There are two types of crumbs in our lives...the ones we create through careless, thoughtless, ego-centred actions, and the ones we accept that allow us to stay in unhappy situations. Listen to this episode of the Living Through Heart Podcast for my personal experience with crumbs.
There are two types of crumbs in our lives...the ones we create through careless, thoughtless, ego-centred actions, and the ones we accept that allow us to stay in unhappy situations. Listen to this episode of the Living Through Heart Podcast for my personal experience with crumbs.
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Hi, I'm Donna Joy Usher, and welcome to this 40th episode of the Living Through Heart podcast.
Hi, I'm Donna Joy Usher, and today I want to talk to you about crumbs.
Not what you're expecting was it?
So to me until recently crumbs went meant one thing, and then I listened to a Matthew McConaughey speech.
So he does his inspirational speech, if you haven't ever listened to them, go listen to them, really good, Matthew McConaughey does be at the university, I think it was university he went to he often goes in and does this.
Why don't this often he's, he's been in and done speeches on inspirational speeches to the students as they're graduating from college.
And in it, he talks about crumbs as well, and it was a totally different view of my crumbs.
So I want to talk about the two different types of crumbs and why crumbs are just not good for us.
Okay, I mean, apart from the fact that when you eat toast in bed and you get crumbs in bed, it's uncomfortable.
The crumbs I want to talk to you about are just not healthy for us.
So the first crumbs I'm going to talk about are the ones that Matthew McConaughey talks about and then I'm going to go into the one that I'm kind of like an expert on because I, I like these crumbs of mine my thing, right?
So Matthew McConaughey has this list of rules for these college students on how to live a good life, right, and how to live a happy life.
And one of the things is, don't make crumbs.
And when he's talking about crumbs, he's talking about stuff that you do that, well brings guilt and shame.
So being unkind to people, being cruel to people, being dismissive, cheating, lying, you know things that we do, that are going to come back to haunt us later on and make us feel guilty later on, or shame later on.
Cheating on your partner or cheating with somebody else on their partner, right?
Stealing from somebody, being fraudulent things that I mean, maybe we even get away with it, but it's like this internal crumb when when we have the memory of it.
And it's that like shame that we feel surrounding it.
I mean, maybe a sort of person who I mean, if you're the sort of person who can do this, probably not watching this, or listening to this, right.
But maybe you can go out and do some stuff and just really have no shame surrounding it, probably have no care in the world, right?
Maybe you maybe you're that like, okay with yourself that you can do these things that negatively impact other people, and really not give a shit.
But if you are like that, you're probably not watching this, you're probably not listening to this.
So, crumbs are things that we do that leave a trail, and that make us feel bad about ourselves.
And when we feel bad about ourselves, when we do these sort of things about ourselves, like it's what are we telling ourselves if we do this sort of stuff?
What are we telling ourselves, that we're the sort of person who cheats, or we're the sort of person in lies or the sort of person who like, you know, isn't faithful.
And that there, when we tell ourselves, we do stuff that reflects really what we're believing about ourselves, it's what it is, and it's not just that we're telling ourselves that, but it's what we believe about ourselves.
It's allowing us to do these things that then are causing us to feel shame later on.
So that's the first type of crumb.
Now I'm gonna go into the crumbs that I'm passionate about, because these are the crumbs that we accept that we turn into gold.
So it's like, in relationship.
When you're in a relationship, and you have maybe a fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, unworthiness, need to be perfect and you're running around and you're the one that's creating all the energy and you're like, maybe an anxious attach, you're flowing in.
And you're not getting the same back, which is normal, right?
When you're when anxious attached you normally with an avoidant.
You're not getting this stuff back, you're not getting the same level attention back, you're not getting the same level of affection back, right?
You're not your wants and needs aren't important.
And we're always like bending and contorting ourselves to make it okay, and coming up with ways for reasons why and that's okay because of this, and that's okay, because he had a bad life or he did this or she did this or whatever it is, right.
And we're making it okay.
Then what we're doing is we're accepting crumbs, crumbs in our life, and we're getting dropped these crumbs.
And then we, me, very good at polishing them and like, making them golden.
I'd be like, my crumbs are more like nuts with a squirrel would have that one nut and it would like, be keeping it safe, but it's not.
And I would take them out and I would like, hold them.
And I would, if you're really good because of this stupid friggin little crumb. Right?
And it might be just like a little compliment that was thrown my way.
Make it mean the world and I would hold on to that little crumb meanwhile I'm like giving one zillion times more right more compliments and more.
The compliments aren't important but it's that the point here is that the energy that I'm putting in is so much more than what I'm getting back.
But then the little bit that I'm getting back, I'm making mean everything.
So I had this thing was my, my ex were, my girlfriends knew that I never got compliments, and I, I, yeah, I just never got complimented, I never got fed positive things really right.
And it was more I would get if something wasn't the way it was meant to be done.
Like, I was always like searching for ways that it wasn't quite right.
Or it wasn't good enough, and that would be held up.
So but then he would be very complimentary about me to them.
And so they knew, so they would, they would hold it for me.
And then the next time we spoke, or next time, you know, we're alone now.
And they would hand me this crumb.
And I would be like, Oh my God, and I would like put it in my heart and be glowing feel really good about it.
And I wouldn't let him knew that I knew that he'd said that thing about me, right?
I don't want to ruin it.
And then I would take it out and I would, whenever I was feeling low or down, I'd remind myself about this thing that he said, that's pretty fucked.
Alright, just gonna go out there and say it, it's pretty shit that I did that for a 25-26 year I'm still doing it really right?
Still in relationship with him because we still have a friendship.
I'm sure he's not saying nice things about me behind my back anymore.
But yeah, so it's pretty fucked, it's pretty shit, right?
So if you're doing that you need to stop.
Stop making crumbs be gold.
Because you deserve so much more than that.
You just have more than crumbs.
And you need to pull your energy back to start with, okay, pull your energy back and see what's really there.
And the reason I say this is because if you've watched or listened to any of my prior stuff, sorry, just a lil neck stretching.
You may have heard my struggles and me going through recognizing my anxious attachment.
And how the last eight months have really has been me going into a really deep process and pulling back and healing the woundings in me that was that that abandonment, that rejection that was like so painful.
And I was like physiologically every day just barely holding myself together to get through what I had to get done, and then I would go to bed in the afternoon either to sleep just to escape it, or allow myself to go into process and chase down a memory chase down whatever it was because sometimes I will get to the point where I'm like, I can't serve my clients like this.
So I've spent, you know, hours, one day spent five hours in this painful process coming through.
And it was like groundbreakingly massive what I discovered in there, right.
But I got to the point where I realized, yeah, I had pulled back.
And then there's this confusion now of like the whole what I'm working through now is the what am I allowed to want to need?
And what do I actually really want in life because I felt like I was weak to want a relationship.
And then it was like, I had all these like, like, it could look like this in there.
But it was really I just wasn't really acknowledging what I really wanted.
And I was working with beautiful Georgia Rose last week. And she took me through a process where I was able to the the the energy that was trapped within me of me, me being the one that's contorting and changing through so much of my relationship I had done this thing with my arms and she had said okay, stop hold there, feel in to that.
And I just started crying because this energy was still inside me of me always having to be the one.
Me always having to be the one that made everything okay, and, and having to kind of like manipulate situations so that I could still do what I needed to do.
But then also have him what, have him think that it was his idea that we didn't do things right then and we did it later or having you know, it was like I was always in this constant like sympathetic nervous system, trying to have not be the high maintenance wife trying to have him and not being the one that wasn't fun, because you know, I would have stuff planned and things that had to get done and then he would just walk in and go, hey, let's do this.
And I would have to drop everything right and because I just drop everything and just do whatever he wants to do.
And so I got really good at manipulating stuff and saying things in such a way that oh, yeah, looks a bit windy out there. I wonder if the winds gonna be better on later on.
And then he would say, oh, well, let's go back later on.
And then I'd get around to what I want to do right.
So.
So there was this real contorting going on inside of me and me not being allowed to just have what I wanted and needed was still impacting me like a few years on, right?
And me?
No, it was definitely for being real with what I wanted.
So we did this process and I was able to breathe through it and cry through it and allow it and like, even though I still want to cry, thinking about it, and then I went off to the toilet, and I came back and I said, okay, I've really shifted what I want now, I know what I want now, and what I want now is a fucking amazing relationship.
And I want someone who sees me, and who is comfortable enough within themselves, and confident enough within themselves, that they're not just going to project their wants and needs onto me, that they're actually going to be curious about really, who I am, what I think about stuff and what my opinions are.
And they're gonna want to know what I think.
And not just assume that I'm just a cardboard cutout of them, which is what I've been in the past right.
And interestingly enough, the thing that happened recently that set off my my fear of abandonment, my fear of rejection and that the whole anxious attach a thing.
That was another example of that just somebody who, really good fun, and you know going on really well.
But there's no room in there for me, and never any questions about me.
Even if it's months since we've seen each other, never any how are you, what are you doing, I'll never an interest and more.
If I do try and talk about something of myself more of a pushing onto me of their thoughts and feelings within that rather than sitting back and creating space for me to be who I am.
And I want that right and never had it, never had it at all.
Let in my time, 51 years, not with my father, not with any my boyfriends not with my husband.
That's what I want now.
So now I'm at the point where I can create a different future because I've done the work getting rid of the past.
And it's no longer controlling me.
And now I'm just in flow. I'm the I'm no longer having to control stuff to stay safe.
I'm in the flow, because I feel safe, right?
So I was able to, I'm hope I'm not going in circles here sorry, I hope you're following this.
But this work that I've done recently was removing and realizing the crumbs and what I was doing and how it's contorting myself and allowing myself to pull my energy back more into a secure attachment.
I decided to go back in, I started to go back into this other thing just to see just to see if there's any other triggers there for me.
And it was so interesting, because it was just the same as it had been for probably even better, right because time had passed and there's probably you know, he wasn't so threatened anymore, wasn't driven into avoidant pattern because I had it'd been like four months with zero contact.
So it's probably even better than it had been.
But for me at the end, like when I was coming home, I was analyzing it.
And it just felt really, really empty.
And I realized that the emptiness before had been filled by me, with my crumbs.
I've been like, like, loved up remembering little things like maybe the way he looked at me or something he'd said or something he'd done, and I'd been making it mean all this amazing stuff about myself and all that lalalalala and then getting really hurt when there was just no follow up.
No wanting to see me again, I'm being really confused, right?
And it was what I was creating in that space by being that angsty tantrum flowing with my energy, and how I was so good at taking the smallest things, and just making them like glow in the dark.
Amazing, right?
And I wasn't doing that anymore, because I had done the work.
And instead what it did, it didn't impact me in the way it didn't set off my anxious attached or instead, it just made me feel empty and lonely again, right?
Because I'm not able to get my fix that way anymore.
I'm not able to use the crumbs on the sense like now like I'm telling you to keep your crumbs, don't keep your crumbs.
What it's allowing me to do though, is to open up for something far more amazing in the future.
Because if I'm not going to accept crumbs anymore, then what I'm going to accept is something far greater than the crumbs, I'm gonna have the whole loaf of bread things, I want it all.
I want someone who I can have amazing conversations with, philosophical discussions, who when I'm reading a book, on, you know, a self help book or self development book, I can stop and read paragraphs to them, we can have a discussion on opinions on it and respect each other's differences.
And not immediately try to make each other just be another version of ourselves.
And that's so interesting, isn't it that we do that?
Were attracted to the polar opposite of us because that's really interesting and fascinating.
But then it's not safe, because we don't understand how they think.
So then we either start trying to bully them or changing them right and confrontation and arguments are coming right trying to make them believe or be the same as I certainly feel safe.
And then if we do like him, pick them enough or bullied them or like, you know, some, make them submissive.
So they either like change their belief system or change change their opinions to be the same as us because it's safe for them right to be a part of the herd, or they just stopped talking to us, which is more what I did, then we think that, now we're safe.
But then we find them boring, because there's no longer that polar opposite.
So instead, to be able to see this person standing in front of you, and to see them in their full dimensionality.
Not just the human like form of the body, but the spirit and the soul inside there.
And to appreciate them for that, and for who they are.
And for them to do the same with you?
I mean, that, to me, sounds like something that'd be freaking amazing.
And to not be threatened by their differences, not be threatened by different opinion, not be threatened by, you know, maybe, you know, maybe they don't believe something that's really like, you know, that you really believe in, they believe something polar opposite, to not make that mean anything other than the fact that you have different opinions on something.
Remembering that our reality is just created by our minds.
It's not actually real.
Our opinions are just opinions, and other people's opinions are just as true as ours are.
And this is the duality of life, right?
What we see is black other people see as white.
So what is it?
Is it black or white?
Or is it both?
Or is it neither, or is it none?
You know, when you can start to see through duality of good and bad, you know, right and wrong.
Just into the existence of the is, the I am, then you can stop having to defend yourself all the time.
Because you're not always having to be right.
And you're not having to be right to be safe because you already know that you are safe, you already know that you are whole right?
And that's where beautiful lives can be created, the freedom of the soul comes in.
Anyway, that's me on crumbs.
Don't make them don't accept them.
You're worth more than it, you're better than them.
Go out there and you know, work out really what you want to need in a relationship, in life, in general.
And then start to look at why you aren't accepting it, why you're making it okay to not have it and then go from there.
Alright, I hope you got something out of this and I will see you or you'll hear me in the next installment.