Episode 133: The Value of Self-Loyalty
In today’s episode, I talk about how to get off that hamster wheel of stress and build more self-loyalty in your life.
Devoted, constant, and committed – all my clients would list loyalty as one of their highest values—
loyalty to their mothers, fathers, spouses, kids, friends, work, and the world in general.
They are the listeners, supporters, lovers, givers, cheerleaders, and fans. They are the caregivers for their aging parents. They are the backbone of their families, relationships, and workplaces.
The dark side of this loyalty to others is the exhaustion, the never-ending to-do list, the never feeling good enough, whole enough, satisfied enough.
The anxiety.
All this month, we are exploring the unique values of someone with High Functioning Anxiety and how they silently struggle with these values.
Last week we talked with Brittany Berger about anxiety and productivity. This week I am talking about how those of us with HFA value loyalty.
Here is the irony: some of the kindest, gentlest, giving people in the world never quite feel kind, gentle, or giving enough.
Want to know why?
They are so busy devoting themselves to make sure their family and friends are heard, supported, and cared for they bypass themselves.
They have been trained to care for everyone else but themselves.
This is something I have struggled with personally. I love caring for people. I pride myself on my loyalty, I love being there for those closest to me, and I know it has come at a price—a price of exhaustion and stress.
Today I want to talk about how to get off that hamster wheel of stress.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
When we don't have loyalty to ourselves we are constantly looking outside of ourselves for direction.
How the Monger lies to us by saying “take care of everyone else and then you will have peace.”
How we can stretch our loyalty to include ourselves and not just others.
Resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
A pair of Zen monks, a master, and his student went out on a journey to visit another convent. As monks do, they walked much and spoke little. On the third day of their journey, the two came to a fast-flowing river and saw that there was a young woman standing there in a beautiful dress. She stood there looking very cross and impatient.
The student noticed the woman said nothing and walked. "Please," she begged the Master, who was clearly the one in charge. "Would you carry me across this river? I'm on my way to my loved one, and I don't want to ruin this dress. It's the best one I have." The student was shocked at her audacity, after all, his Master was a holy man, and her touch would be unclean, but before he could say anything and to his surprise, his Master agreed to carry the woman.
The Master quickly picked her up, put her on his back, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other side. She didn't thank the old monk, she just shoved him out of the way. And the two monks continued to walk in silence day after day until finally, on the third day, the student could no longer hold his tongue master.
He said, "Why did you carry that woman across the river?" His Master looked at him with a slight smile and said, "You have learned much, but you still lack some wisdom. My student, that woman weighed on my back for three minutes and then I was done. But she has been weighing on your mind for three days."
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.
Usually, the lesson of the story is you need to put it down, stop worrying, let it go. Mind your business.
We walk away from the story thinking, yes, I should let it go. This is one of those stories we hear all the time that makes us think and pause and beat ourselves up because we know we are the student monk. We tell ourselves we need to do a differently, stop ruminating and let things go. Oh, yes. If only it were that easy.
When I hear this story, I'm curious about the older monk, why did he choose to pick up the woman and why was he able to let her anger and unappreciation go so easily. Why was he able to let it go? This month, we're exploring the unique values as someone with high functioning anxiety. Last week, we talked with Brittany Berger about the value of productivity.
And this week I'm talking about the value of loyalty. Loyalty means devoted, constant, and committed. Almost all of my clients put loyalty as a value. Loyal to a fault, one could say loyalty to their mothers, fathers, spouses, kids, friends, work, and the world. They are the caregivers for their aging parents.
They're the listener supporters, lovers, givers, cheerleaders fans, head down, get the job done, workers. They are the backbone of their families, relationships, and workplace. They ooze loyalty to everyone around them. They're strong, quiet kind. Get the job done. Individuals. The dark side of this loyalty, the shadow side of this devotion to others, is the exhaustion.
The never-ending to-do list, the never feeling good, whole enough, satisfied enough. The anxiety there, and the Monger runs the show. She is loud and proud, telling them all the ways they miss the target. All the ways they should have been more loyal, more kind, more giving it is ironic. Here's some of the kindest gentlest giving people in the world, and yet they never quite feel kind enough gentle enough or giving enough, want to know why?
Loyalty to self. They're so busy devoting themselves to make sure their family and friends are heard, supported, and cared for they bypass themselves. They've been trained to care for everyone else, but themselves. And when they reach their forties and fifties and their kids are older and need less care and their parents are older and need more care. They see that there is no break. There is no time for me coming down the line.
There has to be a different way because they take care of everyone else, Kool-Aid it isn't working anymore. This is something I have struggled with personally. I love caring for people. I pride myself on my loyalty.
I love being there for those closest to me. And I know it has come at a price, a price of exhaustion and stress, a constant feeling like I'm on a hamster wheel, just one rotation away from people. When we don't have loyalty to ourselves, we're constantly looking outside of ourselves for direction. We check in with everyone else to the detriment of ourselves.
We listen to the Monger, lie of, take care of everyone else, and then you'll have peace. So going back to the story of the monks who is more loyal, the Master or the student on one hand, you can say the young monk, he's more loyal. He's loyal to his oath, recognizing to touch a woman goes against his oath.
He's loyal to his teacher, loyal to a fault. One might say, he's so loyal he's fighting the fight for his Master. He's spinning out and full of negativity out of a sense of right and wrong, but also a sense of loyalty. It has been established that the student is overstepping, but it is not only because he is a silly, negative, busy body.
It is because his loyalty is out of bounds. He has too much loyalty to others. Now let's answer the question of who's more loyal and say, it's the older monk. The older monk is loyal to the woman. He risks his vows to help her. And she is super unappreciative. He's loyal to others and gets nothing for it.
But you know what he does have loyalty to? Himself. And that is why he doesn't get caught up in the spinning and negativity. He trusts that he wanted to help the woman no matter what, not because it was the right thing to do. Not because she would fall all over him with adoration, but because he saw a person who needed help and he decided to help her, he was loyal to his values and principles.
So he didn't need the adoration and appreciation from the lady. He could let it go because he was making the decision from his own inner loyalty. The tagline for my business is to be as loyal to yourself as you are to others because building self-loyalty decreases anxiety. When I trust my values and principles and make decisions from that place, the self-doubt rumination and hustling step aside because I'm loyal to myself.
We spend so much of our time being the student, looking to others for answers, the vows say we can't touch women, living in black and white thinking, when helped people should be appreciative. We forget to practice the gift of the older monk discernment to check in with ourselves and ask, what do I want here?
What is most important to me? What was most important to the older monk was helping a woman in distress. Period. So it didn't matter what her response was or that he was going against his will. He could respond to this particular situation and make a decision for himself.
In working with my clients via Voxer, they check in with me a couple of times a week via the app. Frequently they're calling to talk about their anxiety, and inevitably they will ask, is this okay? Am I doing it right? What do you think I should be doing? My role is to discern when they need to hear. Yes, that is right. And when they need to hear well, what do you think? What is your self loyalty meter saying? For some of my clients, this is the first time they've ever asked themselves, what do I think? They've spent their time always looking outside of themselves because of all those people they're loyal to they know so much better.
So, yes, we need to stop ruminating, spinning out obsessing and over-performing, but underneath all that anxiety is a need for self loyalty and need to turn that strong value of loyalty back to ourselves.
The good thing is we know how to be loyal. We're great at being loyal. Now it's about stretching that loyalty to include ourselves and not just others.
Helping people with High Functioning Anxiety is a personal mission for me. I have a special place in my heart for this struggle because it’s both something I dealt with unknowingly for years, and because it silently affects so many people who think this is just how it is.
Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.
I have been doing this work for over 20 years and Coach in Your Pocket is the most effective and most life-changing work I have ever done. My clients are consistently blown away by how these daily check-ins combined with the monthly face-to-face video meetings create slow, lasting changes that reprogram their High Functioning Anxiety tendencies over time.
Over the course of the three-month program, we meet once a month for a face-to-face session via a secure video chat, and then throughout the entire three months, you have access to me anytime you are feeling anxious, having a Monger attack, celebrating a win, or just need to check-in, and I will respond to you during my office hours (Monday through Friday, 9 am - 6 pm EST).