April 23, 2025 • 26 mins
What happens when your relationship requires so much of you that there's nothing left for yourself? For two decades of my marriage, I poured everything into caring for my depressed partner, losing myself in the process. But a profound shift occurred when I finally asked: "Can I deeply love and care for myself and continue in this relationship?"
This question emerged during a perfect storm in my life—turning 40, my father's illness and death, pandemic isolation, and the mounting responsibilities of motherhood and my therapy practice. I reached a breaking point where I realized that unless I fundamentally changed how I treated myself, I simply wouldn't be able to continue functioning, much less thriving.
My journey toward what I call "deep soul care" wasn't just about occasional self-indulgences but establishing daily practices that honored my needs. Learning about polyvagal theory revolutionized my understanding of my own depression and anxiety, showing me how to recognize when my nervous system was in survival mode and how to return to a grounded state of safety. Prentis Hemphill's boundary wisdom that "boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously" became my guiding light.
This transformation wasn't easy on my relationship. My husband initially felt abandoned as I redirected energy toward myself after two decades of focusing primarily on him. Yet through honest conversations and mutual growth, we discovered something beautiful—as I became more whole, I showed up as a better partner. His willingness to support my journey, even when difficult, revealed that we both wanted a relationship where neither person sacrifices their wellbeing for the other.
Whether you stay or leave a relationship affected by depression, remember this: you deserve to love yourself deeply. Your life shouldn't be spent feeling depleted, disconnected, or diminished. Take one step today—any step—toward honoring yourself. Because caring for yourself isn't selfish; it's the foundation upon which all healthy relationships are built.
- If you are looking to take the first step towards improving your connection and communication with your partner, check out this FREE monthly webinar on "Becoming a Conscious Couple,".
- If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!
For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the when Depression is in your
Bed podcast.
Are you struggling with takingcare of yourself because so much
of your time, energy andattention is going towards
taking care of your partner andyour relationship?
Is breakup, separation ordivorce feeling like more and
more of an option?
If so, join me today as Iexplore the vital importance of
deep self-care and self-love,even if this means having to
(00:25):
take some attention away fromyour partner or, ultimately,
having to leave.
Being able to balance takingcare of yourself and taking care
of your relationship isabsolutely necessary in order to
have a healthy, meaningful andsatisfying partnership.
Regardless of what choice youmake for the future of your
relationship, I hope thatlistening to this episode today
moves you to take better care ofyourself and treat yourself the
(00:47):
way that you deserve to betreated.
I'm your host, trish Sanders.
Let's get started.
Today is the fifth episode thatI have been talking about how to
make a conscious decision aboutwhether or not you want to stay
in your current relationship.
I did not plan to make fiveepisodes in a row about this
topic, but in the first episode,I started with my seven
(01:09):
question framework that Ideveloped over the course of my
own relationship and thequestions that I used to
determine if I wanted tocontinue in my relationship or
not.
And then, after I reviewed thequestions, I felt it was really
important for me to talk aboutmy own thought process and how I
worked through those questionswhen I was using them for myself
.
I hope that sharing my ownexperience could be helpful,
(01:32):
even if the way you work throughthe questions for yourself is
very different than the way thatI work through them, and even
if the ultimate decision thatyou made about staying in your
relationship was different thanthe conclusion that I made for
myself, because in my case, Ihave decided to stay in my
relationship with my husband andwe've been together for almost
21 years at this point.
(01:52):
But the questions are reallyintended to bring clarity to
whether it makes sense to stayin a relationship or not.
It's not to encourage people tostay in relationship, or
encourage them to leave, forthat matter, but really to be
able to make that consciousdecision.
So, after that first episodewhere I reviewed all seven
questions, I spent the nextthree episodes talking through
the first five of those sevenquestions.
(02:13):
From my perspective, and just torecap, the first five questions
that I covered were.
Number one what are the real orperceived obstacles that come
to mind when you think aboutleaving your relationship and
how can you address them?
Number two what are theunconscious factors at play that
may be keeping you in yourrelationship and how to get
support around those?
Number three what are thestrengths of your relationship?
(02:36):
Number four are you willing todo the work of relationship?
And number five is your partnerwilling to do the work of
relationship?
And so here we are today, andI'll be covering questions six
and seven, which I will talkabout in a moment, but I have to
say that I'm pretty excited andthis feels like a special
episode.
First, because it's my 13thepisode, and 13 does happen to
be my lucky number.
(02:56):
When I was a little girl, Iactually felt bad for number 13,
because everyone said it wasunlucky and people seem to favor
lucky number seven.
Being someone who roots for theunderdog, I adopted 13 as my
favorite number and havemaintained that ever since, and
so, in addition to this beingthe 13th episode, the questions
that I'll be talking about todayalso feel particularly special
(03:19):
to me.
I think all seven questions inthe framework are important, and
they certainly cover theprocess that I've used, but
these last two questions reallyare the most recent questions
that I've worked through andjust have a special value.
They really represent my ownindividual growth and healing
through my entire lifetime andcertainly over the course of my
relationship.
(03:39):
So, without further delay, Iwill begin to talk about
question number six, which iscan you deeply love and care for
yourself and continue in thisrelationship?
This may be a question thatpeople out in the world don't
struggle with, or it may seemfairly obvious that to be in a
healthy relationship, that meansyou have to be able to care for
yourself while you're in thatrelationship.
But to me, even though from anintellectual perspective I
(04:04):
certainly understand that andcertainly as a therapist, I
absolutely understand that beingin a healthy relationship
includes taking care of yourselfas well and not just taking
care of your partner or therelationship.
However, I think we live in asociety particularly for women,
although I think this canabsolutely be true of men too
but there is often a value onself-sacrifice, and I hear it in
(04:27):
so many different places whenpeople talk about what they
appreciate about their partneris that they appreciate how
selfless she is and how givingand how generous, and of course,
these are positive qualities toa point, but to be selfless, to
be without a self, is reallynot a positive thing, and I
think that it's so easy to feelvalued for giving and giving and
(04:50):
giving, and that can reallybecome a part of your identity,
that this is who I am.
I'm someone who is generous, I'msomeone who gives, I'm someone
who puts other people's needsfirst, so it's really easy to
get stuck in a place where youlose touch with your own
self-care and self-love, and Ithink that, unfortunately, is
rather common in our world, andI do think that was at play for
(05:12):
me.
In addition to all of that,though and I've talked about
this in previous episodesalready, and I'm sure I'll talk
more about it in the future aswell, but I've carried a lot of
very negative messages aboutmyself in my unconscious that I
brought into my conscious mindover many years of therapy and
self-work, and when I'm underemotional threat, when I'm
(05:33):
feeling overwhelmed, my nervoussystem protects me by going into
the state of shutdown, thestate of withdrawal collapse
depression, collapse, depression.
And when you're in that state,you see the world through what I
call depression goggles thatI've mentioned before, and you
see the world and yourself andyour relationship and your
partner, and the possibilitiesthat can exist as really
(05:53):
negative.
And so, from this place, ofcarrying negative messages about
myself and who I am, what Ideserve, and being in this
dorsal shutdown collapse so muchof my life, I truly didn't feel
deserving of self-care and Icertainly didn't have a deep
(06:13):
love for myself.
So, even though it could beeasy to say, oh well, I've spent
so much of my relationshiptaking care of my husband or
tending to his depression or hisanxiety or his needs, and
that's why I didn't take care ofmyself or I identify as a
helper which I definitely doidentify as a helper.
I'm a therapist, right like Ibecame a therapist.
I'm a mom, so I'm very steepedin the helping world and that's
(06:36):
definitely true and definitely apart of my identity.
But this is truly such amulti-layered, deep-rooted
challenge for me that takingcare of myself hasn't seemed
familiar or natural for most ofmy life.
I can feel sadness coming up inmyself as I say that and I
certainly have talked throughand processed in therapy and
(06:57):
other places about that sadness,that sort of loss for what I
wish I could have given myselfwhen I was 16 years old or 24
years old, or 35 years old, butit really wasn't until I turned
40 that things really startedcoming together for me.
It wasn't exactly because Iturned 40.
It was a variety of factorsthat came together just around
(07:18):
that time.
I do think that turning 40contributed to it.
When I hit 40, it was like waita minute, am I always going to
be so unhappy?
This can't possibly be it.
I've been waiting to turn thecorner and feel better for so
many decades now, so thatdefinitely was present.
So also during that time, I hada lot going on.
So right before I turned 40, Ihad my daughter, and then we
(07:40):
moved, and then my dad gotdiagnosed with leukemia, and
when we moved into our new house, he ended up coming to live
with us because he had to retire, because he was in chemo one
week out of the month, and thenthe pandemic hit in March of
2020.
Then my son was beinghomeschooled and my husband was
working from home, and so I gotto this point where I felt like,
(08:01):
wow, I feel really miserableand overwhelmed and if I don't
start taking care of myself in areally significant way, I'm
just not going to be able tomanage all of these things.
Of course, I had a privatepractice that went virtual and
had to figure out the wholevirtual world overnight.
Like so many other therapistsand so many other people in the
world, I really started to valueself-care in a new way, because
(08:22):
it wasn't just this indulgentthing of like, oh, let me get
massages and pedicures which Ithink are wonderful parts of
self-care but it was deepself-care, deep self-love, and
it was almost about survival,like if I don't figure out how
to take care of myself, I'm notgoing to be able to get through
this.
I'm not saying that I feltsuicidal I didn't but it was a
sense of I'm not going to beable to keep going on unless I
(08:44):
take care of myself.
And then, at the end of 2020, myfather ended up dying from the
leukemia, which was a little bitunexpected because we didn't
think that it was a veryaggressive leukemia and things
looked like they were improvingfor a bit and then they took a
really sharp turn and histransition became a turning
point for me, because my dad wasa really wonderful person and
(09:06):
he carried a lot of trauma inhis heart and in his soul and I
really got to see how, eventhough I think in so many ways
he had a wonderful life.
He loved me and my sister andhis grandkids, and he had really
amazing friends and he hadreally beautiful parts of his
life.
There was so much that waslacking, like I could see, that
(09:28):
he didn't ever live his fullestpotential.
He never was fully hisauthentic self, because there
were parts of him that he reallyhid, because it was so
traumatic and so painful and, inaddition to seeing how his life
was limited in some ways, healso had been a huge cheerleader
for me and loved me sounconditionally and supported me
(09:52):
with such love.
But when he passed and when hewas physically not there anymore
to cheer me on, there was thishole that I recognized in my
life and I knew that nobodycould fill it besides me, that I
had to love myself, because ifI didn't love myself, it didn't
really matter what was happeningoutside of me, because it would
(10:16):
never be enough.
No matter what I got, itwouldn't fill the hole.
So I started to have this newrelationship to me, loving
myself and this new feeling ofgosh.
I absolutely deserve to lovemyself.
I have to love myself.
It became almost a matter oflife and death.
Like I can't emotionally starveanymore.
(10:38):
I can't settle for this lifewhere I'm limited in these ways,
especially when I have a reallybeautiful life.
I mean, I have these twoextraordinarily beautiful,
wonderful kids who I adore.
My husband, for all of ourproblems, is a wonderful person
and my best friend.
I have friends and familymembers who love me so much and
(11:00):
who support me and want the bestfor me.
I love the work that I do, Ilove being a therapist, I love
supporting people and I'vesomehow created this life that's
really wonderful.
And yet I was only able to bepresent and enjoying my life a
small percentage of the time,and so it really became a now or
never feeling I have to do this.
(11:22):
And then, all of a sudden,through this process, this
question emerged am I able todeeply love and care for myself
and continue to be in arelationship with my husband?
And again, as I said before,this may seem fairly obvious.
Maybe, looking at someone elsein their relationship, I would
have been able to identify this,this, but being that I was in
my own life, in my ownrelationship, this felt like
(11:43):
something that I uncovered, evenif there were pieces of it that
I'd been thinking about formany years or had considered
before.
So I really started to look atthis.
What does it mean to love andcare for myself?
And again, I love a goodmassage or a good pedicure or
time out with my friends.
Those are all fantastic thingsand I do consider them to be
under the umbrella of self-care.
(12:04):
But I started to move into whatI would consider deeper soul
care, self-care with a capital s, and for me that was how do I
take care of myself every day?
How do I create daily habitsthat support my wellness?
How do I create time for me,just me as a person, separate
(12:25):
from being a mom or a wife or atherapist or a friend or a
daughter or a cousin or a nieceor whatever, like all of my
other identities that areimportant to me?
But how do I create space forme?
How do I prioritize my needs?
How do I create an environmentfor myself in which I can grow
(12:47):
and expand and learn?
And how do I recapture, how doI reconnect with that passion
and that joyful aliveness andthat zest and that excitement
that certainly I have had accessto over my lifetime, but not
nearly as frequent access as Ireally wanted to have.
(13:08):
I wanted to be able to wake upand feel happy, to be alive,
instead of waking up and, beforemy eyes were even open, feeling
like ugh another day I got topush through.
I didn't want to feel like Ihad to push through anymore and
I realized that in the contextof my relationship that for so
many reasons and I've mentionedsome of them already I was
(13:30):
really putting a lot of energyinto my relationship and I felt
really drained in a lot of waysbecause I wasn't necessarily
getting back the energy or thecare and that doesn't
necessarily mean that my husbandwasn't caring for me, but I
think that the dynamic that heand I have created over 20 years
was that he was the sick one,so to speak.
We have to take care of him,and so a lot of our energy both
(13:53):
of us has gone into him in anunhelpful way, but I'll let him
talk about his own self-care andhis own deep self-love.
But for me, I realized that Ineeded to pull back quite a bit,
which was hard for me in manyways, because I was changing a
dynamic that had existed for myentire life, predating my
relationship with my husband.
Certainly, again, I'm atherapist.
I went into a helping professionbecause I'm a helper.
(14:15):
So pulling back from helping isnot an easy thing to do.
Certainly wasn't easy for me,especially when it's part of
your identity.
So who am I if I'm not helping?
That was definitely something Ihad to work through.
I realized that the more I takecare of myself, the better I am
at helping others by the way,including my husband.
I'm certainly a better wife.
I'm absolutely a better mom,I'm definitely a better
(14:36):
therapist and I'm just a happierperson.
But more than happy, I'm moremyself, which of course makes me
happy, but I'm more fully me.
I'm more whole as a person.
Because of the steps that I tookand it wreaked a lot of havoc
in my relationship because itwas a huge change I pulled back
so much and a lot of the timewhen people try a new behavior
(14:58):
they sort of like overcorrect,and I definitely pulled back so
much from my relationship thatit created confusion and, I
think, a sense of abandonmentfor my husband, like I gave up
on him, I gave up on us and Iwas just focused on my own self
and I wish I could havecommunicated that to him a
little bit better in real time.
(15:19):
I think I did try tocommunicate as best as I could
about what was going on for me,but I think that it was just a
tough process that we wentthrough and it caused a lot of
major conflicts between us,although he was also very
supportive of me taking care ofmyself and growing and healing
and feeling better.
So it was complicated, to saythe least, but I realized that
(15:43):
if I couldn't figure out how tocare for myself and again
consistently care for myselfevery day, little things that
are not so little like for me,meditation practice is
absolutely one of the thingsthat I just must do every day.
I start my morning being ableto have this special, sacred
time for myself, and there'slots of other things that I do.
(16:05):
I think how I talk to myselfwas huge, really noticing when I
was beating myself up or beingso very unkind to myself, and a
lot of this was really able toshift in a hugely significant
way when I discovered polyvagaltheory, which is the theory
about how our nervous system isconnected to our lived
experience and how we show up inthe world every day, and then I
(16:25):
started to understand mynervous system states and then I
really started to see in a veryclear way what I would have
called reactivity before whichis still reactivity was really
my nervous system being in asurvival place so much of the
time and I either was in thatdorsal, depressed, collapsed,
withdrawn, avoidant.
I can't handle life.
This is too much for me.
(16:45):
So I'll do the bare minimum toget by, but I certainly wasn't
thriving by any stretch or mysystem would be in this
sympathetic space, which is thismuch more energized place, so
that could kind of feel betterthan feeling collapsed in dorsal
.
However, for me, which is thismuch more energized place, so
that could kind of feel betterthan feeling collapsed and
dorsal.
However, for me, sympathetic isextremely overwhelming, chaotic
(17:05):
.
I'm too busy, I have too muchto do, there's never enough time
.
Do this, do that.
You know waking up in themorning and just going from one
thing to the next thing, to thenext thing, to the next thing,
crashing at night, and thendoing it all again the next day,
which is also not thriving.
And so when I started tounderstand how this was
connected to my nervous system,it really brought all of the
work that I've been doing overthree decades.
(17:26):
I mean, I've been in therapy onand off for over 30 years and
done so much healing and had somany healing experiences.
But polyvagal theory reallybrought all the pieces together,
like I had all the pieces, Ijust didn't have them arranged
exactly.
So I was able to see thepicture clearly and then I
started to really shift.
And then I started to have thisother piece of deep self-care,
which is how do I anchor myself?
(17:48):
How do I anchor my nervoussystem in ventral?
And the ventral state of ournervous system is our grounded,
centered, safe place.
And this gave me a dailypractice of self-care and
self-love that was profound andmore clear in so many ways for
me at least, than it had everbeen before, like what do I need
(18:08):
to do every day to be myfullest self?
And the short answer was I needto recognize when my nervous
system leaves that ventral safeplace and when I go into a
dysregulated survival mode,self-care is taking action to
get back to that ventral safe,connected place, because from
that place I can handlewhatever's going on.
I could do the things on myto-do list.
If there's a problem that needsto be addressed, I can address
(18:31):
it, I can problem solve, I couldbe creative, I could figure out
things, whereas when I'm insurvival.
That's not the experience, andso I really started to have
these significant shifts and Imentioned this in the should I
stay or should I go?
Episode when I covered allseven of these questions.
But I heard the definition ofboundaries by Prentice Hemphill,
which is boundaries are thedistance at which I can love you
(18:54):
and me simultaneously, and ithit me in such a deep way, and
that really is when I started tounderstand that, for me, making
the choice to stay in myrelationship or not had to do
with all of the questions that Ireviewed thus far.
But the answer to this questiongave a whole new level of
insight as to whether or not Icould stay in my relationship
with my husband.
Because if I was able to takecare of myself and love myself
(19:19):
and create this space for myselfthat I desperately needed, if I
could do that while being withmy husband, then there was
possibility that I could stay.
But if I found that I couldn'tcreate that space for myself, if
I couldn't love myself, if Icouldn't deeply care for myself
every single day and be in thisrelationship, then I knew that I
(19:39):
had to leave, and I did talk tomy husband about that and I did
explain this to him.
We've had many conversations inmany different ways, sometimes
because of a conflict orsometimes just because I really
was at a place where I was ableto share with him what was
happening for me.
There's been some reallybeautiful conversations around
that.
So far, I've been able tocultivate this practice of
self-love and care and continuein my relationship with my
(20:02):
husband, and again, it hascaused conflict, because it was
a huge change from how I used tomove in the world honestly and
how I used to be in myrelationship.
But through the bumps we'vebeen able to learn and he's been
an incredible support, and thathas also been something that
has really strengthened ourrelationship for me, because
(20:24):
knowing that he supports me evenwhen what I'm doing may be hard
for him not that he should besacrificing himself, but me
focusing more time on me does,in fact, take away some time
from him, and so we've had toreally negotiate that like.
What does that look like?
As in the Princess Temple quotehow do I also love him at the
same time, and we've beenfiguring that out and I think
(20:44):
we've been doing a reallybeautiful job, and it has
absolutely been what has givenme a great sense of hope in the
future of our relationship andalso immense gratitude for what
we have together, because therelationship I have with my
husband feels like a place wherewe both want both of us to be
loved and cared for in a veryreal way.
(21:07):
And the truth is is that, aspeople who have lived with
depression for our lives, aspeople whose nervous systems are
often in that collapsed,withdrawn, dorsal place, it's
not always easy to love and carefor ourselves or feel deserving
of that love and care, and soit's been huge places of growth
for both of us and I think we'llcontinue to grow in those
(21:30):
places.
I certainly hope we'll continueto grow in those places.
I'd love to see my husband evenbe able to stretch into more of
those places for himself, and Ithink he is, and so this
question is really reallypowerful and special.
And if you are somebody who, forwhatever your, your reason, is
struggling in the ability totake care of yourself and love
(21:52):
yourself I wish it were easier.
I wish that everybody couldjust love and care for
themselves in this significantway, but if you're somebody
who's struggling there, pleasehear me.
I know I'm just one person inthis world, but I hope that you
can hear that you deserve thiskind of self care and you
deserve to love yourself,because struggle and pain is
(22:16):
inevitable and when you love andcare for yourself and you bring
your whole self into this world, it's just a much better
experience.
And I don't know if we getanother lifetime.
I don't know if we get anotherchance, I don't know if we come
back, but to my knowledge, I'monly going to be here in this
physical body once and I havedecided for myself that I want
(22:39):
to make the very best of it, andthat's why I decided to do this
podcast, because I have amessage for everybody, and my
message today for you is to loveall of yourself exactly how you
are today, and the more youlove and care for yourself, the
better you'll feel, the betteryour life will be, the better
your relationships will be, andyou won't choose to stay in
(23:03):
places that hurt in the same wayas you used to.
Because I have found the morethat I take care of myself, the
less I accept feeling bad.
And again, struggle and pain,hardship those are inevitable
parts of life, but most of thetime now I am so much more
motivated Like, hmm, I have tofigure this out.
I have to work through this,which is very different than how
(23:25):
I used to be, either feelinglike, oh, it is what it is, or I
don't have the energy to doanything about it, or I've tried
already and I didn't getanywhere.
So, anyhow, I can go on and on,obviously, about this, but it's
really important.
For me, it's a real gamechanger.
I think that this is thetransformational question and,
(23:45):
again, loving yourself mightcause hardship in your
relationship initially, andthrough the process, through the
conflict, you will also have anopportunity to see if this is a
relationship that you can growand heal and continue to be in
or not.
I thought I would finish allthe questions today, but I'm
very passionate about self-careand self-love and I do want to
(24:07):
talk more deeply about theseventh question as well, so I
think I will continue that inthe next episode.
As our time comes to a close, Iask you to keep listening for
just a few more moments, becauseI want to thank you for showing
up today and I want to leaveyou with an invitation as you
hit, stop and move back out intothe world on your own unique
(24:28):
wellness journey In order tomove from where you are today to
the place where you want to be.
The path may seem long orunclear or unknown, and I want
you to know that if that seemsscary or daunting or downright
terrifying or anything else,that is totally okay.
Know that you do not have tocreate the whole way all at once
(24:50):
.
We don't travel a whole journeyin one stride, and that is why
my invitation to you today is totake a step, just one, any type
, any size, in any direction.
It can be an external step thatcan be observed or measured, or
it could be a step youvisualize taking in your mind.
It can be a step towards action, or towards rest or connection
(25:13):
or self-care, or whatever stepmakes sense to you.
I invite you to take a steptoday because getting to a place
that feels better, more joyful,more connected than the place
where you are today, is possiblefor everyone, including you,
and even when depression is inyour bed.
If today's episode resonatedwith you, please subscribe so
(25:35):
you can be notified when eachweekly episode gets released.
I encourage you to leave areview and reach out to me on
social media at trishsanderslcsw.
Your feedback will help guidefuture episodes and I love
hearing from Take care ofyourself and take a step.
Hello and welcome to the when Depression is in your
Bed podcast.
Are you struggling with takingcare of yourself because so much
of your time, energy andattention is going towards
taking care of your partner andyour relationship?
Is breakup, separation ordivorce feeling like more and
more of an option?
If so, join me today as Iexplore the vital importance of
deep self-care and self-love,even if this means having to
(00:25):
take some attention away fromyour partner or, ultimately,
having to leave.
Being able to balance takingcare of yourself and taking care
of your relationship isabsolutely necessary in order to
have a healthy, meaningful andsatisfying partnership.
Regardless of what choice youmake for the future of your
relationship, I hope thatlistening to this episode today
moves you to take better care ofyourself and treat yourself the
(00:47):
way that you deserve to betreated.
I'm your host, trish Sanders.
Let's get started.
Today is the fifth episode thatI have been talking about how to
make a conscious decision aboutwhether or not you want to stay
in your current relationship.
I did not plan to make fiveepisodes in a row about this
topic, but in the first episode,I started with my seven
(01:09):
question framework that Ideveloped over the course of my
own relationship and thequestions that I used to
determine if I wanted tocontinue in my relationship or
not.
And then, after I reviewed thequestions, I felt it was really
important for me to talk aboutmy own thought process and how I
worked through those questionswhen I was using them for myself
.
I hope that sharing my ownexperience could be helpful,
(01:32):
even if the way you work throughthe questions for yourself is
very different than the way thatI work through them, and even
if the ultimate decision thatyou made about staying in your
relationship was different thanthe conclusion that I made for
myself, because in my case, Ihave decided to stay in my
relationship with my husband andwe've been together for almost
21 years at this point.
(01:52):
But the questions are reallyintended to bring clarity to
whether it makes sense to stayin a relationship or not.
It's not to encourage people tostay in relationship, or
encourage them to leave, forthat matter, but really to be
able to make that consciousdecision.
So, after that first episodewhere I reviewed all seven
questions, I spent the nextthree episodes talking through
the first five of those sevenquestions.
(02:13):
From my perspective, and just torecap, the first five questions
that I covered were.
Number one what are the real orperceived obstacles that come
to mind when you think aboutleaving your relationship and
how can you address them?
Number two what are theunconscious factors at play that
may be keeping you in yourrelationship and how to get
support around those?
Number three what are thestrengths of your relationship?
(02:36):
Number four are you willing todo the work of relationship?
And number five is your partnerwilling to do the work of
relationship?
And so here we are today, andI'll be covering questions six
and seven, which I will talkabout in a moment, but I have to
say that I'm pretty excited andthis feels like a special
episode.
First, because it's my 13thepisode, and 13 does happen to
be my lucky number.
(02:56):
When I was a little girl, Iactually felt bad for number 13,
because everyone said it wasunlucky and people seem to favor
lucky number seven.
Being someone who roots for theunderdog, I adopted 13 as my
favorite number and havemaintained that ever since, and
so, in addition to this beingthe 13th episode, the questions
that I'll be talking about todayalso feel particularly special
(03:19):
to me.
I think all seven questions inthe framework are important, and
they certainly cover theprocess that I've used, but
these last two questions reallyare the most recent questions
that I've worked through andjust have a special value.
They really represent my ownindividual growth and healing
through my entire lifetime andcertainly over the course of my
relationship.
(03:39):
So, without further delay, Iwill begin to talk about
question number six, which iscan you deeply love and care for
yourself and continue in thisrelationship?
This may be a question thatpeople out in the world don't
struggle with, or it may seemfairly obvious that to be in a
healthy relationship, that meansyou have to be able to care for
yourself while you're in thatrelationship.
But to me, even though from anintellectual perspective I
(04:04):
certainly understand that andcertainly as a therapist, I
absolutely understand that beingin a healthy relationship
includes taking care of yourselfas well and not just taking
care of your partner or therelationship.
However, I think we live in asociety particularly for women,
although I think this canabsolutely be true of men too
but there is often a value onself-sacrifice, and I hear it in
(04:27):
so many different places whenpeople talk about what they
appreciate about their partneris that they appreciate how
selfless she is and how givingand how generous, and of course,
these are positive qualities toa point, but to be selfless, to
be without a self, is reallynot a positive thing, and I
think that it's so easy to feelvalued for giving and giving and
(04:50):
giving, and that can reallybecome a part of your identity,
that this is who I am.
I'm someone who is generous, I'msomeone who gives, I'm someone
who puts other people's needsfirst, so it's really easy to
get stuck in a place where youlose touch with your own
self-care and self-love, and Ithink that, unfortunately, is
rather common in our world, andI do think that was at play for
(05:12):
me.
In addition to all of that,though and I've talked about
this in previous episodesalready, and I'm sure I'll talk
more about it in the future aswell, but I've carried a lot of
very negative messages aboutmyself in my unconscious that I
brought into my conscious mindover many years of therapy and
self-work, and when I'm underemotional threat, when I'm
(05:33):
feeling overwhelmed, my nervoussystem protects me by going into
the state of shutdown, thestate of withdrawal collapse
depression, collapse, depression.
And when you're in that state,you see the world through what I
call depression goggles thatI've mentioned before, and you
see the world and yourself andyour relationship and your
partner, and the possibilitiesthat can exist as really
(05:53):
negative.
And so, from this place, ofcarrying negative messages about
myself and who I am, what Ideserve, and being in this
dorsal shutdown collapse so muchof my life, I truly didn't feel
deserving of self-care and Icertainly didn't have a deep
(06:13):
love for myself.
So, even though it could beeasy to say, oh well, I've spent
so much of my relationshiptaking care of my husband or
tending to his depression or hisanxiety or his needs, and
that's why I didn't take care ofmyself or I identify as a
helper which I definitely doidentify as a helper.
I'm a therapist, right like Ibecame a therapist.
I'm a mom, so I'm very steepedin the helping world and that's
(06:36):
definitely true and definitely apart of my identity.
But this is truly such amulti-layered, deep-rooted
challenge for me that takingcare of myself hasn't seemed
familiar or natural for most ofmy life.
I can feel sadness coming up inmyself as I say that and I
certainly have talked throughand processed in therapy and
(06:57):
other places about that sadness,that sort of loss for what I
wish I could have given myselfwhen I was 16 years old or 24
years old, or 35 years old, butit really wasn't until I turned
40 that things really startedcoming together for me.
It wasn't exactly because Iturned 40.
It was a variety of factorsthat came together just around
(07:18):
that time.
I do think that turning 40contributed to it.
When I hit 40, it was like waita minute, am I always going to
be so unhappy?
This can't possibly be it.
I've been waiting to turn thecorner and feel better for so
many decades now, so thatdefinitely was present.
So also during that time, I hada lot going on.
So right before I turned 40, Ihad my daughter, and then we
(07:40):
moved, and then my dad gotdiagnosed with leukemia, and
when we moved into our new house, he ended up coming to live
with us because he had to retire, because he was in chemo one
week out of the month, and thenthe pandemic hit in March of
2020.
Then my son was beinghomeschooled and my husband was
working from home, and so I gotto this point where I felt like,
(08:01):
wow, I feel really miserableand overwhelmed and if I don't
start taking care of myself in areally significant way, I'm
just not going to be able tomanage all of these things.
Of course, I had a privatepractice that went virtual and
had to figure out the wholevirtual world overnight.
Like so many other therapistsand so many other people in the
world, I really started to valueself-care in a new way, because
(08:22):
it wasn't just this indulgentthing of like, oh, let me get
massages and pedicures which Ithink are wonderful parts of
self-care but it was deepself-care, deep self-love, and
it was almost about survival,like if I don't figure out how
to take care of myself, I'm notgoing to be able to get through
this.
I'm not saying that I feltsuicidal I didn't but it was a
sense of I'm not going to beable to keep going on unless I
(08:44):
take care of myself.
And then, at the end of 2020, myfather ended up dying from the
leukemia, which was a little bitunexpected because we didn't
think that it was a veryaggressive leukemia and things
looked like they were improvingfor a bit and then they took a
really sharp turn and histransition became a turning
point for me, because my dad wasa really wonderful person and
(09:06):
he carried a lot of trauma inhis heart and in his soul and I
really got to see how, eventhough I think in so many ways
he had a wonderful life.
He loved me and my sister andhis grandkids, and he had really
amazing friends and he hadreally beautiful parts of his
life.
There was so much that waslacking, like I could see, that
(09:28):
he didn't ever live his fullestpotential.
He never was fully hisauthentic self, because there
were parts of him that he reallyhid, because it was so
traumatic and so painful and, inaddition to seeing how his life
was limited in some ways, healso had been a huge cheerleader
for me and loved me sounconditionally and supported me
(09:52):
with such love.
But when he passed and when hewas physically not there anymore
to cheer me on, there was thishole that I recognized in my
life and I knew that nobodycould fill it besides me, that I
had to love myself, because ifI didn't love myself, it didn't
really matter what was happeningoutside of me, because it would
(10:16):
never be enough.
No matter what I got, itwouldn't fill the hole.
So I started to have this newrelationship to me, loving
myself and this new feeling ofgosh.
I absolutely deserve to lovemyself.
I have to love myself.
It became almost a matter oflife and death.
Like I can't emotionally starveanymore.
(10:38):
I can't settle for this lifewhere I'm limited in these ways,
especially when I have a reallybeautiful life.
I mean, I have these twoextraordinarily beautiful,
wonderful kids who I adore.
My husband, for all of ourproblems, is a wonderful person
and my best friend.
I have friends and familymembers who love me so much and
(11:00):
who support me and want the bestfor me.
I love the work that I do, Ilove being a therapist, I love
supporting people and I'vesomehow created this life that's
really wonderful.
And yet I was only able to bepresent and enjoying my life a
small percentage of the time,and so it really became a now or
never feeling I have to do this.
(11:22):
And then, all of a sudden,through this process, this
question emerged am I able todeeply love and care for myself
and continue to be in arelationship with my husband?
And again, as I said before,this may seem fairly obvious.
Maybe, looking at someone elsein their relationship, I would
have been able to identify this,this, but being that I was in
my own life, in my ownrelationship, this felt like
(11:43):
something that I uncovered, evenif there were pieces of it that
I'd been thinking about formany years or had considered
before.
So I really started to look atthis.
What does it mean to love andcare for myself?
And again, I love a goodmassage or a good pedicure or
time out with my friends.
Those are all fantastic thingsand I do consider them to be
under the umbrella of self-care.
(12:04):
But I started to move into whatI would consider deeper soul
care, self-care with a capital s, and for me that was how do I
take care of myself every day?
How do I create daily habitsthat support my wellness?
How do I create time for me,just me as a person, separate
(12:25):
from being a mom or a wife or atherapist or a friend or a
daughter or a cousin or a nieceor whatever, like all of my
other identities that areimportant to me?
But how do I create space forme?
How do I prioritize my needs?
How do I create an environmentfor myself in which I can grow
(12:47):
and expand and learn?
And how do I recapture, how doI reconnect with that passion
and that joyful aliveness andthat zest and that excitement
that certainly I have had accessto over my lifetime, but not
nearly as frequent access as Ireally wanted to have.
(13:08):
I wanted to be able to wake upand feel happy, to be alive,
instead of waking up and, beforemy eyes were even open, feeling
like ugh another day I got topush through.
I didn't want to feel like Ihad to push through anymore and
I realized that in the contextof my relationship that for so
many reasons and I've mentionedsome of them already I was
(13:30):
really putting a lot of energyinto my relationship and I felt
really drained in a lot of waysbecause I wasn't necessarily
getting back the energy or thecare and that doesn't
necessarily mean that my husbandwasn't caring for me, but I
think that the dynamic that heand I have created over 20 years
was that he was the sick one,so to speak.
We have to take care of him,and so a lot of our energy both
(13:53):
of us has gone into him in anunhelpful way, but I'll let him
talk about his own self-care andhis own deep self-love.
But for me, I realized that Ineeded to pull back quite a bit,
which was hard for me in manyways, because I was changing a
dynamic that had existed for myentire life, predating my
relationship with my husband.
Certainly, again, I'm atherapist.
I went into a helping professionbecause I'm a helper.
(14:15):
So pulling back from helping isnot an easy thing to do.
Certainly wasn't easy for me,especially when it's part of
your identity.
So who am I if I'm not helping?
That was definitely something Ihad to work through.
I realized that the more I takecare of myself, the better I am
at helping others by the way,including my husband.
I'm certainly a better wife.
I'm absolutely a better mom,I'm definitely a better
(14:36):
therapist and I'm just a happierperson.
But more than happy, I'm moremyself, which of course makes me
happy, but I'm more fully me.
I'm more whole as a person.
Because of the steps that I tookand it wreaked a lot of havoc
in my relationship because itwas a huge change I pulled back
so much and a lot of the timewhen people try a new behavior
(14:58):
they sort of like overcorrect,and I definitely pulled back so
much from my relationship thatit created confusion and, I
think, a sense of abandonmentfor my husband, like I gave up
on him, I gave up on us and Iwas just focused on my own self
and I wish I could havecommunicated that to him a
little bit better in real time.
(15:19):
I think I did try tocommunicate as best as I could
about what was going on for me,but I think that it was just a
tough process that we wentthrough and it caused a lot of
major conflicts between us,although he was also very
supportive of me taking care ofmyself and growing and healing
and feeling better.
So it was complicated, to saythe least, but I realized that
(15:43):
if I couldn't figure out how tocare for myself and again
consistently care for myselfevery day, little things that
are not so little like for me,meditation practice is
absolutely one of the thingsthat I just must do every day.
I start my morning being ableto have this special, sacred
time for myself, and there'slots of other things that I do.
(16:05):
I think how I talk to myselfwas huge, really noticing when I
was beating myself up or beingso very unkind to myself, and a
lot of this was really able toshift in a hugely significant
way when I discovered polyvagaltheory, which is the theory
about how our nervous system isconnected to our lived
experience and how we show up inthe world every day, and then I
(16:25):
started to understand mynervous system states and then I
really started to see in a veryclear way what I would have
called reactivity before whichis still reactivity was really
my nervous system being in asurvival place so much of the
time and I either was in thatdorsal, depressed, collapsed,
withdrawn, avoidant.
I can't handle life.
This is too much for me.
(16:45):
So I'll do the bare minimum toget by, but I certainly wasn't
thriving by any stretch or mysystem would be in this
sympathetic space, which is thismuch more energized place, so
that could kind of feel betterthan feeling collapsed in dorsal
.
However, for me, which is thismuch more energized place, so
that could kind of feel betterthan feeling collapsed and
dorsal.
However, for me, sympathetic isextremely overwhelming, chaotic
(17:05):
.
I'm too busy, I have too muchto do, there's never enough time
.
Do this, do that.
You know waking up in themorning and just going from one
thing to the next thing, to thenext thing, to the next thing,
crashing at night, and thendoing it all again the next day,
which is also not thriving.
And so when I started tounderstand how this was
connected to my nervous system,it really brought all of the
work that I've been doing overthree decades.
(17:26):
I mean, I've been in therapy onand off for over 30 years and
done so much healing and had somany healing experiences.
But polyvagal theory reallybrought all the pieces together,
like I had all the pieces, Ijust didn't have them arranged
exactly.
So I was able to see thepicture clearly and then I
started to really shift.
And then I started to have thisother piece of deep self-care,
which is how do I anchor myself?
(17:48):
How do I anchor my nervoussystem in ventral?
And the ventral state of ournervous system is our grounded,
centered, safe place.
And this gave me a dailypractice of self-care and
self-love that was profound andmore clear in so many ways for
me at least, than it had everbeen before, like what do I need
(18:08):
to do every day to be myfullest self?
And the short answer was I needto recognize when my nervous
system leaves that ventral safeplace and when I go into a
dysregulated survival mode,self-care is taking action to
get back to that ventral safe,connected place, because from
that place I can handlewhatever's going on.
I could do the things on myto-do list.
If there's a problem that needsto be addressed, I can address
(18:31):
it, I can problem solve, I couldbe creative, I could figure out
things, whereas when I'm insurvival.
That's not the experience, andso I really started to have
these significant shifts and Imentioned this in the should I
stay or should I go?
Episode when I covered allseven of these questions.
But I heard the definition ofboundaries by Prentice Hemphill,
which is boundaries are thedistance at which I can love you
(18:54):
and me simultaneously, and ithit me in such a deep way, and
that really is when I started tounderstand that, for me, making
the choice to stay in myrelationship or not had to do
with all of the questions that Ireviewed thus far.
But the answer to this questiongave a whole new level of
insight as to whether or not Icould stay in my relationship
with my husband.
Because if I was able to takecare of myself and love myself
(19:19):
and create this space for myselfthat I desperately needed, if I
could do that while being withmy husband, then there was
possibility that I could stay.
But if I found that I couldn'tcreate that space for myself, if
I couldn't love myself, if Icouldn't deeply care for myself
every single day and be in thisrelationship, then I knew that I
(19:39):
had to leave, and I did talk tomy husband about that and I did
explain this to him.
We've had many conversations inmany different ways, sometimes
because of a conflict orsometimes just because I really
was at a place where I was ableto share with him what was
happening for me.
There's been some reallybeautiful conversations around
that.
So far, I've been able tocultivate this practice of
self-love and care and continuein my relationship with my
(20:02):
husband, and again, it hascaused conflict, because it was
a huge change from how I used tomove in the world honestly and
how I used to be in myrelationship.
But through the bumps we'vebeen able to learn and he's been
an incredible support, and thathas also been something that
has really strengthened ourrelationship for me, because
(20:24):
knowing that he supports me evenwhen what I'm doing may be hard
for him not that he should besacrificing himself, but me
focusing more time on me does,in fact, take away some time
from him, and so we've had toreally negotiate that like.
What does that look like?
As in the Princess Temple quotehow do I also love him at the
same time, and we've beenfiguring that out and I think
(20:44):
we've been doing a reallybeautiful job, and it has
absolutely been what has givenme a great sense of hope in the
future of our relationship andalso immense gratitude for what
we have together, because therelationship I have with my
husband feels like a place wherewe both want both of us to be
loved and cared for in a veryreal way.
(21:07):
And the truth is is that, aspeople who have lived with
depression for our lives, aspeople whose nervous systems are
often in that collapsed,withdrawn, dorsal place, it's
not always easy to love and carefor ourselves or feel deserving
of that love and care, and soit's been huge places of growth
for both of us and I think we'llcontinue to grow in those
(21:30):
places.
I certainly hope we'll continueto grow in those places.
I'd love to see my husband evenbe able to stretch into more of
those places for himself, and Ithink he is, and so this
question is really reallypowerful and special.
And if you are somebody who, forwhatever your, your reason, is
struggling in the ability totake care of yourself and love
(21:52):
yourself I wish it were easier.
I wish that everybody couldjust love and care for
themselves in this significantway, but if you're somebody
who's struggling there, pleasehear me.
I know I'm just one person inthis world, but I hope that you
can hear that you deserve thiskind of self care and you
deserve to love yourself,because struggle and pain is
(22:16):
inevitable and when you love andcare for yourself and you bring
your whole self into this world, it's just a much better
experience.
And I don't know if we getanother lifetime.
I don't know if we get anotherchance, I don't know if we come
back, but to my knowledge, I'monly going to be here in this
physical body once and I havedecided for myself that I want
(22:39):
to make the very best of it, andthat's why I decided to do this
podcast, because I have amessage for everybody, and my
message today for you is to loveall of yourself exactly how you
are today, and the more youlove and care for yourself, the
better you'll feel, the betteryour life will be, the better
your relationships will be, andyou won't choose to stay in
(23:03):
places that hurt in the same wayas you used to.
Because I have found the morethat I take care of myself, the
less I accept feeling bad.
And again, struggle and pain,hardship those are inevitable
parts of life, but most of thetime now I am so much more
motivated Like, hmm, I have tofigure this out.
I have to work through this,which is very different than how
(23:25):
I used to be, either feelinglike, oh, it is what it is, or I
don't have the energy to doanything about it, or I've tried
already and I didn't getanywhere.
So, anyhow, I can go on and on,obviously, about this, but it's
really important.
For me, it's a real gamechanger.
I think that this is thetransformational question and,
(23:45):
again, loving yourself mightcause hardship in your
relationship initially, andthrough the process, through the
conflict, you will also have anopportunity to see if this is a
relationship that you can growand heal and continue to be in
or not.
I thought I would finish allthe questions today, but I'm
very passionate about self-careand self-love and I do want to
(24:07):
talk more deeply about theseventh question as well, so I
think I will continue that inthe next episode.
As our time comes to a close, Iask you to keep listening for
just a few more moments, becauseI want to thank you for showing
up today and I want to leaveyou with an invitation as you
hit, stop and move back out intothe world on your own unique
(24:28):
wellness journey In order tomove from where you are today to
the place where you want to be.
The path may seem long orunclear or unknown, and I want
you to know that if that seemsscary or daunting or downright
terrifying or anything else,that is totally okay.
Know that you do not have tocreate the whole way all at once
(24:50):
.
We don't travel a whole journeyin one stride, and that is why
my invitation to you today is totake a step, just one, any type
, any size, in any direction.
It can be an external step thatcan be observed or measured, or
it could be a step youvisualize taking in your mind.
It can be a step towards action, or towards rest or connection
(25:13):
or self-care, or whatever stepmakes sense to you.
I invite you to take a steptoday because getting to a place
that feels better, more joyful,more connected than the place
where you are today, is possiblefor everyone, including you,
and even when depression is inyour bed.
If today's episode resonatedwith you, please subscribe so
(25:35):
you can be notified when eachweekly episode gets released.
I encourage you to leave areview and reach out to me on
social media at trishsanderslcsw.
Your feedback will help guidefuture episodes and I love
hearing from Take care ofyourself and take a step.
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