Hello there and welcome to this episode of The Terri Cole Show.
I wanna start with a question: in your relationship, are you walking on eggshells?
Do you worry that something you say might set the other person off?
Are you extra careful with anything that you need to talk to them about to make sure that
it's not going to upset them?
Well, if you are nodding your head, then this episode, my friend, is for you because I'm
going to be giving you the symptoms of what it looks like and what it sounds like and
what it feels like to be walking on eggshells.
And then I'm gonna give you some ideas of things that you can do instead of walking
on eggshells.
So before we get started, if you happen to be new to my channel, please introduce yourself
in the comments cuz we are a friendly group.
And say hello cuz we would like to say hello.
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If you don't know me, if you are new here, my name is Terri Cole, I'm a licensed psychotherapist,
a relationship expert and the author of Boundary Boss, which you can get at boundarybossbook.com.
And I wanna say thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your questions and your comments.
I appreciate them so much and I love to highlight them.
So today I'm highlighting a comment from Aspasia Holley under the episode Five Powerful Self-Love
Practices for When You Feel Unworthy.
"I love this.
Thank you.
Just because you can do it doesn't mean you it's yours to do.
Such a powerful statement.
I'm in the process of discerning what is mine to do, not just as an act of self-care, but
also as an alignment to the greater good.
'I do only what is mine to do' is now my mantra.
It helps with overwhelm too.
Beautiful message, sending love and gratitude."
Well, I am sending love and gratitude right back at you Aspasia, thank you so much for
being here and being a part of our crew.
We appreciate you.
All right, let's move it on into today's episode.
Let's just talk about walking on eggshells.
What does it mean?
We all have heard this super duper common phrase used out there in the world plenty.
So what does it actually mean?
Well, it means that you are not comfortable in your own skin, right?
It means that you are hyper-vigilant, you are looking for signs that there's a problem.
And it may just be with one person.
It could just be in your romantic relationship.
It could be with a parent.
It doesn't have to be with just a romantic relationship.
But I find in my therapeutic practice that it most commonly is with a partner.
The thing with walking on eggshells is that a lot of times other people don't see it.
It's such an internal experience when you're walking on eggshells and it feels so uncomfortable.
It's basically, in a low key way, living in fear.
So if we were to juxtaposition the different feeling states...
When you are in a relationship that is the other person has mood swings or is erratic
or is quick to anger or you're not sure what you're gonna get, that creates the conditions
for walking on eggshells.
In a healthy relationship, you know how your person's gonna be.
I was literally just talking about this with Vic the other day, that part of what works
for us, my husband of 25 years, is that no matter what's happening, even if something's
bad, even if we're struggling, even if there's a family crisis or whatever's going on, I
can count on him to be who I know him to be and vice versa.
He's not going to just suddenly be mean to me or cold or rejecting or condescending because
that's not how we interact with each other.
But if he did, it would be very devastating to me.
It would be very startling to me.
So it's kind of like in a healthy relationship, if something happens, you can talk about it.
If one person makes a mistake, if the other person makes a mistake, you can bring it up.
And it doesn't mean- in a healthy relationship, that's not to say you never have disagreements
or that you're never in a situation where you are annoyed or upset, but it's not a consistent
state where one person feels like they're consistently on the lookout to avoid setting
off the other person.
So that is the walking on eggshells.
Let's look at what does it actually mean to you if you're experiencing this?
So it could be that you are just waiting for the other shoe to drop all the time.
It might look like waking up and feeling just fine and then sort of having the crushing
sensation or that feeling of dread of like, I wonder what it's gonna be today that's going
to make my partner mad at me or annoyed or just getting angry sort of at the slightest
thing.
And there's a lack of consistency in their mood.
So it isn't like, oh, good, my partner's in a good mood.
We're all happy when the person that we're partnered with is in a good mood.
But if you're like, overly relieved that they're in a good mood, you wanna look at that.
Like why are you used to them being in a bad mood?
But if you are in a relationship where that person's mood is up and down, them being happy
doesn't necessarily make you feel that secure for that long because the whole point of walking
eggshells is that it could change at any moment.
It could shift into them making a snide comment being mean, being condescending.
So one person is always on this unstable ground.
If you're on the receiving end of that, you always feel like there's no solid ground underneath
your feet.
There's nothing that you can sort of count on with the other person.
You know, there's a lot of reasons why people are like this.
So let's actually just look at some of the signs and symptoms of walking on eggshells.
Like, what are you experiencing that causes you to do this?
Well, first of all, are you afraid of your partner?
These are questions you're gonna ask yourself.
Do you have less confidence because your person is putting you down all the time?
Are you in situations with your partner where they don't take responsibility for their mistakes
or any pain that they've caused you in the relationship?
Does your partner rarely apologize for outbursts or saying mean things to you?
Are there physical ramifications or is there actual physical abuse happening in the relationship?
Do you know that the people in your life know that you're walking on eggshells with your
person, that they've observed the way that your person shoots you a look or is curt to
you, says something kind of mean to you?
And if you're in a relationship like this, any kind of angry outbursts, right?
If you have something to say to the other person, first of all, you'd probably be too
afraid to say it, but if they have a complaint, it's amplified.
Almost like exaggerating how bad it is.
And you're used to, it's like an everyday occurrence where you're going back and forth
where there's some kind of a problem,
there's some kind of an issue, there's some kind of conflict every single day.
And walking on eggshells, probably one of the biggest signs is that you are literally
afraid, right?
Because your partner gets pissed off at stuff, you don't even know what's gonna make them
mad, but it's like they're easily provoked to anger.
Sometimes this can happen if you're driving in a car and they're road raging it up, even
though you've said it makes you uncomfortable, even though you've asked them to slow down
or to not do that, they're going off.
And then they can even turn that into more of an argument by saying, "oh, so you think
that that other person is right and I'm wrong?"
And keep in mind, of course, anyone who is behaving in a road rage way while you are
captive in the car, that is really abusive, right?
And a lot of what I'm describing is we're really talking about abuse.
And listen, there are other things.
So let's talk about what other things could create this desire to walk on eggshells.
Sometimes it's our past experiences.
So in the guide I'm gonna give you, just go to terricole.com/guide, I'll give you a couple
of blueprint questions to see if this is learned behavior, because sometimes we'll walk on
eggshells in relationships because of past experiences, not because of our present experience
with our person.
It's like we're trained to do that.
We've learned - this is habituated behavior and it's really important for you to understand
where is it coming from for you, right?
Sometimes it's a past relationship that we were really traumatized in and we may be in
a current relationship constantly checking to make sure we don't need to be walking on
eggshells, which kind of makes us walk on eggshells with the person who didn't do the
harm to us.
You know, there's a saying, it's like a meme online, which is like, you have to deal with
your past injuries or you end up bleeding all over the people who didn't actually cut
you.
I'm sure I butchered it.
You guys know what I'm talking about.
You get what I'm saying.
It's important though, for you to be honest.
I hope that this episode just inspires you to be honest with the way you feel.
And probably the easiest, fastest question to answer is, am I afraid of my partner?
We all have a desire to protect our people.
We all have a desire to not disappoint our people, but that's not the same as actually
being afraid.
Now, I've been in relationships where I had emotional fear of my partner because they
were jealous, because they were very possessive, because the relationship was very codependent.
Now in that situation, and I was in my twenties, but there was a mutuality even though I wasn't
jealous and possessive.
But I had my 50% of what was going on in that relationship because I was being co-dependent
with that person.
But I did have fear.
And I remember when I ended that relationship in just a terrible way, cuz I just didn't
know any good way to get out of it.
A codependent relationship is really hard to leave.
So I just left any way that I could, which was literally at like two in the morning.
I like borrowed $10 from him to take a cab to my sister's.
Like, not my proudest moment, but I had to go while I still had the courage to go.
One thing I said to myself after that relationship is never again, never again will I be in a
relationship with someone that I fear.
And I kept to that in my life.
And I was only in my early twenties and I didn't get together with Vic until I was like
in my early thirties.
And I had other relationships, but I never ever feared them again.
So to me that was a very important line, that was a boundary, an internal boundary for me
that I would not get myself into that situation.
And of course there is a repetition.
If I were looking at my own blueprint, what would I say?
My sisters and I, including my mother, were all afraid of my father.
So did I walk on eggshells in my childhood?
I sure did.
And just afraid of his disapproval.
He wasn't physically abusive, he just wasn't present.
And when he was, we were all uncomfortable and wanted to just get away and just not do
anything to create his disapproval.
And I'm sure many of you have similar experiences in your life.
So if this is you, what can you do?
Well, you're gonna do the questions, the blueprint questions first and the other questions as
well.
But let's start with the blueprint questions because you wanna understand sort of what
you're bringing to the party, then go through a quick assessment.
You know, it's a little inventory that I'm giving you the questions you can ask yourself
about your current relationship, if this resonates with you, to see how many of these things
are you actually suffering with right now in your relationship.
And then you have choices to make.
Talk about it with people because a lot of times we don't because we know, I knew the
people in my life knew that I was in this relationship that was isolating me and whatever,
but I felt so loyal to the guy, I didn't wanna talk about it with other people cuz then I
was afraid they were gonna expect me to leave and I wasn't ready to leave.
It was like a whole thing, you know?
So part of it is find a trusted other, or a therapist who you can talk to about how
you're really feeling about what's really going on because I promise you, you deserve
a life better than walking on eggshells every day.
It is so bad for your nervous system, it is so exhausting, but there's no joy there.
You can't live in joy and be afraid all the time.
And you might be so conditioned to what you're experiencing that you don't even recognize
it as the problem that it actually is.
If you think it's possible to talk to your partner about it, if it's safe, right?
Listen, if you're in an abusive relationship, I will give you the link, I created a whole
guide for you to safely leave an abusive relationship.
So if you're in that situation where someone is violent with you, don't do anything that's
gonna set them off, go watch that other video that I created for you because there's literally
not one thing that is more important than your safety.
You have to make sure that what you're doing is not putting you in an unsafe situation,
but if you feel like it's possible that your partner is unaware of how you feel and you
don't feel so afraid that you're afraid to even have the conversation, perhaps when you're
not fighting at all, you can have a neutral conversation about what you're noticing.
"I'm noticing that I'm walking on eggshells a lot and I wanted to talk about it.
I'm not blaming you that I'm walking on eggshells.
I just want us to be able to have a conversation and I wanna share with you the things that
make me feel like I need to, and perhaps it's coming from this or it's coming from that."
See if it's possible and really get in therapy because I have to say therapy is a gift that
you can give yourself if you can afford to.
I also have a whole list of free resources online, and so we'll give you that link as
well because here's the thing, you guys, this is your one and only life.
You deserve to feel liberated.
You deserve to live out loud, to live fully.
And when we're in relationships where we feel compelled to walk on eggshells, whether it's
because of our past experiences, because of our downloaded blueprint or because of what's
actually going on right now, you are not living the life that you're meant to live.
And I so want you to because you deserve to feel loved and safe and happy, abundant, joyful,
all of those things.
So I hope that this episode added value to your life.
I would love to know what you think about it.
So please drop me questions and comments in all the places.
You know that I mostly hang out on Instagram.
So if you listen to the show, please drop it in your stories, share it with other people
so that we can uplift as many people on planet earth as we possibly can.
What do we wanna do?
We want to increase joy and decrease suffering.
So I just wanna say thank you, thank you, thank you for spending time with me today
and as always, take care of you.