If you've handed over your decision-making power to attorneys, evaluators, your ex, even your alienated children—and now you can barely trust your own judgment about the smallest things. Here's the truth: parental alienation doesn't just steal your relationship with your child. It quietly trains you to doubt everything you know, remember, and feel. But self-trust isn't rebuilt by finally getting validation from the court or your child coming back. It's rebuilt through tiny, boring, repeatable commitments to yourself that prove: 'I'm someone I can count on.' In this episode, I'm walking you through exactly how alienation eroded your self-trust, how you've accidentally reinforced it, and the four micro-actions that will get you out of the stuck, second-guessing hell you're living in right now

 

Main Talking Points

 

How Alienation Destroys Self-Trust:

 

• Gaslighting creates cognitive dissonance that makes you question your own memories
• Social isolation from school events and activities makes you feel powerless
• Constant character assassination leads you to internalize false criticisms
• You start internalizing parental failure even though the alienation isn't your fault

 

How We Betray Our Own Trust:

 

• The "pleaser trap" - compromising your values to win back affection
• Obsessive ruminating and trying to prove truth to people who won't listen
• Ignoring your gut instincts and red flags to "keep the peace"
• Over-identifying with the victim role and losing your problem-solver identity
• Counter-alienation behaviors that violate your own integrity

 

The Path Back:

 

• Self-trust isn't "never doubting yourself"—it's doing what you say you'll do for yourself
• You cannot wait to feel motivated—commitment must lead, feelings follow later
• Pick 1-2 tiny, repeatable commitments (not 25 priorities)
• When you mess up, use it as data instead of proof you're a failure

 

Key Takeaways

 

1. Every action is a vote for the person you're becoming—even micro-decisions direct you toward your past or future self
2. Stop waiting for external validation to move forward—your ex, the court, or your child validating you is not required for you to rebuild
3. The 4 Self-Trust Building Actions:
• Daily body check-in (3 breaths + "What do I need right now?")
• One self-respect boundary (e.g., no checking ex's messages after 8pm)
• One parenting integrity action weekly (journal for your child, maintain a ritual)
• Five minutes daily toward YOUR life separate from the case
4. Self-trust is built in the repair, not in perfection—what matters is what you do after you mess up

5. Your nervous system needs evidence that you're more than this crisis—you're still a whole person

 

📌 Mentioned in this episode: Atomic Habits by James Clear

How To Own Your Confident & Powerful YES for Alienated Parents Ep. 125-   ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZu-v3XJkcI⁠

 

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Introduction: Building Self-Trust After Alienation

You are listening to The Beyond The High Road Podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 183, I think. Stay tuned

welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, Shelby Milford, a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show is my love letter to you.

Stay tuned

Hey y'all. What's up? How are we doing today? So I wanna today start off by reciting a quote, one of my favorite quotes from the book, atomic Habits by James Clear.

He said, every action that you take is a vote for the person that you want to become. Okay. Or you can think of it too, as the parent that you wanna become, or the person that you're choosing in the moment, That's where I kind of wanna bring your attention so that every time that you're making a decision, like even the micro decisions throughout your day, you are directing your brain, your body, your system, to either the past version of you or the future version of you.

, Or if you were not managing your minds, just the present version, because we're just living reactively, right? So at, at each and every big decision, micro decision, whatever it is, I do always ask myself, is this action aligned with where I'm headed? Or is this action more of a safe choice and aligned more with where I was?

You know? And so, okay, that's where I'm leaving you with that. And I'm gonna start the intro now.

. If you are frustrated with your situation, you feel stuck, you take an honest look back over your life and notice that you've allowed the major players in it, your parents, your partners, your bosses, attorneys, your children, whomever else to have more of a say in it, in your decisions than you did.

You have, right? It makes sense that right now you feel at the mercy of everyone else. You're probably, if you feel stuck and you're not sure which moves you have, where, which move to make. , You're probably painfully aware that life as it is right now isn't working. That it hasn't been working. So if this is you, if this is where you are, now is the time.

Now more than ever is the time for you to build self-trust, because now you have concrete evidence that everybody else's way, everybody else's way, doesn't work. Not for you anyway. It may, perhaps it works for them, but playing by somebody else's rule book for how nice people behave, for what a good person should tolerate, which career or kind of partner or parenting style qualifies as good enough.

It will always keep your focus off of you. And then of course, on the chase for external approval. And that constant chase is honestly a quiet betrayal of what your soul has been asking for all 

[00:03:30] Understanding How Parental Alienation Damages Self-Trust

along.

So let's talk about how you got here, , not because you need more evidence that you've messed up, but because you deserve a clear and honest map of what's been working against you and your self-trust thus far. Last week, we talked about self-doubt

as that scared kid sitting in the driver's seat, gripping the wheel of your life. Today we're zooming out to look at how alienation helped put that kid there in the first place.

Because alienation doesn't just damage your relationship with your child. It quietly trains you to doubt your memories, your judgment, and your worth. In the next few minutes, I'm gonna walk you through the specific ways that alienation and our experience as a whole erodes our self-trust, right? And then we're gonna get really practical and specific about how you can start to rebuild it.

One small commitment at a time. So I have listed here, um, I don't know, 5, 6, 6 ways that alienation itself and the abuse that happens in it, how that erodes our self trust. And then I have another, list here of how we betray our own trust. Okay? So first I'm gonna start with how. Pa, the, the whole situation of alienation does it to begin with.

[00:04:49] 6 Ways Alienation Erodes Your Self-Trust

So the first way I have listed here is through gaslighting and cognitive dissonance. The alienating parent presents false narratives, as we all know, forcing us the targeted parent to question our own memories. And over time trust our own perceptions of reality less. So we question our memories and of course, over time, and we're questioning ourselves like, was that really happening? Did I really do that? classic gaslighting? And of course this dissonance that happens as a result of it.

It causes us to question and trust ourselves less like our perception. We need to go to others to have them validate what's going on with us, right?

The next way is internalizing parental failure. When we are rejected by our children, targeted parents, we will blame ourselves oftentimes for not being, I mean, I haven't met one that hasn't, uh, for not being strong enough to overcome the psychological abuse inflicted on our children, and of course, then us.

So it makes sense. We're like, we failed. I, I can't tell you how many parents that I coach, that this is the underlying belief, and many of you will, I've been talking about this a lot, where we will start to use our prefrontal cortex and be like, no, no, no. I know I didn't fail as a parent. I know it's because of everything that they've done, but underneath all of that, what's running you is having you show up.

In the way that you think you failed as a parent or you think you not as a parent in, in the whole sense of that, like in your role, but also failed your children, So another way is social and parental isolation. Of course, we targeted parent are often cut off from school medical and community events causing us to feel and eventually act as if we have no role or no power in our child's children's lives.

Right? This was me, I mean, all the way, all the way. In fact, I even talked about it. I remember, um, my daughter Scarlet's, uh, maybe it was her 16th birthday, so that would've been three, almost three years ago now with you guys where I was second guessing whether it was my right to send her an email through her school email at that wishing her a happy birthday.

I wasn't sure if that was crossing some sort of boundary to send her a, like a one minute video wishing her a happy birthday and telling her how much I loved her and was proud of her. But I was like, oh, I don't know. I don't, I don't know if I should do that. That might make her upset with me or whatever, whatever, you know?

And so, um, I mean, I have many experiences like that. That's the first memory that just came to mind. But I know many parents feel like this. It's like, is is this even, am I allowed? Because we've been hearing that, narrative, that message for however long that this thing going on for you, Um, another way is constant character assassination. 

Constant unwarranted criticism in the campaign of denigration that happens right from the other parent can lead us, the targeted parent to internalize those criticisms and feel damaged or inadequate. And then the last way I've got, no, I've got two more. Um, another way is the constant surveillance and interference when calls are intercepted or visits are restricted.

Parents lose trust in our ability to maintain bonds. Well, I couldn't even keep the bond up. I couldn't even keep our connection up. No matter what, I should be able to do that because I'm mom or their dad, and that bond is supposed to be unbreakable. And how did I let it slip away?

Right? Causing us to feel incompetent and helpless. And the last way of course is destruction of the memory and our history, right? Having shared history with our child, destroyed or rewritten causes us to feel as though their past experiences in a relationship were invalid or imaginary or blown out of proportion just as they're claiming that you've done.

Okay? So those are the ways that I have that end up causing us to second guess who we are, our role and our abilities here, not only with our children, but in the world, The impact that you're able to have on the world, um, which also goes into self-esteem and all the other things, but right now we're just gonna keep it to self-trust.

[00:09:10] How Targeted Parents Betray Their Own Trust

How we now, next, this next section is how we lose trust, self-trust. Um, this happens number one by this is some tough love you guys. So just know that. Right off the bat before I go in. By betraying our own values, the pleaser sort of trap. In a desperate attempt to win back our child's affection, we often stop parenting and start auditioning.

We may stop enforcing rules, buy unearned gifts, or refrain from speaking the truth to avoid conflict. Here's the erosion. I have all these written as like erosions because, um, I don't even know if I'm still gonna title it that, but initially I was gonna talk about how we erode our, so we erode our own self-trust and how to build it back.

But anyway, so the erosion is every time that you compromise your core values to appease your child who is being coached to hate you, you send a signal to your subconscious that your principles are negotiable. this creates a deep sense of inauthenticity, inauthenticity. I can't talk today.

Um, so yeah, that's number one. Okay.

Number two is obsessive, ruminating and fact checking. We often spend hours replaying conversations or trying to prove the truth to people who aren't listening like our children, right? Or biased evaluators. The other, the alienating parent, whoever those out in the wild, you know, in the community.

And the erosion here is by making your mental peace dependent on someone else's acknowledged, someone else's acknowledgement of the truth. You hand over your emotional sovereignty, okay? When you can't quote unquote fix the narrative, you view it as a personal failure of intellect or persuasion or whatever.

It's because. Most of the time we're not trying to go out there and like out loud tell our story because we know that that's what they're doing. And it's just many of us anyway will stay quiet, stay. This comes from trauma too. Like we're in freeze mode, you know, and we don't know what's gonna work, so we just stop everything and just stay super quiet.

' cause every time we do speak, then it's like vomit, word throw up. Right? And it doesn't ever, usually we don't leave the conversation or situation feeling great about ourselves, you know, where it's different on the other side. And I'm not gonna go into that today, but anyway, when we are still trying to prove the truth to not even just people out there, but to ourselves, to this will happen.

Okay. Number three, ignoring red flags and intuition silencing early in the alienation process. Many parents, we will feel that something is wrong, but we talk ourselves out of it trying to keep the peace, right, or avoid any sort of high conflict. The problem with that is when we repeatedly ignore the gut feeling right about a boundary violation, if you will, or some sort of lie, then you train yourself not to listen to your own internal compass.

Later, when alienation is full blown, the self blame for letting it happen is usually immense, and I cannot tell you. I know for me, and I've heard it from other people, like I wish I wouldn't have let that happen. And so anyway, yeah, ignoring red flags, that's number three.

Number four is over identifying with the victim role. 

You guys, if you've been listening for a while, you know that I teach personal responsibility. That is my, I will die on that hill because it is what provided me and my life with so much freedom. You know, when I decided that I wasn't going to focus on them anymore, because that kept me in the special kind of hell jail cell for a really, really long time.

And my way out of it though, I thought it in the beginning, ended up being by focusing on what, where I had control. You know? So over identifying with the victim role is something that I really work with, with my clients because it does, it offers you freedom, , when you. Choose to move away from that.

Okay. So while the parent is a victim of the campaign, staying in the victim mindset indefinitely is a choice.

So the erosion here, the problem with this is just kind of like how I started to explain is that if you view yourself as a powerless victim, you're gonna lose the ability to trust yourself as the problem solver. I've been talking about that a lot lately. Like if you view yourself as in this case, the victim, then you're gonna have a hard time viewing yourself also as , the leader,

the leader of your life, the family leader even, or the, leader of your children, right? The responsible, loving parent who may be removed right now, but doesn't mean that that's removed your role. , Anyway, you lose the ability to trust yourself as a problem solver. This leads to learned helplessness, where we stop taking proactive, healthy steps for our own wellbeing. And that's the last thing that I want for you. Okay. And oftentimes when we're in it, we don't even realize that there's any other way. 'cause it feels impossible to not be a victim. promise you that it's not the case anytime that you feel like you can't make a move because of somebody else.

And I know that this will probably ruffle some feathers if you guys are some, especially the newer listeners, if you feel like you can't make a move because of somebody else, there's always personal responsibility. Like there's that gap you're not looking in the right places because there's always a move that you can make that doesn't involve anybody else doing anything for you or changing the, the way that they're behaving.

You're in the victim mindset is basically what I'm saying, All right. So number five is misplaced responsibility. Basically taking the blame we as alienated parents often search for what we did wrong to cause , our child's rejection, Often finding minor past mistakes and blowing them out of proportion and order to explain the current hatred. Now if you're been listening for a while, then this is like probably old news for you. But if you're new to this, this is definitely a thing, you know? Um, especially if you are anxiously attached.

If you notice that you do blame yourself for in a past relationships, like you're like, oh, it's probably my fault. If that's you, then this also probably is you that you're taking the blame. But I tell you, while I was kind of a mix of, I'm more, um, Secure attachment now than before, but I was a mix of being anxiously attached and also avoidant both, um. Just depending on the situation and also the, the relationship, whatever. But I did take the blame quite a bit, but again, my, the way that I took the blame was internally, not externally.

Like I really tried to fight against it. My cognitive like awareness, like my cortex thinking was like, no, I know this isn't my fault. But the rest of me kept searching for ways that it really was my fault. Kind of like I was talking about a little bit ago. I think that was number one or two.

So the last one here is engaging in counter alienation, right? It's usually not, you're not doing it, consciously, and you're not doing it in order to keep the kid away from the other parent. You're doing it because you're trying to defend yourself, right? So like when you're attacked, the natural instinct for anybody is to defend yourself, right?

By pointing out the other parents' lies or flaws, right? Like, no, that was not me. That was them that did that. What are you talking about? Like this whole thing is all, we're, we're here right where we are because what they did. And when you do that, if you pride yourself on being the sane or honest parent, but then you find yourself mud slinging.

But you're doing it thinking that you're just trying to set the record straight, use it. Even if you use the child as the messenger, and maybe you're not even doing that, maybe you know better 'cause you've educated yourself. But just even defending yourself you're violating your own image of who you are.

So it's, and I'm gonna say this in the nicest way possible, it's a hypocrisy gap, Which creates internal shame that eats away yourself trust because you're saying that they're lying or they're pointing fingers, or they're doing, saying they've switched the narrative and then you go and do the same thing back,

and so now you got, you both are doing it. You've joined in on the game. And again, yes, they started it, but. that's not gonna get you far. And in fact, defending yourself, never ever works. Take alienation out of it. Take your child out of it for a second. Defending yourself rarely works out there with people that don't want to hear it because they've already decided that they're right.

And when we're talking about alienation, your child is not open usually to hearing what you have to say because they've already been, you've already been devalued by the other parent. And I'm not trying to play the blame game here at all. It just is what it is when we're talking about the dynamic of alienation.

And so your child has already been taught not to trust what you have to say. And so you are defending your, your own self to them in order for them to trust you. But in doing that, you lose trust in yourself, you know?

[00:19:09] Rebuilding Self-Trust: Practical Action Steps

Okay. So if you're recognizing yourself in any of this, I want you to hear me. None of these patterns mean that you've done or doing anything wrong or are doing anything wrong, okay? They're perfectly logical ways. A loving, overwhelmed parent tries to survive an impossible situation. And that same brain that learned those habits is absolutely capable of unlearning those and then learning something new.

This is where we shift from insight into action. If alienation and survival mode have been training you to not to trust yourself, then the way back is not through thinking harder or finding the perfect strategy or waiting for your child or the court or your ex to finally validate you.

The way back is through small, repeatable commitments that retrain your nervous system to see you as somebody that you can count on. So let's zoom in on what I mean when I say self-trust. Self-trust is not, I will never doubt myself again. It's not, I always know exactly what to do, either. Self-trust is I will do what I say that I will do for me, especially when I don't feel like it.

Okay. If you grew up with complex trauma, especially if it started in childhood, , you probably learn to make decisions from your feeling brain, kids and many adults with A DHD, tend to live by, I'll do it when I feel like it, Or I'll have that conversation when I'm not scared, or I'll start taking care of myself when things calm down.

I've heard all of these statements from many, many of you and also from myself on many, many occasions. A lot of us after trauma and alienation and the trauma of alienation are still running that same pattern without even realizing it. The problem is your feelings have been hijacked by this experience, and we, sorry.

We run that program without even realizing it, but we're calling it self-care many of the times. Oh, I'll start doing those things. When I take care of the, when court's over, right. I'll,, um, start therapy. When I'm done with court, I will,

have that conversation when I'm feeling more up to it, more confident, whatever it is. And we call that listening to our intuition or listening to our inner desires or needs. But many times it's just coming from your feeling brain, your limbic system that's like, no, we don't wanna do that. That might be scary.

That might cause failure. Whatever, you know, cause us to be vulnerable and we don't want that. We've tried that in the past and it has not worked out for us so well, so anyway, where was I? Your feelings have been hijacked by this experience, So if you wait to feel motivated or to feel calm, to feel confident before you act, you'll likely keep waiting inside the exact same life that you're already exhausted by.

[00:22:12] The Power of Commitment Over Feelings

So that is why we let commitment lead and the feelings will catch up later. So what does commitment mean here? Commitment means that I do the things that I've decided on, even when I don't want to. It means I honor my pre-decided things. All of the commitments I make to myself first, before whatever else floats by and demands my attention.

It means that if at Tuesday at 7:00 PM is my time to take a walk or to journal, or to go to yoga or to send an email, then Tuesday at 7:00 PM is sacred. Even if my brain is screaming, this is stupid, it's not working. What's the point? I'll do it later. Whatever you're saying, So commitment also means that you constrain and I talk about this, there's a couple episodes I have in mind.

One of them is like, let your yes be yes or your no be no. A confident yes. Maybe I'll link it below. But I talk a lot about this in, in that episode too. I, I believe that's the one. so you cannot have 25 priorities and still trust yourself when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority, And you end up proving to yourself over and over, see, you never follow through. That's how you're talking to yourself. You never follow through Anyway, so what's the point? Why even, I used to say this all the time about New Year's resolutions, and I think this is such a popular, um, point of view, is that like, why even bother setting New Year's resolution?

I'm just gonna disappoint myself, so forget it. I'm just not gonna do it at all. Which is fine. You can reframe that and set it as a standard or however you want to. But really what you're saying to yourself, you're like reinforcing this idea that you don't hold your own commitments to yourself.

So this is an opportunity. If you've ever said anything like that to yourself, this is now your opportunity to earn the trust back. You know, if you saying that you don't honor your commitments or like with habits, I used to do this, oh my gosh, all the time. Especially when I was trying to, if you will kick the smoking, I smoked at one point in my life.

For a long time I was a smoker and a fitness. Professional. So that was interesting. Um, double life. And then also with drinking. You know, I both times I was telling myself that I couldn't do it. I never honored my commitments to myself before. So why was I gonna start now? It was gonna be impossible.

Which was of course, convenient for my habit brain because my habit brain was like, yes, let's just stay with what we know, because then everything can go on autopilot and I can stay, uh, oblivious to the world and to myself, and I can continue living reactively, you know?

And so this is where I started to gain, learn to gain trust with myself. Though I will say that, like when I, um, I don't even say that I quit drinking or I quit smoking. I just let them both kind of go. Especially when it came to drinking my feelings. But like with smoking too, I became the person, and I'm, maybe you've heard me talk about this before.

I became the person who was a non-smoker before I even finished ever. Like, maybe there was still cigarettes. Like well, or like at that time actually, I wasn't cigarettes, it was a, an thingy. Um, be before I actually finished my last one of those, my last puff, that became my identity and that's how, but anyway, it wasn't that I was like, I need to build trust with myself. That wasn't actually a thing. I just started following through on my commitments to myself and who, where I was headed, like the person I was becoming. I really looked at that. And it's the same thing here with you. But anyway, we can talk about that. I'm probably gonna be touching on that next week, next week's episode.

So I'll just leave it be, So When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority, and you end up proving to yourself over and over. See, I never follow through. So we are going to deliberately pick a few tiny and yes, boring, repeatable things and let those be enough.

right now, I wanna prepare you for what your limbic brain is going to do, because it will absolutely have thoughts about this. Okay. Thoughts is the nice way of saying it at first. Even keeping a tiny commitment to yourself is going to feel clunky. It's gonna feel awkward, and it's gonna feel exhausting.

I was just talking with, um, a potential client, I was in a clarity call , this morning about this,

you'll do it for a couple of days, this whole process, and your brain will say, see, either this is too much, it's not working, let's just go back to what we know. Because it feels so foreign to you and it feels like it's just not working yet. It's like planting seeds and then getting upset because they're not already grown like within a week.

There's much more care that's involved. There's stuff, there's roots growing but you just can't see them because of course you're on, we're on top of the ground.

That voice that you're hearing, the negative voice is not proof that this practice is pointless. That voice is proof that you're doing something new and your feeling brain is like, oh, I don't know. This just seems pointless. Like I said, it just seems like it's not gonna make a dent in , the big picture, right.

Let it be, let that voice just be, acknowledge it, like acknowledging the 4-year-old. You're a 4-year-old, or even you as a 4-year-old, and keep moving. Don't let it take you off course. Okay? Then this is the name of the game with earning self-trust. Okay?

So instead of hearing it's not working as some sort of stop sign, I want you to start hearing it as a little bell that says, oh, right. This is the part where my brain freaks out because I'm changing the rules, right? This is just the part of the movie where I freak out a little bit on the inside because I'm, I am, I'm changing the whole name of the game.

The rules are changing here, times are changing, And I'm gonna keep going. Anyway, that's, that's it. At first. It's always going to freak out. And I teach this with my, uh, habits clients too, when we're doing, I learned this from my coach, like when you. honor your commitments that are on your calendar.

Your brain is always, you'll get your whole calendar all filled out with all the things you're gonna do, do for yourself and also do in the world, it's great to fill it all out, but the second that it comes to actually doing, completing what's on that calendar in the order that it's written like within the timeframes that it is, your brain is going to have a freak out like a little kid.

'cause it's like, I don't wanna do this. This is not what I, I could do so many other things with my time, or I wanna do take, change the order. Your brain is always going to try to fuck with things. Let it talk, but don't let it take the wheel. Okay. Alright. 

[00:29:11] 4 Tiny Daily Commitments to Build Self-Trust

So,

let me give you a few examples of the kind of tiny commitments that build self-trust. You do not need to do all of these. In fact, please don't. . Just pick one or two to focus on this week. In fact, just one. 'cause like I said, constraint is best. The first example I have is a daily body check-in, maybe once a day right before bed, or when you get in the car while coffee's brewing.

Put, I know this is one that many of you reject, especially the, the, the dads out there. Put your hand on your chest and you take three slow inhale, exhales, exhales longer, and you just ask, what do I need right now? I like to do one hand on chest, one hand on belly.

Like, what do I need right now? Not what does my ex need, not what would the court approve of? Not what would make my child like me again. How can I get through to them, Just what do I need right now in this moment? And then you give yourself one micro thing that matches that answer, right? Maybe it's just a glass of water.

Maybe it's a five minute walk outside stretching your back or closing your eyes, right? Um, taking a few more breaths. Maybe it's just a breather, maybe it's a whatever. It's right. It will feel, I promise you, doing this will feel too small to even matter or make a dent in everything. Okay? Your brain will say that this is dumb, that this won't get my kid back, like I was just kind of mentioning.

Right? And that is o okay. The point not, not getting your kid back is not, is okay, but I mean, it's okay that your brain is going through that. Objections, The point is not about the glass of water or the breaths or the five minute walk at all. The point is that once a day you ask your body, what do you need?

And then you respond to that. That's what's important is that you're paying attention to yourself and you're becoming aware and showing your body that you care. I know this sounds really simple, over simple and cheesy, but I promise you, if you've not been doing this, it will move much more than you think, okay?

Because this stuff you, you'll build on it. The second example is just one self-respect boundary. Pick one way that you'll stop abandoning yourself in the name of being reasonable or available. Now, you guys know that I don't believe that any other person can abandon you, as a capable adult.

But you can abandon you a hundred by going and looking outside and seeking, seeking external validation and doing all the things people pleasing and for others, right? But then not even knowing how to listen to your own self. A hundred. , You can do that. if this is you, this might be your little exercise.

So it might look like, uh, after 8:00 PM I do not check messages from my ex, Or I do not respond immediately. Debating emails. I give myself at least 30 minutes, or I do not open court documents on the weekends or after I go to bed or whatever it is, right? Again, your brain is going to tell you, but what if I miss something?

What if I make things worse? , And you are gonna remind yourself that you're allowed to be human with your own limits. Nervous system limits. Taking care of you is not the same as abandoning your child.

And having setting your own boundaries for you and what you will and won't do for you. And when you will do those things is everything.

So the third example is one, parenting integrity action. This is one small thing that you do each week that is aligned with the parent that you know that you are, even if your child cannot see it or receive it right now.

Okay? This is more about your role, like reinforcing who you know that you are as a parent. That might be. Writing just a one line note in a journal you keep for them, it might be setting aside 10 minutes to remember our favorite memory on purpose, instead of only replaying the painful ones, Or it might be maintaining a quiet sort of ritual, like lighting a candle for them on Sunday nights. It may be just showing up in the world in a way that is very respectful and honoring of you, and eventually, you know, that doing so is modeling to them what that looks like. What self-love, self-trust, self-respect looks like, you know?

So it's just like, what do you admire in yourself? What did you admire in yourself as a parent? What do you admire in other people, other parents that are out there in the world? How can you also show that same love and respect to yourself and to them even from afar?

You're doing this not because it magically fixes alienation, but because it reminds you of who you are as a parent. It's about continuing to step into the role that you already have been playing this whole time.

And though you say that you have no relationship with, maybe you're saying that I'm no relationship, or I'm not a parent anymore. I'm not. I'm mom, I'm not a dad anymore. Many parents say that it's not true, so now it's time for you to re-prove that to yourself. Not that you have anything to prove to yourself, but yeah, maybe you do to reintroduce the evidence to yourself, because up until now, maybe you've been believing.

The narrative that they're trying to put on you. That's what they want for you to say that you are not a parent, you're not a mom, you're not a dad. You have no relationship. That's exactly what they want, but it, it does not have to be your truth. So it casts a vote for, just like I was talking about with that, with the James Clear quote.

I'm still here, I'm still loving, I'm still showing up even when no one is clapping or cheering. So the fourth example I have here is one five minute daily action toward your own life, the same time each day. Set a timer if you need to do five minutes of something that builds your life separate from the case, separate from your ex, separate from the alienation, separate from your children.

Okay? Five minutes of a walk. Five minutes of practicing. A practicing a skill. Five minutes of reaching out to a safe, loving, Person in your life, five minutes of looking at a class or a training, you might wanna take it. I, I say five minutes because I wanna do digestible easy. If you've been completely abandoning yourself, you can make this whatever you want, but make it doable.

So it could be 30 minutes or even an hour depending on the relationship that you have with yourself currently. Okay. And the amount of trust that you have with yourself. So you, whatever time limit you want on that, but make it something that is doable so that you don't have the excuse later that like, I just didn't have a time, I just got so busy, blah, blah, blah.

Right. No, I want it to, I want it to be oversimplified so that you prove to yourself so you can look back on that. You can build on it, but also look back and be like, I did it already. We can do this again. ,

where was I? Not because you're moving away from your child or moving on from them. Not because you don't care, but because you are still a whole person and your nervous system needs evidence that you are more than this crisis at hand.

Okay?

Every time you follow through with, on one of these tiny things, you are casting a vote. Remember that the quote that I was just mentioning a second ago too? Every action you take is a quote for the, uh, for the type of person you wish to become, every time you keep a commitment to yourself, even a two minute one, you're casting a vote for, I'm someone I can count on.

You being able to count on you is the only thing that matters in this whole fucking world. This is the, the base. If you can count on you, then not only will every single one of your relationships be better, and not that we're doing it to command respect from other people, but it does, you, you notice those people that really respect themselves and trust their own, commitments that they make for themselves.

Those people just, you, they walk into a room, . I talked about this in another episode. It's like, almost like they glide in, you know, because it's okay. Like everything else is okay. If somebody doesn't like them, it's not a problem. It doesn't need to be because they have them, you know, and people that's magnetic.

So not, we're, we're not doing it for that reason, but it does help things too. Okay. So, where was I now? 'cause I keep going off my notes.

So, it's not, I am perfect. It's not, I always get it right. It's just when I say I will show up for me, I do my best to show up. And those votes will add up those votes over time. Create this unshakeable, unbreakable self-trust. Yes, you will miss.

Some days or miss some times things happen, life happens, but I don't also wanna set you up for that either. You will still have moments where you fall back into old patterns. That's just part of learning and part of growing. And you'll still sometimes ignore your needs, Or answer the late night texts or skip the walk or whatever it is.

Self-trust is not built by never messing up. You're human, It's built by what you do after you mess up, which is really important.

Do you pile on and say, see, I knew you couldn't stick with anything like I was talking about with me before. Right? Or do you say, okay, that happened, but tomorrow, or actually even right now, depends. You don't have to wait till tomorrow to, to redo it. You can course correct whenever you notice that you haven't kept the commitment.

That's what I actually, help my habits clients to do, is to learn from, I, I call it last night, learn from last night. Especially if it's drinking. Like if you had a quote unquote oopsie, and you went out and drank when it was not planned and you just did it because you were, you answered the urge to go drink.

Then don't beat yourself up for it, because that's only gonna cause you to like, give up for good and say, forget it. I just could never do it. Which only reinforces your whole, uh, lack of trust with yourself. So instead just be like, okay, it happened. I'm gonna journal, like do a quick, you know, two sentence, three sentence paragraph about it.

Like I did it. I, I what it was I thinking before I took the drink or before I went out accepted these plans. Why? Like, where did, where was the gap there? Because there was a, at a point where you made the decision to go do it anyway. And why, what happened there? So learn from last night. And the same thing here.

So if you learn why, it's just data is what I'm saying is so like each time you don't follow through with your commitment to yourself. Just remember, okay, this is like, what is it that I can learn about this? The the what sets you up for failure is when you wanna avoid it or pretend like it didn't happen.

Like, oh, I did it again. I, I completely screwed up and didn't do the thing. And then either you'll beat yourself up about it or you'll be like, la, la la, la. I don't even want to think about that commitment that I made to myself again, because I don't wanna face the fact that I'm not doing what I say I was gonna do for me.

So then you just abandon the whole, the commitment all together, like ever doing it any, any further, which both ways are just going to reinforce this whole thing that the lack of, right? So instead, um. You wanna, you wanna learn from it. You wanna be open to the fact that you're human and that this is a whole learning process.

Every time that you don't keep the commitment, you use that as data and go back to the instant that you made the decision to not do what you said you were gonna do, why, what happened there in your brain? Okay? And try to always take the responsibility for that. Okay. 

that second response or this whole, what I'm, whole method that willingness to repair with yourself is self trust. It's like, it's not being perfect. It's not about being perfect. It's about like, okay, so I didn't honor my commitment. What can we learn from here? That is going to soften not only the blow, 'cause it doesn't have to be, it's like we could just use this all for data, which reinvests even the mistake now into your success.

So none of it, even the, the quote unquote Oopsie isn't an oopsie anymore because now you're adding it. You've created a more robust, um, plan for yourself. You've got more evidence and data to help you to, to succeed. Right? Okay. So nothing's ever a failure is what I'm saying.

, I just gave you whatever, however many examples, four or five examples here you could also, make your own commitment. It doesn't have to be anything that I wrote right here, but pick one tiny commitment that feels doable for you this week.

Okay? Write it down. Put it somewhere where you will see it and not just ignore it and consider it part of the, your, the core. Um, and instead of asking, did I do it perfectly, I want you at the end of the week to ask a different question. It's like, where did I show up? Instead of, did I finish all of them?

Did I, did I do it exactly? Did I check every single day and do it perfectly? Instead, is where did I show up for me in a way that I never used to? This is how you start to build self-trust with yourself. Not in one big dramatic gesture, but in a hundred quiet little votes for the person you're becoming.

And that's another thing, um, when I wrote that is that, um, , I tell my clients with habits, and it's the same thing here. You're building self-trust, like with the habits thing. You're building self-trust by learning to do something new instead of using the habit to hide your feelings, to mask your feelings.

I say that whenever an urge comes up with a habit, once you build up a hundred times, 100 times of experiencing the urge and not answering the urge, then you have become a master at. Handling urges, of not answering them and not, , allowing for habit brain to take over.

You've now retrained your brain to do what you want it to do, and then you can repeat, like, copy that into other areas of your life because you now already had the skill down, especially after a hundred successes of not answering the urge. And in this case, the urge could be to not do whatever you've, um, tasked yourself to do the commitment to yourself.

Okay, same thing. Hope I'm making sense there.

One thing I would just wanna remind you is that you do not have to fully trust yourself to behave like someone who is learning how to earn your trust back.

And the behavior is what's going to get you to the full, , effect that you want anyway, to the full self-trust. So just act as if, and I don't mean to like, um, feign it or like to, , you know what they say, fake it till you make it or whatever. I'm not saying that. It's just the behavior has to come first, okay?

It has to come first. The feelings will follow after. So this alone, just doing that, just behaving in a different way is a radical act. And doing that repeatedly is the radical act that's going to get you where you actually want to go instead of staying in stuckness.

So last week we talked about self-doubt and that scared kid in the driver's seat of your life. Today we focused on what it looks like to par. Start putting a steadier, more trustworthy version of you back behind the wheel. One tiny commitment at a time. Right before you go, I want you to just choose one of those self-trust reps we talked about and quietly commit to it for the next seven days.

Not perfectly, not dramatically. Just as a gentle experiment in becoming someone you know that you can count on. If this episode landed for you,

please share it with one other alienated parent who lives in that world of constant second guessing. and make sure that you're subscribed. Because next week we're gonna be talking about self-confidence, how it actually grows out of these tiny little self-trust votes, and why you don't have to feel confident first in order to live like the parent, you know you are.

Okay, and that's all I have for you guys. You'll have a lovely, lovely week. I'll talk to you soon.