Alright ladies, this is the moment where a lot of us women realise, oh shit, this explains so much! So you can actually start seeing why you've been shrinking, instead of beating yourself up and trying to keep on people pleasing, it also explains why you've been so stuck carrying expectation that weren't actually yours to begin with. Let's be honest, awareness alone actually doesn't change it. Because once you see the pattern, the real actual question becomes how the hell would you actually stop doing it and abandon yourself in real time? Well that's exactly what we're diving into in part 2. So in the next episode, Mindy's breaking down. How outside validation keeps you trapped and instead how to actually rebuild yourself worth from the inside out of these stop needing approval to feel okay and good about yourself. We also dive into why you keep choosing the one partners and the one dynamics. Now it's not a blame game. It's really about identifying how and why and then talking about how you can actually start to change your habit so that you can start trusting yourself to make different choices. And then finally we talk about the daily practices that actually rewire self trust. So speaking up, setting boundaries and honouring your needs so you can stop feeling terrified, these daily practices, step by step, by step, will help you slowly over time, feel fricking confident in who you are and what you think and what you stand for. So my homies, smash that fellow button, share this with a woman who's done putting herself last and I'll see you right back here in part two on women of impact. How do you then spot who a potentialist is in your circle? Well, here's the number one thing. They're excited about your wins. Right? How many women feel threatened when you expand? And so we keep ourselves small. A potentialist is like, oh my God, yes, I knew you could do it. And they celebrate your wins. So let's go back to my front desk. My front desk, those that girlfriend group could have been like, we're so inspired. We know that your weight has been a burden for so long. If they had been potentialists, that's what they would have said. But instead they made her feel guilty. They made her feel bad. And we do this as women. So how does that help shed? Let's say that you've still got, I've never chosen. I'm never chosen. Okay, so you walk around, you're like, I can't find anybody. Okay, I'm going gonna use my friend as an example. 58 years old, she's divorced, been divorced for 10 years, and she just started dating again. And she goes out on this one date, and she calls me and she goes, there must be something wrong with me. I feel like I shouldn't be in relationships. I'm never chosen. There's something wrong with me in relationships. And this date tonight became a mirror for that. Because on paper, this guy looked really great, but basically I'm never chosen. I'm not good in relationships. And I was like, stop right now. Because that's not the person I know. The person I know in the friendship with me, you're amazing. So that I'm never chosen, the potentialist will remind you how much, how many attributes you have that you should be chosen. And the places that you show up that you are amazing and that people should be wanting to hang out with you. And if someone doesn't choose you, they don't deserve you. They don't deserve you, though, as we perceive it as I don't deserve them. That's exactly right. So, you know what's really interesting about relationships that I like really started to understand this year is every relationship is a mirror. And so when you go into a relationship and you feel amazing, it's not the other person, it's the mirror they're holding up and you're seeing a version of you that you love. So like my friend who went out on the date, oh my god, we have so much fun together. So I reflected back to her like when you're with me, you're confident, you're clear, you're funny, you're smart, you're beautiful, and now you go out on a date and you come out and you're like, something's wrong with me. I want to hold the mirror up of what I see in you. That's a potentialist. Oh, you are a potentialist by the way. I think there is. Okay, so now you've got the last one which is the anchor. The anchor will just listen to you. So as women were verbal processors, and this is largely because we actually have a bigger corpus colosum, which brings our right and left hemispheres into every single decision that we do. And estrogen, by the way, stimulates this. So when we are menstruating and have full on estrogen, we walk around and we are like relational and logical. We're bringing both hemispheres all the time. We're like, I think we should do this, but is that okay for you? So we are always bringing both hemispheres. And so in using both hemispheres, we also are verbal processors. And so that verbal processing helps us integrate all this information in this both hemisphere experience that we're having. So what the anchor does is when you're like walking through and you're like, I'm ugly or I'm not enough

and you're like, God, I'm just so,

let's use I'm ugly for a moment. I just don't understand, like I dyed my hair, I cut my hair, I'm trying new clothes on but every time I look in the mirror, I'm starting to realize that I don't like what I see on the other side of the mirror. The anchor will say, tell me more about that.

And so then you start to talk it through

and you actually will discover that you can come to your own answers. And my anchors were like literally like, we're gonna stand right next to you. Talk, keep talking. Okay, now just take the next step. Keep talking, I'm here. Tell me what you feel. What so many women have done because we don't wanna be too much, we don't wanna upset the culture is we pushed all these feelings down. And when we push feelings down, we become resentful. Resetment is a killer of libido. Resetment is why so many women are leaving marriages and are finding that they can't hang in a relationship because we've pushed anger down. We've pushed shame down. We've pushed guilt down. And what the anchors do is they stand next to you and they go, tell me. Tell me what's down there. So that's why I wanted in the book to put these three types so that we could all look for butterflies We could all look for a potentialist that's so cool. Okay, so Eight ways to get your voice back. We were on number four Which is leaning to conversation the feature soul. That's why we spoke about friends the importance of who you lean into With those conversations because if you lean into the wrong people that can actually derail you from even even doing this work. Right. So now I'd like to then move on to number five, which is oxytocin moments. So how do you make sure, though, that you're not getting oxytocin from the wrong person? Because I assume getting oxytocin could be amazing, but what if it is from someone who's nefarious? Yeah, that's a really great question.

So let's go down that path for a moment.

A woman's fear center in her brain,

it's called the amygdala,

has more oxytocin receptor sites than a man.

So when we are stressed, men will go to fight or fight.

So they will either fight you or they will run.

That is how a male brain is programmed. I think that feels true to every woman in this. That's right. That's right. A woman tends to go more towards a second stress response. They just discovered it like in the early 2000s. Oh. They didn't know we had this other stress response. And it's because we have so many oxytocin receptor sites

in our fear center.

So it's called tend and befriend. So what ends up happening is when we're stressed, what do we do? Tend to my friend. We call our bestie. Oh my God, call the anchor. Be like, oh my God, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's why you don't call the bitcher because the pitcher is going to raise cortisol,

but the anchor is going to go tell me more.

And so we soothe our fear center by connection. Okay, I've thought a lot about this because I know you do a lot of work on narcissists. I think what happens with the narcissist is the narcissist comes in and programs our brain to feel safe, right? Because the narcissist starts off charismatic and loving and beautiful. And so our fear center says oxytocin. And then the narcissist does a 180 and manipulates us through this oxytocin center. We have already linked like oxytocin to this human and then they change. So I really want to make sure that we start off by saying that there are positive interactions with people and there are manipulative interactions with people. A positive oxytocin relationship will be somebody that every single time you are with them, you feel better when you leave. My friend and I, we call it a positive energy exchange. You and I have this. Every time I leave you, I'm completely lit up because my oxytocin system has been completely engaged in our interaction. You know you're in a positive relationship when over and over and over again, you leave that relationship feeling better and better and better. But if it's a narcissist and all of a sudden it's shifted, then you're not feeling better in that interaction. That's not a clean source of oxytocin anymore. So if you are with, let's say, the pharis person narcissists

or someone like that, and you're getting the oxytocin rush, because I assume you'll get it whether they're good or bad, as long as they kind of give you that moment of oxytocin. So when you leave, the difference between someone that is good or bad is the fact that you leave the fill with drained, disoriented, anxiety or you're full of lifted up.

Yeah, but the oxytocin in and of itself on that moment will be the same.

That's right. And that's the trap. That's the trap. Trap is a great word. So then another question to ask yourself is, am I the most authentic version of me when I'm in that relationship? Or am I performing for that relationship? Because if that relationship gave you oxytocin in the beginning, it's calmed your stress centers. And then all of a sudden, you had to change who you were in order to get the oxytocin. No, get out of there, get out of there. Quit pause my home wait, but when we come back, Dr. Mindy's breaking down why us ladies, get chemically hooked into the wrong relationship and once you actually understand what's happening to your brain, then you'll stop blaming yourself and that's what we all want. Right, stop blaming, take action. So stay right here, we'll be back. Now let's get back to the good stuff. Like, my husband recently, when I realized that I was doing so much performance to make sure that he wouldn't get angry because when he got angry, I was so upset. I continually had to go to him and say, I'm feeling like I shouldn't go out with my girlfriends tonight. I'm feeling like you're feeling upset because I'm traveling too much. But this is who I am. So can you tell me how you're really feeling? Like am I accurate or are these behaviors not acceptable to you? So what were you doing there? You are articulating how you feel. You were saying what the conclusion and the knock on effect is of how you feel.

And then you asked him a follow up question to see how he would respond to.

Yes, to make sure that I was showing up as my authentic self for the relationship.

And so honestly, in full transparency, he reflected back to me, no, like you could do those

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