Eat Love Do – Maxine Clancy, Love Yourself Enough And Release Past Relationship Pain

Hi and welcome. This is the Eat Love Do Show, exclusive to Women's Radio Station. Do check us out on our social medias. We are Women's Radio STN on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And do head over to our YouTube channel and hit that like and subscribe button because it really does help us. Thank you so much. So I'm Janine Newbury and this is the Eat Love Do Show because what you eat, how you love yourself and others, and what you do on a daily basis to bring more health, happiness, and general awesomeness into your life matters. Today I have a very special guest. Her name is Maxine Clancy and she is an empowerment coach. She specializes in relationships, love, and even people going through divorce or ending a relationship. Um, she helps women that are going through a change and who want to come back to their more authentic space because let's be honest, if we've all been through a break— breakup, we know that we can lose ourselves in that and kind of need to come back to who we were. And Maxine is absolutely incredible at this. So, Maxine, welcome to the show. Hello. Well, thank you. So thank you for that wonderful introduction, and thank you so much for inviting me to be on the show. Um, very passionate about those three things: eat, loving, and doing. Brilliant. You're on the right show. Yeah, exactly. I've just been to Italy so that I I had full permission to eat as much pasta and pizza as I wanted. That's a place to— I love Italy. The food is amazing and the wine too. And the wine, yeah. And you know what? They only have little small bowls of pasta. So I realised what I've been doing wrong all these years. Yeah, portion size. Yeah, portion size. They have small ones. You know, I dated an Italian years ago who was a chef, and whenever we went to his parents' house, they'd always do a pasta for a starter with a tomato sauce, and we'd have a main. Yes. And that was how they ate, and it was a really nice way to eat small portions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you're making me hungry. Yeah, I know. Anyway, it's lovely to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Welcome, welcome. Right, so you are an empowerment coach and you work with women. Um, would you like to just share a little bit about your journey and how you get into that? Yeah, of course. So, um, yeah, I, I had— in my early 20s, I would get laryngitis, like, constantly. And it was this one particular time that I got laryngitis, and I was, um, went to a bookshop because that's what you did then, and I found the self-help section, or I don't even know if it was called self-help then, but I, I found this section of books, and I was looking through, and I found this book called Women, Love, Sex, and Addiction, and it was written by a psychotherapist. Went home, lying on the sofa, reading this book, and I was just I kept— everything I read, I was like, oh my God, that's me. Oh my God, that's me. Oh my goodness, that's me. You know, I could see myself in all the case studies. And at the end of the book, I was like, I want to do what this woman does. I want to be a psychotherapist. And so I went and trained as a spiritual psychotherapist. And, um, what's a spiritual psychotherapist? So a spiritual psychotherapist, it's transpersonal psychotherapy, and it's a very holistic approach— mind, body, spirit. And so we're going back to '96 here when I started my training. So in those days, we were very spiritual these days, and we talk about it all the time. But in those days, no one really spoke about it. It was like religion that people really spoke about, you know, mainstream conversations. And in transpersonal psychotherapy, they recognize that you have all the qualities, like you're already whole, you have everything you need inside of you, and that the challenges, so the tra— the changes you go through, the obstacles, the crises that you might have, whether it's a bereavement, a divorce, a career crisis, money crisis, health crisis, all these types of things. They're there for you to evolve and to grow into the fullest, highest version of yourself. And that was the whole basis and the whole principle behind the psychotherapy training. And they looked at lots of different modalities from breathwork, from, you know, Carl Jung to Freud and lots of different things. And we learned so many different tools. To help us work with clients. And it was really interesting because when you train as a psychotherapist, you have to undergo psychotherapy yourself. So I went into therapy for 6 years and I've never ever had laryngitis because I found my voice. Oh, interesting. Yeah, my throat chakra opened. I mean, I obviously learned many other things, but it's really interesting. I've never had laryngitis, so I never— I didn't have any treatment for my laryngitis. But what was happening, my body was holding a lot of stored energy, stored emotions, stored memories. And because of that, it was showing up. Because I, you know, if we don't, if we don't listen to our bodies, then we get lots of disease, don't we? And, um, yeah, so that's how— so that's really what started me on the journey. And then I got involved with all the Tony Robbins, um, sort of more mindset coaching. And, and I just— what I decided when I I started my practice, I was, I was in my practice for a couple of years and I was doing a lot of work with men and women, life stuff, relationships, all sorts of stuff like that. And I felt very much like, wow, this is great, it's really good learning to know yourself, and there's definitely a place for psychotherapy, but it felt very long-winded. And, and I kind of felt that although I knew myself well, I kind of hadn't necessarily resolved some of my issues. And that's when I I decided to move more into coaching and learned about coaching through, you know, Tony Robbins and then training as a coach because I felt it was much more solution-oriented. Um, you know, you come, you've got a, you've got a goal of where you're going to, whereas traditional therapy is very open-ended and you can go off on all different tangents, tangents, and you may not necessarily, um, resolve your immediate problems in a short space of time. So that's why I love coaching. Yeah, anyone who's listening who doesn't know who Tony Robbins is, he is a, he's a coach, but he uses NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, um, and that's a technique that really you can go in and literally reprogram the brain quite quickly instead of traditional therapy where you're going on for like years and you're still sat there on the couch every week. And I just don't think, yeah, it's, I think it just, I, I preferred that type of coaching because I think it just goes in and you just you resolve it quickly and move on. You don't have to keep dragging it out and re-traumatizing somebody again and again and again. Yeah, there's a lot of— there is a lot of re-traumatizing in, in speaking therapy. Like, there's, there's definitely a place for it. I, you know, I'm not knocking it at all, um, but I think the world of, um, you know, neuroscience has shown that we can do things to rewire the brain and that certain behaviors and patterns, you know, if you keep repeating them through talking about them, are not necessarily going to help the situation. So yeah, so now I'm much more of like, I'd say I'm like, I'm an integrative coach. I've done a Mastery Coaching program. You know, I'm always looking to uplevel my skills and, you know, we sort of do sort of embodiment, somatic work, um, you know, combining mental, behavioral, um, emotional stuff. And I think that's what's really important is learning how to be with all of our emotions and integrate them within ourselves. So we actually have access to that you know, deeper part of us and that energy. And, um, yeah, it's a deeper place of acceptance. So that's really a lot of the work I do now in helping people to come to that space within themselves. I think that's really nice. And I like what you said earlier when you said that there's nothing actually wrong with us when, you know, and everything we need is within us. Yeah. And I think sometimes when we get lost in life and just stress and grief and things that have gone on, we forget how to tap into that part of ourselves again. Yeah. Kind naturally look for something external to try and help, help us feel better, really. That's what we're trying to do, in essence. And then sometimes you just need someone to come along and show you, actually, you are— you can do it. You are powerful. Yeah, yeah. I know I've been lost in my life journey. I'm sure a lot of people listening can relate to that as well. Yeah, absolutely. End of a breakup. Well, do you know, it's, it's really funny. So, you know, I, I— funny enough, I I got married at the beginning of my psychotherapy training, and I'd been with, um, my, my first husband, who became my first husband. I'd been with him for 5 years, and I got married at the beginning of the training. It was a 6-year training. I got divorced at the end of it. And, and he's like, you know, but that was also fueled by the fact that I did go to a Tony Robbins event, and I walked on hot coals, and I reclaimed my power, and I was like, you know, and And, and essentially, you know, he was an amazing guy and I loved him dearly, but we wanted very different things. You know, I wanted a family. I, I was 32 when I, when I left him and he, he became a father at 50, you know, and, and, you know, it was a huge learning for me because I, I looked at that and I said, I, he had been in my life for 12 years and I was kind of like, you know, this guy's a really amazing guy. I didn't want to trash the relationship. And I think what happens when, when people are going through a breakup, there's this thing about, you know, well, if I hate the person, you know, if I go from, you know, soulmate to soul hate, which, um, one of my mentors talks about, if I hate that person, it will help me to break the bond. But actually, I didn't want to trash the relationship. I really wanted to, um, appreciate it and, and honor, honor the relationship. And that served me well because I— we didn't have children together, but in my second divorce, I had two beautiful children. Children, and I was madly in love with the man that, that left me. And I was kind of like in that space of, wow, thank God I've learned already how to, you know, be compassionate and kind to the other person and to myself so that I can have a healthy divorce. And that's really when I do work with people going through divorce, it's like, well, how can you have a healthy, loving divorce? Firstly, for yourself, because you will heal so much quicker And secondly, if you've got children, you know, how can you honor that? How can you honor, you know, the father? And I know there's very difficult nuances around narcissistic relationships, abusive relationships, and all those type of things. So, you know, you might approach those slightly differently, um, but always coming from a space of love within yourself. Because ultimately, Janine, I'm sure you would agree with this, what we judge, we are creating more separation, and that judgment just comes back to ourselves and causes us, um, greater grief or suffering, doesn't it? Yeah, 100%. And I think also societally we're kind of conditioned into believing that you're meant to find one person and fall in love and stay together forever and stay married. And if you— if a relationship falls apart, you failed somehow. Yeah. With you, and you failed as a person, particularly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It simply isn't true. So that's why I people sometimes fall into that kind of, well, I need to blame someone because if something's failed and it's easier to blame another, another person because obviously blame feels better than guilt. So yeah, people either blame themselves and fall into that trap of guilt and beat themselves up, or they blame the partner, which is when they get angry and want to project. Yeah. Because we're kind of taught that there's something wrong when actually sometimes we just meet someone at a point in our life and that person's right for them. And yeah, part of the journey, and you can just grow apart, and you can— because I just think you learn something from everyone that you're with, and not everyone's forever, and that's okay. And I think we need to— yeah, okay with that. Like, yeah, you started your, um, your journey of your training, and your relationship probably ended because you probably became a very different person by the end of those 6 years working on yourself. Absolutely. Yeah, he was so resistant to psychotherapy to, to doing any work to— I think we did go to couples counseling for a short while, but it wasn't, um, very productive for us. But I think, you know, you're absolutely right. What you're saying there is that we used to marry for very different reasons. What women— you know, women weren't— didn't have bank accounts, didn't have jobs, they didn't have their own money, they weren't allowed to vote, all these different things. And so now we marry for very different reasons. And, um, it's very likely you're going to have 2 or 3 significant relationships in own lifetime, as opposed to the old, uh, sort of model of you get married, that, you know, there's this one person out there who's going to bring you all your joy, your love, and etc. And actually, it's really you are the one. You are the one. And who you are being, how you're loving yourself, how you treat yourself, is how you are telling other people they can treat you. And this is the thing why, you know, you mentioned about like you know, we tend— it's easier to blame. Well, the thing is, the problem with blaming and judging other people is we don't take responsibility. And when we're not taking responsibility, the power is outside of ourselves, as opposed to, you know, having that power. And when we're talking about power, I'm not talking about like this forceful power. I'm talking about— you can lift a car. Yes, which you probably could if you had the need to. But yeah, no, it's this innate power that resides in all of us, all of us, man and woman, where we have this inner knowing, this truth, this place with deep, deep, deep inside of us, you know, this, this unlimited source of love and wisdom. And, and when you're living your life from that place within you, yeah, and when you're making decisions and you're making choices from that place, then life's very different and you are at home. And this is the point, I think, that so many men and women, you know, because I work— I do work with, with a lot of men, and I love it when men come for coaching, particularly after a breakup, because they're willing to look at themselves and say, okay, you know what, what, what part did I play in this? And that's so important because we want more conscious men out there in the world. It's not— we don't just want the women to do all the work, but it's that whole thing about when you're coming back home to that when you've been in a relationship and you've lost yourself, you've abandoned yourself, you've spent years people pleasing, putting everybody else's needs before your own, disconnected to your own needs, not even knowing what you want. And then you're miserable and you're lost and you just think, who am I? Which I've been in that space. I don't know about you, Janine. Have you, have you ever felt like that? I've been in that space. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And when, and when you then come back to, okay, what part of this am I responsible? How can I, how can, what do I need? What am I looking for? How did I set myself up to, to be in a relationship with someone who treats me really badly? That is power. That is, that is what I'm talking about when I say like reclaiming your power, reclaiming your truth and your voice and, and starting to honor you in a, in a very, you know, authentic way, um, that feels aligned and true. So that's really the work I do. That's a really nice distinction because people get confused by what having power is, because sort of stereotype of power is, it's quite masculine actually, because obviously historically most of our leaders and people we look up to have been men. Women are coming to the forefront now, but, and, and I think initially women started to emulate men, so sort of to be empowered was also almost quite aggressive. Yes, masculine. But that's not empowered. I think that's the opposite of empowered because you're still not being your true authentic self. I think women are just starting to learn actually feminine power is incredibly powerful. I think way more powerful than masculine energy for a woman to emanate feminine energy. Yeah. Yeah. You can be powerful without being loud and brash and aggressive. Yeah. And women have been struggling to find that. I think, I think everything's changing now. People are becoming a bit more aware. But I think initially women would step up to be leaders and they'd be in competition with men. Yeah. And then women get a bit lost and burnt out because you can't maintain that kind of energy. Yeah. And persona for too long because it's just not who we are. It's not what we're built for. Yeah. It's like more of a forceful energy that you like. I think women adapted a forceful approach with our shoulder pads in the '80s and stuff like that. I remember wearing them. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, so, so, so it's really interesting, this whole thing about like empower— power. See, I look at power and I— one of the ways— let me describe it this way. Um, you know, when we're going through a difficult time, like, difficult times are actually there for us to grow and evolve. So you might be going through a conflict, whether it's, you know, a career, you know, there's a lot of women that get bullied in their careers that, you know, have a huge amount of conflict around, um, the people they work with, or, you know, even, even in female relations, female sort of relationships and career paths and all these different things. So it could be something like that, or it could, you know, you could be having issues in your marriage, you could be in relationship and you don't want to leave the relationship, but you don't know how to deal with it. And what comes up is, is lots of emotions and feelings that traditionally we don't know how to sit with and be with. And so what we do as women, you know, we might be doing it in a very positive way. We might exercise it, which is great. You know, it's a more healthy way. We might drink it, we might eat it, we might numb on Netflix, we, we might shop it. You know, we do, we've got lots of strategies. Or we might avoid, just completely avoid it. We might numb, we might disassociate. If we come from trauma backgrounds, we disassociate, we numb out. Lots of things that we can do, but we're still not learning how to be with the emotion. Now, being really empowered is learning how to sit with all that emotion, that real difficult emotion, and actually in the sitting with it, the being with it, the connecting, like having a deeply connected relationship with your sadness, with your grief, with your, your fears and your loneliness, and being able to transform that energy, that is when you're really in your power. So in a difficult relationship, being able to sit and have those difficult conversations without making the other person wrong or yourself wrong, but actually like, well, this is, this is what it is, and I really want to do some work to change that. And coming from a place, a space within yourself where you can sit and be with that. That's what I talk about when I talk about power. And, and, and that's why you're more— you're so much more embodied. You can hold that energy as opposed to try to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling as quickly as possible. Let me get my phone out and scroll down Instagram and look at all the pretty pictures and all the funny reels. But actually I'm really uncomfortable inside myself. And that's, that's where we disown our power. That's in my mind. That's what happens. Yeah. I think we're taught that having negative emotions is wrong. Yeah, absolutely. We are. And let's be honest, it doesn't feel great. It doesn't feel great to be in pain or grief or hurt or anger or whatever's going on. No. And, and we're taught it's wrong. So we want to hide it from other people. Yeah. Hide it from ourselves and bury it deep. Yeah. Ignore it. Yeah. Yeah, just anesthetize with the things. Yeah, absolutely. There's so much shame, you know, it's really funny. That's the word, I think. Yeah, there's a lot of shame around it and I didn't realize it myself, but, you know, like, so I trained as a psychotherapist and I was, you know, I was coaching. And funny enough, when I got married in my life, life, talk about the body, you know, telling you, I started having panic attacks when I, when I got married in my first marriage. And at the time I was training, I was in my psychotherapy training. I was, I worked corporate, I worked for a property company. I had quite, you know, quite a senior job in a property company. And I was getting every day traveling from just outside Wimbledon on the train. And I, and this, and I'd start getting, and I traveled all my life on the train and the tube, didn't have a problem with it. And I started getting these, like, what I didn't know were panic attacks. So I started getting this anxiety attack, then I'd get like full-blown panic attack on the train. And in my mind I was thinking— and it started when I, I had a cough, and it— and, and, and then I would get embarrassed coughing on the train, and then I'd start to panic because maybe like I thought I wanted to cough on the train these days, can you? No, God knows, you definitely couldn't grow up. Maybe I was psychic and I saw something coming. But then what started to happen, you see, this is, this is the interesting thing. I started to feel these sensations in my body, and then I start having these thoughts, and the thought was I like, oh my God, what if this happens? What if this? What if, what if I show myself up? What if I embarrass myself? What if I wet myself? Because then I started wanting to go to the toilet. And before I knew it, I mean, it's crazy. I was, I was like 26, 27, you know, which at the time I consider myself most mature. You know, I started having all these thoughts and feelings, and then I'd think, I've just got to get off the train, got to get off the train. And I associated everything that was going on in my body to the train. And then I, and then I'd get on a plane, and then, and I traveled all my life on planes, love traveling, spent, you know, backpacking around Asia and all that sort of stuff. And, um, and then before I knew it, I had this, um, this panic attacks. But I felt so much shame about it. I felt like I didn't tell anybody. It was like this secret that I had, which we all know if you've got a secret, it feels bigger and bigger, magnetizes. And today we talk about these things, we talk about mental health, we, you know, there's a hundred and thousand one memes around anxiety, which is wonderful because we're so much more aware of these problems. But I remember I felt so much shame, and I think, you know, when we feel shame, it really affects our identity. And so a lot of the problems we face in life, we associate shame to them, and it literally can paralyze us and keep us stuck. And I'd love to really destigmatize these things because I think It's so important. It's just part of our evolution and our growth. And, and we're supposed to have experiences that help us grow. It's not, we're not supposed to have them. So yeah, we got to stop being, you know, thinking we have to be positive all the time. We're allowed to have all the feelings we have. That's what makes us human. It's interesting that you sort of sharing then you sort of catastrophizing and making it bigger. And it's like the mind, our minds are so powerful to the point that he's actually having a physiological effects on you. Yeah. And then you create almost like a sort of base-level phobia really of traveling. So each time you went on, you were straight into that, you had that association with travel and planes and trains and straight— yeah, gets more and more and more. Yeah, it's absolutely— I find this absolutely fascinating. And, and you know, it went on for years and I did a number of different things. So, you know, one of the things I did after I went to UPW, I, I I was actually— then went on to go to Hawaii with Tony Robbins and do his Life Mastery program. And I thought, how am I going to fly to Hawaii? I can't get on a plane on my own, you know, like. So I went in the London Eye and, and made myself go round in the London Eye on my own. And I did lots of NLP work on this phobia, and I actually, I actually got rid of it. I got rid of it. But then when I had my first child, and I think what happened in the birth, what we now know about like our nervous system, dysregulated nervous system, all this sort of thing started happening. And, and then the panic started coming back because I used to— I moved, I lived in South Africa then, had to fly back to London on my own with a small baby. And then the panic and all these things started to come back. And what I've since learned is I've had a very dysregulated nervous system because I grew up in quite an aggressive, violent family background, you know, environment when I was very young. And so that dysregulated my nervous system. But I— we didn't know anything about this back in 1996, which is why going back to our original thing about talking therapy, is not always the best thing for someone because they could be sitting there re-talking about an event that happened in their life, and in that moment their nervous system is completely dysregulated. And what they need are tools and skills to help them regulate their nervous system before they can do that, that work on themselves. So I keep being re-associated to that trauma. Yeah. And the body and the mind— the body doesn't know you're not going through it in that moment. So you'll be exactly— and it's just layering it and making it more, more and more harder to compact. And yeah, so yeah, you keep activating your trauma basically. Yeah, yeah. Which is why— this is why you can wait. You can be sitting there watching a movie and you see something in a movie that literally can activate your own trauma within you. Because if it's a good movie, that's the movie's designed to put you in there, isn't it? And so, you know, you keep watching things and this is why, you know, we talk about men and porn. It's not good for them. Constantly watch it because they think that that's the only way that they can, you know, feel good about themselves and have sex and stuff. And then they project that we should be porn stars in bed and all this stuff. So, you know, we're just changing the topic here, you know. It's fascinating. I think, like, you know, we, we as humans are so fascinating. We, we forget the miracle that we are. You know, and so much is going on without us knowing it that that's why we suddenly get triggered and we think we were fine, we left the house, we were fine, and we, we might see someone and they look, remind us of someone, and suddenly we think, why am I feeling like I feel? I felt fine like 10 minutes ago or something, you know. You're saying that I was just in Marbella with a girlfriend, came back, and then we got chatting to some guys, we're both single, and she quite fancied one of them, and she, and it's quite tall, I quite like quite tall guys, I'm quite tall. I thought you would have fancied him. And I went, nope, he looked exactly like an ex-boyfriend of mine. I just could not. And it was just that, just because he looked, he was nothing like that person, but he looked like that person. I was like, nope, absolutely no way would I go anywhere near him. Yeah. Well, it is funny, but you know, and also talking about like manifesting, you know, like, man, I'm a big believer of intentions and manifesting and focus and all that sort of being in the emotion of what you want to create, etc. And when I, I trained as a Calling in the One coach after my second divorce because I was in my 40s and I was like, I'm never gonna find love again. And I was like, I knew that wasn't true, but I kind of felt it in my heart because I, I, one, I'd been heartbroken, and two, and two, I like really felt my second husband was my soulmate. And so I thought, I'm gonna train in this profound program about how to find love. And, and what was really interesting when I was you know, really focusing on the type of man that I wanted to be with and the energy of him. I was watching, binge-watching Grey's Anatomy with Patrick Dempsey in, and, and it's so funny. McDreamy. McDreamy, yeah, McDreamy. So it's so funny, right, because my partner, he's, he's a lot, he's a lot older than obviously Patrick Dempsey was in that, in that show, but he does remind me. He's got the thick hair like McDreamy. He's extremely tall. He's not a doctor, he's a tax consultant, But he's got that same energy and vibe. And, and, um, and I was just like, you know, that whole— the power of the mind, the power that we really have within us to create life, to create the, you know, what we want. Um, it may not always come in the shape or form that we think it's going to come in, but actually, you know, we are so powerful. And I love reminding people of that. Like, if we— like, I think our job as coaches is to see people as powerful. To see, you know, to see the people in our lives as powerful and to, when we do that, then it holds, it helps, you know, elevate people up, doesn't it? Yeah. Cause I think, yeah, it's easier to see the truth of someone and see their heart when you're separate from their emotions and the things that then the dramas and everything that they're going through in their life that, you know, we all go through. It's a lot easier to see in someone else, especially if that's what you do. I think really we see the truth. We see the truth of who someone is and then just help them, you know, hold up the mirror to them and say, this is actually who you are. Yeah, yeah. You're not the story. Like, I think often we, we've all been there. I've been there. We get stuck in, you know, a victimized story about, you know, whether it's, you know, you've got no money or, you know, looking at the economic climate at the moment, you know, it would be easy to get stuck in a story that there's no money out there, that, that, you know, life is hard everything's difficult. And if, if you, if you're constantly surrounding yourself with that information, with that, with that story, then before you know it, you're playing a part, you know, in that role, aren't you, of that story? Yeah. And it's not true because if you actually look around, there's abundance of wealth in the world. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. Same with relationships. There's an abundance of love and amazing people. And I, I hear women, particularly men sometimes, will say, oh, there's no good men out there, all the good men have gone, and they're sort of perpetuating that belief within themselves. And, and I think you're never gonna find a relationship if you, if you believe there isn't, you know, if you keep telling yourself there's no good people out there. Yeah, no, well, you just, you'll attract people that aren't good, and, and that reinforces your story because you think, oh, look at the type of people I'm attracting. And whereas if you believe that, that you're an amazing person, that you're, you're, you've got a lot to give and bring to a relationship, then you're going to attract that, that to you. Exactly. And even if you, I think if you're in that space where you've not healed and you're not ready, even if someone amazing comes into your life, you can't see it and you can't see them because you, yeah, open, you just shut down. You'll probably, yeah, probably repel them because it would probably, I think, trigger, trigger you because I think to allow loving, you've got to be vulnerable. Yeah, absolutely. You've not healed and you're still hurting or feeling like you need to protect yourself from a past relationship or breakup. To have that, your heart reopen like that and be in that vulnerable space is scary. It is. Yeah, it's very scary. And it's like, you know, it's whatever the unconscious blocks are within you. So, you know, when you go back to spiritual psychotherapy, most people will notice there are patterns. Or like if they have the awareness, they start to notice, well, that's very similar to my last relationship, or that problem that I've got, you know, with, with this person at work is similar to the set— the problem that I have with XYZ. Or there, there will be, you know, some people will be actually having the same argument over and over in their marriage and they don't know how to evolve it. It's because it's the pattern. It's— there's a part of you that's unconscious to it, and the pattern will keep on stacking up and get bigger and bigger, louder and louder. Until you address it. And it's the— it's the— it's the having the courage, the vulnerability to actually be more intimate with yourself. And the— and the— the pattern or the problem, whatever it is, will actually bring relationships to a deeper level of intimacy. And I think most relationship problems are intimate— intimacy problems because of the fact that we don't want to be seen fully for who we are because we hold— but going back to the shame, we hold shame about something that happened in our lives that we associate— it makes us a bad person, makes us unlovable. And usually that story that we've got around it is false. And so you've got what we call a false love identity based on your perception about yourself because of something that may have happened you know, either in childhood or, you know, you know, in teenage years. But there's usually always various different things, and then you keep stacking that problem. And life wants you— like, you know, actually, life, Spirit wants you to evolve into your wholeness. It wants you to come back home to your, your truth, your ever-loving presence that's always within you, but you're disconnected from it. And so that's why we keep having problems in our lives. So how would you get someone to reconnect to that part of themselves? Um, well, there's a couple of ways to do it. Um, you know, so, so the way I tend to work is, uh, you know, there's having the awareness around what is the block, what is that part of you. And I get, I get my— when I'm working with clients, I get them to, you know, if they're open to it and if they don't have trauma, um, I would get them to connect with you know, talking about— so they'd be talking about it like we are now. And then I might ask, well, how does that feel in your body? You know, let's invite them to close their eyes and connect with the feeling and let that part of them, so the uncomfortable part, speak. And then what we do, we'd actually resource them into the loving presence within them. And one of the ways we can do that is helping them to connect to memories of acceptance, memories of love, gratitude. Doesn't have to be a person, it can be a place or a time, a favorite place, where out and usually out in nature is a really good way because most people can anchor into like that and then really get drop into that feeling in their body. How do they feel it in their body? What does that feel like? And it's, it's always a more expansive feeling. Whereas when we're feeling that disconnection, difficult, you know, more painful, uncomfortable feelings, we tend to feel a contraction, we tend to feel tension in our body. So it's helping clients to feel those two different parts, and then we do work about bringing the two parts together. And essentially what we're doing, that loving presence, that sort of more expansive part of you is like your, your spiritual side, your soul, whatever, but it's also the more adult mature part of you. And then the bit that usually has the, all the wounded stories is the inner child. So, you know, there's different languaging about how you might language those parts. But you're bringing the two parts together and essentially teaching someone how to re-parent that younger part of them that felt lost, that felt alone, that felt afraid, that didn't— wasn't able to express themselves. And then when they start having that dialogue with themselves, the two parts become integrated and they have much more access to the whole of them. So you're making them whole. Yeah, yeah, it's about coming back to your wholeness. Yeah, and it's fascinating because we can make a decision when we were 5 years old, say, because something happened, and unconsciously that's sat there in our subconscious at the back and it's running the show, and we're not even aware. Absolutely. Why we keep perpetuating, perpetuating the same pattern with someone. Yeah. Or we have a relationship that, I don't know, broke down, and then the next person does or says something similar to what the other person said, so we immediately go back to that, I think. 'Oh, this is bad, they're like that person,' when actually their intention of why they're saying it could be completely different to what the other person is doing or saying. Or they haven't responded to a message within 3 seconds, so that means that they don't love me. Or, you know, people, you know, and it's absolutely, absolutely— probably just in the gym or something, or they're just at work. Yeah, but, but that comes from— so someone, you know, that's, that's, you know, desperate, you know, you're dating or you want your partner to respond to you immediately. And, you know, that comes from the inability to— one, like, like maybe like as a child your needs weren't met as and when you needed them. Not through bad parenting, just because parents are busy. Parents have lots of pressures. Parents, you know, my parents were— they had 3 children by the time they were 20. That's crazy. You know, they were, they were children themselves. They hadn't adulted at all and integrated their adult self. You know. Um, and I— my daughter made me laugh the other day. She's nearly 18 and, um, she's, uh, films— she wants to go into film and television and she's studying at college and she finished, so she's going into her second year. And she, she decided in her first year, I'm not, I'm not going to university, uh, I'm gonna get out in the world after my second year. I want to get straight into the industry, which I think is good for the film industry. Anyway, she came home the other day and she said, Mom, changed my mind. I'm not ready to adult, to go into adulting yet. I'm going to do a third year at my college. And I was like, good for you. Like, I was like, you know, let's— she's not ready to go out there into the big world. But, you know, I let— it's great that she acknowledged that. And yeah, about herself. Yeah, she knew it. Like, she's like, yeah. And I love that because I use that phrase, adulting. Like, you know, you're adulting, like, sort of thing. And I don't think I'm ready for adulting yet. May we always not be ready to— oh yeah, I can't— I love your cup. I can't— you've got a cup saying I can't adult today. Perfect. Yeah, isn't it? Like, we've got to be connected to that, that younger energy, that youthful energy. But what happens in relationships particularly, you know, it's often when we're triggered It's the younger part of us that's triggered and responds. And let's think about it, the younger part doesn't have the capacity and the wisdom and the learning and the rationale. Yeah, because when we're 3 or 4 or 5 or 7 and someone tells you something, you know, we just don't have the words even. Yeah. And then what happens? Our brain hasn't even formed to even understand what's truly going on. Yeah, exactly. And then when we're in our adult relationship, and our partner says something to us, we— it's not, it's not our mature 35-year-old woman, or in my case, 54-year-old woman responding. It's the young 5-year-old in us saying, I want to do what I want to do. Yeah, I want to play with my toys. I don't want to eat those, that food. You know, it's like literally that. And we, we think to ourselves sometimes, what happened? Like, what happened? It happened so quickly. And it is literally— and also, if you've, if you've grown up where you're you know, parents didn't have the capacity to respond to your needs or to your emotions, and you're told— I mean, the amount of people I have tell me, you know, as adults, I'm too sensitive. And I said, well, I said, well, tell me what, like, what, tell me what, what that means. Like, who, what, where does that stem from? What does that come from? Well, you know, I've got too many difficult emotions. Well, tell me about that. Well, I've been— my partner keeps telling me that I feel too much. You're supposed to feel. Really, your partner is uncomfortable with your feelings because he hasn't learned, or she hasn't learned, how to be with her feelings. And therefore they want you to feel okay and be okay because they are discomfort— uncomfortable. But it may stem from, from parenting where their parent told them, don't cry, stop that crying, you know, because the parent themselves didn't know how to be with difficult feelings. I think men were particularly told that. I think the younger generations come up now, it's a bit different, but it is back, but like with our parents and, and people are like 40s, 50s, late 30s now, you were taught as a boy not to cry and not to show emotions. And then women were sort of taught too. So then if you've got a heterosexual relationship, man and a woman coming together, it's like someone's speaking Chinese and someone's speaking French. Like, yeah, men are like, emotions are wrong, and women are like, well, emotions are real. True. And yeah, no wonder they're clashing and not understanding each other. Yeah, they've had two completely conflicting stories, you know. Absolutely. And if someone's been told you're too much, well, what do you think happens? You dim your light. Yeah, because you think, I, oh, I can't be like that, I've been told I'm too much, too powerful. Women are not allowed to be powerful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you'll dim yourself, dim your light, and you'll people-please, and you'll do all these things that are most uncomfortable to you, but they give you some comfort because it starts to create a bit of normality around you and you, you know, things go more smoothly and there's less conflict and all that sort of stuff. And so that becomes the new norm for you until the point where it becomes really uncomfortable to people-please constantly, you know, or to suppress everything about yourself in order to make somebody else feel— and, you know, we're in this, you know, I don't know if you've noticed, um, but, you know, for the last couple of years um, you know, there's a lot more narcissistic people out there. Yeah. Now here's the thing, where have they all come from? Were they always there? We just suddenly noticed. Well, I think it's called Instagram and memes being shared and people learning. And I'm all for people learning about psychology, and there's some fantastic psychology out there, etc., etc. I think it's passed around a lot though, and people don't really understand what it truly means. Yeah, but here's the thing, this is the thing. This is what people don't understand, and, and then this is, is, you know, it's not spoken about a lot, and I'm gonna, you know, put my head up there really loud and say it. If you are in a narcissistic relationship, get help for starters. Yeah. And you cannot be in a narcissistic relationship unless the part of you abandons yourself. Yeah. So what I mean by that is at some point you abandoned your own truth, your inner knowing, um, because something about the narcissistic person was, you know, they, they love bombed you, and that may have— you may have thought there was a bit of you. Usually this is really interesting. So love bombing is a, is a narcissistic trait. Someone who's got a proper narcissistic disorder, they will love bomb, and the person that receives the love bombing, there's the bit of them that actually usually will always go— oh, this doesn't feel quite right, but they ignore it. So that's what I mean, you abandon your own inner knowing because it's nice to receive all these gifts and all these compliments and all these things, even though there's the bit of you that feels— this feels like a bit not quite right. You know that somewhere. And then there'll be various other ways, you know, you abandon yourself. You, you don't say, oh, I would like to do this, and you go along with all the visions of the narcissistic person who's now— you suddenly like, oh my God, I'm in a relationship with a narcissist. Yes. And, and I say this compassionately without judgment, yes, it's because there was a part of you that dismissed your own needs, dismissed. And so you've attracted in somebody who's reflecting back to you something that you need to evolve within yourself. And, and no, it's, it's horrible. I mean, like I, I deal with women every day, and some men actually, who have been in very narcissistic relationships. And the abuse is horrible, and the way, you know, you become so undermined, you become a shadow of yourself. And there's a lot of work to be done to rebuild. And it's, you know, it's not your fault. And when you— but that's coming back to the powerful bit. When you can see, uh, do you know what, yeah, this is the bit where I actually gave my power to that narcissistic person. That in itself helps you to, you know, start to reclaim your, your own power. But so no, I don't think there's like suddenly everyone is a narcissist. I do think there's narcissistic people with various degrees of narcissistic traits. Yeah. And all those relationships are an opportunity for us to step back and look, okay, what do I need to evolve? How do I need to grow? What boundaries do I need to put in place? You know, what stand do I need to make for myself about my own value and how I value myself? And they are difficult, like they're difficult conversations to, and difficult to look at yourself. And there's huge growth when someone does that work, that inner work. They'll create different, healthier, healthier, loving relationships. Yeah. And it's interesting. I think, I think a couple of things happen, like typically the narcissistic, like a true proper narcissistic person, um, they're kind of like, you know, energy vampires is another way of describing them, but they like, they feed off you. So when you cut the supply and they can't feed, they're kind of like, they'll try for a little bit, but if they don't get managed to sort of like hoover you back in, then they'll go and find— they literally will go and find another feed, which is why, you know, particularly if it's a relationship person, they usually will get into a new relationship very quickly. And for the person that, you know, has been in that relationship with them, that's a shock for them because they think, well, immediately go, well, did our love not mean anything? Did I not mean anything? Because, because they are wounded in the way they see themselves, and that self-worth is so diminished often, you know. It's a lot of self-worth issues that has to be worked on. But also in, in, in like the friendships, I think, I think, you know, I've, I've had this with you know, a friendship that broke down. I wouldn't say she was, she was a narcissist, but she was very self-centered. And it was a friendship that I'd had for a long, long period of time and deeply, like, really loved the person enormously. It was one of my, my bestest friends. Um, and what I found is I obviously, as a coach and someone that's done a lot of work on themselves, I'm always willing to take responsibility for my part in something and to apologize and to make things things were. And also, I'm on the Enneagram, I'm a peacemaker and a caretaker. So my personality on the Enneagram would be like, yeah, like solve problems, make peace with things. And then we just had this upset once, and, um, part of it was my fault, and I took responsibility for the part of that I was involved in it. And I had this real conversation, I said, look, this is what I think happens with us, and, and, you know, we've both been single for a long time, and I think we're projecting onto each other And, you know, she'd had therapy, so she knew what I was talking— wasn't like anything I was saying was completely— and then I said, look, you know, one of the things that's really upset me about our relationship is when we've had upsets, I've been always the one that's come back and apologized and all this sort of thing. Anyway, she just went, oh, it's all about— that's all about you, it's nothing to do with me. I was literally blown away. And then I— and I literally just— I, I mean, when I look back at it now, because some people might go, well, you, you kind of ghosted her. I just, I just stepped back and I thought, well, you know what, if the relationship is important, she'll come to me and say, look, you know, apologize. She, you know, because I said to her, I've been upset, we've had upset, you've never ever once apologized. I wrote her handwritten letters and she'd never like even, even acknowledged them. Now some people might say, well, that's, that's slightly not— I don't think she was narcissistic. I just think she was, she had, she had difficulty in one, apologizing. But, but, you know, and in the end, and it's caused me a lot of like— I'm surprised I'm talking about this actually, but it has caused me, I And I think this is the thing, we can have relationships and sometimes, you know, you said like not all relationships are meant to be forever. And I think we have a lot of attachment. We think we're more successful when we have a relationship that spanned a long period of time. And, you know, that relationship spanned 27 years. And there's a bit of me that goes, she's the person that's known me the longest in my life apart from my sisters or my parents, you know, and, and there is a sadness around that. And we have to be okay with letting things go because other beautiful doors open. And funny enough, like, I made some amazing friends after that relationship ended. And I think when we no longer, you know, when we make a stand for our own value and our own worth, and we come back to our authentic truth, and we say, actually, I'm not comfortable with being treated like that, whether it's, you know, a family member, whether it's a work colleague, a friendship, or intimate partner, then And making that stand, we then— they, they do, they drop away. And other things, we invite beautiful, more enriching, nurturing, nourishing, loving relationships into our lives. And to me, that's worth the work, you know. It's worth doing the inner work to create that, even though it's difficult and painful and there can be a lot of grief around it. I think that's really important for people to hear that, because when you're letting people go you kind of have that fear there'll be a void and there'll be less love. Or if you're letting a relationship go, I've heard people say, well, there's no one else for me. It has to be that person. I could never love anyone else again. No one else would love me like— it's not true, but it's— it— we can, like, you know, when people make that story up, it's just fear-based. It's just afraid. If they actually trust and let go and heal, the next person that comes in, if they've healed and done the work, will actually be right and will have a love and a connection and, you know, maybe bring in a different kind of relationship that never even could be or could exist. Yeah, absolutely. It's that little bit of, can you be with the unknown? Can you be with the space? And I think this is why it comes back to like, how are you with yourself? You know, how are you? Can you sit in silence and like I love it. Nothing more than if a plan— someone rings me up and says, I can't do that, and I'm just like, okay, cool, that's amazing, no problem. Like, yeah, because I just sort of think I've got free time to do something with myself or to do like, you know, paint. Or I think that's the difference between being older and being in your 20s. Well, I think it's— I think it's the difference. Yeah, the difference with being okay with being okay with yourself. Yeah, because I know it's that thing about, you know, being like, can you— are you— there's a difference between feeling lonely and being on your— and being alone. Yeah. And that feeling of loneliness where you just feel like there's no one there for you, you feel deeply disconnected from other people. Well, what I would say is it's probably mirroring how connected you are with yourself, your true self, not that false You can feel that even if you're surrounded by people as well. You can feel it. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure anyone listening maybe, maybe felt that in their life as well. Absolutely. You can be in a marriage and feel so alone. Yeah, yeah. And lonely in your marriage because that person is disconnected and you're disconnected from them. Yeah. And then, and then, and the starting point of that is start connecting with yourself. Like, start sitting quietly for 5 minutes, maybe meditating start doing something that you really enjoy, whether it's walking or exercising or painting or crafting or whatever, you know, do something, cooking a lovely meal for yourself where you feel connected to yourself, putting on some music and dancing around the lounge or something, you know, there's so many things that we can do to start to connect back to ourselves and deepen that connection to our own loving presence. And when we do that, we will start to have better connections with other people. 100%. I think also we need to take that pressure off the other person to fulfill us. Yeah. And, you know, if they love me, they should know XYZ, or they should buy me flowers, or they should want to go dancing with me, or whatever it is. It's like, go dancing with your friends, buy yourself flowers. The other person doesn't have to do that. The other person isn't responsible for your happiness. Yeah. You feel loved. You are, they can add to your life and your happiness. Yeah, absolutely. If you're looking for— it's just too much pressure, and they can never live up to your ideal expectations in your mind, because first of all, they don't know what they are. No. And they've got— and if they've got their road and you've got yours, you're just gonna have conflict because you're constantly going to feel let down by the other person. It's not their responsibility. So I think it's really good that, you know, you're working with people to teach them how to be empowered and have that in themselves so that they can have a relationship. Yeah, and, and I'm, I'm a huge advocate, and I do it in all the work that I do, um, compassionate self-forgiveness. And, you know, the judgments— it goes back to the judgments. We often end up going into an internal, um, downward spiral of self-criticism, self-judgment. And it's, it's when we're— where if you notice, if you have the ability to notice or the awareness, oh, that's what I'm doing. You know, one simple thing anyone listening can start to do is literally get a piece of paper and write down what is the story and look for the judgments. Like, what are you making wrong about yourself? What are you making wrong about the other person? Can you give us an example? So then, yeah, yeah. So, so it might be, you know, I'm not good enough. Like, I always get things wrong, it's always my fault, I'm to blame, there's something wrong with me. When we've noticed that negative self-talk and that inner criticism, what we want to do is like go into compassionate self-forgiveness. So, so beautiful statements that you can use, and, and this is what I love to do, like put your hand on your heart, and then if you actually rub your heart, you're going to start to release some oxytocin. So just really, and also putting your hand on your heart is called almost like a handbrake. It stops all the— helps to stop the negative, the negative, um, hormones being flooded in your body and starts to release oxytocin. You rub it and let's just say to yourself, I forgive myself for buying into the misunderstanding that— and whatever little sentences you've got— that I'm not good enough. I forgive myself for buying into the misunderstanding I'm not pretty enough. I forgive myself for buying into the misunderstanding that I'm too needy. And then, then the next statement is, the truth is— and just like really just pause for a moment— what is your truth? Because often, yeah, like, the truth is I am enough. Like, the truth is actually I do have needs, and I have healthy needs, and it's okay to have needs, and I'm a human being, I have needs, you know. And it's learning, you know, it's learning to connect to that deeper truth and that wisdom within you. And the more you do that, just even that simple exercise of, of just dropping in and, you know, being compassionate with yourself, it's going to open your heart and you're going to be more compassionate with other people. Um, but also you're gonna, you're gonna access more of yourself, you know, with yourself as well. Yeah, yeah. And you're going to start to integrate some of that, those judgments, and not have such a sort of like a like, um, it's almost like in your face. I just, I just did it then as you were talking, and I was doing it. It feels quite safe and secure when you do that. Yeah, it feels like you're kind of almost holding yourself. It's quite— yeah, yeah, yeah, powerful actually. It is, it is. Yeah, because it will help to soothe your, um, your parasympathetic nervous system. You know, most of us are walking around with dysregulated nervous systems. And the more we can do— and lots of different tools work differently, uh, for different, for different people. Like, that's why, you know, someone might do a breathing pattern and it doesn't work for them. And whereas, you know, a lot of, like, so a lot of the tools that I give clients because they're going through stress and, and emotional uncertainty, you know, this, this thing where— a really simple one, if anyone's listening— you just take your hands, put them in front of you. So put your hands in front of you as if you're looking at them. Cross them over, so different hand on each shoulder. Put your feet on the floor. It's best to do sitting down. And literally, you, you lift one hand up on one shoulder and then slowly the next one, and slowly, slowly lifting each one up each time. They call this a butterfly hug. And so you're literally raising your shoulders and you're, as you put, tapping down on your shoulders, pressing on your shoulders a little bit. So it's almost like you're comforting yourself. And you just sit there, close your eyes, do that for a minute, or keep your eyes open if you're really activated. Keep your eyes open and then just, just some regular breathing, natural breathing. And then slowly, when you've done it for a minute or two, just come down, bring your arms down, like your hand down your arms to your, um, elbows all the way. Then start squeezing your hands, squeeze your hands together, put your hands together, place them over your heart, and just give yourself a nice deep breath. Do you feel calmer, Janine? I do. Yeah, honestly, there's some like One minute, we did that one minute. I just did that as you talked us through it, and I do, I do feel very calm and centered. Yeah, it's such a simple thing, but it's really simple. Yeah, it's called a butterfly hug, and, um, there's lots of little practical, um, tools like that that you can start to— like, I— this is what I do with clients. I say, we hear it in you with the way you're speaking now. You— your energy and the way you're speaking feels calmer and more— yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I did it while you were doing it. Yes, but, but this is what I say, it's like when you put the kettle on, do something like that. When you, you know, when you've gone to the bathroom, anything that you do regularly throughout your day, if you can attach a simple somatic calming nervous system regulation practice into that, you know, waiting at the traffic lights or you're waiting for your children at school You know, these little things that you do every day, it will make a huge difference. People think, oh, I don't have time. Yeah, there's like, that's the common thing. I don't have time to meditate. Okay, maybe you don't have 20 minutes to meditate. And when you've got the kettle on, you could do something like that. You could do that. You could do a round of that. There's other little ones, and that could take you 3 minutes. I promise if you did that every day for a month, every time you put the kettle on, you will start to feel different in yourself. That's really, it's really powerful because you could do that just sitting in the car, or yeah, pop into the loo and do it there if you don't want someone to see what you're doing. Yeah, you do, you know, like you might be at dinner with someone and, or you're out for the evening, and perhaps going on a date. Going on a date, it's a perfect time. It's a perfect time if you're going on a date. I'm very much, yes, if 'If you're feeling a bit stressed while you're on your date, go into the bathroom.' You know, all these lists yourself down. Yeah, like, hello, hello darling, I really love myself. Exactly. You can add that little bit to it. You know, there's that thing I remember I went to, I think it was in Disney World or somewhere like that, um, and, um, I think actually it was Alton Towers, and I was coming out of the bathroom and I went to the mirror and the mirror just suddenly went 'Hello, you're looking so beautiful today.' And I was like, 'I want one of these for my bedroom.' I want one of those. That's brilliant. Yeah, it was so fantastic. We forget these things. We forget the self-talk. We forget to talk to ourselves in loving, kind ways. And if the more we do that, then the more we're opening ourselves up to, you know, love and to the truth, which we are all divine, loving beings. Like, that's the truth, really. That's what I believe. Yeah. And that is a perfect way to end the show. Maxine, absolutely so much for coming on. It's a pleasure. I could just keep talking to you for hours. So much fun. Oh, it's lovely to be here. Thank you for having me. And everyone listening, this was the Eat Love Do Show, um, on Women's Radio Station. Do follow us on our Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and YouTube channel. Like like and subscribe and keep listening 9 AM and 9 PM a week, and we'll see you next time, or you'll hear us next time.