150. Summer Song Series: You Didn't Really Know Me, and I'm Finally Starting to Know Myself

Hello, my amazing listeners. Happy Thursday. Happy summer. Are you ready for the kids to go back to school yet? Are you? Are you dreading to have them go back to school? I can see reasons for both. I know that as a single mom in many ways, it was harder to have them home and still have to work full time overtime and yet.

Liked that I wasn't running back and forth worrying about picking them up late or getting all the homework done, but then I'd worry that they were riding their brains out if they stayed home playing Fortnite all day long, riding their brains out with Fortnite. At least that's what it was back in the day.

They, they, um, they seem to be normally functioning adults today, so I don't think too much damage. It actually, it's, it's, uh, some of their favorite memories when they talk about being home and, having mom gone. And I remember buying some kind of educational workbook that they had to do certain pages out of and chores around the house, and then they could rot their brains out.

And, uh, anyways, they, they still joke how that was their favorite time.

Either way. Happy Summer and we are continuing our summer song series for July, and I have a couple more songs to share today. I am assuming that these are not new to some of you. In fact her whole entire album is probably one of my favorites, and I, I know that a lot of her songs do resonate with.

A lot of you, but I hope to share some additional insights with the message that I personally take away from her lyrics. So, Kelly Clarkson seems to have gone through some tough times and experienced a lot of crap, and I don't know what it is about someone who is really well known going through similar. Experiences, but it just feels like, oh, okay, well if she's susceptible to being treated this way, then maybe I'm not so bad, or maybe I'm not so weak, or maybe I'm not so stupid, or whatever it is, we self judge, right?

And even though I really don't view or obsess over famous people, her music feels pretty spot on and relatable.

So the two songs that I chose. And good grief, it was a tossup. I love all of her music, but the songs did, you know, and then the song Me are the two songs that I'm choosing today because the message I want to offer here And the experience I wanna validate is that in our previous relationships, this idea that you really didn't know me.

And I'm finally starting to know myself in a healthy primary relationship. It is normal, healthy, okay? Even and not too much to be seen, to be known and to matter. That's what secure attachment is all about.

in that adult primary relationship There are a few really important, beautiful pillars to which secure attachment is based upon that emotional atunement. do you see me and hold space for my emotions? responsiveness? Do you care about what I feel and need and respond?

Ask support, consistency. Can I count on you being there are the times that you're not just one-offs and make sense? Why not? Consistency matters. Safety, can I be my full self with you? Emotions needs flaws, and not be punished for it when these elements are missing, especially over time. Our nervous system interprets it as a form of emotional abandonment, and if there's also been betrayal abuse in that relationship, it doesn't just feel like abandonment.

It feels like erasure.

for many of you, your pain was minimized. It was dismissed. Your needs were labeled as too much

boundaries were crossed, and your intuition was invalidated or your gaslit, this attachment wounding layered with betrayal. Your nervous system collapses around the belief, I don't matter. I'm not worth knowing, and I have to maybe disappear in order to be loved.

Secure attachment is present. What it should feel like. What it does feel like is that you speak and someone listens and they are actually interested and they.

There's questions that seek to understand. They bring it up at a later date and check in and see how you're doing with that.

When you express your emotions, it's held, not fixed, or redirected or weaponized and used against you. You have needs, and they are honored, they're listened to, you can share them and not feel dumb, and again, not used against you. You can fully be you messy, complex, whole, and you're not punished, ignored, or shamed for it.

Being seen in your relationship is not a luxury. It is a psychological requirement for secure connection. Without it, your nervous system stays in survival mode. No wonder why it's exhausting.

when I heard this song and listened to the lyrics, It resonated with my own experience and I remember a lot of my post-divorce healing is wrapping my head around the whole entire relationship.

still trying to figure out what happened, but

realizing that I really wasn't known, this also plays true, like not just for my, my ex, but his family. I remember thinking, do you not know me? Do you not know?

Through all of these years, do you not know my truth, my integrity?

Especially when so many false accusations from M Ex were being thrown around his family and even friends. Making those assumptions, making those judgements. There definitely was this element of, don't you know me that I felt to the core.

Okay, here's the lyrics. Did you know I was a Goonie and my favorite color's green and that life ain't like the movies. We're living proof of that, it seems. Did you know I danced with Swayze every night when I was 10 and while the girls all flocked to boy bands, jagged little pill was my jam. Did you know that control is a disease?

You say you see it now. Did you know that your words are. Repeat intentions six feet down and I was right there. You should have tried listening and No, it's not fair what you're asking of me. You said I was given up right as you were showing up. I can take a little. You took all I had and some Did you really know me? Boy, did you really know me? Yeah. My favorite band is Toes. But you couldn't name one song. Meanwhile, I sang you Heaven To make you smile and sing along. Did you know I danced in a storm on a beach in Mexico all by myself in the rain? Some people don't mind being alone. Did you know that control is a disease? You say you see it now. Did you know that your words are on repeat intentions?

Six feet down and I was right there. And you should have tried listening and no, it's not fair what you're asking of me. You said I was giving up right as you were showing up. I. I can take a little, but you took all I had and some Did you really know me? Boy, did you really know me? Like the vinyl skipping round love became a broken sound.

Candle's slowly burning now. No reason to stick around. Did you really know me? Boy, did you know I loved you? So wish you believed me then. I never wanted to go, but I deserve more than a ring on my hand. You said I was giving up. Right as you were showing up, I can take a little, but you took all I had in some. Did you really know me? Did you really know me? So good. So profound and so relatable.

The ache of not being seen, the ache of Believing all the ways that you showed up and gave and loved and believed that they were too. The line in there that says your words are on repeat, but your intentions are six feet down. That is such a poetic way to. Describe what I believe so many of you experienced where you just kept listening to the words and hanging on to the words, the words of, I love you. The words that I'm not, the words that I'll try, I'll do better, I'll never do it again.

And yet, the intention, the action behind all of those words, we're absolutely buried six feet deep. We're not in alignment. When I say feet don't match the words. This is what I mean. She just says it. Of course, in such a beautiful, poetic way,

The way that she validates how control is a disease. And even though he says, I see it now. Again, words on repeat, but intentions don't match. I love the stanza where she says, I was right there and you should have tried listening. It's not fair what you're asking of me. And then you said, I was giving up right as you were showing up.

So all of these years we gave, we gave, we showed up. We fought, we tried, we begged, we pleaded. right when they act like they're showing up because you're on your way out, then they flip that narrative around and you are the one that's leaving. You are the one that's giving up.

You're the one that's choosing this. And now again, they're seemingly coming across as, I wanna try, I wanna make this work. Or I've been here all along, whatever that looks like The way that she describes it with her words resonate so deeply to I know my own experience,

I love how throughout the song she points out all of these little experiences and little things that she likes, songs, music, dancing, parts of her that is clear. He never knew, perhaps never wanted to know. I. I can relate in that there's these parts of myself that I feel like I wanted to be seen and known around, and even parts of myself that I feel like I had to hide, had to suppress or couldn't show.

For so many years I would, and I just wasn't seen that very last line. Candles slowly burning down. No reason to stick around That experience where you slowly start to see the flame die out, and there's no wick left to keep lighting over and over and over.

Being known again, is not just a romantic concept. It is emotionally necessary. Without it, that relationship becomes one sided.

Which leads to the next song, which is why I chose her song, me.

Oftentimes trying so hard and desperately contorting and changing ourselves to be seen and known, or maybe be seen and known in a way that we feel

will get that attention.

We may have lost ourselves. We may have forgotten who we are. Part of this journey, part of reclamation is reclaiming you back. So the words to this song I feel like really go beautifully in conjunction. I.

She says, buried myself into somebody else, shut out. Some parts of me did so casually, I guess I needed that to be able to step back. I lived my life without me. I never allowed me to. Too much I've had to live for. Put my life on hold for. I'm always pleasing someone honestly.

Now I'm done. I don't need somebody to hold me. Don't need somebody to love me. Don't need somebody to pick these pieces up. I put together my broken let go of the pain I've been holding. don't need to need somebody when I've got me. Loved you so much. Took an army to pull me away. But now on the other side, I remembered I could fly.

I told you I wanted you, but you needed me to need you. Your insecurity was the death of you and me too many times. You questioned what were my intentions. I never gave you reasons. You are the one with secrets. I don't need somebody to hold me. Don't need somebody to love me. Don't need somebody to pick these pieces up.

I put together my broken let go of the pain I've been holding. Don't need to need somebody. When I've got me. When I've got me. I bet you feel the absence of my love every night. there's no one else. You are the reason I said goodbye. ' cause I don't need somebody else to scold me.

Don't need somebody else that hurts me. Don't need somebody else who feels weak standing next to me. I put together my broken let go of your hand. I've been holding. Don't need to need somebody. When I've got me. Yeah. When I've got me. Oh my gosh, right? I love how perfectly these two songs compliment each other with this message of not being seen in that relationship and your post-traumatic growth healing is you seeing you, you loving you, you validating you,

honestly, every single one of these lyric stanzas are so relatable, so poetic, so beautiful, and so validating too. my experience, and I think many of yours right outta the gate, just this idea, an acknowledgement of burying ourself into somebody else, shutting out parts of us, and how slowly and casually that happens, believing again, that.

Which this is our nervous system at work. Trying everything to stay safe, to stay connected. Attachment is real. And how we learned to adjust ourselves in order to stay attached happens very slowly. when she says, I guess I needed that. Needed, needed, that awakening, that experience of trauma, to be able to step back and see, oh, this is what's happening.

I've lived my life without me.

I never allowed me to live. I put my life on hold, always pleasing somebody else, getting to this point where it's just been too much. You can't, you're done.

The whole course of not needing somebody to love to hold, to pick up the pieces, to put together the broken, really being able to let go of the pain and being able to do that because we have ourself, because we truly are capable and have everything inside of us to be able to pick those pieces up and do that.

How sometimes we want to jump into another relationship looking for someone else to put those pieces back together for us. I don't think this line invalidates the desire, the need for connection. It's just in a healthy way. And when you put you first and believe that you've got your own back, then you can create a completely different connection When, and if you do move on the stanza where she says, loved you so much, took an army to pull me away. But now on the other side, I'm remembering I can fly. Oh my gosh, yes, yes, yes. that. Should I stay or should I go space? How many of you lived in that for years, if not longer?

How it really felt like an army that was trying to pull you out of denial, pull you out of rationalization and minimization and fear. But when you do get on the other side and you remember you, you turn to you, you start to find you again. That remembering, that reclamation of being able to fly, to soar, to create, to live is true freedom.

I. She says, I told you I wanted you, but you needed me to need you. Your insecurity was the death of you and me. Oh my gosh. Again, so validating. I. We wanted to be in a relationship with someone, but they needed us to be in a relationship with them because of their own shame, insecurities and emotional immaturity, and how truly because of their insecurity, because of , their inability to see into themselves really was the death of the relationship.

Which is why she validated in a few paragraphs down like there's no one else. I didn't leave because of somebody else. You know, you are the reason I said goodbye Recognizing that we don't need to be in a relationship with someone that scolds us, that tells us what to do, that tries to control, manipulate vo blame gaslight. We don't need to be in a relationship where we're being hurt constantly. We don't need to be in a relationship where somebody else is so insecure.

That they need us to shrink inside ourself in order to make them feel more masculine enough or worthy.

Oftentimes you want so desperately to have these really good, healthy things in a relationship, and then after divorce we look for it. But we are looking once again externally and not internally and that internal work and learning perhaps for the first time to really see you, hear you know you and love you.

Is the work that truly builds long lasting, secure attachment. You did not choose betrayal, but you can choose the growth and that choice changes everything.

Her line of I put together my broken and let go of the pain I've been holding. Don't need to need somebody when I've got me.

I think this is an agency moment. The the rising, not in a You Go girl kind of cliche way, but in the most tender, powerful way possible. I've had myself all along, I just forgot.

You've taught others how to love, but maybe never turned that same effort inward.

What parts of you did you have to bury in order to make that relationship work? It is so important to be able to identify and bring those parts back to life. What do you now realize you needed all along? What were you maybe not allowed to have in that previous relationship? Identify what those needs are and start.

Start meeting those needs yourself, those of you who feel like you do need somebody else to help you pick up the pieces, what would it look like to stop meeting someone else to pick up your pieces? What would that require? What would that take? What fears would you have to overcome?

You have spent years in a relationship where you weren't truly seen, heard, or known where your needs were too much, your voice, too loud, your pain, too inconvenient, but that was never a reflection of your worth and value and enoughness being unseen by your ex. Maybe other people doesn't mean that you're invisible.

You are visible, you are real, and you do matter, especially to yourself when you thought being loved, meant being needed. Now you're learning that being loved starts with being known by you for you. So if no one's ever told you this before, you deserve to be deeply known, loved, and understood.

The first person that gets to offer that to you is you start by seeing yourself, meeting yourself where you're at right now today, holding yourself because the love that you were so desperate  📍 to receive from them. You are the one that gets to give that to you now, and you're the one who can finally receive it.

By being the chooser in your life and creating that internal love for you first, because you can take care everybody.

You might be asking yourself, especially after this episode, okay, so how do I love myself again? How do I reconnect back to me trust me hold me, heal me. All the things That this song titled me was talking about. ,

Well, I created a self-paced course called Intimacy Within, I walk you through eight different modules. There's a workbook to go along with each one of these different levels of intimacy. Verbal, cognitive, emotional, psychological, spiritual, physical, and sexual. Being able to reclaim your own connection to yourself in this course, you're gonna learn that you're gonna learn. Your worth and value to take up spa space, feel safe in your own skin, honor your voice, connect with your own truth. So many wonderful, beautiful things to help you come back to you. you get to do it on your pace, your terms, one level at a time. your next relationship starts with. The one that you have. With you begin your journey today. Go to amy woolsey.com or click the link in the show notes to Intimacy Within, and you can start that course today.

See  you soon.