Episode 154: How to Be the Caretaker of Your Own Radical Personal Empowerment and Self-Love

In this episode, I’m talking with Amy E. Smith, a certified confidence coach, speaker, and personal empowerment expert about people-pleasing.

How often are you apologizing, regardless if you hurt someone or if the situation truly necessitated an “I’m sorry”? 

People-pleasing includes a lot of apologizing, and it doesn’t always express what we really mean which, sometimes, isn’t so much I’m sorry as it is I’m so thankful. 

I used to say I’m so sorry all the time. I’d apologize for everything—even when it’s not really what I meant. Here’s an example from my own life. When I published my book, The Happier Approach, some of my friends and family hosted book parties in their homes. 

One of my dear friends from high school, Renee Mattson who spoke on the podcast about how to avoid passing your anxiety onto your kids (here’s part one and part two), hosted one of these events. She invited me to her house a little early so we could have lunch together. 

When I arrived, Renee realized she’d forgotten to think about lunch. As she was running around the kitchen, prepping leftovers, I started to feel bad. She went into all this trouble—hosting an event for me—and now she’s serving me lunch! 

My Monger was having a field day with this. As the words “I’m so sorry you had to make me lunch” came out of my mouth, I caught myself and simply said: “Thank you so much for making lunch. I know it wasn’t easy and I really appreciate it.” Renee’s face lit up and she said, “you are so welcome, I’m so glad you came early. I know it’s just leftovers but it gives us a chance to talk and catch up.” 

In that moment, I realized that by saying thank you—which is what I truly meant—it allowed me to appreciate Renee, allowed her to feel appreciated, and empowered both of us. Had I apologized instead and said my 3 favorite words, “I am sorry”, then she would have apologized for throwing together leftovers and all the things that we people pleasers apologize for and we would have both left the conversation feeling disempowered. 

Today on the show, my guest Amy E. Smith and I are talking about people-pleasing and how saying I’m sorry all the time is just one of the ways that people-pleasing shows up in our lives and how it disempowers us and keeps us disconnected from the people in our lives. 

Amy is a certified confidence coach, masterful speaker, and personal empowerment expert. Founder of TheJoyJunkie.com, Amy uses her roles as coach, writer, podcaster, and speaker to move individuals to a place of radical personal empowerment and self-love. 

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• What people-pleasing is and how you can be a strong, high achiever and still be a people pleaser (raising my hand here)

• My own story about people-pleasing that took place at the Brene Brown daring Way training I attended and how I handled it (or didn’t handle it)

• HOW to speak up for yourself and HOW to start building your inner strength around self-loyalty and worthiness.

• Amy’s metaphor for self-worth which is gold

Resources mentioned:

• TheJoyJunkie.com

• Follow Amy on Instagram

• Coach In Your Pocket

• The Happier Approach Book

+ Read the Transcript

Transcript:

Amy: It's almost if you are going in to try on a new outfit, sometimes you just got to go in the store and just stand there and look at it for a minute. You might not be even ready to try it on yet, but for God's sake, go in the fucking store and you'll get to a point where you wear it with pride and then you start adding some accessories and some heels.

And but we have to start trying it on. So just listening to this going, what is this crazy girl on the internet has something to say. What if I actually could change this belief about myself? You have to start picking it apart.

Nancy: Three little words used to come out of my mouth all the time. I am sorry. I would apologize for everything, whether I hurt someone or not years ago, after I published the happier approach, a few of my friends and family hosted book parties for me in their homes.

One of my dear friends from high school, Renee Mattson, who spoke earlier this year on the podcast about kids and anxiety hosted one of these events. She invited me to her house a little early, so we could have lunch together. And when I arrived, she realized she'd forgotten to think about lunch. So she threw together some leftovers and it turned out to be an amazing lunch as she was running around the kitchen.

I thought to myself, oh my gosh, I feel so bad because she went through all this trouble and she's hosting an event for me. And now she's serving me lunch. Who am I to ask for all these. Of course, my monger was having a field day. And as the words, I'm so sorry, you had to make me lunch, started to come out of my mouth.

I caught myself and I simply said, “thank you for making lunch. I know it wasn't easy. And I really appreciate it.” Her face lit up and she said, “oh my gosh, you are so welcome. I'm so glad you came early. I know it's just leftovers, but it really gives us a chance to talk and catch up.”

I realized that by saying thank you, which is what I truly meant. It allowed me to appreciate her and it allowed her to feel appreciated. And it empowered. Both of us had I apologized and said my three favorite words, I'm sorry. Then she would apologize for throwing together leftovers and all the things that we people pleasers apologize for. And we would have both left the conversation, feeling disempowered today on the show. We're talking about people pleasing and saying, I'm sorry is just one of the many ways people-pleasing shows up in our life.

You're listening to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.

On this episode, I'm talking with Amy E Smith, who is a certified confidence coach, masterful speaker and personal empowerment expert. She's founder of the joy junkie.com and she uses her role as a coach writer, podcaster and speaker to move individuals to a place of radical personal empowerment. And self-love, I am so excited for you to hear our conversation because Amy really breaks down this topic in a new and refreshing way.

Keep listening to hear the definition of people-pleasing and how you can be a strong high achiever and still be a people pleaser. Raising my hand over here. My own story about people pleasing that took place at the Brené Brown Daring Way training I attended and how I handled it, or didn't handle it both how to speak up for yourself and how to start building your inner strength around self loyalty and worthiness and Amy's metaphor for self-worth, which is golden.

I am so excited to be here today with Amy Smith, AKA the joy junkie, and we are going to be talking about people pleasing and all things around people, pleasing, specifically, setting boundaries, speaking your needs, all that good stuff. Welcome

Amy: Amy. Thank you for having Nancy. I'm super excited. I love talking about this stuff, so cool.

Nancy: Awesome. Okay. So I want to dive in and let's set the scene. So what exactly is people pleasing?

Amy: This is one of those. Monikers that I think people get tripped up on in the personal development space, because if you are someone who is high achieving, which I know you engage with a lot of people who are that way.

And if you are a very goal oriented and accomplishment, check off the boxes, all of those sorts of things, we tend to have this idea of somebody being a people pleaser as someone who is not very accomplished, who's meek and mild and quiet and get stepped on all the time. And I feel like that's a very shallow view of what a people pleaser really is.

So if you distill it down into what, at least the way in which I teach it is that it's anyone who is so invested in the opinions of other people that they twist and contort their own behavior. So changing how you behave.

So this could be as simple as fretting over what you're going to wear while you're walking your dogs. Because God forbid your neighbors see you in a specific way. All the way to, I have to perform this way at work or in my business, because what would my colleagues think? So congratulations. You're probably in the people pleasing category. But I also think semantics matter. So if you don't resonate with that specific moniker. It could just be I'm wrestling with my investment in what other people think. But either way we've got an issue here, something.

Nancy: Yeah. When I walk the dog, sometimes I'll be like, oh, I wore the same shirt yesterday. What will people think? And I'll be like, no one notices that you wore the same. No one's looking at you as you're walking. So that was a good example.

Amy: Yeah. I think a lot of us have that we have these, one of the things that I talk about with my students all the time is, my, I have two rules.

I don't have many, but I do have two. And one is you do not apologize for crying and you don't apologize for what you look like. You don't, you roll out of bed. You get on, no, because guaranteed dudes aren't doing that. So it's one way we can say fuck the patriarchy.

Nancy: Yes, exactly. Yeah, totally. So some of it is, and the people pleasing is the investment you have in what other people think.

And then some of it I find, and I'm curious, your thoughts on this is like a, it's like your empathy radar is off and you are too invested in other people issues and problems and perceptions of you.

Amy: Yes, that's a tricky one because this is also, it's tricky also in the realm of values.

So for example, you could have a strong value around accomplishment, achievement also sometimes caregiving or impact philanthropy. And there are times when I think our values cross the line between, it brings me fulfillment into this realm of I'm not valuable unless I have all of these things. And a value is really something that should be adding to your life.

Your self-worth is contingent on if you accomplish, if you achieve. And I think empathy is in that sticky place, because especially if you're a highly sensitive person, which many people's anxiety are or if you are an empath and you feel things very palpably, and you're also a woman unpacking some of the narratives around we're responsible for everybody else's feelings and emotions, it gets very convoluted.

So I think in those situations, your wording really matters. So this is one of the reasons why I advocate that people don't say I feel bad. Or I feel guilty, guilt. If you have to say no to somebody, or if you have to decline an invite or you have to say, no, I'm not going to bake all those cupcakes for the kids class or whatever, then you, that doesn't warrant guilt.

You haven't done anything wrong. You don't need to change your behavior in any way. So one of the ways to work with that is to acknowledge what empowering emotion you're feeling. So it could be something like I'm feeling concerned, I'm feeling compassion, I'm feeling empathy. I'm feeling love. I'm feeling whatever it is, but let's stop saying I feel bad or I feel guilty because that locks us into I'm responsible for their emotional current.

Nancy: I love that. Yeah. That is that's really well said. Yeah. I would want to highlight the part about values. Not a standard for which your self-worth is contingent on. I've never heard someone separate that out. And I think that is a place where people go with values,

Amy: all the time.

And so where it, because we're also gluttonous, we're a gluttonous population and people, and if you're anxious, you probably also have that. I've got to have as much as possible. So if it's a value, I need to honor it to its absolute fullest. And then we get in this perfectionism around our personal development, but what's really, so the way that I describe a value is just a component that must be present in your life in order for you to be fulfilled.

So it's like an addition. So for example, I know that order and organization bring me a lot of fulfillment. I love love when things are in their place and tidy and all of that. So if I am able to touch a bunch of stuff in my office, I might get oh, like this burst of thrill, right?

That's an example of that value bringing me fulfillment. That's what it's designed to do right now. Conversely, let's say I have a bunch of friends over to my house and I'm not able to sit and connect with them because I'm stressed out about cleaning all the dishes, wiping down all the counters is everybody's glasses over here.

That would be an example of now the value has crossed over and now it's stealing my joy, but that's a fine line for everybody, but it gets tricky in the realm of accomplishment, achievement and. Specifically when we're talking about people pleasing, when we genuinely have a value around giving back to others, helping professions, that kind of stuff.

Really watch that line.

Nancy: Yeah. I totally agree. Yeah. So why do you think people get stuck in this cycle of people pleasing?

Amy: Oh, geez. I think can we just blame the patriarchy for everything? Because pretty much that's what it is, but there's a handful of reasons, even if we go back even further than that.

Maybe not. I think it was prevalent pretty much all the time, but even if we look at our ancestors and we look at something like. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. One of our primitive needs as humans is a sense of belonging. And that comes from our ancestors. When, if you did not belong to a group to an organized group that literally meant death, that meant you cannot survive.

So that is bred into our subconscious, into our lizard mind. And so now, as we have evolved and developed as a species, now our lizard subconscious mind registers, oh, if Nancy doesn't like me, I might die. If this grouping of people don't like me, I might die social anxiety. I'm sure you've talked about this.

A lot. Anxiety is an iteration of our fear response. It's part of what we are already built with, so it's very easy for us to see now. I don't know if you've talked too much about this, but how we have various iterations of the fear response where. Anxiety. If you are apt to be in a situation where you would normally fight, but you can't fight that now has become anxiety.

If you're in a situation where you would normally flee, but you can't flee, you can't run away. Your boss is coming down your throat. It's more likely that you have depression. That's one of the reasons why people go to sleep when they're depressed, they're trying to flee. If you procrastinate a lot, it's likely that you are somebody who would be stuck in the freeze response.

That's the modern iteration of freeze. And then we have this sort of newer guy on the circuit, which is fun, which is this notion of, if you would normally try to make friends with that lion, that's about to eat you like, oh, friends, let me give you some food. That's fawning, modern iteration of that is people pleasing.

So we have all of these things that basically are the ways in which we're engaging with fear and which I'm sure you've talked about plenty, but I think really coming back and understanding for ourselves that first of all, I think there's only one documented case of a woman who does not have the fear response.

And unless you are, she, it's highly likely that with fear and hence anxiety and all of these other things. But it may also be a part of the marriage between the anxiety and some of this people pleasing stuff too. But recognizing that, oh, my body is actually just trying to take care of me. I was wired this way and now we know consciously, oh, I'm actually not going to die body.

Thank you so much for sending in all that anxiety, but I'm not going to die. If Nancy doesn't like me, I'm not going to die. If all these people don't buy my shit or I, one of my favorite tools for anxiety has been talking to my physiological response, talking to my body. But recognizing that for me, it was really eye-opening that, oh, I'm not fucking broken.

I have just this primitive response, that's manifesting this way. And for some of it it's the fawning it's I can take care of myself if I make sure everybody loves me. So I think that's a huge piece. There's also a faulty narrative that people buy into around around self-worth like we were dancing around earlier and it sounds something like this.

If these people love and accept me, then I'm worthy or conversely, if they do not love and accept me, then I must not be worthy. And then there's a, self-fulfilling prophecy in every area.

Nancy: Yeah. And it's a bottomless pit, like if, even if they give me approval, I got to keep searching. It might fall at any time.

I did got to keep sucking up, that idea. It was interesting. I went, I I, the fawning and the freezing and reminds me of Brené Brown's shame shields that she talks about. And I was at the training with Brené Brown and people who have listened to me have heard this story.

You suck up when you feel shame. I was at the conference in my small little group, and I had shared something about how I had written a blog post about my dad having dementia. And that was how it got out into the world that this was happening to him.

And one of the members came up to me after, and she was like, that one of the only thing that people with dementia have control over is who knew, who knows. And you took that away from him by sharing that publicly. And I immediately was awash in shame and said, oh, thank you so much for sharing that you're right that was, terrible of me. And I sat down and I thought to myself, why did I thank her for calling me out on something that was already done and that she had no clue about? And then I had talked to my parents about they knew it was happening. Like it wasn't, but I, instead of correcting her or moving, in a different way, I thanked her for that really critical comment to me.

And that was when I was like, ah, there's the sucking up there. There is a demonstration of how that's showing up for me. And I am so good at doing that. Sometimes I don't even notice that I'm doing it

Amy: right. So I have two things I want to say about that. One is actually three first is that's where personal development goes bad.

That's where, when I call self-help goes wrong when it becomes elitist and condescending. Okay. So I don't condone that behavior. Second of all, is that those are perfect opportunities to do what I call declaring the do-over. Hindsight is 2020. You see really clearly what happened there after the fact, and then being very intentional about here's what I'm going to do next time.

And you can either visualize it. You can write it out. These are the things I'm going to say, but mapping out, these, this is going to be different next time. The third thing that I wanted to say about that is having, especially if you know that this is your tendency, this is one of the ways to declare the do-over is to get ahead of any time I'm caught off guard.

Anytime I'm caught off guard or I'm confronted by something. And I'm not fully ready to process this or retort in a way where I feel like I can really advocate for myself. You can simply say something like, wow, I'm really caught off guard by your statement. I'm going to need to mull that over a little bit.

Before I respond, I want to give the courtesy, it deserves, love that having some kind of statement or even very simple. Wow. I was not ready for that, or I wasn't expecting that. I want to give this a thoughtful response. So I'm going to need to chew on that. I'm going to marinate whatever the words are for you.

But if this is your case where you have that gut response of just you must be right. Then because we will respond to criticism in that way. We know from NLP neuro-linguistic programming that whoever has the stronger frame, meaning whoever is more demonstrative, gregarious, outspoken or assertive or aggressive will absorb any lesser frame.

So she comes at you with very like assertive. Here's what you did wrong. And it's for sure a thing. If you don't match that with equally as powerful of a frame, you get just gobbled right up. One of the biggest pieces in speaking up for yourself and speaking your needs, speaking your truth is having these go-to phrases.

So rewind that if you need to write it down and then rehearse the fuck out of it, stand in front of your mirror and rehearse it because you will be surprised how quickly you call upon that the next time somebody sideswipes you. Now, one other thing, bonus number four is if you can, if you recognized that during the time during the conference, you can go circle back and clean that shit up.

And you can say, you know what? I so appreciate your honesty and you sharing with me your perspective. And I realized that I jumped on board with that without fully processing it. And we don't need to get involved in a big conversation, but I just wanted to let you know that after thinking about it, I don't share that same stance.

Nancy: Ah, that's lovely

Amy: So where you can cut because I do find that people go, oh, I've never said anything for 30 years, or I've never said anything this whole time I've worked at this company. I can't say something now. And I'm like, yes, you can. Yes, you absolutely can. Yeah.

Nancy: So I love that because it's doing the intention, it's setting the intention.

So it's like being able to, I think a lot of times when we hear this stuff, the self-help stuff and personal development, we are like, oh yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. I would totally do that, but we never put it into our bodies in the sense of you say practicing it and get in front of the mirror and recognize the do over.

And what would you say, like all of that intentionality is so important to reprogram the natural response.

Amy: Exactly. And that, it's one of the stickier things about personal development in general is that. It's all thought and feeling work it's emotional work. So it's not oh, I do this sort of investing.

And I make all this money right. Where you can see a very tangible result. You won't, you will feel it. You will, the way it shows up is how you respond or how you advocate for yourself. And you, all of a sudden are shocked that you're doing that, but it takes repetition. Just like anything else, just like lifting weights or learning a new language.

You don't just look at a book to learn Spanish and go, oh, that's a really good, yes. And then go. Cool. Good idea. And then close the fucking book. The thing with personal development only, it's less tangible. So you have to really look at what are those practices. And I think writing out phrases and rehearsing them is one of the most powerful things you can.

Nancy: I totally agree with you. So I want to go back to the example that I gave of that, I didn't know I was going to give, but I, so I did not end up circling back and talking to her. I just let it go. And when you just said that to me about circling back, I don't think I felt worthy enough to say that to, to even say the very benign thing you said just to even have the self loyalty enough to stand up for myself to say, I don't agree with you, so how do you start building that? And I know that's like the five hours of podcasting and I'm throwing you under the bus, so to speak, but I'm because I think that's the piece that gets, we hear the how, but we don't know, we don't have that inner belief yet that we're valuable enough to speak up.

Amy: Yes. So it, yeah, this is definitely not something you can wrap up in a quick, like 30 minute segment, but there are ways that you can start to move the mark. And I will say that you can work in either direction, so you can start by really bolstering and working on a sense of self-worth and there's a litany of ways to go about that.

And I'll talk about that in a second, so that you then have the side effects of feeling confident in speaking up, or you can work outside in where you start basically. What is it, fake it till you make it fake it until you actually believe it. And that usually feels wildly more scary and authentic to people, right?

The way that I work is to work more through the internal pieces and then move into how do you communicate that with the outside world, but you can work in either direction. It depends on how you operate best. And it also depends on where your biggest sticking points are. And I would say for most people, there's this sense of, I am not enough.

That's one of the reasons why we overachieve, right? Let me pile all of these accomplishments because then maybe I'll be worthy. And what we're actually saying with that is then maybe I'll actually be happy. Yes, because what we're always searching for is, we have to human drivers pursuit of pleasure, avoidance of pain.

And so if we think something will give us pleasure, that's usually an emotional response. That's going to make me feel happy or good or fulfilled. So we are always moving towards things based off of how we want to feel. And worthiness is one of those things that's directly tied to happiness. So it's maybe once I have this baby, then I'll be worthy, then I'll be happy.

It's all stockpiled together. So I have a little metaphor about that and I think the first step around believing that you are enough and I should say in the service of semantics, everybody uses. A handful of synonyms around worthiness. So the ones that I hear are mattering that I matter in some way, that I'm valuable, that I'm deserving.

I am enough worthiness. And then sometimes people equate lovable that I'm lovable. So whatever your semantics are, we're all, it's all self worth. That's what we're talking about

Nancy: Because the semantics are important because it has to resonate with you. As people are listening, it has to be like, oh yeah, valuable.

That's the, that's what I'm looking for. It lovable. That's what I'm looking for. Anyway, not to interrupt you, I just wanted to, I appreciate the semantics focus. Because I think it's HUGE.

Amy: , it really is. Yes, it really is. So think about what are those. What is that deep seated belief for you? Is it that I don't matter that I'm not enough, is it that I'm not worthy, that I don't have value?

What, deserving is another huge one. I'm not deserving of the things I want. So what is that for you? And then what I want you to understand is that there's nothing wrong with you. There's only something wrong with the belief system and beliefs are totally malleable. We know from, from ton of anecdotal evidence, but then also just how the neural pathways work in the mind that our brain has plasticity, meaning that you absolutely can teach an old dog new tricks.

So everything that you believe right now, You've gotten to that place because of some kind of conditioning where you witnessed some sort of event or circumstance or upbringing or chapter of your life. And then you made a conclusion about that. And we do that stuff subconsciously. We don't go, oh, I have parents who were really absent growing up, or I had a special needs sibling who got all of the attention.

So I'm going to throw all of who I am into academia and accomplishing and achieving so that I can maybe be valuable in some way. And now as an adult, I'm going to have zero sense of self worth. And I'm going to just keep checking off all the boxes and feel totally empty and drink myself to sleep every night.

Nobody does that. We just experienced something. And then we create our interpretation, which becomes the belief. So if we're looking at like, how do we change a belief around the enoughness piece? The first step is actually getting curious and getting inquisitive about, could this actually change?

Because most of the time when we have a belief it's factual in our mind, it's the truth. And now if we look at like a, an extreme example, like a cult, okay. A Cult has stringent belief structure, built in to the cells of the person's being anyone who breaks out of a situation like that. The first thing they will tell you is they started questioning.

They started getting curious. They started asking, wait a minute. Is this really all that there is this really all? That's right. So how that relates to us is start asking what if I actually created this belief that I'm not enough or that I'm not worthy? What if I could actually shift that and change it?

And it's almost like if you are. Going in to try on a new outfit. Sometimes you just got to go in the store and just stand there and look at it for a minute. You might not be even ready to try it on yet, but for God's sake, go in the fucking store. And we, and you'll get to a point where you wear it with pride and then you start adding some accessories and some heels.

And but we have to start trying it on. So just listening to this going, what is this crazy girl? And the internet has something to say. What if I actually could change this belief about myself? You have to start picking it apart. The other metaphor that I have that might be helpful for people. Is this notion of who you are as a house.

Like your self-worth is you are this house. Okay. And we've got some rooms that are far more pristine, and then we've got other ones that we don't want people to see. We're still cleaning up some shit over there. And, but this is us. We have our value, nothing can change the value of this home, this house.

And then we have people who will drop off, let's say a gift on your porch. And this is like receiving accomplishments or accolades or honors or compliments or acceptance. And we go, oh wow. As a human, that emotionally feels off. Okay, cool. I'll go ahead and bring that into my house, but I also recognize that I'm just experiencing how good that emotion feels.

This gift does not change the value of this house, right?

Nancy: Yes. Yes. That's. I love that metaphor. Oh my gosh. That's amazing

Amy: . So the antithesis of that is somebody leaving a giant pile of shit on your porch. And this is rejection criticism, loss, disappointment being passed over for jobs being dumped.

And we go, okay, I'll go ahead and take all of that shit and bring it into my house. And then it stinks it up and makes it all messy. It still doesn't change the worth of the house, but it makes your situation really stinky. So one of my favorite metaphors or mantras rather around this is, oh, I'm currently not accepting any piles of shit.

So for your interaction with this gal, she was basically saying here, you want to handle all of this shit. I'm going to hand you this pile and nowhere in any circumstance, would anybody be like, okay, I'll literally carry that. If we're talking about not literally how millennials use it, but literally like the original definition.

Nancy: Yes.

Amy: Someone's hold onto this for me, Nancy.

I'm currently not accepting any piles of shit, but what we have to recognize. And I know you've talked a lot about emotional intelligence, is that when we're rejected, when we're criticized, when somebody says, no, I don't want to be with you anymore, or no, I don't want to hire you. That is going to carry an emotional response.

We are going to hurt. We are going to feel that, but that does not mean that you aren't worthy. That means that somebody left shit on your porch and you have to decide, am I going to make that mean that this is going to stink up my whole place? Or I'm mad. I'm going to go, Hey, that sucks. I'm going to let myself feel that I'm going to let myself cry, but I'm going to hang out here in, in all of my self-worth and recognize that our human experience is different than our worth.

What we feel is different than our worth, but emotions are fucking dramatic. So we feel like, oh, he doesn't love me. She doesn't love me. I must be not lovable instead of this is just this hurts. This situation sucks. I don't suck.

Nancy: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great clarifier. Yeah, I totally, yeah. Yeah,

Amy: I forgot the question I'm sorry.

Nancy: . No, you answered it. Because it's about like, how do you start moving? How do you start moving that line of self-worth? And I think the house metaphor, like even paying attention to, what am I letting in my house? Am I picking up the shit someone's leaving and bringing it in?

And that, because so many of, my, my peeps, my clients, my listeners the accolades define who they are. And so to recognize I can bring it in and I can be excited about this, but that doesn't mean that it defines me.

Amy: Yeah. And there's two other things that I think people will sometimes not allow themselves to feel the joy. Like they don't let themselves feel the excitement or they dismiss compliments. That's also a self worth saying or they think if I accept the compliment, if I allow it, then I'm being somehow grandiloquent and have all this hubris, which is also faulty.

If you think about, if you were to give me a lovely gift of, let's say some really fine scotch whiskey, which I would definitely not be mad at you for. (laughter)

So let's say, me, I love this. You've been thinking of me. I did something you thought was really awesome. And so you're. Hey, Amy, I got you. This gift. I was just so proud of you for this thing. You did, blah, blah, blah. And what if I took that and I smashed it onto the ground. That is exactly what it's like.

When somebody gives you a compliment and you try to talk them out of it, they, it is the exchange of energy. Definitely. If you thought about it being an actual, real gift, I would never do that. You would never do that. So the same thing is true about conditioning, our own self-belief and our own self-worth.

If we are constantly talking people out of compliments for us, or if we are constantly putting other people's opinions in front of our own all the time, that reinforces that subconscious message that you are not enough. If you were to do nothing with that situation that you highlighted with the gal at the conference, if you kept going into those scenarios over and over again, doing the same thing that would reinforce that.

First of all, you don't deserve to speak up. Second of all. Everybody else is right. And you're responsible to make them feel good. Whatever the beliefs are, but it will, it keeps compounding it. So that's one of the things that I tell people I'm like, even though it's hard to have a boundary, even though it's hard to speak up for yourself, please understand why that's important because your silence is making you a liar, right?

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. Because I think the reason that story stands out to me so strongly is because that shifted, that was the story that started shifting stuff for me that was like, wait a minute, look at how often you do that. Because I hadn't ever seen it right in front of me, literally at five minutes after it happened.

Look what you just did. And I hadn't, I'd been doing that my whole life. I just hadn't seen it in such like a TV show in front of me way. That makes sense. But wouldn't you say, because when you said that about the accolades, someone, Not celebrating your accolades. If you if you celebrated your accolades, if you were like, I just got this award, that's so amazing.

And you were super excited. I would be super excited for you. And I wouldn't think, oh God, who does she think she is to be celebrating this? But I have separated out accolades and self-worth,

Amy: yes, good

Nancy: but if they are the same to me, if you are celebrating it, then you celebrating the accolade in my mind means you're celebrating yourself worth.

And so then you are full of yourself. In that warped view of how those work together.

Amy: Yeah. This is where I feel like, do you think most men have this concern? That's one thing from a meta view. The other is, I think selfish is the new black personally. I think we need to get out of this notion.

If you think about. I did an interview with somebody years ago who was under the impression that self-love was selfish and something that we shouldn't necessarily strive for, which I thought was fascinating. Yeah, it was a man wierdly enough. And so I was like, okay, let me take this guy to school real quick.

And, but I, if you think about love in any other context, Love with children. Love with animals, love of nature, love of a community. Love between spouses. It's never a selfish thing. It's never a negative thing. It's a beautiful thing. So why the fuck would we think that self-love is a problem? In fact it's necessary.

And I also think that the more boundaried I become, the more outspoken I've become about my wants in my marriage or the things that have hurt me. And with my best friends, the more respect I've gotten and the more freedom I've given to them to advocate for their own needs. So I do think that there is a place where selfishness is bad, right?

Like where it really does because damage. But I think for most of us who are in this space, trying to love who we are, the bigger problem is giving ourselves permission to tend to self, to take care of yourself. And I think that self-care can be environmental. It can be who you're hanging out with. It can be physical, how you're taking care of your physical body.

It can be spiritual. How you're speaking to yourself, the energy that you allow. It's not always fucking bubble baths. But it's preservation of self it's care for oneself. And to me, I feel like if we need to call that selfish fine, but like I'm going to wear that all damn day.

Nancy: Yeah.

And it's care for oneself. Not because some podcasts. Personal development. People said, you need to have care for yourself, or because you read it on an article on Buzzfeed, but because this is what your body needs, or, this is what your mind needs. So many of my clients will come to me and say, oh I'm getting up early now because I read on Buzzfeed, that productivity means you get up early and I'm like, okay, but do you, are you more productive at that time? I don't care what the experts say or the study says, what do you need? And so in that high achieving, we sometimes warp some of these personal development messages and turn them into sheds.

Yes. Rather than checking them with ourselves to be like, wait a minute. Is this something I agree with?

Amy: Yes. Amen. Okay. So remember when I was talking about the stronger frame and the lesser frame, I tell this as my students too, I'm a strong fucking frame. So everything that comes out of my mouth sounds like it's the way that it is.

I need you. I need you to be empowered and discern. Okay. That's Amy's truth. That's Amy's perspective to go into the dressing room, try it on. Does it feel right for me? And then you have full autonomy and permission to either absorb or release and that personal empowerment. It is not academia. I, it is not something that you can do a worksheet.

Perfect. Yeah. It is completely contingent off of how you operate and how you function. Yeah. I completely agree with you on that. Yeah.

Nancy: Okay. So frequently when this is new, this idea of speaking up for yourself or speaking a need or et cetera, et cetera. I have found that the need has been gone for so long like we have ignored it for so long. A scenario that our husband doesn't help do the dishes, I'm making this up as I go. And so we want to speak up and be like, Hey. So then sometimes to get into them being either passive aggressive, or we as I call it a 10 reaction to a two situation, we over, we go overboard, how do we let that, I say the energy needs to be clear.

How do we let the energy of what we want to be saying world, to be clear and not get caught up in muddling the message because we're, we are engaging in the drama or passive aggressiveness or these other things that, that we don't want to be doing, but they just happen because they're the default..

Amy: That there's so much I can say on this, but the first thing is a lot of this comes down to your own awareness. Because one thing that we know when it comes to communication with other people is that people will not make change unless they feel understood. So if you come at your partner, like a bat outta hell telling him or her all the shit they're doing wrong, It is highly unlikely that they're going to go, you know what, babe, I'm going to totally work on that.

They're going to, they're going to do one of two things. They're either going to appease you to get you to shut up, or they're going to be combative and start screaming and yelling. And all of a sudden, all this shit's coming out that isn't even related to the dishwasher. So it's ineffective. So the first thing is to recognize.

What you're like, you're pissed offedness, right? So you come home from a long day where Dave work, you see just stacks of dishes in the sink that, we're not there the last time you were around and your blood starts boiling and you're like mother fucker, just getting so pissed.

So in those situations, you have to acknowledge that it is not time to address it. You do not address it when you are in that heightened emotional state, because there's some work that you have to do to figure out what you are going to say. So in those middle zone times, let's say your partner comes over to you and wants to hug you.

And you're pissed. You have to own that shit. You have to own that shit. And you have to say something like I'm finding myself really frustrated in the moment I need 30 minutes to decompress. Or. Absolutely want to hug you I'm in a prickly place. So our tendency is to make the other person wrong and to say oh, now you want to fucking hug.

Oh, like we want to make the other person wrong so that you have to acknowledge what emotional space you're in and then advocate for it. Say, I cannot be around you or I need 30 minutes or I need to decompress before I'm super connected. Then when you are processing, I usually tell people to look for the presenting issue and then look for the surface issue or the root issue.

Yeah. The presenting issue is the dishes. That's not what this is really about. It is what that behavior says to you and makes you feel that's the root issue. The root issue is likely something like I don't feel respected in this relationship. I feel taken advantage of. I don't feel seen, I don't feel heard.

I feel dismissed. I feel like there's a disconnect between value systems, whatever it is, but you have to get to the root of it because honey, it is never the dishes, right? It's never the shoes. It's never the blinds. It is what that represents to you and tells you about the relationship. But unless you get to that root issue, you're going to be yelling and screaming about dishes.

And that's not really what it's about. And it's also so much easier to dismiss somebody on logistic stuff. That just doesn't make sense. Why don't you just load it? You're always over there. We fight for what's right around logistics. It's far harder for you to dismiss someone when they come to you saying, I realize that I've never really been vocal about this before.

And for that, I really need to apologize because it, how would you ever know? But I'll be really honest with you. The. The issues that we've had around the dishes. I know I have not always handled myself well, and I've screamed and yelled at you, but I realize where some of that anger has come from. And I really want to share that with you because you've always been so receptive to the things that are on my mind.

So you have to own your shit, right? You have to say, I've never communicated this in an effective way because we feel so validated and vindicated. If we've said something, even if it's yelling and screaming, let me tell you right now that does not count. It does not count it's in one ear out the other. It sometimes even partners will do it just to piss you off if you're in one of those types of relationships.

So it does not count until you've had a really thoughtful, vulnerable exchange with somebody. So sitting down and saying, I realized why this has been so problematic to me. It's because I feel like there's an unequal distribution of labor around the house. I feel a sense of being taken advantage of. You can also honor their intention and say, I assume that is not at all what you want me to feel.

Assume positive intent. So ways in which to deliver that. Now that's so much harder to disregard and dismiss than if you were to talk about the surface issue of why can't you just do the dishes.. So there's some language around how to go about it, but to distill down what the tactics are, you have to cool off, do not address it while you're in the heat of that intensity.

You circle back and you own your shit and you come from a vulnerable place. That's one of the hardest skills for people to do, but it's far more likely that you will elicit more vulnerability in return. If you go in with defenses down, it's more likely that they'll mirror that, but to own your shit and say this, first of all, how you've communicated in the past.

I apologize for that. And I, there's no way you would know, because I always make a joke.

Nancy: Yeah. If you're a good people, pleaser, you've just been like, it's fine. It's fine. This isn't a big deal until it is

Amy: Sure I will do the dishes, right? Yeah. So I always say if you present it as a joke, expect it to be taken as a joke.

That's a sorry way to, or a pathetic way to express your needs. However, I will say, be compassionate with yourself because that has been the only skillset or tool that you've had until now. We're always just trying to get our needs met. We just have a faulty toolbox.

Nancy: Yes. Thank you for saying that, because I think that is the piece that a lot of people, we forget the idea of the compassionate that have a faulty toolbox. I love that because it is just I should have done better and I should have all of that beating ourselves.

Amy: Yeah. And you can do a whole declaring the do-over situation.

Let's say you get home, you get pissed, you scream and yell at your partner. Because that's your normal gut response. You take time to cool off and process, and then you circle back and you apologize for that. And then talk about the root issue. Here's where it's really coming from. And no matter what I'm feeling, it's not fair for me to speak to you like that.

Yeah, it's a yes. And because we feel so righteous, if you weren't such a fuck up, I wouldn't have to speak to you like, and that is never a recipe for thriving communication.

Nancy: Because I will say sometimes I'll say to my husband in that situation I'm like if he comes to give me a hug and I see the dishes, I'll say I'm mad about the dishes, but that's not what I'm mad about.

And I need some time to figure out what that is, as a way to, to acknowledge that he's picking up on something, but it isn't, that isn't it, but I need some time. And that's hard to say because the other person even to say, I need 30 minutes before I can, I need some time that is hard because there, the person's uncomfortable and what is a baby?

What do you need? What's the going on? What's the problem? And to hold that boundary sometimes.

Amy: It's hard because that's another people pleasing. One partner wants to talk it out and then you're not ready. You're going to do it a disservice. And one of the things that I do tell couples to do that, if you are aware that this is a dynamic that's happening in the relationship, have a code word or something that you say, I usually will tell people, come up with something that is a code word or a code phrase.

That's innocuous. Something like the Eagle flies at Dawn or flying monkeys have landed or something like that, where it can be code for, oh shit, she's pissed, but she doesn't quite know why. And doesn't want to take it out on me unnecessarily. That's the meaning behind the phrase. But where you have an agreement and then the other person understands to retreat and to give space.

And, but you have to talk about that in a very non heightened, emotional place where you can both establish the confines of what that would, that phrasing means for the two of you

Nancy: . And then make sure you have the agreement to circle back to actually talk about whatever it is. Because I know people will be like, that's fine now we're fine. Everything's fine

Amy: . Then it becomes the sweeping under the rug. So then it's got to be, and you can be funny with it. You can be like, are you ready to have an uncomfortable conversation about the flying monkey?

Yay, ready? Let's do it, and be fun with it. And so there's ways to break some of that stuff down, right?

Nancy: Yeah. That's awesome. I like how you clarified that. Sometimes when we're in the personal development world, we it's easy for us to spout off. Here's what you should do and forgetting the uncomfortableness of actually doing that stuff.

And so I appreciate all your examples and metaphors where you really are breaking it down on. Helping people who are new to this, and it's super uncomfortable how to set those, to speak up and ask for what it is they need.

Amy: Yeah. I'm a huge fan of that too, because that's how my mind thinks.

And give me step-by-steps though. I can't just, oh, speak your truth. What the fuck does that mean? Exactly. You know what I mean? I really think that way, therefore, I teach that way as well. And I think. When it comes to learning how to do this. One of the things that I'll tell people is get it out on paper because we've all gone through anyone with anxiety has gone through playing that shit over and over again in your head.

And here's what I should have said. Okay. Write all that stuff down. And even if you are going into a conversation where let's say you are circling back with somebody, write it all out. If you want just like a straight up letter. And then here's what you say. You say, I know this sounds really silly that I wrote all of this down, but it's really important to me to get it right.

And I, I don't want to keep communicating with you the way I happen because it's not fair to you. So I'm just going to read my paper and my request is that you just hear me out and then I absolutely want to hear your thoughts as well. But my request is just let me get through it. And then we can discuss.

So I tell people that all the time, because we think, because when we don't have that, we get derailed, we get defensive, we get into all of our old patterns. So there's no shame in that. And just saying, I really wanted to get it right this time. And it was important to me to make sure I spelled this out in a way that was fair to you.

Yeah. And yeah,

Nancy: because I think a lot of times I'll talk with I was talking with a client today who had said her husband had said something pretty benign and her monger, picked it up and was it just hit her so deep as a deep wound of shame.

And she was up all night, rehashing it. And so we talked through like how she could talk to him. And so a lot of times in your code phrase, I'll say I'll say sometimes it's helpful to be like, I'll say to my husband, oh, my monger is going crazy today. And she's telling me that you're thinking.

Yes. And he can be like, yeah, no. And so having those ways of being able to talk about it in a owning, owning your shit, as you say, but also a less intense way of discussing it.

Amy: Okay. Yeah. I use a tool with my students around that has a lot to do with what we're making up.

So essentially all you do is you start looking at what are the facts of the situation, what was said, and then what journey did I take? Where I made? In fact, I have a similar anecdote where my, we were renovating part of our house in California, before we moved here to North Carolina. And we, my husband had a bunch of the stuff that was out on the patio. He had moved it into the living room, which is where I did my workouts. And so he said to me, he said, Hey, are you still doing your workouts? And I was like, oh no, but that was the only phrase he said.,

So my mind went, oh my gosh, he's not attracted to me to work out. He wants to meet blah, blah, blah. And so I said in those moments, really similar to what you said is I said, can I just tell you where my head went? If they don't know inner critic or they don't know, you can say things like, can I tell you what I just made up in my mind?

Or can I tell you how that landed? Or can I tell you my interpretation of that or where I just went in my head. I got to just get this out. And so I did. And he was like, oh no, not at all. I was just concerned that I had all my shit in the living room and you weren't going to have any room. So not only was it not malicious, it was actually really thoughtful.

I had made up was so fantastic because then what happens is when we don't take that step of here's where I just went in my head or here's what my Monger just said when we don't do that, we start looking for more evidence to support that story. So if he, if we would have been watching TV, let's say, and he saw somebody who was like, oh wow, she's really attractive.

My, I would have gotten this totally innocuous. Normally I would've gone. Oh, he thinks I'm gross. And you know that I need to exercise more and I'm lazy and he's attracted to everybody else. And I would just start stockpiling. And then, and none of it actually being true right now, there are some times when.

You say, here's where I went and they go, yeah, I do feel that way. And then you've got a totally different thing to with, but at least you're not swimming around with a bunch of fictitious stories. You're getting to the root of it and you're figuring out what you're dealing with instead of not being able to sleep because you're not sure.

Nancy: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's amazing. Some of the things where my brain can go, oh, not just me, I'm saying everyone. And my partner's like, how did you get there? Like that? And so easily…

Wow, it wasn’t pretty. And then, because I had one recently, I was down, I cooked dinner and then I went down where I said, dinner is ready.

Then I ran downstairs to swap the laundry and I'm downstairs, switching from the dryer. And I'm like, you've got to get up there and he's going to be really mad at you. If you don't get up there because you said dinner was ready and now you're downstairs doing the laundry and you're supposed to be eating dinner with him and he comes down and I'd say that, I'm like, this is the crazy thing going on in my head.

And he said, how awful do you think I am? That I'm upstairs going come on, bitch, get your dress up here. We're supposed to be eating dinner and what you're doing, my laundry downstairs. You're so ridiculous. Yeah. And I didn't realize that was helpful for me to say oh yeah, this is hurtful to him.

Like that I'm that I go there instead of, and not be like, wait, this is your husband who loves you. He's not thinking you're an irresponsible bitch, because you're doing the laundry.

Amy: And I find that so much of the time people will tell me. And, my students or clients will say, I'm so worried that he'll think this or that she'll think that, and I'm like, then stay that, you know what?

It is my deepest fear that I come across like this or that you think that I don't value you or that I don't care about you, but here. So I was really apprehensive even bringing this to you, but I want our relationship to be one of honesty and I want the same in return. So here's my. Fill in the blank, but so much can be rectified by just telling a person you have something to say, and you're scared to say it.

Yes. You love them so much because you value them so much because you don't want to because any pain or hurt. Just say that.

Nancy: Exactly. Okay. I won't keep you anymore, Amy. I could talk to you for hours. So thank you so much for taking your time to come and talk about people pleasing. This was so helpful and incredible.

Amy: It was my pleasure. I could talk to you forever, too.

Nancy: I love the way Amy Smith teaches these concepts. I love thinking in metaphors and the house metaphor she shared has been so helpful. I sometimes struggle with hooking myself worth to the things that happen to me, both the successes and the struggles.

So recognizing that I can feel good about a win in my life and that doesn't change the value of my house. This also has been playing out lately with all the 2020 has brought, I've been feeling some sadness and hopelessness and recognizing that those feelings, they also don't change the value of my house and they aren't something I need to push away because they too are part of my house.

And then when my mother gets too loud and she starts slamming me with something completely irrational, I can use this metaphor to say, is this something I want to bring into my head? Is this serving me and nine times out of 10, it isn't. And then when I look a little deeper, it's probably rooted in a feeling that I don't want to do within that moment.

The house metaphor has allowed me to be a really good caretaker of my self loyalty, and I hope it does the same for you.

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Episode 141: Setting Healthy Boundaries as an Act of Kindness

In today’s episode, I am talking with Randi Buckley, leadership mentor, and writer about setting healthy boundaries with kindness.

There are numerous definitions of boundaries. 

One of them is that boundaries serve as expectation management. At its core, it’s quite simple: boundaries create an expectation for what I can expect from you and, conversely, what you can expect from me. 

Healthy boundaries create healthy expectations and are truly essential for any kind of relationship—but people with high functioning anxiety really struggle with setting them for a number of reasons. 

They think that people won’t like them.

There might be conflict. 

It might mean they hurt someone’s feelings.

Ouch. 

But when setting boundaries, any of the above can happen—but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t follow through. In fact, boundaries are one way we can be both clear and kind with others. 

If that feels counterintuitive to you, I recommend giving this episode a listen. Today, I’m discussing the importance of boundaries with Randi Buckley. 

Randi is a leadership mentor, author, and podcaster who offers a different way of thinking for something more. She is also the creator of the group- and self-led programs, Healthy Boundaries for Kind People and Maybe Baby. and works with wildly intelligent individuals and organizations, and is a curator of context, nuance, and discernment. 

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• Why using mind reading to keep the peace often leads to bigger blow-ups

• What it means to carry the emotional weight for other people, how we naturally do it, and, more importantly, how to stop

• How the break down of setting boundaries is more than just saying no

• The difference between people-pleasing and kindness (and why one undermines boundaries while the other does not)

Resources mentioned:

• randibuckley.com

• Instagram: @randi.buckley

• Coach In Your Pocket

+ Read the Transcript

Randi: I have many definitions for boundaries. So one of them is that boundaries are expectation management, and I think that's just being clear of what you could expect from what somebody can expect from you and what you can expect from somebody else, because then you're on the same page. If something wasn't similar, you have that moment to reconcile setting

Nancy: boundaries is way more than just saying No.

Having clear boundaries is something people with high functioning, anxiety struggle with boundaries mean, or they might not like me. There might be conflict. I might hurt someone's feelings. I'm going to have to be open and honest with them. All of those are true. And yet as today's guest Randy Buckley.

Clarity is an act of kindness and boundaries are the ultimate in clarity it's setting boundaries sounds stressful to you. I encourage you to give today's show a listen.

You're listening to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the new to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships.

I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith. Randy Buckley has been teaching the class boundaries for kind people. For years. I took her course a couple of years ago and it opened my eyes to the nuance of boundary setting that often gets lost in the self-help personal development. Randy Buckley is a leadership mentor, author and podcaster.

She's the creator of healthy boundaries for kind people, the deep and maybe baby. She has been described as equal parts, Pema, Chodron, Sophia, Loren, and Clint Eastwood with us splash of George Carlin in this episode, Randy. And I talk about why using mind reading to keep the peace often leads to bigger blow ups, what it means to carry the emotional weight for other people and how we naturally do.

And how to stop the breakdown of setting boundaries. It's more than just saying no. And the difference between people pleasing and kindness, as Randy said, people pleasing, undermines boundaries.

Okay. So Randy Buckley is here with me today. I am so excited to have you hear from her. Cause she is one of she doesn't know this, but she has inspired my work a lot and is one of the people that I go to for wisdom.

Welcome

Randi: Randy. Oh, that's quite an introduction. Thank you for knowing my work at all. (laughter)

Nancy: She's also very humble. Randy is okay, so Randy is here. We're going to be talking about boundaries, which I know is something that a lot of us struggle with and in this month is our theme is control and boundaries have a lot to play in that.

Arena. So we're going to jump right in. So a lot of my clients deal with mind reading in the spirit of trying to keep the peace. When in reality, this just leads to bigger blow ups. How do you see this working in your expertise around boundaries?

Randi: There are so many assumptions that people will know our boundaries or that we know the boundaries of others.

To this, through the lens of boundaries, of course, we assume a lot and we assume incorrectly a lot and that's, that can be a lot of pain. And we think some people should just have common sense, or this is the common sense that we're all coming from the maybe even the same set of values or have the same understanding of situation.

But clarity is an act of kindness. And I think when we're trying to read minds, I think it's exactly for what you said, trying to keep the peace, or if somebody has had a very bad experience in the past, they're tiptoeing around somebody as not to ask or induce some sort of rage. So we just try to read minds has tried to bypass that step all together, but.

The risk is I believe that when reading minds, we don't actually know what we're getting into. Whether we're we think what somebody, we know it's somebody's boundaries would be what we think they should know ours. So there's a lot to open to interpretation and that's where we assign meaning that could be incredibly wrong.

But it gets us, it usually gets us into some trouble in the sense of pain.

Nancy: And so how do you, if you've grown up in an environment where that was the case, like where there might be a blow up, if you say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, how do you calm yourself? And how do you calm yourself enough to catch yourself, mind reading and change that dynamic.

Randi: I think awareness in and of itself is huge because once you are aware, then you can be conscious and intentional and deliberate with your next action. And so often we just go on. Our default mode, those tracks. I often compare it to, not that I cross country ski at all, but it reminds me of tracks in the snow.

It's a lot easier when you're skiing so I hear to cut those tracks in the snow than to have to leave your own tracks. So you can glide. And that mind reading are those tracks in the snow that are often really established well established. So we have to get off that particular track and say, okay, am I attempting to mind reading here in?

Is that actually going to be beneficial to the situation I want to have happen? So I think the first thing is awareness. And then you get to ask and I think so often we're afraid of asking in part because we're afraid what the answer will be, but I think more often than not people appreciate our asking. Even if we get the response of course. Or you should know or something like that, we cared enough to ask. I remember my dad saying to my mom a lot because they had two very different ways of relating. Sometimes he would, oh, he'd say Nancy, I can't read minds. Just tell me. And she was, she thought, you've done this a hundred times.

Why wouldn't why would it be. But now, but they came from very different ways. So I saw that clarity was an act of kindness.

Nancy: So when you talk about the asking, can you give me an example of what I, like how you would ask?

Randi: I think there are lots of ways you could ask, so it depends on the situation a little bit, but sometimes if you just want to clarify what you think, say, so just so I'm on the same page.

You want me to come by at four to pick you up as opposed to that being an assumption. And really that to me is where I set boundaries or expectation management. Many definitions for boundaries. So one of them is that boundaries are expectation management, and I think that's just being clear of what you could expect from what somebody can expect from you and what you can expect from somebody else, because then you're on the same page.

If something wasn't You have that moment to reconcile. Oh, I actually need you to be here and then you can figure it out because I think so often we have that assumption we don't ask, we try to mind read and then we carry it with us. And then when it didn't work out, arrgh why did they tell me my time or X, Y, and Z.

And then, we plant some seeds of resentment, which tend to get watered with each subsequent interaction.

Nancy: So what if you're dealing with someone who is passive aggressive, or you grew up with someone who was passive aggressive. So there was always the message. And then the underlying message.

What they really meant. How do you, I know,

Randi: I know exactly what you mean, and I have to say that I didn't see this in my nuclear family, but I definitely sent it, saw it, my extended family. And it was fascinating to me. I think you just say, okay. Clarifying, which is, I think it just goes back to clarifying and it doesn't have to be a, oh crap.

They're being passive aggressive. How do I interpret this? I think it just be okay. So what you're saying is this right? And just having a moment, the clarity, and then

Nancy: letting it go if they don't say, if they're like, oh no I don't need you to come today. it's raining, you can stay home, but really underneath they're like, I want her to come.

If you can clarify that and say I'm not coming...

Randi: Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So I just want to make sure that I won't be here. And there's so much of that, and it leads to so much interpretation. And when dealing with wild, passive aggression, my MO is generally to go with what they say.

I might ask. I will ask me clarify, but even what they say, oh no, don't come. Something like that. I'm going to trust that they're making adult decisions. And so I will honor that decision with the hope being that if that was actually not what they meant in the future, they will tell me what they meant because I'm going to honor them.

Nancy: So it's retraining them in a sense,

Randi: right and ourselves, I don't have to interpret, they said this. I would like to trust that they are able to say what they mean. What they say very Dr. Seuss. Yeah.

Nancy: Cause then it's sitting with that uncomfortableness. Because I think we get something out of the, oh no.

What they're really meaning is this, I noticed I think about this, my husband and I. Have a dynamic. He was raised in that passive aggressive, and I was raised in the blunt, tell it like it is. And so when my mom says, no, don't come. He's oh no, she really wants us to come.

That's what she's really saying. And he won't ever believe what really comes out of people's mouths. And I think that's just a fascinating, cause it's so entrenched in his brain that people don't speak the truth.

Randi: Exactly. And that my parents that's come from the different backgrounds.

So it was very easy depending on what grandparents were dealing with, around what the expectation would be. And so I just wanted to be clear.

Nancy: Yeah. And to have the, I think to have that in your mind of what they're saying is that's what I'm going with, to have that clarity.

Randi: Right.

And I think it's a gift to people to honor them. Okay. That's what you're saying. I in, I want to be able to honor that other than undermining or second guessing that, right?

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah, because that is a lot of energy.

Randi: Yeah. A LOT of energy!

Nancy: So how did you get into boundary work?

Randi: It's something people often expect me to have this amazing story of how I had terrible boundaries and I have it actually, I grew up in a military family, so I was moving a lot and I saw the difference largely in my sister and I, my sister made moved to a new place and my sister immediately wanted to make friends.

Understandably. She was a little kid, one, definitely friends. And I think often she was much more, yeah. Flexible with her boundaries in order to connect with other people and make friends that felt more important to her. And I was much more okay with the, what those boundaries are, I didn't think in terms of boundaries at that point, this is a boundary, but I thought, oh no, you were probably have different interests so we can be nice to each other, but we're probably not going to start a friendship, a deep friendship.

And I watched that evolve in different ways. And she has given me permission to say this. So I'm not. Be trying anything, but she later on got into a series of relationships that were very unhealthy with men who did it honor her boundaries. And it was so the boundary work then was all about what I couldn't say to her because there were really intense situations where I would have probably, she probably would have cut me off at it actually said what I thought at the time.

And then I noticed at the same time that clients were dealing with parallel issues, maybe not to the same extreme or intensity. But, so I saw this extreme situations where boundaries were being honored. In what could be going on. And then we could apply that learning what, all the things I wish I could say to my sister, I started applying to my clients and then I started, I just went ahead and created a body of work out of it

Nancy: because it's called healthy boundaries for kind people, healthy boundaries,

Randi: yeah.

And my sister is amazing. She's a Spitfire, she's one of the kindest people you will ever meet. But for some reason, though, it changed those she’s still kind, but. People took a lot of advantage of that kindness and it didn't have to be that way

Nancy: at all, just because I know you have a difference between kind and nice.

Tell me that. Sure.

Randi: If I start going into a thesis, please cut me off. But I do think there's a profound difference between nice and kind and I'll preface that by saying I think nice gets a bad rap. Okay. I think nice could be manners. Nice. Can be nice for me. This is about making people, other people comfortable.

So it's hospitality. But kindness is about caring. About your values and their values and not letting other things get in the way. So if I have a strong value for compassion, I'm not going to let niceness me making the other people comfortable for in order for me to be able to be compassionate with you.

So whether that's a value of justice or all those other things, for me, kindness will always Trump. Nice, because that is far more important to me. That's something I just have, I deeply value that. So kindness or excuse me, niceness can get in the way. And there's certainly nothing wrong with bringing somebody a cup of coffee or something, saying, please, and thank you.

But it's when it starts to override kindness or it gets in the way of a healthy relationship, that's where I started to have an issue. So I, my really quick thing I say is niceness is about. Not making waves. And kindness is really more about changing the world.

Nancy: Ooh. I love that. Wow.

Oh good. That's really cool. Because you're right. I had heard you say that difference, but I hadn't because the nice does get a bad right. And and sometimes it deserves it. Yes. Yeah. But not always. Yeah. But I like the, the way you couch it with the other people, it's really helpful because I think that is I think that is a difference, and I know a lot of people, that's why I always was attracted to healthy boundaries for kind people.

Cause that kind of yeah, I want to be kind but boundaries, that doesn't go together in my mind. but it does in your framework.

Randi: And then, and when I start working with folks, that's usually one of the first questions I ask them. Okay. Tell me what boundaries means to you. And more often than not, it's this horrible thing, which if you're kind or where you value kindness or compassion or whatever your values are, you're not going to do those things that have you feel unkind, so if boundaries feel like this unkind, nasty thing or an imposition, or that you have to be a real jerk in order to do it.

There's no way you're going to have them. You value the you value kindness far more. But what I'm trying to, my general thing is boundaries are an act of kindness to the point we made know. Which helps people really, it's almost like giving people an instruction manual to get you at your best. Oh, okay.

This is the framework, how it has the optimum optimization or functioning, and I'd like you to be able to get that. And to me, that's an act of kindness.

Nancy: So what brings people oh, I am having boundary problems and I'm sure they're not all the way to where your sister was.

They're more, further down, but what are some examples of people being like this isn't working for me anymore?

Randi: One thing I had not anticipated and ends up being really big and I hadn’t anticipated because it wasn't my experience, but relationships with mothers seem to be really Impacted by a lack of boundaries.

So relationships with mothers, family relationships when boundaries are between work and home, start to feel very blurred, feel like they're not able to speak up for themselves or start to feel like a doormat or have felt like a doormat forever. And they heard there's a way to feel different .

I think that's really. Comes down to when you're just tired of the situation being what it's bad. You hope you have some hope. So we take that up and we run with it. Cause it absolutely can be different.

Nancy: Do you think people can do boundaries if they don't believe it? . If that, like I have to come to you saying I really, I know it's boundaries.

That's my problem.

Randi: Oh no. I think they can, because I think what they find out is actually it isn’t. One of the things I tell my clients is if somebody tells you they don't believe in boundaries, believe them. (laughter) Because that probably means they aren’t going to honor yours, but what we do is we often then redefined boundaries to something that's quite not just palatable, but sometimes you crave Ooh, actually that would be amazing.

So often we don't recognize this or whatever's going on as the need for boundaries or for better boundaries. But once we define it as such. We make it something that is aspirational and attainable because it's

Nancy: I even think about my own life, instead of being the clear of, I want to sit here and read this book for the next 30 minutes

I'll come down and just, and do something else or putz around. I don't engage with my husband. Or I'll sit there and I'll not tell him what I'm doing. And he's Hey, I thought we were going to watch a show or something. And I'm like, oh no, I want to read this book. And then I get testy about it.

But it's because I say, I want to sit here and read this book for 30 minutes and it's so simple when you do it,

Randi: And it gets exhausting and sometimes it feels why do I always have to be the one who takes the initiative? And I don't know if that's the case that you're speaking about, but I think sometimes we're exhausted for always being the one who has to do the work. Then it's not fair. And my thought is, if it matters to you, it's worth it.

If it has meaning if it matters to you, even if you're the one doing it more often than not, or more than your fair share of whatever that is. It's worth it because it's important to you.

Nancy: Yeah. Because a lot of times that comes up because I'm not owning that. I want to sit here and read the book. I'm vague, I know I don't want to watch a show with him and I want to read the book, but I haven't really owned that yet in that being kind to myself to say, this is what I want to do.

So I'm going to own it instead of let me yeah. Putz around, over here doing other stuff. I don't know right now if that's clear, but

Randi: oh, I get that. Absolutely. And sometimes we don't know, you might not be owning it and you might not be ready to like, yes. Yeah. Oh, I'm not being productive. So it's almost hard to commit to it.

When you feel like maybe you should be doing something

Nancy: that is more likely the problem.

Randi: There are a variety of scenarios

Nancy: On your Instagram that you talked about carrying the emotional weight for other people. Yeah, and I love that phrase. And I hadn't really thought about that is a lot of what my clients do, but I hadn't really thought about it like that. So can you tell me, what does that look like and how it hurts us?

Randi: Absolutely. I see people trying to protect other people a lot from pain disappointment. So they try to carry the burden for them. They try to, I say, carry emotional weight of others. We try to protect them from having to feel it or process it. And that's painful for us because it's not ours. And I think it's feels like an act of kindness or compassion, but we're not letting them, if we try to lift that and carry it, take it off their shoulders or off their plate.

They're not getting the full experience that they might need to. Be with it to process it, to decide they have at the decisions really to heal from that experience. So what happens is we know when we haven't worked on something, it comes right back around until we get it again. Or until we actually, oh, it keeps coming back up.

But that's painful for us then, because we're trying to carry something. That's not ours. You take disproportionate responsibility for something that we might not have control over. And I know your theme is control. So we're trying to control something that is not ours to control, and we do it because we're trying to be a good person.

We do it because we're trying to be sensitive. Maybe they've had a lot going on. I think it's important to see the distinction of seeing. Or the distinction of, we can recognize somebody's pain. We can see it. We can be with it without having to take it on as our own. And I think so often folks who value compassion, say I see this, so I shall carry it for them.

And that's a very big difference

Nancy: and we do it in subtle ways. It's like it doesn't have to be the big oh, someone's grieving and I'm going to carry their grief for them or my kid fell. And so I'm going to, comfort him. It's little tiny ways that shows up in our marriages and in our relationships where we protect people.

Randi: And that's, and I don't want to, three, there's a lot of nuance in that too. I'm not saying, let people fend for themselves. There are situations, there's a lot of nuance, but I think, and I love the idea, as you and I have talked about context, nuance and discernments are important to me.

So I think it's really important to look at the nuance and context and discern what's right for you. But I think more often than not, we in those little situations, it's almost like. It sounds like the inverse of microaggression, sort of other people it's we're constantly taking that on in order to protect somebody.

Yeah.

Nancy: And some of that comes up in the, even in the like back to our question before about the I totally lost it. The need Asking for what you need so that I would like, oh, can you clean the kitchen? And instead, and he's going to be like, oh, I have so much to do, blah, blah, blah. I don't have time to clean the kitchen rather than just letting him struggle with that because I have so much to do too.

And I really need the kitchen done. I'll make room in my calendar to get the kitchen done. On top of everything I have to do instead of being like, okay, he's going to have to figure it out. It's going to be uncomfortable for him. And that's okay. And I think that happens all the time.

Randi: Absolutely.

Absolutely. And, we could also just say, you know what, maybe the kitchen doesn’t get cleaned right now, a lot of other things, but we have this, it has to happen. Or it has illness illnesses, black, white. It happens where it doesn't they do it, or I have to do it. And I think when we make those little tiny decisions throughout the day It builds up because we're all here I go again.

Let's take care of it. Ah, it's not worth bothering somebody else. It's not worth the headache, but that adds up.

Nancy: And I think that's having the awareness of why am I doing this now? Is it because, my inner critic is telling me I have to clean up the kitchen or is it also just because I want to protect them?

I think that's another question to be asking how much we when we're used to doing that, mind reading that fits right in.

Randi: Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of that boils down to when I call the pathology of have crappy boundaries or for boundary challenges. It's really, we have a fear of disappointing others.

We have a fear of missing out. We have questions around worthiness. And for me a lot, or we've never seen boundaries model, or you can have them, those are my four biggies, but to me, they all boil down to my fifth one, which is fear for, and thinking if I don't clean the kitchen, they're going to get frustrated and, fast forward a long time they leave.

So it's almost like we're constantly trying to be saying people's good graces to protect them, but also to protect ourselves.

Nancy: That's very well said

I know in the work I've done with clients on boundaries, they can set the boundary, but then that's just the fricking beginning. So much more to it than that. Can you talk a little bit to that?

Randi: Sure. So I think sometimes it feels like so much work to set the boundary, whether you've finally got the words out.

. So it feels like you've climbed this mountain and you're at the top and one and done. And what usually happens, particularly in pre-existing relationships, meet, a spouse, a partner, a family, as opposed to somebody who you run into at the store before, when we used to be able to go to stores.

Because we're in we're instituting of boundary, or I like to say nurturing a boundary, it is cultivating and nurturing the boundary, but. What often happens is pushback because either people didn't hear you, they didn't understand it. They're confused by it and went completely over their head.

You'd never said it before, so they didn't really recognize it. But what happens then is we tend to get pushed back and say, forget it. See, they said, no. They said no to my boundary and push back. I think it's a couple of things here. I think it's really important to know, in my opinion, pushback as part of the process.

Push back means, oh, wow. What you said was met with something, even if it wasn't the desired response you wanted it, it found a home. It's almost like a radio or a radio signal. If I'm an antenna, you may not have gotten the clear message, but it gives us a chance to reiterate and be perhaps even more clear.

So often I think when people get pushed back, they say, Declare a boundary, they get pushed back and they say, see, I can't have you. I can't have boundaries. They won't allow me, which I'll get to in a second. Or they won't be able to give me my boundaries or something that spirit. So push back is part of the process and pushback, usually doesn't feel.

In my experience, but I think we can reframe it as well. I was heard possibly for the first time or something got through to where it made sense to them. Maybe not total sense, but that was heard so we can reiterate and we can revisit we can discuss whatever that is. And sometimes it just needs a reminder, but so often, and pre-existing relationships because they'd never, this was new.

It didn't really register. It didn't really register.

Nancy: Yeah, because none of the reasons you gave for why it didn't register were I didn't want to do it or that they didn't want to do it, or they didn't care.

Randi: And that could be a reason. They're right. More often than not exact, it's just, they were confused or sometimes we tune out, right? Like the Peanuts. Wah Wah Wah. So I think that is a lot of it, but then we're so quick to say, forget it. I can't have it. So you set a boundary, you might feel good that you did it. You get pushed back instead of abandoning that boundary, you get to show you're serious about it.

Because if we don't honor our own boundaries, why would anybody else honor it? Because they don't see it. There's no role modeling of what that boundary actually is. And. And this was what I was referring to. I think so often people think others have to like the boundaries or they have to get buy-in from other people to be able to have the boundary and no water at the boundary.

They don't have to like it. And sometimes people who don't like it initially will actually like it later. Sometimes it's new for them at first, but then they really come to respect the fact that you were able to say what was right. And how would you actually gave me this clear instruction because you value our relationship.

So I think it's not this, it might feel good initially. And then if we talk about my work boundary hangovers, and just be like afterwards, and you might have to take a little break and that doesn't mean you let up your boundaries, but you don't necessarily have to actively pursue it. Just maintain and, let yourself just if you overworked the muscle, let it rest right.

And go back out there.

Nancy: Yeah, I really, because it's sitting with the uncomfortableness of giving them their time to respond. Giving them their time to process and do take it in, I can remember, and this happened. 15 years ago, I can remember driving up. I was telling my mentor that I was leaving the practice to go start my own.

And I knew it was not going to go over well, and as I was driving up there, it's something just hit me. And I was like, she's allowed to be upset about this. Absolutely. And it was just like this totally freeing moment of Wow. Like she's, I don't have to make this all better for her. Like she's allowed and she probably will be upset in that makes sense.

That she'd be upset. And even if it doesn't matter because she's allowed to have that reaction. And that was just such an aha for me to recognize, I didn't have to justify it or prove that it was okay. I could just be like, this is what I'm doing and you're going to be uncomfortable. And here we go.

Randi: How respectful of you that you let her have that reaction and recognize that. That might be a natural response that you get that. And it was also a great example, what we were talking about earlier for you not trying to carry the, her emotional weight. I'm maybe the practice, I'll be on call or you can, oh, let me give you a necklace.

Yeah.

Nancy: Yeah. And we do that jump in and try to make it better before we even give them a chance. Because we're uncomfortable before we even know if they're uncomfortable, we're already, or I am already jumping in to make it better,

Randi: absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Trust ourselves that if somebody is going to be upset, we will handle it.

We will be able to, we weren't the children. Or no longer the child that may have been overwhelmed by that situation or scared, but that we hopefully probably have better coping skills. Now then if something comes up, we'll be able to dance in the moment with whatever that is in handling.

Nancy: Yeah.

Yeah. Cause that's another one of my favorite reminders is I'm not eight years old. Yes. And then every, it is fascinating to me that every time I say that to myself, you're 47. It's whoa, like it's I forget. Yeah. Cause I'm in, I'm an eight year old in my head, when I'm thinking about it.

And then when I read my oh yeah.

Randi: I'm 47 too so I totally get it.

Nancy: We touched on this already. I still want to go back to it because people pleasing is such a big part of my client's world and where they get a lot of ease to their anxiety is by making sure the rest, pushing back and making sure the rest of the world is okay. And I do a lot of talking about being kind to yourself.

That's a big. Part of my work. So you say again on Instagram, because I love your Instagram where you said people pleasing, undermines kindness. Yes. Which I think is the opposite of what a lot of people think. And so tell me more.

Randi: I have a very rebellious nature, (laughter)

Nancy: which is one reason that I love your stuff

Randi: I have to point that out. So I think ultimately people pleasing is about. When you base your self-worth on other people's reactions, as opposed to what you feel based on your own reaction, you really look outside yourself to see, to measure your worthiness. And so we people please. So that is an attempt at and I'm not, I don't want to be right.

People pleasers. I think we all have that tendency and there's, it's a survival mechanism for a lot of people and we've learned it, but we don't necessarily have to carry that. So I just. Put that out there that you're not a bad person. I don't think you're terrible. If you are a people pleaser.

I think it's very common in people. Pleasers have really big challenges with boundaries when we're people pleasing, our kindness might not be as authentic as it could be. One for people pleasing. We're doing this to try to control their reaction as opposed to necessarily coming from our. It doesn't mean there might not be overlap or it can't be both, but it's undermining our kindness because we're trying to make us be safe as opposed to just act an act of kindness for the sake of being kind.

So that's the big version, big umbrella version of that. I could just dissect it a little bit more, but that's a big wake up call for a lot of people pleasers. We rationalize people pleasing as I'm trying to be nice indoor kind, nice endocrine. And I think those are both in there, but really if we're trying to manipulate a situation is that act of kindness.

So I want people's kindness to be free, to be kind, just to be free to do what feels like an expression of their kindness, not to necessarily manipulate the situation even. Feels like it's for protection it's to try to avoid a response, your kindness can just be without having to have any sort of payback, so to speak sort of result of that kindness.

And that's what I mean by that. I love that

Nancy: because it is, it is a form of control without recognizing it, like it's and, control gets such a negative connotation, but it's a sense of just taking back control of your environment. The people pleasing that I can. I can feel more the master of this situation. If I know I can people please, when in reality you're turning it on it’s head, you could be the master of this situation by being clear and setting boundaries and only doing things that are coming from your heart.

Randi: Exactly. For me, I. I, I know sometimes I've been on the other end where people have been trying to be nice. So they invited me along, something they really want me to go along to that feels awful to find that out later disingenuous, it felt, and I get what they're trying to do, but I'd much rather somebody not trying to people please me, and be honest, or, just be themselves or not have to put out this phony act.

Just in order to try to protect my feelings cause that I've been on the other end of that. And it's no fun either. So I absolutely agree with you that it is an attempt to control and get that good, get good feedback about ourselves, right?

Nancy: Yeah. And that in is also the, like the person who invited you along, wasn't allowing you to have your emotional was picking up your emotional baggage rather than letting you be disappointed. If you were going to be, they don't even know you were going to be disappointed.

Randi: To be honest, I would have been disappointed to me.

I'd rather be disappointed than somebody being disingenuous with me. Authentic. I can deal with that. I can heal from that. I'm sure it can heal from both. That just feels a lot cleaner in my world.

Nancy: Yeah. That's interesting. Do you think that boundaries can be too strong?

Randi: Yes. So when I do the healthy boundaries, kind of people work, I have lots of analogies and metaphors I use, and one of them is boundaries are like a spine and they can bend and flex to support you.

Because I think we have this idea about boundaries of once you've drawn your line in the sand, that's it's just. Page almost, but then circumstances might change. You might you might not want to see a certain person at the family reunion, but you might want to see everybody else because we don't want to see that one person.

We won't give ourselves the experience of seeing everybody else. That's a real nutshell version of an example I use, but boundaries can be, if they're too. Stiff like a spine that can't move with you. And so you're really stuck in this rigid situation that you are, if your boundaries are too firm that don't have an, you're not getting any of them for context, nuance or discernment.

We know that spines when they're flexible. So my sister is an acupuncturist and I use to do Ayurveda years. And we, so we talk about. Healing traditions around the world. And in both of those traditions, they say something to the effect of you are as healthy as your spine. And there are certainly folks for whom that is not the case.

And that probably don't appreciate that. But for other people that is the case. And so I see boundaries like a spine. They give you, they let you stand tall. They provide support, but they can move in the ways you want to move. And allow that to happen. So when our boundaries are too firm first of all, we're not recognizing growth or evolution in our life.

Think situations may have changed, we may have changed and it really then limits what we are allowing ourselves to do, or the type of relationships we can have with other people.

Nancy: Awesome. I'm glad I asked that question. Because I love your that's. One thing I love about your work is there's in the coaching and therapy world boundaries is full of shame and, super strong messages, like the example of the family you gave, don't go see your family if they're not supporting you.

And there isn't any room for that gray nuance stuff that I think is necessary. Healthy boundaries. So that was one thing that really drew me to your work, because I know there is, I have felt the shame from boundary work of, people saying stop doing that. You need to set a firm boundary and what's wrong with you that you can't, and that it can get turned back on you really quickly.

Instead of being the kindness around it, right?

Randi: And there are some things you might be very black and white about, and that might not never change, but if they aren't there aren't, be, find, understand what those boundaries are so that you feel like your values are being honored.

And then to me, that's another definition that our boundaries, our values turned into. And so we can then live that thing in our lives and make sure that other people are honoring that too. So I think there's a whole lot of nuance in there has to be because we are nuanced creatures.

Nancy: Because if I say to my husband, I went to read this book at six o'clock every night.

That's my boundary. I'm making this up, obviously he may say, oh but I have a meeting. It starts at six. I need, what about the kids or whatever, and then, but so we can negotiate that, but I've still set my values, my intention out there on the line of what I want.

Randi: Your value is to have that time and, reading and self care, whatever that is for you, that you're doing by reading at six o'clock every night, and sometimes another value might trump it for the health of your children. So it's not that we're so rigid of, no, this is my time. And if it, if you're constantly interrupted, it certainly feels like you have to be rigid and there might be times where you need to be a little bit more rigid, but if we can ebb and flow with what's important to you.

We're set.

Nancy: Yeah, that's awesome. Okay. So tell me more about how people can work with you with healthy boundaries for kind people and where you are with all of that

Randi: work. Sure. I'm currently running the healthy boundaries for kind people cohort right now. I tend to run it once a year.

It's about a three and a half month program that we do At this point, at the time we're recording this, we don't know what next month looks like. What's happening. When, so my anticipated running it again is in January, 2020, but I am on Instagram in, I also train people to do the work, train people, to facilitate healthy boundaries for kind people, whether in their home with their clients And their office with themselves.

Some people just want to go way, you want to take a deep dive into the work. So we do the healthy ventures for kind of people to sole traitor coaching, facilitator certification. And I do work one-on-one with folks, but I also have many coaches or folks who have done that training who are, I've put my stamp of approval on their understanding of the.

Oh, okay.

Nancy: Okay, cool. So you have certified people, not certified, but trained people in the healthy boundaries for kind work that you can refer people to. Yeah. And then can anyone do the facilitator training or do they have to have a coach. A license or

Randi: I prefer somebody who's taken healthy boundaries for kind people.

The course. But if you're willing to do a little bit of work to come up to speed on some of the general thing, cause it helps once you've applied that work yourself, what it looks like. And to know if that's what you really want. Spent a lot of time on, get to know me a little bit. It's possible, but generally I prefer that people have done the core curriculum.

Nancy: And then another thing that I originally got attracted to for was the maybe baby, do you still do that?

Randi: Yeah.. Thank you for asking. It's very dear to me. Maybe Baby is a program that I put myself through and then created for folks who were ambivalent about motherhood that heard the whisper of maybe.

And that was very much my case. I was not, I'd like to kids. I worked at a camp for 30 years. But I'd certainly w I did not want to become a mom. I want to, I used to joke around people and made them a little uncomfortable. They said, what are you having kids? And I'd say, I just want to be the rich eccentric, I was not fulfilling one of those that they didn't ask me more questions, but It's a really big question.

There are very few places. I think you could turn to where you have unbiased conversation. So maybe journey is something that I work with people one-on-one, but I also have a self-study if they want to do it on their own to find out what is true for you. And then how can you lean into that truth?

All the more, because there's so many fears about motherhood. What if we actually regret it later? I don't re or if I decide now, or, what if I don't regret having kids or just because I regret having kids with, if I regret not having kids or becoming a parent, but everybody in our lives generally has a hope or wish that we do, or, oh, it'll change your mind.

Everybody has this bias. So it's really important to me that women have. As unbiased as possible space to explore that if you are in a partnership with somebody and that's how you want to potentially obtain parenthood, that at least, where you stand B before, I think somebody feel like they have to make that decision together, which if you're in a partnership, it's probably good to consult.

We talked about expectation management, but it's really nice to know where you are, where you stand first. Yes. So maybe baby is very dear to me

Nancy: Because that I had already made my decision not to have kids when I've saw Maybe Baby, And I was very like, I don't want to have kids. I don't want to have kids.

I don't want to have kids, but then when I hit my mid thirties, there was the whisper that came and that was like maybe. And you just made that new, normal, just seeing what you were writing about maybe baby at the time. It just normalized that for me, that I can still make this decision and it's okay.

That I still have that whisper. Absolutely. That was so refreshing.

Randi: Oh good. Because I think if you've ever had an ambivalence or you're somebody who deals with ambivalence sometimes. Ambivalence will always be a part of your equation. So we're always looking for this perfect answer that I have no doubt or, we care other people say that.

I did decide that was true for me to have a child and even going into, I had an emergency C-section, but even going into that, and they're still like and at that point, it was pretty much happening, but I really want to be clear on that though. I don't have this secret idea of making everybody see the light. This is the right path for you. I think if we honor, what's true for us in any context around parenthood boundaries, the whole world just goes a little bit more into alignment because we're a greater truth in general.

So that's really important to me and I, and let me just say, I think women who are not direct parent are some of the most undervalued people on the planet. Oh, absolutely. It's a huge role. And it's so important. And I think it's a lot of us think about some of our favorite women in our lives.

They're those people who could be that person to us.

Nancy: Yeah, because it is a because it still comes up, I'm well past giving birth, but I'll, every now and then I'll be like, oh, maybe we should adopt, or I have all this extra caregiving. And I think about your program, even though I didn't do it, but I still think no, this is normal.

It's okay to be, to have this. And we're going to figure out ways. And that was the cool thing. Now that I just last night, like we get together every quarter with them. Nieces and nephews, and they're all, my oldest, my youngest is going to turn 18 tomorrow. So they're all in college and they want to get together with us and play games on zoom is just the best, that, and that I could have made that an intention to fulfill that, because I wanted to be.

The cool, eccentric aunt and I'm not there, but the rest of it, and so I think that, yeah, I just thank you for doing that. And I, if anyone is interested, it's a awesome program and I'm so glad. Because there isn't anything like that out there. Because I looked.

Randi: I was looking. And so that's why I created it.

And, I want to talk to my mom, but since you'd be having a good year met, of course she wanted a grandchild. You'll miss it late and you'll regret it later. I remember hearing that and thank you for honoring that. I do think it's really important. And thank you for being that person to your nieces and nephews.

And, motherhood is not just about children. Regenerative creatures. And that comes out of, creation and need to be nurturing or whatever that

Nancy: definition is. Yeah. And it does, and then maybe baby even goes into the boundaries. I'm saying like, you can see how those are connected, right?

Randi: For me, everything boils down to boundaries. It's really the infrastructure for how we want to live. So that is. That's very key for me.

Nancy: Oh, thank you so much, Randy, for giving us a little intro into boundaries. I know you have a ton more to say. So tell us where people can find you.

Randi: Sure. My website is probably the best place, Randy, with an eye Randibuckley.com and on Instagram I, Randy dot Buckley.

Yeah, those are the two best.

Nancy: Awesome. And I will have those links in the show notes to everything. And thanks again for taking the time to chat with us.

Randi: What a pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me. It's such a great conversation.

Nancy: There were so many wonderful takeaways from the show I learned so much, but the part I want to revisit is at the end, when she talks about people, pleasing and kindness, because it's hard to admit that while our desire to please might appear as if it's coming from an altruistic place, it is most likely coming from a place of control, controlling their reaction or controlling the conflict.

It's not from a genuine grounded place. This is so hard to see in ourselves. And it is so important to start recognizing where we're human and where we do really human things based on the lessons we learned growing up and what we've learned throughout our lives, being aware of our motivations and being honest with ourselves all back to that self loyalty is so important.

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Episode 088: Are you a BFF, Biggest Fan, or a Monger?

A different look at The Happier Approach characters not just how we talk to ourselves but how we interact with others. Which character are you? How do you interact with those around you?

+ Read the Transcript

Hello, gang. I am happy to be back here. I'm talking about the characters in my book from The Happier Approach in a slightly different way today. So if you have or haven't read the book, I think you will find this intriguing because it's a different way of looking at this concept. I have written a book called The Happier Approach: Be Kind to Yourself, Feel Happier, and Still Accomplish Your Goals. That book is available on Amazon. You can buy it, listen to an audiobook or Ebook or a physical book, whatever you feel like doing.

In the book, I talk about the Monger, the BFF, and The Biggest Fan, and these are the three voices that are in our heads and relate to our productivity and how we talk to ourselves. To give you a quick refresher on the voices and what the characters mean, I'm going to talk about the Monger first. And so the Monger is the voice of shaming and belittling, and this is the voice that a lot of us are used to. It's a voice that's telling us where we're not living up to snuff, where we're not doing a good job. This is the perfectionist's voice, and you could do it better, and who do you think you are and all of those messages that drive us all crazy.

So, the Monger is what a lot of people call the inner critic, and I called it a Monger because it's spreading propaganda and encouraging us to be better by using shaming and belittling. The counter to that voice, which can drive us crazy and make us feel crappy about our lives, is the BFF. The BFF is all about fun. She wants to support you and let you have fun. She's not so much into holding your feet to the fire, and that's why she's called the BFF because she is your best friend forever. She is going to make sure that you're having a good time, you're not taking yourself too seriously, that you can cut loose and do all that fun stuff. So, when the Monger becomes, that shaming and belittling voice becomes too much, in steps the BFF kind of as a pressure release valve to be like, "Screw it, have fun. Who cares?"

We get in trouble when we dance between those two voices. The middle voice that I like to call is the Biggest Fan. The Biggest Fan's voice is there to help us feel good about ourselves and to be kind to us, but also hold our feet to the fire. So the Biggest Fan is the voice that's going to be like, "Oh, sweetheart, oh, that was tough to get that bad feedback, but let's figure out a way to improve. What do we need to do differently? This goal is important. How can we keep working on it?" Whereas the BFF would say, "Let's have a drink, that was too stressful. I don't want to deal with it." The Monger would say, "I told you-you couldn't do that. Who do you think you are? You are such a loser."

So, the three voices are constantly playing out in our heads. Yesterday, I did a presentation. I was fortunate enough to speak at this leadership conference for women, and afterward, a few women came up to me to talk about how these voices play out in their work environments with how they talk to each other. It was an interesting way of thinking about it because I had always taught it from the perspective of the voices are in our heads. But we also personify these voices in how we interact with people around us, and so it's helpful to kind of think about it that way in the sense of in our relationships, am I a Monger to someone? Am I being a BFF? Or am I being a Biggest Fan?

Let me give you an example that might help reframe this. If you think about a Monger, and that is someone that shames and belittles someone, we tend to be Mongers sometimes to those we love when we see they're not reaching their potential or we see a bigger picture for them. So, we can do this with our kids or people we're mentoring, or people we are trying to pull along. We can use shaming and belittling as a way to motivate them. At least that's what our intention is. We think we're motivating them, but in reality, we're just making them feel like crap because we aren't encouraging them. We're just pointing out their flaws, and pointing out flaws is not a motivator.

So, to recognize am I being a Monger to my employees, to my kids, to anyone that I'm mentoring or trying to pull along. To that same extent, am I being a BFF? Am I giving my employees or my best friend a pass and not helping her hold her feet to the fire? Am I saying, "It doesn't matter. That's no big deal. Who cares that your boss said that"? When in our heads, we know it's a big deal. We know it matters that her boss gave her negative feedback, and we know that it would be helpful for us to help her figure out how to work past that. So, when we're acting out of the BFF, and we're just in the, "I want to make you feel better" mode or "I want to whip by this as quickly as possible so we can get back to the fun part of the evening," we aren't doing a service to our friends or our co-workers. Or anyone else that we know that are struggling when we're immediately trying to pick them up and pull them along and get them into the fun place.

This is where, if you've listened to me for a while, you know my favorite phrases of think positive and be grateful step in. So we as a BFFer (that's a new way of saying it) tend to scoot on by any of that negativity or anything that's bad. You tend to pretend it's not happening, and you're the one headed up to the bar to get another round rather than sit with someone and help them move through it. One of the women that came up to me yesterday was talking about the people on her staff and how they are all BFFing each other instead of encouraging each other to grow and learn. They're not giving each other that tough feedback.

I want to talk a little bit about what does that mean to be a Biggest Fan for someone. And the way this works that I hadn't even thought about, which I'm so excited about, is if you can learn to be a Biggest Fan for someone else, you can learn to be a Biggest Fan for yourself, which is the whole point of The Happier Approach. This may be another way of expanding on this concept. By practicing being Biggest Fans to those around us, we can also learn how to be a Biggest Fan to yourself. And so how do you become a Biggest Fan? And it's the same as you do it for yourself. You're going to acknowledge what they're feeling, "Wow, that must have been hard to get that feedback." Or you're going to acknowledge to a co-worker, "Wow, that must be hard to be supervising staff that isn't getting it, and it must be hard to give a negative review about that."

So, to be able to meet people where they are and listen to what it is they're saying without jumping in to give advice. Without jumping in to solve the problem, without shaming and belittling them, just listening to what it is they're feeling and mirroring that back to them to say, "Wow, that must really be hard to be that uncomfortable," or to be that sad or to be that angry or whatever it is that person's feeling. And then to help them pull back and see that there is a big picture, to see that there is more to the story and how can we solve this problem and I'm here with you and we're doing this together. Where do you need to go? Who can help you better than me? Who can give you better resources? How can we get in the nitty-gritty of this situation and tear it apart and look at it?

Another way of being a Biggest Fan is to ask the person you're with, "What do you need from me right now? Do you need me to be a BFF? Do you need me just to cut loose and have fun and let's not worry about this right now, or do you need me to unpack this with you and look at the situation and come up with some, some answers here? What is it you need?" When I come home with a problem, my husband will frequently say to me, "Do you need me to give advice, or do you need me just to listen? What are we looking for here? I need to know before we get diving in." And that's a great way of being a Biggest Fan because a Biggest Fan is empowering. They're going to give you the power back to say, "What is it you need in this situation right now and how can I give that to you?"

Figuring out how you're showing up for people is a powerful way to find out how you're showing up for yourself because those of us who tend to be Mongers to other people tend to have a strong Monger themselves. And to the same extent, those of us who tend to be BFFs for people tend to have a strong Monger for ourselves because we are tired of the Monger, and so we just want to comfort the person so much and give them so much love and have fun and we don't want them to feel bad.

We have a hard time being that Biggest Fan because the BFF is all about making the other person feel better. The Biggest Fan is also all about making the other person feel better, but they're also about helping them move forward, helping them figure out what needs to happen next, helping them solve the problem, not with advice, not with solutions, so to speak, but with kindness and discernment and wisdom and offering them grace and compassion. So, it's a harder concept to unhook the idea of the Biggest Fan, but it's one I want you to be thinking about. How are you showing up for those people around you? Are you being a Monger? Are you being a BFF? Are you being a Biggest Fan? And how is that? How would you like to change that? How would you like to show up for people differently?

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Episode 025: Unraveling Your Need to Please

Looking at the ugly underbelly of trying to please everyone.

+ Read the Transcript

Today, I want to talk about unraveling the need to please. And this comes up a lot in my private practice, but it's come up lately in the intensive group I lead. It's a four-month group called the deep dive. And this month, in our theme, we are talking about people-pleasing. And so last night, we had our telephone call that wrapped up our month of people-pleasing theme. We were sharing stories on how people-pleasing has played out in their lives and how they're learning, how to unravel the need to please.

And one of the themes that kept popping up was the theme of integrity. And I think that's something that goes missing when we talk about people-pleasing. Because a lot of times when we talk about people-pleasing, we see it from a place of being nice and caring and we're giving to other people.

The ugly side of people-pleasing is a lack of integrity that we hold. So if we are wrapped up in people-pleasing, which is basically saying yes when we mean no, it's putting other needs ahead of our own. And when we get into that habit of putting other people's needs ahead of our own, we lose some integrity because we aren't honest with ourselves.

Other people's needs cannot always be ahead of our own. And so, when we live in that mentality, we lose some integrity and respect for ourselves. And that is the ugly underbelly of people-pleasing. And what we found this month, as we were looking at people-pleasing in this deep dive, is there's a lot of ugly underbelly to people-pleasing.

So there's a lot of stuff you need to look at to start unraveling it. And one of those things is the lack of integrity. And what I mean by that is basically when I said people-pleasing is saying yes, when you want to be saying no, like that right there in and of itself is a lack of integrity because you want to be saying no to something, but for the sake of the other person, you say yes.

And so what happens is we develop ways of communicating that are lacking in integrity. And so today, I want to talk about some of the ways to start unraveling this need to please and this lack of integrity. So really benign, simple way that many of us engage in people-pleasing is getting invited to a party at someone's house, and by a party, I mean a Tupperware party or a pampered chef party, or one of those parties, we have to buy stuff.

And so, I'm going to use this example throughout the rest of this podcast. It's a common one where a lot of examples of what happens show up, and this is one that we're all comfortable saying yes when we mean no to one of these parties. It's a simple example, but it's also the ultimate test in people-pleasing and standing in your integrity and learning that I don't have to say yes when I mean no.

So you get invited to one of these parties. Yeah. A couple of things happen, A. you freak out because you're probably don't want to go. And then B, you either lie and makeup, an excuse for why you can't go, which is out of integrity because you're lying, or you go and then sit off to the side with a friend and make passive-aggressive, bitter comments the whole time, or you joke around the whole time, or you're disrespectful to the person that's throwing the party, or you're resentful about the fact that you're there. Or you keep score. And so you're like I came to her pampered chef party, so she needs to come to mind, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we engage in these yucky gross activities because we are too trade to stand in our integrity.

And we're too afraid to stand up for ourselves and say, you know what, send me the catalog, but I don't have time to go to the party. Or send me the catalog. I don't really want to go to the party or send me the catalog because I'm not going to come. It doesn't have to be; you don't even have to give a reason for why you're not coming.

You just have to say, I don't want to come to the party. I'm not going to come. My RSVP is no. And I think when we can learn how to stand in our integrity, we let go of those other yucky things that happen.

And they happen all the time in, for example, we get a text message from a friend that we don't want to see. So we avoid the text message for a while, and then they text us again, and we're like, oh my gosh, I thought I texted you. I'm so sorry. Liar. We didn't forget to test them. We just didn't text them because we didn't want to deal with it. And so those little ways of yucky, lack of integrity, that show up are signs to you that you are engaging in people-pleasing and it is taking over your life.

And so one of the benefits that the women that have engaged in this program with me have found in practicing less people-pleasing is how much they are living in integrity now. And by practicing less people-pleasing, they feel so much better because they don't have to remember who, what excuse they gave to who, and who they told what to.

And they're not engaged in that petty drama that we all hate of tit for tat and keeping score. You know that Real Housewives drama that happens because we're not standing up and speaking in our integrity. So really keeping track of that, I think, is extremely helpful in this unraveling, the need to please.

Many of my clients come to see me because they have resentment and anger built up. And so they will go along kind and nice to the outside world. And then they come home the resentment has just gotten to the nth degree, and they just are ready to explode.

This resentment usually comes because they are stuck in super giving mode, and super giving mode means I'll give, give, give, give, and give. And I never show you where I have any boundaries. I think I've talked about this in previous podcasts. I never show you where my boundaries are because I'm so wrapped up in people-pleasing.

And then I just hit the roof, and I go crazy with being so upset about the fact that you kept taking and taking and taking and taking from me. When they're taking and taking because we are over-giving and we aren't honoring the commitments we make to ourselves. We aren't honoring our priorities and our values because we're so wrapped up in giving to other people.

So I want you to just pay attention to how often you engage in one of these yucky activities. I even hate mentioning them and talking about them with my clients. Because owning that, we lie, keep score, are passive-aggressive, manipulate, and engage in drama and gossip because we don't want other people to think negatively of us.

And honestly, if a friend of yours who was a true friend said, you know what? I don't have it in me to a pampered chef party this week. I just can't. You wouldn't be angry with her or upset with her. You would just be like. I got it. I understand. You don't want to come to my pampered chef party. That's okay. Maybe we'll go for wine next week. So just remembering that we put so much pressure on ourselves that we need to please other people and make them happy when sometimes being honest and being in integrity is truly the way to make other people happy.

Because if I'm in integrity and I'm practicing that with the world, showing up and engaging in the stuff I want to engage in, and being honest with those around me in a loving, kind way, then they too can do that with the rest of the world.

And that eliminates the drama, anger, resentment, passive-aggressiveness, and all of that other stuff that happens; when we aren't living in who we are and our integrity, we get stuck in that. That need to please creates all of these ugly yucky dynamics.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Stand on One Foot

Another brushing your feet exercise :) A little easier than the brushing with the opposite hand. While brushing your teeth stand on one foot. Another practice to get you out of your normal routine.

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Episode 011: What is Underneath that Resentment?

Feeling resentful or angry all the time or even some of the time?
Tips on dealing with that resentment in a healthy way.

+ Read the Transcript

About a month ago, Brené Brown came out with her fourth book called Rising Strong. This book is specifically about what happens after you have entered the arena. You have dared greatly, and it hasn't gone so well. And I think that affects many of us where we enter the arena, and something goes wrong, and it doesn't go very well. The book has several strategies, and it's packed full of wisdom.

If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. A piece of the book that got to me was about resentment and boundaries. In the book, Brené tells a story about a time when she failed to set boundaries and felt like she was getting taken advantage of.

The resentment came out at a later spot. Even though she failed to set the boundaries with one person, the resentment came out on another person, and that little piece of wisdom, that little paragraph of a story, really stuck with me. It resonated with me a lot. I think it's common for people who are the people pleasers of the world, who don't want to make anyone feel bad, who don't want to set boundaries, who are just really kind and want to see the best in other people to struggle with this.

What happens is we go along, and we live our lives being kind and generous and over-giving to people, and we lose ourselves. And when we lose ourselves, the first place, it shows up is we start feeling this little level of dissatisfaction and unease, and we start feeling a little questioning is this all there?

Is this could be like a malaise around life and then eventually grows and expands into this resentment that happens to eventually it gets to this full out anger. And I see it a lot in clients. I've seen it in myself where that progression happens. We move from feeling good and happy and over-giving to a place of anger and bitterness and tons of causes for that from childhood issues and control, freakisms, and perfectionism, and people-pleasing..But today, I specifically just want to talk about the power of boundaries and how a lot of times when we're feeling that resentment, it's a chance for us to stop and look and say, okay, where is my life getting a little out of control?

Where do I need to go back and set a boundary and say, okay, enough's enough? I can't give any more here. So that resentment and frustration is a great sign for us to be like Whoa. I have over a given someplace along the line here. I have given too much. And so I need to back up the bus.

A great example of this: let's say you have a friend and you and this friend get together maybe every few weeks. And whenever you get together, it's all about them. And all they do is talk about them. You are taking time away from your busy life to spend time with a friend, and they're just nonstop talking about themselves. And so your resentment builds, and you get outraged, and you come home, and you take it on your spouse, and you start screaming at your spouse about the fact that the kitchen's a mess. When in reality, you're mad at this friend because they're taking advantage of you. You haven't set a healthy boundary around the fact that your time is valuable, and spending all of that time with the friend, when they're just talking about themselves isn't helpful situations like that happen all the time. Or you're at work, and you get called in on a project. You're already overworked and overwhelmed. A co-worker takes one of your ideas as one of their ideas and gets all the credit. And you get home, you yell at your kids, but you're annoyed at this co-worker who didn't give you the proper credit.

So examples like that happened a lot in our lives where we haven't stood up for ourselves, we haven't shown up in the world. We haven't set a boundary and said, Hey, I'm worth this. My work is worth being acknowledged, or my time is worth more than just sitting here at a restaurant that I didn't pick hearing you talk about your ex-boyfriend for the millionth time. We need to get better at standing up for ourselves and setting those boundaries that say, this is what I'm worth. When we start feeling that malaise and that kind of is this all there is. And that level of frustration, sometimes it's important to pay attention and look and be like, okay, where in my life am I just going along mindlessly and not paying attention and not showing up and setting a boundary.

A lot of times, when we are just going along and not showing up. We don't want to speak up for ourselves. And so boundaries are such a rich topic and way longer than my 10-minute podcast. I could do many hours on boundaries because it is a rich and complex subject. That for the people pleasers in the world is very triggering. It's easy to say set a boundary, you speak up for yourself, but the nuance of that is challenging. So today, I'm just going to touch on two pieces around setting boundaries. And so let's take the example of the friend who always speaks just about herself and you like this friend; it's just gotten to this habit where she's in this crappy relationship right now. Now when she's in this cycle of constantly talking about herself and so you want to help her, but also be able to show up yourself. So the two big concepts around boundaries are one is holding the boundary. So just saying it one time isn't going to always work. And the second concept is you aren't responsible for their reaction. So telling your friend, Hey, I love going out with you. I love seeing you once a week, but can we talk about something else this time? Let's do a spouse-free zone. This time, we're just going to talk about work, or we're just going to talk about politics. I don't know, something other than who we are dating right now.

That's a soft, comfortable way of setting a boundary and saying today, let's do it differently. Your friend may plow through that boundary like nobody's business. And so she may jump from politics into something about her ex-boyfriend, and you can lovingly remind her with the holding phase of the boundaries of, Hey today, we're just talking about politics. We're not talking about boyfriends. Let's give that arrest. One of the most challenging conversations I ever had to have was with a friend of mine, and I had to say to her, I can't hear about you. Boyfriend anymore because it just it's ruining our friendship.

I was very point-blank because I had just hit my maximum capacity for that. And I said I love you. And, to keep this relationship going, we need to take a break from talking about this. I may, we may be able to come back to it, but right now, we've just been repeating the same stuff over and over again, and I'm not helping you anymore.

That friend was fortunately very receptive and understood and realized that she was. Beating the subject to death, and we were able to take a break from it. And then we came back, and we talk about our boyfriend all the time now. Once she got over the hump of, okay, I'm just repeating this in cycles. She was able to unhook, and we could come back and be, talking about all kinds of things. In this friendship, the first thing is that you're going to have to hold that boundary and be firm with it. Often, we feel resentment towards something we realize we need to set a boundary, we go and set the boundary, and then they run right over it, and we let them. The boundary never gets set.

First, it's holding the boundary. Then the second piece, as I said, is realizing you can't control their emotional reaction. And this is hard for the people pleasers out there because we want to set the boundary and have them be like, okay, got it. Totally. That's great. No problem. And rarely does that happen now and then it does, like I said, with my friend, but rarely does it happen. And a lot of times, if you say to the friend who talks all the time about her boyfriend, Hey, can we just talk about politics? And she's sure, that sounds great. And then she plows over your boundary, and you bring it back and say, okay, no, we just said, we're going to talk about politics today. She might say, why, what is going on? You hurt my feelings. I'm really upset. She may start to cry because she wants to talk about her boyfriend and continue the same. That's where we need to recognize, they can have their emotions, and I can still have my emotions too. So your friend could be upset. She can be upset about the fact that she wants to talk about her boyfriend. She could be upset about the fact that you're calling her selfish. She can be upset that these meetings aren't going to go the way she wants them to. In the moment, she can have that reaction, and you can have the reaction of, I love you. And I just can't keep doing this. Both reactions are fabulous. Both reactions are fine and wonderful.

When you leave the restaurant, and you go home, She may have a different reaction. So she may be like, she's right. I am stuck on this ex-boyfriend. I can't get past him. I do need to move on. And I don't know what's going on in her life because all I do is talk about this ex-boyfriend. She may have the initial reaction to being upset and then come around to totally understanding.

That's where it's important to recognize your resentment towards this friend is not helping the friendship. The only way to help the friendship is to set the boundary; if you want the friendship to continue without resentment, you have to set a boundary. You have to speak up and tell your friend. Many times, we just coast along and accept the unacceptable because we're afraid that the other person will get upset. Or we're afraid we're going to hurt their feelings, and feelings come and go. We have an initial reaction to a feeling, and then we may move along and grow from that.

So people-pleasers, a lot of times, we assume in our control freakness ways that the other person can never get past it. But if they have a negative emotion, they will never move beyond it. And that's not always the case. That's right. We move and grow, and we can change all the time. We need people around us that lovingly push us along.

That is my brief lesson. As I said, I could talk about this for a very long time about resentment and boundaries. I think paying attention to when resentment shows up in your life. Checking in to see, okay, do I need to set a boundary here? And then when you go to set the boundary, recognizing that you probably are going to have to hold it and set it repeatedly. Then to recognize that the other person is allowed to have a reaction that's unpleasant around you, setting a boundary and you are allowed to have the opposite reaction. That's okay. There is room for growth.

+ Weekly Ritual Challenge

One thing that has really helped me reduce anxiety is adding regular ritual practices to my daily life, so each week, I am going to be sharing a ritual with you and challenge you to complete it.

This week's ritual: Taking a Vacation from Electronics.

Pick one evening and just go on an electronics vacation, put your phone down, turn off your computer, put away the iPad. Just be present without your electronics for one evening. If that's too easy, try it for one day of your weekend or one day when you're off work.

I don't want to get you in trouble with work, but I want you to see life without constant electronics. I am amazed at my own life, how addicted I am to my phone, and how ever-present it is in my life. When I get anxious, the first thing I reach for is my phone. So it's a great ritual challenge.

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