Hello! Got a solo Friday episode coming at ya today. I touch on our ideal self do's and don'ts!
Emotionally Unavailable
Episode 72: Idol
[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to Emotionally Unavailable, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of emotional availability and intimacy. I'm your host, Melissa Hepner. And I can't tell you how excited I am to have you join me on this journey of self-discovery and connection. Whether you're navigating the complexities of relationships or exploring your own emotional landscape, this podcast is here to inspire, empower, and entertain. So get cozy and let's explore the depths of human emotions together. Hi, guys. How is everybody doing? I'm doing really well. We do not have book club again this week because we just can't get our shit together enough to communicate. Anyway, all is well, and we miss Jane, but we'll catch up with her a different day. Hi, Jane. I love you so much. OK, so since this is going to be a solo episode, when I grabbed two of the recesses of my brain to see what would be a good topic to talk about, I'm just picking the one that came up with the most of my clients this week, OK? So this will be something that we touch on in the identity workshop. And I want to talk about what our ideal selves are and what they aren't. So again, well, I'll just give you this example. So a couple of people this week really got into whether or not they think that their ideal self would cry or really actually experience grief. And I'm like, well, I can't lie. A little bit, I'm like, oh my goodness, what have I done? How did I communicate that so poorly a little bit? But that's just my ego. And I'm like, girl, don't mean you matter. So we course correct a bit. And this is where we're course correcting some thinking. This week. So I was like telling somebody they needed a good cry and giving them that permission made them teary. And they said, so it's my most authentic self. It's OK if she has a cry in the shower. I'm like, oh my goodness, yes, yes, it's OK. So I want to touch on this. Here's the one thing, if you don't change anything else in your mindset this week, this is the one difference between your ideal self and you that I really want to hammer. Your ideal self understands that the grief they feel, the loss they feel, the rejection they feel, the abandonment they feel, the betrayal they feel, the neglect they feel has absolutely no bearing on their worth and value as a human. They don't believe the universe is trying to harm them. They don't believe there are a piece of shit and that's why it's happening. They don't believe it's bad karma. Your ideal self understands that things happen and they hurt because we are in a human body having a human experience. Humans have feelings. Humans should experience those feelings. And if we have this ideal that they don't, then we're just continuing to be emotionally unavailable. It's just another way-- I'm sorry, my dog is making noises. It's just another way for us to try to avoid or dismiss something within ourselves if we're trying to tell ourselves, "Oh, that's not the way we want to be." And I just don't think it has to be like that. And your current self is the one-- and I wouldn't even say you're current-- former versions of you, your inner child specifically, who is struggling with this concept of self-worth and value. Current version of you needs to remember that we are focused on self-love, self-acceptance, and self-compassion. So right now, your struggle is that the grief you're experiencing is tied directly to your self-worth and value. And you are convinced that these things are happening to you because of you being a fundamentally unlovable piece of shit. So I am here to dispel that-- listen, I want to meet you where you are. So if you're in the dark right now and you firmly believe, like I did not very long ago, that you were receiving a punishment or bad karma and that I mean, God, I just remember in my darkest days just being like, I don't fucking care anymore. I don't care what the lesson is. I don't care whatever, like literally you fucking win, dude. Universe, whoever is out to get me right now, like you fucking win. So if that is you, I want to meet you there and hold you in the darkness, but I just-- I need you to understand that while I sit with you in the darkness, I'm also super fucking aware of the light. So I'm going to invite you to hear what I'm saying from a very curious place and just try to imagine that what I'm saying is the truth. It may not be your truth right now, OK? But it's mine. And it's a lot of other people who are doing this work. And I firmly believe it will be your truth. So I just want you to hear me. I don't want to trigger people by making them think that I don't understand. I fucking get it. I really, really get it. But I also get what the aha moments feel like when each time a light bulb in your brain and your fucking soul turns on and you get to experience the world from a totally different place. So I'm going to invite you to step out of the shadows a little bit and try to imagine this light that I speak of. But our ideal selves fully understand that there is a divine path for our lives. If you do not believe in any form of creationism, I can understand where it would be difficult to buy in. If you're an atheist or something, bro, I can't encourage you enough to go look into astrology or spiritualism something because I don't know. I guess there's hope in a divine plan. I am way off base here. Let me not get into a fucking religious conversation. I'm probably going to cut all this. Anyway, OK. So our ideal selves understand the law of attraction. They understand that things are happening for them. They understand that the world is being experienced through each unique individual's world view. We are all speaking our own languages. You've heard me say. But our ideal selves also know that to get through an event that is causing us pain, we must experience that pain if we don't want to prolong it. So yeah, if you need to cry in the shower, go fucking cry in the shower. I mean, period, it's what we do while we're crying and immediately following the crying that really matters. So while you're crying, I don't want the thoughts to be like, oh my god, what am I going to do? Like, be very intentional. I mean, the release can't be tied to overthinking if we're actually releasing. Because remember, your subconscious is creating your reality in real time. So if you are feeding it worst case scenarios, that is what your reality is, regardless. So I would love for you to cry in the shower. But I would love for it to be focused on releasing the toxic. So when you're doing that, really cry and just imagine that you're crying out black smoke all around you. And it's all the toxic bullshit that's hurting you. And you're releasing it. Now, our ideal selves still have to release things on a daily basis, sometimes more than once a day if they're overthinkers by nature. Like, I was just saying, like, I'm 44. I only learned how to control all of this less than six months ago. So I have a long road of practicing these skills before I don't have to do that anymore. And I think there's a chance I'll always have to process like that. But anyway, our ideal selves understand that this is a necessary process. And then immediately following a cry session, that's when we really work on OK. So we've cried, which is a great way to regulate our nervous systems. Check in. How are we feeling right now? Are we feeling betrayed? Are we feeling any of those big feelings? If we're just kind of like exhausted with the emotion, then we want to just take care of our body. You want to do what you can to get out of your head. And you want to take care of your body, drink water. I'm so serious. We have to hydrate after intense emotional experiences. Remember, like, water symbolizes our emotional fulfillment. So when we're giving a lot of emotions out in any way, we have to replenish. So remember that. Try to do something that's good for your soul, like eat a comfort food, no matter how shitty it is for you. Maybe balance the thing you do for your body with also a smoothie or something. Like, feed yourself something with protein and some berries, if you can. But other than that, if y'all need chocolate or ice. I mean, yeah, it's all numbing behaviors, but it's good for your soul. And you want to just really focus on coping well. Like, you don't want to-- you want to check in with your body and just respond accordingly. That's going to look a little different with every event or each event every minute of every day. It can change. So since I've healed my nervous system, I'm really in tuned with my body. And I recognize it is still very-- it's very sensitive to my environment. And I still find myself having a hard time around a lot of noise. And I'm very observant of the energies that I feel in my body, whether it be restless or bored or whatever. Our ideal selves are not superhuman. I want you to envision the pedestal that's sitting underneath that person that you're trying to become. The reason that we put people, places, and things on pedestals is to keep them out of reach. Because if they're out of reach, we can just give up before we start. We can go ahead and self-sabotage, have a self-fulfilling prophecy so that we can reject the thing before it gets a chance to reject us. It's just human behavior. It just is what it is. I just see this so much. And I remember doing this myself. I know I reference embracing my fire that episode a lot. But it was so impactful to realize what am I even thinking I want to become? I don't actually. So why is that what I'm sitting in thinking all the time? And even I still can struggle a little bit with whenever I do feel frustrated again, then I get upset with myself. Because I'm like, oh, I'm not still supposed to be doing this. I'm like, honey, and humans get frustrated. What you're doing with the frustration is a very normal amount of things. I mean, yes, I would like to-- well, I don't think I even really need to aspire to be that much better at it. I think I would really be striving for perfectionism if I continue down this road of just a little better, just a little better. Because quite frankly, it's normal and it's human. People have hormonal shifts and whatever else. So yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and publicly offer myself some compassion here and ex-nason perfectionism and say, I'm doing fucking great at how I respond. I am not reactive. I am responding with curiosity as much as possible. And I probably could do better about being curious. I just mostly feel like I understand why people are doing what they're doing. So I don't dig too much, but I do want to connect with people. So I want to start asking more questions, which you've been hearing me say for months, but it's true. I do want to ask more questions. But overall, I feel like I do understand why people do the things they do. But I guess I want to know more specifically what created that in you and how are you fixing it? But anyway, I had a little sweet moment with Charlie today. We were studying for a science test, and it's a retake. And she did very poorly the first time. And I mean, we did study. I got the good sense that it wasn't going to go well, so I wasn't real surprised to hear that it didn't. Anyway, we were studying again. She was just getting frustrated. And she was frustrated because she wasn't remembering things easily. I finally was like, yo, this is your best. I see that. You're giving it everything you can. You're working hard on it. I've heard the conversations from school. I know that you are trying. That's all anyone can ask of you, is do your best. And so we're going to do our best. And then we're going to let go of this, because nothing about this test determines your worth or value as a human. Nothing's going to change that. Nothing's going to change the fact that we love you. This test doesn't mean shit if you try really hard, and it doesn't work out. Boom, you know? So anyway, that felt good. I was glad to have that conversation, because I see her little perfectionism and trying to help her out with that. Anyways, I don't know that I have a whole lot else to say, 'cause I feel like if I do, we just go and get into some ramblin', which I mean, we already have, and I'm gonna cut a few things out. I just, I think I want my ideal self to have literally zero expectations for people, but also more specifically my people. If you are the people that I have determined are good for my energy, energy doesn't lie. So I wanna just accept people for who the fuck they are. And my collective self is very good at that, but my personal self is working really hard on it. And I hope that I'm looking forward to being better at that, I'm grateful for getting better at it. Okay, well, I hope you guys are all doing well. I really just have so much left for everyone, and I appreciate you all so much, and I hope that this helps somebody. And until next time, let's all just keep swimming. 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