Ready to stop emotional outsourcing and start owning your worth in dating and beyond? If you’ve ever struggled with perfectionism, people-pleasing, or the exhausting cycle of codependency, this episode will feel like a deep exhale. Lily invites her brilliant friend and colleague, Victoria Albina, to explore what it takes to recognize the patterns that no longer serve you and break free from them—so you can finally show up as the main character in your life.

Through an intersectional feminist lens, Victoria redefines the trope of codependency as “emotional outsourcing,” helping us see how it impacts not just our relationships but how we exist in the world. Together, they explore how our nervous system shapes our sense of safety and belonging, offering practical tools for reconnecting with self-love and grounding in our voice and intentions.

We get into:

• How emotional outsourcing holds you back from being your authentic self

• The three essential emotional needs: safety, belonging, and worth

• An in-depth look at the nervous system and its role in fight, flight, fawn, and freeze responses

• Grounding techniques to help you reconnect with self-love and intention

• How to expand your capacity for feeling good, seen, and safe

Links: 

✨ Register for The Late Bloomer’s Guide to a Confident Holiday Season

Victoria’s website

Victoria on Instagram 

Feminist Wellness

Free meditations from Victoria for Date Brazen Listeners: VictoriaAlbina.com/lily

Show transcript:

[00:00:00] Lily: Hey, gorgeous friends. I’m so excited to bring you this episode with my dear friend and colleague, Victoria Albina. It’s going to blow your socks off and I know you’re going to want to take notes. I also want to let you know that coming up very, very soon on December 10th, I have a beautiful free live training for you with a gorgeous workbook all about how you can thrive as a single badass during the holiday season.

[00:00:28] I’m going to be talking about. What boundaries you can set with exact scripts with family members who are nosy and ask about your dating life. I’m going to talk about how to release late bloomer anxiety and embarrassment. How actually to make a plan for your 2025 love life that works. And that guides you into the most joyful dating life and most joyful dates of your whole frickin life.

[00:00:53] It is coming up on December 10th. You can register right now at datebrazen. com holiday. The training is called the late bloomers guide to a confident [00:01:00] holiday season. I’m going to help you go from lonely. Feeling lonely and anxious if that’s you at all to feeling confident as hell with a complete and clear dating plan for 2025.

[00:01:11] I cannot wait to see you there and, uh, it’s going to be a blast. I also want to let you know before this episode starts that we do briefly discuss intimate partner violence. So if you need to skip this one, just wanted to give you that heads up. All right. With that, let’s get into the episode.

[00:01:31] Hey, I’m Lily Womble, former top matchmaker and founder of Date Brazen. After setting up hundreds, I realized that with coaching, women could match themselves better than anyone else ever could. With my unconventional feminist approach, I’ve helped women around the world build courageous and self trust filled love lives.

[00:01:47] And now I’m here to support you. Get ready because I’m about to share the exact steps you need to attract a soul quenching partnership and feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the Date Brazen podcast. Hello, [00:02:00] gorgeous friends. Welcome to another episode of the Date Brazen podcast. Today, we have one of my friends and someone that I greatly admire her work on the pod.

[00:02:09] And I think it’s really going to help you if you’re struggling with, um, perfectionism. If you have wondered if you are codependent and what to do about it, if you have been feeling like you’re stuck in some rigidity around like, I gotta be perfect. This is for you. Victoria Albina is a certified life coach, UCSF trained family nurse practitioner and breath work meditation guide.

[00:02:34] She helps women realize that they are their own best healers so they can break free from codependency, perfectionism, and people pleasing. to reclaim their joy. She hosts the feminist wellness podcast. She holds a master’s degree in public health from Boston University School of Public Health and a BA in Latin American Studies from Oberlin College.

[00:02:53] Okay. She is, uh, titled upon titled and also is going to help us all [00:03:00] recognize the patterns that aren’t serving us, um, and break free from them. Hello, Victoria.

[00:03:05] Victoria: Hello. Hello. Oh, I’m so delighted to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:03:11] Lily: Glad you’re here. I’m so glad to have you here. And I think, you know, so many of the people listening, you know, if we’re touching down on them, most of them are single who are wanting to break free of the patriarchal bullshit in their dating lives and also wanting to find a feminist partner with a joyful dating life.

[00:03:30] So I think that. This is a conversation we all need and that I’m excited to bring to them. Tell us a little bit about your work and who you help.

[00:03:41] Victoria: Yeah, so my passion is to help exactly your listeners. My work is to bring an intersectional feminist lens to the ages old trope of codependency. So this is a term that comes out of the war on drugs.

[00:03:56] Um, and. Wait, what? Whoa, whoa, [00:04:00] whoa, whoa, whoa. Uhhuh. What do you mean? What do you mean? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so it’s a term, you know, it, it’s, there’s no actual diagnosis. There’s no ex really good diagnostic criteria. There’s the Holyoke Index, just kind of baloney. It’s, it’s kind of a hot mess when we’re out here talking about codependency because.

[00:04:17] I talked to, for my forthcoming book, I talked to a couple dozen psychologists and psychiatrists and experts in the field who are like, yeah, I don’t really, I mean, I don’t, I kind of know what it is, but like, I know when I see it, but like, I don’t know a definition definition is really hard because it’s kind of like this soupy morass of.

[00:04:39] Like feeling like other people’s feelings are your problem kind of thing, and you put yourself last. It’s like really murky. But what I saw in my own life, in my friend’s life, and dating overall, and beyond dating, relating to self and others, was this chronic [00:05:00] putting ourselves last in every way. Just keeps us feeling like crap and putting up with bullshit.

[00:05:06] Yeah, and I don’t like the term, so I actually came up with a new term. Can I tell folks about that? Yes. So the term is emotional outsourcing. So I was just trying to figure out, like, what is at the crux of what we’re doing? Right. And it’s really about emotional outsourcing. It’s not taking responsibility for our own lives, our own emotions, but also taking wild amounts of responsibility for everyone else’s life and their emotions, their wants, their needs, their desires, their feelings.

[00:05:37] But ours. No, no, no, no. Right. Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s best. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I want for dinner. I don’t know if I want a second date. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s right for me. I probably know what’s right for you. And I’m going to like micromanage your life for you from the shadows or boldly.

[00:05:57] But at the end of it, what it means is we’re [00:06:00] not our own protagonist. We’re not the most important person in our own lives. Everyone else is, and this impacts dating, career, parenting, relating, like every aspect. Of of relating in the world being in the world and so emotional outsourcing for me is this catch all for not catch all but it’s an umbrella term for codependent perfectionist and people pleasing thinking as I really see them as the same thing prioritization of the other

[00:06:32] Lily: in order to be safe I would imagine

[00:06:34] Victoria: yeah and so I I really think about there’s three essential human needs that most of us who are living in emotional outsourcing Didn’t really get and those would be a profound sense of safety trust that we belong in our family units as exactly who we are as our authentic self as our super loud or super quiet fat or thin brazen or bold or trembling in the corner, right?

[00:06:58] Super smart or not so [00:07:00] smart. Like, whatever our authentic truth was, we belong. The family unit doesn’t want us to be different. I don’t think there’s, I don’t think there’s a ton of us particularly raised by boomers who can really say that, but that’s a whole other convo. But, um, well, it’s the same convo we’ll get there in a second.

[00:07:18] So safety, belonging and value or worth, right? That we are truly worthy of love. We don’t have to earn it. We don’t have to prove it. We don’t have to like scramble for it. You’re just inherently worthy of love and care exactly who and how you are.

[00:07:36] Lily: When somebody recognizes that, oh, yep, check, check, check, like, oh my God, that’s me.

[00:07:41] I mean, and when, when I talk to these folks who struggle with this, these same things, you know, I’m talking about it from the lens of like, how can we help you build self trust? And what I’ve noticed is that that concept feels like foreign, completely inaccessible. And, um, you know, what I, what [00:08:00] I hear a lot is like, But how do I build the steps to being my own protagonist?

[00:08:05] For sure. So, okay, they’ve realized they have, they want to live differently. They want to like stop emotionally outsourcing, create some safety, create belonging, create value for themselves, which, how shitty that one has to. I mean, it’s Right after difficult experiences. Yeah.

[00:08:22] Victoria: That’s tough. It’s, it’s rough.

[00:08:24] It is rough, and it’s such a bummer, and I think that’s actually where we need to start, right, is to step away from saying there’s something wrong with me, and to recognize that this is a bummer. This sucks. Like, it’s, it’s actually super garbage that you did a whole growing up, and your family of origin couldn’t teach you these things, right, to have safety belonging.

[00:08:49] And and worth that you grew up under the patriarchy in white settler colonialism and white supremacy and late stage capitalism neo feudalism and within these three [00:09:00] systems we have to earn our worth our autonomy and authenticity do not matter and god forbid you’re in a marginalized or racialized or gendered body right right inherently less worthy.

[00:09:17] Lily: Mm hmm. Yeah. So I think that ties, I don’t want to go to like, how to, how to work on it yet. I want to get there. I want to put a little pin in that. Pin it! Because what I’m hearing is nervous system care. Yes. Right? Recognizing that. It sucks. Yep. And then what to then bridge to healing. Yes. Tell I know. So what is a, what is our nervous system?

[00:09:46] Yes. And what’s happening when we’re feeling like activated or.

[00:09:51] Victoria: Yeah, I love this question. So to set the stage, I am a somatic experiencing practitioner. I trained in sensory motor psychotherapy, which is Pat Ogden’s work as a [00:10:00] coach. I have been studying for Somatics in the nervous system for over 20 years since the 90s.

[00:10:06] Um, I know it’s like hashtag trending right now. Please be thoughtful and cautious about who you trust. Like who’s tale of the science. Because it’s, it’s, it’s a little sketch out there. If I see one more ad for like a somatic workout to like bust, like, I don’t know, build your glitz or something. I’m going to.

[00:10:24] Yeah. I’m going to scream, throw my window. I don’t think you mentioned you’re also a family nurse practitioner. Yes, I am. I am a family nurse practitioner. I went to UCSF. I have a master’s degree in public health. Um, yeah, I’m a nerdy nerd nerd. You know, things. Yeah. Couple of two tree things. Couple of two tree.

[00:10:42] Yeah. So, um, so yeah. So what is, what are we talking about? The nervous system? We’re talking about the autonomic. Or automatic nervous system, and this is the nervous system that watches us be ourselves in the world and watches the world in reaction or response to us. [00:11:00] And so we are constantly scanning the horizon in a process called neuroception, or, uh, Constantly scanning within our cells.

[00:11:09] We’re interocepting and neurocepting. Nerds like to hear the big words, so I’m just going to dazzle them with the words and then we can, we can dive in more or not. It’ll be fun. They can Google later. Um, and so we’re constantly scanning the world and making these really quick decisions. Safe, unsafe, tabby cat, lion, Oprah, stick in the grass.

[00:11:31] That’s a stick. It’s a stick. Take a breath. You’re fine. It’s a stick, right? Yeah. But in that in between, in that moment when the body is like tabby or lion, it’s, it’s sort of leafing through all this whole huge encyclopedia of the past. And it’s deciding based on what tabbies have looked like in the past and what lions have looked like in the past, if it’s likely that the [00:12:00] feline before us is the murder kind or the sweet and snuggly kind, right?

[00:12:04] The house kind or the lunching kind. And so our nervous systems have a priority towards saving our lives and protecting us and are more likely to alert towards lion and let us figure it out later. than to risk it being a tabby cat. So our nervous system, um, has these heuristics, these shortcuts, these patterns within us based on what our families were like growing up, what school was like growing up, what society was like growing up, church, if we went to there or temple or whatever, religious institution, all the lessons we learned about what makes us a good and bad person, what makes the world safe and unsafe are written within us.

[00:12:45] And are kind of quietly guiding our nervous system to either freak out in a given moment or not freak out.

[00:12:53] Lily: Okay.

[00:12:54] Victoria: Our body senses danger, then the sympathetic nervous system gets [00:13:00] activated. And that nervous system begins to release adrenaline, norepinephrine, noradrenaline into our body, which is freak out juice.

[00:13:08] It’s anxiety juice. It’s so that we can fight or flight, which are the two options when there’s a tiger walking at you. Right? What about the fawn freeze? Get in there. So, Yeah, so this is a really cool thing about the nervous system, and this is based on polyvagal theory, the work of Dr. Stephen Porges.

[00:13:30] There is a hierarchy to the nervous system, and it will go through this hierarchy in every body. Always. Right? Isn’t that so cool? Like, there’s a predictable pattern. Yeah. It kind of makes sense. I mean, there’s kind of a lot of us and it, like, if we just willy nilly fire off, like, it doesn’t work. Right.

[00:13:49] Right. Right. So there’s a scary. First we go into fight or flight. Okay. If we cannot escape, right? So it’s [00:14:00] a, you’re a very small and it’s a very big lion or a typhoon or whatever it is that we cannot escape. That’s when we’ll, we’ll start to go into freeze. Yeah. So first of all, when there’s something scary, humans will try to make friends.

[00:14:14] We’re sociable people, right? So we’ll be like, Hey, lion, how’s it going? You don’t want to snack me, right? But then we’ll try to escape. If we cannot fight or flight, our nervous system will shut down. Uh, into what’s called dorsal vagal, and that’s when we’re numb to the world. And I think we’ve all felt that, um, particularly in dating and relating, right?

[00:14:34] When like, something is like, doesn’t feel very good. And, but we like, are socialized not to like, say like, hey man, you can’t say that or push back or we don’t want to like, not be seen as, you know, amicable. Yeah, and so then we just shut down emotionally and we’re just sitting there like uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh, but like we’re kind of dead inside Right, like the lights are on but nobody’s home.

[00:14:58] Yeah, [00:15:00] that’s that’s that dorsal vagal. That’s the shutdown That’s the like it is not safe for me to be here emotionally physically, I don’t have another option that I have access to and the I have access to is Could be, you know, the lion’s Pindia, but I think in a dating situation, it’s more like our socialization and conditioning.

[00:15:20] Right? And that we don’t want him the other person. I’m going to say him because who’s danger statistically, right? To be like, uh, to think less of us to talk shit about us, right? To to make us feel bad. And so we sit there and take it.

[00:15:35] Lily: Is this kind

[00:15:35] Victoria: of tracking

[00:15:36] Lily: so

[00:15:36] Victoria: far?

[00:15:37] Lily: Yeah, very much so. Pausing, touching down on like why you, listener, might feel it is unavailable to leave a bad date early.

[00:15:48] Like why it feels like physically unsafe to leave a bad date early and while you sit and rather numb out.

[00:15:55] Victoria: Right, you

[00:15:56] Lily: order another drink. Right, rather than say, thank [00:16:00] you, no thank you, bye. Right, or my favorite, I

[00:16:04] Victoria: cut my foot earlier and my shoe is filling up with blood. When in doubt, you should cite Romy and Michelle’s high school reunion.

[00:16:11] Oh my god. Just as a scientist. I think that that’s

[00:16:14] Lily: appropriate.

[00:16:15] Victoria: Okay, great.

[00:16:17] Lily: I think that’s a great tip actually. I’m going to integrate that into my main character dating program.

[00:16:22] Victoria: I really think, I think that should actually be the title of your next book is I cut my shoe earlier in my, I cut my foot earlier.

[00:16:29] Lily: What? And my shoe is filling up with blood. That’s your book, isn’t it? That the title of your book is. Let’s co author. Let’s co author. Oh my God. So, okay. So then you’re, okay. You, you might shut down, right? Right. Or soul. La la. La la. Cause I don’t remember the word. That’s cool. It doesn’t really matter.

[00:16:47] Victoria: But continue.

[00:16:48] Then what? And then, so you specifically asked about two nervous system states, two mixed states called fawn and freeze. Yeah. Yeah. So fawning is a socialized state. And so that [00:17:00] it’s part, uh, sympathetic. Sympathetic is a fight or flight adrenaline. And dorsal is shut down. Dorsal is dead to the world. Dorsal is a possum playing possum, a deer in the headlights, dorsal deer, dorsal deer in the headlights.

[00:17:17] I just. Okay, over and over till it clicks. And so, um, fawn is I am feeling dead to the world right now. I just wish I was not here. I don’t want to be here, but I’ve been socialized as a good girl to sit here and to make play conversation and like, Oh, wow. Yeah. No, you work in finance. Great. Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:17:39] And just keep the conversation going. I’m fawning. I’m like that little deer. I’m like Bambi batting her eyelashes. Because if I keep you thinking that you matter and you’re important and I can appease you, then I can maybe get out of here unscathed. Mm

[00:17:55] Lily: hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah,

[00:17:57] Victoria: it’s a really smart technique [00:18:00] that has come from a really shitty world where the patriarchy rules and women recognize that we are often not safe if we piss men off.

[00:18:11] And so that’s where fawning comes from.

[00:18:13] Lily: And I want to make a, a bucketing distinction. There are, I think it’s really interesting that, you know, a lot of folks in my community have experienced trauma, physical, emotional, like all of us have both. There’s been some intimate partner violence in some of the folks lives who are listening potentially.

[00:18:30] Yeah. And then there are people like me, like I was, I’ve never experienced partner, intimate partner violence. I’ve never experienced that kind of trauma. Uh, And I still struggle with the fear of being physically safe or not. That is not from a lived experience so much as a socialized state of being, question mark.

[00:18:49] Like I just wanted a bucket. Those two.

[00:18:51] Victoria: That’s so great. Yeah. I think it’s, I think it’s a couple of things. One, we all watch a lot of movies when we’re very young and impressionable. [00:19:00]

[00:19:00] Lily: Mm hmm.

[00:19:00] Victoria: Right. And I think, you know, there’s really important cautionary tales out there that are both gossip is so maligned in this culture.

[00:19:11] In a way that I find really problematic. I think that there’s a kind of gossip, which is women telling women, the really important tea such as, yeah, do not leave her alone with uncle Jerry. Just listen to me right now, as we’re both at the well filling our buckets, pretending we’re talking about whatever, do not leave children alone with him.

[00:19:30] Have a great day. And the patriarchy has lumped that important kind of information spreading in with idle gossip to make us feel bad and to make us stop talking to each other and stop spreading the really important news. Right. And so I think we see intimate partner violence and we see all of these things on TV and in movies and shows, both as the patriarchy reminding us what happens when we don’t keep them pleased and [00:20:00] smart women sharing at the well, as it were.

[00:20:03] Does that make sense? And so I think that it gets into the, both the collective consciousness and our individual psyche. It’s also smart.

[00:20:13] Lily: Right. There we are at the like, original, like, don’t blame yourself for having this reaction. It makes total sense. Oh my God.

[00:20:21] Victoria: It makes perfect sense. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I mean, I, I have absolutely nodded and smiled to keep men happy till I can get away from them.

[00:20:30] Of course. I, who, what woman hasn’t, whether it’s like your boss and you’re, or the CEO and you’re at some meeting. God, I used to work for this primary care office in New York that had these like massive drunken holiday parties and there was too much cocaine. It was wild. They’ve since changed ownership hands.

[00:20:52] I was many times there were many drunken doctors being like, Hey, how are you doing? Yeah, yeah, I’m doing great. [00:21:00] How are you? How’s my wife?

[00:21:03] Lily: Yeah, you know,

[00:21:04] Victoria: and you just keep nodding and smile to me. You can physically be very far away from them. This nervous system part matters because it reminds us, like you said, if your nervous system goes automatically into that fawning a pizza thing.

[00:21:19] Right. That this in my brain is the voice of someone appeasing like a Disney princess. There’s nothing wrong with you. You didn’t F up. You didn’t abandon yourself. You are moving towards protection. And the more you can be regulated in your nervous system, you can tell the difference between when you’re doing that with like the person at the post office and you don’t need to be right when there’s actual danger.

[00:21:46] Okay. So go ahead. Yeah, I see. So hyper vigilance. It’s vigilance above and beyond what is needed necessary. What is needed? What is actually called for? Like what is you [00:22:00] actually attuning to the moment and being like, yo homeboys had one too many. This is not safe. My lift is seven minutes away and I’m just going to keep talking and keep him thinking everything’s fine till I’m in that car.

[00:22:13] The doors are locked and I’m away. Yeah. Or are you fawning with. An actually safe person or with a person who might not be a good fit for you, who you should probably not fond with, but rather just break up with or, or, or, right? How do you distinguish being grounded in your nervous system doing somatic?

[00:22:37] Yeah, sure. Okay, there’s no like one easy thing to do. And that’s the thing, right? So it is a slow, steady process. Of coming back to ourselves of regaining somatic soma just means body in Greek. So somatic means of the body pertaining to the body, referring to the body and its wholeness. And so somatic [00:23:00] practices are those that bring us back into resonance with self, with our body, with our truth, because the our truth lives in our body and our brains.

[00:23:12] While they are magical and incredible and important and must not be cast asunder, which happens in like. Hashtag spiritual kind of communities. Our brains are where our socialization, conditioning and survival skills lie, and so when we listen to our brains, our brains are going to repeat old scripts. Our brains are going to say what we heard our parents say, who heard their parents say, who heard their parents say, whereas the body might say, hey, you should get out of here, or no, this is, you can really trust him, right?

[00:23:48] And it’s that, that steady, solid voice of our intuition and our discernment. That’s available when we slow down, when we get quiet, when we [00:24:00] tune into self, and when we rebuild a trusting relationship with ourselves. Which most of us have lost in the process of developing emotional outsourcing survival skills, because those survival skills replace our own voice in our own head.

[00:24:17] Yes,

[00:24:17] Lily: and that’s why people have the thought, say to me, like, I don’t even know what I would say if, when I ask, you know, what might self trust say? Like, I don’t, I don’t freaking know.

[00:24:29] Victoria: Yeah. Right, and so we need to get even more granular. Right, so is, yeah. What would self, okay, so then we can go broader and say, what would self love as a concept say, and then come into the body and see where is self love within you?

[00:24:46] Is there any part of you that unconditionally loves you? And like, sometimes it’s like the inner crook of your left elbow or behind your right knee, right? Or like the [00:25:00] tiniest little speck in your heart. And so we connect in with the part of ourselves and our bodies that is able to hold things like self love, where it hasn’t been completely pushed aside and it becomes this process of.

[00:25:20] Mindfulness, like in a real sort of Buddhist way, process of meditation, a process of really listening to self and honoring what you hear. And it’s a real dedication. It’s a real commitment, right? Because moving from our old habits can feel really, really easy. And dating the next schmuck and staying with the next schmuck or like, not even schmuck, but like person who’s fine, right for you.

[00:25:53] Yeah. It’s just like, okay. Yeah. Right. Settling. Settling feels easy in [00:26:00] the moment because it doesn’t challenge you. It doesn’t challenge your nervous system. It doesn’t challenge your concept of self, but it also doesn’t feed you, right? It doesn’t nourish you. It doesn’t support you. It doesn’t help you grow, right?

[00:26:14] It doesn’t help you step into a greater truth. And in order to do all those things, we really, really, really need to slow down and we need to develop self intimacy. And that is really challenging in this world. And it is so worth it. It is so worth. Here, let’s get really practical. Right? We are both very, one of the things I love about you is how freaking practical you are, and my ass is a nurse, so like, let’s do it.

[00:26:42] What do you drink first thing in the morning, Lily Womble? Water. That’s really nice. How do you know you want water? Mouth dry. Very dry. Okay. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best example then, because your mother is telling you. So actually, let’s go with that. So that’s a great example. Right. [00:27:00] Your mouth is dry.

[00:27:00] I’m a mouth

[00:27:01] Lily: breather at night, which we can discuss another time. Let’s talk about

[00:27:04] Victoria: mouth taping, but it’s really tongue posture work. We’ll work on that later. Oh God. It’s not that hard. It’s fine. You’re fine. It’s okay. We’re fine. Okay. It’s

[00:27:12] Lily: fine.

[00:27:13] Victoria: But yes, my mouth

[00:27:14] Lily: is very dry.

[00:27:15] Victoria: Okay. So this is actually perfect.

[00:27:16] So your body is sending you very clear signals. It does not want coffee. It does not want Clamato, does not want a gin and tonic, right? It wants water, very clearly. Most people with, with whom I work, wake up and immediately put the kettle on or the coffee machine and drink coffee. And when I say why, they say, oh, I don’t know, that’s what I do.

[00:27:47] Why? Um, I, uh, uh, cause it’s what I, it’s what I do. Yeah. Right? It’s just what I do. [00:28:00] How do you drink your coffee? Cream and sugar? Why? I don’t know cause it’s what I do. Why? What are you bugging me for? Yeah. It’s the quotidian bullshit. It’s the minutiae. It’s the tiny decisions in life where we are in alignment with what we actually want, what our bodies actually need, what our nervous systems need, or we’re acting from habit.

[00:28:24] So good. Yeah. Emotional outsourcing, nervous system dysregulation is when we chronically and habitually. Source what we cannot source believe we can source within a safety belonging worth from everyone and everything outside of us to our detriment. It is unintentional, habitual living from a nervous system whose settings got wonky because of childhood.

[00:28:49] Yeah. So how do we unwonky the system? Why are you wearing those socks? Do you want to be wearing those socks? What about that sweatshirt? What about how you have your [00:29:00] hair put up? How about how, what are you doing and why? Not in a like, drive yourself bonkers with the minutiae way, but in a like, give yourself the opportunity to stop, put your hand on your little heart, take a breath, and ask your body, do you really want coffee first thing in this morning?

[00:29:24] In this morning. We’re only talking about this one. Wednesday, not every Wednesday. Don’t blow this up. Don’t make it complicated. Don’t freak your nervous system and your inner children out. Chill and ask yourself this morning. Good morning. Do you really want coffee? First thing and if your body says, yes, cool.

[00:29:47] No one’s judging it. That’s the question. If you immediately go and get right on the subway. As your habit, first thing in the morning, these are clearly these are New [00:30:00] Yorkers talking, ask your body, Hey, wait, do you actually want to walk? It’s like a 10 minute walk extra to Atlantic to take the subway body.

[00:30:08] Do you want that? Do you want some extra fresh air this morning? Oh, I never considered it. Right? Like this is what I’m talking about. Listening to your body is so fricking vague, new age garbage until we slow it down. Yeah. Yeah. And like, speaking, which is actually speaking. Yes. Let’s talk biological impulses.

[00:30:29] Now I’m getting excited. Okay. Dear nurses, social workers, teachers, other humans in, in traditionally women’s work. Do you pee when you need to, do you poop when you need to, do you eat when you need to, do you drink water when you need to. Yeah, because most of us don’t, right? Every mom out there, right? Every coach, every server, like every person whose [00:31:00] life is dedicated to taking care of others.

[00:31:02] Are you taking care of your basic biological impulses that say, hi, I’m an animal and I have a need. Speaking of, I, I need to go to the restroom. You need to pee right now. This is amazing. I hope you don’t edit this out because this is it. This is incredible. This is exactly what I’m talking about. I got it.

[00:31:22] I got it. I’ll be right back. Okay,

[00:31:24] Lily: great. We’re

[00:31:25] Victoria: back.

[00:31:25] Lily: We

[00:31:26] Victoria: don’t listen to our bodies except for right there when you dip. And so that is how. We start doing this potentially esoteric kind of bs sounding listen to your body thing, but it’s actually by listening to your body or feeling it, or just having a knowing, like, not everybody’s bought because people will be like me, but I’m not hearing literal words.

[00:31:51] And I’m like, no, I know, baby. You might be feeling impulses or tension or

[00:31:56] Lily: lightning or right. And I’ve also spoken to people who have gone [00:32:00] through things in their life, such as that they literally are not into, like they are disassociative or you’re like struggling with, right. Like, and so, and, and I think there are levels to this.

[00:32:12] And I think that what sounds. Available to everyone is starting with the peeing example,

[00:32:20] Victoria: starting with the peeing, starting with what do you want? Do you want coffee? Do you want coffee? Does your body? Want coffee, what does your body want and need? And so, in case you lost the thread here, why on a dating show are we talking about peeing and, and does your body want coffee?

[00:32:38] We lose touch with the essence of who we are, with our authenticity, with our own voice, with our intentionality. often at such a young and tender age that we don’t even know it’s gone. We don’t even realize we’re acting from someone else’s script for our [00:33:00] life. We’re settling. I settled, I mean, I settled so hard in relationships that were no good for me.

[00:33:07] I stayed in relationships that were no good for me. And it’s truly by doing this work, somatic work, nervous system work, regulating work, The work to overcome my emotional outsourcing that I live in intentionality. Now, my partner and I talk about this as we talked about it this morning, right? We, we have these friends who’ve been dating for like 10 months and just started couples counseling, which is a little, it feels a little red flaggy to me.

[00:33:33] Like that’s a lot of fighting for 10 months. Do you know what I mean? It’s great that they’re doing it, but I’m like, Ooh, the fact that y’all need it, you know what I mean? It’s a lot of, it’s a lot of fighting with seeing. But anyway, anyway, the point is, we did so much work on our own, each of us, to get to this point where we could call one another in, and this is the work that has you.

[00:33:59] [00:34:00] Led each of us to find the other and to find true love. And that’s freaking like that. Wow. Very cool. It’s amazing to wake up in profound joy every single day of my life. I love your wife so much. Oh my God, I love my Billy. Oh, she’s so great.

[00:34:21] Lily: She’s so great. Chris and I love you. We love the two of you.

[00:34:26] Victoria: We should go on vacation together.

[00:34:28] Great. We’ll talk offline.

[00:34:31] Lily: I, yeah, this experience of joining one’s self, like just to distill into maybe a potentially corny sentence. Get corny. I’ve got a corny one Okay. You go first. Connecting to one’s self. And really stepping into what you need so that you can connect to oneself. Yes. Yes. First. First.

[00:34:53] Not at the mercy of finding a relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:57] Victoria: Towards that goal. But.

[00:34:58] Lily: Bonus. [00:35:00]

[00:35:00] Victoria: Better

[00:35:01] Lily: friendships. Way better. Better loving relationship. Yeah. Better romantic relationships. Like

[00:35:07] Victoria: all of that. Better work relationships. Because you’re not taking BS or settling

[00:35:11] Lily: there either. Yeah. Yeah. Better sleep because you’re listening to your body and what you want to actually want to drink in the morning and like you actually want to go outside and take a walk and whatever.

[00:35:22] Yeah, all of these things. I think that this is how you create like a dating life, a life in general that is on your terms. What was your corny sentence?

[00:35:32] Victoria: Oh, yeah. If you’re a giver, find a giver, right? And so what this work does is I have always known that I’m such a giver, but I didn’t realize I was only dating takers.

[00:35:45] But by doing this work of coming to understand myself in a profound way, I can now see when I’m giving because I want to, because it feels good, because it fills my cup to be a giver. When I’m giving from my overflow, from the joy of [00:36:00] giving and taking care of others, and when I’m doing some weird codependent BS I don’t want to do, so I can put the kibosh on giving from obligation

[00:36:08] Lily: and

[00:36:08] Victoria: giving when I’m, it’s not reciprocal and there’s not mutuality.

[00:36:12] I give an interdependence, right, because then I don’t create resentment. I don’t create annoyance. I don’t. It’s not for bullshit. It’s truly loving. And so, so I will only would only ever date a true giver, someone who gives from the exact same

[00:36:33] Lily: kind of heart. Yeah, tell me this last question before I ask how people can work with you and we’ll get into all of that Yeah, a client asked me the or just stated didn’t even ask she stated because she’s done this work and she’s really stepping into her truth and Safety.

[00:36:53] Yeah, I love watching it She has like she said I’m expanding my capacity to feel [00:37:00] good And it’s really painful. And so how can people, I think this conversation about, um, you know, healing codependency, perfectionism, that it’s really about expanding our capacity to feel good and be in belonging and to be held and seen and safe.

[00:37:16] How can people expand their capacity for

[00:37:20] Victoria: feeling good and seen and safe? It’s this work of self intimacy. The more you know yourself, the more you’ll listen to yourself, the more you’ll do what you actually want you to do, and not what you’ve been trained to do, not what you’re habitually doing, and the more your body will trust you.

[00:37:38] And that trust is a key component of what literature calls the window of tolerance or the window of capacity, which is our ability to stay grounded, present with ourselves and not getting triggered out of Because when we’re triggered, we’re leaving presence. You’re not with yourself. When you’re in an activation, right?

[00:37:58] You’re in a survival state. [00:38:00] Yeah. Be with you. The more you’re with you, the more you stay with you. I get it. Meditation mindfulness. They are challenging. They’re also like wicked fricking boring in the middle, you know, but don’t just keep. I mean, there’s magic in

[00:38:15] Lily: there, right? So much magic and so practice, it’s like it’s not a what it’s not a zero sum.

[00:38:21] I think that the perfectionism gets an asshole of the trying mindfulness. I’ve got to do this perfectly every single day. No, no, no, no, no, Be, be, be a little messier. About it in, in favor of yourself. Mm. Victoria, how can people work with you? And what,

[00:38:39] Victoria: how do you help people? Well, Lily, I never thought you’d ask.

[00:38:43] So I have a present just for your listeners to say thank you for listening to this amazing show. Tell me, tell us. Very exciting. If you go to Victoria Albina, A L B as in boy, I N A dot com slash Lily. You can download a [00:39:00] suite of free meditations, nervous system exercises in our child meditations. They are beautiful and they are FREE.

[00:39:08] You can download them, keep them forever just for listening to the show. So thank you everybody. So good. I’m going to go get them. Victoria

[00:39:17] Lily: albina. com slash lily, L I L Y yeah. Like the flower. Like the flower.

[00:39:24] Victoria: Cause you just a perfect little flower. You can also follow me on the gram. I give good gram at Victoria Albina wellness.

[00:39:31] My podcast is called feminist wellness. There’s a. Theme. And, uh, my book doesn’t even start pre order for like six months, but it’s called End Emotional Outsourcing, a Guide to Overcoming Codependent Perfectionist and People Pleasing Habits. It comes out with Hachette in like October of 2025, which is so wild and

[00:39:50] Lily: weird.

[00:39:52] Victoria: Thank you and congrats on your book. I give thank you more please out as presents. So much as candy. So good at [00:40:00] Halloween. Yes. I got one right here. Hold please. She didn’t plan this, but here it is. And I actually didn’t plan it. I just keep it that close because I

[00:40:10] Lily: tell you we’re all, I can’t wait to have your book in my hands.

[00:40:15] I cannot wait to have your book in my hands. So it’s going to be so joyful. Well y’all go check out Victoria’s work. Go to Victoria Albina dot com slash Lily. It’ll be in the link in the description of this episode and in our show notes at date brazen dot com. And uh, I know that Victoria is amazing and her work is life changing.

[00:40:32] So thank you for coming on to talk to us. Thank you for having [00:41:00] me.