Change the Dynamic of Your Relationships Part I

[Intro] Hello and welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host, Corinne Powell.  I'm an intuitive guide and I absolutely love helping people to heal from within so that they can create a life that they love, a life that they enjoy.

We weren't meant to just tolerate and get through life. We were meant to thrive and enjoy the life we're living. Of course, we will have seasons and moments that are difficult and challenging.  

And the beauty of it is that we can be supported in those moments. I am here to be an aid and a guide to support you. And I hope that you will enjoy not only today's episode, but some of the past episodes if you haven't heard them yet. 

On this podcast, I talk about all things inner wellness. We also sprinkle in some spirituality and parenting because as a mom to three kids, parenting is a big part of my life. I hope that you enjoy the episode and that there's at least one thing you'll pull from it and start to implement into your own life. 

If you want to follow me in other ways, you can find me on Instagram, ⁠@corinne_changeradically⁠, or on Facebook, Change Radically. Would you do me a favor and share this podcast with your friends if you hear an episode that resonates with you? And would you also go ahead and give me a rating and review my podcast? It would mean so much to me and I would appreciate it. 

I hope that you enjoy the episode and that we connect. 

Corinne Powell: Hello friend. And today's episode is taken from a live event that I hosted for my members where we were talking all about relationship health. And so I hope that what you hear today is extremely helpful.  

And listen to the whole episode. You're going to be able to piece it together and you may want to re-listen because again, these were excerpts that were taken and put together. So it's really dynamic, but it's going to be more so if you listen all the way through. 

I hope that you benefit and you enjoy it. 

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Corinne Powell: Because again, the goal isn't that, oh no, we're never triggered. We're never having a relationship conflict.  That is not the goal, but the goal is to be doing what you're doing through it. I'm aware of why I'm making these choices. I'm figuring out, wait, if I don't want to make these choices in the future, what do I do to help myself, and then talking it through with that other person.

And usually through that type of thing, we actually become more connected, whether it's to ourself or to the other people. So very proud of you as much as I know it's not easy. What you're talking about is still, I'm sure even sensitive. 

That's true. It is not always productive to pick up a conversation, even when you both might be in a more settled spot. You're right in saying, you know where it's going to go. When you have enough history with somebody, and it often goes back to that place of we never resolve this, they're not willing to hear me out or see my point of view. Because we both, both parties need to be able to hear each other out and see their viewpoint to have an effective, productive conversation.

So when that isn't possible, I do think it's worth not always revisiting it, even at another time when emotions seem like they're more settled.

So what's the point of understanding, identifying our triggers? There's probably many points. The one I'm going to bring up is that the more we understand, the more we can be mindful. As we start to feel, whatever physical sensations you feel when you're triggered, you know, if you're not sure, just start to become aware of your body in those moments when you're triggered.

Maybe your heart is going to be racing. Maybe you're going to figure it out, but, or you might already know, but when you start to realize, okay, I'm triggered, you're able to practice. You can either use the grounding practice, I mentioned the workbook or anything that works for you.

I just put something there. So you have a one idea. You know, the other day, something was happening at my house with my kids. It was probably like very loud. And if I'm not emotionally flashing back, noise is no problem for me. If I'm stuck in an emotional flashback, even for a couple of days, I'm very sensitive to noise.

But it was just in the quick moment. And I said, so instead of exploding at whoever was making the noise, I said, I just got to step away for a minute. And I just walked out of that room into another room.

As you guys know, I kind of do the shaking thing with my hands. I reminded myself, I just walked back and forth in that other room. And I reminded myself, you know, I basically spoke to my inner child.

I probably put my hands on my heart just because it's something I do. And said, you know, I know you're feeling overwhelmed, whatever it was in that moment that I needed to say to myself. And I reminded myself that I was safe, that everything was OK.

I let some tears out because I connected with the little girl who was feeling scared, who was feeling unprotected or insecure. And then I was able to integrate back in with everyone else and not feel as sensitive to what was going on. I mean, it was very quick.

It was probably like within a minute. I'm not saying it always needs to be. I didn't feel fully settled. I felt settled enough to go back. Sometimes it takes longer. And I'm just bringing that up because instead of blaming someone else or saying to one of my kids, I need you to be quiet right now.  I was able to own it. 

And if you've always been blamed, I almost hesitate to say owning things because sometimes we've been so blamed that people have wanted us to own everything, even stuff that wasn't ours. But I use that word because I feel like it really does allow us to be empowered when we can own something because then we can create change.

We can actually do something with what we know instead of saying, well, I just need you to be quiet for me to be OK. If I needed everyone to be quiet for me to be OK, I no longer actually am powerful in that situation because I am dependent on everybody else's actions. And so that's why I bring up what's your trigger? 

Do you know what's going on below it? What your belief is below it? Because once we're more aware, we're more sensitive, we can step back in the middle of a conversation where we're still listening, but we're also aware of what's going on for us.

And we can recognize, oh, gosh, it's probably it's possibly not their words. Oh, it's because what they're saying is making me feel this sort of way, and I felt this sort of way in other relationships where I really wasn't cared for. Because at some point, the beliefs that you have that your voice doesn't matter, that someone's not listening to you, that they want you to own something before they own something, all of that is probably very true to experiences you had and very valid.

You actually experience people not caring about your voice, not owning their stuff until  you owned yours, minimizing your feelings. And I was so glad when someone validated that to me because I didn't realize that sometimes when I'm sensitive to noises, when I'm sensitive to different things going on, that it's because I'm stuck in an emotional flashback. And it may be something triggered me and I couldn't get back to feeling safe within my own body and grounded.

And I was stuck there for a couple of days or a few days or a week. So, yeah, and you'll know you're in an emotional flashback when you feel hypersensitive to just stuff that normally doesn't ruffle your feathers, stuff that you usually feel like, ah, I can get over that. It's no big deal.

You get like you start getting in your head and you're like thinking about what somebody said. You're replaying a conversation multiple times. You are sensitive to whatever it might be. It could be people's touch, the noises, different sensations just really set you off. 

And yeah, so that's often when we're stuck in an emotional flashback. And it's important in those moments to have compassion towards ourselves, not to say, why am I here? I need to get out of this.  But more to say, I recognize that there's probably my inner child showing up that echo from the past. And that part of me is feeling unsafe, hurt, neglected, all sorts of ways that you legitimately felt as a kid. You're now feeling in the present day.

And as we recognize and have compassion on ourself, use the grounding practice, if you  want, that's in the workbook, it can help to, I mean, it might mean, you know, doing  more than that. It might mean delving in with a session or connecting with a friend, but it can help us to try to get back into present day. Emotionally flashing back is when we're living in the present, but we're really stuck in the past emotionally. And our body is remembering, you know? 

So I was just saying how, you know, when we feel triggered and we feel like either our voice doesn't matter or somebody doesn't care what we have to say, we actually experienced that at some time in our life. And it was very valid. The tricky part is when we start to assume that everybody else is treating us in the same way that we were originally treated.

And then we project onto them what really may not be right for us to project onto them. You know, I could, we could even interpret a look the wrong way because the look reminds us of somebody in the past who really, you know, was harsh towards us and had that similar look. Or I know there's times I've passed somebody and I just have this vibe that, man, they don't like me. And then I realize, no, they actually don't, they're not comfortable with themselves. They don't like themselves. And I'm feeling that energy from them.

It's actually that they're unsure I like them and they're feeling insecure, but I could presume something on them because of something I'm projecting. And literally for, for our psyches, for our mind, our body, our spirit, when we look at memories that once were, and we infuse them with this love and this care, and then we see new things in the memories, or we have new experiences. Like the memories are malleable, they're changeable.

So the memory is actually being changed as love and compassion are being infused into those memories. So you don't lose the memory. You can still see what happens, but the feelings change. So instead of feeling the heaviness that lifted, he still felt sadness, but he didn't feel the same extreme heaviness. So this is, you know, this is a real thing. This isn't just a woo woo, like what's going on? Like literally to our bodies, to our psyches, things change.

And then we leave and you can revisit that memory. I mean, I have memories from years, you know, like that I found healing in like years ago. And I can still tell you, I can look at those memories and they don't hold the same trauma and the same pain.

So I know it's long lasting. There's also sometimes layers. So sometimes you look at a memory, you feel better, but you don't feel as good as you want to feel.

So then you go back to it at another time and you get a little more healing to come to you in that experience. But what just happened is a real thing. It's something that each one of us can experience. And it's something that really scientifically does work with. Well, and then the challenge is we're each bringing our past experiences into a relationship. So, you know, we're feeling a certain way. The other person is feeling a certain way. And sometimes we're playing off of each other, which it's tough. It's a hard, it's the reason I think relationships are so complicated.

And I'm not laughing to make light of it, but it is heavy. All right. So you may have noticed in the workbook, some of what I first talk about is really to create a relationship with yourself.

And it does progress from what we had talked about last week. But really, as we create a relationship with ourself, that is less toxic. When we understand the reason why we feel the way we do, why we're triggered, what is the underlying belief that we carry? What is our response to relationship tension? Then we can actually relate in a totally different level.

So when I'm talking now, I'll just say with Evan, because I probably have the most conflict with him because we're the closest, we do life together. We, yeah. So a lot of times I will say, you know what? I'm feeling this sort of way because I'm feeling insecure.

I'm not trying to blame you. For how I'm feeling right now. And it means he doesn't feel as defensive. If he can believe me, sometimes he's not sure, which is valid. Are you really sure? Because he feels perhaps like I'm blaming him. But I've learned that works really well because actually reminds me.

Oh, I'm actually not feeling how I'm feeling because of his actions. I'm most cases, most cases. There are times when it's directly because of someone's actions.

A lot of times though, it's because we have experienced similar responses in the past. Similar ways that we've been hurt. So then we're living it out in this present relationship.

And we may be emotionally flashing back to the past. So it becomes this empowering piece because no longer is everybody else able to manipulate how we're doing emotionally. They can, again, it's a process, but they can be acting in whatever way.

And if we can learn to be secure and feel safe within our own body, we're going to be able to navigate the conversations and the experiences with other people in a whole different level.  So that leads me to this point of us discussing, what are some of the biggest triggers that you have? What seems to happen right before you start to feel an extreme emotion? 

Client: Is it like physically what happens or like mentally? Like what we're thinking?

Corinne Powell: It could be either. I'm asking that question to help us identify more about why we're being triggered.

Because we're going to look at like, okay, this is what triggers me. So then my underlying belief is this, or my past experience was this. So it could be anything that you feel is valid.

Client: If that's where I struggle, sometimes I don't know deep in myself, what is triggering. Maybe I feel like I'm not being heard. Okay.

I know it's not about me, but I think a lot of times I feel like I'm not being heard, I guess, like an all relationship. 

Corinne Powell:Yeah, you, you've identified that's the underlying belief. That's the reason you feel triggered. That's perfect. You actually already determined what it is. That's underneath it all.

Client: That makes sense. Because now that you're saying, I-

[Ending] We've come to the end. What did you think about what you heard? I hope that there's something you pull from today's episode and start implementing it into your life.

Create the change that you want to see, the change that you hear about. You have the opportunity to transform your life. And I'm ready to link arms with you and to help and guide you to the life that you want to live.

If you resonated with what you heard today and it touched you, would you share it with your friends? Would you also go ahead and rate my podcast and write a written review? It would mean so much to me. 

I hope that we'll connect whether it's for a session or just to connect because I enjoy meeting new people. You can find me on Instagram, ⁠@corinne_changeradically⁠ or on Facebook Change Radically. You can also always email me corinne@changeradically.com. If you have thoughts, questions or anything that you just want to talk about, send me an email. 

I hope that you have a wonderful week, but no matter what your week is like in the moments that are quiet. Maybe it's when you pillow your head at night or when you're driving in the car or taking  a walk, or maybe it's going to be in the midst of the chaos with your children or the craziness of work. I hope that you'll remember how significant you are, that there is meaning and value to your life. And that I, for one, am so glad that you're alive.

Catch you again next week.