ego_consciousness__emotional_immaturity_with_jenna

Thu, Feb 08, 2024 10:00PM 1:50:30

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

feel, sharing, feeling, experience, reactivity, moments, behavior, learned, emotional immaturity, reactive,
conversation, chat, witness, wound, notice, work, connect, nicole, shame, person

SPEAKERS

Jenna Weakland

J Jenna Weakland 00:47

Hello SelfHealers Circle members. Thank you for being here. Whether you are here joining us live or you
are choosing to tune into the replay. I'm grateful to spend this hour with you all, and with all of you all
together with each other as well. So welcome I've seen many of you saying hello for the last few minutes
in the chat letting us know where you're from. I would love to know if there's anyone here for their first live
event maybe your first content teaching or possibly your first circle event. There are usually new ones to
welcome each time whether you've been here only for a few months or some of you have been here for
years and are just making the choice to jump on and engage and connect in the live and a special hello to
to all of you who are here for the first time or maybe have been here a couple of times and are sitting in
the background and not engaging in the chat. Your energy is also felt your presence is felt and so
appreciated. And is it n.or endo please let me know how to pronounce it. Hello, and welcome to your first
live. You're gonna see me looking in a few places. I have a screen and camera in front of me. My laptop is
in front of me where I can type back to you guys in the chat. And I also have your chat up on his screen
over here with the video. So you see me looking around it is to keep us up to speed between content and
also your engagement. So I'll be backing or bouncing back and forth. Hello Amber. First time for Elmer
Hello Furkan on the one on the screen. Can you flip over to the audience chat? Please, so I can see the
Yeah, thank you. And of course thank you MJ Britney Furkan Nicole, my incredible team who's here behind
the scenes who will work on in the studio making this run and bringing this live to you all Hello. Hello. first
live event Danielle I just lost one thing Yes, I thankfully have new glasses this time around so I should be
able to see a lot better and hopefully won't need to squint or lean forward. So much. Lexa luxery dancing
around your house first live happy to be there. Hi, Michelle. Hi. Are you taking video? Hello, Well normally
that slowly. For done that you're not here. Hello, and welcome. All right, today's event is ego
consciousness of emotional immaturity. So this is the first live event of the month, our content teaching.
So for those of you who are here, for the first time, these content teachings are a way to really bring the
work and topic each month to life to make it interactive to make it engaging. Not everyone learns the best
just from reading information on a screen or from a PDF. So this is a space for us to share our own
experience in community and talk it out feel it out and be present with one another which is really the
work here in the circle. It's not homework to print off some PDFs and go take it into your corner and go
through the work. We learned so much about ourselves and each other when we allow ourselves in our
own discovery to be witnessed in community and when we bear witness to others journey to others
journeys, their stories and their experience as well. D S I'm very excited for this month's content thrilled to
see your excitement and all of your chatting high pi v. Okay, let's get us grounded for a moment. I like to
begin all of these live events that I do with a moment of grounding, a moment of breathing, connecting to
our heart specifically doing a quick heart coherence exercise. So I'll invite you all now to pause on the
chat. It will be there. But please pause on the chat and if you are able and comfortable to do so, I like to
put one hand on my belly, one hand on my chest, or one hand over my heart. That's completely optional.
And if you are in a safe space to do so, or are comfortable to do, so I invite you to close your eyes. Now, as
you are doing so closing your eyes, maybe one hand on your belly, one on your heart, focus your energy
and your intention on your heart space, or simply the area of your chest, in the center of your chest or
your heart, taking a deep breath in and out. Now as you focus your energy on your heart or the area of
your chest, imagine your breath breathing in through your chest and out through your chest, breathing in
through your heart and out through your heart. Now as your breathing slows and deepens, and you focus
your energy on your heart, let's take a deep breath in for five. And out for 54321 in for five and out for
54321. Continue your breathing slowly and deeply. If in for five and out for five feels like too much or is
uncomfortable. You can go shorter. The intention is just to have a slow and steady breathing while
focusing on your heart. Now as you continue your slow and steady breathing, focusing on your heart or the
area of your chest, make a sincere attempt to experience a regenerative feeling. One of care of love of joy,
maybe care or appreciation for someone or something, maybe a favorite place a loved one, an animal a
favorite pet, and bodying that feeling while breathing in and out. still focusing our breath and our intention
through the area of our chest. Take another deep breath in and out. Take another breath on your own
maybe wiggle your fingers blink your eyes open if you did choose to close them. Maybe wiggle it out a
little bit. And come back here to the room and screen and presence with one another. How do you all feel?
Do you notice a shift in your thoughts in your maybe even your behaviors or your body posture or your
feelings and sensations? What do you notice? What sensations Do you notice in your body? What thoughts
do you notice in your mind both before and after that exercise. I'm gonna wait just a moment till I see the
chat start up again so I can make sure we're not frozen. There we go shadow self Ruth's that I feel more
present I was struggling today. calmer, Ruth, I really acknowledge you for showing up for yourself. When
you're struggling having one of those days. I'll be honest, I'm kind of having one of those days, too. It
seems it's been a slew of them. And you showed up here for you and in turn also for each other to witness
others and to allow us to witness you. So thank you, and each of you who chose to show up here today,
you feel calmer, calmer, at ease, feeling more aligned, more focused, lighter present. It's funny how
breathing deeply can feel uncomfortable. I appreciate that. Amanda, it does sometimes when I'm
breathing into especially if it's a long, deep one in for five seconds or breathing out for eight. I'll notice the
state of my nervous system by the thoughts happening in my head when I'm breathing out for eight and
suddenly this thought comes beaming in it's like, oh, you're gonna suffocate. You can't breathe out for that
long you don't have enough air and you you're not okay. And I can witness this panic happen within my
nervous system that's also happening up here and my thoughts and and if I actually calm myself and
maybe do smaller increments and realize, oh, I can breathe out for eight seconds and I can actually feel
that physiological shift internally. Oh, Anna said Lorna. Yes, tough day here. difficult conversation. What a
beautiful space to be in Lorna that you chose to be here in that tough day with those difficult
conversations and this is what you sought out for yourself. Thank you to each and every one of you who
brought yourself and all of your parts here. exactly how they are. There is no space suit that you need to
jump into, to walk through these doors and to show up to these events. We show up in the messiness of
life that miracles happen in the messiness and in the mundane of life. And that is exactly what you are all
doing, by being here with whatever it is that you brought, and exactly as you are. Clear Mind, Jaime said,
feeling more grounded after these exercises and how to beautiful visualization, beautiful clarity, thank you
for sharing. Hi, Shivani. All right, let's jump into our content, which is ego consciousness. Emotional,
immaturity lives that same kind of day love to all, lots having the same kind of day on that same sort of
wavelength. I know, the weather here is storming and raining, it's all moody and gray outside, which kind
of feels aligned with the sort of heaviness that I've been feeling internally. I know a lot of people around
me have been feeling recently where it's an exhaustion, right? That my body doesn't really even want to
get out of bed some days, because it's asking me to rest. It's asking me to slow and to process. So we're
going to be here with one another and process all of this together. Where is here? If you're asking me that,
Amber, here is Arizona, we are in Arizona, and it has been a rainy week for Arizona and for a lot of the US
at least. Alright, I will do my best to continue reading your comments in the chat, it does tend to go a bit
fast. If you've been on these events, you know that the chat can get very active. So friendly reminder that
you will have access to the chat transcript after this event when the replay is posted. So everything that
you are all so courageously and vulnerably sharing today will be captured and available for you all to refer
to later. So fear not, you will not miss anything. And if the chat is something that you think you just don't
want to engage whether you feel it is a bit whelming or not of interest, absolutely fine. There's no need to
pay attention to the chat, I will be mindful and intentional to do as best I can to read some of your
experiences so we can pull them into the video and you don't have to rely on referring to the chat
transcripts. Hello, bravo, Maria. Hi, Kim. Nice to see you and hello to Ryder. Welcome. All right, what are
we talking about? With emotional immaturity, I saw somebody commenting in the beginning of this live
event that I think emotional immaturity is the definition of their parents, or I'm paraphrasing, but it was
somewhere along those lines. So when we think of emotional immaturity, it is very, it's easier in a way for
us to identify it in others or to see it in others, or especially our parents or people around us and whatever
it was that we were modeled in childhood, until we become aware and learn to unlearn, and practice are
different and create new habits and coping mechanisms or new skills. We replicate and mirror what we
were modeled what we were conditioned, right? So when we're looking in a conversation of emotional
immaturity and reactivity, sometimes it can be challenging to look within ourselves to objectively observe
ourselves, and it requires a lot of radical and ruthless compassion to objectively and neutrally witness. By
objectively I mean, neutral to peel ourselves away and simply observe without the make wrong. And when
we hear that shaming voice coming in judging and critiquing or shaming our own selves, our work is to not
shame, the shame, or judge the fact that we're judging. It's to understand that that voice is there just by
simply acknowledging it, oh, hey, you're back. That critic is back. I'm going to turn the volume down on it.
And I'm going to go back to observing myself, I look at myself and have my entire life like a science
experiment. How do I react in this situation? How do I react in that situation around these different people?
Why is that what could be a deeper meaning there? So the work this month is focused in observation and
witnessing of ourselves because we can do no good in the world if our attempt are no good for ourselves
either. If our attempt is to fix or change, or better understand someone else over there or why they do
what they do. Our work is to focus on us to better understand our ourselves, our own reactivity, our own
emotional immaturity. When we better understand ourselves, we get to the root of this completely
interconnected system. Like as if every person on this planet is a tree, with an incredible root system
underneath, all of our root systems are so intricately intertwined. And we only have access to
strengthening that system and strengthening our own tree, our own equanimity, if we can understand and
connect with our own roots, so our access to connecting with anyone else or any impact that we want to
make, even if it's just with our loved ones, and our children, not just if it's with our loved ones, and our
children, our immediately our immediate world around us, it's understanding these wounded and reactive
parts of ourselves that for a long time, many of us have shunned or shoved away or denied or ignored. I let
me go over here so I can see the name of who saying this. I only attract emotionally immature partners,
and I am myself immature, Rapunzel, that is really powerful and empowering awareness, to be able to
state that out loud. And to state that in community. I'm witnessing about myself that I attract emotionally
immature partners, I'm also identifying the immaturity within myself, like knows, like, we seek not what we
desire, we're bringing into our lives, not what it is that we're desiring we're bringing into our lives. What it
is that we are at a deep level, now you start to notice sometimes friction or change, when we begin to or
someone else begins to maybe outgrow a person, or situation as we shift and change and continue
evolving. As we become more aware of ourselves, and our own habits and patterns. And we begin to
practice different. How many of you on this healing journey have started to notice the shift in relationship
with those around you, where those who might have been aligned, are no longer feeling aligned. Even if
it's a certain activity or a habit that you used to engage in or specific relationships and the way that you
would bond with people, you're noticing that as those behaviors change in you. So do those relationships,
so do those surroundings. Eva, they relate to rekindles? Comment, thank you for sharing this thank you all
for your honesty, your radical honesty and your vulnerability there is so the awareness is your golden
ticket. It is your golden ticket into the door of creating your life to unraveling this trauma ball of twine that
is within us all and actually being able to heal the wounds have that inner child within so that we don't find
ourselves reacting in unhelpful and unworkable and sometimes harmful or hurtful ways, which are most
often the ways that we were modeled in childhood we learn to replicate and cope. The way that we
witnessed that happening to us are happening around us when we were children. So when our ego or our
identity is challenged, that's when we begin to react in really unworkable ways we begin to compete, or
control or shame or compare, repeating the coping mechanisms and the habits that were modeled to us in
childhood. What were some of the things that you all witnessed by your caregivers in childhood? How did
you notice them coping? I think of in childhood, I had two different and this is interesting when you have
two different adults around you or maybe two parents are different caregivers. They may be very different
people I witnessed my father was at very fight or flight very reactive, very explosive, very outward, very
angry. My mother was the opposite. She was withdrawn, she would disconnect. She would dissociate she
would go emotionless. So it was like two different ends of the spectrum. And I can witness in myself, when
I'm feeling threatened when my survival is feeling threatened. Or I'm feeling challenged when something
about me and my identity and who I think I am, feels threatened or challenged, depending on the people
and environment in situations, all react differently. Sometimes I'll react in that way that I was modeled by
my mother and get very withdrawn, very disconnected, very cut off from my emotions and kind of go
numb like a blank stare. And in other situations, there will be things that spark the modeling I witnessed of
my either very explosive, very reactive, very angry, it comes out more in an energetic behavior and
explosive energetic behavior. Rachel said on a good day over analyzing everything Emily Harmon said my
mom gave my dad the silent treatment, we'll go into that a little bit today leave to spend time with others.
My parents were the same way. My dad was angry and my mom was on emotional. And at a certain point,
you can see the retreat to from that explosiveness, someone's very explosive and angry will go inward to
protect ourselves and for my parents, looking at their parents and where they came from the environment
that they came from. It makes sense to me that my mother sought a partner or brought you know, she
didn't find my dad on a dating app, they actually met in a hospital and only got married because she
became pregnant with my brother Jake, and then had twins a year after she gave birth to him. And her
putting him in her energetic field attracting that body to her was the same sort of relationship dynamic
that she had experienced in her childhood, very explosive, very abusive, in an outward yelling, screaming,
breaking way her father, being a veteran of war and coming back with severe PTSD when he was only in
his teens and his 20s. So her whole life with him, was with him returning just a few years prior from very
extreme wars. And my father, attracting my mother very withdrawn, very closed off, coming from a family
where his father was very explosive. So he modeled that behavior. And his mother was the complete
opposite. She suppressed everything it was back to this is in the 40s and 50s, where you just shushed
especially women, more silenced, the man ran the household, they were more passive. My father
energetically saw that and found that in my mother, you can start to see how these patterns replicate
themselves. And the more we can become aware, and if we don't know anything about our parents, if this
isn't necessarily our parents, either. This is our caregivers. These are the people that we were raised
around my grandfather, my mother's father that I'm speaking of, was raised in an orphanage for a lot of
his life and by foster parents. So there are a lot of multiple people and transient people happening in our
childhoods, too. This isn't one specific mom or dad or two parent or one parent. It's the adults that were
around us and the behaviors that were modeled for us. We can observe, we can better understand and
even learn about our past without even having to remember it. We do it by observing ourselves here in the
present and beginning to understand that all of our reactive behavior, all of our conditioned behavior
comes from somewhere, it came from when we were little absorbing the world around us like a sponge,
and learning what to do, how to behave and how to exist. Lots of hugs to all. Ryan, did you miss a lot? No,
you were hopping in in great time. Hannah said I assumed responsibility for my mom's emotions to try to
keep her from leaving again. And imagine that for little Hannah taking on that adult responsibility, that
adult emotion, thinking even even if I'm a small child, and I know as a child, you're not thinking that but
you are. You're the world as a child, the world is revolving around you as a child, it's happening to you in
this egocentric state. That's all we know, as a child. And many of us have learned to take on that
responsibility of the adults around us, in protection of them, leaving Hannah taking on your responsibility
for your mother's emotion so that you hope that she doesn't leave. That creates a profound impact in the
roots of ourselves and our awareness and access to that is so empowering. When we can begin to connect
with the root. See how it might show up now and give ourselves that compassion and that love and that
really nourishment that that small child who took on that responsibility for your mother is still needing here
in the present as their adult self, little Jenner, who took on the responsibility of her parents as a child and
did everything to beg and plead my father to come back or to wonder why he left or to beg him he I was
told multiple times as a child that he was ill and was only going to survive You know, maybe three more
years. None of this was actually true. But it kept me attached to him and constantly hoping and running
after him thinking, you know, I could save his life it was completely manipulative. And I can have
compassion for that little Jen and now and understand that she's still here. Inside my body, meeting my
presence. I had so many temporary caregivers I lost count says Lexa. Josie said My grandmother was so
critical and mean always making snide comments and being physically and verbally abusive, steamrolling
everyone around her and pretending to be nice and fun. Josie, thank you for sharing that. And thank you
all for the support, you are giving one another. So as adults, we can look back and start to understand or
see just let's just witness those experiences. Now, whatever it was that we witnessed, or was modeled for
us in childhood, more often than not, even if we don't want to admit it or don't like to admit it. That's the
behavior that we learned. I saw explosiveness in my father extreme reactivity. I saw extreme
disconnection and neglect in it, a numbness from my mother, I've learned both of those behaviors. I
learned that that's how you cope in certain situations. I wasn't modeled healthy coping mechanisms, I
wasn't modeled or taught what my emotions were, what they meant, and how to process them in a
healthy way, within my body or how to be with them, I had no window of tolerance. So I can look at myself
in those reactive moments when my identity are my ego are being threatened when I'm feeling
challenged. If I'm not in a calm, grounded state, or I'm not intentionally practicing this work, I watched
myself go right back into those moments go right back into the screaming into the reactivity into the icing
into the shunning and into the disconnection. So we're taking the time to explore the ways in which we
express our feelings with others. Doing this helps us understand our emotional habits within our current
relationships. When we can witness what it is that we do, how we react, how we respond in situations, we
can better connect in our relationships, and better understand how we show up in our relationships, we
can't really help out anyone around us until we can show up to help ourselves. And when we deal with our
emotions and immature, unreasonable or irrational ways, it's a sign that a hurt part of us is lashing out
that hurt part being a hurt wounded inner child, repeating the ways of coping that were modeled for us in
those earliest experiences. So our so our work Yes, ds relating our own behavior, relating our own behavior
now to the behavior that we witnessed in childhood. And I mentioned that bridge because it can be
especially when we get to the bottom of the checklists. And all this information were going over as written
out to in PDF format for you. Within the content teaching check section of your membership portal,
Brittany popped a link up on the screen, I think Brittany or MJ will pop it up again, too. So you will have all
of these prompts and checklists that I'm mentioning there when we're going over them and asking
ourselves, you know, these honest questions about how we react if we do cut people off if we go into black
and white thinking. It can be easy for some of us to want to hide behind the veil and not really look or
answer honestly. And instead answer from you know, the the wish of our higher self Oh, no, I don't do that.
I don't do that behavior. Because I don't want to do that behavior. Well, do I actually honestly and
objectively do that behavior in reality? Maybe. And if it's difficult or challenging for us to be honest with
ourselves, look back to the experience we had. Think back to little you. I'm going to literally in some of
those moments go in and chant a little Jenna, if there's a question that I'm not wanting to answer
truthfully, because I don't want to admit to myself that I do that. I'll go within check in with myself. And I'll
actually get to be with little Jenna and get a little replay of what it was like for her. The protective nature of
not wanting to be honest with ourselves often is shielding us from the pain of the past experience. When
we can call to mind and call into our bodies. A past experience. We The emotional charge. That's wisdom.
That's how wisdom becomes that's how wisdom cultivates, it's from experience and the experience is no
longer locked into the emotional charge of the past. Miss Amanda said, I tend to want to control others
behaviors or feel disappointed by them. Maybe this is a little Amanda's ways of way of staying safe. Thank
you for sharing that, Amanda, I control others behaviors or feel disappointed by that maybe this little
Amanda's way of staying safe. There's so much awareness and wisdom in that statement, Amanda?
Alright, so our work continuously, this doesn't just start and stop here. This is a continually building
foundation, we are building our own buildings, we're building our own vessel, our own home, this collective
forest of all of us, when we start healing, we start at the root, we build the foundation, and we keep going.
So all of this work is compounding. It's not just looking at this content right now. And then it goes out the
window, it is all linked with one another. And it's all rooted in awareness and observing ourselves this time,
specifically in our moments of reactivity, or in our moments of immaturity, when we are being
unreasonable or when we're feeling threatened. So this practice is going to help us better learn and
understand ourselves through observation, when we are reacting in unworkable ways. We all have had the
experience when we are reactive, we know when someone's been reactive to us. And if you're having a
hard time calling to mind your own reactivity, think of someone who was reactive to you, the behavior that
we are noticing that we kind of latch on to and remember in others, is also behavior that we have at some
point, if not even in the now embodied or possibly are embodying, if I'm feeling in a really grounded state,
my cup is full, my resources are all replenished. And someone is blindsided reactive to me, I can stay in a
state of equanimity I'll be grounded, I don't have to respond back the same way. If I'm not in that
grounded state, if I my resources aren't replenished, or I'm running low, or I haven't slept, whatever it is, or
I'm being activated by a memory from the past maybe that I'm not even aware of maybe a scent wafted in
and ignited something from the past. Instead, in that moment where someone's being reactive to me,
even if I didn't initiate reactivity, and sometimes I absolutely am the initiator. But even in the moments
where I'm not the one initiating it, I can respond in a grounded way sometimes and in other times
depending on my own resources and own state of mind nervous system within, I might mirror that
reactivity right back. Now, just because someone else did it first doesn't mean that somehow my reactivity
is justified. No, our feelings and our anger are always valid, always always valid. How we react to them, is
not always valid. Our goal in our work is over here with ourselves. It's not to stop the other person from
being reactive. It's to understand our own agency and our own responsibility. I am responsible for my
emotions. I am the author of my own story. No one else you are the author of your own story. You are
responsible for your emotions, we're really turning the mirror back in on ourselves. Alright, so objectively
witnessing the times when you are exposed. I'm loving your comments in the chat and your your
connection and your relatability to what is being sad and shear it is. I'm just going to pause and take a
moment of gratitude and appreciation because your willingness to be in these conversations, to do the
deep work of looking within to really take hold of that agency and responsibility within yourself is the most
courageous and inspiring act that I think I truly could witness and that many of us could witness so thank
you to each of you who are here right now on this live, who are here tuning into this replay who are in this
membership who are having these conversations with yourself and taking the time to do the reflection to
be with little you who for many of us is curled in a ball in a corner waiting for our arrival tucked into the
darkest parts of our landscape within thank you for showing up for you. And with you, little you and for
each other. Emily said, I can feel your genuine heart. Jenna, I appreciate you saying that I'm like, because
it's it's felt it's embodied, right? I had to stop for a moment because I'm reading your comments, as I'm
speaking and just got so moved by seeing your sharing and your resonance with this conversation because
it speaks volumes to, to you to your hearts and to the world. And when we're speaking volumes about your
heart, your heart literally has heart cells and an energy field that is emanating outward, and reaching
those around you, which is then reaching the person around them, and so on. So we are all quite literally
connected by the power of our hearts right now. And that is something to absolutely pause and celebrate
and take a moment for especially when we're in a conversation about our own emotional immaturity and
our own emotional reactivity, because it is very easy. And by easy, I should put a little footnote it is
learned. It is very learned and conditioned to shame ourselves for that to shame ourselves for being
anything but perfect. And perfect for many of us means silence, not speaking our truth. Not being
expressive. It means getting in line and doing what you're told. So yes, I love you all so much, too. I love all
the love that is happening. All right. So in these reactive moments that work that we the questions that
we're going to go over, I'm going to give you all a few prompts or questions to keep in mind. Now, again,
this is on the PDF for you inside the Content teaching section of this course. But these questions, it's it has
a footnote, I suggest this on the PDF as well to copy these into a notebook, or maybe copy and paste them
even into your phone somewhere where you will keep them in your visual field or even put them
somewhere if you're an audio person have it. So an audio replay can be spoken back to you so that they
stay relevant in your mind, the more you go over them and read them, the more they can start to filter
through. So that when you are in a moment of reactivity, which happens to all of us, it is part of our human
experience, you can start to reflect on these and start to kind of dig into those trenches dig into that root,
and explore why instead of condemning and shaming ourselves, we get to open up and explore why that
reaction is there a why that immaturity is there. And if we're seeing it in another and not yet seeing it in
ourselves, we noticed that paying that it's happening over there, and something's really irking us about it.
We can still ask ourselves these questions and go within and be radically and ruthlessly honest with
ourselves about what might be there for us. So in these moments, where we experience immature
thoughts, or feelings or reactions, reactive behaviors, use the following questions to up I mean, get
centered here. I'm just going to read this part from the screen actually, objectively witnessing the times
when you experience these emotional thoughts, feelings or reactions will help you reconnect your deeper
emotional wounds. So in these reactive moments, take some time to explore the following prompts
considering why you may be feeling as you do, do you feel worried that you might be ignored or
abandoned or left by another? In the very beginning of this someone was talking about abandonment? So
in these moments of reactivity, now there was going to be for many of us, there's going to be a lot of
moments of reactivity. And you might notice a difference of reactivity of thoughts, feelings, behaviors,
outward actions, that would be behaviors, they might be different in different relationships, different
situations, different experiences. So keep these filtering through Do you feel worried that you might be
ignored or abandoned or left by another? Do you? Yes, I'm seeing Yes, every day feeling misunderstood?
Absolutely. Do you feel invalidated overlooked or unseen by another hour? Remember, these are in those
moments of reactivity, which is a deeper wounding those moments of immature thoughts, feelings
behaviors, are moments coming from our wounded inner child, there's deeper wounding there. Are you
feeling invalidated? overlooked or unseen by another? Lots of yeses? Yes. Yes, that resonates. Do you feel
undervalued or criticized for your contributions to Relationships. Lots of yeses, lots of feeling invalidated.
Feeling unheard. Yes, feeling unseen? Yes. In my most intimate relationship I am angry every day. Yes, I
feel invisible even in a crowd. Yes, I'm sometimes feeling unseen. Do you feel over valued or singled out
for only certain aspects of you? Do you feel overvalued or singled out for only certain aspects of you? And
do you feel pressured or controlled by another? Do you feel pressured or controlled by another? Do you
feel overvalued or singled out for only a certain aspect of you so overvalued for like, for a part of you? A
part of you or something that you do one aspect of you, but not the whole of you? Yes, lots of Yes,
resonance. I'm going to check in with your chat. Yes, the doormat. That gives it all said Renee. Yes,
completely. Thank you, Jenna, for sitting with us and sharing all this pain with us. You are so strong. You
know, what you notice or feel in me is, it's paying for a reason because it is you I think that's the beauty.
It's my favorite part of these content teachings is the connection we get to not just learn and talk about
but that we actually get to integrate and experience and embody, right, we get to be with ourselves and
be with each other. I'm going to share some personal examples for some of these as you guys, maybe as
you continue sharing in the chat, and if there are specific examples for any of these that you've
experienced and want to share, I will do my best to also pull these from the screen, though know that they
are also going into really what is a beautiful time capsule of the replay for this event or the transcript. For
this event? Yes, you're feeling pressured and controlled. I hate that is what Isabel said, controlled by my
partner and daughter pressured to behave nicely or they disappear from my life. So in these moments of
our own emotional reactivity or emotional immaturity, whether that be thoughts, feelings or behaviors,
these are questions we're asking ourselves in that moment, am I feeling worried I'm going to be
abandoned? Am I feeling overvalued or singled out for this one part of me like they're not accepting or
valuing the whole of me? Am I feeling pressured by another person? Am I feeling controlled in this
situation? Or by this person? Am I feeling invalidated? Am I feeling unseen? So do you feel worried that you
might be ignored, abandoned or left by another abandonment wounding if you have heard me speak or
teach before is something I absolutely little Jenner holds within I was abandoned, you know, emotionally
and physically, though, primarily physically by my father when he left when I was, I think eight years old. It
was a sort of took a couple of years of a nasty court and custody battle and then eventually he was gone
and just gone. That abandonment wound I know for me, especially as me being myself, a woman
abandoned by my father at least that's how I'm identifying is it does create an impact in the back of my
mind and the back of my experiences my wounded Jetta self. My first heartbreak was my father. My first
heartbreak was eight years old when my dad left. My next heartbreak was when my older brother my like
next big love, started doing drugs when we were 14, and I just felt like something shattered. And when his
best friend our other brother passed away years ago from drugs, heartbreak, when my brother Jake died
two years ago, heartbreak, all exasperating that wound that originated in abandonment. Now I'm
connecting that because it's with deep grief, right? That wound is very raw, and it doesn't just go away. It's
there lurking in the background. And as new things happen as new grief happens or more loss happens,
more abandonment feels like it's happening. So there's an abandonment that's on high alert in the
background. So how this might show up in my own reactive or emotionally immature behavior might be
reactive moments happening in mirroring others I mentioned this earlier. So even if we're not the one
who's just, you know, suddenly reacting or not sudden leads related to something usually, even if we're
the ones not initiating a reaction, we might find ourselves mirroring back or reaction from others. So I walk
into a situation or I walk into an experience where I'm blindsided, there is an upset that I'm unaware of.
And there's reactivity and explosiveness that I'm experiencing from someone else, there's yelling, there's
door slamming. Now, in that moment, I felt very threatened. I felt threatened that when my when I tried to
speak my truth back, and the voice just kept getting louder, my own reactivity chimed in, and my voice
kept getting louder. So in response to it, and sometimes I'm absolutely the one who will be reactive, or I
will yell, and the other person might stay calm and grounded, or they might yell back. But in this situation,
I reacted back by mirroring the same behavior. I started yelling, I started slamming, I left the room. And a
big fear there was I'm getting louder and louder and louder. Not necessarily well, because I need my voice
to be heard. And it's not so much about the actual decibel of my voice being heard. It's my voice as my
truth, my experience and my reality, needing to be heard and seen. And for me, when that is invalidated
by another, or that is challenged, or my reality is flat out denied, it is extremely threatening to me, it
makes me feel unsafe. Now, when I say me, I'll speak for me as if my nervous system had a voice, I'll go
right into fight or flight. What happens in that moment, for me is a deep fear that that person is going to
abandon me even if it's not my physical self, even if they stay physically, right next to me. There's a fear
of abandonment of my truth of my safety and of my reality, which can take me personally back to
moments in childhood where it's almost like the house is on fire around you, and everything's crumbling
and falling apart. And you have your caregiver saying to you, it's okay. Everything's okay. When really,
things aren't okay. It's okay that they're not okay. We need to learn to expand and understand the
situation. Instead of really being gaslit in a way and having someone tell us, it's okay. Everything's all
right. Everything's gonna be alright. When we can obviously feel it's not. So in that moment, I'm feeling
very threatened threatened of being abandoned physically, but also threatened and being abandoned
emotionally. Yeah, lots of always relating to that. It's not okay. Many of us were told, it's okay. It's okay.
We might even have noticed ourselves saying that to someone else and acknowledging in a state where
there is turbulence or there's chaos, saying it's okay. Because we learned that why would we say that to
someone when things aren't? Okay, well, we learned that that's the best way to help by nature, like, look
how beautiful the hearts are of everyone here connecting and vulnerably sharing. That's the core of our
human essence. It is beautiful, it is loving, it is connected, it is empathetic, we want to help and fix in those
situations. So we do that in the way that we were modeled until we become aware and learn different. Let
me see if I can find Jessica's comment. Jessica said I used to get hit and my dad would wipe the tears away
and tell me it was going to be okay. And I was fine. Thank you for sharing that Jessica. And I am so sorry
for the pain of that experience of little Jessica and really acknowledge your perseverance, your being here
and even being able to share that. To connect it with community I see lots of you resonating and
connecting with Jessica and offering love and support and I know that there are so many who share such
similar experiences. Telling the stories really helps. Thank you all for sharing your stories. This is the power
of community. It is allowing your own raw hearts truth to be spoken, first just spoken out loud to give it
some room and then to have it be witness to bear witness to yourself and bear witness to others. Their
stories and their journeys. The power of community in many ways, I think is one of the greatest reasons I
was able to survive my childhood and upbringing and continue that survival into really us ival a word into
into thriving and taking the past and being able to use it now in building continuous community there is
such power and you sharing your own stories, your own scars, your own sorrows and your own wounding
Alright, do you feel invalidated overlooked or unseen by other so many this is a big one. So many feel
unseen. I think Zara Was it you who said on here a few minutes ago that even in a crowd, you feel
invisible, feeling overlooked, feeling unseen, this sometimes going into feeling undervalued, or criticized
for your contributions in a relationship. So feeling unseen, feeling undervalued, feeling overlooked?
Checking out your comments as we're going. So I know there's a bit of a lag. This one, I'm going to give an
example of a thought for this one. So we've talked about emotional when we were looking at experiencing
these emotional thoughts, feelings and behaviors. So that last example was more a reaction, right? feeling
threatened the feeling abandoned or reaction or behavior. So my reaction to that in that moment, was to
react right back, I was standing up for my survival, I was gonna yell right back, I was gonna slam doors
right back. This next one is more of a thought based. So and this one actually stems from some of your
comments in the membership portal. And I giggle sharing this one because I thought he's really going to
share that. But why not because we're all human. So I've seen some beautiful comments both in the portal
in other feedback on the podcast or other comments elsewhere, where there's a beautiful
acknowledgement about how Nicole and I complement each other really well are different styles. And
specifically, the word that was sticking out to me is I'll often paint visuals, you know, like the roots and the
trees I was talking about, or the foundation we're building. I'm a very intuitive visual lead person, much
more embodied, much less analytical. Both of these are incredibly powerful things, especially when joined
together. So when I see comments, acknowledging how helpful the visuals are, and how much they
complement Nicole's great intellect, there is a wounded part of me, this inner critic, which is that wounded
inner child, and the critical voice of my parents that I heard growing up, or the caregivers around me, goes
into, oh, they know that you're not intellectual, they know that you don't have intellect, they think that
you're not smart, or even worse, they know that you're not smart, they know that you're an impostor, I can
see that voice coming right in now, what actually being shared is a beautiful highlight of two different
styles of teaching or two different gifts, and how well they complement each other, though, to my own
wounding the thought that will come in that, you know, reactive, that reactivity for me in this moment is
coming in as a thought or an immature thought really unworkable thought that is based in shaming, it's
based in my ego, trying to stand up for myself and protect myself by being critical and saying, See, you're
not smart enough, they know that you're not intellectual, which, so intellect being like the ability to draw
conclusions and study of the mind, the ability to draw conclusions about what is true or not, includes
things like reasoning, objectivity, etc. relatability. So I hear those beautiful statements and
acknowledgments, as when I say I'm speaking as that wounded inner child that wound itself because if it's
a day that I'm feeling great, I'm grounded, my nervous system is regulated, I'm locked in little Jenness,
feeling nourished, those wounds aren't going to be activated so much the same way. I might not even
notice it, I might just think, Oh, that's so beautiful. Other days, I'm going to think, Oh, that's so beautiful.
And that inner critical voice creeps in and thanks. See, you don't have inner intellect you are lacking that
you'll never be good enough. So that's not actually what's being sad. And that wounding for me, is deep
rooted in my brain that how my brain works is not good enough, which for me, comes from childhood, I
didn't do well in school. I'm not an analytical person. I was so fearful given all of the trauma happening
around me and my struggles, reading etc, that I was going to fail third grade. So it's helpful to also
understand we live in a society where intelligence and intellect are currently based on How well we excel
scholarly in a certain system, right? I'm much more body based and intuitive lead. So my body is going to
be there first giving me messages before my mind, which is actually, you know what our ancestors honed
in on and used as wisdom. That's not what we are taught. It's what we're beginning to learn now, though it
doesn't fit into the mainstream system. And I acknowledge that because I know that many people resonate
with what I'm sharing in how I react to the world, or how I make sense of the world or how I communicate.
There's some who are analytical, there are some who are not. And we tend to live in a very intellectually
based society and a very analytical society. So if you are someone that resonates with that, you might also
have felt that sort of, you know, on the outside looking in like, this just isn't making sense to me, school is
not easy for me. Or even if it's not that it's easy for everyone who excels. For some, it's still very
challenging, though they still excel. For some of us, it just feels very foreign. And our brains don't
necessarily worked that way. But in that moment, was a complete, I'm on scene that critic immediately
comes in. Now if I let that behavior fester, it's going to lead or that thought fester, it's going to leave me in
a feeling of, of bitterness, and really being resentful or shutting me down. That critic will come in and
attempt to shut me down, which is also an emotional immaturity reaction, shutting down, disconnecting
walking away, maybe even giving up? Do you feel overvalued? Let me pop over to your chat for a second
outside looking in is the perfect way to say it. Yeah, lots of you in the chat resonating. With that
experience, beating yourself up is not necessary. We're learning to unschool ourselves, yes, we're learning
to unschool ourselves and really come back to that intuitive nature that wisdom within, we put up a
beautiful post on the holistics. The THP account on Instagram today is one of my absolute favorites,
because it's all about the wisdom of our body, which is the wisdom and the messages and guidance that
our ancestors used, and referred to. And in our current day, especially here in this country, in America, and
in a lot of our cultures, we are taught to disconnect from that we're taught to disengage from that and
even mistrust ourselves, which is why so much of our work here is reconnecting to our body, getting out of
our heads, dropping into our body, understanding the endless cycle of connection and messages that are
constantly happening within them, and beginning to observe our sensations and the messages that we're
receiving within, which is why when I do that heart coherence exercise at the beginning, I specifically
asked you what are your physical sensations? What are you feeling, the more that we observe our body
and can name them. The more we're learning and understanding ourselves, the more we're chipping away
at this block of clay. And getting back to that really wise internal guidance system that has been there all
along. But the voice of it tends to get a little fuzzy, it gets very quiet when all of our conditioning is
compounded on top of us. And we learned to disconnect from the voice. So our work here really is
unschooling it's on learning what we learned being unschooled and what we've been schooled on and
beginning to learn ourselves and our own bodies. You got to unlearn some engraved schooling, absolutely.
Which is what you are all doing here. Let's see, do you feel overvalued or singled out? This one? So this is I
have a feeling of bitterness or rejection. So some of you might resonate with something like this, the
overvalued or singled out so for part of us we have so many parts of us, right we are many parts of a
whole our work is reconnecting with all of those hidden parts of us and being seen and accepted for all of
our parts, not just one or some or a few we're not disjointed beings we are these whole complete beings.
And when we feel overvalued or singled out for a part of us, it doesn't feel good. It can cause reactivity it
can cause emotionally immature feelings or responses for me it causes As a lot of bitterness, or rejection,
or that bitterness might then lead me to an action or a behavior of rejection. So if I'm generating or
creating a lot for others, and I'm not making time to also create and generate generate also just being
energetic generation, if I'm not doing that for my own soul's expression, I will often notice myself
becoming resentful, becoming bitter, like I'm only needed or selected for the parts of me that can be of
benefit for someone or something else, that festers a knee, as a resentment as a bitterness as a rejection
or disconnection or it might even manifest then as a reactivity or an explosiveness or an outward rejection
of that person I think of, if you've heard me talk about, Nicole speaks of her, you know, when she gets into
a mode and she'll reject another I can do the same thing. And I call Nicola prickly pear when she does that,
because I know in those moments, she's wanting love. But what might manifest outward is that rejection
so as I'm saying, rejection right now, all I keep thinking in my mind is prickly pear, which for those of you
who don't know, is a beautiful cactus. It has sweet fruit that grow on it, though it has also really long
thorns and spikes on it. It's very prickly and very sharp. If you were to touch it, though, it's very sweet.
Inside, it's keeping you at a distance, but at its core, it is love and sweetness. Alright, let's check in with
our chat. And then we'll go over our checklist. Shivani said different intelligence is for sure, none better,
but all necessary. Absolutely. And that's the whole I think point of our will not point but that's one of the
most beautiful aspects of our humanity, how different we are. There's this universal thread running
through us, but also look at how uniquely different we are in how we express how we think how we talk,
you can have 100 people in a room and have them each convey that same concept. And it's going to come
out 100 different ways. And it's going to land for each person who's listening and receiving in 100 different
ways as well, which is necessary and needed to celebrate the diversity of all of us and to really cohesively
come together as all the different puzzle pieces we are that are all making up the part of a much greater
whole. Brittany said I grabbed a prickly pear fruit once without knowing about the tiny tiny thorns on the
actual fruit. But yeah, on the actual fruit, there are tiny little hidden ones that will prick into your fingers
you can barely see them actually are like invisible, but you can certainly feel them. Brenda said, Oh my
god, Jenna. That's how I feel. As the oldest child I feel people just call me when they need something from
me. Thank you for sharing that. Brenda. I got a message from my father earlier today, which you just made
me think of. You know, for the first time in, who knows how long I don't really hear from Him, though He is
reaching out, says a bunch of really sweet things acknowledges a lot of pain acknowledges a lot about the
death of my brother, all these beautiful things. I'm like, oh, gosh, you know, wounded children, as adults
would really love to hear this. And then there's an ask, he's in need. And he is in need of finances. And I
just had to laugh at a certain point because it does, you know, as much as I can value the other things. He
said, I'm like, Well, this is still connected to that. I need an ask. You're only reaching out to me in this
moment, because you need something. Being the oldest sibling and feeling like, you know, your siblings
are only reaching out to you because they need something, whether it's money, it's resources or its
support or a listening ear, it's in need, you serve a purpose for that person instead of just being accepted
for the whole. So when we are in emotionally reactive moments or immature moments when we're in that
state, you know, really living from that raw, wounded inner child, observe how you're responding in that
moment. Notice how you react when that sibling calls you. Ask yourself those questions how you're feeling
you're feeling like, you know, singled out, like that person only needs me or is only calling me because
they need something from me. These are all spaces for us to not come up with an answer to why do I do
that? Why do I feel that why is this happening? It's an exploration. It's really amusing for us to become
Curious and better understand ourselves before we understand ourselves, we just want to better learn
ourselves because when we observe how we respond and react, we can then begin to widen our own
window of tolerance ground our nervous system and begin intentionally choosing how we respond and
react. All right, witnessing our hurt inner child as we are witnessing our wounded self, our hurt inner child.
Remember that these wounds or reactive states are a sign of much deeper hurt. So keeping that in mind,
do your best to be compassionate with yourself and with little you being non judgmental, as you witnessed
the painful and often neglected parts of yourself speaking of those parts of us, that we often have the
experience of other singling out or overvaluing or needing just for that selection. Look at all of the parts of
ourselves here, especially the ones that we have shunned, or we go to shame for me that is little gentle
curled up like this, in a ball in some back corner of this dark auditorium inside me, waiting for me to come
in all of the other players might be out front, all the other parts of me. But there's this wound itself that is
shunned and pushed back there and wants to join the pack. So remember, we're befriending ourselves and
showing up to be present with ourselves. And in doing that, we have to be nurturing. We have to be
compassionate, we have to be loving. So keep that in mind as you're going over this checklist. This
checklist remember, is in on your PDF in the content teaching course. So you have all of this already
printed out for you. So observing yourself and your wounded inner child who here share if you would like to
in the chat identifies with or resonates with the statement I am emotionally explosive and raise my voice
say things I don't mean and slam doors are going can you slide the middle screen down a little? Perfect.
Thank you. I'm emotionally explosive and raise my voice and say things I don't mean or slam doors Tanya
said is it Tanya or tinea said me Danny me Morgan. Me. Jessie, me, me me now. You're all feminine? Yes.
Me, me. Me. Me, too. I am emotionally explosive. I slam doors. I say things. I don't mean, sometimes I will
be in awareness that I'm saying the thing that I don't mean, and I don't want to be saying it. And there's
this voice in my mind saying Jenna, don't say that. You know, you don't want to say that. Don't let it out.
Don't do it. As I'm doing it, as I know that I'm going to do it. And I already know I'm going to regret it later.
That's something that I do. I witnessed a lot of it. That doesn't make me like, oh, well, I witnessed it. So I
learned that and was modeled that it's okay for me to do it. No, remember your feelings, your anger, all of
that internal is valid, always will be valid, how you react and how you respond to that outwardly is not
always valid. Okay, so it's not just a free pass that Oh, I was modeled that. So I'm going to model that to
others. This is a space for us, though, to just begin to cultivate our checklist of our own awareness. What
behaviors do I do, then you might begin to Yes, connect those to oh, here's an opportunity and an open
door to have some compassion for myself, instead of shaming myself or beating myself up for the fact that
I do that. How could I do anything different? If that is what I was modeled. I'm going to show up for myself
and give myself a little love and say, Yes, I do do that. I'm going to own my my reactivity, and I'm going to
own my emotions. And when I do that, and I take responsibility for them. I am consciously authoring my
own story instead of being in the passenger seat on autopilot. As my life drives by and as my ego and my
conditioning are in the driver's seat, we are getting our conscious selves back into the driver's seat. And
we only do that through objective awareness and radical honesty about ourselves. I'm highly defensive or
unable to listen to another thoughts or feelings without taking them personally feeling attacked or
becoming emotionally reactive. So I get highly defensive, I'm unable to listen to another's thoughts or
feelings without taking them personally. Doesn't matter what they're sharing. I'm going to immediately
take that personally, I'm going to make it about me. I feel attacked. I'm becoming emotionally reactive to
whatever their thoughts and feelings were. I can't listen to them. I'm getting defensive to them. Yo,
Hannah said, yup, Al said, yup. Oh my gosh, this sounds like a good friend of mine. pi v said yes. I am
dismissive of another's feelings or invalidate, deny, or try to change how they feel in order to relieve my
own discomfort. This could also be that controlling, right? I'm dismissive of another's feelings, or I
invalidate them, I deny them Nope, you don't feel that way. That's not right, that's not true. Or I try to
change how they feel, in order to relieve my own discomfort. If we can control the narrative over there,
deny and invalidate their experience, to make it a different one, I can keep myself comfortable and
protected over here. Now, be mindful, as you are listening to these questions that you are being ruthlessly
compassionately and radically honest with yourself. It is if it's challenging to say, Yep, I do that now. You
guys are doing a phenomenal job of many sharing and expressing saying, Yep, that's me. That's me.
You're taking away the personal nature of it, the shaming nature of it, or maybe you have that shaming
voice. And you're still acknowledging and saying out loud, Yep, that's me, I do that, that awareness and
identification is so powerful and empowering. And if it's challenging to see yourself in these, even if there's
that sort of inkling or nudge, you know, I think I might do that. But I'm not ready to say that I do. If it's
challenging to see that you do that, then flip the scenario. And think back to what you witnessed or what
you might notice this, or when you might have noticed this happening to you from another person, we
often will mirror back the behavior that we consistently and subconsciously seek out and place around us
like that example I said a little bit earlier, we're in that moment of reactivity, I didn't respond from a calm,
grounded place, I went reactive. Right back, I did that same things much like if people in the community or
anyone asked me I'm having a hard time connecting with my true self or what my true vision is, or, you
know, what I really want or what my authentic self is, I can't see it. I don't know it. I will suggest to think
about someone else that you admire, or even someone that you envy, what are the aspects about them in
their life, that are traits about them that you are admiring or that you are envious of there's a pink and a
resonance there that has a likeness with you. So same thing if you're having difficulty within yourself
where it feels too unsafe to identify these within you right now. Start to identify when you've noticed this
experience happening to you and then remembering that experience begin to notice how huh yeah, I
might, I can see that in me or maybe another memory will come pinging in, but be honest with yourself, be
compassionate with yourself in order to get to a safety of that honesty, because if you're feeling unsafe,
there's no way little you is going to be, you know, at the helm ready to be completely honest about how
you actually objectively Are there going to be in protection, so it is our job to create a safe space. For us to
be able to have that honesty, we have to really earn it in ourselves. I fall into black and white thinking,
viewing things as good or bad or having a difficult time seeing contextual nuances or another's
perspective. Now a nuance, for those who might be unfamiliar with that word or who are non English
speaking is defined as a slight degree of difference as in meaning or tone or gradation. So contextual
nuance is just like a slight degree of sub, something's a little different, a different detail. Here. I fall into
black and white thinking viewing things as good or bad or having a hard time seeing contextual nuances in
another's perspective. Check in with your chat before we go forward. Is reactivity from a place of shame?
Well, reactivity is when our ego and our identity or our perceived identity are being challenged. So for me,
I learned shame I learned first my reactivity based and rooted in shame when I'm not feeling good enough.
The voice of this inner critic for me came in as shameful and sent me into a deep shame cycle which was
born from the critical voice of my caregivers, telling me you know, I'm not good enough. I'll never be good
enough self deprecating self sabotaging having me betray myself. All pushing me then to use coping
mechanisms that might be things like drug or acts or alcohol or self harming, all rooted in coming from
shame, which perpetuated the same frequency of my ego and emotional immaturity or reactivity, that
shame embodiment was from the same energy was from the same wavelength or the same frequency as
the reactivity so emotional immaturity and shame from my own experience, were, were very intimately
connected. There is a quote, I've read somewhere it says hurt, hurt people. What we've all maybe heard
this hurt people hurt people, if you don't heal what hurts you is a bit blunt of a quote, you will bleed on
people who didn't cut you. And it has, it allows me to go back inward and really understand my own
connection. I guess that shame that was very learned that is stemming from an ego. And is the root for me
of what has me reacting immaturely. Most of the time there is a deep rooted shame of not being good
enough of not feeling good enough or not feeling accepted. That has me reacting in ways to other people
around me in ways that are really immature and unworkable in a means of self protection, because I'm so
ashamed within that makes sense. And if you I realize there's probably tons of questions that have been
asked all throughout this content teaching the team Brittany MJ, I think maybe Nicole are always flagging
questions along the way and moving them over to a document to go into the live q&a with Nicole at the
end of the month. So questions that you have dropped in throughout this content teaching will also get
pulled over and saved for the live q&a. Yes, that makes sense. Okay, great. Yeah. And MJ said, Yeah, I've
got your questions. Thank you MJ. I try to control or dominate conversations by changing the subject to
one by changing the subjects to ones I am interested in or insist on sharing my own perspective, or
experiences. I try to dominate conversations or change the subjects to ones I'm interested or insist on
sharing my own perspectives or experiences. I made a note for myself about a show called smothered that
Nicole and I were just watching last night, these are incredibly, very tightly woven relationships between
mothers and children. It's a reality show that you know, follows them and documents them. And there's
one mother who grew up I think as like a rapper, dancer, and then how to child and the child she named
right after her. We just read teachers comment, Jenna, is there a place we can hear or read your story and
healing journey? It is woven throughout all the content teachings and our work here in the podcast, I might
put it into I'm going to write it out someday and share it with you all in a larger format, though, it is so
sprinkled in these teachings I share a lot of personal experience to relate to all of you because I know so
many have experienced so much of the same. My traumas are very different from Nicole's traumas, and
vice versa. And while I'm just saying Nicole and I it's because we're the ones here teaching, it could be any
other person up here too, who's going to have different traumas, and they're sharing it is going to ping and
relate to and connect to different things with you as well. So yes, sprinkled all amongst our work here, you
will hear much of my story in I am working myself on on putting it into another format in a more cohesive
in one place to just put it all out and make sense of it. So bringing me too, which I'm sure I've done this, in
many ways to this show on smothered Well, in a different way. This mother gives birth to a child named
the child after her literally gives her the same name. It's slightly different derivative of it, and molds the
child into living out the dream that she never got to finish when she had a child. And so the daughter has
followed the footsteps and is sort of coming of age now to realizing she kind of wants her own path. She
doesn't want to become her mom. She wants to be a different person. And in this one scene, the family of
the child and the mother are asking that daughter who is you know, late teens, early 20s Now, something
about her work that she's doing And immediately the mom intercepts and start saying they're talking
about a music video she made and the mom starts talking about how she directed and produced that
music video and totally took over the entire conversation. Now, this is a super micro example, maybe even
a silly one to some of you. But in that moment, that daughter said, you know, this is a replicated
experience where in that moment, someone's in a conversation about something and this other one's
emotionally immature reaction of the mother is beaming in to take over that conversation to dominate the
conversation, sharing their own experience and making it around them. Now remember, as children, we
are in an egocentric state, the world happens to us, the world is about us. Whatever happens is because of
us, it is all us, us, us. As adults, when we are living from that wounded inner child place, or we are
emotionally immature in our thoughts or feelings, actions, behaviors, we're living in our adult body, our
adult self, from that ego centric state, from childhood, or kind of a, that, that past inner child self is
brought right back here to the present. So that's an example you might notice in yourself, maybe
someone's talking about someone else. And for whatever reason you go in, you dominate the
conversation, you make the conversation about you, those are things for us to just begin to notice and
then explore. Then he said, they also watch, smothered, very enmeshed. Alright, I'm gonna move on to the
next one. And then check in with your chat, I actively find ways to distract myself from or avoid
uncomfortable conversations, topics or experiences. By scrolling on social media turning on the TV, we're
leaving the room entirely. I actively find ways to distract myself or avoid uncomfortable conversations.
Maybe you turn on the TV, maybe you start scrolling, maybe you leave the room entirely. This made me
think of that kid who I noticed this a lot. Teaching nanny, I taught preschool and kindergarten first second
grade and that child who in response to maybe hearing something difficult, or something they just don't
want to hear whatever is going on in the world of the child. They cover their ears, they shake their head,
and they just sort of do this, I can't hear you, I can't hear you. You might have even noticed adults doing
that you might have even noticed yourself doing something like that. So that could be that example might
be the example of a child that might then be manifested as an adult in behaviors like leaving the room,
scrolling on your phone, turning on the TV, turning the TV up, just completely tuning out. I can't hear you.
I'm not here. I'm disconnecting. Leila said, yes, I've noticed that in myself, and it's something I am working
on being mindful of. John has said, Oh, this is me, except I do this to my self. And some of you, I realize
might be saying these to the prompt beforehand. So I want to acknowledge that as well. Chasing, even in
my own divorce, when I shared the news, she immediately then compared it to her own divorce, and then
made the conversation about her it has been so frustrating. So you're noticing that behavior? Do any of
you notice and resonate with you doing this behavior? Are you able to identify where you might dominate
a conversation, or bring the focus back on you? I noticed that for myself, before I became really aware of
witnessing this, when I first started witnessing it, I noticed that all of the times I would bring the
conversation back on myself. It was in an attempt to desperately find relatability with the other person
now, even though I was desperately trying to relate, and I'm thinking oh, well, I'm trying to relate with the
other person that's for the other person. It's creating connection. No, no, no, that was for me that was to
validate for me to fill in insecurity and a wounding within me that I can connect with the other person
instead of just being able to listen to and receive and hear the other person instead, out of protection from
my own wound itself. I went right to bringing the conversation about me and how I could relate to them. So
in your example, chasing about the divorce, it's I don't have that specific example. But similar to that,
where someone is sharing something, I'm like, Oh, well, I can identify myself in that instead of just being
able to hear and receive and authentically, listen from my heart to someone else, I have a need to protect,
and fill my own meat over here and find a relatability. Because if I can find relatability, then I can, it's
survival, right? It's survival for me to be connected and accepted by those around me. That's coming from
an internal wounded place for myself that felt very short and felt very rejected or the never ending, I'm not
good enough. So I'm finding ways to connect and be good enough. I remove withdraw or emotionally
distanced myself shutting down or giving others the silent treatment. Now, if you were iced or given the
silent treatment in childhood, you might notice your own replication of this behavior as it's what was
modeled to you in childhood, you might have been iced or given that silent treatment by your parent, by
your caregiver. Do you notice yourself doing that to others? In moments of emotional reactivity or
immaturity? When we're, you know, living from that raw, wounded place? Do you notice little you inside of
you finding it safer to just cut someone off, or cut someone out to ice them, to give them the silent
treatment to withdraw? We're usually doing these things, if not, most often are always out of a means of
protection. When we those who are the most emotionally immature are often the most disconnected from
themselves, the most disconnected from those parts of themselves, that are the deepest and most
wounded, the parts of us that are in need of us and our presence the most. I feel called out Ellie said, Ellie,
thank you for your honesty, and relating Shivani said yes. I close off from receiving connection, or
supporting. I close off from receiving connection or support from another or intentionally suppress my
needs or emotions, choosing instead to remain tough, or emotionally resistant. I closed myself off from
receiving connection or support from another or intentionally suppress my needs are emotions, choosing
to remain tough, or emotionally distant. I became a professional at this closed off, cut out prickly pear
didn't I wasn't even prickly pear the closeness of when I give an example of Nicole's prickly pear, it can be
in close proximity. My prickly pear was on a different island. I kept you at bay, I'd pick up I'd moved to a
new city, then I'd move to another new city, I would not receive connection or support, I would suppress
my needs. I would for two years I worked in AmeriCorps program where I got paid a stipend of $400 a
month my rent was $450 a month, I was on food stamps to do this. I didn't make any money. I was
volunteering about 80 hours a week. Now. It's a program called AmeriCorps where it's intentionally
designed. That way you're giving a year of service. It's all volunteer. I did it for two years. And then I got
into a habit of that because I came from a background where I you know, scarcity, poverty didn't have
much but I had my time to give. So I continued and learned to always give, give, give, but never give to
yourself, don't have needs, don't have emotions suppress them, but always junk to meet the needs and
emotions of others. So I turned that into a life and decades really of what I thought was really selfless
service to others. And it did come from a joyful place and an you know, an authentic place. I loved it. I still
love that giving generous nature and service. Though when I started becoming aware and healing, I
started to connect the fact that I was actually just cutting out the receiving of support by endlessly giving
support and cutting myself off from my own needs. So I could be like the knight in shining armor like
martyr Central. I got you don't worry about me. I'm fine. Meanwhile, I'm then eventually turning to drugs
and alcohol. I'm self harming. I'm finding all of these harmful ways to cope and fill my own cup because I'm
endlessly Give, give giving and cutting myself off. I will Learn to be tough. If I got a cut when I was little,
and I started bleeding, I remember being on a bike ride once and I got a really bad cut and my leg was all
bloody and I started bawling. I wanted a band aid, I was scared, I wanted to go home. And my dad just
kept telling me to toughen up. And I learned to be really tough, I learned to be one of the boys as he would
call it. Don't show emotions, which I know so many, particularly men, learn in our society don't cry, I would
be taunted for crying as a child, or mocked for crying, I learned that being tough was like wearing a golden
metal, it was something to achieve. As an adult, I could then notice still in some moments of reactivity or
deep wounding, if there is any bit of that wounding still left, I'm going to cut myself off from support or
receiving it's still sometimes is difficult for me to receive, I'm going to suppress my needs and emotions,
I'm going to betray myself, to meet the needs of others that usually spirals itself into an illness or a dis
ease or feeling unwell or having like a lingering cold, something that just won't go away. Because I'm not
honoring something within myself, I'm suppressing something and that's coming out outward by cutting
the support of someone else off. Exactly tough love, some of you are saying, Yes, I was always told to not
show negative emotions, right? Happy emotions are good, joyful, emotions are good, negative emotion,
sorrow, grief, anger, pain. Many learned as add emotions, those are negative, don't show those. That's not
for the neighborhood to see. I use last one I use alcohol, drugs or other substances to numb myself or
engage in other self harming behaviors when stressed, upset or uncomfortable. This one for me is a bit
connected to the one right before it, that suppression of my own needs and emotions then led to a
manifestation of behavior that was using drugs and alcohol or other substances, self harming, in order or
in moments to soothe myself, when I am stressed, upset, or uncomfortable. These are all learned
behaviors, learned coping mechanisms that we learned when we're feeling wounded. When we're in those
uncomfortable, emotionally overwhelmed or activated states, we turn to the behavior that was modeled to
us, for me, that was drinking for me that was smoking pot, even until I didn't stop smoking pot until I
understood the impact that it has on my nervous system, my nervous system, and my body can't actually
go into a state of repair or healing when it is under the influence of marijuana. And it used to be something
that, you know, it would make me feel creative, I could tap into certain parts of my thought or creativity or
what felt like higher parts of me when I was smoking pot, right, I felt like it was a good thing. And for some,
it is very, for some it can be beneficial to relieve certain symptoms for each person, it is different. So I'm
going to preface this with it is unique for each person. However, I noticed within myself, my body had an
inability to go back to its innate repair functions, when there was marijuana in my system. Same with
drinking, I've cut out drinking and then had moments after cutting out drinking for long periods of time,
and then drinking again once or twice and seeing just how unworkable. It is. And in those moments when I
choose to go back to one of those old behaviors now. I see there's something deeper there. There's
something that I'm suppressing. There's needs and emotions I'm suppressing. There's a truth I'm not
speaking, and I'm choosing to go back to an old habit or way that I learned of coping. Now many of you
know about my brother Jake, who died two years ago, who died from fentanyl. And he used again a couple
of times after being in long term recovery for about seven, eight years. He worked in advocacy. He taught
recovery programs. He started a recovery center in upstate New York where I'm from and he after COVID
You know, lost his job eventually went through a pretty tumultuous breakup didn't have the coping skills.
Jake was always in long term relationships. I was always missing dependent. Jake went the other route
always found relationship and he was always kind of in a relationship with my mom growing up. He was
really like her standing husband. He took care of her and her emotions and took care his little brother and
sister were only a year younger. But me and my twin brother, that was us, we are his younger siblings. So
Jake always found another relationship that was kind of like a replicated relationship with my mom. He was
always in a long term relationship with another person. When COVID hit, he lost his job, his relationship
started getting turbulent, she was really sick came down with some autoimmune disease, they end up
breaking up, Jake had no coping mechanisms to deal with this at this point that he had no sustained coping
mechanisms, those wounded parts of himself, were still there, and we're very raw. And my mom told me a
few weeks ago, that just before Jake died, he was in complete agony, complete heartache over this
breakup, which is when he started using again, he only used you know, he used other drugs multiple
times, but he only used heroin twice. He overdosed in September. And then he used it again, I think at one
point, and the next time he used cocaine is when he died, there was fentanyl in it. He didn't even have
heroin in his system at that point. And I share this example because that was Jake's coping mechanism. He
walked into my mom's house a few weeks before he died. And she told me he came in screaming saying
you have alcohol, you have alcohol, what do I have? What what do I have? What can I use? Because to
him, what he was going to go to reach for was heroin. It was my mom's choice to go to alcohol. It was that
need to alleviate that pain using drugs or other substances to comfort that upset. The other day, I was in a
lot of what felt like emotional turmoil. I said to Nicole literally in house, he said, I know why Jake used
heroin. I know why my mom is an alcoholic. I know why my brother struggles with obesity. I know why my
father is also an alcoholic and a drug addict. Because I come from the same cut from the same cloth and
the same trauma that they are, I can feel it in my bones, like to the point where sometimes you just want
to pull your hair out, you feel like there's this endless dark abyss in you and it's painful, we experienced
that pain. And when we've been modeled to reach for something to numb it or to alleviate it, we then go
down these harmful paths of things like addiction, or in Jake's case, addiction that that led to fentanyl
poisoning, that then killed him. So I share that really openly. Because I really want you all to connect with
those parts of yourself that feel the most, the most shunned the most shamed the most ill equipped to
handle these conversations and these situations, your sheer your choice to show up and be here in the
conversation with yourself now to be vulnerable. To be with your pain to share that pain with others, is
really what changes everything. It's what changes the world, but it's what changes your world, it allows
you to come home to your own heart, because in this conversation of emotional immaturity, or we talk
about narcissism, we notice all of the narcissism in someone else. But very rarely do we notice the
narcissism within ourselves because it's so shunned even the word narcissism when you hear that, what's
the reaction you get? To me, just like when I would hear addict, drug addict, addiction, there's such a
stigma to it. And that stigma keeps a barrier between us and allowing ourselves to actually connect with
the wounded part of us that is reacting in that emotionally immature, or emotionally reactive or that
narcissistic way, because we're disconnected because there's deep, deep pain within that is waiting for our
presence and our arrival. Alright, this last prompt, and then we are signing off, thank you all for continuing
to be here for those of you who are still alive at the end of this. Yes, lots of you resonating with that.
Thanks for being real and sharing, totally connecting thank you all for your own openness and sharing your
own humanity. So the last prompt at the end of this when we're going over these checklists with ourselves
and observing our own experience. Use the prompt to learn and witness your own inner child and habitual
ways of thinking. When my inner child wound is activated, I tend to think blank. So I'm going to share my
example here you have this prompt written out for you on your PDF when my inner child wound is
activated when I've spent time observing my In reactivity going over this checklist, asking myself those
questions do I feel invalidated? Do I feel abandoned? Being objectively and radically honest about my own
reactivity? I noticed that when my inner child wound is activated, I tend to think that I will never reach my
full potential and that I'm the only person I can trust. I immediately start to condemn myself. I'm never
going to make it. I'm never going to reach the full potential that I'm here for, for I can't trust anyone. I tend
to feel these are the sensations name your physical sensations, I tend to feel hot, tingly. I get pressure in
my chest like the walls are caving in that experience I described that I just had the other day. When I told
Nicole I know Jake did heroin I can feel it. I feel like he reached for that. It felt like the walls of my chest
were caving in like my skin is crawling. Everything starts to burn start to get hot. Any of you feel unsafe,
you feel scared you feel lonely and invalidated. What sensations Do you notice yourself feeling when you
experience that? Let's see. If we just read that one yes, the middle of my chest goes hollow but it goes
tight sensations are important to notice and acknowledge your thoughts are racing you feel unsafe and not
enough. So what does unsafe and not enough feel for you? What sensation is that for you? I feel burning
pain in my heart and stomach shortness of breath, heavy breathing, contraction and muscle tension.
Unworthy safe, you get tense. Heart palpitations, chest pounding. In that abyss that I feel often there is
anger that shows up that hot tingling, often will then turn into that dark abyss that is deep, deep grief. Like
there is an endless pit in my chest grief is incredibly important to acknowledge when we are talking about
your wounded inner child. There's grief of the experiences there's grief of what we didn't receive. There's
grief of the pain that has been held on to all of this time and the loneliness that our inner child has been
through in that dark back corner of ourselves waiting for someone to arrive. Grief is something that needs
to be processed and felt through sensation moved through our body, not just thought about in our mind.
So then the last prompt in my relationships, objectively honest, I tend to act stubborn, and on very high
alert and mistrusting afterwards, I tend to think that I am trapped, and or I feel angry or resentful not of
someone else, but of myself angry and resentful that I have betrayed myself and I've trapped myself none
of which is true, that trapped for me. And I got to connect this even just doing this exercise comes from
that wounded inner child as a child who was trapped, I was trapped in the environment that I was in, in the
dysfunctional family system that I was in, in the abuse and trauma and neglect and addiction and poverty
that I was in. I could not and did not escape that as a child only as an adult could I escape that so when my
inner child wound is activated, I feel trapped. That past wounded inner child is here in the present
moment. Yes, a lot of you relating to the trapped to the feeling stuck. I just had you I feel overwhelmed,
intense for that I can't take that much sensation moving through my body and going up to my head. I feel
pain and heaviness in my chest. I tuned out the chest pain so long that I now have a cardiologist. It will
continue to manifest. Angela, thank you for sharing that something could be there and persisting for so
long. And we've been so disconnected from it which was also learned and of protective behavior, that
when we tune into it, we're tuning in because it might have gotten so aggressive or so aggravated that
now we have no other choice now it's not knocking on your door now it's pounding on your door and
saying hey, you've got to deal with this now. This symptom, this chest pain, or disease dis ease this dis
ease in your body has now been really neglected for so long or disconnected from for so long that it's just
ramping itself up so that it gets intense enough to force you to pay attention to it. That's why it is so
powerful for us to tune into ourselves and ourselves being the body. Our self that is living inside this body
this vessel Oh, and this self observing the sensations that are happening in this vessel, so that we can give
it the care that it needs, and that we can respond and hear the intuitive voice and the messages that it is
sending to us, which it often does send to us by means of symptoms. Symptoms are responses. lonely and
abandoned, my caregiver situation has brought me back into my childhood. It's very challenging. This is
me exactly sending everyone love. I want to run away. Yes, I feel stuck, I feel lost, like I am just endlessly
falling into the dark. I remember that's how we're feeling and what we're experiencing when that inner
child wound is activated, that wounded part of us is activated, that is a part of us a part that is part of a
much larger hole that gets to show up now for that part, and help that part through the experience, not by
saying, It's okay, that's not happening, you're fine. No, by saying, hey, part, you're not fine. What
happened wasn't fine. What happened is what happened, then it's not happening now. That was then you
were unsafe, then this is now you are safe, now. It wasn't safe, then you are safe now. And having that
dialogue with that part of yourself, creating that safety, creating that connection, so that we can not shun
that part. But we can integrate that heart that abandoned or that part, the abandoned part, the lonely
part, the one that's falling into the endless abyss that's ashamed, we can begin to integrate it into the
larger hole, that it's always been a part of. But the larger hole, this self hasn't been talking to it, until we
decide to show up and say, Hey, I'm here. And then slowly, you can reach out your hand, grab our own
hand of that wounded part and begin to pull them into the rest of this hole. Trapped in the abyss, lots of
you resonating with thank you all immensely for your sharing for your vulnerability for your connection and
staying on to the duration of this. For those of you too who are in the replay. Please continue this
conversation with one another, whether that's in your own messages or in the activity feed, or in the group
section for this course, sharing your responses to the prompts, what you're noticing and witnessing, about
your own wounded inner child, what's coming up for you along the journey of even being in a conversation
about the wounded parts of yourself which is reconnecting many of us with parts that we've shunned for
so long, that brings up a lot of pain, a lot of grief that many of us might be experiencing for the first time.
So lean on each other, share with each other. Remember that you chose to be in a community of healing
for a reason because you are immensely courageous in sharing your own story and bearing witness to the
story and the pain and the healing of others. I love you all I look forward to next week being on Dr.
Romanies workshop with all of you, which I'm not going to take time to pull up the title now but it is all
about focusing on you. You cannot control or focus on that other person instead, we are putting the mirror
back on ourselves. And again, her new book comes out on February 20. It is called it's not you so I will see
you all next week. Thank you all for being here live and for tuning into the replay.