefs that keep that table up or support it. Like legs. 

So the beliefs become the legs that hold the table up. A couple of weeks ago, I focused on one of those legs, the belief that if you understand, then I'm okay. Today I want to focus on the belief that sameness equals love or connection.

Often it's confusing to understand why this is important. And if we think about that tabletop, how am I going to be sure you approve of me if I think differently or act differently or make different choices? Difference gets equated at a deep level with not caring.

I'm imagining this wire is formed in many ways, from our history as females, from our personal history, and also because many of our beliefs are formed while we have an immature brain. 

Let's talk about our personal history and childhood beliefs. So I've mentioned Bowen in the past and his theories about families, and I want to come back to him because what drew me to him in the first place was a statement I read from his work in one of my textbooks about how oftentimes adult children who move across the country are actually less differentiated than those who are able to live close to their families and be themselves. 

I remember being shocked and surprised when I read that. I had never thought of it that way. I had assumed those adults who moved across the country to be brave and more mature, which of course some are.

Another way of talking about this is by talking about it using the idea of appeasing and disconnecting. Those adults who were unable to be themselves while being close to their parents might be seen as being on the appeasing side of the spectrum. Those who moved away in order to be themselves might be seen as having disconnected, which as I spoke about in the episode on the fear of being self-centered is often an unstable state.

It's rarely a state that feels good. Let me give you an example. And I don't know if I've said this before, and I want to make sure and say that when I am giving a client example, I'm usually blending the experience of multiple clients. It is as it's often been a repeated pattern. So if you've been a client of mine and it feels like I'm talking about you please know that you weren't alone in the struggle in these struggles and that other women have faced similar situations and had nearly identical responses. 

So, in this case, a client had moved across the country to avoid trying to live up to the standards her father expected of her. She felt strong and independent having done so until the guilt would arise for not maintaining contact with her parents. When that happened, she would reach out, and then the next time when I saw her, she would say something like, I can't stand that man. I just can't talk to him. I have to stay away. So she went back to disconnecting while never really feeling good about herself, because in actuality, she loved her father and she felt guilty for not talking to him. She was having trouble reconciling in her mind the idea that they could be different, and he could be disappointed with her, and she could still be okay, and they could love each other, that both could be true.

It's interesting, isn't it, how much of this all ties together. It sounds like a good description of being in the middle, which it really is. Bowen talked about adult children truly being differentiated from their family of origin when they could be close and be themselves. So using my terms, be in the middle.

Where I can care about your feelings, thoughts, and needs, and I don't have to agree with them to feel okay about myself. So I don't need to either appease or disconnect. Oftentimes this is difficult for adult children to navigate because there's such a strong pull from their parents for sameness.

I've mentioned several times about my mother's discomfort with my solitary activities when I was growing up. Although I doubt this was true, the message that I assimilated was that to be loved and part of the family I needed to be more like my mom.

that's actually a nice segue into talking about our early beliefs. The belief that I would be okay and lovable if I spent more time being social and that something was wrong with me if I didn't and that I wouldn't be loved was formed before my brain was fully developed. I was still functioning from an immature brain with limited capability to hold the both hand, that mom could love me and be displeased with me or be different than me or me be different than her.

There was also another force at play, and that was that when we are young, we are totally dependent on our caregivers. I love how I heard this expressed in a training one time. The presenter said, we can't just pull out our credit card and book a flight out of there. We're stuck.

So, keeping our caregivers happy with us is very important for survival. And how and what we decide about how that will happen, how we will keep them happy, often gets wired with a survival intensity. Usually, what this means is that I try to keep my caregivers happy,

And how I do that is often by trying to be like them or not disappoint them. And then these core beliefs become the template that is used in our future relationships.

 So when I moved out into the world and started forming relationships, when I was different from those who I interacted with, fear came up for me. Unless we have an adult, it doesn't need to be our caregiver who has helped us to learn that it is okay to be ourselves, even if others disagree or are different than us, we end up moving through the world, trying to maintain sameness, trying to be like others, feel like others, often without an awareness that we're doing this, it becomes a leg holding up the tabletop of I'm okay and lovable if you approve or don't disapprove of me. 

And this then keeps us worried about the opinions of others and keeps us allowing those views or reactions of others to determine who we are or how we move through the world. Let me give another example.

In this case, my client came to me because she was depressed. As we explored her life situation, she shared that she had a spouse who struggled with anxiety. The more she shared, the more she realized that she had a hard time being herself when her husband was anxious. It didn't feel okay to be happy or to go about her day. 

This wasn't a thought-about process. This was happening outside of her awareness. When he was anxious, she immediately toned down her boisterousness and her joy. It didn't feel like love if she wasn't there for him, sharing his experience, she was putting aside her needs and who she was in order to maintain their love. 

Again, this wasn't an intellectual process. She understood at an intellectual level that this didn't make sense. And when she thought about doing it differently, when she thought about being joyful while he was suffering, she felt an intense fear. 

At a deep level, sameness, in this case in their emotional state, was wired with what it meant to love and be loved. I'm wondering if you relate. Do you struggle being around your family of origin when you have different views? Do you hide who you are from friends and family? Does it feel scary to feel differently about things? Does love equal feeling the same? Or sameness equal love? 

For my client, we knew that she wasn't going to talk herself out of this. There was just way too much fear.

So this is what we tried. And at the time we had no idea whether this would make a difference. What she started doing was simply stopping during their time together and just noticing how they were each feeling. That was all she did in the beginning. She would notice, I'm feeling happy, he's feeling angry, or I'm feeling sad, he's feeling anxious.

What happened over time was that she started to realize that many times they each felt very differently, and nothing had changed in their relationship. She could be happy and he could be anxious and miserable, and their relationship was the same. This became incredibly freeing over time, and it didn't happen overnight.

When her fear came up about being happy when he was miserable, she now had new information that she could bring into that wire. And she had experiences to support that new information that she knew was true. She had experienced it. If you're relating to this connection between sameness and love,

You might consider trying something similar to what she did. You could simply stop during the day and notice how you're feeling and how you imagine someone you are with might be feeling. Or you could even say something like, I'm feeling a bit sad right now. How are you feeling? To do this, don't get hung up with it about being spot on with how you're feeling.

You simply want to practice noticing the feelings that both of you are having, that I can feel this way and you can feel that way. So it doesn't really matter that you're sure that you're angry and not sad. what matters is being able to notice both. I can care about you and we can feel differently or need different things. What matters is being able to notice any differences that are there and maybe to notice whether anything has changed as a result of those differences.

Try to do this when you're in a tipped state or haven't tipped into the stress response. We really can't do this exercise while tipped, as the parts of the brain required to think about or consider other people's feelings or needs are offline. 

And if you're finding this too difficult, you might try starting by reflecting on your day and thinking back on people you had interactions with. It could be the checkout person at the store. It doesn't matter. Simply reflect on how you were feeling and how they might have been feeling. You're simply noticing differences. 

I'm going to stop here. I hope what I have shared has been helpful.

And as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and reactions. Take good care and bye bye.

This has been Blooming Outside the Lines, a podcast dedicated to supporting you in blooming into all you are meant and wish to be. If you enjoyed it and gained value, please consider leaving a review, as it will help other women to find it and please share it with anyone who would benefit from it. And if you would like to be notified when new episodes become available, be sure and follow on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, how will you light a candle of self-acceptance? Because you deserve to be you, even if others disagree.