Let Go of Shame & Create a Life You Love Following Alienation

you are listening to the Beyond The High Road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 66 stay tuned welcome to be on the high road hello how you guys doing it is January of 2024 y'all it is a brand new year I was just talking about in the private Facebook group and the live event that I had yesterday and I think I was talking about last week a little bit too I used to not look forward to a new year new months new weeks any of it each new increment of time they were reminders of the time I had missed and the time I was missing with my daughter making memories with my daughter and so if you are not super Jolly happy run running around with bells on because of

the new year I understand I get it but I want to offer today for this episode a different perspective because that perspective that I used to take fear was driving everything I did or didn't do I felt very rushed the sense of urgency and at the same time I felt so blocked like stuck in bubble gum basically what I'm saying is is that perspective sucks I mean it sucks to be in that spot I don't mean that you suck for having that perspective but it's just a it's a it's not a helpful perspective to live in I find it much more refreshing to come from a place of creation so I'm going to tell you guys a little story to begin with early in my adult life I learned how to ride a

motorcycle I was with a guy for a long time who wrote a Harley and all of my friends wrote Harley's this is down in Miami so then I eventually got my own Harley and then I got another one then maybe a couple years before I got back together with my daughter's father I I stopped writing I sold my last one and hadn't ridden for up until the alienation had started taking hold and my daughter was back over with her father right so my daughter must have been around 9 years old when I decided to pick up writing again this is one was living in Austin and I lived in South Austin and I had to go up to North Austin to pick up this bike and then I had to drive it back down south after I

bought it took it away from the showroom I rode you know for I can't even tell you how many hours I rode a bike earlier on in adulthood but between then and selling my last bike it was 10 years actually it wasn't that long I hadn't ridden a bike right so I go up to pick up my bike and I was driving at home and I noticed that I had a problem I couldn't turn right every time I turned a corner I remember pulling out of the showroom of this place it was inevitable that I had to turn right and I had to go around to get up and get on the highway and my right turns it felt like um in gymnastics they call them the twisties right and I think that like in baseball and in other sports they're

called the IPS right all of a sudden a that you know very very well for me I rode a bicycle before I rode a bike a motorcycle I mean I'd been riding a bicycle forever I knew how to turn right this is not like a it's a very basic skill but I forgot how to do it I would go into panic attack every time I had to turn my bike right the craziest thing now I will say that this bike the one that I purchased I needed to take it home and put a lowering kit on it so it was higher up and I think that I definitely was a little bit scared to come to a full stop because then I would have to lean the bike over and if we were talking about an a bike that's over a th000 pounds it's a lot it's a lot of

weight so I was a little nervous about that but I knew also at least with right stop signs that I could kind of Coast through and just go right anyway I get on the highway and need to exit off of this very high over pass and take one of the big interchanges in any major city but this was a brand new one and it was so high up I'd never actually been on that particular exit overpass was going to a toll road anyway and I almost died I truly honestly almost died right there on that overpass it was a big long one it was going from one highway to the next and over and I kept thinking I was I had to turn right but I couldn't my bike kept wanting to go straight I

stopped traffic it was like a two-lane one of those two-lane um overpasses exits whatever it is I was going so slow and I honestly almost fell right off of the overpass and killed myself died a very horrific tragic death from just buying this bike that I couldn't turn right on needless to say I got home without dying and promptly parked the bike in my driveway or in my garage never to be rode again I worked on it I put the lowering kit on changed the handlebars I did it all but anytime I would have to bring it out of my my neighbors probably saw me but anytime I brought it out of my garage and onto my driveway I would have had to make four rights three or four rights in order to get to a main

road and I could never make make it in fact a couple of the times that I tried to I ended up walking my bike right back I lived on a private drive and I got to the end of my private drive and I couldn't do it I couldn't turn right out of the private drive so I just turned my bike around and walked it back all the way back up my street and into my garage again and parked it right where it was my point of that story is that we can have the skill we can have the full physical mental capability to do something I do a task complete a goal whatever it is that's before us we've done it maybe thousands of times in our past maybe we haven't done it in our past but the capability is

there but if something in our heads is telling us that we can't do it then that's what's going to win that's what's going to win if you've got something up in your brain the committee up in your head discouraging you telling you that you can't do do it that you're not good enough that you're so silly for even trying you're stupid all of the things that nobody really wants to admit happens the Shamy stories that go on in your brain and my brain and everybody's brain when we're listening to that part of us then we're going to have a very difficult time imagining and completing the goals and living into our full potential okay so many parents like guest that I speak with have a hard time

believing really anybody that's gone through any sort of trauma has a hard time believing that they can create something new for themselves something better a life that is worth living worthwhile meaningful purposeful right so many people that when I suggest it to them I see the look on their faces in fact it just happened yesterday um on a call with somebody the tone in their voice flattened uh other times I will see people's faces their eyes glazed over as I suggest that it's possible it's possible for you to create something bigger and better for yourself a life that is worth living even while experiencing the grief of alienation even while our children are not home

with us home with you you still can actually create this amazing beautiful life for yourself and like I said when I say that when I suggest that I get often times the glazed over look on people's eyes and what I think it is I did a lot of reflection over this past month about when I started this whole journey maybe one or two of you can email me afterwards and let me know if I'm right here but what I think it is is that uh one growing up the message that many of us received even if it was unspoken was that we could only do so much there was a cap to the amount of things or the meaning of the things that we could accomplish in life for me the message that I received it definitely

wasn't intentional but the message was that I needed somebody else to be the one giving me the amazing things that might happen in my life I would just be the supporter along with some other things that happened early on in my childhood the self-worth problems and what have you started off um when I was very young around kindergarten or so when it I believe it started that I was only good to like appease a man to I was there purely for entertainment purposes or something um I think that that could be part of it with y'all maybe not specifically what I just said for my experience but some sort of messaging that you received from an early age this is number one one is the

early on beliefs that we adopt with without consciously deciding them for ourselves that happens early on in childhood in up until middle school high school we look at our parents we look at those Whoever has raised us and whatever they believe if we see that they are convicted in their belief then we just accept it into our lives as our own without choosing it ourselves and this actually is something that I highly suggest like all of my clients is something that I have been questioned question all of the beliefs that you've adopted before now sometimes people carry beliefs that they never chose for themselves they're living their life based on ideas and beliefs and

experiences somebody else just handed down to them I talked about this early on in the um your identity episode I believe I I but was probably one of the first times that I suggested that that would be a great episode if you haven't listened to it your identity so that's one the beliefs that you adopted at a very early age were limiting kept you at a cap two and the one that I really want to stress for us as alienated parents is that the idea is if we can create our future if we have each one of us has the power to create an amazing future then that means that we also our brains know this we may not think it on the Forefront of our mind but that suggests that we then created our past which

means that we then created our alienation that's the inference I think so this is something that I think would be very helpful for you to address like in the Here and Now for yourself and it doesn't take long this is not some long drawn out process you got here somehow just stay with me you know that I'm not blaming you here not victim blaming I never do but but stay with me here this is your way out of the fog out of the fear-based um living is by knowing owning compassionately loving and taking agency and ownership over how you got here how did you get here now I know that the person who's alienating your kids from you is the one that is doing the things I get that I know that you

didn't a gun to their head you did not make them alienate your children from you you did not do things that warranted alienation yeah we're clear on that just know that I can't say that enough you as a parent your behavior did not warrant alienation happen Okay so that is just that will that should be a blanket statement that should I maybe I should just put that in my in the intro every episode know that having said that there are things that you did to lead you to not only where you're at now but choices you made leading up to being with the person who's alienating your kids from you choices you made while you were with the person who's alienating your kids

from you and then of course there were choices that you made following like leaving or or splitting up from the person who's alienating your kid from you okay those decisions find your responsibility in those I know that you probably already know what those ones are the none of us really have to go far for those answers because many times what we're doing we think we're teaching ourselves something or that we're going to learn our lesson by shaming ourselves about said things said decisions and what we end up doing is approaching it wrong and shaming ourselves into res mment of them the world and our themselves so instead I want you to with compassion learn from

those mistakes know that you did you had to have because you're here we all are know what your role was in the alienation know what your line of thinking was when you were there and what you would do differently today take responsibility for where you are now without dragging yourself through the mud so often we as parents experiencing this knowing the dynamic of alienation knowing how terrible the other parent is acting how they're trying to drag us over the coals to the public we feel we need to prove what good parents we've been and we are to prove how present we were and are and are willing to be we feel the need to make every everybody see our side and understand where we

were coming from and why we did or didn't do the things that we did or didn't do right instead of feeling like you have to lay your case out for yourself and for the world just owning whatever the mistakes were and moving forward not keeping score with the alienator not feeling like you need to measure up and prove to yourself or to anybody that you are worthy of being your child's parent because you are your child's parent you are worthy of being your child's parent alienation has nothing to do with you really like the dynamic itself what the alienator is doing the person who's alienating your kids is doing is not a personal thing against you it affects you personally

and it affects your child personally but what is happening that the dynamic there is happening entirely because of the alienator and is really only about the alienator okay so when you get some distance from it and stop keeping score when you're able to accept responsibility for yeah listen I didn't pay attention to the signs I didn't understand I did not love myself enough to know that I was worth more I did um like for me I did numb my Feelings by going drinking and then dancing on bars at night at the clubs downtown I did do that I wanted to escape my life the reality I wanted to escape the fear that I felt on a regular basis I was riddled with fear I put the person who's

elimating my kid for me up on this backward sort of pedestal and I feared that he would use my quote unquote weaknesses in order to take away my rights as a parent and that is exactly what he did I made that happen back then because all I was doing was thinking about how I feared him using this stuff and so then that would make me actually go do it it's like when when you're like don't hit the window don't hit the window you know the same thing with like my my bike being on the motorcycle I can't turn right I can't turn right guess what funny not funny of course hindsight's always 2020 but I know looking back that I didn't want to see what was really going on like we always say why didn't I

see the signs I can see them so clearly now what was I thinking why didn't I pay attention to that I can tell you with full confidence that I didn't want to see the sence back then in fact I am sure there were times where I'm like I should pay attention to that that doesn't seem right I was valuing um what I thought I would have by doing whatever I was doing in order to avoid more than paying attention to the thing I should have paid attention to hopefully that's making sense I knew that I was ignoring things fullon knew I was ignoring things and at the time I felt like that was the thing I should be doing I need to keep ignoring because I don't know if I'm going to be able to

handle that if I pay attention to it I don't know if I'm going to have the skills or the tools or the wherewithal to face that so I'm going to go stick my head in the sand or I'm going to go date another complete person that's not so good for me um I'm going to do things that seem more exciting and take away my attention from this thing that I'm dealing with here so I was looking for things activities people in my life to distract me from the reality of what was going on in my high conflict custody situation and so by doing that I only made this high conflict quote unquote you know I'm using quotes for that because high conflict custody you know but I only made the custody situation

worse by pretending it wasn't Happening by looking for excuses to support why I was doing just fine he's the one that's crazy because I was too busy in judgment and in justifying my behavior because everybody else does it and so why can't I acting like a child back in the day here I sit today an alienation has taken hold my daughter is now living with her father she has been for years now and here I say I do not drag myself through the mud about it anymore I am okay with it because I decided to be okay with it right I just made the decision like every time a Shamy thought came up I would just look at it and be like okay that's interesting I see that I'm

shaming myself but I'm going to go ahead and choose a different thought I'm going to go ahead and uplevel this thought because it's not based in reality I know what I did I know the decisions I made I know what I didn't do and I've learned from that and I'm going to move forward and so once I could take responsibility like okay so I did create where I am right now I did create this here I am I chose the guy who would alienate my kid for me I chose that I chose the next guy that at the time I wanted to tell myself but he presented himself differently how could I have known how could I have seen the signs the signs were there that's just a story I was telling myself that I could how could I

have seen the signs that is a way to keep me myself in full victim mode do you know what I'm saying how could I have seen the signs the signs were absolutely there I didn't want to see them once again I chose not to see them because I couldn't handle that I needed to find a guy that was acting like how he was acting in the beginning I didn't want to pay attention to the warning the red flashing lights I couldn't handle that I couldn't handle the reality of that the other reality the alter reality seemed more attractive I can absolutely take responsibility for that too and it feels so much better than going back to that well how could I have seen the signs how could I have known that lays

all the responsibility elsewhere and I can do nothing with that I can't do anything about it if I don't find my power there but when I can say oh yeah no there were signs there were absolutely signs I just didn't listen to them then it's like okay now we know what we're working with now we know where we can go from here I chose way after the fact only a few years ago to start learning from each one of these little micro decisions to ignore or to shove it under the rug or to stick my head in the sand you know circumvent the discomfort in the moment back then and so what I realized is this for me was a a theme and so now I pay attention so that I can start creating

something new for myself because now that I've owned that I created my past it's believable for me to create my now and my future our minds are so powerful your ability is there you are already have the the ability your capability is infinite I think I might have mentioned this in the last episode I think I said something like we only use 10% brains capacity or whatever and then I was like I said that but I never really did the research on that I don't know if Neuroscience actually backs that up if that's really a thing what kept coming to me is if you ever seen that that movie um Lucy with um Scarlett Johansson anyway um that movie is what I was really thinking of when I when I said

whatever I said I think it was last episode but either way I know for sure that we have so much capability so much power to do things that we never thought was possible right we underestimate ourselves so often especially coming from trauma unresolved trauma We Don't Dream High Enough for ourselves we dumb ourselves down for fear of failing but I want to offer to too that maybe failing should be the goal right like what is wrong with the fail if you're willing to learn just like I'm learning from my past I learned also each time I went back to court throughout that 10 years and $200,000 plus dollars it was like banging my head up against a wall do you know how in court if evidence has

already been used then at least in Texas you can't again represent that same evidence if it was already used before but each time like there were opportunities for me to go back and dredge up and show a pattern of behavior with the person who's elting my child for me there was absolutely an opportunity many repeated opportunities for me to go back and spell out the whole pattern but I didn't time and time again I didn't you want to know why because I was scared that if I open that can of worms then he would open a can of worms what's good for the goose is good for the gander sort of thing I was living in fear each time I went to court that if I was to go down that road then

he would out me so I tried to circumvent that in order to avoid discomfort in a moment and that also I will tell you right now this is one of the biggest regrets that I have now learned from this was a huge lesson for me I mean it only took me how many times of going to court I mean uh six different hearings seven different hearings over the years of me going nope we're not going to go there I'm missing out on all these opportunities to show a calculated pattern of behavior on their part which could have turned everything around for me and I didn't because I didn't want to feel the discomfort of being embarrassed or um uh denigrated I guess in court made to look like a bad mom but I would

take that any day of the week now because now I've already gone back and cleaned up all of my any shame around anything any of the decisions I made before I wasn't willing to own that stuff back then and that got me to where I am today okay so that's what I'm talking about all of this stuff you do not have to live your life in fear based on what people know your ex knows or the community knows or whatever is going on for you you don't have to continue to live your life in fear you don't have to shut the door and keep the skeletons in the closet anymore you don't in fact when you set them free I'm telling you life is so much better it's like a weight lifted off your shoulder there's

like there's no hiding now it is what it is I am what I am and I love who I am none of my ideas or my beliefs are from well maybe I can't say none but most of my beliefs now I have pulled them all out and decided on purpose whether I want to continue believing these things or not right I am all me like every part of me I own it and I'm suggesting this for you too and it feels so good because I know that every decision I made even back then I made those decisions because I was trying to protect myself or protect my daughter in the moment always I know that and I'm guaranteeing the same is for you the only reason that we do what we do is because we think it's

the safe bet we we're trying to avoid it's just the way the human body the way that we're our nervous system and our brain works our survival brain works we are going to do whatever it takes to keep us out of danger does that mean that like later on we could have made a better decision yes that's what we learn you don't have to shame yourself for it because the more that you shame yourself for that stuff the more you're going to be psyching yourself out not being able to turn right you know so owning your past will do wonders it can only bring you to higher places when you've taken yourself out of that I should have seen the signs I should have known they're so evil and turned it into

they are who they are I don't need to figure them out but I know for me that there were signs and I didn't want to see them at the time because it didn't seem safe for me I didn't want to go there because in order to do that I would have had to feel discomfort and that discomfort seemed inaccessible impossible for me at the time but now I know different now I see what I was doing and if you're able to look at yourself with compassion then you're able to understand and also give yourself the grace to move forward in an uplevel way now into your future okay so hopefully that'll help you um for looking at your 2024 being able to see your past self in a new light and

then also your today taking stock of today and moving forward what can you create moving forward because you did create your past you created you are right now and how can you change that and create your future to where you want to be okay so also last thing I'll ask you this is just coming to me last minute but like oftentimes people say yeah but I don't even know what I want to be I don't know where I want to go from here that's okay here's what you do do a scan of everybody all the influences in your life pull out their most admirable qualities in your mind write them down in the piece of paper for now okay and then those are the things if you admire those things and

somebody else then the chances are that you want to further incorporate them in your own life in your own VI okay so we'll and then we'll revisit that coming up very soon oky dokie you guys healing reinvention program we're doing it's called this month and moving forward actually I haven't named the subsequent months but it's called a fresh start if you join you will get access to all the all of last year's material um the second that you join but then now starting this year it's like a whole brand new look a brand new interface is that the right word it's a different course basically and it looks different it's nice and clean and neat and organized and not that the other wasn't

it's just different it's a fresh new look that's all it's uh it's a facelift there's a facelift for this year for 2024 and we are starting right now January with the basics I learned so much from 2023 and and the way that I want to teach the tools that I learned for myself and and Incorporated for my in my own life in order to heal and I'm teaching this year starting like fresh in a more effective efficient way that hopefully is going to best serve you okay so come on come join it's ridiculous also join the private Facebook group you guys I was in over the weekends doing Facebook lives in there in the private group and I was telling them and one of them that listen

what you get get in the healing revention program it's ridiculous you get group coaching calls once a week you get a new course each month you get weekly content with worksheets that you get to fill out every day five 10 minutes a day but it's content that you're following that's dripped out to you with videos and then you get a private podcast that comes to you Weekly right not this private podcast and then I'm going to be starting in February you're going to be getting um a podcast podcast like this podcast that you're listening to right now in the healing reinvention program you're going to get a podcast study guide for each episode that comes out you're going to get a

study guide that comes along with it okay and so that that way you're actually taking these principles and applying them to your own situations in your own life so it's like all this extra learning also I'm doing worksheets and thought prompts for each coaching client that you hear on the group coaching calls so that you can apply all the things that you learn on the call here on the call into your own life like there's just so much that you get so much that you get this is way more than I ever got in any of the group coaching programs memberships that I belonged to before now and they were all at least 350 a month 350 a month and you're getting this for 107 listen I know what

y'all have been through I know how hard it's been and I know how much money you've spent how hard it is to you know be being child support and whatever it is that's going on I'm not trying to put anybody out at all but I also have to live and also too I do believe that if you're not paying for it in some way if there's not something that you're giving up then you're not going to end up applying the stuff there's a science behind that there must be a sacrifice on the part of the person that's doing the work right unlike for you so the $107 a month is such a reason able fair deal for all the things you get like I said the cheapest one that I've even heard of

it was 350 a month to get half the stuff that you're getting in this group coaching also if you wanted to do private coaching and you don't you're the group coaching is not for you you know that there's always that too more expensive but it's there it speeds up your process if you want results like stats that's what you do private coaching is your best bet that okay so that's it join the private Facebook group if uh you want to get in on the lives and actually join it too if you want to see like this last yesterday I did a private Facebook live session that I had a couple clients come on and so the others that are watching that video get to see what a coaching call is like

firsthand right get a little taste to that see what that that experience is like just in case you're like not sure and you're like know if I want to it's a good way to to see and that's free just join the private Facebook group there's no selling going on there's no weird creepiness there never is I promise you that so yeah join the private Facebook group come on y'all the the link is below okay that's all I'll shut my face now bye thanks so much for listening today guys I'm honored that you chose to share your time with me if you like what you've been hearing and you want more come join me in the new monthly membership where we take the concepts that you hear about here and using a

logical framework you learn to apply them to your specific situations upgrading your thoughts and your life even while experiencing the grief of alienation for more information go to beyond the high road.com see you

soon