Special Edition: Mending Hearts and Cultivating Self
Apr 20, 2024Season 3Episode 12
Shireen Botha/Tanya Scotece
When the fabric of love begins to fray, some choose to sever ties while others stitch the bond back together. Join me in a heartfelt journey through the terrain of human relationships, where I share insights on cultural expressions of love, the dynamics of codependency and narcissism, and the often unspoken truths about infidelity and jealousy. In a world where addictions are as diverse as they are destructive, we'll uncover how they shape our connections with those we hold dear.
As a single mother who found her power through education at 35, the transformation into self-reliance is a story I hold close. We explore the art of sculpting the self through self-love and independence, employing strategies like therapy and meditation. These tools aren't just for those seeking peace; they're stepping stones for anyone on the path to personal fulfillment, aiming to inspire you to nurture your well-being and grow from within.
Spirituality doesn't have to be confined to organized religion, and the teachings of figures like Jesus Christ can bring richness to our lives. Together, we discuss the serenity that meditation offers, advocate for self-care as a daily practice, and remind you to cherish life's little joys—whether that's fresh flowers or the comfort of a pet like Rolo, who joins us after her recent recovery.
We welcome you to connect with us and other listeners, sharing your own stories and strategies that have guided you through life's hurdles. Your voice is an integral part of this conversation, and we can't wait to hear it.
When the fabric of love begins to fray, some choose to sever ties while others stitch the bond back together. Join me in a heartfelt journey through the terrain of human relationships, where I share insights on cultural expressions of love, the dynamics of codependency and narcissism, and the often unspoken truths about infidelity and jealousy. In a world where addictions are as diverse as they are destructive, we'll uncover how they shape our connections with those we hold dear.
As a single mother who found her power through education at 35, the transformation into self-reliance is a story I hold close. We explore the art of sculpting the self through self-love and independence, employing strategies like therapy and meditation. These tools aren't just for those seeking peace; they're stepping stones for anyone on the path to personal fulfillment, aiming to inspire you to nurture your well-being and grow from within.
Spirituality doesn't have to be confined to organized religion, and the teachings of figures like Jesus Christ can bring richness to our lives. Together, we discuss the serenity that meditation offers, advocate for self-care as a daily practice, and remind you to cherish life's little joys—whether that's fresh flowers or the comfort of a pet like Rolo, who joins us after her recent recovery.
We welcome you to connect with us and other listeners, sharing your own stories and strategies that have guided you through life's hurdles. Your voice is an integral part of this conversation, and we can't wait to hear it.
Tales from the Wild, stories from the Heart A journey into the mind and soul of fired-up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion. As we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.
Shireen Botha:
You asked a very good question earlier on about divorce, and why do you think people find it easier to divorce than to try and fix something that's broken? Why do you think that?
Tanya Scotece:
So I'm going to only speak from my perspective. That's fine. It's all I have. I'm not a trained therapist. I don't have enough knowledge or education experience. I have experience.
Tanya Scotece:
Let's just say that I have experience in this area, but not formal education. Okay, so let's just say so. Divorce I'm going to start with you. I was married at the age of 18, and then I was married at the age of 24. And I think we sometimes, you know, you meet somebody, especially like in a culture that it's not an arranged marriage, so somebody that we picked out for ourselves at that time. Sometimes I think the what is what you lacked growing up or what you didn't maybe quote unquote have. If now you have a partner that is flattering you or buying things or you know, I don't want to say false, I don't want to say that false gifts, but false, like meaning behind it, like you buy into that, like whatever that is in the culture, whether it's, I don't know. In the United States it would be like roses and you know, flowers and gifts like tangible gifts. Is that what happens in South Africa with dating? Is that, is that common?
Shireen Botha:
Yeah, some people give gifts, some people just spend time. You know, it's a whole different languages of love, I guess.
Tanya Scotece:
yeah, love language, yeah that's a great assessment to take for those listeners out there. And it's free, it's online, it's the love languages. So I think so in my perspective, what I believe happens is if you are attracting a partner like so let's go to the word codependency, right. So if people grow up codependent with, maybe, their parents or their siblings, and now they're of age that they start getting interested in relationships and partners, it's very common for codependent people to pick people that are narcissists. It's almost like a magnet, and what happens is that prophecy fulfills itself to where one person is always trying to please the other, and it's almost like the stakes become higher and higher and higher. To where one person it's like giving and giving and giving and trying to make themselves more attractive.
Tanya Scotece:
Or you know, some culture it's it's like, you know, more curvy, and other cultures it's skinnier. Another cultures it's bigger. So, whatever that looks like in everyone's individual culture, we strive to be better. And then, if you have a person that is more of the narcissistic tendency, to where they start cheating on you, right, and then all of a sudden, you really feel less than and you feel like, wow, look, I must be bad if somebody is going to find a partner outside of our relationship. So then that fuels and that jealousy is horrible. I mean, I don't know if you've ever experienced jealousy, sharon, in a interpersonal relationship, but it's all consuming. It is literally like all consuming and you try to find out the reason why and how, and you spend all of your energy trying to fix and make it better.
Voiceover:
Right.
Tanya Scotece:
So I think to sometimes, from my perspective, I can say that the breakdown of communication, especially for our listeners that have been wronged in relationships we spend so much time trying to figure out the why, why, what does that other person have that I don't and at the end of the day, you know, here I am in my 50s now has nothing to do with us.
Tanya Scotece:
It's just like that person. They were on their own path. But we spend and I have students that come to me and share their heartfelt personal stories about professor, what's wrong with me, you know, like, why is this person cheating on me? And then they spend an exorbitant amount of energy trying to be better when there's nothing wrong with them in the first place, right, so, so, so, I think. So, you know, a lot of times I think, especially and I don't, I don't know, I mean, I have no statistics or no data to base this, this conversation on, but I think that is a big thing with relationships it's people when they go outside of the relationship, whether that's the communication. So I know a lot of days now people have open relationships, right, it's like everyone can do. So you don't have this, you know, defined. So I mean that's another. You know, people can do that also.
Tanya Scotece:
And then I also think a lot of people again, depending on how they're brought up and how they cope with life, how they cope with stress, become addicted. Right, and addictions can look like alcohol addictions. So people becoming alcoholics, people turning to drugs, people turning to shopping there's plenty of people that shop that are actually addicted to shopping but it doesn't look the same as somebody choosing alcohol, somebody that can be addicted to school they're probably elevated in society to say, oh wow, they have advanced degrees. That could just be an addiction. School can just fitness exercise, right, anything can be an addiction. So when you sit back and look at people's whether it's conscious choices or subconscious choices people do what makes them feel good and if it means having a drink, if it means buying a pair of shoes, if it means sleeping, we can, as a society, look at addictions and base it on good or bad, or positive and negative, as opposed to just seeing it for an addiction.
Tanya Scotece:
And I think that's another reason why, to answer your question, people have relationships that they gets to a point the communication breaks down, right, and they just like they start off here together and then it becomes a rift here and a rift there and another rift and another rift and another rift, and they start filming this night and another night on the couch and it starts off. You know everyone's happy, go lucky. You know sleeping together and before you know it, now you're sleeping with your. You know facing opposite and then you're, and then that resentment builds up to where we're done right, we're done. One person's like you know what we're done, for whatever reason, and the co-dependence are gonna go find another relationship, which is a whole other conversation. And the person left behind is like how can I be that easily replaceable? How could they even find somebody this quick? When you look at it, it has nothing to do with you, it's they're probably co-dependent, right, right, I kind of agree, yeah, so again, I just you know, and I'm only speaking from experience. So there's no again, there's no data, there's no research, it's just from my experience. So I think a lot of times people as me, my younger self, would say you know what this person's not for me. I'm going to get divorced or end this relationship, I'm going to go find somebody else. But it's a point you know. Maybe our listeners out there will say then they maybe have therapy, have a coach.
Tanya Scotece:
Another thing too, and I don't know, this is another interesting point Very early on with relationships you might get to where that relationship becomes your world. So you start disengaging from friends, you start disengaging from family and you put all of your energy into this relationship. So we talk about the word source right, and some people are religious, you know, god-based, faith-based. Other people's source might be the universe or divine intervention. But I think what happens, especially for the co-dependence and I was very co-dependent, the first probably, I'm just not even say half my life a little bit over that time period where we put our energy into another person, all our energy, so we don't really have friends, we really have, you know, family. We're putting all of our energy into the relationship. So when that relationship quote, unquote crumbles or whatever word you want to hear who's fall apart, break up, we are finding ourselves isolated and it's harder to get out of that isolation.
Tanya Scotece:
So my recommendation for listeners out there, shareen, is to maintain our own self the best that we can, and the minute we say to ourselves that we want to quote unquote fix somebody else, change ourselves, that's when and you should these are my lectures in my classroom. It's like they got to do self care, self preservation. I know the buzzword now is self love, but it's like if you're waiting for somebody to buy you roses, go buy yourself roses. If you're waiting for somebody to you know, take you out to dinner. Go with your friends out to dinner, take yourself out to dinner, because we sometimes wait our whole life for the magical person to come along, and that's a whole. You know, growing up as we've, I think we've shared this comments and on other podcasts. You look at the fairy tale, right? Somebody's going to come save us. Some somebody on a beautiful horse is going to come in and show up us up, and you see that with all of the story books, and that's what we're told, that's what we believe.
Shireen Botha:
Right.
Tanya Scotece:
Yeah, and when it doesn't happen, it's like, okay, I'm going to get rid of this person with this horse and I hope, another one comes along and saves me the next time.
Tanya Scotece:
So I think, self investment, whether it's resources through education and, as you know, as a non-traditional student for those listeners that don't know me I started my academic journey as a single mom at the age of 35 years old for my associate's degree and I will say that education is probably one of the best opportunities to find yourself and some people have the mentality that they don't want to go to school until they know what they want to be.
Tanya Scotece:
And I won't challenge any listener and I know we've had many discussions. I've had this discussion with several students out there and you know who you are, because sometimes the opportunities through the educational system will give you opportunities that you didn't know existed, because you're only basing your experience from your own individual household, friends and perspective when, when you get into an educational opportunity system, you're realizing there's different cultures, different people, different ages and opportunities, whether it's a study abroad, whether it's something local, volunteering in your own community down your street, that you didn't even know existed until you finally heard it right. So I would say to any listener if someone's struggling out there with whatever that core belief may be lack thereof, self-esteem, not feeling good enough not feeling heard, feeling that the world is against you, feeling that all these trials and tribulations and struggles, yes, they're real, right. But we can step out of our own mind to say you know what? This is based on my conditioning, and that may not be the truth.
Shireen Botha:
Yeah right, 100%. Thank you, Tanya, for sharing that, and you know it's so important to note that you've got to follow all those empty places first before you enter into a relationship with somebody else. And I encourage you to do that because if you don't follow those places up that are missing in your life, you're going to expect your partner to do so Not necessarily conscious of it, but you will eventually and you'll put a lot of pressure on them and they'll end up filling those places that they shouldn't. And therefore there goes the confidence, the code dependency, as Tanya puts it. Pull those places up with who you are and first before committing into any sort of a relationship, so that you can be two separate entities working together on one path, instead of trying to suck each other dry with trying to expect them to pull up what is empty in your own tank. So yeah, I don't know if that makes sense.
Tanya Scotece:
Yes, so sure. So we've come to the part in our podcast conversation as far as. So what are some things that you do to demonstrate self love for yourself? What are some things that maybe you like engage in, or you know, what would you say? How do you, how do you demonstrate to where, maybe, if you want it from somebody else, what are some concrete things that you are doing for yourself?
Shireen Botha:
I'm doing therapy for myself, that's one thing. You know nothing wrong with finding a therapist. And when you do find a therapist, do it for yourself, do it for finding forgiveness. And if you're hearing my dog Flap her ears, Rolo has just woken up for a very long nap.
Tanya Scotece:
So can we see. Rolo, can you get to come see my mom before?
Shireen Botha:
No, no. It looks like she's going to come down the ramp now, so I'll lift her up. She's just a ramp.
Shireen Botha:
She has a ramp, yes, she has her own that she gets up and down the bed with. So she's stretching and waking up and then she'll probably come down there and I'll lift it up for you to see. But so probably the other things that I do is definitely I go hiking for the day with my back, I get away to the mountains and do some backpacking if necessary. The other things that I like to do is I do wake up and I have meditations in the morning, and I do do that to ensure that my mind is in the right place to start the day, because when I don't spend time doing that, I tend to have my day seems to be off, my day seems to be a little bit weird. So I need to do my meditations and my journaling just to get my head in the right space. Other than that, I think yeah, I think those are the main things that I do.
Tanya Scotece:
Okay, you know why I'm asking your meditation. What do you mean by meditation? Are you explain what you do? Because I know there's. There's a whole spectrum of meditation. There's guided meditations, there's transcendental meditation. There's different variations. So when you say meditation, what does that mean you?
Shireen Botha:
So my meditations consist of breathing meditations. I tend to just focus on what I feel here, taste, smell. I try and calm my mind down and listen to my heart beating, just to still still my mind for a little bit. I've gotten to that point. I get to be appreciative of how much God's helped me through so much.
Shireen Botha:
I'm not a religious person but I am a spiritual person and I do believe in the historical account of Jesus Christ and what he did for so many people. And he was a pretty rare guy and he just loved, he just loved. He spent his entire life sitting with thieves, murderers, and just loving, just loving them, and that's a pretty cool example to follow and he has just been so good to me and I have no reason to think anyway other than that. And the reason why I say I'm not very religious is because even I'm not trying to be funny but one of the biggest problems Jesus had was with the religious people, and so I really have a big problem with what religion does and the religious organizations and the damage that they've done, and still to this day. So I really do have a little bit of a problem with religion.
Shireen Botha:
So I don't like I'm not a religious person in that aspect, but I know I am very spiritual and so, gratefulness being understanding that there is things in my life that are happening that are out of my control. It's nothing I can do about those bigger things and all I can do is focus on the things that I can control and the decisions that I can focus on. And so for me that is really hard, and I'm sure it's hard for many other people, but I I can't. It's very draining to try and control those things, but just to get into a mental space knowing that you can't control the big stuff, the little things you can, but also knowing that you can only do the best that you can with what you have and that is enough and that is okay and we move on. So yeah, that's what I mean by meditation.
Tanya Scotece:
By meditation. Okay, Very nice. A couple of things that I've found over the years that have worked is so for me. I do meditation. Mine is a silent meditation.
Tanya Scotece:
As many listeners out there that know me personally, I started off meditating about seven years ago, I think is when I started this quote unquote self journey or inspirational journey is I couldn't even silently quiet myself for one minute. I would set the timer, my meditation time, and I would like open my eyes like 10 seconds in. I'm like what is this going to be over? Now I can do usually about 22, 25 minutes silent meditation. But, as you brought up a good point, I like having a routine that works for me. But sometimes maybe you sleep in a little bit and you're rushing and you don't get to do the meditation. So what I find now is I can reset myself at any point during the day, any point. So let's just say the morning got ahead of me, right, Maybe I had meetings to go to. I can always you know what, let's shut off the electronics, the computer, whether I'm at work, whether I'm home, maybe just go to a space and just do it for five minutes or seven minutes or whatever that looks like. It doesn't mean that I have to go to sleep and sleep the whole night to start fresh tomorrow. I can reset myself throughout the day and some people might resonate with maybe taking a break, right, Cooling off.
Tanya Scotece:
If you're at work, things are just kind of off. You had some words, you're not on the same page, you know what? Just go, breathe, right. And then people minimize breathing. I mean, if you think about back to our women conversation childbirth, I had a C-section, but I did breathe for 22 hours prior to the C-section. Breathing is so important and we minimize it, Like we minimize breathing, and you take a plane, what do they say?
Tanya Scotece:
You were a cabin crew, right, Sharine? You know, put the mask on you first before you even put it on a child, because unless we are self-caring, we are no good to anyone else. You can't give from the, literally the saucer. You can't, it's, you're going to be depleted, right? But so many times we just keep giving and as women, right, we're like some cultures were, were, were cultured to give and we just keep giving until we're either physically ill, emotionally ill, spent in every capacity, and then it's like, oh, now I should start taking care of myself, right? I think so as listeners out there as we wrap up this podcast. You know, think about it. What are we doing for ourselves? What are we doing for the self-care?
Tanya Scotece:
What I actually started doing is not waiting for the day the company comes to put out my good stuff to really start enjoying my stuff. So, for example, most of my friends out there know that I like my. It's called yes to Detox Juices and I get them. You can check out their website in Florida here and I love them. It's just a little treat for myself to know that I'm getting fresh juice. It's something good I love. The Body Keeps the Score book. It's one of my favorite for healing traumas and for just exploring our core beliefs that maybe have limited us and just doing something nice. Whether it's when you go to the grocery store and you walk by the floral department maybe we don't have $30, or I've seen the prices go up Sherene in the States I don't know about you, but over here I mean it's outrageous. Publix had a $100 bouquet of flowers and it was just like this really simple bouquet. Publix is very popular brand for shopping, especially here, for look at little Rolo, Look how beautiful she is. Hello, Rolo, it's Artie, Tanya, Hello.
Shireen Botha:
Sorry, listeners, if you are listening, just so you know what, Tanya, stop to no conversation and I'm sorry, Tanya, for interrupting you. Rolo is now in the screen with us, so everyone say hello to Rolo.
Tanya Scotece:
She's beautiful. She's absolutely beautiful and we have to have a podcast about Rolo Sherene. That's what we have to do. I know she's recovered from her injury with her eye and she's healed and she's her perfect self and she's absolutely beautiful, absolutely Sorry, tanya Carry, on no worries, no apologies. So, as we conclude this podcast to our listeners, whether they're watching it on YouTube or on the other social media sites, let me ask you, sherene, where can people find you to learn more, see more? How do we get in touch with you?
Shireen Botha:
Awesome. Well, you'll find me, Shireen Botha, on LinkedIn. That's where my business is as well. I do have a website, but you'll find that on LinkedIn. So all the information regarding me is on LinkedIn. So you can find me, Shireen Botha. That'll be in the show notes. But, more importantly for the supporters of the podcast, you can go to the podcast's website, which is friendsfromwildplaces. buzzsprout. com. That's friendsfromwildplaces. buzzsprout. com, and go and subscribe. Give us some love. You can obviously hear us on all the platforms and you can livestream. Leave us a review, tell us what you think. We would really appreciate your feedback. Yeah, that's me in that show. What about yourself, Tanya?
Tanya Scotece:
Okay, so for the listeners out there, you can probably find me on LinkedIn under Tanya Scotece. My email and phone number are there. I'm a professor at Miami-Dade College. I oversee the mortuary program for anybody that's interested in changing careers. You can find out my interests, my passion, my mission and my vision on LinkedIn. Also, to our listeners out there, if you'd like to be a guest on our podcast, feel free to contact either Shireen or myself. If you have a story to share, if you want to, you know, just tell us what has inspired you and what works for you. We are looking to, you know, get everyone's voice heard. So if you are out there saying you know what I want to tell my story, give us a call, give us an email text and let's get you on the podcast. With that, our friends Shireen, I'll let you conclude, and it's been an absolute pleasure to spend my morning with you and to have some time to really dive deep into different women's cultures, different perspectives and, at the end of everything, it's all about communication.
Shireen Botha:
Absolutely. Thank you, Tanya. It's always great to have these deep conversations with you and for the listeners, thank you for listening and all I can say is you got this and stay wild. Bye, guys.
