Why You Go Back After Choosing Yourself

Have you ever made a decision you knew was right for you, only to question it the moment someone became upset? In this session, you'll explore why guilt, identity shifts, and other people's reactions can pull you back into old patterns of pleasing, appeasing, and self-abandonment. You'll learn why the familiar can feel safer to your nervous system, even when it no longer serves you, and how to begin staying with yourself through the discomfort. Because choosing yourself is only the beginning; self-loyalty is learning how to stay.

Transcript

The guilt hits, The fear comes in, You start wondering if you're selfish, If you overreacted, If maybe you need to explain yourself just one more time. And suddenly the decision that felt so right begins to feel so incredibly wrong. This is the part of choosing yourself that I don't think we talk about enough. Because the decision is often only the beginning. The real work is what happens when choosing yourself disrupts the roles, Relationships, And patterns that have made your nervous system feel safe for years. This episode comes from a live event I recently taught and I want to share part of it with you because we unpack what I call the perfect storm that can happen right after you choose yourself and why knowing what you need to do isn't always enough to help you stay with it. If you've ever thought, I know this isn't good for me, So why do I keep going back? This episode is for you. So if you're new to me, I just want to introduce myself. I am Kelly Kessler. I'm a doctor of physical therapy, Transformation coach, And the host of the podcast, Rewiring Health. And I help high achievers move from self-abandonment to self-loyalty. I just want to share what self-abandonment is so that way you can really maybe see some of these patterns in yourself because it's exactly what we're talking about today. Self abandonment is where you prioritize others needs, Wants and desires above your own to the point that you compromise yourself. It's when you quiet your own voice. It's where you shrink your truth. It's where you try to make sure everybody else is OK. You take on the emotional burden of making sure everyone else is OK at your own expense. And it's typically very subtle. We learn these patterns very, Very early on as a survival mechanism. And it's only when we get to later in life we realize how much it has eroded our essence and how much it has cost us in the long run. But typically it's just a small erosion over time. It's not usually something you see. It's that you get to a point and you're like, You look back and you're like, Wow. I have been living a life for everybody else, But not for myself. And that's exactly what we're talking about today. So today we're going to talk about why after you choose yourself, You want to go back, Well not want to, You end up going back into self-abandoning patterns. And this I want to say and preface that this is typically subconscious. So this is not something that you decide that once I choose myself, I'm going to go back into all my old ways. It's very much a survival mechanism. It's something that you've learned that keeps you safe, Even though it doesn't necessarily serve your highest desire or your happiness in life or fulfillment in life. And so this is something that I know so many people experience that you finally get to a point where you see that you have been tolerating certain behaviors or actions from others or maybe from your job or situations that you are no longer willing to tolerate. It's pretty much gone to that point where the pressure has built so much or something happens where you start seeing things for how they are, Not the fantasy of what you want them to be. And you get to a point where you can't unsee it anymore. It's just so blatantly obvious that this is how it is. This is how it's always been. It's not going to change. So now I have to decide, Am I willing to tolerate this longer or am I no longer willing to tolerate this? And that really is the pivotal moment. Where you start to recognize that I need to start choosing myself. And so what happens is that when you see that, You get to that point in your life and you start deciding like, I am going to choose myself. You start saying no to certain things, You start setting boundaries, You start recognizing how you're going to choose yourself and show up differently, And you really can feel solid in that decision because you know this is what's right for you. But if you have ever set a boundary, Especially in a very close relationship, Or you have started saying no to things you always said yes to, You've sat in that moment. Where you have finally chosen yourself and then you feel so much intense pressure to go back into the old way of being. And this is where this perfect storm comes in. Because I'm gonna talk specifically about boundaries, Because that's something that I know really impacts so many people. But when you set that boundary specifically, It could be at work, A close relationship with family, Whatever it is, When you set that boundary, This is where that perfect storm comes in. And what the perfect storm is, Is three things. It's internal pressure, Identity, And external pressure. So I'm going to break down each one of those for you. So think about a close relationship. Maybe this resonates and you have set a boundary with someone. I know this is something I've experienced, And I'll share a story shortly here of my own experience. But you set the boundary. You finally say, If you continue to do this, I am going to do this. And you have internal boundaries where you're no longer putting yourself in situations that are draining or compromising your own health. And when you set those boundaries, You may feel very solid in them. But then internally comes this guilt that did I do something wrong? Am I being a selfish bad person for doing this? Because I've always shown up for this person and now I'm not anymore. Then comes the worry and fear. What will people think of me? Because now I've completely changed the way I'm showing up. Are they going to think less of me? Are they going to think I've completely changed my way of being? You start worrying about the repercussions of that. And then you also worry about the tension that it could potentially cause, Because now that you're not showing up the way that it was expected, Now that can cause relational tension. So you worry about. A fallout happening in a relationship? Are you being alone because now you've chosen to show up differently and how are people going to react to that? So there's all these internal pressures that you're experiencing the minute you choose yourself. And this is something I don't think is talked about often because everyone showcases choosing yourself as sunshine and butterflies and everything is great, Which it can be. It can be very liberating. But there's also another side to it. And I think that also needs to be discussed. And that is exactly this. Then there is the identity part of it, Where you likely, If you're someone who has abandoned yourself through relationships and are always the person who's dependable, The over-giver, The one who gets along with everybody, The peacekeeper. If you've identified subconsciously as any of those. The minute you start shifting your behavior outside of that, That can be very jarring to your identity because this is how you've learned to be in the world. This is how you've learned to show up. This is how what feels familiar and safe to you. So anything that goes against that feels almost threatening to your system. Like, What are you doing? This is not who you are. And so there becomes this huge identity shift, And you start questioning, If I'm not the person who's the dependable one, The peacekeeper, The one who always overgives, Who am I? And that can be a very destabilizing question to start to figure out who you are outside of those roles that you've become accustomed to. So that's the second thing that pulls you back into what's most familiar. And then the third thing is the external pressures. So if you've ever set a boundary, Especially in a close relationship where you have become accustomed to being one to hold it all together for that relationship, It's likely that you have experienced projected guilt from someone, Where they start guilt tripping you back into the way that you used to be. They start saying things to make you feel bad, To try to control the dynamic and have you go back to who you used to be for them. They may call you selfish. They may say, You've changed, But not in a good way. They make you feel like change was really bad and that you did something bad in that situation. They may even get to the point where they name call or really coerce you back into what they want you to be. And this is where these external pressures can feel very overwhelming. So again, We have the internal pressures of everything we're experiencing within us, The identity shift in this, And then the external pressures of actually choosing ourselves and shifting the dynamic. And that can very much cause someone to collapse back into their old way of being. And what that looks like is you set the boundary and then you soften it. So you say, I'm no longer going to tolerate you speaking to me like that. If you do, I'm going to leave. That would be the boundary. But now you say that they start talking to you like that and you're like, Okay, I'll just let this one go or I'll just let me just say I don't want to cause a rift in this relationship. I'll just say so you start softening that boundary rather than upholding it. You start softening your truth. So you manage their emotions by not actually speaking up for yourself and saying what you really want to say. You apologize for things that you didn't even do something wrong in. So the example would be you set the boundary with the intention of protecting yourself. And now that you're experiencing this backlash, You start apologizing for I'm sorry, I know I should I probably should have just come. I'm really sorry about that. And now you're apologizing just for protecting your own peace. So, These are all how we shift and collapse back into the old patterns of abandoning ourselves rather than choosing ourselves. I know I'm not alone in this and I know I've worked with many people who have experienced this, Where they finally set the boundary, They finally protect themselves, They finally choose themselves, And then they get into that messy middle. And this is the middle ground that I find most people go back into the old version rather than moving through it and allowing themselves to feel safe enough to choose themselves again and again and again. The thing that I noticed that people experience and I know is my experience too is that This is often feels like a lonely journey. Like you feel like you're the only one going through this. And I know I did. I felt like no one really understands like Is this really this hard or is it just hard for me? And so I hope that if you're here and you're listening to this and this is resonating that this helps you feel like you're not so alone in this. And I want you to understand this because. You could often feel like, What is wrong with me? Like, Why do I keep going back into this, Even though I know better? So it could be an unhealthy relationship. You know, It is, You know, You need to protect yourself and choose yourself. But yet you get into that that pressure situation where you're in the room with them and you feel the guilt trip and you feel the tension. And then you go right back into pleasing and appeasing. And then you go home and you're like, What is wrong with me? Like, I know better. Like, I should not have done that. Start shaming yourself for getting back into that pattern. So it can be a very vicious cycle that's happening here. And I want to normalize that because this is not something that you're consciously choosing. This does not showcase that you are weak. This does not mean that you're a bad person. This truly is survival. And this is your nervous system responding in the only way it knows how to. And when you start to experience the guilt, The fear, You feel the pressure from others, Your nervous system responds as if it is an actual threat. Because we're wired for a sense of belonging. We wanna feel like we belong to our tribe, To our people, We wanna feel connected. And anything that disrupts that or potentially disrupts that truly feels like a threat to our system. And that is how we are wired because back in the day, We had to rely on the tribe for survival. We had no other choice. And when we feel like there's a possibility of disconnection, We will do whatever we need to do to restore that connection because it feels like survival. It's the same thing with your parent or caregiver. That was a connection that you needed for survival as a child. So you likely learned to show up in a certain way. If you had an overly critical parent, You learned very quickly that you need to do and say whatever they expected you to do just to keep the peace and harmony in that relationship. If you. Grew up in a scenario where you spoke your truth and then you were maybe shamed for it or punished for it, You learn very quickly to hide your truth because it's threatening to share it. And so, You continue to quiet your truth, You continue to. . . Downplay what you really feel. And in the long run, You end up disconnecting from your truth because that becomes the safer route. And so that is why so many people get to the point where they finally recognize, I'm not tolerating this anymore, And then they want to make that jump to the place where they can finally choose themselves, Speak up for themselves, Honor themselves. But that middle ground is so destabilizing that they may not have the capacity in their nervous system to tolerate that. In that moment. And that's why, At the time, It feels safer to go back to the familiar than to choose the unknown. And that is where this middle ground becomes so, So challenging for so many people.