How To Trust Again After Being Hurt | JB Copeland's Sappy Hour Ep.009

Welcome to Sapia our Brought to you by Intelligent Change. Most of us don't enter new relationships with a blank slate. We carry in the echoes of our old pain. The problem is if you don't recognize it, those echoes turn into shadows, making you doubt the people who haven't wronged you yet. This episode is about how to finally stop projecting old wounds onto new love, so you can learn to experience real intimacy without letting fear run the show. This week we have two voice mails that are asking pretty much the same thing, and we're going to listen to both. We'll listen to the first one and then we'll go right into the second one. Let's get it. Up next on Sapia Radio, 44.4 on your FM dial. A little JB Copeland. He's not licensed, but he is listening. This is Sapia Hour. Yo, I've been watching your incident page for a while, but so I basically just got into this like relationship. I got out of a pretty nasty one before it, and I guess I'm struggling with is letting a life, and what the past wanted to go, because it was very traumatizing. I would say, I'm in sheep, hurting a lot. Not physically, but very much so mentally. I find myself being anxious that the one I'm talking to now is going to pull the same move on me, and I get really anxious about that, but it's not fair to her that I do that, and I was just wondering how I could let that go so I can focus more on my future than present. Thanks. Later. Hi. I just wanted to start with that. I really enjoy your content, and I really appreciate your podcast, and I've been thinking about calling this for a while. I just wanted to start by saying that I was in a relationship for a while with a few years, and I got to on basically the entire time, leaving me basically questioning like, if anything was real, and it was just a really hard time for me, and a couple of years passed by, I'm kind of, I thought I was, I am over the situation, or I thought I was, I don't know, but I got into a relationship with a really great guy. I mean, makes me really happy. He's great. There's nothing else I could have asked for more, but I guess the only issue is that I'm still stuck on being in a relationship where I was cheated on, and I was lied to and betrayed. And those thoughts still come up, even though he's, I trust them, and I just wouldn't think he would do that. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to stop living in the past with that, and focus on the present what I have that is great now, and I just want the fear to go away. That's it. So I just want to thank both of them for calling in. The situations are a bit different, but they're asking the same thing. And so what we're going to do is we're going to dive into what all of this means, and then at the end, we're going to talk about how we can get out of that, how we can stop letting this fear control good things. So this is why Unresolved Pain creates projection. Projection is like watching a new movie, but assuming you already know the ending, your brain drags the past into the present, not because it wants to torture you, but because it's wired for survival. If betrayal once blindsided you, your brain thinks better to expect betrayal everywhere than get shocked again. It's not just memory, it's a defense system. And so as you can see with both of these callers, this is what is happening. The great part about both of the voice mails is that both of them are aware of the fact that they are doing this. And I think that that's the first step of getting over this, and not letting what happened to them define them and define future relationships. So I want to first off say great job guys. You're going to get through this, and I'm sorry that this happened to you. So we're going to talk a little bit about Freud. Freud's original take was that projection protects us from us owning our feelings. When Freud said projection protects us from owning our feelings, he meant that instead of it meeting to ourselves, I feel this way. We push the feeling outside of us and place it on someone else. It's a defense mechanism. A way of protecting the ego from emotions that feel too threatening, shameful or uncomfortable. It avoids guilt and shame. If I can't face my own insecurity, projecting it onto you makes me feel less defective. And then it relieves anxiety. Our unconscious is trying to offload tension by externalizing it. I temporarily feel safer. Here's the thing that is somewhat confusing and somewhat sucks. You are not responsible for what was done to you. The betrayal, the cheating, the mental and emotional abuse, but you are responsible to end it there. From what has happened to you in the past, it is imprinted on you that maybe you're unlovable. And so there's these deeper things that are connected to the wound that are now coming up and out of you and you're having a hard time trusting new people. And so what's happening with this projection is you don't see your new partner. You're starting to see your old partner shadow. Your reaction doesn't fit the moment. A small thing fills disproportionately big because you're not reacting to this person. You're reacting to the past inside of you. Projection is literally just the mechanism that lets unresolved pain leak into new relationships. Without awareness of it, you don't just carry the past, you carry it into the present. You end up punishing your new partner for something that they didn't do because your body and your brain assumes it's happening again. When we hear the word projection, it kind of feels like a shot. And I am not trying to take a shot because in this instance, this projection is protective. There is a reason that you are projecting. And it's because you were hurt and you're trying to keep yourself safe. The problem isn't that you project. It's that projection doesn't always match reality. What was once protective, especially in like the older relationships, can become restrictive. It's like still wearing a cast long after the bone has been healed. It kept you safe, but now it limits you. So if you've been betrayed, of course, you're going to be looking for betrayal. Like this is normal. Your brain is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, which is protect you from repeated pain. And so projection in this instance is a problem, but it's not the main problem. The main problem is staying stuck in the projection. And what I'm trying to get to here is that these wounds that you have from these other people hurt you. And deep down what that wound did was at a subconscious level made you not feel good enough. And it's really, really hard to sit with that. It's really hard to look at yourself in the mirror. It's hard to get down to the root of that feeling. And those wounds are personal because you were the one that was betrayed. And so you think to yourself, well, why would they cheat? Why would they do that? Well, I guess it's because I wasn't good enough for them. And that is the belief that you start believing. And so then you get into a new relationship. And what you're projecting is the inadequacy that you feel about yourself. Is this new person going to do the same thing that this other person did because deep down it was proven in the last relationship that I am not good enough for people. I'm not good enough for relationships. And the truth is that's not true. And that's the thing about wounds wounded people and hurt people hurt people. And those people that hurt you also dealt with an adequacy also dealt with a fear of abandonment, but they were not aware of it like you guys are aware of it. And they sabotaged a great thing due to their wounds. And in return, you now have the wound that they have. An adequacy creates an adequacy. Hurt people hurt people. And so what you have to understand is the inadequacy that you feel is not yours. It was theirs. They passed that to you. And now you've personalized that and you've integrated it subconsciously. And now their wound has become yours. But the great part about it is it was never your wound in the first place. It was theirs. And so now at a subconscious level, your belief is that their wound is now yours. Their inadequacy is now my inadequacy. And you're projecting from this place of not feeling good enough. And so that is an awareness point that we can sit on here. That wound is not yours. That wound was theirs. And before it was theirs, it was someone This is how things get passed down. It's how things get transferred. So I want to make sure that I hammer this point into the ground. That inadequacy that is in you, that you feel at a subconscious level, that is causing you to now project in new relationships is not your inadequacy. And it doesn't have to continue being your inadequacy. It is there in adequacy. So chew on that. And I'm going to keep going. Now we're going to talk about schema theory, SCHEMA theory. I think I'm saying you're right. Which says, "Old pain literally forms the lens. We filter the world through." Schemethere is a psychological framework that explains how our minds use mental templates to interpret the world and guide behavior. I'm going to give you the definition. A schema is a mental structure. It's like an eternal map that organizes our past experiences and knowledge. When something happens, our brain doesn't start from scratch. It runs events through these prebuilt schemas to decide what it means and how we should respond. Think of schemas as filters or lenses through which we see reality. Jeffrey Young in 2003, extended schema theory into therapy. Schemethere. Identifying maladaptive schemas that come from unmet childhood needs like abandonment, mistrust, and effectiveness, as well as being betrayed in relationships. These wounds create schemas. They create filters. And that filter that I'm talking about right now is the filter of inadequacy. Someone took their lens, their glasses, and put those lenses on you. Those glasses on you. That's what's screwed up about trauma. Is you now see life through the filter of the person that hurt you? Schemas are like mental blueprints built from past experiences. If you were abandoned, your brain builds an abandonment schema. If you were betrayed, you form a betrayal schema. These schemas don't live as memories. They actively shape perception. Think of them like tinted glass. Everything you see in your current relationship is colored by old templates. So for example, like if it's a neutral event, you can filter it as a threat. If it's a delayed text, it's an abandonment queue. If your partner is distracted, betrayal queue, your schema fills in the blank automatically often before your consciousness is aware of it. And this is why this happens scientifically and how your brain works is because it's efficient. Your brain is an efficient thing. The brain like shortcuts, old template save energy by predicting outcomes quickly. Then there's a survival bias. Your brain would rather over-detect danger than miss it. If you've been hurt, your lens sharpens for signs it might happen again. And then for emotional memory. Unlike facts, emotional memories are sticky. They alter how we anticipate, not just what we recall. And so what happens is schema theory reframes Freud's projection theory. It's not just defense, it's distortion. And so not only are you defensive in putting up walls, but you're also seeing new people and new relationships in life in a distorted way. And the root of that is this new lens that you have received from the person that hurt you. You cannot give that person that power. You can't. And we're going to talk about how to deal with this here in a little bit. Old pain becomes the map you unconsciously overlay onto every new landscape. Healing means updating the lens so you stop re-seeing the past in the present. Let's talk about some data and some findings. 58% of adults in one survey admitted they have accused their partner of something without evidence based on past experience. Anxious attachment styles show 50% greater amygdala reactivity when exposed to ambiguous relational cues. When the cues aren't clear, you're going to go straight to threat. If you don't resolve the pain, you don't just remember the past, you repeat it. This is what happens with generational trauma. The parents were hurt by the grandparents, the grandparents were hurt by their parents, and so on. And then the parents give the child that lens, that schema, and then that whole family tree, that whole line sees the world in that way through a place of defense and through a place of distortion. And the same thing is true in relationships. You were with this person, they wounded you, they gave you this schema, and now relationships are repeated in the same way because you're seeing it through this distorted perception. Healing is the work of rewriting your internal script so the present has a chance to be new. And the truth is that you are not responsible for what is done to you, but you are responsible for not spreading that hurt and spreading that schema. You're going to break the filter, you're not going to pass it on. Okay, now we're going to talk about healthy caution in self sabotage because this is kind of where you're going to have to find your groove here. Because you've been given this lens, because you've been given this filter, again, things are a bit distorted for you. Defense levels are high. So listen, wisdom is a sea belt. Paranoia is never getting in the car. One protects you, the other prevents you from moving forward at all. Individuals with rejection sensitivity tended to preemptively withdraw or accuse often destroying relationships. Expectations create behaviors that elicit confirming responses. If you expect betrayal, you will then behave suspiciously. And your partner will feel distressed. What is happening? When you expect these things, you are now handing them the lens that you see life through. And they start to question themselves. So it's the same thing. You might not be hurting or wounding someone in the same way that you are wounded, but because you're so skeptical of them in return, they are still starting to see life through this lens. And so what happens is after they feel distressed that they withdraw, and that confirms your fear. And so this also goes with what I've always talked about, like you attract what you believe. You attract what you see life through. You attract the schema and the filter that is on your life. And so in this time, you got to have healthy caution and not self-sabotage because what self-sabotage is in this situation is handing over the lens. Healthy caution is the wisdom born from experience. And it's a beautiful thing because you have experience. That wound is an experience. It means you're alert, but you're not paranoid. You recognize red flags without assuming every flag is red. What this looks like, asking clarifying questions instead of assuming, setting boundaries calmly and early, watching for consistency between words and actions, taking time to see how someone handles conflict, stress or disappointment. Healthy caution slows you down, but it doesn't shut you down. It's about discernment, not fear. And so this is what you're fighting against right now. You're fighting against this urgency that this filter has given you. Your fighting is this urgency that this wound has given you. Self-sabotage is when past wounds hijack the present. Instead of being curious, you're already convinced. Instead of observing, you're testing. Instead of building trust, you're bracing for betrayal. This is life where you're living from a place of the filter. You're living from a place of the wound. What this looks like, accusing before asking. Testing loyalty through chaps, games, or withdrawal. Assuming every silence equals rejection. Overreacting to small, neutral things. Self-sabotage doesn't really protect you. It just pushes people away and fulfills the very fear that you're trying to avoid. It's so insane because this filter and this lens and this wound is trying to tell you to listen to it. So it won't happen to you again. But if you do listen to it and you do begin to self-sabotage and you do begin to see life through this lens, the same things are going to keep on happening to you. Maybe not in the same way, but people will withdraw. People will leave. Healthy caution protects love. Self-sabotage prevents love. There's research from 2006 that showed that people expecting rejection often behave in a way that calls rejection. That is the trap of the filter. That is the trap of trauma. You attract what you deep down believe about yourself. What you believe about yourself is what happened to you with that wound. That wound then creates a filter. Then you start acting from that wound and then you keep attracting the same wound. And you keep proving to yourself that you're not enough over and over and over again. It is messed up. It's very messed up. Caution says I've been hurt before, so let's pay attention. Self-sabotage says I've been hurt before, so I already know how this ends. One keeps you wise and one keeps you lonely. I'm going to hit this real quick and it's how to communicate without making them pay for it because that's what's going to happen here. I'm going to communicate to them what's going on with you and then we're going to talk about how to get through this. Relationships are mirrors, but they shouldn't be crime scenes. When you bleed old wounds onto a new partner, they stop feeling like a partner and they start feeling like a defendant. Here's two studies. The first one from the Gotman Institute. Couples who start conflict with accusation are 94% more likely to end the conversation badly. Couples who start with vulnerability, which we call soft startups, are far more likely to repair. And so in all of this, and I'm not to keep going, but in all of this, what you're doing is you're having to fight against the lens. You're having to fight against the wound. You're having to fight against the urgency that this wound is welling up to. in you. It's creating something that's welling up in you. And you're having to stop. And you're having to say, this is a wound. This wound was handed to me from someone that treated me very poorly. And I don't have to listen to this wound. And so you're having to go back and forth in your head. This is just what this looks like. The second study is from Communication Science. Vulnerability activates empathy circuits in the brain. Accusation activates defensiveness. And so when you're communicating with your new partner and a new relationships, vulnerability is going to be your biggest key. Slowing down the urgency is going to be your biggest key. Realizing that, realizing the person that hurt you gave you this inadequacy and then that this is not your inadequacy. And although you feel inadequate and although you feel like projecting and although you feel like being urgent, you're going to stop and you're going to not. And you're just going to get vulnerable. And you're going to be open. Couples who disclosed past trauma with openness were three times more likely to report higher intimacy. The other thing about lenses and wounds is they feel shameful. You feel like you can't share it. You feel like what's going on in you is a very messed up thing. And you don't understand why you're reacting and projecting and doing all this. But if you will get open with this new person, if you will be vulnerable with this new person about what's going on, it will give them a place of understanding. They will realize the lens that is on you and they will also help you take that lens off. Listen to this. I'm going to say it again. Couples who disclosed past traumas with openness were three times more likely to report higher intimacy. And so that is how you're going to communicate without making them pay for your past. You're going to be vulnerable. You're going to slow the urgency down. You're going to create friction with what the wound is telling you. And so how do we get through this? Well, in the same way that the filter is built off proof, your healing is built off proof. The same way that the wound works. And if you continue to project and you continue to look for betrayal. And if you continue to feel inadequate, it is going to be proved that that is the truth. But if you begin to act differently, even if you do not feel like acting differently, even if the wound is telling you different, if you begin to get vulnerable, if you begin to tell the urgency to go away and you begin to stop and you begin to use healthy caution and not self sabotage, it is going to be proven to you that you are good enough. And that this lens on your eyes and that this filter on your life was just given to you by the person that hurt you. And the only way that you can do this is by being extremely gentle with yourself, extremely gentle with yourself, because you were hurt. And I'm sorry that you were hurt. And the pain of that created a wound in you. So you're dealing with a part of you that does not feel loved, a part of you that feels like they are worth being betrayed. A part of you that just knows that they're going to get abandoned. You deal with them through gentleness and love. You now having understanding that the wound is not yours. You can now have the logic and the education to then speak to that part of you to remind it over and over and over again that the wound is not yours. That you and that part of you do not have to react from that wound anymore. That you don't have to self sabotage from that wound anymore. And it's just going to take time. It takes time to prove something. It takes time to take the lens off. You have to have your own back. You have to choose yourself first. You now know the truth. You were wounded. The truth is that the filter is not yours. You were wounded. You were given that filter. But from this wound, you can create beauty. And the only way to do that is constant love and gentleness towards yourself. If you feel things welling up in you, get vulnerable. Get honest. If you feel the urgency in you, breathe. Slow it down. Realize that these feelings of fear are not your feelings of fear. Realize that these feelings of inadequacy are not your inadequacy. You're going to feel it. It's going to feel real because the wound is there. But they're not yours. It's going to be like a baby having a tantrum, a little kid, a toddler having a tantrum because you don't want them to eat anymore sweets because it's not good for them. And you're going to have to tell the toddler in you, hey, I know that this is what you want. I know that this is what you feel, but it's not good for you. And you're going to have to continue to partner with that part of yourself over and over and over again out of love. And that is what loving yourself through pain looks like. That is what helping yourself heal looks like. Love and gentleness. Love and gentleness. That wound is not mine. I feel it. I feel it rising up. I feel the urgency. Hey, it's okay. What they did does not define me. Their wound is not my wound. I'm going to get vulnerable with my new partner. I'm going to get vulnerable with friends. I'm going to get vulnerable with family. The biggest part about this thing is trusting yourself. Healing comes when you begin to trust yourself again. And when you begin to trust the lens that is truly yours. That's what happens in these situations is the chaos is so insane that the lenses change in these moments of wounds and these moments of betrayal. And this is a soft, gentle switch. Hey, I'm taking off this because it's not true. And I'm putting back on the truth. Hey, it's going to be okay. Speak to yourself this way. And then just go slow and stay open. Don't be afraid to feel it. Don't be afraid to deal with the urgency. Don't be afraid to deal with the wound. Don't be afraid to deal with it. Go slow and stay open. Gentleness. Love. Protect yourself. Have your back. Remind yourself. Take time to remind yourself. Meditate. Do whatever you got to do to get yourself in a place of realizing, hey, this urgency is brought. What what is your thing that you're going to do to calm yourself? What's the thing that you're going to do to get yourself back into the correct mind frame and not be seeing life through this frame? The frame of the wound. And you're going to have to do this over and over again until it sticks. And that's just what building a relationship with yourself looks like is patience. So be patient. Be vulnerable. You are going to be gentle with yourself. And you're going to love yourself and you're going to prove to yourself that that lens is not yours. And this wound is going to turn into beauty. And you're not going to be the one that passes that lens to someone else. And listen, your partner can't erase your past and you can't erase your past. And they can't unwrite your residue. But they can walk with you as you heal. If you invite them into your truth, and when I say that communication doesn't mean dumping, it means sharing with clarity, humility, and responsibility. That's how residue becomes repair. And in the same way that you're going to share with your partner, you're also going to share with yourself. Clarity, humility, responsibility. Hey, listen, I know that we filled this way. I know deep down, I filled this way. I know we got wounded, me and you. But I'm going to take responsibility for this wound, even though I'm not responsible for the wound. Because I don't want this to haunt me for the rest of my life. Love and gentleness. Be gentle with yourself. You're meeting parts of you that you have never met before. You're meeting the wounded parts of you that you've never met before. You're going to get through this. Thank you guys so much for letting me respond to that. Call in to SAP Hotline 888-444-946-1. Love you guys and I'll see you next week. I got this book written by my grandson, Dave E. Copeland. It's a pretty cool book. It's got a lot of stories how to get your life right and how to thank properly and be organized and not let the world get you down. That's really a good book. I've been reading it and I'm almost there, but I'm going to keep reading it. Just get some pick up stuff to help me. Yeah, I'm 86 years old, but I'm still learning stuff, how to adjust the stuff in line. It doesn't matter how old you are. But this is good book for every age. SAP Medium. And you can go online and order it.