No Longer Triggered By Family Gatherings | Episode 120: Check in with Syd
Are you searching for approval from your family members? Have you found yourself in people pleasing tendencies always focused on doing things for the people around you?
In this episode of the Carrying Connected Conversations podcast, Syd is sharing her recent experience in healing the triggers she felt in family gatherings. Co-host Angie dives deep into understanding Syd’s fear of judgment and how this created a lot of overwhelm in Syd’s life. For a long time, without even realizing it, Syd had been searching for approval from her family and she was terrified of how her family members perceived her. It took a lot of healing work, shifting her mindset, energy work, and finally coming to terms with how she perceives herself to get to a happy and peaceful place. Press play to learn how Syd is no longer triggered in family gatherings and what this meant for her experience.
Listen to the episode now to hear about Syd’s experience of overcoming and healing her triggers when in family gatherings.
You can continue reading about the conversation Syd & Ang had on the podcast through the transcript below.
Ang: Hello and welcome back to another conversation of Carrying Connected Conversations with Syd & Ang. I know Syd made fun of me last week for saying this, so I am going to say it intentionally this week. This is Ang chatting at you! I’m so excited to be here because this episode is going to be all about Sydney as last week was all about me. It’s about where we are at in our lives and where we are going with our lives. Last week was a lot for me to share because I was being in an energetic space of excited but also anxious and nervous. So I’m excited, really excited to see what energy Sydney is lying in because she is going to be sharing a lot of the feeling of self judgment in and around her family. Without jumping into that, super quick let’s check in to see how Syd’s doing and how she is feeling about recording this episode all about her.
So Syd, floor is on you. How are you doing my friend?
Syd: I’m doing really good. I think I’m feeling in a very connected space, the conversion that I want to bring forward today on no longer being triggered by my family and in family settings. I’ve had a few weeks now on processing this and moving through this and understanding this for myself. I feel really calm and centered and I’m excited to kind of share my experiences and what I’ve moved through with, like you said, that fear of judgment.
Ang: Yay! I love that. So what don’t we start with this question that I have for you. What made you become so aware of your fear of judgment within your family or even in general? To start things off.
Syd: What made me become aware? Over the last couple of years in my healing journey I’ve had a lot of time and space for myself. Which I’ve learned is important being a 2/5 as my profile in Human Design. The 2 is the hermit. Having that space for myself really gives me a supportive energy of processing. Last week you talked about how verbal processing is something that is really important for you. For me, I’ve learned that internal processing, taking time for myself is really important for me. Over the last few years in my healing journey I’ve been able to get a lot more comfortable in acknowledging my emotions, my thoughts, my fears and my worries. Now, in that time space, whenever I was in a setting with family, whether that was my brothers, my parents, or my cousins, or my aunts & uncles, I immediately felt that fear of judgment because I’ve changed internally, but I didn’t know how they perceived me. That really pulled me back into old thought patterns and old emotions of, not just fear of judgment like self-judgment in how I’ve changed and my healing journey, but fear of judgment from them. That is something that has really controlled my experiences for a lot of my life.
You talked about last week the fear of not being enough. My fear of judgment comes from the space of not being enough for others which pushed me into that people pleasing state. I think there has been a couple different experiences I’ve had over the last few years where I’ve noticed that fear of judgment. I’ve been very aware of that fear of judgment and that energy being prominent when I’m in family settings. I’ve become really exhausted and overwhelmed because my mind is spinning on that hamster wheel of judgment. I don’t want people to think I’m weird, so I was very cautious about talking about my spirituality. I was also in a state where I was learning how important my spirituality was for me so I felt like if I wasn’t talking about it then I wasn’t being authentic. It was a battle of “what if they think I’m weird or what if they judge me for sharing who I am”, then the thoughts of “well maybe I shouldn’t share who I am and I should just keep it to myself”, but then the thought of “well then I’m not being authentic”.
So, it’s been a very exhausting time period of the last couple of years anytime I was in a family gathering because my mind and my emotions were spinning and spinning and spinning of feeling like I couldn’t be authentic. Feeling like they saw me as a past version of me yet knowing I had really changed, but then feeling like I hadn’t changed because I was stuck in this hamster wheel of self judgment.
Ang:Oh wow! I totally resonate with what you are saying, Syd. It kind of brings me back to the conversation we had last week about me not feeling enough. It’s a little bit different because your feeling of fear is of not being enough for other people. It kind of ties in because I see it as, you are now in a place, this is not old Sydney, this is now Sydney. You are now in a place where you are giving more to yourself, you are giving a lot more intentionally and purposely instead of to others. Whereas old Sydney used to give everything to others. I know especially in our little conversation we had before we hit the record button, you were in a place where you felt like you had to give, you had to help, you had to give those answers. When in reality, now Sydney wants other people to come up with those answers for themselves because you are giving the answers to yourself. It’s like you are changing how you are giving to others, which to my makes sense, because it’s why you felt like you weren’t giving enough to others or being enough for others because you’ve changed your way of being. I don’t know, am I seeing things how you are feeling?
Syd:I think that that is right and I think that it explains a lot of the first, I don’t want to say the first decade of my life. But maybe the second decade… like from 13 to 25. I think that really explains a lot of my energy. I think also my fear of judgment and not being enough for other people it really was this thought process of “I need to be who they want me to be”. My people pleasing of giving was not giving because it was I want to give and be kind and I want to focus on them. It was really, I want to focus on them because they need me to be a specific person, so I need to show up as that person so they are happy. It’s interesting because I didn’t know if I was going to share this or not because it’s really vulnerable.
I had this memory pop up into my mind yesterday when I was preparing my notes for sharing this topic. Actually it popped up when I went on a dog walk, as I’m dog sitting, after I prepared my notes. It’s this memory of when I was at camp, maybe I was 15, my brothers who are both older than me, made a joke that they were disowning me. It was because we were having water chugging contests. They were older so they were obviously at a stage where they drank alcohol, ,but we were at camp. The water chugging contest was obviously a joke for all the staff members, and I couldn’t chug water. My brothers were obviously making a joke that they were disowning me. Even though now I can look back and see that it was a joke and they did not say it with the intention of hurting me, they said it very much from an intention of a joke, like we are joking around. I took it so much to heart. It really shaped the way that I continued to show up in my family relationships and trying to be that best little sister that I could be. It’s interesting because I can feel the emotion coming forward right now because I can very much see that past version of me and how she just didn’t feel safe in being who she was. This is something that I’ve healed through and it’s something that in the entire conversation today is how I am no longer triggered in that space. I can see how I carried a lot of pain in feeling like I wasn’t who they wanted me to be. That is where my self judgment was rooted. As a people pleaser how can I show up for my family and be the best daughter, be the best cousin, be the best niece and be the best sister that I can be. I thought that it was by being who they needed me to be. That is where my wound was really rooted in.
Ang: Well first of all, thank you for sharing that Syd because that is definitely very vulnerable and I commend you for being in that open and willing space to share that vulnerability. So thank you.
In regards of that feeling that you’ve felt, would you say that the need to have to change or be different in order, in how you acted around them, did you feel that the validation only came when you acted differently? To be accepting of them.
Syd: I don’t even know. I think back then I didn’t realize that’s what was happening. I wasn’t aware that that was what I was doing and how I was behaving. So I wasn’t aware that I was searching for validation from them. I think looking back on it I can see now that it wasn’t even needing validation. Looking back on my people pleasing and giving and doing what they needed me to do or wanted me to do, it wasn’t validation for action that I was desiring, it was validation for being, for who I was that I was needing. I was needing approval for who I was, not how I was behaving or what I was doing. This ties back to growing up in a society where you are constantly told you are a good girl for all that you do. I don’t remember when I was a baby, but I can see people now if their child is eating something and the child is 2, the child is saying “you are such a good girl, good girl”. That’s not getting validated in what you are doing, even though that’s the intention behind it, what you are taking on is the validation for who you are. I think for me it was the desire to be validated for who I was, which in my healing journey I learned I was desiring validation and approval for who I was, yet I wasn’t actually who I was. I wasn’t being my true authentic self, I was being who I thought people wanted me to be. So in that space I was judging my true authentic self because I believed I wasn’t good enough as my authentic self. This made me try to create a persona of myself in being who I thought they wanted me to be.
Once I learned that my fear of judgment became a space where I was judging myself, I had to learn that it wasn’t a need to be the good girl, I needed to learn to validate myself. Because it doesnt matter what other people thing of me if I dont love and accept myself.
Ang: I love that.
Syd: I think that’s where the shift really occurred for me.
Ang: Absolutely! It’s all coming from self now rather than the need to seek it externally, which has been the main theme in our chats recently. Talking about how our external world is a reflection for our internal world or vice versa. I think it’s super important to be able to differentiate that and also being comfortable in who we are versus what we do, it’s two different things. You’ve created that awareness in the sense of being, which I think is very important for a lot of us. How would you say right now, that you support yourself on a daily basis? How do you find that’s different in the terms of how you support yourself before a family gathering?
Syd: I don’t think there is a huge change in how I support myself before. I guess there is a little bit. Before any situation I go into, whether I am going to be spending time with family or I’m going to be hoping on a call with a client, or hanging out with friends. Before anything that involves other people, I always take time to ground myself, to get rooted into my Spirit and to put up a protective shield, a protective energy. This is not to say that I don’t want to feel other people's energy, but it is a space for me to get really connected to my true authentic self, to my Spirit, to feel calm in that space and centered, kind of like I said at the beginning of this episode, and to not take on anybody else’s energy that may be harsh. I think in this process what I’m doing is affirming who I am and remembering who I am, so I don't become triggered in shifting into old thought patterns. Then I think the real change is, when I’m in that moment, when I’m in a family setting and surrounded by family.
In the past few years, I was saying that cycle of thoughts of self-judgment, and what I do differently now is that I remember that their perception of me doesn’t matter. Whether they see me as changed or not doesn’t matter because what matters is how I feel. Once I finally let go of that pressure I also let go of that thought pattern. Now when I am in a family gathering it’s not about thinking about how other people see me, instead it’s about being present, which is how I’ve changed. It’s not about needing people to know that I’m spiritual, because if they’re not into it then they’re not going to want to have those kinds of conversations. I’m not going to force it either, because I don’t want to talk to someone about spirituality who’s not interested in it because that’s not fun right?!
Ang: No.
Syd: Instead I’m very present and I really noticed the change when I was at my brothers wedding a couple weeks ago. It was a lot of family time and through all of it, I didn’t feel the need to spark up in conversation all of the time. I felt this desire to breathe deeply, and to acknowledge my surroundings, especially when I was outside, taking a moment and acknowledging Mother Earth and feeling appreciation and gratitude for the campfire that we were having, as we were all sitting around it having fun conversation. Sitting there and appreciating my brothers for who they are, not for how I always perceived them because when I was younger I put them on a pedestal. Instead seeing them as they share themselves and as they share their lives, especially my brother and my sister-in-law in sharing their love and that whole experience. The way that I’ve changed and have been able to shift away from that fear of judgment was really getting present in myself and getting present in the moment and not being so focused on how other people were perceiving me. Instead getting really focused on how I was experiencing the moment which has allowed me to walk away from a family gathering no longer feeling exhausted, instead feeling connected and feeling that sense of true love amongst all of us.
Ang: I love that! It really tied everything together because I know earlier we talked about your Human Design and the hermit, the line 2, and needing the time to process and being on your own. It’s like now you’ve completely switch the way you do things to become proactive rather than reactive. When you are reactive it’s when you are not aware that things happened to you and you start rolling down the anxiety ball train or you blow up at somebody, whatever way we respond. You’ve now taken the time to ground yourself before an event because you know you need that time to process. You are also saying that now you’ve recognized what to do in the moment, while you are physically there rather than before hand. Instead of you focusing on how people are perceiving you, you are now focusing on how you feel because you realize the importance of how you feel 100%, if not a 1700,000,000%, over weigh how other people perceive you because it doesn’t matter. Like you said at the end of the day, it’s about how you feel and if you’re not feeling that sense of peace or of love, and the unconditionality behind it all, then you will be more in that reactive state. You are not anymore because you’ve given yourself that.
My question to you, before we completely wrap up this conversation today, is there anything else that you’d like to share or any last minute words of advice for you or our listeners that they can also carry forward in their life with this new found information you’ve just shared with us?
Syd: Yes! I think really the takeaway message from my experience that I hope I continue to remember moving forward, and everyone can take what resonates with them and I hope it resonates with people and it helps people to connect the dots, is the idea of needing approval. Checking in with yourself and asking yourself, “am I doing this to seek approval from somebody else?” because as I was saying through my healing journey, family gatherings ended up being really triggering for me because I knew that I had changed, but I wondered if anyone else had noticed. In that I was seeking their approval for my changes. Whereas now, I’ve learned to give myself that approval because like I said it’s not that it doesn’t matter what somebody else thinks of me, what matters is how I feel in my experience. When I tap into “did that feel good? Or did that not feel good?” I’m approving and validating myself in how I’m choosing to experience life.
Like you said, that sense of being proactive, it comes down to, what can I do to feel good? I know through my journey that is presence. Being present in the moment. That is creating real connection, so rather than being in my thoughts and having surface level conversations, it’s about being there with someone in that conversation, asking them about themselves and creating true connection. That is how I’ve grown and that is how I’m no longer triggered in family gatherings. I’m not seeking approval from other people. I know who I am and I know how I’m choosing to live my life and that makes me feel good. It allows me to experience a beautiful family gathering rather than living in my head the whole time.
Ang: Oh I love that! Oh that is so amazing! Thank you so much for sharing that Syd! Thank you so much for being vulnerable because I find the power of vulnerability really helps give all the other people, well that are listening to these conversations, that external permission slip, or I should say that internal permission slip to be. To be whatever you need to be in order for you to feel good. It’s never about the other person, it’s always about yourself. So I think that’s a beautiful lesson that you’ve shared with us today in terms of what you’ve just moved through.
I guess we will officially wrap things up if that’s okay with you Syd.
Syd: Yes! Definitely! This is just a reminder that I get really emotional when I share things, it’s not that I’m still carrying emotion over those things, it’s just that I’m really sensitive and that’s how the emotions come through me. There is nothing but love that I carry. There is no sense of judgment or criticism towards anyone in my family. I really carry this sense of love and true connection and pride of who I am and who each of my individual family members are. So, all that love!
Ang: Of course! And also to remind yourself of self judgment. It’s not there for your family, but it’s also not there for you. I think that’s something that us people, I know I have that judgment towards myself sometimes. It’s important to remind ourselves of that.
Syd: Beautiful!
Ang: Awesome! Well, before I officially close the conversation today, I want to give you guys a little teaser in terms of what to expect next week for episode 121 because it’s going to be my expertise coming at you and it’s going to be coming in hot. If you are listening to this and you are someone who struggles with their weight, whether it’s constant weight loss, weight gain or if you are a yo-yo dieter, going from one diet to another and you are not seeing any sustainable progress. Whether it’s your weight loss or weight gain journey, you are really going to want to tune in to next week’s episode because I am going to be diving deep into all of that. How I’m going to be diving into that is explaining the love of Macros, why it’s important, what macros are and how we can create sustainability moving forwards in our lives.
Don’t forget to tune in next week, episodes are dropped every single week on Monday’s at 3am EST. So until next week we are going to love you and leave you. Have a wonderful rest of your day or evening.
Syd: Bye everyone!
Ang: Bye!