#10: Why Loving Him Won't Fix What's Broken

Intro & Music: 0:06

Welcome and get ready to embark on the journey of a lifetime with your host, Kamara, motivational speaker and certified professional life coach for women. With over 20 years of experience as a life coach, healthcare executive, and mother of two, Kamara shares her own story while providing expert insights and building self-confidence and resilience, while overcoming fears and breaking down self-defeating mindsets. Subscribe now to Kamara Speaks and begin your journey of transformation to becoming the woman you want to be and living the life you want and deserve.

Kamara: 0:52

Hey, hey, hey, ladies! Welcome back to another episode of Kamara Speaks, and I am your host Kamara, certified professional life coach, speaker, podcaster, and the woman who will tell you the truth, even when it stings a little, even when it stings a lot. Because I believe that you deserve to hear it from someone who actually cares about your next chapter and where you're going in life. So welcome back. This is the podcast where we have the conversations that most women are only having in their heads. And to recap, last week we kicked off a conversation about why I became a life coach, why I became a life coach for women specifically, and what we actually do as coaches and what we don't. And I got so many messages and a few text messages actually and emails that I felt compelled to do a part two to that episode. So this is part two to that. And it basically focuses on why I do this work and why so many of us are walking around with heavy hearts and instances in our minds where we feel that we're doing some of the same, similar good work in our heads for the people that are in our lives and why we're actually not. And I know that's a lot to take in, but basically what I'm saying is that many of us are making choices that we don't even realize are costing us. And we're calling it love, we're calling it sacrifice, we're calling it caring for others, we're calling it being a good person or being a good woman. And sometimes that's not exactly what it is. So we're gonna break it down today and we're gonna go a little deeper. And I'm gonna use a real life example that actually came up with one of my clients, and it's something that I've seen over time that happens again and again. And I want to show you exactly why having a life coach actually matters and why we actually do and affect lives the way we do, because we're able to break down and talk about some of the barriers and some of the thinking and some of the patterns that I feel need to be broken sometimes in our own heads as women and what we conceive to be the right thing to do, and what actually may just be a habit that we've formed or a pattern of thinking that doesn't cost us a service well. So buckle up, grab your coffee, your latte, your journal, your glass of wine, and let's get into it. And forgive me if I sound a little hoarse, I'm getting over a cold, so for whatever reason my voice may crack a little bit, but not getting emotional today. I'm just telling it like it is. So before I get into today's episode, um, let's recap a little bit about what we talked about last week. For anyone who missed that episode, I do recommend that you go back and listen to it. It is beneficial, it has important information about life coaches. I dispel some of the misconceptions that some of you may have, and why this work is important, and why that why some um devalue the work that us life coaches do, and why I don't think that you should. And I want to recap some important messages that I um put into last week's episode. So one of them is a life coach is not a therapist. So to recap on a couple of things from last week, I want to be very clear about that one specific message. Therapy is essential work, and it does help you or whomever process trauma, it helps you heal from your past, and it gives you the clinical support when you're dealing with mental health challenges and issues that you need to work through. And I am a huge advocate for therapy, so if you need it, please go and get it. I um have stressed for this month in particular, uh, Mental Health Awareness Month, how important that is, and that's part of the message from last week. But just to be clear and differentiate, we as coaches do not do that work. A life coach actually meets you in the present and helps you build toward the future, not necessarily break down all the past trauma. Although it may come up, but that's not our role. So, me as a life coach for women specifically, I'm not here to diagnose you and I'm not here to prescribe you anything. And I'm actually not even here to tell you what to do. What I'm doing is help you get helping you to get clear about what it is that you actually want, clear about what's holding you back from what you want, and clear about the steps you need to take to create a life that actually feels like it's yours. So, as a life coach for women specifically, what I do is help women reconnect with themselves. Because somewhere between being a good daughter, a good wife, a good mother, a good employee, a good friend, a lot of us as women lost ourselves along the way. We forgot what we wanted, we forgot who we were, we forgot what we needed, and in some cases, we forgot what we were even allowed to want and need to begin with, if there were any things at all that we could remember. So, what I do is I don't tell you what to do, but what I go through is help you remember what it is that you wanted to do. And I'm gonna tell you to focus on some of those things that we talk about as we talk about some of the relationships in our lives today. And specifically, what I have found comes up time and time again in relationships that we have with our partner or with our spouse. And for a lot of us women, it is the man in our lives, right? So I'm gonna talk about men today specifically, but it can be related to many other topics. So, similar to what I said before, like me not telling you what to do, it's me not telling you to leave or stay with your man, it's me not telling you to leave or quit your job or to stay with your job. That's not my role. My role is not to tell you what to do in a specific situation, it's to help you see clearly for yourself what you need to see, and sometimes what you haven't seen for a long time or for the first time in years. And that's what makes your decisions more important when you can see that clarity for your own self, for your own life, from a place where you can have the confidence instead of fear, and you can make those decisions based on confidence, based on information that you have about what you can see clearly rather than obligation or what you feel is the necessity that's going on in your head. And that kind of leads and segues into today's topic, which is something that I do feel strongly about because what I'm about to talk about today is one of the most common patterns that I see in my coaching work with women. And it is all about today, ladies, choosing men or partners in our lives with deficiencies or things in their particular life that we feel we need to try to fix. Choosing men with deficiencies and trying to fix them and why that actually does not work. So let me set the scene. And if this sounds like you, just so that you know you're not alone, this is a safe space. It's a place where we talk about, like I said, the things that go on in our heads that we don't want to always address, but we need to. So here's the pattern. A woman meets a man. Maybe he's charming, maybe he's charismatic, maybe he's attentive, maybe he's funny, and maybe the chemistry is incredible. But somewhere early on, sometimes earlier than we even care to admit because we seem to block it out, sometimes even before the relationship officially starts, she sees something. There's a gap, a deficiency. Maybe he's emotionally unavailable, maybe he's financially irresponsible or unstable, maybe he struggles with communication, or maybe he's just inconsistent, and he doesn't show up the way she needs him to. And maybe he has unresolved trauma himself that shows up as anger or withdrawal or control. And instead of seeing that gap as information, as data about who this man actually is right now in real life, she sees it as a project. She sees it as an opportunity to help someone else, because that's what we do, women, right? We help our children, we help our family, we help our parents, we help our peers, our friends, our co-workers. She sees it as an opportunity and she thinks, if I just love him enough, if I just explain it the right way, if I just show him why he should change, or what could be better in his own life, if I just give him time and support, if I'm just patient enough, supportive enough, understanding enough, then he'll get it. He'll get better, things will get better. And so what happens? She pours herself in, she pours in her energy, her time, her emotional bandwidth, her patience. She reads the books, she sends some articles, she has the long conversations at midnight trying to get him to understand why his behavior hurts her, or why it hurts himself, or why slash how it's not serving their relationship right, or why it's not serving the kids or someone in their family. And eventually she starts to bend. She bends and she flexes and she adjusts to try to adapt to what it is that he needs. And she reshapes herself around his limitations. And let me tell you what happens next, ladies, because it's the same thing almost every single time. And I think you know what I'm gonna say. He doesn't change. And it's not because he doesn't want to. Sometimes it's not because he hasn't tried, although some don't. But he just he doesn't. Sometimes he can't. Or if he does change, sometimes it's just temporary. It's just enough to keep her from leaving, just enough to give her hope, or just enough for her to see enough change where she thinks that she's actually making a difference, so she continues to do what she's doing, in the hopes that eventually there'll be a breakthrough enough that he'll do a 180 and things will change officially, and he will morph or turn into the person that she intends him to be, because she knows that he has the capability to do it, or she loves him or believes enough that he can. But unfortunately, a lot of times that doesn't happen. And then it's back to the same patterns and the same trauma. And here's the part that no one really wants to talk about because while she was busy changing and trying to change him, something deep down inside was happening to her, and not just the superficial change on the outside. She, the woman that she was, starts to shrink and she starts to abandon parts of herself, her standards, her needs, her voice, her boundaries, her wants, her identity. Piece by piece, moment by moment, day by day, she breaks down to accommodate his deficiencies. And I say deficiencies not to make it sound like it's a negative bad thing, because I'm not saying that these men or partners or people in our lives are bad individuals, but it's still a deficiency. You know, to a certain extent, we all have them, right? We just have to match with the people that we can match with, where we're appropriately matched and yoked together so that you know you can become one and build towards something. But sometimes sometimes those deficiencies don't match up. And then a lot of times what I have found that women one day wake up and they don't recognize themselves, she doesn't recognize herself anymore. And she's anxious, and she's worried, she's exhausted, she's resentful, and she's wondering how on earth she got there to begin with, because she doesn't realize what happened and transpired over time, because she was so busy pouring herself and all of her attention and love and support into this other person and into a relationship where, unfortunately, she poured too much and she neglected herself in the process, something that we don't always admit to ourselves. So I need you to hear this next part because it's important too. And it's important to realize that it's not about him or the other person being a bad person or someone that doesn't deserve the love or attention that you've been giving. That's not it. It's not about, this is not about bashing men, it's not about talking about um being selfish or not giving or trying to help others. That's not what I'm saying. Some of these men and people in our lives that we're talking about that have these deficiencies are really, really good people. And they mean well and they try to pour themselves back into us. And sometimes it's not enough. And some of these men and people in our lives are good people, but people with real struggles and challenges on their own. But their struggles and those challenges are their work to do. It's their healing, and their healing is their responsibility. Your job in that relationship, your only job, ladies, let me stress that. Your only job is to decide whether you can be in that relationship as it actually is or not. Not as you hope it will become how it actually is. You either accept it or you don't. Now let me explain why the pattern of the way we think doesn't tend to lead us to that question, doesn't tend to lead us to that decision that we need to make, and why the approach that we usually use in the I'll love him or I love that person enough into changing, that fundamental approach, why it doesn't work. And I'll I'll break it down in a in a couple of different ways. So number one, change has to be internally motivated. It has to be, ladies. We don't tend to believe that because we are those caregivers. We are the changers. Sometimes we're the breadwinners, we're the changers, we're the caregivers, we're the the sometimes we're the household leaders. And a lot of times we're the leaders at work, sometimes we're the ones that are making those decisions at home, and we feel that we're in a place to do that. But even if we are, we have to realize that change comes from within. Same thing I do as life coaching. I get on a consultation or discovery call with my clients because I determine if it's a good fit. Because it's not my job to try to convince you to change. You have to want to change. You have to have the motivation on the inside to want to do that. And then my job is to lead you down that path so that you get there. But like I said, it has to be internally motivated. You can hand someone a mirror all day long, but if they don't want to look at it, if they don't want to see the reflection, they won't. And real lasting change happens when a person decides on their own that they want something different. Not because you asked, not because you deserve it, not because you're in a relationship, not because you begged, not because you gave them an ultimatum, or you told them how important it is for them, or you tried to convince them, but because they looked at their own life and said, I want to be better. I hate to say it that sometimes, even sometimes when they say that, they're still not able to do it, even when they try. But they have to at least want to. They have to have the motivation to want to be better, to go down that path and down that road. And trying to do so, trying to get them to change from your perspective without them being internally motivated, puts you in a role that was never yours to play with to begin with. And that's one of the reasons why it doesn't work. Another reason it doesn't work is because when you try to change someone and you communicate, even if you don't mean to, that who they are isn't good enough, that's exactly how it comes across. It's that who they are isn't good enough. And that doesn't sit well when you try to explain that to people. And even if that's not what you're saying specifically, that's how it comes across, right? It creates resentment when you try to paint the picture that what they've been doing or how they've been living sucks and it just doesn't serve you well or the relationship or your kids or whatever. And it starts to feel like nothing that they do is right, and then they just sometimes rebel or start to get angry or block you out. And you start to feel like nothing you say gets through, and then they start to get frustrated, and then both of you get defensive, and the relationship becomes a power struggle instead of a partnership, and that goes down a path that no one wants to go down, and then change doesn't happen, and unfortunately you end up back in that same pattern and it repeats itself. So that's not technically beneficial or productive for the relationship either. And the third reason, and this is the big one, is because when you reshape yourself to accommodate someone else's deficiencies, which is what we as women most often do, you're practicing self-abandonment, which is something that we've talked about in earlier episodes. And every time you lower your standard and you're telling yourself, what I need doesn't matter, or I need to help them more, and sometimes you may justify it because you may think their deficiency is greater, right? Their deficiency is more. So you need to help them more than help yourself because you have less of a deficiency. That's what you tell yourself, what I need is less important, right? Every time you silence your voice to keep the peace, to keep the relationship, the family, the stability of whatever dynamic you're in, you're telling yourself technically that your feelings aren't important. And then every time you accept less than what you deserve and what you feel that you deserve, you're technically reinforcing to yourself the belief that you're not worthy of more. And that over time, that erodes your confidence and that erodes exactly what we're trying to build here: your self-trust and your self your sense of identity. And so that technically, ladies, negates and literally contradicts everything that we're talking about building up in our heads and our own inner self. And that's not love. That's not self love, and technically that's not love for the other person. Because love for the other person doesn't sacrifice who you are and what you need to give yourself, it gives both. And I think a lot of us as women don't realize that that's what happens. You can give love without sacrificing yourself love. But that's a slow disappearance that happens over time. And it's something that we often don't think about and we neglect in ourselves all too often, which is what helps to erode the relationship that we're in or whatever stable type of partnership that we're trying to build. And ultimately it breaks down the relationship that we have with ourselves. So to go back to the earlier episodes and conversations that I continue to harp on is to reiterate how the role of self-love and confidence and how those things that we build within ourselves is most important and should come first. Before we try to change or think that we can affect change on any other dynamic, in any other relationship, in any other circumstance, whatsoever, we need to focus on ourselves as women. And we need to focus on ourselves strong. And this is where the conversation shifts. Because this is where the real work that I as a life coach do with the women that I work with, and why I'm talking to you today on this podcast, this is where the conversation and the mindset shifts so that we can affect change in ourselves, which ultimately will affect change on the lives of those around us. So when I coach women, one of the first things we address is the self-love and confidence that we need to focus on. And it's not that surface level kind. It's not the treat yourself to a spa day kind, it's not the be kind to yourself and just think positive thoughts kind, although there's nothing wrong with that. I'm talking about the deep, foundational kind. The kind that says, I know who I am, I know what I deserve, and I'm not willing to negotiate my own well-being, and I'm not willing to settle for less. Because when you have that type of real self-love, you don't try to change other people. You observe who they are and you make decisions based on the reality because you know who you are. And when you have real confidence, you don't shrink yourself to fit someone else's limitations and you don't abandon yourself to try to address someone else's deficiencies. You trust yourself enough to say that this doesn't work for me. And that's okay. I had a client who complained about one time her significant other partner will say being broke and not having the money that she had to be able to meet her where she is, meet her where she was, and go on dates and do some of the things that she wanted to do, because she always either needed to foot the bill or needed to contribute more or be the person that made the plans. And she started to resent it. And she came to me and she's like, you know, Kamara, I just I don't understand. Like I keep trying to explain to him, like I he doesn't want to be broke, which uh uh a lot of people don't want to be. And she's like, I don't seem to understand why he can't seem to see what's wrong with it. Like he just he's not going to get that next job, or he's not trying to take himself to that next level, or he's not focused on trying to better himself in that way. And she kept trying to convince him of why he needed to do that. And even if it's not the why, because I think sometimes he agreed, she kept trying to give him solutions around it, right? Because she felt that for some reason he wasn't coming up with the solutions on her own on his own. And she was getting tired of trying to not necessarily support him, but tried to help him see the path, right, down the road that he wanted to go or needed to go. And it was this continual treadmill that she was on trying to convince him and help him and get him to that place where she felt he needed to be, to be the man that she wanted him to be, because she loved so many other things about him. So eventually I got her to realize that he's broke and he may not want to be, but he's got to come to the realization of what he needs to do on his own. He needs to want to be able to change. And I tried to explain to her how she was changing herself to fit that lifestyle, and she kept trying to say, well, she's not, though. You know, she may, sometimes she wouldn't necessarily offer money or um make a certain plan, but I say, Yeah, but then you're sacrificing what you want to do to accommodate the fact that he can't be there for you in the same way. So even if you're not necessarily going out where you want to go because he can't go, you're sacrificing where you want to go because he can't help you get there. And he's not trying to make the plan to get there because he's saying he wants to be there, but he's not doing the things he needs to do to get there, and it's not your job to tell him. So I basically got her to the point where I had her realize that she needed she needed to either accept him where he is and choose to do something different, whether it's go where she needed to go on her own, whether it's take her own vacation, go out to the restaurant she wanted to go with friends or someone else, and meet him where he is, because that's where he is, and whatever it is that they could meet at and afford or choose to go to an event or do on their own, they would do, or not. And she could not choose to be with him and choose to be just with someone else that she may meet or get to know that could meet her where she was. But I wasn't gonna, you know, it wasn't about necessarily leaving him because she could stay, but it was just the choices that she had to make to approach that relationship differently is the mindset that I needed to place her in so that she can come to the reality that what she doing, what she was doing wasn't helping him and it wasn't helping her. They were both on a treadmill, two different treadmills, going in two different directions, facing opposite directions, and not meeting where they were, although they loved each other and still love each other very much. I say all that to say that self-love is a security system. It's what protects you from abandoning yourself for relationship. Relationship, whether it's man, woman, child, peer, partner, spouse, um, parent, whoever that person is. And it's what helps you recognize that when you're pouring yourself into someone who isn't pouring into you or isn't pouring into themselves, then it's not helping the relationship. And it's what gives you the courage to stop performing the role of the good woman or good person that sacrifices everything. And hopefully it starts to re help you to realize that you need to start honoring the woman and the person that you actually are. And what you actually are bringing to the relationship, whether you're recognizing it and what you're sacrificing there or not. And the confidence, the confidence that I'm always talking about is what helps you act on it. So that's what I do. I help build the confidence into what it is that you need to manifest in your mind to take action. The confidence is what helps you have the hard conversation, right? The boundary that you need to set, the decision that you need to make. And whether that decision is to stay or demand change or leave or give an ultimatum and not necessarily because you want to, but because you need to come to sometimes a crossroad and put it out there and affect the real accountable change, or to walk away from that relationship and rebuild someplace else and create the change in your own life that you need to make. Because ultimately, what you need to understand is that the issue was never that you loved too much, the issue is that somewhere along the way you stopped loving yourself enough and you started to love the other person more, and that's not a character flaw, it's a pattern, it's a habit. But patterns can be broken as well as habits, is exactly what I help and I coach to try to get my clients to do. So, with all that said, what do you do? Do you stay? Do you go? How do you make the decision? And how do you do either with integrity? And that's something that I help my clients and I'm going to talk about right now on this podcast to help you to do if that's something that you're looking to do, if that's a crossroads where you're at. Now, I know some of you are listening and thinking, but Kamara, I don't want to leave, and I don't necessarily want to change anything in a relationship. I think it's fine. And that's fine, then I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the ones that realize that they don't want to leave, or perhaps they realize that they love the other person, but they do realize that they are sacrificing some of themselves and they do want to change. And that's those are the women that I'm talking to. And that's the change that I want to be able to affect and make. And it's valid that you have these concerns. And I'm not here to tell you to go, and I'm not here to tell you to stay, like I said. But you have to know that either leaving or staying comes with conditions, and not conditions for the other person, but conditions for yourself. So if you're thinking of your partner, and we'll say him, if we're thinking about a man, if you if you're choosing one or the other, let's talk about both. So let's talk about if you choose to stay. If you choose to stay, here is what healthy looks like. You ready? Healthy looks like you stop trying to be his therapist, his mother, or his life coach. You communicate your needs once, clearly, and without apology. You allow him the space and the responsibility to do his own work, and you get into your own coaching or your own therapy, so that you have the support outside of the relationship that you need. And you set boundaries, real ones, real ones with consequences, not threats, not promises, and meaning, not if this continues, here's what I'll do, or for myself, or you know, you have to do this or else, you know, I'm leaving. It's about real choices, real statements about what you'll do, and then following through on them. Staying in a relationship doesn't mean accepting dysfunction or deficiencies. Staying means choosing the relationship while also choosing yourself and never sacrificing the second one for the first. Now, if you choose to leave, here's what I also want you to know that leaving is not failure. Leaving is not abandonment. Leaving is not giving up. Leaving is sometimes and often the most self-loving thing that you can do. But leaving also requires support because the emotional weight of walking away from someone you love or from from a relationship that you've invested time is heavy. It's heavy on the mind and it's heavy on the heart. And that's kind of where coaching comes in. Because that's where community comes in. That's where the support comes in. From the family members and the friends that you even have that support you, that really love you, and are willing to stay by you when you make those hard decisions. Because you need people around you who will remind you of who you are and who you are when you first started out before that relationship got deep. People who can remind you of who you are when you're tempted to go back to that relationship and shrink back into a lesser part of yourself. People who will hold you accountable when the loneliness sets in. And people, people in your lives who love you who will help you rebuild your identity outside of that relationship. But here's the thing, ladies, whether you stay or go, the work is the same. You have to come back home to yourself and who you are. You have to rebuild the confidence that got chipped away, and you have to relearn what it feels like to put yourself first, and not in a selfish way, but in a way that you probably haven't in years, in a sacred way. Because you cannot build a healthy relationship with anyone if the relationship you have with yourself is broken. And if you're ready for even more pattern breaking and confidence building and self-love work and boundary setting and rebuilding and journaling and strengthening, and if you're ready to go to that next deeper level and not still quite ready to hire a one-on-one private coach, whether it's me or not, I will invite you to join my wait list for my upcoming membership, which launches this fall, and it's called the Tiara's Lipstick Collective, and it is going to be fantastic. It is me gathering and collecting a group of women, those who want to join this membership, join this community, who want to create and be in a space with like-minded individuals where we can support one another and talk about some of these things that we only talk about and think about in some small corner, in some cobwebbed attic deep up inside our minds and our heads. So that's it, ladies. That's a wrap for today. If this resonated with you, if you feel that you needed to hear it, and even if you know another woman that needs to hear it, or may need this part, even part of this message, or the entire message, please share it. Because the ripple effect that we can have of one woman choosing herself is powerful. And that ripple effect multiplies with the more women we reach. And more women who choose themselves is powerful overall. And we wind up affecting change in our families and our friends and in the lives of the individuals at work, in our homes, in our communities, and that change is powerful by itself. So share the message, share the podcast, share Tiara's and Lipstick.com, share me, share Kamara Speaks. And together we can change the community, we can help to change one another, we can help to remember who we are, we can rebuild and love and build the confidence in ourselves, and we can change our community, and we can change the world. And that, ladies, is a powerful thing. So until next week, I leave you there, and I hope you all have a fabulous rest of the week and an even better weekend. Take care. Bye-bye. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if so, hit subscribe. Remember to check out Tiara's and Lipstick.com for information on my personal coaching services, group classes, and special promotions. And come find me on Facebook or Instagram and let's connect. Send me a message, say hi, and let me know if you like this episode. I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, this is Kamara reminding you to step up and think big.