https://www.welcomeyoupodcast.com/episodes daily 0.75 2025-03-30 https://www.welcomeyoupodcast.com/episodes/episode-6-the-trap-of-enabling monthly 0.5 2024-03-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/657a405488aa7a4281115a7b/1710774095697-AVUVORKVPWHP1Q1PXC4X/image-asset.jpeg Episodes: Season 1 - Episode 6: The Trap of Enabling - What to do when you want to help, but helping hurts. People pleasers have good intentions when they take on the burden of trying to make someone feel better. We truly just want to help and to offer our own wellbeing and happiness as a resource. After all, wouldn’t the world be a better place if we could keep people from getting depressed in the first place? But not only is this endless output exhausting for the one doing all the work, it also limits the other person from developing the skills to cultivate their own emotional health. Happiness takes effort and action, and if we believe it is our job to make the other person happy, and we take too much responsibility for their wellbeing, we may actually be leaving them in worse shape. All I ever wanted was to make my ex-husband feel better. And at one point in the early days of our relationship, I was the only one who could. When he was down (which was often), I could cheer him up. When he was angry (also often), I could calm him down. When he thought life was pointless (again, often), I could inspire him and offer a glimmer of hope. Each time I was able to do this for him, I got a little dopamine hit, a little buzz of pleasure in my brain that told me I was valued, needed, and fulfilling my purpose. What I didn’t recognize at the time was that my enjoyment of the buzz would become an addiction, and that both of us would get hooked into a cycle of enabling and depression that could not end until the helping stopped. He couldn’t heal until I stopped trying to heal for him. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/657a405488aa7a4281115a7b/fe765226-7d76-4897-8edb-625d29120d45/image-asset.jpg Episodes: Season 1 - Episode 6: The Trap of Enabling When you love someone, you want to help them feel better. But truthfully, there is only so much you can do for them. They have to want to be helped for anything you do to make a difference. It becomes enabling when you’re either over helping someone who won’t help themselves, or when you make it easy for them to stay stuck where they are. Sometimes people need tough love. They need us to stop coddling them and draining ourselves of happiness in the hopes that they will absorb it. They may need professional help, fresh air, exercise, new skills for navigating difficulty, none of which you can do for them. You can drive them to therapy, but you can’t heal for them. You can walk them outside into the sunshine, but you can’t enjoy the warmth on their skin for them. It took years for me to realize that it wasn’t my job to make my ex-husband better, and even more years for me to learn that continuing to communicate with him about his mental health simply perpetuated the cycle. It was a hard lesson for me, and with it came big waves of grief. All I ever wanted was to help him be happy. And I failed. Maybe I even made it worse by trying. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/657a405488aa7a4281115a7b/093389cb-5c26-4783-b9c3-ecd1333e4a2d/image-asset.jpg Episodes: Season 1 - Episode 6: The Trap of Enabling - Forgiveness Prayer - by Eric Kolvig I allow myself to be imperfect. I allow myself to make mistakes. I allow myself to be a learner, still learning life's lessons. I forgive myself. If I cannot forgive myself now, may I forgive myself some time in the future. Just as I allow myself to be imperfect, so I allow you to be imperfect. I allow you also to make mistakes. I allow you to be learners, still learning life's lessons. I forgive you. If I cannot forgive you now, may I forgive you sometime in the future. Please allow me to be imperfect. Please allow me to make mistakes. Please allow me to be a learner, still learning life's lessons. Please forgive me. If you cannot forgive me now, please try to forgive me sometime in the future. https://www.welcomeyoupodcast.com/episodes/episode-5-responding-to-crisis-and-upheaval-with-compassion monthly 0.5 2024-03-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/657a405488aa7a4281115a7b/c2030c12-a6a3-4d16-882e-bcdddd4036dc/image-asset.jpg Episodes: Season 1 - Episode 5: Get off the Drama Train - In this episode, Dr. Cindy navigates a difficult personal journey as her abusive ex prepares to move out of state and leave her alone with their daughter. She shares practical skills for meeting crisis and upheaval with self-compassion and how she is trying to parent as gracefully as possible through this toxic transition. A week and a half ago, my ex announced that he was moving to his home state, where he plans to live in his mother’s basement in an attempt to get back on his feet financially. At first, my daughter appeared to handle it well. She seemed to recognize that her dad needs to do what is best for him, because he has really been struggling to make ends meet in this small rural town, and believes that staying here will kill him. While I felt conflicted by the announcement, and torn between grief and relief, it was mostly relief. Ok, it was all relief. Our co-parenting relationship has been bitter and characterized by threats, blaming, and other emotionally abusive behaviors, and there is a sense that if he really leaves, I’ll finally be free. After all, it’s about time he found his own way in this world and gave me some space and the freedom to settle into routine, rest, and stability with our daughter. We are both so tired. https://www.welcomeyoupodcast.com/episodes/episode-4-addicted-to-love monthly 0.5 2024-02-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/657a405488aa7a4281115a7b/2f66910b-4545-4e55-af09-1caaeab928a0/image-asset.jpg Episodes: Season 1 - Episode 4: Addicted to “Love” - Soothing Somatic Holds for Loving our Wounded Inner Child: Place a hand on your heart and feeling the sensations of holding yourself, and being held. Notice the weight of your hand, and any messages that your heart has for your hand or your hand for your heart. Wrap your arms around each other, holding onto your upper arms with each hand and just resting there in that gentle embrace. You might even say to yourself as you're giving yourself this physical touch, I've got you. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. Rest your face in your hands. Place your elbows on the table and make kind of a cradle with your hands, you can just kind of plop your face down in your hands and give yourself the softness and the receiving that are available from your open hands. Squeeze the back of your neck and your shoulders, and massage down your arms, torso, thighs, and calves. Starting again at the top of your body, sweep your hands in soft brushing strokes across your skin, sweeping away any old or stagnant energy from the body. Place your hands on the earth, giving to her anything that you don’t need to carry any more. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/657a405488aa7a4281115a7b/607c6715-8523-4ca1-ba26-6bd188cb354c/image-asset.jpg Episodes: Season 1 - Episode 4: Addicted to “Love” - Why do we compromise ourselves to belong? Have you ever gone back to a romantic relationship or friendship that you know isn’t healthy for you? How can we help survivors break free from trauma bonds with their abusers, acknowledge the reality of the abusive behaviors that can keep them trapped, and survive the withdrawal period long enough to get to safety? Trauma bonding is a phenomenon where people who are being abused become empathetic towards and emotionally enmeshed with their abuser, and this can keep people locked into abusive relationships, feeling like they cannot leave because they “love” this person. This episode discusses the neural processes in our brain that keep us locked into toxic relationships, and offers practices and interventions from neuroscience to support breaking the cycle of addiction to unhealthy relationships, just like we can work with any other destructive habit we wish to change. https://www.welcomeyoupodcast.com/episodes/episode-3-interrupting-the-trauma-cycle-and-honoring-the-wisdom-of-avoidance monthly 0.5 2024-02-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/657a405488aa7a4281115a7b/0bfe2555-a4f9-4a97-863d-f898108c2ebe/image-asset.jpg Episodes: Season 1 - Episode 3: Interrupting the Trauma Cycle and Honoring the Wisdom of Avoidance - My friend was ready to give up on herself, when she texted me a picture of the bruises on her neck from where her abuser choked her. “It’s my fault because I keep going back,” she wrote. “I’m in a trauma bond. I know it sounds crazy but I miss him so much when he’s gone I end up answering his call and giving him another chance because I wish so badly he would actually change… I don’t tell anyone because I KNOW it’s up to me to stop it for good. And it’s something broken in me that can’t help but to go back… I started it by being avoidant.” In having the courage to ask for help, she was able to recognize that her self-hatred was keeping the door open to being abused. When she reached out for support, she gave her wounded and avoidant parts the message that she actually did deserve safety and care. She then found the strength to finally stand up for herself, and put an end to the cycle of violence. https://www.welcomeyoupodcast.com/episodes/episode-2-reclaiming-yourself-from-emotional-abuse monthly 0.5 2024-01-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/657a405488aa7a4281115a7b/1706292533276-EPH2HUDXV0UMDE2T89CC/image-asset.jpeg Episodes: Season 1 - Episode 2: Reclaiming Yourself from Emotional Abuse - In this episode… Protecting my right to peace, motherhood, and wellbeing has been a long, difficult journey. In this episode, I’ll explore the path of reclaiming my mental real estate in the face of ongoing harassment, and developing skillful responses to emotional abuse and threats to my belonging. Tune in to find out how to interrupt the cycle of co-dependency and take back your right to have your own experience of being human, without having to become small, compromise yourself, or be a bandaid to another's gaping emotional wounds. https://www.welcomeyoupodcast.com/episodes/whatsyourattachmentstyle monthly 0.5 2024-02-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/657a405488aa7a4281115a7b/1705688181677-V5FGXFBXGIVA6XS0XQES/image-asset.jpeg Episodes: Season 1 - Episode 1: How Attachment Trauma Impacts our Relationships - How does your childhood experience of belonging in the world play out in your adult relationships? This first episode offers preliminary practices for developing a caring and kind relationship with yourself as the foundation for healing attachment wounds. Using simple grounding and resourcing exercises, you’ll be invited to welcome yourself to belong where you already are, and to engage your senses to help regulate your nervous system. 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