WHAT THIS EPISODES ABOUT…
So today we’re going to talk about one of the most prevalent defense mechanisms that we women tend to use in relationships.
I call it stuffing, stuffing your feelings versus acknowledging them, processing them and speaking them to your partner or not just your partner. It could be your mom, your dad, your best friend, your kids, your boss. Oh yeah, we women are the true Queens of pushing our feelings away because they may make someone else uncomfortable or because we don’t like conflict or because someone taught us that our feelings don’t matter or because we have been told we are too emotional. We should stop that, shut down our feelings. Or it could be that we are afraid to share our feelings for fear of the repercussions of doing that. We fear that if we share our feelings, the other person may punish us in some way. Now let’s add another piece to this stuffing. I call it having no voice. You not just step away your feelings, you stuff away, your needs, your desires, your opinions.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CONTENT DISCUSSED…
• Guy Free Podcast: https://guyfree.com
• Guy Free Facebook Group: https://guyfreeworkingonme.com
• Shauna’s website: https://www.workingonme.com
KEYNOTES DISCUSSED:
• We cannot give to them what we truly want to give. We don’t have the energy. We don’t have the stamina, we can’t think as clearly as we need to in order to take care. Anyone else? Not to mention ourselves. (03:02)
• We get into unhealthy, hurtful relationships and because we’re not self-aware yet or because we don’t honor our self yet, we choose defense mechanisms that help us to survive. (05:24)
• You learn that your opinions do not matter. They won’t be heard or definitely not honored. You learn to take a back seat to everyone else and you put yourself last. You have stuffed down your own needs, emotions and desires and opinions. (08:24)
• But if you can see that you are worthy of having opinions, feelings, and needs, then that’s the first step. Take that step. Say it. Say it loud. Say it proud. I am worthy. (11:42)
• Whatever it is, I want you to look at it and see if it’s serving you now in the life you are leading now or if it is hurting you. (14:54)
WHEN DOES IT AIR…
March 07, 2020
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT…
Hello and welcome to Guy Free Working on Me. A woman’s journey to self-awareness. This is a great moment in your life, a moment where you have decided to stop taking care of everyone else and to start to take care of yourself. Stick with me through these podcasts, and you will take the best ride of your life. So, Guy Free Working on Me is not meant to be a permanent lifestyle, whether you’re single or in a relationship. As you listen to these podcasts, this is meant to be a moment in your life where you learn how to stop basing your worth, your happiness, and your self-esteem on having a man at your side. This is going to be an all-out redesigning the who you are, who you want to be, and what you feel inside. Are you ready? Let’s go.
Hello everyone. I’m Shauna Hoffman. Welcome. First, I want to thank all of you who have been so kind in posting your thoughts and reviews on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or on the Guy Free Working on Me Facebook group. I love it when this sisterhood comes together to share our growth and more importantly, our voices. Okay, let’s do right now what we’re all here to do. Focus on you. Kudos to you for taking a little time out of your week to escape on this adventure, this journey, this excursion, and to the beautiful woman that you are and the one you want to be. It’s so interesting that we women tend to feel guilty for taking time for ourselves. God help that we should put ourselves.
First. Hopefully some of you have learned that this is the only way to live your life and truly have enough in your body, heart, and mind to give to others.
Me first, say it loud ladies, at least for the duration of this podcast. Can you say it me first? Wow. I think I hear some groans out there in podcast land coming straight at me. Oh no, I can’t do that. Put me first. That’s so selfish. I’m a giver. I love to give to others. Listen, there is nothing wrong with that. If and only if you have given to yourself first, you cannot take care of others if you’re on empty. We’ve all heard that analogy about the airplane as oxygen masks, but I’m going to share with you once again this story to jumpstart the permission you give yourself for the rest of this podcast to make this time all about and for you. Remember this one? Here it is. You’re flying on a plane with a child. The oxygen mask falls. Who do you put it on first?
The child or you? You. Why? Because when you’re flailing around with no oxygen to breathe, trying to help others, you’re going to fail when you put it on you first. You have all the strength, all the wisdom and all the heart to save others. Damn. But that sounds so selfish. I mean, shouldn’t I put my child or my mom or my husband or my neighbor first? Uh, no. So, let’s take this analogy into our everyday lives when we’re exhausted. Not centered, worried and focused on everyone else. We cannot give to them what we truly want to give. We don’t have the energy. We don’t have the stamina; we can’t think as clearly as we need to in order to take care. Anyone else? Not to mention ourselves. This is when we get sick, but most importantly, when we’re on empty, this is when depression sets in.
You’ve heard me say it before and let’s be serious here. When you’re in a depression, it’s hard enough to save yourself. Forget about saving others, so there you have it. Me first. When you put yourself first, honor yourself, listen to yourself. Check in with yourself, pamper yourself, spoil yourself, love yourself. You have a huge store of love in you to give to others. Okay, now say it ladies, me first. Okay. Defense mechanisms. So today we’re going to talk about defense mechanisms. What are they? Think of it this way. It’s what psychological ways we use to defend ourselves against harm. Most importantly, how do we defend ourselves against harm in relationships? That’s what we’re going to talk about. All right? If you’re versed at all in psychology from school or from your past, you’re going to remember Freud’s list of seven, eight or nine different defense mechanisms.
The numbers changed depending on who you’re reading, but you remember words like repression, projection, no worries. We’re not going to go there. Today we’re jumping into one of my biggest defense mechanisms on my list and how you sabotage your relationship with others and yourselves when you fall back on this one. Here’s the thing. We learned defense mechanisms again to defend us against harm. We learned it as children or early in life, or we get into an unhealthy, hurtful relationship and because we’re not self-aware yet or we don’t honor our self yet, we choose defense mechanisms that help us to survive. So, let me say that again. We get into unhealthy, hurtful relationships and because we’re not self-aware yet or because we don’t honor our self yet, we choose defense mechanisms that help us to survive. So today we’re going to talk about one of the most prevalent defense mechanisms that we women tend to use in relationships.
I call it stuffing, stuffing your feelings versus acknowledging them, processing them and speaking them to your partner or not just your partner. It could be your mom, your dad, your best friend, your kids, your boss. Oh yeah, we women are the true Queens of pushing our feelings away because they may make someone else uncomfortable or because we don’t like conflict or because someone taught us that our feelings don’t matter or because we have been told we are too emotional. We should stop that, shut down our feelings. Or it could be that we are afraid to share our feelings for fear of the repercussions of doing that. We fear that if we share our feelings, the other person may punish us in some way. Now let’s add another piece to this stuffing. I call it having no voice. You not just step away your feelings, you stuff away, your needs, your desires, your opinions.
You have no voice. I want you to think about your last relationship and I want you to see if this is a defense mechanism that you embrace or it owns you and why it may be in a very subtle way that you don’t even know or it may be something that you’re quite aware of. Let me go through a few examples from some women’s stories that will help you see how stuffing may have played a part in your relationships. Let’s say you come from a family where you were discouraged to share your feelings. You know, children should be seen and not heard. Or if you were hurt or angry or sad, you weren’t allowed to show it. Oh, get over it. There are people who have much bigger problems than you do. You have a roof over your head. You should be grateful or what have you.
Had another family member that was so emotional that there was no space for you to share your emotions. You know, mom was a screamer or a crier, or your brother was so emotional that the only way to feel safe was to stuff your emotions down. Or dad could get so angry that no one shared their feelings for fear of his reactions. You learn to silence yourself. You don’t speak up. You learn that your opinions do not matter. They won’t be heard or definitely not honored. You learn to take a back seat to everyone else and you put yourself last. You have stuffed down your own needs, emotions and desires and opinions. So much so that you are literally like a stuffed animal on a shelf with no voice. Many people who come from this kind of family dynamics have learned the stuffing mechanism to survive and this is what happens next.
You choose that same role and learn defense mechanism with your friends and your lovers. You put everyone else’s needs first. You keep quiet, you choose to take a back seat or actually no seat at all. Maybe it was not your family that has squelched your voice. Maybe it was your mate. Often if you’re in a relationship with a narcissist or an alcoholic or with an abuser, you have no choice then to practice stuffing because if you do speak up, you are truly in danger. So, this defense mechanism defending you against harm is doing exactly what it’s meant to do. It’s protecting you from the harm of abusive partners. So now take a minute to think about this. Think about stuffing was your upbringing such that you learned stuffing where you in a relationship that caused you to stuff your needs and emotions to feel safe. If you need to pause this podcast and think about it or journal it, do so you can always come back.
My hope is that if it was the abuse and you are now away from this kind of partner, you now can learn the tools to choose you. Or if you’re still with the abuser and listening to this right now listening to this podcast, I am hoping that you can find a path to get help to protect you and to honor you. Here’s the beauty of defense mechanisms. Now, as a woman, as a grown woman, that you are now who is on this path to self-awareness. Because you’re listening to this podcast and on a path to genuine self, you can now decide, decide if stuffing serves you in your life now or if it has no use to you anymore. If you are safe, if you are now guy free. If you are on your magical journey to happiness, do. Let me ask you this.
Is it time to dump this stuffing defense mechanism? Are you ready? Are you willing? What would it feel like? What would it look like? Can you, can you see that stuffing your needs, emotions and opinions no longer serve you and your happiness? The real, real, real, real answer ladies, is hell yes, you can dump it. I won’t pretend that is not going to be hard or that it won’t be uncomfortable. Truthfully, it’s going to feel awkward, weird. But if you can see that you are worthy of having opinions, feelings, and needs, then that’s the first step. Take that step. Say it. Say it loud. Say it proud. I am worthy. Then as you go through life and your feelings come up, you can feel them. You can process them and either choose them or let them go and just watch that stuffed animal on the shelf.
Come back to life. You know, I had a client that had been with an abuser for 15 years. She finally had the strength to leave him, which is truly a miraculous accomplishment. I was so happy for her, but the pleaser, the no voice, the stuffer was still there. She told me about a story of when she went on a trip with her girlfriend, her first trip, without this relationship, she was so excited to go, but for the life of her, she swore that it didn’t matter to her what they did on this trip. She would tell the friend, I don’t care. Whatever you want to do is fine with me. She kept the friend, kept making all the plans. Finally, her friend realized this and said, tomorrow, unless you plan something or tell me what you want to do, we will do nothing. My client was floored.
She was uncomfortable. She was even a little scared. She was definitely nervous, but she looked inside herself and she realized that she did have a really fun thing that she wanted to do. She wanted to go horseback riding on the beach, so she said it. She said it and her friends squealed with excitement. Not only did her friend loved the idea, she was so happy for her friend that she found her voice. In my book, I talk about this when I talk about the adaptive child in all of us. It’s the side of us that chooses to adapt all of our needs to align with everyone else because we think we feel better when we do, but in all actuality, it’s one of the number one contributors to low self-esteem and worse, like I said before, to depression, suppressing our own needs and longings and joys for everyone else sends a message, not just to them, but to ourselves that we are not worthy. Somewhere you learn that, but from here on out, I am going to make it my biggest goal on this podcast to help you understand that you are so fricking worthy.
I love saying that. Okay, let’s lighten this up for a minute. Let’s see. Women, we tend to do this in the most minuscule ways with our partners. Is it part of our way of being coy when we meet attractive feminine? Is it part of our conditioning as a woman? Is it really a family learned or societal expectation that a woman’s needs are supposed to come last? It’s probably a little bit of all of the above. Whatever it is, I want you to look at it and see if it’s serving you now in the life you are leading now or if it is hurting you. I had a client and this other client; I loved this lady. She’s so loved to let her kids in her hubby pick the restaurants that they go to at night. This family actually dined out three times a week.
They were working, working parents, so they dined out all the time, but every single time without fail, the kids and her husband always chose sushi. Now she loves sushi. She’ll admit it, but she was sick to death of it. It she never told him. It was more important to keep them happy than to speak up. So, what do you think was your homework assignment that week? Yep. Choose a restaurant that was not a sushi restaurant and tell them that’s where they’re going. No questions asked. Oh my God, you would think I was asking her to build an airplane or something. She was terrified and uncomfortable and had so much guilt before she did it. But guess what ladies? She did it. The kids and hubby or shocked of course. And worse than that, they tried to get her to go to her quote unquote favorite sushi restaurant.
Come on mommy. No, it’s your favorite. But she stood strong and she finally had that pasta dinner that she had been dreaming of for years. So now I want you to think about your own stuffing defense mechanism. Is it big? Is it small? Do you do it with everyone or just certain people? Think about your mate right now. Do you do it with your mate or your past mates? Do you do it with your parents, your children? Is it just certain people or is it actually something that you have learned, and you do so much because it makes you feel happy?
Does it really make you feel happier? Does it make you feel discounted? Does it make you feel worthy of having your own opinions, needs and desires? Does it make you feel guilty? Is there any part of that defense mechanism that you’re willing to change? Again, I’m going to ask you, is it working for you or not stuffing? Come on ladies. See if you can let it go. All right. We’re going to talk more about defense mechanisms in the next few podcasts, but for today, I want to leave you with some quotes. I love to do that. I’m going to put these up on the guide for you Facebook group. Just go to guyfreeworkingonme.com to find them. And while you’re there, please join the group. Put in some responses. Tell me what you’re thinking. Tell me how you, how you felt about stuffing.
Tell me how you are doing on your journey to self-awareness. Okay. Listen up and enjoy. To gain self-respect, you have to put yourself first. Lori Myers, I that could be like a meme on Instagram, Facebook everywhere else, and it’s been said by a million different people. I’m going to say it again. To gain self-respect, you have to put yourself first. I like this one. Don’t wait for a crisis to realize what matters most. Put yourself first right now, because right now is all we have. That’s by a woman by the name of Brittany Burgunder. Mandy Hale says, find yourself first like yourself first. Love yourself first, and friendship and love will naturally find you. All right. I’m going to piggyback on that statement and I’m going to add a few words. Healthy friendship and healthy love. We’ll finally find you. Here’s my favorite. When you care for yourself first, the world will also find you worthy of care.
Thank you, ladies. Thank you for today. Now go be good to yourselves. Listen to yourselves. Love yourselves. Feed yourselves good food. Get lots of sleep, because if you don’t, nobody will.
Thank you for joining me today on the Guy Free podcast. My hope is that you leave this podcast inspired, fired up and ready to take that next step on the magical journey of self-awareness, and then you come back and join us again. Oh, and if you can do me a quick favor, please leave me a five-star review over on iTunes. I gained so much from reading the reviews and getting feedback from my listeners. Each week I’m going to choose one special person who’s left me a review to win my book Guy Free Working on Me. That was the book that started it all. Make sure you add your name to the review, and I’ll reach out to you if you’re the winner. Thanks again for spending your time with me today. Be sure to visit me on the Guy Free Working on Me Facebook page, and on WorkingonMe.com for past episodes and insight into the fabulous journey to you.