Water Your Own Lawn and Take Responsibility Before You Judge Someone Else's

Welcome to the Unfuck Your Relationships Podcast. I'm Michelle Panning, your host, intimacy alchemist, trigger queen, and founder of the connected woman. AKA your new go-to bestie for all things love, sex, and relationships that won't blow total smoke up your ass. I believe you deserve to have it all, to feel worthy, confident, and have a fulfilling as fuck love life. In this podcast, we're dropping the insecurity and doubt so that you can transform into the powerful, confident, and secure woman you know your destined to be. So, grab your favorite glass of wine and let's get to work because it's time to reclaim yourself or a baby. Alright, let's get into today's episode. I want to talk about watering your own lawn before judging someone else's lawn. Now, what I mean by that is you better make damn sure that shit on your side of the fence is looking tip top before you start looking at somebody else's thing going like, oh, you really should work on that. I see this all the time and I am no stranger to this either. I have definitely been guilty of this from time to time. I'm not going to lie. But we are so quick to blame men for our problems. Okay. So men are the reason, like guys are the reason why I'm not in a relationship. Like it's because of them. They can't open up. They are not emotional. They can't feel. Men just can't commit. Right. Men are non-committal. Men only want sex. They're promiscuous. They only want to play the field. Right. We have to play all these games to get a man to commit. We have to trick him into it. Okay. No. And that is definitely how I thought, especially when I was stripping because I'm not going to lie. I did not see like the best of the best all the time. You know, I dealt with a lot of shit there as many women can say. Right. And I'm sure a lot of men have dealt with a bunch of cooked women also. It's not a thing, but we just want to blame other people for our problems so that we don't have to look at ourselves because sometimes it's really painful to look at ourselves and take responsibility. I remember when I was in that relationship, which started me on this journey. And we broke up and I started to look in the mirror and be like, oh my god, I'm the common denominator here. Not giving those guys a pass that they didn't absolutely nothing wrong because that's not the case. You know, we all had our shit, but it took me that breakup to really go, wow, it me. I'm not just perfect. Right. Because I'd spent my whole life just blaming guys for why I wasn't happy or blaming your boss or blaming your friends or blaming the government or whoever. Right. But in this instance, we're talking about men. We're talking about relationships because this is unfuck your relationships. So I want to tell you about this concept. That is perception is projection. What I mean by that. And you may know it as like mirror theory sort of thing, but what I mean is we cannot perceive something in someone else that is not already within us on some level. Now hear me out because you may understand like, okay, yeah, he has trouble being vulnerable. Sometimes I have trouble being vulnerable. Okay, cool. Now let's use a really intense example that is quite polarizing. Right. This is not an excuse for anyone, by the way, just a little caveat here. This is not an excuse for anybody else's behavior. I am not excusing shitty behavior. I'm not excusing abuse in any way shape or form here. Now what I'm doing is creating some compassion and seeing on a, on a, I guess a lighter level of like, hmm, I do that too. But let's take this really polarizing example of violence. Right. You may see someone violent and be like, I hate that. I am not violent at all. Okay. Cool. You may have never done something violent in your life. Right. Do you have the capacity to be violent? If someone was attacking your child, could you be violent? I don't know. Maybe it's not so literal. Maybe if you look in the mirror and you say, God, I'm so fat. Or you make a mistake and you call yourself a fucking idiot. That's pretty violent towards yourself. You are being violent towards yourself with your words. So it's not always a direct reflection. Okay. Now here's the thing. We really want a partner and we have men who won't commit to us. Okay. Are you fully committed to yourself? What I mean by that is, yes, cleaning up things like your finances, your health. This is masculine energy. Okay. Part of the masculine is commitment. And also, you want a man to commit to your heart and say, I love you, I prioritize you. You fucking commit to your heart. You prioritize you. But so often we're willing to just let that go and martyr ourselves and people please and care take other people, which is an abandonment of ourselves just so that we can seek love and approval from somebody else. If I do enough for him, then he will love me. No, no, no, sis. That's not the fucking energy that we're trying to lead with here. Okay. I'm going to be the example because the thing is we teach people how to treat us in every step of the way we are teaching people how to treat us. So if I am constantly abandoning myself and saying, my boundaries don't matter, my standards don't matter. Don't worry about my feelings. It's fine. I will forego all of that. I will abandon myself and I will be of service to you. Then I am telling the person in front of me, don't worry about my feelings. Don't worry about my standards. Don't worry about my boundaries. Be willing to forego all of that and abandon me because I do it to myself. Okay. So we have to look in the mirror first. And this is what the connective woman is all about. Our connection with ourselves. Right. Because you have to make sure that you're living up to the standards that you're setting for other people. Okay. You better be committed to yourself. Let's stop pointing fingers. And let's be self-responsible. Right. If you are attracting emotionally unavailable people, where are you emotionally unavailable? That was a fucking moment for me when I looked in the mirror and was like, is there a possibility that it might be me who is emotionally unavailable? Right. Because if I were to attract someone who was like, I really want to hear about all your feelings. Tell me, I really celebrate your vulnerability. I'd be like, yuck. Get out of here with that vulnerability. I do not like that. Right. So we always go for people where I never had to do that. I never had to risk that. And then I would confirm my beliefs that men indeed cannot open up, cannot be vulnerable. Do you see where I'm going with this? Yeah. So start making a list of all the places where you're wanting other people to do the things that you're not willing to do. And start cleaning up your shit. Okay. I just need to share something for a second. I want to tell you guys about this exclusive offer to you guys on the podcast, which is my attachment styles masterclass. If you're here, it's because you want to work on your relationships in some capacity and attachment styles is a beautiful way to do that. When I actually started learning about this stuff, attachment styles was the first thing that I ever learned about. And my mind was completely blown. I could see all the places and where I was showing up that wasn't actually serving me and how I could actually move to a more secure attachment style. So if you are terrified of abandonment like my anxious people or you fear getting too close to people, my dismissive avoidance or your lucky garlic, I was and you have a darling combination of both of those, my fearful avoidance. Then this is the masterclass for you. I'm going to be teaching you all about how these were formed in childhood, how they show up in adult relationships and what you can do to actually shift to a more secure attachment style. So you can head to MichellePanning.com/podcast-offer to get this exclusive offer. only available to you on the podcast. How fun for you. Okay, let's get back into it. An amazing, amazing, amazing audiobook is "Loving What Is" by Byron Katie. Her and Carolyn Elliott, as I spoke about last week with "Existential King," those are probably my two favorite books of all time. And Byron Katie is just so amazing because she talks about how everything does a reflection. There's always a turnaround, right? If I'm saying, "Men can't open up," okay, maybe the opposite is "Men can't open up," I want you to find three examples of where that's true. When I started wanting to change my beliefs, I started looking everywhere for examples of that, right? On Instagram, at the hardware store, at the grocery store, I started looking for it at Bucks parties when I was working in the sex industry. Like, I was looking everywhere for examples of where that could be true, right? I would look for examples in my own father of, okay, like, where can he be vulnerable, right? So that's one, that's one turnaround of "Men can't open up." And the other one is like, I can't open up. Where's that true? Find three examples of that. Okay, well, when people ask me how I'm really feeling, I usually just smile and say, "I'm fine," right? That's something that I used to do a lot. And it's so ingrained in us to do that, right? To just say, "I'm totally fine." I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I know you're fucking not. I want to feel what's on your heart. That is what changed the game for me in being able to attract different types of men. Because I would use my vulnerability as a compass. I would put my sensitivity out there. I would open up to men and see if they were able to care for that, you know? Could they hold my sensitivity? And if not, it was like, okay, wow, that's an indication. And here's the thing about changing your beliefs, right? You have to be able to act in accordance with this new belief. So if you're saying, I'm worthy of love, then start fucking acting like it, right? Someone who is worthy of love doesn't take back their toxic ex who cheats on them repeatedly, right? Someone who feels they are worthy of love doesn't stick around with people who repeatedly violate their boundaries. Yeah. So start acting like the things that you want to attract in another person. We have to embody the characteristics that we are wanting to attract in another person. This is why I don't like the thing like calling in your king or whatever. 'Cause I feel like that makes it sound really passive. But it is a lot about aligning to this, right? When I was thinking about the kind of king energy that I wanted to attract, I was like, he's not gonna put up with my bullshit, right? So I have to start committing to myself and actually right before I recorded this, I went out for a drive and I was thinking how I really hate being uncomfortable. Like I'm not gonna lie, which is why I've avoided things like in the past, like looking at my finances or going to the gym, something I struggle with is like eating really healthy. And so I thought, okay, well, I'm gonna do at least one thing every day that makes me feel uncomfortable because I need to start building this muscle within myself. And I also want to attract people in my life, not just a man, 'cause I've got one, but like friendships and all of that with people who are resilient and people who are good at being uncomfortable. And I wanna try new experiences, but I've always not tried new experiences because I don't wanna be uncomfortable. So I have to start leading by example, okay? So this is what I mean by watering your own lawn before you look at somebody else's, because what happens so often is, we're looking across the yard at the guys lawn, right? And going, wow, you really should think about watering that because they can't open up or whatever. You really should think about watering that and then we look down on our own lawn and it's back in dead and crusty and yuck and brown, you know? And we're like, nothing to see here, it's totally fine. I am perfect. I'm perfect. It's you who needs to do the work. And here's the thing. If you ever tried to do any personal development and tried to quote unquote change yourself, you will know how difficult that is. So to then try to think that you can change another person is ludicrous, okay? You only have control over yourself. So why don't you do what you can be responsible for and what you can actually change? So let's start being self-responsible. Let's start actually looking and watering our own lawn being devoted to ourselves, devoted to our hearts, acting in accordance with someone who is totally worthy, all the things committing to ourselves, start looking at the things that you complain about in men and start doing those things, okay? And if you're still attracting people who can't open up or whatever, that's probably like a really common one. So I use that example a lot, men who can't open up because that's what I hear often. So if you're still attracting that, it's like, okay, how can I open more? Because what happens a lot of the time and again, so guilty of this, where like I will open up once they open up, I'm not gonna go first. And it's like get the fuck off your high horse, stop with the righteousness and just take the lead because we're waiting for the other person to make us feel safe to do that. So just take the lead. And if you keep opening and opening and opening to someone and they're not opening, then they might not be the person for you, okay? And I can talk about that in another episode because that's a lot in itself. But yeah, I just wanna say start being self-responsible and taking responsibility for your life and then different things will start to show up in your life, okay? So that's what I want you to do. I want you to make a list of all the things you complain about, all the places where you're wanting other people to do the things that you are not willing to do and then start doing them. And please don't be like, okay, I'm gonna change my whole life in 24 hours. I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna eat healthy, I'm gonna look at my finances, I'm gonna open my heart, I'm gonna be vulnerable, I'm gonna share it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whew, I'm tired of just saying it. One thing at a time, little, little, change takes time, be compassionate, be gentle with yourself, okay? I love you lots and I will speak to you in the next episode. Bye, bye. (upbeat music) Thank you so much for tuning in to the Unfuck Your Relationships podcast. I hope that this episode has helped you regain your self-worth and reclaim your power. Remember, you deserve to feel safe and secure in your relationships. If you love what you learned, be sure to hit that follow button so you never miss a future episode. And we've reviewed a Help Me Reach More of Passionate Women just like you, who wanna heal their relationship patterns so they can have real intimacy with men. Don't forget to take a screenshot, share it in your Instagram stories and tag me @MichellePanning. See you back here in the next episode.