What Happens When the Family Secret Blows Up Your World?

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[00:00:45] Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Gut Punch podcast. My name is Kathryn Lancioni, and I'm your host for today's episode. Today, we are joined by Kathryn Lancioni, who is a relationship coach for high-achieving, high-performing individuals. And she is based on the West Coast of North America, and she is graciously blessing us with her presence today. And I truly, truly mean that. I'm delighted to have you on the show. So, Katerina, why don't you take a few minutes to introduce yourself?

[00:01:16] Yeah, and thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited to be here. So, my name is Katerina, and I work with a lot of high performers on their relationships, both personal and professional. They're really focusing on the personal. And what I help with is three things. Helping high-performing singles find love. Helping high-performing married professionals either fix a relationship if they want to stay within it, or discern if it's actually the time to leave.

[00:01:44] So, that question of do I stay or do I go is one of the biggest areas that I work with. And within that question are often other questions around maybe there's another person involved. Maybe there's a history of a lot of resentment or a lot of conflict or even abuse.

[00:02:01] So, there's these different pieces that bubble up in these three buckets, and I work across all three of them. And before this, I worked in the realm of behavioral science. I actually got my first coaching qualification in 2007. So, I've grown up in this world for a long time, but really took it full-time coming up to four years ago.

[00:02:21] Okay. Yeah, and I think, you know, it's almost 20 years in the space. You know, you've seen how people and society has evolved. And I would think that with the influence of social media, your work has become even more and more interesting. Because people have distractions they did not have decades ago. And that has impacted your work as well.

[00:02:42] Yeah, 100%. And to the topic of connection and disconnection, it's become both easier to connect, right, emotionally across, you know, online spaces, but easier to disconnect physically at home, right? Because, you know, you have the couple, and I have so many couples I work with like this who are sat on the couch every evening, TV on, dinner, and you're both on your phones, right?

[00:03:08] I actually called my husband and I doing that the other day. I was like, no, no! Put the phone down! We are not doing this! You can't be the stereotype! You're not allowed to do that! No! No! Oh, that's so funny. Well, yeah, people, the way it's been described to me is that, you know, you do things that are kind of like in parallel. So, you know, you sit there, you make dinner, you sit there and watch TV. Probably you don't talk because you're watching what's on the news or TV. And then, you know, you clean up. One person's doing one thing. One person's doing the other.

[00:03:34] You both go sit on the couch to watch the show, and you're not talking. You're just like looking down or maybe possibly looking up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want to get to that a little bit later. But first, I would love for you to share to us kind of how you got to this point. What was that gut punch moment that was a catalyst for all your work?

[00:03:55] Yeah. The gut punch moment is also coming up to about 20 years ago. And that was my father calling me at work. I remember it was about 5 p.m. And I was in London. My dad used to live abroad for work. He was very much the breadwinner and always providing and traveling around. And I didn't even know he was in the UK. It was quite interesting.

[00:04:16] And I remember him calling me at 5 p.m. and telling me that he needed to see me. And it was very much out of the blue. I was busy, you know, I was working for a high-end champagne company, having the time of my life. It was a tiny team. And I was actually hooking up with my manager, having a great time with him. He became my boyfriend. Really living your best life with lots of champagne and then the romance. Yes.

[00:04:40] It was fantastic. And, you know, I was in my 20s. And anyhow, and he called me and my first thought was like, the cat's died. Because we had a cat and the cat was 23 years old and I was expecting him to pass any point. So I was like, the cat's died. Oh my God. And, you know, and I told my dad, I was like, Pushkin's dead. And my dad was like, no, Pushkin's actually okay. And my dad told me, he goes, and my dad's crying. He says, you know, I'm leaving your mother.

[00:05:03] And I remember the gut punch moment, you know, that feeling of my stomach dropping. And I started shaking. And I remember I was at my desk and I'm in an open office, right? It's a small office, but it's an open office. And I got up and I went into the hallway and I asked him, you know, what's happened? Is there somebody else? And he said, no, no, no, there's no one else. It's just, I'm not happy. I've not been happy for a long time. He's crying. He's like, I'm sorry. Wow.

[00:05:28] I want to see you. And interestingly, my boundary at the time was like, no, I'm not available for you to see me, even though I actually was available. There's something in me. I was like, no, I don't want to do this in person. And I said, no, I'm busy. And I remember just sitting there and crying as well and telling him, the first thing that came to my head was, I want you to be happy because I know you've not been happy for a very long time.

[00:05:53] And I knew he'd been unhappy for a very, very long time, you know, 10 years or so. And I remember my now ex came out, but my manager came out and his parents had also separated about a year prior. And so I remember he began crying because he guessed what was happening. And we were just sat on the stairs and he was kind of reliving his pain. And I was hysterical. And at that point, I remember actually the CEO of the company came out and saw me like in the arms of my manager sobbing.

[00:06:23] He's crying. He's like, what happened? Yeah. And I went home and I went home in a complete state of shock. And I remember so vividly sitting down in my little studio apartment in London, opening my laptop. And the first thing that I did, because I'm again, high performer in overdrive. The first thing I did was I Googled what to do as an adult child when your parents are getting divorced. Wow.

[00:06:47] Because I wanted to know, like, what does this mean for me? I'm an adult now, you know, granted, I was 22. I wasn't a kid, but I was like, what does this mean for me? Because this is a different setup. Yes. I remember calling my mom and my mom was essentially in hiding out of her friend's house. And, you know, she was hysterical. My mom's saying, there's another woman. He's met someone else. And I'm like, no, no, no. Dad will never do that. Dad will never do that. And I'm defending him. And she's like, you're so naive. Of course it's another woman. And she's, you know, she's having a baby. And I'm like, no, no, surely not. Surely not.

[00:07:13] But anyhow, that whole evening at home, I spent researching what are my responsibilities as the adult child? What does this mean for me? And educating myself. Like, what does divorce look like? What does this mean financially? What does this mean for mom and dad in the future? And I was in like, overdrive of intellectualizing the problem. And the whole few months after that were a blur of, first of all, finding out that there was indeed another woman. And my dad did. Oh, there was. Okay.

[00:07:42] There was another woman. I found out through Facebook. Oh, no. Because a picture, this is, I mean, it's actually wild, but a picture popped up of my dad with this woman and holding a baby. And I was like, who is that? Hold on. So your mother was right. My mother was right. Yeah. Yeah. I remember confronting my dad. My dad like lied about it. And I was like, dad, I have a picture in front of me. Like, you know, and then he admitted and he cried. And, you know, all the shame coming from him was really palpable.

[00:08:12] And that whole, the first few months after that, I was in a state of shock and numbness. I fully blacked out at certain points. I remember just like fully blacking out. And bless my ex, you know, because he had lived through it. His mission was to make me as happy and comfortable in that time as possible. And what actually happened was I ended up leaving England. I ended up leaving London because I was like, I'm out. I don't want to be in this country right now.

[00:08:33] And I moved to Spain and I started a business and I basically threw myself into entrepreneurship and doing. And, and, and again, in that timeframe, my mother fell apart.

[00:08:43] She definitely drank far too much. You know, I'm not going to say alcoholic, but I mean, it was borderline. My brother became angrier than I've ever seen him. My brother's 10 years older. My father was riddled with shame. And the thing, the thoughts in my head were, I'm young and I want to marry and have a family. I cannot develop daddy issues. I have to heal my relationship. I have to forgive, I have to forgive, forgive, forgive. I was hell bent on that.

[00:09:10] And number two, I have to prevent my parents from falling apart because they were both started leaning on me. And it was so interesting how my mother had suddenly no one to help her with finances, with a house, with more, you know, all the big questions. And my dad didn't have anyone to really connect with the family because my mother and brother cut him out.

[00:09:30] So I fell into this middleman position where I basically started mediating my mother and my father. And I'm in Spain building this company, not speaking language. And I was a nervous wreck. I mean, I was, you know, I was rock bottom. There was, I remember one night where I was trying to reach out to my best friend at the time asking for help. And she was just like, dude, I can't help you. Like I'm out of my depth here.

[00:09:55] And I had that feeling of, you know, kind of suicidal thoughts. I didn't do anything, but the thoughts hit my head and I was like, I don't know if I can do this anymore. My mother would come and visit me in Spain. She would drink. She would, again, be very volatile. And it was a very, it was a very fluctuating relationship of angry at me that I'm still talking to my father and that I haven't cut him out.

[00:10:16] But then wanting me to give her the inside scoop on what's happening with him and helping her with the finances and helping her like figure out the logistics of all of this. Meanwhile, my father would be in the same position and everyone was leaning on me. It really felt like everyone was leaning on me.

[00:10:30] And in the end, as I got to know what was happening on a legal front, what my mother's lawyer was saying, what my father's lawyer was saying, I ended up basically mediating it myself, going between the two of them and essentially like positively manipulating them, right? To not kill each other, to not end this in an awful way.

[00:10:51] And they managed to do all of that. The divorce is actually, I mean, I wouldn't say amicable, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But there was a point where I had my nervous breakdown. I couldn't handle it anymore. And I remember calling my father and being like, I really need help. I need help. My mother didn't really understand therapy. I'd already, and we'll talk about this, I guess, in a bit, but I'd already had mental health issues. And that was the point where my dad was like, you know, talk to this woman called Marcy Shimoff. She's a New York Times bestseller on happiness.

[00:11:18] Maybe she'll help you be happy. And that led me to doing a thing called the Hoffman process and going on this journey of personal growth. But ultimately, I was single for six years after that. I developed serious anxious attachment. Like I became mega anxious after that. My brother actually never really recovered. I don't think my mother ever fully recovered. My dad has recovered. My dad, I think he's living a good life now and he's happy and he's still with her and they have her family together.

[00:11:46] But it took a lot of growth. And the final thing I'll say about all of this is that, you know, when I look back at those 10 years and my brother looks back at those 10 years, the betrayal wound in my brother of, well, dad was lying to us this whole time. He's never recovered from that. He has trust issues like there's no tomorrow.

[00:12:06] And for me, when I look back at those 10 years, I'm like, well, I had anorexia from like 15 years old. I had all these abandonment issues, right? Where dad was abroad and he's working and I never really knew where they came from because my dad was always a good dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:12:21] Yes, he'd be traveling Monday to Thursday, but like a McKinsey consultant, he'd come back for the weekends or come back once a month. You know, he was a good dad. We had a good relationship. But I remember there was a point when I was 11 years old where I had this looming dread that I think my mom and dad are going to get divorced. I think something's off. Was there something that triggered that? Like, was there one incident then or was just a feeling?

[00:12:48] The truth is that they never argued. They never argued. They were very, I mean, both my parents were quite avoidant. They were very, you know, dad would come back from wherever he was living at the time. He lived in many interesting places and he'd come back and we'd be happy families, you know? And it was like this kind of, it's so interesting because my ex, my different boyfriend, the one who I was with throughout my university years,

[00:13:15] one of the first things I did when I found out about the divorce is I actually called his parents because he had the most idyllic nuclear family I'd never met. It was like everything I dreamed of. Actually, my hair's on end even talking about it. It was, you know, they lived in the south of England. They had this beautiful big house, country house. His mother and father was so in love and they lived in the same place and they had a sister and they were so secure and so loving.

[00:13:39] And I remember actually when I was in their house and I was dating him, getting very emotional and calling my mother one night and saying to her, how do you live with dad being abroad all the time? Yeah. Like, how do you not miss this? And, you know, my mom was crying and she said, well, I'm grateful for what I have with him. He's a good provider. He's a good man. I'm not going to rock the boat. And one day you'll learn to not rock the boat too. And you'll learn to be grateful for what you have.

[00:14:01] And so there was this kind of elephant in the room that I think my friends felt, my ex felt, my ex's family felt that the Polonski family are on the surface, perfect. Yes. Great, great. We were a nuclear family, right? And we lived in a lovely middle-class neighborhood and I went to a great school. It all looked great for me outside.

[00:14:21] Everything was great. Yeah. But the son's a little bit depressed. Daughter's definitely got a bit of an eating disorder. You know, husband is never home. Something's a little bit off, but they seem fine. And so all of that has now led me, interestingly enough, to be working in the realm of relationships. And, you know, I ended up calling off my own engagement, having a lot of experience with infidelity and disconnect and high-performing couples.

[00:14:46] Both my parents are extreme high-performers who actually put their careers first. When I look at, you know, the disconnect, they're both very ambitious. They both are still working and they're both 70. And making one very firm belief, and the data does back it up, is that do not stay together for the sake of the kids. Do not play happy families for the sake of the kids.

[00:15:07] The kids will feel it. They're intelligent little beings, and it will leave its imprint on them. Do the honest thing with integrity. And if you're not happy, deal with that. Right? Deal with it. Address the elephant in the room. Don't let it be there. Yeah. Well, the other thing to your point is that, and the data shows this, and from my own work that I do, like, arguing is good. Yes. You know, disagreements are good. Disagreements are healthy. Yeah.

[00:15:37] Because no one lives in the perfect world. No. And, you know, what you're saying is like this happy-go-lucky environment where the parents never argue. That's probably one of the worst things for kids because everyone knows there's stuff that comes up. Totally. If you're not arguing it or at least discussing it with emotion, shall we say, then you're probably not dealing with it. Totally. Totally. And you don't teach the kids conflict skills, right?

[00:16:02] I grew up so conflict-avoidant and I didn't have any boundaries. I didn't know how to address concerns. And what would happen is then later in a relationship, I would explode. I'd repress and repress and repress and then explode and have this big, you know, big kind of drama because I didn't know how to actually speak up for my needs and speak up for my... And the funny thing is, you know, growing up with my parents who were so conflict-avoidant, I would hear my mother complaining to me and to my brother about how her dad's always abroad and he loves his work and why wouldn't he come home?

[00:16:30] Why wouldn't he just come home and be with us as a family, like a normal family? I miss him. Why am I doing everything on my own? Like, screw him. Kind of like resentment. Yeah, yeah. And I would hear from my father calling me and I'd be like, I'm so lonely. I'm here in Syria. I'm in a hotel room. And like, you know, why doesn't my... She just wants the money. She just wants the house. And I'm like, no, she's complaining about it. Why won't you tell me in my person?

[00:16:49] And I actually remember when I was, it must have been 18, 19, my, bless him, my very secure boyfriend back then, he was like, we need to stage an intervention. We need to sit down with your parents and have them address the elephant in the room that dad needs to come home and they're not happy. And we tried, we tried. But it was too much. It was such an avoidant family. They couldn't do that. What a sweet guy though. I mean, that's amazing. I feel bad I didn't get back with him.

[00:17:18] I want to get back to the meeting you were talking about before, which is your anorexia that you battled. And you said it was for like a 10 year period. Yeah. What do you think, do you have any idea why you were anorexic? And did you realize time and... Yeah. Oh, I have so much to say on that. It was coming, it was almost about 15 years. So I started becoming anorexia at like 14, I'd say.

[00:17:41] Started with the classic Atkins diet and all the things that were really trendy back then. You know, my mother was dieting, eating her steak for breakfast, all the diet books around. I'm a kid. I, you know, I pick up books, I read. And I'm also, again, a high performing kid in a very aggressively high performing girls school. Amal Clooney went there where the message is like, you gotta be on it. You have to be good. Right? Right. And so as I'm reading these books and I see my mother and I read the room of society and culture and like being thin and I'm developing curves, I'm going through puberty.

[00:18:10] Of course, I'm going to read the room and recognize that. Oh, hold on a second. Hold on a second. The way, this is all subconscious. I'm not thinking it consciously. But the way that I become successful, the way that I become a high performing woman is I gotta be thin. I gotta be disciplined. I gotta watch my weight. I gotta watch my food. I gotta exercise.

[00:18:30] These are the discipline factors that demonstrate that I am mind over body. Right? That I'm in control. And the best thing about it is when I do all these different pieces, I get to be thin. And when I'm thin, I get to be more culturally acceptable. I get to be beautiful. I get to fit in. And you feel better about yourself too. Absolutely. Then I'm like taking every little, you know, perfectionist box. Like now I'm intelligent. I'm disciplined. I do this and I do that. I eat my vegetables, you know, I don't eat like candy.

[00:18:58] And it's like, I'm jumping through every little show pony hoop of what it means to be a successful high performing woman. There's a lot of cultural capital wrapped up in thinness. And so I did that, you know, I became very athletic. And of course it affected my mental health.

[00:19:14] And what's really interesting is the less I ate, and there are some studies on this to show that the more I'd almost get kind of wired, I'd get this kind of almost like very frenetic nervous energy inside of me that would make me focus better. And so the other positive side outcome was I started getting really good grades. I went from being someone who was pretty relaxed at school to being like the highest performing in the class, straight A stars, getting scholarships everywhere.

[00:19:42] And so I was like, in my head, again, on an unconscious level, I'm winning. Like how can I, how is it not the best thing ever? Yeah. Right. And the trade-off is that I'm starving hungry the whole time and I'm like irritable, but whatever. And that's when I actually discovered alcohol because now I can drink. And when I drink, because drinking was, a lot of anorexists will understand this. When I would drink, I would actually eat. Right.

[00:20:08] So, and I actually, in many ways, I think that in those early years, drinking kind of kept me alive because I would go with wine and eat the nuts. So I was going to say, why do you think it is that when you were drinking, as someone who was anorexic at the time, when you were drinking, that you decided to eat? Was it because it was calming you down? Do you think that's what it was? It just loosens your inhibitions. Loosens your inhibitions, right?

[00:20:31] And there's quite a lot of data on this that a lot of anorexic women develop an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, where when they are under the influence, lucency inhibitions, they tend to eat. And then the body starts to associate, ooh, alcohol equals food. And so they start to crave the alcohol, which again, this is so messed up, but in many ways benefited me because it meant that I was suddenly an extrovert. I was a really social extrovert who could handle my drink. I don't know how I did it, but I handled my drink really well.

[00:21:00] And I was able to be out and I was networking and I was socializing and I was that thin, you know, young woman who's running around the room and like networking and talking and eating. I didn't look anorexic to anyone. So even with my boyfriends, they didn't know that Monday to Thursday when I'm at university and I'm doing my 15 hour days, you know, grinding in the library, that I'm not eating. Because by the time of the weekend when I'm having my wine and I'm out with them having a Sunday roast dinner with a family, of course I'm eating.

[00:21:31] Because I've made up for it in the week, you know, in the week prior. So there was this way I kind of handled it. And that went on for, yeah, over 10 years. This very like managed, restricted eating. The actual like deep anorexia only lasted for a little bit when I was 17, where I knew I was anorexic and I was like, this is not okay. I don't, because anorexia also had a dirty label, right? It's like you want to be thin, but you don't want to be anorexic. Correct.

[00:21:57] So there was this kind of like fine line where I didn't want to be anorexia. I pulled myself out of that, thankfully, when I actually was 17 and got my first coaching qualification. And then that really helped me to understand the subconscious and understand how I was wired a little bit. So it did pull me out of it initially. But then I just got to a managed state. And what's funny is that, you know, as diets evolved, the fasting trend became a thing. And so I did the 5-2 diet.

[00:22:23] And that was even my, you know, my ex-boyfriend did that with me because we were both being healthy, you know, it's masturbating. And it was only when I lived in Dubai, and this is after my dad had left and I was living in Dubai, and I became really depressed in Dubai. There was something about living there where, again, I was working in the champagne trade and being a single female in her kind of mid to late 20s in Dubai.

[00:22:51] But all I did was party and drink. It was my job. It was my job. It was like to represent these champagne brands. Yeah. And it's vacuous. And I didn't really have any friends. I had like one really good friend who's still my best friend today. And the life was so hollow back then in Dubai. It was so superficial, right? And I craved depth. I craved connection. But my best friend at the time, actually, she became an alcoholic because she was also miserable. We were both miserable.

[00:23:21] And I really spiraled. Like the anorexia got really, really, really bad. And I remember knowing, thinking, this is really bad. I've lost control. And at this point, I'm in my, you know, mid to late 20s, and I'm thinking, I'm too old for this. I'm too old to be losing control like this. This is not okay. So I made the decision to come back to the UK. I made the decision to leave the alcohol industry to go into, to go back to academia. I applied to go to Oxford. Didn't tell anyone. But I applied to go to Oxford.

[00:23:47] And I went in to actually study femininity, study women. Because I really wanted to understand women. And I want, it was meant to be originally kind of an international aid, international development degree, looking at policy and gender equality. So that was like the angle, again, living in the Middle East. I was really fascinated by it. But I also wanted to understand women. And so it was interesting when I came back to the UK. And I knew that I was deeply anorexic. And my parents saw it at this point. My parents were like, oh, shit. She is.

[00:24:16] So it's like you're looking super, super skinny and unhealthy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, define that though. Like actually, it was never that bad. I was never like a side zero. You know, I was still within the realms of looking normal. I'm naturally quite curvaceous. And so I didn't actually look too awful. But I look at pictures now. I'm like, oof, I look gaunt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't look well.

[00:24:38] But what's really interesting is that when I went to Oxford and I spent this year there, it was the year of recovery for me where I was doing my master's degree. And I got my first coach. It was an eating disorder coach. Yeah. And he was amazing. And actually, she taught me about somatic work and healing with the body. And I spent, I did one module studying eating disorders in women. So I really wanted to understand it. And that's when I began to unpack the societal layers of it all.

[00:25:07] And the more that I understood it, the more that I understood concepts like patriarchy and conditioning and the social context, the more angry I became. And the more I realized how disconnected men and women are, because, you know, my ex actually had an eating disorder. It just wasn't defined because he's a man. Yeah. You know, it was very insidious. So the more I understood it, the more awareness I got and the more I worked with my eating disorder coach, the faster I actually healed.

[00:25:33] And there was a point where I realized I have to dissociate from the idea of being beautiful. Let that go. I accept that maybe I am going to be, quote unquote, ugly. Maybe I'm going to be, quote unquote, the things that I don't want to be. And maybe I will be ostracized from society. And that may well be the path I have to take in order to find my inner peace and happiness. And so what will life look like then, right? And so that was actually really the turning point where I just fully let go and the healing happens.

[00:26:02] That's a lot to say to yourself, let alone process. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's pretty hardcore. Yeah. It was a lot. And I always like what's ugly to one or what's beautiful to one is so different from the other. And I hate these terms because, you know, it's like when someone says, you know, how you're doing, you say, I'm good. Like, what does that really mean? No one knows. Right. It goes back to like, you know, beautiful versus ugly.

[00:26:31] Like, you know, someone who says they're, who thinks they're ugly, they're not. They're, you know, but they set self-perception. Anyway, I just want to throw that in there. So, okay. So you said that to yourself and then what happened? Yeah. So then I spent this really interesting period of my life where I was like, what would my life look like if I actually removed the label of trying to be attractive? Would I still wear makeup? Would I have long hair? Would I just shave my head? What would I wear? Yeah.

[00:27:00] And I experimented with the, I didn't shave my head, but I experimented with these ideas of like, yeah, what would it be like? And it was really interesting. There came a point where I actually, in the process, as I gained weight, I was definitely more kind of curvate, much more curvaceous than I am now. Right. And I had this like rebound weight gain. I got more male attention. It was so fascinating. I became like a little honeypot to man. And I remember telling my father, like, what the hell? I am plump, you know?

[00:27:27] I feel uncomfortable in my own body because I'm like, I'm dress size. I've never been. And dad's like, but you're you. And your authenticity is shining through your confidence. He's like, you've given up the label. And like, you're just this fierce, intellectual, academic, you know, feminist leaning like little trailblazer. And men can feel it. And it was so fascinating. I remember I had more action after I gained the weight than I'd ever had before. And it was so liberating.

[00:27:56] And that's actually, you know, I look back at pictures of me with my ex-fiancee. Even when I met my husband now, I'm like, my goodness. You know, I was like two or three dress sizes bigger. The weight has naturally come off me now because my body settled and my metabolism healed. And that took some time. That did take some time. Yes. Right. But it's so interesting. I look at my body now. I'm like, oh, I may be a dress bigger than I was when I was anorexic. Actually, not that different. But I don't watch what I eat at all. I eat like, I mean, you'll see at the retreat.

[00:28:25] I mean, I like there's no tomorrow. Right. And I still enjoy my wine and my food and everything. I love food. I love food. I very much feel that like it's all about being healthy. Right. And again, what does that mean? And what that means to me is probably different from what it means to you. But like I, you know, I'm doing this. I'm speaking of women's leadership. I'm taking this course right now through Yale School of Management.

[00:28:54] And it's on Leading with Power and Influence, what the course is called. And the module I'm on right now is focused on taking care of yourself and how taking care of yourself is a really important step in being a good leader. Oh, yeah. Because if you can't take care of you, how can you take care of other people? And the lectures I was listening to this morning were actually focused on like taking stock, like not just what do you want, but what do you need? Yeah.

[00:29:20] You know, and, you know, I know that I need to get between six and eight hours of sleep. And gosh, when I get eight, it's amazing. I know that I need to work out every day, some, you know, you know, and we all, but we all have different needs. And I know that I need to be healthy, but what's healthy for me is again, it's probably different. Absolutely. I think that's part of growing up, part of evolving.

[00:29:45] But it's also what I give you credit for to going back to when you had that moment of like, well, maybe I need to do all these things is it's vulnerability with yourself, right? I always talk about how being vulnerable is scary. Yeah. But being truthful with yourself is also scary because we're so good at compartmentalizing. Yeah. Yeah. A thousand percent. And we're so good at holding an image of who we are, right?

[00:30:12] I have a couple of clients right now, actually, literally a couple who are trying to leave their wives. They're trying to leave their wives, right? They know that they need to, they know that it's the right thing to do, but they have this image of being the good guy. Yeah. Of being like the good father, the good husband. And that image is holding them back. And one of the big core wounds, speaking our language of the work that I do, is I had this whole thing about being good as well. I don't want to be bad.

[00:30:40] One of my wounds is like, I'm a bad kid, so I got to be really good. I got to be like thin. I got to be good. I have good grades. Be the good fiance. Be the good girlfriend. Be the good, good, good, good, good. And actually, the most liberating thing was like, what if I'm just, what if I am bad? What if I actually am bad? What if I am bad? And what if I'm quote unquote ugly? And what if I'm all these things? What then? And it was actually in sitting with that and being so vulnerable with myself on that that I realized I'm actually still enough.

[00:31:08] I am actually still worthy because actually, even if I am bad at all these big things, I know that my heart actually has good intentions. I know that I am primarily geared around love. And that's kind of it. And that is actually enough. And if people don't like that, okay. All right. If that means I'm going to die alone, which I thought at one point, okay. I will die alone. Right? Like it's okay and enough for me.

[00:31:39] There's a mental health advocate named Kevin Hines. He's known for, he tried to take his own life years ago by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and fortunately survived. And so he has focused his life on helping people combat, you know, his little thoughts and all that. And I saw him speak in Austin at South by Southwest a couple of weeks ago. And my son was there with me.

[00:32:03] And Kevin said to the audience, which was filled primarily with, you know, Gen Z and emerging Gen Alpha. You all have to realize you're good enough. Yes. And, you know, he had the whole room say this kind of mantra that he has. But the most important line was, I am good enough. Yeah.

[00:32:23] And I think that, you know, to your point, like so many people as part of this compartmentalizing of emotions strive, strive, strive, strive, but they don't know what they're striving towards. Yeah. And there comes a moment, I guess we'll call it a personal intervention, where you realize that you're not just good, you're good enough. And you're good enough for you. You're good enough for the people that you work with. You're good enough for your family. You're good enough.

[00:32:52] And if you, if that, and that's your own self-definition. Yeah. Yeah. And for me, that definition comes from knowing that I gave it my all, right? Yeah. I've learned, you know, I am definitely a reformed perfectionist. I've learned, definitely type A on steroids at one point, that like there's only so much you can do. For sure. And as long as you try, and as long as you give it your all, whether it's personal, professional, or what, that's all you can do.

[00:33:22] Yeah. For sure. For sure. A thousand percent, right? Like defining your own enoughness is so important. Yes. And also, you know, I'm a social scientist by academic training. I find it so helpful to situate ourselves into the social context that we're in. We are living in a capitalist, in a patriarchal world. So our own indoctrinated definition of what enough is needs to be located within that.

[00:33:52] Because if you were to rewind a thousand years, be in a feudal system or whatever, an entirely different dynamic, enoughness would look very different. Right? And if we were to actually take, go back to, you know, kind of origin points, whatever that looks like, enoughness again would just look like existing. You know, it would be existing and having a food. Like, you know, it would be so basic.

[00:34:18] And we have been stripped away and disconnected from the root of our being, the essence of our being, into all of these different constructs that we are now chasing, which they're all made up. They're not real. Well, that's right. And, you know, and there's all these false definitions of what good, great, and awesome are. And, you know, again, what boils it down, or I think what's important is, like, we all have to look inside, as we were talking about before. And, like, that let ourselves be vulnerable.

[00:34:48] Let ourselves decide what we're good at, what we're great at, what we're terrible at. You know, when you get to a point in life where you put the terrible stuff in the closet. I know I've written a lot about the power of the word no. You know, no is such a great two-letter word that is so not in, you know, whether it's a guy or a girl. It's not in their vocabulary because everyone's afraid to say no. But developing that confidence to say no is so important. For sure. For sure.

[00:35:17] Because if you don't have a no, then how can you possibly have a yes? That's right. Right? It's this idea that, you know, I talk about boundaries a lot, that having good boundaries and knowing what your no is, is the most loving thing that you can do for anyone. Because you are allowing them to know what your yes is and you're allowing yourself to meet them with a yes. Yep. Right?

[00:35:39] If I don't have good boundaries and I don't know what my no is and I'm just showing up flabby and very kind of fluid and flexible and easygoing, the room for resentment in there is huge. Yeah. The odds of me resenting something are huge. Whereas if I'm very clear on like, this is a no, but this little thing here is a big yes and we meet there, then you've got all of me. Right? You've got full joy and happiness and truth. Yeah.

[00:36:07] How for clients that, like for people that you work with who are like just, you know, they come to you, they're broken for a variety of reasons. I mean, they did something their partner did, something happened at work, whatever. And they're just feeling like in the gut, you know, with that gut punch. How do you help them discover their no and then through that find their why or find their yes? How do you do that? Yeah.

[00:36:34] One of the most simple ways to find your no, I ask them, if you look back at whatever the moment might be or the relationship or whatever it is, what are the moments where you feel tired, resentful, off? Those are probably going to be no moments. Right? Now that doesn't mean that you don't necessarily do that, but it doesn't mean you need to have a conversation around it. Right? It means that you need to have a new boundary around it. I'll give you an example. It's so interesting.

[00:37:01] My husband and I, we've had one very specific dynamic for a couple of years and he bought a business in February. I've never seen him be an entrepreneur. So now I'm seeing him step into entrepreneurship where he's working bananas hours and he is, you know, aggressively trying to scale. I've never seen this in him. He's always been the more chilled one. I've always been the ambitious, high-performing one. And I'm in a place in my business where I don't have to do that. Right? And so the tables have turned.

[00:37:32] And all these boundaries that we had set with each other around, you know, no phones in the bedroom and no phones at dinner time. And like we don't talk about work after 7 p.m. Those boundaries are being quote-unquote violated a lot. Right? By him. Right? Because he's talking about it and it's very front of mind. And so what's really interesting is that for about a couple of weeks, in my head, I was giving him grace. Yeah. I was giving grace. I was kind of being like, you know what? I'm going to be understanding. When I started my business, I had the same thing. I was talking about work 24-7. I'm going to give it grace.

[00:38:01] I'm going to let it go. And so I let it go. But I didn't really let it go. Because actually deep down, there was a little bit of resentment bubbling up inside of me. I'm like, and then I would bring up work. And he'd be like, ha, we said we're not talking about work after dinner. Right. I'm like, well, hold on a second. You were talking about work, you know? And then before you know it, we're in this conflict, right? And so what I realized was that in giving him grace and what I thought was giving him grace, the boundaries had become really flabby. And I was letting them go.

[00:38:29] He thought he was upholding the boundaries, but his boundaries were actually being let go. And we were in this gray, murky territory where in the pursuit of giving him grace, I was checking out of the relationship and actually not keeping my finger on the pulse of like, what is honest here? Right. And so the solution to that is recognizing, okay, where are the moments where I felt a little bit off? And we need to have a conversation around the boundaries here. Because it doesn't mean that I'm now going to say to him, we can't talk about work and you started this business.

[00:38:57] It's more of maybe for the next three months in this ramp up period. Yep. The boundary is you're allowed to talk about work at any point, apart from maybe our weekend when we have a little romantic weekend. Right? We renegotiate the boundaries and we are honest with where we are both at with them. Yeah. And then we revisit it later. Right? Yeah.

[00:39:20] And so it's this kind of balance between compromising and leaning in and being honest with what feels okay. And then what the boundary is around something that might not feel so great. But what's the boundary around that? Does that make sense? It's like reorientation the whole time. It does. Well, and I know, you know, it can be hard. So, and the other word that came to mind when you were talking was by being kind of in that gray flaky period, you were giving him permission. Right?

[00:39:47] That's the word that popped into my head. Because sometimes, you know, we give people grace slash permission because it feels like it's the right thing to do for them. But to your point, it may not be the right thing to do for you. Yeah. But we flex a little bit because it's our partner or our colleague or our sibling or child or whatever. And then we kind of forget what the rules were.

[00:40:12] But I love what you're saying is like, it's almost like you're saying you just have like a deadline to revisit it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's a deadline. It's a boundary around a boundary. Yes. Right? It's like increasingly I view the world as a series of boundaries. Right? A series of like yes and no's. And we want to be intentional about what we're saying yes to and we want to be awake and alive and honest with what we're saying yes to.

[00:40:41] Which may well be something we don't like. Right? Just because it's hard and we don't like it doesn't mean that we don't do it. But there needs to be honesty around what is the boundary around that. Right? And so same thing with people who come to me and they're not happy with their partner. The boundary isn't going to be, well, you're feeling unhappy in your partner, so you're going to end it and just walk away. Okay. That's not the boundary. The boundary might be I'm going to give this six months. Yeah. And I'm going to give it my all. And I have my non-negotiables, but I'm going to see in six months how I feel.

[00:41:09] And if, you know, if things aren't the way that I need them to be, then I will exit. But I'm giving it a bigger boundary. The boundary of how long am I willing to try. And the good thing with all of this is that when you are really clear and intentional and honest about what you are saying yes to and what you are saying no to, you are engaging, you are connecting, and you are being honest, and you are being in integrity. It becomes a choice, a conscious choice.

[00:41:32] And where people, quote unquote, kind of grow apart in relationship, and we all do this in our friendships and our professional life and our romantic life, is we unconsciously check out without realizing we're checking out. In under the guise of I'm giving it grace, right? We've had the classic one is we just had kids. Of course, we're not going to have sex. Like, of course, we're not going to have date nights. Of course, we're not going to have any other time. We're focused on the kids. It's a given. And then 20 years later, the kids are grown up. Totally. Because there was no boundary. Yeah.

[00:42:01] And there was no intentional yes or no. Because having kids doesn't have to be the death of your relationship. Of course not. Right? But we need to re-engage and reconnect with each other as opposed to giving each other grace and the situation grace and thinking it'll figure itself out. It won't. It never does. Yeah. I remember after I had my first kid, my son brought him home. You're like, oh my God, you're so little. But A, you need so much stuff.

[00:42:29] And B, there's really, I mean, there are all these books, but there really isn't a book because it's all about you, your spouse, and this little thing, a bundle of joy. And then we just got that kind of figured out. And then we had the second one. And we're like, no. And you just got to figure it out. But we always made, especially when our kids were little, we always made an effort to like once a week to just go out and not talk about the kids and just do something fun.

[00:42:55] And that was really important because it let us just focus on us. Because I think a lot of couples are challenged with the loss of us because you're focused on the kids. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to do that.

[00:43:18] But what I found in my own experience is that as hard as it is to do, once you do it, people respect you for doing it. Yes. And I think that that is a very unappreciated effect. You know, because I'm like, I try to be Switzerland, right? Because I'm a Libra. I try to be Switzerland. I'm always like, I don't like anyone to be angry at me, whatever. But like there are times where I have to make a decision and it pains me to do it. Yeah. But I do.

[00:43:47] And after I do it, I feel so much better. And the result is, yeah, people may not like it, but they have clarity. Yeah. And that, what I have realized as I evolve as a human, it's probably one of the most important things is clarity and ownership, right? Yeah. Own what you commit to and be clear in how you're going to do it. Totally. Totally. You become trustworthy. Yes. Right.

[00:44:10] Boundaries are the fastest route to becoming trustworthy because when you don't know what your yes or no is and you're trying to please everyone or please multiple pieces, then who are you really beneath all of that? What is your true intention? What is your true feeling? It's not clear. And so there's this kind of vagueness comes up where you're not really trustworthy.

[00:44:33] And we do it all the time and we try to avoid rejection and avoid abandonment and avoid being the abandonment and the rejecter because we want to be nice. Right. And so we end up avoiding boundaries. The lack of boundaries or the lack of clear decision stems from that fear of being abandoned and fear of being rejected, fear of being bad, right? You're all going to have a different flavor, but somewhere along the lines of these things. And so we avoid doing it, thinking, well, if I don't do it, then I'm not going to be the horrible bitch or I'm not going to be the horrible man, right?

[00:45:02] And I'm going to be the nice guy. But actually, it is the weaker path because in order to appease your own feelings of, well, I don't want to be abandoned. I don't want to be rejected. I don't want to be the bitch. I'm going to do this thing that is actually going to leave them really unclear and be really unfair to the situation. And I'm not going to shut up, honestly.

[00:45:21] And something that I stick with so much and I try to really enforce in my work is that just because something feels unpleasant doesn't mean that you don't do it. Yeah, that's right. Right? And you have control over your feelings. So I remember when I first started really setting boundaries and having to really be with boundaries, all this cocktail of feelings would come up of like, oh, my God, they're going to leave me. Everything's going to fall apart, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I'm horrible. I'm a horrible person. They're my feelings.

[00:45:50] It's my story. It's my projection. It's my stuff. It's not happening outside of me. It's happening inside of me. Yeah. Which means I can actually regain control over it. I can handle it. And that's it. And the more that I learned to handle it and to be with it, the more I realized this is just my stuff. It doesn't actually impact anything else. And the boundary can still be there. And then you do it again and again and again. And you realize, actually, well, no one's abandoning me. If anything, they might be rattled.

[00:46:20] They might not like it. Right, right, right. That also doesn't mean that you don't do it. They're allowed to not like it. They're also allowed to reject it. They're also allowed to reject you. But that doesn't mean you don't do it. You're controlling your narrative. Totally, totally. And you're giving them the freedom to choose, right? Like, if you put a boundary in place, boundary, you know, I don't know, you take your shoes off when you come into my house. Okay. Then they can decide, well, you know what? Actually, I don't want to take my shoes. So maybe I won't come into your house today. Okay. All right.

[00:46:51] That's fine. No one's hurt. I have to giggle at that. I have a great story. So we have a holiday party every year. And it's like, you know, this party's been going on for like decades at this point. We also have a no-shoe policy in the house. So when people come to my holiday party, they know it does not matter what shoes they wear because they're going to have to check them at the door. Yeah. So people come in like their arm slippers because they're like, well, those are going to wind up at the front door and I'm going to walk around on my socks. And so it's kind of fun.

[00:47:18] So now it's the point where people like pick fun, festive socks to wear to the party because they know they're not allowed to wear their shoes. And that was, you know, that was a boundary that it was like we had a babysitter once that was up in my culture where shoes come off when they come into the house. And she just would do it when she came into the house. We're like, okay, we kind of like this. And, you know, it's kind of just become just part of the way the house runs. You know, in the mudroom, you check your shoes, just how it works.

[00:47:48] What I was going to say too was, you know, it's, it's, so it all kind of connects together, right? So you get to know yourself, you understand you in with that you become, you know, it's scary, but you get to know yourself. You discover your no, you discover your needs or your whys or your yeses, however you want to do it. And then with that, eventually you learn to take the no and take the yes and figure out what those boundaries are. Yes. Am I right?

[00:48:17] And then you, at some point, develop the courage to say no and to impose the boundaries. Yeah. And then to your point, it becomes your normal cadence as opposed to vacillating on should I, should I not say this or whatever. It becomes your new version of you. Absolutely. And the practice of it might be a bit clunky, right? Yeah. I just hired a new, a new team member. And it was on day one.

[00:48:46] And I, you know, I was sharing something with her. I was sharing a win. And she came at me like a ton of bricks with this, like, just to be clear, like, I'm not responsible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, whoa, I haven't asked for anything here. I'm revealing something that's happened. Yeah. I'm not actually asking anything. She's like, oh, okay. I, the sounded like, I'm like, where did it sound like that? You know? In the end, she said, I'm practicing boundaries. I've never had boundaries. And I'm practicing setting them.

[00:49:16] And it was so interesting how her boundary was, it's like aggressive, like, no, like, kind of, like, screw you energy. And I would argue that the more we practice boundaries, the better we become at creating boundaries, that are more of an invitation. Yes. Into our yes. Right? And less of a, no, no, no, no, no, get out. And more of a, I would really love if we did this. How would you feel about doing this together?

[00:49:40] And this thing could be amazing and fun and celebratory and full of pleasure and joy and wonderful things. Do you want to meet me here? I would really love that. I love that. Right. It's such a good way. Very different. Because it's more emotive, right? If you say no to someone, then it shuts it down, whatever it can come across as hostile or aggressive. But if you put it in that way, I had a boss back in the day when I was working in corporate, who would never tell me what he wanted me to do. Tell me, KL.

[00:50:10] And he's like, KL, have you ever considered blah, blah, blah? Right? And when he phrased it like that, I darn well knew that he wanted me to do whatever it was. It was the way that he phrased it that made it seem collaborative. And then sometimes I was like, oh, that's such a great idea. And he would never say, Nana, I told you so. He would never take credit for it. But he, you know, KL, have you ever thought about doing it this way, Nana?

[00:50:38] And it was brilliant because ultimately, of course, I figured out that he wanted me to do it that way. But it never felt like he was telling me. It just felt like he was suggesting. And it felt like he was leaving the decision to me. Yeah. Yeah. And that was really important. Yeah. I love all this. I've learned so much. This is so good. So, all right, here's my question for you. So on the show, you know, we talk about people's challenges and their gut punches and how they got through it.

[00:51:08] And it's like such good stuff and so many lessons learned and so many insights. And it got me thinking, like, everybody needs something. I'm going. And I, you know, I shared on a LinkedIn post and I shared with other guests that my something happens every night. You know, it depends upon the time of the year and to me at sunset. And I always love to see the colors that the world chooses, whether I'm in New York or, you know, California or wherever I am, to end the day with.

[00:51:38] Because I always just think it's beautiful. Like, I was in New York City last week and I was driving into town during sunset. And I looked at my rear view mirror and there was this beautiful, like, sort of orangey-purplish-pink color. You know, and it was just, it was kind of dropping down slowly behind the buildings. And I was, I wish I could have taken a picture of it. It was just stunning. And it was just, it made me really smile. So my question for you is what gets you through every day? What makes you smile like that?

[00:52:08] That's such a great question. And there's a number of things. If I was to pick one overarching piece, though, and it really reflects actually where I live in Vancouver and British Columbia, it's being connected to nature. It's nature. It's really looking, like right now I can see the mountains and the mountains change every day. And even though, I mean, I'm in the downtown core, Vancouver is so surrounded by nature and mountains.

[00:52:33] And no matter how stressful life gets, no matter how difficult it is, no matter how alone one may feel, to me, knowing that I can go into a forest and just bury myself amongst the trees and know that the trees are living, breathing entities with so much wisdom. And the earth and all the living creatures there and their connection to each other and the whole ecosystem of it.

[00:53:02] It's impossible to feel alone there. To me, it's the most connected, wise, spiritual place I can be of something so much bigger than whatever's going on in my life. It's so safe. It feels so safe to me. So nature is really it. And I try to spend as much time in nature as I can. I want to spend more time. You know, I want to have a place that actually connects into nature. Right now, again, in the downtown core. But yeah, it's nature. It really is. I love that.

[00:53:33] Well, I think that's a great conversation. I just want to say, Katerina, it's such a great conversation. So many wonderful lessons. And I think for so many people, it's like, think about your no and your yes. And, you know, and think about what gets you through every day. So if people want to get a hold of you, what's the best way? Best way will be either to come to my website where you can book a call with me or drop me an email. It's katerinapolonska.com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. If you type in Katerina Polonska into the search bar, find me on LinkedIn.

[00:54:03] I am there every day. I manage my own inbox. So I will see your message. And feel free to let me know about what's going on for you. I love connecting with people. Wonderful. Well, thank you for being here. And again, thanks for sharing your stories and your insights and the thing that gets you through every day. And I love the nature. So great. Well, and thanks to you, everyone, for listening to another episode of the Gut Punch Podcast. We'll speak to you again next week. Bye-bye.

[00:54:49] Bye-bye.