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Start your journey at The Hawaiian -islands .com The feeling that you have with someone is a feeling that they're often trying to discharge or not accept in themselves.
Have you ever wished you had a wise meditation teacher on speed dial?
Someone you can call after a long day.
Someone you can lean on for their advice.
Someone to listen and help you to see things differently.
Welcome to Dear Headspace.
Hi, friends. I'm excited to be here with you for another episode of Dear Headspace, a podcast where I sit down with one of our meditation teachers and we answer your questions about career, career, relationships, mindfulness, basically whatever question is on your mind.
I'm Robin Hopkins and today I get to go on this little journey with Sam.
Hi, Sam. Hi, Robin.
So happy to be back with you.
I know, always, always, always.
How are you? I heard you just had some big trip abroad.
How was it? I did, yeah.
So my husband is, everyone kind of knows this, is Swedish.
And so we go back to Sweden to visit my stepdaughter, who's 14.
But I like to fly in somewhere else just because I'm really tired of Sweden.
So, I mean, it's a beautiful place, but I'm like, I got to see more of Europe while we're over there.
So we flew into Lisbon, but the moment we landed, I got the flu.
Yeah. So I had chills, fever.
Yeah. It was, you know, I expect that now because I often get sick when I travel.
So really, it wasn't a big surprise.
But yeah, it's still a bummer, of course.
Yeah. Well, especially something like the flu.
Like that's not something one can easily bounce back from.
Like when you have the chills and all of that, it's just you're down.
You're down for the count.
Yeah. No, I mean, but we still saw some beautiful things.
And it was a wonderful city.
And then we went to Sweden and yeah, spent some really good quality time with my stepdaughter and discovered she loves working out, which I also love.
So we went to the gym together every day.
Oh, that's so fun. Yeah.
It's nice when with kids, when you can find that thing that you connect with.
Like I, my son is my movie partner.
Like he loves going to the movies and I love the movies.
And when you can find something that you, that you both enjoy, it's, it's fantastic.
It really is. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, and it got my husband going to the gym and to see, to have all of us there together.
And I'm always trying to get him to go with me.
And he's always saying no. Well, I wanted to ask you a different question before we get to our listener questions, because one of the tasks this week was like not distracting ourselves.
And it was about giving up reading for the week.
And I, in typical Robin fashion, I added in social media because I I was like, well, I don't read all that much. I was like, let me see what I can do.
And it was just giving up both of them was way harder than I anticipated.
Is that something that you ever do?
Do you ever do like, because I was calling it almost like a fast, like a reading fast. Yeah, absolutely.
I, when I think of fasts for a different, you know, what we can fast from, I think of silent retreats because it's the ultimate fast where you're, you're agreeing not to speak.
and also they discourage you from reading or having your phone.
So it's just, you're cut off from everything.
It's like recalibrating is how I would put it.
You basically resensitize yourself to the world and we're so adaptable.
We're as humans and our brains, we're just, we can adapt quickly and that's a great quality of ours, I would say.
But sometimes we're too adaptable and And we're not seeing things fully as they are.
We're not enjoying or savoring things that we take for granted that are going to be there all the time.
So my experience after these retreats has been like one, I remember this one moment where it was right after a seven -day silent retreat and I was driving home and the billboards felt like they were screaming at me.
Like they were so loud.
You know, the images and the words and the font.
I was noticing all these details.
And a teacher of mine warned us about this.
And she said that her first silent retreat, she came home, unpacked her groceries, and she just started weeping, seeing all the packaging.
Like it was heartbreaking to her to unpack, to open a box and then another piece of plastic.
Yeah. And so these are things we kind of get used to over time because we live busy lives and we just can't fret over everything.
But there's something to be said about, you know, that resensitization and our connection to our lives.
On that note, we're going to put our fast on our chatter and we are going to get to today's listener questions.
Today, we've got questions about helping your partner when they're having problems with work, feeling codependent in romantic relationships, and how to use mindfulness to tolerate ignorant people.
So I say let's get the ball rolling with our first question from Kate.
Here we go. it's Kate I live in Warrington which is based in the northwest of England loving the show guys but my question to you is my husband has been unemployed for two years and it's really affecting his mental health I do as much as I can to support him emotionally and physically but it is beginning to take its toll on me i have mentioned headspace to him he has no interest and i am not going to force it onto him but how can i protect my own mental health and how can i help his mental health and support him through these needs wow i mean first of all talk about synchronicity we were just
discussing this this is not an easy one where you're trying to support someone and you want something for them, but maybe they're not ready to step up.
So what are your thoughts, Sam?
Yeah. Well, just to disclose that I've gone through something recently with my husband.
He was laid off a couple months ago.
And so I know from my lived experience just how difficult that is.
It's so interesting.
Like I want to dissect romantic partnerships because it's such a unique relationship.
There's only one of it in your life and there's so many implications when things like this happen, when a spouse loses a job or there's a power dynamic shift where you're now earning more or you're making more decisions about how you're spending both of your money.
And all of that can bring up conflicting feelings, right?
right? You might have so much compassion for him.
And then also maybe a tinge of resentment.
Or you start, if you're anything like me, you kind of start monitoring what your husband's doing with his time.
Sam, I might be a little bit of a monitor as well.
We have that in common. I was never like this before this relationship, but it brought it out in me.
And so I really have to watch that too, where I'm like, how many times today did I ask him if he applied to this job?
Or how many times today did I look over his shoulder and see what he was doing with his time?
So that's just being aware of that, that there's going to be a shift and not being hard on yourself during it, right?
Using that beautiful skill of mindfulness to just be aware when feelings come up or if there are conflicting feelings, not trying to pick one because we do that sometimes times where we're like, that's the right emotion to be feeling about this.
And this is the wrong emotion to be feeling about this.
But allowing yourself to feel all of what's coming up and that's, that can be challenging, but I find it really helpful, too, to remember that it's temporary.
Yeah. You know, these are movements and shifts in our lives, but they're, they're not permanent.
Yeah. And to remind yourself, too, of the strengths and the experience that he has and the, you know, kind of turning toward gratitude and looking at what you do have at this time, the relationship, the care that you have for each other, the work experience.
And maybe even, I know you said he doesn't like to meditate, but having, maybe just having him talk about what his ideal job would feel like, how he'd want to feel when he was there, and kind of getting, kind of shifting into that space of positivity and possibility.
because that fear and that the negative thinking that comes during times like these can be really overpowering and really strong and can kind of rob us of the big perspective yeah we can get locked into the small immediate perspective and and start catastrophizing oh yeah it's just a hop skip and a jump to to the end of the world really sometimes right but i was thinking about one of the things you just said about talking because kate you didn't really mention like are you all talking about this.
As Sam said, you know, these are unique relationships and you are in a partnership.
And it's okay to say, like, I'm finding myself getting a little frustrated, you know, because, you know, you're struggling, but, you know, I'm trying to help and I don't know how to help you.
Like, I think those are really great things to say sometimes in relationship.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And I think of, you know, how sometimes when we don't have a job where our routine has been broken up in a major way, we can start to feel worthless.
We can start to feel like we don't have any meaning or purpose.
I mean, we can really be sucked into the dark hole of emptiness very quickly.
And I found when my husband was waiting for his work visa, he was immigrating from Sweden and he couldn't work for, I think, about a year.
And I said, you know what, let's just get you volunteering.
Like I found a volunteer position for him, him, little ones that were temporary, and then he would, you know, jump onto another one.
But he would come home just smiling.
He had something to share about the day.
He was saying that people were so grateful to him, and they were giving him all this positive feedback.
You know, one person ended up writing him a letter of recommendation when he needed it.
Oh, that's amazing!
Yeah, so giving of your time, I think, is so helpful to keep you in a positive space where you remember you're proving to yourself that you have value by giving of your time.
And it doesn't have to be some big volunteer project.
But for example, the other day, my husband made this delicious chicken soup.
I wasn't feeling well.
And I really first just take my time to remember or think about how much time he put into it.
So like he chopped, I mean, it took him hours.
He went shopping for it.
He thought about what recipe I would like and to appreciate those efforts to kind of tell him, you know hey i really thank you for the time you put into this the love you put into this it's delicious it's allowing me to like eat something really nourishing instead of going out to eat so you know just seeing how appreciating and seeing how looking at the other ways that your husband contributes and and thanking him for that and and doing that with yourself as well as you're regulating all those moments where you're regulating your own emotions and you're being you're opening to them instead of trying
to suppress, giving yourself a gold star for that and saying, wow, today I was really patient.
Today I noticed the shift in this emotion or this point of view.
And I like to do that at the end of the night, just with myself, the quiet, having quiet moments like that to honor my efforts.
But that can go a long way during a difficult time like this.
And making sure, Kate, that you are taking care of yourself, because, you know, I do think that you can lead by example of taking care of yourself and then maybe he might take care of himself as well.
But without that expectation on him, just doing it for yourself, because if you go in saying, I better do this and then he's going to do it like that's you can't do that.
Yeah. And it could take a long time or never that they come around.
But I found that people in my life tend to dabble in things they see working for me eventually.
yes yeah i see that too i was also thinking one last thing is just sending loving kindness when you know it sounds like kate you're getting some benefit from the meditation and you of course would love your husband to share in those benefits with you but if he's not you know using part of your practice time to send phrases of loving kindness to yourself and to him and that really helps us relate to one another with more compassion and you know it helps us tap into that empathy when we're struggling to do so.
So that's a beautiful practice.
Yeah. And good luck, Kate.
Remember, it's all a phase, even the bad phases.
It has to shift and it has to change in some way.
So it will get better and just hang in there.
Yeah. One more thing, Kate, that I would recommend is looking through some of the courses in our app because we have some wonderful courses on managing stress and being with our thoughts and our our emotions, just as they are with a lot of compassion.
We also have a course on compassionate communication, which helps you to clarify what you're feeling and needing over the course of five days and then moving into the space where you're able to communicate that with a lot of compassion.
So that might come in handy when you're trying to figure out, you know, what is it I'm really needing here?
What do I need as the situation changes in my partnership right now?
What are some things that need to change or shift?
So it can be really clarifying for that.
All right, let's head into question number two from Lou.
Hi, my name's Lou from Oxford. My question is more to do with codependency.
I really love my boyfriend, but sometimes I feel like I love him too much. and I read up about it and it's like you're putting yourself like behind that person by putting them too far forward. But I don't feel like I'm giving myself less, but I just give so much. And sometimes I feel like maybe it's a bit overwhelming for him.
But then I don't want want to like not be myself.
So if you have any advice.
You know, this topic of codependency is so big.
Yeah. There's so much to unpack.
And it's a real dynamic that happens to no fault of your own.
You know, this term comes from the addiction realm.
They used it to describe people who were kind of overcompensating for partners who who had issues with alcohol dependency.
And so they were kind of enabling in a way partners so that the partners could continue to use.
Yeah. And so it's this idea that we are abandoning ourselves.
Yeah. In pursuit of trying to please and, you know, be everything that we think we need to be for a partner.
And when we do that, it is like a vicious cycle because we're kind of putting our worth into someone else's hands.
We're not defining our worth for ourselves, but we're allowing others to define our worth and how good we are.
And this hits really close to home for me because I definitely had this pattern in my early, I would say like young young adulthood.
So from 18 to like 26, it was a long period of codependency.
I would say from like three till 37.
It was just, you know, in my, in my youth.
But I remember this term being shared with me by my mom's friend who was a therapist, because I was trying to figure out why do I, why do I base my whole life on my then boyfriend?
Yeah. Why is, why is like, I felt like a orbiting planet around he who was the sun and I would feel so scared of abandonment and so afraid of displeasing him and, and then being rejected.
And in the process, I, you know, when we broke up, I looked around my life and I was like, I don't have any friends because I had prioritized him so much that I had stopped going out with friends and doing other things that I wanted to do.
too. And that was a real wake -up call for me.
Yeah. I think what's interesting about what you're talking about, Sam, is often the thing you're most afraid of is losing the person and then being so dependent or codependent, whichever term you're using, or in behavior can often drive that type of person away anyway.
So it's like a weird catch -22 that happens in that.
Exactly. And a lot of the patterns come from childhood.
It comes from, you know, our parents relying on us for their emotional well -being.
So if our parents weren't able to self -regulate or they didn't model it for us, then that can lay the groundwork for codependency later because you're taking care of them without any skills.
Right. But they're looking to you or they've looked to you in the past to be their regulator.
later. So I emphasize that just because it's not something to blame yourself for.
It's a pattern that I believe really, I went to therapy for it and it helped me immensely.
And I do believe unpacking the past and looking at your childhood events and patterns can really be helpful in understanding what drives the behavior, what drives this pattern.
Yeah. And Sam, you brought up that the foundation or it comes, the root of it is from a 12 -step program.
There are codependent 12 -step groups.
And I think one thing that's, which, you know, especially if therapy is not in your budget range, or if you maybe want to be a little more anonymous about it, just to kind of check it out.
What's really wonderful in the 12 -step world since COVID is that many, many, many meetings are online now through Zoom or on phone calls.
And it'd be a really interesting way to be able to access and see other people like yourself and hear about their journey while you're figuring this out, if this is in fact the right fit for you.
And there are a lot of books on codependency too that are really helpful as well.
Yeah, I so agree. It's so powerful to hear other people share a similar experience and to see you're not alone and you're not a weirdo, you're not an anomaly.
This is a pattern. I remember going to a women's group in college and it was profound, profoundly life -changing for me.
I only went to, I think, four sessions, but hearing other women's stories and what they had gone through and the rockiness of their relationships, it just, yeah, I let go of this idea that there's something wrong with me.
I want to say it was my early to mid -20s.
I went to some codependency, like 12 -step type meetings because both my parents were alcoholics.
And at that time, my mom was, you know, just one of the people that was not ever going to be healed in this lifetime.
Like she just, she never got out of her own way and she wasn't able to.
And I was carrying weight from it.
Like I was on my shoulders and my body, you know, emotionally, it was, it was too hard. And so I was able to then set boundaries and, and put myself first. And that changed a lot for me.
Yeah. We are, from the the moment we're born, we're adapting to our immediate environment, right?
In our childhood home.
What do I need to do to make sure mom doesn't lose her shit?
What do I need to do to make sure that dad hugs me when I need to be hugged or that I get food for dinner?
So we're not conscious of it.
We're just doing, adjusting ourselves to what the immediate demands of the the environment are in our homes.
And just knowing that can bring a lot of compassion.
You can do these beautiful meditations where you, what we call inner child work, where you're talking to that part of yourself, that younger part of yourself, and you're saying, I'm here.
I see how hard this is.
I'm with you. I'll turn toward you and be with you whenever you need me.
And I'm going to spend a little bit of time with you every day, just to give you a chance to talk to me, to let me know what you need, to let me know what you're feeling, to vent, to tell me what you're excited about.
I mean, in essence, for me, that's a big part of my meditation every day is just turning on that part of me that is there to listen and be really kind to my mind, to my body, and to all parts of myself that want to show up.
And doing that is putting putting yourself first. It's taking that time is shifting and in a way, reparenting yourself.
It's giving yourself the attentive, attuned parenting that we so, all of us, all humans so crave and need and want.
And that's incredibly powerful.
There's a lot of research too that shows that by doing that, we're actually repairing the damage done by broken attachments in early childhood just on a, on a neurological level.
Yeah. That's like, that's nice to hear.
Yeah. And I mean, Lou, if you were here with us, like if you were in the room with, with Sam and I, we'd say hi, but you know, I would just say, I hope you focus on loving yourself.
And I hope that you understand that you deserve to have someone who thinks and loves and appreciates you the way that you appreciate your partner.
Exactly. And that your relationship with yourself will be forever, no matter what, right?
Your whole lifetime, you'll have that relationship with you.
Yeah, thank you, Lou.
Thank you so much for your question.
And really, and good luck, and we're with you.
All right, and now we've got a question from Bruce.
Hi, this is Bruce from Albuquerque.
And I'm just curious on how to make mindfulness work when you seem to be surrounded by ignorant people.
I mean, I try to see where people are coming from and look at their point of view and try to keep my temper in check, but there are days where it's just really difficult.
Anyway, I hope this makes sense.
Talk to you later. Bye.
Oh, I love this question so much. Bruce, you sound like you've had it.
Like he has had it, and I cannot blame him.
Yeah, I hear how fed up you are, Bruce, and I can relate.
I mean, it's such a frustrating experience to be putting in effort to be kind, to be patient, to be understanding.
Maybe you're meditating.
Maybe you're working on yourself.
And it seems like everyone around you is doing the very opposite, you know.
It really does some days.
I mean, I'll have moments where I'll just go, wow.
wow. You know, I greet it with such radical curiosity.
And, you know, how mindfulness comes into play here is taking a moment to, if you have the moment, you know, you might be in the middle of a conversation with someone you feel is ignorant, but paying attention to what's coming up in your body as people are speaking.
That's the first step, right, is just being able to keep yourself sane, keep yourself collected so that you don't do things you regret or say say things you regret, and that you're showing up for yourself and learning about what this interaction is like for you in your body, in your mind.
Yeah. And so that can be really, really helpful in regulating the emotions, but also preventing the escalation of this interaction, right?
I'm not even going to try to speak in we sentences, but I am an escalator and I can't even tell you how helpful it would be if in the moment I was able to stop, check in with myself, feel the feelings that are coming because it's, I just skip right over that and go right to really like that.
And that's not helpful to anyone.
It never helps. I never do that.
And something good happens after ever.
Yeah. But I keep doing it, Sam.
Well, there's certain things, right?
As you were sharing that, I was just thinking there's certain times and certain things that just, I feel incredibly entitled to like speak out against. There's a fierceness that I give myself permission to use and to go with.
And one of those things for me is passive aggression.
I just don't have any tolerance for it.
I'll just tell someone, you know what, I see your passive aggression.
I'm not going to buy it.
You better tell me how you feel.
If you're mad, get mad at me.
I need your anger. I kind of love that, though.
But that's something that can be really helpful is what are the specific triggers for you?
because that can also teach us something about ourselves.
You know, Bruce used the word ignorance, right?
So what is it about ignorance, right?
Does it remind you of someone from your past?
Is it something you, maybe it's pointing to something you really value.
You know, like when you see someone being ignorant, you really, you stop and go, I really value being educated and knowing a lot about topics that are really important.
important so it kind of what what makes us angry lets us know also what's important to us and what we're needing that's that's so interesting to understand like the value flip side of it yeah they're also i remember learning about this incredible dynamic and my friend was going through her PsyD program and she was saying that the feeling that you have with someone is a feeling that they're often trying to discharge or not accepting themselves so if If you're getting angry with someone, if you're feeling anger in the presence of someone, often, not all the time, but often they're angry about something and there's
some kind of relief in seeing you get angry instead of them having to embody the anger themselves.
That sounds like some very subconscious shiznet happening on a lower level of like, I'm not comfortably mad, so I'm going to do something that maybe makes you mad and then you're mad and then I go, there it is.
like that's like if you say it like that that's I mean I want to say that's crazy but I don't want to say it's crazy I want to say that's elaborate it is elaborate and it comes from I mean I can give an example of like my own when I was in my family when I was a child I was sad way more often than they were they were very playful very jovial humor was the medicine of of choice at the expense of others, by the way.
And I felt like an outsider.
I felt like something was wrong with me.
And why am I having all these big feelings that no one in my house can relate to?
So there's some comfort in me still as an adult when I see others being vulnerable or even having an emotional reaction.
If my mom gets sad and she shows sadness, there's a little bit of relief in me.
Well, you're not alone.
Yeah, exactly. Not that I want her to be sad, but But there's a sense of, oh, she gets sadness now.
Now she gets what I was feeling.
And that can happen with, you know, outside of the family as well, where we see others experiencing an emotion that we've, you know, exiled in ourselves.
And then suddenly we go like, oh, well, subconsciously, maybe we do something to aggravate to get more of that because there's some kind of relief there.
But when you say it from your own life, you give that example, it's so clear.
So we're taking it back to our pal Bruce.
So Bruce wants to identify his triggers and then.
Well, so what I was thinking, what I'm thinking is about is the importance of reframing and different ways of looking at people.
So, for example, what is your, I've asked this to people before, like, do you think people are inherently good or bad?
and asking that of yourself.
Like, what is your perception of human beings?
Because what I know from the realm of research and psychology is that we do get rewarded more.
It's more rewarding for our brain to cooperate and to be giving.
And I believe that people are inherently good for the most part.
And so this, just this core belief can help you to be more generous with your assumptions of others.
I always remember something that I don't know where I first heard it, but it's the idea that if you find a few minutes with someone difficult, imagine what it's like for them to spend 24 -7 with themselves.
Yeah, for sure. Right.
And so that's just alluding to the fact that there are internal battles going on within each of us and difficult experiences that we've all had to face.
And so reminding yourself of that can help inspire some compassion when you're amidst difficult people or ignorance, when you witness ignorance.
And that's just a way of being generous.
And if it's a closer relationship, there's this practice I do with kids, but I've done it with adults too, and it's called Just Like Me.
And I have kids think of someone they find difficult, and then they have to say, Just Like Me, dot, dot, dot, this person.
loves their mom or whatever.
This person wants to be happy.
Just like me, this person feels scared sometimes.
And they just go through whatever comes to mind.
But in the process, you start to de -emphasize the differences and you emphasize the similarities.
And that opens the door to more empathy and more generosity.
That's fantastic. And it is true because the compassion is what but is helpful.
And Bruce, we see you, we affirm you, and we are your community.
Yes. Well, thank you to our callers today, Brittany, Lou, and Bruce.
Your questions were amazing and vulnerable and we love them all.
And if you are sitting at home and you are listening and you are dying to ask us a question, I mean, we've made it pretty darn easy for you to submit your question.
There's a link in the show notes.
You can just click it.
Or if you want to be all old school.
You can type this into your browser, sayhi .chat slash dear headspace.
And once you get there, follow the prompts to record your question.
If we use your question on the show, you're going to get three months of headspace for free.
That's awesome. Yeah.
So keep those questions coming.
And then as you know, each week we like to leave you with an opportunity to just pause and reflect on what you just heard. And it's time for you to transition from this moment, from this conversation to the next moment in your day.
So as you listen to some recorded sounds of snow melting in a river, just let your mind do whatever it wants to do.
Until next time, stay happy, stay healthy, and please be kind to one another.
Thank you. Thank you.
There you go. Thank you.
It's produced by Robin Hopkins, Ash Jones, and Scott Sorensen.
It's executive produced by Morgan Selzer, Sarah Cohen, Baron Farmar, and Danny Karistamy.
It's hosted and produced by Robin Hopkins, Kaysonga Giskombe, Dora Kamau, Samantha Snowden, and Eve Lewis Prieto.
Sound recording and post -production is by Dan Krull.
Music is by Scott Sorensen and Chris Murgia.
And a very special thanks to Colleen Lutz.
