The Love With Intelligence Podcast

Breaking Free From Unhealthy Relationship Cycles: Healing Trauma and Embracing Genuine Connection

• Lily Walford • Season 6 • Episode 2

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Have you ever felt trapped in a cycle of relationships that leave you unfulfilled or drained? Today's enlightening discussion unveils the hidden impact of childhood experiences on our adult connections. Together, we'll explore the mysterious link between parents with low emotional intelligence and your own quest for love, navigating the complex waters of emotional validation, codependency, and the challenging task of breaking free from these cycles. By shining a light on these shadows, we'll equip you with the knowledge to forge paths toward healthier and more fulfilling partnerships.

Strap in for a heart-to-heart on the arduous path of healing from trauma and the grasp of narcissistic relationships. We share the poignant journey of a client battling abandonment issues and the paradox of prioritizing oneself in relationships that seem to punish self-care. We'll dissect the nuances of complex PTSD and how past pains can hijack your reactions to present-day triggers. This chapter is a beacon for those navigating the murky waters of the dating scene and a guide for those aiming to align their partner choices with their deepest values for lasting love and compatibility.

Closing the loop, we address the foundation of healthy relationships and the transformative journey of confronting and mending childhood wounds. In this honest conversation, I'll guide you through the signs of over-giving, the struggle with trust, and the tendency to be overly agreeable—which can inadvertently beckon manipulative partners. Discover how embracing vulnerability and asserting personal needs can open doors to emotional safety and genuine connections. 

Plus, we introduce Love IQ membership, providing tools and community support to encourage healthier relationship patterns and embolden you to step boldly into a future brimming with genuine connection and emotional security.

Click here to claim 7 days free access to The Love IQ Membership on us: https://www.lovewithintelligence.com/IQ

Website: www.LoveWithIntelligence.com

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Speaker 1:

Don't you think it's funny how some people date the same type of person again and again and again? Well, guess what? There is a reason for that, and in this episode, I'm going to be diving into all the different ways that you can break the patterns in order to find a loving partner that you can have a healthy relationship with, especially if you've had toxic relationships in the past, including narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths and basically anyone with a very low emotional intelligence. This episode is going to be rather juicy, so please go and get your pen and paper, start writing these down, share it with anyone that you think could really benefit, because obviously you know, relationships are so, so important and not everyone is able to enjoy that real, honest and genuine love that lasts, that they truly deserve. So let's share that love. So please feel free to pause if you need to take breaks or anything like that, because this is going to be, like I said, a very, very deep episode. It might be a little bit emotionally charging, but trust me on this, you are going to learn so many different things that can really support you to meet the right partner in future and break these patterns. So take your time. It's not a rush, you know, take those notes and we are going to have amazing things happen on this episode. I can just feel it.

Speaker 1:

So let's focus on the 10 reasons why people end up in these awful relationship patterns. You know where they're attracting partners that aren't caring, that are emotionally abusive, and how you can stop that. Today, childhood Now you will be amazed the amount of times that I have someone turn around to me and say, hey, but Lily, I've had the most amazing childhood. The truth is, you know, you can have a fantastic childhood. You know, and still have issues that have caused bad relationships. One of the main things that actually causes these issues is having a parent or two parents that aren't emotionally intelligent. So the thing is to remember is parents. They do the best that they possibly can. So this is not a finger pointing exercise of your parents. Giving you the reason you know is the reason why you've entered these terrible relationships. You know, this is more about giving you the awareness so you can start to unpick all these different things so you are able to enjoy a fantastic relationship.

Speaker 1:

So let's go into some of the signs that you may have had a parent that had low emotional intelligence. You may have heard something on the lines of you're too sensitive, you shouldn't be feeling that way. Well, it's okay for you. You don't know what it's like for me. It's these kind of comments that devalues a child's because they're talking about when you're a child devalues a child's emotional well-being and needs.

Speaker 1:

And, if you think about it, childhood is very, very interesting because there's been research done where it shows that whatever you go through as a child and you couldn't figure out because if you think about a child's job, a child's job is to feel loved and to feel safe well, the thing is, when a child is feeling unloved, they're going to feel unsafe. So they're always going to be looking for ways to gain that love and to fix whatever's going on. So if you've got a parent with low emotional intelligence, they're going to be doing a lot of work to try and figure out how to get that love. You know how to improve that parent's mood, how to make that parent more caring, how to get that love. You know how to improve that parent's mood, how to make that parent more caring, how to make that parent, you know, show them attention.

Speaker 1:

So what this does is it actually goes into future relationships. So of course it's a pattern of going into relationships where that partner may have very low emotional intelligence, so they're going through the cycles of trying to figure out how to get that partner to love them. But the truth is, if you are trying to change someone or trying to change their behavior, then you're not in love with that person. You haven't fully accepted that person for who they are. And it's not to say that you stay in those relationships. You let them go because they are relationships that don't serve you. But this is where we go into trauma bond territory and I've already done an episode on that. So please feel free to go and check out the trauma bond episode if you're interested in learning more about that.

Speaker 1:

So that's childhood in a nutshell. Very, very quick summary. So we're going to go on to number two. Number two is no emotional validation. So this is super interesting because we've just gone into childhood when you've not had a parent that can emotionally validate you, you don't get taught how to emotionally validate yourself, so you will find yourself pushing your emotions away. You'll be going right. Well, you know, I shouldn't be feeling this way. I shouldn't be feeling this way. I feel angry or frustrated for feeling angry, and you'll try to change or push away or numb away your emotions, which also means that you will seek out partners that will also not emotionally validate your emotions.

Speaker 1:

So what this ends up doing is it will cause you to trust someone else's judgment or someone else's emotions or how you should be feeling, and it will make you more reliant and more codependent on them. So, for example, if you're told, well, you shouldn't feel angry about that, you should feel happy about xyz, you will start to distrust yourself and you will trust your partner or your parents judgment a lot more. What this can lead to and this is what I've seen with so many people who have gone through narcissistic relationships in particular is it will cause you to feel numb, it will cause you to feel depressed, it will cause you to feel very disconnected with life. So even the good stuff won't even you know, like you'd normally enjoy, wouldn't give you that amazing you know that amazing feeling of joy and happiness. So it really creates this level of disconnect. And with those types of relationships, what tends to happen is you tend to be absorbed by their reality and that's where you start trusting their emotions and what they're feeling and what you should be feeling in their eyes and all these different things. So it creates this element of how you should see your relationship with them. So that's often why a lot of narcissistic relationships you end up seeing the potential versus being able to see the reality.

Speaker 1:

So let's move on to number three. Number three is looking for self-worth through service, and this is super interesting. So often people try to earn that love. So, a little bit like we mentioned in childhood, you know that child would be constantly looking for security through love, for attention, through praise, through all these different things. So if they're not getting that from an emotionally intelligent parent, they will be obviously, you know, repeating the pattern in adult relationships, whether it's friendships, whether it's work, whether it's a romantic relationship relationship. They will be constantly looking for all the different ways that they can put everyone else above themselves in order for them to feel good and to feel needed. And that's the other thing that I tend to see with toxic relationships. People are needed versus wanted, and this is where you end up seeing people stuck in the rescuer mode and they often have a high level of hypervigilance which allows them to know exactly what someone else is feeling without even having to look at them. You know, have a chat with them or anything. Survival technique you know survival element that they've had to pick up in order to know that they can, you know, earn that love or earn that self-worth through other people other than recognizing their own self-worth.

Speaker 1:

Number four is going into putting others before yourself. So what tends to happen, a little bit like the whole self-worth side of things. So what tends to happen a little bit like the whole self-worth side of things what tends to happen in narcissistic relationships is you are punished for putting yourself before them. So if you've had a parent with low emotional intelligence and you put yourself before them, they will often make you feel guilty and feel bad for doing that. And again you'll repeat the pattern and go into a relationship where they will make you feel bad. You might have friends that make you feel bad. You might have a job that makes you feel bad for prioritizing yourself. The secret is, prioritizing yourself is healthy. It is so healthy because it means other people get the best out of you.

Speaker 1:

Moving on to number five, so I want to go through these so I can tell you different things that you can go ahead and do afterwards. So number five is traumatic experience or emotionally charged experience. These things can lead to complex PTSD and what tends to happen and it's very, very sneaky, the way this happens is it causes you to isolate yourself. It can cause things like weight gain, weight loss, financial issues, all these different things that cause you to have a similar heightened experience. So it can cause you to feel like you're running away, like if you sat down and just stayed still. You know you would struggle to do that because you could feel your body go. No, let's do something, let's check the phone, let's do this, let's do that and it's often your body's fight or flight system has been activated and it doesn't know how to be soothed. And when that's the case and it's in that firefighting mode, it can look for very simple dopamine hits to calm down. So, for example, weight gain or food can create the feeling of safety. Being able to spend lots of money on different things. It can give you that serotonin and dopamine boost. So it can cause a huge, massive disconnect between what you're actually feeling, because it's almost like you're constantly putting the plaster over the top when actually you need surgery.

Speaker 1:

So traumatic experiences. The reason why these are important to be able to identify and to be able to heal is because you don't really control your emotional reactions to things, and this is where we often talk about things like triggers. Triggers happen when it's activating a heightened emotional experience or a past traumatic experience and when these haven't been fully processed, your body's not in a state of feeling safe. So anything that causes you to feel that same emotion again will cause you to regress back to when that originally happened. So it can be very, very interesting when you have certain emotional experiences or traumatic experiences that relate back to childhood, because when that is activated, that feeling is activated, it can cause people to regress back to childhood and having the same childhood emotions and childhood reactions to the present moment trigger. So I can give you a few different examples of this.

Speaker 1:

So one client of mine had a huge response to abandonment. So when she was dating and she had people who were like, look, I don't think this relationship's for me, and when they would leave, she would have a huge heightened response to that person going. She knew something was not right about it. She knew it was an over-the-top emotion and reaction she was having, but she couldn't kind of figure out what was going on. And it turned out that there was an experience when she was five years old. That um that was around her parents and the feeling of them abandoning her, abandoning her caused her to have a similar reaction in future, in her adult life, when it came to um partners leaving and deciding that they didn't want to pursue the relationship. And together we actually worked through that within a session and she was able to not go through that awful experience and she was able to process and re-regulate really quickly when it came to any kind of you know rejection when it came to dating, because the truth is you know dating and I'm sure you know you'll never hear this from a dating coach but dating you're going to get more no's than yes's and that's what it's all about. It's not about let's attract everyone. It's about attracting the right person for a long-term relationship, and I think this is one of the reasons why you know people nowadays. You know so many people are going through a divorce and I think the reason is is because people are so excited to attract just anyone versus being able to be very selective in the type of partner that they actually attract. So, but less of that. Let's go into the next part.

Speaker 1:

So, number six you fear relationships, trusting people can be so scary. So what tends to happen is, when you're in that state, you tend to find yourself being doing like certain things, like over giving when it comes to friendships or relationships, because if you have the feeling that someone you know you owe someone something because they've done something nice to you, you can feel like they have power or authority over you because that was what was made, that's what you were led to believe as a child, for example. So you know, for example, let's say, you had a parent who said, right, I have done this for you. Right, this means you have to do that for me. Well, someone being able to give to you in your adulthood may trigger that response. You right, this means you have to do that for me. Well, someone being able to give to you in your adulthood may trigger that response of oh no, I need to do something back, not because you want to, but because you feel obliged to. So you know, this can cause a fear in actually trusting people and building up relationships of people. So if you fear people and you don't feel like relationships are safe, you're going to push everyone away.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, number seven, you are agreeable? You don't want to rock the boat. You don't want people to judge you? Okay, so this one's huge. So if you're agreeable, you are malleable. This one's huge. So if you're agreeable, you are malleable.

Speaker 1:

And it's not to say that. You know, if you don't agree to everything that you must, you know, make enemies of everyone. No, you can say no with respect, you can say no with appropriate boundaries and you can do it without losing friends or losing respect and all those different things. The truth is, the people that won't accept your no's are the people that don't really care about you as a person. So you know, if you think about if someone turned around to you and said well, actually I disagree with what you're saying. I understand where you're coming from and I really respect your views. I'm not looking to change them, but I just don't. I have very different opinion. You know that's healthy. It's not saying you're going to lose love and affection. It's saying I understand you, I respect you, I just have a very different viewpoint and that doesn't mean that you're going to lose the friendship or relationship that you have. So when you have that element of being agreeable in you, it can be because you experienced a form of conditional love as a child. I don't love you. When you've been naughty or if you've made a mistake or you've done something wrong, you are going to be punished and you are not going to get the love Versus you made a. Okay, I understand you shouldn't have done that. I still love you anyway and that's more of that unconditional love and it can help you feel more confident in being able to actually share your true viewpoint versus being agreeable. And, of course, if you've got an agreeable person, that is perfect.

Speaker 1:

Narcissistic fodder Okay, if you're looking for, if you think about narcissists they love to control, they love to be able to manipulate and someone who's agreeable is easy to manipulate and control, okay. Number eight you need others to value you so you can value yourself. If you think about what narcissists does, straight away, you know in a relationship is it's the love bombing and that can feel addictive because you're unable to give that to yourself. Number nine you don't know what a healthy relationship is. If you don't know what a healthy relationship is, how do you know when you're not in a healthy relationship? Okay, a healthy relationship is, you know, being in a loving and safe relationship where you feel connected, where and this is one that actually the major definitions that I learned was that a healthy relationship soothes your nervous system, whereas an unhealthy relationship will activate it. So if you're feeling activated, like you're treading on eggshells and all those horrible emotions the majority of the time in your relationship, then that shows that that's actually quite a toxic relationship versus if you feel like your nervous system soothed, or the first thing you toxic relationship versus if you feel like your nervous system's soothed, or the first thing you want to do when you feel upset is go and hug your partner and they can soothe your nervous system. That's actually more of a healthy relationship. It's not to say that you should rely on your partner for emotional regulation, by the way, but this is saying that healthy relationships soothe and nurture the nervous system. Okay, it's about feeling safe. It's about feeling loved. It's about avoiding that horrible conditional love.

Speaker 1:

Okay, number 10, okay, you don't know what you need and how to communicate your needs. If you think about childhood, one of the things that can happen, especially with an emotionally, you know unintelligent parent, is they put their needs before the child's. Okay, it's not because they've meant to, it's because they just don't have the emotional intelligence to realize that that's wrong. So what this can do is it can cause people to not be aware of what they need. So if you're unable to know what you need and how can you ask for it? And this also dovetails into happiness One of the questions I love to ask is what makes you happy? Because this gives me an inkling of how connected someone is to their own needs. So if you're unaware of what makes you happy right now, this can be because you're not connected to what you actually need and not connected to your emotions, which help to navigate you to understand what you need.

Speaker 1:

So I'll just quickly summarize those 10 points You've got childhood be having a parent with low emotional intelligence. Two is not giving yourself that emotional validation. Three, feeling the need to use service to gain self-worth. Four, putting others before yourself. 5. Traumatic experiences. 6. Fearing relationships. 7. Being agreeable. 8. Needing others to value you so you can value yourself. 9. Not knowing what a healthy relationship is. And 10. Not knowing your needs and how to communicate them. So if you've gone through those 10 points and oh my gosh, there's loads there that actually I really relate to don't worry, this doesn't mean that you're never going to have a healthy relationship. What it means now is you're aware of these patterns, so you're going to be able to have a healthy relationship once you put the work in to break the pattern. Now, one of the things that I have done is I've actually created a membership called the Love IQ membership, and right now you can actually access membership for seven days for absolutely free, and it will help you navigate all these different areas.

Speaker 1:

But you know, whilst you're listening, we'll go through a few different things that can really really really help. First things first is, if you have gone through any traumatic experiences, if you have symptoms of, you know, a lot of weight gain or a lot of weight loss or financial issues or anything like that, it's going to be really, really, really obvious that there's going to be a traumatic experience that needs to be healed. Okay, what I recommend when it comes to any trauma is I actually recommend a very set way of being able to heal them, because the thing is, lots of people tend to focus on things like counseling. Counseling is not going to help. It's going to re-traumatize and re-put you through those emotions, and that's not what you want. It's not to desensitize yourself to the emotion. You actually want to be able to feel the emotion and for your brain to process it and to understand why it needed to feel safe. Okay, that's really, really important. And if there was not the opportunity to feel safe, it's being able to accept what happened.

Speaker 1:

I really do recommend more of a hypnotherapy type kind of route, and I would recommend someone who is aware of trauma and how to use hypnotherapy to be able to dissolve that trauma. And my own personal preference when it comes to hypnotherapy and trauma is being able to regress to childhood. It's one of the most successful ways, in my opinion, from what I've seen and what I've been able to do with my clients. So when you use that technique, you can literally you know relieve someone of that trauma within a session. Basically, it's fantastic, it's very, very powerful. So there's that.

Speaker 1:

But if we're going to go down the emotional route, it's really important for you to be able to feel your emotions and accept them. The thing that I tend to see the most, that really, really causes people a lot of issues, is when they reject what they are feeling or avoid what they're feeling, and that's one of the worst things that you can do. If you think about it, your emotions are there for a reason they are there to be a compass in your life. They are your navigation system. So if you ignore them, you're ignoring all the things that are actually keeping you safe. So if you think about your emotions and you saw a tiger about a meter away from you, what are your emotions going to be like? They're going to be heightened. You're going to be set in a mode that's going to help you get out of a dangerous situation. The thing is a similar thing gets activated when you're in a toxic relationship, but you teach yourself that that's okay and you ignore those emotions and you don't avoid the. You know the dangerous person that you're with. So when this happens, you get desensitized. So it's really important to be able to reconnect with yourself emotionally. And the other thing is is being able to accept your emotions and to also accept that it's okay to be vulnerable, because everyone is. It's really important to be able to accept that and also the beautiful things that come out of vulnerability.

Speaker 1:

I remember, like seven years ago, when I found Brené Brown's work. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. It was scary, you know, suddenly going into emotions and accepting them. You know, suddenly going into emotions and accepting them, but it was actually something that's really transformational when it comes to healing and also changing patterns. So go ahead and do that Equally.

Speaker 1:

You know, if you want to find out the way that I support my clients in a fast way, join the membership for seven days for absolutely free for the love iq, because what we do is we actually put three people through a love iq assessment for absolutely free, they get their score and then they go through the membership, work through all these different areas. So there's training videos, there's audio sessions, there's um you know group zoom calls. There's little prizes and challenges that you can do. So last week was being able to share what you're grateful for and you actually win. You know different things as a result of being able to to take part and win, and it's just a great community and it's a healing community and there's lots of different things that are going to help you to be able to improve.

Speaker 1:

And the nice thing is you can retake the Love IQ assessment and check out your score and how you've improved within that period of time that you decide to stay with us, because you can cancel any time. That's the other great thing. So I highly recommend it because if these 10 areas are a problem for you. If any of those 10 areas are a problem for you, if these 10 areas are a problem for you, if any of those 10 areas are a problem for you, it means that you are more likely to go into the same type of relationship again. So these are the things that I focus on with my clients to ensure that they go into not just any relationship, but a relationship that's loving, that's real and long-lasting, with someone who's actually healthy for them to be with. That's the important part.

Speaker 1:

If you're not with a partner who you don't feel completely loved and desired by, then really rethink what your standards are in a relationship, because we're not here for a long time, we're not here on this earth for a long time, so why not experience something that's absolutely real, completely loving, completely amazing, completely wholesome, where you feel loved, fulfilled and at peace? So if you do want to check out the Love IQ membership, go ahead to our website. It's lovewithintelligencecom. You'll see the love iq membership there. Go ahead, join us, we'd love to have you there. Or, equally, check out in the description um of this podcast, wherever you're listening to, and you will see the link where you can get this um love with intelligence membership for seven days for absolutely free love. To see you there. Please check it out and hopefully I'll speak to you soon. So on that note, take care. Thank you so much for listening. Share with as many people as you can, because it'd be awesome to spread the love, and I shall see you on the next episode. Bye for now.

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Lily Walford

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