Do you have a tape in your head that never shuts up, always telling you how you’re screwing up? Does it judge you without mercy, constantly comparing you to others and reminding you of your limits, deficiencies, and inadequacies?  

The relationship that has the potential to do the most damage to your self -esteem is the relationship you have with yourself, especially if that relationship is dysfunctional, toxic or emotionally abusive by way of negative self-talk.

You might be wondering, “how can you have a toxic relationship with yourself?”

Well, what is a toxin? It’s something that pollutes you creating dis-ease. And one of the ways we pollute our minds and spirit is by filling it with hurtful untruths about who we really are and what we’re capable of.

If we do not get a handle on the way that we speak to ourselves, it will annihilate our chances of ever becoming our true selves, doing the things in life we really want to do and having the love, life and relationships that we deserve.

I had to find a way.  I had an inner critic that never shut up. Nighttime was particularly bad and that’s when the tape would be the loudest and most intrusive. I would lay awake for hours in an anxiety ridden state replaying the movie of my life’s previewed mistakes.

It was torture. But the truth is, as much as I watched motivational videos, looked in the mirror and said affirmations or listened to self love meditations, it wasn’t working.

I needed something more. Some of these strategies may seem odd. But they worked!

Watch the video to learn some tangible ways to break free from destructive, negative self-talk. www.LoveCoachHeidi.com 

Over the years, I’ve coached thousands of people who are in toxic, dysfunctional or unhealthy relationships and I always ask the same question:,” What do you think is the number one thing you can learn that will set you free from all of these dysfunctional toxic relationship problems once and for all?”

After they think about it for a minute, they say, “ I think I need to learn to love myself”

And that’s exactly right! We need to learn how to love ourselves. But the problem is we don’t know what the hell that means.

When I ask people “How do you love yourself?”  They talk about taking baths, getting manicures or massages. They tell me about going to the gym or eating “clean”. In other words they tell me about self care.

Self care is a part of self love, but it is NOT self love.

The truth is there aren’t enough bath bombs in the world to compensate for a deep-seated feeling of inadequacy. There aren’t enough manicures on the planet to quiet your harsh inner critic.

I needed to learn this too. I didn’t love myself either. I had a real problem with self-destructive behavior. I chose people who didn’t want me in relationships.And I wasn’t attracted to the ones who wanted me. I thought something must be wrong with them to like me so much.  

The outside looked pretty good though. I had self care. But behind closed doors, I was self-medicating and self-loathing. Numbing out with food and alcohol.

I couldn’t shut that tape off in my head screaming, “What’s the matter with you? What’s wrong with you? Why are you the way you are? Why can’t you be normal like everybody else?” My negative self-talk that would constantly have me second guessing myself. 

If you have the same tape in your head, it’s time to get busy loving yourself. But HOW do you do that?

The first thing we need to understand is that love is not a feeling. Love isn’t something you feel. Chemistry is a feeling, attraction is a feeling, but love is a verb.

Love is something you do not something you feel.

So if that’s the case, self love must be something you do and do daily.

In fact and I don’t love myself at all unless I am demonstrating my love for myself on a daily basis.

I can say I love myself, but if I can’t demonstrate it, and I’m still picking the wrong people for me, I’m still self-destructive, or I self medicate, I am not really loving myself.

The first thing that we Master on the road to loving ourselves is figuring out who the hell we are.

You can’t love yourself if you don’t even know who you are.

Most of us aren’t who we are, we’re who we’ve needed to be and  that’s called codependency. 

When you’re born into a toxic or dysfunctional family dynamic, you’re just trying to scramble and hustle for love and affection.

You end up taking on what I call, an Attachment personality Pattern.  

These personality patterns are the masks we wear to thrive, survive, connect or cope in our family of origin. I have come up with eight different personality patterns. One of the patterns is the people pleaser. You just want to make everybody happy all the time so you just go along with the show and put your own needs off to the Wayside. Another is the controller. You feel like you need to be in control of everything all the time and you become compulsively self-reliant, developing trust issues. Another pattern is that of the Fixer. You run to the rescue all the time, choosing broken people to put back together. And yet another pattern is that of the withholder. Where you keep people at arm’s distance.  You’re in it but not “in it to win it” because you don’t want people to use your feelings against you. So, you keep your feelings to yourself.

We have all these different personality patterns running the show.  And that’s why step 1 is to know who you are. 

You need to  excavate your authentic self and figure out who you really are at your core 

By the way, in my programs over at LYFE School, we get to the bottom of this as well as 6 other daily self love disciplines. It’s a self love system.  

Another way we love ourselves is by practicing radical acceptance. This is when we learn to trade self- righteousness for reality and not only do we accept ourselves for who we are, but we learn to accept others for who they are too.

That’s an art form.

We can carry around immense resentments waiting for others to love us the way we want to be loved. But when we learn it’s really up to us, we can release the hostage (a I call it) and start meeting our own needs.

This is a problem for those of us learning to love ourselves because we are so used to putting the needs of others before our own.

But when you are learning to love yourself, you learn what makes you tick, brings you joy and fulfills you. 

You stop waiting for other people to buy you the flowers and you plant a garden.

We stop waiting on others and we lead the way.

We stop trying  to be a shapeshifter, doing what we think will pleasure everyone else and we start to please ourselves.

We master the concept of enough when we learn to love ourselves as well.

When I was meeting my needs by binge drinking and binge-eating, I could never get enough. 

There  were never enough Oreos and  there was never enough wine. And do you know why there’s never enough wine or never enough Oreos? Because you can never have enough of what you don’t really want. And what you really want doesn’t come in a sleeve, or in a bottle. It comes from within.

Another thing we do daily when we love ourselves is we learn to speak our truth.

Many of us have been lying to ourselves for a long time. We don’t know how to radically speak our truth anymore because we’re so careful not to upset or offend those who matter to us. 

You’re afraid to rock the boat because you’ve been walking on eggshells most of your life.

Well love,it’s time to make an omelette. 

Part of loving yourself is learning how to set and hold boundaries when it’s hard.

You know the old joke, “Why did The Narcissist cross the road? Because he thought it was a boundary.”

When you Love Yourself, you stop waiting for others to get it and you start respecting yourself. You start by respecing your own boundaries and stop betraying yourself, going back on your own words. 

We’ve got a good start to learning how to love yourself. But the truth is, we know nothing unless we are demonstrating it.

I want to help you deepen your understanding and learn how to walk your talk.

This work is so important for me for many reasons. But it’s not  just because I teach this and I certify  LYFE coaches, of course these are BIG reasons to do this work. 

But the thing that means the most to me is watching my daughter, knowing I broke a toxic, dysfunctional cycle of playing and hurting from deep seeded self hatred.

When I look at her, I see an unleashed human being who is radically approving of herself. She feels her worth at her core and knows her  value and doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody. It’s her nature.

It’s pretty miraculous to watch and I think that’s your nature too.

I believe you were born with that same knowing until somebody talked you out of it and you forgot how magnificent you are.

Let me come alongside you and take you on a  journey back to your true nature.

Love,

Coach Heidi

There’s not a more frustrating relationship on the planet from my perspective than a relationship with an addict and alcoholic.

You rack your brain to try to figure out how to save this person’s life. Ultimately that’s really what’s at stake at the end of the day. You want to learn how to fix this. You want to learn how to get your loved one back.

If you could shake them awake you would.  You know they’re in there somewhere. And you just believe that if you could say the right thing or do the right thing you’d wake them up from this nightmare. You’’ get through to them and get them back and your family can be fixed and everybody can come back together again.

I know that feeling firsthand extremely well.I know that feeling of looking over at your loved one feeling like they’re lost and just wanted to call them home.

I get it and I want to tell you you’re in the right place to learn how to deal with this situation in your life because likely what you’ve been doing you’ve been doing out of love out of concern and care.  But it’s crazy making because it’s not working.

I’m going to give you some tools to deal with the addict or alcoholic in your life.

I’ve been an expert in the field of codependency coaching for a long time and on my journey,  I served as head faculty  at one of the world’s leading drug and alcohol treatment centers. I did that for about eight years before I transitioned into owning my own personal development company. 

As faculty, I co-created and facilitated a family program.

And every single month hundreds of families came through that program, raising their hand, telling the stories about what they would do to try to control their alcoholic or addict’s behavior. 

Whether it was a spouse or child or parent,  they discussed hiding alcohol, cancelling parties, hiding and doling out pills, and researching  “How to detox somebody”. Essentially, they were working harder on somebody’s recovery than the person who needed to recover. 

I understand this completely and I want to discuss the impact of these behaviors on your loved one and the impact on you if you continue these behaviors.

And then,, I want to offer a better way to help you and your entire family. 

I remember the first time thinking that I had some kind of control over my dad’s drinking.

He was an alcoholic. My parents were divorced and my dad would pick us up every other weekend. I was 5 or 6 when we first started going for weekends with my dad and I remember feeling terrified.  

My dad never drove anywhere without a beer between his legs. Whoever called shotgun would sit in the front seat and there’d be a six pack on the floor next to your feet. He’d reach over and grab that cold wet beer that grazed your leg and then all Hell would break loose.

He’d take his eyes off the road for as long as it took to down that beer. To a five year old, it felt like an eternity. 

I just remember being paralyzed with fear thinking “we’re going to die today”.

 I grew up in the Backwoods of West Virginia/ Pennsylvania in coal country where there were windy roads on hill tops without guardrails. I remember thinking, “He’s not partying attention!” I thought we were going to wreck. 

I needed to take control. That’s when  I invented a little game. I never called shotgun. I would sit right behind my dad so I could see right over his ear. I had a little imaginary steering wheel, a little break and a gas pedal from that backseat. So, when my dad would take his eyes off the road and I’d be hyper-vigilant, take over with my imaginary steering wheel and save us all from impending doom. 

 Because it worked (we never wrecked), that instilled in me this codependency control pattern  which is one of hyper-vigilance. 

If you grew up in a family of addiction or dysfunction or abuse you know this hyper-vigilance extremely well. It’s a belief that  you can control the toxic or dysfunctional person in your life if you just say the right thing or do the right thing. You’re always on guard, always seeking the “right strategy”. 

I tried other things to control my dad’s  alcoholism. 

My dad used to hide vodka in the  toilet tank. So I would take it out of the toilet tank dump the Vodka down the drain and put the bottle back thinking he would know it was me that did it and he’d feel so guilty and shame stricken that he’d quit drinking then and there.

Sometimes that would work. And other times, I would go back in there be a brand new bottle would be there. Then, I’d feel like a failure and resolve to try harder. 

I would have conversations with him thinking maybe he just doesn’t know what he’s doing. I’d save the empty beer cans and pile them up as proof to help him come to his senses.

 As a kid of an alcoholic or addicted parent, you truly believe the drinking is your fault and that you can fix it. And as adults, if we’re still locked in a toxic pattern of codependency, we continue to believe this lie.

We lecture, pointing out how much they’re drinking having these exhausting conversations with them. We dump out the alcohol. We avoid social gatherings. We go to restaurants without bars. We lock up the medication. 

But what of none of that is working?

What if we have no control?

If you love an addict or an alcoholic, the only thing that you can decide is how you’re going to choose to experience your loved one’s addiction.You decie how you participate in the dysfunction. 

You come up with, and learn to set and hold your boundaries. I used to confuse boundaries with ultimatums.

An ultimatum is a desperate plea, a manipulation to try to get somebody to change their behavior. IE “If you drink on Thanksgiving, I’m never letting you come over again and I will be devastated.”

Alcoholics don’t drink to ruin your Holiday because they don’t love you enough. They drink on thanksgiving because they’re actively alcoholic.  I used to say things like that to my dad thanksgiving and then I would be full of resentment, anxiety and pain and confusion when he drank anyway. I’d wonder where I went wrong or why he didn’t respect me.

A boundary is for YOU. It’s a warning to others what they can expect from you when they violate what you’re available or unavailable for. IE: “Dad if you come over and your drink on Thanksgiving, you will be asked to leave  or I will leave.” 

I remember telling my dad at one point “I love you so much but when you drink I feel really uncomfortable and triggered and it makes me feel super anxious. So if you’re going to drink or I notice that you’re drunk, I will be leaving.” And then, when he drank, I left. I’d say, “I love you and I am leaving now.”

I wasn’t  looking for a fight, for justification or rationalization. I was looking out for myself. 

So, how do you start to set and hold boundaries with an addict or an alcoholic versus trying to control their behavior?

The first step is awareness. How are you trying to control your loved one’s addiction?  

The second step is to get help. Al-Anon is a great free resource.There are online and in-person support groups where you can feel heard and know you are not alone. But if you want step by step guidance and strategic advice, consider reaching out to schedule an appointment so we can look at your unique situation and figure out what to do next.

Love,

Coach Heidi

Finding an Being Your True Self

Who are you, really? Most of the time  we don’t know who we really are. We walk through the world with a fear of being found out. The thought intrudes, “Any minute now they’re going to figure out you’re a fake, you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re not that great.”

At the same time, you long to unleash your authentic, confident, radiant  self into the world because you have a conflicting feeling that underneath it all, you may just be as incredible as you hope you are. 

But which one is the real you?

Do you even have a true self? Or are we ever changing? Is the True Self a fixed, static thing or a moving state of becoming?

Wouldn’t it  be amazing if you could uncover and BE your true self?

What would your True Self give you permission to do, be or have?

Would you worry less  about what you? Would you placate or people please less? Would you hare your feelings more? Would you put yourself or your work out into the world? Would you set and hold more boundaries?

Essentially, would you feel like you have less to prove?

Yes. Because when you’re not in touch with your true self, you’re lacking self-esteem and self-confidence.

How can you have self-esteem and self-confidence if you do not know your true self? You cannot because  you’ll have a  false self-esteem, a false sense of confidence and what is that? That’s narcissism.

 That’s what that looks like on a social media post, only presenting a curated image of oneself that the world might find pleasing. 

You also know you don’t know your true self when you get easily triggered by abandonment or rejection and head into a shame spiral, doubting what you think, feel, or believe to be true about yourself.

When that happens, you realize you’re on shaky ground and you need to get  rooted in your truth. When you’re rooted in your True Self, you have an authentic feeling of self-esteem. IT’s not a better than others attitude. It’s a quiet confidence that radiates from within.  It’s not put on. It’s not a fake it ’til you make it. It’s authentically empowered.

Your true self is that  never changing part of you  that doesn’t need to placate or pretend to be something that it’s not. It’s your essence. And your essence is pure, egoless, divinely connected, interconnected oneness, lacking nothing, whole and complete. 

The problem is that whole, undefinable existence when we think of our True Self, we don’t think about that. We think of our ego. We reference our title, position, role, or personality to create an Identity.

We think, “My true self is I am a mother, or a CEO or a Doctor, or a Coach, A Father, etc. 

Or we identify with an affliction. “I’m an alcoholic.”, “I’m the mother of an addict.” Or we identify our true self with our Spiritual Path, “I’m a Taoist”, or “I’m a Christian.” Or we identify with an adjective, “I’m a good person.” or, “I’m a loving, kind, giving, person.”

If you are not the adjectives you use to describe yourself,

If you are not your medical conditions or currently overcome afflictions (IE Survivor)

If you are not the role you play in someone else’s life.

If you are not your job….who are you?

We have all these identities that are keeping us stuck from knowing our True Selves. And to me, the worst culprit is the identity of personalities. Especially when it comes to personalities we developed out of dysfunction, abuse, addiction, or a toxic environment.  

I call these Attachment Personality Patterns or APPS. These attachment personalities are  something you downloaded from your family of origin that we take on in order to thrive, survive, connect, cope in our family of origin.

If you grew up in a  Dysfunctional Family Dynamic where there was alcoholism, addiction, abuse, neglect, or other forms of toxicity you take on this personality pattern in an attempt to reconcile  who you needed to be to get your needs met, avoid conflict or otherwise survive.

So, my idea is that in order for you find your true self, you must first see who you have been

How can you know who you truly are if truly are if you don’t even know who you’ve been.

The truth is, you likely have not been who you really are. You have been who you needed to be and that’s what I call  an Attachment Personality Pattern.

When I first started to do codependency coaching in the world, I learned about the  codependency patterns such as the low self-esteem pattern, the denial pattern, the compliance pattern, etc, 

But I found these descriptors to be limiting in the way that they prevented one from fully being able to clearly identify.  If one cannot identify their pattern, there is no chance of breaking free from it.

So, the first step when you want to break free from a false self is to identify the adaptive attachment personality pattern.

My aim in creating the patterns was to  make it easy to identify yourself in a much clearer way that doesn’t paint you into a corner, but allows you to see how your pattern uniquely affects you.

I have discovered eight Personality Patterns to date. 

And you can find out more about them as we continue to deepen our relationship through these blogs, videos, and coaching programs. There, we will go more in depth to each pattern.

The 8 patterns are as follows: The Controller,  The Fixer, The Pretender/Performer, The People Pleaser, The Survivor/Victim, The Perfectionist, The Withholder, and The Clinger. 

All of these patterns we take on keep us from becoming the truest version of who we really are. What started as a coping strategy that may have worked for some time in childhood, has become your Achilles’ heel in your adult relationships.

For sake of example, let’s look briefly at the Pretender.

I’ve been doing this codependency work for 20 years. I was head faculty  at one of the world’s leading Drug and alcohol Treatment Centers, where Irean group therapy and led psychoeducational lectures.  

One day, a gentleman raised his hand and said, “You know, I can’t be that bad! My daughter is about to go into law school! She’s amazing! Everyone loves her and she’s perfect. She never has any problems. So, I can’t be that bad. Look at her!”. 

The Pretender learns early on that they are not allowed to have any problems because the alcoholic has the family all stocked up.

They don’t want to run the risk of telling those at school that dad’s an alcoholic, or mom’s not taking care of the family because they don’t want to be looked at as a problem or as less than. So, they learn to pretend they’re fine. Of course they actually convince themselves they are fine and ten the curate other’s opinions of themselves by only showing what’s attractive, acceptable or likable. 

All else, the feelings, the hurt, the messy, ugly truth gets buried. 

As an adult, this person is in a constant state of denial. They are asleep to one’s True Self.

If you’ve ever felt like an imposter, or a pressure cooker, boiling under the surface, you can see how important it is to identify your attachment Personality Pattern and start the necessary work of unbecoming who you are not.

I believe most people in the world are just struggling to become. We want to learn how to become the best, the most. 

I think true happiness and authenticity is about Unbecoming.  For me, is not about acquisition it’s about release.

When you identify and release who you’re not, you’re free to see who you already are, underneath all else.

Radiant. Divine. Messy. Perfect. Imperfect.  The Whole.

Love,

Coach Heidi

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