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Kamini Wood works with high achievers on letting go of stress, overwhelm and anxiety that comes with trying to do everything, and trying to do it all perfectly
Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up Live Joy Your Way, whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening. Thank you for spending some time here with me. And today I wanna talk about something that I don't think. Gets quite enough attention. It's something that sits quietly in the background of relationships, yet actually does speak volumes.
And that's silence now. Not the silence that's peaceful and grounding. Like when you're meditating or you're taking a walk in nature or you're deep in thought or. [00:01:00] Breath work. I'm talking about the silence in relationships, the silence that shows up in conflict, in moments when emotions are running high, or in moments when connections feels threatened.
This is a silence that often hides in shame, fear, hopelessness, and while it may look like withdrawal or shutting down, it's really carrying a message. The question is, are you listening to what your silence is saying? Many of us have been there. Maybe you've been the one who goes quiet. Or. Maybe you've been on the receiving end of your partner going quiet when conflict starts.
Some people raise their voices, some get defensive, some lean in and wanna fix everything right away. And then some people shut down. They get quiet. Quiet, they retreat. So if that's you, you might think, I don't wanna make things worse. I feel overwhelmed. I feel like if I say anything, I'm gonna regret it.
Or maybe just deep down it feels hopeless for many silence feels safer than risking rejection or [00:02:00] disapproval or escalation. Silence is not neutral. It actually communicates something. It often communicates the very opposite of what you're really intending to communicate. When you withdraw into silence, your partner might actually hear that, um, they might actually hear you don't care about me, or You're punishing me by ignoring me, or you're shutting me out.
But in reality, what's happening for you is your silence might actually be saying, I care so much that I don't wanna hurt you. Or it could be saying, I feel ashamed and I don't know how to respond to what's being shared with me. Or it could be saying, I feel like I'm not enough, and it's easier to shrink and disappear than to risk showing up wrong.
Do you see how that's a mismatch of what's going on? One partner feels one thing or is internalizing it in one way and the other partner's having a totally different. There's a totally different reality happening, and so that's where we start to see conflict happen and relationships start to actually feel unsafe because we're [00:03:00] chipping away at the emotional safety between both people.
So why do some people go silent in conflict and others lean in and push for resolution? Often it comes down to attachment wounds. If you grew up in a home where conflict felt unsafe, maybe there was a lot of yelling or criticism or even physical violence. You may have learned early on that being quiet was safer.
Your nervous system adapted and silence became your shield. Or maybe you grew up in a family where emotions just they weren't welcome. You know, maybe you grew up in a family that emotions were, you know, thought of as weakness. Vulnerability was weakness. Sadness was weakness. Asking for what you needed.
Might have been met with some type of rejection or even ridicule or criticism. And so over time you learned, okay, it's better to hold this in and better not say anything at all. And so now as an adult, those attachment patterns are still showing up. They're showing up in your current relationships. And when that old wound is triggered, it's not that you're consciously thinking about it, but your nervous system remembers [00:04:00] it, and silence becomes your protector.
There's also another layer to this and, uh, it's shame. Shame seems to pop up a lot when your partner expresses a need. Maybe they say, I need you to be more present, or I feel hurt when you don't respond. And that can touch this raw place inside of you that whispers you're bad or you're not good enough.
And that's really actually shame. So instead of leaning in, you shut down because if you stay in the conversation, the shame actually grows louder, and that's really uncomfortable. But here's the paradox of the whole situation. When you withdraw, a shame grows anyway. You leave the conversation and you take the self-criticism with you.
Your partner's left, confused and hurt, and you're beating yourself up afterwards because you didn't engage in the conversation. I also need to pause here and just acknowledge something that's really important. If you have used silence as a survival tool, if it has kept you safe in childhood or even in [00:05:00] past relationships, I wanna just say that that makes sense.
Your system was protecting you the only way it knew how, and that truly deserves some compassion and. No judgment. Instead, it's, you know, real true acknowledgement of what it was that you experienced. Because sometimes silence isn't a choice in certain relationships, especially emotionally abusive ones.
Silence is safety. When speaking up leads to being belittled or dismissed or attacked, your nervous system learns. Do not speak. Do not risk that. Stay quiet and maybe you'll get. Through this unharmed. And that's not weakness. That is truly survival. And if you're in that kind of relationship right now, it's important to recognize that your silence is protecting you.
The only way it can. And you are absolutely not wrong for doing this because you need to take care of yourself and to stay safe. But here's the distinction, once you are protected and you are in a safer relationship, if you continue to stay silent, you might be continuing to sabotage your current [00:06:00] relationships.
So. Silence does have two faces in unsafe dynamics. It is a shield in safe ones. It can become a wall, and it's really important to just highlight that. The work really is about learning to tell the difference, knowing when silence is protecting you and when it's preventing you from fully showing up. So I do wanna talk about the cost of staying silent when you might be in certain dynamics.
When silence becomes the default response to conflict, needs do go unmet. Misunderstandings actually start to pile up, and resentment grows. Also, we start to see that emotional safety fades, emotional intimacy fades. And for the silent partner, there's often a sense of loneliness and a and a deeper longing.
To be understood, paired with a fear of being misunderstood. So, and for the other partner who's on the receiving end, there's just frustration and they feel shut out and rejected and quite possibly abandoned. So over time, the silence can become louder than any words, and it becomes the story of the [00:07:00] relationship.
So how do we begin to break this pattern? The very first thing that I would say is awareness. Becoming aware of what's going on and naming it. If you recognize yourself as someone who shuts down in a conflict, notice it. Notice when the, when the urge to retreat shows up. Notice the physical cues, the tightness, the shallow breathing, the urge to look away, the urge to leave a situation.
The second step is compassion. It's not about blaming yourself, but. Recognizing like, yes, I do do this, and my system has learned it because I was trying to stay safe in a different time and being kind to yourself rather than judging yourself. And then start taking small steps to reengage. Don't. Think that you have to take this large step.
It's not gonna happen overnight, but you can start with smaller steps. Like, I need to pause, uh, but I do wanna talk about this, or I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. Can we come back to this in an hour? Um, or maybe I don't have the words to, um, I don't have the words to to, to speak about this right now, but give [00:08:00] me, give me some time to, um.
Calculate or, or to figure out what it is I wanna say those are ways that you can bridge, right? You can bridge, you're not retreating, you're not completely silent. They communicate. I'm here, I'm trying to figure out what it is I wanna say, uh, and I'm not abandoning this conversation, but I do need some time to work through what it is that I'm trying to say.
Breaking the silence pattern. Requires a lot of inner work. It really does require you to start asking yourself certain questions. You know, things like, what does my silence usually mean? Or what part of me is shutting down when I'm silent? What, what does that part maybe need? Whose voice does it sound like, you know, is, is my voice that's in me?
Is it really mine? Is it my inner critic? Is it a past partner? What do I need to feel safe to engage in this conversation or to have this conversation? Healing attachment wounds. It takes time, and it often means building tolerance for feelings of vulnerability and learning to expand that window of tolerance and [00:09:00] learning to soothe your nervous system so that conflict or the harder conversations don't always feel like an attack.
So I wanna talk to the partner on the other side for just a second. If you're the partner of the other person who shuts down, let's just talk about what happens and what we can possibly do, because I recognize that you may be feeling abandoned or rejected in these situations, but it's important to remember that their silence is rarely about you.
It's usually about what's going on for them. So what can you do in those situations, number one. Really regulating your own nervous system, staying as calm as you possibly can be in that situation and expressing your needs gently. You know, I really do wanna stay connected or I really do wanna have a conversation about this and encourage small steps, validate their effort to reengage even if they're struggling to reengage.
And importantly, don't confuse their silence with their lack of love. Silence in relationships isn't just about communication, it is about attachment, and it is about safety. I'm talking about [00:10:00] emotional safety and healing. Every relationship in many ways is it is our work to revisit some of those old wounds that we've had before in some of those old patterns.
And your silence does have a message, and it's important to get curious about what is going on for me here, and when you start to listen to what that message is. You can actually start to take steps to respond to it, and you can start to show up differently and, um, work towards connecting in a different way.
So again, here are some things that you could potentially, um, think about journal on. When was the last time that you shut down in a conversation and what triggered that? If your silence could speak, what would it say? What is a small step that you could take the next time that you're in and. In a discussion with somebody to stay present and maybe just naming that you need to take a break and come back to the conversation.
So just take some time and think about those questions. But I wanna just say that it's important [00:11:00] to remember that you know, your silence isn't a problem. It may have been your protector over the course of many years, and healing allows you to choose how you want to connect. Now in the present moment, and this isn't easy, it absolutely requires vulnerability, and it can be messy and difficult, but every time that you choose to stay engaged, even if it's just for a little bit, you know, you're already starting to rewrite that narrative.
If this has been helpful to you, um, or you feel like it might be helpful to somebody, you know, feel free to share this episode with them. And if you'd like to talk about how coaching could maybe support you through something like this, through working through some old patterns, feel free to reach out to me at any time@coachwithKamini.com.
And until next time, stay well.