Empowering Women In Conversations

From Anxiety to Empowerment: CBT Strategies for Women in Toxic Relationship Patterns

• Anita Sandoval • Season 3 • Episode 20

Share episode

🚨 Are you tired of feeling stuck in the cycle of people-pleasing, overthinking, and relationship anxiety? You're not alone. Many women struggle with breaking free from toxic patterns that keep them trapped in self-doubt and emotional exhaustion.

In this powerful episode of Empowering Women in Conversations, I sit down with Patrick Martin, LCSW, to dive deep into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) strategies that can help you reclaim your confidence, set boundaries, and step into your authentic power.

🔍 In this episode, we cover:
✅ The hidden reasons why people-pleasers struggle in relationships
✅ How CBT helps rewire negative thought patterns and ease anxiety
✅ Practical tools to stop overthinking and self-sabotage
✅ The secret to setting boundaries without guilt or fear
✅ How to shift from reactive to empowered communication

If you've ever felt like you're carrying the emotional weight of your relationships, this episode is for you. Learn how to break free and start living life on your terms. 💪✨

🎧 Tune in now and take the first step toward empowerment!

🔗 Join the 5-Day Relief Challenge!

💖 Struggling with stress, overwhelm, or constant anxiety? Take my FREE 5-Day Relief Challenge and learn simple, science-backed techniques to calm your mind, reset your nervous system, and take control of your emotions. Each day, you’ll get a guided exercise to help you build emotional resilience and find relief—fast!

📩 Sign up now and start your journey to relief today! 

→🔗 Join the 5-Day Relief Challenge!

Connect with Patrick Martin, LCSW

🌐 Website: The Mental Health Toolbox
📷 Instagram: @mentalhealthtoolbox
📘 Facebook: The Mental Health Toolbox
🐦 Twitter: @PMartinLCSW
💼 LinkedIn: Patrick Martin, LCSW
🎙️ Podcast: The Mental Health Toolbox

📢 Connect with Us!

🌐 Website: www.anitasandoval.com
📷 Instagram: @anita_sandoval
🐦 Twitter: Anita Sandoval@PACCTX
💼 LinkedIn: @Anita Sandoval

📺 YouTube: Empowering Women In Conversations

  • If you enjoyed this episode feel free to listen in to our previous episode: 

Breaking Free: Unmasking Narcissistic Abuse and Empowering the People Pleaser Within

 And remember to subscribe so that you don't have to miss another episode.


 Sarah had always been the nice girl, the one who never said no,  always available, always putting others before herself. She thought that was what made her lovable.  But in her relationships, she found herself walking on eggshells, afraid that if she set a boundary or asked for what she needed, she would be abandoned. 

The fear of disappointing others kept her trapped in a cycle of people pleasing and self love. doubt.  Her anxiety was relentless,  overanalyzing texts,  replaying conversations, wondering if she had done something wrong,  she thought. Love meant sacrificing herself.  Until, one day, exhausted and overwhelmed, she realized, something had to change. 

That's when she discovered Cognitive Behavioral Therapy,  CBT,  and the power of reframing her thoughts. She learned to challenge the belief that she was only worthy if she was easy to love,  easy to please.  She started recognizing her needs, asserting her boundaries, and most importantly, believing that she was enough, just as she was. 

Sarah's journey from anxiety to empowerment is one many women can relate to. If you've ever felt trapped in the cycle of people pleasing and relationship anxiety, this episode is for you. Join me and a licensed clinical social worker, Patrick Martin, as we break down the patterns keeping you stuck  And explore how CBT can be the key to reclaiming your power.

That's exactly what we're diving into today with Patrick Martin, LCSW.  He is a licensed clinical social worker. With over 15 years of experience, dedicated to helping therapists master both the art of business therapy. He's the founder of the Mental Health Toolbox, an online platform that provides practical tools and resources for therapists.

Whether you're just starting out or looking to scale your practice, through online courses, workbooks, and expert guidance, Patrick equips therapists with everything they need to build a thriving career.  And when he's not helping others, you'll find him enjoying wellness, personal development, and quality time with his wife and two daughters. 

So today, Patrick is here to help us unpack the people pleasing trap, and how it plays into toxic relationships, and most importantly, how to take back your p  Let's begin! the conversation.  Welcome to empowering women in conversations, a podcast to empower and uplift women by providing a safe space for them to share their stories and experiences.

and encourage the strength, resilience, and power of women.  If you are tired of putting others needs before your own, leading to burnout and resentment, and you are ready to transform and create relationships that are supportive rather than draining, join us on this journey of Women Overcoming Adversities and Achieving Their True Empowerment.

Here's your host, a licensed professional counselor, Anita Sandoval.  Our guest Patrick Martin, a licensed clinical social worker. Welcome to the show.  Excellent. Thank you so much, Anita. It's great to be on your show. I love this world of podcasting because we get to meet new people who are aligned with our values and the passion that we have.

And it's always a special treat when I get to connect with another therapist in the podcast space. It's definitely something I don't take for granted. And I, it's always makes me happy when I other therapists. using a platform like this to really share the wealth of their experience to the masses, which I think is oftentimes something that's missed because of the access to care and all those barriers.

And I think platforms like this really help whether it's other clinicians or consumers of mental health or would be consumers to really grab a hold of some of this knowledge, this wisdom about how we can live our best lives. I wanted to tell the audience here that you specialize in CBT, which is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Can you please just let them know a little bit of what that is?  Sure. My pleasure. I could talk for days about CBT. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. has become a lot better known in recent years. The father of CBT is Aaron Beck of the Beck Institute. He was one of the first guys to really coin CBT and the whole process.

We'll get more into that. But CBT is basically thinking about our thinking, right? Which is not something we're really conditioned to do, right? In society, our thoughts are automatic, or what we will refer to as automatic thoughts. Now, that doesn't mean they're bad. There are negative thoughts, but our thoughts are pretty much on autopilot  for the most part.

And it's not a new concept, right? Cognitive behavioral therapy has been around for eons. We just didn't call it cognitive behavioral therapy. It's been practiced. You know, the methods around the world is sometimes we just repackage things in a different kind of framework, but cognitive behavioral therapy is the practice of learning to  Think about our thinking,  and learn to direct our thoughts to more constructive frameworks, themes, and to not take every thought.

As valid, right? And to learn to catch our thoughts and then contemplate whether that's a helpful thought or unhelpful thought and usually this takes a long time, a lot of practice. This is oftentimes why people have a really hard time meditating  when they first start practicing meditation is because the ability to be still, especially in today's world where everything is vying for our attention and, uh, yeah.

It's a time of age where we have such a short attention span, it becomes increasingly more difficult to slow down and be still. And that's really required in order for us to examine our thoughts, even in real time. In a nutshell, that's what CBT is, and we can definitely talk more about what that looks like.

Oh, yeah, I remember reading a study on how an average person has over 60, 000 thoughts a day. And so when somebody comes to me saying, Oh, I don't really have any thoughts. I'm like, really? Cause we have over 60, 000 of them. So it's more of, are we really thinking, or are we looking at what our thoughts are?

And that is a behavioral. type of habit that we need to start working on. And habits, they don't just imprint in our brain one day to the other. It takes several weeks and maybe even months of consistency to make sure that we work on our thoughts. Our audience focuses on women who are People pleasers.

And how would CBT help people in relationships, especially the women who are people pleasers? And what are some of the most common cognitive distortions or thinking that might be unhelpful for them in these relationships as people pleasers? Yeah, that's a great question because it's also one of my favorite things to talk about.

Now this would be true not just in relationships, I do love talking about relationships and communication and CBT as a foothold and how we can improve and get what we want out of relationships and give, but this would be true whether it's social anxiety, whether it's anxiety in general, it all boils down to our thoughts.

And our thoughts are a reflection of our beliefs, and our beliefs about ourselves are a reflection of our core beliefs. As maybe you've had some other guests on who have talked about core beliefs. And I know it's such a common phrase now, automatic thoughts, whether we call them cognitive distortions or automatic negative thoughts, or we call them harmful thinking habits, whatever the lingo we choose to use.

I know it's really becoming common  catchphrases now. But the truth is  Has everything to do with our behavior and our behavior has everything to do with the quality of our lives. Okay, right?  so the way CBT helps someone who has anxiety in a relationship is That it helps us break patterns if you've done, you know, if you've done couples therapy But in couples therapy they talk the goal is what we call pattern disruption  When you have, when you're meeting with a couple, whether it's from premarital counseling or marital counseling, or just couples, or they're on the brink of divorce, there's been trust issues, whatever it is, when you ask each person, what is your  complaint?

What is your view of the problem? And the relationship, both parties can usually agree, it's a, it's a pattern of the same issues over and over again, same arguments, right? And oftentimes the arguing becomes about the arguing. It's not about the problem or the original offense. If you ever had that happen, or you're sitting, maybe driving in a car on the way back from a holiday or something, and then, or a party, and then one little thing gets one person going and they start bringing up the past and the other person gets defensive.

And then you're like 10 miles in the wrong direction. Yes, I always say it's never about the cheese because they're like, Oh, it's never about the cheese. There's something else. I totally understand. And part of addressing relationship problems is first understanding the self. Okay. Right. So it's good. It is a very kind of multifaceted topic because we're talking about how do we track our own thoughts.

Okay. Yeah. And our own feelings to really one validate and understand where they're coming from. And then how do we communicate.  that to our significant other or our partner in a way that They  understand and stay curious instead of critical, right? Because what's that, what's that phrase? We want to seek understanding, not blame.

Yes. Now, one person can do that,  but getting somebody else to do that, our counterpart, is very tricky. And this is why  relationship anxiety is such a problem, because the anxiety in a relationship is usually a symptom of a bigger problem. Okay. Because you don't trust your partner to be transparent,  right?

And people who have anxiety in relationships  usually have a lot of red flags, and what that usually looks like is passive communication. They're very passive, and when they try to be assertive, they overcorrect, and they become aggressive or passive aggressive, and that just continues to further that pattern we're trying to break.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Wow. And so what can you tell to help that pattern disruption whenever that behavior is happening, that repetitive behavior is happening?  Yeah, so if we use an example like automatic thoughts would be something like overgeneralizing. Okay. Right? Like you always Oh, yes. I know. Oh my gosh.

I know. That's something that me and my husband, you always said, you never do that. And I'm like, really? Never?  Not even once?  Yeah. And the thing is, our thoughts oftentimes come out. Sometimes you'll hear, hear people say, I don't know where that came from, or, I didn't mean it that way, or You took it the wrong way.

Yeah. Yes, yes, yes. And even that gets, not to get too off on a side quest here, but even rabbit trails like that where you can say, oh, that was not what I meant. But then  you get into the should, right? Oh, yes. I shouldn't have to, I shouldn't have to filter my thoughts with my partner, right? Yes, it should.

Relationships should be easy. Oh, which is another cognitive distortion, which is the shoulds and woulds. And so a lot of people assume that we have these automatic thoughts, just one goes into it. And sometimes they compile each other until she's like, Oh my gosh, where did we end up going? Get confused.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And so first, I think understanding going back to understanding the self was a point of intervention, right? We're always looking for points of intervention with behavior change with human behavior. Okay. So it starts with the self, right? Just like we're when we're working with clients, we and we're working on relationship stuff on one side of the street, right?

We can't unless we're doing couples therapy. We don't really get it. We're not privileged to  working on the other half, but what I try and remind clients is that you can't control or change other people.  We can only  affect change by proxy. And I don't, I usually use chess as an example, just say I love chess.

Okay. Not that everybody plays chess, but maybe you'll get the concept. When you're playing chess with someone  for a long time, like the same person, you'll find the two people tend to just, Make their moves. They're just chewing the fat. They're chit chatting. They don't really think about what they're doing Okay, um until it gets critical, right? 

But  let's say you're playing with your same person you've played with for 10 years chess, but then  The other person uses a different opening move than they typically would.  What is that going to do to the person who's playing with them?  It's going to make them think.  Yeah. It's going to snap them out of that automatic response.

It's going to cause them to pause and really contemplate, Hey, what's going on here? Read the room. That's what happens in relationships. So though we can't change, other people. We can cause them, we can do what's called a pattern interrupt. And we do that by changing the way we respond. And this is, of course, predicated on the assumption that  there's a problem in the first, that we're doing something that we can change in the first place, right?

I don't want to have this conversation assuming that the other person's not largely at fault, which is oftentimes the case. And that's a different, maybe a different conversation, but that's more about boundaries. Yeah. And  keeping a high price tag of oneself and knowing your negotiables in a relationship.

Okay. But when we're looking at the self,  what we do have control over is how we're interpreting a situation, right? So in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, we really want to nail home what a thought is, right? A thought is either a statement,  a question,  or an image, right?  A statement, a question, or an image. Wow.

Now, statements tend to be very matter of fact.  Okay. I'm so stupid.  I'm unlovable.  I can't believe I said that. My husband's an idiot. No, I'm just kidding. He didn't throw the trash out.  Yes, he's an idiot. So,  statements are dangerous because  unless, again, we're taught to think about our thinking, every thought we have, we give a green light.

Okay. And in cognitive behavioral therapy,  try and move  clients to think about  reframing their thoughts as questions. Remember when I said clients stay curious, not critical. Okay. Curiosity is the key. Okay. So if we can reframe our thoughts as questions, especially disturbing ones or intrusive thoughts, right?

Because  again, like you said, we have a, like countless amount of thoughts every day, right? It's 60, 000 or something. It's over. Yes.  We obviously can't check every thought, but the way we know a thought is worthy of checking is if we have an emotional charge to it,  right? If a thought brings up an emotional charge, right?

Okay. That's our flag that says maybe we should do a check and balance on this and this goes back to mindfulness Which is a huge pillar of CBT, right? And well, we can I don't forget to that today, but  understanding first our thoughts are their statement or question We want to be able to rephrase it as a question or a more accurate balanced and complete thought Take somebody who's facing divorce, right?

They might say my marriage was a failure  I'm not cut out for marriage,  or I failed my marriage, right? That would be like a very absolute thought, right? Okay. A more accurate, balanced, and complete thought would sound more like, Ooh, my marriage didn't last as long as I'd hoped it to, didn't end. Well, okay, but I learned a lot about what I need in relationships and what I need to work on and what I bring to the table in the next one,  that's a more accurate, balanced and complete thought.

You've moved away from, I suck at relationships  to, Hey, I learned a lot from this last relationship about how I can do the next one better. Wow. And people pleasers tend to do that. They tend to just take in the burden of the responsibility in a relationship. For themselves, but also of the other person.

And I have to remind them, yes, you're responsible for a hundred percent of your own behavior, but at best 50 percent within the relationship, you can't do yours and their part. And therefore they end up having these negative thoughts, unhelpful thoughts, such as I'm not good enough. I am unlovable. I am a failure because of the relationship becoming unhealthy or just the disillusion of that relationship.

What are some of the pattern disruptions that they could do to make it into a helpful thought?  Absolutely. So  going back to Aaron Beck, the father of CBT, he used to yell, stop! Every time like an automatic, like negative thought would come up, he'd yell at the clients. I don't suggest that. Yeah. And I don't want you to yell at yourself.

Maybe an air horn. I'm just kidding. But the way we can get a foothold on it is learning to label our thoughts. And this is, again, a foundation of CBT because we all, sorry, spoiler alert, we all have automatic negative thoughts. We all struggle with at least one negative thought. Or more of the categories, whether that's negative filtering, whether that's mind reading, whether that's catastrophizing, whether that's future fortune telling, comparative thinking.

And again, the names are not all inclusive. You can have, you can name them whatever you want. I tell clients, you can come up with your own names, call it Pinocchio, I don't care. Whatever makes sense to you, but what we're, we first have to learn how to label our thoughts in order to catch them. Yeah, and CBT, there's a little acronym.

It's called CCC. Catch it. Check it. Change it. So  we have to first And there's other, I guess, other ones, but my favorite is catch objective changes. I like it. And basically what that means is first we have to learn how to catch our thought. We can't catch our disruptive, dysregulating thoughts unless first we know what to call them.

Right? So if we know that, hey, you know what? I noticed when I get upset, I'm usually in the headspace of comparative thinking. I'm comparing myself to my, maybe I'm disabled and my partner's Doing X, Y, and Z and I feel like I'm just not contributing like I want to and now I'm getting down on myself, right?

That would be like maybe a husband who's out of work or gets disabled on the job And now he's trying to put things together at home and his wife's working He's feeling again if we go back to traditional roles and mindsets, which in a lot of cultures, right?  you'll see oftentimes a lot of Self destructive behavior means alcoholism and other things because the person's stuck in that comparative thinking, right?

Yeah, so what we want to do is learn to call it what it is. Oh That was comparative thinking again. So we have some we have a way to catch it if we don't label it There's no way to really know what we're looking for. Right? Yeah, there's a phrase I love it's called what measures What's measured gets improved, right?

What we measure gets improved. Makes sense, right? Yeah. So first we have to be able to catch the thoughts that are causing us the distress and then be able to put them under the microscope and be like, what's this thought about? And this is where it gets tricky, Anita, is because what most people will do when they have intrusive thoughts, they might get good at catching them, but you know what they do?

Most people, they try and push them away. Oh, yes. Oh, don't think about that. Avoid them. Oh, don't think about that. Don't think about that. That's not, no, I don't want to think about that right now. Or that's not true.  Yes. Or they'll challenge it, right? Okay.  So there's a, in CBT, it's taught that we should not chase or push our thoughts away.

Don't chase them, don't push them away. And this goes back to that concept of mindfulness. Okay.  When somebody's upset  and they're venting, do they want advice typically?  Or do they want validation? Yes. They want to be heard. Yes.  And just like I said in most arguments, if we can seek understanding instead of blame Yes.

It's usually how we break patterns. It's true with the self. We can do this with others, but we rarely do this with ourself. Okay. Rather than trying to push a thought away or chase a thought down, that's just like  stewing, that we know is like twisting the knife. It could be doing the dishes or something, but you're not even in the room.

You're like. Dissociated. miles. Yeah. Like. Yeah. Stewing all the things you're either worried about, or you're upset about, or what your partner said to you three days ago. Oh. You're still not talking about, you know what I mean? He feels unresolved, open loops, right? Wow. So, when it comes to intrusive thoughts, what we want to do is we want to be able to acknowledge them.

Okay. Without giving them assent. Assent is saying that something is okay,  ethically.  Right? It means that we're okay with it. That's ascent. Okay. That means we give it a green light. That's not, that's different than radical acceptance.  Okay. Which is more DBT ish, but it's CBT based. Like radical acceptance is, oof,  yeah, that really sucked.

I really wish I hadn't said that. I, what my partner said to me really hurt my feelings. Okay. But you know what? I'm going to choose not to think about that right now because right now I'm focused on X, Y, and Z.  Okay, I love that. That's mindfulness. That's being able to catch your thoughts, understand where they're coming from, understand where the wound is, or boundary violation, or remorse, or worry, right?

So we get a little better at identifying what the thought is about. That's how we validate it. Okay. Okay. This thought's distressing us for a reason. Yeah. Yeah. And with anxiety, it's typically, anxiety tends to be fear based. Yes, just like anger is fear based. When people get angry,  they're usually anxious people.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Anger is a secondary emotion. It is hiding behind the vulnerable, either sad or scared, but or both. And because somebody who has fear can be like, Oh, I'm so scared. No, the protect primitive response comes in of the fight flight. And that's where anger comes in. So I always tell my patients, Hey, when you're angry, I want you to explore that anger and go since it's secondary, what other emotion is coupled with this anger?

And let's explore that emotion. And unless you really are in danger, then use the anger. But if you're not, let's explore the vulnerable emotion as well. And I like what you said about the whole intrusive thoughts, but I want to also tackle the other one rumination. So what, how does rumination play into relationship anxiety?

And how can you guide  the, the people that especially women who are people pleasers, because they do tend to ruminate as well to break that. Unhealthy pattern of overthinking. My favorite tool, if we want to jump straight into it, is a worry journal.  A worry journal. Okay. A worry journal. This is an oftentimes I'll use for clients who have a lot of trouble with insomnia because of the ruminating.

Okay. So a lot of people with high anxiety tend to stew a lot at night about the things they're worried about, ruminating about, open loops,  creating loops  for future potential issues, right? The brain loves to work on things.  The brain doesn't really care, at least in my opinion. I haven't found that the brain really cares what we're working on. 

The brain likes something to chew on. But the problem is, we often, if we're not giving ourselves time for our mind to breathe, and we're not, two things, not giving it time to breathe during the day, to really reflect on the things that are bothering us, and two, giving it something Constructive to work on  that's healthy, a healthy outlet  then or creative outlet, whatever you want to call it.

Then oftentimes when our head hits the pillow at night, it'll use that as an opportunity to solve all the world's problems.  A worry journal, what that does, and I always tell clients, it doesn't have to be pen to paper. I'm not a pen to paper guy. Everybody's different. I agree. I know it sounds weird because I'm a therapist.

Like I just,  it's a chore for me. So that's why I like bullet journaling. Or in this case like a worry journal could be the no app on your phone. Could be your calendar. Could be a voice memo. You leave for yourself, but however you do it, I personally like using a sauna because I have an aversion to paper.

Oh, yes, I have a sauna. Yes.  I can always do a demonstration of what that would look like with the worried journal. But the idea is that if you have an intrusive thought,  whether it's at 2 p. m. while you're doing the dishes, work on the worried journal,  Or, rather than using that time to try and solve the problem, you're gonna just write it down verbatim in your worry journal. 

Verbatim. What is your distress of thought?  And then you put the journal away. Now, the magic is having a time you set aside to review the journal. Not in the moment, right? You're just putting it down, because usually the brain will spin on rumination  when it, because it worries that you're going to forget.

Okay. The brain, like you said, the fight or flight, it doesn't like to feel threatened. Okay. And when we have identified something as a threat or a problem, the brain won't let it go until we have, we've heard of cognitive closure, right?  Cognitive closure is important because the, no thought is good or bad, right?

It's really all, it's going to get philosophical about it, right? What is good? What is bad? What is? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what is life's purpose? Let's not get too deep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's all based on interpretation. I know. And one of the things that my patients, when I tell them, like, did you know there's no right, wrong, good or bad.

And there they don't tell me that. And there isn't because it really is based upon what you deem it wrong, good or bad. But in reality, there really isn't anything. In fact, yes, it's not a philosophical one.  And that's a very deep rabbit hole we can go down talking about how our values are intrinsically tied to our thought process, which sounds rational, but we don't really think about it that way.

Right. But a worry journal is helpful because it helps us write down our concern verbatim.  Then we can come back to it during, I don't like to even call it a worry time. I think of it as a reflection time. Okay. Or problem solving time. Okay. And so then we come back to that.  What we've written down and we pick one thing.

Maybe you had 10 worries during the day. We're just going to focus on one and then you're going to write down some brainstorm some ideas under it in terms of how you can address it.  And the real important thing with this is to make sure that we're not judging our solutions.  There's no good or bad idea.

We're just brain dumping.  Again, we're giving our brain just room to breathe.  If I did this, I could do that. We could do this. We could do that. And then if you have time left over, you pick one, one solution to try out.  Now.  If you can't come up with any solutions,  either not really a problem,  or it's not a right now problem,  we can put a pin in it. 

That makes sense. Yeah. You could put a pin and say, Hey, you know what? I'm going to work on you this day. And just even defining it. I'm going to work on you on this date or later on this, the brain will be like, Oh, okay. We're going to work on it eventually. And it won't feel like you're not catering to it.

And it could be anything from a minor argument with your partner. to end of life planning, your funeral. The brain just wants something to work on. When we have a lot of intrusive thoughts during the day, or distressing thoughts, or seemingly important thoughts. Yeah. I just want to put it that way. Okay.

We're not great at prioritizing.  Right? Usually we will take the first thing and run with it. And that's the problem with not checking our thoughts or not triaging our thoughts, if you want to think of it that way. Like in an ER, people come in, like one person has an ax in their chest and another person has an infected toenail. 

If the toenail comes in first and the ax comes in behind them, if you're not triaging, the person with the ax is probably not going to get the right attention. But with our thoughts, We need to be careful that we're considering  How we're investing our emotional time and energy into each Expedition. Okay.

Okay. That makes sense. Yeah, we can't get to everything. That's yeah, and not everything is  Has the same value or is as worthy of our attention. I love that. Yes value And I think this is where people need to keep in mind What are your values and I even tell them put it on a note card laminate or put tape on it So whenever you're having these thoughts and go, how can I triage as you say it when you bust out those values?

You can then put importance with those thoughts to this value Which one is really aligned with this value and let me focus on that going back to the self  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And  the other thing I noticed with relationships with people pleasers, they tend to be in codependent relationships where the other partner wants them to be taken care of.

So how can we help? People pleasers who are in codependent relationships break free with that cycle and how can CBT work within those issues?  Yeah, that's fantastic. We can talk about the origins of anxious attachment styles, which is usually with people pleasers. Okay. Usually, maybe your audience already knows this, but our social map, our love map is usually developed by age five or six. 

Wow. Our love map is how we learn to give and receive affection. Okay. It's our roadmap, our blueprint,  whatever you want to call it, there's probably other terms for it, but it's like a love blueprint, love map. It's our order of operations for how we get our needs met, how we feel wanted, how we show affection, right?

Yeah. How we feel validated. The love and belonging. Yes. Sense of belonging. And somebody who grows up with very inconsistent parenting or emotionally unavailable parents or even  if you're raised by secondary caregivers. But you were never really consulted by your parents about how you feel about those secondary caregivers like you're not given any autonomy Okay.

Yeah, okay Even be those nuanced things somebody has a babysitter or a family relative who watches you X number of hours while your parents work How old you are, if your parents  don't consult you about how you feel about that, that can have a detrimental effect as well.  Ultimately, it's the inconsistent messages we get from our primary caregivers growing up that can sometimes lead to what's known or referred to as an anxious attachment style.

Right.  Um,  as we get older.  We tend to go out of our way to seek external validation, and what that looks like is we will compromise our own needs, we will compromise even our own values in order to avoid any sense of abandonment from our partner. Abandonment  doesn't necessarily mean they're walking out the door, it can be emotional withholding.

Yeah. And so that's oftentimes where, yeah, you will find people who have a lot of anxiety in relationships. They have a very low distress tolerance.  Which means like, if I say, it could be something as simple as, if I say  hello and try and kiss  my wife or something when I get home, if I don't get a kiss right back, theoretically, then  if I was somebody with an anxious attachment style, I might take that as, oh, are they drifting from me, do they not, did I do something wrong, and your mind starts spinning, like, oh, and you start being apologetic before, whatever.

Even if you don't say anything, you're already in that head space when nothing's even wrong. The problem with that too, is that the person with an anxious attachment style will oftentimes not express their needs because they're afraid that what if I do express my needs and then my partner does not reciprocate.

What does that mean?  Oh, that's a good question for my audience here and let them know the answer.  So the antidote for that, if you find yourself in a codependent relationship as a people pleaser or someone who's an anxious attachment style, whatever you want to call it, who's anxiously attached is we just work on validating the self and psychology.

There's a term called reflected appraisals. Okay. And reflected appraisals means. That our sense of self, our value, what we think of ourselves, our self esteem, our ego, whatever you want to call it, is  determined by  what other people think of us. But not just anybody, but the people that we make our mirror,  right?

I always tell clients, be careful who you make your mirror.  Wow. Definitely. Because inevitably we're going to, we're going to, that's going to have an impact on our self esteem based on what those people think. Now,  a securely attached person.  Comes into a relationship already having a strong sense of self,  right?

With no, they know what their values are. They know what their negotiables are, they know what their non-negotiables are. They know what they bring to the table and they know what they need to work on.  And rather than looking for somebody else to quote complete them mm-hmm  . They are looking to enhance each other in the relationship.

Yes. Yes. Makes sense.  Yes. Definitely. I'm with you, not because I need you, because I want to be with you and you compliment each other. Wow. It's a choice. It's an act of choice. And it's not, I don't like the word desperation, but it's not, it's more because you, you build each other up. You're good for each other.

And that's, it's like when you're looking for a job, if you're not desperate for the job, you do much better on the interview. Why is that? Yeah. You're not desperate. And I'm, I don't mean that. I do not mean that in a negative  way. I just mean people who  have anxious attachment styles sometimes will forego what they know is best for them  because they're afraid of missing out. 

They get FOMO in their own relationship. Yes. And the other thing also is you're mentioning the caretakers. If the caretakers are cold or even they're overly protective or they're have relationship enmeshment, Oh, if you feel like this, I feel like this. What ends up happening going through Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

The first step is the basic needs and then safety, and then it's love and belonging. So when those needs are not met, as you mentioned with the imprinting. Before five years old, then what happens that need for safety kicks in because it's unresolved, but yet they now want the love and belonging. So we have that inner conflict of necessity.

I need to be safe because technically emotionally you don't feel that way. And so you go into that relationship just to feel safe. And then you go on also wanting to feel love and belonging and you jump back and forth and those look like you have the desire and then you have the longing, you have the the wanting to the judgment or you have the submissive and so those type of conflicts end up being because those needs weren't meant of safety growing up.

But then you also want again, the love and belonging. And so to them emotionally, it's a sign of necessity, I need this to survive, which is where the desperation comes in, I have to live. And this is an emotional not a physical, yes, you're you're alive. But this is an emotional need of I'm going to die feeling, which is where the abandonment comes in.

Because if we Think about it. You can't be abandoned because abandoned is when you're a child and, and when you abandon someone, they're going to die. That means they cannot survive. But to them, it feels just like that. I'm being abandoned, meaning I'm going to die. If I'm not with ABC type of feeling, worst case scenario, worst case scenario.

Yeah.  And so moving forward, how can you help women balance being assertive,  but. They also have the anxiety with conflicts. How can CBT help with that?  Oh, it helps tremendously because you start seeing the problem as the problem and not the person as the problem. Okay. And we'll talk more about that, like conflict resolution skills.

But ultimately with CBT, we're trying to back it all the way in to assumptions. Okay. Because once you can identify your intrusive thoughts and reframe them, the next step is to challenge your assumptions. Okay. Okay. Why we believe something is true.  And it's not comfortable, right? This is why a lot of people  avoid therapy, it's because they don't want to think about, they don't want to be challenged on their assumptions, right?

And that would be for, to your example, if somebody feels like if their partner  leaves them or they were to leave their partner, for example, then the whole, the sky would fall. And all the bad things would happen. They wouldn't be able to live without them. Right? That's an assumption.  Where does that come from?

What basis does that assumption have? And is that true? Right? Because when we go about our business in the world, we are all operating off of rules and assumptions.  And they're intrinsically twined, right? If I grow up believing the world is a dangerous, scary place because that's what my parents taught me, or that's what I saw, and that I shouldn't trust anyone, then I'm going to assume, my rule,  is that I, okay, I'm going, my assumption is that everyone has an angle, everybody wants something from me, and they're not to be trusted.

So my rule, to back up my assumption, would be I don't  give other people any extension of trust or  to put it more simply, if I go to the market, I don't smile.  I'm not, I don't greet the cashier. I don't greet the person and that could be extended to anything because I assume that everybody  is out of an angle and nobody's worthy of my, of engendering myself because that makes me vulnerable.

So if I grew up thinking the world is.  a great, yeah, bad things happen, but the world is mostly a good place. It's beautiful. Most people are well intended. I'm going to have a very different engagement  within the world and how I relate to others.  I'm going to extend myself. I'm going to assume people I know have the best intentions.

If somebody makes a mistake, I'm going to give them grace. Okay. As opposed to berate them and shut them down and cut them out of my life. Yes. Because I have trust issues. And that's a whole other topic. If you want to get into trust and what trust is and what a lie is, and that's, that's a whole other thing, but it's all value based and values are based on rules and assumptions.

And those are based on core beliefs about the self and how the world works. So if we want to change How we respond in relationships. We have to get very good  at thinking about our thinking. Mm hmm. Reframing our thoughts as questions, because questions beget better questions. Okay. Which beget better solutions.

Yeah. And learning to be inquisitive instead of accusatory.  To our partners, and that's that thing when we talk about mindfulness, it's being able to hold my emotion here  while I engage with you here.  It's not that I'm rejecting my emotions because that doesn't work. I'm validating my emotion, but I'm, I'm holding it  while I focus on seeking understanding instead of blame. 

Right? The second we start taking things personally.  Then  our acute stress response kicks in, our self defense mechanisms, our walls go up, our protest behavior. And there's a saying in relationship counseling  that when people get upset, they either get big or they get small.  Yes. And that goes back to that fight or flight. 

People who flight, they get quiet, they withdraw, they avoid.  Conflict. People who get bigger get argumentative. It's the same thing. Yeah. It's the same thing. And that has everything to do with what you learned and how to cope with conflict growing up. Wow. If you grew up in a home where parents were, there's domestic violence and there was a lot of arguing and you just learned, maybe you tried to intervene once and you got beat too, or you're traumatized about what you saw in the future.

Maybe you learned to hide under your bed. It's just an example. You grow up learning, hey, when there's conflict,  I'm, where do I hide? Yeah. Yeah. Unless we learn to reparent ourselves and learn that not every situation is equitable to one experience. And that goes back to that over generalization and that as a coping skill and a thought process, because.

Not every situation demands the same response. Yeah, yeah. And there's other ways to do things. Yes, if there is  an active shooter, run, by all means, and hide. If  an argument with your spouse,  there's no immediate threat. It's just a conversation. Yeah. But our nervous system doesn't always know the difference.

Yeah. Depending on how we coped growing up. And so that's a, when it comes to managing conflict, really, It's learning, there's a term in dialectic behavioral therapy called DEARMAN. If you want to look it up guys, it's an acronym. Check it out. It's really helpful. It's called DEARMAN. Wow. And it's really about how to  engage  an offense.

How to engage  conflict resolution  without blowing up the situation.  And build up your self esteem. So, that's basically, you state how you feel.  You seek understanding about the other, you validate the other person's position. You identify, you state your needs, what you need, the behavior change you're asking for and what you can give in return.

But you're not really making an apology, you're definitely not making an apology for something you didn't do. Yeah. Yeah. And that can sound different in terms of how you're validating.  Somebody else and your timeliness is important, right? And getting buy in from the other person. We want to try not to and picking one thing at a time  I don't want to the person with a laundry list of complaints because which is what usually happens when we start arguing, right?

Yeah, one one  One  agenda item. Yes, definitely. I love that. I, one of the techniques I give my patients is whatever the issue is, of course, you have to have a meeting of the mind. Step number one, you have to be cool, calm and collected or else there's no way you're going to make connections. And so they have.

Green, yellow and red flags and their little cards and in that cards they have the do's and do nots like no blaming no criticizing no putting down and then they use that to calm their emotions. Okay, you know what? I'm already getting a little bit heated here. So they'll put a yellow card knowing okay, we're not there yet because once I put the green the red card.

They're going to have to take a time out or time in away from the issue, but what card is always, there is that one problem. And they know that if there's something else that comes up, say, okay, we can discuss that at a later time, but this is what we're doing. And they have to have a visual because yeah, you get caught into that storm of different things.

And then they've told me, man, these little green, yellow, red has helped me learn about my other partner's emotions, where I didn't even know they were getting yellow. And I thought they were just. fine. And just them going like that, not even needing to talk to, to help them just navigate those emotions and thoughts and being able to solve that one problem.

So yeah, absolutely. I love that. Yeah. Even use like index cards, right? Yes, definite construction paper or tag boards. You mentioned the unhealthy thinking, the automatic thoughts, the rumination intrusive. Thoughts, the strategies on how to work with conflicts. When couples come in, how do you help them become aware of these values when they've never even heard of it?

I know some of my patients are like, what the heck the ones are new or listening in, how do you incorporate values in the relationship and align that with the behaviors that they're doing? Great question. The way I do it with clients, rather than talking about values, because a lot of people have trouble sometimes listing their values or they might give you super superficial values like trust, honesty, and those are all good, right?

But those are like level one values. Yes, yes. I think about, I always ask, what does that mean to you? Yeah. What does that mean to you? Because that's gonna, that's gonna go from the head to the heart pretty quick. When you talk about like, when something happens and I say, what does that mean to you? Meant that they think that. 

What I do isn't enough. What does that mean to you? What does not enough mean to you? What does that, where does that come from? As I start to dig, it's like the seven layers deep, the why question. You ever heard that? No, tell me. It's great. It's a great way to get down to your values as far as like helping somebody else get down to theirs.

Okay. It's called the seven layers deep. I have to give Dean Graciosi credit for that one. Okay. But the seven, the, the seven layers deep is asking yourself why. If you can, Get someone to respond seven times to that question. Kind of like, what does that mean to you? What does that mean to you? Same idea.

Yeah. But that's, you get pretty quick to the core beliefs or fears  that drive our behavior. And once they unlock that, then everything else seems clearer.  Because then they can explore their values. They can also speak to their values and they know what they need. Because most people Don't know what they want or need. 

They know what upsets them,  but they have a hard time identifying what it is they really want and need, how to ask that of themselves, and more importantly how to ask that of others, right?  Whose support they need, and that's the tricky part.  Yes, it starts with the surface level thoughts, the automatic thoughts, learning to catch those, reframe them because that's the only way we can self regulate.

We can't do the other stuff until we're regulated.  We can't do the conflict resolution, like you said, unless we're calm and collect. And if we're If there's too much noise going on with a committee in our head, that self dialogue,  for example, before you come home, like you're already thinking about something you're upset about or that your partner spoke to you about, and you're already playing out, when I get home, they're going to say this, I'm going to say that, and you're already playing out a whole tape in your head about how the argument's going to play out.

It's stopping that tape. Throw the tape away. Burn the tape. Yeah.  Because what that does, that's already preparing our nervous system for a fight.  And so  the way we get past all that is the quicker we can get to our needs and our values and work from a place of value and understanding  and  seeking, again, seeking understanding of the other person's values and needs.

Yeah. Yeah. That is the only way we get anywhere in conflict resolution. And really, what's the point? What is the point in resolving conflict so that we can have healthy meaningful relationships, right? I love that. Otherwise, what's the point in being in a relationship?  Yes. What are we doing? Yeah. And which brings me to my next question.

What advice would you give people who are starting in a relationship on Especially if they know that the other person is a people pleaser, to really support and empower them.  So if you're in a relationship with a people pleaser,  the most important thing is to understand, is to be an approachable person.

Okay. To be an approachable person and give the other person a lot of  reminders that it's safe to share.  Anything,  and there's no judgment. Now that's a tall order. It is. But that is what a Yeah. It doesn't mean that you don't  talk about hard things. It doesn't mean that you don't express your opinion about things.

But people pleasers are very sensitive to disappointment. They have to understand that if they are going to share something that's on their mind, they can I think of it as thinking out loud. Okay.  Because for a people pleasing person, they're afraid if they think out loud that the other person is going to take that as gospel  and that could have a negative impact on the relationship.

Okay. A people pleasing person needs permission to think out loud  without judgment.  Yeah. So that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe sending that precedent because I know sometimes a partner is right away wanting to solve the problem. And one of the things I always tell people They don't know what you need if you don't communicate to them.

So if you just want them to listen, no judgment, we listen, we don't judge or we listen and we just be curious. You got to let them know, Hey, I don't need you to solve my problem. I've got this, but I just need you to listen. Don't judge. I need to hear. And everybody has their own words of affirmation and validation.

Know to tell the partner, what are your words of validation that you like to hear? Because everybody is. different. And it's okay to say those things because I don't know if it is in movies or intergenerational where they think they're my soulmate. They should already know me. No, you never really know them.

You've got to really allow them that space for them to know you and you get to know them through communication. Yes. Absolutely. Love that. And, yeah,  I know, right? I know our audience will love to connect with your work and get to know a little bit more of what you do. What is the best place for them to connect with you and let them know if you have any new projects, exciting news that you have coming up? 

Yes. Absolutely. That's the easy one. The mental health toolbox. com. I love that. Is where you'll find links to. All of my, like, my podcast, YouTube channel, I have a shop I'm working on there. If you're a therapist and you are interested in having handouts for therapy, work with your clients, educational material, you can jump on there.

I have some free stuff for you. You can also grab some cheap stuff or there's an all access pass. It's 10 a month. You can have unlimited access. I'm adding to it weekly. If you have any requests, let me know, I'd be happy to create handouts for you. I just like to have a one stop place where I can grab things.

And I create them for myself and I put them up there. So as I'm using them, I figure other therapists could benefit too. Oh, and you have some journals there too that I really liked for those. Guided meditations. Yes. Any worry journals by any chance?  You know what, that'll be the next thing. There you go.

There you go. I like it. I usually refer to the tiny Buddha worried journal, but may I'll create my own. Ah, yeah. And journals can either be upregulating or downregulating. And that's okay. It really is dependent on the person, but I I'd love to, I just have it just in case they need it. Anybody, it's good to just.

Let it all out like a brain dump. So yeah, absolutely love it. Thank you. So I normally ask two questions to my guests, and I know you have two daughters, correct? I do.  I know. I wouldn't know what to do with a boy.  . . That's what my husband says. I'm a girl mom. Three girls, I swear. And he says, I wouldn't know what to do with a boy.

And I'm just like, oh yeah, well, he's always wanted girls. So I hear you , you know, assume that. All your work that you've done that you just discussed right now was lost through whatever unforeseen circumstance. And nobody would have known about your work or what you do. And in three generations down the line, your daughter, granddaughter, and great granddaughter, they find one letter.

And in this letter, what truths would you bestow to that lineage of women?  Oh, absolutely to keep a high price tag on themselves. That. They are enough, just as they are. And to never compromise their values. Oh, I love that. Yes, it gives me chills. And the world is a playground. Oh, yes. Oh, God. It's like a theater.

You do what you want. We lose that somewhere. I don't know where we lose that. When you're a kid, time moves slow. Yeah. When you're a kid, like, everything seems possible. Somehow, as we get older, I don't know if it's all the demands. Time moves too fast. There's never enough time in a day to get all the things done.

And somehow our play time is diminished to next to nothing. So I think I would tell my  kids and future generations, don't lose that.  And that's, I think that's why I'm so passionate about helping clients focus on autonomy. Autonomy is I think one of the pillars of happiness. Definitely. And our last question, what is your definition of an empowered woman? 

Ooh, my definition of an empowered woman, 

quiet strength. Yes. As anybody, I think 

altruistic, not  knowing you're capable of anything, but not always needing to prove it.  To other people,  being approachable and  non reactionary.  Wow. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's a good question. That's a good question. Thank you. I'd be a power to anybody. Yeah, I know, right? Any person. I love that.

Thank you, Patrick, for joining us in this episode. And I know my audience will enjoy all this information as much as I have.  Thank you. It's been an honor and a privilege. Thank you so much for having me on. Anita. Um,  hope this is helpful to your audience. Thanks for listening to Empowering Women in Conversations.

This conversation has ended, but your journey to empowerment continues. Please share with someone you know who will find this conversation helpful and inspiring. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.  Until our next empowered conversation with your host, licensed professional counselor, Anita Sandoval.

And remember, we are brave, we are strong, we are compassionate, we are women empowered. Go out there and claim your power. 

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.