Hello, listener. This is episode 411 of the Love Your Life Show, and I’m so excited you’re listening in to this episode. This is one of those where I was just having so many great thoughts and real-life moments while I was walking, so I just pushed record and I’m bringing it to you in real-time. This is one of those where Susie really is helping you. I’m a life coach, but I’m also living this life, and I’m bringing to you real-life experience. I think you’ll get a lot out of this, especially if you’re in a relationship. Listen in, and thanks for being here.

Hi, this is the Love Your Life Show with Susie Pettit, certified life and wellness coach. Join Susie as she helps you with your wellness and mindset so you can live a life you love. Let’s go, Warriors!
The Reality of Deep Relationship Work

Hello, dear ones. I’m coming on here with some real-life growth. It’s one of those “come with me” podcasts that I sometimes do, telling you sort of where I am, what my journey is, and what I’ve recently been working on, versus a “like, I have this all figured out” approach. I mean, I never have it all figured out, but a lot of the stuff I’ve been through (you know, parenting, teens, divorce) I’m really speaking from a place of refined expertise. I’ve been through it, it’s been many years, I’ve learned from it, I’ve researched it, and I’ve come out the other side.

This is one where I’m still in it, I’m still living it. This is my marriage, my marital relationship, and the relationship work where the deepest work is done. You know, we marry to resolve all of our childhood wounds. You can do so much work individually, which so many of my dear warrior listeners do, myself included, and you can get to a place where… well, that’s where I’m always helping my clients.

I help a lot of people sort of in the “should I stay or should I go” stage of a relationship. Then, either way their relationship goes, we do a lot of self and inner work, reflection, and growth. Whether you stay or go, it’s never all about the other person because we also have a responsibility in there. So, we do a lot of work on learning about ourselves and figuring ourselves out.

Then we get into a stage where we sort of reach this growth plateau. If you’ve left the relationship, you’re like, “Okay, I’m ready for something new.” Or, if you’re still in the relationship, the relationship looks different because you both have grown. Either way, the relationship is a growth container. It pushes us into our next level of growth. I say this, and I know it at my core; it’s a really healthy mindset. You go into a relationship knowing this, that your relationship is here to trigger you, to push you to heal those wounds, and to evolve at that next level. It’s like a growing adult container. And yet, when I’m feeling it, it’s like, “Wait, what’s going on?” I’ve just been feeling that lately.
The Empty Nest Stage & Relationship Curves

Backing up a bit, this is my new growth that I have seen in this next stage of my marital container. Paul and I have been together, I guess, for 10 years now. I should be able to figure out how long we’ve been married, probably seven or eight of those. So, I don’t know, 2018, do the math.

We were living in America still raising my sons, and now, for the last three years, we’ve been in an empty nest stage. That’s been different. What I’m saying is this is new and it’s coming up in this stage. It’s like our relationship has hit this new level. You sort of change the scenario and you’re like, “Oh, okay, here’s something new.”

Now, whether you can relate to the empty nest, or whether you can relate because your kid has just started junior high, or you’re in a different job, it doesn’t matter, actually. Just look: our relationships are always in one of three places. They’re either in:

The Contentment Curve: Where everything’s going well.

The Tension Curve: Where things are feeling icky. We’re feeling off, we’re not quite sure why yet, but we’re just sort of in the “ick.”

The Growth Part: Where we’re stepping into it more with intentionality and awareness. We’re like, “Oh, I see what’s going on. Okay, well, now what do I do?”

I’d say I am at the final end of that third piece. One foot is in that “Oh, I see what’s going on, let’s work on this” space, and one foot is back in comfort again. So, I know my next growth opportunity will be coming. Paul and I have a saying: AFGO, which means Another Effing Growth Opportunity. I don’t want to have to mark this episode explicit, but you get what the “F” stands for.

Unpacking Codependency and the “Pasta” Metaphor

So, anywho, my point here is the work that I have been doing and how I can support you, because it has been so super interesting to me to see what is coming up at this next level.

I have been working on my codependency. I help a lot of people with their codependency, as that is one of my areas of expertise. We look at where, because of our attachment styles and because of some of the stuff we’ve had in the past, we tend to be more over-functioning in relationships. We do it all for people, feel over-responsible, get in everyone’s business, and have a bit of that control-freak energy.

I’m raising my hand to all of those. That would be the natural tendency with the way I was raised and, frankly, with the way many of us were raised. Maybe your home environment didn’t influence that, although I know for many of us, if we look with honesty (not from a place of judging our parents, but just honesty), it did. Our parents were simply not schooled in emotional intelligence and emotional regulation.

But even if it didn’t, even if we had those unicorn parents who really knew how to support us emotionally, if we grew up as Gen X and beyond, we really were taught socially to function in a certain way. It was all about: “You’ve got it. Take it on, it’s all on you. Be the one to make it all look easy, be that good girl,” and all of that sort of programming.

So, we then move into adulthood and into our relationships with this energy of “it’s all on us.” We’re doing 70% of the lifting. We’re walking on eggshells, hypervigilant, aware of everyone else’s mood, and feeling responsible for everyone else’s mood and life choices. That really is what codependency is, over-functioning in other people’s lives so they can under-function. We’re doing more of the emotional human lifting than is ours to do.

I’ve noticed that, I’ve been coaching on that, and I help so many people with it. If that’s you, let me help you.

But in my relationship, I’m like, “Bring it back, Susie. Back to me, Warriors.” In my relationship, I had been in this place where I felt really safe and secure. I wasn’t doing this hypervigilance, walking on eggshells, over-explaining myself, or feeling defensive. I did so much of that as a child, and also in my first marriage, needing to prove who was right or wrong. It was always like we were keeping score. First of all, who’s right and who’s wrong? One person won, the other person lost. We were also keeping score of like, “Well, I did this on March 12th at 2:00 PM, so you owe me this favor,” or “I did this for you, so you owe me this favor in bed.” Again, not to make it too explicit, but this is how my past relationship worked.

When I moved into this new relationship with Paul, I was very aware that I was not doing that. I was practicing interdependence. I wasn’t doing the “I’ve got it all, I’m good” hyper-independence “Ice Queen” routine, and I also wasn’t doing the codependent, needy, double-checking, over-explaining routine, until this next stage of my life. That’s what brings me here today. This episode is part permission slip and part “Put the brakes on your life, come up for air, look around, and see if you’re doing this too.”
Neuroplasticity and Old Brain Pathways

Here is one permission slip: in our earliest years, really zero to 25, our brain is super mushy and laying down patterns of thinking and behavior at a deep, unprecedented rate that will never happen again in our lives. In fact, if you are like me (I was born in the ’70s, but even if you were born in the ’80s or ’90s), scientists used to think that after a certain point, our brains were not capable of changing. It was only in the 1990s that they widely discovered neuroplasticity, which means that our brain still has some plasticity to it. It’s not as nice, juicy, and mushy as it was in that first stage of learning, but we still are capable of making new patterns.

I was capable of being in this relationship with Paul where I was not feeling the hypervigilance, the over-responsibility, and the over-controlling. So, you have these old neural pathways from my past and my old marriage, and then I have these new neural pathways that I was creating.

Yet, as I teach in the Love Your Life School and also on here, once a neural pathway is laid down in childhood, it never completely goes away. Once you have that situation with a parent where you had to double-check everything, where you didn’t feel worthy of love, or where you felt like you did something wrong and love was taken away, you have that fear-based neural pathway. I’m sorry to be the bearer of reality, but that neural pathway never goes away, okay?

I like to think of it like pasta:

The first time it’s laid down with a parent, it’s just a thin string, like an angel hair piece of pasta.

The next time it’s reinforced, a layer forms around it, making it more like a strand of spaghetti.

The next time, it gets a little thicker, so now we’re at fettuccine.

Then it becomes linguine, and eventually, it gets as thick and robust as a sheet of lasagna. It’s firing real fast.

I definitely had that lasagna noodle through my childhood with some of these patterns, and also in my first marriage. That is deeply grooved in my brain.

Then, I go into this new relationship, and even before Paul, when I was dating, I started doing things differently. I was doing the self-work and the relational work. So, when I moved into this new relationship, I laid down a new neural pathway of angel hair pasta.

Every time Paul would be quiet, instead of double-checking or panicking, I wouldn’t over-explain. He’d come to me afterward and say something like, “Yeah, I was quiet because I was pondering this.” I had the reinforcement that it wasn’t that Susie did something wrong. Susie is not responsible for this man’s emotions; this man is an emotionally mature adult and takes care of his own emotions. So, I lay that first new piece of angel hair, and the old lasagna noodle goes back down to a linguine size.

The next time we get into a conflict, because conflicts are a part of healthy relationships, we share some words, and afterward, we return to that place of safety. He repairs and says, “Yeah, I was a little snippy, and I wish I had done it this way.” Then, my new angel hair piece of pasta becomes spaghetti because I realize: “This man is safe. He owns his behavior, he’s emotionally regulated, and he’s an emotional adult.” Meanwhile, the old linguine goes back to fettuccine.

I think you get my point. The new, healthy pathway keeps getting stronger, whereas the old one shrinks from lasagna to linguine, to spaghetti, to angel hair.
The Danger of the Forgotten Pasta Pathway

No, I haven’t lost the plot! What I’m getting at is that even though I spent all those beginning years building up the healthy lasagna noodle and not triggering the old pathway, old neural pathways cannot be completely eliminated.

I think of that old pathway now as like one of those crusty, wrinkly, crunchy pieces of raw pasta you find forgotten under the fridge one day. That’s what’s happening in our brains.

Over the last year or two, when I first moved to Australia, began this empty nest stage, and was in a whole new environment, there were lots of things up in the air in my life. I notice now that I went right back to that old, crunchy piece of angel hair pasta under the fridge. I got right back into some of my old habits and behaviors: over-checking, over-explaining, feeling defensive, and being hypervigilant.

To me as a young girl, and in my first marriage, that was how I stayed safe. That’s how many of you stay safe in the relationships you’re in; it’s the pattern you learned to survive. It’s why many of you come to me for coaching, because you want to get out of this pattern. You want to see if you are actually in a safe relationship so you can drop the pattern, because let’s face it, it’s not a pleasant place to be.

My current circumstances were no longer saying that I was in an unsafe place. But when my brain was focused on other things in Australia (like missing my boys, moving into a new stage of parenting, trying to meet new people because I had no Aussie friends, and adjusting to a new environment and culture), I sort of took my focus off intentionality in the relationship. And damn it if that old, crunchy angel hair piece of pasta didn’t start turning back into spaghetti and linguine!
An Invitation for Self-Compassion and Reflection

My point in coming on here today is first to give you a permission slip. This happens. There’s nothing wrong with you, and there’s nothing wrong with me. It just happens.

When you notice it in your life, whether it’s in a relationship, in your eating, or with your kids where you start over-functioning and getting into that over-controlling “ickiness,” the key first step is to practice forgiveness. Just don’t beat yourself up for it.

Today is a great day to notice this and say, “Wow, this is awesome. Really wonderful. I can see that I went right back to that old way of behaving, or a version of it.” I went back to what I call “manual work.” Our old manual for relationships, our old instruction book on how to operate, says that we must over-function, over-control, and get hypervigilant. It’s like our computer brain goes back to a factory reset.

And that’s okay! It happened to me, and I’m a freaking life coach who has been doing this for two decades. I had lost sight consciously (not if you asked me if my relationship was safe, I would have said yes) but in my deep somatic body, I had lost sight of that safety and was running on old programs. I needed a software update. It’s like I was in a time machine, and instead of living in the present with the safe husband I have now, I went back to a 2010 version of marriage, or potentially a 1985 version of being raised in my childhood family to over-function, to be hyper-sufficient, to keep score, and to feel resentment.

If you notice this within yourself, there is no shame. Notice that I’m not shaming myself; I’m actually feeling deep love and compassion for myself. I’m like, “Go Susie for figuring this out, for seeing this!” It was all the coaching and self-work I’ve done that allowed me to pause and say, “Wait a minute. This feeling of resentment is a little too familiar, and it’s not one I want in this marriage. This feeling of martyrdom is not welcome here.”

Don’t waste a freaking second of your beautiful life feeling shame. This is what we do as humans our whole lives. There is never a perfect version of any of us. I’m sorry to report that we will always be in this cycle of: things are going well, wait, I’m noticing a problem, okay, now I’m going to work on something. That is the life journey. There is no opting out of the human experience; it is an “earth school.” While we are here, it is one lesson after the other.

With that in mind, can we just drop the part where we think we should be better or different than we are? Just drop it. We have spent way too much time beating ourselves up in judgment and shame, which is just our old protective self anyway.
The Five Pillars of Wellness: Checking Your Relationships

The second part of this is an invitation to stop, pause, and look. We talk about the five pillars of wellness, and one of them is relationships. Look at those most fundamental relationships in your life. This is a good time to see if any of you have sort of “thickened out” that crunchy angel hair pasta noodle lately.

Are there any old patterns coming up for you? Are you feeling hypervigilant in a relationship where you hadn’t been? Is your fear-brain coming up? Are you worrying more than usual about a certain kid, a relative, or your spouse than you were three months ago?

These are all really helpful things to notice. Our brains have a negativity bias. When at rest, your brain is going to look for a problem, and it’s most comfortable with old problems. That’s how we get stuck back in our old patterning.

So, part one: no shame. Part two: let’s stop, take a break from the busy life we’re living, and look around. Lift your head up from underwater, take off those dark sunglasses, and look with compassion at the life you’re living. Where have you maybe slipped into old behaviors or habits? Those old protective things kept you safe before, but they are not helpful in emotionally mature adult relationships today, which is what we want.
Closing Thoughts & Community Love

I’ll link some helpful episodes below. The episode on “Manuals” is a great one. There’s also an episode I did (it wasn’t a big winner with my listeners, probably because of the title) called something like The Top 10 Dysfunctional Things We Do in Relationships. I might have named it something a little more pleasant than that, but I do like going back to that episode to see where those things have slinked their way back into my life.

When I review them from a place of self-compassion, I can just say, “Yeah, you’re human. These things sneak back in.” This is what is modeled for us everywhere. This is what emotionally insecure relationships look like, and we all started there because we all have emotional immaturity in us. You’re not broken or bad, okay? But let this be that moment where you can stop, pause, and ask: “Hey, how are things going? Do I have any angel hairs that are getting a little thicker here?”

Alright, I’m going to stop with all the pasta metaphors!

Speaker 4: So, thank you for being here.

Speaker 3: That’s my message for you today. I hope you could hear this. I was out for my Sunday walk, just contemplative and feeling proud of myself for doing this work, for catching myself over the last nine months and being really intentional now about getting back onto the healthy neural-pathway highway.

You know me, I love sharing lessons and learning with you. I’m not on some elevated pedestal. Please don’t ever think life is perfect for me, because then you’re going to think you’re doing something wrong or that you need to reach some impossible, perfect place. There is no perfect life. We are always human, we’re in the human experience, and I’m humaning right along with you. My job is pretty much to make your humaning journey a little easier.

If this resonates with you at all, please make sure that you’re following the show. Something is happening with the algorithms lately (I don’t freaking know what’s taking over) but if you’re not actively following, our numbers go down. So, just look on your platform, whether it’s Apple or Spotify. Spotify has a big old green “Follow” button you can click, and Apple has a purple or white plus sign.

And if this resonates, and there’s someone in your life where you’re like, “Oh yeah, we vibe on this sort of growth stuff,” please share this episode with them! Maybe you can meet for coffee next week and talk about where you see these patterns coming up in your own lives. I love those kinds of friends, by the way. I would love it if everyone on here—heck, if even half of the people listening shared it with just one person—our listenership would double.

Thank you for being here. I love you all. Thank you for being part of the Love Your Life School and show family. You matter, you make a difference, and you’re not broken.

Big love.