EP 406: Your Physical Ailments are Messengers with Caitlyn

This is episode 406. Your Physical Ailments are Messengers with Caitlin. Welcome to Over It and on with it. I’m your host, Christine Hassler, and for over a decade I’ve been a life coach, speaker and author. Each week you’ll hear me work directly with a caller as I coach them through a goal they wanna accomplish or an obstacle they may be facing.

I’ll provide a blend of practical and spiritual advice, as well as tangible actions you can apply to your own life. Now let’s get on with the episode. Hi everybody. Welcome back to this show. If you can’t tell by the sound of my voice, I’m not doing so well on the physical level. A little Athena got cold when we traveled and mama got it.

We’re all a little wiped out. I haven’t been this sick in a while, so between taking care of my baby girl and being sick myself, I haven’t been able to do a podcast this week. So good thing I’ve done 400 already and you probably haven’t listened to all of them. So we’re pulling out one from the archives that I think you’re really going to enjoy.

Before we dive in, I wanna remind you, especially if you’re listening to the show, when it’s downloaded, I’m hosting a call. Well, if you’re listening to this show, the day it was downloaded tomorrow, which is June 22nd on self-love, it’s a group coaching call. It’s only $20. You can join me@christinehasler.com slash group. If you missed it,

that’s okay. You can still get access to the recording christine hasler.com/group only $20. Don’t worry if you can’t join me live. You can listen to the recording. I wanna thank my sponsor for this week. As you heard at the beginning, I have been under the weather and one of the things that gets me better when I’m sick is drinking lots and lots and lots of NyQuil.

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I swear that’s one of the water and sleep are one of the biggest biohacks you can, you can have. So go to aquatru.com and to promo code over it and get 20% off any purifier. All right, and now let me tell you a little bit about this episode. In this episode, I’m joined by Caitlyn who comes to me for coaching because she’s having an expectation hangover about her engagement process.

She’s really excited about her wedding and wants her family and friends to be excited about it as well. But she’s not getting that reaction. And we end up going really deep in this episode. We talk a little bit about the engagement process, but like with any expectation hangover, it really wasn’t about the engagement and the people’s reaction, it was about something much deeper.

There’s a lot of ground covered in this episode. If it resonates with you, I highly, highly, highly recommend checking out my personal mastery course because I teach so many of the tools and processes that I use in this coaching episode. In that course, there’s something I set up in this episode called the Empty Chair Process. That’s a tool that I teach in personal mastery,

but just for now, know that it’s a tool based on a little bit of gestalt therapy. And it’s just a way for us to talk to different parts of ourselves, different ages of ourselves. And there’s no right or wrong way to do it. It’s more just a process of connecting to parts of us that haven’t yet been expressed. It’ll make a lot more sense once you see the episode.

So as you are watching this episode, consider is there a current expectation hangover, meaning something isn’t going according to the way you want it to go, or life has thrown you a curve ball that’s upsetting you, and does it remind you of something that’s happened in the past? Second, do you relate to being a caretaker in your life? Are you someone that’s kind of known to be the one in the family that other people can go to?

You get a great sense of worthiness and validation when you’re taking care of others and you’re almost afraid to stop taking care of others because maybe you’ll lose love or you’ll lose connection. But in that caretaking process, you often notice that you are last on the list. Next, is it challenging for you to set boundaries with people? Do you find yourself saying yes to things when you really mean no?

Do you find yourself over compromising so much the fact that you’re sacrificing your own needs because sacrificing your own needs is almost easier than dealing with upsetting other people. And finally, is there a physical condition that you’re dealing with that you’ve been dealing with for many years and maybe you just don’t know why you have it, can’t resolve it, or have some idea of why you have it.

You’ve done some work on it, but it still doesn’t seem to be getting better. Could there be a link to something from your past? Could your physical illness actually be a messenger and an alarm system and more you listen to that alarm? Could it be possible that the physical illness could resolve itself? So keep these questions in mind as you watch or listen to my coaching episode with Caitlyn.

Caitlyn, welcome to the show. What’s your question? My question today is I’m planning my wedding. Congratulations. Thank you. It’s happy in February and I’m feeling a lot of expectation hangovers with how this process, I thought it would go with my family and my friends in particular. Kind of some things going on with my mom and it’s, I think it’s kind of a reflection of just like larger childhood things and I’m just wanting kind of some refreshers on how to like get through this process.

Okay. Cause it’s exciting and all that. So what Are the expectation hangovers you’re Having? Wow. I think when I got engaged I kind of expected it to be this like Grant, like let’s rally around you, you’re engaged, let’s plan all of these things for you and have it be like your time. And I really feel like I’m not getting that.

And I don’t think that that’s the intention of anyone involved. I just kind of feel like I just, I thought it would feel a little different. My maid of honor doesn’t live here and just a lot of kind of like different things coming up with my mom, I guess. So why is it important for you to have everybody rallying around you, being excited for you?

Why does that matter so much to you? I, I thought a lot about this. I think it’s because I feel like growing up, I’m the oldest of three girls and I’ve always kind of like had it together. I think I’ve always been a planner. So my parents I feel like have never felt like they really needed to like help me per se.

I always kind of just had it under control and they kind of focus a lot more on my younger sisters for different reasons. So now it’s kind of like I want this time to be like about me when it’s like never really been, I feel like about me and my life. But whose Choice was it to make it not about you? Probably mine.

Probably mine. I’m a big caretaker. I’m kind of trying to Right. Get out of that role Right. With my family. And Why do you think you became a caretaker? I feel like I just kind of like fell into it because I’m the oldest and I’ve always lived geographically close to home ish more than my sisters. So I’ve kind of started doing it growing up and then it became more like they expected it and then it became I’m guilty if I don’t do it.

And now I’m trying to step out of that role and I feel like I was doing a good job and then I got engaged and like all these new things started coming up. Right. Well that means then the old thing wasn’t ever really resolved. Right? So none of these things are new. Yeah. Do you agree with me on that? Yeah.

Okay. They’re just sort of, whenever we have expectation hangovers, they’re never brand new. They’re always repetitions of something. Just different circumstances, sometimes different cast of characters. But the feeling is often the same. Yes. Right. So how would you describe the feeling that’s going along with this expectation hangover you’re having about the wedding and the way people are showing up?

Like how do you feel? I think physically I feel like tired a lot. Tired emotionally. How do you feel Emotionally? A little down. Maybe I would say depressed sometimes, but just feeling down and I go through waves of like being super motivated to plan and then just like maybe I should just not Do anything. So a little down, a little sad,

maybe Hurt. Hurt. Yeah. Disappointed. Yeah. And then kinda up and down in terms of being motivated to go and do versus just being like, I don’t wanna do anything. Kinda apathetic. Yeah. Yeah. Apathetic is a good Word. And is that mix of feelings familiar? Have you felt that way before in your life? A little down.

Yeah. Still disappointed? I think so, but I just can’t pinpoint like a time. Yeah. Well I’m sort of looking at your life based on what you described and being a young girl or a little girl and having decided that you’re gonna take care of other people and almost to the point where you were both validated for it, which made you addicted to it because you probably,

it became your compensatory strategy, right? Yeah. So you got love and worth from taking care of other people. So at a very young age you decided, oh, for me to matter, for me to feel loved, for me to make my parents happy, for me to keep the peace, for me to feel valuable in some ways. And it was probably the little ways you got attention when people,

you know, gave you props for taking care of others. You decided, oh wow, caretaker is the role I’m gonna go into. But I can imagine that at times you were doing that, you felt disappointed, you felt hurt, you felt down, you felt sad. And there were moments of like being really motivated to do it because you needed a fix of feeling like you mattered versus like,

I don’t wanna do anything at all. Yeah. So now when I ask the question, does this feeling remind you of anything? Does it is, are you starting to see It’s pretty familiar. Yeah, it’s familiar. Yeah, it’s familiar. Right. So what do you think that younger girl who was the big sister and had to take care of everyone else,

if someone was there taking care of her, what did she need? Probably someone to have a conversation with her that didn’t end with asking about how her sisters were doing or how everyone else was doing. And what I knew about everyone else except for myself and how I was doing. So we’re gonna do something right now. You’re gonna have a conversation with her.

Okay. So how old were you in the height of your caretaking? The most vivid thing I can remember is probably like right after college when I moved back to San Diego. Okay. So like 22. Okay, let’s go back a little farther. Okay. Like High school. High School. Okay. Yeah. So when you were like 14, 15,

do you think you were already in that role? Because usually like as a young teenage girl is when we start to like go into that mother nurturing role. Yeah. Would you say like it was around that age? Yeah, I’m sure it could go back younger, but I guess I haven’t really dug up that stuff so I, I can’t think of anything Immediately.

Yeah. Well let’s, let’s do a little digging. Okay. Cuz it’s important to find like a tender time in your life where this really kind of was in the beginning, right? And so how old do you think you were when you started to really realize that your sense of belonging and value and everything like that came from caretaking and when you really started to step into that role in your family?

I mean, something that immediately comes to mind that I’ve literally never made the connection before is when I got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when I was 13, 14. And I felt like it was like I needed to constantly like reassure like just like be fine. Like the, the girl that always had it together, like has this thing now and I needed to like always be fine with that.

And I don’t know why that I’m like thinking of that probably cuz it’s flaring right now. Well this is a huge connection. Yeah. Right? Because that’s a condition where you don’t have quote unquote control. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you had to literally hold it together. I’ve never thought of that. Well yeah. Yeah. And not just for yourself but for your sisters.

Yeah, I remember, well I, I was told, I don’t actually have this memory, but when I was really sick my youngest sister gave me a cosmopolitan magazine cuz I was on the couch and I couldn’t do anything and that just like stuck with me that everyone had to take care of me for once. And how did it feel when people were taking care of you?

Oh, I felt like they shouldn’t have to. You felt almost like a burden? Yeah. Yeah. It’s like A burden. So do you see how you have competing intentions of like part of me wants attention but part of me doesn’t? I guess so. Yeah. And that’s kind happening with the wedding. We’ll come back to that. Okay, we’ll bookmark that and come back cuz there’s a lot.

There’s a lot here. Yeah. Not, not in like, oh my gosh you’re so messed up. There’s a lot. There’s a lot that’s coming up. There’s a lot that’s coming out, which is great. So we’re gonna go back and talk to that 13 year old that just got got diagnosed with colitis. Am I pronouncing that right? Yeah.

Okay. And we’re gonna do what I call the empty chair process. Okay. And you grown up, Caitlyn’s gonna sit there and I’m gonna move and actually 13 year old Caitlyn’s gonna sit here. Okay. And you’re actually gonna be getting up and down. You’re gonna have your eyes closed, you kind of have to feel the chairs, but they’re not too far apart and you’re gonna be having a conversation with the 13 year old you and her.

Okay. Because the way it works inside our unconscious is that all parts of us all ages, all memories live inside our unconscious mind. And 95 to 97% of our behaviors, our reactions, our feelings are driven by our unconscious. Which means like even with this thing happening with your wedding, 5% of you consciously knows why you’re getting upset, but there’s 95% of you that’s actually being triggered.

Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. And that’s what’s causing this reaction. Cuz there may be a part of you that’s like, why am I so upset about this wedding thing? I should be excited. Yeah. Like it doesn’t make logical sense. Yes. Like your reaction to what’s happening doesn’t match what act, what actually is happening. When that is happening.

It means that something unconsciously is being triggered. So whenever we have a massive expectation hangover that doesn’t really match the reality of the circumstances, it’s feedback to us that, ooh, something’s being triggered here that wants to come up for healing. Okay. So would you say that when you got diagnosed, all of a sudden attention was on you? Yes. Right.

That was very sick. Yeah. Right. Which in some ways you wanted, in some ways you didn’t. So as a younger girl there was a belief around why all this attention on me, I don’t want this. So now grown up engaged Caitlin’s like where’s all my attention? But there’s a 13 year old in there who made a belief a long time ago.

I don’t like all this attention. So I’m not surprised that you’re not getting a lot of attention cuz on some level you don’t want it making sense. I guess. So What is it making sense? I mean I, when I think of like my wedding specifically, I feel like I do want it But take the circumstances out of it. Because remember that’s 5% your conscious mind,

right? We’re talking about feelings here. So if at a very young level you got programmed of, I don’t like all this attention on me, it feels weird, it feels whatever, and we’re gonna talk to the 13 year old about what it feels like. Can you see how there’s a belief in there of like, I don’t like, oh this attention doesn’t feel good,

I don’t like it. So even though grown up you, how old are you now? 31. 31 year old. It’s like where’s all my attention? The 13 year old who’s kind of running the show right now is like, no, I don’t like attention. And so energetically kind of what you’re manifesting is what you want to keep what you think keeps you safe,

which is not having a lot of attention on you. Cuz it feels like too much pressure. And pressure aggravates all my symptoms all the time. Every Day. Exactly. So again, competing intentions, where’s all my attention? But part of you and your body’s like, no, no, no, no, no. You gotta stay safe, we gotta stay.

Yeah. We don’t want this attention. So we’ll connect more dots in a moment, but I really want you to start having a dialogue with your 13 year old because I honestly feel that if you could like your symptoms could eventually go away. Yeah, I think so too if, because it really is just your body talking to you. Yeah. So the more that you,

you take care of you instead of everybody else in the world, the more the less your body’s gonna need to alert you. Because right now it’s just an alert system. Yeah. Of when you’re trying to hold it together too much for everybody else and be the good girl and be the caretaker and your body’s like, screw all that. Yeah. I’m gonna fall apart.

Yeah. And since she’s not letting me do that in my life, I’m gonna do it physically. Okay. Okay. So how this works is I’ll move and I’ll talk you through it. But it’s important as you’re doing the exercise not to, not to come out of the exercise and look at me. You wanna really stay kind of present with you.

So if you hear my voice, like don’t open your eyes and look, just hear me and, and let me coach you. But stay in the process. So you’ll start over there and you’ll invite like 13 year old Caitlin to come forward and you’ll just say something that makes her, that would make any 13 year old feel safe. Like, I’m here to listen to you.

Anything you have to say is okay, this is really your opportunity to speak, to feel whatever you just got diagnosed with something called colitis. You don’t even know what that really means. Maybe I just wanna check in and how do you feel like what’s going on in there? And I can already see the emotions starting to come up. That’s ok. Just let that come up.

Yeah. And then you move over here and you take yourself back to being 13. You really see yourself at 13. Like if I was doing it with myself, I’d see kind of see like I can remember my favorite outfit when I was 13 and my bedroom color looked like. And you know. Yeah. And when you’re 13 you talk as 13.

Not like I remember, you know, it’s, it’s more present tense. Like I feel not, I felt, I feel this, I feel that. And you just let this 13 year old express whatever and then just like a conversation when you feel like she needs some taken care of, you move over and you, you just love her up and you reassure her.

You don’t explain, you don’t go into someday you’re gonna grow up and you’re gonna get engaged and everything’s gonna work out and you’re so strong. And it’s not that. It’s like, I really hear you. I know how hard this is. I know how scary this is. I’m here with you. What else do you need to say? What do you need to express?

What is it like with your family? Like this is your opportunity to say all the things and feel all the things that you kept inside. Cuz another reason you’re manifesting a condition that is physically upsetting your stomach is because you’re keeping so much inside and it needs an exit route. Okay. Everything does. So let’s find a healthier, more supportive one. Okay.

All right. So just close your eyes, take a deep breath and just really set the intention for the deepest level of healing just for your highest good to happen in this process. And really just trust, like really trust your own inner guidance. This is a very powerful process if you just kind of get outta the way and let your heart and let your feeling,

let your intuition guide the process. So I want you to imagine that you have a, like a white screen on the back of your forehead that’s like a movie screen and project an image of your current 31 year old self on that screen. And then like you have a remote control, rewind yourself and see yourself regressing in age. So see yourself on the screen,

regressing down through your twenties, be through college, your teenage years, all the way back down to when you’re 13 and when you can see that 13 year old Caitlyn, just give me a nod. Right. And just see her sitting over here in this chair. And then when you’re ready you can begin and remember we’re beginning just by inviting her forward for this conversation,

reassuring her and then just asking her a question to get started. Hi Caitlin. How is your first track meet? Yeah, I first reassure her that she’s safe and she can say anything that she wants. This is a safe space and you can say anything you need to say to me and I won’t share it with anyone else. Great. And then you can ask her that question or whatever question you wanna ask her.

How are you feeling after your first track meet? Did you win? Did dad see you run all your races? Mm. And how are you feeling after you got diagnosed with something that no one knows what it is and you don’t know what it means and all it means to you is you take a pill and you felt better, but how are you feeling?

Really Good. So just kinda feel your way over to this chair. You can peek if you need to and now you’re, remember you’re 13. My trackmate was good. I think I got top three. I wasn’t really paying attention and I feel fine. I just take a pill and I don’t really care. I’m in high school. It’s fun and exciting and I feel I don’t really care if as long as I take the pill I feel fine.

So really just settle into that 13 year old and I just wanna ask her not really true. Do you really just feel fine about it? Cuz you know, sometimes fine stands for feelings inside not expressed. I guess I feel confused about why the why why I have this, none of my friends have it. Why I was so sick for so long and mom had to take care of really gross things for so long.

Do you feel ashamed at all? A little bit. Cause I, I don’t know if I did something for this to happen. Hmm. So part of you thinks it’s your fault that you brought it on Now Maybe I did something wrong. I don’t know. Hmm. And how are you feeling in this moment? I feel like I am reflecting and trying to figure out how I really truly feel and I’m not very good at that.

Mm Mm So sometimes when we try to figure out how we feel through our mind doesn’t really lead us to the answer. So if you were just to shift your awareness outta your mind, into your heart, into your belly, into your gut, just describe what you’re feeling. It doesn’t have to make sense. You may be feeling tightness, you may be feeling like it is hard to breathe.

You may be feeling like you’re fighting in tears. I feel like I’m fighting tears, but my gut feels actually really surprisingly calm. Probably the calmest its fault in five months. Mm. So what if you didn’t fight the tears? I feel like they would come up if we, if we talked to the older Caitlyn. Okay, so let’s talk to her so you can move back Over.

She’s just, I Feel, I feel really tired physically and emotionally trying to trying figure out why I feel like no one cares or why I care or why I’m sick or why I’m taking care of everybody. And just let those tears come. I feel like I’ve asked this question a million times before and I thought it was making progress through it, but now I feel like I’m may haven’t.

What question have you asked before? I’ve asked myself why I am taking care of everybody else. Asked myself why I’m really not good at setting boundaries and why the guilt of setting boundaries is bigger and stronger and scarier than actually setting boundaries. Maybe let’s ask a different question and let’s ask younger Caitlyn this, ask her what a payoff is to taking care of other people.

What does she get from that Validation? Well let’s go ask her. I get validation that I’m the most dependable daughter and I’m the most dependable friend and I’m everybody’s everybody’s best friend. How does that make you feel when you get that validation? It makes me feel like I’m worth something and I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And also makes me feel tired because now I know it’s not always reciprocated and I don’t ever ask for it to be.

Hmm. Would you like it to be? Yeah. What do you most wanna hear That people I wanna hear that I’m appreciated and I’m valued and people are excited for this current time in my life. Now I want you to tell younger Caitlin everything that she really wanted to hear and remember this is the younger you cuz she just said that she thinks that she needs the external validation to feel worthy.

Like that’s what gives her her worth. So There’s some things you may need to clear up for her. Kaylan, I want you to know that you’re more than just a runner. That dad loves you beyond, beyond your ability to run, run and win races when you’re a freshman in high school. And I want you to know that you are worth something and you are a good friend,

but you also need to be a better friend to yourself. And setting boundaries while you’re now in high school and when you go into college and when you get older is probably the most important thing that you can do for yourself. And you shouldn’t feel guilty about that. It doesn’t make you a bad daughter and it does not make you a bad friend and it does not make you a bad significant other fiance if and when you get engaged.

What does setting boundaries help her do? Tell her why that’s healthy and why Ultimately it’s better for everybody else. You should set boundaries because it makes you a stronger person and it makes you more self-aware of what you need and more willing and have more energy to make friendships that are healthier and not feel guilty or feel resentful because you didn’t set appropriate boundaries in the first place.

And it, and it’s okay that you haven’t done this yet. Yeah. You’re only 13. Yeah. And it’ll help your tummy too. It’ll help your tummy if you get sick in the future. Which you will, It Will help you navigate that. Or maybe she can be done being sick. Maybe we can rewrite this whole thing. Could you promise her that you’re gonna make her number one,

that nobody’s gonna come before her and you anymore. And when it comes to caretaking, you’re top of the list. I promise I’ll make you number one and when it comes to caretaking, you’ll be first. But I feel like I should promise I won’t be perfect at that. But I’m gonna really accept that intention cuz I’m aware of how much it matters.

I’m gonna do my best. Yeah, Yeah. I’ll do my best to support you through high school and college and beyond. Good. So I want you to just imagine in your mind’s eye, sending her to like a place that she loved and a place she felt really safe. Maybe her bedroom, friend’s house, the track. Where does she feel most safe and happy?

Running, running anywhere. Okay, so maybe we don’t wanna have her running. So maybe she just finished an awesome run and she’s sitting next to the track just feeling really good. The track’s a good place. Yeah. Okay. You see her there and can you just see that you’re not abandoning her right? You’re just leaving her a safe space. But you’ve reconnected.

Right? And just put one hand on your heart and one hand on your lower belly and just take a few deep breaths and as you’re breathing just sort of come back to the room and come back to your current age. And when you ready, open your eyes. And there’s Kleenex there if you need that. Oh thanks. Thank you. So what did you learn from that?

That I haven’t done as much self work as I thought I have. I think you’ve done a lot of mental self work. Yeah. I Think you’ve thought a lot about things, but you haven’t really felt a lot of things. And if you have felt things, you’ve felt them with judgment. Yes. Versus true compassion. So my hunch is the colitis is a result of emotional suppression and taking on other people’s stuff and trying to hold it all together so much that your body can’t take it.

And so it’s almost giving you a condition where like you can’t hold things together literally. Yeah. Yeah. And there chakra, which is an energy center in our body and is, is all, is all about our relationship with self and having, being in right relationship with self and having a healthy sense of empowerment and you’ve given away your power a lot of your life by taking care of others and thinking that was your source of worth.

Yeah. Your sense of worth doesn’t have anything to do with how well you care for others at all. And since you’ve constructed an identity around it, you know, we teach people how to treat us. So the reason people get upset and make you feel guilty if you don’t show up is because you’ve created the expectation. So part of why boundaries has been hard for you is when you try to set them,

the reaction you get from others is probably not favorable. They’re like what? Whatever. They’re so used to me just always being there. So you can either choose to have an upset stomach the rest of your life or you can let it be okay that other people are upset sometimes. Yeah. Which do you want The second? I can think of a few instances where I need to do that.

Yeah. Yeah. Because by not letting other people be upset and by taking care of them you are manifesting an upset stomach. Yeah. Your body’s just talking to you. And the other thing is don’t make the the illness, whatever we wanna call it wrong. It’s a messenger. Appreciate it. Accept it. Thank you for the message. Yeah. Acceptance doesn’t mean I love you.

Stick around forever. It just means I appreciate the message and thank you and it’s, it’s for you, it’s instant feedback that you’re not taking care of a little one inside of you that you’re externally referenced, that you’re putting yourself last and that you’re not feeling your feelings. Yeah. Before we started recording I said there’s Kleenex there if you need. You said I won’t cry.

Yeah. I didn’t expect to go to the colitis. But here’s the thing like that, that that expectation of not having emotion come up is feedback of, of how you expect yourself to show up in any situation. Yeah. Emotions are have never been welcomed in my family. So I am a very emotional person but I try to keep it together most of the time.

Yeah. But do you see my love how trying to keep your emotions together, not expressing it is making you sick. Yeah. Can you really accept that you are an emotional person and give yourself a emotional release like release writing? That tool that I teach about just like writing freeform, writing, expressing, letting yourself cry, letting yourself be messy. Not having it all together.

Letting other people be upset. Oh my gosh. If you could express like that I, I would, I would put money on the fact that your physical symptoms will start to get better. Yeah. I am a writer and I’ve tried to do stream of consciousness but it’s always felt like a chore and maybe this is why I haven’t actually sat and yeah,

really done it. And allow yourself to feel when you’re writing, you know, sometimes you might just need need to put like a song on that brings up emotion and just let yourself cry and just be so loving and nurturing to yourself while you’re crying. Not judging yourself, it’s, oh I’m weak. Why am I crying? Whatever. Like you need that self-compassion.

You went into caretaking mode early in life and you completely missed compassion. Yeah. Is this making sense? Yeah, I think it’s just hard cause I feel like I have done so many of these things and I’m so open with friends I trust about how emotional I am, but maybe I haven’t really done these things. When you say you’re open about how emotional you are,

what do you mean? My closest friends, I feel very comfortable like texting or calling them if I’m crying on the floor. Just really like upset or just anything negative. So I feel like I have embraced my emotional side. It’s not, I don’t feel like I really bottle it up all the time, but maybe I’m, I’m missing something. Well I think you had years of bottling it up and now you’re starting to express it and embrace it.

Yeah. And the next level of it is the compassion on top of it. Yeah. And being able to express it on your own. And it’s great that you’re vulnerable and you reach out to people. That’s great. Keep doing that. But also it’s now the self soothing. So when you were sitting in this chair and you said that your stomach felt better than it had in five months,

it’s because you were starting to really connect with yourself and acknowledge yourself and give compassion to yourself. Yeah. And so now it’s just this next layer of truly not just expressing but having the compassion and then the setting the boundaries. Yeah. Do you have any advice on how to have those types of conversations with People? Gimme an example. My sisters also engaged and our plans are kind of bumping into each other and I want to honor that.

I’ve been planning all of my things and I had some dates in mind that are bumping into hers and I want to be able to tell her that I really planned this date for this event. Can you please not do that on the same day? Yeah, Same. Yeah. So I always love sandwiching. Thanks. So it’s your sister’s. We’ll call her Allie.

Okay. So Allie, I’m so excited for you. I love that we’re both getting married. It’s such an exciting time and I really wanna be present for you and for your events and you mean so much to me and I’d love you to be present for mine and I picked, you know, December 9th for my engagement party. I’m just making stuff up for my engagement party and I know that you were considering it close by date and I’m wondering if there’s,

it would really mean a lot to me if we could spread our dates out a little mu a little bit so that you could really be there to support me and that I can really be there to support you. Could we do that? It would, it would mean a lot to me. Yeah. And if she’s like, no, no, no.

Say I really hear you and this is something that, that matters a lot. And it was some, it was a date that I decided on first and be strong and let her be upset. Okay. That’s the biggest thing is like this is the kind of the next level is why you haven’t been able to be effective in boundary setting is because other people’s upset upsets you too much.

Yeah. So you’d rather just cave and not hold strong versus letting them be upset. Yeah. And that will be the next part in your healing, especially with your stomach, is other people’s upsets not your responsibility. Yeah. And I think I logically know that, but I don’t emotionally know, well here’s, Here’s how you start connecting to it. And if I had longer with you,

we would’ve spent longer in the empty chair process. Yeah. You’ve gotta start connecting and talking to the younger parts of you because that’s the younger parts of you that don’t get it. This is why so many of us get stuck because a healthy, rational adult is like, I don’t understand. Why can’t I just change? Why? Why I I, I should know how to set boundaries,

da da da da. But there’s like a 13 year old in there who’s like, no, if I upset people I lose love, I lose my sense of worth, I lose my safety and my place and my family. No, no, no, no, no we’re not gonna do this. So it’s the unconscious and the younger parts of ourself that have wired this behavior to survival and being loved and being accepted.

So of course it’s hard. So you’ve gotta like reeducate that younger part of you, sort of like we started to do when you started to tell her like you don’t have to earn your worth. You don’t have to take care of other people. That’s not what gives you value. You just need to keep that dialogue going. So you said you’re a writer and you like journaling.

An assignment I give you is start writing to her like write, you know, how are you feeling? How are you feeling about talking to your sister about the dates? And let her respond. Let the younger parts of you respond and start reprogramming and reeducating those younger parts of you. Does that make sense? I’ve done that before but not for a very long time.

Yeah. So yeah, well this is like, you know, this started at 13, this is many years of programming being put in place and you’ve gotta stop giving up on yourself cuz that again reinforces a pattern. Yeah. Of I’m last. Yeah. And remember these things, it’s progress. It’s like over time things start to shift and things start to change.

But you got great feedback here today. You, you said your stomach felt the best that it, it had in five months because you started to really listen. Yeah. And you can do this empty chair exercise at home too. Yeah. Yeah. So just to wrap up back to your initial question, do you see how this kind of expectation you’re hangover hangover or having over people not responding the way you want is showing you a couple things.

One, you’ve taught people how to treat you Yeah. Over the course of your life. So it’s like don’t go to a Chinese restaurant when you want nachos. Yeah. They’re gonna show up how you Yeah. Have taught them. So if you want them to show up differently, you’ve gotta start making requests and asking for different things. Teach them how to treat you differently.

The second thing is when you were sick and you started to get all that attention, you didn’t like it. So there is a part of you that’s not so comfortable with all the attention on you. Even though again healthy, rational adult knows it. So how you reeducate that younger part too is it’s okay to have attention on you, you’re safe. Like it’s okay.

You don’t always have to be the one taking care of others. It’s okay to receive. That’s the other part. Yeah. Okay. And at the end of the day, this is about you and your future husband. Yeah. How do you wanna feel during this engagement process? Really, really excited and really happy and like so much love between Ryan and I.

Then Just focus on that. Yeah. Who cares what you’re getting or not getting from anyone else. Yeah. Don’t let that rob you of this time. Yeah. You can’t get this time back. Yeah. So don’t let your disappointment over how other people are showing up. Rob you of such a special time. Yeah, Thank you. Yeah, you’re welcome.

So Caitlyn’s courage in this episode was absolutely amazing for someone to come and be so vulnerable and express, you know, privately here with me, but being willing to do it publicly with all of you is a huge step for her and also a huge step for that. That younger part of her that on some level was afraid of attention and thought she didn’t deserve it.

So I’m so, so glad that she was willing to come forward so courageously and so vulnerably. And I’m sure that her sharing really helped a lot of you because I’m sure you can resonate, especially a lot of you who swallow your feelings, who stuff your feelings, who sometimes put yourself last, you fall into that caretaker role on a lot of the episodes,

I talk about something that I call compensatory strategies and I teach about an expectation hangover and I teach about it a lot in my personal mastery course. And compensatory strategies are these ways of being that we formulate very early on in life and we formulate these ways of being after something happens where we decide in order to be worthy or loved or validated or belong or feel safe,

we need to compensate in some way. We need to overdo something. And in Caitlin’s case, she became an over caretaker. She thought that’s how she got her worthiness, that that’s how she found her place in her family. That’s how she got love. So being a caretaker almost was, was almost like a survival skill. And it’s, this is where I think a lot of people get very fr frustrated with personal growth.

You work on this stuff and you have all this awareness and you know as a grown adult that being a caretaker and not having boundaries isn’t healthy. However, if some part of you has it wired to survival. And since we aren’t all fighting for our survival in terms of food and shelter and those kind of things, what we fight for in terms of our survival is a need to feel loved,

a need to feel like we’re worth something. I need to feel like we belong. Those are basically our survival needs these days. And when a pattern is tied to those, it’s really hard to release. So of course consciously she may know I shouldn’t be such a caretaker, that’s not healthy for me. I should sound boundaries unconsciously. There’s a part of her that’s like,

but if I’m not a caretaker who’s gonna love me? Where do I belong? Will I still fit in my family? Will I be worth anything? So there’s this like unconscious part that’s freaking out that’s like, no, no, no, we cannot stop caretaking because if we stop caretaking then we lose our place in our family. We don’t get love and we’re not worth anything.

So that’s why it’s so important to understand how this programming gets instilled within us and to work with those younger parts. If I had a longer session with Caitlyn, if she was a client or at a retreat, I would’ve worked even longer in that empty chair process and I would’ve had her talk to that 13 year old more. And I would’ve had her really have that 13 year old talk about what beliefs she’s formed and what else she was feeling.

And then I would have grown up Caitlyn help her construct new beliefs about who she is in the family, about her worth, about why she matters, about how she doesn’t have anything to prove. And that can be her work and her journaling that she continues to do with those younger parts of her. It’s also so important in any kind of process that we forgive ourselves for any judgments that we make.

So another part of Caitlyn’s work will be to forgive herself for binding to the misunderstanding that being a caretaker is the way to get love. And being a caretaker is a way to get validation because she doesn’t wanna set that up in her future relationships. She doesn’t wanna fall into that role with her husband. She doesn’t wanna be that kind of mother if she wants children as well.

Now if she’s constantly putting herself blessed and making herself her last priority, then she’s gonna continue to suppress her own needs, suppress her own emotions, continue getting sick and continue feeling like she doesn’t matter. And I think it was clear that Caitlyn’s committed to her healing and committed to her growth. And the other thing that we talked about and we worked on,

and there was a lot in this session, I want like two more hours with her, was about the physical illness, which was the, the colitis that she’s dealing with, which is basically a disorder of the stomach and is upset stomach and is, it’s definitely something that I think a lot of people suffer from. That’s also tied to a lot of shame as well.

And from my point of view, one of the reasons that this is the particular thing her body is manifesting is because she tries to hold it together all the time. Like as a young girl, she never gave herself like a true release, like a true emotional release. So her body like is working so hard to hold all her emotions together that it can’t physically hold itself together.

And it almost needed another kind of release because she wasn’t giving herself the emotional release she needs. And I really feel as she continues to let her emotions be seen, let herself be vulnerable, not just with her friends but with herself and has tremendous compassion for herself. Doesn’t go into victim, doesn’t go into something’s wrong with me, but really has compassion for those emotions and gives herself that freedom of expression,

not just of her emotion, but of her boundaries as well. Cuz the other thing I mentioned to her is that this energy center or third chakra is very tied to personal empowerment. And if she’s not, she doesn’t have boundaries and she’s letting other people suck her energy and she’s not standing up for herself and she’s not empowered, then of course there’s gonna be things that we that happen in this area of the body as well as well.

So it’s not just about emotional release, it’s not just about emotional expression, it’s also about empowerment and having her boundaries and asking for what she needs, getting her needs met and being okay with other people’s upset and not taking it on. Cuz when she takes on other people’s upset, then internally she’s upset. So some takeaways for you. Remember if you’re dealing with any kind of expectation hangover right now,

it’s not just about that situation. Go back in time and ask yourself what does this remind me of? And it’s not necessarily the circumstances, right? Kaitlyn I don’t think has never been engaged before. So this isn’t reminding her of another time where she, you know, was engaged or was the center of attention and you know, she, she wasn’t getting people reacting the way she wanted.

It’s more about the feelings that the expectation of hangovers bringing up. So I asked her like, how are you feeling about this? And she said, you know, I’m feeling a little down, I’m feeling a little sad, a little hurt, a little disappointed. Like sometimes I’m motivated, sometimes I’m not. And then we went back to when have you felt that way before?

And we got back to a time where she was first diagnosed and the attention was on her. And part of her liked that attention, but part of her didn’t. So when you’re navigating through an expectation hangover, use that question, you know, what am, what feelings am I feeling? When have I felt this way before? What does it remind me of?

Second, you can do the empty chair process in your own home. You can do it with younger parts of yourself, you can do it with other people because we, we have all these different parts of ourselves, all these different ages, all these different memories. And another reason I think Caitlyn was frustrated with all the work she had done, but feeling like she wasn’t making the most progress as she wanted to is because she’s doing it all in her head.

And the empty chair process is a great way to get out of our head, to get off of our journal, and to actually talk something out. It’s like the difference between having a conversation with someone in your head and just imagining it and trying to like figure something out versus actually having the person in front of you and being able to have a conversation.

Which do you think is more effective? Actually being able to have a conversation with another person. The other takeaway would be release writing. You know, just, just that I give this tool a lot. Just that freeform writing and just letting things go. And also if the empty chair process isn’t working for you or you want a different angle, you can also do journaling with the younger parts of yourself.

And finally, boundary setting. Make requests of people speak your needs and let them be upset when someone’s upset and they’re saying to you, I don’t like this, this isn’t whatever they’re saying, you can say, I hear you really understand and this is my request and this is important to me. And you stand firm in your boundaries and you let other people have their upset.

Thank you for listening to Over it and on With It. I love hearing from you. So please post your comments or questions at christinehasler.com/podcast. That’s also the place you can sign up to receive coaching from me in an upcoming episode. And if you love this show, please share it and subscribe on iTunes. You can find all my social media handles and sign up to be part of my community at christinehassler.com.

Until next week, here’s to getting over it and on with it. Much love and many blessings.