#3 of 7 Stupid behaviors keeping you single or struggling in your relationships.
Many of the women I get the pleasure of helping have TRUST ISSUES. It’s a thing. And it’s a thing that goes deep. How do you learn to trust? How do you open up?
Rumi said…”Your task is not to seek love, you task is to remove the barriers you have built against it.”
#2 of 7 Stupid behaviors keeping you single or struggling in your relationships.
Just when you think you’re over your past…BOOM. You get triggered. In this video, I talk about what happens when you haven’t dealt with things that can still haunt you.
#1 of 7 Stupid Behaviors Keeping You Single Or Struggling In Your Relationships
In my humble opinion, I think the biggest problem on the planet on our inability to just BE.
I know that was my problem for most of my life. That’s why I was always striving for something better…wishing for the future, suffering from anxiety (living in the past) or feeling sad (tossing around regret.)
In this video, I explain how living in the past or the future effects our ability to have a successful relationship…Watch now….
It happened when I was sitting at the kitchen nook with my daughter, Ellovie. I’d made her the most delectable dinner of Trader Joe’s orange chicken, brown rice and raisins. No really, that chicken is delicious.
And Ellie really likes it.
So, she’s happily eating her chicken and so am I. Which is a big deal because frozen orange chicken used to be a forbidden food. In the past, it would have set me up for a mother binge. (i.e. I already blew it with the sugar coated chicken. Bring on the chips and dip.)
But because I don’t diet anymore or restrict foods, I was enjoying my plate of food. I sat there, so proud of myself, remembering how far I have come in my own recovery or what I like to call my Sacred Walk to Wellness, when it happened.
Ellie pushed her plate away and said, “All done Mommy”.
She hadn’t eaten that much. And so, I looked at her plate, then back to her and asked, “Are you sure honey?”
“Yes. Mommy, my belly is full.”
And then, I said, as if on automatic pilot, “Are you sure honey, because you didn’t eat that much and you might be hungry later.”
Hello old frenemy. Binging Betty.
That’s a familiar tactic Betty would use when she would set me up for a binge. Encouraging me to get fuller and fuller until I was crystal clear I wouldn’t be hungry later.
Now, now, in Betty’s defense, she had a reason for doing this.
Betty grew up poor in the early days. Her family was on welfare and they struggled to keep the household afloat. Basic food was available, mostly. But not the extras.
The extras lived at Gram’s house. And on weekends, Betty would go to stay with her.
Grandma had a never-ending glass jar of M&Ms. And a big white double door pantry, that when the doors swung open, the angels would sing hallelujah. Bright Christ light would shine down on the Pringles, Cheez- its, and Bugels. Rows and rows of Oreos and Chips Ahoy.
And gram was always baking. Peanut butter fudge. Caramels. Pineapple upside down cake.
Betty’s favorite thing to do at Grams was to grab a Klondike bar, a bowl of cheez its and an onion bagel, head upstairs and watch the Golden Girls in bed.
Betty LOVED going to my Grams on Friday nights because come Sunday, it was back to potato soup. So she thought should have as much as she could stand so that she’d have enough to tide me over.
Back then, Binging Betty was setting herself up for a binge-restrict cycle. But she didn’t know it until high school.
In 9th grade, Betty moved to a new high school, out of her very small coal mining town into a “minor” city. And the next year, she decided she was too fat. She wasn’t. She was a cheerleader, she was active, and at a very healthy weight. But that year, she ate only an apple and a piece of bread for a whole school year. Until summer came and she was standing in the kitchen on the phone with her best friend Shelly.
“I have something to tell you,” She squealed.
“What it is it?” Betty pondered.
“I lost my virginity!” She blurted!
Betty’s eyes darted down to her black and white cheerleading shoes. Mind racing. Emotions building. And slowly she raised her gaze to be greeted by a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the counter.
“MmmmHumph.” She replied as she shoved cookie after cookie into her mouth.”
Long after she hung up the phone, she found herself licking the proverbial cookie plate.
Once school was starting, she realized she had gained 25 pounds. So, she went back to rules and restriction. But with more shame. More judgment. Greater resolve.
That’s Betty’s cycle. Restrict, Binge, restrict. Good girl. Bad girl. Good girl.
She lies to me by saying things like:
“You shouldn’t have eaten that BAD food. Now you’re going to get fat! You’re doomed to wake up with thighs two inches bigger and you’ll be up three pounds. You’re disgusting. You’re terrible. Want some French fires?”
She also says, “If you’re gonna blow it, blow it good because you’re never going to blow it again.”
And, “You’re so wonderful. You didn’t eat anything bad for three days! Let’s weigh you. You’re weight’s the same! This isn’t working it. You suck. Want some chips now?”
Binging Betty isn’t all bad. She’s scared. She has a lack mentality. She believes her worth is in her body. She doesn’t understand the concept of enough. Her song sings, “I’m not enough, you’re not enough, it’s not enough, there’s not enough”. Her intentions are pure. It’s her misguided attempt at self-love and self-preservation.
So, when I was sitting at the kitchen table with my girl, and I heard that old familiar tune, I paused. I came back to the present moment, (something I teach in my LYF course for overcoming dysfunctional relationships with people, places, or things) I took a deep breath and I smiled lovingly to myself.
Here, now, I know I have everything I need. I am enough. There is enough. I know today that Binging Betty is just repeating old patterns. And I, Healed Heidi do not have to engage with her. But I don’t get mad at her either.
I get curious about her, I have compassion for her. I know she did what she did for a good reason. It was her lame attempt to love herself. To nurture herself with food.
And although she was delusional, she’s not mean spirited. She didn’t know any better. She’s not malicious. She’s mistaken.
So, today when binging Betty asks Ellie, “Are you sure you’re done? You may be hungry later.”
I stop, reflect, and lovingly notice the pattern. And I remember, Ellie does naturally what’s taken me a lifetime to get back to ~intuitive eating. She still trusts her body to know when it’s full. She doesn’t operate from lack, scarcity, or good and bad foods. She eats when she’s hungry. She stops when she’s satisfied. She asks for the food her body wants.
Even chocolate! Yes! I have seen her eat chocolate and just when I’m tempted to intervene and say she’s had enough. Or chocolate is bad, she looks at me, holds up the half eaten thing and says, “All done Mommy.”
It’s miraculous!
I also feel the road to recovery is miraculous. It doesn’t have to be hard, although at times it is. It can be wonderful, beautiful, and full of joy. Today, I am so grateful to help teach other women how to have the same freedom though my LYF program. It’s so amazing when you learn to truly Love Yourself First.
If you would like to learn more, you can find that program here…
With love and kindness,
Heidi
About my work
Dysfunctional relationships with people, places, or things is my life’s work. And as a result of pouring all of my focus, education, training, and experience into working in the area of dysfunctional relationships, I’ve come up with a theory.
All self-destructive behavior is the result of dysfunctional attachment patterns. And the cure is to learn and practice Loving Yourself First,
To me, life is about relationships. All of my work is done through the lens of connection and attachment. As a life coach, I don’t do “pathology” I do “patterns”. I am looking for dysfunctional behavior and thought patters which created codependent relationships. I call these Attachment Personality Patterns, or APPs. APPs are just patterns we downloaded as a way to survive, thrive, connect, or cope. Once upon a time, these patterns served us and served us well, until they didn’t. And that’s where I come in. I’m Heidi Rain McGuirk, and I believe that the cure for all self-destructive behavior is to learn and practice self-love. So, I’ve created the PROMISE METHOD as a way for my clients to learn how to Love Themselves First. Come be with me, and I will light to path to your own sacred walk to wellness. You can find my work at www.lovecoachheidi.com
I see you over there, working your ass off to get healthy. Everyone tells you that you shouldn’t be interested in relationships. In fact, that should be the last thing on your mind. But it’s not. You feel alone and you’re tired of being alone. You know that feeling alone is part of the reason you use in the first place.
But, when you’re in a relationship, you either lose yourself totally, even getting obsessed. Or you keep so much distance out of fear that you never let anyone get too close to you.
It all feels so black and white. Your relationships are either awesome or horrific. Nothing in between.
You feel like no one really understands you. You have a hard time opening up in relationships. You keep most everything to yourself. It takes you awhile to trust people. You kind of feel like everyone is full of shit.
You also don’t know how to need without coming off as too needy.
You attract guys, but when you get close to them, usually after you sleep with them, you find out they’re jerks.
Or you are with a man and he doesn’t support you.
He says things like, “I want the old you back.” But you and I both know the old you is what led you to drugs and alcohol in the first place. You want to be you…2.0.
Maybe you’ve caused a lot of damage in your relationship. You cheated, or left the “good guy” and now you’re wondering if it’s too late for you and you missed your chance at true love.
Or, maybe you’re in a relationship left to wonder if there’s too much water under the bridge.
Or maybe you are wanting to learn all you can so that you don’t keep repeating old patterns. You want love. But, once you open up, you find that you get hurt again! He leaves you or cheats on you and you get blindsided. So you put up more walls. Pushing people away.
Perhaps you convince yourself that it’s better to be alone. But ending up alone is your biggest fear.
You need to figure this out. And you have to do it now.
What’s the point of getting sober?
In my opinion, the point of getting sober is to live an amazing, fulfilling, extraordinary life and a big part of living that life includes experiencing love on the deepest level possible.
You’re here to connect. You’re here to love and be loved and if you have been suffering from addiction, it’s a lot more than likely that relationships have been a source of pain for you for quite some time.
When I was researching competition for this book, I googled a lot of things like relationships in recovery, relationship problems for addicts, how to be in a relationship in recovery. And do you know that the only thing that came up was “warning signs when you date an addict.” And “Why you should stay out of relationships in recovery”?
Until now, NO ONE is teaching what you need to learn the most. The nitty gritty, get down to it answers to your real life questions.
Let’s pretend that you plan on taking a year off from relationships. Ok, great! What do you expect to happen after that year? Are you magically going to be amazing at relationships? NO! You won’t! Because while you were working on yourself, you weren’t learning how to be with another person.
The path to enlightenment isn’t a solitary walk. You don’t get better at relationships by being alone.
Relationships teach you the most about yourself. And eventually you will be in one. What are you doing to prepare?
And what about those of you who are already in relationships? Too bad? Too late? Work on yourself? That’s all fine and good, but you have a partner and you need each other. You need to learn how to communicate, build trust, and move on from the past.
Listen, not talking about relationships is like refusing to talk about sex to a bunch of pregnant 7th graders. They are having sex and you are in relationships.
And you should be. You are built for love and you deserve it.
But let’s be honest, you’re bad at it. And that’s where I come in.
I spent over a decade coaching “normies” in their relationships. I was very successful. I even served as the Director of Operations for the Matchmaking institute in NYC, where I helped 100’s of people start their own matchmaking and dating companies. And at one point, I had a cushy office in Beverly Hills where I charged 20,000 dollars per client to help them find love.
And then, I got recruited to teach “how to have a healthy relationship” at one of the world’s leading drug and alcohol treatment centers. And that is where I really learned about love.
It was there, over the course of five ears, that I had thousands of case studies. Clients asked the same questions over and over.
They wanted specific answers and practical advice on how to deal with their partners and how to get ready to have a healthy relationship.
So, year after year, day in and day out, I taught Love classes. Over 1700 classes. I had the privilege of teaching those classes to thousands of people. And after they left the treatment center, I found that they were writing to me and calling me to tell me how amazing their relationships were! People were healing their marriages, and people were getting into amazing relationships!
What a transformation!
The truth is that relationships are the number one reason people give for relapsing.
And addiction is a disease of loneliness. But no one is teaching you how to love. I am willing to be a renegade for a good cause. In the five years, it became crystal clear how and what you want to learn about love. You want your questions answered directly. You don’t want “concepts”, you want concrete strategies. You want to be directed what to do, or what to say, or how to handle things.
And you want specific questions answered. You don’t want to waste time.
So, that’s how I’ve organized this book.
It’s a series of questions that have been asked thousands of times. I answer them one at a time.
There are two sections: Singles and “committeds”
My hope is that you find this book useful for your whole relationship journey to True Love.
It’s also my hope that we get this book into as many hands as possible who need to read it. So, please tell as many women as you can about it and where to get it.
Let’s work together to teach love to as many people as possible.
Love will save us, you know?
Love heals all and all there is, is love.
Buy the BOOK
I love talking to people about getting better. But there was one question I would cringe at every time it was asked…
“Are you in recovery?”
I hated being asked that question mostly because I didn’t know what it meant. I thought that when people asked me that, they were essentially asking me if I went to AA.
I always had a hard time coming up with a suitable answer. I’d usually fumble out something like, “Ahhh, yes. But I don’t go to AA. I did my own thing.”
And then I’d wait for the look.
It was usually a confused look. And if it wasn’t confused, It was incredulous.
The truth is, I went to AA once. And I didn’t ever want to go back.
Maybe in another post I will describe why it didn’t line up with me.
But it didn’t. AND I still wanted to get better. I knew I had a problem. But there had to be more than one way to get better. I found that there weren’t a lot of alternatives.
So, that’s when I started my own sacred walk to wellness.
I’m so glad that I committed to getting better. And I’m even more grateful that THE LYF Program resulted from my own journey back to wholeness.
Watch this week’s video to hear my thoughts on the question, “What is recovery?”
LoveCoachHeidi.com
Recent Comments