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Episode 232

Zach Spafford: Hey everybody and welcome to Thrive Beyond Pornography. I'm your host, Zach Spafford. And this week I want to congratulate the Chiefs on their win. That was an amazing football game. And as my daughter and her friend who watched the Super Bowl at our house said, Taylor Swift's team won. So I'll let you guys do whatever you want with that.

And happy Valentine's Day. Today, in honor of Happy Valentine's Day and all the happy valentines that you're going to have, I want to talk about three ways to love yourself in the face of not being the person you expect yourself to And the three ways that we're going to talk about are to hold on to yourself in the face of invalidation, choose closeness when you feel rejected and be trustworthy and don't expect your spouse to trust you.

First I want to start with hold on to yourself in the face of invalidation. I actually had a client ask me this last week what it meant to hold on to myself or what it means to hold on to yourself in the face of invalidation.

Let's start with invalidation. Invalidation is that your spouse doesn't agree with you. It's that reality where they don't want you sexually maybe. You feel rejected at some level. It could be They're showing you, they're showing you a part of yourself, and you don't like it.

Maybe that phrase, "you're just like your mom or your dad," that sort of thing.

And that invalidation is them saying, I don't like the way that you're presenting yourself, or I'm not in full agreement with you on the way that you're presenting yourself, or what you're choosing in this, in this moment. To hold on to yourself in that moment really means to get grounded and stay clear about what's happening.

Instead of going into fight or flight, either walling off and getting defensive, or just walking away, trying to create separation, trying to create space, because you don't want to, or you don't know that you can handle hearing what they have to say. What you do to hold on to yourself is, you can start by connecting with your body, breathing is a good way to do this, getting really curious, listening to hear, not to respond, but really listening, like what is going on here, being curious.

We go into how to do these more thoroughly in our coaching, so you get a real feel of how to do this and how to practice them outside of those highly vulnerable situations.

What I want you to understand here is that you can get curious and breathe deep, listen closely to your partner, and understand that they're not trying to reject you, but you're feeling rejected.

Holding on to yourself means solidly connecting with yourself In an emotionally grounded way while not losing connection with your values or your spouse.

Dishwashers are a really great way to think about this. I don't know too many relationships where the dishwasher doesn't come up and there's almost invariably a disconnect between how the two people do the dishwasher.

but this may not be your argument, so find one in your life. But when your spouse comes to you and they say you're doing the dishes wrong and they want to tell you all the ways that it needs to be done. According to their standard, what you want to do is get curious about what they are saying. Not that what they're saying is true, but just get curious.

Why are they saying this to me? What is actually going on for them? Know that what they're saying To you and about you isn't really about you. It's about their wants. And if you feel frustrated or attacked, what you want to do is try and center yourself emotionally, allow that frustration to go through you without needing it to be redirected, suppressed, pushed back at your spouse.

Or avoid it in any way. And to do this, what you want to do is you want to look towards your values and see what's the next step toward my values that I would like to make. What's, what would that step look like? And if I can move in that direction as calmly as I can. So staying grounded, staying centered and holding onto your own emotional self, in the face of someone saying you're not enough.

And one of the ways that you can see if you're not grounded is if you're believing what I like to call an automatic negative thought, which is I'm not enough, I'm unlovable. Something like that, and that's at this core level that most of us deal with.

That's number one way to love yourself, because when you do that, You can feel love without being loved by someone else.

You can say, I'm being the good version of me that I expect myself to be. I'm showing up in a way that I can be proud of.

Next one is, choose closeness when you feel rejected. This comes up a lot around sex, so I'm going to use that as an example. Both men and women feel this when their partner doesn't want to have sex with them and they feel that that's a rejection of them.

This comes up a lot for men, but it really does come up for women as well. Choosing closeness in these circumstances is easier If you're able to hold on to yourself, just like we just talked about. And this is a really good place to practice holding onto yourself.

For many of us, we have this natural inclination to either move away from the person, so we, we come to our spouse and we say, Hey, do you want to make out tonight? You want to have sex tonight? Do you want to make love tonight? However it is that you approach that. And if they're like, Oh, I don't feel that, I'm not into it. Or they're giving us kind of a BS answer. Like, Oh, we'll see. We either tend to like push that thing.

And try harder to earn their love. Or we see ourselves as rejected and we just kind of push ourselves away as best we can.

Instead of doing that, what you'll want to do is simply move into proximity to your spouse without asking anything from them. So what that might look like is you're asking for sex.

You're saying, Hey, let's make out there. You're given this reason, whatever that reason is. Doesn't really matter what the reason is why the other person either doesn't want to have sex or is trying to manage you through that. And then this story or a thought or an idea comes in your brain that they don't love you or they don't want you.

So it's that core negative belief. It's like, I'm not enough, or I'm not lovable, or they don't want me, or I'm not sexy enough. That comes into your mind and you feel rejected. That's that feeling. The feeling is the most likely place that you're going to recognize this, but if you can see it at the story, that's great too.

And then in that moment, what you may want to do is either move in and maybe hold their hand or snuggle or just be close to them.

Right next to them, while you go through the feelings of rejection, holding on to yourself, you're calming down, and you're choosing this closeness in the face of this, of the rejection.

But, I mean, if they're like, get away from me, I don't want to be near you, maybe I wouldn't do that. But if they're like, no, I just don't feel like it tonight, or whatever that might look like for you, or they're like, oh, maybe, but you know that they're really not saying yes. Choose closeness with them, hold on to yourself.

And what this does is it shows your spouse that you can handle yourself and that they don't need to manage you. They don't have to figure out a way to let you down easy. They just need to be honest with you. And that's really what you're doing when you choose closeness with Another person is you're saying, "I'm okay, I don't need you to be in charge of my feelings. I can handle my own feelings. I just want to choose you." That's really what you're doing. And that will create a sense of love for yourself. And it creates space for the other party to see what it is that they want from the relationship. Oh, he can handle himself. Do I do, do I now desire him? And it makes you more desirable because you're in polarity.

You're not trying to get in their orbit. You're, you're polarizing them. You're pulling them in. And I, I would, I would caution you with this idea. I don't want you to feel like, oh, if I do all the right tricks, then I'll be pulling them in and they'll desire me. No, really you have to be solid. And if you're solid, they are more likely to choose you.

And you're less likely to be needy. And this embraces that masculine or feminine strength that's deep inside of you.

Okay. Number three, be trustworthy and don't expect your spouse to trust you.

I did two whole podcasts on this episodes, 152 and 153. There are great discussion around this topic, but I want to give you kind of the reader's digest version here.

So let's talk about what loving yourself around trust is. First, don't promise anything you aren't absolutely certain you can do. This means don't say things like, this is the last time or I'll promise I'll never do it again. Especially if you don't have the skills to make that a reality. I would always refrain from speaking in absolutes always is the, this is the exception that proves the rule I would do my best to.

Refrain from speaking in absolutes because you don't have a skill set. If you're saying to your spouse, this is the last time I'll never do it again. And you've been using pornography as a habit to manage yourself, then there's a good chance you don't have that capacity, so don't promise it.

And you can take this to any part of your life that you want, any given topic, don't promise anything you aren't clear that you can do or that you are really good at doing already.

Don't promise anything. Now that's not to say I'm not going to try. It is to say I'm not going to give you an absolute about something I don't know I can do in the future. So be clear about that. Second, do what you say you will.

This really is as simple as it sounds.

If you say you'll do it, do it.

No ifs, ands, or buts. If you're going to be home at five o'clock, be home at five.

Do or die. There is nothing keeping you from doing this other than your own capacity to do it. You're listening to me say this and you're like, well, how does that mean I love myself?

Well, number one, if I don't promise things that I can't deliver, I won't feel guilty or ashamed when I don't deliver.

Number two, doing what I say I will, that gives me a sense of strength within myself that has nothing to do with anybody else, but only has to do with me being willing to show up, do my best, and be the person who he says he will , and be the person that I expect myself to be.

Being the person that I expect myself to be, puts me in a position to succeed in the long run, even when sometimes what I say I will do doesn't happen. if the majority of the time I do what I say I'm going to do, and I go to the mat trying to make it happen, I'm taking care of me, and others are seeing that. Irrespective of what they think about me, I know I've been on top of it to the best of my ability.

And I don't need somebody else. To tell me I'm enough. And when I can do that, when I can feel that sense, I love myself. I feel good about who I am. This is self confidence in action right there.

Number three in being trustworthy and not expecting your spouse to trust you or do anything about your trustworthiness is be more candid about what you actually want and what is actually going on for you.

I'm going to say that again. Be more candid about what you actually want and what is actually going on for you. That means stop saying, I don't know where you want to go for dinner tonight when you really want to go to your favorite restaurant. This means not trying to manage your spouse by enfolding into what they want rather than voicing your ideas in an effort to keep them happy.

This means being real about what you struggle with rather than trying to fix the other person's behavior so you can feel good and have your needs met. A good example of this came up this last week with Darcy and I. And it was a discussion around money. I'm, I was asking Darcy, well, so we're driving along the parkway here in St. George, and I'm saying to Darcy, hey, I, I think we need to be a little bit more circumspect about the way we spend our money. And she got defensive.

And I couldn't really say, Hey, don't buy this or don't buy that because she's really pretty good about not buying anything we don't need, but she got defensive and I wasn't able to clarify for her what would fix the issue.

I was just trying to dance around this nebulous idea of like, we need to be really careful about what we spend. And I wasn't really driving any meaningful point. It was just, for me, it was nebulous in the moment. And what was really going on for me is that I get anxious about how we manage our money, even though we've always had enough.

And we're quite comfortable. So instead of saying things like, This nebulous thing that I did to Darcy, which is like, we need to be looking at our budget and keeping it under control. Instead of saying things that don't have any concreteness to them, because I didn't know anything that we could change. I just was feeling anxious about money.

I needed to say, I'm anxious about our money situation because. We work for ourselves and there are no guarantees and our eight children need a lot of upkeep. In that space, that's more true and more honest and more trustworthy because it's the real thing that is the issue. Now, I want you to understand that You won't always be able to see it in the moment.

I couldn't see that in that moment that really, this is what I needed to say was, I'm anxious about money. Instead, I was trying to put my anxiety onto her about money, and that was not a trustworthy thing to do. Telling Darcy what's actually going on for me is hard. It's probably the same for most of you, being able to say this is what's really going on for me.

But it is actually more honest. It's much, much more honest. And this helps her see me more clearly and trust what I'm saying to her and doing with her rather than having to guess or trying to figure it out or even get defensive like she did.

I want you to remember that. In the face of loving yourself, you will be more lovable. You will be loved more. Your spouse will see you more clearly and want you more, desire you more, want to choose closeness with you. If you will hold onto yourself in the face of that invalidation, that is inevitably gonna be part of your relationships. Choose closeness with your spouse or with. The people around you when you do feel rejection and be trustworthy and don't expect your spouse to trust you.

Meaning I'm doing the trustworthy thing because it's who I want to be, not because I'm trying to get you to see me differently.

Take these things, put them into play, and you will start to see that they are going to change your life. And if you need help putting them into play, go to gettothrive.com/workwithzach and set up an appointment. And Darcy and I would love to help you and your spouse start this journey towards putting pornography behind you, healing the hurt, and creating a rock solid foundation for you and your spouse to live and thrive on together. All right, my friends, I'll talk to you next week.