Navigating Your Difficult Relationship Over The Holidays - Why You Matter

This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and I'm so glad that you tuned in today. Today's episode is called Navigating Your Difficult Relationship Over the Holidays: Why You Matter. But first up, as usual, my win and my fail. First, I made a big announcement last week, and I'm just glad to be back podcasting again. I definitely feel a vulnerability hangover, but I'm so thrilled to be back here talking on the podcast. So let me start with my win and my fail before we dive into the topic today. My fail— let's start with my fail. And somehow, as I was thinking about this fail, I was feeling kind of déjà vu because I feel like I did something like this before, which means that I haven't learned my lesson. So my daughter's bus didn't pick her up on time. We've been having some issues with the school and they haven't been picking her up on time. And so I needed to get her to school on time. And I also needed to rush back home because I had to get ready for something, an interview, podcast, something, I don't know. So when we figured out the bus wasn't coming, it was kind of a rush, get in the car, let me just drop you off. Her school's less than 10 minutes away. And I just ran, hopped in the car, no shoes on. No big deal, I'm dropping her off. I'm gonna turn around and come back home. Right, you already know where this is going. So I got her to school, and when I went to drop her off, it was unfortunately after school had started, so I couldn't drop her off at the gate, which is where I usually drop her off, so I needed to take her to the front desk, and my daughter insisted that I bring her in. She was adamant. I could not drop her off. I had to walk her into the lobby. She and I went back and forth. I explained to her, you can just walk in. They will take you to your class. All the things, but she was not having it. And so finally, after trying and now wasting more time when I'm running late for whatever else I had to do, maybe it was a session back at the house, I finally just exasperatedly gave in and said, okay. And I tried to explain to her, Sully, I have no shoes on. I cannot walk you into the school. I have no shoes on. She doesn't care. This is my 17-year-old daughter. She has amazing Qualities. One of the things that we love about Sully and all of her special needs is that she has no shame, she has no embarrassment, she is going to tell you how it is. And she just, you know, most 17-year-old kids would be horrified if their mother walked them into school with no shoes on. My daughter didn't care. And in fact, she was adamant, I don't care that you don't have shoes on, you need to walk me into the school. So of course I did. I parked, got out of my car, No shoes on, walked into the front office, and of course, it's not anonymous. Everybody knows me, and people are saying, hi, hi, Dr. Shaw. And I'm like, hey. And then there's this awkward moment. Do you explain why you don't have shoes on? Because is there really any good explanation? No. Or do you just continue to talk to people without acknowledging the fact that you don't have shoes on? I chose the latter because What else do you do? So I just smiled and didn't acknowledge that I didn't have shoes on, and it was weird. Got Sully to where she needed to go, which of course I didn't need to be there. They immediately, everybody knows Sully, they called her aide, it was great. I turned around and did the walk of shame back into my car and went home and learned my lesson, hopefully, that despite how quick a drop-off might seem, I am never going to get in my car without shoes on because of all the reasons that your mother tells you. You never know what could happen. You could get in a car accident, something could happen. So there was my fail, and hopefully my fail provided a little bit of entertainment for you. So my win. My daughter, my youngest daughter, Siggy, she just turned 11 and she has joined Scouts. Scouts BSA, formerly, I guess, Boy Scouts of America, but now I think they're just called Scouts. And she's joined a girl troop in Scouts, and my youngest son, Sage, is an Eagle Scout. So we did this already. 10 years ago, we started with Sage in Scouts, and now here we are with Siggy. And my win is that I'm going to go camping. I'm going to do the thing that I'm not so comfortable doing, but I'm going to do it. And I'm excited because it's going to be a bonding experience with my daughter. I just bought a whole bunch of camping gear. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it or how to use any of it, but I got it and we are going to camp this weekend. And the cold somewhere outside and tents and laying on the ground. So that is my win. I'm excited to spend time with my daughter. I never went camping with Sage the entire time he was Boy Scouting, but here we are. She's in a girl troop and moms are going and we're camping. So I will let you know how that goes. Right now it's a win. And for new listeners who might be going, why is she telling us all this stuff? We're supposed to be talking about difficult relationships. Because every week I share my win and my fail. To honor the fact that we have both. And in the midst of doing life, in the midst of navigating difficult relationships, in the midst of trying to pursue and reach your potential, we fail and we win. And I know personally, and I know professionally, it's so important to honor both, to honor the times that we've really done something well, to talk about it, to look at what went well and why, and to remind yourself. Of all the skills and talents that you have. And then also, when we fail, to look at that and acknowledge that and honor it just as much as we do our wins, because we really truly learn from our fails. And if we don't learn, they will repeat themselves and you're going to learn eventually. And so I behoove you to focus on them so that you can learn quickly, fail forward, and keep going. So that's why I share mine every week to remind you to contemplate and think about yours. So onto the topic, navigating your difficult relationship over the holidays, why you matter. So as I shared in my last episode, I recently got divorced. So last Thanksgiving and Christmas was our last holiday together as an intact family. We separated right after the new year, and I knew it was going to be our last one. So because of this, I was very intentional about making this time the best and sweetest that I could for our family. And I think I did that. I accomplished that. Sometimes when we know that something is fleeting, we often value it even more. And so as I thought about talking today about navigating your difficult relationship over the holidays, I thought of how important it is to be intentional. And that's what really should have been my word for this year— intentional. But not just intentional about making everyone else happy, but also intentional about caring for yourself in such a way that, that you demonstrate to yourself that you matter. So this holiday season, I want to talk about your tendency to put everyone else's wellbeing before your own and how you can shift that. Remember, we're not fixing them, we're fixing you, and that changes everything. So for codependents, for people pleasers, for shame dependents, the holidays are really ripe for breeding resentment because we can go overboard trying to please everyone. And we know that when we abandon ourselves to please other people, what we create is resentment. And sometimes disappointment. And sometimes we can feel like this is the time of year for us to double down on assuming responsibility for everyone's happiness this season, rather than taking care of our own needs. So let's not do this this year. First, I want to talk about why you matter, and then I want to talk about the how can you show up as if you matter. So this is— these are just reminders. There are things that I'm sure you've heard before, but sometimes we just need to be reminded. So why do you matter? You matter because a relationship is made up of 2 equal people, not one person and then the supporting character. So because of this, your thoughts, your opinions, your ideas, and your ways of doing things matter. It's easy to jump on the bandwagon and tell yourself, oh, it's okay, it doesn't matter. I just want everybody else to be happy. I just want to make this a great time for everyone. And so I'm just reminding you, you can show up as an equal part in all of your relationships because you matter. You also have a purpose to serve here on this earth by your presence. Now, I believe that our relationships also serve a purpose, and that purpose is greater than ourselves as well. And I believe that's why God puts us together in relationships. But you also matter individually. And you have a purpose separate from your relationship. So I want you to think about that. What is the purpose of my relationship? And what is the purpose of me separate from my relationship? You have both. And because of that, you matter. You also matter because you are unique. There is no one in the world, not one single out of the billions, that thinks like you. And that is good. Sometimes women in difficult relationships can be made to feel like they're too much, or the way they think is wrong because it doesn't conform to their partners. I'm here to remind you that your different way of thinking is part of what makes you, you, and it's good to own it. It's not just okay to own it, it's good to own it. How are you owning your uniqueness in your relationship? So those are a couple of reminders of the why you matter, but how do we let go of the codependent behavior that chooses others over self? Now, I already know what you're thinking. You're thinking it's the holidays, we're supposed to be giving, aren't we supposed to be all sacrificial? And the reality is that that mantra is the very thing that keeps you stuck in codependency. It's not an either/or. It's not an either I sacrifice myself or I care for myself. It's a both/and. You can be sacrificial. In fact, you should be, but it only comes from a healthy place when you are also loving and caring for yourself equally. You see, the lie is that you have to die to yourself constantly and in all the ways in order to be good, honorable, Christian, or even spiritual. But what I know is that we take this out of context so much. Dying to self is a process. It's a process of, dare I say, purification or reaching your potential. We have to die to ourselves in order to let go of the things that we don't need to hold on to anymore in order to grow. And Jesus ultimately sacrificed his whole life. Yes, he did. But the way that he lived Modeled self-care first. He was not bending and jumping to the whim of all the people that were pulling on him. And when they wanted him the most, he left and he cared for himself for 40 days. And then he came back and he served. So it's a both and an and. And I'm trying not to get preachy. So let's talk about the how. So you matter. We talked about why you mattered. We talked about how important it is to be both sacrificial and— Self-care. Self-caring. And the sacrificial part, people who tend to have codependency have that part down. It's the, how do I care for myself part? So one of the first ways is that this holiday season, I'm going to encourage you to take the wheel. And so what does that mean? It means that you take control instead of giving something over to someone else who may run you over. So this holiday season, I want to encourage you to take the wheel. And so what does that look like? It may look figuratively, meaning control, right? You may want to pay attention to the ways that you tend to be controlled, that someone tends to run over you every single year, and you take some of that control back. So that could look like every year, you know that you go to this holiday party, and Maybe something happens, maybe drama happens and you feel stuck, or maybe you're ready to go and your partner's not, or for some reason there's an unhealthy dynamic where it may be healthier if you take separate cars. That's a way that you can take the wheel back. Then you can show up to the party in a healthy way. And when it's time for you to leave, or when it's healthy for you to leave, and when it's time for you to leave, or it's healthy for you to leave, you can leave. That's you caring for yourself and still showing up for your people. There may be other ways that you can take the wheel, and so I want you to contemplate that over this holiday season. The next is I want you to pre-plan your nos. So if there was a roadblock, a trigger, or a disaster last year, maybe you can opt out of it this year. What we don't want to do is we don't want to keep doing the same thing expecting a different outcome. We all know what that's called, right? Not clinically, but yes, we don't want to do that. And so look at last year. Look at the things that always tend to happen over the holidays. How can you opt out of the things that are not healthy for you? And the next is making sure that you're prioritizing those people who make you feel good, those people whose presence creates that feeling of a joyous holiday season for you. Sometimes we get so caught up in all the things that we have to do, all the events that we have to attend, and we don't think about and prioritize, how can I spend Time? How can I rest with those that fill me up? And so because you matter, I want to remind you to prioritize the people who fill you up. Now I want you to recognize that in all these things that I've been talking about, I haven't really talked much about your partner because we are talking about you and making changes in your own personal life that have the potential to increase health in all of your relationships. At the very least, what we know is it will increase your own personal health, which does have a ripple effect. So that's all I've got for you today. Short and sweet. I'm glad to be back. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Also join my email list so that you can get regular encouragement from me navigating your difficult relationship in the holidays, and also how to honor your partner. Have a strong week.