Dawn Taylor| 21/08/2024

Dawn Taylor

Good morning. Only because it's good morning here. So that's why I'm going to say that today it is me, your host of the Taylor Talks, Dawn Taylor and I, okay, buckle up. We're probably going to say some bad words today. I'm going to just put it out there right now. You may be offended. Deal with it. I'm just. I'm just like, if you haven't listened to a few episodes already, you know that that's kind of how I am. Because today we're diving into how we are the common denominator in our own misery. Yeah, that's right, I said it and we're going to go there. So let's talk to our guest today. Her name is Melanie Verstraete. You can find all of her contact information on the show notes at TheTaylorWay.ca. She's a loving relationship expert and the founder of the Wild Heart Life. She works with people on unhealthy relationship patterns with men, women, all kinds of fun stuff, and finding all the root garbage that's kept us in those harmful cycles. But more importantly for today, her own experience with toxic relationships started in an unstable environment growing up with an inattentive mom, a string of unsuitable step dads, multiple divorces, a bunch of epiphanies, and all kinds of other fun. She's laughing right now because I'm the worst at reading people's bios, but I hope you guys are as excited as I am, because yeah, we're going to talk about the hard stuff today. Let's dive in. Melanie, what do you wish people were talking about? And welcome to the show.

Melanie Verstraete

Oh, I'm so here for it.

Dawn Taylor

Um, well, it's truly like what you said. Especially in today's culture.

Melanie Verstraete

We are such a blame game. I'm the victim. I'm the squeaky wheel giving me all the attention and let me stay here. The problem with that is there's no power there. There's zero power there. Right. So. If you don't like your life, you are the only one who can shift it. You're the only one who could change it, and you're the actual one who chose it now to use it. Lots of people are going to be pissed off, right? So, I'll do a quick little backstory, because this was the realization that truly saved my life. I could say that it saved my life.

Dawn Taylor

No. Let's dive into this. I'm going to actually pause you for a second. I want to dive into this because. I have heard, I've had this argument with so many people recently that “No, no, no, it's we were trained to be this way. This is literally how we have been trained to be.” The joys of that or that we can train ourselves out of it. Yeah. So let's dive into your childhood. Sure. And what it was that went on in your life that got you to where you were like, “Oh, shit, I might be the common denominator right now in my misery.”

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah. So long, long, long, long story short, um, I grew up without my dad, but now he's in my life, and we're, like, best friends, so it's beautiful. But he wasn't in my life when I was a little girl, uh, a teenager and a young woman. And then I had six step dads by the time I was 21. So, you know, there was a revolving door of men in my life. And luckily, the majority of them were cool. But the one who was with me the longest, you know, let's just be real, was a dick. And she was with me from ages 12 to 18. So really formidable years for a young woman, right?

Dawn Taylor

Your pivotal years.

Melanie Verstraete

Yes. He was emotionally abusive. I could never do anything right. And I'll just tell you one quick story, you know, and give you kind of like the climate of that house. Um, I was 16 at the time, and he was in the military, and he would all, no matter what I was doing, he would always hover over me and like, judge me and how I'm not doing everything right kind of crap. And he was a big dude. I'm like five, four. He was like six-two, six-three. And I remember I was washing dishes even though we had a dishwasher. And no, I wasn't a spoiled little brat, okay? I felt like the unpaid maid. Okay. And the unpaid au pair. And so I'm washing dishes and I have like I don't remember why I had so many, so much, uh, like utensils, but there was a ton of utensils for whatever reason. And, um, hand washing them, putting him in the little bin, and he comes over and he's like. He didn't say it in this tone. He said it in quite the dick tone, but basically, like, “Those aren't clean. Redo them.” Right? And at the time I'm 16, he's been in my life since I was 12. And if you know anything about young girls, we get a little sassy around that age.

Dawn Taylor

No, but yes we do.

Melanie Verstraete

I was starting to find my voice around that age. Right? Yeah. And he's like, “Wash them again.” Right in his wonderful voice. And I just looked at him and said, “No, they're clean. I'm not re-washing them.” Right. And so we argued back and forth for a minute. And then he goes to like take his two hands and he goes to pick them up and he picks them up like over his head. And he throws them back in the sink with obviously a lot of force. He's a big dude. And I looked down. I could still see the scar today and there's a fucking steak knife in my hand, I kid you not. And I just remember looking down and in complete shock and then like, looking over at him and I said, “You're psycho. I'm telling mom.” And he just looked at me with the straightest face and said, “You deserved it.” And walked away. And that was like the climate of our house for six years. And so I felt very alone, even though it was my mom, my stepdad and two little brothers who I resented at the time because I was their babysitter and I didn't have a life as a young girl. So fast forward. I meet who would be my first husband when I'm 21. He's 31 and I'm not the best judge of character at this point, clearly. Um, there was all kinds of red flags, like, I'll just tell everybody, you see the red flags, you just lie to yourself and you paint them other colors, okay? Because they're clear as day. Like, the red flags were like flare guns, like, don't do it, don't do it.

Dawn Taylor

But you had also been raised in a house where you had had six step dad's, like, obviously your mom. I mean, not badmouthing your mom, but let's be honest, like, she wasn't really super good at relationships.

Melanie Verstraete

No, no, no. And she, for whatever reason, I don't know her childhood. We never talked about it, but for whatever reason, she believed financially that she needed a man. She could not take care of herself financially. So every time she got married, it wasn't for love. It was, “I need you to take care of me.” And the funny thing was like, when I got a little older, I was like, “Mom, if this is what you're going to do, then at least marry some dude that has some money.”

Dawn Taylor

Like, what do you do? At least go for a really wealthy one?

Melanie Verstraete

Exactly. I'm like, ”You're marrying to be taken care of, but they barely have anything. So what are you doing?” So anyway. Fast forward, fast forward, fast forward. Right. I'm dating and I'm self-sabotaging when good men are coming into my life because I have a deep fear that they're going to figure out I'm not as wonderful as they think I am, and they're going to rip my heart out and leave me. So I didn't trust love. I wore a masculine shield. I had armor around my heart. You were not going to hurt me. I don't cry, I'm not vulnerable. That shit is weak. No, I'm an armor up. Boom boom boom. Didn't know I was doing this, but that's what I was doing, right? And then we get divorced. That's a whole ‘nother story we could get in. So let's just skip past.

Dawn Taylor

How long are you married?

Melanie Verstraete

Nine years. We had three kids together.

Dawn Taylor

Wow.

Melanie Verstraete

And he wakes me up in the middle of the night because he would do that kind of stuff. He was. He was a total narcissist, and I don't use that word lightly. I think that word is so overused today.

Dawn Taylor

It's the anxiety of a few years ago. It's everyone's just calling everyone in narcissist.

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah, he was a true one and a sociopath and a psycho. And any other labels you want to give him? It was a dark, dark time. But because there was so much dysfunction. Right? I stayed in that marriage. I know that I stayed in that marriage for such a long time, and if he wouldn't have kind of called my bluff, I probably would have still stayed with him because divorce meant I was my mother, and I could not imagine putting my children through the amount of pain that I went through. And so even though I knew it was unhealthy, even though I really didn't even like him as a person, let alone love him as a father, as a husband, as a man. I would have stayed because those were my vows. And that's what a good woman does, and that's what a good person does. And I didn't want to have the scarlet letter of divorce. Right.

Dawn Taylor

So let's talk about this for a second. So often people. So I grew up in a household where everybody was indecisive, like weirdly indecisive. First time I remember very strongly realizing it was my mom trying to go through a McDonald's drive thru and couldn't even order because she was so overwhelmed by it, and she brought me from the back of the van to do the order over top of her when I was like 7 or 8 years old. Wow. I remember this. And growing up in that, I did the polar opposite where I was like, I'm going to become decisive. I will never not be indecisive because that's ridiculous. Yes, but I did like you did, right? I did the polar opposite where I became too decisive. Right? Like I'm talking. My husband in the morning was like, “We need a second bathroom, we should buy a house.” And I was like, “Okay.” And it was like, done paper signed. By 7:00 that night. We owned a house and we just had final stages and people were like, “Oh, that was really fast.” And I'm like, “Oh, I don't collect dust.” Like I move at a very rapid pace because I refuse to be indecisive. And I don't think a lot of people realize that we are causing just as much damage. Because we aren't actually fixing the toxic trait. We're not actually healing it. We're not actually choosing a better mindset. We are just acting in rebellion of which is just as harmful.

Melanie Verstraete

So true. Yeah. So true. Because like, in spite of myself, I stayed, right. Even though everything in me was like, what are you doing? Yuck. This is not. He's not even, he's not a good father to your kids. He's not a good husband. He belittles you. He talks down to you. He he he was like a mind fuck, is what he was. So that night when he woke me up the way that he always liked to manipulate me, it backfired on him because he was like, “We should separate. And I said, “Are you crazy? We have three kids together. Like, that is not an option. No. So we should go to counseling.” And he said, “Counseling is for pussies.”

Dawn Taylor

Oh, you're like, okay.

Melanie Verstraete
And so, my light was dimmed and my voice was silenced in that relationship. That night, I found my voice again. Dawn. And this is what I said back to him. And I have to share this with your listeners because it's so funny. I said, “Well, maybe if you went to counseling you'd get more pussy.”

Dawn Taylor

Oh, that is hilarious.

Melanie Verstraete

And he was so angry. He did not like that at all. I was laughing my ass off and slept really good that night after I said that. So, when I woke up the next morning, like I woke up, meaning it just dawned on me, why am I even with this guy? I don't even know what am I fighting for? This is not even a marriage. We don't like each other. I have to like, make myself have sex with him. He's not a good dad. He's not even a good human. He has, like, a dark soul. What are you doing? And then the thing that gave me the courage to leave when I was judging myself by. Oh, my God, you're getting divorced was, if you say. And at the time, my kids were three, five and seven. If you stay, you're showing your daughter how a man should treat a woman, how a man should treat her? Hell, no. Is that going to be the example? If you stay, you're showing your two sons how they should treat women. No. Like this ends with me. This toxicity that is run amuck. I'm getting tingles as I'm saying, this has run amuck in my family is over. It ends with me. And I filed for divorce. I called his bluff. He just used it to manipulate. He didn't even think I was going to do anything. Then he stalked me. I had four personal protection orders against him. He was in my bushes watching me. Lots of creepy crap, okay. Moved across the country from Michigan to Arizona to get away from him, to save me and my kids, from him because they were either going to end up hating me, or I was going to end up dead or both. So we gotta get out of here. Then I always tell all my clients, “You will keep attracting the same person in a different body until you do the work to heal the parts of you that are trying to person anything, right?” So that's what I did. So I moved across the country for peace and I found more drama and chaos. Right?

Dawn Taylor

And you met him again in a different person.

Melanie Verstraete

And he was better. He was better. But it's so ironic because they were both Italian. No bashes to Italians, okay. Not at all. They were both Italian. They were both shorter. They were both. In construction. I'm like, I can't make this shit up. They both had, like, bad tempers. It's just in our blood. Right? That kind of crap. Yeah, but the second one was nicer. He was a better man. But there were still red flags, there were still toxic traits. And he had three kids and I had three kids, and his three daughters hated my guts from the get go, so it was kind of doomed before it even began.

Dawn Taylor

Okay, let's pause for a second. Because you talked about toxic traits. What are some of the red flags in the toxic traits that you saw in both relationships? Like you said, the red flags were flying. But we've all been in those relationships that after we're like, “Wow, did I actually not see that? Did I just ignore it?” But what were they for you?

Melanie Verstraete

So, for me, with the first one, he gave a lot of attention and at the time. I looked at it as an abnormal amount of attention. Okay, I'll just say that for a second. And at the time I thought to myself, “Oh wow, he must really like me.” Uh, no, he's a psycho. Okay. Like, the stalker behavior was starting to show itself, and I looked in my mind. I perceived it because I was neglected the majority of my life. My mom was never abusive. What? She was very neglectful. And so, yeah, it was like extra attention, extra texting, extra calling. Like, again, you reflect back and you're like, “Oh, that's too much. It is too much.” Yeah. So there's a balance, right? There's like being chosen and being given attention. And that feels good when somebody desires you. And then there's, like, a psychotic pursuit. It's kind of like the only way. It's too much, and, you know, it's too much. So there was that. And then I had to, like, convince myself to like him. Like what? Like, there was no physical attraction.

Dawn Taylor

Not even from day one?

Melanie Verstraete

No. There was no - It took me a year of knowing him before I even dated him. And when I think back about what it was about him that I was choosing, I was choosing somebody who wouldn't hurt me. Oh, how funny. Right? He hurt me almost the most, but in my mind. I knew I would never, like, fall in love with him, and I felt like he was more into me than I was into him. And so if that's the case, I have this upper hand, right? And this is not going on consciously in my mind. And this is my unconscious, my root issues. Right. If he loves me more than I love him, then he can never hurt me. And if this doesn't work out, he could still never hurt me because my heart's not here. And so what he represented to me was what I thought was stability and security. Which is so crazy ironic because it was the most unstable person I'd ever met.

Dawn Taylor

Did your mom claim to love them and that she always chose? So you just stay out of love and I'll be safe?

Melanie Verstraete

Yes, exactly. I will stay out. Love is not safe. Because love left me over and over and over again. And I didn't trust men. They left. And so that's why I was, like, armored up, right? I just stepped into my own masculine energy. Because I became the man, in essence, because there was no man that I could trust. And so how could I attract the kind of man that I always wanted, like a real man, a masculine man, a good man that would never be possible because I was the man? So, I was the repellent to all the good ones, and I was the magnet to all the wrong ones. Yeah, so fast forward. I'm in my kitchen. This was about seven years ago, and I'm contemplating now my second divorce because even though the second husband and I, we loved each other, there was so much drama between him and his daughters, and there's codependency, and I got to treat them like they're equal to you and they can talk shit to you. And I'm not going to say anything, and they can disrespect you, and I'm not going to be the man of the house. I'm going to make you take that role because I'm not man enough. And that might sound harsh, but that was the truth of it. And in fact, he told me to put my dick away often. What? Who talks this way to their wife? And I said to him, “Well, I wouldn't have to whip it out if you used yours.”

Dawn Taylor

So, that is hilarious.

Melanie Verstraete

So, did I want to be in that, like, leadership role? No, I wanted to give it to you. But here's the thing about us women. And I know that you can totally, uh, you know, agree with this. If you don't lead, we will, and we don't want to, but we'll do that. We will. Yeah, we don't want to, but we will because we have to. Because it's for the survival of our family, for the survival.

Dawn Taylor

And I think there's also a fine line where we just do naturally anyways because of the world that we've landed ourselves in, where we are so busy emasculating men that we do step up into that role because we don't want to compromise. We don't want to release any control. We don't want to do that. And I do think that for the listeners, like that is a very fine line of where we let them step up.

Melanie Verstraete

Yes. Yeah. It's the boss babe revolution. I'll just call it what it is.

Dawn Taylor

Right? Where we're like, no, no, no. We want you to step up and be the man of the household, but we're going to hold you down and not actually let you. And then we're going to blame you for not having a dick.

Melanie Verstraete

Yes, yes, yes.

Dawn Taylor

There is a very fine line. I was obviously just as toxic as he was, but unknowingly doing that. Right. But again. I could not have attracted different in that circumstance because I felt, you know, if any of your listeners know the Law of Attraction, if you've heard of the Law of Attraction, right. I felt unworthy. I felt not good enough. I felt I had to prove my worth. I felt that I had to morph myself into whatever it is you needed me to be, so you wouldn't leave me. So, there was so much negative belief around my value, my worth. I didn't have self-love, I had self-hate, I didn't have self-acceptance, I had self-judgment, and because that was the magnet, right? There's no way I could have attracted better. So. I'm having this epiphany of, “Oh my God, you're getting divorced again. What's wrong with you? Two? Two?”

Dawn Taylor

Now you're really your mother!

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah. You're on your way to be her girl. You better stop this now. Right? And it was. That could have gone down such a negative rabbit hole. But that was an awakening. I call that a spiritual awakening, because I felt like I got, like, smacked awake. And in that moment, this is like, rewind to what you were saying in the beginning. Right in that moment. I realized I'm the common denominator here. Me. And could I have blamed both of them? Since there is a plethora of toxicity. Take your pick. There's a damn buffet of it. Right? But who chose them? Right here. This one? This one chose them. So what part of you is okay with choosing men like this? Marrying men like this, procreating men like this. And I didn't know what the trajectory would look like. Like the path of how I would fix this. But I was determined to fix it. And so I worked on me like it was my damn job. Like I was obsessed. Healthy obsession of fixing what I felt was broken. Now, of course I know none of us are broken, but it doesn't take away from how you feel in that moment. You feel very broken. Yeah. And that changed everything. That's literally how coaching found me. I never set out to be a coach. Actually, I never did. I chose this path of healing, of unbecoming, of shedding all the layers of crap that I took on as my own for me to save my life, to save my children's life, to give us both a beautiful life and in that unbecoming, in that healing, in that holy crap, I feel like inner peace for the first time. Holy crap. I'm actually attracting, like, good quality men. Holy crap. Like, I'm in love with life and everything seems to be like the complete opposite of my other experience. Wow. Okay, this is why all those careers that I had. I kept moving from them because. I was never in love with what I was doing, and I was so in love with who I became and knew that I had to share it. I knew that I had to share it with the world. So that brings me here today, which I love.

Dawn Taylor

You and I were laughing prior to hopping on this call that we both often speak the truth that people don't always want to hear, but they often need to hear it. And, in that. One of the things I'll often say to clients is like, you need to be out of it sometimes to see it. So did you have to like you had to be, did you end up getting divorced for the second time, leaving that relationship, and at that point was when you could really work on yourself, because that's something that I want to challenge people on too, is like, often we have to get out of the toxic because we can't heal when we're continually having the scab picked.

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah, yeah.

Dawn Taylor

Right. Like we're when we're in the middle of the toxicity. And in that relationship sometimes it just takes space. It just takes space to be like, wait a second, I need out. So my view of this is different. My perspective of this is different. I'm seeing it in a totally different way. How did that play out for you?

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah. What was that decision in that moment that I did a 180? It was “I'm done with this. I will never get in another relationship with a toxic man. I will never do this again.” I'm getting tingles again. With it like that always feels like the truth when I get like. Like the tingles. Yeah, I put me first for the first time in my whole life. And I think that's really important for your female listeners, because we're so conditioned to put the kids first, the husband first, everybody and everything except for us. Right. And then what are we? There's nothing left like we're, that's how you get burnout. That's how you become miserable and jaded. That's how you become the victim because you have, like, drained your own life force energy to give to everybody else. And so that moment I made the decision that my life is going to be about me. It's me. It's my time, finally my time. Because my whole life was about everybody else. It was never about me. No wonder it was so damn miserable. I was trying to make everybody else happy, and I was miserable in trying to please everybody else. And so in that decision, right, it was the rest was easy because I was like, “You're out. Like, leave, get out of the house. We're getting divorced. I'm so done. I cannot do one more second of this.” And that's one thing about me. I have so much. Probably not as much. Nowhere near as much tolerances I once did. But it's like I put so much of myself in everything I do in all my relationships, including those shitty marriages, that if you keep pushing me and keep showing me that you're you don't value us, you don't value me, and you keep showing me your bad side eventually. Anything ever felt for you has just been ripped out like it is gone. And so I can just go, like a lot of men would say, that's cold. No, I'm just it's over. Like there's nothing left. Like you had the opportunity over multiple years to. show me the man you are. And you did. And so therefore I'm done. Right. So that's where I came to with that. And then again, like it was about me. And then of course, my children of course. Right. But I stopped dating. I didn't even want to go on another date with another guy, and I didn't even know who I was. That was like the scariest thing, Dawn. I was like in my early 40s, not even knowing who I am outside of my rules. And that was such a beautiful journey. Like, there's no words to actually describe the path that I went down. It's truly the word is ineffable, right? Which means there's no words.

Dawn Taylor

I love that. I work with ICI clients all the time that are dealing with this right and losing themselves in it. And my husband, I had a conversation a while ago where he's like. He said. “It feels like women just like all of a sudden, they're done. Like they just like, get up and they walk.” And I laughed and I said, “You know what they said women are really good at? Death by a thousand cuts.” Yes. And then all of a sudden, the tire severed.

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah, it is because we show you. We ask you. It's not that there wasn't any communication. We're like, we're pleading with you. Please do this. Please change this. Please hear me. Please see me. Right? Please.

Dawn Taylor

Well, we'll be very vocal about it. Yeah. And all of a sudden, though, I said it, it always comes across as very aggressive because all of a sudden women are like, “We're done. I'm out.” There's like, it's non-negotiable.

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah. And the guy's like the deer in the headlights. Like what? What?

Dawn Taylor

And he's shocked and didn't I didn't see this coming.

Melanie Verstraete

You're like, what? Every day, right?

Dawn Taylor

And it's so true though. It is so true.

Melanie Verstraete

It is quite comical. Right.

Dawn Taylor

Because it is. And we, we, we work through it so differently. Right? From men to women. I know my husband and I have had that conversation where he's like, “If I'm not hearing you, can you literally look at me and go, death by a thousand cuts. So that I know that, like, oh, this is you really needing me to hear you right now? Because this could end really badly for our marriage. Well, I look like I might need you to be very loud about it.” And I was like, “Oh, I will. 100%. Well, don't you worry.”

But the majority of people don't, so. We are the common denominator in our misery, right, where we do have to figure it out. We have to figure out our relationship with love. We have to figure out our relationship with people. We have to figure out how to bond and how to connect, and how to do all these things that we didn't learn as kids, as children, in neglectful families, homes, lives, or just in healthy homes that we still have to unlearn things when we get into relationships one day. Yeah, but let's talk about this in regards to other things in our lives. When we start, right, so it's like it's easy to point it out in a relationship and be like, “Oh my goodness, I've chosen ten of the exact same men.” or “I've chosen two of the exact same men.” Yeah, and I'm laughing only because when you said like they were both Italian and they were both toward and they were both right, it's also looking at like their character traits to be like, what is the double edged sword of these. Right. That could be showing up as a positive and one in a negative and the other. And it's actually the exact same horrible trait. But. We also use this in work. We use this in health. We use this in all of the things. Don't we?

Melanie Verstraete

If it's showing up in one aspect of your life, it's everywhere.

Dawn Taylor

Totally. 

Melanie Verstraete

I find that maybe there's just more pain associated with one of them versus the others. Yeah. So it just depends, right? It could be. It could be your work. It could be your body that's suffering. It could be your relationship. It could be any of them. Right. But the same thing that made you choose the wrong partner over and over and over again is the same thing that will keep you from having the overall fulfilling life that you want. There's some kind of limitation or belief system or, or pattern that you've taken on that keeps you in these little boxes. Right? So if it's unworthiness, like for me, unworthiness was a root of a cause of why I did the things I did. Well, then that also showed that I never made more than $100,000 in any of my careers. And aside from coaching now. Right? No, because I've done the work to rip that root out. But I did medical device sales, very lucrative. I, I was a copier sales rep, very lucrative. I was a designer for Ford Motor Company, very lucrative. So I had coveted careers that took education, time and tenure to get there. Right. And I never got over like 110, 120. Never. Why? Because my program, right. My worthiness was I'm only worth this.

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. This is my limit.

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah, this is my limit. So. It's like, you know, when people go to change their body. Like that seems to be the most common, let's say, New Year's resolution, right? And I guess I'm going to lose 20 pounds. I want to get ripped. Whatever. Right. It's like, yeah, the reason it doesn't work, that's actually statistically, I think the last time I checked was like 93% of all New Year's resolutions fail, because if we're overweight, as an example, right, then we have a self-image of overweight. And so that self-image lives in the unconscious, lives in the nervous system, lives in the root cause. But we're the 95% of our autopilot, right? But we're taking the 5%, which is in our conscious thinking mind saying, I am going to lose 20 pounds, get ripped, get shredded, get beautiful, get hot, get sexy. Whatever it is you say to yourself. And then we use our sheer will. The 5% to go, go to the gym, start to eat right, do all the right things right. But then what happens? Two weeks? Three weeks, if you're lucky, a month. And then you're basically like, fuck it. Well, why? Because your self-image, which lives in the 95% of your autopilot, which is the same thing that chooses the wrong partner, which is the same thing that stays in the job that you hate. It's all the same thing, right? Is the same thing that is operating you here. So, until you change the image you hold of yourself, until you get into the root cause of why are you overweight to begin with if you don't like it? Right? It's not what society thinks, it's what you think. Do I love myself in my body or do I want to look better, to feel better? Whatever. I'm not here to judge how anybody looks. It's you, not society. Right? So, that's the problem. None of us are getting to the root cause and then, of course, you get discouraged. “Oh, I suck, I'm a failure. I just should just give up.” And then it just gets worse and worse and worse. Because your inner talk, your self-talk, is so toxic to yourself, it's so detrimental to you.

Dawn Taylor

Well, it's also who we're surrounded with, right? We've all had those times where we go to make a big change in our lives, and the people around us are like, “What are you doing?” And then we want to fit in and we want to have community.

Melanie Verstraete

Eliminate those suckers!

Dawn Taylor

And we want to be part of all those things. And it does. It becomes really, really hard to go, “No, I don't do that.” or “No, I don't want to do that.” or “No, that's not my lifestyle.” And people struggle with that. People struggle horribly with that. You have to suddenly go to this place of rejection. And I know I've always said and so I've dealt with so many random health issues over the years and the majority of it comes from having a brain aneurysm when I was 17, and it's just caused some chaos. It's just caused some chaos in my body, right? Like I doubled my body size in five months on steroids and like, my system was weakened. And because of that, it causes other weird complications. And that's, it's just the reality of my physical body, and that's fine. But it's funny, the judgment that I get from, like the IVs that I do and how I eat and what I do, and you know, how much I take care of myself physically to stay alive. The judgment I've gotten over the years, and I remember looking one time and going, “I'm so sorry that you hate yourself so much that my loving myself is intimidating you.” And is a turnoff. Because I don't do these things because I hate my body. I do these things because I love my body. I don't do these things because I hate my life. I do them because I love my life. I want to keep living. So when I don't eat wheat or I don't eat sugar, I don't go for the desserts or I don't do those things, or I put more time into like having a nap or going for a walk or going in my row or whatever it is, whatever it is that I'm doing. Right? It's not a rejection of you because I'm choosing me.

Melanie Verstraete

You have to choose you over and over and over and over again. Yes. On everything. And I think that is even harder for women than it is for men, because we are so deeply ingrained with choosing other over us, choosing husband, his needs, choosing children's needs, choosing. You know what society says makes you a good woman. “You're bad. You're a bad woman. You should wear a scarlet letter if you do this.” Like, you know, I'm making a joke of this, but yeah, it's true. You have to care more about what you think of you than anyone else thinks of you. Because you have to live with you. You have to live with your choices. You have to live with looking yourself in the mirror and hating yourself, or loving yourself or somewhere in between. Right? But if you don't love the shit out of yourself, your life can't be beautiful. It really can't because you're like this little pinball of, like, pleasing the outside world so that you feel better. You can never feel better in that, in that choice, you can never feel better.

Dawn Taylor

So for the person who and this is something I had to overcome based on my childhood and my upbringing, for the person who's listening, that goes, but that's selfish. That is something that, you know, I want to serve my kids and my husband and I want to do those things. Yeah. What do you say to them? Because I think there's a fine line. I do think that there's a fine line between self-absorbed and selfish where you're just like, “No, I am everything, and you are nothing.” Yeah, right. And I think part of it is a definition. And the piece of it going, no, no, no, I love me so much I can give, I can serve, I can take care of, but in a way that it's not harming me. And it all comes down to like healthy boundaries on that. What do you say to that person who says you're just being selfish and making it all about you? 

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah, but that's okay. I could be selfish and I I'm good with that because here's the difference of, like, the quality of a human that I am now in this energy, in choosing me and in being so-called selfish, which is bullshit, but let's just call it what it is for now versus who I was before, who I was before was tired. Who I was before had lots of self-loathing and self-hatred, who I was before abandoned myself over and over and over again to make everybody else happy. Because if I made me happy, then I'm bad because I'm selfish, right? Who I was before was a shell of a woman, of a mother, of a wife, of a human. Since I've decided to put me first, who I am now has an abundance of energy to fill into everybody's fucking cup that comes into my existence. Like, because I fill my own cup first. Every day, I have my one hour of me time. It's my non-negotiable. No matter what, it's my time. Because I do that. I am so much better of a mother. I am so much better of a woman, of a coach, of a lover, of a human, of a friend, of a daughter, of just, like. I always have tons of energy. Before I was like, “Oh, oh, I got nothing.” Like, so drained. And now there's so much like I'm always filling everybody's cup so easily. It's like I have an endless supply of energy to give. So, don't buy into when you love yourself. You're selfish. Don't buy into when you come first. It means you're wrong and you're bad. If you want to think about your children as a mother, for the women who have kids. What example are you setting for your kids when you're a depletion of a human? Then, you are telling your daughters that that's how they should be, and you're showing your sons that that's the kind of woman they should have and that they don't matter. You don't matter. You, the person, the woman, the mother. You don't matter. We all matter more than you. That's basically what you're saying. So to add to what you're saying of like, there's people who are like, self-absorbed, I think that there's always a healthy amount of selfishness, and it doesn't have to have the negative connotation. My life got significantly better and so did my children's lives when I became fucking selfish. Okay, like that's the reality of it. When I was like, hey, wait a minute. I just spent my whole life making everybody else more important than me. And look at me. I'm miserable. I'm in survival mode. I'm always, like, tight and tense, and I'm going to get myself sick. Actually, if I stay on this path, like some kind of disease is going to manifest itself in my body because I'm always like this, right? I'm always in tension. I'm not living this way anymore. If that makes me selfish, then I'll wear the shirt proud. Selfish. Selfish AF. Right?

Dawn Taylor

Well, and it's interesting. So Oxford English Dictionary defines selfish as of a person, action or motive, lacking consideration for others concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure. And I wonder sometimes if we misinterpret words. Right off the bat, I. If you were to ask anyone in my world how many times I say define it, they laugh because I'm always like, can you find that? What's the definition of that? I'm curious what that actually means, because we use words so powerfully that we don't actually know what the definition is. So, everyone be prepared to be mad because I'm saying it. How much of it is that we believe that we are being selfish by choosing ourselves? And how much of it is a martyrdom that we have taken on in a victim mentality that makes us feel valued? That makes us feel seen, that makes us feel like we are enough because we are a martyr for somebody else, and we are actually destroying ourselves for somebody else, because we think that's what's going to get us a trophy one day.

Melanie Verstraete

A lot of us are addicted to our suffering, our story, and the attention that we get. Look at him. He was so bad. I was such a good wife. I gave him everything. And then he cheated on me. And then I'm just, you know, throwing stories out there. Martyrdom stories. I gave everything to my children and they disrespected me.

Dawn Taylor

I remember when a client said this time and I was like, do you know the definition of sacrifice? And she was like, what in here? I'm going to look it up really quick because I laughed hard at the time because I was like, ah, literally an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure. And I remember looking at her going, so you've slaughtered yourself. And she just she's like, took a step back. And I was like, so you're literally killing yourself.

Melanie Verstraete

She was, she didn't realize that.

Dawn Taylor

And I think that is a thing. Right. And when we're raised old-fashioned, when we're raised in religion, when we're raised and I'm a Christian, so I'm not saying that this isn't like that I wasn't raised in this. But when we are raised in this belief that we are always less than and that we are called to suffer. Yeah, I think that there is a time and a place. I think that there is a definition on that, that we are attaching to be victims, to stay victims because we have convinced ourselves that to choose ourselves is selfish. One of my favorite things in the world is “I love you, but I love me more.” And it's a shifting of our standards we've set for ourselves. It's been a shifting of our expectations that we put on ourselves. Yeah. That's not like you said. It's funny like the selfish. If it's not selfish, I don't think that it is selfish to love ourselves. It is not selfish to give a shit about ourselves. It's not selfish when. So in friendships, I always tell people like, if you ever need to cancel, say the word. Even with clients, I'm like, I am fully giving you, like, I have a lunch next week with a friend. And I said, look, I know your world's chaotic right now. I'm giving you 100% permission to bail. And she was like, thank you. I was like, not even a question. Like, no judgment. I'm not upset. I was like, the fact that you are choosing yourself, the fact that you know where your capacity is and you're not going to sacrifice your mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, relational health for me matters because I don't want you to.

Melanie Verstraete

Exactly. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor

And that's where we need to shift those words, even. Right.

Melanie Verstraete

It's the program. It's the conditioning. And you should just stop buying the bullshit. It's like. It's like the good girl, right? The good girl, the good woman. The good girls don't write. If you do this, this makes you a slut. If you do this, then you're a bad wife, right?

Dawn Taylor

Oh, gray hair on a woman is awful, and gray hair on a man is distinguished. That's the one I always get.

Melanie Verstraete

Mhm. Yeah. There's a lot to unpack there but like. The simplest way for me to put what the root cause is of us having crappy relationships, or us not having the kind of the quality of life that we want. Your relationships with others are a direct reflection to your relationship with yourself. And I don't care what anybody says. That is 100% the truth. And I know there's lots of people to be like, “But I like myself.” But do you really examine your inner dialogue? Examine how you talk to yourself, examine what you think you're worthy of. Do you put yourself in this little, tiny, insignificant box of less than, not good enough? I need to prove myself somehow, right? Because if you do, then your reality has to reflect that back to you. Your outside world is a reflection of your inside world. Not this big world. Your own little baby world, right? So if you don't like it, the only way to start to change it is to address the inner game. Address the inner dialogue. Address the inner relationship you have to address. What are my thoughts? What do I feel? What are my beliefs? What am I taking on? Thi is true on a daily basis, right? Am I looking at my past and living there? Well, of course that's all you can recreate. You're powerful, okay? We're all co-creators. We're in, and God flows through all of us, right? So if you hate yourself, like, let's look at that for a minute. So if you hate yourself, let me help you reflect a little bit different then. Then you hate what God created. Really? Do you really hate what God created? Who are you to hate on God's creation? Like, let's just put it out that way for a second, right? If you want to be stuck in your martyrdom and be like, “Yeah, but my mom. Yeah, but my dad. Yeah, but this happened to me, okay.” You're going to hate yourself because of that. You're going to have the audacity to hate God's creation. No, I'm pretty sure. No. So love your damn self. You're not selfish. The only way your life is going to start to get better is if you actually give a shit about you. You have self-acceptance, self understanding, self-respect, self-acknowledgement, self-love, self-care, all of it. And then you feel better. And then imagine how much if you're a natural giver and you like to give and you like to be of service to others, you can even imagine what a beautiful service to others that you can be when you get yourself to that place.

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. It is so true. It is so true. So for somebody listening who's like, “Oh, that's me, I am, I am a victim, I am a martyr. I'm now seeing right. I'm now seeing that I am the common denominator in my craziness and my head.” Whatever it is, whatever it is. What are some first action steps that you would recommend that they take?

Melanie Verstraete

Oh, okay. Well. Listen to your intuition.

Dawn Taylor

Okay. So I'm going to drill you on this because this is one of my pet peeves. This is one of my pet peeves with people that talk is we all talk in verbiage, and we all talk within the language of what it is that we do and who we are, and nothing is like an actual tangible thing, and then people feel stupid and they feel like they're not doing it and they're failing at it. So when you say, listen to your intuition, I'm going to drill you on this. What exactly does that look like? And what does that mean to you?

Melanie Verstraete

Sure. So when I say listen to your intuition, I say this and I'll tell you what it means to me and give you, like, examples of what it could mean to you. I say this because your intuition is always right. Your intuition is never wrong. It is your North Star, and it is in essence, your connection to source, to spirit, to God, to infinite intelligence, whatever you want to call it. Okay? Because we have not really been taught to listen to that. So other people call it your gut, your inner voice, your knowing. I know that, I just know, and I don't need to make sense of it. I just know, right? For me. My intuition is the first thought. It's like this. Like, you go to make a decision and your intuition is like, oh, and. it can sometimes sound more like a whisper, so it can just come as this. It's your first instinct. But I will tell you that if you're not used to listening to it, if you haven't quieted your own mind yet, what you're going to hear is your shit talker or your inner critic, right? So your intuition might be like “Take that job offer.” Right. As an example. Oh yeah, take that job offer. And then your inner critic, your inner critic was like. “Don't do that. You're not even going to make a lot of money. You don't even like it anyway.” La la la, telling you all the reasons. The bad ideas, right? Yeah. Because that voice has been trained over the years and you've listened to it, right? Unknowingly, it's louder. And so we will tend to listen to that. Your intuition is never negative. If you hear a voice and it's negative or it's attached to anything negative, it's not your intuition. It's your old program. It's your mom, it's your teacher. It's the high school bully. It's not you. Okay? Your intuition is this inner knowing. And sometimes it doesn't even make sense. Sometimes it sounds irrational and illogical. Like you could be driving in the car and you're on your way to go to, like, Starbucks as an example. Right? And your intuition is like, make a left here and go to this bakery and you're like, “What the hell? Why would I do that? I don't want anything over there.” Right? Yeah, but you need to listen because all the things that you want, that your desire, your intuition knows, God knows, source knows. And when you listen to your intuition, you are always on your right path. All the things that you've ever wanted and not wanted. Your intuition knows the way. You could call it your higher self to whatever verbiage. It's all the same. So, when you listen to you, your inner knowing, and you tune out what everybody else is saying, you can never be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Dawn Taylor

So I often recommend people start with asking like, “Do I even like this food? Do I want to eat that thing? Do I like this shirt?” Literally, start really tiny because this is a muscle. It's a muscle inside of you that you have ignored for a very, very long time.

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah, and I can, I'll add to that even. How about every day you just choose this. It’s going to be a great fucking day. How about that? Like, how about how about if you look at every day as a new life, like literally look at it as a do-over a redo and it's a chance.

Dawn Taylor

It's a chance to completely redo whatever has gone on.

Melanie Verstraete

Yes. And you, you're not. And that helps you be more present. That helps you be more in the now and you're not stuck in your head and in the past and all the things that went wrong yesterday. Today, it is my intention that it's going to be a good day no matter what. I'm making it a good day because I'm choosing it. It doesn't matter if I get stuck in traffic. It doesn't matter if my boss tells me off. It doesn't matter if somebody is mean to me at the grocery store. I am choosing to feel good no matter what.

Dawn Taylor

And I love that. And I think that it's those little tiny things. People think it's like this big, massive shift that has to happen. And often it's just going, no, I'm going to choose in this moment to laugh. I'm going to choose in this moment to find happy. I'm going to choose in this moment. You can live your life scared. We can live our lives in fear. We can live our lives in all of those things. But it was quite a few years ago. I remember walking into a coffee date with a friend, and I had had the greatest morning, and I'd want a contract for work. And I was like, I was so excited. And it was, this is like pre-business days, one of my own companies. This is a long time ago and I was so excited and we just found out we were getting a big tax return. Like it was just like one of those days that you're like today's the day I should buy a lottery ticket because all the good things are happening. And I walked in and I was like, “Hey, how are you?” And she was like, “Oh.” And I immediately felt myself dim. It was like a dimmer switch on who I was, and I was like, I am not safe to feel this happy and this excited right now. And I've often used this. Use this as an example with clients at the moment that I was like, “Oh, shit.” Like, I just hard-dimmed me and I was like, oh. And she's like, “How are you?” And I was like, “The same.” And it was like this out-of-body experience where I was like, what the hell did I just do? What did I just say? Like, I should have walked in here being like, crazy, right? And I couldn't, I couldn't, and I'm not saying it's because she couldn't handle it because I didn't give her the opportunity to. So I don't know how she would have reacted or responded. But I went home that day and I sat down and I was like, who in my inner circle right now? Could I actually phone and have them be excited for me for all these wins today? And guess what? There was maybe one. Oh, yeah. And it was a big aha for me. And like oh so I am the common denominator that's attracting really miserable humans around me that are always suffering, always unhappy, always like oh I hurt or oh I this or oh my kids that. And I'm not saying go through and just like, wipe all these people out of your life. But for me, it was this big moment of like, what if I actually showed up the way I authentically feel? And some of those relationships just naturally died off. And I think a piece of it is because I got too busy and I didn't have time for people anymore, and I shifted the game. I started playing a different game in that way. But also, I wasn't willing to be a victim anymore. And I wasn't willing to show up in that way anymore. And I'm laughing as I say this, or hesitating as I say this because I'm like, “Oh shit, some of these people might listen to this podcast.” And you know what? It was never a lack of love for them. It was never that. It was never a rejection of them. But I had to choose me. I had to choose me in those moments to be like, “I no longer want to dim that light. I no longer want to suffer in that way.” And when you said earlier, what our relationships are around us is like, our relationship with myself and I have some of the coolest people around me that celebrate all of the wins. We all celebrate each other's wins. We also are there for each other's losses and we pick each other up and you know, we don't talk every day. You know, we don't see each other every week. Like it's a totally different relationship. And it's so beautiful and I feel so loved in them. And that would be, I don't know, my challenge to anyone listening is. Any area of your life that feels unhappy or feels uncomfortable, or isn't where you want it to be. What's going on around you because you are the common denominator.

Melanie Verstraete

And something I don't think a lot of people talk about enough is when you are going to touch on what you were just saying about your friends naturally falling off. When you do choose the work to heal, if that word resonates or unbecome or unlearn or just become better people will. People will naturally just fall off, like, relationships will naturally just. And sometimes it can feel lonely, but know that who's meant to be in your circle will stay, and they're either going to rise with you or they're going to, and that's okay. Like, that's their life. That's their path. That's okay. Right. But like you said, you dimmed your light when you felt like the energy of that, that woman. It's like if you know that about yourself, right? And you know that you can do that, then you either need to isolate for a little while until you feel stronger in that. Or only surround yourself with the people that will help you rise. And in the beginning, a healing journey. That's kind of like what starts to happen. There's like this cocoon, self-isolation. Because you can't unknow, you can't unsee. You see, everybody is in essence not so healthy traits. And you're like, “Oh, I don't want that anymore. Too much negativity, too much judgment, too much drama, too much whatever.” So, like, again, what you said, choose yourself in those moments you decide to stay in when you would normally have gone out and been with all the friends that just like to talk shit about everybody and you're like, you know what, I don't want to do that anymore. Choose you by staying home and not doing it anymore.

Dawn Taylor

Honestly, one motto that I recommend everybody take on. It's not a rejection of you. It's a love of me, but also I love you. But I love me more.

Melanie Verstraete

Yeah. And if not, don't see them in their flaws. See them in their sovereignty. See them in their divinity. See them in their power. Right. And sometimes it takes you to see them in their power, for them to see themselves in their own power, because they're so used to their own patterns, their own negative beliefs, their own unhealthy, toxic traits. Right.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, that's so true. I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Melanie, for hanging out with a city, for being vulnerable, for being open, for having this conversation, this conversation that we know will make people upset with us. But it's a love, people.

Melanie Verstraete

It comes from love.

Dawn Taylor

It totally does.

Melanie Verstraete

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Dawn Taylor

You are so welcome. For those of you listening. Thank you for hanging out. I hope there's something that you heard hits home today. And if it does make you uncomfortable. Well, we're talking about probably a really big sign that you need to sit and resonate on that for a second and look at yourself and not in a negative way, but like, no judgment, just curiosity. What is it about what we've said is offending you? Or hurt or made you feel uncomfortable, because that's where there's some really cool opportunities for you to shift or change or grow. Join us again in two weeks for another cool topic. Please tell your friends. The more people that are listening but also are open to these conversations, the better. Think of the conversations you can have with some friends over these podcast episodes. Check out the show notes located at TheTaylorWay.ca. For more information on Melanie and all of her stuff that she has going on. She's a powerhouse, as you could tell, so if you are looking for some support, you know she's your girl. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. And please don't sit in it alone. Melanie and I are both here to support you. Talk to you guys later.