(00:01) [Music] I’m Dr Kelly Brogan you may know me as the New York Times bestselling author of a book with an exploding pill on the cover Renegade psychiatrist pul dancer or honorary member of the disinformation Dozen what can I say I’m a born provocator I’ve spent most of my recent life exposing deceptions connecting dots and discovering the secret places my inner victim is still waiting to be liberated and now I feel called to help you reclaim all of your parts your health your sexuality your power and your expression so that you can finally
(00:42) truly own yourself I want to ignite in you that inner knowing and the pulsing Vitality that lives beneath your disempowerment disconnection and resentment so that you can audaciously courageously and playfully alchemize your struggle into the specific pleasure of Who You Are this is Reclamation radio hi and welcome back to Reclamation radio I am Dr Kelly Brogan and today I wanted to share my little rubric for assessing whether or not to stay or go in a marriage specifically but you can also apply this to any partnership I am going to share
(01:26) some anonymized details from a client but the reason that I’m even recording this is because I encounter this Choice point with so many girlfriends certainly have encountered it myself in my personal life and in so many coaching calls that I thought to simplify it especially because in these Lial spaces of our lives in these you know caterpillar melting in the Chrysalis moments I find it really helps to have these rhetorical anchors that why I use phrases like enter through the upset eggs from the hardware store you know
(02:05) are you able to wear the villain Crown because I find that they can Pierce through the noise and anchor us in a stable spine in that what I would refer to as masculine presence and attention to the inner swirling of our feminine energies so that we can actually move forward with integrity okay so in this particular casee let’s call her Jane So Jane let’s call her Aisha or like Veronica or Nina or something a little more okay she’s Nina so nah is married she has little kids and she is dealing with infidelity she has taken money out
(02:52) of the bank account she has identified an apartment that she can move into and she is ready to go on the actual day that we had our call so I have become in so many ways a gatekeeper right for many of the products of my feminist experience including the relationship that I had to the pharmaceutical allopathic world the relationship that I had to medicalized birth and birth control the relationship that I had to Motherhood and careerism to provide ship and egalitarian marriages and I have found myself in the position to caution
(03:39) women about what they imagine might be on the other side of these poor Bargains that we are offered courtesy of the feminist agenda and to suggest that the promise does not actually await you right it doesn’t await you on the other side of your seven figure digital entrepreneur ship it doesn’t await you on the other side of you know garnering Financial Security through sharing providership or even breadwinning it doesn’t await you through the meaning of adult interaction when you return to work two months postpartum and leave
(04:16) your child in the hands of another and it certainly doesn’t await you on the other side of winning the war against men it doesn’t await you on the other side of your birth control your anti-depressants or the general collusion with a system that identifies your body as the enemy okay so if I am a gatekeeper I have certainly become one in the realm of divorce I have come to view marriage as setting the conditions for meaning and fulfillment and safety for men women and children and Society at large okay so that is my bias I’m
(05:03) sharing with you so so here is Nina she is done okay she’s absolutely done and she wants in some ways for me to support her decision so in any experience of conflict or at any one of these Forks in the road the imperative is to bring as many of your parts into coherence as possible that requires deep inner Attunement and of course I have my biased approach to that which is uh referred to as self- husbanding where you commit to orienting towards attentively and with your presence towards your inner world with devotion
(05:52) interest and approval so as you bring your parts into coherence you are going to listen without judgment and without an agenda to coers you’re going to listen to what your parts have to say and the first step to that tends to be entering through the upset right so allowing the the energies of feeling to to move so that you can actually have the opportunity to attend and listen in this way but when you listen you’re essentially going to hear from one protector part that says it’s time to go here’s why and another that might be
(06:31) saying it’s time to you know really roll up your sleeves and dig in and commit and stay and the confusion the paralysis comes from the inability of these two parts to see each other and to develop some sort of uh dialogue and come to a meaningful shared conclusion about what is best so there will be a little yes or or what I call a little no that is in there somewhere beneath all of this noise you’re going to know in your bones whether to stay or go and when I say go I mean divorce I don’t mean like you know taking a few months apart okay the
(07:18) hell that we create for ourselves sometimes for years inside of a marriage inside of our relationship is to stay on the fence so it’s a very kinky place place where we are staying we’re here a sensibly choosing this man and yet we are focused mostly on the reasons we have to go right so the reasons that he is rejection worthy this split is just a recipe for energy drain for illness actually for like literal what we call sickness in a a woman’s body and it’s quite an erotic caress of the enemy right like it’s it’s it’s so much of
(08:01) your earos devoted to the struggle with that you are rejecting and embracing at the same time our world is so full of noise politics social media other people’s expectations societal standards judgments it can be super challenging to access yourself and the wisdom of your hearts your inner compass and that quiet place inside that is always okay I love the Miss elixir and anointing oil called Quiet Mind by lotus way it just transports me to this space of clarity focus it gives me the capacity to pause and it’s become something of a
(08:45) conditioned ritual that every time I reach for one of these bottles I am able to open up in such a fast way whether I’m intentionally meditating or just need to pattern disrupt some disembodied moments in my life if this is appealing to you I would love to invite you to head over to lotus.com use the code kelly5 for 15% off the link is in show notes for you okay so to simplify things I see it because I like to think of like the doors in front of me like three doors in front of me so I like to think of the goal as being getting off the
(09:21) fence getting off the fence entirely and I’ll describe what that looks like so that’s the goal so you either fall on one side of the fence or the other but if you’re going to stay on the fence then at least do so intentionally so those are your three choices right so the first choice is to go okay because that seems to be the one that was most apparent in in this particular case to you know the woman I was speaking to if you’re going to go it’s because you know deep in your bones and we always know we always know
(10:00) as women the work is clearing the noise right so you know deep in your bones that this is the end of the road for you two that your devotional energy can no longer be contributed to the marriage itself and secondarily I would say to this man that that’s not for you the contract is complete you are moving in another Direction you are experiencing another life out there over there if you’re going to go then come to him in peace and go with love the way that you come to him in peace is to get to a place where you’ve listened to enough of
(10:41) your inner parts where you have stayed with your own upset enough and where you have worn the villain crown of your judgment sufficiently that you have started to recollect if not completely recollected any aspects of yourself that are blameworthy onto this partner you have recollected them back so that means that you don’t blame him for anything and when I say come in peace you come with appreciation and gratitude for whatever it is that you experienced together whatever it is that you co-created whatever it is that you could
(11:19) specifically encounter through this relationship that might not otherwise have been available to you in this lifetime you come to him and you say all those things you will always have a place in my heart of course you are the father of my children this is we have a forever Bond and I am so grateful for all that we experienc together and I know deep inside of myself that it is time for me to go and then you might say let me know what you need to begin to move in that direction my perspective on the going okay is that women almost
(12:00) never and we leave most of the time and we almost never leave that way right and so the consequences of that are that we have these chords in us it’s it’s the the aspects of our s that are still in this person that are projected still into this person the chords come with us sometimes for years sometimes literally for the rest of our lives and the chords are maintained through idealization and vilification right so they’re maintained through through these unintegrated projections and the easiest way to you know begin to to reel them back in is to
(12:38) work with blame to get to a place where you do not feel Superior any longer to this person and you can actually come in genuine and authentic gratitude to the ending of this Dynamic I’m not saying that every single person has to have like a conscious uncoupling it’s not like that this is internal and this is for you this is for you so that you are not experiencing the ghost of this relationship and the Ghost of this individual for years to come through the erotic caress of the enemy through that literal erotic Outsourcing of your life
(13:13) force energy to the rejection of this person if you are leaning in that direction but you’re not totally sure then you might simply intentionally sit on the fence so what this looks like is speaking from I language So speaking from and about yourself referencing your emotional state and your needs so you might say I am flailing and I need space given that what do you think is best how do you think that we should proceed personally I have found as an expert Problem Solver that most of the men I know are actually better at solving
(13:58) problems than I am they see things that I don’t see they come up with paths that seemed totally non-evident to me and so I like the idea of you focusing on your feeling State and allowing your husband to solve the problem of your feeling State because you already have a good sense of what you need you need time and space to sit on the fence a bit longer and usually that means that you’re going to be focused inward you’re going to be attuning to yourself you’re going to be staying in your lane and you’re going to
(14:30) be starting to fill your cup so that you can find yourself again and really feel that little yes or little no with more clarity so if I were to communicate that I would I would use eye statements about how it is that I feel so I’m flailing I feel overwhelmed I feel you know like I’m at my Max like I I just can’t uh continue to process or continue to fight or continue in this uh Dynamic and I know that I need space and maybe time you know how do you think we should proceed given that the last option is to align with the part of you that at one
(15:10) point saw partnership and procreative potential in this man okay the part of you that chose this man and to bring the other parts of you on board by listening to their objections to their misgivings and to really being there for them where you are husbanding yourself and those parts that are having trouble going all in okay so there’s a lot of talk about like giving it your all as a woman and I’ve I’ve given so much to this relationship I’m just done most of the time a woman who is in that distressed state of having endured and tolerated a
(15:56) lot of you know attachment related dysfunction in a dynamic has not even begun to give of herself right because giving of yourself is the Exquisite vulnerability of your open heart your unconditional open heart open heart is a very different thing than boundarylessness okay but s vulnerability is giving it your all it’s a Yin experience as opposed to the Yang experience of trying and dragging him to coup’s therapy and pushing him you know to work on his shadow so I’m calling all of my overachieving under receiving
(16:37) ladies who have been giving it their all girl bossing wiing mothering and somehow instead of feeling happy content fulfilled and grateful feel bitter overwhelmed numb and resentful so I’d love to give you some of my hot takes and quick tips to end this overwhelm to shift your nervous system into a state of receiving so that you can have and hold more and so that you can handle what comes at you with more grace and ease and relaxation because a relaxed woman is a powerful woman so I’d love to invite you to Exhale my free masterclass
(17:13) where I will share reframes to disrupt your burnout patterns I’ll be offering my signature solution as well as a free gift so register at Kelly brogen md.com exhale or at the Linkin show notes I’ll see you there Beauty so if you were to get off the fence and if you were to say you know what I’m a little yes to this marriage still you would get off the fence and you would choose him you would play the part of somebody who chooses this man just the way you did once upon a time okay so that means there are no open doors and windows there are no
(17:54) Escape hatches there are no contingencies you have your line in the sand you’ve already decided what that is right and if that’s transgressed you know you’ll deal with it then in this same manner apply the same rubric however it may be that infidelity is not your Line in the Sand and that you still have the opportunity to devote yourself not to him as a man but to this egregor that you create between you to what we call the marriage to the Covenant you know some would say this is how you access God that it is a sacred third
(18:32) that emerges from both of you it is bigger than both of you it encompasses you it holds you that the marriage is what you are devoted to that that is where your energy is dedicated so if you choose this man and you act like a woman who chooses him then there is a zooming out that happens where whatever he’s up to in terms of the infidelity that he’s you know engaging is something that you’re you know you’re here for because you’re here for the container you’re here for whatever occurs and because you know that maternal liing yourself and
(19:15) laying down the rules and the law and demanding and providing ulterior motives and all of that is generating a taboo and it is reinforcing the motherson dynamic that will I could virtually guarantee never get you where it is that you want to go as a woman so when you are choosing him when you are all in there is a way that your system can relax can exhale and begin to Encompass a broader spectrum of time it can begin to
