Why You Stir Sh*t Up In Your Relationship EP 39

[00:00:00] Shanenn Bryant: The information on this podcast, or any platform associated with Top Self LLC, or the Top Self podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding your condition or treatment and before performing any of the activities or suggestions from this podcast.

[00:00:26] Podcast Introduction: Welcome to Top Self, the podcast dedicated to relax your mind, achieve change, and become a healthier, more present you. Are you ready to move past the daily anxiety, comparing and doubting yourself, and feeling like you're not enough? I'm your host, Shanenn Bryant, and I've ruined many good relationships because of my jealousy, and stayed way too long in some bad ones because of my insecurity.

[00:00:58] Podcast Introduction: But I stopped letting fear drive my actions, and now I can't wait to share with you as I dive into these emotions, shed light on how they might be impacting your life, and uncover strategies to break free from their grip. It's time to start living a life of confidence. So, get ready to ignite your self worth and transform your life, because my friend, you are worthy.

Continuing with the theme of control this month. That's what I've been honeing in on, control. 

Do you know that you might even be controlling when you argue? 

You might be controlling when you stir stuff up in your relationship. 

I live in the Midwest, so I'm used to tornado warnings, tornado watches, severe thunderstorms. And you've probably heard the phrase, "the calm before the storm." But just in case I'll give you a very quick little, probably not exactly accurate way that storms work.

Warm air is what fuels a storm, and as the storm moves, it pulls up warm, moist air from the atmosphere.

[00:02:12] Shanenn Bryant: That air then travels up through the clouds and it cools off and condenses as it's feeding that storm. Then it's pushed out of the top, making its way back down, getting warm and drier as it falls and as it covers an area, things start to, to calm down and to get quiet. Even the animals are sensitive.

[00:02:35] Shanenn Bryant: They can sense this change, and they'll go and take cover and hide furthering even the the silencing of that area. And this isn't always the case, that things get extremely quiet just before a storm, but certainly has been observed enough to generate that phrase that we use today.

[00:02:55] Shanenn Bryant: You may also feel like there is always a calm before the storm in your life. You may also be the shit stirrer that creates the storm! 

What? Not you. Not my friend. 

You wouldn't do something like that. Or would you?

[00:03:17] Shanenn Bryant: I am not the type of person that can hide my feelings very well. If I'm anxious or stressed, most likely you're going to know it.

[00:03:27] Shanenn Bryant: I wear my emotions on my sleeve and so much so at times I worry that the words I'm thinking are going to pop up on my forehead, like a teleprompter or something for everybody to read. I'm, I'm pretty dramatic overall, I would say. If I hit my funny bone, you can count on probably at least 30 to 45 seconds of me moaning and grabbing my arm and unintentionally causing a scene, but still very dramatic nonetheless. Unintentional or not. I'm very fast moving. I work fast. I clean the house fast. I eat fast, I drive fast. All of it. That's just, that's just me. It's just the way that I am. And so I'm sure you can imagine that I used to even ramp up more, even more drama and stir the pot just when things in my relationship were going well.

[00:04:27] Shanenn Bryant: Just when things were settling in, getting on a good track, they were calm, steady. Here I'd come with all my trauma and drama to start the show; to shake it up, kick up old crap and old arguments. I'd find new issues even that needed to be talked about. I would start a storm. And of course when I was doing it in the past, I didn't really know that I was doing it, and you may not know that you're doing it too, or you may not know why.

[00:05:03] Shanenn Bryant: There are a few reasons that you might be doing this. I'm gonna touch on three. The first one is from Talkspace. So, they say that you might be doing this because you're afraid to be happy. I one hundred percent agree with that. Maybe you grew up like me, where there wasn't ever really any calm, it was just not as horrible.

[00:05:27] Shanenn Bryant: Or at least it didn't ever feel calm because you were really maybe keen on the ups and downs of your environment, and you learn to understand that every up had this crashing down. And again, the up wasn't really all that up. It just wasn't as horrible as the down. 

[00:05:47] Shanenn Bryant: before my dad died in September, I remember sitting out on my back deck with my husband, talking to him about how grateful I was and. how, at that time, it had felt like the best time in our life. Like he and I were still going strong, super happy in a good place. Both his son and my son were doing really well. They were, you know, they're off starting their own careers. Both my parents and my in-laws were still alive and seemingly healthy. 

[00:06:24] Shanenn Bryant: I wanna say it probably was, I don't know… less than a week after that conversation that my dad died. 

[00:06:33] Shanenn Bryant: In the past, before I felt like I was worthy of love, before i felt like i was worthy of happiness, I would've said, "See, I knew it. That's why you don't think that kind of stuff." "That's why you should never get too happy."

[00:06:52] Shanenn Bryant: And believe it or not, I also would've had some guilt thinking that somehow I caused his death by having just recently been so happy that he was alive, like saying it out loud, thinking, oh, well, because I said it, because I was just happy, because I was just being grateful that I somehow caused it to happen.

[00:07:15] Shanenn Bryant: Like, I know it sounds bizarre, but I would have somehow found a way to feel guilty about it. So you may at times stir up drama because you're too afraid of being happy and worrying when is the other shoe gonna fall. 

So number one reason you stir stuff up when things are going well, and things are calm could be because you don't believe you deserve to be happy. 

[00:07:45] Shanenn Bryant: So, number two and number three are just my own theory. But I think another reason that I, and maybe you unintentionally stir up things when they're calm, because for me, I found calm to be boring. So, before I felt like that was boring. 

[00:08:04] Shanenn Bryant: If you grew up in a dysfunctional and chaotic environment like I did, the chaos is what I guess kept life spicy. Not that I enjoyed it, it's just what I learned. Always being on fire, always being big, always being in crisis mode. Something was always wrong. 

[00:08:26] Shanenn Bryant: So, as an adult when I wasn't in one of my bad boy relationships, that was already fueled with drama, but when I was in a different relationship that was calm and going, okay, that calm was uncomfortable to me because I was used to the chaos and life without chaos must be wrong.

[00:08:47] Shanenn Bryant: It doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like what I'm used to. Even though I wanted nothing more than to have a completely different life than the way I grew up. That felt weird. Calm felt weird. So, drama queen to the rescue here. I would come once again stirring up the storm. 

 So, if you're in the beginning of this journey and haven't done a lot of self-awareness yet and still really trying to figure out what life looks like in a different way, being different than the way you were raised. One of the reasons you might be stirring up a storm is because the calm feels boring. Maybe good and no drama and calm feels boring right now. 

[00:09:39] Shanenn Bryant: Reason number three, you might stir stuff up in your relationship, is that you don't believe that you can be a healthy present, calm you.

[00:09:52] Shanenn Bryant: You repeat the same frantic ways day after day, which creates your same results, which keeps you anxious and worried and filled with drama and all the things that are wrong. And thinking about all the things that could go wrong if this happens, if that happens. You keep your defenses up just in case and maybe you try to make changes sporadically, then you get frustrated when nothing's different.

[00:10:18] Shanenn Bryant: And just like you knew it would the other shoe fell. Yep. You were just waiting just like you knew it would for the other shoe to fall just like you knew it would. 

[00:10:33] Shanenn Bryant: You need to believe that you're worthy of love. You are worthy of change. You're worthy of a life of calm and happiness. Remind yourself every day that you're worth it, and gratitude is the absolute best thing to quiet the storm, in my opinion.

[00:10:53] Shanenn Bryant: Reminding yourself of what is good and how much good you do have and how valuable that actually is, makes it seem less boring. It'll start to bring those good days up to the same energy level as those chaotic days, and it makes things that you're grateful for stand out more so that you don't only remember the days when the other shoe does fall, like if you think that feels boring at first, pull in gratitude.

[00:11:23] Shanenn Bryant: Because then you can recall those times that you were giving gratitude for what that day brought you. 

So the next time you find yourself, maybe starting an argument, stirring up that storm when things have been going really well. Ask yourself first, is it because I feel like I don't deserve to be happy? 

Or. Is it that you still feel like this calm feels boring? It's uncomfortable. I'm not used to it. And I need to, I need to create some drama here. Could that be why you're starting that argument or stirring up that storm? Or could it maybe be that you don't believe that you can have a good relationship? You don't believe that you can be calm and feel relaxed and trust in a relationship? 

Ask yourself, could it be one of these three reasons? 

[00:12:22] Shanenn Bryant: Until next time, take care and remember, you're not alone.