Freedom from Attachment

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Journey of Attachment: Intimacy Is Not a Gender Thing; It’s a Human Thing Nov 26, 2019

Show notes

Men and women are wired for intimacy at birth, but some are conditioned to reject it. If you are insecurely attached, you probably didn’t experience a lot of true intimacy as a child so you learned to see the world as an emotionally unsafe place. You may have learned that love is not easily shown or given; that it’s conditional upon behavior; that it’s inconsistent. As a result, intimacy as an adult has the same limitations—regardless of gender. Fear of engulfment or abandonment wreak havoc on intimacy to create distance, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Intimacy is built by stepping toward those fears, not away from them. Some people believe being emotionally distant is just how they are. False. We are ALL wired for connection, and distancing yourself from another person is a choice. Until you open yourself up to intimacy, you’ll never fully align or bond with your partner. And no, intimacy does not just happen in the bedroom. It doesn’t appear in certain moments and then vanishes. It comes and stays. If you currently lack intimacy in your relationships and believe it’s the other person who can’t get close… look at what YOU are doing to block it. Again, intimacy isn’t a gender issue or the responsibility of one person. It’s a choice you get to make, and the act of doing it is what actually creates it.

Deal With It! I'm A Hot Mess! Nov 22, 2019

Show notes

In this special series, Tracy will be answering your questions around emotional baggage. This week she dives into the hot topics of boundaries, triggers, and people-pleasing. Want to submit your question? Email info@tracycrossley.com and watch live on Facebook every Thursday at 9 am PST.

Journey of Attachment: Is Gaslighting Just a Difference of Opinion? Nov 19, 2019

Show notes

Gaslighting is a manipulative tactic used to make you question your reality, but when you’re insecurely attached, you may not trust your own reality to begin with. You look externally for validation because you believe other people know how you should feel more than yourself. If your partner says you’re horrible at budgeting, you may feel a deep sense of shame, even if you’ve always felt you did just fine in the budgeting department. After a string of negative comments, you question your budgeting skills and wonder if he/she is right. You also wonder if you’re being gaslighted. Everyone has their own point of view, however, so who’s to say their version of reality is more accurate than yours? When you question your own choices, you can become anxious and wonder if there is something wrong with you. To trust yourself you have to connect on a deeper level and stop guessing what other people think is right. It’s about stepping out of your comfort zone and dispelling the belief that others know how you feel or what’s best for you. What you feel is real, regardless of what others think. You are the only one who truly knows yourself.

I Will No Longer Hide Who I Am To Make You Happy Nov 15, 2019

Show notes

Depression sometimes results from pleasing others at the expense of yourself; by trying to be someone else in order to make others happy; by defining yourself through your actions for others. As a kid, if you felt you were unlovable or unacceptable in some way, you hid those unsavory parts about yourself and doubled-down on the parts that received validation. All that time spent seeking approval from others and trying to make them happy probably led to years of hiding and self-loathing. But you were good at hiding the self-loathing too, putting on a happy face so you wouldn’t be found out. Refusing to be who someone else wants and choosing to be fully yourself is HARD because you have to love and accept all those disowned parts of yourself. The truth of who you are matters… even if no one else agrees. Let’s say you go on a single date with someone who you’ve decided you really like and then tells you they want a partner of the same religion—no compromise and you’re not that religion. Already thinking about how you might have to sacrifice your own belief on the first date, would keep you from the truth of the situation. What is actually happening here with a complete stranger? Fear of loss and being alone is probably what holds you back, but taking off the clown make-up and letting the real you show up everywhere in your life is the greatest gift you can give yourself.

Journey of Attachment: Swallowing Your Feelings So As Not To Upset Someone Nov 12, 2019

Show notes

Are you afraid of expressing your true feelings because you might upset someone? Or do you think they will shut you down because they can’t handle the truth? If you were yelled at as a kid for doing something wrong, then shared how it made you feel and were told your feelings don’t matter, you learned to shove your feelings down. As an adult, this might manifest as trying to keep the peace so everything appears ok on the outside while suffering on the inside. Holding your emotions in or denying them, however, leads to all sorts of emotional and physical (yes, physical!) issues. It also allows somebody else to control your emotional state. Nobody enjoys hearing criticism or blame, but it’s actually not about that. It’s possible to express your feelings without doing either when you focus on how their actions impact you. You can simply share what is true for you (i.e. your feelings were hurt) without judging them, asking them to change or doing something differently. But first, you need to get clear on what your feelings are and not berate yourself for them. Then express them from a place of ownership and self-responsibility. Again, it’s not about making the other person feel bad or trying to change their behavior. You can’t do that anyway. It’s about breaking the pattern of shoving your feelings down so you can stop distancing and start creating space for intimacy.

Preferring Pain to Pleasure Because It’s Not as Scary Nov 08, 2019

Show notes

What do you do to block pleasure? Do you create obstacles for yourself to jump over in order to earn pleasure and happiness? Do you look joy in the face and say, “What did I do to deserve this? This must be a mistake!” If you are more comfortable with pain than pleasure, you’re not alone. Even if you WANT happiness and even visualize what it may look like, you probably fear it. Even during those fleeting moments of pleasure, there is a good chance you are waiting for the other shoe to drop, which means you never truly enjoy it. When you view life through the lens of work/reward, you believe you have to endure pain to get to pleasure. Pleasure comes from allowing it; not when you have “earned” it or when the work is done, but every day. And you have the power to let it in. But allowing is uncomfortable when pain is what you’re used to. Deciding to enjoy an experience instead of trying to protect yourself from disappointment or figure out why it’s happening is a choice, and it involves breaking old patterns. Personal development work is hard, but it doesn’t mean you need to renounce joy. Every moment is an opportunity for joy, happiness, gratitude and pleasure. So go ahead… commit to daily pleasure. Be emotionally present and enjoy the good without any strings attached. Choose to smile, laugh and celebrate simply because you can.

Journey of Attachment: My Narcissist Parent(s) Nov 05, 2019

Show notes

People who are beyond anxious and can also be characterized as ambivalent, avoidant, disordered, etc., may have been raised by a narcissist. These are people-pleasing perfectionists who lack self-trust and tend to hide out because of guilt, shame or fear. They don’t feel connected to their achievements even if they work incredibly hard, and are definitely insecurely attached when it comes to relationships. They may feel defective and worthless even though they wear a mask that projects confidence and value. So how does all of this relate to a narcissistic parent, and what can be done about it? You learn how to handle (or NOT handle) feelings from your parents, including the giving and receiving of love. If your perception of yourself as a child was invalidated, you may be riddled with self-doubt as an adult. Perfectionism is about avoiding criticism, which you probably endured from a narcissistic parent. Maybe you felt weird, different or unlovable. As an adult, the inner critic keeps all of this alive and well. However, being raised by a narcissist doesn’t mean you are doomed to a life of pain and insignificance. While your upbringing has a huge impact on who you are, you still have a choice in how you want to live. You can experience joy if you are determined to get to let go of the toxicity you were raised in and arrive at a better place.

If We Conducted Our Offline Lives The Way We Do Online… Nov 01, 2019

Show notes

Everything you think about someone online is an assumption. Most people know this, and yet we use social media as a way of finding information to confirm our beliefs. You may look for people who fit into your worldview, whether it’s about raising kids, relationships, religion, social mores, etc. And when you encounter those who don’t share your view, there may be a tendency to react and get defensive. Of course, you’ve seen behavior online that you would deem unacceptable, like belittling others, name-calling or acting holier than thou. Or maybe you have felt emboldened to say something on social media that you would never say in real life. How consistent is your online life with your offline one? Social media reflects how strong our beliefs are. Maybe you compensate for your belief that you’re an outcast by sharing a group photo. Or you may post a photo of yourself at some swanky party if you believe you will never be successful. But how does that feel afterward? And how does it feel when you judge someone else’s posts harshly? Social media is a great tool for triggering those emotions and digging into them. But think what would happen if we all stopped being chameleons and conducted ourselves the same way online as we do offline.

Journey of Attachment: Analyzing Your Feelings Will Not Get You Out of Your Situation Oct 29, 2019

Show notes

How much time do you spend analyzing the behavior of yourself and others to understand or figure things out? What about analyzing your feelings? Do you try to deconstruct why you’re feeling a certain way, or focus on how you SHOULD feel instead? Analysis keeps you in the same pattern of thinking, and thinking solves nothing on an emotional level. The only way to get emotional clarity is by actually feeling. A common example is trying to figure out if you are in love with someone or attached to them. You start thinking about this person and the story you’ve created, so you’re not actually uncovering your true feelings about them. Instead, you have to go into your body and locate the physical feelings without analyzing or judging them. When you picture yourself with this person, do you feel connected to them, or do fear and anxiety erupt? Thinking about your feelings is safe, but when you analyze and ruminate, nothing changes. Connecting with your feelings allows you to piece together the parts of yourself you have disowned, and you’ll arrive at a much truer answer than if you try to think your way through it.

Things Aren’t As You Think They Are Oct 25, 2019

Show notes

It’s easy to get stuck in your story, believing nothing will ever change. Maybe you curse the universe for working against you, saying nothing ever goes your way, but it’s not anything external that keeps your life on repeat. It’s you. More specifically, it’s how you perceive life and interpret experiences. If you believe you’re doomed, that’s what you will help create. It’s safe and easy to draw on past experiences and use those as signposts for what’s ahead, but that leaves little room for anything new. If the story you tell yourself is you always sabotage relationships, you better believe that’s what you’ll keep doing because your perception creates your reality. Let’s say you were insecure about your skills in bed from a past relationship. Now in your current relationship, your partner is often tired. But instead of acknowledging the reasons (health problems, late nights working), you start to think there is something wrong with you. Those insecure feelings from the past resurface and you start to distance yourself. Your partner picks up on it and senses your lack of confidence, so you think this confirms the truth (you’re not good in bed), but what you don’t see is that you have actually created it. It’s hard to change your perception and break those patterns, but if you can separate yourself from your story and surrender to the unknown, you can create a new reality.

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