Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Overgiving and Control Issues: Why People-Pleasing Can Often Stem from A Desire to Hide Ourselves and Fix Other People

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

On this episode of “The Language of Love,” I am doing a session with a caller who says she’s afraid of abandonment and builds walls to protect herself. In her friendships and romantic relationships, she has trouble letting people in, and she believes this fear stems from past trauma. However, she is ready for a change: As a lifelong people pleaser who tends to overextend herself, my caller says that she often gives, and gives, and gives, until she gets emotionally exhausted and resentful and chooses to end the relationship. Does this sound familiar to you? It certainly does to me. As a recovering people pleaser, what I have come to realize is that sometimes we actually are givers because it’s a way for us to maintain control over the relationship. It makes us feel like we have agency and we can protect ourselves, because we think we are choosing to be the bigger person and sacrifice the most in the relationship. But in the end, all our needs go un-met, because we have chosen to never express them. By not admitting our needs or asking for love, we are protecting ourselves in a little bubble of isolation. We make a conscious choice to be a giver, but in such a way that it also prevents us from being a receiver. Love is supposed to be a two-way street, whether we are talking about platonic or romantic love. When we choose instead to make it a one-way street and not allow ourselves to make space for people to give to us in return, it is often a symptom of past trauma or energetic blockage. So how can my caller learn to bring down her walls and start allowing herself to receive as much love as she gives? Listen to this episode for my advice to her and then share your thoughts with me on social media! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman, and for the last 30 years, I've been helping people learn to love and be loved better. Welcome to the Language of Love Sessions. This is where I get to work with you one-on-one, on air. You, my listeners, my goal in these sessions is to empower you to enjoy better relationships, both with others and with yourself and to help you embrace how precious and sacred your body, your love life, and your sexuality really is.

It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. Tell me what's been going on or what's happening in your life that I can help with. Oh, where would you like to start? Wherever you want. I will be 45 this weekend. I build walls faster than anybody can break them down okay so I am an expert at keeping most people at arm's length but I'm working really hard at not doing that I have a very traumatic

experience from childhood with my biological father as far as abandonment goes and it's taken me this long to realize that it went from blaming him for the walls that I put up and not letting people close and the trust issues to understanding that it's really myself that is in my way. The catalyst was him, but not being able to move past it is me. Yeah, that's a really powerful realization that I think we all have to make at a certain point, right? At a certain point, we can say, okay, this happened to me, it affected me,

but how I choose to move forward with it is at some point my responsibility, right? We have to make that choice to heal or to not let it stand in the way. And happy birthday, by the way. Thank you so much. When you say that you put walls up, I'm assuming it's with potential romantic partners.

Do you also do that with friendships? Yes. Okay, so with everyone. It's everybody. And I either move really fast and particularly with friendships or I don't I don't move at all. Not at all, but I move very, very slowly and people pass by. And when you move really quickly, do you then back up or does it just implode? It usually becomes something where I'm the one that's just putting everything into the friendship and people get used to that and complacent. And then I start to feel like this is a one-way street.

Okay. So you tend to over, do you tend to overgive in relationships too? Yes. Yeah. So that's frustrated with it. And then I, I don't want to play anymore. Yeah. That's a theme that I'm hearing from people.

And I always hear this from people and I have this history myself, so I understand it, but it just seems like more than ever, people are kind of just becoming aware of that, that they overgive and under-receive. And they're also becoming aware that part of the reason they overgive, it's not just that they're a wonderful person, but that it's a way to protect yourself. It's a way to keep the upper hand kind of in the relationship. Oh, you mean control issues? Yes. It's a way to control or seek control. Not that any of us are ever successful in controlling anything but the remote, but we try to control that way. That's one popular

way, very typical way that we try to control. And the reason for that is because, well, we get a lot of kudos for that from the time we're young. Everybody likes someone who's generous with their time and heart and efforts and will do for others and wants to do for others. That's reinforced. We also get love and approval that way. It's not even conscious. We're not doing this consciously, but it's kind of like a sneaky leaky way of keeping the control without really butting heads or openly requiring the control or asking for the control or taking the control that we might otherwise do and other personalities might do. So do you mind telling me a little bit about, you say you had a pretty traumatic abandonment. We don't have to go into the

whole, I'm sure it's a very large and painful story, but just like the summary of what happened. Sure. So off and on throughout my childhood, he was there and not promising to be there and not, I was the little girl at the window waiting for him to show up and he wouldn't and he wouldn't call and he put himself first and at 15 he when I was 15 he overdosed and I got the phone call from the hospital as his next of kin and I knew that if I didn't do something that his behavior was going to kill me and I went to his family my grandmother his uncles and I said help me get him help. And the response was, well, he's my son. I can't do that. And I gave him an ultimatum and I said, me or the drugs. And he chose the drugs and abandonment. And I didn't have anything to do with

him until two years ago when I contacted him because I would like to have a child, but I don't want to have a child and screw that child up with my, my issues. So I reached out to him and I said, why? Why not just leave me to mom who wanted me unconditionally? Why not just leave me where you knew that I would be taken care of and she would never keep me from your family, but go on about your way. And he gave me this sort of half-assed answer about his father and how his father treated him. And by the way, I never got any information from that side of the family about familial history. And, you know, it was never talked about, even though I asked as a little kid. Your dad must have used all the way through. My guess is he was also using drugs when he wasn't

showing up. Sure. I mean, he used to take me on on drug runs. He used to take me to self-contained. He like he said he was heavy into it. Now, is he the only addict you've ever really been around? No. Yeah. So you, you have a tendency to get involved with addicts, my guess is, right? They've been in, I mean, my aunt was an alcoholic, all of the adults in my life at some point or other. Yeah. Have been. And do you have any addiction issues? Well, no, I mean, I don't really think so. I'm on prescription medication because I've had surgeries, but I don't have that same addictive personality. I don't want to be on them. I could walk away. Now, does my body feel Like if I'm not on the medication after two or three doses, I skip them.

Yeah. So like my physically addicted. But have you ever gone through? Could you wean off them now if you wanted to? And have you ever tried? I actually have. And I have a pain management specialist that I go and see. And so we talk about that, especially in wanting to have a child.

Yeah. We talk about the process of coming off of it. And have you ever gone to Narconon meetings or Al-Anon meetings or anything like that? I went to an AA meeting with my aunt before she passed away. And I also went to a CODA meeting. Yeah, good. CODA is good. Yeah, CODA is what I'm feeling for you.

Co-dependent. I mean, you can't grow up in a home like that and in a family like that without being co-dependent, period. And the way that co-dependency often shows up is as being the nurturer, the enabler, you know, that sort of is your tendency to go into that role and then resent it once you're in that role. Right. So that's at play here. But what's interesting to me or what I think is important about the story that you're telling is that when you were a little girl, obviously you didn't understand that the way an addict works, which is when they're clean

and they're with you, they really mean the promises they're making and they really have every intention of making them, but the drug and the addiction is the kind of disease. It doesn't excuse people's behavior, but it literally is their first love. That is a stronger pull than even their own life. And where I see the deepest wounds happen in those who love and are raised by addicts is that you eventually come to this place pretty quickly as a little child who automatically thinks everything is because of them, you think to yourself, okay, it's me. It's because of me. And yeah, drug schmucks. If he really cared, he would show up. So the child can't understand really fully, can't fully buy that the fact that dad isn't keeping his promises and isn't showing

up is not because he doesn't care, is not because he doesn't love me as much as he possibly could, but that his addiction makes his love while mine is a big gulp full, his full cup is a thimble size cup. His cup is as full as it possibly can be as an addict. And it has nothing to do with him not loving me to the best of his capacity. It's just that he loves his substance more like every addict who hasn't recovered, loves their substance more. Yeah. Well, it's that he loved his substance more. He loved his girlfriends more. He loved his money more. Yeah. And my mom would tell me, you know, she would say like, he loves you as much as he can love you. And I would say that to be asked if he loved me, if he really loved me as a father is supposed to love their

child, then he would make the changes necessary. Absolutely. But where you're going wrong, where I'm going to challenge you is where you're turning that around on yourself. Your story is that you could be potentially more of something or less of something. And then he would have the strength that he would want to, if he really wanted to, then he would. And the reason he doesn't want to is only because I'm not lovable enough. That's your core story. And quite frankly, that's a crock of shit. Yeah. That's just not true. What's true is that it wouldn't matter who you were. He was committed, you know, and all the behaviors, the money, the women, the drug, it's all part of the same. I can't show up for people. I can't give to anyone but myself.

I can't be with real emotions. I can't be in my authenticity. I can't be with my pain. So I'm just going to fill it up with all these different things. And that is why there was no room for fatherly love. It wouldn't matter. You fill in the blanks, right? If you were, what would be the perfect child or the perfect person that would what could you be or could you not be that would have made him want to show up for you in your mind? I don't really know. I don't really know. You'd have to ask his stepdaughter and his wife. I bet you anything. If you spoke to them, they would tell you that their life has been misery with him. He got clean and he got married and he raised somebody else's child and I realized that when I did contact him

I thought that there would be some type of joy some type of excitement and there was nothing yeah and I thought maybe okay at first like it's this cautious you know and guilt and shame right and so i started to just try to have conversations with him yeah and i realized once again like here i am the adults in the conversation trying to put somebody else at ease put him at ease and i was like i don't want to do this again i know you don't have to no i got the answers that i asked the questions that i needed and i walked away from it like there was no big production this time there was no ultimatum i simply was just you know where i am yeah but he has not made any effort yeah calculating route to avoid seeing poverty

turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away then take the next exit let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. Donate today at unitedwaygt.org. Once again, it's not because of you, right? Now, if you were an asshole to him or you were cruel to him or disrespectful and he already felt shame, then maybe you had a role to play in his inability to really take responsibility for his actions. But first of all, someone can get sober without and still be an addict in their mentality,

right? Not be in integrity with themselves, not make restitution fully. Like if he was fully sober, he would have made restitution with his daughter, period, who he basically abandoned for his addiction. If he was really sober and doing his 12 steps, that would have been part of it. And the reason that it wasn't part of it is not because of anything to do with you. Right. It wouldn't matter where you are. Let's just play devil's advocate. You have a story that

maybe really does have to do with you because he chose to do it with someone else and raise someone else's kid. Well, he now got to be the hero that came in and raised this other kid who had no preconceived notion of him as being someone who lets me down and someone who's not going to show up, who doesn't have any expectations and makes it really easy for him to be in his narcissistic whatever, right? So that's easy. As long as it's easy and he doesn't have to look in the mirror and he doesn't have to face what he's done, then it's fine, right? But that has nothing to do with you. That's really not because of you. That's because of his limitations and where what I'm trying and me telling you this is only scratching the surface. Obviously, this is

something that you have to explore and fully integrate and adopt for yourself. But I just want to plant the seed here that you are still committed to believing that it's because of your worthiness of love somehow that he has made the choices he's made, including still not reaching out to you. And I know that not only were those wounds in childhood, but a big pivotal role or moment was when you said drugs are me and he chose drugs, right? That's when you made the decision that no one will ever really choose me when push comes to shove. So I'm just not going to choose anyone else. And even if you know intellectually, and I hope you do, that asking an addict to make that decision, you already know what the answer is going to be. I don't care who

you are. I don't care if you are Princess Di and Heidi Klum and every supermodel, like every perfect thing in the world. Someone who is in active addiction will choose the addiction, period. But you asked that question, got that answer, and that 18-year-old decided, I absolutely unequivocally cannot trust love. I will not be chosen. And that is the mantra that you tell yourself. And it's all based on trying to, what I like to say, buy bread in a hardware store. Your father is a hardware store. He cannot make or sell bread, right? And you know intellectually that, and that's why you sort of don't have contact with him. I'm not going to get bread in a hardware store. But the problem is you are blaming yourself for the fact that the

hardware store can't give you bread. You think it's because you're a crappy customer or you don't pay enough for you, whatever. You're making up a story that it has to do with you, but it just has to do with the fact that he's a hardware store that makes sense yeah that makes sense now the question is how do i integrate that well how do i yeah how do i integrate that and so that i stop so that i stop running from from other people and i stop running for myself well let's just try this on just do a split second exercise i mean let's get through the big thing let's just try this on for a minute okay i want you to just take a few deep breaths and as you do just imagine light flowing in through your body and as you breathe out like through the top of

your head and as you breathe out it shoots deep into the earth just ground in yourself for a minute take a few breaths keep your eyes closed and i'm gonna speak a little bit and i want you to just notice what you feel emotionally, but especially in your body, okay? Okay. Calculating route to avoid seeing poverty. Turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street.

Then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food. Steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away. Then take the next exit. Let's stop looking away and get in the way of rising poverty. Your donations help the United Way fight poverty in thousands of ways, like providing food, shelter, and crisis prevention. Donate today

at unitedwaygt.org. There's something wrong with me. I am not going to be chosen. When push comes to shove, I am not chosen. I will not be chosen. Where do you feel that in your body? Just like right here, right in the center of your chest, right? You can just gently open your eyes, breathe into that. We're going to send that some love. We're not going to go deep, deep, deep into it because if I were working with you or if you're working with someone in the way that I'm going to suggest you do, you would be really being with that feeling. It has so much to tell you. It has so much to release. It has so much to assist you in healing this part of yourself, But that is a heart-centered issue. That is the part of you that can give and receive love. And it is blocked by all those younger parts of you who believe, led in the charge by that 18-year-old, that believe that you are discardable, that you are easily abandoned.

You are discardable. You are not enough. And it's going to be impossible for you to really find love and heal in the way that you deserve until you can be with and heal those parts of you that still believe what I'm saying, right? And so you could feel the beginning of it. You could imagine if you were to stay with that, be with that, be a beautiful, loving witness to that, that you might start crying, you would release some emotion, and you would be that much closer to that part of you who, as your child, like you will one day say to your child, what would you say to that 18-year-old, right? What would you say to that 18-year-old today who's standing there feeling like she's discardable and she can never, ever expect

anyone to choose her? Not what you would say to yourself. What would you say to that 18-year-old? Yeah, that it's not her, that it's not her, that it's discardable, that she is love and she is loved and that it is the other people and it is their loss that they are not getting close to her or allowing, allowing themselves to love her and to be loved by her. And it's their own wounds that stop them. is things that have nothing to do with who she is and what she is, right? And you can do that for those younger parts of yourself. And as you do that, you will get closer to doing that for yourself, right? Because you know intellectually what I'm saying is true. It's just that those

other parts of you who make you put up the walls, those shadow parts of you, right, are the parts of you that still believe you're discardable. So you better put up walls and not let anyone in Because all they're going to do is leave you and abandon you and discard you anyway. I think, too, right at this time in my life, because I'm walking around so lost, it's easier for them to come up. It's easy to feel in that space where I do feel discardable. And so. But you know what? That's a good there's a gift to that, because what I will say to you, and I think you follow me on social media, so you probably see me saying all of this.

that what is happening in the world right now is a perfect storm astrologically, electromagnetically in the earth's electromagnetic field, and even environmentally with COVID and Ukraine and everything else happening and the shootings and all the horrible things happening in politics. There is such a perfect storm energetically right now that feels really uncomfortable. But the cool part of it is that every single one of us is having our shit come up to be cleared. Right. Part of the reason you're feeling this way, I want to caution you against adapting or adopting the story that this is who you are, even if it's this is who you are right now. You are not someone who is lost. You are someone who right now is feeling lost. That's a

big difference, right? And as you're feeling lost and you're feeling all these energies and all this stuff is coming up for you as it is for everyone, and it is coming up for our benefit in order to be clear, in order to release it so that we can clear the way for higher vibration, for love, for goodness in the world. It's happening to all of us in our own way. We're all having it. Stuff is coming up. So as you can soften and get support for moving with that and talking to that part of yourself and being with that part of yourself rather than trying to barrel through it, you will do... The cool part is we're so supported right now in this healing just with the energy. This is the perfect time. Plus, we don't have a choice. It's coming up whether we want it to or

not, right? But it's the perfect time to really do healing on steroids. And it's a perfect time for you in preparation to bringing a life into the world and finding love and being in a healthy relationship, both with your child and with a future partner, this is the time to do that healing. And as you do that, not only is it going to make you so much happier and healthier emotionally and in every way, but it's going to make you such a great mom. Do that. I've always been open to healing and to learning and to getting better. I just haven't known how and i keep running into these lovely therapists who well i mean i've had one therapist who had me therapy her and and i was like i'm struggling a little bit um i don't even

want you to do talk therapy what i would really want you to do is somatic experiencing and i would check out the Hakomi Institute. They have somatic experiencing therapists all over the country. That would be my first choice. You can also check out traumahealing.org. And I would also say to check out Teal Swan's work on the completion process in particular. That's a book. And I think she has a course on it, but it's a beautiful system for being with your own inner child and kind of working through things even in your own guided way. And also Nicole LaPerla of Holistic psychologist. I think she is on social media. She has a whole self-healing program for healing this kind of trauma from childhood and to really doing a lot of this somatic work. All of that, I think,

is really going to be helpful to you. Perfect. I really appreciate it. And then if I could just put you in my pocket and carry you with me, doctor, or carry you everywhere I go, that would be, that would be fantastic. I think this is really the crux of where your work is, is really going inwards and exploring and being with those parts of you who are really still attached to that story and really being with the feelings of that and releasing those feelings and not just saying, you know, fuck you. I won't have you in my life anymore. Cause that's more of a reaction than an inner healing you know yeah you're doing the reactions of the boundaries but your boundaries are almost too strong outside you trespass on your own heart all the time with

the boundaries are there fine that's the other boundaries that i can't figure out how to set up because i take care of my mom and well that's another issue of her stomping all over those ones. And I don't have any clue how to deal with that, but that's another story for another time. Yeah. This is all related because as you do this healing, you will get clearer and clearer on how much you deserve. The only thing that's holding you back from setting the boundaries and requiring people to treat you the way you deserve to be treated is the part of you that thinks she doesn't really deserve it. Or if she pushes too hard for what she needs and deserves, she'll be abandoned and discarded. And that's, that's the only reason as you do this healing

work, everything will get easier for you to manage and we'll get a lot less painful. That would be fantastic because otherwise I'm going to need to put myself in the funny form. I can imagine. It's a lot to hold. So be sure to take care of yourself. Okay. I will. I really appreciate you. Um, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me and If you ever have a spot open and you want to chat again with me, I'm always open to it. Oh, we will. Okay.

Thank you so much. Take care. Thanks. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. calculating route to avoid seeing poverty turn left to bypass the unhoused youth sleeping on the street then keep right to skip by the lines of people waiting for food steer clear of the crowded shelter turning people away then take the next exit let's stop looking away and get in the

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