From Self-Deception to Self-Trust: Honoring Emotions After Betrayal (Episode #60)

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Something about you that I can't help.

But smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh.

Something's around. Welcome to the human intimacy podcast, Dr. Kevin Skinner with my friend and colleague Marianne Michaelis and a special guest who Marianne, I'm going to let you introduce our guest and so I'll turn the time over to you.

All right, thank you so much, Dr. Skinner. I am so excited to be here today for this conversation. And our guest who's joining us today, I am so excited to introduce and I'm going to give you a little bit of backstory I've been thinking about, like how, how will I introduce her for a while and if I were to tell our listeners, for me personally, if I were to put two of the most influential people in my life in the last 10 years in the same room. This is the room right here today. Jennifer Johnson is a clinical mental health counselor. She's a certified sex addiction therapist as well as a certified partner trauma therapist. She began working with betrayed partners in 2009, running support groups for them. I met her in 2015 and she's been incredibly influential in my life. I've had the honor to work with her personally and Jennifer has influenced over 10 people that I am aware of, helping them as they have chosen to chosen careers in counseling, working with individuals struggling with sex addiction, betrayal, trauma. Her influence and her impact in the world has been phenomenal. And yet Jennifer is kind of shy sometimes. Having her here, I know is exciting and I am so thrilled to be able to have this conversation, have her joining our conversation today.

Jennifer, we want to welcome you.

Thank you. Thank you for that.

And so our topic to our topic. Let's jump into talk a little bit today about some Self deception? And what does that mean? And how does it influence relationships and how does it influence betrayed partners and the person who is betraying their partner? Don't we start there?

All right, so since we, as we usually get started, usually Dr. Skinner will say, here's our topic. And then he'll say, marianne, first thoughts on that? And so this is exciting to have a third person here. So I'm going to say, Jennifer, what are your thoughts when somebody says self deception? What comes to mind first?

Yeah, I think that that is such a great topic to go over because it happens pretty much across the board with everybody that I work with. If I have somebody come in and they have a story of betrayal, it often. What often can follow is, and why did I live in that for so long? Why did I believe that, you know, that this was happening right under my nose or it has been happening for so long and I just let it happen, or I didn't know what was happening and just really kicking themselves for that. And I think it's important to look at why, why that was happening, why that could have been happening in their lives. And it wasn't because there was something wrong with them or they're just stupid. It's because there's a level of protection that's going on there. And I think it's really important to address that. I, I do that often. We will go into that space in session with my, with my clients and just let them know that or, or explore what that really means for them and what that meant for them to have it be happening for so long.

So as you talk about self deception in that context, I, I can just maybe, if I'm a listener here thinking, how did I deceive myself? What is that? What does that mean, mean to me personally?

Well, so one thing that I love that you said, Jennifer, is you talked about that, you talked about it being normalized. And so I, I think one of the first places to start is recognizing that we have grown up with things, we have accepted things, because that's how we do it in our family. This is normal. We don't realize that it's not normal. And with my clients, oftentimes we're doing some education, some psychoeducation. We're learning. And that's why I, I think books are. Reading is so important. Groups are so important. Therapy can be really helpful because we get outside objective opinions and information. It helps us just to reorient and go, oh, I didn't know that wasn't normal. And so the self Sometimes the self deception I think is just important really to point out, like you said, Jennifer, is that sometimes we're not even aware of it. Sometimes we're aware of it, sometimes we hide it and we bury it. And I know we're going to talk a lot more about that, but sometimes we just are completely clueless. We have no idea. This isn't even okay.

Yeah.

And so what were your thought, your thoughts, Jennifer?

I think it's really important to go into that place of why isn't this okay? Right. Like I was blind. I was blind to betrayal. The thought of all the different patterns that have happened before they ever got to marriage. All the different ways that there could have been self deception or not knowing what's going on, not. How do you, how do you say it? Like the secrets that go on in, in patterns that happen in your family of origin and don't tell anybody or don't say this or don't say this can really lead to a lot of. So I don't really have an opportunity or an ability to speak or know what emotions are going on, to know what is happening, to be able to have any kind of language or voice for that. And the thought of it, this is happening right under my nose and I don't have voice for it. I don't have language for it. I don't really know what's going on. I just know something's wrong and it feels. Body sensations, it feels bad, it feels off something doesn't feel good. But if I don't have language for that, if I don't have verbiage for that, how am I going to be able to express that to even myself?

Yeah, you're talking about like a template. So if we haven't experienced something before, our brain doesn't have a template to say, oh, this is abuse or oh, this isn't okay. We're actually just in this traumatic or this kind of, this paralyzed shock. Oftentimes we're fight or flight or, or the freeze part. And so we might be looking, going, what's happening here? Holy cow. But we don't realize, oh, this is like in the movies, like somebody might call 91 1. But we're looking at it. We've never experienced it, we've never seen it for ourselves. And so we're just in a really frozen state most of the time, looking, going, what is this? What do I do now?

So what's interesting that's coming up for me here is I. And I think it's interesting that we're Using a concept, a term called self deception. When we look at this person who's been betrayed and, and their instincts have been telling them that something's off. And there's just a lot of internal angst because I, I, I know something's off. I don't know what it is. I, I feel something. And maybe it was originated from my family of origin where we didn't talk about things, emotions weren't allowed to be, you know, talked about. And there was something we don't, we hush, hush everything. And so I wouldn't use the word self deception there. Right. Because I wouldn't think that I'm deceiving myself.

Right, right. Because it feels normal.

Right. So it's just, this is, this is the way the world is around me. We don't talk about things like this. And so I'm not even thinking about a concept of deceiving myself. That's, that just feels like, what do you even mean by this? And that's why I started off earlier. It's like, so how does, how does this apply to me? And really what I'm hearing here is we've grown up in a world where our instincts, and I think this is the critical part, where our instincts are saying something's off and yet we're being taught not to trust that internal feeling that we felt because there's something off here. And I, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong. And so that sense of deceptive self, I'm not even knowing if I can be honest with myself or what I'm feeling is true or accurate even. Right.

I love where this is going, but I, and I want, I want to pin it for just a second because there's also a place right in here where we might feel our gut and we might feel like something's wrong. And then we tell ourselves a lie. We tell ourselves something to minimize, like, oh, it's not that bad. Oh, you know, we tell ourselves stories, lies to justify the behavior or to give ourselves a reason to make sense of it. And what I mean by that is I might be experiencing betrayal. It might be right there in front of my face, and I might not be ready to deal with it. I might not be emotionally or spiritually or financially or mentally mentally healthy. I might not be able to address it or know what to do. And so I might tell myself something like, oh, it was just a one time. Oh, it's not that big of a deal. We have these stories, these little lies that we tell ourselves and, and that's A really important part of the self deceptions. We're trying to make sense of what's going on here. Either I don't understand it, I've never seen it before, or it's normal, or I'm telling myself something because I'm in a denial state because I'm not ready to deal with it yet.

Yeah, I'm not ready to deal with it yet. I find that often I'm not. It's just not time yet. It's not time for me to see this yet. It wouldn't be a safe place for me to see this yet. It's not until a prep period goes on where now I'm talking to somebody now I might be seeing a therapist or now it has gotten to a point where there's been betrayal that's been uncovered and it's right in front of my face and now I have to look at it and then I can link all those puzzle pieces together and say, yeah, this has been going on for a long time and I just couldn't go there yet. I couldn't, I couldn't acknowledge that yet. It wasn't safe enough yet. And even though it may not feel safe now, um, it can help to talk to a therapist or talk to somebody that can help uncover all of that and say, what is, what is happening for you with this? What, what would be the purpose in not going there yet, not seeing it yet, not being fully aware yet? Because there's a safety and security feature in there for them.

And if we go along with that, then what we're really saying here is there's a timing for that personal awareness to come out. And if I could say anything, if you found yourself in the, in what the scenario we're talking about, where maybe it was minimizing or, or putting it away because I, I, I don't want to deal with this or I'm not ready for it. If you could give yourself a little bit of self compassion there because there's so much self judgment in those situations, like how stupid was I, I mean, I look at this assessment and I, I put a question in the assessment that we created many years ago and it was, I feel stupid for not, you know, knowing earlier. And yet when I pause and ask people, did you know earlier, did you feel something was off? Yes, yes, yes. And so it's almost, we're saying here, have some self compassion for yourself, for the timing of bringing this up and saying, I think I'm now ready to, to look at this. And, and really whether it's to confront it or to look internally and say, okay, I need to do this now, and this is the right time to confront this. And head on.

Yeah. I would add to that that, you know, as we're talking about betrayal trauma, healing from betrayal trauma, it's a process. It doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen. It's like, okay, yep, now I'm healed. It is a process. I know in my own personal story, there were a lot of books that I read through. The Betrayal Bond by Patrick Carnes was incredibly eye opening for me. That along with it didn't start with you. Related to Generational Trauma by Mark Woolen. Those. Those were two really helpful books for me. As I went through their workbooks and as I would like, fill out charts and do assessments, there were things that was like, oh, I had no idea that this was. That this was an issue or that this was abuse. And. But it's a process and you can't do it all at once. And it takes time to change. It takes time to be ready to do the emotional work. And when you're in the beginning stages of betrayal trauma, you're probably not ready to do all of that work right away. That. That's going to come later on when you're first betrayed. You're really trying to figure out, how do I breathe, how do I get out of bed, how do I function, and what do I do next? And so some of the things we're talking about here, it just takes time, and it's part of a healing process.

Which flies in the face of our culture of a now I want healing now I want this fast. And. And one of the most challenging things that I have found in working with couples is the pace at healing and recovery is not as fast as we're used to in this world of here's appeal or here's this or here's that. It's just the recovery and the healing process takes time, and it's not fun. When I tell people that and they're like, you're telling me we got to do this for a year or two or three, I'm like, @ least.

Yeah. Do you know what, what comes up for me when you're saying that, Dr. Skinner, is that, you know, it comes back to that having compassion with yourself and trusting yourself. You know, if we're, if we're talking about self deception and this has gone on for a period of time, it's gone on for a long period of time. And that thought of I couldn't trust Myself. This was going on under my nose, and I didn't know it, so how can I trust myself? And I think that recovery and that healing time and. And the journey in healing comes back a lot to being able to trust yourself. Not even again, but maybe for the first time ever that I can trust what I'm feeling. And that takes time to get to that.

Place. And it's scary. It's absolutely scary. Right. Because I was. I. I thought I knew something, and now I don't know, and. And I felt this, and I. Now I don't know if I can trust my feelings and I don't know my.

Thoughts.

What. What's true and.

Who'.

True. And especially when the deception is with people who you care the most.

About.

Yeah. Because I wanted to trust, and I did believe. And now all of a sudden, I don't know. I don't know who's safe, and I don't know who I can trust. And. And in particular, I don't even know if I can trust.

Myself. Yeah, I think that part's so important because for a lot of my clients, maybe they know a little bit of something or their guts off, or they know a lot, but they haven't figured out what to do. And so maybe I'll stay really busy. Maybe I'll fill my life up with so many things that I don't have to fill it or I don't have to deal with it, because I don't even know how to deal with it. And we may not have any idea what we're feeling because it's so big, it's so hard. That's part of that denial of the grief that we might be just pushing it away, pushing it down, ignoring it. And I would love to hear, Jennifer, because I learned. I learned from Jennifer about honoring your emotions. And I think oftentimes when we're not ready, we're in that denial state. We might say, I don't even. I don't even know what I feel right now. I'm just numb. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel about that, because maybe this is normal growing up. And so you. You're asking me what I feel? I have no idea. So honoring your emotions, I think, is such an important element. But I would love to hear Jennifer from you, like, what. What is honoring your emotions? How do you do that in that con in this.

Context? Oh, absolutely. That's. That's one of the first things that we start working on in session, you know, is how does your. How does your body feel and what emotions attach to that and how often is it that thought of I don't. I have no idea. I have no idea. I haven't identified emotions for so long, if ever in my life. And we'll get a chart out, we'll get a list out and say, okay, here's different emotions. What are you feeling right now as we're talking about this? What is your body feeling while we're talking about this and really coaching on that they have them and that it's okay to have them and normalizing those emotions. And the emotions aren't a bad thing and they're not something to be judged. It's not about this emotion is bad. I shouldn't be feeling this. I should be feeling this instead. We really go in a lot of times into let's use and instead of. But so that we can own all of our emotions instead of just one or another. And there's a lot of coaching that goes into it and a lot of time in between sessions of okay, just recognize what you're feeling, recognize what your body's doing, recognize what emotion is happening when you're feeling that and just being really curious about it because it is a journey and it takes time and rewiring. And if they're not moving into that space where they're uncovering what they're actually feeling, then the healing takes longer. It takes longer. It's a longer journey if they don't know what's actually going on inside of them. And it's scary. If you don't know what's going on inside of you, that's that fear that comes up that says, I have no idea what I'm feeling. I just know it's bad. And if you are able to name your emotions, if you're able to name what's going on, then you're much more likely to relieve some of that fear that goes along with it and be able to do something about.

It. Awesome. And two, two parts that stick out to me, what you just said, emotions are not good or bad and can we allow ourselves to have them? And then the other part, do I have enough awareness of what I'm even feeling? Right. What I found with a lot of people dealing with trauma and addiction is the lack of self awareness of what these emotions are. And so I think if there is an element of self deception, it's that I, I can't trust my own emotions or I don't allow myself to have emotions. I don't. They're not. It's not okay. I remember a few years ago talking with a friend, and she grew up in a home where the phrase was anger is a sin. So I can't feel anger, and yet I feel anger. Because it's not a choice to feel certain emotions. We have them. I mean, our body's natural defense system says when you feel attacked, when you feel like you have to defend yourself, your natural response is to fight. And which often comes across as anger. And if you're taught that it's a sin, well, now you're taught you have to deceive your own emotional response. And it's not accurate, it's not true. You can't have this. It's bad, It's a sin. Then what do I do with that? How do I cope with the reality that what I'm feeling is a sin? Because that's what I was taught. Therefore I'm bad, I must be bad. And it's bad because I have this. I have this anger. Right? And I've seen this in many betrayed partners. Like, I can't get angry. And it's a societal thing. Their spouse may have told them that or their family told them that growing up. And so now we're taught to deny these emotions that are authentic and real because it's a sin or it's bad. And, and what you're saying here, and what we're saying is, is emotions. And I. I think this is a beautiful way of saying it. Emotions are designed to teach us. They really are teachers of what's happening inside. If I got a fever, it's my body's way of saying, there's something that's not right here. It's a virus, or there's something happening inside of me when I have emotional distress. It's. It's our body's way of saying, I have emotions that. That are telling me something's off or something's on or something needs to happen here. It's just to teach.

Us. Yeah, I think we have a lot of social rules that we're taught, whether it be by our family or from society. Males or boys are often taught boys don't cry. I remember saying that I often heard was like, stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about or put on your big girl pants. We are taught to suppress our emotions. We are. Other people are often uncomfortable with our emotions. And so we're taught that they're not acceptable. And so we learn to be good or to gain favor or to be accepted. We have to suppress or even betray our own experience so that we can have connection, which. Which is actually really ironic because we're denying who we really are and what we really need and our best teachers for this. If we want to look and say, who. Who's figured this out? Who's got this down? Babies. If we look at babies, babies, they cry out when in protest, when they need, when they're hungry, when they're tired, when they need to be soothed, when they need connection. Babies are really good at letting us know. They don't hide it. They don't mask it. They haven't learned that big boys don't cry, babies show up authentically. But we're talking to adults. I know right here, right now.

The thought that comes up for me, Marianne, as you're talking, is that that thought of we're taught how to suppress and that it's not okay, and let's push down our emotions, it's not okay to feel them. And then let's say you get into a relationship and you are in a marriage, let's say a marriage, and there's betrayal that goes on. And you have. Now you have an offending partner who is saying, but it's your fault and don't feel that. And why are you thinking that and why are you feeling that? Because it's. It's really about denying that's not really happening and what you're seeing isn't real and you shouldn't be feeling that way anyway. And why would you feel that way about me? And they have a lot of gaslighting that's going on. And let's say they have learned their whole life how to put all of that down and how to put it all away. Right? It really just falls into play of. And this is my deception, and this is where I have been able to cope with it my whole life. Been able to deal with disappointment, rejection. When people have been saying what you're feeling isn't actually what you're feeling, you need to be feeling something different. And a lot of times that's what happens with betrayed partners, is they fall into that. Into that world, or they're back in that world and the only coping mechanism they have for it is denial is self deception. And they're going to put themselves in that place of, yeah, that's right. It is all my.

Fault. So what's interesting in this conversation, because I. I really have a hard time with the idea of self deception here, because it's like I'm being taught to deny something I'm not. I didn't try to do this. It's what I was taught. I was taught not to trust myself and I was taught to not share emotions. And so I. I have almost this hard time with this self deception. How did I deceive myself? And really, it's that I was taught that what I was feeling and thinking was inappropriate or wrong or bad. And then I don't know if I can even trust myself. And so really, what we're saying here is the opposite of self deception.

Would be what self.

Awareness. Could we say self.

Trust. Right. Like I, I can own self.

Trust. What is it? Right. So, so the opposite of self deception would, would be. Would come with self awareness. It would come with being true to that internal instinctive response, that gut instinct. It would be being true to the emotions I am feeling and my body is feeling this. So if we look at the alternative to this deceptive world that we're living in or have been taught it, it truly is a sense of self.

Trust. Yeah, that. You know, that question kind of stumped me for a minute, kind of having to process through what is the opposite of that. And I look at that and I think it's really about figuring out how to live within my values with integrity. Yeah.

It'S. It's honoring.

Yourself. Yeah. Being really authentic. Maybe that's the word that I'm looking for, is authenticity and integrity in what I'm feeling and experiencing and giving myself self compassion and permission to be able to experience.

That. And if I might add something here, I often say to people who've been betrayed, who report that they're angrier than they've ever been, I say something like this. I don't believe you're an angry person. You're a hurt person manifesting it through anger. The reason why I do that is because I want people to conceptualize a concept. I'm hurt. I'm hurt. But if I define myself in the anger, this part of me, when we come back to our true self, I find that betrayal takes away a sense of I want to love, I want to give love, I want to show love. I want to do these things. I don't feel safe enough doing them. I don't feel comfortable doing them. And so part of the deception there is I'm not able to be my real self, the real.

Me.

Yeah. And so when we come out of it, that authentic us, what we're really saying is, this is who I am. I'm going to be loving and I'm going to have boundaries. I'm going to Trust my instincts and I'm going to still have boundaries. Does that feel.

True? I love that so much. The thought of. And right. Really using that and because then it allows them to have all of their emotions and be authentic and honor themselves and honor who they.

Are. And when I am being authentic, sometimes people won't like it. And when I'm using boundaries, sometimes people will tell me that I'm punishing them or that I'm being selfish or that I'm just thinking about myself or that can't I see how hard this is for them and other people will be or may be uncomfortable and not like it. When I am being authentic in honoring my emotions and, and I think it's important to recognize that when we have a system, when, when we've grown up in a system or this has been a system in our relationship because that's all I knew. It's hard to change. It's going to feel awkward, it's going to feel really uncomfortable for me. It's going to feel like I'm doing the wrong thing. I shouldn't be doing this. If I've been taught that this is bad, then when I start stepping into the space, one, I don't have a template for it. Two, nobody else has a template for me changing that way. And. And three, it's just going to feel really, really uncomfortable and awkward. So there's a whole lot of changing that our whole system has to go through. But it has to start with our own internal system. And sometimes I can feel a list from Dr. Skinner maybe coming on somewhere in here. But looking at what do we have to do to. For ourselves to be able to get to that change place because it has to start with us before we can start with the.

System. So you got me started here, right? And so, so, so for me personally, if I'm going to come into authenticity and out of that place where I don't trust myself, that sense of self deception, I got to know who I am. You started there, right? But am I loving? Am I kind? Am I angry? Who. Who am I? And that's one of the elements of the betrayal triggers even in the person who's been doing the betraying. Who am I an addict? Or am I this caring, loving person? There's so much internal conflict of who I.

Am. And I think right there, Dr. Skinner, it's so important to look at am I loving? Can I be loving and kind to myself? Not even outwards. I think I need to look at that inwards. Can I even give myself.

Grace. Well, self compassion is essential.

Right?

Yeah. So for me, the starting point, we have to have that, that who am I? Conversation with, a sense of self.

Compassion. It just.

It. It makes me wonder. It makes me think. So what comes up in my head as you guys are talking is, but why? Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to make that kind of change? That's going to be really hard. Why do I even want to do.

That? The alternative is what?

Right? Yeah. Yeah. People are going to hate it. They're going to be upset with me. Why would I do that? Why would I change? It comes back to really being curious and exploring what that would mean for them to know who they are, to not rely on someone else for compassion or for that love or for that regulation inside themselves, that they get to do it for themselves and they get to come to themselves and they get to love themselves, maybe for the first time ever. Like, I'm not going to have to reach out to my husband for my self worth. It's just there. I have it, but I haven't known that it's there. And, and really uncovering who they are for themselves, that authentic part, and honoring who they are gives them the opportunity now to say, I deserve to not be treated like this. I deserve to be able to live in an environment that's not abusive to me or harmful or hurtful to me, because I. I deserve that. I have more worth than.

That. You know, as you say that, Jennifer, it reminds me, one of the tools I use with my clients is Cole C O, A L, it's by Dan Siegel, and it's really looking at emotional regulation. So C is for curious. I'm having an experience, an emotional experience. O is for observing what's going on inside myself. And like, what. What's going on when I have this emotion? A is acceptance, just accepting out good or bad for having an emotion. It's just an emotion. And then L is loving kindness. Giving myself loving kindness and learning from what's this emotion trying to teach me. When I go through that with clients, I can't tell you how many times I've had clients say, marianne, I am so good at co and coa. I can do coa anytime. But that L. That loving kindness, that is so hard, I don't know how to do that. And so I share that because I want to validate how hard that can feel. And not even knowing. Where do I start with.

That?

Yeah. Could I argue here for a second on the concept? Not, not, not, not arguing with you, but a concept that we have to talk about because the self argument is, am I lovable? Do I deserve love? Look how angry I've been. Or look, look at these emotions. And so I really believe the self deception is that we stop, we stop having self compassion. So the deceptiveness is we stop being who we truly are at our core, that core of us. I am a loving being. But so is it not self deceptive when I'm a loving human being and I can't be that or I'm not, I'm not being that because I don't want to show you love. Because if I give you love, then you'll just think everything's all better. And so that's, that's a dilemma or a trap of I want to be this loving human being and I can't be be because then all of a sudden, then it's like I, I've just dismissed or forgotten or overlooked and all of a sudden everything's wonderful. That is so confusing to betrayed partners. I want to be loving and I can't. What do I do with.

That? I agree, it, it's a, that's a big conundrum because there's that thought of I don't, I, I don't want to lean in because it hurts me, but I don't want to lean out because then I'll be farther away from the person that I love. It's such a confusing spot to be at. And how do you honor yourself to say, well, if I lean in, in that moment, I can be curious about how I feel as I lean in and then I can honor, if I feel like I need to lean back.

Out. And if I took it from the other side here, I can't tell you how many people have betrayed their partner who want to show love, who want to comfort their spouse and, and yet their shame holds them back because I've hurt this person and I'm not even reaching out. And so I look at this both directions of individuals who their authentic real self wants to comfort, wants to bond, connect, and I'm so ashamed or I'm so hurt I'm not, I can't, I can't be the real genuine me. And that's again, I use a phrase often the burden of betrayal is the long lasting impact. And the burden is I'm not being true or authentic my real.

Self. No, that's beautifully.

Said. I think it comes back to.

Babies, Marianne and babies today. I'm gonna tell you, I have a new grandchild as of like a few hours ago. So let's talk about.

Babies. And I think, how apropos with that with your new grandbaby today, Dr. Skinner, because when does a human being lose their value? When does a human being lose their worthiness? That's it. This is a conversation that, yeah, we can we look at that right now and say, never, ever that baby comes out wanting to be loved and giving love. You know, when you gaze into a baby's eyes and you, you know, you babble with them, I don't know what else to call it. We see love. That baby knows that it's worth being loved and it gives love. So as adults, when we look at this and say, but I, I don't know how to love. I'm not, I'm not worth it. That question. Well, when did you lose that? Because every human being inherently is lovable and worthy of love and connection. But somewhere along the way, we get taught that we're not. We learn that we're not. And that, I think, is probably the biggest self deception, the biggest lie that we.

Carry. So if we were to say to our listeners, and, and, and this is kind of a. How we summarize things, how would I come out of it? If I find that what we've talked about today or what's been talked about, I find that I've done that, or I've been doing that, or I'm still doing that, how do I get.

Out? It's the thought that comes up for me about how do I get out? Sometimes you need help. Sometimes you can be so stuck in it. It's been going on for so long. It can be helpful to go and talk with a therapist, talk with a, a wise friend, maybe a sponsor that can guide you in new neural pathways, new, new ways of looking at it, new perceptions about it. I mean, there's trauma work, you know, to do ART or EMDR or internal family systems, right. To go into those places that really help you move back to what, what Marianne was talking about back when did this start? And how young was I? How little was I? Was I a little girl? Was I a little boy when I learned these things? And does that little girl, a little boy need to be loved and cared for? You know, and, and who's doing that for that little boy or little girl? So that's my thought on.

That. I'll say there's three places. Like, like, there's a. Here's our. Here's our. It seems like every week, like, here's three things to do here. Here are three things so my three things. Number one. Yeah. Is that what Jennifer just talked about is finding support. When we find support, we can get input from other people. We can get loving support and validation of wherever we're at. That's where we learn. That's where we grow. And then we, I'd say number two, we, we have to look at self care. We have to learn how do I, how do I take care of myself? How do I begin realizing that I am worthy of love and connection even with myself? And so it has to start with some self care. And then three, I would say is part of that tearing it. This is a learning process. This is a healing journey. I'd say is. Is beginning to recognize and value and honor my emotions. And then I guess I. There's a fourth one here. And that's probably where I'd start saying, this is where I start to set boundaries. I set boundaries for myself, for how I allow myself to talk to myself, to think about myself and also or how I treat myself and then how I allow others to treat me as well. So those are kind of, Those are my four. But where would you go with all that, Dr.

Skinner? I start off with self compassion, right. That means I'm with my own suffering by definition. Right? Self with the commas with. And passion is suffering. So I'm with my own suffering, understanding that maybe I haven't known how to do this, maybe I have because we self deception almost feels negative to me and I would want to actually turn it into a positive thing. I haven't known how to do this and I need to learn. So I have to have some self education going back to whether that's therapy or looking at my history, what I was taught in my family. I think we need to start there. And then we start looking at, okay, what do I believe about myself? Well, I felt stupid or I felt unworthy of love or I felt like I'm not enough. And I think that we have to address those negative cognitions that are self deceptive in and of themselves. You are enough. You are lovable and you do matter. So when we go through that, those components, we then draw it even further. Okay, if I'm enough and if I'm lovable, then I'm not going to betray myself. I'm going to stand up and I'm going to have the boundaries you described because I know who I am and I'm going to choose to live in a space that's going to have connection and bonding and authenticity. And I'm going to be Honest. And I'm going to be true, and I'm going to be real, which means that, interestingly enough, I may have been showing anger, but that's not me. So I'm going to have boundaries with kindness and love, and I'm going to show up, and this is who I am. And either you'll join me or you won't. But I'm not going to live in chaos, and I'm not going to live in a world that's filled with conflict and fighting. I'm gonna live in a world where I choose to find peace and connection, and that's a process. And everything that I've just said is hard, and it requires work, and there's gonna be conflict and tension through all of it. But I am striving to live in a place where I'm in more harmony because the world is filled with so much conflict. I don't want to contribute, and I don't want to be in that space. So join me. Join us. That's. That's the process. And I'm going to be real. And if I'm feeling it and I'm thinking it, I'm going to share it in kind and loving way, but I'm not going to ignore my.

Truth. That's beautiful. Thank.

You. That is beautiful. Beautifully.

Put. All right, final thoughts today, ladies.

On this podcast with both of you, who I just admire and honor, and I thank you for this opportunity. I think it's been fantastic. I think it's so helpful and important to remember to have compassion on yourself in your healing journey, because there's. There's so much chaos when you have betrayal, trauma, if you have betrayal that's occurred, if you are on the other side of it, on the flip side of it, that in the shame that you can have, there's just so much that goes along with. With the journey. And to have compassion to love yourself through it is one of the most important things that you can do is to really look at your purpose. Why am I. Why am I doing this journey? What is this going to do for me? How is this going to help me? How. And the importance of healing through it and really having that patience through your journey and.

Compassion. And thank you, Jennifer. And final thoughts from you.

Marianne. I think I'm going to close where I started today. It's really important to find.

People.

That can love you and that can help you and that you can learn from. I'm so grateful to have been here today with these are. You two are some of my biggest mentors in the last 10 years that I've learned so much from. And so finding people that you can trust, that can teach you and that you can learn from, I think is essential. We all need love, we all need connection. And so find those safe people, find safe places. You're worth taking care of and you're worth doing the work. And it is a journey. But life is a journey. Every single day is a journey that we get to choose. So thank you to our listeners for being here and to both of you for this great.

Conversation. So as we've been talking today, I'm going to close off with my this thought. And it's a formula that just came into my mind. Self compassion leads to self trust, which equals authenticity. When I have self compassion, I trust myself because I recognize that I am suffering and I trust that that's real. And I also trust that I can have boundaries and I can be kind to myself and I can be kind to other people. Self compassion leads more compassion for other people. So now I trust myself because I'm being real, which equals authenticity. I'm the real me. And I think when we look at the real us, we are a gift. And the gift is that we show up and that we are our true authentic self. Because one of our true we're true selves. I think we will be more kind to self and others. We'll be that. And that is how we create human intimacy. We don't create it in self deception. We don't create it in lies. We don't create it in acting out. So to our listeners, thank you for your time today and Marianne and Jennifer, delightful conversation. Thank you so much for your time and to our listeners final thought. If you have not and did not attend the human Intimacy conference, go to human intimacy.com attend these, these classes. Incredible opportunity to learn from incredible experts. And we just. The feedback we've received has been really, really good. And so we are excited to say that it's now available on human intimacy.com and I encourage you to go attend the conference. Listen. Yes, Marianne, you have a final.

Thought? Yeah, just. Just to elaborate a little bit more on that. I checked it out this week and what I saw was really cool. You've taken the conference. There's a couple different ways to access it. You can do the whole entire conference or you can. Because the conference had different tracks. They had a betrayal trauma track. It had a sex addiction track. It had a divorce track. It had a couple's recovery. Yeah, Couples recovery track. They were all so excellent and so for our listeners, you can just go and buy one track or. Or access one track or one course. And so you don't, you know, if it feels like, oh, that's too much, like, that's too big. I don't, I don't need the whole conference, or I only need a section of it. I. I just saw that you'd broken it up into those tracks that just looked excellent. So please check it out if this is an area that you could use some insight and wisdom in. There's just such great information.

There. All.

Right. Well, thank you very much. It's been a delightful conversation. And to our listeners, may you be blessed with finding and creating the human intimacy that you long for and desire. Take.

Care. Thank.