E 270: Maybe You Brought the Ick Into The Relationship

Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode.

So if you're here, you already know that the podcast is about.

It's not about blaming, fixing, shaming.

It's about understanding so we can actually heal instead of repeating the same cycles over and over and over again.

So today I want to talk about something again, kind of vulnerable, but something that almost nobody talks about openly, but a lot of people honestly are feeling it.

It's that quiet, uncomfortable ick that creeps into relationships.

So it's when you've been married 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years, or you've been dating someone for years, even if you're not married, it's those things that sneak in.

It's resentment, irritation, numbness, shutdown.

It's that feeling of, oh, my God, why does everything they do suddenly bother me?

It's what I call just simply the ick.

And I want to say this right up front.

If you've ever felt the ick in your relationship, it doesn't mean you choose wrong.

It doesn't mean that you're falling out of love.

It doesn't mean it's over.

It doesn't mean you are broken most of the time.

What it honestly means.

And if we're going back to everything we talk about in this podcast, it means your nervous system is flat out exhausted.

So in the latest episode we did with Brian Power, we talked a lot about relationships.

We talked about attachment styles and communication and boundaries.

And honestly, we talked a lot about the skills that most of us were never taught growing up in dysfunction and all of that matters.

And it matters a lot.

But today, I want to come at it from a little bit different of an angle, because here's what I see all over again with people in my line of work and the people that I work with and the people I talk to on a regular basis.

We understand attachment theory.

They understand communication, they understand boundaries, but yet their body reacts.

It still reacts.

So logically, while they understand all of this, they can't stop their body from reacting, and it shuts down.

The attraction's gone.

They honestly, sometimes even physical touch is just irritating.

Their tolerance is gone, their patience is gone.

And being that they came from this line of dysfunction and these habits of dysfunction, what is the first thing they think?

What is the first thing that you might think?

You think, what is wrong with me?

And honestly, nothing's wrong with you.

It's your body, and it's your body trying to tell you something.

So what is the ick?

Let's talk about what the ick is.

Well, first of all, let's talk about what it's not.

It's not a personality flaw.

It's not immaturity.

It's not you being overly dramatic.

I'm going to talk about it as the stored unprocessed stress that literally has nowhere left to go in your body.

So it's the tightness, it's the clenching, it's that frustration of, oh, I'm just.

I just don't know what I want to do.

Or nothing bad has happened or they didn't cheat on me, they didn't abuse me, they're good person.

Why do I still feel this way?

Because honestly, all of this can be true and they can be the best person in the world, but your body can still feel unsafe.

It can still feel unsafe because it's still dealing with unprocessed emotions.

And your brain does not know the difference between here, now, then when doesn't know the difference.

So even though you're reacting to something that could have been implanted in you 35 years ago, you're thinking it's right now.

You're thinking it's here and now, and you're thinking it's that other person.

The other day, Brian talked about something that really stuck with me.

And I thought about it over and over again and I wanted to try to see how I could maybe reframe it for you guys.

He talked about the death by a thousand paper cuts.

And so I'm going to reframe that a little bit because it really, really, really is.

And I was trying to picture what are those thousand paper cuts when you're stuck in dysregulation.

So let's reframe it as death by a thousand unprocessed nervous system responses.

It's the things you didn't say, it's the needs that you had that you minimized or pushed off to the side.

It's the boundaries that you didn't know how to set or the ones that you set and that were so violently violated that you ignored them.

It's the emotions that you didn't feel safe expressing.

Those are the death by a thousand paper cuts that Brian's talking about.

And I'm putting it into nervous system talk.

So eventually your nervous system starts to associate those feelings, those death by a thousand nervous system unresolved responses, not with love, but with depletion.

And that's when the ick shows up.

So I hate to say this because I know part of healing is honestly looking at what our part in this is, but and this might be honestly a little uncomfortable.

And I'm saying it with compassion.

I'm not judging, I'm saying it out of love.

But a lot of times we brought this ick into the relationship.

Most of us did not enter our marriages healed, regulated, or even self aware, honestly.

I know I did.

I brought in survival patterns, I brought in childhood conditioning, I brought in a nervous system trained for chaos, not connection.

So what did you bring into your, into your relationship?

I can go on with the things that I brought into mind.

I brought in people pleasing, I brought in, I brought in emotional shutdown, I brought in hyper independence and I brought in over functioning.

And at the end of the day, I brought in resentment.

And it doesn't make me bad.

It doesn't make you bad, right?

Wrong.

It makes us human, honestly.

But when the patterns go and we don't examine them and we don't process them and we don't figure out that they're even patterns and they don't, we don't realize they're running our life, what does it turn into?

It turns into irritation, distance, animosity, anger, resentment.

That's what it turns into.

And that's what I'm talking about when I say the ick.

So really, what's happened?

Honestly, when you come into a relationship that dysregulated, your body turns the partner into the threat, even if they never did anything wrong.

You cannot talk your way out of a dysregulated nervous system.

You cannot logic yourself into desire.

You can't just say, I should love this person, I should feel this person, I should feel this.

You cannot force your body into doing that.

The more you do that, the more stress, anxiety, panic that you're going to create for your body.

Your nervous system really was designed to protect you.

And it came up with these memories.

It started to read tones and energy and little conflicts and unspoken resentment.

And so eventually, after all of that and every single glitch or every single tightening of your nervous system and of your body, eventually your body just says, I don't feel safe anymore.

And it looks out.

And what is the first person it sees?

Your partner.

So this isn't because your partner's bad.

It's because your nervous system is overloaded.

That's when you stop being attracted.

That's when the touch starts to feel irritating.

And that's when the distance, honestly, sometimes feels like relief and people panic because they still love their partner.

But I want to tell you something.

Running away is not going to help it.

Let's just Honestly, let's talk about why getting over it or starting over doesn't just fix it.

So many people get there and then they think maybe it's just the wrong person, and they leave and they start over again.

They find chemistry again with someone else, and then months or years later, their same feelings come back again.

Different face, same nervous system pattern.

Because if you don't process what your body learned in the last relationship, you'll bring it into the next one.

Just different name, different face, different clothes, but same, same patterns.

So what do you do if you're with somebody and the ick is already there?

Just talk about that.

That's when people panic.

They think, you know, they.

They think it's their fault.

I shouldn't feel this way.

Something's wrong with me.

Maybe the relationship is just over.

And I want to slow that down a bit.

A bit.

Because the worst thing you can do when the ick shows up, honestly, is rush to give it meaning.

You can't rationalize what your body's feeling.

So you.

I'm going to give you a couple steps, and these are things that I kind of processed and thought about when I got off the podcast with Brian, because, wow, he was.

What he said was so simple, so easy, and it made so much sense.

But I wanted to put it into more of a nervous system.

Eye or viewpoint, I guess you could say a lens from the nervous system.

One, you have to stop interpreting the feeling.

The ick ick is not a message about your partner.

It's a message about your internal state.

Something in your body is literally saying, I'm overwhelmed and this is unsustainable right now.

Not.

This relationship is doomed and I need to get out.

So don't jump to confront, analyze, or make any big decisions.

Just pause.

Because right now what your nervous system might mean is regulation, not interpretation.

So work a couple days, a couple weeks, a couple months on learning to regulate that nervous system.

Two, regulate first, then reflect.

You can't think clearly from a dysregulated body.

How many times do we say that?

When you are in that fight, flight, freeze fawn, you are not in that logical processing part of your brain.

So you're in protection mode.

You're not in clear, clarity mode, or you're not clear mode, or you're not in logical thinking mode.

So here comes the work.

Don't jump and run.

Talk to yourself.

How do I bring my body back into safety?

And we've talked a lot about this, and this is what a lot of what I work with my People to do things like gentle movement, walking, shaking, vibrating, deep breathing, grounding, singing, dancing, whatever it is, you're not trying to force the feeling away.

You're trying to be help your body become safe enough to hear what it's saying.

And sometimes even those tiniest little shifts can change absolutely everything.

If you're sitting there and you're talking to your partner and you're getting a little irritated and you're getting a little anxious and you're sitting in your seat and you feel your bottom clench or you feel your shoulders tense, just move back and forth a little bit, raise your shoulders, shrug your shoulders, move around, pull on your index finger.

Whatever it is, just move a little bit.

Sometimes those small shifts completely refocus and you can stop that thought pattern in its tracks.

Step three.

Name the sensation, not the story.

Don't ask yourself why they annoy you now and they never did before.

Ask yourself, what's happening in my body when I'm around them?

Don't try to find the blame from them.

Find out what's going inside of you when you're around them.

What do you feel in the tightness, the clenching, the numbness, the withdrawal?

Honestly, it's going that your body is going to speak in sensation way before language.

And I just talked about this a couple episodes back.

If you want to go back and listen there.

But when you feel that in your body, just kind of stay there and just feel it.

Don't place the blame.

Don't say they make me tense, they make me clench.

I get annoyed when I'm with them.

Just feel it.

Step four, look for.

I call this looking for resentment that never had a voice often, so often.

And I think this has happened a lot with me in all of my relationships.

The ick sits on top of unexpressed resentment.

So you get mad, whether it's guilty or you, you over give or you, you stifle a boundary.

You under express, you abandon yourself.

You say yes when your body wants to say no to keep the peace, for whatever reason you do it.

The body remembers all of that.

And every time you do that, it builds.

It builds and builds.

It builds just a tiny little little bit more.

That's going back to Brian's death by a thousand paper cuts.

And eventually you're going to burn out.

Your body is going to basically say I can't do this anymore.

And you're going to blame it on being with that person, when in reality it was all about dysregulating yourself.

Step 5.

Do not try to reconnect from exhaustion.

And I know this is very important, and we did talk about it with Brian.

Forcing closeness while you're feeling unsafe only makes the ick worse.

It doesn't come from effort.

It doesn't come from that, you know, exciting date night that you make yourself go on.

It comes from being safe and feeling safe.

So sometimes a little distance might help.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself is to stop trying to fix the relationship and just start regulating your own body.

And the last thing I'm going to say is, start getting curious instead of critical.

And I know if you've listened to my podcast, you've heard this hundreds of times, if not more.

Ask yourself, why?

Why do I feel this way?

Don't blame.

Don't ask what's wrong with me.

Just say, what is my nervous system or what is my body trying to protect me from?

When you become curious, it softens the body.

Criticism or getting angry at yourself tightens it, and healing happens, and transformation happens, and growth happens in the softness when you do feel safe to open up.

So I know that sounds kind of simple, but I'm gonna.

I'm gonna kind of go over them again one more time.

But I just want you to start thinking about this, and if this is a little upsetting to you, I understand it.

Because none of us want to admit or even come to terms with the fact that maybe we brought the ick into our relationship and it's not the other person.

But honestly, guys, if we want to heal and you want to heal and you want to get better, and we all are out there to do that, we're all out there to do that together.

You have to look at your part in this whole big picture.

So number one is stop interpreting the feeling.

It's not about them.

It's about your internal state.

Number two, regulate first, then reflect.

You can't think clearly from a dysregulated body, so regulate first.

Number three, name the sensation, not the story.

Don't turn around immediately looking at them, but ask yourself, what is happening in my body when I'm around them.

Step four, look for resentment that never had a voice.

So ask yourself, what am I doing?

Your body remembers this, and try to remember where that is coming from, because most likely it is not coming from the person that is standing in front of you.

Step five, don't try to reconnect from exhaustion.

Don't force it.

Regulate.

Do not try to force something that does not exist right now or that your body cannot handle.

It's only going to make it more stressful.

And step six, get curious instead of critical because of.

Instead of saying, what's wrong with me?

Ask what is my nervous system trying to protect me from?

Again, that is going to lead you to more of the softness, and that is where we heal.

So I'm sure some people are out there listening and you're going, damn you, Tammy.

Why'd you bring that up?

Why'd you make it my fault?

It's not about your fault.

But, guys, healing is about being aware and accepting responsibility and changing some of your inner patterns so that you and the people around you can grow and love with you as you grow.

Maybe you're just saying, yeah, maybe, okay, I hear some of that, but I don't really want to hear some of that.

But maybe there's just a little bit more for you to explore.

Please don't do that alone or feel that you have to do that alone.

I do offer free clarity calls.

Not to fix you, convince you, or push you into anything, but I want to offer some.

Just some safe space so that you can talk about what's going on in your body.

And let's see what maybe it might be.

Communicating honestly.

Sometimes one grounded conversation brings more clarity than months of overthinking.

I promise you that.

I've been to therapist after therapist after therapist, and I can remember certain conversations where I had with coaches where all of a sudden I was like, cha Ching, I get it.

So there is no pressure here.

There is no.

No forcing, no anything.

Just curiosity and care.

Honestly, guys, ick is not a failure.

It's information.

And what do we do with information?

We learn from it.

We grow from it.

We grow some more from it.

So please believe me when I tell you your body is not betraying you.

It's asking for attention.

And when the body feels safe again, that is when connection is going to happen again.

With yourself, with others.

Whether it's a spouse, a friend, a family member, whatever it is.

Connection doesn't happen when your body feels unsafe.

When your body feels unsafe, all you are doing is protecting yourself.

And your brain and body are protecting you from that connection.

So thank you for being here.

Please take care of your nervous system this week.

It's been carrying so much more than you realized and love on yourself.

Give yourself a hug and remember, regulate, then communicate.

Love you guys, and I will so talk to you soon.

Have a great day and I will see you back soon.