Whine Down with Jana KramerJana shares her struggle with trusting herself after her last relationship, with some help from author and motivational speaker Yasmine Cheyenne.
Yasmine helps Jana understand how to use anxiety as a helpful tool, and she shares why you need to face a hard truth before you can get into a healthy relationship.
Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heart Radio Podcast.
This week's Thursday Therapy, We've got Yasmin Shan. She has a book out called Wisdom of the Path, The Beautiful and Bumpy Ride to Healing and Trusting our Inner Guide.
Let's get her on.
I am so excited to talk to you. I feel like this is coming at such a good time because I find myself taking just really heavy deep breaths all the time. And I just had my uh, I had just I just had a third baby in my pelvic floor. Lady just came over and she's like, I need you just to first take a deep breath. And I'm like, oh, okay, So you feel the you feel the tension, I know. So I'm excited about your book because I think for me, one of the hardest things, especially in the early beginning of my healing journey, was actually trusting myself in it. Now I feel like I trust myself a lot more, But in the beginning, it's like it's a new way of being that it's it's weird. So how do you for the people that are just on this new journey of healing and trusting themselves, how do you even trust yourself when you're not even sure what to trust around you.
Oh my gosh, that's such a good question.
I think that's the hardest part, and it's one of the reasons I wrote this book, because when we make mistakes, we often tear ourselves up so badly that we are unwilling to take another chance on ourselves.
We say, oh, I don't know if I want to take another chance on love. I don't know if I want to change my career. I'm not sure what can happen.
But I think that we really are afraid that we're going to make the wrong choice again. And the worst part about that is the disappointment in knowing.
That we thought it was the right thing to do.
So Unfortunately, the only way that we can learn to trust ourselves is by taking that risk. Through it, we learn wow, that gut feeling was telling me no, got it, Or we learn that was actually which and pushing me to move forward.
It's through the experience, it's through the lessons.
It's through the tough times that we gain the wisdom that leads us forward in the first place.
It's so interesting that you say that, because I think I definitely felt that with my my new relationship. In the very beginning stages, I'm like, Okay, it feels different, but I'm so afraid to trust it because I don't want to look like a fool again that I jumped into something and it's like, oh, I'm proven to be you know, I picked wrong again, or and it's that murky kind of feeling like I don't want to look like a fool, especially because publicly, you know, I'll be made.
To look like that again.
But there's something too that you're right, like in people will always be like, well, how do you know? How do you trust again? It's like I'd rather try to trust again than never trust again.
And I think especially when you're talking about relationships, romantic relationships, but even if friendships. I think that when we when someone turns out to be different than we thought they were.
When they feel like the rug was literally pulled from under.
Us and it's like you're a completely different person than I thought you were, or in hindsight, we think, actually, there were tons of signs telling me that this person was not for me, and I was maybe ignoring it, maybe afraid to admit it to myself, hoping they would change all the things that we all do, and I think reminding ourselves in romantic relationships that I deserve love and I deserve to be in a relationship with someone who is providing healthy love, and if this feels.
Healthy to me, I'm going to follow.
That until I see red flags, and I'm going to follow it with intention. I'm not just going to blindly jump into a relationship. I'm going to ask questions the questions I was too afraid to ask the last time. I'm going to take my time getting to know them, versus ignoring all the things that are telling me that they're not being an open book with me.
Like, we have to be.
Willing to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, and I think even in romantic relationships and friendships, give ourselves grace because sometimes people are pretending to be someone that they're not, and with all the questions and all the experience, we still might find ourselves in a relationship with someone who's.
Not aligned with who we would want in our lives, and we couldn't have we couldn't have seen it otherwise.
Yeah. No, that piece is so huge to the being fooled again, because I think there's a piece where in the healing journey to be able to go all right. I trust myself enough to be able to you know, to move forward in this, but I don't. I feel like early on if you don't so like, Okay, if I was to look back on my ex relationship, I'd have been like, oh, I had all the gut signs to not trust this person, but I, you know, it was like it's okay, it's all good, everything's fine, and I wasn't blindsided. I think I would be massively blindsided and if anything were to ever happen in my relationship now, because I don't have any of those signs. But I think that's a piece of that healing too, because when I look back on even guys that I dated post divorce, I'm like, oh, well that was a you know, he wasn't matching his words and actions and he lied about this, or you know, it's I wouldn't have continued dating someone like that because I've done the work to go all right. That's that's not aligning with what I want and how it's going to most likely probably end too. It's not going to be a good relationship. So I think a lot of times like what is what is some of your biggest tips in your book to have that intuition to trust, to keep going, and to trust yourself.
I talk about this in my book in terms of like I've been divorced, I'm I'm married again.
I've been married for.
Wow, almost a decade now. And I think that when you meet someone and I was a single mom, I don't know if you had that experience, but like it's a whole new ballgame and you're dating with kids because it's like you cannot come in and jack this up, so you just can't. So you know when we are even if you're not dating and you're listening to this and you're in a situation where I thought I knew what I was getting myself into before I didn't, And now I want to trust myself again, and how can I really allow it in I think one of the really interesting things we can do is.
Get curious with ourselves.
We're often looking for the validation that we're doing the right thing in other people.
We're looking for the right flags.
We're looking for them to show up with particular behavior, which I think is important.
We want to see people showing up and being who they say they are.
But get curious within yourself. How do I feel when I'm around them? I think in previous relationships, if I'm honest with myself, even friendships, I didn't feel comfortable with certain people that I was trying to make it work with, and I was paying attention to what they were doing. Okay, they showed up great this time. Maybe I'm maybe I'm maybe I'm overreacting. They did the thing this time, they got me a gift. Oh my gosh, maybe I'm you know, wrong about them. But in my gut, if I was being curious, it's myself. I feel nervous when I'm around them. I feel anxious when I'm around them. I'm always on eggshells. And so if we just lead with curiosity when we're trying again, when we're trying to put ourselves out there again, when we're trying to learn to trust ourselves.
Again, we'll learn that our bodies actually give us a lot.
Of information and that it is safe to trust ourselves because our bodies are telling us.
How we feel.
And when we follow those breadcrumbs, we often get that hopefully compassionate truth that yes, this is aligned or this isn't. And I know it's hard when I'm saying it in that way, people are like, oh my god, I feel so many things in my body. It does take time, and it does take patience, and it does, and I'll be honest. For me, I teach this work and I still feel like for myself, it's a lifelong journey in giving myself the grace to be human and know that it's not always going to work out the way that I hope.
You know.
That's such an important piece too.
The listening to your body, because I remember I this is when I was in the dating phases post divorce, and I went to therapy and I told my therapist and I was like, oh, I'm like I'm just having so much anxiety. And she's like, all right, well let's let's talk it out. And I was like, you know, I got I got done with anxiety, and now I'm having it again, Like this is so frustrating. So when we started to piece it together, it was every time I was around the guy that I was dating, and I was like, I'm like, okay, so can we do some emdr to like fix this anxiety. She's like no, She's like, listen to your body. Your body is telling you that you either you're not safe or like, what is the and I'm like, and then so the when we talked about it, I was like, whoa, I don't feel you know, I don't feel like I can trust this. And so she's like, that is your sign. She's like, you have to listen to your body. She's like, that's the piece of anxiety. We don't want to go away. She's like, because when that comes up, you have to go, Okay, what about this place feels unsafe? What about this person feels unsafe? What is making me feel you know, not certain? Like those are the pieces. She's like, that's the piece anxiety that you want to keep, you know, is the parts of listening to your body. And that was just so interesting to me because I've never really placed that in that kind of situation. I just thought I was like, Oh, it's me, I'm a problem. I have anxiety.
Yeah, And we can light to ourselves for so long, right, Like, we can meet someone that sounds amazing, and we'll begin to operate in that relationship the exact same way that we've seen our parents operate in relationships or people in.
The past or friends, and so we'll.
Light to ourselves and when I say lie, I don't mean like intentionally, like unconsciously, we are lying to ourselves that everything is great, because if we were honest, we'd have to leave. So we start to like, oh, you know, like gaze over things, and we don't really tell ourselves the truth. But our body cannot. Our body will continue to like blaze that red flag. Our body will continue to found these alarms. If you're around people and you feel nervous, you feel shaky, you feel egg shelly, you don't feel like you can be yourself. Oh, if you don't feel like you can say hard things or have tough conversations, being uncomfortable is completely different than not feeling safe.
We all feel uncomfortable.
We have tough conversations, even with the people we trust, because it's you know, nobody wants to have tough conversations. But feeling like you aren't safe saying something being yourself, that's completely different. And it doesn't have to be physical abuse for you to feel unsafe. It can just be an emotionally unsafe environment for you, and it may be great for somebody else, but honoring that it's not.
Working for you is how we learn to trust ourselves.
The moment that we choose ourselves and we don't ignore, because unfortunately, you know what we do ignore, we're kind of betraying ourselves.
We all do it.
So it's like, give yourself that grace and give yourself that self forgiveness, like I was doing the best that I could in that moment, and then move forward knowing but my body knows, and I can remember how my body knew, and I trust that I'll choose myself the next time I have a choice between myself and someone else.
Right when was it for you that you kind of had that wisdom aha moment?
The first time that that moment happened for me, I would say, when I was going through my divorce, I don't think that there's anything because when you get married, and I know that this is going to sound really naive, but you really think.
That this is it. And when someone begins to.
When it doesn't work the way that you imagined, and when things start to fall apart, the first thing that you start to ask yourself.
Is how did I get here? How am I here?
And I think when I started to ask myself that question, I realized and I posted about this yesterday. I was trying to make things work. And if I'm honest with myself and I look back, it could have fallen apart before I got to marriage. It could have fallen apart before I chose a certain career. But I was really holding on, like clinching, like I'm going to make this work. And I think that that first moment of wisdom for me was, first of all, let things go when they want to go, let them go. But secondly, if it's not meant to be, if it's not aligned, it's going to end. So it would it's going to be painful, but it would be easier and better for myself if I choose myself as early as I know that it's time to let something go, rather than wait and try to make something work that it's clear it's not already working. So that was probably the first time for me that I really begin to realize I already have the wisdom in me. I'll just be honest and say, though I was like, I'm scared because what I think I want and what i'm the signs i'm getting and what my body's telling me I want are not the same.
So how am I going to find what's really for me?
Because I've never even done this, nor have I seen anyone done this before. I've never seen anyone in a relationship with they felt like they were aligned and with the person.
That they were supposed to be with. So it was this.
Very conflicting feeling of recognizing I trust myself and also I have never seen this done before, and I'm terrified of what this is going to look like if I put myself out there again.
Well, I think there's that piece, and I think there's also in this day and age, I feel like it's hard to let go because of perception of things, right, So like you might be holding on, like I know I was. I held on to something for too long for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I didn't want to look like a fool again, you know, and because especially living life publicly, it's like, all right, I'm going to have the criticism. I'm going to have, you know, people coming at me and saying now I'm the problem or there she goes again in their failed marriage, and it's like, and I think people, you know, they they want the perception. I don't think everything's perfect, right, so I don't you know, you shouldn't just let go of the second that things are hard. I'm a big advocate for working through things, but I think it is difficult too, because, at least for me, I was I just deem myself as unlovable, so no one would most.
Likely love me if I got divorced.
I've got two kids, I'm almost forty at that time, and so I think it's just hard because I think people go to, well, this is probably as good as it's going to get for me. Yeah, So what would you say to the person that is having a hard time trusting that they actually do deserve better than what they're being dealt in the moment?
Oh my goodness. I think that.
So many of us have been in situations where someone has said to us, you have to love yourself before you can love somebody else. You know, I got to be honest with you. I do not believe that you have to love yourself where you can love somebody else.
I always say like, I had to love myself before I could let someone love me.
But I had to.
But for me, it was I had to know that I was worth loving. So I had to like love the broken parts of me so that I didn't have to always constantly feel like I was defending myself or you know, yeah.
I also don't even believe we're broken. I think that we useage language. And I'm not saying that you can't use the self, but for listeners, I think it's just we use this language that people say, oh, I was broken or I was insecure. And I do think it's true that learning to love yourself is a journey, especially if it's not something you were taught growing up. I wasn't taught that growing up.
I thought I was.
I thought I was pretty confident. I learned that confidence and loving yourself and walking around in the world like you love yourself, and making decisions like you love yourself. It's very different than confidence, because I'm sure you would agree to like in business, you'll come in, you'll kick ass, but then in other areas.
It's like right.
So I do not think that we have to love ourselves in order to love the people or allow love in.
And I think that that is a blessing, because if.
We had to absolutely love ourselves fully in order to allow people to be there for us, to show it, for us, to care for us, to show kindness to us, to be empathetic to us, I don't think healing would be possible.
So then what is it? Then you tell me what do you think it should be?
Then I do think we have to be willing to see the hard parts of ourselves. I don't think that we have to necessarily love the hard parts that we're seeing. I think a lot of people are waiting for the moment that it's like, all right, I finally feel like I hold myself together. I think that comes after I'm willing to be vulnerable and say to someone, you know what, I don't think that I care about myself in the way that I should, or I don't think that I think positively about myself, or I don't think that my self.
Worth is where it should be.
I think that we're willing to and I don't know if you agree with this, but for me, it was with friends. It was in my community that I was willing to finally admit and let them see.
That the perception that I may have been shown was not the.
Reality that I didn't feel as good about myself as I thought I did. That I was settling in relationships and not just romantically and friendships in a lot of areas where I was allowing people to have more access to me or to have more.
Of me, and the relationship wasn't reciprocal.
It took me admitting that with my friends. It took me admitting that in therapy. It took me admitting that with myself and letting those walls down because I had so many barriers up. Not because I didn't want anyone, in the complete opposite, I did, but I didn't believe that it was possible. I didn't believe I could trust people. And I think I think sharing this is important because I think there's so many people that will hear this, and I think there's so many people that feel like I'm not healing correctly because it still don't fully love myself. I still don't have this all figured out, and I.
Still have moments where I beat myself up.
I still have moments where I say thanks to myself, and I catch myself now saying terrible things, and then I say, Wow, you know what do you need right now?
Yeah?
Let's you know, let's let's go on a friend, let's write in your journal, let's do whatever it is that's going to bring you back to yourself. I think the evidence of healing and the evidence that you loved yourself. Is that when you're in those moments, you're able to see it, You're able to find whoever or whatever is going to connect you back to yourself, and then you're able to make the change and the choice from there to allow someone or to allow life to come in.
Does that make sense?
It does?
Yeah? Yeah, no, it definitely, it definitely does make sense. I mean, I definitely I hear you on that. I'm curious. So okay, so you have you had another book too, the Sugar Jarts, about creating boundaries in your life, do you think? I mean, I know there's the boundaries is like have boundaries with people. But I also think it's really important, right for boundaries for yourself. And I think that that coincides with then the healing and the trusting right.
Absolutely, I talk about it in the book. But I don't think that we can set boundaries with other people until we're willing.
To honor the boundaries to set with ourselves.
And in my work in the way that I teach, I talk about it in Sugar jar And and Wisdom of the Path, I always think we should start with self.
I always think that we.
Should ask ourselves, like if you're dating, for example, and your partner does something that triggers you, The knee jerk reaction for most of us is to address our partner and say, why did you do that? You know, when you did that, it triggered me, it made me feel this way. I think that that's important to do and to have that conversation, but I invite people to be curious about the question with themselves first. Why did what my partner do trigger me? What did I need in that moment that I didn't feel like I was getting? How can I give it to myself? If we set the boundaries with ourselves first, This is how I'm going to show.
Up in my life.
This is the way I want my community to be. This is how I want my relationships. This is what I you know, how I want to argue with my partnership. I want to be in this kind of a healthy situation in my life with the people that I'm in relationship with. If we show up that way, then we are also mirroring to other people what we require, And then when we set our boundaries, we're more likely to advocate for ourselves and to stand firm and in them. If we don't on our own boundaries. For example, something as simple as I don't answer the phone after eight pm. If you have your do not Disturb on at APM and every time somebody calls you at nine thirty you answer that boundary, it's pointless and that's why they're calling because they know you're going to answer. And that sounds like a really basic example, but that's a boundary that a lot of us try to set with ourselves so that we can get rest. I don't know about you, but I'm like exhausted and I need more sleep than I often allow myself. But if I'm not taking care of myself in the way that I say that, I am not perfectly because I'm a recovering perfectionist. I'm not saying be perfect, but at least try to do what you say that you're going to do, and if you don't, be honest with yourself about when you're not, so that you can do the same thing and with the people you're in relationship with. And it's tough, but I think starting with ourselves is the way that we really gain that growth that we're seeking from healing in the first place.
Yeah, I love that.
I love that so much. What do you want your biggest takeaway to be with your book? Wisdom of the Path?
I hope that this book is an invitation to take the lessons of your past as the rediliant person that you are, that you have survived so much that, of course we wish we didn't have to go through some of the things we went through, and we wish we would have listened and all the things. But I do believe that we are able to be present and grounded and grateful for where we are when we take the people and the versions of ourselves in the past that made the choices and that got us to where we are today. If we take them into our arms of pole a child like, if we take them with kindness, if we take them with love, if we take with grace, I think it helps us to be present and love ourselves now, to release the burden of guilt and resentfulness that we're carrying. And I hope people are willing to do that so that as they move forward in their lives.
I hope they feel free.
Yeah, it's almost like replacing brokenness with resilience. Yes, yes, well, I just I love you. Thank you so much for coming on. Everyone, please please get wisdom of the path, the beautiful and bumpy ride to healing and trusting our inner guide. Thank you so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. Bane girl Bye.
