CONFRONTING TOXICITY: MY MOST TOXIC RELATIONSHIP PATTERNS AND HOW THEY BECAME MY ROADMAP TO SELF-LOVE AND AUTHENTIC CONNECTIONS

Are toxic relationship patterns holding you back from the kind of loving and fulfilling relationship you've been looking for, your entire life? If so, I totally get it.

For years, I was struggling with painful toxic relationship patterns that would lead to nothing but heartbreak, rejection and abandonment, again and again. That is until I finally recognized that these patterns weren't trying to ruin me, even though it often felt like it. In fact, these patterns were trying to teach me everything I needed to know about how I could transform my relationships, once and for all.

That’s why in this episode of TheFemmeCast, I am spilling the tea in a raw and revealing exploration of my most toxic relationship patterns, and how they became my personal roadmap to transforming all my relationships and my life. 

Join me as I share intimate revelations on overcoming people-pleasing, perfectionism, and embracing imperfections—unveiling how these patterns shaped my experiences.

Through candid narratives and profound insights, discover the transformative power of confronting toxicity. Explore how these pivotal moments led to a revolution in self-love, fostering personal healing and growth. Embrace a riveting conversation that dismantles barriers, offering a roadmap towards radical self-discovery and the cultivation of authentic, fulfilling connections. 

Tune in with me now, and embark on a journey of self-discovery and empowerment

Let's do this.

Are you ready to create a massive uplevel in your life and relationships? If so, use the link below to book your 90-minute Uplevel + Flow Intensive. This is a powerful 90-minute session where we go deep to energetically shift one relationship pattern you are ready to break free from, so you can magnetize more loving and supportive relationships without the chase...just flow!
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Are you ready to begin your heart healing journey today and manifest the love that you desire? If so, use the link below to register for my Uplevel + Flow Meditation Series . A 3 part series designed to help you heal from heartbreak and manifest love you've always wanted, but never thought you would find.
https://thefemmecast.ck.page/meditations

Are you ready to rewrite your love story + glow from the inside out as you become a magnet for the love you've always known you deserved? If so, use the link below to register for my 21 Day Radical Self-Love Challenge.
https://thefemmecast.ck.page/21daychallenge

Want more daily inspiration an tips on how you can uplevel your relationships and your life through the art of radical self-love? If so, use the link below to con...

Transcript

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 0:32

Hey you guys, what is up and welcome back to the show. I'm so excited and grateful to have you here. It was absolutely an honor having Amy on the show last week. If you caught that episode, go and check it out where we talked about codependency and how that showed up for us in our lives and how we kind of overcame that. Both very different approaches, different experiences, same conversation.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 0:55

Today I wanted to go in a little bit deeper with some of the toxic patterns that were kind of showing up for me again and again in my life and what those really look like, because I think a lot of the times I mean for me, I had no idea that these were even toxic, like I just thought that was life and that's how people felt, that was normal, right, or that there was just something wrong with me. Actually, no, I'm not gonna say it, no, let me rephrase that it wasn't, that I thought that was normal and that everyone felt that way. I actually how would I explain it? I simply thought it was a byproduct of me not being good enough, right, like everywhere I went, I had this feeling that I was just not good enough, you know, and it was such an overwhelming feeling, and only somebody who struggles with this belief can really understand it. Many people that I talk to, who have never come from this kind of an experience, can kind of think it's selfish or it's vain or it's self-centered, but honestly, it comes from the most fearful place of feeling like you're not good enough and feeling afraid that everyone is gonna abandon and reject you if they realize how not good enough that you are. And so you know, for me that was kind of like the underlying feeling I had with every single experience, be it romantic partnerships being friendships, be it with work situations, be it school, like literally any social circumstance or situation or environment that you could put me in I would constantly be feeling this underlying dread that I was not good enough, and it was only a matter of time before everyone else in the room forget it out.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 2:52

So my mission in life was to hide this from everyone, this truth that I was not good enough, and to avoid situations where this fear that I wasn't good enough would be validated for me externally. Okay, so I want you to think of this as the compass of my life, and if you're somebody who struggles with not being good enough, this actually does become the compass of your life. This is what makes all your decisions for you. It decides who you are, how you show up, what you say, what you don't say, what you do, what you don't do, what school you go to, what major you take, who you date, who you're friends with, who you marry, everything Like it is the underlying factor in all your decision making. I am not good enough. How can I feel good enough? How can I fool the world into believing that I'm good enough and not letting them find out that I'm not? So I will not be abandoned or rejected, okay, and so for me, this is where a lot of my toxic patterning came from. So, for me, my toxic, there was many, obviously, and obviously like.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 4:05

For me, doing the work on breaking a lot of these toxic patterns wasn't just about doing things differently, like people just say, oh, you just choose a different thought or take a different action. Yes, there is a lot of that, but a lot of it is doing the inner work to heal those parts of you that don't feel like they're good enough. Right, and then that's when things start to flow a lot more easily. Otherwise, what we're doing when we do a lot of mindset work when we do a lot of like choosing a different thought or all those things, or saying affirmations or taking a different action. They work. But it's surface level, right, like it's only not surface, it's only part of the equation. You need to have a holistic approach to making an approach to deep behaviour, creating the feelings that you want to create in the beliefs that you want to believe, right. So it needs to be emotional, needs to be mental, needs to be physical, needs to be energetic, like everything needs to Kind of roll up into the same goal where all parts of you feel good enough, even the parts of you that are imperfect, right. So that really is the work. So for me, this belief is what was the underlying cause of a lot of the toxicities that I would bring forward in my relationships that, again, I didn't realize were toxic.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 5:24

So, number one People pleasing. We've talked about this before. I am very open about this. This is not a secret. I am A recovering people, please are. I come from a long line of people pleasers. This shit has been in grained in my lineage for generations and I'm sure, for many of our lineages.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 5:45

You know any and for me, how the show, how this showed up is when especially my, so will focus on relationships, right. So my relationships people pleasing showed up as who does this person want me to be in order for them to like me? What do they want me to say here in order to make them feel good? Why is this person unhappy? What is it that I've done wrong? Oh my god, they're gonna leave me like I've done something. I need to fix it. I need to do something different so that they can be happy.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 6:17

And if people were happy around me, then I felt that I was doing good and this would show up. Different, like this wouldn't show up in all my relationships, only in the relationships where I didn't feel good enough to hold or be present in the relationship where I felt like there was this fear that this person would one day abandon or reject me. That's the only time it really showed up. If I was confident and secure in the relationship probably didn't or more confident, it probably didn't show up as much as in the ones where I was oh my god, I'm so afraid to lose you, right, and it was like how can I? And it was also how can I be the person that you want to be so I can convince you to want to stay with me before I even knew that they were the right person for me. Like, whether or not they were a right person for me wasn't even a question. I was in a conversation on the table.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 7:02

What I thought this pattern or behavior would do was kind of, you know, ensure that everyone around me saw me as someone who was good enough, saw my value, saw my worth, would want to stay with me, would want to love me, would want to accept me, would want to support me and I would create happy and fulfilling and loving relationships. Right, because I would feel loved, I would feel accepted, I would feel just adored, you know, and and that was that was all I wanted at the root of it. Right, because I couldn't do that for myself, so I wanted others to do that. I needed others to do that for me. I needed others to make me feel good enough, and that was really the core of what was happening. But what it actually created was the exact opposite.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 7:56

As this pattern progressed, I started to come into contact more and more with people that I felt I could never please. Nothing I did was ever enough. They always wanted something more. They always wanted me to be something else they wanted. They always wanted me to alter myself in some way, shape or form friendships, romantic partners, work relationships, bosses, everybody. This was what this toxicity was creating. And I just kept trying harder, and the harder I tried, the harder it was to please. The harder I tried, the harder it was to please, the more I attracted more people like this into my life and to the point where I felt like I was loved by no one, least of all by myself. And so when I finally realize what was happening and I stopped the behavior, I stopped the pattern of trying to please everybody. Yeah, it was really fucking uncomfortable at first in this.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 9:02

Obviously, this is where the work is and this is where it takes time and this is where you often, you know you do need a lot of support to keep yourself from Not going into that pattern again. When you feel like it, you know you can make a choice to say, okay, I'm just not gonna please people and I'm just gonna do my own thing, right, okay, fine, so you're good for about fucking five minutes until somebody is around you making you feel like, oh, you're not gonna do this for me, oh, you're showing up like that oh, that's what you look like, oh, oh, that's what you have to say to me and it's like, oh crap, what did I do? What did I do? Oh no, they're unhappy with me. And suddenly you want to take that promise that you just made to yourself right back because you're so desperate and for that approval, like it literally feels like a life and death fear, and so that's really where the work is.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 12:21

It's not in deciding that you're not going to people, please, anymore. It's about sticking to that promise, right. That's where the transformation actually happens. And when you actually stop people pleasing and just stay present with a discomfort and not veer back into those people pleasing tendencies and let it get as uncomfortable as fuck and let people fall away who are not meant to be with you, that's when you see the transformation and that is literally the heart part. Okay, so that's number one. Number two, not sorry guys, and you might hear my voice going up and down as I turn away, because I do have notes this time of a list that I want to go through, because I do not want to veer. This is very important. So number two was not speaking my truth.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 13:07

Okay, again, this went back to people pleasing, right, this was based in people pleasing and based in this belief that who I was was not good enough. So, but this went a little bit deeper, because now I'm not just doing the things that people want me to do, right, that I think that people want me to do in order for them to be happy with me and to love me and to accept me. Now I'm also saying the things they want to hear and repressing everything that I'm feeling, everything that I'm thinking, everything that is causing me pain, grief, hurt, frustration, insecurity, doubt all of it being contained anger, resentment, pain, heartbreak. All of it muffled internally so that no one would ever see or hear it. Because who would love that? Right? I only wanted to say what people wanted to hear in order for them to feel that the way they wanted to feel, to be happy, to be pleased and to want to be around me more, and so, therefore, I created this false narrative of who I was and how I showed up in relationships and all the while.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 14:31

You know people would do hurtful things. I would let them get away with it, I wouldn't say anything. People would say things that would make me feel bad. I would take it all in and I would internalize it. People would treat me in ways that I felt hurt and disrespected and I would pretend that I was fine with it, that I was confident I could handle it. I'm good, don't worry about it. Nothing you do phases me Bullshit Inside. I was in so much pain and I was not expressing it, I was not defending it, I was not being honest about it, I was not putting it out there and this, actually, you know, what I thought it was doing was obviously keeping the peace, avoiding confrontation, which terrified the fuck out of me, because in confrontation there's a risk of losing and being abandoned and rejected and validated. That I'm not good enough, right? So what I thought this was doing was preserving my relationships, keeping them loving, keeping the communication flowing. It was actually doing the exact opposite. It was actually stifling the communication.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 15:39

Okay, because eventually, what ended up happening is that I started to connect with people who weren't communicating with me, who were afraid to be vulnerable with me, who couldn't show up fully with me and be in an intimate connection with me, because being emotionally connected is the foundation of intimacy, right? I mean, yeah, the sex is great and the physicality of it is great, but it needs to happen on an emotional level first, especially for women, I find. And so without that, you know, you lose connection, you lose intimacy, you lose vulnerability in that relationship, and that's really what creates a beautiful loving relationship, right? And so there was that.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 16:20

And then there was also the fact that I was holding all this stuff inside of me that I was ready to blow at, like the minute somebody and you'll know this, you'll know when you're doing this, because you'll tend to unleash on the people around you who you feel safe with, who you feel unconditionally loved by God. Bless my family for putting up with me, right, because they're the ones that I know will always be there. I'll never, I never have to worry about losing them. I never have to worry about them really rejecting me. You know they may get angry when they fight, when they do stupid shit to each other and hurt each other in very painful ways, but I know they will always be there and I know that they love me, right, and I know that they do this to me and I do this to them, and it's like an outburst of everything that you've been holding on to with your external, with other relationships, and now you're letting it all out on them because you know that you can. They're not going anywhere and so that creates a whole other layer of hurt and toxicity in those relationships that really didn't need to be there, because now you're projecting all your crap that you're feeling from other relationships where you do feel insecurity and soft doubt on to them. Right, so you can see where, like, this dynamic is creating toxicity on all fronts.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 17:37

Right, and literally all it took was a little tiny scratch at the surface to get me to like, blow up and unleash verbal hell on whoever was around me when I was holding on to all this stuff, you know, on the inside right, so it was very interesting, to say the least. But again, like I thought this was literally keeping the peace, I thought this was creating the loving relationships that I wanted. It was creating the exact opposite. Towards the tail end of it, I ended up attracting some very hostile partners who were harboring a lot of pain, frustration and resentment that they had and expressed, and so you know, for me this became again facing the discomfort of stopping the behavior of saying what people wanted to hear and just saying what it was that I was feeling, and come hell or high water, I would say what I was feeling. I would say it, and the key is to try and say it in a way that preserves the other person's integrity. Right, which it's a hard balance to master.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 18:51

Right, how do I say what it is that I need to say without being disrespectful to the other person? Right, that's a hard balance to figure out. Right, that takes a little bit of time. It takes a little bit of trial and error. You're going to fuck it up a few times, but you'll get there, I promise you. And even when you get there, you still fuck it up sometimes and it's all good. However, you know there's that side of it. How can I, how can I express this truth in a healthy, loving and respectful way? And how can I say it in such a way that I don't care if this person doesn't want to be with me, if I have to say what it is that I have to say and they don't like it. Like dude, like I just don't want to be, I don't want to tell with you anymore, like you're not my peeps. Okay, fine, peace out, bye, love you.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 19:35

I will go find Someone who actually wants to be with me, as opposed to someone who doesn't and who doesn't like what I have to say or what I stand for, what I believe or what I'm feeling right Now. That's not to say that you know, we don't all have our shit to clean up on the inside and not everyone has to Abide by our shit and soothe our shit. Like if we have deep like, like what I'm talking about here this deep need to be to feel like you're, like you're enough, like you need to be validated. It's not someone else's job to do that for me. Like I can't walk into a relationship and say I feel really invalidated in this relationship and I need you to validate me. A healthy person will be like okay, here's a really good therapist that I think you should probably go see, of course. See this chick, maria the fem cast, and see Maybe she can help you, because that's not other people's responsibility to validate us. That is our own responsibility.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 20:34

Right, taking responsibility for what it is that we need to say is you know, I don't like the way you. I didn't like the way you spoke to me in that confrontation. I don't like it when you raise your voice at me. I would really appreciate it if we can just you know sometimes, I know, things get heated can we just take a moment, take a step back, gather our thoughts and then come back when we're both calm and talk about what it is that we need to talk about, because getting into a confrontation like that, where things get heated, never ends well.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 21:05

That's speaking a healthy truth, right, it's also setting a boundary, which really kind of leads us into the next toxic pattern, which was setting boundaries because I could not set Seek my truth. That also Resulted in me not being able to set boundaries. Now, this went beyond just verbal boundaries of please don't treat me that way, or please don't speak to me that way, or you know I'm very uncomfortable by this. But it's also energetic boundaries, right. What am I accountable for and what am I not accountable for? Right? What is my responsibility? What is my side of the fence, what is your side of the fence?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 21:49

When you have poor boundaries, you can't say no, you cannot speak your truth, you can't say what you will and will not talk to it to be sorry guys, you can do any of those things. But also, energetically speaking, you don't know what, what's yours and what's theirs. You don't know what's their baggage, what's your baggage? What's their side of the fence? What's your side of the fence, what you're responsible for cleaning up, with their responsible for cleaning up, you're kind of taking on all of it, you know, or maybe you're projecting things that are really your responsibility or you're taking on things that are their responsibility, like everything gets muddled right and before you know what, you don't know where you end, where they end and you begin, and it's a very it's a very difficult place to be, because this is where and this is where you know all of it, like the people pleasing, the not speaking your truth, the not knowing you know, not being able to set those boundaries.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 22:43

This is where you start to lose sight of who you are. You know, if you somebody who, who struggled with not feeling good enough and struggled with a lot of the behaviors that you're, that we're talking about today, this is really the struggles you start to. You start because you're so. You're so busy what's the word no? Like you're so busy, like being a chameleon to everyone else's needs, wants and desires in order for them to validate that you are good enough that you lose sight of who you are. What do you want? Who are you meant to be in this world? What are your gifts? What are your true feelings underneath it all? How do you really feel? How do you really see things? What is it that you really believe? All of that stuff is getting lost in the people pleasing, the not speaking your truth, the not setting the proper, healthy boundaries so that you can be the fullest and most authentic expression of yourself.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 23:41

And this takes so much time, literally, oh my God. Obviously, I've learned a few shortcuts along the way. I did a lot of trial and error, but take what resonates and leave the rest and lastly, the one that I wanted to share with you. Actually. Well, there's two more. Do I want to? I'll say one more, I'll say one more and then we'll leave it at that. I think these four are probably the most critical. Right Is the perfectionism, right, and so again, wanting everything to be perfect, wanting everything to look amazing on the outside, putting on this facade that everything is good enough, that I feel good enough, that I look good enough, that my career is good enough, that my emotional well-being is good enough, that my mental headspace is good enough, and the real shitty part of this perfectionism is that if you don't feel like you're 100% perfect at something, you won't do it.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 24:47

So this holds you back in so many ways Like it's unimaginable how this perfectionism sabotages not just your relationship, your career, your ability to manifest wealth, your ability to manifest friendships, your ability to call in so many things. Because, if you can think of it this way, you're putting on this image of who you want the world to think. You are right, you're putting this image out there. It's inauthentic. People can pick that shit up a mile away, a mile away, and you will actually become, they'll actually be deterred by, rather than magnetized by, you.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 25:36

Right, your magnetism comes from being yourself unapologetically hot mess and all right. That's how this whole podcast is about living your best hot mess, fucking life. Let's be in our magnetism. Let's be in our hot mess. Let's be who we were created to be, so that we can be the most magnetic and authentic versions of ourselves.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 25:56

Right, we have good. We have not so good. We have features we love. We have features we don't. We have characteristics we love. We have others we kind of cringe at, and that's all good and that all gets to be part of the parcel. Right, again, pick and choose the parts of us we're gonna showcase and which ones we're gonna pretend don't exist, right. We have to accept all of who we are, lean in on our strengths, find the strength in some of the other things that are a little bit quirky, that make us, you know, a little bit cringe worthy for us, right, that make us cringe. I know I have things about me that make me cringe. We all have them. It's all good, but the real shitty thing is again about.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 26:39

Perfectionism is number one no one's gonna know you, no one's gonna see you, no one's gonna. How can anyone love you if nobody knows who you are? You will never be loved unconditionally if you're caught in this trap of perfectionism, ever because no one knows you. Second, you'll never create meaningful connections, vulnerable connections with people, because you're constantly in this illusion. You're not your real self. So therefore, you can't be vulnerable. They can't be vulnerable relationships don't feel safe. They feel like a scary place to be. Because now you gotta let all your I'm not walls well, walls, yes, but also you gotta let people see behind the curtain, right, what perfectionists want some people see behind the curtain? No, none of them. I need you to always think I'm perfect in order to feel good enough, so imagine what that does to your relationships.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 27:31

It is the biggest sabotager of relationships is this notion of wanting to be perfect all the fucking time, not to mention. You know what you end up attracting when you're constantly caught up in perfectionism. You guessed it judgments, people telling you time and time again you're not good enough, you suck, I don't like you, I'm gonna go hang out over here. You need to change this. You need to change that. That's not good enough. That's not good enough. You need to improve this. You need to bug it, flip the bird, all of it. You are enough.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 28:06

And again, I always say this with a grain of salt. That's not to say that we don't all have our work to do and our shit to clean up, but for gosh sakes, like, stop the charade of trying to pretend to be something that you're not. Be who you were created to be. Evolve the way that you were created to evolve. Heal the way you were created to heal and expand into the most fullest, most authentic version of yourself. Cringe-worthy characteristics and all Because that's the beautiful part, okay, so if you're somebody who struggles with not feeling good enough, hit me up in the DMs or respond to this email or wherever the heck. You're seeing this.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 28:52

I do have a couple of spots available for one-on-one coaching. Again, take those actions. Lean into the discomfort. Lean into the discomfort of doing the unpleasing thing. You have to be willing to do the unpleasing thing if you want to see transformation and if you need help doing the unpleasing thing, because the unpleasing thing scares the crap out of you and it feels uncomfortable, and the minute you feel like someone is unpleased around you, you're desperate to want to please them. That's when you know you want to hit me up. Okay, I love you guys to the moon and back. Let me know what your biggest takeaway from this episode was and if there's anything that you resonate with. Let me know if there's anything you are curious about or dying to know. Who knows, you might inspire the next episode of the Femcast and if you love this episode, please, please, please leave a positive rating and review wherever you're seeing this. Until next time, massive love.