Episode 029: The Ways We Get Around Speaking Up For Our Self
Speaking up for ourselves is challenging. Being direct and specific with our needs doesn't always come naturally. In this podcast, I talk about some of the unhealthy behaviors we engage instead of speaking up for ourselves.
+ Read the Transcript
One of the things that I have found I call it working it backward. It is to notice a behavior that I'm engaging in and see why it is showing up.
So really being intentional and building awareness in my life, noticing some habits I have or some patterns that I engage in, and then getting curious about why I am engaging in those patterns? Sometimes, it's easier to see the "bad behaviors" that we're doing and then work it backward than just start trying to do a new behavior.
And so today, I'm going to talk about some common ways we avoid speaking up. And what I mean by this is that to engage in life, we need to speak up for ourselves. We need to speak our needs. We need to show up and ask for what we want in a clear, direct, and specific way.
And we all know this, and we all might strive to do that. But what we tend to do is go into our old patterns and the ways we've learned growing up that aren't so helpful or direct, they aren't so clear, and we engage in these patterns to get our needs met and in kind of a roundabout way.
So I wanted to just go through some specific ways we do this so that you can start paying attention in your life. Where are you engaging in these behaviors? And how can you start noticing, oh my gosh, I'm doing this?
The first one I want to talk about is super common. And I think almost all of us do this one. That's passive-aggressive. So a common example of this is you're feeling unappreciated at home, and you feel your spouse isn't doing enough to help out. And so you start digging at your spouse for being lazy or reminding them how often you've cooked, or you just sabotage.
So you may get dinner on the table super, super late, or you cook a meal that he doesn't like to eat. So you do passive-aggressive activities rather than speaking up and saying, Hey, I would like to have—dinner tonight at a specific time. And I would love for you to cook it, or I'm tired of cooking all the time. Can you help out once a month? Or whatever it may be to, clearly speak your need.
Another one that we do a lot is keeping score this one. We do it all the time. We do it at work. Recently a client said to me, "My coworker gets to leave early. Why does he get to leave early?"
And what is that all about? And who cares what he's doing. One of my favorite sayings is from Ilanya Vanzant, who says, stay in your own car, stay in your own car, keep track of your life. And do not get worried about what other people are doing. And when we start keeping score, we monitor what everyone else is doing instead of staying in our car.
So one of the ways that keeping score comes up for us is in relationships when we say my spouse got to go out with friends last week, so I get to go out this week. And so rather than asking for the need or being specific and saying, I need a girl's night, we just keep a running tally in our heads that it's okay.
I did this for him, so he has to do that for me. And so you justify the need by keeping score instead of yeah. Having a conversation with your partner saying, Hey, I need a break. I need some time out. We don't need to justify our needs is the key thing here. And keeping score keeps us stuck in the belief system that our needs aren't powerful that our needs aren't necessary. And so we have to keep score to justify the fact that we even have a need.
The third one is called bait and switch. And this is one of my personal favorites. I'm guilty of this one a lot; you can just ask my spouse. We had to work hard to break this one. I had to work hard to break this one.
So you ask for something, and then you fill in what you really need. So your spouse hates going to the grocery store. And so you're like, can you just run to the grocery store and just grab some milk? And they're like, yeah, I can do that. And then, later on, you text them, and you're like, oh, and while you're there, can you get eggs and butter and spinach and bread.
And so you add on all this stuff, so you get them to say yes, by not giving them the whole story. And another way I used to do this one is what I'm was famous for. I'd say to my then-boyfriend, Hey, would you want to go to a party this weekend knowing he didn't like going to parties and he didn't want to go to a party with tons of friends, and he'd be like, okay. And then on the way there, I'd say, and by the way, are there going to be a hundred people there, and you won't know any of them, and it's going to be a little crazy. So it's a bait and switch. He thinks he's getting one thing. And what he's getting is this whole other thing. And so that's an easy way for us to start recognizing that we're not speaking our needs if we're engaging in that behavior. Cause it's sneaky, and it's not direct and specific.
Another common one that a lot of us talk to or engage in is expecting a mind reader. So we say we're fine when we aren't, and then we expect our partner to pick up that something's wrong.
So we hint through our tone of voice or through veiled comments that we need someone to do something for us, but we never actually say I'm upset about this or tired. Can you make dinner tonight? We just hint and pout around, and we expect our partners to jump in and recognize that we need them to do something.
And 99% of the time, our partner is not going to recognize that we need them to do something, so expecting a mind read just makes us miserable because that's next to impossible to have a mind reader. I'm not very good at mind-reading, and this is my job. So we need to get better about saying, Hey, I'm putting the dishes away cause I'm upset that he didn't empty the dishwasher, and I'm banging them around. He's oblivious to the fact that I'm banging them around. He has no concept of what's going on. So instead of just saying, Hey, can you empty the dishwasher? We go into this whole big thing about expecting a mind-reading and going, doing something passive-aggressive because we expect them to step up.
And then, along with the expecting a mine read, we'd go into the shutdown and pout. And so this is another favorite one when mind reading goes bad, and the need isn't met, then you do a shutdown and pout. So this is the classic nothing's wrong. Don't worry about it. And then you don't talk to them for another week.
You go on protest, and you shut down completely, and they're like, what just happened? We were fine. And then you were maybe banging around the dishwater washer. I didn't know what was going on with that. And then, all of a sudden, she's in a room pouting, like oblivious. All of that, the expecting a mind, read the passive-aggressive, the keeping score, the shutdown, and power that is all just creating unnecessary drama in the relationship.
And then when we notice that we're engaging in drama when we notice that we're sitting in a room pouting or we're slamming as we're doing the dishes, or we're constantly complaining to a friend about the fact that he gets to leave early and I don't get to leave early and blah, blah, blah. These are times when we may need to be speaking up for ourselves.
We need to show some needs here and get really clear and really specific on what we need. So some of these things cause so much drama in our lives, and whenever there is drama most of the time, that is a need that is going unspoken. And so, we're engaging in drama to avoid speaking up for the need.
Pay attention to how often in your life there's just drama for no reason at all. And that is usually because we aren't speaking up for ourselves. We aren't clear on what we need, and we're not specifically asking for it. So these are some ways that we engage in that drama. And I encourage you to just pay attention to how often those show up for you in your life and do the, going around the back door when you notice these habits.
Then ask yourself, oh my gosh, where's the need? What do I need here? And that may take some exploration to find out, and that's okay. We don't have to just because we are shutting down and pouting know immediately what we need. Sometimes these patterns are so ingrained that we just have no concept that they're even there.
And so, learning that there is the first step paying attention to how often you shut down and pout is the first. Then comes, how can I be more specific? What is it I need here? How do I show up and ask for that? And then it is getting clear on how do I ask for that? This is a whole new thing, this asking for needs.
And how do I go about doing that and giving yourself a lot of compassion around this new branching out and learning how to speak needs. There's a lot of stuff out there about standing up for yourself, and how do you do that? And it is for a lot of women and men. It's a whole new way of being like that is why drama is so rampant because sitting down and being intentional and figuring out what we need and showing up for life and asking for it is hard.
It's challenging, and it's vulnerable. But when we can do that. Relationships get stronger, you feel better, and you're living in integrity, and all of this great stuff happens. That's the cracks of living happier, really being intentional. So I can show up and ask for what it is I need.
Yeah, I hope that was helpful. The concept of walking through the bag or, and starting to pay attention to what is, what are the behaviors I'm engaging in and then how can I switch them around and do them different?
+ 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: As You Do a Chore Fully Embrace It.
I hate washing coffee mugs. Finally, when I embraced the idea of washing them and really paid attention to the process I realized how mindful it can be. So this week pick a chore, washing dishes, doing laundry, running the vacuum, or cleaning the bathroom and be fully present for it.