What Happens in Your Body During Hard Conversations

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Welcome to Dear Dr. Tracy, the podcast that dives deep into the messy, beautiful world of relationships. I'm Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, clinical psychologist, relationship expert, and your go-to guide for navigating relationships, boundaries, in-laws, and everything in between. Whether you're striving to rekindle the spark, set healthy limits, or build deeper connections, this is the space where real talk meets expert advice. Together, we'll tackle the tough questions, untangle the sticky situations, and uncover the small shifts that lead to big transformations in your relationships. So grab a coffee, Settle in and let's rewrite the stories you tell yourself. This is Dear Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, your guide to creating relationships that feel good.

One of the questions I received recently wasn't actually about communication, but at first glance it sounded like it was. Someone dear to me sent me a question after hearing me share one of my repair scripts. You know, the kind of script that sounds so clear and grounded when you're listening to a podcast while folding laundry or driving your car. Something like, I want to hear your perspective, but when the apology comes with a but, it's hard for me to feel like accountability is actually happening. That's the script I gave you in the last From the Couch episode, and I know I've given you several of these over on Instagram and throughout my time sharing here. And her response? Was this: Tracy, I'd love to say that, but the second I imagine saying it to my mother-in-law, my face gets red, my heart starts pounding, I lose my confidence, and I stumble over my words. The moment she gets defensive, starts spiraling, or turns it into a Broadway production of guilt and self-flagellation, I completely lose my footing. And I thought, that's such an important question. And how many of us can relate to that? And maybe it's not just with your mother-in-law because it's what happens when someone else's reaction feels difficult for us to tolerate. Maybe it's your partner, maybe it's your own parent or a friend or your boss. And you know exactly what you'd like to say when you're calm and thinking clearly. I have all of my best thoughts when I'm in the shower or blow drying my hair. But then when you're in the room and the other person gets upset and suddenly you don't sound like yourself anymore. So today I wanna talk about what's actually happening in those moments, and I want to give you more than what we are going to get on social media, because that's what I love about the podcast is that you can walk away with a script on social media, but we're going to then miss what's really happening inside of us, the process inside of us. And while this is not therapy, what I'm going to share today is often the process that I walk people through in my therapy room, because essentially we need to understand why another person's reaction can make us feel like we've completely lost access to ourselves. Now, if you are someone who's in my community because you are struggling with your boundaries with your husband around dealing with extended family, go check out my book. It's called You, Your Husband, and His Mother. And I have heard from so many people how they've needed this conversation. They feel seen and understood, finally, like they're not some crazy daughter-in-law, which you are not, by the way, if you are listening. And they feel like they actually have steps and tools to move forward. So if you're looking for support, check out my book, but also check out my other resources. I have many other podcast episodes that talk about struggling with mothers-in-law, but also I understand the importance and impact of one-to-one support. So if you are looking for help, I've got my link in the show notes if you'd like to work with me. So let's start here. I want to first emphasize that oftentimes when we hear this kind of question, we think that we're talking about communication, but we're not, because communication is the words that are coming out of our mouth. And what this is actually about is something so much deeper inside of us. So we are actually talking about what happens inside of your body when someone else becomes dysregulated. And I actually believe that most people are really good communicators. You know how to do this stuff. The moment though that you struggle is when you add in the relationship dynamic with whoever that might be, because then it stirs up a whole bunch of stuff inside of us, our histories, our previous experiences, our own fears and core beliefs about ourselves. Ourselves, but mostly the first thing is really our nervous system. Because I want to point out, as this person shared with me, her face gets red, she loses the words, she starts to stumble, her confidence disappears, and then she just wants to retreat. And that to me says that is a nervous system response. And one of the most powerful things that has actually shifted in my therapy practice is bringing in the body work. And I would spend sessions working with people through addressing thoughts, addressing and oftentimes what made the change first was going to our bodies. And I love this expression. It comes from Deb Dana and it's story follows state. What this means is that your body reacts first and fast, and sometimes we're not even aware of it. And then the thoughts, the stories, the emotions, and the beliefs come afterwards. So let's tackle the belief piece here. This is the deeper underneath stuff. And as you're listening, I want you to ask yourself, what are you afraid would happen if you say the thing? Are you afraid they're gonna get mad at you? Are you afraid they'll cut you out? Are you afraid of the silent treatment? Some common answers that I hear in particular to the mother-in-law experience sound like, she'll hate me, or I'll hurt her, or I'll be seen as mean, or I'll be misunderstood, or I'll become the villain. I'll lose the relationship. I'll create conflict in the family. Maybe even my husband will be caught in the middle, or everyone will think I'm the problem. This is an incredibly difficult place to land in because a lot of women are taught to please, to perform, to perfect. Those are the 3 Ps Brené Brown talks about, and I see them run women's lives, and we have to let these ones go. You can tend to a relationship, but you don't have to please others. It is not your job to make everybody else comfortable and happy. Your job is to be kind and clear with others. That is all that you can do. And I know so many people come to me, and what's underneath a lot of this is this deeper desire to control the outcome. And that's this: I want to make sure I am seen in the right light. I want to make sure that others don't think I'm doing harm to them. And I need you to hear this. People who are committed to misunderstanding you will never be able to hear what you say the way you intend it to be. And there are people out there who don't want to change their perspective or who don't have the capacity to do so. Now, that doesn't mean you're bad, doesn't mean you're inadequate or not enough. It doesn't mean you're wrong. It means that you now have to choose what is most important to you. It's really interesting when I watch women start to change, when they stop pleasing and looking after everybody else, there are many people in your life that are not gonna like it. And there are many people who might stop reaching to you, or they might say to you that you've changed. But you have to ask yourself this: do I want to spend my life abandoning myself to fit into the box they have made for me? Or do I want to live my life the way it is intended for me? And don't get me wrong, I'm not here saying blow up the family system or blow up the friendship or tell that colleague and, you know, get sent to HR. That's not what this says. This is about you not being so scared to speak what it is that you need. Having needs doesn't make you wrong. Having feelings about something doesn't make you bad. And I think we have been so conditioned to not express ourselves, and this is changing. And not everybody is going to understand this. So first, address the, what am I afraid of? Whenever I think of fear, there's two thoughts I'm having right now. So fear, I like the acronym that stands for False Expectations Appearing Real. Whatever you think is going to happen. So I'm thinking about this in the context of your partner. Whatever you think is going to happen, it's probably not going to be that bad. And sometimes what we do is we stop ourselves from going to the end of the story. So many clients will come to me saying, I'm feeling anxious about this. And it's almost like they've stopped the story. So the anxiety spins kind of halfway, and then I ask, take me to the end of the story. What's the endpoint? And then they go there and we talk about, okay, and how likely is that to happen? And then sometimes people even chuckle about it and they can unhook from that thought and that belief that they have built around the worst thing happening. And our brains are good at that. They're good at protecting us. Then there's this other piece though. And the other piece is the complexity that shows up, especially around our mothers-in-law. And that is that in some family systems, not all families, but in some, everybody needs a villain. We know there's a villain in movies, there's a villain in every book fiction that you read. And so unfortunately, in some family systems, someone is the villain. And the person who is the villain, especially even in your own family system, is the person who doesn't fall in line, is the person who changes. Is the person who becomes outspoken and says, I'm no longer going to tolerate that. But I always come back to this place. Would you say to a friend that she is bad for setting the boundary and saying the thing that you want to say? And if your friend came to you, your dearest friend, and said, I went completely red and I lost my words because here's my mother-in-law self-flagellating in front of me. Would you say to your friend, "My word, I can't believe you said that to your mother-in-law"? Most likely you wouldn't.

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I want to shift now to thinking about our attachment styles, and I would do this in my therapy room with clients. Of course, we are not doing therapy here, but it is a very integrated way of looking at somebody. And I love bringing this all together because it then allows us, depending on who you are, to approach things with what's going to be best for you. So here's what I wanna say about this, and, and this may or may not apply to you specifically about mothers-in-law, but it might apply to you with your partner. When it comes to expressing things, we wanna know something about ourselves. So the attachment system is connected to when we are distressed, stressed, or anxious, and it is about seeking connection, belonging, soothing, approval from the other person. So I think of romantic partners here. Now, if you tend to lean more anxious in your attachment style, and if you're inside Be Connected, I have a link for you and I have an entire lesson all about attachment styles. So that you can move more towards security and understanding yours and your partner's attachment styles. If you are more anxious, you are very attuned to the other person because that's where safety and connection and belonging is rooted in. If you are more avoidant in your attachment style, you then are going to pull away and shut down because that's what then leads you to feel safe and okay and actually connected. It leads you to feel connected in a false sense. So if expressing things and you see someone else upset and you are more anxious, you will then want to— so the urge inside of you is to then lean into that person. You're going to want to then fix it and correct it and say, oh no, I'm so sorry. You don't want to hurt the connection. If you're someone who's more avoidant, You might be someone who says the thing and then shuts down and leaves, or you might then even have the belief inside, well, see, it's not safe. See what this person did? That's why I don't share things. And then shut down. You might even say something more sharp, or you might say nothing at all. And I think it's really important when it comes to expressing these things that we then want to move into what does it mean to tolerate discomfort. And what I mean by that is if you are someone who is more anxious, then you have to tolerate the discomfort of temporary distance between the two of you. So it's not that if she goes into this guilt self-flagellation Broadway show, then I'm bad. It's more of a, I've expressed something important to me and it's okay if she's upset. And I think the other thing too, a lot of us didn't learn growing up because if nobody shared this with you, if nobody taught you this, you would not know. Of course not. What a lot of us didn't learn growing up, and I do this with a lot of my clients, especially women, is being able to tolerate one, saying less. You don't have to justify everything. You don't have to overexplain all the things. But then two, that moment of tension between you and another person is not what breaks a relationship. And maybe you've had that past experience. I can remember I had said something to a friend in grade 5, and then she was very mad at me and the friendship was lost that day. And in grade 5, of course, all the things that happen, and I haven't met anyone who has yet to tell me that they had no girl drama in grade 5, but I wish someone had said to me, your friend is allowed to be upset with you and that doesn't make you a bad person. And friendships can tolerate disagreements. And gosh, what a game changer that would've been. I digress. Anyways, if you are someone who is more avoidant, then you also have to lean in more and tolerate that discomfort by saying the thing. So being mindful of what our attachment systems lead us to do is helpful then, because in the moment when you notice the other person having a reaction you can also then practice the soothing strategies that you'll need. And I'll get to that in a moment. Before I get to the body part, the nervous system, I want to add one more layer here. And I really am showing you my integrative approach to psychotherapy. And from the research, we know actually that it's not a one-size-fits-all. So if you are someone who is working with a cognitive behavioral therapist, it might not be what you need and what works for you. We know that from the psychotherapy research. So it is why I work from multiple different models with clients. Depending on who the client is in front of me. I love sitting with a client and asking, what part is showing up right here? Parts work comes from Internal Family Systems, and it's a powerful model. When I break it down, I'm gonna totally geek out on psychotherapy with you right now, but when I break it down, the parts work also comes from earlier versions of therapy like Gestalt therapy, but also emotion-focused therapy. So I remember learning emotion-focused therapy where one of the exercises is a two-chair exercise where you put that part of you into the other chair and you speak from each part, working on identifying core needs and emotions. Okay, back to parts. It's so powerful when you can ask yourself, what is the role that this part is trying to play? Or what, what is this part trying to do? And then when you stand on your two feet and ask yourself, What is it that I need right now? How can I offer compassion to this part of me? How can I see this part for the role that they're playing and even thank that part and then tune into what I would like to do from an awakened, conscious, or even aware choice? Let me now shift to talking about the nervous system. I think this piece is so important. Okay. In these moments when your face goes red, when your words disappear, that is your nervous system that quickly jumps online and says, danger, danger, danger. And it says connection is at risk and something is going to happen. And that makes sense given a history, given if your mother-in-law has continuously gone into this guilt or self-flagellation. And so what we need to do then here is we do need to spend time soothing the nervous system. And there are all kinds of different strategies that you can do. It could be something like squeezing your hands, like a progressive muscular relaxation, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, hold it, hold it, hold it tight, and then release the squeezing, noticing the difference between tension and calm, tension and releasing. I remember working with one client and it was about setting boundaries around, um, children at the playground with her own child. And that was a really hard thing to do. Again, lost the words, wouldn't know how to express something. And so we talked about the squeezing the fist just by their side if she had her arms crossed or by the side of her body. And then we also did a little bit of rocking back and forth, so shifting weight either from toes to heels, back and forth. Or side to side. And by doing that, you are shifting them into your body so that you can remain more regulated. But here's the other thing around this conversation is if you expect yourself to be completely regulated when you are standing in front of a bear, I just don't think that is possible. And I don't think a lot of us actually talk about just how hard it to actually say the thing. The thing is hard. The scripts, they sound lovely and you can rehearse them in front of the mirror, but we also have to then normalize that with practice it does feel easy. And at the same time, your nervous system is going to be firing. That's just what your nervous system does. I think about this in terms of public speaking because because I remember in my first year or second year of grad school, I had my first panic attack. I was ironically giving a presentation on social anxiety disorder, and here I was having a panic attack right in front of all of my colleagues. I had never had that before in terms of public speaking. I grew up playing piano recitals, performing in front of others through dance competitions. I remember in my first 4 years of undergrad and through high school doing presentations with ease, and then out of nowhere my brain decided to do something completely different. And then I felt petrified for every presentation coming up afterwards until I remember reading someone— I believe it was Russ Harris in the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy work— saying that he felt nervous before presentations. So here I was, this 23-year-old, and no one had really said to me, you're supposed to feel nervous before a presentation. And of course it makes sense. And so now what I do before you see me up on the stage, before you see me giving that big talk— and, and I've done it in front of thousands of people— I welcome the nerves. I tell myself, I am doing something important, I am doing something meaningful. I thank my body for doing what is supposed to be doing. And then I breathe and I use my breath. And that is exactly the skill that we need to be using in our relationships. Remember, this is important to you, otherwise you would feel nothing. So thank your body. Thank you for showing up for me here and telling me that this is important to me, to express myself and to say the thing so I can move forward. That applies to our romantic partner, to our friends, to our colleagues, That is what it means to do the hard thing, and it's noticing and accepting that your body is supposed to, to some degree, go red in the face or to feel flustered or to struggle with your words. There's another layer in here I want to address, and it's around differentiation. This is something I talk about in my first book, I Didn't Sign Up for This. I teach how to build healthy interdependence through 4 different cases, through 4 different couples that I worked with, and also through my own marriage. And differentiation is the idea that I can be me while you are allowed to be you, and we are both okay. And the question is, can I stay connected to myself while someone else is disappointed? Can I stay connected to me when somebody misunderstands me? And can I stay connected to who I am and my truth when someone else feels hurt? Because part of being interdependent in relationships, part of authenticity, vulnerability, and feeling aligned in your life is not everyone is okay, but instead, I am okay even when others are not. And that gives me chills. And I just want to pause here and let you know that even here I am in my 40s now, that I too am continuing to do this work with you. Our job is not to just arrive at some magical landing point, but instead to continue to evolve. And a few years ago, I remember walking into my therapy practice here in Ottawa and saying to my colleagues, weeks. I thought I did the heavy lifting already, but oh my word, this season, this time in life, I am doing so much more heavy lifting. And I believe that to be true for the rest of our lives. So let's keep working on you being okay even when others are not. And that is a beautiful gift that you can give yourself, your partner, and anyone else in your life. It also says you're allowed to have your own reaction. Go ahead, do your guilt, do your self-flagellation. Hey, Broadway show! And I also love our family members are consistent and predictable. You get to prepare yourself for this. Okay, we've done the back work. Now we're going to go right to the moment, and I want you to remember this the next time you go into it. Okay, and if you're looking for the scripts, go back to their podcast episode and listen to those. But I want you to first remember that everything is practice. This is all where you will get better doing this over time. So our goal is not to be calm. It's not to be eloquent, and it's not to deliver the perfect script that Dr. Tracy gives you, because I can tell you for certain, even for myself, it does not come out that way. But instead, the goal is for you to stay present, present with your breath moment to moment. I breathe so much in hard moments. I used to work with this physician, and every time this physician would come in, I would feel the power dynamic shift in our room, and I would immediately grab my mug and hold the mug and breathe while I hold the mug. And that right there would just help me to stay present. Okay, that's one thing. The next is you want to connect to your adult self. Remember the parts I mentioned earlier, or even the attachment styles earlier? You are not that person at the grade 5 playground like I was in the moment losing my best friend. You are not there. You are not in your bedroom after your parents have just just yelled at you, or wherever your memory goes. Stay connected to your adult self. Thank your parts for showing up and also offering them compassion, and then reminding that you are here as an adult. And this next one I think is so important: say one sentence. That's it. It feels a bit counterintuitive when I think about being a feminist, when I think about giving women a voice to then say, say one sentence. I want to just sink in that for a moment because I think actually the counterintuitive piece here is that we are fighting with anger and so many words instead of letting your one powerful sentence just land. I don't know if that's relevant. I felt like I needed to say that one there. Okay, the next piece tolerate the discomfort, just let it ride. I offered this image to a client recently, and it was probably one of my favorite ones. To imagine that you are in the water, you're just riding these waves, and maybe it's a surfboard, maybe it's a paddleboard, but you're just riding them, and they come and go, and you will go up and you will go down, and you can decide, am I going to sit on the board? Am I going to straddle it? Am I going to stand up? How am I going to tolerate the discomfort when the waves go up and down? Because remember this: confidence doesn't come first. It comes after you've survived the discomfort enough times to learn, I can do this and still be okay.

I want to end with this.

Sometimes the reason your mother-in-law can make you feel like 12 years old isn't because of who she It's because she actually activates that old part of you. And the work here isn't about you finding better words. The work is about helping that younger part realize that the adult version of you can handle someone else's disappointment. And that is powerful.

All right.

Thank you for clicking play today. I think I went longer than I had anticipated to, but I have so much to say on this conversation and I just love when questions come my way. So I've got the link in the show notes if you have a question for me here on the podcast to answer. And of course, one of the most powerful things that I would be so grateful for you is if you could pause, click the stars, leave me a few words. It really helps other people find the podcast. Let me know what resonated from today, and I will see you next time. I have to remind you at the end of every podcast episode that this is for informational purposes only and does not substitute for care from a licensed mental health care provider.

Take good care of you.