Q&A With Shazmeen Bank: On Breakups, Healing & Finding Yourself

In this soulful Q&A episode, I answer the questions you've been quietly holding inside, the ones that are hard to ask out loud and many times you feel shame for even having. Trust me, we have all been there. 

You are not alone.

How do you walk away from a relationship and break up with kindness? What do you do when you're raising children inside a marriage that’s breaking you down? How do you survive life's darkest moments when it feels like the light has completely left? And how do you begin to live your full potential — when all you’ve known is survival? How does an avoidant person believe in hope?

These are the questions I received, and in this episode, I answer them with love, honesty, and compassion. We talk about breakups, identity loss, emotional exhaustion, parenting in pain, dating yourself, and rebuilding from the ground up.

 Nothing is surface level here this is for the part of you that’s tired, searching, and ready to come home to yourself.

If you're navigating heartbreak, stuck in a hard season, or feeling unsure of who you are anymore… this conversation is for you.

I’m honored you trust me with your questions and if you need a sign to keep going, this might be it.

✨
 Website: www.shazmeenbank.com
 Instagram: @shazmeenbank
 TikTok: @shazmeen_bank

I would love to hear from you. 

Email:shazmeen@shazmeenbank.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Life Better Podcast
• 7:45 Navigating the Talking Stage, are we dating?
• 13:56 Protecting Children During Relationship Changes
• 24:37 Unlocking Your Full Potential
• 34:32 The Importance of Dating Yourself
• 40:59 Resilience in Dark Moments
• 46:16 Trusting Your Inner Voice
• 51:36 Navigating Avoidant Attachment

Transcript

Shazmeen Bank (00:00)
And welcome back to another episode of Life Better, the episode that drops every single Thursday answering

all your questions to do with life. And this is your host Shazam Bank and you know that you can bank on me. And every single Monday I drop an episode on love better all about relationships, attachment styles, and how you can grow in the relationship with yourself, how you can gain the strength to walk out of some of the really tough relationships in life or have to stay in some longer than you know you need to.

without the shame, with a lot of support. And every single Thursday's episode, as you know, was created to really be able to connect with you and start to build a community. And this particular episode this week's really special to my heart because I wanted to create an episode where I could answer a lot of the questions that you have. And maybe I might keep this as an every Thursday thing because

I was quite surprised with the amount of questions that actually came in, not only on my DMs on Instagram, but a lot of you that actually emailed me. And I saw a pattern in a lot of these questions and I thought they were so human, so beautiful, so vulnerable of so many of you to even reach out and ask me the questions that you did. And

It sort of feels really special because it reminds me about being on radio just about over a year ago. And I had a show every Thursday. It was called Event and literally taking in all your questions and being able to answer them live was so special. And so I wanted to create that again, where not only do you listen to episodes, you know, trying to sometimes look for answers through episodes, but you can have a place you can come.

on Thursdays and ask all the questions you want and just have them answered. And I know that personally, I go through that a lot of times when I'm going through something in life, I will scour the internet and YouTube and Google and podcasts to sort of find the answer, but it's really nice when you can sort of connect and just sort of have these questions answered. So first of all, thank you so much for being so vulnerable with a lot of your questions. What

blew me away, which is pretty amazing, was I actually had a lot of avoidant people, okay, well four avoidant people this week, write in and ask me some really powerful questions that you wouldn't think avoidant people are asking. And I thought it was amazing because I experienced this in sessions with clients. It's really nice to see avoidance out there starting to get

so aware of their attachment style and wanting to grow. So I'm excited. And if we get into the questions, the first question, keeping all your names anonymous is how to tell someone that we are not aligned. I met a guy and we've been talking for over two months.

We are financially not aligned and after two weeks from the beginning of the month, he seems to spend all his money and then he cries that he has no money. He doesn't save very well at all. How do I end things and say it's, and do I say it's because of his money habits or do I say it's just not working? Because I want to do it in a way where I don't hurt them. So first of all, I really love that question. I think it's...

So telling of who you are as a person and how beautiful and empathetic you are. And I really love that first of all, you've taken the time to get to know somebody and then recognize early on, look, I don't think we're financially aligned. And I think it is unbelievably powerfully important to be really aligned financially with somebody, especially if you're dating for the long term and you're looking to get into

a long-term relationship or marriage with them because finance can rip you both apart and it can make you feel so separate. If down the line, you start to feel you need to earn for yourself or, you know, he spends all his money and now we have children, we have a mortgage, we have life going on and we simply cannot align with each other. So really powerful to recognize that. Very brave, even though you like the person to say,

I've seen this to be a trend in their life and it's not something I want to pull into my vibration, my energy in my life. So how do you break up with someone? Do you tell them the truth? I really would. I think it's very beautiful to let somebody know the reason as to why you feel you no longer want to be with them because I think that can either open their eyes to want to grow and change that part of them or maybe not.

The way that I would handle it would be really empathetic with, I've really loved your company. I've loved talking to you. I've loved to experience who you are in this relationship. But obviously that's why we're dating, to figure out if we're hand and glove and we're a match that can come together and continue to grow. And I just feel that there's no alignment when it comes to finances.

I would let them know what's important to you about finance. I would let them know I'm somebody that I feel I really value saving. And you know what, to give you a bit of in-depth, this is how I grew up in my childhood. I grew up probably with money or without money or seeing money is very scarce. And so it's really important to me to have a partner that values finance, especially a man that can lead

with the finances that can allow me as a feminine woman to feel really safe. And safe means not only protected physically, but protected financially. And I don't mind contributing as a beautiful woman in that relationship, because I'm so aware in today's day and age that you need two incomes to be able to survive. But I just feel right now financially, the way you spend money

The way I spend money, the way I save and you save isn't bringing us together. And I don't see this going anywhere long-term. And I don't want this to be something where you feel it was about your personality or something is fundamentally wrong with you. I think it's a beautiful place for you to grow. And I want to thank you for coming into my life and having me see that this really did matter to me.

So I would handle it with a lot of empathy. And once again, I think it's so beautiful of you as a person to care about not wanting to hurt their feelings. Like salute to that. Absolutely amazing. The next question I had is, hi, I am learning a lot from your podcast. Big hearts. Great work. I am currently in a talking stage with a really interesting man.

But I am so confused because it seems not to pass the talking stage. How do I go about this? Also, is there a part in me that is afraid of voicing my expectations? So I really love that you're in the talking stage. I think it's so refreshing, first of all, to not just be in a hookup stage. I think it's so refreshing to not.

be with somebody where it's all physical and a burst of chemistry. I think it's really beautiful that you both are taking your time and you are talking. I'm sort of wondering from this stage of the talking stage, I can assume that you're looking for some sort of more of a commitment, some sort of a bit of maybe physical connection with them that sort of takes you out of the friend zone.

and lets you know, we look like we're going to be dating or we are dating and it's progressing down that line. I would tell you to brave enough to be able to ask them and say that I love talking to you. I feel that there's nothing more amazing than wanting to build a relationship with somebody that you can actually talk to in today's world.

And I love that we have communication because to me that's powerful, but I would love to know how you feel. Do you feel that I'm more of a friend you want to keep talking to? Do you feel that maybe there's a bit of an interest that's building between you and I? And you powerfully asked that, is there a part of me that's afraid of voicing my expectations? I would say that.

We are all scared at some point to voice expectations when we are terrified of rejection. And it's not only about having expectations. I would say it's about getting what you want as well, because that's why you would want to be in a relationship with someone. You want to be able to go into a relationship to give and to be able to receive as well and be comfortable with receiving and not just being a giver.

And when it comes to your voice, I would turn around and say, what is the fear? Is the fear that you would voice, want more out of this and maybe they don't? Well, then I turn around and say, at least you get some clarity. Not only do you find your voice and use it powerfully to ask for what you want or create room in your life to get clarity on where you are with somebody.

But if the fear is what if I use my voice and I lose them, then there was nothing to keep in the first place. There's nothing to hold onto. I would never be scared to voice what I want. And I would say that if I gracefully, compassionately, empathetically, always voice what I want without letting someone feel cast out or pushed aside, and they no longer

want to be in my life or they clarify, I don't think this is something I'm looking for. Well, then, ⁓ thank God, you know. And how powerful of you to use your voice to get assertive and to figure out what you want and where you are. So I would just say sometimes when we're scared to voice things, comes from a pattern in maybe the way you grew up and you felt you were silenced.

or situations around you that had you feel it was easier to be silenced. Cause if you're silenced, you're unseen. And having a voice doesn't have to make you whatever story you could make that. And I would like challenge anybody listening right now. If I have a voice, what does that make me? What's the story that comes with that? So there's never a fear about expectations. think sometimes

We can turn our expectations into appreciations because we don't always get what we expect, but we do get what we want to live up to. We do get what we believe our self-worth is deserving of. I would rather be with somebody and know that I'm getting from them what I know I'm deserving to get, what I beautifully have a voice to ask for as opposed to

getting expectations that sometimes human beings don't know about or are able to live up to. So my question back to you would be, what are you scared of? Are you scared to lose somebody? Would you rather have someone talking to you for a little longer because you're scared because I could end up being lonely? So this really, I would say, is a place to push you.

to get more comfortable. I would say that this relationship already is beautifully teaching you the power of communication. The fact that both of you are in a talking phase is already telling you that your voice matters and somebody cares to hear it. So the bravery is in getting you to step out of your comfort zone and into what you deserve and ask.

Is this going somewhere? Because I would love for it to go somewhere. And sometimes you have some really shy guys that don't get it. Sometimes you have guys that are so respectful and they also are terrified to lose you and scared to lose you. So they don't push it. They want it to go respectably at your flow. So let the guy know where you stand. Let yourself know where you stand and take it from there.

Another amazing question I have from somebody that I really beautifully cherish in my DMs. think if you are listening to this particular episode, you are growing so beautifully. And she asked me, how do we protect kids when going through relationship changes? Scared we will scar them.

Here's the thing, we can only ever protect our kids till as much as we can protect them. And I feel that one of the ways we can always protect our children is being really honest with them. Now, because I have a bit of a background to your story, I know that your marriage is really tumultuous and it's painful and the environment is not easy for you. And so I can really imagine that.

It's not easy for your young kids as well. How do you go through relationship changes scared that you will scar them? Maybe as parents, sometimes we will scar our kids. And sometimes their strength is in how they heal. Because as much as we will always try to protect our children, I have a beautiful 20 year old boy. And I know that as much as we'll always try to protect them, sometimes

We hurt them inevitably for them to grow and so that they can see certain things in their lifetime through our relationships, our intimate relationships that will keep pushing each generation to want to change, to want to be better, to want to be better fathers, better mothers, and have the families and relationships they want to have from seeing the ones we're in and seeing the ones we have.

So I would say protecting our children really comes down to how honest we can keep being with them. And a lot of the times I think it's really painful for especially the teenagers I've worked with where they say, a lot of them say two things. First thing they say, even as adults is my parents stayed together for us as children, but it was a nightmare to watch them miserable.

It was a nightmare to see both our parents in so much pain, trying to be so selfless to be together thinking that's what we needed. And today I'm in coaching with you because clearly, you know, it's been the death of my relationships or the reason I can't get into relationships and I need to heal after seeing the way that my mom and dad were together. And so I wish actually my parents had split up and loved us.

beautifully and healed so we could have seen what a healthy relationship with self could have looked like and maybe what a healthy relationship if they had ever met anybody else could have looked like. So that's very powerful. I get that a lot from some of the teenagers and adults that I work with. The other thing is a lot of the kids that say we could see mom and dad not happy. We could sense the tension in the house.

We learned to grow up listening to the doors slam. We learned to fill in the gaps on the dinner table when mom and dad are not talking to each other. And now we felt like it was our responsibility to sort of keep them together, push them together, or fill up the tension in the house with our laughter or the tension in the house scared us so much that I became more introverted or more scared. And so

First of all, I want to say that you do the best you can. As parents in a relationship, you do the best you can. And I know this is particularly come from a woman, question, but even if you're a man listening, you already do the best you can in the relationship that you're in. And when children see you in pain, it really hurts them.

And when they're confused about that pain and left to their imagination about what's going on between mom and dad, or within mom herself or dad herself, it's really painful for them to reconcile. Could it have been my fault? Is it because of us? And so the honesty I think is if you know that the environment is really tense and is toxic or there's abuse or

violence or slamming of the doors, the first instinct is to make sure these children are always safe. And the next thing is to talk to them. And I would get very curious with asking them, what do you notice? What do you think about mom and dad together? Are there feelings that are coming up for you that might scare you? What are your thoughts about what's going on? Because you would be so surprised with

I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing how mature this generation is in how they advise and see situations. So the relationship is changing and you are scared you'd scar them. Would you scar them by sometimes staying in a relationship that they're watching you suffer in? Would that be the scarring? Would they feel this is love?

tension, violence, emotional abuse, that's what becomes familiar in their bodies. And that's what becomes home for them, because they will only go seek out a love that was similar to what home's love was. And I think it takes a lot of bravery to talk to our children and make room for how they feel and listen to them and

ask them if they're scared or what their thoughts are. And then I would have a very mature conversation with my partner. And I would say that our children are starting to get affected. And if we both care and love our children, which I know we both do, despite what we're going through together as adults, then we need to sit down and have a chat.

about the wellbeing, the mental health and the emotional care about our children. And sometimes I know culturally that could mean also involving the other person's parents. I also know culturally sometimes in-laws can be really tough to deal with and are not always on your side. So maybe involving an elder in the community that can support you to have certain conversations.

but I would really sit down and I'd find my voice and let my partner know that it is very important. We made a decision and a choice to bring children into our home and our responsibility is to always do our best to care for their emotional wellbeing. So both of us need to sit down and talk to these children or both of us need to get our act together.

And if we're going to choose to stay together then for these children, then they deserve to see an environment where if we're going to have conflict, we repair it with respect. If we're going to be together, then do these children deserve to see two parents that are affectionate, that are kind, that are caring, that have respect for each other? What do we want to teach our children about how to be in relationships or what to tolerate?

And this is not a simple solution. This is solution that takes time, especially if you're working with a partner that's not going to be that easy to want to fix things for the kids or for the wellbeing of all of you in the house. But if you can't involve a partner or you have a partner that's not willing to talk to these children, then I would really be vulnerable enough yourself. And...

talk to your kids. When I separated from my husband, the first time my son was four, and when I had got back with my husband again when my son was eight, I was very vocal with my son, very vocal with what we were going through and how he was feeling and so attuned to what he needed. he was already unbelievably beautifully attuned to me.

That's why I'm saying you'd be really surprised that you think they're just children and they don't know. They know they see everything. They watch everything. They hear everything. So it was very powerful for me to always have my son as a best friend. He's 20. We have an 18 year age gap. So I've always felt very close to him. I've never felt far away from him or very,

over-parentifying him. I really always considered his feelings and even though he's 20, there's still, he's small little feelings for me. He's always going to be my baby. So I, my advice to you would be having gone through that and it really brought out my son's confidence to feel safe, to speak and to voice and to know that his emotions really mattered and had room.

And it's resulted in him really feeling very secure to speak and voice and talk and be very mature about how he feels. And I know I've taken a bit of time on this particular question, but it's because it's really important. So I'd love to hear back from you on the DMs and let me know how that's going.

How do I utilize my full potential? I feel like a bystander in my own life. You know, when do we not sometimes? I think this is a really powerful question because utilizing your full potential, first of all, means being able to see who you are, where you are, and what's going on in your life right now.

And I think to be able to honestly do that with a lot of kindness, I feel that there are different aspects of our lives we need to break down and work from those aspects. I would, you know, sort of, it can feel so overwhelming to turn around and say, you know, how do I use, utilize my full potential? I would break it down into segments of my life with

my full potential with myself emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically, my full potential with friends and family, my full potential with myself. I would write that down into a journal and say, okay, what's the most immediate place that needs my attention first? Is it my health? And I would pull health in straight away because I feel

For me, fitness, for me getting into a gym, for me lifting iron, for me pushing myself on a treadmill, for me pushing myself with weights, helps me know that there's always potential that needs to be lived up to. Because you're progressively overloading in a gym, which means you're always also progressively overloading in life. But you've got to start somewhere before you can hit your full potential.

and then realize I've saturated my potential here, but there's another unlocking of a place to grow. What I mean by that is, for example, when I got into the gym, I used to run 20 minutes and then I would get off the treadmill. One day my son came to me and he goes, mom, instead of running 20 minutes, why don't you just complete three kilometers? You're already doing

I think it was 2.30 kilometers in the 20 minutes. And then you stop. Why don't you have a goal? Why don't you, instead of running 20 minutes, why don't you have a goal of kilometers? Why don't you start running three kilometers and then being able to see, I could achieve that, and then push the kilometers to four and then to five. And it was the same thing as getting into the gym with starting to do weights with five.

kilos in each hand and then progressively being able to build that into, you know, 12 to 15 kilos eventually. And that's what I meant with progressively overloading. And I think that is the same with life. It's being able to start somewhere because you have infinite potential, but you've got to be able to also bring potential and focus together. They have to go hand in hand.

with what you are looking to achieve. If you're looking at your career, your potential is limitless, but being able to say, my career right now, am I at five kilos? And am I comfortable there? And I need to be able to progressively overload. So what's the 10 kilos in my career? Is it quitting? Is it asking for a promotion? Is it asking for a bonus? Is it asking for a raise?

Is it wanting to join a different department? Is it studying in the evenings? Is it completing my master's? Where can my potential be used in my career? Where can my potential be used in my fitness? Where can it be used in eating better and the discipline in my life with fitness, eating and bringing all of that together? Where's my potential being used right now in the podcasts I listen to, in what I consume on social media?

in how much I scroll on TikTok. Can I take all of that back and start to use it in reading books that I enjoy, not even just self help, but putting my mind into a different atmosphere, a different story, a different mode, a different creativity that could come out. You know, we only utilize full potential when we start to experience our potential.

And do we ever experience our potential if we're scared? Do we ever experience our potential if we're not listing the things that we're good at or failing at the things that we wanted to achieve and learning that potential means I make mistakes. Potential sometimes also is stagnation. Sometimes living out your full potential is

recognizing that I'm stagnant right now in my life because I'm healing emotionally so that I can grow my potential mentally to be able to do the things that I actually want to do. A lot of the times we think we need to be constantly going at everything, achieving everything. I personally think it is unbelievable to stop.

and pick one or two things that you're really good at right now that you can give your full attention to, that you can dedicate time to every single day. And you can grow on just that one or two things. would actually encourage you even on just one great thing and give it momentum and give it stride and let your confidence build in it. When I started podcasting again,

Do I feel I'm at my full potential? No. But have I started to enjoy and feel alive doing these podcasts and starting to recognize that I need to chain segments around and bring my own voice and my own spin. And it only comes from starting. I had taken a year and a half out from doing or being in this environment. I felt like my potential was zero when I began.

But it was just about starting, not getting it perfect, not getting it right. And then from there, being able to build it up to 15 episodes on audio and saying, now I'm ready to introduce video. And then from video, being able to say, what's my voice in this video space? What's my voice in the podcasting space? What's important to me? My potential, I want to use it to create community, to answer questions, to reach people like you.

But it all starts from somewhere. I don't think you just unlock full potential without failing, without trying, without uncertainty, without fear, without wondering, is this going anywhere or not? Without great days and bad days. I think all of that is what builds up potential beautifully for you.

I feel that if you feel like a bystander in your own life, there's probably somewhere you've got comfortable. You're comfortable being a bystander and it's safe. And sometimes not being a bystander means you have to take action. And action's scary, but I think if you can mold failure into being something amazing.

something delicious for yourself, something where you know if I fail, I'm still going. I don't care. Failure is not stopping me. know, fear is not stopping me. What's going to build my self-confidence is being able to do things that I didn't think that I could, but just starting to do all these things. But where am I comfortable right now? I'm comfortable with the story that I'm saying to myself that I'm a bystander.

Well, I mean, you know what? You've had a pretty damn good view about your life. Being a bystander, how amazing. You've seen a lot, but maybe it would require you as a bystander to sort of say, okay, it's time that I retire this role and I'd like to be in the driver's seat. And what's that going to feel like? That's terrifying, but I'm ready. I'm ready to get into the driver's seat and not know.

where my journey will end, but to be able to understand there are going to be thousands of stops along the way that I'm just going to embrace and do with joy and unlock different layers of my potential. It's like a game. Any game you play on your mobile phone, you're unlocking different levels before you can unlock the full potential of the game or ever even be done with the game. But it starts somewhere. So...

Maybe now would be a good time for you to get brave enough to get into the driver's seat and hold that steering wheel and understand it's your life. And you only get one shot at this. And there's something powerful about failing and making mistakes. And there's something powerful about not knowing and being exhausted and still getting out there and trying because there's only one you.

There's only one you that thinks the way you do, that communicates the way you do and has your energy. And I can guarantee you with 8 billion people on this planet, you can connect to millions of people that would appreciate what you have to offer this world. So when you get out of your own way and you start to serve others, then you're starting to really unlock your full potential.

Another delicious question. Why is it important to date yourself?

Ooh, I really like that. Why is it important to date yourself? I would say that when you can date yourself.

I'm so sorry, I have no idea why that question got me so emotional.

I would say because there's no shame in making yourself the center of your world.

We so often want to be the center of somebody else's world. We so often want other people to see us a certain way because we see ourselves that way, but we want someone to validate how we see ourselves. And I think it's really important to date yourself so that when friends or intimate people or loved ones come into your life,

You know what feels right and doesn't feel right.

And I think when you can put yourself on a very humble pedestal to make yourself a priority, to make yourself number one, to be the best in your health, to be the best in your discipline, to show up for yourself every single day, to show up at the best level you can on a daily basis and know that you have made yourself a priority mentally. You invested in yourself with a podcast, with learning

something with your health, you were disciplined enough to move, get into the gym, to eat correctly, to not have the chocolate bar, to not indulge in the sugar. When you make yourself the unbelievable priority to spiritually connect with God, to put yourself first.

Sorry, would say that question choked me up. When you put yourself first spiritually with God, when you put yourself first emotionally by journaling, checking in on yourself, asking yourself, am I comfortable with the people in my life? Am I comfortable with who I surround myself with? Am I happy in my job and my career? Am I happy in university? Am I happy in school?

I don't think anybody ever teaches us that it is not selfish to doubt on yourself and love yourself. It is actually self-full because when you make yourself the highest priority in your life, you will then be full enough to give other people around you.

You will not be depleted. You will not be exhausted. You will not be resentful, waiting for other people to fill you up so that you can give to other people. And there's a deliciousness in giving and having empathy and that energy coming back to fill you up again. So I would say it's really important to date yourself because

No one can validate you like you can validate yourself. No one can see what you go through and the pain you go through in life like you go through it yourself. No one will ever take the time out unless they're your mom. No one will ever take the time out in life to make you a priority. No one's life will come to an absolute standstill unless it's your mom.

to love on you and protect you and take care of you. And you know what? I'm also saying like, unless it's your mom, but to be real, there are tough relationships with mothers these days as well where a lot of the times our mom's lives didn't come to a full halt for.

a lot of our needs. And you know what, maybe if they learned how to date themselves better, and make themselves a priority, and fill themselves up, I wonder what else they would have had to give. I think we're in a society where we are born to at some point immediately wear masks to fit into a world for other people. And then we are born in a world where

You're not taught to see yourself. You're not taught to love the parts of you that fail. You're not taught to accept mistakes are inevitable and normal. And you're taught to always be looking externally, outward. I think dating yourself is getting to know your soul.

is getting to know who you really are, if life is pulling you, or if you're choosing to walk down its path. And if you have the time for yourself to do things that are important to keep you whole, then you are going to be in a place where you can really be of service to other people. And

help heal other people because you are such a priority in your life. And I don't think there's a shame in that. I would say I've started to date myself at 39. And I would have thought from 38 and prior to all those years, dating yourself was selfish. And

I think that the more you fall in love with who you are, the more your juices, creativity, personality and gifts come out. And I think when you can pull those things out of yourself, then you can fill other people in a beautiful way without expecting that energy to come back to you, but hoping that energy can spread outward to people that really need it. So.

That's actually a really powerfully beautiful question that I think I will be journaling tonight as well. How can I adopt or maintain a positive outlook on life in dark moments? I think sometimes you don't have to always maintain a positive outlook in life. I think

Having resilience in dark moments in life is really important. I think dark moments in life, personally for me, call for faith and faith in God. Faith in knowing there's a greater purpose that knows you have the strength to be in a dark moment because God is trying to get you to light up yourself from within.

It's an awakening for you in this moment. And I don't think anything beautiful ever grows only in the light. I think in the light is when you come to be seen, but I think in darkness is when you are planted.

And I feel that in your dark moments, if you are planting many different seeds in your life, because you're to have so many different dark moments, then along your journey, all those different seeds grow at different times.

And that's your resilience. And that's when you rely upon yourself and your different gifts that come to fruitation along the way. The strength, the resilience, the ability to stop in life and pause, the ability to feel sadness, the ability to be confused, the ability to not know, the ability to sit in discomfort and uncertainty, but have faith in all those moments.

How do you adopt and maintain a positive outlook? I don't think it's always about staying positive. I think it's about having faith and going through uncertainty together, marrying those two, and then being able to say that, I know if I have faith in God,

then whatever God knows I need to go through, He's already given me the tools within myself to research, to search out externally for, to learn in podcasts. You know what I love about something like that is when you look at squirrels and the fact that they

bury these seeds and nuts into the ground for the harder days, the darker days. They invest in themselves. They think about the future. And I think a lot of the times in dark moments, if you can keep planting different parts of yourself with different tools.

You will inevitably have enough to sustain you through whatever it is you're going through. And I also feel, I think darkness is actually really powerful because I think only in darkness do you really start to see truth. Truth about yourself, truth about how you behave, truth about how you treat people in those dark moments, truth about how you treat yourself.

And I feel dark moments are a calling for you to illuminate your soul. And what does your soul have to whisper and say to you? Dark moments is where wisdom is born and wisdom can only be heard in silence. So darkness and silence give you a very powerful intuition and guidance on how to get through life's journey.

I wouldn't run from dark moments anymore. think dark moments have been my best friend in the last year and a half. My dark moments have built muscles no one can see externally. They have opened up my heart and tenderized my heart towards people that

I could only see in darkness because in the light maybe they were, maybe in the light I was seeing them more harshly and cruelly, but maybe in the darkness I'm seeing them more openly. And if you are watching this episode, my beautiful

sun is calling me. So it's pretty amazing. I'm talking about darkness because he's very much the light in my heart and my soul and my compass in life. So I hope that answered that for you. I did not want to keep this episode particularly long, but I have another question from someone that says,

What is the personal voice in my head? Where does it come from? Is this voice my soul? Should I always trust it? Ooh, this is powerful. What is the personal voice in my head? Where does it come from? ⁓

Is this voice my soul? Clearly you already understand this voice in your head. When you're in your head, you're dead is your soul. And that's why you're not comfortable with this voice at this point in juncture in your life. Just being in your head. You've probably been in your head for such a long time. You must be exhausted. You must be tired leading with logic. You must be

exhausted trying to fill the world with solutions and endlessly fix everything. I wonder if this point in your life, life is calling the voice of your soul to speak and should you trust it? Absolutely. Of course you should trust the voice of your soul. And if you've always lived in your head, this can feel so scary. It's scary to trust.

your intuition. It's scary to have another part of yourself guide you. It's like a muscle. The voice in your head, you've like built that muscle strong and you can rely on it. It's got you so far. ⁓

It's probably not allow you to connect a lot in your life. It's probably not allow you to have a lot of the deeper relationships you ever want because the head is always conflict mind. It's always protecting or rescuing or saving, but it's never really indulging in love and the juices of life, but your soul.

Your soul will sing. Your soul is now begging for a voice, for room. And I'm wondering what you've gone through in your life that's saying, I cannot operate from my mind anymore. I need to hear the voice of my soul. What if I synchronize the voice of my soul with the voice of my heart? What if I started to lead with my heart?

Who lives in my heart? What shape does my heart take? What sound does my heart make? What's the name I can give this voice in my heart? What's the name I can give the voice of my soul? What does it look like? Is it energy that flows? Does it look like a person? What sounds do both of these parts of myself make?

And I wonder if I allow my mind to rest what my soul and my heart could start to create around me that my mind has probably put barriers on. And I would always trust your gut. It never lies. And very often when you've learned to live in your mind,

You will always trust your gut, listen to your voice, but you will logically change the voice of the soul and the voice of the heart because you've not allowed that muscle to speak, to win, to guide you. And when you are someone that lives with intuition, your intuition almost joins together with God and it becomes very powerful.

I almost feel sometimes like it's almost like you're cracking out of a shell that you've been in for such a long time and you're done being in that claustrophobic environment or you're in a place in your life you want to stretch your wings now you've walked enough and you can only fly when you can trust your intuition and your heart to guide you to allow you to glide life.

Logic will probably get you to hop from A to Z. I wonder also if all three parts of you integrated and were no longer in conflict, whereas in you trusted your mind, but you also allow your heart to guide your mind and allow your mind to feel safe again with the newer person in charge.

And if your heart is guiding means your awakening to the truth of who you are, whatever metamorphosis is you're going through, you're coming into light and you're coming into being and you're coming to see yourself. So I would name those two parts of myself and I would really pay attention to when my mind is saying something and when my heart or my soul is speaking instead.

And I rather be rejected and let down in life, trusting my heart and my soul than be rejected because I went along with what my mind had to say. I love that question. Really, really powerful.

As a healed avoidant, should I work and progress? What joys and freedom can I expect on the other side? Connection. As an avoidant, you keep healing, you keep progressing. What are you going to expect on the other side? You're going to expect connection from people.

You can expect people to open up to you. You can expect people to flood themselves to you. You can expect authenticity because you start to be really authentic and vulnerable with yourself. And vulnerability is this unbelievable power of saying, whether you hurt me or you don't, vulnerability is not going to be taken away from me. It's my essence. It's where I sit. It's who I'm going to be.

And when you move and heal as an avoidant, you move out of ego, out of protection, out of the mind, and you allow yourself to be seen in relationships, to love in relationships, to be rejected in relationships. Avoidance, always find the safest way to not be hurt. And we can never guarantee our hearts will never be hurt.

But we can always guarantee that if we connect to people, especially ourselves, then we'll start to make our circle smaller with the people that want to be in our lives and want to see us and want to be loved by us. So I absolutely really love that question. What can you expect? You can expect...

the most unbelievably beautiful, passionate, vulnerable, naked connection with yourself and your intimate loved ones. Love that.

As an avoidant, do I need a coach to help me see and improve? Absolutely. I would say it is always amazing to have someone handhold you, guide you, and definitely finding a coach or a therapist that isn't going to villainize you and make you feel wrong for having this attachment style. This attachment style is not permanent. It's just a blueprint you've used to protect yourself.

If you get the right guidance and the right help, or you can't even afford it and you just start with listening to podcasts and YouTubes and sign to learn more about yourself. I think you can guide yourself into freedom and being able to at least first connect with yourself because you've never really done that as an avoidant and then eventually be able to connect with others. But I would say it's always amazing to have someone guide you and handhold you and create space for you.

especially in the beginning when you've not really learned to ever do that for yourself. That's naturally why, obviously it's very hard for you to do with an intimate one in your life.

So I'm gonna do the last question. I have absolutely enjoyed doing this again. And I think I'm probably gonna do this every single Thursday. And I think if we can life better our questions and learn from them, it's gonna be pretty interesting. So.

The last question I'm going to take is.

Why as an avoidant in any personal discussion, there is a suspicion and interpretation that what is being discussed is a personal attack on me. look, a lot of the times when we hold a lot of secrets and sometimes we've cultivated our lives around a lot of lies to be able to protect yourself and other people around you.

you can tend to feel that when people are talking, you feel very protected on what you've had to protect. So if someone's talking, you're not feeling as free and open to just flow with the conversation and know that there are no skeletons in your closet that you have to maintain and you have to protect.

As an avoidant, a lot of the times you are terrified of criticism, you are terrified of not being perfect, you're terrified of someone not maintaining you upon a pedestal, you're terrified that what if I fail and somebody does not love me for who I really am, which is a human being that makes mistakes and is just figuring life out and going through life.

I would say, does that suspicion come because you feel there things inside of you that you have to hide? Because unless something is going on within you, would you project it externally on somebody else or on conversations that are happening? And would you feel that, my God, someone is seeing me or going to see me or going to catch me?

So I would come back into myself and say, in any personal discussion, I would start to get vulnerable and say, wait, this is how I'm feeling. I'm feeling like you are suspecting me or whatever we're discussing right now is feeling like a personal attack on me. I'm trying to heal my void and attachment. Could I ask you a question, please?

Are you attacking me? Are you passing a message? Are you being passive aggressive or is this really my ego protecting me right now? Is this really a story I've learned to say to myself to prevent intimate conversations like this? Because conversations like this bring out connection and bring out me having to be seen and me having to see you. So it's really you feeling very uncomfortable with

sort of diving into that and having someone see you. So I would ask the other person if they say, ⁓ no, absolutely not. I'm just sort of thinking, talking. I'm not attacking you at all. Then I would turn around and say, wow, okay, that this is unbelievable that I feel everything's a personal attack. What do I feel people are trying to attack about me? And what do I attack about myself? What parts of myself are so hidden that

I don't allow myself to go within and see as somebody that's avoidant. And me thinking everything's a personal attack is always trying to keep people out. So if they're not trying to attack me, then that means I have to invest in the conversation and be vulnerable and open up.

You probably, number one, feel they could be a suspicion because I've worked with a lot of avoidance that say that they are very deep secrets that they hold and they're terrified of someone else figuring out and finding out. And I feel when your conscience is clear with all that muck, then naturally the word suspicion doesn't show up for you because that's not what's going on in your internal world. So it's naturally not going to be something you pick up on an external.

you know, conversation or in your external world. And in terms of you feeling things are personal attack.

on you, I would wonder how much you attack yourself as an avoidant. How much of your voice is already so critical and so demeaning of where you are in your life? And I would challenge you to start being kinder, softer, and more loving to yourself. And I would also challenge you to see where people are soft, kind, and loving to you. And you've just completely deflected those moments. You don't allow yourself to be seen.

in that sort of a vulnerable light. I have loved.

answering all of your questions and I know that they are so many more and I will continue to collect more of these and answer these for you on Thursdays if this is the kind of episode that you would enjoy and love and maybe even next Thursday I'd answer two to three and make the episode shorter but thank you so much for sending in the amount of questions that you did and don't forget this episode drops every Thursday do not forget

Monday is all about loving better and you know what I think if we start to answer some of these powerful questions and open ourselves up to the vulnerability of life then we start to inevitably date ourselves better, love ourselves better, put ourselves first and then we can love others better.

Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of Love Better. And until Monday, I have loved being your host. This is Shazam Bank and you know that you can bank on me.