1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,320 Good morning. 2 00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:06,640 Today is July 3rd. 3 00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:09,280 It's another gorgeous day. 4 00:00:09,280 --> 00:00:15,780 I'm ready to head out to the doctor in just a few minutes, but I thought I would start 5 00:00:15,780 --> 00:00:19,640 an episode to see where it goes, see if I could get one done. 6 00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:23,720 This is Kat Alexander, and you are listening to Unfuck Yourself. 7 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:27,120 This is a journey towards authenticity. 8 00:00:27,120 --> 00:00:38,480 So we talked about reasons people are inauthentic yesterday, and I want to play a little clip 9 00:00:38,480 --> 00:00:43,440 for you, and I'm hoping I don't get in trouble. 10 00:00:43,440 --> 00:00:46,560 Hold on, it's just going to be a little clip. 11 00:00:46,560 --> 00:00:53,760 It's by a man named Tim Alexander, and he specializes in complex trauma, and he works 12 00:00:53,760 --> 00:00:57,000 with people in recovery a lot. 13 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:00,000 Let's see if we can listen in just for a few minutes. 14 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:08,000 What we did in the very first night is understand that shame is a core belief about myself. 15 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:14,840 It's a belief about my identity, and that belief is a negative belief that something's wrong 16 00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:15,840 with me. 17 00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:16,840 I'm not good enough. 18 00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:17,840 I don't feel lovable. 19 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:22,840 I don't feel that I have any value just for being me. 20 00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:30,240 So I feel inferior less than is my normal default setting. 21 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:35,520 And we developed what that meant, where it came from, and that for basically every person 22 00:01:35,520 --> 00:01:39,320 from complex trauma, they end up with shame. 23 00:01:39,320 --> 00:01:44,680 Because once they are neglected or abused or abandoned or their needs aren't consistently 24 00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:48,320 met, they conclude it's their fault. 25 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:50,240 So I must not be good enough. 26 00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:53,000 That's why I'm being neglected and abused. 27 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:55,160 There must be something wrong with me. 28 00:01:55,160 --> 00:01:57,560 That's why I'm being neglected and abused. 29 00:01:57,560 --> 00:02:03,800 So they developed this developing self-concept that is all negative. 30 00:02:03,800 --> 00:02:09,720 What I want to do tonight is go into the next part of where does the brain then go once 31 00:02:09,720 --> 00:02:12,720 it's reached this conclusion that I'm not good enough. 32 00:02:12,720 --> 00:02:18,800 And what I want you to understand up front is this is all happening at a subconscious 33 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:19,800 level. 34 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:23,680 This isn't you sitting down consciously saying, I think I'm no good. 35 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:25,680 What am I going to do about it? 36 00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:29,800 This happens in the mind of a small child at a subconscious level. 37 00:02:29,800 --> 00:02:36,680 So the first thing that you have to understand, but there's a second conclusion, which is 38 00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:42,920 if the two people that brought me into the world have concluded that I'm not good enough, 39 00:02:42,920 --> 00:02:49,000 therefore I can be neglected or abandoned or abused, that means that anybody that gets 40 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:54,000 to know me is going to abandon me or abuse me or neglect me. 41 00:02:54,000 --> 00:03:04,800 When Shane develops a fear of abandonment, that fear becomes the main emotion that trumps 42 00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:11,960 everything else, but at a subconscious level and it's, I can't stand the pain of being 43 00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:17,080 abandoned, but I'm afraid if people get to know me they'll abandon me again and that 44 00:03:17,080 --> 00:03:19,080 scares me to death. 45 00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:25,480 So what am I going to do to never be abandoned? 46 00:03:25,480 --> 00:03:29,200 So anyway, his name is Tim Fletcher. 47 00:03:29,200 --> 00:03:30,920 You can find him on YouTube. 48 00:03:30,920 --> 00:03:33,800 He has a great series on complex trauma. 49 00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:38,640 But while I was listening to that last night I was like, ding, ding, ding, that is so 50 00:03:38,640 --> 00:03:39,640 me. 51 00:03:39,640 --> 00:03:50,640 So a little bit about me, I was adopted and early on, like at 30 days after being in foster 52 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:53,200 care for 30 days. 53 00:03:53,200 --> 00:04:04,360 And you know, all families are complex and my father had some issues with being emotionally 54 00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:10,320 vulnerable, we'll say he was kind of cold and distant until he got Parkinson's later 55 00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:15,440 on in life and he became wonderful at that point. 56 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:24,440 My mom was what you would call a codependent, but I never felt good enough or worthy to 57 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:31,680 even exist and I'm unpacking that now at 55. 58 00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:39,200 And while I wasn't necessarily abused, like I wasn't abused physically, there are some 59 00:04:39,200 --> 00:04:43,520 other things that are technically debatable. 60 00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:52,920 I was left in a position weekly in middle school where I felt like my life was in danger 61 00:04:52,920 --> 00:04:59,040 and I shared that with my parents and they continued to leave me there and I recently 62 00:04:59,040 --> 00:05:06,560 remembered other people had told them as well and they still left me there weekly. 63 00:05:06,560 --> 00:05:13,720 So that's kind of neglect anyway. 64 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:22,760 So I have some of those symptoms he talks about and what he goes on to say is that the 65 00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:32,920 brain comes up with these solutions as a child, never be vulnerable or so weakness, never 66 00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:33,920 be authentic. 67 00:05:33,920 --> 00:05:36,000 I mean, first of all, it does no good. 68 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:41,560 You tell people what's going on and you're very vulnerable and nobody's listening and 69 00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:54,960 it is like too upsetting for a child to continue to feel in fear and vulnerable and not being 70 00:05:54,960 --> 00:05:57,200 hurt and protected. 71 00:05:57,200 --> 00:05:59,000 So we shut things down. 72 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:04,240 We shut our warning systems down essentially. 73 00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:12,720 We compensate and try to become a hero or a gesture, something to be accepted. 74 00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:23,760 I strove to be a straight A student and I was on every athletic team in middle school 75 00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:28,280 and I lettered a couple times in high school sports. 76 00:06:28,280 --> 00:06:30,480 I was a class officer. 77 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:32,280 We had things like that back then. 78 00:06:32,280 --> 00:06:34,560 I was yearbook editor. 79 00:06:34,560 --> 00:06:42,720 I made the who's who in high school, students in America and college several times. 80 00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:48,120 But I literally was told one day in an argument with my father when I said, you know, you've 81 00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:50,640 never said you love us. 82 00:06:50,640 --> 00:06:54,960 And he said, you've never done anything to earn my love. 83 00:06:54,960 --> 00:06:57,560 And it wasn't like, oh, poor me. 84 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:01,040 It was like relief because that's what I'd been feeling. 85 00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:04,600 I've been knocking myself out and I always felt not good enough. 86 00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:06,360 And there he was saying it. 87 00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:08,240 Now he may not have meant it. 88 00:07:08,240 --> 00:07:11,760 He may have just been arguing and just saying something. 89 00:07:11,760 --> 00:07:18,280 But what he said resonated deeply with me. 90 00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:27,680 One of the things Tim says is we develop masks and we become perfectionists and people-pleasers 91 00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:29,840 like I did. 92 00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:30,840 We lie. 93 00:07:30,840 --> 00:07:37,840 We keep secrets from the family or for the family or for others to gain their confidence 94 00:07:37,840 --> 00:07:39,400 like what a great person I am. 95 00:07:39,400 --> 00:07:45,200 I'm holding your secret, even if it's a dangerous one. 96 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:47,080 We isolate. 97 00:07:47,080 --> 00:07:50,200 We put up walls. 98 00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:56,760 We focus on our image and externals, how the world sees us. 99 00:07:56,760 --> 00:08:04,040 We try to control things to get our needs met and to keep others from seeing our shame. 100 00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:06,160 And we become self-sufficient. 101 00:08:06,160 --> 00:08:08,840 Don't depend on other people. 102 00:08:08,840 --> 00:08:12,960 They're not going to be there for us. 103 00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:18,080 This is all he says that we do to keep from being abandoned. 104 00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:26,200 And I would say it closely correlates to fear of rejection because of course we're scared 105 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:30,160 if we're rejected we're going to be abandoned. 106 00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:40,480 So that's a little bit about what some other people have to say. 107 00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:50,480 I would like to just briefly go over fear of rejection which was the number one reason 108 00:08:50,480 --> 00:08:55,800 yesterday about why being authentic is scary. 109 00:08:55,800 --> 00:09:00,680 Being authentic means showing others who you truly are which can lead to the fear that 110 00:09:00,680 --> 00:09:07,600 they might not accept you like you and I would add stick around. 111 00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:10,440 So we go into people pleasing. 112 00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:12,760 We mask our true feelings. 113 00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:16,080 We withhold personal information. 114 00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:19,000 We become over achievers. 115 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:21,760 We avoid intimacy. 116 00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:24,160 We self-sabotage. 117 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:27,120 We adopt false personas. 118 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:32,360 We have excessive modesty or humility. 119 00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:35,080 We socially withdraw. 120 00:09:35,080 --> 00:09:38,720 We constantly seek reassurance. 121 00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:42,120 We tend towards perfectionism. 122 00:09:42,120 --> 00:09:45,400 We have habits of overthinking things. 123 00:09:45,400 --> 00:09:52,040 We excessively apologize even when it has nothing to do with us. 124 00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:55,360 We become inauthentic, in our agreeableness. 125 00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:59,120 In other words, we lie for approval. 126 00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:04,400 People say things we don't agree but we're like, yeah, yeah, uh-huh. 127 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:07,600 We have non-confrontational behavior. 128 00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:10,720 We avoid conflict. 129 00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:13,520 We have very passive behavior. 130 00:10:13,520 --> 00:10:16,520 We become attention seeking. 131 00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:23,200 And attention seeking doesn't have to be on star level, Kardashian level. 132 00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:25,200 Look at me, look at me, look at me. 133 00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:37,920 It could be as simple as dropping a sentence into a conversation like when I was in my 134 00:10:37,920 --> 00:10:45,360 twenties, I dated somebody who was in the band flank and we went blah, blah, blah, blah, 135 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:46,360 blah. 136 00:10:46,360 --> 00:10:51,800 It didn't actually get no big deal but you know people are freaking impressed. 137 00:10:51,800 --> 00:10:57,400 Didn't change who I became, you know? 138 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:03,440 Pretending that we're indifferent to things when we're not, neglecting our own personal 139 00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:12,200 needs, it's a huge one for me, and frequent humor or deflection. 140 00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:26,200 Those are the 22 or 20 ways that people can act out because of their fear of rejection. 141 00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:31,320 Tomorrow we're going to look at the first one, people pleasing. 142 00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:35,600 It's a huge one that many people suffer from. 143 00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:38,080 I would love to hear your comments. 144 00:11:38,080 --> 00:11:45,000 Do you relate to any of the things listed today? 145 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:48,560 I will drop some of them in the episode notes. 146 00:11:48,560 --> 00:11:54,000 If you feel like commenting that something resonates with you and hits home, great. 147 00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:56,440 Comment, share your stories, reach out. 148 00:11:56,440 --> 00:11:58,200 Let's build this community. 149 00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:04,200 Anyway, like I said, we're just going over some of the blocks that keep us from being 150 00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:06,040 authentic. 151 00:12:06,040 --> 00:12:08,400 If you have more, let me know. 152 00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:13,960 I'm going right now, get ahead out, have a great day, do a couple things to lift my 153 00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:17,400 depress later on, like go for a walk. 154 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:22,000 I actually just joined a social group. 155 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:24,720 We're not focusing on anything heavy. 156 00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:29,760 It's just a bunch of people from my local town that all know each other and want to 157 00:12:29,760 --> 00:12:37,120 get together and have some clean and sober fun. 158 00:12:37,120 --> 00:12:43,760 We might go kayaking this month, but I've got to ask my doctor because right now that 159 00:12:43,760 --> 00:12:54,480 bad eye, it is open now about halfway unless I forcibly closed it or shut my eyes. 160 00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:55,480 I'm not sure. 161 00:12:55,480 --> 00:12:56,480 I'm really excited. 162 00:12:56,480 --> 00:13:01,800 I still want to go kayaking, but because I haven't been in like three decades and it 163 00:13:01,800 --> 00:13:05,920 was so much fun, but here's the thing. 164 00:13:05,920 --> 00:13:12,760 What happens if it accidentally turns over and I get that like water in this bad eye? 165 00:13:12,760 --> 00:13:19,360 I'm just thinking the doctor is going to tell me now and it's going to crush my heart, but 166 00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:20,360 I'll live. 167 00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:21,680 I can still go to the like. 168 00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:23,880 It would be fun. 169 00:13:23,880 --> 00:13:28,400 Time to grow up, put your big girl panties on, pay the price. 170 00:13:28,400 --> 00:13:30,680 Anyway, I hope you have a fun day. 171 00:13:30,680 --> 00:13:32,880 Let me know what you're doing today. 172 00:13:32,880 --> 00:13:35,680 Hopefully, this is day three in a row. 173 00:13:35,680 --> 00:13:37,080 Hopefully, July 4th. 174 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:39,200 I will do it again. 175 00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:40,200 See you soon. 176 00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:41,200 Oh, like and subscribe. 177 00:13:41,200 --> 00:13:54,520 That would be awesome.