Breaking Free of Fear & Embracing Negative Emotion

you are listening to the Beyond The High Road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 77 stay tuned welcome to be on the high road a podcast dedicated to Healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation I'm your host Shelby Milford twice certified life coach with an advanced certification and post-traumatic growth in greed I'm also Target parent using proven Concepts based heavily in neuroscience and psychology I developed my own playbook for reintegrating with life and reframing my role as my daughter's mother even while living apart I went from feeling agonized helpless and directionless to feeling energized confident and most importantly at peace

today I get to help other parents like you to do the same stay tuned hey I just wanted to jump on too I just now checked um right as I'm getting ready to release this episode and I found another lovely review so thank you to Dr Joy F who says this podcast changed my life through my journey of Parental alienation I have sought out information resources and support in many places it was not until I found Shelby's podcast I felt that someone truly got me Shelby's complete transparency and vulnerability and sharing her own parental alienation Journey has made me feel less alone and isolated her explanations of difficult Concepts like justen franchise grief and her tools on how to navigate life

rebuild your self-esteem and find peace are perfectly on point and have truly changed my outlook on my own life while there is nothing that can take the pain of alienation away Shelby has helped me move on and live my life in a way that I thought was no longer possible thank you Shelby from the bottom of my heart Dr Joy thank you I found that just now and I was like oh I love this thank you so so much for taking your time out to do that um and yeah thank you thank you like I said too um separate if any of you from um living in different countries I know I mentioned it in one of the episodes recent that for whatever reason I don't receive those reviews and

so uh unless I like it'll give me a list of the however many countries there are in this whole entire world and I click into each um country and check you know um so that is just takes much digging on my part maybe there's another way I haven't found it yet so anyway my whole point is I'm making this longer than it needs to be if you have a hot second to just drop me a line um and let me know that you've written a review I would really love that because um unless and you can also tell me if unless you don't want to be recognized like for me to read it out loud you can let me know that in the in the email too but if not I want to be able to properly thank you so anyway um

okay moving along just want to remind you if you haven't clicked subscribe wherever you're watching this I've noticed the analytics show that a lot of you who listen to this podcast have not actually subscribed so if you want to get updates about when new episodes are available then click the Subscribe button and also the more subscribers The more attention the show gets like the more suggested the show gets in the library of whatever platform that you're watching so if you are finding the tips and the tools that I offer you in each one of these episodes useful if they resonate with you then it's likely that other alienated parents like you and I would also probably benefit from them so

if you would and if you haven't clicking subscribe and also rating and reviewing would be so so helpful for our visibility we want to provide this service this resource to as many parents as we possibly can so they don't feel as alone as they maybe are and as you once did you and me once did so there's that and then also Friday live in the Facebook group at noon don't forget too that there's a link down below that says leave me a voicemail if you want a question answered your specific situation I can leave it Anonymous I do not have to put your recording on air unless you want it to be but anything that you want answered leave me a voicemail and then that gives me the

opportunity to answer you directly right through one of these episodes so don't forget about that that link is in the last few episodes anyway in the show notes and it's it'll be in this one too okay so leave me a voice message and that's it bringing on with the episode Hi how are you guys doing today I want to talk with you guys about fear and avoidance of negative emotions the negative part of our existence in this world I wanted to bring this up I know we talk about emotions quite frequently probably in every episode and that's because that's emotions are really what Drive every human's actions or non-actions at any given time all the time and emotion is always what's

driving us to do or not do something pain itself suffering is there to teach us even if we're talking about let's talk about physical pain when we feel physical pain our body is sending us a signal by stub my toe the nerves in my toe will send a message up to my brain hey we need attention down here there's something that needs to be investigated there's something that needs to be cared for if we don't have that signal we would not be able to tend to it the signal is not there to try and make us undo the pain that's already been done because first off that's impossible right let's take it a step further let's say I stepped off the curb and broke my foot if I keep walking on it not knowing

it's broken because I don't have any signal going up to my brain then I could further really do some massive damage to my body when I go to the doctor with that broken foot the goal is not to rewind and go back to the point before where I stepped off that curb right no he is just going to look at the situation for what it is see that I'm in pain and reset the foot give the foot the attention it needs to avoid further damage correct so physical pain starts locally in the body and sends a signal up to the brain emotional pain and also chronic pain starts in the brain and travels down to the body it's really interesting when we talk about like chronic back pain chronic hip joint pain

not to say that the pain isn't there and it's not not real because it of course it is real like if a person is having chronic spinal issues and they have serious pain though when they get checked get the MRI done and whatever else everything looks copacetic it's because there has been a misfire of neurons because where there once was injury like you heard it initially that neuron learned how to signal to the brain that there is pain in the localized area once you've healed from that that neuron doesn't stop firing it's a faulty firing they've done a lot of studies about this that show that the person feeling the chronic pain is absolutely feeling pain they are 100%

feeling it but it's not actually because something is wrong or physically causing pain in the body at the moment there's nothing there's no pressure on the joint there's no nothing that would actually cause it other than this the Miss signal and that's why the thought for a long time anyway that the only medicines that would alleviate the pain were opioids because it worked on that part of the brain it would confuse or dull down that messaging so when it comes to emotional pain it is the same thing that pain quote unquote pain starts in the brain and then goes down into our body like chronic pain emotional pain can't actually harm you it may feel terrible

you may have a story about the emotional pain and a fear of the emotional pain that causes you to suffer a lot extra on top like let's say you feel deep sorrow regret anger Devastation when you think about your child not being with you anymore you maybe feel guilt shame all of these emotions are entirely human and actually are not good or bad until we decide to make them so the emotions themselves can not harm you because all an emotion is is like a physical manifestation of vibration that happens in your body what's really helpful and will also help you to alleviate the sting of whatever pain you're feeling is to notice what is physically happening inside of you for each emotion so that

you can start to get really good at feeling all the emotions not just the positive ones but the negative ones too we spend our lives running trying to circumnavigate go around anything that seems scary I don't want to feel the rejection I don't want to feel hurt taken advantage of instead we hide ourselves away and put up all these walls and avoid which is what I did when the alienation really started coming on like strong I didn't want to experience these emotions because I was telling myself that the emotions themselves and that experience was something I couldn't handle I was terrified of feeling rejected of feeling not enough I was terrified of it I was running from those

emotions thinking that those were the danger what actually hared me the most and was is the most dangerous for all of us as parents experiencing alienation is what we do because of the fear the avoidance I can't tell you how many things how many situations I ran from and hid and wanted to buffer away numb away whether that was that I would just go drink just to forget about it that I would avoid going to the interviews or going to the court appearance I did this a lot I don't want to have to deal with that I never thought it through but I was telling myself if I go there and face that thing a court appearance I don't want to go I don't want to know what could happen because what what did

I think that was really going to happen I didn't want to to face reality and discover whatever was there for me but whatever was there for me back then and now and in my future and same with yours is just an emotion so it's just a little feeling in here little feeling in here and maybe yes things will happen but those things weren't going to change anyway if it's a court appearance and if I don't go to that court appearance then the absolute worst case scenario will happen it's not like they're going to be like oh she's not here let's just reschedule for another day when she is no so by avoiding I end up causing my own pain and my own suffering and the same will happen with you I was on a

call with a longtime client of mine right before this and this happens frequently where I I'm sure I've shared this with you I know I've shared it with other clients and with the members I will have a podcast planned and then directly then the days before the theme will be constantly coming up for me and I don't know I think it's a combination I don't know if it's just that I'm looking for that subject since it's on my mind or if it's just organic genuinely coming up today I actually asked her I was like did I just make that about me she was like no this was actually exactly what was going on and I think that's because we as we as alienated parents experience this so

much we are so challenged because we're constantly being faced with these negative emotions and we keep trying to evade them and we keep trying to put on layers of armor to protect ourselves from the emotions and and let me just tell you folks that's the wrong approach negative emotion is part of your experience here on this Earth and they always will be as long as you walk this Earth they always will be so avoiding the emotions or circumstances is not going to change a [ __ ] thing because whatever lesson that we're supposed to learn if you this is the way that I think about it and I know I am aware that it sounds punitive in the way that I'm getting ready to say it but please

know that I don't mean it that way I just don't have a better way of saying it yet but whatever lesson we're supposed to learn whatever is supposed to grow us is going to keep presenting itself and cutting us off when we're avoiding it you'll find that it's a theme until you finally cross that bridge until you finally develop the skills or until you finally grow through it as opposed to going around it so avoiding it is not it's not going to [ __ ] help you it's only going to prolong the the pain the suffering that you're experiencing so by I don't want to look I don't want to look la la la la la let's go have wine let's go do this let's scroll Instagram we all do it it's

a human experience but by doing that you're only perpetuating the very thing that you don't want to feel so I was on the on a call with this client earlier and she was talking about how last week when I was talking with her she's talking about how her mom had told her two lies she knows that I'm going to share this but won't get into all the details cuz there a lot of different aspects to this but for this her and her brother had been told one story about a couple events and then come to find out there was an entirely different story my client and brother decided together to trauma Bond and decided to make it mean that their childhood was a lie right oh well mom lied to us about this thing

what else is a lie we don't know what we can trust from her okay and that's one option for her and her brother to continue to think I presented some other options but in that moment before we talked it through she wanted to make it mean that her whole childhood was a lie and so she was not going to continue to trust her mom we won't go through what we ended up with but then this week trust was also on her mind she was talking to a girlfriend and the girlfriend was talking about her relationship my clients started to think about the fact that her ex who was alienating her son from her lied a lot right the relationship as people do people are not always truthful and not

always even knowing that they're not truthful but also we know that this guy's an alienator so you know they do as they do but my client was making it mean that not only could she maybe not trust anybody in the world because she can't trust her mom her whole childhood was a lie now all of her whole marriage was a lie and going forward how was she ever supposed to trust anybody and I was like okay this is one way to think about it but I'd like to offer you that it's not going to help you because the whole purpose of relationship is to connect right when you're thinking that you can't trust anybody then you likely feel very alone and isolated you feel distanced from them because you're

choosing to believe that they're not trustworthy right not that you should go and believe everything but there's other ways to look at this she was thinking that by just choosing to not trust anybody anymore that she would be protecting herself and therefore avoiding any future pain like getting vulnerable was a no no and that she could just decide not to trust anybody and that would be the smart thing to do but by doing that she's actually just doing the job of hurting herself like herself she's hurting her own self ahead of time she's already feeling the pain she might maybe feel if she were to get vulnerable and get hurt somebody lied to her in the future she's already feeling

that now she's cut herself off from feeling any closeness or connection with anybody for now and moving forward right so avoiding connection avoiding vulnerability actually gets you a net negative result you feel disconnected from the world and also you're perpetuating disconnect for going forward so I asked her what was the worst emotion she could think of give me the darkest emotion that you can think of and then she was like scared that's the darkest emotion you can come up with that's the one I don't want to feel and I thought how interesting I've known her for some time now and she actually nightly chooses to watch a scary movie every night she does it for enjoyment

she likes to be scared for enjoyment she chooses this right yet when I ask her what's the darkest emotion she could have she says scared what's the difference here what where's the Gap and the deal is is because when she's choosing to be scared she feels like she has control when she feels scared and it's not her choice voice she's making that be dark not the freaking serial killers and like Chainsaw Massacre or whatever she's choosing to watch every night that's not dark no what's dark is the emotion of being scared when she's not choosing it right so to this I say to her why not choose it then why not choose to be game for all of the emotions why not choose to lean into even the

emotions that may be if given the option between choosing like Glee and being scared you probably would choose Glee but there are times where Glee is absolutely not appropriate do you know what I'm saying like it would be very strange if you were gleeful in a moment where a bomb went off across the street right that would be weird so it's always best to think about what's appropriate for this situation right now do I want to be feeling this is this a choice for me would I want to feel any other way because we can't change we already know we can't change the the circumstances if we keep on trying to avoid or go around or ignore certain experiences that clearly keep presenting themselves to us

if we're having to constantly shift things in order to make the outside circumstances change well I just want my child to respond to me I just want them to see my side of things I want them to show up to reunification therapy or for my parenting time if you're constantly placing whether something's a positive or negative on what the people outside of you are doing or not doing then you're going to feel like you have to somehow manipulate every circumstance that comes before you that you're always going to have to be changing or manipulating your way through to make the other people do the things that would serve you the best or that you think are the most appropriate well kids

shouldn't reject their parents I'm with you on that one 100% but because we cannot actually manipulate that not effectively anyway that's what the alienator has done because we cannot and we wouldn't actually you and I would not be happy with the result of having to manipulate and neither is the alienator either and that's why their constant hunger for needing to manipulate more right like narcissistic Supply because they're not being fulfilled by the thing that they're telling themselves they'll be fulfilled by they keep having to go and get new Supply so that's the same thing with us we can keep trying to change and manipulate our children into wanting to

be with us but you won't ever feel like actual true fulfillment from that because you know they probably know that you've manipulated them into that and then you're not actually living life you're just setting things up for your quote unquote success so that you don't have to deal with the circumstances being put in front of you so instead of having to spend all that [ __ ] energy on having to go around around and set things up and like strategically map out how other people are going to be behave around us which is a miserable existence instead just stop fearing or avoiding the emotions that you do have for the circumstances that are already happening in front of you this again does not mean

that you don't act or advocate for yourself and your child in the way that you see fit when these things do happen I'm just saying that trying to avoid or make people do things so that you can feel certain ways is never going to be the option that is the real Danger your fear of experiencing whatever happens whatever is in front of you is what will cause you the most harm not the emotion that you experience as a result of somebody else doing something you will never be able to manipulate enough circumstances or events that happen in your life in order to avoid the negative emotion that you think that you need to fear and avoid I I think if you listen to me more than a few times

you know my stance on alienation it's terrible it's awful and of course you know a million times over if I could give all of this personal work and development that I've done on myself I would give it back in a heartbeat if I knew that I could have my daughter back and make things all go back to the way that they were before the alienation began in a [ __ ] heartbeat I would do that but I can't I can't there are no time machines there is no way to reverse everything to go back to where it was and I've learned over this time all of this painstaking work that I've done on myself and finding my own wisdom that in all of this destruction and darkness is my experience and my growth in me

finding my own Humanity so I watched this movie that movie poor things this weekend and I had been wanting to see it for a a while since it came out and I ended up watching it two and a half times it was so good I absolutely loved it and the reason I loved it so much and what hooked me I mean the whole thing was amazing like it it the cinematography was brilliant Emma Stone did an amazing job right but what really hooked me her character Bella is the the girl's name I'm not going to spoil the movie for you if you haven't seen it but her like insatiable curiosity for the The Human Experience she was not afraid and if you watch the movie you'll understand but she was not afraid of a a

bad experience of an dark experience so she throughout her life she took this trip of sort of exploration of the world and at one point she as she would word it the hands of Fate brought her to becoming a [ __ ] she kind of sort of fell into becoming a hooker it was like equally advantageous for both The whouse Madam and Bella the character right she was like this is perfect let's try it let's do it she made the money the hor house had a new [ __ ] by the way the movie is great but if you are at all I wouldn't recommend going to see it with your mom or anybody that might be a little bit offended easily or sexually repressed in any way it is definitely like there are some parts where I had to

cover my eyes and ears cuz it was like it's a little bit shock talking but it's an amazing movie but anyway Bella was at this hor house and the one thing that she didn't like is that she didn't want to suffer the way that these [ __ ] Were Meant To Suffer they were all to walk down the stairs when a gentleman's Suitor walked into the house and presented themselves and then The Suitor would have his pick of whoever he wanted to have sex with she argued that the women should be able to pick the man because then the man would feel wanted and it would be a perfect match then and everybody would have a better time which makes sense in the real world but what Bella didn't understand and what the

fourouse Madam had to explain to her was listen honey she said some men like that you don't like it some men and I don't I'm not directing this towards men dads out there this can be taken towards All Humans but that some people enjoy the fact that they're putting somebody through suffering not the point of what I'm getting ready to say I know that that could go negative here but Bella was floored by that right what do you mean why would anybody want that and then the Madam goes on to say some of the most like I had to rewind this and play it and rewind this and play it and then I watched the movie a second time and then almost a third time like another half time through because I

loved this part so much because I identify with this and I hope that you will too she said we must experience everything not just the good the degradation horror sadness this makes us whole Bella makes us people of substance not flighty untouched children then we can know the world and when we know the world The World Is Ours and so Bella of course being so hungry and thirsty for Life to Live this Human Experience she was like I want that I want that and it is so true what got me was that not flighty untouched children when we experience the degradation the horror the sadness the negative part of our humanness then we can know the world and when we know the

world The World Is Ours to me this is so beautiful it's a poignant truth in and so relatable for what we go through in this situation of alienation that we all find ourselves in so often we look at all the other people around us and think well they're not going through it they're not going through it this shouldn't be alienation shouldn't be mothers should fathers should never be taken from their children children should be able to be loved and cared for by both parents they should love who they want to love should be inclusion and support for our children this should not be but as I've said in the past and I will say again and again is people have been cruel since they were people

there has been suffering since before the first human was ever on this Earth all of time there has been Darkness where there is light horror where there is Glee we cannot have one extreme without the other this is what we signed up for as human beings and although it may not be the traditional or the conventional experience of a parent that's what makes our situation so remarkable and the more that you can show up for these emotions the negative and the positive all of them and get good at them the more the word will be yours the more that you will master and accomplish so you can choose to think that it shouldn't have happened it should be different you can choose to be

sour to feed into the suffering and the Injustice that would be the typical response to resist and to fight and to complain resent the injustices being done in the darkness that we are experiencing at the hand of somebody else but where does that get you I believe if I'm answering that question for you right now you actually create and perpetuate suffering on top of suffering on top of suffering on top of suffering if you just decide to let them be them whoever it is the alienator your child children the the the powers that be in the court system you allow them to do what they do because they're going to do it anyway when you can experience the negative emotion around

that for yourself and not fight it then you can actually process move through that emotion and get to a productive place the emotion is not to fix no emotion that you have is something that you need to change or move away from it just is you are human yes you can decide to think thoughts that give you a better emotion but many times when we're talking about the suffering the necessary grief that we experience as alienated parents moving from those emotions while only perpetuate it prolong it so just allow it Sadness the anger if it's appropriate allow it it's only a vibration it comes and waves and then you move on to the next right but the more you try to shove it away the

harder it comes at you you may be able to Stave it off for a little while but like I said I think I said it is that you cannot manipulate enough circumstances and situations outside of you to avoid what's going on inside of you never pain just as I said in the beginning of this there's be my whether that's physical or emotional pain it's an indicator that somewhere needs attention somewhere inside of us needs extra caring for that's why it's there that's why we have these physical manifestations they're not just thoughts right oh my body's trying to tell me something I feel this bubbling in my belly I feel hot right I feel my tightness in my throat I feel like my heart's racing a little

bit more why am I nervous where is that coming from and just ask yourself why what's going on to create this and be here for it commit to being there for for that emotion for yourself and know that it usually passes in under two minutes anyway it's just a vibration in your body and then once you get curious and start narating like you hear me talk about narating the physical symptoms of it like I just did once you start to notice what's happening with you you already provide yourself with a lot alleviate a lot of that quote unquote pain negativity because you've now become an active role in your experience of the emotion as opposed to the emotion just happening on you at you I'm

noticing that right now my head is hot my throat's dry tight this whatever you're participating actively and so you'll already get some relief but emotions and suffering they're just indicators that something inside you would like some attention needs to be investigated further explored when you can stop avoiding your emotions this is like the secret to the universe this is when you will literally master your life and become Samurai ninja of your life if you can lean into and be willing to feel any emotion negative positive whatever you want to call call it you can do anything nothing will stop you literally nothing can stop you because then you just know that you're just going to

experience an emotion that's okay cool I I can do that and you can you can you can absolutely endure it will not harm you one bit an emotion so stop avoiding if this is you no more avoiding or least just consider the the option that avoiding is only actually making the emotion longer slower harder eart to would say unless you just want to continue to suffer maybe you're not done suffering yet and in that case then keep avoiding your emotions I say that with love but anyway all right y'all I will see you next week this Friday in the Facebook group private Facebook group I will be there live noon Eastern Standard Time also don't forget that you can click the

button on the link below any question that you have any comments if you want it to be answered on one of the episodes leave me a message and I can either as you specify I can either play the message over the air or I can just answer it it can be anonymous so yeah come on I want to hear from you I want to hear from you okay right bye thanks so much for listening today if you like what you're hearing and you'd like to hear more please make sure to click subscribe wherever you're listening or watching also for bite-sized clips and tips be sure to find me on Tik Tok or Instagram see you next

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