Stopping the Systemic Self Sabotage and Relationship Anxiety
Apr 18, 2025Are you constantly seeking approval in your relationships? Do you find yourself walking on eggshells, worrying about his mood, or obsessively checking your phone? Girl, your relationship anxiety isn't just about attachment styles—it's about the societal systems that have conditioned you since birth! And it's time to break free from these patterns once and for all! 💕
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The Hidden Systems Behind Your Relationship Anxiety
I'm SO excited about this episode because we're diving deep into something that most relationship coaches won't touch with a ten-foot pole: how patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism create the perfect breeding ground for relationship anxiety. 👑
This isn't just some abstract, academic conversation. This is about the real, everyday patterns that keep high-achieving women like you stuck in cycles of self-sabotage, people-pleasing, and approval-seeking in your relationships.
I'm joined by my brilliant friend Janine Staples Dixon—a tenured professor at Penn State with 17 years of teaching experience in literacy, African-American studies, and women's gender and sexuality studies. She's also one of only eight Black full professors at Penn State (a flex that blew my mind!) and a soul coach for high-achieving women dealing with narcissistic abuse, codependency, and approval addiction.
What makes this conversation so special is that Janine and I connected on a soul level first—not through our professional credentials. We're pulling back the curtain to give you an intimate look at the kind of deep girlfriend conversations that lead to real transformation.
Because here's the truth: you can't heal your relationship anxiety without understanding the systems that created it in the first place. 🙈
How Girls Are Socialized to Disappear Themselves
Let's start with a foundational understanding of how these systems impact us from birth, as Janine so powerfully explains:
"Girls and women who are socialized in hyper-patriarchal contexts like ours are raised to be small, to disappear themselves. They're raised to be careful, to walk on eggshells, to walk on the periphery of things, to look to see what other people value and like and care about, and then capitulate to those values."
Why? Because we're taught that we're unsafe. We're taught that we're not enough. We're taught that we need to work and earn approval, safety, love, respect, and visibility.
And this isn't just a passing influence—it's core conditioning. As Janine puts it: "Every single girl or woman in the United States of America has been touched by that ideology. The only question is the extent to which she's been touched." ✨
This shows up in our relationships as:
- Constantly seeking male approval
- Feeling responsible for his emotions
- Being afraid to express our needs
- Walking on eggshells around conflict
- Making ourselves smaller to make him comfortable
- Obsessively focusing on the relationship at the expense of our own identity
Sound familiar? These aren't just attachment issues—they're systemic issues that have been baked into our subconscious since childhood.
The Personal Cost of Internalized Systems
I want to share a personal story that illustrates how deeply these systems can affect us.
When I was a teenager, I switched from a small private Catholic school to a predominantly Black public high school. As an Asian-American girl desperately trying to fit in, I found myself in a conversation with two white girls before Cinco de Mayo.
One of them turned to me and said, "I bet you call it [derogatory Asian slur] de Mayo." Instead of standing up for myself, I responded with, "Yeah, you're right! And I bet you call it Blanco de Mayo!"
In that moment, I could feel the split within myself—disgust at what was happening, yet a desperate desire for approval that led me to reject my own color and heritage. I internalized white supremacy against myself. 🤍
This is the same pattern that plays out in our romantic relationships. We reject parts of ourselves, make ourselves smaller, and adapt to what we think will gain us approval and safety—often at the expense of our authentic needs and desires.
As Janine explains: "When you are a member of minority groups, you calculate safety really, really fast...You constantly calculate your proximity to whiteness and how palatable you are...And you use those calculations to figure out how you're going to move in certain spaces, how you're going to engage or not."
The Beauty Standard Trap & The Aging Paradox
Another way these systems impact our relationships is through beauty standards and the fear of aging.
Under patriarchy, there's an impossible beauty standard that literally no one can reach. It's designed that way on purpose! As Janine explains: "The patriarchy relies on fantasy and invention, and the concrete material world we live in is bound by time and space. There's no way the fantasy and the invention could actually fundamentally exist in the real world."
We're constantly trying to meet a standard that:
- Is intentionally unattainable
- Keeps changing to remain out of reach
- Requires us to defy natural aging processes
- Creates dependency on products, procedures, and "fixing" ourselves
I had to laugh when I confessed to Janine that I genuinely thought aging was going to happen to everyone else but me! What a mind trip! And she admitted she had the same thought pattern.
This isn't a personal failing—it's evidence of how deeply we've internalized these systems. When we're constantly focused on meeting an impossible standard to be "worthy" of love, we can't show up authentically in our relationships.
Decentering Men: The Revolutionary Act of Healing
One of the most powerful concepts Janine and I discussed is the practice of "decentering men" in our lives—and how this is actually the best thing for our relationships! 💖
"Decentering Craig has been the best thing of my life," I shared with Janine, "and I do it every f***ing day and I'll do it for the rest of my life!"
Janine agreed: "I decenter my husband constantly...I did so much work to break those programs that were drilled into me that mandated the centrality of men, that actually created idolatry."
What does decentering men look like?
- No longer making his moods, opinions, or approval the center of your world
- Developing your own interests, passions, and priorities
- Giving yourself permission to focus on your needs and desires
- Trusting yourself rather than seeking constant validation
- Creating an identity outside of being someone's girlfriend/wife/partner
This might sound radical or even harmful to your relationship, but here's the amazing paradox: men are actually HAPPIER when they're not centered! As Janine explains:
"It's the highest service that we can do...It takes him off the hook. He doesn't have to be the center of our attention. He doesn't have to bear our hopes and dreams. He doesn't have to think about negotiating control."
She adds: "My husband is so happy when I don't think about him all the time!"
When we decenter men, we create space to center ourselves—and this leads to more authentic, balanced, and satisfying relationships for everyone involved.
The Diabolical Lie of "Getting Your Man"
We've been sold what I call a "diabolical lie"—that our worth is tied to "getting" and "keeping" a man. That if someone "steals your man," you've somehow failed or lost social capital.
This is pure patriarchal conditioning! It keeps us in constant competition with other women, obsessed with male approval, and defining our worth through relationship status rather than self-actualization.
As Janine points out: "A lot of women don't know we're actually socialized to make men idols. They are the prize that we can obtain. When you get one, you can show off that you got one."
She continues: "The title of girlfriend, the title of fiancé, the ring, the house, the picket fence, the baby...all of those are social capital. And we're socialized to think we're not enough, that we've got to have a partner, a title, in order to be realized and fully actualized."
This explains why so many successful, ambitious women have what Janine calls "that secret addiction of obsessing about men and prioritizing dates and thinking about getting into a relationship."
Your Partner is More Intuitive Than You Think
One last insight that blew both our minds: men are actually far more intuitive than the patriarchy gives them credit for!
The system teaches us that "men are Neanderthals...thick as bricks...they don't know what's going on, they're idiots, and they don't feel anything." But this couldn't be further from the truth!
Janine shares: "My husband is so attuned to me. He can tell if my voice is off...if I move a little bit differently." And it's not because he's watching her like a hawk—it's because he's collecting data on her authentic self.
I've found the same with Craig. When I'm not performing, not playing games, and not trying to manipulate his attention, he's incredibly in tune with my emotional state and needs.
This is what becomes possible when we step out of the patriarchal programming and into authentic connection—our partners can finally see and respond to our true selves, not the performance we've been taught to give.
Next Steps For The Anxious Girly
If you resonated with this episode (and I know you did, boo!), here are your next steps:
- Start to question your "normal" by noticing where you automatically seek male approval or make yourself smaller to fit in
- Practice "decentering" the men in your life by focusing on your own needs, desires, and growth for at least 30 minutes daily
- Look for connections between your relationship anxiety and the larger societal systems we've discussed
- Join the Healing Girl Gang to continue exploring these topics with like-minded women on the same journey 💖
Remember, healing isn't linear. No effort is wasted! You're exactly where you need to be on your journey to becoming secure. And trust me when I say that the peace on the other side is SO worth it.
Key Moments in This Episode
- [0:00] Introduction to stopping systemic self-sabotage and relationship anxiety
- [2:00] Why understanding systems is crucial for healing relationship patterns
- [6:05] Janine's impressive academic background and soul coaching work
- [9:56] How girls are socialized to be small and disappear themselves
- [14:15] Claire's personal story about internalizing white supremacy
- [19:25] The impossible beauty standards created by patriarchy
- [21:36] Why aging feels like a surprise despite being inevitable
- [33:47] The revolutionary practice of "decentering men" in relationships
- [38:03] How the "idolatry" of men creates relationship anxiety
- [46:53] The truth about men's intuition and emotional awareness
- [52:06] How systemic understanding is the key to breaking anxious patterns
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Remember gorgeous, your healing journey is unique. Be gentle with yourself, and know that you're never alone in this process. The Healing Girl Gang has your back! 💫
