430: Who Are You Orbitting?

In this episode, Betsy asks us, If you’re resentful, if you’re angry, if you feel invisible, and advises that the first place to look, is not him. The first place to look is where you’ve centered him and where you’ve disappeared. In the Navigate Method Betsy says, you can’t make a clear decision about your marriage from a place where you’ve already abandoned yourself. So listen in and learn how you can learn to live big! Transcript:  Welcome to The Art of Living Big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy Pake, your host, master, coach, and creator of the Navigate Method. Here to help you listen in to your true desires, elevate your standards, and live life to the fullest. Now, let’s go live big. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show today. This week, you’re getting this episode this week. I know on the, on Instagram, if you follow on Instagram, I was going to answer a bunch of questions, and that episode will be next week. Next week I’ll be in Belize for the retreat, and that’s the episode that will drop on Thursday. So look out for that. Joy and I just had… We had issues scheduling. It became like a chasing each other all day, and so I thought, “You know what? I, I have another thought,” something that we talked about in group. So I wanna get to this. Okay. So there’s this moment, I think, when we stop orbiting somebody else. I’m gonna explain what I mean here. But it’s, it’s when you stop, , checking their mood before you make a decision, or when you stop thinking about how they’re gonna perceive you before you get dressed. Does anybody else… Am I the only one that does this? Or if you cook. You know, you’re cooking dinner, and you’re like, “Uh, are they gonna like this?” I know that some of this stuff might sound like courtesy, but I wanna… Just hang with me here, because I wanna, , uh, like sort of separate this out, because I think there is a moment that this awareness happens. If you leave your partner or you’ve made a big change with how you experience your partnership, I think that there is a moment where this orbiting becomes really disorienting, and so disorienting that you’re starting to recognize that there’s, , this piece of you inside here that is… , you’re not even quite sure where she is. You, you have, like, pieces of her, but she is really contorting herself. You know what I think of, like, when I, when I think of this, is like, you know if you have a cat and then you have, like, a weird shaped item? And they get in the weird shaped item, and th- they’re still a cat, but they’re not really, like, cat shaped anymore. I remember when I moved into my apartment a couple years ago, you know, after my divorce, and I’m, I’m here in my place, and I had this awareness that I didn’t check to see what somebody else was doing or wanted to do, or where I needed to be in the house, you know? I, I, I didn’t have to think about whether my dinner was gonna make the house smell like something he wouldn’t like, or I didn’t have to wonder… I didn’t, I just didn’t have to think about anybody else. And even think about, when I put on an outfit, is this something that would be, I’m gonna say like acceptable, but hang with me as I think through this. Not like, it, not like I’m dressing like a, like a hoe, you know? But is this something that men would like? I mean, I think we put it through a filter. You know, we talk about dressing for the male gaze or dressing for the female gaze. And there was this moment where I was in my apartment and I recognized that everything that I was doing was still orbiting other people who weren’t even there. They weren’t even in the house. And honestly, it was weird. Because centering somebody else, even when you don’t like ’em, even when you’re tired from it, but it’s a habit. It is like a groove that you’ve worn into yourself. And I think when you stop, there is a place where that person used to be, and you have to figure out who you are when you’re not constantly thinking about somebody else. So I wanna talk about this, and I wanna talk about it in the frame of something that has come up over and over again in our groups. And it’s really about this centering and how we center other people. It could be anybody. It could be how we center our kids’ school or school activities or everything about our lives. And I wanna talk about why that matters so much inside a partnership. So let me back up just a little bit. I wanna name, , what I mean by, , centering. So to me, centering someone m- else means that their perspective, you know, their, their needs, maybe their mood or their comfort, becomes sort of this, like, organizing principle of your day. So it becomes the thing that you are making little, little and big decisions around. And I don’t think it’s conscious necessarily. I think it’s usually really automatic. , You wake up, and you’re already scanning maybe for his mood or for who needs what or for what you need to do to make the day m- run smoothly for everybody else, and you’re calculating. Like, is it a good time to say something? You know, you’re running through what you’re gonna make for dinner and whether he’ll like it, and you’re dressing for somebody else or for what you think everybody else would like or what’s popular or trending or whatever. And you’re realizing that you are making yourself smaller so that everybody else can stay the same size or even grow or expand or become who they are meant to be. And I think we’re taught that this is love. I think that we were taught that centering the people we love is what good women do I think my mother did it. You know, my mother centered the kids for sure. She centered me and my sister. She centered my dad, for sure. , My grandmother did it. I, I think we just see it everywhere. , This idea that a, a woman, I’m gonna say a man, shapes herself around a man, but we really can shape ourselves around just about anything, you know? It’s, it’s really the version of us that makes it our job to keep the peace and to adjust. And I think we call it, , being a good partner or sacrifice or I’m devoted to this thing. You know, we, we call it marriage. But, but I think it’s an element of self-abandonment. And I wanna say, you might be like, “I don’t mind doing that all the time.” Maybe sometimes, but then is it conscious? And if it’s unconscious, is it truly a choice or is it you disappearing? And I think it gets a little bit tricky because self-abandonment doesn’t feel like a bad thing when you’re doing it. , It feels safe. It feels like you’re doing a good job, you know? It feels like you’re managing things or managing a situation or, or, or keeping it all together, you know? I remember that commercial, and I know I’ve mentioned it here before, but even as a kid, I was like, “This seems fucked up.” But it was like the, um, I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never, ever let you forget you’re a man. I’m like, look, you get, like, maybe two of those things out of three. Like, likely not. Pick one. I don’t know. But I think that there happens, , in, in our lives when we feel like what we’re doing is really being great, and marketing has taught us that, , our lives have taught us that. And then I think one day you realize that the reason you feel lonely in this partnership isn’t because you’re alone, but it’s because you lost yourself somewhere along the way, and maybe you realize that you’ve been gone for so long that you don’t actually know how to come back. So something that comes up in our groups over and over, and a couple weeks ago we were all talking, and I had this, , moment, you know? , And when I say groups, inside the Navigate method, this is my program that helps women make the big decision on whether to stay or leave your, their marriage. You can find out more about that on our website, or you can book a call to talk to us at betsypake.com. Okay. So- We were talking about it, and I had this thought. Now, this might be a thought y- that you’re gonna be like, “This is an obvious thought,” but the way it hit me was a little different. And I was like, men aren’t taught to de-center themselves. They are actually taught the opposite. They’re taught what we’re taught, which is to center them. They’re taught that their perspective is the one that matters, that their needs are the most important, and that the world kind of revolves around them at, at least a, a little bit, you know? And I’m not saying all men are like this. I’m not, I’m not saying anything is absolute. Humans are individuals, right? But I think this is a pattern, and I think when we’re socialized, and I think when we’re in the patriarchal system that we have all grown up with here, , I think it comes up, like constantly. And so you have a situation where she has disappeared, and he is centered. So she’s checking his mood. He’s not checking hers. And she’s thinking about her, how her actions affect him, and he is really not thinking about how his actions affect her Or if he is, it, it doesn’t come off in the same way, right? , She’s making sure he’s okay, and he doesn’t think to ask. And then she tries to communicate. She tries to say, “Hey, you know, this thing happened that hurt me. , This thing doesn’t feel good.” And he genuinely can’t see it from her perspective. It’s not because he’s a jerk. It’s not because he’s a terrible person. It’s because he is so centered in his own experience., His experience is the experience. His way of seeing things is the way. And so she’s trying to explain something from, , the outside looking in, and he’s looking from the inside looking out, and those are, like, two totally different vantage points, where you just don’t see the same horizon, you know? And I think that’s when resentment gets built. It’s not necessarily from what he did or from the fact that he can’t see what he did or from the fact that she has to explain it or, or, even that when she does explain it, he might not understand, because he’s not built to think that way. You know, she’s exhausted, because now she’s also managing herself. She’s also trying to translate her experience into some sort of version of language that he can understand. We talk about this all the time in group, like, what’s his reality? How can we get to the other vantage point so that you can explain and articulate yourself in a way that feels good, ? That, honors where you are, but also he could, if he was reaching for it, could find you in that. And it’s really about, it’s n- uh, w- when we were talking in group, I was like, “You know, I, I don’t even know that it is about… It’s about communication, but it’s also about trying to get him to de-center for just long enough to see her- And most of the time, I, I don’t think men can do it, and it’s not because they don’t love us, it’s, it’s because they weren’t ever taught to or socialized to. You know how… I remember when my son was little and we had this, , toy that was like a babbler. It would talk in, , different languages so that those patterns were formed in his head so if he wanted to, to learn another language later on, those neural pathways had been created, you know? Neural pathways get pruned, so it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. But that was the idea of it, right? And so it was the idea of if I could teach another way of seeing things, then seeing things another way could become easier Okay, so when I moved into my apartment, I’m there in my apartment. I have, uh, I have been, like, free of this dynamic where I have to center somebody else for the first time, , in decades. In decades, right? ‘Cause I feel like I’ve lived with somebody or had a partner or whatever forever, or had a kid. You know what I mean? There’s always somebody. And so here I am, my kid’s an adult, lives on his own. I’m here in my apartment. I’m all moved in. My stuff is here. I have no pet. At that point, Dean Martin was not, had not moved in. And Dean Martin’s the cat, for anybody new. So Dean Martin had not moved in, and so now here I am, and I am free from that dynamic for the first time in so long. And you would think that that would feel amazing, and I think it does, like, in moments. But mostly, it started to feel like I don’t know who I am. And I do this work, but being alone shifted something, because I spent a long, long time centering somebody else, so long that I don’t actually know how to make a decision that’s just for me without even, thinking about them. Do you know what I mean? I wanted to not even be thinking about them. And it, it took me a minute to realize, oh my God, why am I thinking about that? Like, why am I doing that same thing? And then I realized, I started thinking about, well, like, what about my son? I wonder what he’s doing for dinner. What is he w- like, j- same thing, but just with a different person. I think I started doing it a little bit with my friends. I started just, , checking with people. , Before I know what I wanna do, I wanna see what everybody else is doing. And then I realized, like, this isn’t even about my former partner. It’s about me. It is about a pattern that is so deep in my bones that I am just gonna keep doing it until I consciously, repeatedly choose something different. And so I had to start really asking myself a question. So instead of, like, what does everybody else need or what does everybody else want, I started asking, and I, I started asking this deliberately, even if I didn’t notice. Like when I put my outfit on, sometimes I would put it on, and then I’d be like, “Eh, I don’t know that… Like, people are gonna think this looks dumb.” Again, centering other people, right? So I would ask, like, “Is this the choice that’s best for me? Like, is this something that makes me happy? Do I feel good about this?” And I know that sounds really simple, but when you’ve spent, , your whole life… And women, we are- We are, I wanna say created. We’re not created to do that, but we are taught from, m- you know, taught from a very young age to do that. So when you’ve spent your whole life centering other people, asking yourself that question feels crazy. It feels really crazy. And I started doing it with like small things, but I wanted to make it like a repetition. So like what do I want? I remember in my partnership if I made like eggs, my partner didn’t like that because he didn’t like how the egg smelled, and so there would be a lot of thoughts about that that were shared with me. And so I would think like, “I’m gonna make eggs. Is anybody coming over?” Nobody, nobody was coming over. Like I had nobody to come over. But I, that’s what I would think. Instead of , “What do I feel like? Do I feel like eggs?” Or you know, whatever, whatever kind of eggs I wanted. Like is that what I want? Instead of , “Does this outfit feel good? Do I feel happy in this?” I would think “Oh, this makes me look like I have no waist.” Who cares? Like who cares? And so I started noticing all the ways that I was centering people, and the ways that I was still performing a version of myself in certain situations. And I think it’s interesting because we think, and I often, and I’ve even said it on this podcast like years ago, like if there was just no people, I would be great. But then I lived alone and there was no people, and it wasn’t great. It was, it was interesting. It was the way I was still afraid to say no. The way I was still checking with some outside source before I made a decision so I wouldn’t rock the boat. It was weird. Eight months. Eight months is how long it took me before I noticed that I wasn’t doing that, and it was like a moment where I was like, “Oh my God, I just made that choice and didn’t think anything of it.” Eight months before I could make a decision just because it was good for me without feeling something about it. And, some days I still catch myself doing it. I talked with a girlfriend recently, and I said about how I was getting ready to go on a date. I know we’re gonna talk about that next week on the podcast. I was getting ready to go on a date, and I put on an outfit, and then I thought, “This is not an…” I, I… It was twofold things that I thought. “This is not an outfit you wear on a date, and this makes me look gigantic,” because it was all, like, big, roomy, th- flowy dress, or whatever the heck it was. I don’t even remember. And I got mad at myself because I was doing this scanning thing, and I was like, “God, I haven’t even been dating b-,” you know what I mean? “But a couple days and I’m already back to centering other people?” And I talked to a friend of mine, my friend Heather, and my friend Heather said, “It’s okay to center them sometimes. , That can be a choice. It’s okay to dress for the male gaze sometime. It’s okay to dress for the female gaze sometime. It’s… Like, that might feel good to you.” And it was a w- odd permission that I think I needed. Being in this space of like, “Oh, hell no” for so long w- you know, in my own process, it, it was interesting to me because I feel like when I show up in, in coaching and group, I’m so open, like, what feels g- like, there is validity on both sides, but when it came to myself, it was interesting, you know? So it’s okay sometimes, but we want to be conscious of it, right? So let me kinda map out… Let me do it this way. So I wanna map out sort of what, l- like, when you’ve been centering somebody else for years and years and years. Here’s what I think. Here’s, , the, , dynamic I think. I think first you sort of disappear. You know? I think it… Well, I think it kind of happens. You disappear, right? A little less of your opinion here, a little less of your preference here, you know? You get smaller. You take up less space, you know? You make decisions based on what’s keeping the peace instead of what’s true for you. And then I think, in that disappearance, something happens. I think, without realizing it, you start to resent the person that you’re centering, and it’s not because of who they are. It really isn’t, and this is why I always say this in my videos. , It’s because you’ve abandoned yourself to stay with them But perhaps it could have been okay even if you’d stayed with yourself. So you resent that they don’t notice when you’ve gone quiet. You resent that they don’t ask why you’re not yourself anymore, or you resent that they, that they are able to just live their life centered in themselves while you’re over here like a cat trying to, , fit into a weird shaped vase, right? And so then I think you start to collect evidence. , He did that, he did this, he didn’t notice this, you know, he didn’t… or she didn’t ask about that. And every piece of evidence that you gather kinda gets added to this, , big pile because , I think the real issue here, or the real problem, we’ll use the word problem, isn’t what he did. The real problem is that you made yourself so small that you have become invisible, but then you’re angry at him for not seeing you. But he can’t see you, ’cause you disappeared on him. He’s not looking for you, because as far as he knows, you’re right there just adjusting and adapting like he is the center, ’cause that’s what that’s what he believes, right? So now you’re resentful, you’re trying to communicate why you’re resentful, and you’re trying to get him to see that the problem is not that he did one specific thing. The problem is this, , huge whole dynamic. And the problem is that you don’t exist in this relationship anymore. That’s the actual problem, is that you’ve centered him for so long that there just doesn’t seem to be any room for you. And because he’s looking at you and thinking, “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.” Because he’s centered himself because that’s what he was taught. He can’t see the centering in this dynamic because it’s b- he– because he’s benefiting from it. So now you’re both stuck, right? Like, you’re invisible and angry, he’s confused and defensive, and now the actual thing that’s broken, it’s the centering. It’s the disappearing. And so I think what happens is we try to fix this by having better conversations, or to explain, like, more and more and more clearly, right? Or trying to get him to understand. And you cannot fix a centering problem by centering them more. I know that sounds so, like… You can’t fix a disappearing problem by disappearing even more. So what does it look like to actually de-center? So it looks like asking yourself, what do you actually want? And then honoring that. I know it sounds so simple, but that’s it. It looks like you say no when you wanna say no, even if people get disappointed or grumpy. To be okay with the grumpy can be really hard. But it looks like you making a decision based on what’s right for you, not based on just what’s right for everybody else. It looks like, you know, letting other people be a little uncomfortable. Like, being okay with that. It looks like being willing to wa- rock the boat. You know, at Thanksgiving time, I think every year, the past, , two or three years, I post this video that I did, like, three years ago about Thanksgiving, and I was going to get pie. And I was hovering over the pies, and everybody wanted pumpkin pie or apple pie. And I want cherry pie. And I was like, everybody’s g- like, I’m not gonna buy a cherry pie for me. , I actually thought that. I’m not gonna just buy a cherry pie for… It’s the holiday. It’s my holiday, too. Like, I don’t have to lose myself just to accommodate other people. And so I think that, you know… So I bought the cherry pie, but I, I was like, even if I eat one piece and throw it out, , I’m okay with that. It’s Thanksgiving. And I think the thing is, is that when you’re doing it You know, uh, I don’t think it feels, when you’re, like, doing it, when I say it, when you’re de-centering, I don’t think it feels selfish to anybody else. I think it feels selfish to you because you were taught your whole life that taking care of yourself is selfish and that centering other people is what love looks like. But de-centering isn’t selfish. It’s just you coming back to yourself. And I think when we start de-centering, especially in a partnership, I think things shift. I think it shifts marriages in good ways. I think it shifts, , partnerships. I think it sh- can shift relationships at work. I think sometimes it shifts in a way that doesn’t work anymore But either way, it shifts. Because now they’re with the real version of you, and you don’t wanna be in a relationship with somebody who’s not you. Now he’s with a woman, or she’s with a woman, who has opinions and preferences and needs, and now he’s not with someone who’s disappearing. And I think for some men, that can be really great. I think they actually like the real version of you better. They actually wanna be with someone who’s not making themselves small. And for some men, you know, the centering was the whole deal, like having a woman who disappears so he can stay centered is really important to him, and that’s what he signed up for. But when you de-center, then that whole dynamic doesn’t work anymore, and that is a lot of really important information that you won’t have otherwise. So I wanna say this, and I wanna be, like, honest about how I see this. And again, you know, this is my podcast, so I say what I think. You’re… You can ex- you can climb on board and like, “That makes a lot of sense to me,” but you don’t have to. There can be parts of this that feel true to you and parts that don’t. But I think that de-centering is not a quick fix. I don’t think it’s something that you decide one day and you’re done. And the reason I say that is because I lived in an apartment by myself, and it took me eight months. Eight months before I could automatically shift to not centering. Eight months of asking myself over and over again, “What do I want? What’s true for me? Is this the best choice for me?” And that’s just the basics. That’s just getting to the place where you’re not constantly thinking about what somebody else needs. Uh, like we’ve been learning… I mean, I was learning that for 53 years. And I think the deeper work, the work of actually building a life around yourself instead of around someone else, I think that takes even longer. But here’s what I know. Every single time that you choose yourself, every single time you say no, every single time you make a decision based on what’s true for you, you’re de-centering. And it gets easier, and it gets more familiar, and it starts to feel less like you’re being selfish and more like you’re actually being alive. So- If you’re thinking like, “Oh, I think if I de-centered, he wouldn’t like that.” , I’m not here to tell you to leave your marriage. , I’m not here to tell you that your husband is a problem, and I’m not here to tell you what to do. But I am here to tell you this: if you’re resentful, if you’re angry, if you feel invisible, the first place to look is not him. The first place to look is where you’ve centered him and where you’ve disappeared. Because you can’t make a clear decision about your marriage from a place where you’ve already abandoned yourself. You can’t think straight when you’re invisible. You can’t hear your own wisdom, your own internal guidance when you’re so busy, , listening to everybody else. So ask yourself, what is it that you really want? Not what your kids need, what… not what your husband needs, not what your friends think you should do, but what do you really want? I remember I went with my son. He messaged me and said, “Do you wanna go get ice cream?” And I really didn’t want to, and I thought about saying no, and I decided to go anyway because he wanted to, and that made me happy. But knowing that I didn’t want to and that I was making a choice to that was conscious changed everything. So when you know what you want, when you’re grounded in that, and then you can make a real decision, you’ll know whether you’re going to get ice cream or staying in your marriage because it is true for you, or it’s because you’ve disappeared and you didn’t feel like there was another option. Come back to yourself. All the other stuff becomes easier after. And I think that is how you live a big life. All right, everyone, next week I’m gonna be in Belize at the retreat. I hope you come to the next retreat. We’ll have details on that soon. It’ll be sometime next year, and we will be thinking of you, especially if you reached out and said, “I’m thinking of going,” just know that I’m thinking of you and wish you were there. But next week we’ll have a really great show with Joy and I talking about some things that have been happening with me that pushed me through a portal, a threshold, in my own experience over the past six weeks. All right, I love you guys so much. I’ll see you all next time. Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pake and on my YouTube channel. Remember, the world is vast. Your potential is endless, and your life, it’s yours to shape. Until next time, keep reaching, keep exploring, and keep living big.