May 5, 2025 • 16 mins
The quiet dismissal of your feelings? That sh*t cuts deeper than yelling ever could.
When someone avoids eye contact, scrolls their phone mid-convo, or chuckles at your story like it’s a joke—they might not say anything cruel, but your nervous system still gets the memo: You don’t matter here.
After a recent family visit left me feeling invisible and low-key spiraling, I had to unpack the slow-burn pain of emotional invalidation. If you grew up in a family where your feelings were ignored, mocked, or met with a blank stare, this episode is for you.
We’ll talk about:
- How invalidation messes with your self-esteem and nervous system
- Why subtle exclusion can trigger social anxiety, fawning, or people-pleasing
- What to do when it happens again (because let’s be honest—it will)
- How to validate yourself first and stop internalizing the rejection
Spoiler: people who dismiss you aren’t always evil—they’re just unbaked cookies (aka emotionally underdeveloped). But you? You’re allowed to feel what you feel. You’re allowed to take up space.
Grab my free boundary-setting scripts at kaylareilly.com/saythis, and remember—sometimes the most healing thing is finally seeing yourself.
👉 Grab your FREE Audio Training: Get Unstuck- 3 Strategies to Break Free from Unhealthy Patterns
👉 Follow me on social @notyourtherapist.kayla
👉 Ask me a question hello@kaylareilly.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up?
Cycle breakers, recoveringpeople pleasers, anxiety
annihilators I'm Kayla.
I'm your host.
It's Not your Therapist podcast.
If you're new here, what's up?
I'm so glad you're here.
If you're not new, if you're arepeat customer, a repeat
listener, I am so glad to talkto you.
(00:23):
And today I'm really excited todo a solo episode.
I have done a bunch of guestepisodes and published a bunch
of them just to see how theywent and see how it feels.
This is a newer podcast so itwas a little bit of an
experiment and I really enjoyedit and I also really missed the
solo episodes.
(00:43):
So if I do guest episodes inthe future, I probably won't do
so many in a row.
I don't know.
You let me know if you're oneof my listeners and you could
let me know whether you like theguest episodes or which ones
you liked, or you know if youwant more of them or if you're
like, really glad that I'm backdoing solos, let me know.
(01:04):
It's helpful to hear feedback.
So hello at KaylaRileycom orhop over to Instagram.
It's where I am the most often.
I'm the handles, not yourtherapist dot, kayla.
Okay, today I want to share withy'all what's been going on with
me lately.
So it's summertime in NorthCarolina.
Well, spring, spring, summer, Idon't know.
(01:25):
It was hot as hell me lately,so it's summertime in North
Carolina.
Well, spring, spring, summer, Idon't know.
It was hot as hell this morning, so it felt like summertime.
But everything's in bloom, thesun is out, it's gorgeous, and
this is the time of year whenpeople come to visit, because
everyone likes to come visitwhen it's gorgeous and it's not
yet 110 degrees outside, becausewhen it is, that's not when you
(01:45):
want to go hang out.
So we have had a visit from mygrandparents, who have never
visited me ever, so they came tovisit.
And then we also had a visitfrom one of my husband's family
members, which was lovely.
We got to see our nieces andnephews.
However, we have some emotionalimmaturity in our families of
(02:06):
origin, and when I say some, Imean a lot.
Robert and I are both adultchildren of alcoholic homes and
alcoholism is a spiritualdisease y'all, whether people
are drinking or not, and whetheryou are the alcoholic or not,
alcoholism is a family diseaseof the spirit and it really is a
(02:29):
mental health issue foreverybody, because everybody is
impacted by emotional immaturity.
So we've had these visitsrecently and what happened to me
is a ton of emotionalinvalidation, and I want to talk
about that because I think thatit's super common.
I think a lot of us feel thisway and I think it calls for a
(02:52):
deeper understanding.
Yeah, now let's delineate.
There's emotional invalidationand then there's verbal abuse,
which is blatant and obvious.
Emotional invalidation is alittle bit more insidious
because it's quieter.
It's making you feel unseen ordismissed, but nobody's cursing,
(03:13):
nobody's yelling, nobody'smaking an ass of themselves.
So it's really insidiousbecause the person who's on the
butt end of it aka me these pastcouple weekends who's on the
butt end of it aka me these pastcouple weekends start
questioning am I crazy?
Do you see this too?
(03:34):
Is this really happening to me?
Like what's going on?
Okay, so let's get into it,let's talk about it, and I'm
going to use some of my recentexperiences to help you
understand this concept, andmaybe you're going to see
yourself in this.
Actually, you know what.
I'm going to go ahead and claimit.
You are definitely going to seeyourself in this episode.
You're also going to hear mysqueaky ass office chair.
I need a new office chair.
I need a WD-40, this one,listen to that.
(03:56):
Oh God, it's driving me crazy.
It's driving me crazy, butwe're going to push forward.
Let's talk about emotionalinvalidation and we're going to
talk about it through a story mygrandparents came to visit.
My grandmother is incrediblyemotionally immature and she was
probably upset with me becausemy whatever long story short, it
(04:18):
doesn't even.
I don't even need to tell youthis story.
She's kind of a turd.
Anyways, she came to visit andwhen we were sitting around the
table, chit, chatting andcatching up, she wouldn't even
make eye contact with me.
She would talk to mygrandfather, she would talk to
my kids and look at them andspeak to them.
She would talk to my husbandand smile at him and glow at him
(04:40):
, but she would totally ignoreeye contact with me, just
totally avoiding me.
So most of those conversationsI just shut up, I just stayed
quiet.
When I did speak, she was very,very dismissive, like I'm
trying to think of examples thatyou guys would resonate with,
(05:02):
but well, you know that's notall the time, or that's not true
.
I don't feel that way, you know, whatever like just little
dismissive comments or talkingover me or mocking me like
little jokes, right?
So if you resonate with this, Iwant to talk to you about the
(05:25):
different types, and I gave yousome examples in my story, but
other examples are like silence,avoiding eye contact with you,
dismissing you, talking over you, mocking you right.
Here's another example mybrother-in-law would talk to me
about something and then theminute I spoke up, he would pull
(05:47):
out his phone and startscrolling.
Oh way, to make me feel likeshit.
If you grew up with emotionallyimmature parents, like Robert
and I did, this behavior mayfeel normal to you.
So you're used to feeling thisway.
This is comfortable, right.
Whereas if someone was raisedin a wholesome family and they
(06:11):
see this behavior, they're likewhat the fudge is going on?
This is crazy.
Why would you let someone talkto you this way Versus somebody
who was raised in this kind ofenvironment?
Kind of sees it as normal,stays quiet, kind of allows it,
right.
This behavior is not loud, it'snot dramatic, but it's still
(06:32):
very much hurts.
It hurts and you're not crazyfor noticing it.
So when you try to stand up foryourself, a lot of times what
you're going to see is this soyou try to voice how you're
feeling because you want torepair the relationship.
You want the relationship tofeel equally good to you as it
does to them or maybe it doesn'tto them, who knows but you're
(06:55):
feeling uncomfortable, you wantto repair.
So you might say something likeI did like hey, I've noticed
that when I try to talk to you,you pull out your phone and you
scroll and it really hurts myfeelings.
And a lot of times, theseemotionally immature people who
are not capable of having areciprocal relationship with you
(07:16):
might say something like thisYou're just so sensitive or
you're taking this personally.
It's not about you.
Like, I do this all the time.
I have ADHD or sorry.
My work was reaching out to meand it's an emergency, but
you're going to come across adefensive behavior.
(07:37):
Probably that's my guess.
All right, now let us talkabout how this impacts you.
In the long run, this kind oftreatment from other people is
going to show up in your nervoussystem.
Remember that we are notcavemen anymore, but our
biological system is programmedto read threats, to read danger,
(08:00):
and react accordingly.
So when we are in a sympatheticnervous system state, when our
sympathetic nervous system isactivated, like ooh shit, that's
dangerous, that's a threat.
I've experienced this before.
This doesn't feel good.
Right, your body is going to gointo fight, flight, fawn,
freeze all those good stuff,fight flight mode and you're
(08:24):
going to act like you are beingthreatened.
Your life is being threatened.
That's just the way the nervoussystem works.
So over time, if youcontinuously have this threat
reaction to relationships, youmight slowly seep into staying
quiet in social situations,maybe having some social anxiety
(08:47):
or maybe developing a fawnresponse.
And the fawn response is thatsympathetic nervous system is
saying hey, I feel threatened,so I'm going to over-explain,
I'm going to over-justify, I'mgoing to over-perform, I'm going
to do extra, I'm going to paythe bill, I'm going to make you
(09:08):
laugh, I'm going to show up sohardcore to prove to you that
I'm worthy and to keep me safe,right.
So if you recognize some ofthese patterns staying quiet,
feeling anxious, sociallyfawning to prove your worth then
I really need you to hear this.
This kind of behavior and thisreaction is not you, it is them,
(09:36):
right.
So there are some things thatyou can do to protect yourself
from these kinds ofrelationships and these kinds of
dynamics.
Here's what I need you to startdoing Learn how to validate
yourself.
And if you were raised in a homewhere you were emotionally
invalidated as a child, youdon't know how to do this Period
(09:56):
Point blank.
Maybe you've done some therapy,maybe you have a vague idea of
how to validate yourself, butprobably not.
So learning to validateyourself is learning to give
permission to the emotionwithout needing to solve it.
Yeah, so giving permission tothe emotion, and the emotion is
(10:16):
I'm hurt, I feel insecure, Ifeel shut down.
This is feeling or I'm pissedoff, right, righteousness like
whatever that feeling is foryourself.
I need you to validate thatyour emotion is absolutely 100%
allowed and reasonable.
(10:38):
Then I want you to learn toprocess with someone safe, not
with someone who's unsafe.
So if I'm going to go processthese feelings to, let's say, my
mom, she's going to invalidateme because she doesn't even know
how to validate herself, right.
So she's going to invalidate mebecause she doesn't even know
how to validate herself right.
So she's going to say somethinglike oh yeah, that sucks.
(10:59):
Anyways, this happened to me,right?
Instead of knowing how tovalidate, I'm going to go to
someone like my therapist or myfriends, my friend Ashley, for
example.
So I'm going to go to someoneelse who knows how to say that's
freaking awful, I'm so sorrythat you had to sit in that for
a whole weekend.
That must have been so painful.
(11:20):
So glad that's over.
You made it through.
Yeah, you don't have to seethem for another four months or
whatever, right?
You need to go to somebody who'ssafe and a lot of times,
because of that FON response, alot of us are trained to go to
someone who's unsafe, seekingthat validation, because that's
(11:41):
the way our neuropathways work.
We are determined and this isvery unconscious right we're
very determined to get approvalfrom somebody who's invalidating
and hurts us.
Now I need you to beintentional.
You've recognized this pattern.
You've learned how to validateyourself, giving permission for
(12:02):
yourself to feel the feeling.
Feelings are always valid.
You're not going to try tosolve it, so you're just giving
yourself validation and thenyou're going to go process with
somebody safe.
You're going to set exposurelimits, and what I mean by this
is hey, if I am, if I have tospend a weekend with so-and-so
who I know is invalidating,because I want my marriage to be
(12:24):
strong and I and I care aboutthese people, I want to be
around them and also I know thatthey hurt me.
So I'm going to set exposurelimits.
I'm only going to chit chatuntil I start to feel escalated,
and when I feel escalated, I'mgoing to walk in the house or
I'm going to go to the bathroom,or I'm going to go play with
the kids right, you're settingexposure limits.
Maybe this looks like hey, Ican go out to dinner with you,
(12:47):
but I can't come over for fourhours for the cookout, yeah.
So you're setting exposurelimits.
Know your own limitations andeach relationship is going to be
unique and sometimes you can'tjust say, hey, let's go hang out
with your family for one hour.
Sometimes that's not possible.
So that's why we come up withother strategies, like going to
(13:10):
the bathroom or going into thekitchen to help clean whatever
it is, or going into the kitchento help clean whatever it is
Next up.
Be selective with yourvulnerability.
Now, this is a lesson Icontinuously make.
I continuously try to bevulnerable and open up to unsafe
people.
Why?
Because my nervous system hasbeen programmed to fawn, so I
(13:33):
still do it.
It's okay.
I'm going to be patient andgive myself grace and love,
because I've learned how to dothat over the years and with
therapy and with coaching andwith safe relationships.
So I want that for you too.
I want you to give yourselfpermission to be selective with
vulnerability.
Do not open up about yourweaknesses or things that hurt
(13:57):
you or insecurities you havewith these unsafe people.
They don't mean to hurt you,I'm sure of it.
They don't mean to hurt you.
They are not intentionallybeing they're.
They're not full of malice,they just are unbaked cookies.
They're unbaked cookies andthey don't have the capacity to
give you what you need and thesafety you need.
(14:18):
So your relationship with themis going to look very different,
maybe more superficial, maybemore surface level, than a
relationship you have withsomebody who's emotionally safe,
who has that maturity, who'sputting the work in to overcome
their own ish.
Yeah.
The next thing I want you to dois I want you to prep one-liners
(14:39):
every time you expose yourselfto this person.
So if you're on a phone callwith them or you know there's
gonna be a visit or there'sgonna be a dinner, I want you to
prep some hardcore one-linersthat will be helpful to set a
boundary, and these one-linersmight look like I don't know.
(15:01):
I think it makes sense why I'mfeeling sad.
Anyways, how did you like theSuper Bowl last night?
I'm trying to think of them onthe fly.
I didn't write them ahead oftime I should have, but because
it's hard for me to come up withthem in the fly, I have created
for you a Say this, not that,script guide.
It's really great.
It has common emotionalmanipulation tactics that we
(15:24):
experience with emotionallyimmature people and it has three
one-liners that you can use toset boundaries and even an area
for you to write your own.
It's an amazing freebie.
I really love it.
I've been doing this for years,where I write one-liners for my
clients or one-liners formyself.
We write them on a sticky note,we put it somewhere and we use
it to prep, because settingboundaries does not come
(15:46):
naturally to people whosenervous systems are wired to
fawn.
Okay, anyways, go get my guide,write some one-liners.
Let's go over that again.
You're going to learn tovalidate yourself.
You're going to processafterwards with somebody safe.
You're going to set exposurelimits.
You're going to be selectivewith who gets to see your
(16:06):
vulnerability and you're goingto prep one-liners.
Okay, you're not asking for toomuch to feel safe.
You're asking to feel seen andsometimes the most healing thing
is seeing yourself first.
If this hit home, go hop overto my website, kaylarileycom
forward slash, say this and grabthe actual scripts for boundary
(16:29):
setting with difficult familyconversations.
I think I'm going to put thelink in my show notes as well.
My website or hop over onInstagram and check out my link
in the link in my show notes aswell my website.
Or hop over on Instagram andcheck out my link in bio it's in
there as well.
I've really liked talking aboutthis with you guys.
If this hit home, I'd love tohear what your experience has
been with emotionallyinvalidating people and I'll
(16:50):
catch you on the flip side.
Bye.
What's up?
Cycle breakers, recoveringpeople pleasers, anxiety
annihilators I'm Kayla.
I'm your host.
It's Not your Therapist podcast.
If you're new here, what's up?
I'm so glad you're here.
If you're not new, if you're arepeat customer, a repeat
listener, I am so glad to talkto you.
(00:23):
And today I'm really excited todo a solo episode.
I have done a bunch of guestepisodes and published a bunch
of them just to see how theywent and see how it feels.
This is a newer podcast so itwas a little bit of an
experiment and I really enjoyedit and I also really missed the
solo episodes.
(00:43):
So if I do guest episodes inthe future, I probably won't do
so many in a row.
I don't know.
You let me know if you're oneof my listeners and you could
let me know whether you like theguest episodes or which ones
you liked, or you know if youwant more of them or if you're
like, really glad that I'm backdoing solos, let me know.
(01:04):
It's helpful to hear feedback.
So hello at KaylaRileycom orhop over to Instagram.
It's where I am the most often.
I'm the handles, not yourtherapist dot, kayla.
Okay, today I want to share withy'all what's been going on with
me lately.
So it's summertime in NorthCarolina.
Well, spring, spring, summer, Idon't know.
(01:25):
It was hot as hell me lately,so it's summertime in North
Carolina.
Well, spring, spring, summer, Idon't know.
It was hot as hell this morning, so it felt like summertime.
But everything's in bloom, thesun is out, it's gorgeous, and
this is the time of year whenpeople come to visit, because
everyone likes to come visitwhen it's gorgeous and it's not
yet 110 degrees outside, becausewhen it is, that's not when you
(01:45):
want to go hang out.
So we have had a visit from mygrandparents, who have never
visited me ever, so they came tovisit.
And then we also had a visitfrom one of my husband's family
members, which was lovely.
We got to see our nieces andnephews.
However, we have some emotionalimmaturity in our families of
(02:06):
origin, and when I say some, Imean a lot.
Robert and I are both adultchildren of alcoholic homes and
alcoholism is a spiritualdisease y'all, whether people
are drinking or not, and whetheryou are the alcoholic or not,
alcoholism is a family diseaseof the spirit and it really is a
(02:29):
mental health issue foreverybody, because everybody is
impacted by emotional immaturity.
So we've had these visitsrecently and what happened to me
is a ton of emotionalinvalidation, and I want to talk
about that because I think thatit's super common.
I think a lot of us feel thisway and I think it calls for a
(02:52):
deeper understanding.
Yeah, now let's delineate.
There's emotional invalidationand then there's verbal abuse,
which is blatant and obvious.
Emotional invalidation is alittle bit more insidious
because it's quieter.
It's making you feel unseen ordismissed, but nobody's cursing,
(03:13):
nobody's yelling, nobody'smaking an ass of themselves.
So it's really insidiousbecause the person who's on the
butt end of it aka me these pastcouple weekends who's on the
butt end of it aka me these pastcouple weekends start
questioning am I crazy?
Do you see this too?
(03:34):
Is this really happening to me?
Like what's going on?
Okay, so let's get into it,let's talk about it, and I'm
going to use some of my recentexperiences to help you
understand this concept, andmaybe you're going to see
yourself in this.
Actually, you know what.
I'm going to go ahead and claimit.
You are definitely going to seeyourself in this episode.
You're also going to hear mysqueaky ass office chair.
I need a new office chair.
I need a WD-40, this one,listen to that.
(03:56):
Oh God, it's driving me crazy.
It's driving me crazy, butwe're going to push forward.
Let's talk about emotionalinvalidation and we're going to
talk about it through a story mygrandparents came to visit.
My grandmother is incrediblyemotionally immature and she was
probably upset with me becausemy whatever long story short, it
(04:18):
doesn't even.
I don't even need to tell youthis story.
She's kind of a turd.
Anyways, she came to visit andwhen we were sitting around the
table, chit, chatting andcatching up, she wouldn't even
make eye contact with me.
She would talk to mygrandfather, she would talk to
my kids and look at them andspeak to them.
She would talk to my husbandand smile at him and glow at him
(04:40):
, but she would totally ignoreeye contact with me, just
totally avoiding me.
So most of those conversationsI just shut up, I just stayed
quiet.
When I did speak, she was very,very dismissive, like I'm
trying to think of examples thatyou guys would resonate with,
(05:02):
but well, you know that's notall the time, or that's not true
.
I don't feel that way, you know, whatever like just little
dismissive comments or talkingover me or mocking me like
little jokes, right?
So if you resonate with this, Iwant to talk to you about the
(05:25):
different types, and I gave yousome examples in my story, but
other examples are like silence,avoiding eye contact with you,
dismissing you, talking over you, mocking you right.
Here's another example mybrother-in-law would talk to me
about something and then theminute I spoke up, he would pull
(05:47):
out his phone and startscrolling.
Oh way, to make me feel likeshit.
If you grew up with emotionallyimmature parents, like Robert
and I did, this behavior mayfeel normal to you.
So you're used to feeling thisway.
This is comfortable, right.
Whereas if someone was raisedin a wholesome family and they
(06:11):
see this behavior, they're likewhat the fudge is going on?
This is crazy.
Why would you let someone talkto you this way Versus somebody
who was raised in this kind ofenvironment?
Kind of sees it as normal,stays quiet, kind of allows it,
right.
This behavior is not loud, it'snot dramatic, but it's still
(06:32):
very much hurts.
It hurts and you're not crazyfor noticing it.
So when you try to stand up foryourself, a lot of times what
you're going to see is this soyou try to voice how you're
feeling because you want torepair the relationship.
You want the relationship tofeel equally good to you as it
does to them or maybe it doesn'tto them, who knows but you're
(06:55):
feeling uncomfortable, you wantto repair.
So you might say something likeI did like hey, I've noticed
that when I try to talk to you,you pull out your phone and you
scroll and it really hurts myfeelings.
And a lot of times, theseemotionally immature people who
are not capable of having areciprocal relationship with you
(07:16):
might say something like thisYou're just so sensitive or
you're taking this personally.
It's not about you.
Like, I do this all the time.
I have ADHD or sorry.
My work was reaching out to meand it's an emergency, but
you're going to come across adefensive behavior.
(07:37):
Probably that's my guess.
All right, now let us talkabout how this impacts you.
In the long run, this kind oftreatment from other people is
going to show up in your nervoussystem.
Remember that we are notcavemen anymore, but our
biological system is programmedto read threats, to read danger,
(08:00):
and react accordingly.
So when we are in a sympatheticnervous system state, when our
sympathetic nervous system isactivated, like ooh shit, that's
dangerous, that's a threat.
I've experienced this before.
This doesn't feel good.
Right, your body is going to gointo fight, flight, fawn,
freeze all those good stuff,fight flight mode and you're
(08:24):
going to act like you are beingthreatened.
Your life is being threatened.
That's just the way the nervoussystem works.
So over time, if youcontinuously have this threat
reaction to relationships, youmight slowly seep into staying
quiet in social situations,maybe having some social anxiety
(08:47):
or maybe developing a fawnresponse.
And the fawn response is thatsympathetic nervous system is
saying hey, I feel threatened,so I'm going to over-explain,
I'm going to over-justify, I'mgoing to over-perform, I'm going
to do extra, I'm going to paythe bill, I'm going to make you
(09:08):
laugh, I'm going to show up sohardcore to prove to you that
I'm worthy and to keep me safe,right.
So if you recognize some ofthese patterns staying quiet,
feeling anxious, sociallyfawning to prove your worth then
I really need you to hear this.
This kind of behavior and thisreaction is not you, it is them,
(09:36):
right.
So there are some things thatyou can do to protect yourself
from these kinds ofrelationships and these kinds of
dynamics.
Here's what I need you to startdoing Learn how to validate
yourself.
And if you were raised in a homewhere you were emotionally
invalidated as a child, youdon't know how to do this Period
(09:56):
Point blank.
Maybe you've done some therapy,maybe you have a vague idea of
how to validate yourself, butprobably not.
So learning to validateyourself is learning to give
permission to the emotionwithout needing to solve it.
Yeah, so giving permission tothe emotion, and the emotion is
(10:16):
I'm hurt, I feel insecure, Ifeel shut down.
This is feeling or I'm pissedoff, right, righteousness like
whatever that feeling is foryourself.
I need you to validate thatyour emotion is absolutely 100%
allowed and reasonable.
(10:38):
Then I want you to learn toprocess with someone safe, not
with someone who's unsafe.
So if I'm going to go processthese feelings to, let's say, my
mom, she's going to invalidateme because she doesn't even know
how to validate herself, right.
So she's going to invalidate mebecause she doesn't even know
how to validate herself right.
So she's going to say somethinglike oh yeah, that sucks.
(10:59):
Anyways, this happened to me,right?
Instead of knowing how tovalidate, I'm going to go to
someone like my therapist or myfriends, my friend Ashley, for
example.
So I'm going to go to someoneelse who knows how to say that's
freaking awful, I'm so sorrythat you had to sit in that for
a whole weekend.
That must have been so painful.
(11:20):
So glad that's over.
You made it through.
Yeah, you don't have to seethem for another four months or
whatever, right?
You need to go to somebody who'ssafe and a lot of times,
because of that FON response, alot of us are trained to go to
someone who's unsafe, seekingthat validation, because that's
(11:41):
the way our neuropathways work.
We are determined and this isvery unconscious right we're
very determined to get approvalfrom somebody who's invalidating
and hurts us.
Now I need you to beintentional.
You've recognized this pattern.
You've learned how to validateyourself, giving permission for
(12:02):
yourself to feel the feeling.
Feelings are always valid.
You're not going to try tosolve it, so you're just giving
yourself validation and thenyou're going to go process with
somebody safe.
You're going to set exposurelimits, and what I mean by this
is hey, if I am, if I have tospend a weekend with so-and-so
who I know is invalidating,because I want my marriage to be
(12:24):
strong and I and I care aboutthese people, I want to be
around them and also I know thatthey hurt me.
So I'm going to set exposurelimits.
I'm only going to chit chatuntil I start to feel escalated,
and when I feel escalated, I'mgoing to walk in the house or
I'm going to go to the bathroom,or I'm going to go play with
the kids right, you're settingexposure limits.
Maybe this looks like hey, Ican go out to dinner with you,
(12:47):
but I can't come over for fourhours for the cookout, yeah.
So you're setting exposurelimits.
Know your own limitations andeach relationship is going to be
unique and sometimes you can'tjust say, hey, let's go hang out
with your family for one hour.
Sometimes that's not possible.
So that's why we come up withother strategies, like going to
(13:10):
the bathroom or going into thekitchen to help clean whatever
it is, or going into the kitchento help clean whatever it is
Next up.
Be selective with yourvulnerability.
Now, this is a lesson Icontinuously make.
I continuously try to bevulnerable and open up to unsafe
people.
Why?
Because my nervous system hasbeen programmed to fawn, so I
(13:33):
still do it.
It's okay.
I'm going to be patient andgive myself grace and love,
because I've learned how to dothat over the years and with
therapy and with coaching andwith safe relationships.
So I want that for you too.
I want you to give yourselfpermission to be selective with
vulnerability.
Do not open up about yourweaknesses or things that hurt
(13:57):
you or insecurities you havewith these unsafe people.
They don't mean to hurt you,I'm sure of it.
They don't mean to hurt you.
They are not intentionallybeing they're.
They're not full of malice,they just are unbaked cookies.
They're unbaked cookies andthey don't have the capacity to
give you what you need and thesafety you need.
(14:18):
So your relationship with themis going to look very different,
maybe more superficial, maybemore surface level, than a
relationship you have withsomebody who's emotionally safe,
who has that maturity, who'sputting the work in to overcome
their own ish.
Yeah.
The next thing I want you to dois I want you to prep one-liners
(14:39):
every time you expose yourselfto this person.
So if you're on a phone callwith them or you know there's
gonna be a visit or there'sgonna be a dinner, I want you to
prep some hardcore one-linersthat will be helpful to set a
boundary, and these one-linersmight look like I don't know.
(15:01):
I think it makes sense why I'mfeeling sad.
Anyways, how did you like theSuper Bowl last night?
I'm trying to think of them onthe fly.
I didn't write them ahead oftime I should have, but because
it's hard for me to come up withthem in the fly, I have created
for you a Say this, not that,script guide.
It's really great.
It has common emotionalmanipulation tactics that we
(15:24):
experience with emotionallyimmature people and it has three
one-liners that you can use toset boundaries and even an area
for you to write your own.
It's an amazing freebie.
I really love it.
I've been doing this for years,where I write one-liners for my
clients or one-liners formyself.
We write them on a sticky note,we put it somewhere and we use
it to prep, because settingboundaries does not come
(15:46):
naturally to people whosenervous systems are wired to
fawn.
Okay, anyways, go get my guide,write some one-liners.
Let's go over that again.
You're going to learn tovalidate yourself.
You're going to processafterwards with somebody safe.
You're going to set exposurelimits.
You're going to be selectivewith who gets to see your
(16:06):
vulnerability and you're goingto prep one-liners.
Okay, you're not asking for toomuch to feel safe.
You're asking to feel seen andsometimes the most healing thing
is seeing yourself first.
If this hit home, go hop overto my website, kaylarileycom
forward slash, say this and grabthe actual scripts for boundary
(16:29):
setting with difficult familyconversations.
I think I'm going to put thelink in my show notes as well.
My website or hop over onInstagram and check out my link
in the link in my show notes aswell my website.
Or hop over on Instagram andcheck out my link in bio it's in
there as well.
I've really liked talking aboutthis with you guys.
If this hit home, I'd love tohear what your experience has
been with emotionallyinvalidating people and I'll
(16:50):
catch you on the flip side.
Bye.
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