E066 - How Unhealed Attachment Wounds Lead to Addictive Toxic Relationships with Heidi Dike Kingston (Part 1)
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Speaker 9: [00:00:00] In this episode, you will discover how unhealed attachment wounds keep you stuck in addictive toxic relationships.
Speaker: Welcome to Heartbreak to Wholeness, the podcast helping you heal from the mindfuck of narcissistic relationships and move towards the secure, peaceful woman you want to become. I am your host, Bre Wolta, Relationship Clarity Coach and EFT Certified Practitioner. Let's dive in.
Speaker 10: Hello and welcome back to Heartbreak 2 Wholeness. In this episode, you will discover how family dynamics trigger attachment issues, why your fear of being alone is keeping you stuck in trauma bonded relationships, and how holding onto someone's potential Also keeps you stuck in toxic relationships.
Today's episode dives deep into the impact that our early attachment figures have on our adult relationships. I share a super vulnerable and inspiring conversation with [00:01:00] Heidi Dyke Kingston, who is a therapist and a dear friend of mine. And she shares her experience repetitive, toxic, and trauma bonded relationships, how she's found recovery from sex and love addiction, what sex and love addiction actually means and looks like in a woman specifically, and how all of that is rooted from her early attachment wounding.
It is a conversation that you won't want to miss. And be sure to stick around to the end of the episode where I will pull an oracle card that will offer you a specific message that you can use this week to stay conscious in your healing.
Speaker 6: Welcome to the podcast, Heidi. ~I'm so excited to have you here. ~
Speaker 7: Thank you so mUch for asking me to be here. This is a wonderful opportunity. ~Uh, ~the decision to do this made me, ~um, ~get in my discomfort zone, ~uh, ~in order to prepare and feel, ~uh, ~that I could show up. So ~thanks for, ~thanks for giving me the nudge.
Speaker 6: I love that so much. Being courageous enough to share your story [00:02:00] in any sort of platform but on a public platform is another sort of level of being willing ~to, ~to let the world see you in a different way. And these stories, The women who come on the podcast who share their stories touch so many women's lives, like we don't even know the ripple effect of what will come from today's episode.
So thank you ~for, for, ~for being the steward of that. This Is a cool moment for me because we have known each other ~in, ~for many moons, in many different ways. I don't even know, like, I mean, probably 10 years at least. It was when we met initially.
So we were both in the mental health and addiction field, ~uh, ~doing marketing for different treatment centers. And I just remember meeting you and being like, she is such a kind hearted full woman, like that was my, that was my initial thought of you and have thought the same ever since, but this has been such a cool ~sort of, ~sort of full circle moment [00:03:00] for me to be able to host you on this platform.
And for you to share your story, that is very much related in that field.
Speaker 7: I don't think we could have predicted we would both end up sitting here getting ready to hunker down around this stuff.
~I~
Speaker 6: know, but I'm glad we're here. It's so cool. It's so weird. The universe is just, you know, always got surprises for us. So where would you like to start ~in your, ~in your story? I know we're moving through a couple of different aspects around what feels important to share with the audience today. So ~I'll leave it.~
I'll leave it to you. What feels good to start with? ~You ~
Speaker 7: know, when I think about Who I am, identity wise, I always think about, well, I'm, I am a person in recovery. ~Um, ~if I'm thinking generally, the first thing is, well, I'm a mom. That takes up a lot of my time, which ~is, ~is a good thing. Um, but. I have to say, honestly, that the first thing that comes up is, well, I am a person who's in recovery, and I have been really fortunate to be [00:04:00] in that camp for a while now, and my recovery started really early on in my life, I will say that.
But, You may hear that phrase, I grew up in the rooms, ~um, ~or I met so and so in the rooms, or I know so and so from the rooms, and, and~ and I'm, ~I'm one of those people who I literally did grow up in the rooms.
My dad has been sober since 1991. And of course now, ~you know, ~he's this little elderly man who lives in a skilled nursing unit, but ~um, ~I'm here today because of his recovery and because of the recovery I had. I went to allotop meetings when I was four and five years old after my dad had gotten out of treatment.
They existed in this really rural area ~I grew up in, ~so that's where it started for me.
Speaker 6: Wow, I didn't know they had allotot. ~Allotot is what you said? ~Like for toddlers?
Speaker 7: Allotot, yes. ~Wow. ~So it's like allanon,
Speaker 6: but
Speaker 7: for,
Speaker 6: for kids.
Speaker 7: Okay. Exactly
yeah, you know there's a family legacy for us, ~um, ~of substance use disorder and addiction and he grew up in that. And I think he [00:05:00] felt, You know, he's pretty open about this too. He has been over the years and he said, you know, because people have said to him, like how you must've been so dedicated to have your family go there.
And he's like, you know what? I was desperate. I didn't know what else to do. I just knew how I grew up and they told me to do this when I was in treatment. And so I did it. , and I think that that's how recovery can begin and look like for a lot of individuals and families. That's how it looked like for mine.
Speaker 6: ~Yes. ~Yes. So your recovery story ~is, ~is not in the sense of the addict or the alcoholic, but what, what are the recoveries that you, or what are the, how would you phrase that? What recoveries are you in?
Speaker 7: Yeah. I, uh, you know, over time what happened for me, ~uh, ~I grew up a little, ~uh, ~I got to be a teenager and, ~um, ~by 15, my brother, who's about ~four, ~four and a half years older than me, ~he had, ~he was in the full blown, ~uh, ~portion of his own substance use disorder and addiction. ~And ~he went to [00:06:00] treatment then.
~And um, ~and I got back into the rooms then. I got into Aloteen. And that saved my life as a teenager, not because I was struggling with substance use disorder at the time, but I was suffering and dying inside because of what was happening in my family that my parents were not handling well at all. ~And You know, that, ~it's really interesting, Bre, because I'm thinking of the group, the small group that we were at that time.
And there were four core members of us that all kind of hung out and were about the same age. And by the time we were of legal drinking age. Two of us had kind of moved on with our lives and we were either in Al Anon or ACA ~or, uh, ~and the other two who had progressed into their own substance use disorder were already active members of AA.
It didn't take them long to stay out there and I just think that that's important because Early exposure to this can really help an individual find their path quickly. [00:07:00] They don't have to stay out there and suffer long. So that's what that looked like for me. And you know, fast forward several years, and still in my young adulthood, I was, ~um, ~28, 29, and at that point I'd been married. I was in my first marriage with my ex husband, and I had this amazing opportunity that was really timely. I had ~been, um, I'd ~been interviewed by and asked to come aboard, ~um, ~to do clinical outreach for the Meadows of Wickenburg, Arizona.
At that time I was working for Hazelden. I was a clinical case manager and I was in their Chicago office. And a lot of things were happening in my life. My best friend who was my cousin, more like a mother figure to me really, she was dying of cancer, ~um, ~and that really rocked my world. ~Uh, ~more importantly, ~uh, ~my marriage was ending.
My marriage was crumbling. It was ending and I didn't know it. It was sort of like a train coming at me and I couldn't get off the tracks and I wasn't quite sure what to do because in the mind, in the rigid mind that I [00:08:00] had, you know, I couldn't have gotten a divorce. But. ~It was, ~it was pretty bad, you know, things between us, ~uh, ~my own untreated adult child issues, etc.
Well, when I went to the Meadows, ~uh, back then, ~Pat Melody was still one of the owners, and he was the, ~um, ~executive director. And he and Pia were divorced at that time, he and Pia Melody, ~um, ~but they still worked there. They were, they were the program in many ways. ~Um, ~he made all of their employees, ~uh, ~go through survivors week, their first week of work, and that didn't matter if you were a cook in the kitchen or if you were going to do clinical outreach like me, that's what you did.
Because it really was at the time, the core of their program. And I sort of knew what to expect. I knew that it would focus on, ~um, ~family of origin work, but it really opened up my world in a way that said. You know what? You are empowered to decide what recovery should look like for you. And so, the week came to an end and Pat Melody said to me, you know, hey Heidi, what do you think?
[00:09:00] What'd you think? Do you think we're crazy here or what? And I, I was blown away. I said, oh my gosh, no. I said, I said, I really feel like I'm a different person. I think that this has been incredible for me. And he said, well, I'm really glad to hear that. Now when you go back to Chicago, a couple, one or two things may happen.
He said, you know, your husband's going to come out here in the next six months and do this workshop. And if he doesn't, you're probably going to get a divorce. And I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked. And he was right. ~Um, ~within six months we had separated. And it kind of launched me in this direction where I really engaged in, um, adult children of alcoholics.
For more UN videos visit www. un. org And, ~uh, ~the other dysfunctional family systems. And that's where that part of my recovery journey began. And, ~um, ~20 years ago this month, I walked in the doors of that room. And, ~um, ~yeah, ~uh, ~between the work I had done at the Meadows and that group, I'm, I'm sure it sustained my life.
I still [00:10:00] had more work to do, both dysfunctional work and destructive work. ~Um, ~but I also, I think it kept me alive.
Speaker 6: Yeah, ~that, ~that family of origin work is so important and can be so mind opening and intense and all of the things, especially when you start to look at a family with addiction ~and, ~and the roles that they play.
We adopt and we play because of the addiction that's in the household.
Speaker 7: it's,
It's one thing to survive, ~um, ~you know, that real overt, ~um, ~clearly, ~uh, ~damaging, ~uh, ~abuse that looks like physical abuse.
or maybe even, ~uh, ~a lot of verbal abuse. It's one thing to say, that's what's happened to me, and that was such a traumatic experience, and absolutely no one would argue with you about that, right? But I think that if you come from a family where there's a ton of chronic neglect, relationally, emotionally, maybe even physically in some ways, those are sort of those [00:11:00] unseen ones.
And not only as kids who come from that environment, not only do we sort of look pretty normal and behave, have the ability to sort of behave and show up in a fairly normal way, we minimize the impact of the neglect and the deprivation, often relational deprivation that we received. And so setting in a workshop where you are really hunkering down around the honesty What your life was like and the developmental trauma that happened to you.
~Um, ~you can't hide from that anymore, not where they call it trauma. And no one had said that to me before.
Speaker 6: We, I think a lot of people assume that trauma has to mean the, the, what we call the big T traumas, right? Like sexual abuse or incest or rape or, ~um, like ~abduction, right? These like big sort of massive things that absolutely are traumatic, but [00:12:00] there are many, many different levels of trauma.
And ~to, ~to your point about the, How the trauma looks from the outside doesn't necessarily matter to ~how the, ~how big the impact was to the individual. So ~your, ~your parent never being there when you came home from school or never being there to help with your homework might affect One person, not very much.
It might affect the other person very deeply. So trauma is subjective. And when we, when we meet ourselves with that compassion of, Oh, this wouldn't be something ~that, that might, ~that others might look at and be like, you had a traumatic childhood, but when we can meet ourselves with that validation, that is when the massive shift starts to happen because we're witnessing ourself.
~in that. ~And we're, we're acknowledging ~the, ~the pain and the patterns that came to be because of that.
Speaker 7: You're so right. And I think that the patterns that had happened relationally that I witnessed and was on the [00:13:00] receiving end of when it came to my parents and what was happening with them, ~um, ~within our family system, those patterns I recreated in the marriage that I was struggling in so badly at that time.
~And. ~I think that ~the, ~the work, ~uh, ~and the group work around that during that one week, that brief week, really helped me to, ~um, ~get grounded in a much more truthful, ~um, ~accurate reality of who I was and what was happening.
Speaker 6: Yeah. ~Yeah, the, ~the tendency that we want to have to sort of like push our childhood to the back of our, our memory and be like, well, what happened happened and it's not affecting me now.
That is so unserving because ~that ~all of those patterns, all of those understandings that we made about relationships become our operating system. And then that becomes our subconscious operating system when we're older. So when we are in these dysfunctional relationships as adults, if we're not aware of [00:14:00] why and ~what, ~where those patterns came from, then we are so out of control of our own experience.
It's like ~we're, ~we're moving through life and relationships asleep. That was part of the reason that I named my business Lucid Living was because ~I'm like, you're late. ~I want to live awake. I want to be really aware of all of the things that make me who I am so that I can shift the things that aren't serving and then show up as the woman that I want to be, want to become.
Speaker 7: Absolutely. You know, I think ~that ~that first portion ~of what I think of the first half ~of my recovery was discovery. It's like, oh, wow, that's. That's why this is. But let me tell you, then the next season got a little harder for me. I wish I could say it was just all wonderful from there on out, and I'm extremely successful and, and have never had a difficult day since.
But no, I created a significant amount of my own wreckage post that. And so for me, I am so glad that programs like yours exist. I think that your program might have saved me sooner ~had I, ~[00:15:00] had it existed way back when. Um, the patterns that you're talking about. really began to show up in my adult life after I separated and then moved on from my divorce because I was this, ~you know, ~adult then.
~I was in my, ~I was 30, ~um, ~and I was trying to date. At that time, I had no idea that my, ~you know, ~overarching fear of abandonment with my, ~you know, ~underlying terror of intimacy, ~uh, ~was ~what, ~what drove me day in and day out. And it was during that period of time that my female sex and love addiction really became, ~you know, if we're in the rooms, ~unmanageable.
But for me, it was a time of, ~um, ~significant self destructive behavior and ongoing heartbreak, ongoing instability. If I walked into a therapist's office, in crisis, which I was [00:16:00] a lot of times internally. ~Um, ~I probably looked like someone that would have gotten diagnosed with either bipolar disorder and access to personality disorder of some type.
~I was that dysregulated. ~I was that dysregulated, but my previous training in growing up in a family to look like things were okay was actually really helpful. I managed to keep a job. I managed to continue to be successful in that job. And then momentarily ~I would have, um, ~I would fall apart. And when I would, it would be a really big for me.
Speaker 6: Yeah. And, and share a little bit about what female sex and love addiction looks like, because this is one of the addictions that I don't think gets a lot of airtime and has a lot of misconceptions around. What it is, right? We kind of, the, the view I think that comes to mind ~in that has, ~that is outdated is the, the man who is addicted to pornography and like can't get out of his bedroom.
So what, what does that look like in reality for, for women [00:17:00] specifically?
Speaker 7: So you're right. ~Uh, it's, ~it's been a very undertreated. Often minimized, ~um, ~or mistreated, ~um, ~thing for women. And a lot of people can struggle with the linguistics of it, love addiction, ~um, ~particularly. And, you know, want to boil this down to either clinical terms or more digestible terms.
Female sex and love addiction is really born out of an extremely wounded attachment system that was generally damaged long before that little girl grew up to struggle in relationships that were abusive, exploitive, ~uh, ~codependent. ~Abusive. ~And Kelly McDaniel, she was, she's one of the original thought leaders when we talk about women who have struggled with this type of an intimacy disorder.
You know, she says that she's never worked with a woman who has [00:18:00] struggled with female sex and love addiction that did not have an anxious attachment system and did not experience deep anxious attachment wounding because of what happened to her early in her life. And generally ~it can look like, gosh, ~it can look like a mother, uh, mothering a daughter in ways that on one hand look very enmeshing and boundaryless, um, and life sucking, but then that same mother can be extremely avoidant and neglectful and depriving in other areas.
And perhaps maybe there's a father who's there or not and he either can't or won't see what's happening or feels really disempowered to do much about it. ~That's one way that that can happen. Um, and ~it happens a lot and it shows up when we grow up and we're in relationships or we're trying to be in relationships with others.
Speaker 6: That attachment wound is, is so deep [00:19:00] that the, the drive to need to be in some sort of connection with a person becomes that unmanageable. Drive. Is that correct?
Speaker 7: Absolutely. You know, our attachment system looks at mom and dad, who are usually our primary caretakers early in our lives, and it's hardwired to keep us alive as infants and babies.
It is absolutely important that we cry when we're hungry or wet or messy, that we cry when we feel fear or we want to be in connection with or in the arms of mom or dad. It keeps us alive. That's vital. It also looks at mom and dad and says if further away from these two people, I am. There's high likelihood that I could die.
Right? That's why you and I are sitting here. ~Um, you know, uh, ~survival of our species exists for that reason. But the problem occurs in our grown up lives when there has been inconsistencies or abuse. Looking like trauma, right? Could be little, could be big [00:20:00] T. ~Um, ~when we partner in our grown up lives and our adult partner becomes our then person.
~Um, ~on the one hand, it could be an exploitive relationship, an abusive relationship, a less than nurturing relationship that we need to get away from, but our attachment system says, but that's my person. I can't get away from this person. And if I do try to get away from this person, I could die, even though this big fat front logical part of our brain, you know, that exists to think and to plan ~and, ~and to figure things out, even though that part saying this person is horrible for me, and maybe even hurt me the most in this world.
Our brains literally ~go to, our brain will ~go to war with itself in a situation like that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because our survival depended on that unhealthy, abusive, ~um, ~dysfunctional person, right? It sounds like a trauma bond.
Speaker 7: It is, I mean, and we stay bonded to less than nurturing and maybe often even abusive parents out of trauma bonding and we survived.
We accumulated all these tools [00:21:00] to help us survive a childhood where we were dependent upon mom and dad, but the problem is, uh, And similar situations in our grown up lives, we're going to lean into utilizing those tools again, even when they're extremely problematic.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I did a whole episode on trauma bonding that I'll link in the show notes for the listeners, but in essence it's that we, growing up in those types of situations where a child is dependent on an unhealthy caregiver, we associate love with pain, love with dysfunction, love with abuse, right?
And ~we, ~we seek out those types of relationships in our adulthood because of that attachment wounding, because of that need for connection, that attachment wounding. That hunger, that thirst that we have for that. ~So the, ~when we can look at our history that way. Everything makes sense. It makes sense that you seek out abusive people or that you put up ~with ~with relationships that don't have boundaries.
And it makes sense that you've experienced [00:22:00] x, y, and z because of a, b, and c, you know? And we can, we can find a lot of compassion for ourselves in looking back on our childhood and ~that early, ~the early attachment wounding that we had.
Speaker 7: Absolutely. You know, I worked with John Bradshaw for many years when I was at the Meadows and I remember the first time I heard him say, we are attracted to that which we know best.
And then what I've done and the work I do with clients is I say, for better or for worse, we're attracted to that which we know best. And until we can course correct and heal around those patterns that were established so early on in our lives, ~um, until then, ~we will stay in those really unhealthy relationships and roles.
Speaker 6: So in your, in your adulthood, when you started coming to awareness around the sex and love addiction, ~was, ~what was becoming unmanageable, for you? Was it the seeking of unhealthy people? Was it repeated partners? Kind of, ~what did that, ~what did that look like?
Speaker 7: The first [00:23:00] time it was unmanageable to me was when I had to read Pia Melody's book, Facing Love Addiction.
Speaker 8: I
Speaker 7: was an employee at the Meadows. I needed to read that book. I read that book and I literally threw it up against the wall. And I think it was because it started to crack my denial system. Mostly about the fantasy that is so real for those of us that do struggle with love addiction. She talked about it in the book.
And it scared the shit out of me. Oh my god, people know I do this? Other people do this? This is, this is a problem or it must be a problem? Those are the thoughts that were going through my mind. And fantasy had been a survival tool for me since childhood. And the thought that I would have to stop that because it was bad for me.
I was angry. ~Um, ~I was scared. And, ~um, ~I had a big reaction to it. And so I put that book down and walked away from it for a few years because I couldn't tolerate reading more. ~And I just wasn't ready. ~But what [00:24:00] happened over time for me was this The core belief that I couldn't be alone, and that if I partnered with someone, my life would be better, I would be safe, and everything would be okay.
And so, ~I, ~I did a lot of dating, and I immediately, ~uh, ~made up fantasies in my mind of who these people needed to be or could be in my life. Despite evidence to support the contrary. Um, what, one of the things that was funny, and this was toward the, it is funny, I have to laugh at it, and I'll tell you what, ~if you're, ~if you're someone who's in recovery or on the edge, cusp of recovery for female sex and love addiction, I say this, you may not believe me, but humor does and better become a big part of your program because you know what, there's nothing more humane than being able to look at what you've done and say, wow, ~um, ~that was both incredibly painful and also pretty damn funny now that I reflect on [00:25:00] it.
Yeah. ~Uh, ~so for me, you know, I, I was sitting around the table toward the end The very end of the beginning for me, and honestly, three of my closest friends on the planet ~um, ~something came up about, well do you have a type about dating, and I said I don't think I really have a type, and they all just, we were eating, and they all stopped, and they burst out laughing, and they're like, oh no, you don't have a type.
I'm like well, what do you mean? And they're like, You Individually, each of them sort of listed like, must be highly successful and wealthy, must be, you know, dashingly good looking, must be, ~uh, ~you know, have a big ego, takes up all the oxygen in the room, and I was shocked. But I mean, these were three people who knew me better than anyone else on the planet.
I think they also cared more about me than anyone else on the planet at that time. And I was gobsmacked by that.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah. And of course they named [00:26:00] off all of these things and then My very close girlfriend who is sitting there, and she has a beautiful Portuguese accent. She's from Brazil, and she said, And they are all love avoidant and they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves and their cars.
She was so right! ~Yeah, it was great. Yeah. ~Yeah, so that's what happened for me then. They burst my bubble big time on that one.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the, that awareness moment of sometimes we need other people to help us see it, but the running after men ~who, ~who aren't available on some level, emotional, literal, like they're in marriages, ~um, ~Yes.
That is a part of our own, like our own avoidance to intimacy, right? It's like, ~we're, ~we are seeking out these people who on the outside, we want to attach to and commit to. But on the inside, we're so terrified of commitment that on some level, we're scanning for the people who can't really commit, because [00:27:00] if we were to attract a healthy person, that would feel so dysregulating to our system.
We aren't. Right. That we were like, no, I'm going to focus on the bad boy who doesn't want me. I'm going to chase him until I can convince him to love me. Right. That's part of the, the seeking behavior or the, the, ~um, I guess ~chasing behavior that, that comes.
Speaker 7: ~It's, you know, it is, it's part of the, uh, ~it's part of the cycle of what I think of, of love addiction.
And I think, People who suffer from that and have major attachment wounding in that way, we get there ~in different, ~from different routes, but what happens is, You know, we're born into these families where we end up feeling very abandoned, sometimes physically, emotionally, neglectful, intellectually, all those ways.
And so, for me, I worked really hard to try to figure out how not to feel abandoned in my adult life and in my relationships. If I had someone who was [00:28:00] handsome, if I had someone who, ~um, ~at least on paper, ~uh, and seemingly ~looked like they could take care of me or protect me, that made me experience what I thought was, ~um, ~what I needed, what I wanted.
But when we have this huge overarching fear of abandonment that we carry into our adult lives, we also bring with us that underlying fear and sometimes terror of intimacy. So even if we are in front of someone who is kind, who is healthy, we will struggle. I struggle, barely, in talking about what I really needed and really wanted.
I never had the experience to witness or practice what boundaries looked like in relationship in the home I grew up in. ~Uh, ~there were no boundaries. ~Or there was, you know, a lot of silent treatment. Um, ~tons and tons of intensity in the home I grew up in, relationally speaking, with what was and was not going on between my parents.
And I became addicted to [00:29:00] intensity early on. And let's just, let's just agree, I think we have to, that If you grow up in an environment where you're spoon fed, ~uh, ~tons of intensity on a daily basis, you're going to seek that and feel normal in that space in your adult relationships, whether it's in your work professionally or in your love life and in your relationships.
And that's what happened for me. These ~were very intense people. There ~were very intense people who were very unavailable in many ways. And I was too afraid. I didn't know who I was. I always went into boundary failure around this, so I didn't have my own identity carved out at the time. And if we aren't able to both respect and honor boundaries and then also utilize them in our own lives, we don't know who we are.
And then we don't possess a belief that says you actually get to talk about what you need and you want in a relationship and then you get to ask for it. So I didn't learn that. It took me a long time to learn that.
Speaker 11: [00:30:00] Okay, loves, we're going to take a pause here in this episode today, because as I continue this conversation with Heidi, we start talking about her work in the world and how she helps to support women who have been through betrayal trauma. And it was just amazing. Too good to not give it its own episode.
So part two is going to be coming next week, where we talk all about betrayal trauma and what it actually does physiologically to our body, which is why it makes it so hard to move on from being betrayed. But in today's episode, I just want to recap quickly what we talked about because Heidi's story is so beautiful and I know we covered a lot.
So from today, you know now how your family dynamics actually trigger your attachment issues, how it stems from your family dynamics. You know why your fear of being alone is keeping you stuck? in potentially trauma bonded relationships
and you know how holding on to someone's potential [00:31:00] how dating that fantasy of them is keeping you stuck also in toxic relationships So, so much good stuff here. I cannot wait for you to hear Part 2 of this conversation coming out on Wednesday. It will be Episode 67, and it is called How Betrayal Trauma Hijacks Your Brain and Nervous System and How to Break Free with Heidi Dyk Kingston, Part 2.
because we are pausing this conversation before we get to the Oracle card that Heidi helped me pull, I'm going to pull you an Oracle card specific for today. I'm just starting to shuffle the deck and asking what is the message that the listener needs to hear today?
Blank Stare came out and it is a picture of a cute little owl with big blank eyes. Let me find the message in the book and I will read you what Blank Stare has to say. [00:32:00] Blank Stare invites you to take a moment to pause. No need to react. Soak it in. Take time to process what is in front of you. Sometimes you are not sure how to respond.
You need more time to think. To speak. Blank stare gives you permission to slow down. Be thoughtful with your words and actions so that they are in alignment with your desired expression, feelings, or values. The high pressured energy of your environment or those close to you may push you to speak or act before you're ready.
It's okay to take your time. Take a breath. Gather yourself. Shoot them a blank stare until you are ready to say what you say or do what you do.
As always, this podcast is for you. You are not alone, and I will see you in part two next week.