Episode 143 - Self-Silencing is Making You Sick

A lot of the women I work with are carrying the same fear: the fear of disappointing other people. We were taught that being good means being nice, low-maintenance, and emotionally contained–even when it costs us. But staying silent doesn’t just strain our relationships; it takes a real toll on our bodies and our health. In this episode, I explore how self-silencing is making women sick, why it quietly creates resentment and loneliness, and simple ways to start speaking up and building more health, honesty, and real connection in your life. Here’s what I cover:

• A Time article that dives into the statistics and psychology behind women and self-silencing

• How staying quiet to keep the peace actually prevents real closeness

• The cultural conditioning that causes self-silencing and why it’s not your fault

• Why your emotions are a rich source of information about your needs and well-being

• Three core skills that will help you be more honest without abandoning yourself

Find Sara here:

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https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

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https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

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Transcript

00:58

I could sum up this entire episode in three words. Be more disappointing. If you've been listening for a while, you know that I am really in favor of women developing the tools to be able to advocate better for themselves, which often disappoints other people, to say what they need to say, which often disappoints other people. 

 01:19

But some of the reading that I've been doing lately has put this need for us to be able to let other people down and to take better care of ourselves in much sharper focus. A lot of the women that I work with struggle with the same fear. 

 01:34

They're very afraid to disappoint other people, right? We've all been taught that being a good woman, a good employee, a good sister means being nice all the time, putting other people first, and always keeping your own emotions under control. 

 01:49

But here's what I know now more than ever. It affects not just your relationships. It's making your relationship sick to some degree. It also is having a tremendous effect on your health, your physical health. 

 02:05

And today I want to talk about an article that I read. It's out of Time magazine, came out in their September issue. It's called Self-Silencing is Making Women Sick. Because we have to talk about what self-silencing does to our relationships, but also to our bodies. 

 02:23

I'm 52 years old. I have just kind of come out of some of the fog of perimenopause, and I'm actively working on so many aspects of trying to get healthier so that I can age with a little more mobility and a little more freedom. 

 02:39

And this is just as important as weightlifting, okay? Just as important as walking the dog, just as important as making sure that I'm eating the right food. And because I want all of us to enjoy the maximum amount of freedom, we've got to talk about it. 

 02:55

So let's start with what happens to your body when you cannot speak up for what you need. The facts are seriously alarming. I want you to hear this next sentence and appreciate it for the bonkers statistic that it is. 

 03:12

Women make up almost 80% of autoimmune disease cases. That's crazy. We are much more likely to have chronic pain, insomnia, fibromyalgia, long COVID, IBS, Hashimoto's, migraines. There's a really long list. 

 03:33

And 80% of autoimmune disease cases are women. We are also twice as likely as men to die after a heart attack. Think about that. We experience depression and anxiety at twice the rate of men. Now, I think that some of that has got to be because men aren't speaking up, but when women report twice as likely to be depressed and anxious as men. 

 04:04

And we are nine times more likely to have anorexia, which is the deadliest mental health disorder. Now, maybe you're thinking, okay, but isn't that just like biology? And maybe there's some, you know, genetic component in there? 

 04:22

No, not exactly. So we need to go back to the late 1980s to get a really clear view of this. So in the late 1980s, a psychologist named Jack Dana started noticing that a lot of her female patients who had depression also had a pattern. 

 04:43

And she called it the pattern of self-silencing. Taking care of everyone else, trying to make everyone else happy. Don't express what you really feel or need. And she found that the women were doing this to try and be close to people and to get their relationship needs met. 

 05:04

Think about that for a second. Women were staying silent to feel close to people. We'll come back to how messed up that is in a minute. But Jack found that this behavior, which comes from patriarchy, right? 

 05:20

How society teaches women to act, was directly connected to depression. But here's where it gets really scary. Other research has shown that self-silencing isn't just bad for your mental health. It actually is terrible for your physical health as well. 

 05:37

In 2022, researchers found that women of color who said things like, quote, I rarely express my anger to people close to me, close quote, were 70% more likely to have health problems, the kind that lead to heart attacks. 

 05:57

Other studies have connected staying silent to IBS, chronic fatigue, and even cancer. And here's the worst finding. In one study, research followed about 4,000 people for 10 years. And they found that the women who didn't speak up when they had fights with their husbands were four times more likely to die early than women who did speak up. 

 06:26

Four times. And even when they looked at things like age and blood pressure and smoking and cholesterol and kind of some other health factors, it didn't change. Women who didn't speak up were four times more likely to die early than women who did. 

 06:44

When women push their feelings down and ignore their own needs, their bodies literally start breaking down. I want you to think about the physical toll or the sensations that you feel when you shut down your anger. 

 07:02

My stomach clenches. It feels like I have this kind of burning in my gut. When I'm sad, when I need help, when I feel overwhelmed and I just internalize all of that, what this article and many others are showing us is that not expressing our big emotions, not asking for help, not saying what we need, not knowing how to express a need, not being able to resolve problems, not being able to have difficult conversations actually result in our bodies being sicker. 

 07:40

It's a serious, serious problem, not just for our physical health, but because of the fact that it can produce this four times more likely statistic where we actually die. So I'm bringing it up because there are some skills, we're going to talk about them, that can absolutely address this. 

 08:03

And I'm at that midlife age. I know so many of the women that I talk with who are like, I just, I have run out of fucks to give. I just don't quite have the skills yet to be able to express myself the way I want. 

 08:18

I want this episode to be really useful for you. We got to talk about one other thing, though. Staying silent isn't just making women sick. It's also making our relationships sick as well. Remember how Dana Jack described self-silencing and how women do it so that they can feel close to people and get their relationship needs met? 

 08:40

It's interesting because it's like the only need we have is to feel close to people. We don't actually know that we have the opportunity to show up as our real selves. That's interesting to note. Here's something really ironic and actually pretty cool to stack on top of that. 

 08:55

Staying silent actually prevents the very closeness that women are trying to protect and create by staying silent. If you can just see this pattern, you know, a woman is taught, if I have needs that are too big, if I have wants that are considered too much or too dramatic, if I have opinions that other people don't like, if I am really myself, I will be rejected. 

 09:21

So I stay silent and then nobody gets to know the real me and I don't actually have that closeness. It is such a sad irony. Think about it. When you hide your real feelings, people don't actually know you. 

 09:35

When you pretend you're fine when you're not, when you say yes, when you mean no, when you armor up and you get really hyper independent and say, you know, I don't need help, I can do it on my own. And you keep people at a distance, you're actually building relationships based on a pretend version of yourself, a performative version. 

 09:54

Your partner, your friends, your family, they are in a relationship with someone who isn't showing them who they really are. And the sadness is we know it. That's why we feel lonely in our relationship sometimes. 

 10:08

That's why we feel resentful when other people don't support us the same way we support everybody else. They don't know we need that support. We have programmed them to think that we are all capable, that we can, you know, do it on our own, and that actually that's how we want to do it. 

 10:27

I talk to so many women who are in relationships with people that care about them, but they still feel completely alone and scared that if people really knew who they were, that they would be abandoned. 

 10:44

And that's why so many of us are dealing with so much loneliness and resentment. Resentment builds when there is no honesty. I know you know the feeling, right? Nice on the outside, angry on the inside, smiling while you do whatever it is you're doing for other people, secretly furious that no one offered to help, saying I'm fine through clenched teeth, even while your body is just like throbbing and thrumming on the inside, 

 11:14

keeping track of every single thing you're upset or hurt about. And that resentment, it's not just poisoning your relationships. It's poisoning your body. I know there's much better medical explanations for this, but the surge of cortisol and adrenaline that just bathes our body in all of those stress hormones, it is not good for us. 

 11:39

It's not good for us. One of the things that also falls apart when there isn't honesty is trust. When you don't speak honestly about what you really need and want, and then you get upset about it, people learn they can't trust your yes. 

 11:55

They can't trust your quote unquote, I'm fine, right? They start to feel like something is off with you, even though they can't explain it. And they do what humans do, right? They self-protect. Maybe there's a little more distance. 

 12:09

And you lose trust in yourself too. When you've ignored your needs for too long, sometimes you don't even know what they are anymore. You genuinely don't know what you want. We become strangers to ourselves when all of our energy and effort is focused on doing everything for everyone else. 

 12:28

It's the most common thing I hear from women when I talk to them. I don't even know who I am and I don't really know what I truly like. We also have to be honest about something else. Our silence puts burdens on other people. 

 12:47

When we don't tell people what we need, we're basically asking them to read our minds, right? Which sets them up to fail because they can't do that. And then we get mad at them for not being able to intuit something that we never said. 

 13:03

There's distance. There's confusion. Sometimes there's walking on eggshells around us trying to figure out what's wrong. Staying silent doesn't protect our relationships. It doesn't bring us closeness. 

 13:18

It doesn't protect them from fights. It just makes the conflict quieter, almost constant, and it goes into our bodies. It goes underground. This is saddest in our most intimate relationships because without self-disclosure, without sharing who we really are, what we really like, what we really want, we can't have intimacy and connection. 

 13:46

And in some of our more, maybe less important relationships, they just kind of stay surface level, right? Maybe they just kind of stay in a shallow place. And maybe that's fine, conversations on the surface. 

 13:59

But it's really sad when that is what is happening in our most important relationships. When there's all that resentment underneath and all that anger, we have to keep our conversations on the surface because going deeper could lead to conflict. 

 14:17

There's emotional distance everywhere. And a lot of the women I know just would call that quote unquote keeping the peace. It comes at such a high cost, the loneliness. I speak to so many women who are really, really lonely. 

 14:34

They long to be known. They long to be seen. They long to be heard. They long to know who they really are and to live a truly just authentic and satisfying life. But this is what self-silencing does to connection. 

 14:50

It destroys it from the inside out. So it is making us sick and it is destroying our relationships. It's destroying the potential for intimacy, the potential for deeply rewarding, vulnerable, intimate connection. 

 15:09

Hey, quick interruption. If you are currently holding like 47 mental tabs open, the gifts, the travel, your own emotions, everyone else's feelings, I have something that will actually make this holiday season easier for you. 

 15:24

I've got two workshops that are available right now, instant access, that you can watch for free through December 31st. One is about setting and keeping boundaries, and the other is how to disappoint someone and not die. 

 15:37

They're short, they're good, and they will help you lower your holiday stress and remind you of some skills that are really useful and essential all year round, but especially right now. The links in the show notes, go grab a tiny bit of relief. 

 15:52

Back to the episode. So we have to talk about this because I never want to have a podcast episode where I blame women for this because it's not our fault, right? We keep staying silent, even when it's literally killing us and ruining our relationships, but it's not our fault. 

 16:12

That is what our culture rewards. All the way from young women to old, we get praised for being chill, right? For being so go with the flow, so low needs. I have so many women who tell me that they were praised for not having needs by their own mothers who were also overwhelmed, right? 

 16:32

We get praised in the workplace for doing all our work all by ourselves and for helping other people on the team or in the department get their work done as well. There's so much praise and adoration for women who don't speak up. 

 16:50

But the things that we are praised for are not actually good. We think that they're strengths, but they're actually really toxic. In other words, women who tell me things like, I don't deserve to put myself first, or I don't know how to put myself first. 

 17:10

I agree to things even when I don't want to. I don't speak up when I have a need or a want. I can't disappoint other people, right? My friends need me or my family needs me to show up. If I tell my husband what I really think, he'll leave or he won't like me. 

 17:29

While we think we are generating closeness with that, I hope you can hear in just the message of this episode and the message of that time article that what we're really doing is risking our health, risking dying early, and being lonely and not having the satisfying relationships that we want. 

 17:54

So what do we do? First, we need to stop treating our emotions like they're problems to shut down. We need to stop treating our emotions like they're problems. Your emotions are the richest source of usually untapped information about you. 

 18:18

Your emotions are trying to tell you something. Anger. I think anger is your best friend. Anger is the emotion that loves you the most. Sometimes it's trying to tell you something about something that needs to change about your situation. 

 18:34

Sadness might mean you're losing something important. Grief, that there's changes in your life, that there's something that needs attention. Anxiety might mean a need to feel safe. So instead of pushing that anger away or hiding your sadness, try asking yourself, what do I need right now? 

 18:55

In fact, do this with me. It's my favorite exercise. Put your hands on your chest or somewhere else that feels like loving connection. And just ask yourself, what do I need right now? What are my emotions trying to tell me? 

 19:10

Our fatigue is trying to tell us we are doing too much. Our fear is trying to tell us that we might need more support. Our overwhelm is telling us that we need more resources. Our loneliness is telling us we want genuine connection. 

 19:28

And none of that is selfish. You deserve to be able to feel emotions that are totally human, totally normal, totally part of the human experience, and learn about what that emotion is trying to tell you to improve your life. 

 19:46

That's not selfish. We also need to get a little bit more comfortable setting boundaries, right? Be more disappointing. I know that for women who have been taught that being likable is like everything, setting boundaries might even feel wrong, feel selfish, feels harsh. 

 20:04

Many women feel that if they actually say what they need or where their limits are, it will ruin their relationships. But the opposite is true. When you set healthy boundaries, your relationships actually get stronger and healthier. 

 20:21

I have lived it myself. I have seen it over and over again in the clients that I work with in my group coaching program. When we are able to be truthful about where our limits are, relationships get healthier and stronger. 

 20:38

All relationships? No, I'm going to be honest, right? There are some people who enjoy and benefit from your lack of boundaries. They are probably not going to like it when you show up with a lot more boundaries, but those aren't the relationships that you need to be investing in. 

 20:57

And we actually want to know. We actually want to know who we should be putting some time and energy into developing a closer relationship with and who we shouldn't, because that's what boundaries do. 

 21:08

They create clarity. They create trust. They let people know where you actually stand. They allow real closeness to happen because you're finally showing up as your real self. I have a friend who does not like drop-ins, right? 

 21:26

She does not like it when you show up to her house. And one time I did it and I witnessed firsthand that she didn't like it. And so when we were talking later, I felt really bad. I felt like I had done something wrong. 

 21:40

And when she told me, like, I have this need to just know who's going to be coming over to my house. It helps me get ready to receive them as my best self. It allows me to either say, you know, yes or no to you coming over. 

 21:56

And it was definitely uncomfortable because I wasn't used to communicating in such honest, clear terms. But it has been such a gift to our friendship for me to know exactly where she is on that and for me to be able to honor that. 

 22:12

So the closeness that we have now actually increased after she told me what her boundary was and what she needed from me. Having healthy relationships isn't just emotionally good. This is where our healthy relationships and our physical health really enhance each other. 

 22:31

Healthy relationships are physically protective. One study showed that people with supportive relationships have a 50% lower risk of dying early. Let me say that again. Real connection, the kind that is built on honesty, on self-disclosure, on speaking up, literally helps you live longer. 

 22:55

And it makes the quality of the time that we are alive so much more joyful. I want to be clear, right? This is a process. Being authentic takes some time. It's not about being reactive. It's not about dumping all your emotions on other people without any thought, right? 

 23:13

I think you know that. It's about staying connected to yourself while also staying connected with others. But there's both self-connection and connection to others. That's part of it, learning how to maintain, first of all, how to create, and then how to maintain a connection to yourself. 

 23:33

You're already very connected to other people, right? I already know that. But the connection to you is a skill that we can work on together. And then, as you have connection with yourself, you need to learn to say different words like, I can't do that, but I really care about you. 

 23:52

Or, that won't work for me, but what I can do is this. Or, what you said really hurt my feelings and I need to talk to you about it. Or, I love you and I'm also very angry right now and I need a chance to deal with that on my own. 

 24:12

It's about disappointing people honestly with what is really going on and then being able to take care of those big emotions that come up in us. So it's about staying connected to ourselves. If we want to pull out three skills here, number one, staying connected to you. 

 24:34

Number two, saying different words. And number three, knowing how to take care of the big emotions that come up for you when you start to self-disclose, when you start to say what you need, when you start to be more honest. 

 24:51

Those skills actually start to build a new way of you being in relationship in the world. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying that it needs to happen because your health and your relationships really depend on it. 

 25:08

It means we need to stop celebrating women for sacrificing themselves, right? For overgiving and overdoing and being able to do it all on their own. We need to start celebrating women for respecting themselves enough to have limitations, to have boundaries. 

 25:25

It means we need to teach our daughters that their needs matter just as much as everyone else's. It means that we need to create a new normal where women can honor their emotions, get their needs met, put those needs into words and share them, and actually communicate in honest, beautiful ways. 

 25:45

I think it is one of the most incredible gifts of where I am in life right now. Perimenopause, midlife, it is just really clear to me what matters and what I want my life to look like. And because of coaching, I have the skills to get that. 

 26:03

And I really want to share those skills with you. If any of this sounds like you are ready to develop some of these skills, there's a link in my bio. There's a link in the show notes. Set up a call with me. 

 26:16

We'll have 60 minutes to talk about what you need. I will send you on your way with concrete skill work to do some of these things for yourself. Because here is what I want you to understand. Self-silencing, it's literally making you sick. 

 26:36

It's destroying your body. It's increasing your risk of heart disease, autoimmune disorders, chronic illness, and dying early. And maybe it's not destroying your relationships, but it's in the way of the true intimacy that you really want. 

 26:55

It's creating resentment. It's breaking down trust. And it's keeping everybody lonely, even when we're sometimes surrounded by people that love us. It's really heartbreaking. Women who stay silent for the sake of a relationship, they don't get it. 

 27:12

It's destroying that very relationship. So, yes, you need to be more disappointing. We need to learn how to tell the truth more, even when it's uncomfortable. And there are real skills, like I know that can be terrifying. 

 27:27

I felt terrified, but there are real skills that you can learn to connect to yourself, to learn how to say different words, and to take care of your emotions and your nervous system so that you can do it. 

 27:43

You deserve it. You deserve to be both healthy and truly known. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.

Episode 142 - Understanding Religious Trauma Part 2 with Kendra Hill

Some social structures can hold us for a time, but if they don’t expand as we grow, they eventually become suffocating and cause more harm than good. The decision to step out of that container can feel destabilizing, but it opens you up to a deeper sense of self-trust and allows you to see your own growth with more clarity. In part two of my conversation with licensed therapist Kendra Hill, we explore her Religious Trauma Checklist and discuss how naming these patterns can help you recognize the progress you’ve already made, and continue unraveling religious trauma with love. If you haven’t listened to part one yet, make sure to start there. Here’s what we cover:

• Why it can feel like the rug has been pulled out from under you when you lose religious certainty

• How trauma reorganizes your inner world and why old structures eventually stop working

• The grief of outgrowing a belief system or community that once felt like home

• Kendra’s “soup” metaphor for rejecting everything before reclaiming what still fits

• What it looks like to rebuild self-trust and walk away from environments that don’t honor you

Kendra Hill is a neurodivergent artist, beauty seeker, exvangelical, and believer in people. By profession she is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Colorado and an online coach across the nation with a specific focus on providing space for those who have some kind of religious background, religious trauma, are deconstructing their faith, or come from high control environments. She has recently relocated to New York City but remains passionate about holding space for people's stories - especially the ones it seems like no one else understands. Kendra co-owns a private practice called Unraveling Free Therapy & Coaching and is currently accepting new clients. 

Find Kendra here:

www.unravelingfree.com

https://www.instagram.com/unravelingfree

https://unravelingfree.com/religious-trauma-checklist-freebie

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

Book a Free Consult

Transcript

Sara Bybee Fisk 00:57

One of the things that I have bumped up against as I have unraveled my behavior from people pleasing and codependent tendencies is my religious upbringing. What I was taught to believe, what I was taught to believe about God and how he looks at me and how I'm supposed to please him by being obedient and there's has been a lot there for me and maybe there is for you too. I hear a lot from women who grew up in religious congregations, sometimes very conservative like mine and how scary it is to not please people anymore, especially when God is involved. So my conversation with Kendra Hill on religious trauma speaks directly to that.We define it, we talk about what it is, what it isn't and how to begin to unravel it with love. Kendra is a licensed therapist. She is neurodivergent. She is a beauty seeker and an ex evangelical herself and she really believes deeply in people. I think you're going to love this conversation. Part two, you have a really great handout. I'm going to link to your website where people can sign up to get it. It's a religious trauma checklist and we've gone through just a lot of them just in our discussion. There's just a couple more that I want to highlight because they really kind of stood out to me. This is something that I see a lot in people. I often struggle with shame, believing I'm unworthy and or I hold a low view of myself. It's this idea of like I'm constantly a sinner. I'm constantly doing something wrong. There's always something wrong with me or something I should be working to improve. Like I'm a constant 24 seven self-improvement project. 

Kendra Hill 02:47

Mm-hmm. Why would anybody believe that they're wrong coming from these belief systems? Doesn't make any sense, right? I'm just kidding. That didn't land, but... 

Sara Bybee Fisk 03:04

Well, it's so fascinating because our desire for certainty as humans is so strong. And when someone hands us this, like this is the way it is, these are the rules you're supposed to follow, and this is the outcome that you get when you follow those rules. And God is like this cosmic vending machine and you put your good behavior in and then you get to push a prize and it's wealth or health in this life or eternal reward in the life to come. And I can understand why that feels so compelling as a human. I totally wanna know what happens. But the sense of the rug being pulled out from under you when you just can't make sense that it works that way anymore. When you kind of come out of that certainty bubble, I just, there were days when I felt like the very ground underneath my feet was moving. Like nothing felt fixed, nothing felt true, nothing felt reliable anymore. Because if that wasn't true, what else wasn't true? 

Kendra Hill 04:18

Yeah it kind of makes me think of another way to maybe describe what happens with trauma and bear with me here because this is just like coming to me but I'm thinking about how you know internally we organize ourselves around what happens to us in life and so if something happens that's super overwhelming to the point where we struggle to cope where it overwhelms our nervous system then essentially what's happening inside is that these structures the way that we have structured ourselves the way that we have organized ourselves inside it's like a bomb goes off or if it's chronic it's like something's wearing away at those structures right and there has to be some type of reorganization to help us feel stable like we can move through the world and personally my story is like I said I didn't grow up in this really fundamentalist evangelical Christian environment that a lot of people I see have grown up in but I did grow up in a pretty traumatic environment and I carried a lot of trauma with me into college and when I found this campus ministry it was like yes here's the blueprint for how I can rebuild in my inside world that feels like it's just shattered right and just laying in shambles and needs so much work oh it was such a relief and that's why I say like I needed it I needed that blueprint and a lot of neurodivergent folks really latch onto that like that structure and that guidebook and like yes yes I need this but then you know we continue to progress we continue to develop and at some point we're like these structures are now harming me but why and how and what do I do with that and then what you're describing this the rug being pulled out from under you is what a lot of people feel when they start to deconstruct it's like well what the fuck I had this whole structure this was the answer and it didn't hold me now what do I do and it's a pile of rubble again

Sara Bybee Fisk 07:05

That is such a good point. I think so many people who are in kind of the first half of life where we really need a structure, we really need, like you said, that guidebook, the community that loves us and kind of holds us up. I mean, the promise of a community that loves and sees us is so powerful. And I do believe it actually exists in some places.And if a community cannot grow with you and honor you as you change and your beliefs shift, then that's when, for me, it began to feel like, I can't be myself here. I'm growing and changing and I am doubting this or I'm coming to believe that this might not be what you said it was, or it might not be for me what I needed to be for me. And that experience isn't honored here. In fact, it's punished. And so for a lot of people who start off really loved, I loved the structure of my religious community. I loved knowing exactly what was going to come next. The thinking had been done for me and all I had to do was kind of show up every week and serve and believe and be faithful and keep the rules until it felt like I was being kind of torn apart from the inside out of like, I can't be who I really am here anymore. My children can't be. I have a daughter who is gay and that's not okay in Mormon land. And there's a lot of things that happen for a lot of us in religious communities that are not okay and can't be honored and are actually punished. And that's leads to a lot of deconstruction and that experience that you articulated so beautifully. 

Kendra Hill 09:02

Yeah, and I think that's the case for a lot of people. I often talk about how when we're babies, some babies, not all babies like to be swaddled, but that swaddling is so important for some babies to help them calm down and to suit them. But if you kept the swaddle that tight or if it stayed the same shape, then that baby wouldn't be able to grow and thrive. And I feel like that's what can happen with these structures.They can hold us for a time and they can actually really be what we needed for a time. But then when we start to change and grow and those aren't able to change or expand with us, there's so much tension. And it's like we can go a couple of different ways. We can make ourselves smaller and we can cut off parts of ourselves. I'm so glad this didn't happen in your family, but it could have been like, well, that's just not allowed. And so we're going to stay here. And it makes sense when people do that. I get it. That sense of belonging is so compelling and it's so scary to leave that. But then you're living a life just not able to be fully yourself. You're cutting off parts of you or like trying to fit into a shape that you were never made to stay in. And so people expand beyond that and sometimes decide, okay, I need to step out of this container now. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 10:42

Oh, I have such empathy and compassion for when you feel yourself kind of pushing against the limitations and it can be a religious community. It can even just be like a past kind of iteration of your life, you know, like the rules and kind of structure that aren't necessarily religious, but that you used to think were good and right for yourself.And so finding out who you really are and really deeply trusting who you are and your ability to know things and guide yourself and be kind of this sovereign authority is such, it's such a beautifully messy journey. If someone is listening and either recognizing some of this in themselves or curious about it, how would they begin to investigate it and maybe even start to heal it? 

Kendra Hill 11:42

I really think that I'm really thankful for this conversation and I'm thankful that more conversations like this are happening. I just heard from someone the other day that they more recently deconstructed and they had the wonderful privilege of having all of this information, these terms. They've been exposed to the term religious trauma. There are more resources around it. There are books written about it now, which wasn't the case a handful of years ago. And so I would say even just that, being able to name what is happening is huge.That's a huge first step. So I mean, truly that quiz on our website about if you have religious trauma, if you're curious, look at that quiz or look at a blog post or start reading about what religious trauma is and see if you can relate. And if you can, it can be really hard because a lot of times the people you have around you that you would normally go to when things come up that you need to process are probably not going to be able to process this with you because it would also cause them to start to pull some threads that they might not be ready to pull and then have their own belief system unravel too. But sometimes you have people who can relate. Anyway, I'm going on a tangent. Learning more, reaching out to, there are lots of like Instagram creators now who talk about religious trauma, even like being part of a community online to start to notice, okay, I'm not alone. There are other people who are going through this. That can be huge because it can feel so isolating. And then reaching out to, I mean, a practice like ours Unraveling Free where we're not just solely focusing on religious trauma, but it's the therapist who understand the nuances of it. So you don't have to start from scratch explaining like what your background is, who can understand like some of what can come up in this process. That's an option too. Yeah, does that answer? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 14:24

Yes. That's great.And I just want to kind of recall something that you said earlier that you really try to keep in mind and that someone that you talk to about this needs to be someone who can point you back to yourself, your own authority, your own, even if it feels like it's barely there, right? You're a little baby foal who's just been born and can't even really walk upright. Totally fine. They still need to point you back to yourself and your ability to know, even if it feels uncomfortable or unsure right now. And that curiosity over time, if you're being gentle and if you're being gracious and if you're being generous with yourself, it will grow into higher and higher, stronger levels of self-trust and self-authority. 

Kendra Hill 15:21

Yeah. And so you were telling me when we were talking before that you looked at that religious trauma checklist and used it to actually see the progress that you've made in your own healing. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 15:34

Totally. When I first downloaded it, I went through it. It's fantastic. I want everyone to take a look at it, so it will for sure be linked.But there were so many, for example, I have a deep fear of being judged for who I am. I think I have an average human, but the deep, the paralyzing fear, it's gone. Another one is trusting myself feels wrong or dangerous. No, trusting myself feels like absolutely the right decision. And even before we started recording, I was describing to you a meeting that I was in this morning, and it was a training about how to host in-person group events so that there's connection and so that people find community together, which I'm very interested in doing. But there were aspects of the meeting that in my body just felt like, nope, there was the ask for details of intimate experiences or intimate details, meaning how have I transformed or where am I learning and growing? And to me, that feels like I want to know you a little better before I open up about the things that are in my heart. And so there was this request for intimacy that didn't feel earned. There was demands for participation that didn't feel genuine. I was being asked to agree, and everybody else was nodding their head and agreeing in ways that didn't feel authentic. And so in a lot of ways, I can look at who I am now. And a lot of this feels like it is in a much better place than it was when I first came out of church experience. And I also always see room for growth. I still get stuck sometimes, and there is a right way to do things. And I still feel sometimes a sense of I'm behind. And while everybody else was learning how to be these amazing self-actualized humans in the world, I was busy learning how to be a good Mormon. And I can feel even some some embarrassment sometimes that I don't know things that either other women my age know, or I didn't have experiences that other women my age had. I wasn't sleeping around and drinking my way through college. That kind of excludes me from conversations. And that's just one example, right? There's others, but I still think it shows up for me, even culturally, in some ways, I have five children, a lot of people are like, Oh, my gosh, white, five children. And I have to understand like, yep, when that's the measurement of faithfulness in your religious tradition, that's what you do. And so I still bump up against some some feelings about it sometime. 

Kendra Hill 18:36

Yeah, of course, and that makes so much sense. And I love what you're bringing though, because it's realistic, right? There's hope that if you have religious trauma, it doesn't have to control your life forever. And you're an example, and there are so many examples of people who have not stayed in the darkest grips of religious trauma. There's so much hope for that.And of course, these things affect you. They're part of your development. And I think the difference is, you know, we talk about mental wellness in our field, not being that these things don't ever come up, but when they do come up, you know how to navigate them and you trust yourself to navigate them. You don't have to use those same strategies of avoiding or bypassing or pushing them away, seeking external authority, whatever it is. You actually get to navigate them now. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 19:39

That is such a beautiful definition of what, I don't know, if you want to call it healing, I know that word gets used a lot, but that you have the tools to navigate it. You trust yourself to navigate it. You feel some sturdiness or some resilience that you didn't feel before.I find, you know, that I also, it feels like I come back to myself faster. Like when I was sitting in that meeting this morning, I was like, this isn't very comfortable. I don't really like this. I was like, I don't have to be here. And I left, you know, and a full hour and a half early, I was just like, I'm done with this. And so I felt like that was a moment of like, oh, you know what? You don't have to stay here. You don't ever have to do anything you don't truly want to do again. And I felt it and was able to kind of step out. 

Kendra Hill 20:30

I love that example and the phrase, you don't have to stay here, so liberating. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 20:36

Yeah. The last thing that I want to name that I think I'm just really beginning to understand that has been part of my process and I'm interested in your thoughts is I'm also able to look back at some of the good things that happened to me because I grew up Mormon with genuine appreciation and also acknowledgement that it might not have been the healthiest or the best way to do it. Like there is a shadow side to it as well.And let me give you an example. Many young Mormon kids really serve missions in other parts of the world. I know that mission trips are kind of a practice in a lot of Christian faiths. And my mission was to Bolivia. I loved it. I loved learning Spanish and learning to love that people. It's a country that I continue to visit and work in today as part of a charitable organization. And also there were some highly inappropriate, dangerous positions that I was put in that were wildly inappropriate for a 21 year old, 22 year old woman to navigate alone.And so being able to kind of hold the good and name the bad, which is very different for everybody and is very individual and to let what was good for me matter to me and what didn't work for me and what was bad to me matter to me, even if I'm the only one who feels that way. You know, if I'm in a room full of people and they're like, no, missions are amazing. I still feel like I get to say, this part was, I appreciated and love this part. And this part was not good and amazing for me. 

Kendra Hill 22:33

That's beautiful that you can do that now. And I think what I want to emphasize there is I feel like that is a particular place that you can get to in your healing process. And I just want to name that for people who are listening who are like, hell no, I am nowhere near that place.Because I think people often have to go through this process of, I kind of have this metaphor of you know, there you have some soup, and you've been eating this soup for a long time. And all of a sudden, you realize that it's been making you very sick. And you can't eat the soup anymore. And so you you don't go anywhere near any of the ingredients that were in that soup. Because you need to get away from it, you need to recover, you can't be reminded of it, it's gonna it's gonna cause these certain like reactions in your body if you get close to it. And that is really valid. That's a really valid part of getting out of a system that is controlling you, or that you feel stuck in. And so then as you do some more, you know, processing around it, I think that's where you can start to slowly introduce like, well, I really liked the carrots. Let me try the carrots and see, was that making me sick? And I can I can trust myself to know, right, I can taste the carrot and I can go, is that making me sick? Or do I want that? Do I like that? Is that nourishing to my body? Okay, yes. But this part of the soup, this base, that that made me sick, right. And so that can be a bit of a process of like, what can I reintroduce? What can I look back on and be grateful for without that feeling like such a threat anymore? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 24:27

Bye. I'm so glad that you said it that way. Because that was the process for me. I had to kind of reject everything. And then come back to, well, that was okay. And there were some things that I loved about that experience or learned. And I don't ever want to do it again.Eating carrots for me at that time to borrow your metaphor. There were some good things that I learned from that. And I never want to eat carrots again. And there is no right way to do this. I have so many, you know, just the aspect of growing up in Mormonism is sometimes prevalent in other religious groups as well. And that women are supposed to have children and stay home with them. And I know so many women who have so much grief around becoming mothers, when they really, it wasn't a choice they were consciously making because they couldn't really choose to not be a mother without being punished or looked down on. And so they have really complicated feelings about their children. They've really complicated feelings about the experience of being a wife or a mother about not being able to explore other parts of them.And you never ever have to feel good about that. I don't want to be misunderstood at all that I have learned to find some things that were good that I can appreciate doesn't mean that that is the process for anyone else. And so I really love the way that you described rejecting it all. And then if anything comes back as something that you want to honor, that's completely up to you. 

Kendra Hill 26:10

Yeah, and I love your addition. I think it's so important that you may not want to add something back, but you can still appreciate it from before. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 26:18

Yeah, it's possible. And just to honor kind of the grief that I think kind of runs through a lot of these experiences and of not being able to choose and not knowing exactly what it was that we were doing or agreeing to or tying ourselves down to is something that comes up over and over and over again. And there isn't an end to my own grief and grieving process. And so if that feels familiar to you too as well, well, you're in good company.Is there anything that you want to say that you haven't been able to say so far in our conversation that you really, really want to make sure it gets added? 

Kendra Hill 26:59

Nothing is coming to mind. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 27:01

And I just really appreciate your thoughtfulness and wisdom, because I think also inherent in this conversation is, okay, well, how do I fix it? Who's the authority who's going to tell me how I fix this, right?And we just kind of bounce from one person telling us what to do to another. And so I feel like the way that you have answered so many of these questions is with some good information, a couple of like touch points, but a real appreciation for the individual nature of this and the fact that you can trust yourself to do it. And so I have really loved this conversation. 

Kendra Hill 27:50

Oh, thank you for saying that. And that means a lot. That means so much to hear.And as you say that, I can just feel myself getting emotional because it is so what I want for people to trust themselves and believe in themselves. And I'm really, really aware that the mental health field, or the coaching space, like any of these places, can become fundamentalists, right? And so I appreciate that too about our conversation, that we don't want fundamentalism in any form. We just want to talk about it. And ultimately, we want people to be informed enough to explore their own experiences and do what they need to do. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 28:36

To that end, your website and the checklist will all be linked in the show notes, and I would really encourage anyone who is curious about the role of religious trauma to contact Kendra and Casey, the other therapist, in her practice, because I never think it's a bad idea to just have a conversation. And I can imagine that there are some people out there who have some niggling questions now, have a conversation. And if it results in working together fantastic, if it results in just some better information or something to work on next, also, that's never a bad idea.So thank you so much, Kendra, for this conversation. 

Kendra Hill 29:19

Mmm, thanks for having me, Sara. 

Episode 141 - Understanding Religious Trauma Part 1 with Kendra Hill

People-pleasing and codependent tendencies often stem from a religious upbringing. In my own journey of unraveling those behaviors, I’ve had to confront what I was taught to believe about God, obedience, and how “being good” kept me in line. In part one of my conversation with licensed therapist Kendra Hill, we define religious trauma and explore how fear, bypassing, and chronic self-surveillance get wired into us. Here’s what we cover:

• Why many women feel terrified to stop people pleasing when religion is involved

• How growing up with a fear of divine punishment can shape your nervous system

• The difference between religious trauma and religious hurt

• How spiritual bypassing teaches us to ignore our emotions

• What happens when you’re taught to trust authority instead of trusting yourself

Kendra Hill is a neurodivergent artist, beauty seeker, exvangelical, and believer in people. By profession she is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Colorado and an online coach across the nation with a specific focus on providing space for those who have some kind of religious background, religious trauma, are deconstructing their faith, or come from high control environments. She has recently relocated to New York City but remains passionate about holding space for people's stories - especially the ones it seems like no one else understands. Kendra co-owns a private practice called Unraveling Free Therapy & Coaching and is currently accepting new clients.

Find Kendra here:

www.unravelingfree.com

https://www.instagram.com/unravelingfree

https://unravelingfree.com/resources

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https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

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https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

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Transcript

Sara Bybee Fisk 00:57

One of the things that I have bumped up against as I have unraveled my behavior from people-pleasing and codependent tendencies is my religious upbringing, what I was taught to believe, what I was taught to believe about God and how he looks at me and how I'm supposed to please him by being obedient. There has been a lot there for me, and maybe there is for you too. I hear a lot from women who grew up in religious congregations, sometimes very conservative like mine, and how scary it is to not please people anymore, especially when God is involved. My conversation with Kendra Hill on religious trauma speaks directly to that. We define it, we talk about what it is, what it isn't, and how to begin to unravel it with love. Kendra is a licensed therapist, she is neurodivergent, she is a beauty seeker and an ex evangelical herself, and she really believes deeply in people. I think you're going to love this conversation, part one and part two will be available soon. I am here with Kendra Hill, and Kendra, we are not complete and total strangers, but I found you online. When I was researching religious trauma, it's something that I've been wanting to have a conversation about with someone for some time, and I read through a lot of your materials on your website, and I feel like if we lived closer, we might be best friends. 

Kendra Hill 02:29

Aww. I wish we could find out. I wish we could find out. We can be online best friends. That's okay. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 02:35

That's right. But one of the things that I appreciated about you is before we even started recording, and I'm just going to say this because if I don't, I'll forget.I'm going to have you introduce yourself in just a second. There are a couple of things we wanted to do and a couple of things we don't want to do. And one of the things we don't want to do is come to this podcast as some kind of healed, refined, perfect versions of ourselves. We are both still very much in the things that happened. And so I just, I wanted to start by acknowledging that for myself and my appreciation for you in being here. 

Kendra Hill 03:13

Yeah, thanks for acknowledging that. I think it's so important.Yeah, I think sometimes there can be this assumption even for therapists that because we're therapists or coaches or because we help guide people that we have it all figured out and we really don't. We have some skills. We have, you know, we have some ability to walk with people, but yeah, very much still human. Okay. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 03:40

much. What would you want people listening to know about you, what you do, how you came to that work? 

Kendra Hill 03:50

What I would love for people to know is what I do professionally is I am a therapist. I'm a licensed professional counselor in the state of Colorado. I currently live in New York City, but still see people online. And as a coach, I see people across the nation. But really, one of my specialties is helping people who have experienced some type of religious trauma, religious harm, who are going through a faith shift, a faith deconstruction, deconversion, and also people who just come from high control environments in general.So I didn't necessarily grow up in a super fundamentalist environment. I did grow up kind of culturally Christian. And my parents took us to church on Sundays, but it was really more of a moral act than a devout Christian habit. And so it wasn't really until college that I really got into Christianity and joined a campus ministry. And oh man, I like soaked it up like a sponge, but I needed it. So I was at a place in my life where I needed that kind of structure. I needed to feel like I belonged somewhere. I needed to feel like I had some kind of family. And so it was just kind of like, Oh, here it is. Here's my answer. And had some really great experiences there. And then, you know, on the flip side of that had some more damaging experiences. But fast forward to, you know, I had some of my own kind of church trauma. And then I went to seminary for my counseling degree. And there's this joke that people call it cemetery instead of seminary, because a lot of people start deconstructing and questioning things when they go to seminary. So that was the case for me. And I had questioned some things all along, but it was really when I started really learning about mental health, and really like how people change and heal, that I started seeing all of the incongruencies in what I was learning and what I was seeing in my church. And I noticed that a lot of what I was seeing in my church was just a lot of like shame based motivating people to change and fear, fear based motivation. And it just really contradicted what I was learning about how people thrive. And there was a lot more to it. That went into kind of the questions I was asking, but it started there. And then I ended up working at a Christian group practice for a couple of years when I graduated. And I'm so glad for that opportunity, because as I was still deconstructing my own faith, I was sitting with people who really needed a space to do that they were coming for Christian counseling. But what I was finding is that people, like person after person that I sat with had these stories of how certain things had been twisted or certain, you know, their emotions had been really bypassed because of spiritual concepts. Just like person after person, they just shared these things in common. And it really made me want to focus on that and give people a space where they could explore how they've been hurt by religion, how they've been hurt by church, how they've been hurt by belief systems, all of that. And so that's what led me to where I am. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 07:54

Amazing. I would love to start by just defining some terms.When you talk about religious trauma, is that the same as religious hurt? Is it different? How would you either differentiate those two terms or are they the same? 

Kendra Hill 08:15

It's a great question. I would say they are different, and I use both for a very specific reason, because often when people actually have religious trauma, they wouldn't name that they have religious trauma. And so it's a little more accessible to say I have religious harm or religious hurt, even if it could be considered trauma. I just like to have the option for people to, if one is more accessible.But here's how I would differentiate them. Religious trauma is a form of trauma. And so what trauma is, is basically it's not what you experience. It's not what happened, but it's how your nervous system responds to what has happened. And everybody has a different nervous system, and so everybody has a different response. So one person may experience something, and it shows up in their body as trauma in the aftermath. Another person might experience the same thing, and they don't end up carrying trauma as a result of that. So basically, trauma happens when something is so overwhelming that your nervous system can't cope with it. And then there gets to be this stuck energy inside. With religious trauma, it really just means that the harm happened in some kind of religious context. So religion was weaponized against somebody. A pastor or a church member was the cause of harm. The system, the church system, was the cause of harm. Thank you. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 10:05

Okay, I want to add a couple things to that, and I want you to just tell me, I think we're talking about the same thing. So I remember being terrified of doing something that might get me punished by God. And that for me was a deeply unsettling, like I couldn't make it make sense. So sometimes God punishes you because you're bad, but he doesn't punish all the bad people.And sometimes you get punished even when you're good, just kind of accidentally, it just seemed like in I don't even have a real frame of reference for the age at which I began to feel that like, kind of like whack-a-mole existence of like, wow, this, I could get punished if I inadvertently do something wrong. So I have to try really hard to never do something wrong. But sometimes good people get punished anyway, and sometimes bad people don't even get punished in that just kind of the unsettling feeling that kind of always lived in my body below the surface. So that would be an example of trauma that comes from religious teachings. Yeah. 

Kendra Hill 11:16

Yes, it's a great example, actually. And I think it leads to something else that's important here is that, you know, trauma can happen from like a single incident. So that's where we get the term PTSD a lot of times.But when we talk about religious trauma, it's often something called complex trauma. And complex trauma is a pattern of behavior over time or a pattern of harm that happens over time. It's often harder to see, harder to talk about, harder to identify. So people who grew up in abusive households might develop complex trauma. It's often relational. And, yeah, that's a great example of, it's not like you can pinpoint one thing that happened that made you afraid. It was just the teachings themselves over time, and how you interacted with them and probably your brain as it was developing, not being able to hold the nuances of like, what does it mean that I'm going to go to hell if I punched it, right? As a child, it's just like, that's so scary. You can't make sense of it. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 12:39

can't make sense of it. And then you don't have a loving adult who's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, let me help you understand these big feelings you're having.Let me put this into context that matters for where you are developmentally, just kind of being left alone with this idea of a god who both loved me, but also needed to be paid off because I was going to sin and do things wrong. And Jesus had to die so that God could be paid off and be convinced to love me and let me come live with him again. It was a pervasive just fear. And I can actually feel it again in my body right now as we're talking about it. And I can hold it with some kind of detachment and love at this point, but it was really pervasive. And so if you're listening and feeling some of that fear first of all, I'm sorry. And second of all, that is so common to have these pervasive fears, anxieties, terror even that come from the way we were taught that God was watching us, evaluating us, whether we're good enough, worthy enough, and so normal. And then you kind of pair, at least in a lot of Christian religions, especially the one I grew up in, in particular Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormons, the practice of punishing people who were not obeying the rules. Sometimes that punishment was very public, and sometimes it was less public. But when you kind of line up the landmines, like first of all, I have to be so good so that God loves me. And if I'm not, He might punish me, but I'm definitely going to get punished by my congregation, or there's going to be some kind of consequence, even if that's, I'm not allowed to participate in certain things. Another type of traumatic event can be punishment, or withholding, or being separated, or singled out, or deemed not worthy or not good. I'm interested in your thoughts about that. 

Kendra Hill 15:00

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think with trauma, if it ends up showing up, then it's often in the form of I'm not safe, other people aren't safe, the world isn't safe.And then with, you know, this added layer of religion, God's not safe. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 15:27

Yeah, this God that I'm supposed to love and trust is actually not safe. And that creates just such a disconnect, like how do you reconcile that God's ways are not my ways. God's ways are higher than my ways. I think that kind of was the line that I was handed a lot, like, Sara, you're just not meant to understand everything.And that kind of gets into the second thing I wanted to find, which is bypassing. Because I think bypassing is used to kind of wallpaper over a lot of those traumatic events. And so how would you define bypassing? 

Kendra Hill 16:07

Yeah, I think you're right. I think bypassing really is kind of any strategy to avoid actually feeling emotions or actually being with an experience that you're having. So an example I hear a lot is, you know, that if somebody is feeling anxious and they're told, well, do not be anxious about anything. Just pray about it. Just pray about it. Or have more faith. Or if somebody loses someone, well, they're with Jesus now, right? And no matter how well intentioned those comments are from other people, it really does take somebody away from what they really need to feel in order to move through whatever it is that they're experiencing.And so then what happens is you just push it down, right? And you receive this message of like, okay, well, if I feel something that's not acceptable, so I need to figure out how to just bypass it myself, right? I'm going to internalize that and go, well, clearly this isn't allowed. And so what do I do with it? I got to find a way to not address it. And then it just like builds and builds and builds. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 17:29

This isn't allowed. Yes.Or I'm bad for feeling this. Like nobody else is feeling this. Everybody else, you know, somebody dies and I get the explanation. Well, God needed them in heaven and everybody else seems to be fine with it. Why am I not fine with it? It must be that my experience is somehow bad or I'm bad for feeling this. 

Kendra Hill 17:54

Oh my gosh. You're saying so much there, Sara. Like you keep coming back to this concept of loneliness and isolation in this context. And it's so true.And that's actually part of what causes trauma to be embedded in our nervous systems is when we feel really alone in the midst of something overwhelming. And I'm hearing that from you over and over again, like, these things are overwhelming. And yet nobody else seems to be feeling this way. Nobody else seems to understand. Nobody is there to like help me through it. And on top of that, you're wrong for feeling that way. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 18:32

And the antidote for feeling bad and wrong is to double down, to believe harder, to read the Bible or scriptures more, to pray more, to trust more, to believe your leaders more. And that that is the way that you will overcome all these feelings that you're not supposed to be feeling.And you will become not only just a better follower of the religious canon or a better whatever, a better Muslim, a better Christian, a better Baptist, a better whatever. But that by doubling down, I did this for so many years. I would feel anxious. I would feel alone. I would feel isolated. I would feel like literally the sentence in my head was like, there's no way I'm good enough. Like with everything that God expects, I was having dinner with some friends. This has many years ago, some Mormon friends. And we were playing kind of a question game. And the question was, if you could be in a room with any historical figure and ask them any question, what would it be? You know, very typical dinner party question. And people are like, Abraham Lincoln, you know, how did it feel to write the Emancipation Proclamation or give the Gettysburg Address or other people? And I said with like so earnestly and so sincerely, like, I want to talk to Jesus. And the question I would ask him is, is it enough? Did I do enough? And I'm even feeling some emotion of that question right now, not because I currently feel it, but because I remember what it was like to carry the weight of that question every single day. Is it enough? Am I doing enough? And never, I don't think I ever was able to have like a real solid yes. I think I felt better about it some days than others. But that's what kept me kind of in this try and try and try and try loop. And I wonder if that is something that you, you know, have any thoughts about that you wouldn't mind sharing. 

Kendra Hill 20:48

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you going there. I think a lot of people know what that's like. You've been in these kinds of environments.Yeah, I even remember I worked for my campus ministry after I graduated from college, and the very first kind of training had like a week of training. And the very first training I went to, I remember afterwards feeling that, like they were talking about, I don't know, like qualities that leaders need to have in this ministry. And afterwards, I went up to the presenter and I said, I don't think I should be doing this. There's no way that I'm good enough to do this. No way. And I remember being told, like something like that, that's normal. Like it's, you know, a lot of people feel that way, but it was so confusing. Right. And so I think part of that is that you get really like contradictory messages where on one hand you're told, well, you're not good enough. And that's what this is about. You need a savior because you're not good enough. And so you don't have getting these messages over and over and over again, that you need to be this, this, this, this to please God, to be a good Christian, to be in God's will. It's so confusing. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 22:25

So confusing. And your brain has to hold these very contradictory ideas and somehow make sense of it. And you look around and in my congregations, a lot of people seem to be doing that with no sweat, right? And it didn't seem to be bothering them a lot.And so that's what created a lot of the lonely feeling for me was like, I'm the only one who is struggling to make sense of this. And I just wonder if people are listening and they have grown up in religious organizations that they have some religious hurt or harm, or they can even identify some things that feel like what you and I have been describing, how might it be showing up in their lives in ways that might not be really super obvious to them. 

Kendra Hill 23:23

That's a great question. So we get this question a lot.What does this actually look like? How do I know if I have religious trauma? And there's actually a blog post on our website with that title. Do I have religious trauma or something like that? It shows up different for everyone. You know, an interesting thought I was just having about this is if you have religious trauma, it's probably going to be really hard to identify that you have religious trauma. Because part of it is that you can't trust yourself. So going back to that idea that trauma kind of instills this sense in you that you're not safe, the world's not safe, other people aren't safe, God's not safe. But especially when you have been conditioned with the spiritual bypassing that we're talking about, that means that you haven't had the chance to really understand your own experiences or your own emotions, which emotions are information. They give us information about what's wrong and what we need. So if we're taught to ignore those things, and then you pile on purity culture, that your body is bad or don't trust your body, don't feel things in your body, right? It's going to be really hard to be connected enough to yourself to go, I think I have religious trauma. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 24:59

Yeah. 

Kendra Hill 25:01

So at first it might show up as like something just feels really wrong, right? Like, but there might be a lot of conflict. I shouldn't be feeling this way.I shouldn't be feeling this way. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing that should make me feel this way right now. So if there's that, even that kind of struggle, that might be an indicator that like, there's something to pay attention to that's trying to come to the surface. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 25:30

It just strikes me as so fucking convenient that one of the things that is possible to be taught inside of religious communities is you can't trust yourself, but you can trust the leaders. Don't trust yourself. Trust me. I know how to guard you. We know better, right? And in my experience in Mormon land, it was all old white men who knew what was better for me. And that is very convenient.You can't be believed and you should believe me. And then the second thing that your comment brought up for me is you are trustworthy as long as your experiences line up with what the church teaches. But if you have any feelings or inklings or receive any ideas that don't line up with what the church teaches, then you're wrong. So fucking convenient and such a catch-22, right?Because there's no clarity that I can rely on that comes from me. So I might as well just not believe myself and just believe authorities and leaders outside of me. 

Kendra Hill 26:48

Yeah. And that's something I see a lot when I sit with people. And something I really like I work hard to reduce my authority, or even like how people sense that I have authority, because a lot of people who have religious trauma are coming from these environments have an external sense of authority. So it comes from outside of me, not inside of me. And so I have to be really careful with that because of course that would be transferred to me as a therapist or as an expert, right, of some kind. And I don't want that.I really want to help people recognize that, oh my gosh, what if authority doesn't have to just be outside of you? What if you actually can trust yourself?Well, thank you so much. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 27:46

that I really struggled with that idea of having authority in and of myself. It was really something that took me a long time.I felt very disconnected from my ability to know that something was right for me. Like, how do you know something is right? If somebody outside of you doesn't tell you. It was really difficult for me to even look around at other people who seemed to have skills and abilities that I wanted and know, is it okay to become that? Is it okay, for example, in my Christian tradition, feminism was not something that was okay. Is it okay to want that? What if I feel this wanting of some of those ideas and of that worldview, but I will be judged for it? It just all felt really tangled up and hard to decipher even my wants. Well, from what I was told, I should want. 

Kendra Hill 28:47

Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh.Yeah, there's like this constant surveillance of yourself. Yes. So you can't just, you can't just be, you can't just be feeling what you're feeling or experiencing what you're experiencing. It's always these layers of, well, but should I be feeling that or experiencing that or is that okay to feel an experience and, oh, it's exhausting. 

Episode 140 - Being a Highly Sensitive Woman with Allyssya Gossett

In this episode, I talk with coach and host of The Highly Sensitive Woman podcast, Allyssya Gossett. Sensitivity has shaped Allyssya’s life and how she moves through the world, and now she helps other highly sensitive women understand that nothing is “wrong” with them, but that there’s actually incredible strength in the way they’re wired. Today, we talk about what it means to be highly sensitive and how embracing your sensitivity allows you to live more authentically. Here’s what we cover:

• The definition of a highly sensitive person and how to recognize the signs in yourself

• How I discovered my sensitivity after years of not having the language for it

• The wide spectrum of sensitivity and how it shows up differently for everyone

• Barriers that prevent sensitive women from understanding and honoring their needs

• How embracing your sensitivity empowers you to advocate for yourself without shame

• Resources for learning how to take care of yourself as a highly sensitive person 



For decades, Allyssya struggled to believe she was worthy of taking up space in the world. She listened to society’s rules for how she “should” be or feel, made herself small to accommodate others, and tried to put herself in a box just to fit in. Not embracing her true self led to years of debilitating anxiety and depression. Once she embraced who she is and how she was created, Allyssya learned to challenge those old beliefs, stop worrying so much about what others think of her, and step outside her comfort zone so she could confidently live a life she created instead of one chosen for her. The self-acceptance journey fueled her passion for sharing her experiences and knowledge with others as a life coach and podcast host, helping other highly sensitive women just like her let go of self-doubt, find their voice, and live with internal peace and bold confidence.

Find Allyssya here:

info@allyssya.coach 

https://www.instagram.com/lifecoach_allyssya

https://www.facebook.com/lifecoachallyssya 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-highly-sensitive-woman-confidence-set-boundaries

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

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Transcript

 Sara Bybee Fisk 00:57

We get to spend some time in this episode with one of my most favorite people, Allyssya. I'm so glad you're here. Would you please introduce yourself to the audience? 

Allyssya Gossett 01:09

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Sara. My name is Allyssya Gossett. I am a coach and podcast host of The Highly Sensitive Woman, and I do that work because I too am a highly sensitive woman, and that sensitivity has permeated my entire life and how I move through the world, and so I'm just thrilled to be here to talk about that and speak to other highly sensitive women. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 01:35

I have been really looking forward to this conversation because I've shared with you that I had some sensitivity, that I had no idea was sensitivity, and we can talk a little bit more about the particulars of how I discovered that, but before we do, what is your definition of someone who is highly sensitive or the markers or just what would somebody be looking for if they wanted to know if they are sensitive? 

Allyssya Gossett 02:07

My go-to definition of that for when people ask me, you know, they're in my life and they're like, what does it mean that you're a highly sensitive woman? It's all of my senses are kind of on high alert at all times. And I tend to feel more emotions than the average person.And I feel those emotions deeper and stronger than the average person. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 02:35

Okay. So more emotion, kind of at a deeper or higher level, and you are picking up on maybe more sound noise, more in your visual field, more all of your senses then seem like they're turned up. Does that feel right? Yes.Okay. When I was trying to figure out like, what is wrong with me? To me, what felt the most overloading was noise. It was like all of the sudden, and I had five kids. So I still have five kids, I guess I should say. They're all still my kids. But when they were all home and it was noisy and it just seemed fine. But then it was like one day, a switch flipped. And I just felt like the level of noise all the time was way too much. And so I started doing some digging and looking into it. And I couldn't really find anything that said like, yeah, you might be highly sensitive because what I was reading was mostly about like, do food textures bother you? Is there scratchy fabrics that you don't like to wear or tags or type clothing? And I thought, no, no, no, I don't really have any of that. And so looking at myself as someone who was sensitive just based on the clue of noise, I didn't really make that connection.Do you find that that is common, that we can be really sensitive in maybe one primary way that kind of takes over and not in other ways? Does that question make sense? 

Allyssya Gossett 04:24

Yes, it makes sense. And yes, I would say that there is most definitely a spectrum and a range. I know when I took like the official, are you a highly sensitive person quiz? I don't remember what the total score is that you can get, but let's pretend it's 20. I got a 19. Like there is no doubt whatsoever that I'm a highly sensitive person and I, I guess, tracked in every area.But for sure, some people might not be as sensitive in some of their senses as others. Even as a highly sensitive person, my fragrance sensitivity, for example, is extremely high. And I have some friends who are highly sensitive women, some clients, and that one isn't necessarily as heightened for them. I also notice that you, you, you mentioned fabrics. There are times when I can wear certain clothes that are in my closet. And there are other times when my nervous system is a little more heightened and I'm like, I cannot wear this today. It's too scratchy. And so even within a person on a given day or a season that they are in in their life, they might find that their senses are more or less heightened because maybe some others are a little more heightened at the time. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 05:44

So I love that explanation. And I find that that is, you know, true for me as well. And I think, you know, you named the, I think the most important part, which is where is my nervous system? And if it feels fairly regulated, if it feels fairly like I have a good connection to myself, then I do tend.That's like the day I go to Costco, you know, where it just feels like overwhelming stimulation. I still put my Apple AirPods in and I put them on noise cancellation. And I don't make eye contact with anybody. But those are the Costco days for me. But then there are other days where it already feels like there is such a load. I'm either stressed or I'm tired, or I just feel extra worried. And so yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense for me. Why would it matter for someone listening to know if they are sensitive or not? 

Allyssya Gossett 06:41

Oh goodness, there are so many reasons. One, and this was a huge one for me, is in the United States in particular, we don't really celebrate the highly sensitive people, we celebrate the people who go through the world and break rules and kind of are outspoken and pushing boundaries and those types of things. And when someone is, I don't know, watching a movie and they get emotional and tear up, we're like, oh, don't be so sensitive, right? Like we're just not celebrated in the United States and it's sort of viewed as a negative thing.So knowing that you are a highly sensitive person can be helpful in that it can give words to what you are experiencing and it can help you not feel so alone and so broken because you recognize that it's not just you and that you aren't this weird outlier or like you have said, super special, extra broken, right? That there are lots of people like you and we just happen to live in the United States in a country that doesn't really celebrate that type of person. It also shows up in the way that you interact with people and your relationships because your nervous system just often cannot manage the conflict that can come with not being a people pleaser and not just agreeing to whatever the circumstances may be or whatever's being presented to you. And so your nervous system is kind of always on high alert and what you end up doing in conjunction with your senses being stimulated and then trying to avoid conflict, a lot of times you withdraw and so you don't have those relationships that you so desperately crave because as a highly sensitive person, you're not really super interested in surface level conversations. You wanna get to the really good stuff but there's so many barriers that come from all this messaging and stimulation and people pleasing that it gets in the way of those relationships and that just contributes more to the feeling like you're broken and isolating and it just becomes this perpetual cycle. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 09:10

I love that explanation because I think, well, I'm actually remembering, I have a close friend and there was a book that came out several years ago now, it's called Quiet about, are you familiar with it? Yeah. It's about being an introvert in a world built for extroverts, right? Extrovertism is celebrated and rewarded and kind of held up as the way we should be, the way to be successful, the way to make friends and influence people and the way to get the best jobs and have the best relationships.And she read this book and I remember her telling me about it with tears in her eyes, like, I identify with I'm an introvert. And she had the name and she's like, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm just moving through a world that is not made for me. And I imagine there's a lot of overlap between introverts and sensitivity, sensitive people. And to move through the world with the constant feedback that there is something wrong with you, you're too emotional, you're too quiet, you're too withdrawn, you're too fill in the blank only makes sensitive people withdraw more because it's not safe to be constantly trying to put yourself out there if you're just getting slapped on the hand or told that you're doing it wrong. And so to have a name for it, to have a kind of framework for this is how I am and it's okay, and it's not even just okay, it's perfectly valid, right? It doesn't need to be explained, it doesn't need to be proven as valid, it is valid just because it is your experience that that must be really important for people to have. 

Allyssya Gossett 10:56

Yes. And highly sensitive people make up about 20% of the population.And of those, about 70% of us are introverts. And interestingly enough, I always identified strictly as an introvert, as I was going through life and then in discovering being a highly sensitive person and actually having words and definitions to it and learning how to manage it better and have skills to regulate my nervous system and to have those difficult conversations. I have noticed that I've shifted more into an ambivert and there are definitely times where being around people does energize me. And so it's just interesting to me that maybe, maybe we truly are an introvert, but maybe some of it just comes because we've gotten all of that messaging and we don't quite know how to deal with it, that we could get energized by being around people and we could be capable of more. We just aren't quite there yet. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 12:00

The other thing that kind of comes to mind, my youngest son, whenever he was overwhelmed when he was young, he would just burst into tears. And he would just sit down on the floor and just burst into tears. And there was no moving him until he was ready, until he had gotten it all out. And I remember I had a friend over and she didn't really scold him, him directly. But she said, oh, yeah, that one cries a lot, doesn't he? You're gonna have to, you're gonna have to like, how did she say it? Kind of like work that out of him. And I remember just thinking, I don't even know how I would. Like this is just, like, what am I gonna do? Punish him when he's already upset, he's already, and so what I ended up doing was kind of redesigning how I interacted with him differently than my other kids who didn't have that same reaction to overwhelm.And I didn't know that that was, I mean, he might be highly sensitive. I guess I shouldn't just assume just by that one trait, but the other, I think, big plus in learning this about yourself is that you can design your life to work with those sensitivities and not always be trying to overcome them as if there's something wrong with you. Because when he would get upset, I would just kind of stop everything and sit with him and rub his back. And I would say, do you want me to stay here or go away and come back? And I would let him decide. And so we kind of redesigned how we interacted based on that trait of his. And I would think it would be really important for people to know this about themselves so that they can do some of that for themselves and make their life easier. 

Allyssya Gossett 13:50

Yes. And I say all the time, all emotions come out of me in tears. And a very typical response to that from the other person is, oh, don't cry. And I very politely now have the words to say, it's okay that I'm crying.Or something that I learned from you is to proactively, when the tears start to fall, say, you'll notice that I'm crying. It's because I care so much. And by allowing myself the freedom to cry when I need to, I notice I don't actually cry as much, which is kind of interesting. And even when I do cry, I a lot of times have more control over the tears. You know, it's more of like a slow stream than a full-on sob, although a full-on sob definitely has its place and can be very cathartic for sure. But I'm able to, because I'm not trying to shove the tears down, and I'm not shaming myself internally for crying, and I'm not allowing the other person to shame me either. I'm able to articulate what emotion I'm feeling. I'm able to find the words a little more readily in the moment. And yes, to your point, that has been life-changing for me, because that was such a big thing. Oh, don't let them see me cry, regardless of what emotion I was feeling. And I still get pretty angry if I'm crying because I'm angry. But I will then say that. I'm angry, and I'm crying, and now I'm angry because I'm crying. But I'm angry, and this is why I'm angry. And before, I couldn't put words to it, because I was just so embarrassed that I was crying that that kind of overrode all of the other emotions that I was feeling. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 15:38

Okay, I love that, what you just shared, because what I heard was, you're not only advocating for your needs. I need to cry and I need to let this out. You're understanding why it happens to you and you're able to explain it. And you're able to recognize it as something that is good about you. It's a strength that you're able to feel this way. And you just have a better understanding of why you need things that other people might not, in addition to, you know, quiet and downtime.But like, to emote, to let this out, and you're able to stop other people from kind of dumping their expectations or their discomfort on you when they say, Oh, don't cry, it's okay. Because their issues are their issues. And their discomfort is theirs to deal with. And it just seems like you're able to have much more of your own kind of grounded, connected experience, which is what I wonder if that's kind of behind the way that you own it so beautifully. And you're like, this is what I need. I need to cry. I need to let this out. And if you're uncomfortable with it, that's yours to deal with. That's not mine. 

Allyssya Gossett 16:59

Yes. And it took me a very long time to get there and it has certainly ebbed and flowed. But now I do see all of the things that come with it, you know, the empathy and the compassion that I'm able to have for other people. For so long, I saw that as a bad thing.And now I really celebrate it and I recognize that I, it's kind of a package deal, right? Like I can't turn off my sensitivities to the extent that I would sometimes very much like to without turning off some of those other traits that really make me who I am and allow me to be the kind of friend and partner and coach that I am. And I don't want to turn it off now. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 17:48

Isn't that amazing to have really come into your own, yourself, who you are, what you offer and to really appreciate like the whole ecosystem of emotions and emotional intelligence that you are. I think that's such, that's so incredible that you are able to have that, that you're able to help your clients develop that because we do tend to want like the quote unquote good things about our personality without understanding the other parts of our personalities or our upbringing or experiences that those are attached to.Like I couldn't be, I'm speaking as if are you, I couldn't be Allyssya, the person who feels deeply and loves deeply and connects deeply without this sensitivity. 

Allyssya Gossett 18:38

Yes. And I think when I finally understood that, that was when things really started to change. And I want to be clear that there are still days where it's hard and there are still days when I wish I could flip the switch and turn it off.But as a whole, I just am finally comfortable in my own skin and don't see myself as being broken or like I was made wrong. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 19:07

Yeah, if you're comfortable, you know, answering this next question with personal experience, great. If you want to talk about client experience, you know, whatever feels most relevant, but I'm really interested in what obstacles are in the way for someone who is highly sensitive to really understand and honor that about themselves.Like why, why is it so hard to come to that place where you feel like I'm a valid person with a valid experience that matters just as much as everybody else? 

Allyssya Gossett 19:42

I think it's hard because it has been ingrained in us from the very beginning, in our day to day lives. Sometimes it's from the adults, sometimes it's from our peers. And then society as a whole has just been giving us that messaging over and over and over again. And so it is really hard to undo that programming and really hard to kind of rewire those very deeply worn grooves in our brains that our way is wrong and we should be different. And that process is bumpy.When you're trying to kind of rewire the thought patterns and to understand that your nervous system and how it's responding is not wrong. It's just really, really hard to do. And it takes time and sometimes having the patience to ride the wave and knowing that there won't be one day where the switch flips and you're like, oh my goodness, this is the best thing ever. And I love everything about myself and that you never revert back and that you never have those low points. And I can speak for myself that when those low points come, it used to be very devastating. When those low points would come again, I'd be like, oh, I thought I had fixed it. I thought I was never going to have to revisit this again. I thought I was past it. At this age in my life, I should be fill in the blank, right? And I think when I began to understand that there will be times where I'll be in that low spot again and that it will be hard again, allows me to not compound it with the shame and blame of here you are again and see here's some more evidence of why. And I see this coming up with my clients too, and we have to work through the ebb and the flow and understanding that that's totally normal and that each time that we might go kind of into that low place, we don't stay there as long. Maybe we don't go as deep and we're able to get to a place of accepting this is how I'm wired and this is who I am and we're able to get to that place much sooner and the time in between the kind of falling into the valley and kind of bouncing back up to the acceptance is much shorter. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 22:34

That is so I see so much overlap there. I obviously talk a lot about good girl programming, right? Good girl rules. And I think about the way that our upbringing just kind of really sets up what is good, what is bad, what is rewarded, what is punished. And I was really rewarded for production, like doing stuff like get it done, get it done, get it done, get it done. There's always more, there's always more. And the more you can do, the better, which I think had me just overriding a lot of my fatigue, a lot of my need to rest, my desire for play, right?When you're working all, you know, so hard. You just, you look at people around you playing and you get mad. Because they're like, wasting time when work could be getting done. And so I think back to like the particular way that I was programmed to not pay attention. To any sensitivity, because really, it's sensitivity that gets in the way of like, the big capitalist machine, you know, that we're all just cogs in feels like that. And so when we look at like people pleasing in particular, this, this kind of way that we live out those good girl rules. Where do you see sensitivity and people pleasing kind of overlapping? What's the Venn diagram look like there? 

Allyssya Gossett 24:04

I think one of the biggest ones is because we are so sensitive to everything that's going on around us, we very quickly pick up on a shift, a shift in someone else's mood, a shift in the emotions of the room. And because of that, our bodies are like, uh oh. And so then we immediately kind of go into, what did I do wrong? And what do I need to fix? And so we just very, very seamlessly slide right into people pleasing and assume that that shift is a result of something we did or did not do. And so we're going to do whatever we can to correct it. And it may or may not have anything to do with us, but that's where I see probably the biggest overlap is because we can pick up on those subtle differences so, so easily. We're just real quick to shift into people pleasing. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 25:04

Yeah, is there kind of the default? Well, I know there is in like good girl rules where you automatically think when something is off, it's my fault or I have to fix it.Does that feel similar for people who are highly sensitive? Does it feel turned up? Is it a higher feeling of threat or needing to fix this or it's my fault? 

Allyssya Gossett 25:28

I think there's definitely some of that and then there's also because there's so much empathy and compassion like we almost want to like take it on so that the other person isn't feeling whatever it is that they are feeling in this very unhealthy way for sure but and it's not even conscious much of the time especially if you've never had words to it but for sure like we we want to help and so it's it's the combination of I want to fix it and I don't want there to be anything wrong and then at the same time like I have so much compassion and empathy for you like I just want to help you and so I'm going to take it on for you. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 26:14

Okay, that's so interesting. Yeah, that kind of double-edged way in which your sensitivity shows up to try to make things better. I feel like there must also be a lot of masking going on. Pretending, because if someone has sensitivities that they don't either know where they come from, or they can't appreciate them as a valuable part of themselves, and they're being told, this is bad, this is wrong, you shouldn't be this way, then I'm guessing that there is a lot of pretending or performing that's happening.Does that feel right as well? Oh, for sure. 

Allyssya Gossett 27:00

Yes. And sometimes we can do that better than others. You know, there are times where we can perform or we can pretend like everything's okay. And people around us have no idea. And I know that I sort of wore that as a badge of honor for a lot of years. I, many, many years ago, had a pretty significant kind of breakdown and my nervous system had reached its limit. And I had to take some time off of work and really get the care that I needed. And I remember everyone around me being like, we had no idea. And I was so proud of myself that they had no idea how much I was suffering behind closed doors. And we're just very, very good at it because we have learned as we're going through life, you know, that the sensitivity isn't necessarily a good thing. And so you've got to keep that hidden. And so you just, you become kind of a natural performer. And then it's interesting now because like, I don't want to perform. I want people to see the raw real me, not to an inappropriate level by any means. Certainly there are things that I keep private, but because I want this to become such a norm in people's lives and for them to accept highly sensitive people, like I pulled the mask down and I want people to see it and really celebrate it and just show that there are different ways to be in the world. And I almost can't put it up even when I feel like it would probably be very appropriate. I almost just can't do it anymore. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 28:55

that feel for you to be able to live that way. I mean, going from having a breakdown and being proud that your coworkers and friends didn't know how much you were suffering to where you are now of like, I actually can't put that mask or that I can't do that performing anymore.What does that like for you? 

Allyssya Gossett 29:16

uh it's kind of exhilarating and very freeing and I finally feel like I'm living life and not just existing and kind of going through the motions. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 29:31

Yeah. And you know what? That is what women want, right? They just want to be able to find out who am I really, what do I really want to do with my one wild precious life with the, you know, the time that I have.And I love that you feel that so deeply. And I love that that's what you are able to help your clients achieve because that journey from what, if there's something wrong with me, I think there is something wrong with me that like I'm extra special, super broken too. I am living the life that I want to be living. And if other people have thoughts about it, that's there is to deal with not mine is so joyful. And it's so, um, it's also hard, right? There's, there's also things to overcome and feel, but the joy on your face and the joy that I have seen you experience, the joy that I've experienced as I have, you know, kind of come home to that real version of myself. Um, there's, there's nothing, there's nothing like it. 

Allyssya Gossett 30:37

There isn't and you know, you mentioned time like it's so so precious and I feel like I lost so much time in my 20s and my 30s that I don't want to waste time anymore pretending and it's really cool to see my clients doing the same and I just want to say that.And this has come up for me it's come up for my clients like I should be here by a certain point and so I just want to say that yes, I mean I was fortunate enough to finally start shifting in my 40s some people are lucky enough that they're recognizing that they're highly sensitive women in their 20s and some are maybe in their 60s 70s 80s and it is never too late. To finally have words to what it means to be a highly sensitive person and to really start to celebrate that so that you can live however much time because none of us are guaranteed tomorrow regardless of our age right so however much time that you can be living it the way that you want to be living it. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 31:40

So if someone is curious about their own sensitivities, right? I think we all kind of notice things about ourselves and we're like, huh, is that a thing or is that not a thing?Maybe it's a thing. Maybe it's not either way in terms of the sensitivity conversation that we're having, where would you suggest that they either start learning more about being a highly sensitive person and then once they discover that perhaps they are, how would they begin to take better care of that part of them or honor that part of them? What would you tell them? 

Allyssya Gossett 32:17

Um, and there is a website, the highly sensitive person, there's a book. I took a quiz and that's how I first, um, discovered it. And I love this work so much.I started a podcast, the highly sensitive woman. And so I'm talking about all of these things and giving, you know, tips for how to protect your nervous system and regulate it and learn how to manage your senses as you are trying new activities and those types of things. And I think the first thing is understanding that you are not alone. There are 20% of the entire population. So millions of people are just like you and it is to be celebrated the way that you are wired. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 33:10

So understanding how to regulate and protect their nervous system seems to be really central to this. Why is it such a central part of having a different experience as a highly sensitive person? 

Allyssya Gossett 33:26

Because when your nervous system is so dysregulated, you don't want to do the things, right? Like when your nervous system is heightened, kind of like you were saying you don't go to Costco on certain days, right? There are certain things that you don't want to do and so you're missing out.There are certain conversations that you don't want to have and so you're not able to necessarily build the relationships or the type of relationships that you want to have. You find yourself doing a lot of things that you don't want to do or not doing a lot of things that you do want to do. You're spending a lot of time ruminating about conversations that you did have and so the dysregulated nervous system kind of gets in the way of pretty much everything and so learning how to regulate and manage your nervous system in a way that honors your sensitivity and allows you to have the conversations that you want to have and do the things that you want to do and not do the things that you don't want to do is critical. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 34:32

So, if someone was interested in finding out more about how you teach that and working with you, where would they go to find that out? 

Allyssya Gossett 34:43

When they can listen to the Highly Sensitive Woman podcast, I am also on Instagram at Life Coach Allyssya, and they can send me a message and we could have a conversation, info at Allyssya.coach, and we can just see if we would be a good fit to work together. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 35:02

Anyone who got to work with you would just be so lucky because you are not only just a fantastic human, but such a good coach. I have had the chance to work with you personally.Yes, if that is interesting to you, I would really highly recommend that people do that. As we wrap up the conversation, is there anything else that you either wanted to say that you didn't get a chance to or just want to make sure we put into words? 

Allyssya Gossett 35:31

I think if you are listening and you suspect that you are a highly sensitive person, I would highly encourage you to explore that further and get a better understanding because living with that mask on and trying to pretend like your way is bad is really getting in the way of an incredible gift that you have and truly some superpowers. I want you to be able to tap into those superpowers that are your sensitivity and use them in the most incredible way. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 36:08

I love that. I'm thinking back to just honoring the fact that, you know, this one part of me, it really does seem to be for me, my sensitivities is mostly around noise and big crowds of people. And I can really just confidently say that's a no for me.And to really feel like that is deeply honoring of myself and of my capacity without saying that it should be different. I should want to go do that. I should be able to handle that. I just don't do that anymore. I find that the experience that I am able to have when I honor that part of myself is actually fun for me, is actually rejuvenating, is actually pleasurable. And I just don't have to pretend anymore, which does, isn't that what we all really, really want to stop pretending and performing. 

Allyssya Gossett 37:05

Yes, and I can relate to so much of that. I'm able to enjoy things that I used to say I would never be able to enjoy because of my sensitivity and it's because I've learned to embrace it and work with it instead of fighting against it that allows me to do so much more than I ever thought that I was capable of doing and I'm seeing that with my clients too and it it's just

Sara Bybee Fisk 37:28

so good. It is just so good. Yes. Well, thank you, Allyssya.I hope that this conversation, I wish I could have had this conversation with someone or listened to it years ago, because I think it would have just given me a framework for something that I just had no idea. I'm like, what is wrong with me? Why is this thing so hard for me? So I'm really grateful that you would take the time to have this conversation. 

Allyssya Gossett 37:54

Thank you so much for having me Sara, truly a pleasure anytime I get to chat with you. 

Episode 139 - A Four-Step Plan for a Holiday That Actually Feels Good

We all want the holidays to feel meaningful and connected, but the pressure to meet expectations often pulls us away from what truly matters to us. Between obligations, traditions, cooking, cleaning, and planning, we often miss out on quality time with the people we care about or a chance to rest. If you’re exhausted just thinking about putting on another holiday for everyone else, this episode will walk you through a simple four-step framework to help you create the holiday season you actually want. Here’s what I cover:

• Why people-pleasing is at an all-time high during the holidays

• Three questions to help you pause and ask yourself what you truly want

• How to predict the discomfort that comes with prioritizing yourself

• An exercise to write down what support you need to make the holiday you want possible

• How to mentally rehearse the holiday and regulate your nervous system beforehand

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

Book a Free Consult

Transcript

00:58

Somehow, it's November, and somehow Thanksgiving is next week. And despite my shock that here's where we are in 2025, I wanted to do a short and very useful episode about how to have the holidays you want without people pleasing, because it is one of the times of the year where I hear the same thing from a lot of my clients and a lot of women.

 01:29

I want my holidays to feel meaningful and connected. I want to enjoy the people that I'm with. I want to have time with family that I don't get to see during the rest of the year. My kids come home from college or my family comes in from out of state. 

 01:47

I take time off work. Like I spend a lot of time and effort on the holidays, but somehow I always end up feeling overwhelmed, resentful. And it feels like there's like years of backlogged resentment that comes up and doing things for other people that either weren't on my list or I don't really want to do and I don't know how to get out of that. 

 02:10

So if you have felt like that, this episode is for you because the holidays are a very normal time when people pleasing can be at an all-time high. We are wrestling with the expectations that everybody has, right? 

 02:26

And not just the family members, but our cultural expectations that holidays should be magical, that holidays should be peaceful and connecting and where there's just so much expectation and hopes and dreams kind of tied up in the holiday seasons. 

 02:43

There's traditions that we're trying to navigate. There's my family's traditions. There's other people's family traditions. There's obligations. This is when a lot of holiday parties and gatherings and events pop up. 

 02:56

And there's the feeling like I want to be at all of them or I should be at all of them, obligation, fear, guilt, fear of missing out, fear of disappointing people. So it can really kind of be a pressure cooker time for a lot of us who want to have the magical holiday and who are also kind of tired of putting on holidays for other people, right? 

 03:22

We have a lot of years under our belt where we're the ones who do all of the back end work, all of the planning, all the organizing, all of the inviting, all of the scheduling, all of the buying, all of the wrapping, all of the cooking, all of the cleaning. 

 03:34

I mean, I'm exhausted. And that's just, you know, beginning of the episode where we're talking about everything that we end up making ourselves responsible for. So I want you to know, if this has been your experience of the holidays, you're not doing it wrong. 

 03:49

There's nothing wrong with you. It's the perfect storm of all of that internalized pressure and external pressure, social pressure, family pressure, expectations pressure. So what I want to do today is walk you through a pretty straightforward four-step framework that will help kind of put a structure around creating the holiday season you want. 

 04:16

It's not going to go perfectly. So let's just, let's just let that go right now. Okay. You're going to take from this episode a couple of ideas that feel really relevant to you and you're going to try it out. 

 04:28

And you're going to have a little bit of a different experience. And then you're just going to keep trying it in your daily life. Okay. So this comes straight out of a workbook that I have created for past holiday workshops that I used to do around this pressure. 

 04:44

And I'm going to figure out how to get that workbook to you. So stay tuned for that. So step number one is your job to do. You have to pause. You can't stop people pleasing if you don't know what you want. 

 05:01

Because if you don't know what you want, you're just going to default to what everybody else wants. So instead of defaulting to the holiday you think you are quote unquote supposed to have, I want you to pause and ask yourself three questions. 

 05:14

Number one, what would make this holiday season meaningful for me? Question number two, who do I want to connect with? And question number three, what values matter to me most right now? And that can be gathering specific. 

 05:36

If I choose to go to a work holiday party, what would make that meaningful for me? Who do I want to connect with at that work gathering? And what values to me matter most at that work gathering? Family gathering, same questions. 

 05:52

What would make it meaningful? Who do I want to connect with? And what values do I think are important that really need to come to the forefront during that particular gathering? By doing a little bit of this thinking beforehand, we can actually make decisions that will get us the outcome that we want. 

 06:13

So for example, last year, what mattered most to me during my Thanksgiving gathering was that I got to spend time with my college-age kids and that I didn't have to contribute to a lot of the cooking and cleaning up. 

 06:27

And so answering those questions ahead of time was what allowed me to make the decisions that I did that made last Thanksgiving my most meaningful Thanksgiving yet. And so if you could only prioritize three things this season, what would they be? 

 06:47

That's another way of kind of scaling down because I know each of you are looking at possibly a mountain of other people's expectations, a mountain of things that you've done in the past, all the decorating, all the cooking, all the shopping, right? 

 07:02

And it's not that those things are bad. It's that when we aren't specific about what we want, what we, what you want, we're going to default to what everybody else wants. So step number one is to pause and answer those questions. 

 07:17

Step number two is to predict. Every holiday choice has an emotion attached to it. And avoiding discomfort is what fuels people pleasing. So if I choose, let's go back to the choices I made last year for my Thanksgiving gathering, that I want to prioritize people over food, what that means is I might get some questions about why we're having non-traditional, easier to make food or why. 

 07:47

And actually what I did last year was I just asked for help and my brother-in-law stepped in and he made almost the entire Thanksgiving dinner with some help from kids. I didn't do a thing, but it wasn't until I knew what I wanted and I was willing to feel uncomfortable asking for it that I got that great Thanksgiving that we had last year. 

 08:10

So step number two is really just about predicting the discomfort that you're going to feel when you narrow it down, when you prioritize what you want. There's going to be some discomfort there. There is no version of the holidays that doesn't include uncomfortable emotions. 

 08:32

Because right now, you're the one feeling most of the discomfort because you're doing all the cooking, the planning, the cleaning, the scheduling, the shopping, the wrapping. See what I mean? Like you're carrying all of that discomfort right now. 

 08:45

And so in this new version of the holidays, you are choosing to switch to a different kind of discomfort where you feel maybe a little guilty that you're not offering the 14 course Thanksgiving meal that includes all of your family favorites and traditional foods. 

 09:02

That is a choice you can make because the discomfort of overextending yourself, that's one type of discomfort that happens when we say yes to everything. And when we say no, you might have to deal with the possible discomfort of knowing you're disappointing people or knowing that they were wishing things were different. 

 09:23

But this particular step stops this fantasy idea that there's a perfect painless option because you've just been paying the full price of the discomfort. And so by narrowing it a little bit and by putting some of what you want into the holiday, it spreads that around a little bit. 

 09:41

Step number three, you're going to plan. You're going to choose your discomfort on purpose and you are going to identify specifically where you feel the pressure to overextend yourself. Write down the changes you want to make. 

 09:58

Write down and decide what support you will need and what conversations need to happen. And if you need to script the words, you're going to want to use the say what you want to say process. And I have a whole podcast episode just on how to do that. 

 10:16

So I'm going to give you some example phrases right now. You might say, you know what, I'm going to keep the holidays a little more simple this year. Or, you know what, I'm not able to host, but I'd love to bring a dish. 

 10:30

Or thanks for understanding. Rest is really a priority for me this season. Or my priority this Thanksgiving dinner is really connecting with so-and-so or really spending some time doing such and such. 

 10:44

Once you identify what you want and identify the changes and support you need, write it down and put it into words. Then you're going to spend a little bit of time letting your nervous system process and practice whatever new discomfort you're going to step into. 

 11:06

Because if you don't practice and process that emotion, that's when we abandon the plan. So what that means is you're going to notice how it feels in your body to think about putting your new holiday plan into motion. 

 11:23

You're going to connect with your body, hands on your chest, if you don't have anywhere else that feels really good. And you're just going to breathe in and out intentionally and notice, oh my gosh, I'm feeling really nervous because I've told everybody that I'm not going to do a big Thanksgiving dinner anymore because I'm prioritizing connection with my college kids. 

 11:46

I'm noticing I'm feeling really nervous about this asking for the kind of help that I want preparing the dinner. I'm noticing some guilt coming up. And you're just going to give yourself a chance before you even have any of these conversations, give yourself a chance to feel it on your own, hands on your body, love and generosity, and talk to yourself with compassion. 

 12:11

I'm right here with you. Gosh, that makes so much sense that you're feeling nervous about this. You know what? You're not alone in this. I'm going to be right here with you and I'm listening. Your nervous system has to feel supported if you're going to say new things, right? 

 12:28

Make new decisions, set new boundaries, or create new traditions. And it really matters that you take the time to do that behind the scenes first. The next step, you're going to do some mental rehearsal, right? 

 12:43

I want you to visualize yourself in the holiday that you want. Mental rehearsal is one of the most powerful tools for changing habits. I want you to see yourself prioritizing. Let's go back to the Thanksgiving example I've been using. 

 13:03

So I want to picture myself asking for help. I want to just let that discomfort and that guilt be there. I want to picture myself intentionally making choices to spend time with the people that I want. 

 13:18

And then I'm going to rehearse it like a movie so my brain can stop resisting the change and my body gets a chance to feel the emotions that need to happen so that I can actually say and do things differently. 

 13:37

So when you're watching this movie, you're seeing yourself having the holiday you want. You're seeing yourself saying the hard things, the different things, feeling the emotion and staying connected. 

 13:50

That is the behind the scenes work. And then the last step is you just got to say the words. I'm so happy that we get together for Thanksgiving. And this year, I don't want to do all of the cooking and cleaning up. 

 14:04

What can we do about that? Or I'm so happy you're all coming home for Thanksgiving. I want to make sure that I spend some time one-on-one with you. How can we make that happen? Because saying those words, that's actually the last step after we take really good care of ourselves behind the scenes. 

 14:24

So hopefully this will give you some holiday clarity. Pausing, predicting, planning, and then processing those emotions, and then all before you say that will really help you create connection without self-betrayal, which is where we end up feeling resentful and angry that I'm doing it again this Christmas or this Thanksgiving or this Hanukkah or whatever, just like I did last year. 

 14:49

And we want to break the cycle of having holidays that don't feel fulfilling where we feel like we end up just putting on a holiday for someone else. So you deserve a holiday that feels like you. And if you want the workbook that I mentioned, go ahead and just send me an email so that you can do this work for yourself behind the scenes. 

 15:14

So that when we get to New Year's Day and beyond, you look back at a holiday season that was deeply fulfilling and deeply impactful for you and your loved ones. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.

Episode 138 - Grief Isn’t Linear: Learning to Carry What You’ve Lost with Krista St-Germain

Many of us know that grief isn’t linear, yet so much of what we’re taught still has us trying to get it “right.” In this conversation, I’m joined by Krista St-Germain, life coach, grief guide for widows, and host of The Widowed Mom Podcast. Krista shares how she helps women navigate grief with self-compassion, gentleness, and kindness, and stop making themselves wrong for what they feel. This episode isn’t just for those who’ve lost a spouse, but for anyone navigating loss and learning not to “fix” their feelings, but to create more capacity to hold them. Here’s what we cover:

• Why grief can’t be defined by the familiar “stages” and why it doesn’t end with acceptance

• How healing comes from increasing your capacity to support yourself, not from trying to change what you feel

• What secondary losses look like and how they reveal the ongoing nature of grief

• How to stop making yourself wrong for what you feel and practice meeting your emotions with compassion instead

• Why we sometimes feel uncomfortable around grief and how to show up for others in a way that is truly helpful

• How mentioning someone’s loss shows you remember and why that can mean so much

• The importance of normalizing sadness and modeling healthy grief, especially for children



Find Krista here:

https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/happier-holidays-for-widowed-moms/ 

https://www.coachingwithkrista.com/podcast/

https://www.instagram.com/lifecoachkrista/ 

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

Book a Free Consult

Transcript

Sara Bybee Fisk 00:58

True story, Krista St-Germain, you are one of my very most favorite people on the planet. If you're watching a little clip of this, we match today, so I feel like there's...

Krista St-Germain 01:09
Well, it's so ironic because you are one of my favorite people on the planet. So it works.

Sara Bybee Fisk 01:15

It works for us. Krista, we've had a couple of conversations before. One on this podcast about how helpful you were to me during a time of intense grief and how much coaching helped me. You're a coach for a living. You work with women who have recently lost partners. What do you want people to know about, like, why were you drawn to that? Why do you do that work?

Krista St-Germain 01:39

Well, yeah, I mean, I wasn't, it wasn't part of any sort of long plan. No. So my husband died, right? So in 2016, swimmingly life was going swimmingly. And then we took this trip and we came back from that trip. And on the way back, he was trying to change a flat tire on my car and was hit by a drunk driver and he died, you know, less than a day later.So I didn't really even have grief on the purview at all until I just had my own grief experience. And so much of that was so much harder than it needed to be. And there was a lot more suffering than there needed to be, because what I later learned was that, you know, what I thought I understood about grief was pretty outdated and not very helpful. And so really it just came from this idea that if I could help people with that, they could have an easier experience. I had no idea that the five stages of grief wasn't the way that grief went. I really thought that's what it was going to be like. And, you know, there's a lot, a lot of other things that I learned too, but yeah, that's why I just wanted people to have better experiences.

Sara Bybee Fisk 02:52
So interesting because, man, we humans love some stages, don't we?

Krista St-Germain 02:56

Well, yeah. I mean, I didn't get that because it would be nice. It totally would be nice.

Sara Bybee Fisk 03:01

Yeah. Yeah. It was very linear. You complete stage one, then you go to stage two, then stage three, you can have a sense of like, I'm making progress, this makes sense. I really understand it. How do you think it impacted you to think that there were stages and then to then realize, oh, maybe it doesn't work like this?

Krista St-Germain 03:27

Well, I definitely felt some resistance to the idea that it wouldn't work like that because if it, if there is no end place called acceptance, then what is there? What does that mean? What does that look like? And so it just felt a little too wide open.You know, I would have preferred that it be clearly defined and objective and it kind of, well, it was not super comfortable for me. And also personally, I was the type of person who wanted to get the A, you know, and be the star in the class. And I kind of went into grief, like I'm, I'm going to show them, like I'm going to, I'm going to do this and, and it's going to be the best it's ever been done. And I'm going to read the books and do the things. And, and so that was kind of disappointing too, because that was where I had found safety in the past was kind of that performative, validated sense. And it just wasn't available. So fairly uncomfortable.

Sara Bybee Fisk 04:24

Yeah, and I just can't help but think about like grief itself is this unwieldy, it feels endless, it feels for a lot of people, I know it felt like this for me, just like this black pool of bottomlessness that once I go in there, I'm never coming out. And so if there isn't this place called acceptance where I just get to go and that's the end of it, those two things together, like there's no stages where I'm just going to get to some kind of quantifiable clearly defined end, that would make grief a lot easier, I think, to at least conceptually go into because you're like, okay, there's this end to it.I'm almost to the end, I'm getting there. And so if there isn't the end of it, what is there?

Krista St-Germain 05:18

Yeah, I think there's a capacity that gets built. There's a capacity to carry it. There's a capacity to feel it. There's a capacity to think about it with intention to decide who you want to be in it. And there's an integration that happens. So we go from not, not from being sad to being grateful or sad to being happy, but we go from being sad and

believing that we'll fall into the pit of sadness and never come out to, to realizing that, Oh, I actually can allow the sadness to be there because it will always be, but we kind of develop a relationship with it, make peace with it. And I do think it gets less intense over time, typically. And then we also go from a what the hell even happened to me. And I am completely powerless in this to recognizing that, yes, there are many things I'm powerless about, but also I get to choose what I want to think about this, what I want to make it mean in my life and who I want to be. Given that it happened, I get to use what I went through as a way to kind of inventory my life and the way that I'm living and make sure I like it. And if I don't align with, you know, what I value, so it can be a still brutal and also a beautiful opportunity to reconnect with what's important to you and make sure that you're living what matters to you.

Sara Bybee Fisk 06:49

I think that is really beautiful, especially because grief usually happens because of something that you didn't choose. This thing that I didn't choose has now changed my life forever. And I do think it makes a lot of sense that there's a feeling of maybe powerlessness or what the fuck? Or just like how did this happen? And so to be able to find a place even in that where there's a choice, deciding who I want to be, having some intention about even how I think about it, that's such a beautiful place to even think about getting to. And I think a lot of the women that I work with who are experiencing grief, it actually brings out at first a lot of their people pleasing tendencies like performing and pretending and overdoing as a way to cope with it when they're still in that powerlessness of it.

Krista St-Germain 08:02

Oh, 100%. And yeah, I think about conversations I've had with clients, especially clients who have been in like higher control faiths. Oh, the performative nature, the, the, I remember somebody telling me a story about having somebody from their ward over to the house. It was like someone in leadership and I don't remember the position. And I mean, her husband had just died and it was all about is the house clean enough and what are they going to think and you know, holding it together.And just the Ike, you could just feel the amount of pressure that was in her body of trying to make sure that other people were, were pleased with how she was grieving. And that's pretty sadly common.

Sara Bybee Fisk 08:47

Yeah. I'm thinking about conversations that I've had with clients who are in grief where, you know, this performing or pretending or like we just, we just got to keep going, got to keep marching on. And a lot of times it actually just amplifies all of kind of the

freneticness because there's this grief underneath, right? Kind of this like constant underground movement of grief. And then they just try and cover it up and cover it up and cover it up and cover it up with a clean house, with being put together so they look like they're grieving well or showing up for their kids with lots of activities and distractions and all of this from a place of like, I think this is the right thing to do. I think this is helpful.I think my children need to know that there's still things, you know, to live for if their father has passed away or I think my children still need to know that there's things to live for if we are no longer going to the same church we used to go to or if there's been some other kind of loss in the family. And so it ends up creating just this soup of pressure and exhaustion and overdoing because I don't think, well, I'll just ask you, why do you think that happens?

Krista St-Germain 10:17

I mean, I think it's because we're coping and we're doing the best we can with what we know in the moment.Like nobody taught us how to do it any other way. And so it makes a whole lot of sense that we would try to outrun the grief or avoid it with, you know, keeping ourselves busy or distracting or any, any, any other number of things that work temporarily.So it's like a survival strategy.It's a coping strategy. And you know, for a while it might be more helpful than not for some people, but I think most people reach a point where they realize, okay, I, part of me sees that if I don't slow down and let myself feel some of this, I'm going to burn out, it's too much.I'm running myself into the ground.And then there's another part that is quite afraid of slowing down long enough to feel it or deal with whatever's inside.And, but you start to see the scale kind of tipping in one direction where it's like, uh, I better learn this skill.I better figure this out for myself. Otherwise, you know, the trajectory of burnout and depletion is not good. And then, then it's time.

Sara Bybee Fisk 11:24

I also just want to name that I think sometimes, well, first, just in my own experience, I didn't know that what I was feeling was grief, right? I think with the loss of a spouse, that's very obvious. With other losses, it's a little less obvious about why I have this feeling that, you know, maybe feels a little sad, but I shouldn't be feeling it because, like, in some settings, grief makes a lot of sense. Like, somebody died. Grief, yes. But I think other types of losses, we, it's like the grief is a little harder to identify. Does that make sense?

Krista St-Germain 12:03

Yeah, it totally does. So there's the, you know, someone dying as bereavement, a type of grief. Then there's the broader definition of grief. So a natural human response to a perceived loss, perceived loss. So you could be on the tail end of something you absolutely wanted. Like maybe it's been super hard for you to come out to your friends and family and you finally do it and you are so proud of yourself for doing it. And, and so you think, well, I should be happy. I should feel relief and maybe to some extent you do, but then also what you might find you also feel is grief. You might feel grief because you, you, you think you should have done it sooner, you know, or for all the years where you didn't do it and now you're doing it. Right. It wasn't the way you wanted your life to go. And now you see that it did and you lost all of these years where you being, you were being, you know, not your authentic self, right? You expect something to go one way and it goes another and that's so many things, but, but the important part is that to you, it feels like a loss.

Sara Bybee Fisk 13:16

And I think we're that, I love that you said it that way because I think that for a lot of like my life, people outside of me told me what was valid and not valid, right? I had all of these kind of external authorities and I think a lot of women can kind of identify with like needing to check with someone else. Is this a valid loss for me to feel bad about? Is this, am I allowed to feel sad about this? Because there is such a habit, a way of life of just making sure that it's okay with other people that I feel this way.

Krista St-Germain 13:54

Isn't that wild that we're taught that? That's crazy. It's wild and it makes me sad and angry.

Sara Bybee Fisk 14:02

It does. It does. And I think that the needing to check with someone else to see if it's okay that I feel this way just adds another layer of separation from it, anxiety about it. And what I would say, and I'm just interested in any of your thoughts is that if I feel like this is a sad thing, it gets to be a sad thing and nobody else has to agree with me.

Krista St-Germain 14:30

100%. Sometimes people will say like, what's the thing you really want people to hear? And that's it for me is like, if you could just not ever make yourself wrong for how you feel. I mean, that would solve so many of the challenges that we have, especially as

women, we feel something and we make ourselves wrong for it or we feel something and we don't believe it's okay until somebody else says it is. Or we feel something and we think, well, it was okay for me to feel it for a certain amount of time, but I've passed that time. And so now it's not okay. Now it's a sign of dysfunction or me having done something wrong or something being wrong with me.

Sara Bybee Fisk 15:08

Yes. And I see that with grief, right? Like this thing happened x number of years ago, I should be over it in a different place.

Krista St-Germain 15:20

Yeah. Accepting. And if I were accepting, I wouldn't feel sad or I wouldn't have feelings about it, which is ridiculous. Grief is the natural human response to a perceived loss and we can't go back and undo the loss and we're always going to have a response to it. Doesn't it then make sense that we would always have feelings about it? Yeah. So we're not trying to change the feelings that we have about it. We're trying to create a greater capacity to support ourselves when those feelings are present so that we can have an easier experience of them and the energy can shift and move. And secondary losses will keep happening forever. Right. And a lot of times we can't plan for them. And so if we're trying to measure our success in grief based on how we feel and we're buying into the idea that we're supposed to feel the emotions on the higher end of the scale, but not the ones on the lower end of the scale, well, then we have no space to have secondary loss experiences, which are such a huge part of grief for most people. It doesn't make sense.

Sara Bybee Fisk 16:21

Yeah, give me an example of a secondary loss and what you mean by feeling the feelings of the higher end and lower end.

Krista St-Germain 16:28

Okay. Yeah. So second, so the primary losses, you know, for my clients that their spouse died for somebody else, it could be whatever the main loss is. So let's say somebody didn't want to lose a job, right? They wanted to be in that space and they lost that job. That would be the primary loss.A secondary loss would be now I don't get to go to lunch with that one coworker that I love or our relationship changed because I don't get to see them every day. So that loss, that secondary loss wouldn't have happened without the primary loss having happened. And the thing about secondary losses is that

for most people it's experienced kind of as a death by a thousand paper cuts because yeah, the primary loss, we expect that one will hurt and other people give us support around that hurt. But then we keep coming across scenarios in life that are secondary, but still involve grief. So, okay, the spouse died. Now it's wedding day. Spouse isn't there, right? It's the birth of a grandchild spouse isn't there. It's all the things that keep happening where in our mind and in our heart, they should be there and they aren't, or it shouldn't have been this way. And it is. And so that's, those are secondary losses.

Sara Bybee Fisk 17:41

I'm so glad that you said that, because I think that when we don't understand not making ourselves wrong for whatever that we're feeling, you get to the wedding day of your daughter and spouse isn't there. And instead of allowing what you're feeling to just be right, you beat yourself up. It's been 30 years or why am I like, I need to focus and be happy. What's wrong with me? We're doing this.

Krista St-Germain 18:10

Yeah, sometimes it's not even just the day of right. It's all the lead up of worry about, you know, I'm going to be a burden to people. I'm going to be a downer. I don't want, you know, it's so-and-so special day. I don't want to bring them down.I don't, we associate a display of emotion with some sort of character weakness or flaw, which is also so sad.

Sara Bybee Fisk 18:32

Yes, and that brings up something I want to get into in just a minute. But before we go there, one of the things that I think is misunderstood about not ever making yourself wrong for how you feel is that that is not the same thing as saying, I want to stay in this feeling or that this feeling is okay.Or it's like somehow I live here now. You can not make yourself wrong for how you're feeling and still learn how to choose how you show up in that feeling. Choose to be intentional in how you act. Like for example, if I'm super angry with my husband, I don't want to do this. If I'm angry, then making myself wrong is the only way I know how to get myself out of it.

Krista St-Germain 19:32
But it really doesn't even work.

Sara Bybee Fisk 19:33

It really doesn't even work.

Krista St-Germain 19:37

Yeah. Because then it's still there. You know, so we just might cover it up or switch gears, but really it's, it didn't actually go away. It didn't get digested.

Sara Bybee Fisk 19:51

So how do you help clients learn how to not ever make themselves wrong for how they feel?

Krista St-Germain 19:59

I mean, I don't, well, I don't know that I, anybody's bat in a hundred here. Yeah. Um, because we're humans and so perfection maybe doesn't need to be the goal. But it is a lot of practicing of just noticing the subtle ways that I make myself wrong and then like, right. Noticing it and then being prepared in advance with something that helps me kind of write that. So of course, like my favorite thing and I say it in my hand just goes to my heart. And it's like, no, of course, of course I feel this way. Of course, this is what's going on. Not to say that it will always be, but it makes so much sense that it is. Right. So however it is that I'm feeling, if we can make it make sense and then treat ourselves like it makes sense, that helps.

Sara Bybee Fisk 20:52

And then, weirdly enough, this is the counterintuitive part. The feeling almost relaxes its grip just a tiny bit. And I find that that's the space that I need to be able to decide how do I want to show up here? Because when I'm in the grip of it, and it's really tight, and I'm fighting it or trying to distract myself from it, it's like I don't even have the space to even be with myself to ask myself, okay, you're angry. How do you want to show up here? What would feel good right now?

Krista St-Germain 21:28

For me, it's, it's, yeah, it's space. It's cognitive ability. Like I can't even really get clarity on what's going on, let alone decide who I want to be in it. If the emotion is super intense, I need a way to make sure that I feel safe in my body and I need a way to, to normalize what I'm feeling and let it, let it flow through.So, you know, tapping is a huge

tool that I tend to gravitate towards. And, and what I love about it is that, well, I mean, I love so many things about it, but one of the things I really love about it is that as you're speaking, you are normalizing what you feel and saying it and, and following it up with a statement that is accepting of how you feel. And then that energy gets to shift and move and you can think again, and you can decide then now, now what, and who do I want to be? And what do I want next? And it feels completely different than trying to white knuckle your way through talking yourself out.

Sara Bybee Fisk 22:30

And you're talking about EFT, emotion, freedom, tapping. We both have our favorite tapping practitioner, Melanie Faye. We love some Melanie Faye. We love some Melanie Faye.So if tapping is, if you're curious about that, check out Melanie Faye, F-A-Y. When you were talking about the secondary losses and kind of how they stack up and the wedding and kind of that scenario, one of the things that came to my mind is how often I am with someone who's in grief and I feel like I don't know what to say sometimes. And I think we all want to be of comfort. We all want to be loving, well, maybe not everybody, but I think the people listening to this podcast want to. And so what is it about our experience of grief, of other people's grief that makes it so uncomfortable? And then how do we actually show up for other people in a way that is helpful? I just remember I just read a blog post by a woman who just lost her wife and she said, please do not ask me, how are you doing? Please do not ask me that. It's such a hard question. And so first of all, what is it about it that makes it so uncomfortable for us? And then how do we show up for people we love?

Krista St-Germain 24:01

Yeah, actually just recorded an episode of my podcast, um, called what to say and what not to say to a new widow. And it has blown me away the feedback that I'm getting on it because it is such a struggle that people have.And it's such a frustration when they are the one in grief, um, to, to have so many strange things that are usually well intentioned, you know, be said to them. So some, some general ideas. I think one, we weren't taught. Nobody helped us, right? So how we're expected to exercise a muscle that never got developed. It's such an unfair ask. So we should show ourselves some grace about that. We also have been taught to believe that emotions are problems that need to be fixed. So we often don't have a very big capacity to feel uncomfortable or to be with somebody else who feels uncomfortable. We perceive that as a problem and we have a writing reflex that says, I need to make them feel better. I can't feel good until they feel better or something has gone wrong if they don't feel good. Many of the things that people say that are received as dismissive come from that space. They're in a better place. At least they're no longer suffering. You're young. You'll find someone else be grateful for the time that you had. At least you know, know what love is like all of these things that I

know the look on your face is priceless. People mean well, but wow, you know, so if we could come from the approach that says feelings aren't problems to be fixed, they're just experiences to be allowed or witnessed and we could be with someone as they feel, however it is they feel because we aren't deciding that it should be some other way. That's what most people respond well to. It's just someone who's not, who doesn't believe they're broken and isn't trying to fix them, who believes that no, this is what grief is like. And of course, and while I'm so sorry and I love you, this sucks and I'm not going to try to take it away from you or minimize it or make you find some sort of silver lining because it just doesn't feel right.

Sara Bybee Fisk 26:17

I think, hopefully, I've never said it. I mean, who knows? Back in my super religious days, I think I heard a lot of crazy things like God needed them in heaven and that kind of thing. I think where I kind of get tripped up is I want the right words that are not going to make it worse or not going to remind them of something painful. And it just feels, yeah, it feels...

Krista St-Germain 26:44

Yeah. I think we want to, I think we want to reframe that and say that they, your words about their loss did not remind them. They did not forget. Your words remind them that you did not forget. And typically that is well received because they are probably feeling much more alone in their grief than you expect that they are.And they might be looking like they're doing really good and, you know, they're putting on the brave face or they look okay. And so it's easy to think, well, they're doing so great. I don't, I don't want to remind them. No, no, they didn't forget, but they might think that you did.

Sara Bybee Fisk 27:24

I chuckled for just a second, because when you said, Oh, no, they didn't forget, it was kind of like, yeah, like, I like I could, like, I would think that my words would suddenly just remind them out of the blue of this horrible thing that's happened.

Krista St-Germain 27:35

I used to think the same thing too though. So, you know, I think that's a pretty human thing. And I also encourage, if we're talking about somebody who actually died, I encourage people to say that person's name, you know, bring them up. Because again, it's a way of saying, I didn't forget and showing interest.People typically like to talk about,

not universally, but often they like to talk about their person or tell stories. What were they like? Or what would they tell me a funny story? Or if there's a moment where it reminds you of that person, yeah, say it. That used to happen to me all the time at work because Hugo and I worked together. And so everybody at work knew him. Some of them had worked with him for 10 years longer than me. And there would be the perfect moment where they could crack a Hugo joke, but you could see the hesitation, right? Because they're afraid of hurting me. And so I just decided, okay, maybe I need to crack the joke. Maybe I need to bring it up. And then it's like, okay, you know, now that's what she wants. She wants to talk about him. She wants us to say the obvious thing.

Sara Bybee Fisk 28:42

I love that there's so many things that feel almost counterintuitive because we've been taught, like, don't talk about it, don't say it. But I just had a friend who posted on Facebook about the loss of her dad, who was well known. And she just said, I'd love to hear any memories you have with my dad. I just want to keep all of that alive and present.And so, yeah, they are feeling likely much more alone than we might guess. And I think I love what you said that our words remind them that we haven't forgotten. Yeah. Is there anything that you haven't gotten to say during our conversation that you really want to make sure you include as part of this?

Krista St-Germain 29:23

Well, you know, we had talked a little bit before about showing grief, especially as a parent and how sometimes we have this inclination to hide our grief from our kids. And I get that and I actually had some of that myself and what I've seen in my clients is part of the reason grief is so hard from the get-go is because it wasn't normalized for us. And so then we come into our own grief experience and if we haven't had some good role models of how to actually cry those tears and be okay or do what we need to do to process those feelings, talk about it, you know, be okay, it's not the elephant in the room, then we might think that's the way to do it and without really realizing that we're perpetuating accidentally the cycle that's made our grief hard. And so I think if we can show and be honest, maybe not like tsunami style wailing that might scare a child, but to actually show them that it is okay and healthy to have feelings and to cry and to be sad and to articulate that, you know, if it's a mom, I used to tell my kids all the time, mommy's sad and it's okay to be sad, mommy's crying and it's okay to cry. It's always okay.And I'll be okay. I am okay. And I'm sad. And so if you're worried about doing damage to your kids because you're having an intense grief experience and you're inclined to hide it, I would offer that sometimes more damage is done by hiding it and can we find ways to let them in on it so that we can role model it in healthy, healthy ways. My daughter, she was home for the weekend and we were playing this little card game and the question was something like, when did you first realize that I was human towards a parent? And she

made a comment that it was her walking into the living room and seeing me crying and I was watching a TV show or something and I said, what happened? And she said, well, you said something like what you, you know, like very, you like what you would normally say. And I'm like, Oh God, what's that? What would I normally say? And she was like, well, like, it's okay to cry, you know, like, and I'm like, okay, good. That's what I want to do here. I'm so glad, you know, she's 22, but I'm so glad that back then I normalized that for her because it's obvious, it feels so obvious for her to say it to me now. And if we could do more of that, you know.

Sara Bybee Fisk 31:57

so good. When you're talking about that, it's just bringing up for me. Like when I talk about people pleasers, everyone kind of thinks of the very classic people pleaser who's maybe very high strong and anxious and checking on everybody. Are you okay? Can I get you anything? And I think those, if we're speaking in just broad generalities, that type of person doesn't want their feelings to inconvenience anyone, right? They don't want to have any needs that are inconvenient for anyone or that take up any space or that take up anyone else's time because you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to be inconvenient or a burden for anyone.And I think there's another maybe personality profile that is also doing some people pleasing, but it looks very different. They're very strong. They're very armored up and they're like, I don't need anyone. I can do it all myself. I don't need help. I can rely on myself. And they might be more inclined to push those feelings down in the name of being strong, being sturdy, being super resilient because that's kind of the way they've gotten through everything is by only relying on themselves, not needing any other help. And so whether you're listening to this and you feel like I'm more of the strong, independent, armored up, or I'm more of the anxious, checking in on everybody all the time, being able to feel that and to not gloss over those feelings is what is going to be the thing that ultimately counterintuitively helps you feel so much better.

Krista St-Germain 33:40

Yeah, to a certain extent, I still feel myself going through some of that. Enneagram three, I'm not hugely familiar with the Enneagram, but have been using it as a tool lately and just realizing, yeah, a lot of my, you know, validation from others has been because of independence and accomplishment and achievement.And it's not super comfortable to, to be vulnerable and, you know, to, and to find spaces where I feel safe enough to do that. And I, I, the more I see it myself, the more I can see it in others too, you know, I don't think it's

Sara Bybee Fisk 34:17

uncommon at all. No, it's not.Enneagram is a really fascinating way of just kind of learning more about what motivates you, what scares you kind of what, how you like to move through the world, how you like to be seen. And yeah, I'm an Enneagram eight.

Krista St-Germain 34:32 Oh, the challenger.

Sara Bybee Fisk 34:33 Yeah.

Krista St-Germain 34:34
Yes, that doesn't surprise me actually knowing you. Yeah.

Sara Bybee Fisk 34:38 As it's ups and downs.

Krista St-Germain 34:42

Well, I bet, I bet people know, you know, they know what they're going to get around you.

Sara Bybee Fisk 34:48

the time. It's weird though because being an Enneagram eight who is a people pleaser, I think that just created tons of that pretending and performing that we've been talking about.So if people are interested, Krista, in what you've had to say, which is brilliant and you should be interested, take it from me, where can they find out more about you? What do you have coming up?

Krista St-Germain 35:13

Yeah. So I have a podcast as well. It's called the widowed mom podcast. And I realized that people are listening and going, but I'm not a widow. It's totally fine.If they're

interested in learning about grief, you know, just forget the widow part and you can just come and listen for grief also on YouTube with that now these days, and then if you know any widows, I'm doing a free online event on November 18th, it'll be three days, three, three days, three tools that I will teach to help make the holidays easier. I realize we can't really make the holidays easy, but I do believe that the right tools can make them easier and so they can register for that.

Sara Bybee Fisk 35:51

Awesome. All of that will be in the show notes so you can find it there. Krista, you've just been someone who I have relied on for lots of years to be a voice, uh, not just of wisdom, but just like so much compassion. And that's what I hear coming through this is just not ever letting yourself be wrong for what you feel and treating yourself with so much gentleness and kindness. And of course I'm feeling that way with your hands on your chest. And I just really appreciate knowing that you are there as a friend and there as a guide for women who are experiencing a lot of grief over the last.

Krista St-Germain 36:27

But the more, the more I do this work, the more convinced I am that compassion is what we need. 100%.

Sara Bybee Fisk 36:35
Thank you for this conversation.

Krista St-Germain 36:37 Yeah, my pleasure.

Episode 137 - Why Are We Trying To Make It Look Easy?

On the surface, high-achieving people-pleasers are admired by everyone. We seem to have it all together—never complaining about our workload and always showing up prepared and polished. But the effort to make everything look easy, even when we’re struggling, comes at a huge cost. In this episode, I discuss why we do this and how to start releasing ourselves from the constant performance so we can feel supported, helped, and loved, rather than staying trapped in a cycle of loneliness and resentment. Here’s what I cover:

• Examples that highlight how high-achievers hide their struggles

• The underlying beliefs that drive this behavior and where they come from

• Why your body eventually refuses to keep up the performance

• The red flags that signal when you’ve become trapped in trying to make things look easy

• What it takes to begin unraveling this pattern and show up with authenticity instead

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What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

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Transcript

00:58

Recently, I've started working out with my husband. And as I have spent the last, you know, month and a half or so doing that, I've noticed something that I thought at first was really funny. 

 01:10

But as I noticed the pattern more and really thought about what I was doing, it brought something up that I want to talk about with you. And it is how high achieving women, and especially high achieving people pleasers, hide the struggle. 

 01:28

We hide what we need help with. We hide the effort that something takes because we are so attached to being seen as highly capable, highly able to produce, and not needing any help. If you can identify with that, then let's talk about it. 

 01:46

Let's talk about why we do it and how we might begin to kind of extricate ourselves from the constant performance that we are doing so that we can feel supported and helped and loved, just like we support and love and help the people around us. 

 02:03

Because if there's one thing that my clients report over and over and over, it's a feeling of loneliness and resentment. Loneliness because nobody knows them. Nobody knows how much they're really struggling and what's really going on for them. 

 02:18

And resentment because they're not supported the same way that they support other people. So getting back to the gym, I would just notice that we were both exercising and he was grunting and grimacing and really letting the strain of what we were doing show on his face. 

 02:37

And I was trying really hard to appear very composed, very calm, like, yeah, I mean, this was a little bit hard, but I could totally manage it. And I'm just laughing about it because exercise is supposed to be hard. 

 02:53

It really was hard, but the amount of like deep breathing that I was doing, holding my face, you know, very neutrally, it just points to the work that I am still doing to undo this dynamic in me because it very much describes how I wanted and honestly sometimes still want to be perceived. 

 03:15

You know, I want the effort to look effortless and the need for help. I want it to be really minimal and not really show. And there's a real hidden cost to that. There's a real cost to making everything look easy. 

 03:29

It teaches the people around you something, right? There's a cost to them. There's a cost to you. And there are some beliefs underneath it that kind of keep all of us trapped in the performance of this. 

 03:42

So let's get into it. So on the surface, this high achieving people pleaser is someone that everyone admires, right? She's the one who has it together. And if she ever talks about her workload, it's not to complain. 

 03:58

It might be to acknowledge that it's a lot, but it is never to be vulnerable about how it feels to do and carry so much. The high-achieving people pleaser's job is to make complex things look very simple, hard things look very easy, and to always show up prepared and polished. 

 04:18

And as I look at my own behavior kind of in this mindset and the behavior that my clients have brought into our coaching sessions, it looks very different right behind that polished exterior. I had a client who was working 60 hour weeks, but only billing for 40 because she didn't want anybody to think that she was slow or not capable. 

 04:42

I have other clients who redo work that is already good enough because she's terrified that somebody will find a flaw or somebody will find something wrong. Lots of clients saying yes to one more project while mentally calculating, right? 

 04:58

How much can I, can I survive on four hours of sleep? I'm getting five now. Can I give up a little bit more? Where work or the job really begins to encroach on the weekend, their health, their sleep time, their family time. 

 05:13

And when I think about the emotions that they're feeling, it's a lot of overwhelm. It's a lot of resentment. It's a lot of loneliness and a lot of sadness that they don't feel like they can be honest about the load they are carrying, about the plates that they keep spinning, because somebody will think less of them if they do, right? 

 05:36

This type of person is working incredibly hard to make everything look easy. And the performance isn't about just doing the work, right? It's not just about getting the work done. It's about hiding the fact that the work is hard, that the work is demanding, that the work, you know, takes something from her. 

 05:57

Because if people see the effort, what she thinks they will see is weakness. That's the really important part to kind of hone in on if you are identifying with this. If people know how hard something is for you or how you struggle with it or the demand that it places on your energy or resources, what does that mean about you? 

 06:23

Because if that means, right, if people see all the effort, it means that they're going to think I'm weak, then what? Are they going to think I'm not as capable? And then do I need them to believe that I am capable at this certain level so that they like me, so that they stay with me, so that they talk about me as someone capable? 

 06:44

Yeah, there's a lot wrapped up in this. So I want you to just get out your mental bingo cards. I'm going to give you some kind of red flags to look for. I'm going to read through them. Just mentally check off yes or no. 

 06:59

So have you ever said, I'm fine, while stuffing down the feeling of being on the verge of tears because you have so much you're dealing with or so much to do? No, no, no, no, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. 

 07:11

No, no, no. I can handle it. Totally fine. Yeah, I got it. And you want to cry. Number two, you have redone work that was already good enough because it wasn't perfect enough or because you were worried that somebody would find a flaw. 

 07:26

Number three, you have declined help that you really need because you don't want to look weak or incapable. Number four, people are genuinely shocked if they find out that you are struggling or if you ever admit that you're struggling with something. 

 07:46

Next one. You are working through illness, exhaustion, or personal crisis without telling anyone. You just keep going. No matter what's going on in your personal life, you don't ask for accommodations. 

 08:00

You don't ask for a lessened workload because you don't want people to know that you can't handle that, even through upheaval and things going wrong in your life. Next one, it's very uncomfortable for you to receive help. 

 08:16

You're much more comfortable giving help than being on the receiving end of help. Just think about that one for a second. Next one, you feel resentment that you are not supported the same way or to the same degree that you support others. 

 08:34

Next one. Stress and overwhelm are a regular part of your life. They keep you up at night sometimes. They keep you wound up and ruminating and worrying during the day, but stress and overwhelm are like regular parts of your life. 

 08:53

Next one, you're never able to totally unplug from work duties and relax. Downtime, what is that, right? Because when you are not physically working, you are thinking about work or you are thinking about the tasks that need to be done. 

 09:09

And work can be anything. It can be a professional job. It can be, you know, being a mom at home with kids, anything that counts to you as quote unquote work. And the last one, your defense mechanism or the way you feel safe is keeping people at a little bit of a distance so that they don't get too close and see how messy or how weak or how disorganized a person you are. 

 09:39

Because that's where the loneliness comes from, right? So you like people to just be a little bit at a distance. If you've got three or more of those going, then I think we're talking about you two, just so you know. 

 09:55

And the reason that it matters is because this is costing you. There's a physical cost. Your body is keeping the score, right? When you're running on adrenaline and five hours of sleep and ruminating in the background all the time, because front facing, you're making everything look effortless. 

 10:17

Your nervous system is in constant activation. Right? We talk about fight and flight and fawn. Freeze is what happens when we don't have the time and energy to attend to our nervous system. And we live in what is called functional freeze. 

 10:38

If nobody comes in to help us, if nobody comes in to kind of help us calm the threat or our nervous system to relax, we go into this functional freeze state where everything feels frozen, but we keep going, right? 

 10:54

We don't ever feel like we can really connect with people. We don't feel like we can be really vulnerable. We don't feel like we can be really seen or heard or listened to. And we are just doing, doing, doing, doing, doing all day long, trying to stay one step ahead of everything that is being asked of us. 

 11:11

But that functional freeze just becomes the way we exist. You might experience chronic fatigue that no amount of sleep really seems to fix. Maybe you're having digestive issues or headaches. You're getting sick more frequently. 

 11:28

Or maybe there's that feeling of like tired, but I'm also wired. Like I'm tired and I wish I could sleep, but I can't because the rumination cycle just is running in the background and I can't really settle. 

 11:39

Maybe you're taking something to sleep every night. That was me for a long, long time. I could not shut it off on my own. Exhausted, but really unable to rest. Your body is trying to tell you something, but you've gotten really good at overriding those signals. 

 11:58

And if that's where you are still in signal override, there is an expiration date on that. For me, it was really perimenopause. When that estrogen said, see ya, and my other, you know, progesterone and testosterone started, you know, fluctuating and changing, I couldn't keep it up anymore. 

 12:18

And then I had a tremendous feeling of being a failure, right? I couldn't keep all these plates spinning anymore. And not only was I weak, but now I was a failure. And so that is the situation that so many women who have been high producers, really type A, high achieving women, find themselves in around midlife because not only is the hormonal support changing because of aging and perimenopause, but the sheer effort becomes unsustainable. 

 12:52

And it shows up in our bodies. It shows up in the way that our bodies feel, in the way that our bodies support and help us. We feel like our body is betraying us. And some of that is just medical and can be fixed. 

 13:06

A lot of it is the physical load of the stress hormones and the lack of sleep that are just adding up. There's also an emotional cost. I've talked a little bit about the loneliness. It can be profound. 

 13:24

This feeling that you're surrounded by people, but that nobody really knows the real you because they can't know the real you, right? You've shown them the capable version, the strong version, the version that doesn't need anything. 

 13:38

And if they really knew you, what would they think of the person who has needs, who can't do everything? Another emotional cost is the resentment. When you are giving and producing constantly, something deep inside is keeping score. 

 14:01

And then that something starts to ask, why doesn't anyone check on E? Why isn't anyone showing up for me? Why isn't anybody asking me how I'm doing? Why isn't anybody supporting me the same way that I support other people? 

 14:16

Because of course they don't. You've made it impossible and I made it impossible for people to know that I needed it or that I wanted it. I actively worked to prevent people from knowing that I had needs and that I resented them for not knowing that. 

 14:36

And I have a little chuckle about that today, but that feeling of resentment can be really intense and really uncomfortable, and it can start to fray relationships, right? Because that resentment doesn't just sit in your body. 

 14:51

It comes out sideways. It comes out in comments. It comes out in the way you show up and in your energy. And that's one of the costs. Another cost is disconnection from yourself, right? You've spent so much energy managing how other people perceive you that you have lost touch with how you actually feel, what your needs actually are, what you actually want. 

 15:17

I find it fascinating, but not at all confusing. It makes total sense that the most common thing that women say to me is, I don't even know who I am or what I want. Because we've been managing this outward, forward-facing performance for decades. 

 15:36

And so when we start to ask the question, who am I or what do I really want here? We haven't spent any time connecting with that or answering it. And so we don't know. So common. If you're feeling that, absolutely. 

 15:51

That makes so much sense. Another cost is the anxiety. There is an underlying kind of hum of fear of being found out, right? Of being discovered that maybe someday somebody will see behind the curtain and realize that not only are you struggling, that you're just human, but that you have needs and that you have all of these feelings of anxiety and loneliness and resentment back there. 

 16:22

And what would they think of you then? The last real big part of this cost is the stress and overwhelm, right? That constant feeling of being under the gun, the hurry, hurry, hurry, just more, more, more, more, more, more. 

 16:38

I used to have this mental image that would come to mind where I imagined a donkey and a cart and a driver. And I was both the donkey and the driver. And everything I was doing for everybody was in the cart. 

 16:55

And so I would crack the whip on myself and say, more, I need more. I need you to do just a little more, just a little faster, just a little harder. Just finish this next thing. And that stress and overwhelm just wears out your endocrine system. 

 17:10

Your nervous system is constantly on alert. It's a really, really hard way to live. There's also an identity cost because when you've built an identity around being the capable one, the strong one, the one who doesn't need help, you then become trapped in it. 

 17:27

And here's how that happens. Because if I admit I'm struggling, if I ask for help, who am I then? Like that is almost a terrifying thought. Who am I if I'm not producing? If I'm not highly independent, if I'm not high achieving, if that's who I really am, and if that's the strategy that I have developed so that I can matter in the world, who am I without that? 

 17:56

Will I be loved without it? Will I be wanted? Will I still have a place and connection if I'm not this high achieving person who doesn't have needs and doesn't need help? It's a prison of our own making. 

 18:14

And you are both the prisoner and the guard, keeping everyone else out so that they don't see and keeping yourself in because that's where you learned it was safe. Even though it feels terrible, even though it's not what works for you anymore, it can feel really difficult to start to let people in and see because it might jeopardize everything. 

 18:40

Will they still love me? Will they still want me? Will I still have connection with them? What this creates is a list of things that we're missing. We're missing real intimacy because intimacy requires vulnerability. 

 18:57

We're missing genuine support because we won't let people help. We're missing true rest because you can't let your guard down. We're missing authentic connection because people can only connect with the version of you that you are willing to show them. 

 19:15

Right? I have so many women who say, I want deeper friendships. I want deeper relationships. I want to be known and I want to be seen and I want to be held and I want to be understood. And that requires showing them our real selves who struggle, who need, for whom things are not always easy. 

 19:38

And we end up sacrificing the very things that make life really meaningful, the connection, the belonging, that being truly known and loved. Because we have to maintain the image that gets us the love. 

 19:54

We are hustling every day to be worthy of those things, right? And we're getting connection and belonging and, you know, kudos and rewards by producing, but that only takes us so far. And we don't get the deeper vulnerability and connection that only comes by letting ourselves really be known. 

 20:16

It is the cruelest irony. It really is so, so cruel that the very way that we feel safe and we feel valuable is what keeps us from the deepest intimacy and belonging. The other aspect of this that I think needs to be addressed is that this constant hiding of our own efforts and needs teaches the people around us some very specific lessons. 

 20:45

It teaches them she doesn't need help. When you make everything look easy, people believe you. They take you at your word when you say, I'm totally fine. I can totally handle it. So they stop offering. 

 20:58

They stop checking in. And it's often not because they don't care, but because you've trained them that you don't need their care, that you're fine without their care. And then we feel resentful because they're not checking in. 

 21:12

Another thing it teaches people is that, you know what, Sara's fine with this workload. When I was taking on more without ever being asked, when I was showing up over and over again without looking like I was breaking a sweat, people assumed that that was my capacity. 

 21:30

And so I was given more, right? Your boss gives you another project because last time you quote unquote handled it so well. Your colleagues come to you because you're so good at this, right? You're the one who gets the knock on the door and you're helping other people with their workload while your own doesn't get addressed. 

 21:48

And you accidentally teach people that your breaking point is much higher than it actually is, or that you don't have one at all, and that you can be the person that they come to, that they ask more from, because you're fine with this workload. 

 22:06

You also teach people that this is what competence looks like. If you are in a leadership position, if you are the mom of kids, if you are the daughter or the friend, right? It doesn't matter which relationship you are in. 

 22:23

If you are showing people that you never struggle, they will think that that is what competence looks like. Never asking for help, never showing uncertainty, right? And the people around you begin to think that they have to have it all figured out too, that they can't ask for help. 

 22:43

At work, maybe junior colleagues feel inadequate because they're openly struggling with things that you seem to breeze through. Think about how we all get to take like a deep breath when we realize, oh my gosh, that's hard for you too. 

 23:01

Or, oh my gosh, you're struggling with that too. Or, oh my gosh, you have that need too. It's not just me. That's what we keep ourselves from having and the people around us from having the human connection of struggle, because what we're showing everybody is that competence looks like there is no struggle. 

 23:24

We're also teaching people that our value comes from what we produce. When people only ever see us being useful, being productive, being helpful, they start relating to you primarily as a resource, not as a person. 

 23:41

They value what you do and not who you are. Caveat, in some situations, this is normal, right? Your children are not going to see you as a person for a while. And what you do for them is highly, highly valuable because they survive, right? 

 23:59

But in work situations, I remember a client who constantly had the knocks on the door asking for her help because she was so highly competent and highly productive. Everybody saw her as the problem solver, the one who could get it done. 

 24:15

And she took a lot of work home with her on weekends. All of these things that we teach the people around us end up doing something really insidious and really sad. They confirm our deepest fear because when people see us as not needing help, they stop checking on us. 

 24:36

When people see us as fine with the workload and give us more, when people look at us and see that that's what competence looks like, they start hiding their struggles from us. And when they know that we feel like we're valuable because of what we produce, that does something even more insidious and I think really sad because it confirms our deepest fears. 

 25:04

What we teach other people keeps the cycle going that confirms our deepest fears. It's often subconscious, right? It's not something that we talk about. But when we see people relating to us as a person who has no needs because that's what we've taught them, that confirms our deepest fears that we are only loved or only valuable for what we produce. 

 25:32

And so that cycle and mindset just keeps going and going and going. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it is so sad. It is really sad. I also just want to name some of the beliefs that we might not even know that we have. 

 25:52

There are a couple of core beliefs that kind of underpin all of this behavior. Number one, my value comes from what I produce. If you believe that your value is tied to your productivity, it's probably because that was taught to you when you were young. 

 26:10

You were praised for what you produced. That's how you got buy-in with the adults. That's how you got belonging. So of course, you learn to hide any evidence that you're struggling because struggling means producing less or not doing the same high-level job, which means being worthless or that you're not up to the task. 

 26:33

And so if you have that belief, it makes a lot of sense, but I want to push it a little bit further. So let's say that someone sees that you're valuable for what you produce. And then you think they're only going to want me around when I'm useful. 

 26:51

And if you stop being useful, then what'll happen? Well, then they're going to leave. And if they leave, then I'll be alone. And if I'm alone, then I'll discover that I'm not actually worthy of being loved just for me. 

 27:08

So do you see how we got there? The fear isn't really about productivity. It's about the really terrifying possibility that without your achievements, you're not enough, that you're not lovable, that you do have to earn it. 

 27:24

And what I want you to understand is that that is not true. That is fundamentally not how being a worthy human works. And do you want relationships where you have to earn your place through constant production? 

 27:40

Is that love? Is that what you want in relationships that are meaningful to you? Because to me, that just sounds like transaction. And in some cases, transaction is appropriate, but not in our deepest, most meaningful and valuable relationships. 

 28:01

Belief number two is that having needs makes me a burden. This belief tells you that your needs are inherently problematic, that asking for help means that you are quote unquote too much for people to handle. 

 28:17

This might have also been something that you received as a child. The big people in your life, maybe they told you that you were too much, that you were too loud, that you were too dramatic, or that something that you wanted was too inconvenient. 

 28:32

And so you learned, right, I need to keep it small. I need to keep myself small. So let's just look at what that belief kind of feels like under the surface. So if I ask for help and someone is annoyed, then I'll know that I was right, that I am too much. 

 28:48

So I don't even want to ask, right? Just the fact that that might be confirmed to me that I am too much keeps me from even wanting to ask the question. But what if that person is just having a bad day? 

 29:02

Or what if their annoyance says more about them than it says about you? Or what if there are people who would be happy to help? You miss out on all of that because one person's potential negative reaction represents, you know, the universal truth about your needs being too much. 

 29:24

Like I want you to just play with that for a little bit. Belief number three. If people see me struggle, they will lose respect for me. You know, this is the belief that competence and struggle are mutually exclusive. 

 29:41

So let's say someone sees you struggle. Then what would happen next? Maybe you might think they're going to think less of me. They're going to think I'm weak. While that makes sense, and while this is also something that the big people might have taught you when you were little, I want you to just ask yourself, how do you know what they think? 

 30:05

Have you ever lost respect for someone that you admired when they admitted something was hard? If you have, that's okay. And if you haven't, that's really interesting. Because sometimes, and actually, I'm going to go a little further and say all the time, the right people, when they see your struggle, it's actually an opportunity to build vulnerability and intimacy and to feel closer to them. 

 30:33

And that can be true no matter which relationship it is. Belief number four, if I let my guard down, I will be hurt or disappointed. This is that distance that I was talking about, right? Because if I let people close enough to me to see that I need something or that I want something from them and they let me down, oh, I'm not going to be able to handle that. 

 30:58

So I'm just going to keep them a little bit distant. So I want you to think about what that feels like underneath the loneliness, right? The lack of being able to be seen. That's something that I personally really deeply felt. 

 31:15

Like I just had to kind of keep people at a distance, but I was so lonely. So I just want to push on that for a second. So what if people let you down? And then what'll happen, right? You'll be devastated, maybe. 

 31:31

And then you can recover. You can get over it. You can learn to honor other people's limitations just like you want your own limitations honored. Yes, it would hurt. But is the pain of potential disappointment worse than the pain of guaranteed loneliness? 

 31:53

Because that's the trade, right? You're choosing certain isolation to avoid possible disappointment. And I know we're not going to resolve all that today, right? That's why we have coaching. That's why you can schedule a call with me. 

 32:10

That's why we can talk about this. But I want to name those beliefs because they can change. All of them come from kind of a core wound, if you want to call it. The belief that you are not inherently worthy of love, care, and belonging just as you are. 

 32:30

That it requires some kind of a performance for you to earn love. And everything else, the achieving, the performing, the hiding of the effort, the rejection of help, those are all strategies to try and earn what you don't believe you simply deserve to receive. 

 32:51

And here's, I think, what just feels really devastating to me. You can never achieve your way into worthiness because you achieve the hell out of Monday and now it's Tuesday, right? You achieve the hell out of Tuesday and now it's Wednesday. 

 33:09

And that's why we're so exhausted. It is a never-ending grind because worthiness isn't something that can be earned. It's something you either believe you have or you don't. Now, if you're like me, if I had been listening to this podcast episode, you know, in a past version of myself, I would have had some thoughts. 

 33:34

Number one, like, but I do need to be capable and productive. I do need that. And I'm not suggesting that you stop being excellent at what you do. There's a difference between being competent and performing effortlessness. 

 33:50

There's a difference between being competent and performing effortlessness. You can be excellent at your job and honest about when something is challenging. You can be highly capable and willing to ask for help sometimes. 

 34:06

You can be very productive and transparent about your workload, strong and vulnerable. The issue here isn't achievement. It's the hiding of the human experience or the effort that it takes to get that achievement. 

 34:22

I might have also been thinking in the past, you know, what if I actually work in a toxic environment? And that's valid. Sometimes that is true. We genuinely work in situations where we have seen other people be punished for being vulnerable about their struggles. 

 34:40

But that's the question we need to ask. Have you actually seen that happen? Or have you just assumed that would happen? Because that's your fear talking. If it's true and you are in a genuinely toxic work environment, then we need to talk about whether or not that environment is safe for you to be in at all and how we might change that and get you to a place where it feels safe. 

 35:04

But here's what also happens sometimes. There is the assumption that the workplace is toxic because your insides are toxic. You're projecting those internal beliefs onto the work environment and you've never actually tested whether or not vulnerability is going to be punished or rewarded. 

 35:27

And so there's an opportunity there to test with people who feel safe whether or not you can be more honest about what's going on for you. I also might have thought, you know, but what if people have taken advantage of me before? 

 35:42

People did, and that hurt, right? I'm sure that people have taken advantage of you too, and that hurt. But that is one person's behavior. And we can't let that dictate how we're going to show up in every relationship for the rest of our lives. 

 35:56

Not everyone is safe. And not everyone is unsafe either. The work is learning how to discern who deserves your vulnerability and not closing yourself off to everyone just as a precaution. That's what creates that lonely experience. 

 36:15

Last thing I might have been thinking is, okay, but what if people really do need me to be the strong one? Sometimes this will be true in our lives, and we might want to be the strong one for reasons that we like. 

 36:31

But that's just it. We should be able to get to choose to be strong when we examine the reasons and not just because that's what's expected of us. When we are used to being the strong one, oftentimes we just step into that role without even being asked or even seeing if it is needed. 

 36:51

It's kind of an automatic reaction. And what I have learned is people usually, yeah, there are going to be emergencies and times of stress and even chaos. And our strength might be needed at that time. 

 37:06

That might actually happen. But what people need more often is not for us to be superhuman. They need us to be sustainable. Our children need us to admit, I'm having a hard day, and to cry in front of them so that they know that our tears are not a problem. 

 37:25

It's a normal part of being a human. The people that we work with need us to admit that our capacity is being stretched because that models healthy boundaries. The people that work underneath us need to know that we have limits and that we will not work outside of them so that they can learn to have healthy boundaries and limitations as well. 

 37:53

When we show up as a whole human, that's actually not letting people down. It's giving them permission to be human too. So let's talk about some things you might do to unravel this. It's not about flipping a switch and suddenly becoming vulnerable about everything, right? 

 38:11

The goal is authenticity, being able to show up as that whole human who struggles, who has boundaries, who has needs, who has wants, who needs rest. So notice the performance. Start paying attention to the gap between how you're feeling and what you're showing others. 

 38:30

Notice when you say, I'm fine when you're not, or when you're putting a lot of effort into making something look easy when it's hard. You don't have to change anything yet. I just want you to notice. 

 38:42

Number two, if you listen to the beliefs section, maybe go back and listen to this again, which ones ring true for you and just start questioning them. Ask yourself, where did I learn that my value comes from what I produce? 

 38:57

What would happen if I showed effort? Write it down. Get these beliefs out of your head and onto some paper or sign up for a call with me using the link in the show notes and I will talk them through with you. 

 39:10

Then I want you to run small experiments. Start testing different beliefs with small, low stakes experiments. Tell one person something that was hard. Ask for help with something small. Admit you don't know something. 

 39:28

Say, you know what? I'm actually pretty overwhelmed when someone asks you how you are. And just see what happens. I can guarantee you that most people are going to respond with relief and connection and respect, not judgment. 

 39:43

And those who respond with judgment, we need to talk about whether or not you want to open up to them because they might not be people who can handle it. Practice receiving. That's another amazing thing that you can do. 

 39:55

Let someone buy you coffee without assisting that you're going to get the next one. Let someone help you without immediately feeling like you have to return the favor or shower them with praise for doing something small to help you. 

 40:09

Accept compliments without deflecting or diminishing. We have to learn this lesson that our worth is not contingent upon maintaining a perfect balance sheet of giving and receiving, right? Just let yourself receive. 

 40:27

And then as we wrap up here, I want to just give you a taste of what life looks like on the other side. It means that you have friends who know you're struggling before you have to really spell it out, who love you no matter what is going on for you, who are ready and willing to listen to you and see you and hear you. 

 40:46

You're respected for your skills and your honesty about your capacity. You get to go to bed without the weight of maintaining that performance and that rumination cycle is switched off. And you get to feel worthy even on days when what you accomplish isn't what it used to be or when you accomplish nothing. 

 41:10

This isn't a fantasy. Actually, what becomes possible when you stop performing effortlessness and start showing up as your whole self? I would love to talk about this with you. DM me what resonated. Set up a call. 

 41:25

Let's talk it through. Thanks for being here. I'll see you next week.

Episode 136 - Choosing Love Over Certainty with Meagan Skidmore

Our good girl programming is built on the certainty that if we follow the rules and keep everyone happy, we’ll belong. But what happens when stepping into deeper love and connection also means stepping into the uncertainty that comes with unraveling that conditioning? In this episode, I talk with Meagan Skidmore, Life Transformation Coach and author of TransparentSEE: How I Learned to SEE through My Journey as a Parent of a Transgender Kiddo. We explore what it means to trust your inner knowing, even when it leads you down an unfamiliar path, and how doing so can radically transform your relationships with others and with yourself. Here’s what we cover:

• How growing up in the LDS faith shaped Meagan’s sense of belonging

• The pain of feeling forced to choose between two things that are meaningful to you

• Why slowing can provide you with the patience and openness needed to make space for uncertainty

• The importance of creating safe spaces where you can explore and questions

• Why the loss of certainty can be a doorway to a new version of yourself, your family, and your faith

Meagan Skidmore is a Life Transformation Coach who empowers her clients to navigate life transitions and step into their fullest potential. Life transitions have a way of presenting the opportunity to reset our identity, reassess our values, and process emotions—becoming the witnessing observer of our experiences instead of letting them define us. 

Meagan helps people awaken to their truth, crush the boxes that confine them, and step boldly into their power, stop lying to themselves and live authentically and unapologetically. With a holistic approach, Meagan guides clients to use emotional alchemy to help them connect with their bodies and hear their Inner Wisdom. This creates space to truly embody their core values and live in alignment. Whether you’re facing change or seeking alignment, Meagan offers the support and tools you need to turn what seems a life crisis into a beautiful metamorphosis.

Find Meagan here:

https://meaganskidmorecoaching.com

https://www.instagram.com/meaganskidmorecoaching

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064267982984 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inner-catalyst/id1843004454

https://www.youtube.com/@meaganskidmorecoachingllc8331/featured 

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

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Transcript

Sara Bybee Fisk 00:59

One of the funnest things about being a coach and knowing other coaches is just how many ex good girls I read into and in this case, with you, Meagan, you and I are ex good girls of like exactly the same stripe in that we were both members once of the LDS Mormon Church. And now we're not, and we have different stories of how we got here. And yours touches on such a tender issue, I think, from a lot of people right now, if you are paying attention to politics in the United States, there's a lot of talk right now around our trans brothers and sisters and our trans children, our trans fellow citizens. And this isn't going to be political in nature at all, because that's not what we're here to talk about today.But it is going to be your story of how you came to know you had and love and accept and how having a trans child changed you. 

Meagan Skidmore 02:02

Sara, thanks so much for having me. I'm already feeling choked up as you're saying those words because it's still, I'll say, fresh. It's been a little over a year since I formally took a step back, even more so since the Supreme Court, since the LDS Church submitted the amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court about a month ago, three weeks ago. Anyway, I just feel this emotion coming up.It's not an easy place to be in. And I, it's not often I hear myself described in that way, but if, you know, at my heart of hearts, like, yeah, so buckle up. Let's go. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 02:52

Yeah, yeah. So I think all of us who are listening, whether we have a conservative religious background or not, you know, there are people who listen, who grew up in other conservative denominations or groups and those who didn't. And I think it doesn't matter. We all can look back at our good girl behavior and programming. And we kind of have a sense for like what we were taught to do and believe what our roles were, what the rule, the big rules were that we followed in our lives and some of the ways that we were rewarded even for being really good girls. And so I wonder, Meagan, as you look back, what is your good girl story? 

Meagan Skidmore 03:37

Yeah. So I was born and raised in the LDS faith. And it wasn't until a few years ago, I don't think that I realized how much I looked to external things. I'll use the word things, but I'm talking about behaviors or observances that I did or didn't do. The success of my relationships, my belonging, I believed it to be belonging, fitting in, I'll say fitting in to my faith community, how I was maybe perceived or seen among those in that same community, including family members. And I suppose by extension that included how I felt about my worthiness or goodness or lovableness. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 04:35

Yeah, yeah. 

Meagan Skidmore 04:36

With those around me and with God, the divine, you know, source. Um, yeah, I think that was a pretty big chunk of how I identified. I mean, I had other interests. I loved to dance growing up, but that is a big part of how I was in me that came out. I don't know if it would have had I not been the second child, first daughter. I don't know, but I think I got a sense of how, how well I was doing or who I was by how well I took care of others, my younger siblings. And then when I hit my teens, I baby sat a lot. Yeah. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 05:32

Yeah, it's so interesting to just consider that at the heart of certainly our faith and many Christian faiths. 

Meagan Skidmore 05:40

Mmhmm. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 05:41

you're taught to love and be in relationship with a God who has to be talked into loving us by our obedience and by our worthiness. And so I very much identify with this like exchanging our good behavior for feeling worthy, exchanging, keeping the commandments, quote unquote, for feeling like a good person. 

Meagan Skidmore 06:09

And that's why I never said no to a calling, which is a word for the opportunity to give service among those in your faith community. Usually, at least when I was younger, among those my same age, my peer group.But even if I felt like I was quiet, I might even say shy growing up, I think I've evolved more into an introvert who can be extroverted at times. I learned that shyness is not the same as being an introvert. But even if it really stretched me out of my comfort zone, I would usually say, yes, it wasn't until I had my second baby and I was just so, so stretched, I asked to be released from a calling. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 06:52

Yeah. Um, did you have the sense that it, because I, looking back, I really feel like there are women who experienced it a couple of different kind of ways. Like way number one, it kind of works and works and it's fine and it's fine and it's going well. And then it just kind of falls off a cliff or you have the sense here and there that it's not working, but you just keep pushing and keep pushing and keep pushing. Do either of those experiences describe what you were going through or is it something different? 

Meagan Skidmore 07:21

No, no, for sure. Probably the one that resonates the most is the first. Yeah, I definitely fell off a cliff. I think I was pushed off. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 07:33

Okay, tell me more 

Meagan Skidmore 07:34

Okay. And I say this, you know, hindsight is 2020.I always have a hard time recounting this because I would never want my child to listen and feel that this was a true reflection of who they were then or who they are now. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 07:54

Yeah, that's so good. 

Meagan Skidmore 07:55

it's a reflection of me and my understanding of life, you know, on a spiritual level, an emotional, mental, relational, and, you know, at the time religious. But I've learned that my kiddo identified as LGBTQ+, and this has been about six and a half years ago. And it was through a text. So he didn't have the opportunity to tell me himself. And I've learned since then, he was scared. He was scared he would be rejected. And that just broke my heart when I learned that, not knowing how many kids and I say kids, because he had just turned 13. And so it, well, you know, it sent me in a tailspin.It was because of my upbringing, it was so traumatic. It brought up so much cognitive dissonance, like it was this, I could feel it viscerally, it affected me on a physical level. And it was hard. It was so, so hard. There were times I felt like I couldn't breathe that first summer. And so I do remember having a connection with God, I use more than one term to refer to divine. But that is one thing I truly feel like I did learn how to do. And that was to connect and hear, feel, sense, inspiration, guidance, messages, whatever you want to call it, that inner voice capital I capital V. And I remember one day feeling so overwhelmed. I mean, it was an hourly thing. It was just, I mean, it was just a constant thing. That's a better way to put it. And I just came downstairs and I just kind of collapsed in the kitchen. And I just kind of cried out, not literally cried, because there were people upstairs, but I'm just like, I need help. I do not know what I am doing. I don't know what is next. I don't know my way forward. Please help me. I feel so lost. And honestly, almost immediately, I truly felt this piece start to blanket me. And the message was just take it one step at a time, take it a day at a time, an hour at a time, even a minute at a time if you need to. Like that was the essence of the message. And you know, in a fast paced world, I realized I wasn't very good about slowing down. But that is truly what kind of saved me at that point. I was able to just focus on the next thing, literally, even if that was the next minute or the next hour and just take it one step at a time. And I'm really grateful I learned that because that's really what is needed when you are trying to make space for uncertainty, when you're trying to make space for the inevitable doubts and questions that are going to come up when you are faced with a situation similar to this certainty means that it's like kind of instant gratification a little bit. I mean, once you feel like you have internalized something and you know it for certain, but when you have to let that go, yeah, that requires a lot more patience and openness. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 11:55

Yeah, because there's a new reality coming. You don't know anything about there's a new version of you. There's a new version of your child. There's a new version of your family, possibly a new version of your faith, your perspective. And that is a lot to kind of all have come up at once and start to unravel. 

Meagan Skidmore 12:16

Yeah. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 12:16

So I love that one day at a time, an hour at a time, even a minute at a time, because I think in our wanting certainty, whether it's a religious certainty or just a certainty that my marriage is going to last or that I am going to be able to figure out who I am next and what I want next, that loss of certainty or that loss of the way things are can be so painful and so destabilizing. It's... 

Meagan Skidmore 12:45

It is, it totally is. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 12:47

And so as you are taking in, you know, information from your church about, you know, this is right, this is wrong, this is acceptable, this is not acceptable, and kind of matching it up with the lived experience of this child that you love and seeing it doesn't match and all these things are kind of unraveling, what kind of emerges in you as important to hang on to? Because I think that's what's so interesting, is that in every woman that I talk to has had some kind of either faith transition or other transition out of this is the way I used to be, this is the way I am now, there are always a couple of things like values or experiences, things that kind of come up as like North Star type guiding principles.Did you have any? And if so, what were they? 

Meagan Skidmore 13:37

Yeah, for me, it just came to this point. Yes, I did all of those things that you're talking about. I still do them, right? This is an ongoing journey, but I think it finally came to this point for me where I needed to either lean into that trust I had with my inner knowing that I had learned, developed, strengthened throughout my life, or I do what is being told me or whatever by these external sources.Well, you know when you're going against something that you just know is good to your core. You know when that incongruence is going on. I mean, I was experiencing it for a long time. It's like this floodgate just burst and I'm just like, there came a point where I had the opportunity to talk with my kiddo and just say it was kind of at a climax of a point. Some communication had kind of gotten jumbled and it was during the pandemic and it stopped participating in home church. And it was just kind of a sticky time, tumultuous time, I guess, but I took the opportunity to just look at him squarely in the eyes and take him and just say, listen, I'm learning. I know way less than I used to think that I did know that I have way more questions than I truly have answers for and that I don't know everything, but I do know that you were made perfectly. There's nothing wrong with you. You are beautiful. You are divine. You are loved and we'll figure this out.And I love you and a big hug. And I think he felt hard. Well, I know he did. You know, we're both crying at this point, but it's so important to listen to that inner voice, which often comes not just through words that we hear, but through these sensations that we have in our body and through promptings and that we lead with love. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 16:04

I think that is, first of all, so beautifully said, and second of all, it's so hard, right, to really listen to that inner voice, especially when in religious groups, in cultural groups, in gender groups, we are really told to listen to outer voices, right? What we should look like, what we should believe, what we should be thinking, who we should be pleasing, don't rock the boat, don't have big opinions that make anybody outside of you, think less of you. And so that's so important and also kind of a really sticky thing for a lot of women to actually do, to really find and trust and listen to that inner voice. So you're learning to really listen to and trust that inner voice. And one of the things that begins to happen is there's a divergence, right? Between this is what the outer authorities want you to do and then here's what my inner voice is telling me to do and it's taking me in a different direction and how is that for you? 

Meagan Skidmore 17:13

I would say the hardest part about all of that is I had to give myself permission to self-differentiate. That was hard, mostly because of the way I had been taught, and I'll just call it conditioning. It just means the way that I was taught, I needed to be, and that a woman's role was or a young person's role was, because in order to heed that inner voice, that meant doing, saying, observing, or not observing certain practices in a way that was distinctly different from those around me. And I tried, I tried for a long time, I even took other callings, I was trying really hard to make it work, because there's nothing more excruciating than feeling like you're being forced to choose between two things that are deeply meaningful to you. Your faith, it goes back six plus generations for me, I have pioneer ancestry, no pressure, and then also your child, who you care deeply about, you love with all your being, I felt like I was being ripped apart down the middle. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 18:42

And when you say pioneer ancestry, those are the people who kind of left where the Mormon church was started and traveled by wagon to Utah and set up what is kind of known as the present day headquarters of the church. So it's a long generational legacy of Mormonism in your family. 

Meagan Skidmore 19:06

Yeah, one of my predecessors was one of the first 12 apostles of the original church. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 19:14

There's nothing more excruciating than being forced to choose between two things that mean. 

Meagan Skidmore 19:20

I think that's why I was trying so, I mean, I really was trying to work, make it work. And after, I don't know, couple years-ish, I really don't remember, it's kind of foggy, but it just came to a point where I had to choose me. I had to choose my mental health. I had to put me first. It was, and maybe for somebody else in the same situation, it wouldn't require this, and that's fine, I honor that. But for me, it was like if you're in an abusive relationship, whether that's verbally abusive, like not respecting you in the way they speak to you, using derogatory terms, describing you as less than, or that kind of a thing, that's like a punch to your emotional gut, right? It's not obvious, like physical interaction that becomes abusive. There's no actual blood. There's no actual open wounds, right? There's not a need for triage in that way. And I think that's why the triage that is so necessary in our emotional and mental health has gone unnoticed, untended to for such a long time. But that is how it felt is I, honestly, I wrote this in my book, I kind of felt invisible. I felt like I was wrestling with things that I would bring up to others, and some would listen kindly, and then others tried to offer these great solutions, and we had come and watch this with us, and there's someone else who's gonna be there that also has children that are, I don't know, straying or something to that effect. And I was just like, that is not the energy I'm looking for, because I love my children, and there was nothing wrong with them. By that time, my oldest had left as well. So I think really standing up for my own self in all the different ways, listening to that inner voice and heeding it, acting on it, and doing the things for me that I knew were in my best interests. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 21:50

And so when you started to advocate for you and to put your mental health first and to really prioritize you, what changed? 

Meagan Skidmore 22:03

Well, I was able to consciously create safe spaces for me and create a space where I could explore and ask questions and cultivate relationships that could reciprocate that, realizing they didn't have to agree with me. I think that's just fine, but you don't have to agree to respect and to have empathy for someone, or at least try to have empathy.For me, being a podcaster, I didn't realize it at the time when I started it, but it was deeply healing for me, and still is, because I was able to have increasingly more open conversations. Like if you were to go back to where I first started, very different conversations then as to what I'm having now. I just decided to be open about it as I went, and I didn't realize how healing it would be for me, and that was truly a godsend, because I was able to connect with others who experienced similar things. They also experienced different things, but we could agree at least on showing love and honoring one another, no matter where we were at. In our journeys. But I'll tell you, Sara, my relationship with myself has deepened and expanded so much in a way that I really didn't know was possible, and I'm truly in a place where I am choosy about when and where and with whom and for how long I spend my time, which is another word for energy, because I feel full. I feel like I am meeting my purpose, and if you want to use the word calling, because I feel like everything that I have done up to this point I have been guided to do. Have I done it perfectly? I don't even know what that word means anymore. I have come as my whole self each time, and I've evolved into a new person, died so many deaths, I've lost count, and a new Meagan has emerged each time, and I like spending time with me. I like spending time with other people who fill my bucket, and my hope is that I can fill theirs too. One of my favorite sayings is, I water you, you water me, we grow together, and that's what I seek out. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 24:57

And so tell me when you decided that you wanted to write a book about this. 

Meagan Skidmore 25:03

That's a great question. Very early on, I'm talking 2021, maybe before then. For sure, I remember in 2020, so maybe been a year, I felt as I was increasing in my understanding and the light bulbs were going on and the dots were connecting for me like, wow, we have completely misunderstood this beautiful community of people. More people need to know about this, right?It was like a magnet pulling me toward this purpose to be an advocate. I felt called to be an advocate from very early on. As I continued to learn, I was like, I should write a book. It just was there. That's all I know. This pull, just this knowing I had a book inside of me. I didn't quite know how that would happen because where in the world do you find an agent? How do you get a publishing company to sign you on? I had no idea how any of that worked, but in 2022, my paths crossed with Kira Britten. It was at a conference and I remember learning. She was there with some of her authors. She had her own publishing house and I said, you what? She's like, yeah. I said, I know I have a book. You could publish it? She's like, absolutely. I didn't know something like that existed and I knew I was going to work with her. I didn't know when, but a little over a year later, I started to work with her. We're coming up on almost two years and my book is now published as of three days ago. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 26:56

Amazing. And as we were chatting, it's the number one new release in three categories, namely LGBTQ plus biographies and teen issues. And so making congratulations, that is such an incredible accomplishment.As we wrap up here, is there anything else that you would want people to know? Because I don't want to tell a lot of what is in your books. I want people to go buy your book, right? But what do you want people to know about you, about just anything that you haven't gotten to say yet? 

Meagan Skidmore 27:26

So I was very purposeful about my title. I knew the title of it. I call it transparency. And I spell it T-R-A-N-S-P-A-R-E-N-T-S-E-E. And the subtitle is how I learned to see through my journey as a parent of a transgender kiddo. And that title and subtitle really encompasses the essence of this journey up to this point.I began to let layers upon layers peel back from my view, like literally and figuratively, on life. And I began to see things, which is another word for knowing, understanding, that I could not unsee and then remain in my integrity. I couldn't do it. Like it just went against everything inside of me. It would be ignoring the least of these, right? Which we're taught to be especially conscientious of and extend love and mercy and grace and all of that to them. So this book, that title, it really is the epitome of what my journey has been and kind of my message and who I am. And I'm trying to continue to be ever evolving, ever trying to educate myself on there's so many things that we could have touched on, how I learned to distinguish sex from gender, from gender expression, and separate all of that from having some kind of moral value if I viewed it differently than what I had been raised to view that as. Anyway, just, yeah, I'm so excited. It took a lot, like I evolved into a different person who could publish something so raw and vulnerable. But I show up authentically in it and I'm proud of it. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 29:40

Well, Meagan, having known you over the years, it's been, first of all, incredible to see some of this transformation through social media and then to talk with you and kind of get the behind the scenes. I love Kira.She is a personal friend of mine and husband for a lot of years. We were actually in a Mormon congregation together for a little while, so the connections are pretty wild. But if people want to purchase your book, if they want to learn more about you, where should they go to find that out? 

Meagan Skidmore 30:16

So I recently updated my website. It's got all of the things on it about me. If you go to my website and then click on Speaking Media and more, scroll down, you'll see my book. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 30:28

What is your website? 

Meagan Skidmore 30:29

My name Meagan skidmorecoaching.com and if you scroll down There will be a link where you can order it on Amazon and I say that because if you do a search for transparency Because of the distinct spelling it it may not come up for you If you put I use my maiden name as well in the for my author name So if you use that link you can get there, but also I'm on Instagram I'm quite active on Instagram, and it's the same handle Meagan skidmore coaching.I'd love to connect with you

Sara Bybee Fisk 31:02

Okay. I will link that in the show notes for sure.And Meagan, I'm so impressed. Writing a book is, first of all, incredible. And then to share something so raw that will help so many people is just such a gift. So thank you for writing that and thank you for talking today. 

Meagan Skidmore 31:19

I so appreciate you sending you love and light.

Sara Bybee Fisk 31:25

Thank you. You too. 

Episode 135 - Staying in Relationships Even with Differences

Sometimes it's hard to imagine how we can stay in relationships where there are huge differences–political, religious, or otherwise. In this conversation with my friend Katherine Golub on her podcast Conflict Decoded, I talk about how I’ve worked with the part of myself that just wants to stay safe–to only talk to people who agree with me and see information that confirms my beliefs–to stay in relationships that matter, even when we don’t share the same views. Here’s what I cover:

• How people-pleasing kept me at the church even after my mind and heart had left the building

• The moment I realized, “I think we’re wrong about this,” and how terrifying it was to hold that belief

• How I used scripture to back up my personal beliefs and was punished for it within the church 

• The complexity of discerning who to maintain relationships with despite your differences

• Why safety must come first when moving toward relationships with people that you disagree with

Find Katherine here: 

https://callingsandcourage.com/

https://callingsandcourage.com/podcasts/

https://www.instagram.com/katherinegolub/

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

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Transcript

Sara Bybee Fisk 00:57

My friend, Katherine Golub, interviewed me for her podcast, and we ended up having a really interesting conversation about what it takes to stay in relationships, even when there are differences and disagreements, sometimes very big disagreements and differences. I thought it was a really valuable conversation. It really helped me put into words how I feel a part of my brain that really wants to be safe and only wants to talk to people who agree with me and only wants to see posts and information that confirm my bias and how I have worked with that part of me to stay in some important relationships that matter to me, where we have all kinds of differences, not just political, but religious and others. I wanted to share that conversation with you as well. I would love to hear what you think is valuable from this. You can DM me or you can send me an email hello at sarafisk.coach. 

Katherine Golub 01:57

Shortly after the 2016 presidential election, I discovered that my sister had voted for Trump. I had seen so many people on social media talking about unfriending people with opposing viewpoints and even disowning family members. And although I was upset, I didn't want that. I wasn't super close to my sister at that time, as our interests hadn't always been super aligned. But when we spent time together, we got along really well. And I didn't want to throw my sister away over a vote, no matter how upset I was.And I also knew that part of why our country is in the state that it is in is because dominant white American culture is so lacking in deep, meaningful relationships. And so I called my sister without blaming or shaming her. I told her that I was really sad that she'd voted the way that she did, especially because my family has been so affected by immigration policy. And I told her that I wanted to keep our lines of communication open. And I asked if she would be willing to hear requests from me in the future related to voting. Should I ever feel called to reach out again? And she said yes. Several years after that, I facilitated a book group for white folks using Leila Saad's book, Me and White Supremacy. And my biggest takeaway from that book was that to be able to call someone in, we have to call them in the first place. We can't ask people for change or hope for them to respond unless we're in relationship with them. And since then, my sister and I have grown closer. And she recently confirmed that she did not vote for Trump the second or third time around.So with this story in mind, I invited my guests this week, Sara Fisk onto the podcast. For the first four decades of her life, Sara was a devout Mormon. And then a series of realizations called her to change course. Since then, Sara has helped thousands of high achieving women as a master certified life coach to turn people pleasing into personal power, guiding them to stop overextending, find their authentic voices and lead with clarity and authority. Her work weaves together feminist insight, nervous system and somatic tools, and her own lived experience of breaking free from religious good girl rules. I recently met Sara as a guest on her podcast, the Ex Good Girl podcast. And I enjoyed the conversation so much that I invited her to share more of her story of leaving the Mormon church in midlife and navigating her relationships afterward. This episode is more personal storytelling than most. And if you are in relationship with people who see the world very differently than you do, and are trying to figure out whether to maintain relationships, I think that listening to how Sara navigated these questions herself will likely feel supportive.As you listen, I invite you to ask yourself these questions. What needs does this challenging relationship meet for me in my life? And how might I transform this relationship in a way that honors my needs more, in addition to honoring the needs of the other person? 

Katherine Golub 05:17

So you were born into a Mormon family. Being part of the Mormon church was a really important part of your life until just a few years ago. Can you share a bit about your journey from being a really devout practicing Mormon to deciding to leave the church and where you are now? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 05:36

I grew up very devout. And in fact, I loved everything about being Mormon. I, I mean, and again, that's rose colored, so a lot of rose colored glasses looking back, but by the time that I was a college student, I was going to Brigham Young University. I felt like I finally found my people.I was in this big Mormon bubble and, um, growing up in central California where there were not a lot of Mormons was actually really hard for a lot of reasons. And so I felt like when I hit college, I was just coming into like the golden age of my Mormonism. And I was doing all the Mormon things. I was having all the positions in church that women could have, which were, you know, fairly few, but I could be in charge of other women and children. And I, you know, managed to do that and went on a mission for the church to Bolivia and loved that and came home and met the man who's my husband, Dan. And he had a brother who is gay. And Craig, his brother came out to us before we were getting married. And I think we had at the time, a very typical reaction to him, which was we love you, but that is wrong. We love you, but God says that's a sin. And so we, you know, want to just have this very clear delineation between that. Very typical love the center. I hate the sin type of reaction and language. And then for the next decade and a half, really just kind of set about to figure out how to have a relationship with Craig, because we loved him and wanted that while also dealing with the discomfort or the dissonance of watching him try to first of all, stay in the church as a gay man and seeing how soul crushing that was for him. And then just, I I've often said that my brain is kind of like a crock pot. You're going to get your dinner in eight hours. Right. And so I just began to collect all of these little bits of information about Craig, like if it's a choice, which is what the church was teaching at the time, that it was a choice for him to be gay, like, how could this be a choice? It just didn't make sense to me as I watched his life unfold and as I watched the heartbreak and the real agony that he was going through. And then as I kind of watched other members of the church who I knew were gay, I began to become friends with more members of the church and it just didn't make sense to me anymore. And I remember clearly where I was when I had what I used to call my secret private heresy, which was, I think we're wrong about this. I don't think it's a choice. And unless you've been on the inside of a religious conservative group like Mormonism that has many cult like features of group, think a very centralized authority, it might be hard for your listeners to appreciate what a monumental kind of moment that was for me to have my own private belief that very clearly violated what was being taught by the official church at that time,

Sara Bybee Fisk 09:04

it terrified me. What also terrified me was that I couldn't not believe it. It seemed so plain. It seemed so absolutely true. And so I didn't even tell my husband that I had had that thought because it was so, like I said, just terrifying that I now had this difference of belief that I didn't know what to do about it. I couldn't talk to anybody about it. I certainly couldn't ask my clergy people about it, right? I couldn't, the best thing to do for me was really just to keep it to myself.But that, you know, our amazing brains with the cognitive bias always at work, I just began to subconsciously and consciously collect all of this evidence for why I actually thought this was true. And so it became. to me, like when I look back on it, just this little teeny tiny wedge that got driven into the trunk of the tree of my Mormonism and just began to kind of drive deeper and further and further in. And I began to just see all of these things that just didn't make sense anymore. And it was a very slow process that was accelerated when my husband began to have a lot of doubts about truth claims and the things we had been taught to believe. He found a lot of information online that contradicted that, that also seemed to be true. He often says of his own experience that to him, the internet was to him like the printing press was to the Catholic church. Once you put truth within the equitable reach of everyone, now you can't control it. And so his exit from the church was actually a lot faster than mine. And in the beginning, it cost me to kind of double down a little bit because I had the sense of like, shit, if you're going to leave the church, I've got to stay then because our kids and what will they believe and our family. And so we did this like multi-year kind of seesaw thing where we would talk about things and I would agree or disagree. And I was really willing and able weirdly to give him his space to do what he needed to do because that's not common in high demand religions where people are kind of allowed to have their own experience.But because of some different experiences that had prepared me to do that, we sat our kids down and basically said, listen, dad's got to do what dad has got to do. This is what he feels strongly about. So he will not be attending church anymore. I will still be attending and we're going to go as a family. And guess what? Someday you are all going to have to make the same decision whether or not you want to do this. But for now, as your parents, this is what we decided to do. And so for a period of time, I continued to go and drag my kids because what kid wants to go and dad's going hiking right on a Sunday. And so then we began to do mountain church and lake church and hiking church. And I began to feel the freedom of not having to go and listen to a bunch of things that were making me increasingly uncomfortable every week, a firm with my outward behavior, some things I just wasn't sure I believed anymore. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 12:44

And so when COVID came, it just killed off the last little struggling remnants of my attendance, because by that point, my heart and my brain had really left the building. But my body, just because I was deeply a people pleaser at that time still, I just couldn't figure out how to break my entire community all at once. It just felt too scary and too overwhelming.I'm probably one of the few people that was grateful for that aspect of COVID in that it really freed me from that. And now I had an excuse to just be at home all the time. Nobody was going to church anywhere. And I just felt such incredible relief.Let me add one other thing that was incredibly relevant. This whole time that I'm really deeply involved with gay members of the church and loving them and hearing about their stories, our daughter came out in 2016. And I felt physically in my body, if I can just put this picture, the hourglass, an hourglass turned over and sands started dripping through. And I knew there was a time limit on my membership. I didn't know how I would unravel at all, because as I said, I was deeply committed to being a member of the church.It was my life and I loved it. I thought it was what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I had also been very uniquely involved in the pain that the church's teachings about being gay had caused a lot of people that I loved. And now here was my child sitting before me telling me about the crush she had on the girl on her volleyball team. And I just knew that I had to begin to unravel this because it was now going to hurt her.And I used to have a little bit of sadness about, you know, why did it have to be my kid that eventually kind of took me out? Why wasn't other people's pain good enough? I don't have a great answer for that question, frankly. But I know that as mothers, we do a lot of things for our children that we won't do for ourselves. And her coming out and kind of the way my family reacted to that, my parents really kind of lit the fire to get that shit sorted. And that was another hugely contributive event. 

Katherine Golub 15:28

Yeah, I can imagine. That cognitive dissonance that you lived with for so many years and that wedge that kept getting driven farther and farther into the tree, it just makes me think of all the other people who are having that experience right now that we have no idea because like you said, it was your own secret private heresy.I haven't had that experience in my life, but I can imagine like that terror of how important the church was to you, how important your community was to you. And so it just makes me think of there, there must be so many people who are currently living with that cognitive dissonance. And it also strikes me how Craig didn't leave you all. Like it sounds like Craig stayed in a relationship with you and you stayed in relationship with your husband. And if those relationships hadn't been maintained, would that wedge have kept getting driven further? Well, it comes up for you. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 16:32

I don't think that if we had not maintained our relationship with Craig, we would be in the same place. It's impossible to tell either way. But it was having to bump up against him as a human and his experience over and over and over again, up close. He wasn't often the distance where I could just kind of think my own thoughts about him and other him and demonize him. He was up close to me. And that was a hugely relevant part of my experience there.And the same with my husband. I knew his heart. I knew the kind of man he was. And so I don't think there's a way that we would have ended up here without having to live those two relationships up close. 

Katherine Golub 17:18

Yeah. And that it took you the time that it took you to get to the place that you got to. And it's like, who knows what timeline other people need, right? Your daughter came out in 2016 and then you talked about COVID. So there, it was a few years after she came out that you decided to leave. Was there a final straw? Was there like a, okay, I'm just not going back or like that final wedge in the tree, which made it topple over. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 17:49

At that point, those last couple years, I was maybe attending once a month, once every other month. I was squarely on the like, we need to check on Sara and see what's wrong with her kind of list. But by then, I had also become more vocal about my feelings about gay people, what I think Jesus taught us about loving, vulnerable, marginalized groups. The church had also changed its teaching from, this is a choice to, we don't know, and we're not going to say either way. It seems pretty obvious to me that it's not a choice. There's really only one other option, but they were not willing to name that. And I think there's a lot of cowardice in that, but they would just call it, we're waiting for God to give us the answer. But in that time, I had started to become a lot more vocal about my personal beliefs, about using scripture to back up my beliefs. And I had begun to be punished for that. And punishment in Mormon land looks like you lose positions of authority, you lose the ability to address the congregation as a whole. You kind of get relegated to jobs within the congregation. No one is paid in a typical Mormon congregation. Everyone is a volunteer. And I had been the president of the women's organization and the president of the children's organization. And the only calling or position where women are allowed to instruct men is a Sunday school teacher. And so I had been a Sunday school teacher and it was in one of those Sunday school lessons about the Good Samaritan that I said, who in our day is this kind of broken bleeding man by the wayside? If you're familiar with the story, there's a guy who gets attacked and his enemy passes by. And instead of just leading him to die, he stops and takes care of him. And so I was asking the question, who is this our compassion and our protection? I was called in to the bishop's office, who is the clergy in charge. And I was told that I would no longer have that calling. And so all of that had been going on for the years before that. Rachel, my daughter had been kicked out of the young women's organization because she was starting to make similar comments of like, I don't understand why women can't have more authority. And so we had begun to be punished and kind of pushed to the margins of our congregation as a family for speaking out about some of these things.And so I was hanging on by a people pleasing thread at that point. Really, I was really concerned about what my parents would think that was the biggest kind of heaviest thing for me. They are still to this day, very, very devout. And I knew that it would crush them. I knew it would crush my grandma who lived with them, who I love very much. And so it wasn't hard. I didn't miss it. I felt such a tremendous sense of relief when COVID came around. But you're right, it took me the time that it took me because there was a lot to unravel. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 21:19

I didn't have a relationship with my parents outside of the church. I didn't have a relationship with friends outside of the church.I was a conservative homeschooling mom of five and our entire homeschool community were other Mormon families who had watched my husband leave the church with a lot of suspicion and a lot of questions. And I had really struggled to maintain connection and friendship in the wake of his leaving. And so it really felt like everything was at stake in terms of my community and connections. And I knew that I would take my family with me. I had no doubt. It was also really fraught. 

Katherine Golub 22:07

And so what has happened to those relationships? Like I hear you saying that you were afraid of breaking your parents' hearts, that you didn't want to lose all of your friends and your community.What has happened with those relationships since you left? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 22:21

I did break my parents' heart, and it was either break theirs or break mine. It was the bravest and the hardest thing I've ever done to sit them down because I wanted them to hear it from me.I wanted to explain to them anything that they wanted to know. I was really begging them to see me as a person and not this caricature of someone who leaves the church because inside of Mormon land, there really is this definite caricature of someone who leaves. They are misguided. They are led astray. They have fallen under Satan's influence. They are apostate. There's all of these words and cautions that are regularly kind of thrown out around trusting them, talking to them, associating with them. Letting them be part of your trusted inner circle of acquaintances. When I sat down with them, I really wanted them to understand that the reason that I felt like I had to leave and not go back was that I could no longer reconcile the Jesus that they taught me to believe in and the Jesus I was seeing at church. I mean, by now, Trump's first presidency had come and gone and I had been up to that point a lifelong Republican. I had never voted for a Democrat. I lovingly call President Obama my favorite president that I never voted for because I was just convinced and convicted by my upbringing that being a Republican was not only what Jesus wanted me to do, but just the politically morally correct thing to do. But by that time, I had broken with the Republican Party as well, and I had done it in kind of a really public way unwittingly, and I had received a ton of backlash from my congregation about that.And so I brought what I thought was this really compelling, curated pile of evidence of like, look, this is the Jesus you taught me to believe in. This is the Jesus that I love and feel so convicted about, and this is what I'm seeing, and I can't make them match anymore. I can't, and that's not my fault. And so if I am wrong, I fully trust that someday, you know, at the pearly gates, I'm going to be like, oh my gosh, wait, what? The Mormons were right, and Jesus will say, I know, but I totally get it. I totally understand why you got confused and we'll be fine. And so my message to my parents was essentially like, can we just believe that Jesus is who he says he is? And he's like, if I'm lost, he's busy saving me. You guys don't have to do it, but if I'm not lost, then can you just see me? And it was kind of a mixed bag reaction. A little bit of yes, a little bit of no, a lot of let's just not talk about it. 

Katherine Golub 25:42

And has it remained like that? A little bit of yes, a little bit of no, and a lot of let's not talk about it. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 25:47

Yeah, pretty much, I'm the oldest girl. I think for our oldest girls out there, hello, hello. It explains a lot, right? That we have this like compelling desire to be seen and we are often roped into being the one that kind of manages the relationships of others in the family that was very much me.I was the negotiator, kind of the diplomat of the family. And interestingly enough, I wasn't the first to leave. I'm the oldest of six children and everyone and their spouse has left except my youngest brother and his spouse is not active in the way that everyone thinks Mormons should be active. And so my parents had already been dealing with a fair amount of upheaval in their belief system. And I was the manager of it. I was the one orchestrating family get togethers and talks about like, how do you feel about this? And how do you feel about this? I think by the time it was finally me, they were just so heartbroken because I was the super Mormon in the family as well. I was the high achieving, I'm gonna do it all, have all the positions, do all the things. And when it came time to just lay all of that down, their heartbreak, I think was yes, that I was leaving but also that this kind of bridge to the rest of the family was, that was changing as well.But I continued to have lots of conversations about that with them because it really mattered to me that they stay connected and that their grandkids, they have 22 grandchildren, half of which are not straight, that they have kind of an accurate view of their grandkids, which translates really to, I wanted to control how they saw the gay and queer members of our family. I really wanted them to be viewed with love, with compassion, with lack of judgment. And so even after leaving, I continued to have a lot of these conversations where I was really trying to shape their view and it wasn't working. They were not unkind, I wanna be very clear about that. They were not unkind, they tried in their way to be loving but it just became really clear to me that I was spending all of this time and energy and effort trying to shape their view of me, trying to shape their view of my brothers and sisters who had left, of their queer grandkids and they just were not that interested in it or their interests had kind of gone as far as it was gonna go.And in our last conversation, I knew it was our last conversation, they did not. I think they kind of relied on me to regularly kind of bring up the family issues. I just said, I'm realizing in all of our talking, you've never once asked me what it was like for me to leave the church, what it was like for me to lose my worldview, my community, my friends, my ideas of what happened after this life, heaven, right? And I said, you've never asked me about that. And my mom and dad just looked at me in total silence. And I knew then that was the end of these conversations because I had literally like handed them their line, right? Ask me about this, please see me, let me tell you. And they just didn't want to. 

Katherine Golub 29:34

I imagine that being really painful and I feel gratitude that you have all of your brothers and sisters with you. And just that like, oh, okay, I'm done having these conversations now. I'm imagining some grief. I'm imagining some relief. I'm imagining. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 29:51

both. It was a tremendous amount of relief because I could just plainly see it. This is the end of this type of conversation.And the grief, that's my work to do on my own. And what it allowed me to do is pivot to a different kind of conversation with them about what's on sale at Costco and family events and how's aunt so-and-so doing. And I still find a place to have connection with them, but it's just not about any of the things that we used to talk about, but it's still connection and it's still valuable to me. I had to kind of kill that off in myself because I was really the one driving it, really pushing for it, really wanting it. And now that I've put that down, I think I can appreciate them for the good people that they are and the real heartbreak that this has been for them and really kind of separate our experiences and just let it be what it is. 

Katherine Golub 31:07

So that wasn't your last conversation with them ever. That was your last conversation with them about trying to change their minds and see you fully and their grandchildren. And, and I'm curious about your discernment process around who else you maintained relationships with. I want to acknowledge that there are many good reasons not to maintain relationships, right? If the relationships are harming us, if not being able to be fully seen is harming us, if there's so many good reasons to not maintain relationships. So I ask these questions not with an assumption that that is the correct response by any stretch of the imagination. And also me, you hold privileges that Craig, that your queer nieces and nephews and nibblings do not. And there's some responsibility that comes with that privilege. And it's complex how to discern who to maintain relationships with and who not to. And so I'm curious, what has guided you? How have you discerned which friendships to maintain it? Have you maintained friendships? How has that process been for you? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 32:19

I appreciate that introduction to this question and I agree. And I have always felt like it is the job of the people who can feel safe in conversation to have the hard conversations. This isn't the work of, for example, my queer nieces, nephews, and nibblings to advocate for themselves this way, unless they want to, right? Some of them do to varying degrees, but most of because that's the vibe they get.I don't have the final answer for this either because a lot of this work is ongoing. I think initially, like I said, grateful for COVID, I didn't have to get together with anybody for a long time. And it really gave me a beautiful space to be very introspective about who I wanted to reestablish connection with. A couple of years before COVID, my kids had all wanted to go back to school. So we had exited that homeschooling community. And that was also just a big fucking relief to not have to keep up the performance of faithfulness to Mormonism that I knew they were looking for from me.While I was privately and secretly struggling with so many different aspects of continuing to go to church, I continued for some time to maintain cordial relationships. And then after kind of COVID, we were getting back together. I remember getting invited to a birthday lunch with all of those moms and feeling really just conflicted about going because I was now wearing clothes that were going to very much signal I was out. Mormons wear a garment as underwear that is long in the legs, long shorts. It used to cover all the way over the shoulders. It's been modified recently, so it doesn't cover quite. But if I show up in short shorts and a tank top, that is almost offensive to them. And I knew that and I thought, I'm wearing this, can I show up this way? And so I decided to go wearing my short shorts and tank top more as like a test of my own discomfort. And I have to say during this time as well, I had become a coach and I had begun to get a lot of training in some therapeutic models and I began to work with people and just really understand my own people pleasing in a completely different way.It's the work that I do now is helping women kind of unraveling this performative people-pleasy codependent dance that we're taught to do. And so I went to the lunch mostly because I wanted to observe my own experience as I was doing that in real time with them. And I wanted to see them. I mean, Katherine, it's hard to also convey how much I loved them and how much they loved me and how much I loved their children and they loved mine. And we had this really just incredibly beautiful working relationship for so many years. And underneath that for me was always a little bit of anxiety that they would find out that I was struggling or that I didn't believe everything quite the same way they did.And when I went to the lunch, I just remember sitting there thinking, what am I doing here? Why am I spending my time and my energy, which are like my two most precious resources to build these relationships? I know who they voted for. I know what they think of me. I know what they think of my husband. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 36:25

I know what they think of Rachel. And I at the time was pretty convinced that it was a waste of my time and that I didn't want to be nurturing or really fostering those relationships. I felt a sense of some judgment toward them. I felt a sense of fear about what they believed and how they voted and how I felt like it was affecting me.And by now, Trump's not present anymore. And so a lot of the threat of him and his ideology didn't feel super present, but it still felt very present to me and them. And as I look back, that kind of group tribal part of my brain was really active in making them them and me me like now it was us and them and they were and so after that I didn't put a lot of energy and effort into maintaining relationships they would continue to invite me to things I always had a good reason not to go they would update me about their kids what they were doing and I you know I always enjoyed hearing about that it was also a little bittersweet because their kids were doing some of the things I thought my kids would grow up to do serving a mission is a big Mormon thing I lived in Bolivia for a year and a half and though I'm not super keen on what I did and how I did it the experience of living in another place was hugely transformational to me and it really is just an incredible opportunity to get to know and love other people and I wanted my kids to have that and so their kids were growing up and going on missions and there was some bittersweetness about some of those pieces of news that I would get but by and large I kind of maintained a healthy distance I fostered my own new relationships with people who I could feel really connected to in terms of belief and worldview and I have a really beautiful community of friends who I feel really connected to and then it wasn't I really didn't think it was much of a problem until Trump was elected again and there was something about seeing in their social media posts those who were posting the support and the joy at his reelection that just really was so devastating for me kind of all over again because now it seemed like you voted for someone who told us what he's going to do and that's okay with you like it's very clear what he's going to do and you're saying that that's okay and so I kind of took that information in through my very human cognitive bias tribal think brain and really kind of made a decision that I was not going to put any time and energy into those friendships anymore. 

Katherine Golub 39:37

I know that you did talk about one friendship you've maintained, and that's evolving when we talked earlier, and I'm curious if there have been people that you've decided to keep in your life, and if you'd like to share about that. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 39:51

Yeah, I think if we would have had this conversation several weeks ago, I might have just been like, yep, sometimes friendships fade and you just don't have anything in common anymore and that's okay. And I think the murder of Charlie Kirk had a huge impact on me because it forced me to look at this friendship through a different lens. And let me say what I mean by that. So in August, I got the text again. Hey, I'd love to take you out for your birthday lunch. And it was from one of the women in this group who I was closest to and I love her. I know her heart. She is one of the most beautiful, loving, caring people walking around on the planet. And if I had heartburn over anyone, it would have been her. But I also just did not want to get together with everyone again. And I assumed that she meant everyone. And so in a moment of just kind of wanting to tell her the truth and not just avoid it like I had before, I responded and I said, hey, I just don't think I want to spend time and energy maintaining friendships with people who just see the world so differently than I do and who want such different things.It just doesn't feel good to me. It doesn't feel right. And thank you, but no, thank you. And she responded with so much compassion and heartbreak. And I realized that I had been assuming a lot of things. I didn't know for sure that she was someone who had voted for Trump. And so I asked her, I said, if you feel comfortable sharing with me who you voted for and why, that would help me here. And she did. And I could clearly see in that moment that we were just afraid of different things. She had in her own mind, really good reasons why she had decided that the unborn were a very vulnerable group to her and protecting unborn children was filled with so much importance for her that it kind of outweighed everything else that mattered to her. She doesn't have anybody who's gay in her life. She is not a member of any kind of marginalized group at all. She's white passing. I'm sure she loves immigrants and she comes from an immigrant family, but it wasn't present to her in the same way that it really was for me in my experience. And so I had to sit with her message and just look at how assumptive I had been about so many things. And I had to grapple with the fact that I had stopped noticing my cognitive bias. I had stopped noticing that desire to just retreat into my bubble where everybody believed the same thing, which by the way, that was being a Mormon. It's just the irony of like, I don't want to have conversations with someone who believes different because it threatens what I believe or it makes me feel uncomfortable in this way. I had to grapple with the fact that was my cult brain that was really showing up hard. And I reached back out and I just said, I want to have a conversation with you about this. I want to stay in conversation because this instinct that I have to just burn the bridge, to retreat into my group, I can see it and I can see what it is doing to me. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 43:50

And I'm just one of millions and millions of people who this is happening to in some way or another. And then when Charlie Kirk was murdered, I just thought this is insane. This is insanity that we are witnessing.And the only way to come back to a place of sanity is to figure out how to coexist with people who believe differently than I do and who have different solutions for the problem. But we've got to figure out how to do this in a way that people are not murdered. 

Katherine Golub 44:27

earlier when you were talking about the Mormon who leaves and the caricature of that person that we don't trust them, we don't talk to them, we don't associate with them. We could use the same language often for many people, many of us on the left, we're just like, no, I'm not going to be their friend, I'm not going to be in relationship with them.So I'm curious what guidance or words of wisdom or insights you might want to share with folks who are listening who are far more likely to be on the left. Some people might be like, yeah, right, maintain relationship. Other people may be like, hell no, no, I don't want to do that. Or some might be grappling with conflict with someone that they love in their lives or regretting a rift in a relationship. What guidance or insights might you have for folks who are listening who are just weighing all of this right now? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 45:25

First of all, it takes safety and an ability to feel safe, to move toward relationships with people that you disagree with. And if you are a member of a group that is attacked or marginalized, I don't think that's your job right now, unless you want it to be, right? Um, so first of all, you get to pick, you get to choose. This is not prescriptive in any way.I think for me, I have my hand on two things. I have my hand on my friend and who I know her to be. And I have my hand on the marginalized groups of people who I feel are in danger, their rights, their dignity, their ability to exist in free and completely human ways, and I have to have my hands on those two things. There are going to be red lines, right? Abolishing gay marriage, masked men, picking up immigrants. I have to be able to stand for and verbalize that those are my red lines in those relationships. If, if I were to say that to my friend and she were to shut me down, then that would indicate to me that this isn't a relationship where both of our ideas can show up and exist in tension together. And so as I have my hands on those two things, I also have to be able to be who I am and say what needs to be said so that I feel authentic, so that I feel like I'm, all of me is really here and seen and heard, not agreed with, because I don't agree with everything she's saying, but I can understand and see and hear why she feels that way, mostly because I used to be that and believe that so deeply, but I think those, those are the elements that matter to me, right, that I have my hand on her and who she is. I have my other hand on the groups that I feel are threatened in really significant, real ways, and that I can show up and say what I need to say. 

Katherine Golub 47:40

I think that distinction between being heard and respected and being agreed with is such an important distinction. I really appreciate you separating those two things out. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 47:53

I think I could be in relationship with anyone where those things are present and we don't have to agree. 

Katherine Golub 47:59

I know the answer to this question, but I imagine since I was asking it, other people may be asking it too, did you end up changing anyone's mind? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 48:10

Yes, when you said that was the last of our hard conversations with my parents in my mind, I was like, we had one more. And I went to them during Trump's second presidential run and asked them to both vote for Kamala Harris. My mother did, my father did not, but he did not vote for Trump. And I considered that a win.And then I have a dear friend from college. He was the president of the college Republicans when we were in college together, great man. I know his heart. I love him. And he and I had long text conversations about why I felt like him voting for Kamala Harris was really the only way for him to get his Republican party back. And that if Harris was not elected, that kind of goodbye, right to, to, to the Republicans, I mean, don't we kind of long for those guys again, compared to who we have now, right? That may be another conversation. I will say that I look back to the John McCain's and to some of the Bush's, I guess I won't say all of them. And you know, even Mitt Romney and just think that we need a healthy political system requires healthy debate and opposition where we can really work out our ideas the way that I think we used to do a much better job. And so that was essentially my argument to him. And so he voted for Kamala Harris as well. 

Katherine Golub 49:37

I really appreciate that you got him to vote for Kamala Harris. And I appreciate that like, we just had our own little model.Like it would be a fascinating conversation to keep going. We may not end up agreeing and I don't know who am I to argue that McCain wasn't better than Trump. I remember watching the video of him voting for healthcare and the chills and gratitude in that moment. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 49:59

Yeah, I have shown the Obama McCain debate to my kids and been like, guys, this is what it used to be like. This is what we used to be able to do.And we need to be able to debate our ideas without violence and to coexist together. 

Katherine Golub 50:15

I'm all for debate without violence. And these are hard times and so I'm grateful to get to have this conversation with you, there's about so many women who could benefit from working with you.So can you just share briefly about the work that you do and how people can learn more from you? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 50:33

Yes, I teach women how to really find their personal hour and step out of the people pleasing that is fucking that up. And you can find me at Sarafisk.coach. Yes, dot coach is actually a URL and S-A-R-A-F as in fantastic I-S-K dot coach. And on Instagram, I have a podcast called the Good Girl podcast. And that's where I do a lot of talking about what I want to see in the world. 

Katherine Golub 51:05

Well, thank you for doing a lot of talking about what you want to see in the world because I also want to see it and I'm grateful for the work that you're doing and getting to have the second conversation with you. So thank you. 

Episode 134 - Keep Going but Be Gentle

Even with the powerful growth that can happen in coaching, the pressure cooker we’re all living in—the broken systems, the financial stress, the world that feels terrifying—can make everything feel harder, and much of it is beyond our control. But it doesn’t feel hard because you’re weak; it feels hard because it is hard. In this episode, I talk about how remarkable it is that we keep going—keep showing up for ourselves and others—despite it all, and how to be gentler with ourselves in the process. Here’s what I cover:

• A powerful coaching conversation about self-doubt and resilience

• What it looks like to let more than one thing be true at once

• Why “every little bit counts” when everything feels impossible

• How to know when your body is asking for rest instead of pushing harder

• The power of staying connected to yourself when you can’t fix everything in the world 

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

Book a Free Consult

Transcript

00:58

I was having a conversation with a client today that turned out to be just such a beautiful moment between the two of us. I wanted to have the same conversation with you because she showed up to her session today really struggling with a lot of self-doubt and self-criticism. 

 01:17

She is high achieving. She has a full-time career that matters a lot to her. She has children who she loves and wants to show up for. She is married and wants to be a loving and attentive partner. And she is in perimenopause. 

 01:37

And today it just felt for her like it was kind of all coming down around her. And that's what we're working on, right? She's the type of woman who is keeping all the plates spinning. And a lot of the value that she feels in her life or why she is valuable is because she does keep everything going, right? 

 01:58

She can handle it. I'm going to call her Angie. And Angie gets a lot of like reward and recognition for being the person who can get multiple projects done at once. And she is smart and she is, people rely on her. 

 02:15

She comes through. And all of that today felt really, really heavy for her. And we ended up doing some coaching, but also just having a conversation where I said, Angie, one of the things that is hard about being a coach is that, you know, I'm trying to help you develop skills and learn how to do things differently, which I'm capable of doing, which you're showing up to do. 

 02:44

But very rarely do we sit back and name like all of the broken structures that you are trying to exist in and all of the pressures and all of the kind of outside influences that are happening right now. 

 03:03

Like we live in a unique time in the world when democracy in our country is on the decline. And that has an effect, right? We live in a time when the gap between people who have billions and billions of dollars and people who feel like they're not going to make it from week to week is just getting wider and wider. 

 03:27

And that is a dynamic that we live with that we can't really fix here in our coaching sessions. And so in some ways, I want to be honest that while I am able to help you develop new skills and learn how to handle your emotions better and speak up and set boundaries and know what you want and learn how to trust yourself. 

 03:49

Like all of those things are true and you can do them. There's also a certain amount of bullshit that's happening in the world, in your body, that we're not going to be able to control because it's bigger than us. 

 04:05

And I asked her, would it feel helpful if we just talked about the pressure cooker that you're living in that has nothing to do with you? And she said, oh, it just feels like I'm being the victim. I said, Angie, we are the victims in some ways, right? 

 04:23

Things are happening to us that we don't control. We can always choose a response. And that's what I think coaching is really good for is helping you choose a response. But that doesn't mean that the broken systems are not there. 

 04:38

And so we just went through and talked about what is it like to live in a country where you see scenes playing out on the news that you never thought would happen in your country. And the sadness and the worry, the way that friendships and relationships have been fractured and affected by politics, pandemics, by the way we parent differently, right? 

 05:05

We go to different churches. Like there's, there's fault lines in a lot of our relationships now that aren't for reasons that we fully control. I know that I am grieving relationships and friendships that are with people who are still alive. 

 05:24

They're not gone, but the relationship is different. There's a financial stress that so many of us are living with now that didn't used to exist, right? Everything costs more. Everything feels like it costs more. 

 05:40

Everything feels like it takes so much more effort. In a lot of ways, that low-level financial stress is constant and relentless. And while, yeah, we can work on some of the way you think about that and the way your parts are showing up in coaching, there's a very real financial stress that we're not going to be able to easily alleviate. 

 06:07

And that takes a lot of people doing more than we are able to do. Our elected officials have to act in our behalf instead of against us, against our best interests in a way that it seems like is happening all over the place. 

 06:25

The world sometimes can feel terrifying, war, hurt, anger, rage. The news can sometimes feel like a horror show that you can't look away from. Climate change, wars, rights being rolled back, political chaos. 

 06:46

It's all happening at once. And we're supposed to just go to work, make dinner, try to carve out something that feels normal in this. And I said, Angie, you're doing amazing. You are still getting up. 

 07:05

You are still showing up. You are still trying. I think one of the things that gets tricky for women is, do I rest or do I still show up? And so we talked about, is this your body showing you I need some rest? 

 07:22

Right? Being in perimenopause is really, really hard. Your body, it feels like betrayal. It feels like systems are not working anymore the way they worked once or were supposed to. And it can feel like there aren't ready solutions. 

 07:43

There isn't a pill that you can take that's going to make you feel better in 60 minutes like a headache. So many of us are suffering with a lot of health consequences that we don't yet have really good fixes for. 

 07:57

You're exhausted, but you can't sleep. You're hungry, but nothing sounds good. Your body feels like it's doing things against your will. I can't remember words. I walk into rooms and forget why. And I'm also still trying to figure it out. 

 08:12

And she said, I do feel like it's hard to know. Do I rest or do I show up? And that's when we talked about letting more than one thing be true at once. Like we're so exhausted. And there are reasons why we want to keep showing up. 

 08:33

That's one thing women know how to do is to keep showing up, especially when everything is falling apart. I'm not saying that you should, because if multiple things can be true at once, maybe you also need to rest. 

 08:49

We have done some incredible things as women, carried humans in our bodies, held families together while holding jobs down, doing things to become better caregivers, better partners, better mothers, all while going to the store and making sure there's something for dinner. 

 09:09

In some ways, we have been handling impossible things our entire lives. And the fact that that now feels hard, that's because it is hard. It doesn't have anything to do with being weak or being too emotional. 

 09:25

But if we can let more than one thing be true, what if we can show up and we can rest? What if we can keep going because there are things that matter to us and reasons why we want to keep going, but we don't have to keep everything going? 

 09:43

What if there are some things that we can let go of? Angie, in so many ways, is resilient in a way that she's not giving herself credit for. She's been through heartbreak and loss. She's been through transitions that terrified her. 

 10:03

She has had things happen that she thought would bury her and days when she was sure that she couldn't do it. And we acknowledge that together. And that she is still here. She's still trying. She's still loving people when it's not easy. 

 10:22

And she's still hoping, even when it feels foolish. She is still showing up, even when she is not sure what it's supposed to look like. And that's not weakness. What if you too are allowed to be tired and proud of yourself for showing up? 

 10:40

What if you're allowed to be exhausted by all of this and still recognize that you're doing something remarkable just by getting out of bed tomorrow? What if we can be scared about the state of the world today and still find moments of joy and beauty and silliness and connection and reverence and awe because those things exist together. 

 11:11

And I just want to clarify, when I say keep going, it doesn't mean be fine. It doesn't mean be okay or that everything, that you should look like everything is going well, that you should push down your feelings or smile through it or be positive and grateful. 

 11:30

I don't mean any of that. I don't mean do more, try harder or try better. I just mean don't abandon yourself in this process. Stay connected to the part of you that needs rest and give that part some rest. 

 11:46

Stay connected to the part of yourself that's feeling whatever it's feeling, exhausted, angry, panicked, scared. And just let yourself acknowledge that without judgment. And then decide just what is the next thing that I want to do? 

 12:05

I want to sit right here and take five minutes to myself. I want a drink of water. I want to text a friend. I want to read a poem. Rest when you need to rest. Rest is so essential. And it is a right. 

 12:23

You deserve to rest. You're doing so great. You're doing so much. I know it. Maybe you could ask for help. Maybe you could let someone love you in a way that you don't normally let them. Maybe you could stop trying to do it alone. 

 12:41

Those are all ways to give ourself some relief and rest. Back when blogging was the thing, I had this idea that I wanted to start a blog and I would start it and then I would stop it and then I would start it and I would stop it. 

 12:56

And I was like, this isn't a blog. This doesn't count because I'm not doing it consistently and I'm not growing, you know, my readership and blah, blah, blah. I don't know. This was probably around 2000, I don't know, five or six. 

 13:08

And I decided to change the name of my blog to Every Little Bit Counts because chronically I was telling myself that only the big things counted. And I wanted to cultivate the belief that every little bit counts. 

 13:26

Getting out of bed, that counts. Putting on real pants, gold star. Feeding yourself something that is nourishing, fantastic. If it's just cereal, that counts. Saying no to one thing that I really don't want to do, that counts. 

 13:48

When I text a friend and say, I'm really struggling today with the weight of how everything feels, that counts. Letting myself cry, that counts. Purposefully finding one little reason to be joyful or happy that counts. 

 14:08

I think for so many of us who are used to just carrying the load and Angie, all the plates spinning, we get into thinking like, it only counts if I keep all the plates spinning. That's not true. Any plate that you can keep spinning with all the shit show that is going on around us, that counts. 

 14:31

What I wanted, Angie, to reflect on and what I want each of you to know is that you're amazing. You are not doing this wrong. If you're tired, if you're grieving, that's right. You're not being dramatic. 

 14:52

You have a heart that cares about connection, about other people. If you're scared about money and the future and the world, that's not being weak. That's you seeing potential issues and being awake in the world, being awake in a world that is full of pain sometimes. 

 15:14

And you're doing amazing. You are whole and beautiful and perfect in a world that is broken. And you're still here. Trying to make it better. Trying to take good care of yourself and the people you love. 

 15:33

That's fucking extraordinary. And you're not alone. I know it feels lonely. I feel lonely. I think that's something kind of unique about the pain that we feel as we look out kind of in the suffering of the world. 

 15:48

It can feel really heavy and really lonely. And a lot of us would say that we're barely holding it together. And in a way, that's actually the point. We are all in this impossible moment together, doing our best with bodies that are changing, relationships that are shifting, a future that seems uncertain, a world that feels like it's losing its mind some days. 

 16:17

And we're doing it together. Keep going, but be gentle. This isn't something that gets to be done perfectly. There's not a perfect way to do this. It is not something that we are all going to figure out. 

 16:33

We are not going to heal these global systems of oppression and disenfranchisement. We are going to be able to make a difference in our circles with our votes, with the communities that we belong to. 

 16:50

That's where we can really be nurtured and show up to nurture. Don't lose sight of the fact that we all exist in these broken systems and we're still showing up. We are not going to be able to fix all of these systems, but we can stay connected to ourselves. 

 17:10

We can stay connected to our needs. We can have a nap or a glass of water or chocolate chip cookie or a conversation with a friend whenever we need. And we have to keep choosing ourselves that way so that we can continue to show up for other people that we care about. 

 17:30

And I know you're trying so hard. I know you're doing the best you can. I know you're showing up for the people that you love with the best parts of your effort. And it's not always the same. So take a deep breath. 

 17:47

Put your hand on your chest or your heart and say this with me. I am doing the best I can. And that's more than enough. I am showing up the best way I can. And it's going to be enough. Because it is. 

 18:05

We're going to be okay. Not perfect. Not all fixed. That's not the point. That's not what we've been going for. But we're going to be okay. And we're going to do it together. I have a lot of faith in individual people who want to create places of peace, places of beauty, places of rest, places of acceptance. 

 18:27

And we're going to do that together. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.

Episode 133 - What Avoiding Conflict Really Costs You

Conflict is one of the most paradoxical things I’ve encountered—in my own life and in the lives of my clients. For those of us who have been shaped by good girl conditioning, conflict most often feels like danger and disconnection. But when it happens within a container of safety and self-connection, it becomes a doorway to vulnerability, intimacy, and power. In this episode, I explore why we avoid conflict and share personal stories that demonstrate the freedom you can find when you say what needs to be said. Here’s what I cover:

• How the emotional burden of unspoken words lives in the body

• How cultural and gender conditioning teach people socialized as women to stay silent

• Two real-life examples of how I apply what I teach about conflict and communication

• Why self-love and compassion are essential for knowing when and how to speak up

• How practicing the skills to have hard conversations leads to freedom and connection

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

Book a Free Consult

Transcript

00:58

One of the most paradoxical things that I have dealt with in my own life and with clients, both in personal, private coaching and my group coaching program, is conflict. 

 01:12

Conflict is something that almost universally by myself and by good girls, we just, we don't want it. We don't want to run into it. We don't want to have anything to do with it. It feels bad. It feels dangerous. 

 01:25

It feels scary. We don't feel like we're good at it. We're worried about, you know, being too emotional and not being able to control our emotions in conflict. We're worried about not knowing what to say, feeling silly or stupid or dumb. 

 01:39

We're worried about potential danger, right? Not feeling safe. And all of those things are true. And when conflict is done well with people who are either willing to do conflict well with you or with whom situations of safety are present, conflict is actually the door to freedom, to vulnerability, to connection, to intimacy, and to power. 

 02:09

And it is such a paradox because it feels like disconnection. It feels like danger, but it's actually the pathway to deeper connection. It is transformational. It's just such a mind fuck because this thing that feels so potentially overwhelming, so potentially scary in certain circumstances can actually be so healing. 

 02:40

And I want to tell you about a couple of incidents of conflict that I have had where I've leaned in in two different ways. And actually, I'm going to do a two-part series. I'm going to talk about two conversations this episode and two conversations next episode that really have contributed in huge ways to me seeing myself differently and being able to show up in the world as a person who can have conflict in ways that feels healthy and that gets me more of what I want and need. 

 03:16

And at the very least, allows me to say what needs to be said. So many of the women that I talk with, that DM me, that I meet through coaching, myself included, we carry the burden of all of these things that we are not able to say. 

 03:33

And when something is not said, the effect of that, the emotion, the burden, the load of that lives in the body. And so it is no wonder that we feel this press of resentment or anxiety or grief or rage or sadness or like we're not heard and we're not seen. 

 03:54

A lot of that is because there are conversations that we don't know how to say. There are words, there are opinions, there are needs, there are wants that we have silenced and it creates a real weight. 

 04:10

The emotions accumulate and then those feelings like take up residency in our bodies and they create distance from ourselves and from others. And another part of the paradox is that we're staying silent to avoid discomfort, but that silence itself becomes another layer of discomfort that we just live with. 

 04:34

I can't tell a story without giving it some framing, right? Because there is a really good reason. There are lots of really good reasons why cultural and gender conditioning teaches us to stay silent. 

 04:48

It's the good girl programming. Don't make waves. Keep the peace. Be nice. Don't be too much, too loud, too needy, too dramatic, too emotional, too opinionated. And the fact that we have been given millions and millions of those little micro messages our whole lives is why it's hard to say what needs to be said. 

 05:09

You can be labeled as difficult or bitchy and bossy and dramatic. And all of that messaging is real. When you take up space, you're selfish or aggressive. It's real. And what happens is that women are taught that our voices are less valuable, less authoritative, and there is an expectation that we defer to expertise outside of us, usually men. 

 05:40

We're socialized to smooth over conflict, to manage everybody else's comfort. And there's a real cost of being likable versus being honest. And so many of us have run into that, or we have seen other women run into that and pay the price for that. 

 05:58

And so it serves as another mechanism to keep us in our place. Maybe you can remember early experiences where you were told that you're overreacting. And so your feelings weren't valid, or your perceptions were dismissed or questioned or even made fun of. 

 06:19

Maybe you learned that expressing needs led to punishment or people that you loved and wanted to be connected to would withdraw from you or that you were labeled ungrateful. All of that really, really matters. 

 06:34

I received a lot of that messaging as well. And so it is kind of in the context of all of that messaging that I want to share these stories. One of the things that I always want to be is doing this same work right alongside you. 

 06:49

It's important to me to, in the words of one of my former mentors, to be an example of what is possible and to constantly be testing out what I am teaching on myself. And these two stories are good examples of that. 

 07:07

And they're examples of what I want for each of you. So both of these randomly happened at the gym. I go to a rec center. It's more of like a, I'm the younger crowd. Let's just, let's just put it that way. 

 07:22

And so there's a lot of older people there. And I was using a machine with an attachment, one of the cable machines at the gym, and a much older, much larger man, this guy's probably, I don't know, over six feet tall, easily 250 plus pounds, approached me. 

 07:40

I was listening to music. I didn't see him until he was right in my peripheral vision. It startled me. And he was waving a different attachment at me. And he said, you're doing it wrong. You're supposed to be using this. 

 07:55

And he was holding up, you know, the attachment that he thought I should be using. And I had a fawn response. I smiled. I started like laughing and deflecting. And I said, oh, you know, you startled me. 

 08:16

What? Tell me what you said. I didn't hear you. And so I invited him to tell me again. And so he repeated, you know, you're doing it wrong. This is what you should be doing. And when you do it this way, you know, this could happen. 

 08:28

And then I felt a little bit of anger and irritation. And so I smiled and said, you know what? I'm comfortable with how I'm using this. I've seen other people use it this way. And so I'm just going to keep doing it this way. 

 08:41

And then I put my AirPod back in and got back to my workout, but my heart was pounding. I was sweaty for more reasons, you know, I was working out, but I was also just really startled. And I noticed my nervous system response. 

 08:56

I noticed the instant fawn response that I didn't address the interruption, right? Or the assumption that he could come over and correct me. And so as I kind of started to calm down, the first thing that I did was to affirm to myself, of course you did that. 

 09:18

Of course you fawned. This guy like totally startled you, right? He came up. You didn't see him until he was right there. I was so gentle with that fond response, where in the past, I would have been really frustrated with myself. 

 09:34

I would have victim shamed and blamed myself. But I was recognizing that that startle, fond response was so normal and that it wasn't my fault and that what had happened to me was absolutely normal. And then I told myself, listen, if we want to talk about how to address what you're frustrated with, right, his input, we can do that. 

 10:01

But I just, I lathered myself up in so much self-love and gentleness and really affirming for myself that it made sense that I had responded that way. And that is something that I have worked really hard to develop, to not go to frustration and self-condemnation. 

 10:21

And so that night, as I was thinking about it, I just took the time to decide, do I want to address this? Do I want to have a conversation with this guy about the fact that his input and feedback was not asked for and so it wasn't welcome? 

 10:37

And I used the process that I have taught about finding the words and practicing saying them so that I could also have practice, not just with getting the words out, but with the feeling that I was going to have. 

 10:54

Because normal nervous system responses when you're talking to a man who is twice your size is to be anxious, possibly a little afraid and scared. But I was willing to feel that because I had decided, number one, that I was going to do it in a way that felt safe to me in a public place in the gym. 

 11:16

That is a really important consideration. And I'm going to talk more about that in just a little bit. But I had decided that I wanted to address it, that I was safe addressing it, that I could find the words, and that I could manage the feeling okay. 

 11:31

And so all of that in place, I actually practiced a little script that I wrote out. And so I decided that the next time I saw him, whenever that was, I was going to have this follow-up conversation. The next morning, as the universe would have it, we were walking into the gym at the same time. 

 11:52

And so I went up beside him and I said, hey, I'd like to address our interaction yesterday. Unless your feedback is asked for, it is not welcome and it is not appropriate to approach me with correction or with advice that I haven't asked for. 

 12:09

And I had planned to leave the conversation there and just kind of, you know, go on my way. He started, of course, well, you, you know, and well, I just had to. And so I continued the conversation and said, and furthermore, one of the things that is clear to me is that you're not actually trying to solve a problem. 

 12:29

Because if you really thought that that machine being used in that way was really going to cause a problem, you would have talked with the people here at the rec center about posting a sign, or you would be up there telling everyone who uses the machine that way, you know, that there was a problem with it. 

 12:48

But I can tell you're not actually trying to solve a problem. You're just looking for someone to correct. And that someone is not going to be me. And then I decided to turn and walk away. And I, my heart was pounding. 

 13:02

My nervous system was up, right? Heart pounding, blood pumping, all of the things that happen in some difficult conversations. But I felt so good. I felt really good about what I said. And I felt really good about the way that I was able to stay with my body. 

 13:23

I went to the bathroom after that. I calmed myself down. I showered myself with a bunch more love and praise that I had handled it in a way that I was really proud of. And then I went back to working out. 

 13:37

Story number two, also at the gym. In order for this story to make sense, there is a man who is in charge of every local LDS Mormon congregation, and he is known as the bishop. He is a lay minister. What that means, he doesn't, you know, he could be an accountant Monday through Friday, and then on Sunday, he is the spiritual leader, right, of this congregation, which is known as a ward. 

 14:05

The bishop really oversees all aspects of ward life, right? He interviews the members to see whether or not they're keeping all the rules so that they can go to the temple or participate in, you know, the different aspects of religious life. 

 14:22

He is really in charge of every single aspect of religious community and participation and discipline. And so in a lot of ways, I grew up with the idea that the bishop is this literal representative of God in that congregation, somebody who can receive inspiration on behalf of the members. 

 14:46

And for men and women, his approval can directly affect whether or not I'm considered worthy, whether or not I serve in different positions and have different responsibilities. And for a woman who is raised in that system, especially a good girl like me, the bishop represents like divinely sanctioned authority whose approval really equates to God's approval. 

 15:18

So that is the context for this next story. And it also happened at the gym. So I went to the gym in the middle of the afternoon, which I never, ever do. I say that because I really believe that when you are ready to work on something, the universe gives you opportunities. 

 15:38

And just like I just happened to be walking in the gym at the same time as the big guy who interrupted me, I was at the gym at three o'clock in the afternoon because I had had some cancellations in my schedule. 

 15:51

And I saw my bishop, my old bishop from the time when Dan, my husband, was leaving the church. And this bishop and I have kind of a painful history. There were some things that he participated in, that he did directly to my family, to my children, that he did directly to people that I care about, including me, that interactions that I had with him that felt really problematic. 

 16:21

I used to call him the nicest asshole I knew because he had this way of being really nice-ish, like smile on his face. But a lot of the things that happened were really painful. And I have carried that. 

 16:38

I, from time to time, would see his wife in the morning when I usually go. And I would just have this like, ugh, feeling. I fantasized for a time about writing him this anonymous letter where I kind of laid out all of my grievances and all of the hurt in a way that, you know, was really an attempt to not carry it all myself, but I never did that. 

 17:04

And there he is at three o'clock in the afternoon. And I noticed him see me. And I thought, shit, I don't know if I want to talk to this guy. And right as he was coming over, I got a phone call, which gave me a minute to collect myself. 

 17:23

After the few minutes of speaking on the phone, I pretended to continue the conversation on the phone because I needed a minute. I needed a pause, right? I teach that the pause is one of the most important things we can give ourselves to calm our nervous systems, to kind of come back to ourselves and make a decision about what we want to do. 

 17:43

And I knew in that moment, I really had three options. I said to myself, hey, Sara, if you want, you can totally leave. You can just walk right out, not even talk to him, pretend like this never happened and go home. 

 17:58

Number two, your option is, if he comes over to you, you can have a fake, pleasant conversation. You can pretend like everything's fine. You can smile. You can nod your head and just kind of bluff your way, pretend your way, perform your way through the nice conversation, air quotes around nice. 

 18:18

Or number three, you could have an honest conversation and you could ask him if he has a moment for some honest conversation. And I thought about that and I gave myself enough time to decide, okay, if I were to choose that, how would I feel? 

 18:36

Well, I would probably feel nervous and maybe a little emotional. Could you handle that? Yeah, I think I could handle that. What if he got mad? How would you handle that? Well, I would just turn around and leave. 

 18:47

Okay. So I knew that I could handle each of those conversations. And I decided that if he came over to me, I would go for option number three. So when he came over and initiated a conversation, I said, hey, do you have a moment for some honest conversation? 

 19:09

And he said, yes. And I said, even if it feels a little bit prickly in the beginning. And he said, yes. And so we kind of walked off to the side and I told him I laid out each hurtful incident clearly. 

 19:27

I didn't pull any punches. And I noticed some emotion coming up, some sadness and some hurt that is still in my body from the time that those things happened. And I said to him, you'll notice some emotion, some hurt that I still feel, because those things happened at a time when my family needed graciousness and generosity and care and grace. 

 19:55

And I didn't feel like we found it with you in particular. And I've carried that for a long time. And then I also said, the other thing that I can also acknowledge is that I believe that you were doing the best that you knew how to do at the time, that there were probably some other things going on for you that I wasn't aware of. 

 20:20

And so I can hold both of those things, that you hurt my family deeply, and that you were probably doing the best you could. And then I stopped talking. And I saw him try to find some words and some emotion come up for him. 

 20:38

And he acknowledged that he wishes he would have treated our family with more compassion, that he was really struggling to do his job with the kind of compassion that now he wishes he had been able to do. 

 20:54

And I'm not going to go into the details of everything we talked about, but it was a lovely conversation that really cleared the air and kind of cleared that space between us. And I walked out of that gym feeling like I was flying. 

 21:15

When I really tried to ask myself, okay, what are you feeling that feels so amazing right now? It was freedom. It was freedom. And it was that type of like alignment and congruity and integrity with myself that I don't feel all the time, but I'm feeling more and more. 

 21:38

And I'm telling these stories because I know that we all struggle with having these kinds of conversations. And we want to be able to be honest without letting really big emotions overtake the conversation and kind of overpower us, that we have patterns of avoiding conversation because we are afraid of getting too angry or crying or breaking down. 

 22:06

And that it is a skill to hold those emotions and let them be present without being consumed by them. I'm not saying that you need to always control your emotions and conversations. I think some of the most powerful moments of conversation can be when we let those feelings really take center stage and we let people see our emotions. 

 22:32

But I also know that sometimes that doesn't serve the conversation or the outcome that we want. And so I'm sharing these conversations that I have had because it felt like freedom for me. I was no longer carrying his actions for him and the emotions of those feelings, right? 

 22:53

The resentment, the hurt, and that unspoken pain was gone because I had shared it with the other person who was in that situation with me. There was also freedom from the story that I had told myself that I was bad at having these kind of conversations or that my emotions would take over and that that was a good reason for not having them. 

 23:19

There was also freedom from the fear of my own emotions that they were somehow bad or that the presence of them would mean that I couldn't be honest in conversation. There was freedom from being silent, realizing that speaking up didn't destroy the possibility of connection that it actually created it. 

 23:42

Because even though I don't think this man and I are going to have, you know, a long friendship, I could now see him across the room and wave, say hi, acknowledge him, and totally mean it. There is a connection now that didn't exist before then. 

 24:00

And I'm no longer held hostage by the what if, what if I run into him, what if I see him, which I have had before with people. There's also the freedom from fearing physical sensations, right? That the clenching in my chest that used to happen around difficult conversations. 

 24:21

The freedom from performing, from having to perform niceness that so many of us are stuck in. And I think the deepest freedom is from the connection that I now have to myself, trusting, knowing that I can handle hard things. 

 24:42

I can handle hard conversations. So a couple of things I want you to remember. This doesn't mean you always have the hard conversation, right? There are actual safety concerns. It's also important to ask yourself, do I want to spend the time doing this? 

 25:00

Do I want to spend the emotional energy doing this? Is this a relationship that has the capacity for this kind of honesty? If the answer to those questions is no, then it's no. This is not a prescription. 

 25:16

I think you need to ask yourself, is this person capable of hearing me? And if they don't, am I okay with that? What am I hoping to get out of this conversation? I was hoping to say what I needed to say, and I felt pretty sure that I could handle whatever happened. 

 25:33

But this process is very personal. You get to decide when to speak and when to stay silent because both can actually be acts of self-respect and power. I share because so many of us want less anxiety, less resentment, deeper connection, more trust, more vulnerability, more intimacy, and the feeling of freedom. 

 26:01

And that is something that can be developed by practicing skills. If you are tired of carrying the weight of unsaid things, if you want to know what it feels like to walk out of a hard conversation feeling lighter and freer instead of heavier, if you're ready to stop abandoning yourself in the name of keeping the peace, there are some things you can do to start small. 

 26:25

You can notice what you are not saying and get curious about why. Always practice with lower stakes situations first. And then you can get some support. I would love to support you. I would love to teach you the skills, to show you how to manage your beautiful nervous system and to lather and slather yourself up and down with love and with care in a way that actually makes these conversations more accessible for you. 

 26:56

If this feels like something that you are ready for, you can go to my website, Sarafisk.coach, and schedule a call with me because I want everyone to feel this type of freedom. I want you to remember speaking up isn't about being brave all of the time. 

 27:13

It's about building a relationship with your own body, your own voice, your own words, and then sometimes slowly, sometimes scared, but truthfully, finding ways to speak up. And that feeling of walking out lighter and freer, more connected, more deeply honest to yourself is something that is available to everyone. 

 27:39

And I would love if you would let me know if this story resonated with you or if there's something I can do to help you start to build that freedom in your own life. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week. 

Episode 132 - How Over-Apologizing Hurts You and How to Stop

Because every one of us has been raised with the good girl rules—to be nice, agreeable, and never rock the boat—almost every woman I work with has the habit of over-apologizing. You’re capable, you’re accomplished, and you work hard, yet “sorry” slips out at the beginning of every sentence. In this episode, we explore how over-apologizing hurts you and how to practice a different way of showing up. Here’s what I cover:

• How over-apologizing lowers your authority in other people's eyes and trains your own brain to see yourself as less valuable

• Why it’s important to consider what you’re trying to accomplish with your apology

• Why pausing before you speak is the foundation for breaking your over-apologizing habit

• The power you’ll reclaim when you replace “I’m sorry” with “thank you”

• Why increasing your capacity for discomfort is key to stopping over-apologizing

• A practical homework assignment to complete your own apology audit



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Transcript

00:58

Because every single one of us have been raised with the good girl rules and we know exactly what is expected of us to be nice, to be kind, to never rock the boat, to not make people feel uncomfortable, to always be the one who defers or accommodates or acquiesces. 

 01:15

Every single woman that I work with has the habit of over-apologizing, and it's not your fault. What I want to talk about in this episode is how it hurts you and how to stop. Because by far and away, I think apologies feel like throwaways, right? 

 01:33

Oh, I'm sorry. My fault, my bad. They feel like they're not very important. But as I have worked now with hundreds of women and looked at this habit in myself and in the women that I coach, it actually is a real problem for a couple of reasons that I want to point out. 

 01:52

And I want to give you some help on how you might look at this habit in yourself and make some different decisions. I was working with a client last week. She had worked almost 60 hours to present some quarterly results in a big meeting with shareholders and with the C-suite of the company where she was working. 

 02:12

And inadvertently, she started her presentation with, sorry, I know everyone is busy. And she could feel in her body that she had positioned herself as an interruption rather than a valued contributor. 

 02:29

I have done this myself. You know, I want to talk to my husband about something that's important. And I have heard myself say like, hey, I hate to bring this up. I'm sorry. And all of a sudden I'm apologizing for having needs, having wanting to have a conversation about something that's important. 

 02:47

And so if you've caught yourself doing this, saying sorry before you speak or before you ask, before you exist, then I really hope that this episode is going to give you some ideas to think about and some ways to change how you show up. 

 03:01

Because here is what I know. You're capable. You're accomplished. You're working incredibly hard. You are trying to make relationships valuable and deep and vulnerable in home and with people that you care about. 

 03:15

And in your professional life, you are trying to show that you have excellent work. And the problem is that when we apologize, we unconsciously message that the way we are is not okay, that being good at what you do somehow requires you make yourself smaller to make other people comfortable with your excellence. 

 03:42

And I really want to take a hard look at that. What is really happening when you apologize is that you are putting yourself in what is called a one down position. Everyone else is above you. You have some powerlessness and some victim-in-ness, right, in that one down position because you're signaling, I was wrong or I'm less than even when you're not. 

 04:08

And this does two things simultaneously. Number one, it lowers your authority in other people's eyes. And it trains you, your own brain, to see yourself as needing an apology, less than credible, less valuable, less deserving of space. 

 04:27

For high achievers, this is particularly insidious because you're often apologizing for the very things that make you valuable. Your standards, your attention to detail, your thoroughness, your expectation of excellence, the internal standard that you hold yourself and people who work for you and with you too. 

 04:49

Think about it. When was the last time that you said maybe something like, I'm sorry for the long email, when that email contained crucial information, or sorry to be picky when you were actually ensuring quality, or sorry to push back on this when you were trying to point out something that would prevent a costly mistake at work. 

 05:11

You're apologizing for doing your job well. There are parallels to that in home relationships as well. When you say sorry for bringing something up that needs to be addressed that is weakening family ties, when you want to address behavior that is problematic in the home and you apologize, it makes it seem like what you want to say isn't really valuable and isn't really important for other people to listen to. 

 05:42

I have found that this is more of a reflex rather than choice for most women. There's no pause. There's no assessment. It's really just a knee-jerk habit that doesn't actually ask the question, was harm actually caused here? 

 05:57

Because that's what apologies are for, right? Apologies matter when they are about repairing harm. But when it's a knee-jerk reaction, we don't give ourselves the chance to even reflect on what is really needed in this moment. 

 06:13

Do I need to acknowledge some awkwardness? Do I need to bring attention to a different dynamic? And when I throw out an apology, when I haven't caused harm, what am I trying to accomplish with that? That's the first question I want you to think about. 

 06:32

When you apologize as a knee-jerk reaction, what are you really trying to accomplish? I have some insights on that, and I'm going to share those in a minute, but I want you to just think about that for a second, because most of the time, the answer is nothing was wrong. 

 06:48

There was no harm done and no apology was needed. And so if I'm apologizing in a knee-jerk way, what am I trying to do? Where did I learn that? Where was I taught or given the programming that I should be the one to put myself in this one-down position? 

 07:06

And for what purpose? There are some real reasons why over-apologizing is actually harmful. We've talked about a couple. First, it erodes your confidence and influence, right? When you're constantly apologizing, you look less secure and less competent, even when you are neither of those things. 

 07:26

Other people might start to unconsciously question your judgment before you offer it because you've already apologized for it, giving it the air of less than valuable, less than real. We talked about the fact of how it trains your own brain to see yourself that way. 

 07:45

There's another reason, though. It weakens an apology. When sorry is like verbal filler, it loses all of its power. When you actually need to take responsibility for something that matters, if apology is just kind of the way that you make everything okay, it doesn't have the weight that it should. 

 08:07

You've devalued the currency, let's say, of your apology by offering it so often and with so little thought. Another reason why apologizing is actually harmful is because it increases self-blame and anxiety. 

 08:25

You're conditioning yourself to assume responsibility for everything that goes wrong, even things outside of your control. Your nervous system starts to treat every interaction as something you need to fix, you need to manage, or you need to smooth over. 

 08:43

I remember clearly a man bumped into me with his shopping cart in the middle of an aisle, and I apologize, and I felt a little rush of guilt or shame. Was I in his way? Was I doing something wrong? I wasn't. 

 08:59

I was just getting my bag of chips, right? He hit me. But the self-blame and anxiety that we feel as chronic over-apologizers is a real thing that we carry with us in the world, and it keeps us small. 

 09:18

Apologizing becomes a way of shrinking into a more palatable version of yourself. That's what I was doing in the aisle with my shopping cart, like shrinking, like literally trying to get out of his way, instead of widening my capacity to hold a moment of silence or awkwardness where I don't say anything to make it better. 

 09:46

So many times, what I'm working on with clients is how to increase their capacity for discomfort. Offering knee-jerk apologizing instantly shrinks you from something that's taking up space to something that is shrinking to try to get out of other people's way. 

 10:06

It's really teaching people to question your authority and your right to take up space. Oftentimes in the workplace, it's like this subconscious tax you are paying for being good at what you do, especially if you're a woman. 

 10:26

You're apologizing to make yourself palatable and to make yourself okay for those around you. And there's one other thing that I don't think gets talked about very much. Over apologizing creates resentment, both in you and your relationships. 

 10:45

Because when you're constantly making yourself small and convenient for everyone, there is a part of you that's keeping score. For me, in my mind, it sounds like this. I am trying so hard not to be a burden here. 

 10:59

Why aren't you doing the same thing? I apologize for everything. Why don't you? I try to make myself palatable and easy to be around and likable. Why aren't you? And that resentment can build up in romantic and personal relationships, in work relationships, and just kind of the way we move about the world in general. 

 11:22

I remember on a very recent trip to Costco, I just had this like anger as I was trying, you know, maneuvering my cart, trying to get my stuff. And what I was thinking was that same thing. I am trying so hard to just be good and nice and get out of people's way. 

 11:40

Why aren't you? At all the people who were leaving their carts in the middle of the aisle to go get their sample. It just felt, I was so angry. And it was all from this way of thinking of, listen, I try to keep myself small and nice for everybody. 

 11:57

Why aren't you? And so if you feel some of that, this might be where it's coming from. That resentment builds. And it can be confusing because you're the one choosing to apologize. And yet I'm also, well, I guess I shouldn't say me, I'm the one choosing to apologize sometimes. 

 12:16

And I'm also angry that other people aren't matching my level of self-diminishment, making myself convenient for other people. It just becomes a losing game. Because here's what most people don't realize. 

 12:34

Over-apologizing doesn't make you easier to love. Over-apologizing does not make you easier to work with. And there's a chance it's actually making you harder to be close to, exhausting even. Because when you apologize for, let's say, asking your partner to do their share of household responsibilities, or you preface every request to a friend or to a coworker with, sorry to bother you, or apologizing before you give feedback to your team, 

 13:10

which is your job. You're making other people manage your emotions before they can respond to your actual need or engage with your actual points. Think about it. When you say, hey, I'm so sorry, that is going to elicit a response in the other person where they either have to dismiss your apology or manage it for you. 

 13:36

Oh, no, no, no, no, it's okay. It's okay. Yeah, tell me what, what do you need to talk about? And the very thing that we're doing to try and be quote unquote low maintenance creates high maintenance. 

 13:48

It creates this whole kind of thing that we have to work through before we can get to the actual issue. So if over-apologizing is harmful, why do we keep doing it? Here's where I want you to have a lot of compassion and understanding for yourself. 

 14:09

There is a nervous system component. For many people, pleasers, apologizing is a fawn response, F-A-W-N, Fawn. It's a survival strategy that we learned to keep safe. If I apologize first, maybe I won't be rejected. 

 14:30

Maybe I won't be criticized. Maybe I won't be abandoned. There is something inside of us that uses apologizing to be safe or to try and maintain connection. Somewhere along the line, we learned that if I don't have needs or if I can make myself small and palatable, then I will have a place. 

 14:50

There is a real nervous system component. Second, there's learned conditioning. Many of us, as I mentioned in the beginning, learned that the good girls, they're always agreeable. They never cause discomfort. 

 15:05

They don't take up too much space. And apologizing becomes the way we signal, I'm not too much. I'm not a threat. I'm safe to be around. I will make myself small so that the discomfort is either all centered on me and so that you don't have to deal with any discomfort. 

 15:24

That learned conditioning is real and it's not something that we chose. And so as you start to see it in yourself or become more aware of it, I want you to be really gentle and really tender with yourself. 

 15:38

Third, there might even be what I could call some strategic thinking or what we might think is strategic. High achievers, many of them have learned that apologizing makes their excellence more palatable. 

 15:54

They have learned you can be smart, you can be capable, and you can be successful as long as you make other people comfortable with it, as long as you make it easy for others to be around your competence. 

 16:07

And they do that by apologizing, by diminishing their contributions, their thinking. But I think here's something that needs to be understood. It's not actually strategic. It is self-sabotage that is dressed up as politeness. 

 16:25

Let me ask you something. How many times in your relationships at work, at home, everywhere else, have you brought up a legitimate concern and then ended up apologizing for bringing it up? It might sound like, sorry, I know you're tired and doing a lot, but I'd like to talk about how the household responsibilities are divided. 

 16:51

Or, I'm sorry to be so sensitive, but can we talk about what you said earlier? Or, listen, I'm really sorry that I, you know, I know we're all really busy, but I feel like we need to talk about the numbers that such and such department is producing. 

 17:08

You're apologizing for having standards, for having needs, for having feelings. And that really contributes to the one down position that most people pleasers feel like they are in all the time that they try to get out of by pleasing. 

 17:28

It also teaches everyone around you that your needs are an imposition, that your feelings are inconvenient, that you're the problem, that your standard of doing things is somehow bad or wrong. It is really common for the women I work with to want to address something in one of their relationships and to end up apologizing for it. 

 17:51

Okay, so how do we actually stop? I'm a big fan of the pause. You have heard it in other episodes. This is the foundation. Ideally, we pause before we apologize. Before the word leaves your mouth, ask yourself, did I actually do something wrong? 

 18:13

Is this situation calling for an apology? Like, is there something to repair here? Do I need something else like empathy or understanding? And third question, what would happen if I just said nothing? 

 18:32

The last one is crucial. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is just allow silence. Just let that moment be what it is without rushing in to fix it with an apology. Now, if you've already apologized, I want you to do this work even after it's happened. 

 18:54

So let's go back to me in the grocery store. The man hits my back of my legs with his cart. And I say, oh, sorry. Now, it's already happened. The words already left my mouth. But I need to go back and take myself through these questions. 

 19:08

Number one, did I actually do something wrong? No. Number two, what is this situation actually calling for? You know what? It was just a human interaction. And number three, what would happen if I just said nothing? 

 19:25

That's where a little bit of discomfort comes up. Because if I can imagine it without the apology, he hits my legs with the back of his cart. I notice him. And then I just say nothing. That is where your capacity for discomfort increases. 

 19:43

Because when you choose to not rush in and make it better, if I were to have chosen to not rush in and make that situation better for him, we would both just get to stand there in some silence and get to decide what we do without me trying to smooth it over. 

 20:05

So sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is just allow some silence, to just let it be what it is, awkward, whatever, without trying to smooth it over. Step number two, I want you to think about some alternatives. 

 20:21

Instead of saying, sorry, I'm late, try, thank you so much for waiting. Instead of, hey, I'm sorry to bother you, try, do you have a moment? Instead of saying, you know, I'm sorry for the long email or for having so much to say, try. 

 20:42

I really value being thorough or I want to be thorough here. Instead of saying, you know what, I'm sorry, I have a question. Try. I have a follow-up question. And I want you to notice how these alternatives shift the energy from you being in the wrong to you just acknowledging someone else's patience, someone else's time. 

 21:08

Because I do believe that it is a good idea in relationships that we care about to acknowledge when people wait for us, when people are spending time on us, right? There's nothing wrong with that. But our discomfort with that, the way we have been programmed to be uncomfortable is what leads to the apology. 

 21:27

And so I want you to just notice the energy shift away from there's something wrong with me, I shouldn't be saying this, I'm a bother, to just the acknowledgement of what the situation really is, whether it's somebody else's patience with you, the time they're spending with you, or the fact that you're both working to create something here together. 

 21:51

So if you want to make it really simple, I want you to just try replacing every sorry with thank you. And I want you to watch what happens. So, hey, thanks for your patience. Thanks for the feedback. 

 22:05

Thank you for making time for this. It's a small change, but it's going to have a big impact. One of the places where it has massive impact is building your tolerance for discomfort. Most of my clients, heck, I'm going to say all of them, me included, we need to increase our capacity to hold discomfort. 

 22:29

That's what this is really about. We please to diminish our own discomfort or our perception of other people's discomfort. And we need to increase our capacity to let other people feel their feelings and for us to not run from our own feelings. 

 22:49

When we stop apologizing, when we stop asking for permission, when we stop overexplaining, we increase our discomfort tolerance. And that is a hugely rewarding skill. When we can allow silence, when we can allow disagreement, when we can say things like, I know this might be hard for you to hear, instead of, I'm so sorry. 

 23:16

When we can say, I totally understand that you feel that way, instead of, I'm so sorry. When we can say, you know what, your thinking on that makes a lot of sense to me, even though we have a difference of opinion. 

 23:32

Instead of, I'm so sorry, right? Those phrases allow us to hold our ground without apologizing for it. And they acknowledge the other person without diminishing ourselves, without putting ourselves in that one down position. 

 23:49

They create space for discomfort without making you responsible for eliminating it or making it better. I'm going to say that again. They create space for discomfort without making you responsible for eliminating it or making it better. 

 24:09

Because that's the tension that people pleasers live with, right? If there's discomfort, it's my job to fix it. If somebody's mad, I've got to do something about that. Here's the truth. When you stop reflexively apologizing, there will be some discomfort. 

 24:29

You're going to feel it. Others might feel it. And that's okay. Discomfort, especially when it's acknowledged, that makes it okay. It makes it normal. And discomfort isn't damage. That's one of the things that we need to think and hold in our hearts. 

 24:52

Other people being uncomfortable doesn't mean that there is damage to relationships. Discomfort is normal. Discomfort is a normal part of human interactions. And our job isn't to make everyone comfortable all the time. 

 25:08

Our job is to show up with integrity, to communicate clearly, and to take responsibility when we have actually caused harm. So a couple of things. I gave you some phrases to try out, right? I also want to give you a little bit of homework. 

 25:28

For the next 48 hours, just keep a note in your phone or somewhere. And every time you say sorry, I want you to write it down along with what you were apologizing for. And at the end of 48 hours, I want you to categorize them. 

 25:45

How many were for actual mistakes that you made? Okay, those that might be where you, you know, an apology is necessary or even needed. Number two, how many times did you apologize just for having needs or opinions? 

 26:03

How many times were you apologizing for other people's mistakes or inconveniences? And how many of the apologies were just verbal filler? Most women, myself included, are really surprised to discover, I'm going to guess, 80 to 90% of the apologies fall into those last three categories. 

 26:26

Apologizing for having needs and opinions, apologizing to make everybody comfortable with mistakes or inconveniences that aren't even yours to own, or just verbal filler. Once you see your pattern, you can start interrupting it. 

 26:41

Once you see how you can increase your capacity by just letting the silence be what it is, it gives it a purpose. And oftentimes it's so valuable that we're more willing to do it. So save the apologies for when they really matter, for when you've truly caused harm, when you've hurt someone, made a genuine mistake, or done something else. 

 27:06

That's when I'm sorry has weight and integrity. And when you reserve your apologies for real situations that need repair, your apologies become powerful again. That's when they mean something and people take them seriously. 

 27:23

Last, I know what you're thinking. If I stop apologizing, are people going to think I'm mean, I'm arrogant, or I'm difficult? Here's the truth. The people who matter, the ones who respect competence and directness, will actually find you more credible and not less. 

 27:44

They will trust you more because you're not undermining your own authority and requiring them to address your apologies by saying, no, no, no, it's okay. The people who want you to be small and apologetic, yeah, they're not going to like it that you don't apologize anymore. 

 28:03

They're not your people. And they're trying to continue your habit of shrinking yourself to keep them comfortable. And you're going to have to decide what to do about those people because they're not your people. 

 28:18

They want you small and they want you palatable. There is a massive difference between being collaborative, being open, and being apologetic. You can still be warm and kind and considerate without constantly positioning yourself as wrong or less than. 

 28:40

In fact, here's what I have found. When you stop over apologizing, you actually become easier to work with and to be close to because people can take you at your word. They can respond to the actual content of your requests, of your insight, and they can trust that when you do apologize, it actually means something. 

 29:07

Look, this is really important work. These throwaway apologies, they're really problematic. And I'm not advocating for you to completely erase the word sorry from your vocabulary. That's not the goal. 

 29:21

The goal is to use it with intention, to save it for moments when it matters, when repair is needed. I want you to stop using it as a shield, a filler, or a way to make yourself smaller. You don't need to do that. 

 29:37

Your excellence, the way that you perform and show up for people, there's no need to apologize for that. Save your sorries for when they really matter. I just want you to notice how many times you say sorry. 

 29:51

Notice the ones that are necessary and the ones that are just habitual. Notice how it feels in your body right before or after you apologize. That anxiousness, that worry that you're taking up too much space, that resentment of like, why aren't other people also apologizing the way I constantly am? 

 30:09

That's what we want to get rid of. Practice the pause. Practice the alternative phrases. Practice allowing the discomfort, the awkward silence. Because learning to stop reflexive apologizing is one of the most powerful ways that people pleasers reclaim their power, their confidence, and their presence. 

 30:32

And you deserve to take up space without apologizing for it. That's it. I would love to hear what you discover as you do your apology audit. What are you apologizing for? Send me a DM. I love feedback. 

 30:46

Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.

Episode 131 - End Emotional Outsourcing with Béa Albina

When you stop outsourcing your safety, belonging, and worth, you discover the freedom of authenticity–of knowing who you are and what you want. In this episode, I speak with Béa Albina about her new book, End Emotional Outsourcing: How to Overcome Your Codependent, Perfectionist, and People-Pleasing Habits. You’ll hear how this book not only outlines a clear path to end this painful way of living, but reframes emotional outsourcing in powerful new ways. Here’s what we cover:

• The definition of emotional outsourcing and how it shows up in our relationships, careers, and decision-making

• Why emotional outsourcing is a brilliant survival strategy, not a personality flaw

• The truth about authenticity and why it’s often the cost of people-pleasing and perfectionism

• How emotional outsourcing lives in the nervous system and why healing has to include the body

• Béa’s five-part process for rebuilding self-trust through small, “kitten-sized” steps

Beatriz (Béa) Victoria Albina, NP, MPH, SEP (she/her) is a UCSF-trained Family Nurse Practitioner, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, Master Certified Somatic Life Coach, author of the forthcoming "End Emotional Outsourcing: a Guide to Overcoming Codependent, Perfectionist and People Pleasing Habits" ( Sept 30, Hachette Balance) and Breathwork Meditation Guide with a passion for helping humans socialized as women to reconnect with their bodies, regulate their nervous systems and rewire their minds, so they can break free from codependency, perfectionism and people pleasing and reclaim their joy.

Find Béa here:

https://beatrizalbina.com/book/

https://www.instagram.com/beatrizvictoriaalbinanp/

https://www.facebook.com/beatrizvictoriaalbinanp

https://beatrizalbina.com/podcast/

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

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https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

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Transcript

Sara Bybee Fisk 00:57

Okay, this interview has been waiting to happen for a long time because I have been so privileged to walk part of this book journey with you. I know I wasn't there for all of the long hours of writing and sweating and crying. I was there for some of it though. And so it is such a privilege for me to interview about your book, baby. It's just so good and emotional outsourcing, how to overcome your codependent perfectionist and people pleasing habits. And it's such an important work because it outlines not just a clear path to end this really painful way of living, but it reframes it in such important ways. And the first way that I think it's so essential that we reframe this is that you talk about emotional outsourcing as a really brilliant survival strategy and not something that is wrong with people who are socialized as women. So I want to speak to that really directly. First, give me a definition of what emotional outsourcing is.

Beatriz Albina 02:06

Yeah, with great joy. So emotional outsourcing is when we chronically and habitually source our sense of the three most vital human needs, safety, belonging, and worth from everyone and everything outside of ourselves instead of from within at a great cost to ourselves. And we enact emotional outsourcing through the survival skills or habits of codependent, perfectionist, and people pleasing thinking.

Sara Bybee Fisk 02:38

Okay, let's get some really concrete examples.

Beatriz Albina 02:40

Yeah, absolutely. So let's start with like in relationships, we can really, really easily take on that role of the fixer. So we feel responsible for other people's emotions. We can't relax if someone's upset, if someone maybe doesn't like the movie, oh God, you don't like dinner, let me fix it. Let me fix it, let me fix it. We apologize constantly, even when we didn't do anything wrong and we're not even Canadian just to keep the peace because keeping the peace is the most important thing. We avoid conflict to that end at all costs, even if it means downplaying our needs, stuffing down our feelings, fibbing. We feel resentful, but we either don't express it and we just shove it down and just, you know, my feelings don't count as much as anyone else's, who am I to be upset? Or we let the resentment build and build and build and because we don't have any skills to like release the pressure valve, we all of the sudden explode on the people we love, like at them, or we scream and pound the steering wheel alone in the car. We take on a therapist role in all of our relationships with our partner, our parents, our friends, our kids, our employees. We are always listening, always supportive, always problem solving, but we don't get that same support in return, either because we are so over-functioning that we attract under-functioners into our lives, people who don't have the skills, capacity or desire to support us, or maybe they wanna help us, but what's our constant refrain? I'm fine. Oh, I'm fine. Yeah, don't worry, I'm fine, I'm fine. Oh, speaking of fixers, we are the only ones who see the true potential in that date, that partner, that person, you know, they don't want to be everything we want them to be, but give me a little time. I'll get them working out, eating better, communicating better, showing up. We take on humans as fixer-upper projects. We give and give and give and give until we are completely exhausted, and we believe that we have to take care of someone else in order for our lives to have value, and we also believe, you know, we have a deep, we often have a lot of really anxious attachment, and so if we're not taking care of someone, they're gonna leave, right? At work, we say yes to extra projects, unpaid labor and emotional caretaking. We're like the mom of the office, you know what I mean? We do not advocate for ourselves, for raises, fair treatment, credit for our work. I know you talk a lot about people-pleasing at work that's us to a T. Decision-making is really challenging because we don't value ourselves, we don't think that we're worthwhile, and so instead of just listening to our bodies and making an intuitive yes or no, we have to consult the entire peanut gallery and ask 473 people their opinion before we make a choice because we don't trust ourselves, and when we do say no,

Beatriz Albina 05:47

we're paralyzed by guilt. We're paralyzed by guilt even when we said no to something we absolutely have no desire to do.We are either under-responders or over-responders, so something bad happens and we're like, okay, we don't let ourselves have our feelings or something minor happens and we take everything so personally and make everything such a big deal, we are explosive at the smallest provocation, constantly and chronically offended by the whole world. I could go on for hours.

Sara Bybee Fisk 06:23

That is the most comprehensive list I have ever heard. You're right. We could go on and on because the ways that this shows up is as varied as the experience of people who are socialized as women. I think it's really interesting to come back to the core of what you said. It's this constant needing outside validation that you're safe, that you belong, and that you're worthy. We get it in all of these thousands and thousands of different ways. I'm particularly interested in how reframing it, not as a personality flaw, but as a brilliant strategic adaptation, how that helps people overcome it. First of all, tell me why it's not a personality flaw.

Beatriz Albina 07:16

because it's a strategy. It's not actually who you are at your core. It's a strategy that makes perfect sense when you understand the family systems, cultural norms, and the social structures and thus systems of oppression that we grew up in. So for so many of us, those systems, family, culture, society, religion, were and are shaped by the patriarchy, white settler colonialism, late stage capitalism. It's the air we breathe, the rules we were expected to follow, the invisible scripts that got handed to us that we were told over and over exactly how to be and who we needed to be in order to survive, to belong, to get love, or if we couldn't get those things, at least to be safe. So if you were raised and socialized as a girl in a patriarchal culture, you were rewarded for being a good girl. Agreeable, accommodating, polite. You were told to smile, to say yes. I can't help but go into that voice though, to make other, put other people's needs ahead of your own to keep everything copacetic and that your body isn't really yours. How good you are lives in how others perceive you, not in your own sense of integrity. Your integrity doesn't matter. So of course you learned to scan the room, to read the mood, to anticipate and preempt any possible conflict. And of course you made other people's feelings your job because of course you did. How else would you stay safe?

Sara Bybee Fisk 08:57

I think one of the things that is endlessly fascinating, you and I could go into a hundred different rooms with a thousand different women each and we could ask them what are the good girl rules? And every single one of them would know. And it was not ever something that was handed out with my third grade multiplication facts, right? But we all know. And I think what is so brilliant about reframing it as a survival strategy is we can actually appreciate and love those past versions of us that learned how to please because it got us where we are today. And we can want something different for ourselves now without having to shame or judge or criticize those past versions that really learn to please to get along and to get ahead and to survive.

Beatriz Albina 09:48

Because if you want to get into the C-suite, this is how, right? So it's not just folly, but it does hang your humanity out to dry. So that's the question, at what cost, right? And what's the payoff and what's leaving your truth behind?

Sara Bybee Fisk 10:13

Well, in that, when you define emotional outsourcing and you said, you know, we, we look for these things outside of us at great cost to us, I don't think we know what the cost is for a while, right? We're so busy getting into the C-suite or getting into the position of being rewarded and recognized, like for me, it wasn't a C-suite, it was being recognized as the best Mormon, the most religious, the most devout, right? And although the behavior looks the same, I'm acquiescing, I'm accommodating, I'm not making waves, I'm being agreeable, I'm doing what other people want. There is a moment, I think, increasingly as I aged that I began to become aware of that cost. And so let's talk about when you say at great cost to ourselves, what is the cost? The costs are all.

Beatriz Albina 11:10

The cost is, okay, so authenticity isn't just being yourself, it's knowing who you are in the depth of yourself. So it's the ability to stay rooted in your own wants, needs, preferences and values, even in the face of someone else's disappointment, someone's negation, someone else saying, no, that's not what a good girl wants, right? Even when your nervous system is quietly or loudly, quite frankly, begging you to abandon yourself to stay liked. Authenticity is staying rooted and honest with yourself and others, instead of being performative to avoid conflict or discomfort. And that's what we lose, right? We lose that ability to stay true to ourselves, to stay in our integrity, in our dignity, in our values. And instead, we go with, we go with the flow, even when that means laughing at someone's racist joke, or right, because you don't want to upset anybody, right? Well, certainly not. Certainly not. Right? It's just going along to get along, which when you add up those moments of what is conditioned self betrayal, at the end of the day, who do you have? Right? People who are attracted to and want a false you who want this, this facade, you who are you to you when you've spent your whole life putting you at the end of it all, right?

Sara Bybee Fisk 12:48

So it costs our genuine self connection and knowledge, who I am, what I want, what I really want to do with my time and energy and effort, you know, that kind of the life, my life source.

Beatriz Albina 13:03

And your sense of self-worth, right? Your own value is contingent on everyone else, right? So then the telling the truth of who you are can feel like a threat.

Sara Bybee Fisk 13:15

Right. And so if I can't show up as I really am and hang on to me, because I'm constantly kind of getting into the nervous system. At you know, the nervous system activation that tells me to just be what other people want me to be. It also has to have an effect on my ability to be in close connected relationships with other people. It's not just my relationship with me, right?

Beatriz Albina 13:43

Because you're never if you're not in the room, who are they relating to? Right? Right? Who are they? Who are they talking to? Who are they feeling with? We think that we're like protecting others when we're not vulnerable. Because then we're not burdening them. We're not complicating their life. We have the same feeling the same belief system when we try to save people from their emotions. Right? Like someone says, yeah, I'm really upset. Oh, they're there, it'll be all right. Right? And so we're not allowing others to have their vulnerable, truthful experience of life when we're not allowing ourselves to either.

Sara Bybee Fisk 14:21

And so then you're not connecting who you really are to who someone else really is. And I think that that creates the feeling of loneliness that a lot of us have in relationships where we are with other people and we are doing things for other people, but we don't feel really known or seen by them.

Beatriz Albina 14:42

Right. And what I want to pause here, because you and I are always talking about our no-blame, no-shame way of expressing this. The thing that's really keeping us from showing up and being vulnerable and sort of taking the mask off, as it were, is our nervous system and the window of capacity or tolerance in our nervous system to step outside the lines, right? To step outside what's prescribed for us and to possibly break a social norm or taboo, right? And by being our authentic self. And so I want to say it's the stories we grow up in, but it's also held in the body, right? If it's too scary to you as a mammal, then you're not going to do it, right?

Sara Bybee Fisk 15:29

I really love to spend some time kind of building out this idea because I think this is key. You say that emotional outsourcing lives in the nervous system, not just the mind, right? Because in our logical mind, I think we're adults and we understand, like you have, you know, we've talked about ruminating is not helpful. We should have a sense of who we are, self-esteem, and we should have some confidence and be able to go out into the world and, you know, advocate for ourselves, say what we want. Like we know that that is logical. We see other women doing it, but there just seems to be something in the way of that. Can you speak to how it lives in the nervous system?

Beatriz Albina 16:11

Yeah, so it keeps our bodies in this hypervigilance, so like really revved up. It keeps us believing everything in the world is a potential existential threat. That if we aren't living in this absolute perfection, everything's going to fall apart. And so it can be like a constant micro tension in your muscles, right, this like readiness to spring into action. We can find ourselves holding our breath bracing for emotional, physical, energetic hit our own heart rate. And our vagal tone can be attuning to others. Hyper attune instead of tuning inward. And our stress chemistry can be a hot mess. So like elevated cortisol spikes and things like adrenaline when you even think about disappointing someone else. Okay, that's those are cool nerd words. What does that mean? It means that your entire mind, body and spirit is attuned fully outward towards other people, instead of tuned inward. So that you can say things like, no, I don't actually want to be the room mom this year. Thanks for the offer. No, you know, I actually don't want to go out to dinner with them. They're really negative. And it's just kind of exhausting for me. Thanks for the invite, though. Right on and on those no thank yous, those statements, those preferences, those desires that are opposite to our training, get buried, get subsumed are unfindable in a body and a nervous system that is hyper attuned to others. Right? Because you start to say no, are people going to be stay smiling? Probably not. Right. And when your body equates, someone's not smiling and doom, you're going to do everything you can to keep the smiles around, right?

Sara Bybee Fisk 18:14

You are because it's just too uncomfortable to not do that.

Beatriz Albina 18:20

And we grow up discomfort equals doom. Discomfort equals doom. Somebody's sad, right? My dad is sad. Well, I gotta be the jester. I gotta go make jokes, right? Mom is upset. She's storming around the kitchen again. Let me go show her my A plus. Let me tell her I made JV. Let me go and manage other people's feelings that are too uncomfortable because the line often for us between discomfort and danger, very blurry, right? And so someone being uncomfortable is an existential threat. So we don't allow it. Why would we allow it? We're not fools, Sara, right? We're just not fools.

Sara Bybee Fisk 19:03

So if someone is recognizing themselves in what you are talking about, right, that they have a very low nervous system capacity to say no, to choose what they want for themselves, to disappoint someone else, even when it's what serves them the best, where do they need to start working on that?

Beatriz Albina 19:29

Mmm, so they need to be brave. B, body first. R, recognize the outsourcing. A, ask what do I want? V, voice a small act of self-loyalty. And E, encourage yourself. Shall I go through my five-part process?

Sara Bybee Fisk 19:44

I would love you to go through your five part process. I will love you forever.

Beatriz Albina 19:49

Okay, so we start body first. Oh, and can I also put this out there? This is really important. This is not you alone in a silo work. No one is born codependent. I eschew the labels. They're bologna pants. These are survival skills. You were not born codependent. You were not born a people pleasing perfectionist. Forget about it. We learned these survival skills to survive in relationship. We heal in relationship. Right? So the fact Sara that I have you and let's give Judith Gatton some big love, right? The three of us can call each other for like really deep talk. But also like, remember last week when I sent you a video that I was like, Hi, I'm a fully grown Leo. And does this shirt look cute on me? Right? Like, we need each other. We need to lean on each other and let our nervous systems take comfort with each other. This is it is white Western wellness baloney to tell you that this is individual work. We heal in community beginning, middle and end. Because science. Right? Love it. I love it. Right. I just wanted to say that really clearly. This is why people we need coaches, we need communities, we need sisterhoods and sibling hoods. Great. So let's go back to being brave. We start with the body. So we've been talking about how when we are living in emotional outsourcing, we are not embodied. We are not present in our bodies. Being embodies is lived experience of inhabiting your body, not just being aware that like, I have a body, it takes me to work, it drives a car, it makes dinner. But it's really about perceiving feeling and acting from within your body as your primary home. So not just living from the neck up, where your socialization and conditioning live, but living in your body. And so embodiment is the integration of sensory, motor, emotional and cognitive processes into a cohesive, felt sense of self. Yeah? Yeah. Great. So the first step is of being brave is that work, right is coming into your body, which for folks who have a history of their body being the site of trauma, that can be challenging. And so we go slowly, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny steps towards becoming ever more present in our bodies. One of the simplest, easiest nervous system skills and tools that I can teach you is orienting. Everyone can do it. And you can do it in a crowded boardroom, you can do it while driving your car, you can do it one-on-one. And it's just this, you simply look around and let your mind body, visual cortex nervous system take in your environment. And I know that sounds way too simple to actually do anything. But think about like, you show up at a new job, and they're like, all right, here's the office. Good luck. It's disorienting. It's confusing. It's, you struggled to know how to do anything because you're not oriented. Whereas you show up at the office, they say here's Pam's desk, here's Jim's desk, the annex is back there. And they show you around the office, your nervous system can rest, right?

Beatriz Albina 23:13

Because you're oriented in time and space. And so one of the best ways to start coming into embodiment, and thus towards more authenticity, so you can step out of emotional outsourcing, is by finding our bodies in time and space. I like to do that by combining looking around and feeling my feet. So I always say find your feet, find the ground, connect with the earth. It's August, which is the month that in South America, we celebrate Pachamama or earth mother. So let's find the earth, right? Connect in with the ground, let your feet connect you with source, however you experience that. And let your body begin to be your GPS. Because your body tells you the truth about what's right, what's wrong, and what's meh, right? Even when your mind is doing mental gymnastics to people, please, so come into your body. Next, if you're in the midst of emotional outsourcing, the next thing we need to do is attune ourselves to our own habitual ways of outsourcing. So notice yourself in the act gently. What I like to do is have my clients sit down, orient their nervous system, find their feet, and then write out the ways they know they habitually outsource. Like, what's your classic go-to? Mine was to think my needs don't matter. Right? Like, that was a classic for me. For someone else, it might be watching people's face as you say something to see if it's okay. Right? Is it okay? I asked for time off. Like, I'm sort of like monitoring you. You might know that you have the habit of outsourcing a decision because you don't want to disappoint others. Oh, I used to do this one, Sara, where I like was worried about an outcome. And so I would kind of, in a way, manipulate almost someone else to make the decision for me because then if it didn't turn out well, I could blame them. I had no idea I was doing it till I did. Right? So make a list, come to understand your own habitual outsourcing, and then make it a fun game. Like, where's Waldo? You know, where's Waldo? Yes. Right? Like, Oh, I did the thing. Now, this goes towards my general philosophy, which I know you share, which is, let's make this light. Let's make this fun. This is some of the most important work of your entire human existence. But it doesn't need to be so serious. You know what I mean? Yes. Right? Like the job where we laugh, I've ever had where we laughed the most was when I was a hospice nurse. Everyone's circling the grave. Let's laugh about it. Right? Like, let's joke about it. Like my best friend has stage one of my best friends, one of my best friends, but another best friend has stage four terminal cancer. And all the time, she'll be like, Oh, no, I hold on, I need to move my phone. It's too close to my body. It's going to keep it light.

Sara Bybee Fisk 26:10

Yeah, there is such an air of seriousness about all the things we have to change about it.

Beatriz Albina 26:15

Take a breath. Yeah. So then, yes, shall I continue?

Sara Bybee Fisk 26:22

Yes, we've covered B.

Beatriz Albina 26:23

R, recognize that as A, ask, what do I want? So not what they want, not what would keep you out of trouble, not what they will approve of, but do you actually want, need, feel, or prefer right now? Even if it's foggy, even if the answer is I don't know, this is where we start. So what we're doing here is shifting our neuroplasticity, we're shifting the neural grooves in our brain that habitually, heuristically go to, I don't know, and that's a problem. We start by shifting towards, I don't know, and what matters is that I asked myself. So that's the new thought we're programming. So constantly asking yourself, when someone's like, do you want to go out to dinner? And you ask yourself, do I? And if your brain goes, I don't know, you go, oh, awesome, but I asked myself. Even if the thing coming out of your mind is, I don't know, help, you asked. And that's our goal. The goal is to self-ask and to really to start to pump yourself up in your mind, right? Because we don't matter to ourselves. So that's what matters, not the answer. Next is to voice small acts of self-loyalty. And here we don't just keep it small. We keep it kitten step sized. So do you know my funny thing I say, Sara, of kitten steps?

Sara Bybee Fisk 27:48

Do you know this? It's a good one. So go ahead and tell.

Beatriz Albina 27:50

Okay, great. So, I think that folks in the self-help world telling folks to take baby steps is malpractice. I think it's ridiculous. A baby's foot is like what, two and a half, three inches? That's bananas. That is just wild and ridiculous. That is too big a step. You're going to fall over right on your sweet little snout. No, thank you. So, I implore my clients and you listening to take newborn kitten-sized steps. Like newborn, like this kitten's like hours old, little teeny tiny steps. Because when we take small steps, we're so much more likely to succeed.Right? And it really reduces the resistance within the nervous system to taking the first step. So, think of the situations that we listed above where you are most likely to outsource and write out what the tiniest thing you could do to reverse that. So, if your habit is to say yes to every project from people pleasing, maybe your kitten step is, let me get back to you. Right? So, instead of that automatic, yeah, maybe you're going to say yes in an hour, but it's irrelevant. Right? What we're programming into your brain is the pause and choosing self. Right? Maybe you never order what you want in case someone at the table wants to share. Right? So, maybe, maybe you order without asking others what they want. Right? It doesn't really matter. The work here is we, you are starting to become your own safe place. So, taking these small acts of self-loyalty, begin to shift it. And then finally encourage yourself like you would a best friend, like Sara and I encourage ourselves. Right? Celebrate each and every kitten step in your own mind if not out loud. Even better though if it's with a friend. Right? Because we heal outsourcing in community. So, I caught it. Yay. I paused. I asked myself something new. Right? This work is slow because it's deep and it's tiny steps because it's changing our entire lifetime of coding in our minds, in our bodies, in our spirits. So, that's how we be brave, Sara.

Sara Bybee Fisk 30:08

What does life start to look like as you are being brave and walking yourself with your community, with your sisterhood and the relationships that you're building, what does life start to look like on the other side of emotional outsourcing?

Beatriz Albina 30:29

You know what, the first place my brain went, and this is like the most Leo on Leo conversation. This is the example I love to use. I know my hair looks good anytime, any day, but I love, I love to receive praise now, to receive validation, to be told my hair looks good because I don't count on it as life's blood. I don't need it, but it's just icing, right? Okay, so here's one of my favorite metaphors, chapter 10, be the cake. When you are no longer emotionally outsourcing, you trust that you are the most delicious, incredible chocolate cake or carrot cake or whatever you want. And you let life be the icing, meaning it's something great to have, to have praise for someone to love up on you, right? To have that additional validation from the world, but you don't need it because you've got your own back. And so it means doing the things you want to, the things you dream of, not with no regard for anyone else, but with regard for yourself at the top and others right behind it, right? So it's me first, you second, us together with love. It's us together, right? It's always thinking about your values as the center of your life. It's living with integrity, it's living with dignity. And when someone says, hey, I don't like that shirt on you, you can say, okay, but like, that's it. Okay. Right? Because they get to have their opinion. It's not your problem. It's not your gospel. It's not yours to fix. It's not yours to even necessarily absorb, right? Oh, I don't like that you're what do. Okay. And you can allow others to have their own experience of life. You don't need to manage it. You don't need to fix it. If someone's upset or uncomfortable or unhappy, you can let them have those feelings and you can meet them with love. Oh, I hear you. You're really upset that I'm not going to change my entire life to meet your preferences.

Sara Bybee Fisk 32:42

It also has to just free people up to find places where nobody gives a fuck which shirt they're wearing, right? Well, there's also that, yes. They get to show up and be loved and seen and appreciated and fully known, which I think is, that's the best part of being a human, right, is when you get to be loved and seen and truly known.

Beatriz Albina 33:09

Yeah. And the noise in your head gets quieter. That constant like ticker tape of like, did I say the right thing? Should I text them? Did I upset them? It starts to lose volume. Your anterior cingulate cortex, the brain region that's been like an overdrive scanning for interpersonal threat stops firing quite so hot, right? And you get more fluidity in your nervous system. And so you can like notice social tension without your heart rate spiking, without your gut, like nodding up, you can just notice, oh, it looks like they're not loving the party we planned. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I also noticed, let me just talk to some things in my own life, I don't fear being wrong when it's appropriate. Okay, because this is what people push back, but like someone could get hurt. If I'm prescribing insulin, I'm going to check it 27 times. When I put an IUD in, I am appropriately nervous. I should be. I don't care how many I put in. I intend to keep that edge of nervousness. When I tell someone my feelings, how they receive it's on them, and that's great information about them. It's not about me anymore, right? And to your point, I now trust my intuition and my body and my discernment that I pick people to tell about my feelings who are going to meet me the way you do, right? Who are going to meet me with love and care.Who are going to either say like, oh, sweet pea, I hear you that you're upset, or going to do what you do, which is you say, I hear you that you're upset. Would you like some coaching on that? Right? So I believe in my consent. I think it's vital and important, and I believe the people I trust with my heart should ask for it. And so I've called those people in. I remember when I called our friend Cara and I told her I was getting divorced. She was the first person who responded. So how do you feel about that? And I remember my shoulders just going, I feel so happy, joyful and relieved. Like this painful multi-year saga has finally come to an end, then like, I'm going to reclaim my life. I'm already doing it. And she was like, oh, okay, cool, then can I take you out to celebrate? She was the first person who didn't say, oh, honey, I'm so sorry, right? And so you call those people in and you let people know this is how I live. My opinion around my life is what matters. And when I want yours, I will ask for it. And I do. I ask your opinion all the time, but not because I distrust mine, but because I value yours. And that's the shift. That's the move towards interdependence. Your opinion matters. Give me. But if at the end of the day, then I'm going to go with me. And I'm never going to blame you for giving me your opinion because I don't play that game anymore.

Sara Bybee Fisk 36:01

There's such a relief in being able to live with that kind of having your own back and that kind of the spaciousness that other people get to have their response that doesn't mean anything about me. It's good information for me to have. And I think a lot of people listening might think, gosh, that sounds amazing, but they are still feeling exhausted. They're still feeling stuck. Like they have tried things before that have not worked to get them that kind of self-connection and connection with the other people in their lives that they really want. So what would you want those people to know who want what you have been describing, but don't know what to do next? Values work.

Beatriz Albina 36:48

What do you actually value? This comes to mind because Friday I was coaching a group of women and there was so much talk about their exhaustion, and I had everyone stop and write out what are the things that are exhausting you, keeping this house spotless, keeping the car clean, keeping my kids clothes organized, keeping my whatever. Why are we attempting to continue to live up to these exigent standards? Right, back in the day, we had villages for this. And so now in this capitalist hellscape, we each have our own house and our own lawnmower and our own laundry and our own cooking and our own cleaning that is generally on one side of shoulders and that's moms, and you have to do all of the everything. And so the challenge I gave my people was to spend the weekend not cleaning and taking pictures of their dust bunnies as they grow, and we're having a dust bunny challenge. Not because I want us to be gross, but because we are working ourselves to the bone to keep up with the Joneses. Right, so that like what if a neighbor happens to drop by, they'll see that your countertops clean and that's the most important thing about you?Like what really matters to you? Is it spending time with your kids or is it keeping their whites white? Like who cares if their sneakers are dirty? Right, versus like y'all played board games last night and had so much fun laughing. Like were the snacks impeccable? Nobody cares. I think that's when I get all former hospice nursing on it, right? At the end of the day, what matters to you? When you're on your deathbed and someone like me is giving you morphine, what do you want to think about? What do you want to have allowed to matter to you? And I think a lot of our exhaustion, it comes from these ridiculous external standards. And the sooner we can release them and step into our own values, everything shifts. Like do you need to take on more work so you can buy more designer goods that are going to end up in the landfill as soon as that micro trend is over? Do you need to raise kids who are so consumeristically focused that they need the like boo boo boos, whatever. I'm not breaking copyright by saying it wrong. And like do you need to be feeding into that? Or do you need to simplify your life because your values are friendship, community, being of service, honesty. Like what really matters to you? And when you focus on that, I think a lot of the exhaustion falls away because you're not people-proving. We talk a lot about people pleasing, but where are you people proving? Are you Romy and Michelle trying to look amazing at your high school reunion? Like what are you doing? It really comes down to like what are you building a life on?

Sara Bybee Fisk 39:55

I think that's one of the gifts of midlife, actually, for many women, right? You just, you've been doing it for so long, you realize it just doesn't have the currency that you thought it did. It hasn't been the return on the investment. And so I think a lot of that just comes naturally as you age, but if you're listening to this podcast and you don't want to wait for midlife to kind of point these things out for you, what you need to do is buy Bea's book and emotional outsourcing so that you can get a jump on how to arrange your life so that your time and energy and effort is actually going toward creating the connection, the safety, and the self worth that is going to see you through the decades of living as a human and not constantly be requiring you to go get more from other people because you control it, right? It's a source of value, safety, and connection that comes from inside of you that you control and is not controlled by other people outside of you.

Beatriz Albina 41:05

Exactly. Bring it on home, baby. Bring it on home. And then find the people you can be weird around.

Sara Bybee Fisk 41:10

That's right. Yeah. Creating the- Be weirder.

Beatriz Albina 41:15

Be weirder. Come on. Just no one's out here actually that normal. I know you've got it in you.

Sara Bybee Fisk 41:22

We all do. We all do. So thank you so much for writing this book, for being a voice for the authentic, confident, really free lives that I think women want. We're never taught how to get. And that if we want to kind of go globally, which I know you and I think very similarly along these lines, the world right now needs women who are connected to themselves and to their communities who are shaping different discussions because it's kind of a shit show out there right now. And I think when we have women who can advocate for what they want and what they need, what we see is women who advocate for peace, community for everybody getting fed, for everybody being safe and having as much of their needs met as possible, which we could use that right now. We sure can. We sure can. Thank you for adding to the resources that are available to achieve that. Is there anything that you didn't get to say about your book, about the process of writing it, really about anything that you just want to end with if you back up here?

Beatriz Albina 42:38

So, I want to name the importance of somatics and the nervous system, which like we had so much to talk about, we didn't get to there. If you are like so many people, you're looking at Instagram and you're seeing somatics thrown around, whether it's like somatic accounting, somatic workout, somatic whatever, and you just don't get it. I describe it in the book, I break it down in the book, I make it accessible and tangible and applicable to your own life, so don't stress about it. It's in the book, so yeah, but it's really important that we talk about the role of the body in all of this, so yeah, so there it is.

Sara Bybee Fisk 43:19

For more from Bea, where can they find you? I know buying the book is essential. Where else can they learn more about you and what you do?

Beatriz Albina 43:28

Yeah, you can pre-order at béathrizealbina.com slash book, and that's got all the popular booksellers are on there for pre-order. Quick note, because people don't realize this, if you want this book to be a free resource at libraries, it's vital if you've got the financial capacity to pre-order that you pre-order. So the more pre-orders there are, the more copies get published, which means it's more likely to end up in libraries. Isn't that wild? It's bananas to me. I didn't know that a month ago. You can listen to my podcast, Feminist Wellness, wherever you get your shows, and you can follow me on the Gram. I give good Gram at my whole name, béathrice, Victoria, Albina, and P.

Sara Bybee Fisk 44:10

All of those links will be in the show notes because I want everyone to be able to benefit from this. Thank you.

Beatriz Albina 44:16

I love you. Thank you.

Sara Bybee Fisk

I love you too. Talk to you soon.

Episode 130 - Being Seen in the Relationships that Matter Most

Do you edit parts of yourself out of relationships because you're afraid of how people will react? Do you self-silence when you know what you have to say might not be pleasing to others? There is real discomfort in showing up authentically because it means risking rejection from the people we’re closest to. But the alternative comes with its own pain: the sadness and loneliness of not being seen for who we truly are. Neither type of discomfort is easy to face, but in this episode, I share how you can choose between them and take small, brave steps toward relationships where you can be fully seen. Here’s what I cover:

• The two types of discomfort that people pleasing creates in relationships

• Why it’s easy to choose authenticity in some relationships but not others—and why that difficulty is completely normal

• A personal story about a friendship where I felt the pull between hiding and being seen

• Why loving the parts of yourself that used to hide is essential for change

• Questions to help you identify where you can choose authenticity in your relationships

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https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

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Transcript

00:59

A lot of the episodes that I put out are pretty straightforward. How to do something or how I'm thinking about something that seems, I don't know, pretty straightforward to me. 

 01:07

Today's episode, less so. It's an ongoing, pretty tender, personal thing that I want to share because the most painful stories I hear from women who I work with in private and group coaching is the story of how not being seen in a relationship is particularly painful. 

 01:32

And how once you start kind of undoing this work, you realize it's a two-way street, right? It's not just the other person not seeing you. It's the fear that you have about being seen and the ways that that has caused you to hide and edit and perform. 

 01:50

And it plays out in all of our relationships, work, personal, parent, child, sibling, daughter, all over the place. And I think sometimes it's really easy when you have realized that you have been editing yourself and silencing yourself. 

 02:11

In some relationships, it's pretty easy to just kind of stand up and do it, either because you know that it will be okay or because you are not really, you are more invested in your own being seen and saying what you want to say than you are in the overall like longevity of that relationship. 

 02:32

What that means is some relationships, we kind of don't care if they continue on the way they have or if they, you know, continue to be what they have been for us because we're ready to be different and we don't care if the relationship changes. 

 02:45

But that's often not the case. We often have relationships when we want it to be able to continue and we want to be able to see if we can be more vulnerable and more intimate and more connected. And that's where the conflict can feel really, really tender and really tricky, like it's feeling for me right now in a particular friendship where I have realized the extent to which over the course of what was a over like a 15 year friendship, 

 03:20

the many ways in which I stayed quiet because I was scared that I would be rejected. And I'm going to give you a little bit of the backstory so that you understand because it's tied up not just with friendship for me, but with my former religious beliefs and Mormonism and leaving those behind, leaving the church. 

 03:43

And so I just hope that what resonates for you today is the difficulty that is very normal to work through when you are working through essentially the two kinds of discomfort that people pleasing causes in our relationship. 

 04:02

Because that's the big thing that this episode is going to be about. You can have two different kinds of discomfort in a relationship. Number one, you can be uncomfortable, sad, and feel lonely and feel unsupported because you aren't seen. 

 04:21

There is a real sadness to the discomfort of not speaking up, of not feeling like you are really known or that you are really listened to, that you are really seen. Sadness and loneliness. It's kind of the way that a lot of women I work with describe it is like, I'm in the room with a lot of people, but I still feel lonely. 

 04:43

Or I'm surrounded by people and I still don't feel like I'm really connected to them. That's one kind of discomfort. The other kind of discomfort is the discomfort of being seen, of saying the words that you want to say, addressing conflict in an honest, productive way, which means stepping into the fear of possible rejection, the worry that you will be misunderstood or misinterpreted, two types of discomfort. 

 05:15

And so as I give you a little bit of the context, oh, did I mention politics? Yeah, we're just going to throw that in for good measure too, because this is about what began as probably more motivated by political differences than anything else has turned into, for me, over the last month, as I've been working through this, just a really beautiful self-exploration where I can see the ways in which I contributed to the loneliness and feeling unseen that I felt because I wasn't speaking up about some important things that were happening for me. 

 05:56

And I can also see how just the time that we are living in and the way the polarization that we are experiencing in our country over politics plays into that. But the reason that I think it's different with this friend is I want to hang on to a relationship with her. 

 06:13

And she is a good, loving, kind, amazing person. And it's just different, right? When you're not just going to cut someone off, it's different. So let's get into it. A little bit of backstory I think is important. 

 06:30

Up until 2016, I had probably voted a straight Republican ticket, probably without even considering voting a different way. I would say that I grew up politically and religiously very conservative, except for I grew up in Central California, which is run by farmers who do hard work and migrant workers, immigrants who come to this country to work for them. 

 07:02

And the summers that I worked in fruit packing sheds and the ways that the migrant population was just part of my world at school and at church contributed to a sense that was actually taught in my religious upbringing that immigrants and people who are visitors and people who come into a place where they are vulnerable are to be taken care of, are to be welcomed, are to be treated with respect, that God is no respecter of persons. 

 07:37

And that was really something that got in there deep with me. And so I grew up with the idea that you really can't be a Democrat and be a good member of the Mormon church. That's not explicitly taught, but it is very well understood. 

 07:57

And so up until that point as well, I was also homeschooling my kids. And I mean, I was a conservative Christian mom, even though a lot of Christians wouldn't say that Mormons are Christians. That's how I felt. 

 08:11

And so when I was homeschooling, I met and became friends with a really wonderful group of women who were also homeschooling their kids. We did a lot of this together. And it was really important to me to have a community. 

 08:29

And I really wanted to be friends with these women. I thought they were smart and amazing. And I was really happy to be included in this community. And I can see now that one of my modes of operation or in kind of ensuring that friends didn't leave me was by becoming indispensable. 

 08:53

And so I put a lot of energy and work into our activities. And I think that this is true, you know, I wasn't the only one doing it. I don't want to make it sound that way. But it was always fueled a little bit for me by wanting to belong, needing to belong so that I felt okay, so that my kids had a community, and the worry that I would be rejected at some point. 

 09:19

That kind of undercurrent I now see really clearly. And it fueled a lot of the way that I behave, obviously. And so up until about 2016, totally conservative Christian mom. When my husband left the church, this group had some different reactions. 

 09:40

They noticed in religious groups like Mormonism, being on the inside means you look and behave a certain way and being on the outside means you don't. And so when Dan was leaving the church, I got a lot of questions and I was suspect. 

 09:56

And I was so suspect that one of the moms actually pulled me aside to interview me about where my faith stood so that she could feel comfortable letting me into her home and participating in teaching her kids. 

 10:11

And that was one of the most traumatic and jarring experiences of my life. I felt like I was literally fighting for my life in that moment. I had a huge nervous system reaction and went into fawn overdrive then and for the next, you know, several, the next time period. 

 10:32

I don't remember exactly how long it was that we, it was definitely more than a year though. So I went into a big, like years long fawn response, trying to convince them that I was still okay, right? 

 10:47

That even though Dan was leaving and he had his issues with the church, that I was still good. Because at that point, my sense of being good was very wrapped up in my sense of being a good Mormon, my sense of being a good member of my church. 

 11:01

And so if you can think about those moments when you had an interaction where it felt like you were fighting for your life, it might not have been, obviously, it's not going to be the same as mine, but that's so interesting to look back on and just ask yourself, what was I in danger of losing? 

 11:18

Or what did I think was at stake to have such a big reaction? Because I remember clearly exactly where we were, exactly where we were sitting, exactly how I felt and what she said. And it very clearly sent the message that I was suspect. 

 11:31

And so although I'm going to talk about the friendship of just one person, not this particular mom, all of that is kind of bound up in there. And I think when we want to look at our own fawn response, oftentimes we're going to see that it's connected to a lot of different things that show up in different relationships. 

 11:56

And what I mean by that is, you know, let's say that it was Sally who interviewed me and Jenny, who I'm going to talk about today. In fact, I'll just call her Jenny. Sally's interaction showed up in my friendship with Jenny. 

 12:07

And I think that that is really common and makes so much sense. So all of that was happening. 2016 rolls around and I could not support Donald Trump. And somehow a local news station got a hold of my name because I was Mormon, I am Latina, and I was not going to vote for Trump. 

 12:32

And they thought that was interesting and wanted to do an interview. And somehow that interview got pushed up to a national, I think it was NBC, Friday night, you know, news platform where it was released. 

 12:48

And my interview was short, but it was my reasons why I didn't feel like as a Mormon, I could vote for someone who was so willing to be derogatory about immigrants and about people who were vulnerable. 

 13:04

And that really just kind of touches a part of my personality as well. I'm an Enneagram aide, if that makes any sense to you. And that just means that I have a lot of like a super, super tender spot and a lot of loyalty toward people who I perceive to be vulnerable. 

 13:20

And that was reinforced by the church gospel that I heard growing up. That's what Jesus did. And so to me, it just felt absolutely like duh that we were not going to vote for a man who was so obviously against, you know, that part of the gospel. 

 13:39

And so I give the interview and within a couple of days, I get several messages from members of my congregation about how my vote is against the gospel, about how what I'm focusing on is the wrong thing, quote unquote, to be focused on, about how I am essentially unrighteous for the sentiments that I have. 

 14:09

And I can't say I was surprised, right? I was not surprised, but I also just thought, wow, I've never had this before, this kind of schism in belief here. And I realized it was just joining a lot of other, you know, schisms because I had a child come out as gay and I began to just collect all of this information about how it was so uncomfortable for me to be at church. 

 14:36

I didn't share any of this with this group or with any of these friends, even Jenny. And I think you need to know some things about Jenny. I get instantly emotional when I think about how much I love her and what an incredible person she is. 

 14:55

There was a point in time when I was going through some really difficult health challenges and Jenny came with me to doctor's appointments. She left her kids at home and came with me because I was finding all of the information to be so overwhelming that she would come and take notes for me and then walk me through the notes after the appointment to make sure I was getting all of the information that I needed, 

 15:22

the medications and all that. And so that's the kind of person that Jenny is. And she and I, in particular, had a really loving, connected relationship insofar as we could at the time, even with all of my hiding. 

 15:37

And we had so many just beautiful moments of supporting each other in her kitchen, in my kitchen. I loved her kids like they were mine and she loves my kids like they're hers. And we had so, so many amazing interactions together. 

 15:51

And so you need to know that because I think it's part of one of the things that I see happening is in terms of polarization is everybody gets lumped together and then we lose our curiosity about individual people and what they might be feeling and what might be hurting them, which then fuels their actions. 

 16:14

I stopped homeschooling in 2018 and it was such a relief. I didn't really appreciate, even until looking back at everything over the last couple months, how relieved I felt that my kids didn't want to homeschool anymore. 

 16:32

I left it up to them. They all went back to school. And it was because I didn't have to hide anymore. I didn't have to pretend. I was having so many issues with the church by then and so much discomfort. 

 16:45

I was very much in my long process of leaving. And I knew that if I was honest about that, I would be rejected. So then 2020 rolls around. And in 2019, 2020, that's when I left. And I felt the same kind of relief leaving the church that I did. 

 17:05

So that's the backdrop for the first part of this. And because we were friends, I actually emailed this group and I let them know that I was leaving the church. I wanted them to hear it from me. And Jenny was the only one who came to my house, not really to ask me questions about it. 

 17:28

She wasn't curious necessarily about why, and I had spelled a lot of that out in the letter, but she just wanted me to know that she still loved me, that she still wanted to be friends. And that was really meaningful to me, because to this day, no one from my congregation has visited me or even reached out to me, actually, to ask me why I left, to be curious about it. 

 17:52

I understand why. There's the feeling that it's like a disease that they could catch too. And because I was in it, I can understand it and I can have some empathy for it. But it really meant a lot that Jenny came over. 

 18:05

And so every August, I would get an invitation to a group birthday lunch. And it was something we had done while I was participating in the group and homeschooling. And they continued to invite me after I left. 

 18:22

And it wasn't possible, you know, for the COVID years. But then after I went to one lunch, and while it was nice to catch up, I just found myself thinking, what am I doing here? Why am I trying to put time and energy and effort into maintaining these friendships when we're just like on two really diverging paths? 

 18:46

And so I left just kind of unsettled and thinking like, I don't, I don't know that I really want to put this effort in. And then the election rolled around. And I saw on so many of their pages and just pages of former Mormon friends, the support for Trump again. 

 19:05

And I just, I knew what was driving that because I had been that. And I also, it just became so clear to me how differently we thought about the world and people in the world. And so it just became another big source of information for me. 

 19:26

And as I'm trying to have this conversation from a place of like holding multiple things as true at once or multiple experiences as possible, you're going to notice it doesn't sound very straightforward. 

 19:40

I don't have a neat and tidy ending for you. But I think that's because we're in a moment in our country, you know, the United States, or sometimes throughout the world, where we're becoming increasingly polarized and it's harder to have, you know, the type of happy endings that we might want. 

 20:00

So stick with me. I think there's some valuable things to learn here. So in the months after the election, I, like many, many people, just experienced heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak as the vulnerable groups that I am connected to and associated with, immigrants, queer communities, just experienced the onslaught of hate and reduction in their rights and dignity to exist as people. 

 20:35

And I had a dream that I don't have dreams very often. So this is why this kind of stands out to me. I had a dream that I was standing in a, it was all in black and white. I can kind of see it now. There's this massive crowd of just black and white faces and I'm in the crowd. 

 20:52

And then on a raised platform in kind of the center of the crowd, you can see a bunch of politicians and they're in, you know, suits and ties and they're looking out at the crowd and pointing to different things. 

 21:08

And then I look around and I can see that everyone in the crowd is holding up a sign. And on the sign, we have all written the things that we are afraid of. And the politicians are pointing to the signs and saying, oh, we can do something with that. 

 21:23

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Write that one down. We could definitely take advantage of that. And the difference in what the politicians were trying to do, use our fear to amass power. And the feeling of being in the crowd, of like being so afraid of all these things really stayed with me. 

 21:46

I know that there are bad actors. I know that there are people who are just propelled by nothing but amassing power and they don't care about people. I don't believe that that's what the majority of people are like. 

 22:00

And that was clear to me in that dream. And so all of that is kind of on my mind, the heartbreak, the kind of gut punches day after day of what it looks like to see, you know, my rights as a woman, my family's rights, my loved ones' rights, my immigrant community's rights be stripped away. 

 22:19

And August comes around. And I get a text from Jenny wanting to get together and celebrate my birthday. And my assumption was that it would be like we had done before in the group. And so my initial text back to her was that I didn't want to spend time and energy building friendships with a group that was so divergent from the way that I believed. 

 22:47

And Jenny actually misunderstood me and she thought I didn't want to be friends with her anymore. But it actually gave me a pretty amazing opportunity to look just at my friendship with her and say, do I still want to be friends? 

 23:01

And if so, why? I think one of the most compelling things we can do as humans is stop and look at our reasons for why we are taking action and just check in and just see if it's something that we still feel good about. 

 23:17

A lot of being a human is having automated processes and just doing things on repeat or habitually. And that can be really good. And I think it also can suck up a lot of time and energy unless we stop and take a look. 

 23:30

And so she responded outlining why she voted for Trump and her reasons. And it was mostly around abortion rights, which is a big deal in conservative Christian communities. And I get it. I could totally understand it because I had been that. 

 23:52

And unborn babies is a vulnerable group, right? And also, I think my view had expanded to care about those babies after they're born and what happens to them. And how are we supporting moms? And how are we making sure that people have basic needs met? 

 24:10

And so I just, I could see both sides. So what it gave me the opportunity to do was to communicate with her, not about the differences in the reasons for why we voted for who we voted, but about my hiding and about the fact that for years and years, I had edited and performed what I thought she and the other women in that group wanted me to see. 

 24:45

And I had really just managed the discomfort of keeping them comfortable, right? It was the slow burn of disconnection and resentment and fear that I had lived with throughout that whole time. And what I wanted to explore with her was the discomfort of being seen, of sharing more of who I am and risking the rejection on her part, but knowing that the discomfort of authenticity was what I had to step into. 

 25:28

I could no longer be in a friendship where I was hiding. I could no longer participate in conversations around things that mattered so much to me where I stayed silent. And I had to know if that was something that she was open to. 

 25:47

And so I wrote her a letter. I sent the letter out in my email to the people who subscribe to that. If you want to see it, DM me, I'll send it to you. Because I really wrote it from a place of two things. 

 26:00

Number one, love for her and an understanding of why she voted the way she voted with a clear delineation for now who I am and the things that matter to me and how I was no longer willing to participate in friendships where all of me could not show up. 

 26:24

Because if there's one thing I have learned over the course of the last couple of years, it's that conflict is either going to show you to a place in your relationship that is more vulnerable and more connected and more intimate and more loving and more understanding, or it's going to show you that that's not possible. 

 26:43

And that is really important information to have because then you get to decide where your energy goes. And so I had to choose the discomfort of authenticity. So I want to ask you something. Where in your life are you managing discomfort by making yourself smaller? 

 27:06

What parts of you are you editing out of relationships because you're afraid of how people will react? What sentences are you not saying? How are you self-silencing when there's something that you know might not be received as pleasing to other people? 

 27:26

So those are the opportunities that you have, I think, to just take a closer look and figure you out first. Why am I reacting this way? Why am I showing up this way? What do I think I'm going to lose? 

 27:40

And then giving those parts of you so much love. We tend to go to criticism and we tend to kind of lionize or valorize this like growth that is always like us becoming our best self. I like to start with first loving the parts of me that behaved in ways that I no longer want to so that I can change it from love. 

 28:09

And so I see the way that I did those things in this particular friendship and in this group. And I can have so much tenderness. It makes so much sense that I behave that way. And I have so much compassion for the me who was so scared of rejection that I was jumping through all kinds of hoops, whether they knew it or not, because that's on me, right? 

 28:34

That's my side of this relationship. And so as I wrote and shared the letter, I owned my part. I told her about the ways in which I had made myself smaller and why that I was so afraid of losing her and losing, you know, the community for myself and for my kids. 

 28:53

And also made clear, again, that clear delineation that I could not continue to exist in friendships where I wasn't seen and where all of me could not be welcome and validated. And I'm talking specifically about the friendships that I want to keep long term. 

 29:12

Side note, all of you is not going to be seen and appreciated in all your relationships. That's just not how it works, right? And it's not always a good idea, right? At work, you might have a different level of privacy than you do in your friendships. 

 29:25

That is very appropriate. And I'm not, again, this is not a generalization. This is about relationships that matter to you, that you want to keep, where you are trying to figure out, can I show myself more of you? 

 29:38

Can I show up with all of me? And how will you receive me? Brene Brown, I heard her say this on a podcast I listened to. She said, a brave life is having 15 difficult conversations a day. And that is what I am trying to do. 

 29:56

It makes me a little sick to think about 15 a day. But I do know that this conversation matters for me in this moment for a couple of really important reasons. Number one, I want to choose the discomfort of showing up for myself, of not abandoning myself and being seen in the relationships that matter the most to me. 

 30:21

I also want to have the nuance that people are complex and that different things cause us fear and sorrow. And that while we can disagree about those things, I want to continue to see people. And Jenny is just so easy to see because she's such an amazing person. 

 30:44

It really gave me a beautiful example in just in her. I also want to trust that being honest about who I am and what I value is infinitely better for all relationships whenever I feel like that's appropriate than continuing to make myself smaller to avoid conflict. 

 31:06

Again, I'm not saying that everybody should do this, that everybody should have these conversations because you're going to have to decide, number one, what your reasons are, if you feel like it's safe to do so. 

 31:17

It's a very personal decision. And I feel like your only job is to get to know you better if you are finding yourself in relationships where there are tricky conversations to be had. And I hope that if you are currently experiencing the pain and loneliness of making yourself smaller, you just hold on to this. 

 31:38

There is a way to show up, taking small, doable steps that don't feel as risky or high stakes to build up this skill. It is what I have been doing. I could not have had this conversation probably even a year ago. 

 31:54

I don't know, but that seems right to me. It's been a lot of having little hard conversations to get to this one. What I'm saying is this. If you are constantly editing yourself to keep your relationships comfortable, you're not actually in a relationship. 

 32:12

You're in a performance. Do we need performances sometimes? Yes, we do. You just get to decide when and where those happen. And so if you are ready for authentic relationships, they require space for both people's whole selves to show up, including the parts that are hard to understand or the parts that we disagree on. 

 32:39

So I want to leave you with this. You get to choose between those two types of discomfort. You can manage conflict by hiding parts of yourself and feel that slow burn of disconnection. Or you can build skills and confidence to risk rejection by showing up fully and to deal with what is of such an acute fear of potential loss. 

 33:01

I know that. I feel it even as we are working through this. Neither is easy. But one leads to relationships where you can be fully known and loved and where you can find more relationships like that because now you know what to do and how to set them up from the beginning. 

 33:20

And the other doesn't. So some final questions. Where might you be managing discomfort by making yourself smaller? What might it look like to share that discomfort instead of just managing it all internally? 

 33:38

And which relationships in your life might have some space for that? These are the brave conversations that need to be had. And I would love to support you. This is what I do one-on-one and in groups. 

 33:51

If that feels meaningful to you, please reach out. Thank you for being here and for listening. I really appreciate it.

Episode 129 - How to Break the Habit of Auto Accommodating

When you’re asked to take on extra work, stay late at the office, or do a favor for a friend or family member, do you ever say “yes” automatically, without thinking about what it will actually cost you? This habit is known as auto-accommodating, and it’s so common among people pleasers that I've decided to dedicate an episode to it. In this episode, we explore the programming behind auto-accommodating and how to practice pausing before you respond so your answer is actually aligned with your needs and desires. Here’s what I cover:​

• How we are programmed to conflate accommodation with reward, safety, and connection

• 3 questions to help you understand the part of yourself that habitually auto-accommodates

• How toxic capitalism reinforces the idea that our worth comes from serving others at our own expense

• Why going back and revising an automatic “yes” will help you build your pause muscle

• How to avoid self-judgment around your fear of saying “no”

• A phrase to use when you want to contribute without auto-accommodating

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Transcript

00:58

I received a message from someone listening to the podcast, and here's what she wrote. Hi, Sara. I love your podcast and listen each week. I've learned so much about how I show up at work as a people pleaser. 

 01:09

There's one habit I'm working on right now, and I wondered if you had some ideas. Far too often, and by that I mean almost 100% of the time, when I'm asked to take on extra work, fill in for a coworker, stay a little later to finish a project, etc., I say yes without thinking. 

 01:26

Then later, I find myself feeling oftentimes really resentful or sad that I didn't take myself into consideration. I'm pregnant and I don't want this pattern to continue to the point where I damage my health or the health of my baby in any way. 

 01:40

My boss just today suggested that if I didn't quote unquote need my whole maternity leave, that I was welcome to come back early as I am such a valuable team member. So I know it's not going to change on its own. 

 01:53

Any help in breaking this pattern would be helpful. Signed, Chelsea. Chelsea, I decided to just do a podcast episode about it because this habit that you've noticed, sometimes called auto-accommodating, is so prevalent. 

 02:08

And I just want to say first, good on you for seeing this pattern and knowing that it's not going to change on its own. That's huge progress. So many of the people pleasers that I talk with really just kind of pin their hopes on something outside of them changing. 

 02:22

And I don't see you doing that. I see you really wanting to take control where you can over this habit you have of auto accommodating. So let's get into it. I first want to name anytime we are trying to change a pattern or something about ourselves that we want to be different, that doesn't happen in a vacuum, right? 

 02:48

We all exist in an economic system that prioritizes productivity and profit over people's well-being. That is not controversial to say, or at least it shouldn't be. You don't have to look any further than the healthcare system that we have in the United States in general. 

 03:08

That's what I'm speaking of. Capitalism, this kind of toxic capitalism that really creates workplace cultures that value people continually giving of themselves, saying yes, being available and accommodating others. 

 03:24

That's what gets rewarded. And it doesn't really matter that it comes at the expense of our boundaries and our health. That is a uniquely American capitalistic problem. And actually, now that I say that, it's probably not just uniquely American, but it's a uniquely toxic capitalism problem. 

 03:43

And as women, we've been conditions that in that system that values our output, that ties our worth to what we produce and how helpful we are, that makes setting boundaries feel really threatening to our survival. 

 04:00

And so, Chelsea, when you're at work and it's your financial survival that's on the line, I can really understand why setting boundaries around the way you accommodate can feel tricky and hard. There's another element that I just want to name as well. 

 04:17

Capitalism, in particular, has relied on women's unpaid and undervalued labor, both at home and at work. We've been socialized to believe that the value we have comes from serving others and comes from keeping systems running smoothly, comes from not upsetting other people, often at our own expense. 

 04:41

So that also needs to be named. Because the first thing, Chelsea, that I want you to think about and anyone else who just kind of notices this habit of auto-accommodating is why are you doing it? Like, what is it that feels at stake here? 

 05:00

Does it happen more at work than at home? You wrote about it in a work context. I know it happens for a lot of women in work contexts. What are the situations? Is it when somebody who is in charge of you asks you for something? 

 05:12

Or is it, does it happen, you know, no matter what? Does it happen only in certain situations where you are being asked for a certain type of labor? Or is it more across the board? And then what is the reward that you get for doing it? 

 05:31

This is where we kind of have to slow down and get introspective. Because I want you to do two things. I want you to think back over your history. How did you learn that auto accommodation was good? What benefits did it get you? 

 05:48

And just give yourself and your brain a minute to just kind of think back through. What happened when you didn't auto-accommodate, when you didn't say yes, when you didn't give in, when you didn't acquiesce? 

 06:00

Were you labeled difficult? Were you labeled dramatic? For some of you listening, that will be true, right? You learned that having needs was not acceptable. You learned that taking up space were going to get you punished. 

 06:16

Others of us learned that we would get rewarded by being quote unquote easy to work with. And so think back over the type of praise or reward that you were given. You're such a team player. We could always count on you. 

 06:31

You're so flexible or adaptable. You never complain. You're so low maintenance. You make my job so much easier. You're the glue that holds this team together, right? That's what it would sound like in the workplace. 

 06:45

But to a child, it might sound like you're so easy. You're such an easy child. I just love getting to be your mom. You're so easy to parent or something like that. Because while it is true that the circumstances might be different for person to person, we all learn that accommodating will get us connection and safety. 

 07:11

And sometimes there's a very big difference between the two, like actual punishment for not accommodating or acquiescing. That's a very real thing. Being bullied, being hit, being punished, being excluded, being singled out, being called names. 

 07:29

You're so difficult. You're so dramatic. That might be part of what happened. Or the other side is just being praised. In social context, maybe it sounds like you're such a good friend. You're so selfless. 

 07:45

You're the nicest person I know. You never cause drama. You're so understanding. You're such a good listener. You always put others first. If that sounds familiar, that's early messaging that really plays into why we develop this habit. 

 08:05

Because not only do we not want to get in trouble, but we want to be thought of as good. We want to be rewarded. We want to have the connection and the belonging that comes from looking like we put other people first. 

 08:21

I think in professional situations as well, there are a lot of professional perks that sound like they are rewards, but they're really just ways of getting more labor. It's disguised as like an advancement or like a special situation, like being given more responsibilities without pay because you handle everything so well. 

 08:48

You are just so good at this, right? That sounds like some kind of praise or it is praise or reward, but it's actually just extracting more free labor. It sounds like a special perk or a special privilege, but it's really just getting you to produce more. 

 09:06

Being asked to mentor or train others, which is often unpaid emotional labor. A lot of that can sound like this professional advancement, but it's really just disguised to get more from you. Maybe at work, you're the go-to person for special projects, right? 

 09:25

That if you're not being paid for it, there's a chance that your programming is being taken advantage of. So that just kind of sets up the how did we get here? Looking back over what has happened, how did you learn that auto accommodation was good? 

 09:43

Because if we can really understand how we got to where we are, then it can inspire some compassion and some understanding rather than the judgment and blame that we typically so often go to. So now we know a little bit about the history about how you were programmed to conflate accommodating with being rewarded, with belonging, with being safe, or having connection. 

 10:11

So the next thing I want you to do is to just bring to mind a recent scenario in which you auto-accommodate it. Just because I'm going to do this exercise for everyone else listening, I'm going to use the example of being asked to fill in for a coworker who cannot take their shift. 

 10:31

So I'm going to pretend it happened to me. I'm asked by my supervisor to fill in on Friday. Friday is my day off because Linda has something else and she can't, you know, be here. My supervisor knows that Friday is my day off. 

 10:45

So she knows that I am technically quote unquote available. She comes to me and she says, Sara, will you take the shift? And I just say, sure, yep, I can do that. So I want you to bring to mind a recent example like that. 

 10:58

And I want you to imagine that you had said no. So in my mind, I'm going back and I'm just reimagining. Manager says, Sara, can you take Linda's shift? And instead of saying yes, I say, that's not going to work for me. 

 11:13

I'm not available. I wish I could, but I've got plans. And I want you to just notice what comes up. It's going to be an emotion. It might be guilt. It might be fear. It might be anxiety. It might be worry, right? 

 11:33

There's a lot of emotions that might make sense here. And in my example, we're going to imagine that it's a part of me that is very anxious. That part is the part we're going to focus on. Because in order to not accommodate automatically, we have to take care of this part. 

 11:54

Because if you can imagine, whenever there's a scenario in which someone else needs something, this part is right there pushing you to accommodate because this part feels safe and feels connected when we're doing the things that other people want us to do. 

 12:13

So if you can think about it, this part is one of the parts that kind of fuels your auto accommodation. Whenever we want to just get to know this part a little better, all we have to do is imagine that we didn't accommodate, and then this part starts to get activated or protest. 

 12:34

So it's important to do this, not in the situation that I'm talking about, because oftentimes when we try in the beginning to work with a part who's very activated in the situation that it's activated, it's a lot harder. 

 12:52

So we're not in the situation right now. Maybe you're driving in the car, you're at home, you're at work somewhere else, but you're not in that situation. That's when we want to do this little visualization where we imagine that we said no. 

 13:05

We want this part to reveal itself to us by bringing up the emotion. So I'm imagining I said no. Ooh, I just feel this big wave of anxiety. Okay, now I know what I need to do. Now I need to get to know this part. 

 13:24

So I want you to just imagine that you can sit down in a moment of calm and just do some thinking about what this anxious part might be trying to tell you. And the first question I want you to ask yourself is, do you have any kind of an image or sensation or part of your body where this part shows up? 

 13:53

I typically feel all my anxiety in my chest. That's common for a lot of people. So when I think about this anxious part, it's right here in my chest and it just feels kind of heavy. There's also some like electrical, like, feels like little shocks. 

 14:14

Great. So just identify any identifying features of the part. Next, here's what I want you to ask. When did this part first learn that accommodating was the way to feel safe or connected? And I'm just going to draw a little bit on my own history. 

 14:35

You know, I probably learned that pretty young. When I did what other people wanted me to do, I felt safe. I felt connected. And so I want you to just think, when did this part learn this? If there's an age that makes sense, great. 

 14:56

Next question. What is this part most afraid will happen if it doesn't immediately say yes? Oh, my answer would be, this person's going to be mad at me. I'm going to get in trouble. So just let your part answer this question. 

 15:17

What is going to happen if we don't immediately say yes? And that's where we can often have a lot of compassion. Because if I am a grown woman who still believes that I'm going to get in trouble or that somebody's not going to like me if I don't accommodate, be careful because here's where some judgment can kind of creep in. 

 15:38

If judgment starts to creep in, just ask it to like step back and give us a little bit of room to work with this other part. I can also have a lot of compassion that inside of me is like a middle schooler or maybe even an elementary age Sara who's afraid that if I don't say yes, and if I don't say yes immediately and enthusiastically, that someone's going to get mad or that I'm going to get in trouble. 

 16:06

I can have a lot of compassion for that. And then what I want to do is actually let that part feel my compassion. And so to me, that looks like putting my hands on my chest and saying, I hear you. I hear you. 

 16:27

I understand that you're afraid that if we don't say yes, we'll get in trouble. That really matters to me. I'm really sorry that you feel that way. I'm right here with you and I'm listening. I might also ask this part. 

 16:45

How have you been trying to protect me all these years? I can imagine this part saying, I'm the one who keeps you safe. If you accommodate, if you say yes, then you never get in trouble and everybody likes you and everybody thinks you're such a team player and everybody has so much respect for all the work you're able to produce. 

 17:08

And then you get job advancements because everybody's so impressed with you and everybody knows that you're the go-to person and that they can always hand it to you and it's going to get done right. That part is behind all of that. 

 17:24

And so of course we want to have so much respect and gratitude for that and what we do. And so when the part lets us see how it has protected us, I like to take that opportunity again, hands on my chest and say, thank you so much. 

 17:46

Thank you. Because what is true is that that is real. I was known as somebody who was dependable and reliable. I was the go-to person in a lot of my working situations because I overproduced and over auto-accommodated, right? 

 18:04

It did contribute in the past to some success and some belonging and safety and job advancements. And the problem is it just doesn't feel that way anymore. But until we understand it, we can't change it. 

 18:20

And so that's what we're doing first. So now we understand what this part is afraid of and how it's been trying to protect us. So we're going to ask a third question. What is this part trying to help us avoid or prevent? 

 18:41

And when I think about this part for me, this part is trying to help me avoid people being disappointed in me, getting in trouble, but mostly like people having a bad opinion of me or thinking that I'm not as capable as they thought I was or that I'm not the type of team player that they thought I was. 

 19:02

And so this part is really trying to keep like my identity, my reputation safe. And I can have a lot of compassion for that. So when I ask, what has this part helped me to avoid or prevent, there's some really, really good information there. 

 19:26

Next, I want to know if this part likes doing its job this way by auto accommodating. Do we like the fact that that brings about, you know, some stress, that brings some staying late and working when everybody else has gone home, taking work home with me. 

 19:46

Does this part like feeling so anxious like this? And if I lean into it, my part might say something like, no, I don't like it, but that's the way it is. Or no, but we have to keep doing this. This is how we stay safe. 

 20:05

Or the part might just say, no, I don't like it, but I just don't know any other way of doing it. So then we want to know, what would this anxious part need from me? Because remember, I'm an adult. I have resources. 

 20:22

I have skills. And this part learned this very young. And so this part is very young in its understanding, right? If you don't accommodate, you're going to get in trouble. That's a very, you know, immature kind of juvenile way of putting it. 

 20:38

And I'm not saying that to denigrate this part at all. But we want to bring some of me today, that I'm an adult, that I have compassion for this part, that I have resources and skills that this part might not know about or have access to. 

 20:56

We want to just let it know, I'm so grateful that you have been doing this. And that's not our situation anymore, where we're either going to get in trouble or we're going to be punished if we don't immediately say yes. 

 21:14

Because we're trying to help this part feel safe to practice pausing before accommodating. We just want to put a little pause in here. And so I'm just going to ask this part, what would you need from me to feel safe to practice pausing before accommodating? 

 21:37

And then I just want to listen for the response. I might want to let this part know we're learning new ways to stay connected without self-sacrifice. We're learning new skills. Most of the time, our parts that are very young just need to know they are not alone and that we, the adult who can handle the situation, is here. 

 22:05

And so I just want to let this part know that we're going to be trying some new things and that whatever happens, we're going to work it out together. Because somebody might get mad. Somebody might not like that I'm going to pause instead of auto accommodate. 

 22:24

And so we really want to make sure that this part knows that even if that worst case scenario happens, there is going to be a loving, capable adult, me with them, helping them, listening, feeling just whatever needs to be felt. 

 22:43

What we're doing is entering into a partnership with this part, between the part and my adult self, to work together to stay safe and honor our needs. Because now this auto-accommodating isn't working anymore. 

 23:02

And rather than just try to shut it down, we want to work with the part. So these questions really help create a space and a relationship that is built on compassion and listening rather than trying to just override or silence it. 

 23:18

Because sometimes that might work, but it doesn't feel very good. And often, if we want long-term success, we really have to spend some time working with the part. So once we have had a chance to ask some of those questions and to really understand what this part is concerned about, how it's been trying to protect us, where it learned this, and that there is a loving adult who is compassionate and who is generous, 

 23:49

who has skills, who can now help. This part can start to trust the loving adult, us, right? So that we can do something different. So that is all the work you want to do before you get into a situation where you usually auto-accommodate. 

 24:10

Because in the moment, oftentimes we fall back onto our habits and we just automatically say yes. So here's one thing that you need to know. In the beginning, when we have a strong auto-accommodating habit, we're going to automatically say yes. 

 24:29

And then we have to go back and let the person know, I'm really sorry. I just automatically said yes. And I actually need some time to pause, look at my schedule. Can I let you know on Friday? Because if we always wait for the right situation to come up, we might be waiting a while. 

 24:52

And I find it more effective in the beginning to go back and practice, even if it just happened, even if it happened three days ago, whatever, to go back to the situation and practice in the past, because that's how we build the confidence and we practice the skills and we build the muscle of doing the pause, the first thing that has to happen. 

 25:16

I teach these steps in a lot of different contexts, but we have to learn how to pause. We have to say, you know what? Thank you for asking. I need to check my calendar. I'll let you know Friday. Or thanks for thinking of me. 

 25:30

That's something I've got to think about. Give me a couple days. Having a sentence in your back pocket that gets you the pause is essential. Because again, in the moment to that part, it's just about being safe and connected. 

 25:46

And that part isn't thinking about your son's soccer game that you're going to miss or the fact that you said that you would give yourself the afternoon to read and relax. That part isn't concerned about any of that. 

 25:58

It's just trying to keep you safe and connected. So the pause is essential so that we can then calm ourselves down and do some predicting. What resources is saying yes going to take? What time? What energy? 

 26:17

Like, let's actually think, if I say yes to taking on that extra project, that means that on Thursday, when everybody else goes home, I'm either staying until eight o'clock or I'm taking it home with me. 

 26:30

What do I think of that? Do I want to do that? What are my options? Is there only this answer or are there other answers that might also fulfill the need that I'm being asked to fulfill here? So all of that can only happen when your brain is relaxed, which is why you need the pause. 

 26:55

This is also where one of the most important things that we can do is name the emotion that we are going to be feeling. If I say yes to taking on the extra project and I'm working late or taking work home on Thursday, how am I going to be feeling? 

 27:11

How will I be feeling if I say no? Right? We just want to investigate all of our emotional response to the situation because we also want to make a decision based on what is best for the whole system, which is where I like to ask this next question. 

 27:29

Is there a good reason to say yes? Is there a good reason to say no? Investigating and liking our reasons is so important. Let's say that I'm up for a promotion and I really need the promotion or I really want it for reasons that I like and this would look good for that promotion. 

 27:52

Then maybe I decide that I want to accommodate the request because it helps me get something that I want. That's a great reason, but you need to slow down and not just auto accommodate, but you need to do it on purpose because you like your reasons. 

 28:10

Maybe there isn't a good reason and I'm just acting out of this habitual thing that Chelsea is describing. If I don't have a good reason why I could say yes, then I really want to honor that. I want to know what am I not going to be able to do because I'm working late on Thursday or taking work home with me. 

 28:32

Being really thorough as you predict all of the different possible resources it's going to take, how you're going to be feeling, the time, what you're not going to be able to do, helps you do a really thorough investigation into your reasons because you're going to pick, right? 

 28:52

You're going to choose an outcome. But now you're not choosing based on that auto habit. You're choosing based on actual data, right? Predictions of resources, your reasons, and you're prepared to take care of yourself. 

 29:11

Now that you know what your reasons are and you know why you're choosing what you're choosing and how you're going to feel and what resources it's going to take and you're happy with that, there's one other really, really important step. 

 29:25

I love to do what I call create the movie. So I'm going to say that for the purposes of our example today, I decide to say no to the extra project, that I'm not going to stay late on Thursday. And I want to create the movie where I go back to my manager and I say, I appreciate that opportunity. 

 29:49

It's not going to work for me on Thursday. And I get to practice feeling the anxiety because just because I like my reasons and I am really thorough about investigating them doesn't mean that this part isn't still going to be activated and worried. 

 30:07

And so I learn by creating the movie to walk myself through it in kind of like a practice mode. I feel the feelings. I take care of that part. I have my hand on my chest and I'm telling that part. I hear you. 

 30:22

And remember, we're doing things differently now. I'm right here with you. And I can take care of that part beforehand, during, and after. And I can practice doing that by creating the visualization, creating the movie, and then running it through my head a couple of times. 

 30:43

That is a really great way to practice feeling the emotions because eventually I do have to do it in real life where I go back to my supervisor and I say, thanks for letting me know about the opportunity on Thursday. 

 30:57

It is not something that I'm able to do at this time. But I'm not doing it cold. I've had some practice doing it. I've gotten a chance to take care of my part. Now I get to feel whatever, you know, we're having in that live interaction. 

 31:14

And I know what to do. I know how to take care of the part of me that is agitated. And even if I end up giving in, even if I end up, even if it doesn't go exactly the way I want it to, now I've had a really great practice round of going back to the person that I auto-accommodated and telling him, you know what, I actually need to think about it. 

 31:35

Doing the step of predicting where I go through all of those questions for myself. Choosing the response that I want for reasons that I like, taking care of the part, creating the movie and feeling those feelings. 

 31:50

I've gotten to do all of that. And that is breaking the habit. In the beginning, we can only see clearly the things that have happened in the past. So that's why we have to go back to the past or something that's already happened. 

 32:04

That's what I mean by that. And engage the person again and say, I need to think that through. If we do that enough times, it becomes present. And we flex those muscles, we do those practice reps in the past, and we gain the capacity to do it in the present. 

 32:27

And then we even gain almost like the insight to know when it's coming. And so we can prepare for it. So Chelsea, I hope this is helpful. I hope that if you or anyone else has any questions about this episode, you feel free to DM me. 

 32:44

I read them and you might get your own podcast episode. I just want to leave you with a few phrases that have been helpful for me. Sometimes we want to not auto accommodate, but we also want to offer something. 

 33:01

And so my favorite phrase in a situation like that is, that doesn't work for me, but what I can do is blank. So let's say that I don't want to say no completely to working late on Thursday. I could say something like, you know what, Thursday doesn't work, but I would happy to do the reports art of that job. 

 33:25

And I can decide, you know, when I'm not in the situation, if I do want to contribute something, what can I do? That's a great sentence for when we know that we do want to contribute something, but we don't want to say yes to everything. 

 33:40

So going through these steps is how you break the habit of auto-accommodating. Let me know if you have any questions, if anything stood out to you. I read every single comment and who knows, I might make you your own podcast episode too. 

 33:53

If you have questions like Chelsea did, I really appreciated hearing from you. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll see you next week.

Episode 128 - How to Get Out of the Self-Doubt Spiral

Have you ever caught yourself in a self-doubt spiral, wondering if you’re overreacting, if you’re missing something, or if everyone else just knows better than you? The experience of self-doubt is so familiar for women, especially because of the patriarchal system we live in. But you deserve to feel confident in your emotions and your assessments. In this episode, I dive into why it feels so automatic to doubt ourselves and how you can begin to change that inner monologue. Here’s what I cover:

• What internal self-doubt actually sounds like

• Examples of behaviors that stem from self-doubt

• How Dr. Becky Kennedy explains the development of self-doubt in children

• How patriarchy gives boys and girls very different messages about the validity of their self-doubt

• The two voices inside us as women—the voice of care and the voice of self–and how to balance them

• An exercise to help you work with both voices so you can feel more confident

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Transcript

00:58

I have a client who is in a leadership position in her company, and she described this scenario. She was in a meeting, and one of her colleagues brought up a proposal. 

 01:11

And the minute he put it into words, it just didn't feel right to her. But instead of speaking up, she started to question herself. She noticed that internally, she started asking questions like, am I having, am I overreacting? 

 01:27

Am I making a big deal out of this? Maybe there's something I'm not seeing here. Maybe there's something that I don't know. I'm just going to wait and ask some questions and check with some other people before I voice my opinion. 

 01:40

Now, the celebration was in our session that she caught it and we were then able, you know, to work through it. But what I ended up sharing with her has stuck with me. And I decided I wanted to do a podcast episode about this because this behavior, this self-doubt, this kind of self-doubt spiral is so familiar to the people that I work with and women who are raised in a patriarchal system. 

 02:06

And I want to dive into why it feels so automatic for us and how we can begin to work with that inner monologue to change it because we deserve to feel confident in our feelings and in our emotions and in our assessments. 

 02:24

So let's talk first about what internal self-doubt actually sounds like. So if you notice yourself thinking, does this make sense what I'm saying? As you're talking and you're trying to put your words into sentences, you begin to automatically kind of, oh, I don't know, this makes sense. 

 02:46

I'm not saying it right. You begin to automatically discount what you're saying. Or it sounds like you're hearing someone's frame of mind or you have an opinion and you start to ask yourself, do I need to see it from another perspective? 

 03:00

Is my perspective not good enough or strong enough or well-reasoned enough? Or someone has done something that has hurt your feelings and you begin to doubt, should I be this upset? Did they really do that? 

 03:15

Is this really a big deal? Maybe you think, am I crazy for thinking this? Is this just like, am I missing something? Am I the person who doesn't know any better or who is foolish here? Maybe I don't get what's going on here. 

 03:30

I used to think that a lot. I used to have this joke that I would say all the time, like, I'm late to the party. But what it really was is my own inner self-doubt of like, I'm late here or I don't get what's going on here. 

 03:44

There's things I miss or there's things that I don't understand. And so that creates this kind of inner environment of constant self-doubt. That's kind of what some of the internal sentences are in your head. 

 03:57

And the behaviors look like needing validation constantly, checking and rechecking with other people. Am I thinking right here? Is my reasoning sound? Do you think this is a good idea? It also looks like asking other people to make decisions for you. 

 04:15

You know what? I don't care. It's fine with me either way. You decide. Or I don't know enough about this. So why don't you just, you know, make the decision for us? It also looks like making excuses for other people's behavior. 

 04:30

Well, maybe they were upset. Maybe they hadn't had lunch. Maybe they were, you know, feeling stressed under pressure, whatever. But someone mistreats you. And instead of just sticking with your emotional reaction of being hurt or upset, you begin to excuse their behavior almost automatically. 

 04:50

It also looks like letting other people explain your experience back to you. In some circles, we call this man's plaining, but it comes up in a lot of different ways for women when we have a tentative explanation and somebody says, well, actually what happened to you is, or actually what you're thinking is, or actually what you're trying to say is. 

 05:14

It also looks like being easily swayed by other people's opinions. You have an opinion, and although it might not be, you know, bulletproof, you're very easily taken away from what you think and convinced of what other people feel. 

 05:29

Now, caveat, I am not talking about women who are aware of the fact that they don't know everything and want to gather additional resources or information before important decisions are made. That's not what I'm talking about. 

 05:44

There is a difference between knowing, okay, I do know this much and I am confident about this and I do know that my opinion is this, but I'd like to get some other information before we proceed. That is not what I'm talking about. 

 05:59

That is leadership and that is self-awareness and that is an acknowledgement of the limitations of the human mind. And that's a willingness to ask for help and for information that you might not have. 

 06:13

Not talking about that. I'm talking about kind of the constant self-doubt spiral that so many women are in day after day where they're constantly questioning themselves, not from curiosity, but with the idea that there's something wrong with them, that they're missing something, that other people are smarter than them, that they should already know this and they don't, and so that there is something wrong with them. 

 06:38

A lot of these behaviors are rooted in childhood and the programming that we received. Because if this is happening to you, if you're in your car or somewhere else and you're nodding along, it has nothing to do with being broken or not, right? 

 06:53

There's a very good reason, actually several of them, why this happens. One of my favorite people to listen to is Dr. Becky Kennedy. She is a clinical psychologist and a parenting expert. And I will never forget hearing her explanation about the development of self-doubt in children. 

 07:13

And here's what she said. Self-doubt develops in children when they are left alone with intense emotional distress and they don't have proper support. Children who are left alone with this intense distress, they often rely on one of two different coping mechanisms, self-doubt or self-blame. 

 07:36

Self-doubt causes a child to believe, I don't perceive things accurately. I overreact. I can't trust how things feel to me. Other people have a better idea of my reality than I do. And according to Kennedy, this happens when children receive messages, and it's often unintentional from parents who love them that their feelings are wrong or overblown. 

 08:04

So I want to slow down for just a second, and I want you to take a minute and think back through your childhood experiences, how often you might have been told that what you were feeling was wrong or bad or overblown, too much, too dramatic, totally out of proportion. 

 08:25

For me, it was a lot, right? There were certain emotions that I was allowed to feel, others that I was not allowed to feel, or I was bad or wrong. And so little , when she's in her room and she has been told that, you know, not necessarily by my own parents, other adults do this as well, that whatever I'm feeling is bad or wrong, I don't have the development as a child to question that interpretation. 

 08:51

And so I adopt the interpretation of my caregivers, the people who I'm dependent on, and I begin to think things like, you know what? Maybe I am bad. Maybe I don't know what's going on here. Maybe I'm not, I didn't obviously think it in these words, but maybe I'm not a reliable narrator of my own experience. 

 09:12

Maybe other people know more than I do. Other people have a better idea of what's going on than I do. And so I need to trust them rather than trust myself. Think about it this way. You know, let's imagine that a child is overwhelmed about joining a birthday party and a parent who loves them responds with, come on, you know, everybody here. 

 09:34

There's nothing to be worried about. You're making a big deal out of this. Stop it. You'll be fine. What is the message that the child learns in that moment? I can't trust my feelings because they're ridiculous and they're overblown. 

 09:48

And my parents know better than I do. And they know better how I should feel and what I should do than I do. And so without an adult advocating for a child's emotional experiences by saying, yeah, there's a lot of people here. 

 10:05

I imagine that I would be feeling overwhelmed too. That's a very normal reaction. You should trust that. What do you want to do about it? In the absence of that kind of experience, we don't have a foundation for confidence and self-trust. 

 10:24

And then that child grows up. And actually, let me just say, it doesn't matter if that child is being raised as a boy or being raised as a girl. That kind of inculcation of self-doubt early in life is universal. 

 10:38

But then the confidence programming gets very different. Because while children raised as boys and children raises girls may experience the self-doubt programming that Dr. Becky Kennedy describes, patriarchy gives boys and girls very different messages about the value and the validity of that doubt. 

 11:01

Because boys are taught, and again, broad strokes, to override self-doubt. And they're given permission to do it in a couple different ways. Number one, boys are given permission to be wrong publicly. 

 11:17

They learn early that being wrong is part of learning and risk-taking is encouraged, you know, take a swing, try things out. This idea of failing forward is very much given primarily to boys and mistakes become data points rather than character flaws. 

 11:36

Their assertiveness is rewarded. Speaking up, taking charge, having opinion, even uninformed ones, gets positive reinforcement. Boys learn that confidence itself is valued sometimes over competence. And so the idea of speaking up, taking charge is a value that is passed on to boys as something to be rewarded. 

 12:02

Boys often have social permission to take up more space. Interrupting, dominating playground games, boys are rarely told to shrink, to be quieter, or to consider others' comfort before considering themselves. 

 12:21

It's also true, and this is a really sad part of patriarchal programming, emotional suppression is taught as strength. And this creates a whole slew of its own problems, many of which we are dealing with today. 

 12:37

Boys are rewarded for pushing through emotional discomfort and self-doubt rather than processing it, understanding it, slowing down to understand what's happening. So they push down their negative emotions, they push through emotional discomfort, uncertainty, and that looks like confidence, but it's actually creating emotional numbing inside. 

 13:03

Meanwhile, girls get the opposite programming, right? We're taught that self-doubt is wisdom. I remember being told, , think before you speak, like slow down. Don't just let everything out. Taking up space is selfish, that being wrong publicly is actually shameful. 

 13:25

We are also given the programming that our value lies in our relationships, being a good daughter, good mother, good wife, good sister, good friend. The list, you know, goes on, which means that we are taught that the relevance of relationships in our lives or the importance of relationships should be top shelf, right? 

 13:46

Number one on the list of things to worry about that matter and that our own opinions or our own feelings are secondary to being thought of as a good participant in relationships. What that means is that we get very good at worrying about those relationships, reading the room, who's upset, who needs something, who can we help, who can we give to. 

 14:11

So that valuing of relationships shows up in a lot of that outward behavior. And the result is that boys develop what appears to be confidence, but sometimes is learned bravado, a willingness to act despite being uncertain, because they'll be rewarded for that. 

 14:32

And girls develop this inner monologue of self-doubt. Now, we're going to talk about how it's actually emotional intelligence. But if you don't know that, it sounds like just this constant self-doubt on repeat in your brain. 

 14:50

And what boys get labeled as leadership, the girls' approach gets labeled insecurity and it reinforces that cycle. So that is the foundation that is laid in childhood. And then I want to tell you the story about two psychology researchers. 

 15:10

So this guy named Lawrence Kohlberg writes this book called The Philosophy of Moral Development. And he's trying to figure out how morals develop, right? And he puts justice reasoning at the top of his moral hierarchy. 

 15:29

Like that's the most important thing you can do is make decisions, moral decisions based on justice. He decides that the highest form of moral thinking is when you make decisions based on pretty abstract principles like universal justice and fairness. 

 15:48

Okay. So then he creates this test called the Moral Judgment Interview, where he tells people stories about moral dilemmas. And the most famous was called the Heinz dilemma. So this is the Heinz dilemma. 

 16:02

A guy named Heinz has a dying wife, and there's this one drug that could save her. But the greedy pharmacist who invented it is charging $2,000 for something that only cost him $200 to make. I mean, maybe he was predicting the future because it feels like that's what we live now, but I digress. 

 16:20

Heinz can't afford it. So the question is, should he steal the drug to save his wife's life? And here's where it gets super interesting, because Kohlberg gives this test to a bunch of dudes, straight, white, upper-class males, and their answers focus mostly on law and order and social contracts, which, according to Kohlberg, is quote unquote higher moral development. 

 16:48

The few women who take the test consistently score lower than men. Do they score lower because the test is biased? Do they score lower because maybe women think about morality differently? Does Kohlberg stop to ask any of these very obvious questions? 

 17:06

No. Instead, he just decides that this clearly means that women are just less morally developed than men. Problem solved, right? Research concluded. Case closed. Women are basically moral toddlers who can't handle the big boy thinking required for real morality. 

 17:26

But then we get Carol Gilligan, who was actually working as one of Kohlberg's research assistants. And she was involved in everything. And she takes a look at it. She's like, what? Dude, there's got to be more going on here than meets the eye. 

 17:43

And so she does her own research and she discovers that women aren't morally deficient at all. They just approach moral problems differently. Duh. Instead of focusing only on things like abstract justice and rules and universal fairness, women tend to think about, I know you're going to say it with me, relationships, care, and responsibility to others. 

 18:14

So she writes her book in a different voice. That's what it was called, in a different voice. And she basically says, hey, maybe women's thinking isn't wrong. Maybe it's just different. And maybe that's actually valuable too. 

 18:28

Like, it's a wild concept, right? Sorry, I'll dial down the sarcasm. So Gilligan's counter argument was that the way women are taught to focus on relationships makes their thinking and their orientation about problem solving different. 

 18:49

We think about attending to needs, balancing responsibilities. We think relationally because we were programmed to think that way. So I hope it's coming together for you now because when I did the research, because I really wanted to understand how we got here, it makes so much sense that we were just taught to value different things. 

 19:14

And I'm going to talk about how it plays into self-doubt specifically in just a second. But I want to just tell you about the four patterns that she identified. Number one, this invisible standard that women's thinking was labeled as less than, right, morally less developed, it contributed to chronic self-doubt. 

 19:38

She identified two different voices, the voice of care, which is our responsibility to others, versus the voice of self, which is the responsibility to yourself. And she identified the tension between those two voices. 

 19:56

Number three, she talked about the silencing of our authentic voice. Starting in early adolescence, women learn to silence their honest opinions, their honest perceptions, their honest questions to preserve relationships. 

 20:18

So we silenced ourselves because we knew that speaking up would create a problem in relationships that we had been taught to value, that we had been taught were the most important thing about our value, the quality of our relationships. 

 20:34

And she identified that moral worth was tied to relationships. If you're a woman raised in patriarchy, being good meant others approve of you. And that every time you do anything to damage other people's approval of you, that became the grounds for self-doubt. 

 21:01

So I hope you are feeling like I was feeling when I read this and put it all together, just this huge aha moment. I knew that self-doubt wasn't a personal feeling, but I don't think I fully appreciated how it's so fucking predictable. 

 21:21

It's a predictable outcome of living and growing up in a system where our way of thinking was programmed to be relationship centered and treated as less than, treated as second class. So for so many of the women that I work with, this constant self-doubt is one of the heaviest things they carry. 

 21:49

It is where they just hemorrhage energy and time and hours. They lay awake at night playing and replaying. Was I wrong about that? Should I have said it differently? Did I offend them? Was I not well informed? 

 22:06

Are they mad at me? In everywhere from the boardroom to the kitchen, and so many women today occupy both of those places, it's rampant across the different situations that they find themselves in, from their professional work to their work in the home, to their friendships, to their most cherished relationships, because we're constantly trying to have good relationships because that's what we're oriented toward. 

 22:38

So what are we going to do about it? How do we work with this? The answer is to let both of the voices that Carol Gilligan identified, the voice of care, which is responsibility to others, and the voice of self, responsibility to yourself, to let both of the voices have a seat at the table. 

 23:02

Now, in just a second, I'm going to introduce some questions that you can ask yourself to work through a conversation between those two voices. I just want to make you aware that there will likely be the voice of another part that is going to be very worried and very concerned about what you do or what will happen when you start to listen more to the voice of self. 

 23:29

And that's going to be very normal. That voice needs you to just reassure it that it's okay, that you're going to be with that voice as you do this work. So just remember, both voices, the voice of care and the voice of self, are necessary. 

 23:45

Both are valuable. The voice of care wants to preserve connection and protect relationships. And the voice of self wants you to honor your needs and your time and your energy and take care of you. So I want you to just think of a recent situation where you noticed this self-doubt spiral. 

 24:06

You felt torn. Maybe you didn't know whether to say yes or no, to speak up, to stay quiet, to express your opinion, to not. So I want you to first let the voice of care, which is only concerned about your relationships, answer these questions. 

 24:25

Okay. So keeping that situation in mind, ask yourself, if their needs are the most important, more important than my needs, what would I do here? What would I do? And just let the voice of care answer that. 

 24:41

What story do I start to tell myself about being a quote unquote good fill in the blank here? A good mom, a good wife, a good sister, a good daughter, a good colleague, a good employee. What is the good wife supposed to do here? 

 25:01

The good employee, the good mom, the good friend? And what am I afraid will happen to this relationship if I choose me? So just let the voice of care answer that. And notice the answers. Okay. Now we're going to shift to the voice of self. 

 25:28

And we're going to ask the same questions about the same situation. Question number one, if I only considered my own needs, what would I do here? Let the voice of self answer that question. Question number two, what does my body feel like when I imagine not taking care of myself in this situation? 

 25:56

Maybe that's saying yes instead of no. And what story do I tell myself about being a good person here? I'll use a recent example that I had. We were invited to a church service in which a family member was going to have an opportunity to address the congregation. 

 26:22

And if I listened to the voice of care, the voice of care told me, you should go, right? Your family invited you. You never go to church anymore. You should go because that's what a good blank would do, a good aunt, a good family member would do. 

 26:41

And if I don't go, maybe they're going to think that I don't love them or that what they're doing is not important to them or that I don't have time for them or that I don't care about them. That's the voice that, that's how the voice of care would answer those questions in that situation for me. 

 26:59

Now, the voice of self would answer differently. The voice of self would say, Leslie, you do not feel comfortable at church. It doesn't feel good. You don't want to be there. It's a waste of time. You going doesn't necessarily equate caring about this family member. 

 27:19

And you are good regardless of whether or not you go. Your goodness has nothing to do with sitting in a church pew for a certain amount of time. So you can see where the self-doubt comes from, right? 

 27:33

They're two very different voices advocating for two very different things. So now, step four is to let those two voices dialogue and have a conversation, right? So the voice of care is saying, you should go. 

 27:51

And the voice of self is saying, but you don't want to. And it doesn't feel good in your body when you think about going. And then maybe the voice of care speaks up again and says, you know, is there anything we could do to just show our support? 

 28:10

Because we want to be supportive. We want to go on record, so to speak, as, you know, being supportive without having to go, maybe. And then the voice of self might say, you know, you're already tired. 

 28:25

You don't need to go. And just noticing the back and forth between those two voices without any judgment, noticing what both of those parts value and want you to have. They want connection. They want good relationships. 

 28:44

And they want self-care. So then the final step, step five, is to ask the question, if I trusted both of these voices as important, is there something that honors them both? It might not be a perfect answer, but is there some kind of balance? 

 29:07

And if there is, great. Maybe I send a text. Maybe I write a letter or send a card. Maybe I send a gift. Maybe I, you know, go for part of it, but not all of it, right? Is there some kind of step that honors both of those voices? 

 29:24

And if there isn't, asking yourself in my body for this situation, which feels better? To listen to the voice of care or to listen to the voice of self? And to honor that knowing for you. That is how we get out of self-doubt by recognizing that we have both of these voices, that neither one are the enemy, and that our decisions can actually feel less tortured because we give both of those voices a chance to be heard. 

 30:04

And then we listen to the wisdom of our bodies to help make a decision. And then we start to learn that we can advocate for ourselves without being selfish, that we can take care of other people without losing ourselves, because that is the balance we are looking for. 

 30:25

And it is a balance that is constantly shifting. I have yet to find the perfect balance. I don't know anybody who always has the perfect balance. And I think sometimes we notice when we are out of balance, when we have listened too much to the voice of care and spent too much time on our relationships and not enough time on ourselves, or we notice the reverse, that maybe we have been spending too much time taking care of ourselves and we want to put some of that care and energy back into our relationships. 

 30:58

But the point is that we learn that there is a balance between advocating for ourselves and taking care of ourselves and caring for others without losing ourselves. So I just want you to notice which voice do you usually listen to and which voice usually gets silenced? 

 31:21

How does each voice feel in your body? And just notice what happens when you let them both speak. The self-doubt spiral isn't evidence that something is wrong with you. It's evidence that you have been asked and raised in a system that doesn't fully value and doesn't fully reveal your programming, right? 

 31:47

A lot of women will say that they more naturally tend to think in terms of relationships. I'm not going to argue over that. I am going to say that that's how you're programmed for sure. But that also is the programming that gets us into midlife, feeling like we don't know who we are. 

 32:03

We don't know what we want. We don't know what our authentic life looks like. And we've lost ourselves. So my hope is that as you begin to listen to those voices, you will feel that balance and you'll feel it in your body because your body knows and you can trust it. 

 32:21

I'll see you next week.

Episode 127 - Radical Discernment: Balancing Self-Care and Collective Care with Katherine Golub

I’m so excited to welcome Katherine Golub to the podcast today. Katherine and I have so much in common–not only our journeys of breaking free from good girl rules, but also our commitment to community organizing and social change. She is a coach for leaders and activists who want to continue showing up for their communities without burning out. In this conversation, we explore the polarity between personal and collective needs, and how radical discernment can help you step into the life you want. Here’s what we cover:

• Why we have to choose to take care of our needs before we can do so

• The definition of radical discernment and how it helps balance personal and collective care

• What resonance actually looks like and how it can help when you're overwhelmed

• The importance of only focusing on the next right thing

• How curiosity can help when it’s difficult to imagine what you want

Find Katherine here: 

https://callingsandcourage.com/

https://callingsandcourage.com/podcasts/

https://www.instagram.com/katherinegolub/

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

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Transcript

Sara Bybee Fisk 00:59

Katherine Golub and I are here to talk. We have stuff to say. We've been exchanging emails for a little while and we have so much in common, including not just our own kind of journey out of that good girl cage, but some of the work we've chosen to do in the world, community organizing and being a part of charitable and NGO organizations. I'm glad you're here, Katherine. I feel like we need to have a conversation today. 

Katherine Golub 01:28

Like I said, a couple of minutes ago when we started talking, I woke up with all the real feelings today and so, and I was like, oh, do I do this? And absolutely, I mean, it's important to be having real honest conversations right now. So I'm grateful for this opportunity to connect with you.

Sara Bybee Fisk 01:49

Me too. What do you want people to know about you as we begin? 

Katherine Golub 01:52

Sure. So first of all, I'm a mother of a 17 year old.And in that transition for myself and with him and with all that, that means I'm a small town city councilor in what is now known as Western Massachusetts. I have been engaged in community organizing since I was 18 years old, so 25 years now. And for the past 13 years, I've coached community organizers, leaders, activists, folks who are engaged in social change work who often come to me burned out and grappling with the question of what do they do next? And how do they continue to show up for their communities and the ways that really align with their values while also feeling good while they do that? And those questions are as relevant now as they've always been, but much more poignant in this moment. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 02:44

Part of your question I think is the question that we all have to ask ourselves because every single one of us exists in this place between me and them. How do I balance me and them? How do I know what my voice is when I hear their voices? How do I know what my job is and what their job is? And whether you are a mom, whether you are working in a place outside of your home, no matter where you fall in any type of the work type scenarios that we can be involved in at the heart of everything or these human relationships. And I think it's the question that I think about a lot. How do I balance me and them? How do I hear me and hear them? How do I honor me and honor them? How do I listen to and really make use of the wisdom and the value and the experience of me and them? How do I balance my wants and their wants, my needs and their needs? I feel like it's just a really human situation to be in constantly. And it's one that I hear the women that I work with asking themselves a lot. So I'd love to hear some of your thoughts about that. 

Katherine Golub 04:03

Sure. So my first thought is to map what you just said. So dominant culture often perceives things in either or. And so I find a lot of people get stuck in this question of how do I, do I, do I prioritize myself now? Do I prioritize the people I love or my work or my community now? Which do I do? And although we're trained to think in either or binaries, the reality is, is that life exists along polarities, you know, hot, cold night, day, acting, resting, et cetera. And so a polarity consists of apparent opposites that need each other to be whole. And so there's this polarity that you're talking about of collective care and self care. And we cannot do one without the other. Oftentimes clients have come to me because along that spectrum, they've been, they've had a habit of prioritizing collective care. And so they've been hanging out on that side of the polarity so much that things have gotten out of whack. And often there's this next stage of development in which people say, I need to prioritize myself next, right? But that is, that is a, that is a next phase of development. And often in order to find balance, we do need to go through some period of letting a lot go and learning to focus on ourselves. And that is not the end of the story, that in order to be whole, then in order to be well, both in ourselves and in our communities, we have to, we have to learn to dance along that polarity. And I'm holding up my hands that I'm kind of demonstrating a figure eight. So there's a dance between those two of collective care and self care. You know, simply many of the reasons, the root causes of why we are not individually well are collective. And if we do not address collective challenges, we will continue to be unwell, or we could check out, we could dissociate, but that is not in my experience, the fully embodied alive, to be fully embodied in life, we need to be in relationship and we need to be addressing root causes of why we haven't felt well.To do that, we need to dance along that polarity. And to do that, we need to choose. So I have found that, of course, we know a lot of better care of themselves and knowing that they want very much to continue to keep showing up for their families and their communities. And they have often developed a habit of, like we all do, of letting habits take the reins of the bus. If we can imagine that inside of ourselves, each of us is like a bus, right? That we have lots of different characters, a lot of different parts of ourselves. And where we get stuck is where we let one part of ourselves, like habitually hold the reins, hold the steering wheel of the bus. So for example, the collective caretaker, the one who cares for others may habitually hold that steering wheel. And so in order to allow other parts to take the steering wheel, in order to take charge, and also to develop the ability to let each part take the wheel as is appropriate in the situation, I have found over the years that before we take care of our needs, we need to choose to take care of our needs. 

Katherine Golub 07:27

And I have, over the years of supporting my clients, I've kind of discovered or come to call the way that I have learned to help my clients radical discernment, which I define as the ability and practice of making choices that honor our personal and collective needs. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 07:47

It's so interesting. I love that metaphor.I use it a lot as well. And what I find interesting is that oftentimes the part that is driving the bus, you mentioned like a caretaking part, that caretaking part has been, you know, nurtured and rewarded for lots of decades over, let's say, the life of a typical human who is socialized as a woman in, you know, patriarchal Western capitalist society, right? That's what she's rewarded for. That's what she is. That's where her value comes from. And oftentimes, there's a lot of fear, what's going to happen? If I stop doing this, will I not be needed? Will I not be loved? Will I not be recognized? Where will my value come from? And there's often an internal struggle that goes unseen, where this part is using an outdated, either coping mechanism or mechanism for getting recognition and connection in a way that actually is depleting to the person as a whole. But I've seen this over and over in my own life, and in the lives of, you know, other women and people that I work with, where they say, I just can't stop, I just can't not do it. It feels like this compulsive thing. 

Katherine Golub 09:11

Yeah, and I've found that in order to make the choice to release the steering wheel and allow another part to take the steering wheel, to take charge, there are steps that we need to take before that. And there's so many powerful methodologies out there, so many different methodologies that I've studied and I integrate into my work, and I've found that there are steps that we need to take before we can make the choice.And so, of course, it's hard to just release, to just let go of the steering wheel. So what I've come to name the key skills, so radical discernment is kind of a body of skills and body of practices. And very simply, there are six core skills that I've come to distilling it down into six core skills that help us to choose, to help us to release the steering wheel. And before we come to choice, we have pausing. We have resonance, which is attuning to and acknowledging the part that is holding the steering wheel in the first place, not just demanding that it release it. So pausing, resonance, which means attuning and acknowledging those parts, imagining what we do long for, learning what are the possibilities, then choosing and celebrating. Of course, each of those steps too requires a choice, right? And of course, it's not linear, so you can dance between the different steps. But we can't choose until we pause, and really the pause is the moment of choice. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 10:55

is the first step that I teach as well, which is so interesting because you have to stop. You have to stop the habit or just the moment from taking over.And that is a real skill to be able to do that. So when you're teaching a pause, what is happening in that pause? 

Katherine Golub 11:15

So there's so many different ways to answer that. I love that question. And there's three things that come up for me. The first is when do we pause? Like what happens even before the pause? So what I teach and do my best to practice are two things. One is just pausing throughout the day regularly, like having micro pauses. We're not talking about going on retreat or vacation, which can be great and important, but we don't always have access to. We're talking about tiny pauses, a few seconds to a few minutes to under an hour. But you can do this in 30 seconds. You can do it in five minutes when it becomes integrated into your day. So first is just having pauses regularly.And you can have ways to prompt yourself to do that, like wearing a bracelet or having the word pause on a sticky note or having it next to your bed or on your steering wheel, actual steering wheel in your car or places that help you remember or scheduled into your days. And then the other time that we pause is when we notice that we're feeling a feeling that is calling for attention. In the recovery movement, they talk about halt. There's an acronym halt. So that stands for hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. So when we feel that way, it's a sign for us to pause. So we actually often need to notice that we're not feeling well, even before the pause. And then when we pause, what we're doing there is we're noticing what is going on within us and then what is going on around us. So the first step is noticing the sensations and emotions in our bodies and acknowledging those, which is actually that second step of radical discernment and then asking them, what do they wanna tell us? So instead of telling, demanding that the collective caretaker release the wheel of the bus, we notice, oh, I feel, and asking, do you feel sadness? Do you feel panic? Do you feel anxiety? Do you feel disgust? Do you feel rage? Do you feel finding, trying to find words that feel like they match the feeling that we feel in that moment? And then asking, what do you want me to know? What happens then when we pause is that we shift from reacting unconsciously to responding or at least having more opportunity, more possibility for responding consciously. So whereas before, when we're just going through our days, most of what we're doing is habitual and there's actually, like that's how we're designed as humans is for most of our activity to be habitual. That's okay. I don't need to think about how I brush my teeth or how I tie my shoes or any of that. That's good or how I write, right? And I've learned how to read and write. That's a gift that I, that I am privileged that I have. I can, I don't have to think about those things, but where we get stuck is when we're reacting with a part that doesn't serve the moment, that doesn't honor our personal or collective needs. And so when we pause, we create an opportunity to choose. So it's like, what happens in the pause is that we stop, we pause, we interrupt the habitual reaction loop and we create an opportunity to enter a new loop of responding, which can begin with noticing what's happening within us and what's happening around us. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 14:51

I think that's so beautiful the way you've explained it and so important, because we do have these incredible brains that learn how to autopilot, you know, so many different processes and and I mean, I'm teaching I have a 15 year old, I'm teaching him how to drive right now, send thoughts and prayers because

Katherine Golub 15:10

How do I do? I'm teaching my 17-year-old. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 15:13

And to watch like the amount of concentration that he has to put into every little thing. And then I just get in the car and sometimes I don't even notice what's, you know, I'm like, wait, how did I end up at Safeway? I was trying to go to this other place. So I love that part of our brain.And it also has, you know, the other polarity that you're talking about here that it needs to be whole in that we do have to take off of autopilot. A lot of the habitual ways that we respond and react because they don't serve us. And I think that's such an important under talked about and under hyped up skill, right? Because we are praised for fast, productive, you know, really efficient processes that get things done in a way that makes everybody marvel at how amazingly we produce. And there is a lot less praise for the pause, for the slowing down, for the self connecting that is really necessary to see kind of the peak behind the curtain of like, Oh, I actually don't want this habit to continue to take center stage. I want to be able to choose something else. And that means I've got to slow down. So I love that. Any comments there or I'd really love to hear also about what happens after the resonance. 

Katherine Golub 16:39

Yeah, I do have a response to that. One of my favorite quotes is, love is 90% pacing. And I don't exactly know what the 90% means, but it just feels right in my body. And love for self and love for others. And I still don't always get it right.But it's like always going for the pacing. What is the right size pacing here? Because there is polarity between fast and slow. I mean, Tima Okun named urgency as a symptom of white supremacy culture, which I believe is absolutely true. And we can get too much into urgency. At the same time, sometimes urgency is needed. And so sometimes we need to go fast and sometimes we need to go slow. So I am not recommending only pause and stay in the pause forever. But if we are always in action, then we also get stuck. And so it's like finding that that dance. My commitment to myself this year with your permission to swear. Absolutely. Let it rip. My commitment statement for myself this year is Katherine fucking dances in 2025. I've been dancing a lot. And it's an embodied practice of I like a lot of fast, swig and salsa dancing. And also I've been practicing a little bit of going to a couple of Tango classes, which is very slow. And there's just learning to follow the movement of the lead. And it's a real somatic practice in learning to be in that polarity of fast and slow. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 18:15

That's such a beautiful practice. I also love dancing. I feel like I don't get to dance nearly enough and to just feel the inside polarity of your body, how it wants to move, how it actually has information for you. Like I want to do this. I want to swing my arms this way. I want my legs to do this. And I think that's amazing. That's amazing. 

Katherine Golub 18:35

It's been fun. It's been good medicine for this year, definitely. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 18:41

So after pause and resonance, you talked about imagining what we long for. Let's talk about that. 

Katherine Golub 18:48

Before we get to imagination, I also want to name a little bit more about the resonance piece. Right. So resonance is that moment. It's like empathy or compassion plus a yes. So resonance requires two people. So that may be the witnessing part of yourself and the struggling part of yourself, the habitual part that's grabbing the wheel, or it can be between two people. But it is when one person or part turns toward another with warmth and kindness and genuine curiosity and responds to the other person or part in a way that that person knows they are heard. And so it often sounds like a question like for, for listeners, really, like, do you need acknowledgement of grief right now? And do you need acknowledgement of fear? Do you need acknowledgement of disgust? Do you need acknowledgement of rage? Those are four questions that I've learned from, and I've learned a lot of this work from a woman named Sarah Payton, who teaches around resonant healing. But those are questions that can be particularly helpful for potentially traumatizing moments like the ones that we're living through. So if you respond with a yes, that's, and you might feel a sense of settling. I asked those questions very quickly. So listeners may or may not feel anything, but when there's that yes from the other part or person, yes, that's where resonance happens.And that is the opposite of trauma. Trauma is what happens when we are too alone. Resonance is when we are connected and together. So I'll add that in addition to attuning to and acknowledging ourselves, we also need to acknowledge often before we get to imagination, what is happening in our relationship. So a lot of my work is around helping people resolve and transform conflict in their workplaces, in their movement spaces, because that is often what leads to burnout. In addition to just doing too much, it's often the relationship challenges that lead to burnout. So we often need to acknowledge what's going on for someone else. In addition to what's going on for ourselves, often when there's a conflict is because there's things that we are not seeing and they could be interrelationally, they can be systemically. And a lot of my work is around helping people see the hidden dynamics that are keeping them stuck in their workplace conflicts. So there's often needs to be an acknowledgement of what is before we can move to imagination. And then we get to move to imagination. So in a five minute pause, like this morning when I woke up sad because my kid is at a pre-college two week thing and I'm like, oh, my baby's gone. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to pause and I'm going to be like, oh, I am really fucking sad right now. Oh, that hurts. Like my heart hurt when I woke up. So I offer myself some acknowledgement and then I'm like, okay, what am I longing for? What might make me feel better today? It can be that simple. Like what do I want right now? What do I want these next two weeks that he's away to look like? It can be really simple. Once you're in the habit of doing it, oftentimes we get into the habit of really focusing on what's not working. 

Katherine Golub 22:09

And so that can be, there can be a habit shift, a real practice that needs to happen in order to develop the habit of imagination. I'll pause there. I could say more about imagination, but yeah. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 22:21

I'm kind of listening to you through the ears of somebody who I might work with or who might be listening to this podcast. And the question that I think they would have is, okay, what if I pause and I experience, you know, some resonance, and then I try to imagine what I want. And there's nothing there. Because I don't know what I want. I've, I've done such a good job of listening to everybody's voices for so long. And such a total job of like, not letting my voice come into the conversation because I was told I was too much. I was told I was too loud. I was told that I was too demanding or too selfish or too needy. What do I do with that? 

Katherine Golub 23:01

I love this question because for many years when I started coaching, clients would say that and I would believe them. I've learned not to.Okay, let's hear it. So often where people get stuck is they think they need some brilliant vision or some brilliant imagination or some like they need to have all of the puzzle pieces together of the picture of the life that they want or they need to know how to assemble all the ingredients into a delicious recipe. Their steaks are very high for what they're expecting themselves to be able to imagine and that is not always possible, especially when we're burned out. And I'll say that often when we're burned out, what we just want is to stop. We want to be done. We want to sleep and that is actually what we know we want and we know we want that. And the next question is, okay, you know you want that. How do you do that in safe enough ways?You might not be able to quit your job immediately, but how do you do the doneness or the rest in safe enough ways? So I'll go back to what I the reframe that I give my clients now because I know now that they do actually know a lot about what they want. And so what I ask them to do and I do this in the very first session with clients before they've started resting more, before they've started recuperating their energy and they're always able to do it, is I ask, okay, envision the next horizon of your life, which can be sometimes we're bushwhacking and we can only see a foot or less in front of us and that is I need to go to bed early tonight, right? Sometimes if we're bushwhacking, we don't know much. Other times we're like in the high mountain desert and we can see for miles and miles and the vision, the next horizon is far away, but I say it doesn't matter. We're not putting a timeline to it unless that's relevant for their specific circumstances. And I asked them to tell me, you don't need to know the whole how all the puzzle pieces fit together. You need to just tell me what are some of the puzzle pieces that you were aware of wanting? What are some of the ingredients that you're aware of wanting? And once they have permission and an expectation to share some ingredients or puzzle pieces, they do. And so that's what I would ask your listeners to do. And partially, part of I think what makes it possible for them to do that in the very first session is that they have resonance support from another human.Yeah, they have me listening, taking notes, asking more questions, encouraging them to keep going because the squashing of imagination is a symptom of trauma. And so when we've experienced trauma, which we've all experienced, whether acute moments like being fired from a job or bullied by a coworker or something like that, or having our parents get divorced or, you know, being told that we were too much when we were little or etc. 

Katherine Golub 26:09

Or it's more the systemic situations that systemically, we're not in a situation that honors, you know, our political, economic, social systems are not set up to help us honor our needs. So of course, it becomes challenging to imagine, which makes imagination radical, I just interviewed for my podcast at Desiree Attaway on imagination being a radical act, right?But because imagination is squashed often by trauma, we often need resonance support to be able to feel safe enough to imagine what we want. And when we have that support, I now it's, I don't know, maybe been a decade or so. I never have clients say I can't because they know that I know that they can. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 26:58

Yeah. I like to also think about it in terms of, I mean, want sometimes has such a, there's a pressure to it, especially for a lot of women who are told that they're supposed to know what they want. And it feels like a deficit that they don't. And so another way that I like to think about that is what are you curious about? Like curiosity feels like a much more playful, expansive word. Want feels like what if I pick it, and then I discover I don't want it? Or what if it's the wrong choice? What if I go after this thing, and it wasn't the thing that I should have been wanting? And I figure that out. And so sometimes curiosity opens that up for a little bit. 

Katherine Golub 27:41

Absolutely. That there is so much pressure in dominant culture to find your one true purpose or your one true passion.And I have found that doesn't really exist, that purpose exists in relationship and in context where we are and with the people that we're with. Right. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 27:59

And I used to think that my one true purpose was to be a good Mormon and to, you know, to just really obey the tenets of that religious group for the rest of my life. And it's not anymore.So yeah, it exists in context and relationship. That's such a good thing to note. 

Katherine Golub 28:16

Right. And that curiosity is often what lets us know what we want. Our longings are personal and they're collective. We can't.And what is possible for us has a lot to do with who we're in relationship with. And so part of it is getting curious about what we want. And also part of it is getting curious about what other people want and what is in the good of the whole. And we can't know that without asking questions, which brings us to the investigation part. Also that, oh my God, what if I say what I want and I'm wrong? No, it's clarity is emergent. So oftentimes, the word that clients use to describe what they want on an intake form when they first come to work with me is the word clarity. And that used to really intimidate me because I was like, oh my God, as the high, the higher achiever in me was like, I got to help them figure out what the thing is. But after a while of supporting clients and really studying what helps people get clear, what I came to is clarity is an emergent phenomenon. Clarity emerges.So emergence is the process by which something that is greater than the sum of its parts that could not quite be predicted emerges from many different little interactions, often between people. And clarity is emergent. We don't get clear by knowing what we want, having a huge crystal clear vision and then making it happen. Clarity arises and emerges much more through action than it does through, even imagine, in nation. There's a polarity between vision and emergence that we need to dance in in order to become clear.So it's not that I'm asking clients to name what they want and then go do it. It's like, let's be in this dance between the polarity of the inside view and the outside view, right? Of what do I want? What do my people want? What does my community want? And dancing in between those. And so instead of saying a lot of clients get stuck saying, what if I don't have the right choice or the perfect choice or the best decision? It's like, no, do the next right thing now. Do the next right thing now and the next right thing now that get now, like literally right now. Don't try to figure that out for the future and engage every action as an experiment. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 30:49

I think it's important at this point to bring up some words that caught my attention that you were saying, because I think they have an important relevance to doing the next right step. You talked about safe enough. It just has to be safe enough to do the next right thing. You have to have enough safety, just enough to just do the next thing, and another friend and coach, mentor that I'll talk about. It's safe to feel a little unsafe. I love bringing that idea into conversations, because I think for a lot of women who are kind of paralyzed by fear of messing up, not getting it right, and doing it either in a public way or doing it in a way that affects a community that they love and are so protective of and trying to help, that type of fear can be paralyzing. Of course, all those parts on the bus, there are a lot of them that hold a lot of fear about what will happen if we get it wrong or do it wrong. It just has to feel safe enough to do the next right thing. 

Katherine Golub 32:01

Yes, the idea of safe enough is so important, I think especially right now because we are in a moment in which those of us who are engaged in social justice work are at more risk and will need to take more risk. And so we do need to be asking the question of what do we love enough to be able to take some risks for it? And what is the right size risk for me to take at this moment? There will be letting go anytime we choose something and we say yes to one thing, we have to say no to something else.And so that actually takes us to the fifth step or the fifth skill that we need is that choosing. And I really have come to rely on a metaphor from one of the oldest stories that we have written record of, which is a story of Queen Inanna, who is the ancient Sumerian queen of heaven and earth. And it's a story in which she journeys to the underworld to visit her long forgotten sister, the queen of the underworld, and in order to make the journey, she has to go through seven gates. And at each gate, something is taken from her in order for her to cross, in order for her to say yes to this calling. And she's also asked, who are you now? And so in order for us to say yes to who we are called to be, we will need to go through gates and we will need to let things go. Oftentimes though, where people get stuck is that they focus on the big gate. So for example, the big question of do I stay at my job or do I leave my job? Do I stay in my relationship or do I leave my relationship? Often these are questions and gates that are too big to answer until we cross through many little gates first, like having a conversation with our boss about making some changes or with a colleague or having a conversation or many with our partner, for example. And so we have to cross through these little gates and often it becomes safe enough to honor our longings and our needs when we focus on, okay, what's this next gate? What am I called to do right now? What honors my needs? What is my best guess? My best guess at honoring my personal and collective needs right now. And that's where when we focus on the little gates, which is actually where we live most of our life, that it can become safe enough to keep taking the next step. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 34:36

I love that explanation. So then when it's safe enough and we're able to just go through the next step and make the next decision, have the next small conversation, make the next kind of small move, I think that's what I hear you saying is that we kind of tend to focus on, am I going to stay in this marriage or not?When real, the question is, can I have a conversation about something that's been bothering me for the last decade in a way that feels like it honors both of us? And let's do that first before we make the big decision.So then how does that kind of lead you to the next step after that? 

Katherine Golub 35:21

Right. So it doesn't really, it's not, this is not, we can make sense of these skills in a linear sequence, because that just helps us think as humans, as to put things in a linear order, but it's not really a linear set of sequences of steps. So actually the last skill, which is celebration, which is rejoicing, which is noticing what is good, which is taking in the good, it's not necessarily, oh, we choose, and then we celebrate, which we can, which I absolutely like, every time you take it, you make a choice, like pat yourself on the back and do that. But it's not like, oh, we get from choice directly then to celebration.Because sometimes we need to grieve before we celebrate. And I've come to call the first, like the first steps as a practice in a micro pause, come to call it the discernment pause. So we pause, we turn toward ourselves with warmth and kindness. We acknowledge and get curious about what we feel and what we need and what our situation needs. And then we choose the next, the next thing we do. And of course, in there, it's often imagination and investigation, but sometimes those steps take a lot of time. So it's not like you just do one after the other. But celebration is all about developing the skill of enjoying what we have when we have it. And taking, rejoicing in what is good now, because the plant in front of me is good. Our conversation right now is good. The water that I've been drinking is good. There's so much that we have and that we often take for granted. So it's noticing what we have now. And also when we notice when our needs are met and we learn to track when our needs are met, it gives us lots of information with which to honor our needs in future decisions. It offers us the ability to see otherwise hidden opportunities and possibilities. It does so much for us. It nurtures our energy as we continue to move through the gates and take the risks and do the hard things. So I would say, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Let the choice, let the celebration follow the choice and do it throughout your days as much as possible as well. And again, this is micro. This is Rick Hansen's work. He identified that he's a neuropsychologist that coined the phrase taking in the good, which is just spending 15 seconds a day noticing when you're feeling good and kind of amplifying and enhancing and then absorbing those good feelings in your body. When we do that, we are literally rewiring our brains to have more of those experiences in the future. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 38:14

I've always said women overwork and under-celebrate, but it's just this kind of programming that we have to produce, produce, produce, produce, and celebration has been such an important part of my own journey to really appreciate who I am as a person, and so I really appreciate that it's part of your process as well. When you think about what becomes possible for someone who is willing to kind of work through these core skills in micro and sometimes macro ways, what do you hope is accomplished for women? 

Katherine Golub 39:00

That is such a good question. I love that. I love that question because like there's so many different ways to answer that. And I think I would put the question to listeners, right?And ask like, okay, what if you had a practice of pausing and really offering yourself warmth and kindness and curiosity and noticing what you need. And what others need and then just choosing the tiny steps. Like what would you choose today? Like what is actually possible today? I'm just like, I'm asking myself that, right? Right. It's like, okay. And I asked myself that this morning. So I reached out to a friend to get dinner tomorrow night. Cause my kids are not here and I want to have dinner with him. And I saw, and then I was like, okay, I'm going to go on LinkedIn. Cause that's a part of my business. And I saw drag bingo night on Friday that like, part of me is going to be like, Oh, do I really want to like, you know, I'm known in this community. Like, do I really want to go see people, but like I'm longing for community and connection. So I might go to drag bingo night. That might be what's possible, right?Like what, you know, I've been focusing on my sleep a lot. I really had a lot of insomnia last, you know, pyramidal puzzle insomnia in the last year that, you know, and so for me, it's like sleeping so much better because I'm taking all these little steps. I know for me in these times, it's felt like the land, the, the world has been wobbly beneath my feet. Right. And so I know that for me and some of the, like the recent Supreme Court decisions is just a felt like, uh, like the, the Supreme Court like took the world and like turned it upside down or like flipped it so that everything just slid toward the presidency. Really. Right. Like, yeah. So for me, this practice has really been helping me find my feet and my, my steadiness and being able to show up in my community and all the, like the trauma drama of city politics, right. Accentered, right. And to be able to maintain good relationships with people on the other side of the political aisle in my, in my community, even during these times, right, that's what's made, that's what's become possible for me.So the land still, I mean, the actual land, when I pause and like taken the land, right, taken my connection to the actual land and the actual floor between my feet, then I feel steadiness. That's taking in the good that like feeling that that connection becomes possible and I'll say like, I still feel unsteady sometimes. This is a, and I will, I know I'll continue to feel unsteady sometimes. And the steadiness is so much more because I've really, like, I've really ramped up my practice in the last six months. Practicing what I preach in that, or at least doing my best to, and that, that has become possible for me. It's like, okay, this is still hard. I still wake up many mornings feeling sad or feeling scared about what's going on in the world and honoring that, pausing and honoring that instead of trying to make those feelings go away. 

Katherine Golub 42:08

The grief is a part of this process too. So, and yet I feel so much more steadiness and connection to myself than I know I otherwise would.So those are some things I'm curious for you. Like what becomes possible for you at EDL these things. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 42:24

I feel like the connection to myself becomes it's the thing that I value the most because I spent so many years in this kind of performative stance toward the world and toward the people. Like I had a role to perform. I had rules to follow. I had things that were expected of me. And I did all of those things and I did them very, very well. And I didn't feel like there was much of me actually there. There wasn't any room, right? It was all kind of taken up.And so what feels possible for me is really a deep connection to who I am, to what I want, to what is what I'm capable of today, which might be different tomorrow and was, you know, maybe different yesterday. And an appreciation. It goes beyond appreciation. It's like I get to be in love with myself and I get to be in love with all of the parts on that bus. And I get to see that the sum of those parts is good and is something that can do good, not just in the world, because that's still very important to me, but can do good just for me, just for existing and being. And the way that I feel that connection, sometimes it's really strong and sometimes it doesn't feel as strong, but I can always come back to it in much the same way that you've kind of taught these core skills. And so I'm just, I'm really grateful that we've had, you know, the conversation we've had today. And as we wrap up here, was there anything that you didn't get to say that you really want to make sure you have the chance to say? 

Katherine Golub 44:16

The one thing that comes to my mind is a response to what you just shared. And I, and I love that, that being able to be in love with yourself. And I had this visual as you were saying that of like reclaiming the parts of yourself and like becoming like, you know, filling in the puzzle pieces of yourself, right? Like embodying your whole, your whole shape, your whole self.And I want to name that in an honest story, when she goes through all these gates, she does have to let things go. But in every great story, at least from a Jungian perspective, every part of the story is a part of ourselves. And so her call is to go meet her long forgotten sister, the queen of the underworld. And the story is largely about reclaiming what has been lost in the shadows, what has been, what we've negated, what we've discarded, what we've denigrated and reclaiming that, right? We're reclaiming or at least shifting a relationship with it. We can still say no to a lot of things, but it doesn't have to be in the lost in the shadows. And so when we go through the gates, we're not only letting go of things, but we are also reclaiming parts of ourselves that we have been cut off from or things that have been taken from our communities that we are reclaiming and reintegrating. And so that's also, yes, it can be scary to cross through the gates and to let things go. And also every time we do that, we are also reintegrating, falling back in love with, reclaiming our ability to be in love with ourselves. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 45:51

that's such a beautiful way to kind of wrap up our conversation because it is a process and again back to polarities of giving things up right letting things go and taking on new not even just habits but perspectives and and opportunities and I'm just really grateful to you for the conversation we've had if people want to find out more about you about who you help and possibly want to work with you and find out how they could do that where should they go

Katherine Golub 46:18

Thank you for asking that. So there's a couple of freeways for people to connect with me first. The first is that I have a regular, once a week, sometimes once every two weeks, free love letters to change makers that I send out that includes resources to other teachers, that includes podcast episodes that I've written, that includes short pieces that I write to folks to help them nourish themselves in these times. So to subscribe to that, people can go to my website, which is callingsandcourage.com. And I also have a podcast, Conflict Decoded, in which we talk about really the dynamics that lead to the conflicts that we experience in our workplaces and movement spaces and how to get clear and confident to move through them. And so yeah, people can learn more also about the courses and coaching that I offer at my website, callingsandcourage.com. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 47:18

Thank you so much for being here. 

Katherine Golub 47:20

Thank you. 

Episode 126 - The Body Knows: Faith, The Wisdom of Desire, and Telling the Truth with Michaelann Gardner

In this conversation, I’m joined by the author of Sovereign, hypnotist, and fellow ex-Mormon, Michaelann Gardner. Sovereign explores chronic pain, marriage, and faith in a way that connects to the experiences and stories of so many women—even those who don’t share the same religious background. It’s about sex, disordered eating, and divorce, but it’s also about finding your desire and allowing it to guide you into a promised land that may look different from what you imagined. Here’s what we cover:

• How the story of Adam and Eve became a framework to explore ideas about faith, bodies, and reconciliation

• How the wisdom of desire can act as a powerful guide if we trust it to lead us

• The reawakening of hunger and desire as a catalyst for telling the truth to ourselves and others

• How cultural conditioning impacts the way both men and women show up in marriage and sex

• The disconnect between the church’s view of sex as “sacred” and the lived experience of sex

• How the pain of disconnection and dishonesty manifests in the bodies

Find Michaelann here:

https://michaelanngardner.com/

https://www.instagram.com/michaelann.gardner

https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Michaelann-Gardner/dp/1961471175

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

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Transcript

Sara Bybee Fisk 00:57

A couple of things you need to know, it is the day after my birthday, I am now 52, which for some reason feels significant, 51 and 50. I mean, I know I was supposed to feel something, but didn't. And it is a birthday gift to me that I get to interview Michaelann Gardner about her book, which I am not kidding when I tell you is one of the best things I've read, not just this year, but in many years. And it's one of only two nonfiction or fantasy books I've read since the beginning of the year because I did not want anything to do with reality. So I am so pleased that you are here today. And this is actually our second interview, because the first time you graciously gifted me a few chapters of your book. And I was so intrigued. I just wanted to read the whole thing. So I am thankful that not only would you give me your time once now, but twice. And I am just so pleased to talk to you. 

Michaelann Gardner 01:58

Yeah. I mean, thank you, Sara. And happy birthday.I meant to mention that when I saw you. Yeah. I mean, it's really not, it's no way a burden. I mean, I wrote this book with the intention of connecting, you know, to women and people who have been wrestling through bodies and sex and God in similar ways. And I never get tired of just like talking to people, especially someone as gracious as yourself. And I think it's shared similar experiences. Like, these are the conversations worth having. And I love that I get to like, prompt them like on the topics that I want to talk about my having written a book. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 02:35

Yeah, yeah, it's so good. So before we jump into the book, what do you want people listening to know about you? 

Michaelann Gardner 02:41

Yeah. So my name is Michaelann Gardner. I live in Utah, Provo, Utah. I've been here like 16 years. So you might know it was like the home of Brigham Young University. I grew up Mormon. I'm now Episcopalian Buddhist something. I'm a hypnotist. I have a practicing clientele. And I wrote a book called Sovereign, where I try to unpack a long time of chronic pain and my marriage and my faith. Yeah, those are the key facts. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 03:11

Yeah. There are layers and layers of story and experience in your book and metaphor. And so I wonder why, as kind of just to set up the backdrop, why did you choose metaphor as a way to structure this, this personal narrative, rather than just like a more memoir type, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, because there's some jumping around in the timeline. 

Michaelann Gardner 03:45

It was a struggle to make that make sense to someone who's not me. I had a really good editor. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 03:51

Yeah. Well, it made total sense to me. So good job.It was Kathy West, your editor. Okay. I love Kathy. I have only a couple of, you know what? Very briefly, if she listens to this, she just made such an impression that I do remember her all these years later. But yeah, she was fantastic. 

Michaelann Gardner 04:08

So I love this question actually, because it is actually really at the heart of what I was trying to do very ambitiously for a first book. And I actually had an editor before Kathy who was like, just tell it straight. Like, what is with all this timeline nonsense? And, you know, it was before I think it was before I got cleaner. But I actually researched this really hard of like, how do I tell a not straightforward story? Because I don't think trauma is straightforward, right? Trauma comes and then it goes and then you find yourself back in the place you thought you had healed from. And then you think you've healed and you go back. I mean, it's this sort of spirally experience. And so much of what I felt and what I experienced as someone trying to figure out my sexuality, figure out my relationship to a higher being, it happened at a level that I don't always have the explicit words for.And so to use metaphor, I mean, that's sort of also where the trauma brain lives, right is an image is in sensation. And it doesn't always make sense to an outsider, like, why this trauma where this trauma. And so to be able to, to be able to bring metaphor and to bring something that's like, it's about feeling, you know, I really just wanted to see if I could communicate that, you know, and it almost almost sideways rather than just being like, here's the facts of what happened to me as if it were like a court case. Because also, I will say that a lot of what, what caused my experiences was my the story I was telling myself the lens that I had, right? Like, that you take the same person and the same exact experience. I mean, I even had a friend who read the book. And there's different actions that I take in the book. And he's like, well, why did you do that? I would have just simply not done that. Like, thank you for that advice. Like, you're like, thanks, Steve. Thanks. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 06:11

Appreciate it. 

Michaelann Gardner 06:12

And so I think metaphor kind of maybe gets a little bit more at like there's there's a lens I'm using here that is more than just the actual facts of it, you know 

Sara Bybee Fisk 06:22

Okay, I love that answer. So why don't you introduce us to the metaphor, like the main metaphor used throughout the book and why you chose that. 

Michaelann Gardner 06:32

Yeah, yeah. So the book is broken up into four sections. Garden, desert, ocean, promised land. Those actually changed a fair amount as I wrote, like they were called different things at different times and they got shuffled around. But what I'm going after is tapping into Adam and Eve, a story that even if you're not religious, we've all like heard the bare bones of it, right? There's those people in the garden and they do something they're not supposed to, they eat this thing and then God says, I hate you and they have to leave. It's a very Christian story. It's also a very Mormon story. We have like temples that we go to where we actually just repeat the story, like sometimes weekly, like it's like very like ritualistic, the Adam and Eve story. But it's a story I think fundamentally about bodies, you know, because they eat something, right? And it's the eating that separates them from each other and from God and from bliss. It's also, I think, a story about reconciliation. I don't know if everybody sees it that way, but I mean, to me, that's kind of actually the end of the story. Ideally is that you leave the presence of holiness, you go out and you suffer. And then through that suffering, you find a way to come home again, you know, whether that's to heaven, if that's your belief or whatever it might be. It has the advantage of also mimicking the hero cycle. So just from like a craft standpoint, right? I could kind of bring some of that stuff in. But yeah, I felt I feel a deep, like, I mean, we all feel some kind of way about, right? Like, well, I don't know if I love that story, or like, this is like the origin. I mean, everyone has a feeling about it. And I don't know why it taps into something really primal, but I think it does. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 08:30

It also occurred to me, and I'd love to hear what you think about this, that Eden is supposed to be perfect. Eden is supposed to be this place where everything is provided, there's no work, there's no stress. Like you say in the book, Eve can just reach up and pluck the fruit off of any…

Michaelann Gardner 08:49

Childish, right? Yes. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 08:50

Yeah. And it's in a lot of Christian theologies, if Eve hadn't fucked it up, right, we would all still be living in this paradise where ease was the, you know, the default, the default, instead of the pain of the world. And so, in so many ways, like religious life is supposed to be perfect married life. 

Michaelann Gardner 09:18

Don't step out of this wall, right? Yeah. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 09:21

Yeah, yeah, married life is supposed to be perfect. There's all these like images of perfection that look that way from the outside. But once you're in them, you see the imperfection, you see the crack, you see the work, you see the stress. And I think for my, my own experience was once I got on the inside of marriage, and my own marriage was so deeply, deeply difficult. I was like, what's going on? I was completely disoriented. I actually thought getting married would be the end of my struggles because I had a lot of, I was obsessed with sex. I thought about it all the time. I thought there was something very deeply wrong with me because I thought about it so often. I had so many questions. I was so curious about so many different things. I was certain that it was the one thing that was probably going to keep me out of heaven and that by finally getting married, then I could have sex and all the curiosity and all of the, the, you know, wonder would be gone. And I would finally be able to like kill off paradise. Yes, I would finally be able to arrive in a paradise where I could kill off this part of me that was so bad. And then there was all of this stress. And so I really began to wonder like, am I the only one having this experience? Is this only happening to me? And the shattering of that paradise was painful. 

Michaelann Gardner 10:54

I want to add there, sometimes people tell the story of Eve as if there's like this external snake that like makes you do something she doesn't want to do. I think that's like a bad psychological reading of the character. Like she wants, like she, like you can't be tempted. Unless part of you kind of actually wants that thing that you're being tempted towards, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. So the destruction is already there. It's already in you. You've already, the crack is there just because your desire exists. So then what, then what happens, right? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 11:27

That's such a good point. And I just want to point out, though I am also no longer a member of the Mormon faith, I think, you know, we'll both always be Mormon in some ways, but we're no longer in practice. One of the most redeeming parts of Mormon theology for me is the story of Eve, in that she is not tempted and like accidentally, you know, gives in to the snake, but she knows that it is a decision that she must make on her own of the free will and choice that she had at the time, that she knew it was her next step for growth, and that there was no way that she could continue to evolve into a full person without leaving this paradise. And so I love knowing that or feeling, I love having grown up with that view of Eve, not that she was just some dumb chick who ate the fruit, but that it was a purposeful choice and that it was actually her wisdom that led them both out into the next phase of their growth. 

Michaelann Gardner 12:31

And I would assert, and I don't know if I can, per se, have a textual evidence for this, but I would assert, going back to desire, that desire is a kind of wisdom, you know? Eve can't foresee everything that's going to happen to her. She has no concept, right? She's a child, like we said. But there's some part of her that's like, I know what I want. And that want, I think, is the kind of intuition, the kind of guide. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 12:57

It’s so true. Desire is a kind of wisdom and to follow it without knowing where it's going to lead to just trust, I'll be able to handle it when I get there, I think is part of the beauty of the story and the beauty of your story. So what do you want the listener to know about the paradise part of your book and your story? 

Michaelann Gardner 13:23

Yeah, we were talking kind of abstractly, which again, is by design from the book. But yeah, if we're talking about the beginning, right, I really, I am a very devout person, and I was very devout when I was in the LDS Church. And there is like a lot of joy from being devout in a religious community. And I don't even I hope I don't know if I even captured that joy appropriately, I kind of actually wish I could have done even more with that, you know, I mean, the relationships that I had. And the way that I felt when I like read Scripture, like, you know, I mean, it's, I can't do a disservice to the ways that I wanted to be there. And I wanted to participate and I wanted to belong. And like in any, in any childhood, right, like any growing up, and especially in a religious community, there's a lot of voices and authorities and adults that telling you like what you should be doing, at this often the expense of what your own voice knows. And so, you know, I want to say my experiences were particularly traumatic or unusual, but just things like, I was just so devout that like, one time I, you know, you paid tithing 10% of your income. And I was in this interview with a ecclesiastical leader who asked me if I was, you know, current the current tithe payer. There's like a thing that we did often as Mormons, they would ask you these questions. And I was like, I hadn't paid it yet. I was planning on paying it in a few days, right? And so I quote unquote lied, right? And I was like, yeah, I am, because I didn't want to miss out on the thing we were about to go do while he was asking me the questions. It was like this trip with other youth. And I just felt so guilty. I felt so guilty that I had like lied about this, because all the authorities in my life kept saying over and over, like the smallest mark will keep you out of heaven, right? Just the smallest thing is going to keep you out. Don't let that be the thing that keeps you out of heaven. And so I go into like, confess to my leader. And he just was like, why, why are you confessing this? And that, that honestly was very disconcerting for me, like, because I think I took things literally that maybe they didn't intend for me to, I don't, I don't, I don't understand exactly what's happening there. I don't know. But yeah, I mean, that, that was, that was paradise, right? Was, I loved it so much, sometimes in my own detriment. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 15:52

I really identify with this description of yourself. And, you know, as, as I mentioned, that the part of me that I thought for sure is, you know, not going to allow me to go to heaven is this part of me that is obsessed and curious about sex. And I would just repeat in my head, no one clean thing can enter the kingdom of God, no one. Yeah, it just, and I would, I would try to like beat myself kind of into submission with it or like kind of chase out those, quote unquote, bad thoughts. And I loved this part of your book. It's when you're writing about your relationship with Dan. And it's in the beginning when you're talking about…

Michaelann Gardner 16:36

This is like my high school boyfriend. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 16:37

Yes, yes. Never let it be said that I'm not ambitious. Maybe I won't ever write one of the hundred greatest albums in Christian music. Maybe I won't ever win a marathon or discover a new kind of physics, but I could win at purity. I could do whatever it took. I could love God with all my heart, might, mind, and strength. And then you say, every time I feel the pang of loss, knowing I will never see Dan again, knowing I will never feel his hand or experience the thrill of his lips. Each pang feels like proof that I am good.

Michaelann Gardner 17:13

And honestly, I still am that way. I'm still very ambitious in my virtue, right? Like I'm ambitious to be a good person, like to love other people. And I mean, like I work in the nonprofit for heaven's sake, right? Like, that part of me, I think will always be part of me. But there was no balance to it. There was no, there was no balance of pleasure or even like an external source other than the church to kind of like just help me get some context, you know, for what this could mean. And man, I got to like remember that Dan is not his real name. So I got to like, stands for the orient like, oh, yeah, you know, he's so great. He was just so kind and so interesting. And I think could have been a really beautiful counterbalance in my life if I'd been willing to let him be. But it was I just was too focused. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 18:04

Yeah. And it just reminded me because if I remember right, you ended that relationship. Yeah, I ended two relationships in college. Because every time we would start kissing, I would just get so turned on. I was like, this is bad. This is bad. This is terrible. I can't ever see you again. And so I just really, really related with that. And, you know, I think, I don't know, you said something a second ago, like, maybe you took things literally that were not meant to be taken literally. I don't know. 

Michaelann Gardner 18:39

I don't know how else you interpret, like people saying over and over, over the pulpit, no one's thinking anything like, like, what else do you possibly mean by that? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 18:47

No unclean thing can enter the kingdom of God. The smallest thing. Obey with exactness. You are saved after all you can do. I don't know how you misunderstand that. 

Michaelann Gardner 19:00

I'm with you.

Sara Bybee Fisk 19:01

You will be safe if you obey God. And so I just want to extend that grace to me and to you and to many people listening who come from religious backgrounds who really kind of put all their eggs in that basket. If I am just good enough, then I will be, yes, then I will be safe. I will have good things happen to me. And eventually I will have what I want, a beautiful, you know, relationship, marriage, life and heaven. 

Michaelann Gardner 19:36

Yeah, and I think that's actually one of the really key parts too is like, uh, it's actually not just that like God will love me and then I'll go to heaven, right? Like it's not just that, like it's like, it's, I mean, we're going to talk Maslow. It's very fundamental Maslow needs, right? It's like, I will have my physical needs met because God will bless me. I will, uh, have my connection needs met because I will acquire the spouse who like loves me. I will have my competence needs met because people will recognize me for my good works.Right? Like this is not just some like, uh, fantasy in the world. I mean, they are promising and offering like you're, you are experiencing fundamental need. You know? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 20:19

And then, so what do you do when it is the body that God has given you that refuses to allow you to participate fully in the things that you are supposed to be enjoying as a married person? 

Michaelann Gardner 20:38

Yeah, you know, so I get married at 26, you know, not the youngest ever, but- Same age, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. And my relationship with my ex-spouse is complicated.There's more factors than just religion happening there, but we found out pretty quickly in that I have pelvic floor condition that just blocks penetration of really any kind. So sex, exams, tampons, all of that. And man, like that is, it's interesting because, like you said, like I really thought I was doing all the right things. Like sex was and is really important to me and I was important to my husband. And then suddenly I just have this wall. Like I just like, I can't do this thing. And it makes me worry about, am I going to be able to procreate? And how does that work? And I start to realize that my desire is more complicated than just marrying a guy, right? Yeah, it's complicated. It's still a little bit hard for me to map all the pieces here, but that's maybe a good place to start with a story. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 21:57

So in your first sexual experience with your husband, you kind of start talking about, you weave in another story of your own hunger and a time when, would you have called it an eating disorder? What would you have called it? 

Michaelann Gardner 22:16

Disordered eating. Like it wouldn't be diagnosable as anorexia or bulimia. But yeah, like I ate, I ate really my whole high school. I mean, I'm like 5'4”, I was like 100 pounds, like pretty underweight. Uh, I would like my meals were like chips and salsa, like bread and butter. It wasn't, it wasn't a body image thing.It was just something about like food was just difficult for me. Right? So I'm definitely not getting enough protein. I'm definitely not getting enough nutrients. I'm definitely just not getting straight enough calories. Yeah. I think a lot about, um, you know, through that experience, my, you know, my doctor would be very like scolding, right? Like, why aren't you eating, right? We need to get you to eat. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 22:58

Yeah. 

Michaelann Gardner 22:58

And my mom would kind of just be like, I don't know what to do with you, which I really can't blame her for. It's a complicated thing to deal with, right? You know, my friends would kind of tease me about it. But to be honest, like it felt a lot like pressure, you know, like, just like, why aren't you doing this thing that should be obviously desirable? You know, people make comments like, Oh, I wish I had that problem so I could lose weight. You don't actually, because it makes you sick. But it's this weird, like, external thing where like, I know I should be doing it. I know it's good for me. Like, I kind of do want to do it. But like, I just can't get myself to do it. And I don't know why.And it just like, I don't know. And as I get to the hotel room with my husband, and it's, it's like that, you know, it's, it's like, I love you, I do. And I know I want sex. But suddenly, it feels like this pressure just like, like, are you going to just do it? Are you going to do just the thing right now that he wants you to do without stopping to ask yourself, like, what feels good to me? What do I want? What takes good, you know,

Sara Bybee Fisk 24:09

Yeah. 

Michaelann Gardner 24:09

He just doesn't ask, he doesn't ask. He just is like, this is what we're doing.This is the plan. This is what men and women are supposed to do together on their wedding night. This is the obvious step. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 24:18

And so without any preparation, without any tenderness, without any letting your body get ready, he jumps on you. And it's over in a few minutes.And you wrote this line earlier in the book, but I wonder if you feel like now it also applied to that moment. You know, it is also mixed with a no. Is that what your wedding night felt like? 

Michaelann Gardner 24:52

Yes. And I think, I love that you brought that back. Because I think, I think consent is actually really tricky, you know? Yeah. I think if I had outright been like, no, I mean, I don't think my husband's a total asshole. Like, I think you I think, well, we can get into like, what he should or shouldn't have done. I just mean, like, there was part of me that did want, right? Yeah, it like, like I said, I cared about him. But like, I just felt ambiguous. And there was no room to like, explore the ambiguity or just take it slow or kind of like, feel my way through it intuitively.The world that comes to mind is like performance. Yes. And so I think all the time, we're saying mixed yeses, right? We're not sure if we want something like, do I really want to go hang out with this person? I mean, I guess, right? Over time, hopefully, as you develop as a person, you learn what your tastes are and you learn what's a clear yes and what's a clear no. But like, we don't really know that when we're 20 or 26. Like about a lot of things, right? About what kind of friends we like, or maybe some people do. I had it took me a minute to really understand what that was. And I think sex is no different, right? There's just a lot that you can't know.And without someone being patient to let you come in and out. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think there's like true consent there. I don't know. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 26:26

Well, and especially when you grow up in a very conservative, you know, moralistic religion, like Mormonism, where there are very clear rules about what you can and cannot do, no sex until you get married. No, I mean, you can hold hands and kiss, right? That's, that's-

Michaelann Gardner 26:46

I was like no French kissing. That's right. Oh yes. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 26:48

100%. Yes, yes, yeah. And so now all of a sudden, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, don't do it. Don't do it bad as bad as bad as bad.Get married. There's a switch that's supposed to flip. And now you're supposed to show up ready in Victoria's Secret lingerie on it and know exactly what to do and, and what you like and what you don't like and how to really consent. And it's just such a it's just such a hard switch to make. My husband and I actually didn't have sex on our wedding night, because I was so anxious. I just kept feeling like my dad was going to walk through the door.Which if anything's going to kill the mood, right? That's, that is going to do it. And so there's all of this, you know, inhibition, inhibit, inhibit, don't desire, don't desire, don't desire. And then all of a sudden, the faucet is supposed to, you know, be able to be turned on. And it's just, it's not like that. And especially because you have your pelvic floor condition, right? It complicates all of it. And your husband, ex-husband, had his own things he was hiding and not being honest with you about, right? So you, you both come into this relationship with blockages, either physical or other. And it, it makes for a lot of pain. 

Michaelann Gardner 28:21

Yeah. Yeah. And just to be more specific, he had six figures of debt that I didn't know about until like the month before we got married.And, um, you know, I actually wasn't, at first I was like, should I put this in? Like, cause I knew some of his friends would read my book. They're my friends too, you know? Right. Cause I put this in, I don't know what it is. And my editor actually was someone like, no, like, like, like you have to, you have, you have to make it clear for the reader what we're talking, like the level we're talking about here, because I mean, it's so fascinating to me. Uh, if you're into tarot at all, there's a suit of tarot cards called the coins or the pentacles. And, uh, obviously coins is money, but it's also anything earthly, sex, bodies, health, like that all comes under the realm of pentacles. And I think about that a lot, like how money and sex and safety and my bodily security, like all feel connected, you know? And, um, just with him, the way that he was, I mean, like I would, I would cry a lot at night in my marriage and I was usually kind of like crying about his debt or about how bad sex was. Like they, they're really, they're spiritually, they're, they're, they're connected, you know? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 29:36

You write about laying awake at night doing the math. Yes.And knowing that he wasn't doing the math. And then you also wrote this that I just wanted to read. I was willing to do the things I hated to get what I wanted. I'd rather suffer in silence if that's what it took to get what I wanted. I'd rather suffer in silence if it meant I got to keep someone or something close that I dearly desired. I'd rather suffer in silence than risk losing my husband's love if I told the truth that he was hurting me. 

Michaelann Gardner 30:08

Yep. Yep.And I mean, like, literally, and like, like, I mean, like, like, I'm like emotionally speaking, right? Like with how he was handling money and like literally in the moment, like, no, like, actually, the way you're fingering me right now is like actually hurting me. Like, I just don't want to say that because then he feels bad and maybe we fight and I don't want to fight with him. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 30:34

I think about all the women who are listening who are who have that yes mixed with a no, who have the performance mode that they go into where they put they shove the suffering down whatever it is. And

Michaelann Gardner 30:50

It's not always sexist. It's not always sexist. You learn it. I love this. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 30:54

Yeah, no, it's, it's like worries about like, are you mad at me? It's worries about why didn't you text me back? It's, you know, it's relational concerns about am I loved and connected and accepted here? Do you see me or am I just the person who performs these tasks for you, right?We shove all that down and we pretend that it's not there so that we can maintain proximity with this person and we accept proximity because we have no idea how to get vulnerability. Thank you. 

Michaelann Gardner 31:25

Yes. Yes. Oh, that's really good.Because that proximity, because we don't know how to get vulnerability, right? Right. Like, does the state of being married feels like that's it? You know, it's not actually about does this marriage feel like a marriage? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 31:45

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah.And sometimes it, you know, whether you had the early marriage experience that I did where I was like, this very definitely does not feel like what I thought marriage was, but I don't know how to fix it. I can't talk to anybody about it, because maybe it's my fault and they're going to blame me. Or maybe I'm doing something wrong here. You know, whether it's that or you're just, it's like, I have a lot of friends. And as they kind of describe their marriage, it seems more like parallel play. Right. They're just, they're doing the same things together and they like each other. They like being together and spending time together. There's love there, but it's not the intimate, vulnerable relationships that really deepen the joy totally half. 

Michaelann Gardner 32:34

Totally. And I think telling the truth is one of the best ways to build intimacy, you know. That was a hard lesson to learn. And I took it, you know, from my marriage and applied it.I write later about other relationships where I had to learn to tell the truth. And I actually left my marriage and my church in the same month. May 2019, I like told my husband, like, this is not going to work out. And I took off like my, like ritual under clothing. And, you know, people will often ask me like, well, did you get divorced because like, like, I think that I think they think in their heads, like, my husband was like mad at me for leaving the church. And that's like why we got divorced. It's not connected in that way. But it is connected in the sense that like, I looked at these two people, these two entities, my husband and my institutional religion. And I just said, like, first of all, like, can I love you just the way you are? Right? Like, like, can I accept that you might never change? Like, my husband might never get a job. Like, my church might never, I don't know, take care of his queer members, you know, whatever the thing is. And like, and can I tell you the truth about how I feel about that and like who I am? And like, what happened? Like, if I tell you the truth, like, do you punish me? Or do you do we do we get closer when I tell you the truth? And quite honestly, in both instances, it was very clear to me that every time I told the truth, I'm not even trying, like, I'm not even trying to weaponize or be mean or be like, you're a terrible person, like to my ex husband, it just I'm just telling you how I like the truth of how I feel. Like, there's no there's no blame here. It's just the facts of how things feel in my body. And I don't I just don't think either either thing could take it, like they couldn't take it. And so there's no there can never be true intimacy there, they can never be true closeness. So then then what? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 34:32

I just want to point out that before you were able to tell the truth, though, you began to feel like a reawakening of hunger and desire. I think that's such an important point to make because it happened when you were allowed to just eat as you like, do as you like, right? When you were able to be curious about food that was not part of your, right? It happened in Germany, right? 

Michaelann Gardner 35:02

Yeah, I know I still I felt so lucky I was a nanny in Germany and like, it just food was just available because we ate as a family, right? Like it was just there. And enough times of doing that. I mean, it was just, it took like a little mental burden off of me, right?Like it was there. And I and I learned, I learned that I love tomatoes and caprese. I had no idea, right? It's still one of my favorite foods. And you know, because they're kind of strangers to me, they're not going to like, look at me sideways if I'm not eating, but like, I will because it's there, you know…

Sara Bybee Fisk 35:37

Yeah. And so the awakening of the hunger and your realization that, you know, desire comes back, lead to having to tell the truth. You know, you were talking about telling the truth just a minute ago, and the reality is the truth has consequences, hurts people's feelings, it can alienate you, it can kind of pull the curtain back on something that other people don't want to see. And so it's interesting because when I coach women and when we're in, you know, group coaching settings or private coaching settings, we talk a lot about telling the truth. Like even if it's just to yourself first, to tell the truth is such a revolution because you can say my yes is actually mixed with a little bit of a no here, or I don't fully feel like safe here or connected here, or I don't like this, I don't know exactly why, but I'm willing to stick with it until I find out. And so I understand for so long why you didn't tell the truth. 

Michaelann Gardner 36:47

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I, and I think a lot of, I think most people, and especially most women don't, I mean, definitely not in your twenties and you can, a lot of women go their whole life without ever doing it. Right? Like it's a very, it's a very effective protective mechanism. And, and I think a lot of people are in relationships where, I don't know if I want to say this, but like, you know, maybe things are safe enough, right? Like, yeah, safe enough. Yeah. If they don't tell the truth. I mean, could their life be richer and fuller if they did, sure. But like their husband is basically a nice person, you know, like they're, they're just basically happy. But in my situation, it just got so extreme that, I mean, it felt like the choice was either just literally being in pain the rest of my life or tell the truth. And, and I think without actually that crisis, like without the number of times, like while I'm going through this pelvic floor stuff and I'm going to all these physical therapists, I'm taking all this medication and I'm like doing all these things. Like I was like, it felt like the worst thing that ever happened to me. And now retrospect, I'm like, thank you for that crisis. Thank you for backing me up against a wall where I had to decide like, you know, will you just be in pain or will you tell the truth? And the pain was so bad that it wasn't going to be an option, you know. Yeah. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 38:07

And you write about how for a long time, it took you a while to even be truthful with doctors and medical professionals about…

Michaelann Gardner 38:16

Yeah, that’s its own kind of institutional authority, right? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 38:18

Yeah, and then you meet Heidi. Can you tell us about Heidi? 

Michaelann Gardner 38:23

Yeah. One of the best things about writing this book and I'm going to cry is like, so I dedicated the book to Heidi and I got to leave her a copy at her office and we texted a little bit about it and I got to, you know, tell her like, just like what she meant to me.I'm in this place, this paradise, where nobody's asking me like what I want or how I feel or how things feel for me. You know, my church isn't, my parents aren't, my husband isn't, my doctors aren't. They're just like, here's the thing I need you to do, just do it. And like, why aren't you doing it? And if you've, you know, especially if you've been a woman, you know, you go to these like gynecological appointments and they just like throw a robe at you and like just do the thing and like get it over with. And so I've kind of given up actually, which is an interesting spiritual thing to realize the number of times that I give up that I surrender and then the breakthrough happens. But I kind of given up and a friend of mine persuaded me that her gynecologist was amazing and I was like, okay, fine, I'll try another gynecologist like one more time. And I go in and I expect to see like the robe and the whole procedure and there isn't a robe there. And so I asked the nurse, I'm like, do I undress? And she's like, no, like Heidi doesn't have you undressed like for the first time. I was like, oh, okay, this already feels different. And she came in and my memory of how it went down is she just asked me a lot of questions and just like looked at me, you know, which is so, it's so basic, but like nobody had done that, you know, like nobody had just like asked me, like, what is this like for you? And my memory is that this went on for like a few visits where like she didn't push the point on getting an exam. She just let me like, come and we check in and like, you know, she had given me different things to try and we just see how that was going. And I don't remember exactly how long it went on, but it was substantial. And then like, eventually I felt ready to try like a pelvic floor exam. And I was like, so proud of myself, like when I did, you know, and, and I didn't, it was like mostly pain free and like, and, you know, you get this whole speculum is like expand, like if you know, if you have any like, non vagina having listeners, like, I mean, like, just imagine having like your rectum like pried open, right? Like it is not a pleasant experience if you don't have pelvic floor problems. And, you know, it's just from that moment, I felt like I had, I understood that at a somatic level, like a deep body level, like what I needed in order to open up like, like literally physically, but also emotionally to someone, I just needed someone just to be like a little patient. Like it's not rocket science, you know? Like, I'm actually like this close, right? Like I'm not like this super broken person, I just need some decency. And that that changed me. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 41:32

It's such a beautiful parallel to a sexual experience you describe having later in the book with a man who has some similar obstacles. Can you tell us about that? 

Michaelann Gardner 41:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So someone I was like dating sleeping with then he's very anxious, you know, I love him. He's still like one of my really close friends. And similar, I think he like really wants sex and he wants that connection. But he gets in his head a lot.And we were just sort of, you know, fooling around. And he just sort of turned to me at one point, he just was like, Oh, I'm just I don't want to do this, you know, I'm just like, he just you could tell that he was so upset with himself that suddenly he wasn't in the mood anymore, feeling broken. And I, I love that by that point, I could offer him like what had been offered to me. And I just like, yeah, it's chill. It's cool. Like, let's just talk. And we just like, lied in bed for a little while and just like, I don't talked about music or whatever the thing was. And like, after a little while, like, I mean, his reaction came back. And he was like, how did you do that? And I was like, I just made it safe. I just created safety. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 42:47

Yeah, I just slowed down. I looked at you. I treated you like a person. Yeah. 

Michaelann Gardner 42:55

And I mean, I know it's easy to be like, this is like a women's thing, right? Women are like, what if they think microwaves and men are like, whatever the metaphor is. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 43:05

Women are crockpots, men are microwaves. 

Michaelann Gardner 43:08

Yes, that's it, like fine, I don't know. I'm sure there's hormonal stuff going on there that maybe that's true at some biological level, but the men that I know, the men that I've slept with, they want tenderness and care just as much as I do. And they don't often, I would say in some ways, I won't say that it's like harder for them, but it's different because at least women, at least there's like jokes about it. Like we know we're supposed to be like slowing down with women if we don't always. Because men, it's like, I didn't even know I was allowed to want that. You know. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 43:43

So you leave your marriage and the church in the same month, and what you realize, this is one of my favorite parts of your book, and you have a moment and you're saying, in this moment, I was realizing how completely inadequate the theology of my childhood is for this moment in my life. And it's a moment when you are like surrendering, like completely, I've tried, I've gone to the treatments, I've taken the pills, I've done the exercises, I've tried, I've tried, I've tried. 

Michaelann Gardner 44:17

Up a lot of chastity, like, yeah, you know. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 44:20

Yeah. And it is something that your, our shared childhood theology has no, nothing to catch us. Right? And this is what you say. If they were wrong about sex, if it wasn't only magical, holy, sweet, or sacred, if it also happened in the body, what else were they wrong about? If the way they told me to think about and act on sex, divorced from body, centered only in spirit, damaged me enough that it's taken years of thinking of almost nothing else of yoga and therapy and practice and trauma and crying and pain, what else were they wrong about in the way I was taught to see the world?Everything felt shattered open. I was coming to a new reality of the multitudes God could contain. God is not only heavenly, but also earthly. God not only is clean, but also as dirt bound. God is touching and play and pleasure for only pleasure's sake, without purpose, without goal or aim. God is disgusting. God is tender. God is sorrow and salt, release and redemption. More than clean lines and quiet voices. More. 

Michaelann Gardner 45:40

Yeah. And I think, you know, specifically in our church, they talked about sex is sacred. Another thing that was meant as like the most sacred thing was like temples. And you go to temples and like, people are literally dressed all in white, the carpet is white, and it's like vacuumed every night, like, there's no dust, it's spotless. And then I like have my first orgasm, and I'm like, huh, this does not feel like that. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 46:06

Absolutely. 

Michaelann Gardner 46:07

And the disconnect is like actually pretty shocking. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 46:12

It's, it's the same disconnect that I think I'm currently disconnecting and living in, in this way that sex was so policed and so shaped in my mind as this beautiful pure, I mean, all the words that you use, holy experience. And then trying to make it that and keep it that was probably one of the greatest sources of like physical discomfort that I had, that I had to just like keep shoving, shoving down, down, down. And interestingly enough, my husband had a pornography issue early in our marriage. And I was looking back, I don't think it's unfair to say I was almost grateful. Because then we could focus on that. We could focus on this bad thing. 

Michaelann Gardner 47:06

do that our sex would be fine. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 47:08

Yeah, and the sex was always fine. Sex with my husband was always great.What it was was that there's a bad thing in our sex life. And I kind of think it's me and my like kind of silent, very, very subterranean curiosity about things that we're not supposed to be curious about. But you have this thing that we can rally around and focus on that is so obviously bad. It's because it's on the top of the do not do list, right? When you're, besides murder somebody. Right, literally, like it's number two, like literally they say this, yeah. Yes, don't murder somebody, don't have sex. And maybe third is don't look at boobs, right? Yeah, right. And so it was something that could like draw my attention away from myself and in a way that was helpful to me, but was terrible for him because now he's like the subject of all of this shameful focus. And he gets to be the broken one while I get to hide this thing about me that I think might also be really broken too. 

Michaelann Gardner 48:23

I’m really glad you brought this up because it was important to me in my story. I don't know how well I did this, but I didn't want it to be like my husband was clearly like the fucked up one. And if only he had done Dada Dada, then I wouldn't have been fucked up. Like, sex is a dynamic, right? And yeah, he brought his shit. I brought my shit too, you know? And it was that those, those shits like meeting each other, that was like really causing the problem. And like, as a woman, I had to do some very unwomanly things like learn to speak out for myself and learn what I like. And, and that is as much a part of what leads us to this, this place. But it's so easy just to be like, yeah, men just don't, whether you're talking about a secular perspective, like men don't even know where the clitoris is, or a religious perspective, like, you know, men just all of them, they all look at porn, like, it's so easy just to offload.What is my healing? What is my opportunity for healing here and what's going on? 

Sara Bybee Fisk 49:28

And that the ways in which women are taught to hide and starve themselves and perform, it's just as poisonous as how men are taught bravado and overlap, overlap, yes, lack of emotionality. And when those poisons meet, right, or the shit meets, in a marriage, there is, there's a lot of pain because no one knows how to tell the truth. No one is rewarded for talking about what's going on inside of me. I remember the first time my husband could really put into words, why he was looking at porn. And it's like, Sara, I just want to go someplace where I feel good. And it made me feel so much compassion. Because I'm like, you know what, so do I. So do I and I want it with you. And so telling the truth was such such a healing thing for both of us. But it took a long time to like excavate that out. 

Michaelann Gardner 50:38

One of the things I'm still maddest about is my fucking husband like acting like I was the problem. Like it was multiple times and he was like, well, I was married before and I had sex. So like, I'm not the issue here, you know, we go to like fucking like sex therapy and he's like, Oh, actually that was kind of helpful.I'll pay for half of it. Like what the fuck man? Like this is our sex life.This is not me.Yes.I'm still mad about it. And primarily because fine, you know how to like go down on me. Great. I'm happy for you.What are you going to tell me to my face that, you know, I feel hurt. I feel rejected.I feel sad.I want you. You don't. You've never said those words.I know that's how you feel, but you're not saying them. And so you are part of this dynamic that is making this impossible. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 51:24

Yeah. When are you going to tell me why you're not able to get a job? Yeah. Right. When are you going to tell me how you manage to accumulate multiple six figures of debt and didn't think to tell me until a month before we get married? Yeah. And when am I going to be able to tell you why I felt like that was acceptable? Right. To move forward in that kind of a financial situation. There's just multiple layers of truth telling that don't happen because there's no connection to ourselves. There's only the shame of knowing that something that we're doing or something that has happened is outside of the lines of the prescribed roles and rules that we are supposed to be inhabiting and living. And then it just fucks everything up and there's so much pain. 

Michaelann Gardner 52:12

And I think it shows up in the body and it shows up in the sex. And I mean, if people can have great sex and be super dysfunctional for sure. But I mean, that was my experience too, is like, it's just like the truth will out and it will usually come out like through, like through the body. Like I can say lots of things and I can pretend lots of things. But when I'm in that bed with you, like she's like, no. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 52:38

That's right. And you write about that, you say, I couldn't say no. So my body said no for me. Yeah. And I wonder when you think about the incidence of, you know, autoimmune disorder, 80%, if you have 100 people who are diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, 80 of them are women. 

Michaelann Gardner 52:54

I know. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 52:55

And the way our hips hurt and our shoulders hurt and our neck hurt and our back hurt, it shows up in the body. 

Michaelann Gardner 53:02

I know I really do believe it. And I believe it just from my like actual research and the neurological origins of pain, like, I mean, pain is, it is like neurons firing, it's in the body, but it's also the way, like I said at the beginning, like, it's how you are observing and experiencing something, you know, there's this objectiveness to it.It's just, yeah. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 53:22

And so I think it's only fitting that you talk about a lot of your healing happening in your body about being able to not only have sexual experiences that feel very enjoyable to you, but this is the part that I identified so much with that I wanted to read. I want to lean into all the luscious frantic profanity of sex with you. I want the letting go of rules and what's right. I want profanity.I want taboo, but also I deeply want tenderness. The way you might afterwards wrap me in a quilt. The way you might be grateful to some otherworldly power that we are here together alone. 

Michaelann Gardner 54:05

Yeah, I moved into the apartment I'm currently in in 2020. I was married for five years. I lived in this apartment for five years.I'm moving out this week, this month. The risk of really adding myself as a slut. Like I brought so many men back here, you know? And I'm joking about the slut thing because it was just, it was lovely. Some of them were jerks and some of them I never saw again. And some of them are like my closest friends now, you know? And I have a part in my dedication or my acknowledgement sets for a few of them in particular who really changed me just by like loving me well and slowing down with me. And like you just can't masturbate enough to do that kind of healing work, right? You have to really do it with another person who genuinely cares about you more than about the outcome. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 55:00

That's such an interesting comment. I never thought about that. But if we as mammals are meant to exist in relationship to each other, you're right. That ultimate healing happened first in your body and then had to be shared in relationship with another person to feel really, really complete. You can't masturbate enough. Let's put that on a t-shirt. 

Michaelann Gardner 55:25

Wisdom from Michael A. Gardner. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 55:30

Well, Michaelann, I just can't say it enough. I loved your book. It is about sex. It is about God. It is about religion and disordered eating and chronic pain and divorce, but it's also about finding your hunger and desire and letting that be the guide that guides you out into a promised land that I think... I'll speak for both of us here and you correct me if I'm wrong. It looks a little different than we tho ught. It was going to look like you are divorced. My husband and I managed to stay married. It's 26 going on, 27 years. And the running joke is that's only because we never wanted to get divorced at the same time. But the healing and the way that your hunger and desire led you out, the wisdom that it was for you, it just comes through so clearly in these pages. And I, for one, if you wrote this book for no one else, well, he wrote it for you, I'm sure, but you also wrote it for me. And I'm just so incredibly grateful that you would put into words some of the things that I had just never connected and thought of before. So thank you. 

Michaelann Gardner 56:43

Yeah, it's very touching. It's very touching for me.I, um, yeah, I had someone, a BYU professor commented, he's like, say, yeah, like your story was like, very, like, it was very specific to you. And I was like, a man, male, man, whatever. I mean, I know what he means, but I actually did try to go into the details, right? To not make it generic. But I don't think you even have to be Mormon or even religious. I mean, my best friend is raised secular. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 57:12

Mm-hmm. 

Michaelann Gardner 57:13

And she and I have shocking parallel experiences. It's very costly to tell the truth, like you were saying, and to follow it out. I wish it for everybody, like I do. And if the story illuminates what that journey can be like, it maybe eases it for someone else, even if it's just like affirmation, you know? Yeah, it was a hard project. It was like four years, you know? And I revised a lot and I struggled a lot through and I questioned a lot about should even be saying this out loud, right? Like, I mean, I have a whole thing where I talk, I like go into detail about the first time I masturbated and like, that's highly personal. But at the end of the day, it's the truth, right? It's the truth. And I knew that the truth sets you free and it sets other people free. And I'm really so grateful, like any of the word that I want, but just grateful that it touched you. It means a lot, thank you. 

Sara Bybee Fisk 58:14

Absolutely. Michaelann Gardner, thank you. Her book is Sovereign and you can get it on Amazon. And thank you so much for being with me.

Michaelann Gardner 58:26

Yeah, thanks Sara.

Episode 125 - What I'm Learning About Joy, Rest, and Pleasure

In the self-help space, it’s easy to assume someone else has it all together. The truth is, nobody does. While I have some answers—and I certainly can provide help to stop people-pleasing—I’m still learning, too. Today, I’m sharing recent changes and insights from my own life to offer an honest look at the messy, yet beautiful, journey of healing—and to remind you that joy, grief, and desire can all coexist. Here’s what I cover:

• How religious scriptures shaped my beliefs about worthiness–and how I’ve grown into a deeper sense of connection

• Why rest, joy, pleasure, and loving your f*cking life are powerful acts of resistance

• Why I stepped away from social media and how it has allowed me to show up more fully in my life

• How retreating to my love of fiction provided me with a soul-deep relief

• How I have become more fully present in my body and my power through pleasure

• How I learned that “Am I enough?” was never the right question to ask

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

Book a Free Consult

Transcript

00:58

I'm recording this just a couple days after I turned 52, which just sounds bonkers to say. I don't know, I do feel like I'm in my early 40s. But I joked with my daughter, I'm just going to tell people I just turned 40 12. 

 01:15

Because 52 just sounds wild. But I wanted to take a minute and reflect for a couple of reasons. Number one, in this self help space that we are in together, it is really easy to look at someone else and think that they have all the answers, have it all together. 

 01:36

And although I do have some answers, and I definitely can help you with your people pleasing. I am still growing and learning and wanted to just share not only some of the changes that I've seen in my own life, but the work that I am still doing, because I think what I am most interested in is a community of women who are healing and sharing together and what that means is we are sharing and we are being vulnerable and letting the people in our community kind of into some of the intimate details of our lives and so I want to do that with you. 

 02:18

One of the things that I noticed as I was just reflecting this morning is that although I am not a practicing member of the LDS or Mormon faith anymore, I in some ways will always be Mormon. I think it's just you know in there so deeply and I used to really obsess about two types of scriptures. 

 02:42

The Mormons have two additional books of scripture in addition to the Bible. It is believed that Joseph Smith who founded Mormonism also received a book of scripture called the Book of Mormon and another book called the Doctrine and Covenants. 

 02:59

there are scriptures throughout both of those books that really talk about being tested and having to endure to the end and that you had to try very, very, very hard every single day in order to qualify for salvation, quote unquote, you know, heaven, however you think about that. 

 03:20

And so I used to really think about those scriptures a lot. I would be filled with sometimes dread and anxiety, thinking, for example, there's a scripture in the Book of Mormon that says, you are saved by faith after all you can do. 

 03:37

And I just always used to think like, what is all I can do? Like, of course, I can always do more. Of course, there's other ways that I'm not being, you know, perfect or good. I just did an interview a couple days ago with Michael Ann Gardner, that's going to come out at some point around this episode. 

 03:54

And she was also a member of the same religious group. And we talked about how we, we couldn't win at a lot of things, but we could win at purity, we could win at keeping the rules. And so I think for some of us in organized religion, that's, that's the way that we are fawning for God, right? 

 04:18

We are fawning F-A-W-N or trying to please God all the time. And then it was just confirmed to me when I would read these scriptures that I was not enough, that I had not done enough, that I was not giving enough, loving enough, self-sacrificing enough. 

 04:35

And it created a constant kind of hum of anxiety for me that I even experienced after not going to church anymore. And that is when I realized that it was also connected to not just religion, but patriarchy and growing up in a, you know, Western patriarchal society where there There is this kind of constant drumbeat for a lot of us in our minds of like more, more, more. 

 05:06

I used to envision it and talk about it. If you can imagine, there's a donkey who's pulling a cart and in the cart, there are a bunch of things that need to be done, people that need to be served, things about me that need to be fixed, right? 

 05:22

And then there's a driver sitting in the seat of the cart, driving the donkey forward, trying to make progress on all of these things that are in the cart. I was both the driver and the donkey. And so that constant like whipping the donkey more, more, just do a little bit more, try a little bit harder, be a little better, give a little more, serve a little more, be a little more was really the kind of the constant undercurrent of my life with all of these scriptures that I would read that just told me basically you have to try really, really hard every single day. And if you disappoint God, it has eternal consequences. And so I talk about it now, and it's kind of like a little bit of an out of body experience. But in that time, I was drawn to that type of like exact obedience. 

 06:28

That's another that was just constantly out of my reach. And it just felt like that's what life was supposed to be like this constant striving. And one of the things that I recognize is that I just never think about that anymore. 

 06:45

I never worry about my worthiness. I never worry if I'm good enough. I never it's like not even the right question. It was rigged from the beginning. That was never the right question to be asking the right question to be asking is who am I? 

 07:01

And what do I want? What fills me with joy? What inspires me to be the kind of person that I think is important to be in the world? And how do I find and do those things? How do I become more me? How do I connect more deeply to who I am? 

 07:20

And what, you know, lights me up from the inside? And so that is I'm so grateful for that growth. It's come through coaching, it's come through lots of attention to the parts of me that were carrying the shame and the fear of rejection and the worthiness, the worthiness issue or feeling lack of worthiness, but it is resulted in a real sense of deep connection. 

 07:53

And I never knew that I was disconnected from myself. that whole time. But now that I am so deeply connected and can show up for myself so completely, oh man, I just look back at that young girl, young woman who was just so desperate to feel like she was enough with so much compassion. 

 08:19

And I can have such gratitude now that that's just not, it's no longer an issue. Now what I feel really compelled by is those questions. Who am I? What do I want? What lights me up? What fills me with joy and pleasure and happiness and knowledge and connection with others? 

 08:42

I'm still obsessed with the second type of scripture that I was really drawn to. And those were scriptures about justice that inspired hope. there were scriptures that spoke about a world that God had created that had enough. 

 09:02

One of the scriptures I'm thinking of right now it says, for the world is full and there is enough and to spare. And how deeply I longed to live in a world that reflected what I thought God had already created for us. 

 09:22

And to be transparent, I still believe in Jesus. I believe in what he did and said when he was alive. I think it was a real thing that happened. I don't know that I believe in all of it. I haven't pulled it apart really completely, but I still believe that the world we live in has enough and that there is enough to spare. 

 09:45

And there were scriptures that talked about how the poor and needy should be cared for. And they made me deeply long for that world for me and for others. And so one of the ways in which I have learned to take care of myself this year is by balancing that desire for a world where we all live in peace with the reality of the world that we live in a little bit better. 

 10:17

It used to be almost overwhelming to me to feel the grief of the world. I didn't understand why I got to lay down in a warm bed with enough food and enough love. And the world I saw around me for so many other people was so full of lack and terror and violence and no way to really fix that. 

 10:47

It filled me with a helplessness and a hopelessness that really was this kind of pit of despair that I fell in every single day, especially on social media. And so in January, I made the choice to leave social media, not completely. 

 11:05

I still post some things for work, but I deleted it from my phone, really out of self preservation because it just pulled me into this pit every single day from the constant exposure. And I just want to remind all of us, our brains and our nervous systems are not made to take the constant punches of all that is going on in the world around us. 

 11:35

Doesn't matter which country you live in. It doesn't matter if you're in the United States where we are undergoing some significant threats to democracy and our way of life. Or if you're in a different country where you're facing different threats in your own family and worldwide. We are all living with an unprecedented amount of information and it just felt like I couldn't show up for the people that I was responsible for. And I felt a tremendous sense of guilt. 

 12:09

It felt in the beginning like I was turning away or being a bad person or putting my head in the sand and I was hiding behind my privilege. But what I soon came to realize is that the relief I felt from being able to not face that onslaught every day allowed me to show up for the people in my life that were depending on me, my family, my clients, my friends, myself, and to regroup. 

 12:38

I don't know that I'd ever given myself that kind of rest and I really did it in two ways by going off social media and I retreated into fiction. I retreated into audiobooks. I think I've read or listened to something like 48 audiobooks since the beginning of the year and that's an incredible number because it's just a lot which I've loved on my walks when I'm working out, when I'm driving in the car. 

 13:04

But I'd always read self-help, right? There was always something about me that needed attention, that needed to be fixed, some kind of new thing I should learn to better help my clients. And so just giving myself, I loved fiction and fantasy when I was growing up. 

 13:20

I loved it. And to be able to retreat back into what felt like those old friends, I cannot tell you the soul deep relief that it provided for me. And sometimes that retreat is imperative. Stepping back allowed me to show up for the people in my real life that I am able to serve and help and to be resourceful about how I could help people who were not in my immediate sphere, how I could donate, how I could have conversations, how I could show up for the worldwide systemic injustice that we are still facing in so many regions of the world, because that still deeply, deeply matters to me. 

 14:11

The process is not over, right? I have downloaded one social media app on my phone again, and I'm just kind of testing it out. I'm still learning how to hold the incredible complexity of the world we live in today and stay functional. 

 14:26

I'm still learning how to honor what my soul needs and what the world needs and how I want to show up for those issues because they still deeply matter to me. I still deeply long to live in a world where everyone has what they need. 

 14:46

A couple weeks ago, a poet that I dearly love and have followed passed away from ovarian cancer. Their name was Andrea Gibson. And her poetry, it's like I found a language for so many of the experiences and feelings that I couldn't yet put into words. 

 15:07

And that is such, that's just such an incredible gift when that happens. And when they passed away, one of the last things that they said was, I fucking loved my life. And I have thought about that phrase every day since I read it in the announcement of their passing. 

 15:26

And that's how I feel about my life. And I learned so much of that by watching Andrea with cancer and chemo treatments, and being a queer artist, just funnel joy into their own life, even with everything that was hard. 

 15:48

And that was a really significant lesson. Because with everything that is going on in the world, to have joy is resistance, to rest is resistance, to gather those around you that you love, and to have happiness and pleasure, and a good time is resistance. 

 16:10

And it fills our lives, it fills our cups in such an important way. And I've learned that the guilt that I used to feel around that was because I just didn't understand that it's another way to show up in resistance to the people who want to make life less just, and less fair, who want to funnel more resources to those who already have plenty and away from those who need. 

 16:41

And that has been a really big and beautiful lesson. And I hope to just carry that line. I fucking love my life with me as the litmus test. Not that it should always be happy and good. Not that bad things should never happen. 

 16:58

But what I learned from Andrea is that even when bad things are happening, even when painful things are happening, even when grief is present, joy is always there. Happiness, pleasure, rest, renewal, presence can also still be there. 

 17:19

And then lastly, I want to share that one of the ways that I am really becoming more fully present in my body and in my power and in my pleasure is through sexual pleasure. It has been such a taboo for so many years for women in general, for religious women in particular, and I think for Mormons in really particular particular Mormon women to talk about wanting sexual pleasure. And it's been such a journey for me. If you go back to the beginning episodes that I did, I did an interview with Danielle Savory, who is a friend and fellow coach. 

 18:00

And she coaches women around sexual intimacy. And what she told me during that interview, I understood the word she was saying, she said, a woman who can speak up for what she wants in sexual intimacy has access to a kind of power that is rare. 

 18:19

That is not like regular power. That's a bad paraphrase. You'll have to go back and listen to that episode because it's so good. I understood the words she said, but I didn't really understand them. And as I have explored this new layer of embodiment of really being in my body during sex, asking for what I want, asking is so it was so hard in the beginning, think about how difficult it is for some of us who are, you know, really working with the discomfort of having and sharing our own needs to even ask the waiter to change out some aspect of our meal, like this is what we don't even know, right. And I find that some of us have a really hard time asking people we don't know for things, but we can ask people we do know very easily. 

 19:12

And sometimes it's reversed. I had no problem asking, you know, strangers and people that I had no connection to, to meet a need or to help me with something. And it was in my relationship with my husband that I found it the hardest to let him see this part of me that wanted pleasure that wanted to show up that wanted specific things, especially with all of the Mormon programming, and the patriarchal programming about how women should not be like there's a very particular kind of woman who is sexual and she's a slut. 

 19:46

She's a whore. And how these ideas that we are supposed to still be kind of pure and virtuous, but also sexy, like pulling that apart has been one of the greatest journeys of my life. And going from this idea of sex as like holy and pure and clean to what sex really is, it's, it can be awkward, it can be messy, it can be dirty, it can be uncomfortable, really has been just so incredible for me. 

 20:28

I talk about this a little bit in another episode I did with Danielle about dying for sex, the Hulu show that meant so much to me because it is about a woman. learning to say what she wants. Yes, it's about sex, but it's also not. 

 20:44

Now, she's doing all of this learning with a deadline because in the Hulu show, she knows she's dying. And I don't know that I'm dying right now of anything specifically, but I do know we are all dying. 

 21:01

And so when I think about the timeline that I'm on, it doesn't create pressure, it creates opportunity. And I want to share that for a couple of reasons. Number one, I just want to take the taboo off this whole sexual pleasure subject for women. 

 21:19

I want to be able to talk about it openly and honestly. And I want to share it in case. And the thing is, I know it's not a case. I know that there are women listening to this. And they hear other women, maybe me in this episode talking about going after sexual pleasure. 

 21:35

And something inside of you is like, I want that. I think I want that. I want to be able to be admired. I want to be able to be desired. And I want to have desire for a partner, a lover. And I just want to share that it's beautiful. 

 21:52

And it's just as empowering as Danielle said. And I look forward to what this next phase looks like for me with my husband. I'm not asking am I enough anymore because that was never the right question. 

 22:06

And it's not the right question for you either. I have found ways to show up for myself, to hold grief and joy at the same time, to step back when I need to, and to claim my body and pleasure in a new way. 

 22:20

And so I would just invite you to think about where are you still holding on to something, ideas or beliefs from old systems, parents who told you things that still hurt to think about a teacher, a system, maybe religious. 

 22:37

And where can you step back? and retreat and rest? And where can you claim more joy and pleasure? If anything that I've talked about resonates with you, if any of the themes I've touched on are also showing up in your own life, I would love a DM as a birthday present. 

 22:58

I love to connect with people who listen to the podcast. And especially when we're connecting about similar themes, it's always so much fun. So you can always email me sara@sarafisk.coach. And I would just love to hear about your experience as well. 

 23:12

Last thing I want to let you know is that Stop People Pleasing is still open because it is a fantastic program when we have lots of different experiences and women. And I'm still waiting for a few of you to join who I know are out there listening. 

 23:27

It's an incredible opportunity to do this work in a wonderful, amazing group of women. And so if you were curious at all about what your life could look like without people pleasing, without codependency, without worrying if you are enough, without worrying if you are too much, I would love to talk to you. 

 23:47

Use the link in the show notes or in any of my social media platforms to set up a time to talk. And I'll talk to you soon.

Episode 124 - How Did I Get Stuck and How Do I Get Unstuck?

I hear people use the word “stuck” all the time to describe problems or situations, but what does it really mean? You might feel stuck in a relationship you want to change but don’t know how, or caught in a pattern you keep repeating even when it no longer feels good. I’ve been reflecting on what it really means to be stuck—not just to understand it better, but to find language and tools that actually help. In this episode, I’m sharing what I’ve discovered to offer you deeper context around the feeling of being stuck and what you can do about it. Here’s what I cover:

• Why feeling stuck in people-pleasing isn’t your fault

• How feeling stuck in one area can have a big impact on your life overall

• The insight from Esther Perel that shaped my thinking on this topic

• Why stuck systems have all stability and no change and what we need instead

• The key to change: teaching your parts that it’s safe to feel a little unsafe

• How to begin experimenting with authenticity in small, safe ways

Find Sara here:

https://sarafisk.coach

https://pages.sarafisk.coach/difficultconversations

https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/

https://www.facebook.com/SaraFiskCoaching/

https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach

https://www.youtube.com/@sarafiskcoaching1333

What happens inside the free Stop People Pleasing Facebook Community? Our goal is to provide help and guidance on your journey to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from your life. We heal best in a safe community where we can grow and learn together and celebrate and encourage each other. This group is for posting questions about or experiences with material learned in The Ex-Good Girl podcast, Sara Fisk Coaching social media posts or the free webinars and trainings provided by Sara Fisk Coaching. See you inside!

Book a Free Consult

Transcript

00:59

One of the words that I hear a lot from clients is the word stuck. It's how they describe the problem that they want to solve or the thing that they think is wrong.

01:08

They feel stuck in relationships that they want to change, but they don't know how they feel stuck in patterns where they're just repeating the same behavior over and over and over again. They say things like, you know, I don't know how to change this.

01:24

I don't know how to get a certain outcome. I don't know how to move forward. I don't know how to make the changes that I want to make. And they can feel stuck just in one relationship or in one particular situation, or it can feel like it's happening everywhere.

01:39

Like it's kind of more global in their lives. And when I hear something a lot, it gets my attention. And so I've been studying stuck in an effort not only to better understand it, but to develop some tools or a way of talking about it that is helpful.

01:57

And so I'm going to float some of these things that I've been thinking about by you today. I would love to hear your feedback. I would love to hear how you experience this feeling of stuckness. And if any of these ideas resonate for you, I would love to hear.

02:12

So what has shaped my thinking about this really more than anything else is something that I read from Esther Perel that really kind of opened this up for me. And it really wasn't what I was thinking.

02:27

Esther Perel says that when stability becomes too rigid, that is the feeling of being stuck. Isn't that cool? It just, it really kind of reframes it for me because stability is something that every single human wants.

02:47

We want predictability, we want stability, we want to know what's going to happen. And people pleasing is a form of stability. It is a way that we make other people seem to be happy with us. It's the way that a lot of us erase conflict or drama that can feel very chaotic, very unpredictable.

03:10

It's the way that we know that we can calm people down or we can give them what they want so that they have a predictable opinion of us. Sara's good, Sara's helpful, Sara is giving, Sara is kind and it's a way that we create a very clear role for ourselves in situations, in other people's lives.

03:36

We know exactly what's expected of us and we deliver the thing that is expected and we get the outcome that feels very predictable to us. It's a really brilliant adaptation for creating stability. If you think for just a minute through a relationship or a situation where you feel stuck, I want you to look at how you have used people pleasing to create stability in that relationship where you are the one who feels the internal conflict,

04:14

the internal drama, the internal uncomfortable emotions and you feel them because you are sparing other people from feeling them by pleasing them. It's really fascinating and for just a second, I want you to appreciate your ability to create stability and predictability, which is what humans need by people pleasing.

04:39

Appreciating it isn't the same as saying you want to stay in this behavior pattern, right? We can appreciate the fact that as young children, we learned how to do this and we can also appreciate what a benefit it was to us, how it kept us safe, how it provided this stability and

04:59

predictability that we want as humans, and we can also want to change it. So for just a moment, marvel with me at the amazing ability that humans have to find and create predictability and stability, especially by people pleasing.

05:16

The problem is that as we grow up, this stability becomes rigid. It's actually rigid control. We're trying to control other people's emotions and reactions by managing our behavior, right? We're trying to keep them on an even footing, not upsetting them by taking all of kind of the chaos and drama into our own bodies.

05:44

We are inadvertently preventing real intimacy by not showing our true selves, and that's the real cost of this rigid control is that when we are so focused on stability, we don't have the opportunity to show who we really are.

06:05

We don't create authentic interactions because all of our energy is focused on the stability and not on providing some of the elasticity or some of the opportunity to change, to redefine roles, to act differently, to say no when we've previously said yes.

06:28

And that stability is what ends up feeling like the box we live in. We become stuck in these boxes of patterns, these boxes of habits that used to feel safe, but now just feels suffocating. So breaking this pattern can actually feel dangerous.

06:52

I have so many women who are afraid that when they stop people pleasing, there's real danger that will happen. And I'm not talking about the actual danger of violence or abuse. That is very real, but that's not what I'm talking about here.

07:09

If you are in relationships where the cost for not people pleasing is violence or abuse, you need to people please until you can get out of that situation and out of that relationship. But for people who will not suffer violence or abuse when they stop people pleasing, it can still feel really, really dangerous because when we were young, we learned that our pleasing is what actually got us rewarded with connection, with safety, with belonging, with affection. And so the parts of us that are really oriented around keeping us safe are all very, very worried when we talk about beginning to break those patterns.

07:57

To a nervous system, chaos is almost the same as change. Change means disruption. And so we start to have worries or our parts start to worry. If I stop people pleasing, everyone's gonna leave me. I'm gonna be alone.

08:13

If I set boundaries, I'm gonna disappoint people and they'll hate me. If I say no, I'm going to be selfish and alone. Or if I show my real feelings, if I share my real opinions, I'm gonna ruin relationships.

08:28

And these are the voices of our parts that are protecting that rigid stability that we've created because it's all they've ever known. They don't have a plan B for creating stability. And so what we need to be able to do is to, as the adults we are now who have different resources, different access to it.

08:54

to build skills and learn how to do things differently in a way that creates safety, we need to help our parts create that safety. And we're gonna get into that in a minute. But I want also for just a minute for you to appreciate your parts, the parts of you that have created stability by people pleasing, security and predictability.

09:17

Even though this pattern as an adult is highly uncomfortable and for a lot of women, it feels like it's killing us. Our parts believe that that is the price we have to pay for safety. It's really important to have some tenderness and some understanding for these parts.

09:39

So often women come in with judgment. What the fuck is the matter with me? I'm a 51 year old woman and I can't even voice my opinion. And so the judgment is just another layer keeping that rigid stability in place.

09:55

Because when you are judging something, you can't have the openness to create a different pattern. Judgment literally locks a behavior in place and makes it so much harder to look at different options, to get creative about what else we might do instead.

10:16

And it just becomes this huge suck of our emotional and creative energy when we get stuck judging something. So appreciating isn't again, the same as wanting to stay in the pattern, but we can appreciate the parts that learned to create stability through people pleasing.

10:37

And we can also show up for those parts as the wise, loving adult that they need to teach them something new, because that's what they need from us. Esther Perel goes on. And she teaches that systems need both stability and change to thrive.

11:02

And in a system that is stuck, you have all stability and no change, right? All predictability and none of that, like squishy, creative, elastic feeling in your life where the possibility to do something different is actually a reality.

11:21

And so if you think about those two things that we need to thrive, stability and change, the key is to teach our parts that it's safe to feel a little unsafe as we explore different ways of being in the world.

11:39

We can reassure our protective parts. I know this feels scary, but we're going to do this experiment together. We're not totally abandoning safety. We're expanding what safety might look like. So that is the attitude that we want to have toward our parts that have relied on people pleasing to create stability.

12:03

Because the truth is it does feel uncomfortable to not people please. The very first time you say something like, you know what, that doesn't work for me, but what I can do, and you don't give in right away to what someone else wants from you, but you suggest something else, your heart's going to be pounding.

12:23

There is going to be some anxiety in your system because we are changing the rigidity. We're changing the thing that got us the predictable outcome of people liking us because we always say yes. So after we have some compassion and some appreciation for what our parts have helped us to create, we then help the part understand, you know what, I'm going to be with you.

12:53

And it's actually safe to feel unsafe together. I'm going to be with you the whole time. If you're scared, I'm just going to feel it with you. If you're anxious, I'm going to feel it with you. If it's frustrating because it didn't work out the way we wanted, I'm just going to feel it with you.

13:10

That is the loving lens that we can look at our parts through because we need them to trust us to be able to move forward in a different way. So I want you to just spend a little bit of time over the next couple of weeks recognizing where you feel stuck.

13:33

And just reminding yourself all that's happened is the stability that I created has just gone rigid here. That's all that happened. I'm not bad. I can figure out how to get out of this. I'm going to be able to figure this out.

13:46

All that's happened is all of that predictability and security that I needed so much when I was young. And I depended on other people to help keep me safe, it's gone rigid. That's it. And together, we're going to be able to create something new.

14:02

So notice where you have some of those rigid patterns. For a lot of us, it's where we automatically say yes without thinking, or we automatically shove down our opinion, or we let our needs go unspoken.

14:17

It's where we pretend that we're fine when we're not. It's where we armor up for safety instead of letting our more tender and vulnerable parts be seen by people who are safe to show them to. And so just noticing, where do I feel stuck?

14:32

And then starting with a small change. And letting your parts know, OK, here's what we're going to do. Instead of saying yes automatically, we're going to start to say, you know what? I need to think about it, and I'll get back to you.

14:46

That small change. might feel very safe for some people, might feel very dangerous for others. The point is to start with a change that feels doable and a little stretchy, because what we want our parts to understand is that it's safe to feel unsafe with ourselves.

15:08

Something you might do is expressing a preference. That might be a micro change that you can make, or giving yourself a moment of real peace and rest and letting your system really take it in. Because practicing in micro ways to feel unsafe can increase your capacity for larger moments when you want to take on a bigger challenge in a higher stakes situation.

15:40

Just remember, your parts are going to feel uncomfortable with these changes, because again, that predictability that has always been so part of the way we've lived isn't there anymore. That's normal.

15:54

Just acknowledge again to these parts, I know this feels risky. We're building a new kind of safety. One of the things that happens sometimes is that other people will push back. People might be confused when you change.

16:11

They might express disappointment, they might want you to feel guilty, and this is normal because you're changing again the rules of stability that govern relationships. But their discomfort doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

16:28

You're going to create small experiments in being your more authentic self, whatever that looks like. There is a different side of you that wants to be shown, and you're going to show that in safe relationships first, in small ways, showing your parts it's safe.

16:49

It's safe to do this. It's safe to show more of ourselves. One of the ways that I did this work personally was in my friendships. I had parts that believe that the only reason people wanted to be friends with me was because I was cheerful, I was helpful, I was always willing to give and serve and love and show up and plan things and be the life of the party and that any part of me that didn't fit that kind of menu of feelings and actions was not welcome by friends.

17:26

That they didn't really like me for me, but they liked me for this cheerful, giving person that I was. And so I hid a lot of parts of me. I hid the parts of me that were tired. I hid the parts of me that wanted to be fully seen and heard because I didn't believe that my friends really wanted to see and hear all of me.

17:56

And it felt very, very unsafe to have any kind of emotion around them, any kind of frustration that wasn't positive and cheerful and giving and loving. And so when I had a friendship where it felt safe to do that, I began to admit small things, small frustrations, small things about myself that I wasn't sure the other person was going to like or approve of.

18:29

And as I did it, I was incredibly nervous. And I had parts that I had to take good care of by saying, it's okay, I'm with you. If this feels embarrassing, we're just going to feel embarrassed. If this feels overly vulnerable, we're just going to feel that together.

18:47

Because what I wanted more was to feel like I had friendships and relationships where I could really be seen. And I had a bunch of parts telling me that that was super dangerous and we shouldn't do it.

19:02

So if you feel that tension, so did I. And it's very, very, very, very real. The terror of being fully seen and heard in my friendships was real. And also the desire to be fully seen and heard in my relationships was also very, very real.

19:21

And so as I experimented with, it's safe to feel a little bit unsafe. And I want to credit Carl Lowenthal for putting that sentence into words for me. And that sentence has meant a lot to me because it's opened up places in my life where it is safe to feel a little more unsafe.

19:40

And as we're deconstructing stuckness, there is going to be a feeling of unsafe and that's okay because you can feel it with your parts. There were moments when I was showing myself in my friendships that it did feel unsafe, but I was rewarded with two things.

20:02

Number one, the sense that I could create safety for myself. When I was able to show up for me and just feel whatever I needed to feel, it felt so good. It felt like the type of comfort and witnessing and hearing that I needed, that I didn't get, and it was something that I could provide for myself.

20:28

There were some friendships where I didn't get the reaction that I wanted and I was able to just feel the disappointment or feel the sadness of that. And the second thing that it got me or that it created was that I have relationships where as I showed up vulnerably, as I showed up letting more of myself be seen, it deepened the relationship vulnerability and intimacy.

20:54

And I discovered that I have relationships that can handle my full range of emotions. I have people who will love every part of me. I can not only take care of my parts, but other people will help me take care of them as well.

21:12

Being stuck in people pleasing, it's not our fault. It's literally not your fault. It's the stability that we created the only way we knew how. And now we get to choose a different kind of stability that we create as adults for ourselves and that we can enjoy more of in our relationships.

21:35

And this is the balance that we're looking for, right? It's a balance of some stability and some flexibility. Most of the time what we are afraid of is going too far into flexibility. So that feels like chaos, right?

21:51

So that nothing is predictable, nothing feels stable. And that's kind of the worst case scenario that our parts are going to be afraid of. But remember those parts are young and the context that they were created in doesn't exist anymore.

22:06

They now have us adults who can be generous in our tenderness with them, who can learn new skills, who can learn new ways of being in the world, and who can take care of our parts. And so we can actually have both.

22:26

We can have stability and flexibility. We can have freedom to grow and change without losing the connection, the predictable, loving belonging that we also need. We can make decisions based on flexibility and not just needing stability.

22:48

And that is what life can look like when we are not stuck. It's what I want for all of us. We deserve relationships and a life that can handle the real us, right? Last couple of episodes have been about lying.

23:06

When we stop lying, it can feel dangerous, right? When we start telling the truth. But my hope is that this episode will give you a little bit more context for why the stuck is there and what to do about it.

23:22

If you have any questions or comments, I would love to hear about it. You deserve to be seen and heard in your relationships. And I love that we're doing this work together. I'll talk to you again next week.