How To Not Feel Bitter | Dr. Zoe Shaw

Hey there, you're listening to the Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. I'm a licensed psychotherapist, a life and relationship coach, and a motivational speaker, and I can work with you virtually to help you get unstuck. Connect with me by going to my website at drzoeshaw.com. So today's topic is how to not be bitter. Yes, I'm talking to you. I'm not calling you bitter, but If the shoe fits, you definitely need to listen.

Grab a cup of tea or listen as you go, ladies. This is your hour with Dr. Zoe, your life and relationship coach. With encouragement, on-point insight, inspiring guests, health tips, and advice, Dr. Zoe helps busy women keep their mind in the game by redefining your superwoman. You're listening to the Dr. Zoe Show.

First up is Superwoman Win and Superwoman Fail, as always. So my fail for this week is my son got his 4th surgery on his ankle. Long story. We are fingers crossed praying that this is his last surgery. And so we had surgery yesterday, and, you know, I do the whole, of course, mom nurturing thing, and he stayed on the couch most of the evening, and I was going to bed, and he didn't want to go to bed yet. He wanted to stay up. Oh, no. So I said, are you sure you can make it up the stairs by yourself? He's like, yeah, Mom, I'm cool. We've done this before. It's our 4th time. So we have a scooter at the bottom of the stairs. We have a scooter at the top of the stairs so he can move around. So he said, just bring my scooter upstairs to the top. And I said, okay, cool. No problem. Said good night. I woke up in the morning and walked out of my bedroom and realized I forgot to put the scooter up there. So I immediately went to his room and he's in bed. His scooter's next to his bed. And I said, how did you— Get up there? Get up here! I forgot to put the scooter. He's like, yeah. And he had to crawl on his bottom or scoot on his bottom to go get the scooter. Our house is pretty big, so upstairs it was in the loft area, and I felt so bad, and I said, Sage, why didn't you call me? He's like, it's cool, Mom. My ever-forgiving, awesome son. But of course, you know, mom guilt hits hard. I just felt bad that I literally left my son after his surgery downstairs with no good way of Getting to his bedroom. But life goes on. Gotta squelch the negative self-talk. I was able to take care of him, of course, today, so he's good. So my win for today is this new app I have discovered through one of my clients. She told me about it. It's called Fabulous, and I'm not getting paid for this whatsoever, but this app is pretty amazing. What it is, is it's a habit-forming app. So if there are certain habits that you want to make sure you're cultivating and maintaining, this app helps you do it. So I'm just getting into it. I've only had it for like a couple of days, but it is really cool. I'm excited about it. And that's my win. Not necessarily anything I did, but something I am utilizing. So let's get onto the topic, how to not be bitter. So I decided to do this episode because I recently had a client who is in a very difficult relationship. And she told me, she said, I guess he He's just made me that bitter, angry woman that everyone can't stand. And yeah, she's kind of bitter and she's definitely angry. And I had seen her 10 years before as a client and she wasn't any of those things. So how do you keep life, difficult relationships, other people from making you become bitter? First, you clicked on this episode because maybe you're thinking, maybe I am. Maybe you're worried about things that you're going through and you don't want to become bitter. The first thing is acknowledging that you're bitter, that you're feeling bitter. Nothing in your life can be fixed if you ignore it or you pretend that it's not there. So listen, if you're bitter, say it, admit it, then you can fix it. If you're not sure, ask your friends. Although to be honest, if you're bitter, you probably don't have a lot of those left, unless of course they're friends that are just commiserating in your bitterness with you, and those definitely exist. But a true friend will tell you, yeah, you're kind of bitter. She'll probably couch it with the words kind so it doesn't sound so mean, but she'll let you know. So let's look at why you're bitter. You probably already have a pretty good idea about why you're bitter. You can probably name all the hurts, all the things that were done to you. I bet you can even name names. Now ask yourself, why are you holding on to that? How is it serving you in your life? Now I'm not asking this so you can say, yeah, I know it's not serving me. No, really, how is it serving you in your life? Because we generally continue behavior because it does something for us. Maybe your bitterness protects you. Maybe your bitterness is the only way that you know how to express your pain. Maybe your bitterness gets you attention. Really think and be honest with yourself about how it serves you, because I promise you, That it is hurting you way more than it's serving you. But if you aren't clear about how it's serving you, then it's going to be harder for you to let it go. See, bitterness comes from a place of hurt, and it also comes from a place of feeling stuck in that hurt. So when you resolve that whatever's going on in your life or whatever happened, that it's just the way it is, that there's nothing you can do about it, then you can start to feel stuck and bitterness can grow. The reality though is that you do have choices. You're never really stuck. I know that doesn't feel good to hear. The first time I heard it, I got kind of mad, but it's not that you're stuck. It's that you just don't like how hard the work is to get out of that place. You don't like how comfortable it's going to make you feel, or you're just darn scared to make the changes in your life. That's okay. Own that too. And then own that life can change if you want it to. Now you might be thinking, Dr. Zoe, you just don't know. There's no change There's no changing my situation. I'm stuck in a hopeless marriage. And I'm not saying that you can always change your circumstances, but you can always, always change your mindset. As long as you have a functioning brain, there are always options for something different. So what do you have to do? You got to let go of how it was supposed to be. And I know even with my daughter, I struggled with this because, you know, as a mom, you want your kids to be healthy. You want them to have the best life possible. But sometimes you have to let go of how it was supposed to be in your mind. I know that getting rid of your dreams and your hopes can seem devastating, but I'm telling you that holding on to them when a door has closed is more devastating. Sometimes letting go of how it was supposed to be in your mind opens up a world you couldn't have even dreamed of. But you can't step into that world unless you let go of the one That isn't yours. And then you got to forgive. Now I'm not talking about forgiving other people, although that's great. You need to do that too. It's important. I'm talking about forgiving yourself. We get so caught up in forgiving other people that we forget that we most need to forgive ourselves. We're the person we traveled this whole journey with. Forgive yourself for not knowing any better. Forgive yourself for allowing treatment that you didn't deserve. Forgive yourself for staying too long. Forgive yourself for leaving too early. Forgive yourself for hurting other people. Mostly forgive yourself for hurting yourself. There's a lot of internal forgiveness that needs to happen in order to let go of bitterness. You've got to know that you are bigger than the lie of bitterness because bitterness is like an infection. It can run deep and hard and it can destroy you from inside, and you're better than that. You deserve better than that. I've heard bitterness defined as a chronic state of resentment. Now resentment happens when we don't speak our truth and we allow others to overstep our boundaries. So if you're feeling resentment, then that means that your boundaries are low. That's a red flag for you. Let that be a warning sign that you need to speak up, that you need to strengthen your boundaries because that prevents against Bitterness. Now bitterness is about the past. You've got to remember that you're living in the present and into the future. So you got to work on changing your focus to future thoughts and not ones focused on past. And not ones focused on revenge either. You got to remember that the alternative to not dealing with your bitterness is death. Death to happiness, death to relationships, a physical death, because bitterness will really kill you. So you gotta choose today to live, really live forward, and be determined not to allow yourself to be consumed. Get help if you need it. The client I talked about in the beginning of this episode, she sees it. She sees her bitterness and she's working on changing it. And so can you. Now I know this isn't an easy topic. This isn't a rainbow in the sky kind of topic, but this is big for women because we, Can develop bitterness because we choose to hold things in and we don't express ourselves. And you can choose different. So I'm encouraging you today, choose different. Let go of the bitterness. Live in the future. Thanks for listening to the Dr. Zoe Show. New shows go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And you can connect with me by going to my website. I'll have a new text to connect soon. And I look forward to connecting with you ladies on social media throughout the week. Have a super week.

You've been listening to the Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman, with your host, Dr. Zoe Shaw. Don't forget to sign up for her monthly newsletters to get encouragement, tips, and skills for keeping your mind in the superwoman game. Connect with her now at www.drzoeshaw.com. Tell your friends and subscribe to her podcast on iTunes. Join us next time for another edition of the Dr. Zoe Show.