Welcome back, my homie, to part two of this amazing conversation with my homie Nezura DeBine, the absolute queen of healing and embracing change. And if you thought part one was so freaking powerful, well we're going to go even deeper and even more mind blowing into understanding why choosing to leave a toxic guy can actually be so challenging and how you can stop waiting for someone else to save you and actually finally choose yourself instead. And today we're going even deeper to talk about why you must actually resolve your childhood trauma to get out of the survival mode. We then, are you ready to talk about why you should actually take things personally and how it's different from blaming yourself? We actually debate this and I actually found it so interesting. I'd love to hear your thoughts. And finally we then go into why you should never ever ever ever negotiate your change. Let me repeat that you should never negotiate your change with people who want you to stay where you are. Alright, I think you're the point. And now let's dive in. I'm your host, Lisa Bilyu, and you're listening to a women of impact.

Let's go.

As we're trying to mold ourselves to be something, right? That's obviously a very big sign for ourselves of like, hey, maybe this isn't the right person because you're changing yourself to fit them. That's, I think, huge. I think as we do that, we, you've said it already, we abandon ourselves and we start to lose who we are,

which then prevents us from speaking up

when something doesn't feel good,

when we're having the strength,

maybe the cl- we, you've said it already, we abandon ourselves and we start to lose who we are, which then

prevents us from speaking out when something doesn't feel good, we're having the strength, maybe the confidence that we've built. And as you go deeper down that relationship, it becomes harder and harder to speak up to wave the flag, to then pivot, because then you've more did yourself so much into being who they want. You no longer, you said it earlier, and I use the phrase like how do you like your eggs? You no longer even know how you like your eggs

because you just tend to the other person. Yes. to being who they want. You no longer, you said it earlier, and I used the phrase like, how do you like your eggs?

You no longer even know how you like your eggs, because you just turned to the other person. Yes. In a big sign of that from my own experience, I realized it was when things were very problematic in my, this was before I met Tom in my earlier relationship. I realized that I wasn't telling the people that I care about what was actually happening. I wasn't telling my mom, I'll start hiding things.

You start hiding things.

And that is another sign of that yourself abandoning and that you're not actually absorbing, I think, is the truth. I wasn't absorbing the extent to the verbal abuse that I was getting. I was just hiding and shying away from it. It wasn't until my adulthood that I started talking about it in public that my mom came to me.

And my mom was like, you never talked to my mom knew him right? So I would

bring him home to meet my mom, you know, I was 16 at the time. And my mom was

like, you never told me. I thought you guys were great together. And I said,

mom, it's not your fault. I chose to not speak up. And the reason was, is that I knew that if I spoke up, I had to address it. Yes, exactly. You know that if you say it, now you have to do something about it. Just like with that cycle, we just went over. You know that if you choose the other option, which is to not accept this bad treatment, and to not go down the road of the judgment and the shame and making excuses and whatever. The other option is that you say this is over. And so when it's over, everything kind of comes out in the open and it's this big messy thing that you don't want to deal with. When we are secretive, we don't tell the people that we love about a toxic relationship that we're in. Again, you need to be compassionate with yourself. Don't judge yourself for staying quiet or for covering up for that person. You're doing it to protect yourself because there is a fear somewhere that if this relationship doesn't exist, that something's wrong with you or if this, if it comes to light that you went through this relationship, you're going to be judged for being not as strong as others would have hoped you were. If you find yourself being secretive after you give yourself that dose of self-compassion, just remember that there is someone in your life who cares enough to listen to you and sit with you in your pain. That's another reason actually why we don't end those relationships because we know that once we end them there's going to be grief. Grief is heavy because you're not only grieving the relationship you thought you had. You're not only grieving who you thought they were. You are grieving past versions of you that sat through awful treatment and were quiet when you know that who you really are is someone who speaks up. You are grieving that little girl that you were. Now I'm getting emotional. You're grieving that little girl that you were who started believing that she didn't deserve love or that being spoken to in a toxic or manipulative or putting you down kind of way is something that she deserves. You're grieving who she was then and the way that she looked up to you waiting for you to save her and you feel like you're letting her down. You're stopping yourself from ending that relationship because you know you're going to have to deal with all of this. You know you're going to have to answer younger you and say, I know I told you that that will never happen again. And it did. You know, you know, you're going to have to tell her, I need you to trust me again. I know I asked you to trust me before, but forgive me for not being able to uphold that promise that I made, but I will save you. It's hard to go through. I'm talking about it and I'm getting emotional, just thinking about it, but to actually go through it, it's tough. So don't blame yourself and judge yourself for not getting to the point where you're like, that's it, it's over. Because there is a mountain of grief that's going to come. There's a mountain of holding yourself responsible for all the changes that you need to make in your life genuinely and telling yourself, we're going to be different moving forward. There's a mountain of work that needs to be done. There's a mountain of patterning that needs to be done. And when we're in romantic relationships, this is really important. I think people overlook it. It reminds you and brings up all the patterns from your childhood and with your parents. So sometimes when you're in a romantic relationship you think that's it. That part of my life is over. I don't need to deal with it. But you understand that the reason you ended up in a relationship like this is because you didn't deal with this. And so part of moving on from a romantic partner could also be moving on from the toxic family dynamics that you had, breaking those trauma bonds. If you had a parent, a mom, a dad who constantly spoke down to you and constantly made you feel like you needed to do more to earn their love and Constantly spoke to you in a way where Something was wrong with you unless you followed their rules and you ended up with someone like that When you are thinking of leaving that person That's a great time for you to think of this bond that you have With that parent of yours. Well, do you think, sorry to interrupt you, this is like a really a high moment for me. So do you think that partly sometimes if you've become, if you've in a relationship that somewhat echoes your childhood, if you break up in that relationship, actually now you have to deal with all the shit that came with it. And that's including you have charge. Because that's the root of it. Yeah, that never, it never dawned on me that that can be a subliminal hesitation of why you should, why people hesitate to leave the relationship. The fact that they have to now almost, let's say you leave the toxic partner, let's say you have toxic parents, you almost then have to address that. then maybe distance yourself from them too because sometimes how could you do both? Or how could you, oh sorry, how could you do one and not the other? No, the other and sometimes you have to go to your relationship with your family and address it or end it or start setting boundaries to empower yourself to leave or address or set boundaries in this relationship because our attachment wounds, our abandonment wounds come from our family. They come from our childhood. That's the root of the issue. So it's not this relationship didn't come about out of nowhere. This dynamic didn't come about out of nowhere. There was something

that... So it's not this relationship didn't come about out of nowhere. This dynamic didn't come about out of nowhere. There was something that made the ground fertile for it to be toxic and made the ground fertile for you to accept that toxicity. There's one thing I say in the only constant, don't negotiate your change with people who want you to stay the same. If this relationship you're planning on leaving, if the people who come to mind are your parents and what they are going to think, they're going to judge you, they're going to this, they're going to that, they're going to tell you, you know, people in our family don't get divorced or whatever the message that you're going to to get is or people in our family don't go through something like that. Like just hush hush about it. You don't negotiate your change. The thing that you want to do, the leaving, the ending, the going out and dating other people with them. If they want you to stay who you are, if this version of you actually serves something for them. So you just wanted to say something. No, this is so strong. I mean, I've done so many interviews. Now we've spoken about childhood trauma and had that leads to decisions when you made. Like I knew all of that, but there was just like, what a little bit of pit. Yeah. You see the puzzle that I was missing. And it's the subliminal subconsciousness of why you may stay in a relationship because then you have to address your parents or your childhood. Or the other way around is like, well, to your point, like when you're setting boundary, how can you set a boundary with someone you're with? If you're just then going home at Christmas or whatever, and you're in meshed with them. Yeah, and now that boundary doesn't Yes. That is so strong. That hit me really hard. Because you're changing at your core level. You're changing. Yeah. So it's like you can't move forward with this change unless it applies to everyone in your life. You can't push past this fear unless you push past your fear about the way that your parents might react at how you are now changing. You can do it, but if you are at that point where you're just sick and tired of being the way that you are and you really wanna change your life, there is a part of you that's like, I know that when this relationship ends, that relationship is also going to end because all of that frustration is coming up saying, why were you okay with me being treated that way? Why did you teach me that it was okay for me to hear words like that or to be made to feel like that? All of that anger and resentment comes up. And I want to tell you a story about resentment that I think you're going to love. I've never written too much about my relationship with my family, but there is a story I wrote about in the only constant, and I call it the airplane story. So, what, back when I decided to take my hijab off, my parents struggled with that decision. I know they were worried about me.

I know they they had their reservations because it's a huge change. You know, I'd worn it since I was 13 years old. So I remember the first time I brought the topic up, like my dad said, don't even think about it. And obviously that was I don't even think that was something he thought about. about, he just said it.

And I understood over time, like bringing the topic up here and there, that he was concerned that maybe I'm going through an identity crisis or something. Like maybe this isn't a real choice that I'm making for myself because of my convictions. Maybe I'm trying to please the internet, or maybe I've been influenced by social media, and that shows a weakness in character, and my dad is big on that. So when I took it off, I had already moved out of my parents' home. And so, yeah, there was a little bit of untalked about tension and distance. And so one day my mom called me and said, your dad wants to talk to you. And I was a little bit worried because, you know, dad wants to talk to me even though I was 28 at the time. But it's my dad. You know, it's the man I'm... We cool the dogs. Right. It carries a lot of weight. Yeah. It's the man I've wanted to please my entire life. It's the man I've wanted to love me my entire life. It's, you know, I care a lot about his opinion. So I went over and we were sitting at like opposite ends of the couch and he said to me, you know, when you first told me about your decision, I was worried that maybe you're going through an identity crisis, like a shakiness in your character. And, you know, I thought you're at the beginning of your writing career, and people are getting to know you this way, and this maybe reflects a little bit of, you know, lack of conviction, or you don't know who you are. He's like just like when an airplane is taking off, it's very important that it's very steady and that there is no shakiness. Like the littlest mistake could cause a crash or a malfunction or something. But now that I thought about it, you're already up in the sky. You've already taken off and you're up there among the stars. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh my God, like I don't get moments like that with my dad ever. Like every few years, I know, I know. And I cried about this story so many times because of how rare moments like that with my dad are. Like it's like, oh, it's somewhere inside of him, but it comes out somewhere, you know, every few years,

I'll see his heart. I'll see his love for me. I'll see his admiration for me. And then after a

while, as I was thinking about this story, a little bit of resentment came up because I was like,

why do I have to work so hard? Why do I have to push through a decision that I make for myself on my own? And while feeling like everyone around me is looking at me as a rebel and I'm doing something wrong, and it's only when I get there and I do it, and I'm like, I don't care what you guys think that I hear words of appreciation, but I hear words of love. Like, why do I have to work so hard for moments like that? That resentment came up. You have to deal with those resentments with your parents. You have to. If you don't, there's always gonna be that, you're either gonna completely push them away and say, I want nothing to do with them, or there's going to be a continuation of that dynamic and you're constantly going to feel like you're the one who's plunging yourself back into it and you're gonna judge yourself because now you're an adult and you're aware and you know that you don't want that dynamic and you're like, why do I keep going back? Well, you keep going back because it's your family. Of course, you want their love. They're the first people who taught you what love looks like. Of course, you want a connection with them. But if you want that relationship to stay, you have to work through the resentment. And if you want that relationship to change, you're gonna have to decide what you're okay with and what you're not okay with in that relationship that you have with them moving forward. But it is not 100% your responsibility to keep the relationship in place. And here's what I mean by that. You know how they say some bridges are better if you burn them or never burn a bridge because you never know if you have to cross it again, right? So imagine that this relationship that you have with your parents or with your partner is one where you're at opposite ends of the bridge. If you are always the one who has to cross that bridge fully to get to them, that's not a relationship. That's a conditional relationship. And by crossing the bridge, it's not about just, you know, I'm going to visit them. I'm the one who is, no, it's having to leave yourself and who you are to meet them where they are and to meet the version of you that they welcome, the only version of you that they welcome. So, are you always the one who has to stay within the confines of the rules that they set for you. And if you don't, then they accuse you of breaking the relationship. It's like, are you choosing to change your life for yourself or are you choosing to break your relationship with that person? Oh, you might have to do both. You might have to do both, but if you are making a choice for yourself or your life and the accusation from them is, you have broken your relationship with me. You can look at that and say, I actually just made a decision for myself. You're the one who chose not to accept this new me. You're the one who chose not to accept this me that made that decision. So that's what I mean when I say it is not 100% your responsibility to keep that relationship and to always cross that bridge. They have to somehow sometimes come to you and they have to sometimes meet you in the middle or somewhere. They have to be willing to, if you want to continue having a healthy relationship for them that doesn't break you apart and force you to live in authentically, you're going to have to look at them and and be really real with yourself about whether they have your best interest in mind or if they're always thinking about themselves and how your decisions for your life reflect on them. This is so strong. And as you were talking, it's interesting how you could replace parents with partner. You can literally just keep flipping it and the same actually goes. And I remember when I was obviously I've been married with Tom now for 21 years. And the thing that everybody asked, thank you, everyone, either says, oh, you're really lucky, which is obviously bullshit. I just love that. And then people say like, what's the key? Like what's the magic?

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