Episode 154: How to Be the Caretaker of Your Own Radical Personal Empowerment and Self-Love
In this episode, I’m talking with Amy E. Smith, a certified confidence coach, speaker, and personal empowerment expert about people-pleasing.
How often are you apologizing, regardless if you hurt someone or if the situation truly necessitated an “I’m sorry”?
People-pleasing includes a lot of apologizing, and it doesn’t always express what we really mean which, sometimes, isn’t so much I’m sorry as it is I’m so thankful.
I used to say I’m so sorry all the time. I’d apologize for everything—even when it’s not really what I meant. Here’s an example from my own life. When I published my book, The Happier Approach, some of my friends and family hosted book parties in their homes.
One of my dear friends from high school, Renee Mattson who spoke on the podcast about how to avoid passing your anxiety onto your kids (here’s part one and part two), hosted one of these events. She invited me to her house a little early so we could have lunch together.
When I arrived, Renee realized she’d forgotten to think about lunch. As she was running around the kitchen, prepping leftovers, I started to feel bad. She went into all this trouble—hosting an event for me—and now she’s serving me lunch!
My Monger was having a field day with this. As the words “I’m so sorry you had to make me lunch” came out of my mouth, I caught myself and simply said: “Thank you so much for making lunch. I know it wasn’t easy and I really appreciate it.” Renee’s face lit up and she said, “you are so welcome, I’m so glad you came early. I know it’s just leftovers but it gives us a chance to talk and catch up.”
In that moment, I realized that by saying thank you—which is what I truly meant—it allowed me to appreciate Renee, allowed her to feel appreciated, and empowered both of us. Had I apologized instead and said my 3 favorite words, “I am sorry”, then she would have apologized for throwing together leftovers and all the things that we people pleasers apologize for and we would have both left the conversation feeling disempowered.
Today on the show, my guest Amy E. Smith and I are talking about people-pleasing and how saying I’m sorry all the time is just one of the ways that people-pleasing shows up in our lives and how it disempowers us and keeps us disconnected from the people in our lives.
Amy is a certified confidence coach, masterful speaker, and personal empowerment expert. Founder of TheJoyJunkie.com, Amy uses her roles as coach, writer, podcaster, and speaker to move individuals to a place of radical personal empowerment and self-love.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
What people-pleasing is and how you can be a strong, high achiever and still be a people pleaser (raising my hand here)
My own story about people-pleasing that took place at the Brene Brown daring Way training I attended and how I handled it (or didn’t handle it)
HOW to speak up for yourself and HOW to start building your inner strength around self-loyalty and worthiness.
Amy’s metaphor for self-worth which is gold
Resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
Transcript:
Amy: It's almost if you are going in to try on a new outfit, sometimes you just got to go in the store and just stand there and look at it for a minute. You might not be even ready to try it on yet, but for God's sake, go in the fucking store and you'll get to a point where you wear it with pride and then you start adding some accessories and some heels.
And but we have to start trying it on. So just listening to this going, what is this crazy girl on the internet has something to say. What if I actually could change this belief about myself? You have to start picking it apart.
Nancy: Three little words used to come out of my mouth all the time. I am sorry. I would apologize for everything, whether I hurt someone or not years ago, after I published the happier approach, a few of my friends and family hosted book parties for me in their homes.
One of my dear friends from high school, Renee Mattson, who spoke earlier this year on the podcast about kids and anxiety hosted one of these events. She invited me to her house a little early, so we could have lunch together. And when I arrived, she realized she'd forgotten to think about lunch. So she threw together some leftovers and it turned out to be an amazing lunch as she was running around the kitchen.
I thought to myself, oh my gosh, I feel so bad because she went through all this trouble and she's hosting an event for me. And now she's serving me lunch. Who am I to ask for all these. Of course, my monger was having a field day. And as the words, I'm so sorry, you had to make me lunch, started to come out of my mouth.
I caught myself and I simply said, “thank you for making lunch. I know it wasn't easy. And I really appreciate it.” Her face lit up and she said, “oh my gosh, you are so welcome. I'm so glad you came early. I know it's just leftovers, but it really gives us a chance to talk and catch up.”
I realized that by saying thank you, which is what I truly meant. It allowed me to appreciate her and it allowed her to feel appreciated. And it empowered. Both of us had I apologized and said my three favorite words, I'm sorry. Then she would apologize for throwing together leftovers and all the things that we people pleasers apologize for. And we would have both left the conversation, feeling disempowered today on the show. We're talking about people pleasing and saying, I'm sorry is just one of the many ways people-pleasing shows up in our life.
You're listening to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.
On this episode, I'm talking with Amy E Smith, who is a certified confidence coach, masterful speaker and personal empowerment expert. She's founder of the joy junkie.com and she uses her role as a coach writer, podcaster and speaker to move individuals to a place of radical personal empowerment. And self-love, I am so excited for you to hear our conversation because Amy really breaks down this topic in a new and refreshing way.
Keep listening to hear the definition of people-pleasing and how you can be a strong high achiever and still be a people pleaser. Raising my hand over here. My own story about people pleasing that took place at the Brené Brown Daring Way training I attended and how I handled it, or didn't handle it both how to speak up for yourself and how to start building your inner strength around self loyalty and worthiness and Amy's metaphor for self-worth, which is golden.
I am so excited to be here today with Amy Smith, AKA the joy junkie, and we are going to be talking about people pleasing and all things around people, pleasing, specifically, setting boundaries, speaking your needs, all that good stuff. Welcome
Amy: Amy. Thank you for having Nancy. I'm super excited. I love talking about this stuff, so cool.
Nancy: Awesome. Okay. So I want to dive in and let's set the scene. So what exactly is people pleasing?
Amy: This is one of those. Monikers that I think people get tripped up on in the personal development space, because if you are someone who is high achieving, which I know you engage with a lot of people who are that way.
And if you are a very goal oriented and accomplishment, check off the boxes, all of those sorts of things, we tend to have this idea of somebody being a people pleaser as someone who is not very accomplished, who's meek and mild and quiet and get stepped on all the time. And I feel like that's a very shallow view of what a people pleaser really is.
So if you distill it down into what, at least the way in which I teach it is that it's anyone who is so invested in the opinions of other people that they twist and contort their own behavior. So changing how you behave.
So this could be as simple as fretting over what you're going to wear while you're walking your dogs. Because God forbid your neighbors see you in a specific way. All the way to, I have to perform this way at work or in my business, because what would my colleagues think? So congratulations. You're probably in the people pleasing category. But I also think semantics matter. So if you don't resonate with that specific moniker. It could just be I'm wrestling with my investment in what other people think. But either way we've got an issue here, something.
Nancy: Yeah. When I walk the dog, sometimes I'll be like, oh, I wore the same shirt yesterday. What will people think? And I'll be like, no one notices that you wore the same. No one's looking at you as you're walking. So that was a good example.
Amy: Yeah. I think a lot of us have that we have these, one of the things that I talk about with my students all the time is, my, I have two rules.
I don't have many, but I do have two. And one is you do not apologize for crying and you don't apologize for what you look like. You don't, you roll out of bed. You get on, no, because guaranteed dudes aren't doing that. So it's one way we can say fuck the patriarchy.
Nancy: Yes, exactly. Yeah, totally. So some of it is, and the people pleasing is the investment you have in what other people think.
And then some of it I find, and I'm curious, your thoughts on this is like a, it's like your empathy radar is off and you are too invested in other people issues and problems and perceptions of you.
Amy: Yes, that's a tricky one because this is also, it's tricky also in the realm of values.
So for example, you could have a strong value around accomplishment, achievement also sometimes caregiving or impact philanthropy. And there are times when I think our values cross the line between, it brings me fulfillment into this realm of I'm not valuable unless I have all of these things. And a value is really something that should be adding to your life.
Your self-worth is contingent on if you accomplish, if you achieve. And I think empathy is in that sticky place, because especially if you're a highly sensitive person, which many people's anxiety are or if you are an empath and you feel things very palpably, and you're also a woman unpacking some of the narratives around we're responsible for everybody else's feelings and emotions, it gets very convoluted.
So I think in those situations, your wording really matters. So this is one of the reasons why I advocate that people don't say I feel bad. Or I feel guilty, guilt. If you have to say no to somebody, or if you have to decline an invite or you have to say, no, I'm not going to bake all those cupcakes for the kids class or whatever, then you, that doesn't warrant guilt.
You haven't done anything wrong. You don't need to change your behavior in any way. So one of the ways to work with that is to acknowledge what empowering emotion you're feeling. So it could be something like I'm feeling concerned, I'm feeling compassion, I'm feeling empathy. I'm feeling love. I'm feeling whatever it is, but let's stop saying I feel bad or I feel guilty because that locks us into I'm responsible for their emotional current.
Nancy: I love that. Yeah. That is that's really well said. Yeah. I would want to highlight the part about values. Not a standard for which your self-worth is contingent on. I've never heard someone separate that out. And I think that is a place where people go with values,
Amy: all the time.
And so where it, because we're also gluttonous, we're a gluttonous population and people, and if you're anxious, you probably also have that. I've got to have as much as possible. So if it's a value, I need to honor it to its absolute fullest. And then we get in this perfectionism around our personal development, but what's really, so the way that I describe a value is just a component that must be present in your life in order for you to be fulfilled.
So it's like an addition. So for example, I know that order and organization bring me a lot of fulfillment. I love love when things are in their place and tidy and all of that. So if I am able to touch a bunch of stuff in my office, I might get oh, like this burst of thrill, right?
That's an example of that value bringing me fulfillment. That's what it's designed to do right now. Conversely, let's say I have a bunch of friends over to my house and I'm not able to sit and connect with them because I'm stressed out about cleaning all the dishes, wiping down all the counters is everybody's glasses over here.
That would be an example of now the value has crossed over and now it's stealing my joy, but that's a fine line for everybody, but it gets tricky in the realm of accomplishment, achievement and. Specifically when we're talking about people pleasing, when we genuinely have a value around giving back to others, helping professions, that kind of stuff.
Really watch that line.
Nancy: Yeah. I totally agree. Yeah. So why do you think people get stuck in this cycle of people pleasing?
Amy: Oh, geez. I think can we just blame the patriarchy for everything? Because pretty much that's what it is, but there's a handful of reasons, even if we go back even further than that.
Maybe not. I think it was prevalent pretty much all the time, but even if we look at our ancestors and we look at something like. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. One of our primitive needs as humans is a sense of belonging. And that comes from our ancestors. When, if you did not belong to a group to an organized group that literally meant death, that meant you cannot survive.
So that is bred into our subconscious, into our lizard mind. And so now, as we have evolved and developed as a species, now our lizard subconscious mind registers, oh, if Nancy doesn't like me, I might die. If this grouping of people don't like me, I might die social anxiety. I'm sure you've talked about this.
A lot. Anxiety is an iteration of our fear response. It's part of what we are already built with, so it's very easy for us to see now. I don't know if you've talked too much about this, but how we have various iterations of the fear response where. Anxiety. If you are apt to be in a situation where you would normally fight, but you can't fight that now has become anxiety.
If you're in a situation where you would normally flee, but you can't flee, you can't run away. Your boss is coming down your throat. It's more likely that you have depression. That's one of the reasons why people go to sleep when they're depressed, they're trying to flee. If you procrastinate a lot, it's likely that you are somebody who would be stuck in the freeze response.
That's the modern iteration of freeze. And then we have this sort of newer guy on the circuit, which is fun, which is this notion of, if you would normally try to make friends with that lion, that's about to eat you like, oh, friends, let me give you some food. That's fawning, modern iteration of that is people pleasing.
So we have all of these things that basically are the ways in which we're engaging with fear and which I'm sure you've talked about plenty, but I think really coming back and understanding for ourselves that first of all, I think there's only one documented case of a woman who does not have the fear response.
And unless you are, she, it's highly likely that with fear and hence anxiety and all of these other things. But it may also be a part of the marriage between the anxiety and some of this people pleasing stuff too. But recognizing that, oh, my body is actually just trying to take care of me. I was wired this way and now we know consciously, oh, I'm actually not going to die body.
Thank you so much for sending in all that anxiety, but I'm not going to die. If Nancy doesn't like me, I'm not going to die. If all these people don't buy my shit or I, one of my favorite tools for anxiety has been talking to my physiological response, talking to my body. But recognizing that for me, it was really eye-opening that, oh, I'm not fucking broken.
I have just this primitive response, that's manifesting this way. And for some of it it's the fawning it's I can take care of myself if I make sure everybody loves me. So I think that's a huge piece. There's also a faulty narrative that people buy into around around self-worth like we were dancing around earlier and it sounds something like this.
If these people love and accept me, then I'm worthy or conversely, if they do not love and accept me, then I must not be worthy. And then there's a, self-fulfilling prophecy in every area.
Nancy: Yeah. And it's a bottomless pit, like if, even if they give me approval, I got to keep searching. It might fall at any time.
I did got to keep sucking up, that idea. It was interesting. I went, I I, the fawning and the freezing and reminds me of Brené Brown's shame shields that she talks about. And I was at the training with Brené Brown and people who have listened to me have heard this story.
You suck up when you feel shame. I was at the conference in my small little group, and I had shared something about how I had written a blog post about my dad having dementia. And that was how it got out into the world that this was happening to him.
And one of the members came up to me after, and she was like, that one of the only thing that people with dementia have control over is who knew, who knows. And you took that away from him by sharing that publicly. And I immediately was awash in shame and said, oh, thank you so much for sharing that you're right that was, terrible of me. And I sat down and I thought to myself, why did I thank her for calling me out on something that was already done and that she had no clue about? And then I had talked to my parents about they knew it was happening. Like it wasn't, but I, instead of correcting her or moving, in a different way, I thanked her for that really critical comment to me.
And that was when I was like, ah, there's the sucking up there. There is a demonstration of how that's showing up for me. And I am so good at doing that. Sometimes I don't even notice that I'm doing it
Amy: right. So I have two things I want to say about that. One is actually three first is that's where personal development goes bad.
That's where, when I call self-help goes wrong when it becomes elitist and condescending. Okay. So I don't condone that behavior. Second of all, is that those are perfect opportunities to do what I call declaring the do-over. Hindsight is 2020. You see really clearly what happened there after the fact, and then being very intentional about here's what I'm going to do next time.
And you can either visualize it. You can write it out. These are the things I'm going to say, but mapping out, these, this is going to be different next time. The third thing that I wanted to say about that is having, especially if you know that this is your tendency, this is one of the ways to declare the do-over is to get ahead of any time I'm caught off guard.
Anytime I'm caught off guard or I'm confronted by something. And I'm not fully ready to process this or retort in a way where I feel like I can really advocate for myself. You can simply say something like, wow, I'm really caught off guard by your statement. I'm going to need to mull that over a little bit.
Before I respond, I want to give the courtesy, it deserves, love that having some kind of statement or even very simple. Wow. I was not ready for that, or I wasn't expecting that. I want to give this a thoughtful response. So I'm going to need to chew on that. I'm going to marinate whatever the words are for you.
But if this is your case where you have that gut response of just you must be right. Then because we will respond to criticism in that way. We know from NLP neuro-linguistic programming that whoever has the stronger frame, meaning whoever is more demonstrative, gregarious, outspoken or assertive or aggressive will absorb any lesser frame.
So she comes at you with very like assertive. Here's what you did wrong. And it's for sure a thing. If you don't match that with equally as powerful of a frame, you get just gobbled right up. One of the biggest pieces in speaking up for yourself and speaking your needs, speaking your truth is having these go-to phrases.
So rewind that if you need to write it down and then rehearse the fuck out of it, stand in front of your mirror and rehearse it because you will be surprised how quickly you call upon that the next time somebody sideswipes you. Now, one other thing, bonus number four is if you can, if you recognized that during the time during the conference, you can go circle back and clean that shit up.
And you can say, you know what? I so appreciate your honesty and you sharing with me your perspective. And I realized that I jumped on board with that without fully processing it. And we don't need to get involved in a big conversation, but I just wanted to let you know that after thinking about it, I don't share that same stance.
Nancy: Ah, that's lovely
Amy: So where you can cut because I do find that people go, oh, I've never said anything for 30 years, or I've never said anything this whole time I've worked at this company. I can't say something now. And I'm like, yes, you can. Yes, you absolutely can. Yeah.
Nancy: So I love that because it's doing the intention, it's setting the intention.
So it's like being able to, I think a lot of times when we hear this stuff, the self-help stuff and personal development, we are like, oh yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. I would totally do that, but we never put it into our bodies in the sense of you say practicing it and get in front of the mirror and recognize the do over.
And what would you say, like all of that intentionality is so important to reprogram the natural response.
Amy: Exactly. And that, it's one of the stickier things about personal development in general is that. It's all thought and feeling work it's emotional work. So it's not oh, I do this sort of investing.
And I make all this money right. Where you can see a very tangible result. You won't, you will feel it. You will, the way it shows up is how you respond or how you advocate for yourself. And you, all of a sudden are shocked that you're doing that, but it takes repetition. Just like anything else, just like lifting weights or learning a new language.
You don't just look at a book to learn Spanish and go, oh, that's a really good, yes. And then go. Cool. Good idea. And then close the fucking book. The thing with personal development only, it's less tangible. So you have to really look at what are those practices. And I think writing out phrases and rehearsing them is one of the most powerful things you can.
Nancy: I totally agree with you. So I want to go back to the example that I gave of that, I didn't know I was going to give, but I, so I did not end up circling back and talking to her. I just let it go. And when you just said that to me about circling back, I don't think I felt worthy enough to say that to, to even say the very benign thing you said just to even have the self loyalty enough to stand up for myself to say, I don't agree with you, so how do you start building that? And I know that's like the five hours of podcasting and I'm throwing you under the bus, so to speak, but I'm because I think that's the piece that gets, we hear the how, but we don't know, we don't have that inner belief yet that we're valuable enough to speak up.
Amy: Yes. So it, yeah, this is definitely not something you can wrap up in a quick, like 30 minute segment, but there are ways that you can start to move the mark. And I will say that you can work in either direction, so you can start by really bolstering and working on a sense of self-worth and there's a litany of ways to go about that.
And I'll talk about that in a second, so that you then have the side effects of feeling confident in speaking up, or you can work outside in where you start basically. What is it, fake it till you make it fake it until you actually believe it. And that usually feels wildly more scary and authentic to people, right?
The way that I work is to work more through the internal pieces and then move into how do you communicate that with the outside world, but you can work in either direction. It depends on how you operate best. And it also depends on where your biggest sticking points are. And I would say for most people, there's this sense of, I am not enough.
That's one of the reasons why we overachieve, right? Let me pile all of these accomplishments because then maybe I'll be worthy. And what we're actually saying with that is then maybe I'll actually be happy. Yes, because what we're always searching for is, we have to human drivers pursuit of pleasure, avoidance of pain.
And so if we think something will give us pleasure, that's usually an emotional response. That's going to make me feel happy or good or fulfilled. So we are always moving towards things based off of how we want to feel. And worthiness is one of those things that's directly tied to happiness. So it's maybe once I have this baby, then I'll be worthy, then I'll be happy.
It's all stockpiled together. So I have a little metaphor about that and I think the first step around believing that you are enough and I should say in the service of semantics, everybody uses. A handful of synonyms around worthiness. So the ones that I hear are mattering that I matter in some way, that I'm valuable, that I'm deserving.
I am enough worthiness. And then sometimes people equate lovable that I'm lovable. So whatever your semantics are, we're all, it's all self worth. That's what we're talking about
Nancy: Because the semantics are important because it has to resonate with you. As people are listening, it has to be like, oh yeah, valuable.
That's the, that's what I'm looking for. It lovable. That's what I'm looking for. Anyway, not to interrupt you, I just wanted to, I appreciate the semantics focus. Because I think it's HUGE.
Amy: , it really is. Yes, it really is. So think about what are those. What is that deep seated belief for you? Is it that I don't matter that I'm not enough, is it that I'm not worthy, that I don't have value?
What, deserving is another huge one. I'm not deserving of the things I want. So what is that for you? And then what I want you to understand is that there's nothing wrong with you. There's only something wrong with the belief system and beliefs are totally malleable. We know from, from ton of anecdotal evidence, but then also just how the neural pathways work in the mind that our brain has plasticity, meaning that you absolutely can teach an old dog new tricks.
So everything that you believe right now, You've gotten to that place because of some kind of conditioning where you witnessed some sort of event or circumstance or upbringing or chapter of your life. And then you made a conclusion about that. And we do that stuff subconsciously. We don't go, oh, I have parents who were really absent growing up, or I had a special needs sibling who got all of the attention.
So I'm going to throw all of who I am into academia and accomplishing and achieving so that I can maybe be valuable in some way. And now as an adult, I'm going to have zero sense of self worth. And I'm going to just keep checking off all the boxes and feel totally empty and drink myself to sleep every night.
Nobody does that. We just experienced something. And then we create our interpretation, which becomes the belief. So if we're looking at like, how do we change a belief around the enoughness piece? The first step is actually getting curious and getting inquisitive about, could this actually change?
Because most of the time when we have a belief it's factual in our mind, it's the truth. And now if we look at like a, an extreme example, like a cult, okay. A Cult has stringent belief structure, built in to the cells of the person's being anyone who breaks out of a situation like that. The first thing they will tell you is they started questioning.
They started getting curious. They started asking, wait a minute. Is this really all that there is this really all? That's right. So how that relates to us is start asking what if I actually created this belief that I'm not enough or that I'm not worthy? What if I could actually shift that and change it?
And it's almost like if you are. Going in to try on a new outfit. Sometimes you just got to go in the store and just stand there and look at it for a minute. You might not be even ready to try it on yet, but for God's sake, go in the fucking store. And we, and you'll get to a point where you wear it with pride and then you start adding some accessories and some heels.
And but we have to start trying it on. So just listening to this going, what is this crazy girl? And the internet has something to say. What if I actually could change this belief about myself? You have to start picking it apart. The other metaphor that I have that might be helpful for people. Is this notion of who you are as a house.
Like your self-worth is you are this house. Okay. And we've got some rooms that are far more pristine, and then we've got other ones that we don't want people to see. We're still cleaning up some shit over there. And, but this is us. We have our value, nothing can change the value of this home, this house.
And then we have people who will drop off, let's say a gift on your porch. And this is like receiving accomplishments or accolades or honors or compliments or acceptance. And we go, oh wow. As a human, that emotionally feels off. Okay, cool. I'll go ahead and bring that into my house, but I also recognize that I'm just experiencing how good that emotion feels.
This gift does not change the value of this house, right?
Nancy: Yes. Yes. That's. I love that metaphor. Oh my gosh. That's amazing
Amy: . So the antithesis of that is somebody leaving a giant pile of shit on your porch. And this is rejection criticism, loss, disappointment being passed over for jobs being dumped.
And we go, okay, I'll go ahead and take all of that shit and bring it into my house. And then it stinks it up and makes it all messy. It still doesn't change the worth of the house, but it makes your situation really stinky. So one of my favorite metaphors or mantras rather around this is, oh, I'm currently not accepting any piles of shit.
So for your interaction with this gal, she was basically saying here, you want to handle all of this shit. I'm going to hand you this pile and nowhere in any circumstance, would anybody be like, okay, I'll literally carry that. If we're talking about not literally how millennials use it, but literally like the original definition.
Nancy: Yes.
Amy: Someone's hold onto this for me, Nancy.
I'm currently not accepting any piles of shit, but what we have to recognize. And I know you've talked a lot about emotional intelligence, is that when we're rejected, when we're criticized, when somebody says, no, I don't want to be with you anymore, or no, I don't want to hire you. That is going to carry an emotional response.
We are going to hurt. We are going to feel that, but that does not mean that you aren't worthy. That means that somebody left shit on your porch and you have to decide, am I going to make that mean that this is going to stink up my whole place? Or I'm mad. I'm going to go, Hey, that sucks. I'm going to let myself feel that I'm going to let myself cry, but I'm going to hang out here in, in all of my self-worth and recognize that our human experience is different than our worth.
What we feel is different than our worth, but emotions are fucking dramatic. So we feel like, oh, he doesn't love me. She doesn't love me. I must be not lovable instead of this is just this hurts. This situation sucks. I don't suck.
Nancy: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great clarifier. Yeah, I totally, yeah. Yeah,
Amy: I forgot the question I'm sorry.
Nancy: . No, you answered it. Because it's about like, how do you start moving? How do you start moving that line of self-worth? And I think the house metaphor, like even paying attention to, what am I letting in my house? Am I picking up the shit someone's leaving and bringing it in?
And that, because so many of, my, my peeps, my clients, my listeners the accolades define who they are. And so to recognize I can bring it in and I can be excited about this, but that doesn't mean that it defines me.
Amy: Yeah. And there's two other things that I think people will sometimes not allow themselves to feel the joy. Like they don't let themselves feel the excitement or they dismiss compliments. That's also a self worth saying or they think if I accept the compliment, if I allow it, then I'm being somehow grandiloquent and have all this hubris, which is also faulty.
If you think about, if you were to give me a lovely gift of, let's say some really fine scotch whiskey, which I would definitely not be mad at you for. (laughter)
So let's say, me, I love this. You've been thinking of me. I did something you thought was really awesome. And so you're. Hey, Amy, I got you. This gift. I was just so proud of you for this thing. You did, blah, blah, blah. And what if I took that and I smashed it onto the ground. That is exactly what it's like.
When somebody gives you a compliment and you try to talk them out of it, they, it is the exchange of energy. Definitely. If you thought about it being an actual, real gift, I would never do that. You would never do that. So the same thing is true about conditioning, our own self-belief and our own self-worth.
If we are constantly talking people out of compliments for us, or if we are constantly putting other people's opinions in front of our own all the time, that reinforces that subconscious message that you are not enough. If you were to do nothing with that situation that you highlighted with the gal at the conference, if you kept going into those scenarios over and over again, doing the same thing that would reinforce that.
First of all, you don't deserve to speak up. Second of all. Everybody else is right. And you're responsible to make them feel good. Whatever the beliefs are, but it will, it keeps compounding it. So that's one of the things that I tell people I'm like, even though it's hard to have a boundary, even though it's hard to speak up for yourself, please understand why that's important because your silence is making you a liar, right?
Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. Because I think the reason that story stands out to me so strongly is because that shifted, that was the story that started shifting stuff for me that was like, wait a minute, look at how often you do that. Because I hadn't ever seen it right in front of me, literally at five minutes after it happened.
Look what you just did. And I hadn't, I'd been doing that my whole life. I just hadn't seen it in such like a TV show in front of me way. That makes sense. But wouldn't you say, because when you said that about the accolades, someone, Not celebrating your accolades. If you if you celebrated your accolades, if you were like, I just got this award, that's so amazing.
And you were super excited. I would be super excited for you. And I wouldn't think, oh God, who does she think she is to be celebrating this? But I have separated out accolades and self-worth,
Amy: yes, good
Nancy: but if they are the same to me, if you are celebrating it, then you celebrating the accolade in my mind means you're celebrating yourself worth.
And so then you are full of yourself. In that warped view of how those work together.
Amy: Yeah. This is where I feel like, do you think most men have this concern? That's one thing from a meta view. The other is, I think selfish is the new black personally. I think we need to get out of this notion.
If you think about. I did an interview with somebody years ago who was under the impression that self-love was selfish and something that we shouldn't necessarily strive for, which I thought was fascinating. Yeah, it was a man wierdly enough. And so I was like, okay, let me take this guy to school real quick.
And, but I, if you think about love in any other context, Love with children. Love with animals, love of nature, love of a community. Love between spouses. It's never a selfish thing. It's never a negative thing. It's a beautiful thing. So why the fuck would we think that self-love is a problem? In fact it's necessary.
And I also think that the more boundaried I become, the more outspoken I've become about my wants in my marriage or the things that have hurt me. And with my best friends, the more respect I've gotten and the more freedom I've given to them to advocate for their own needs. So I do think that there is a place where selfishness is bad, right?
Like where it really does because damage. But I think for most of us who are in this space, trying to love who we are, the bigger problem is giving ourselves permission to tend to self, to take care of yourself. And I think that self-care can be environmental. It can be who you're hanging out with. It can be physical, how you're taking care of your physical body.
It can be spiritual. How you're speaking to yourself, the energy that you allow. It's not always fucking bubble baths. But it's preservation of self it's care for oneself. And to me, I feel like if we need to call that selfish fine, but like I'm going to wear that all damn day.
Nancy: Yeah.
And it's care for oneself. Not because some podcasts. Personal development. People said, you need to have care for yourself, or because you read it on an article on Buzzfeed, but because this is what your body needs, or, this is what your mind needs. So many of my clients will come to me and say, oh I'm getting up early now because I read on Buzzfeed, that productivity means you get up early and I'm like, okay, but do you, are you more productive at that time? I don't care what the experts say or the study says, what do you need? And so in that high achieving, we sometimes warp some of these personal development messages and turn them into sheds.
Yes. Rather than checking them with ourselves to be like, wait a minute. Is this something I agree with?
Amy: Yes. Amen. Okay. So remember when I was talking about the stronger frame and the lesser frame, I tell this as my students too, I'm a strong fucking frame. So everything that comes out of my mouth sounds like it's the way that it is.
I need you. I need you to be empowered and discern. Okay. That's Amy's truth. That's Amy's perspective to go into the dressing room, try it on. Does it feel right for me? And then you have full autonomy and permission to either absorb or release and that personal empowerment. It is not academia. I, it is not something that you can do a worksheet.
Perfect. Yeah. It is completely contingent off of how you operate and how you function. Yeah. I completely agree with you on that. Yeah.
Nancy: Okay. So frequently when this is new, this idea of speaking up for yourself or speaking a need or et cetera, et cetera. I have found that the need has been gone for so long like we have ignored it for so long. A scenario that our husband doesn't help do the dishes, I'm making this up as I go. And so we want to speak up and be like, Hey. So then sometimes to get into them being either passive aggressive, or we as I call it a 10 reaction to a two situation, we over, we go overboard, how do we let that, I say the energy needs to be clear.
How do we let the energy of what we want to be saying world, to be clear and not get caught up in muddling the message because we're, we are engaging in the drama or passive aggressiveness or these other things that, that we don't want to be doing, but they just happen because they're the default..
Amy: That there's so much I can say on this, but the first thing is a lot of this comes down to your own awareness. Because one thing that we know when it comes to communication with other people is that people will not make change unless they feel understood. So if you come at your partner, like a bat outta hell telling him or her all the shit they're doing wrong, It is highly unlikely that they're going to go, you know what, babe, I'm going to totally work on that.
They're going to, they're going to do one of two things. They're either going to appease you to get you to shut up, or they're going to be combative and start screaming and yelling. And all of a sudden, all this shit's coming out that isn't even related to the dishwasher. So it's ineffective. So the first thing is to recognize.
What you're like, you're pissed offedness, right? So you come home from a long day where Dave work, you see just stacks of dishes in the sink that, we're not there the last time you were around and your blood starts boiling and you're like mother fucker, just getting so pissed.
So in those situations, you have to acknowledge that it is not time to address it. You do not address it when you are in that heightened emotional state, because there's some work that you have to do to figure out what you are going to say. So in those middle zone times, let's say your partner comes over to you and wants to hug you.
And you're pissed. You have to own that shit. You have to own that shit. And you have to say something like I'm finding myself really frustrated in the moment I need 30 minutes to decompress. Or. Absolutely want to hug you I'm in a prickly place. So our tendency is to make the other person wrong and to say oh, now you want to fucking hug.
Oh, like we want to make the other person wrong so that you have to acknowledge what emotional space you're in and then advocate for it. Say, I cannot be around you or I need 30 minutes or I need to decompress before I'm super connected. Then when you are processing, I usually tell people to look for the presenting issue and then look for the surface issue or the root issue.
Yeah. The presenting issue is the dishes. That's not what this is really about. It is what that behavior says to you and makes you feel that's the root issue. The root issue is likely something like I don't feel respected in this relationship. I feel taken advantage of. I don't feel seen, I don't feel heard.
I feel dismissed. I feel like there's a disconnect between value systems, whatever it is, but you have to get to the root of it because honey, it is never the dishes, right? It's never the shoes. It's never the blinds. It is what that represents to you and tells you about the relationship. But unless you get to that root issue, you're going to be yelling and screaming about dishes.
And that's not really what it's about. And it's also so much easier to dismiss somebody on logistic stuff. That just doesn't make sense. Why don't you just load it? You're always over there. We fight for what's right around logistics. It's far harder for you to dismiss someone when they come to you saying, I realize that I've never really been vocal about this before.
And for that, I really need to apologize because it, how would you ever know? But I'll be really honest with you. The. The issues that we've had around the dishes. I know I have not always handled myself well, and I've screamed and yelled at you, but I realize where some of that anger has come from. And I really want to share that with you because you've always been so receptive to the things that are on my mind.
So you have to own your shit, right? You have to say, I've never communicated this in an effective way because we feel so validated and vindicated. If we've said something, even if it's yelling and screaming, let me tell you right now that does not count. It does not count it's in one ear out the other. It sometimes even partners will do it just to piss you off if you're in one of those types of relationships.
So it does not count until you've had a really thoughtful, vulnerable exchange with somebody. So sitting down and saying, I realized why this has been so problematic to me. It's because I feel like there's an unequal distribution of labor around the house. I feel a sense of being taken advantage of. You can also honor their intention and say, I assume that is not at all what you want me to feel.
Assume positive intent. So ways in which to deliver that. Now that's so much harder to disregard and dismiss than if you were to talk about the surface issue of why can't you just do the dishes.. So there's some language around how to go about it, but to distill down what the tactics are, you have to cool off, do not address it while you're in the heat of that intensity.
You circle back and you own your shit and you come from a vulnerable place. That's one of the hardest skills for people to do, but it's far more likely that you will elicit more vulnerability in return. If you go in with defenses down, it's more likely that they'll mirror that, but to own your shit and say this, first of all, how you've communicated in the past.
I apologize for that. And I, there's no way you would know, because I always make a joke.
Nancy: Yeah. If you're a good people, pleaser, you've just been like, it's fine. It's fine. This isn't a big deal until it is
Amy: Sure I will do the dishes, right? Yeah. So I always say if you present it as a joke, expect it to be taken as a joke.
That's a sorry way to, or a pathetic way to express your needs. However, I will say, be compassionate with yourself because that has been the only skillset or tool that you've had until now. We're always just trying to get our needs met. We just have a faulty toolbox.
Nancy: Yes. Thank you for saying that, because I think that is the piece that a lot of people, we forget the idea of the compassionate that have a faulty toolbox. I love that because it is just I should have done better and I should have all of that beating ourselves.
Amy: Yeah. And you can do a whole declaring the do-over situation.
Let's say you get home, you get pissed, you scream and yell at your partner. Because that's your normal gut response. You take time to cool off and process, and then you circle back and you apologize for that. And then talk about the root issue. Here's where it's really coming from. And no matter what I'm feeling, it's not fair for me to speak to you like that.
Yeah, it's a yes. And because we feel so righteous, if you weren't such a fuck up, I wouldn't have to speak to you like, and that is never a recipe for thriving communication.
Nancy: Because I will say sometimes I'll say to my husband in that situation I'm like if he comes to give me a hug and I see the dishes, I'll say I'm mad about the dishes, but that's not what I'm mad about.
And I need some time to figure out what that is, as a way to, to acknowledge that he's picking up on something, but it isn't, that isn't it, but I need some time. And that's hard to say because the other person even to say, I need 30 minutes before I can, I need some time that is hard because there, the person's uncomfortable and what is a baby?
What do you need? What's the going on? What's the problem? And to hold that boundary sometimes.
Amy: It's hard because that's another people pleasing. One partner wants to talk it out and then you're not ready. You're going to do it a disservice. And one of the things that I do tell couples to do that, if you are aware that this is a dynamic that's happening in the relationship, have a code word or something that you say, I usually will tell people, come up with something that is a code word or a code phrase.
That's innocuous. Something like the Eagle flies at Dawn or flying monkeys have landed or something like that, where it can be code for, oh shit, she's pissed, but she doesn't quite know why. And doesn't want to take it out on me unnecessarily. That's the meaning behind the phrase. But where you have an agreement and then the other person understands to retreat and to give space.
And, but you have to talk about that in a very non heightened, emotional place where you can both establish the confines of what that would, that phrasing means for the two of you
Nancy: . And then make sure you have the agreement to circle back to actually talk about whatever it is. Because I know people will be like, that's fine now we're fine. Everything's fine
Amy: . Then it becomes the sweeping under the rug. So then it's got to be, and you can be funny with it. You can be like, are you ready to have an uncomfortable conversation about the flying monkey?
Yay, ready? Let's do it, and be fun with it. And so there's ways to break some of that stuff down, right?
Nancy: Yeah. That's awesome. I like how you clarified that. Sometimes when we're in the personal development world, we it's easy for us to spout off. Here's what you should do and forgetting the uncomfortableness of actually doing that stuff.
And so I appreciate all your examples and metaphors where you really are breaking it down on. Helping people who are new to this, and it's super uncomfortable how to set those, to speak up and ask for what it is they need.
Amy: Yeah. I'm a huge fan of that too, because that's how my mind thinks.
And give me step-by-steps though. I can't just, oh, speak your truth. What the fuck does that mean? Exactly. You know what I mean? I really think that way, therefore, I teach that way as well. And I think. When it comes to learning how to do this. One of the things that I'll tell people is get it out on paper because we've all gone through anyone with anxiety has gone through playing that shit over and over again in your head.
And here's what I should have said. Okay. Write all that stuff down. And even if you are going into a conversation where let's say you are circling back with somebody, write it all out. If you want just like a straight up letter. And then here's what you say. You say, I know this sounds really silly that I wrote all of this down, but it's really important to me to get it right.
And I, I don't want to keep communicating with you the way I happen because it's not fair to you. So I'm just going to read my paper and my request is that you just hear me out and then I absolutely want to hear your thoughts as well. But my request is just let me get through it. And then we can discuss.
So I tell people that all the time, because we think, because when we don't have that, we get derailed, we get defensive, we get into all of our old patterns. So there's no shame in that. And just saying, I really wanted to get it right this time. And it was important to me to make sure I spelled this out in a way that was fair to you.
Yeah. And yeah,
Nancy: because I think a lot of times I'll talk with I was talking with a client today who had said her husband had said something pretty benign and her monger, picked it up and was it just hit her so deep as a deep wound of shame.
And she was up all night, rehashing it. And so we talked through like how she could talk to him. And so a lot of times in your code phrase, I'll say I'll say sometimes it's helpful to be like, I'll say to my husband, oh, my monger is going crazy today. And she's telling me that you're thinking.
Yes. And he can be like, yeah, no. And so having those ways of being able to talk about it in a owning, owning your shit, as you say, but also a less intense way of discussing it.
Amy: Okay. Yeah. I use a tool with my students around that has a lot to do with what we're making up.
So essentially all you do is you start looking at what are the facts of the situation, what was said, and then what journey did I take? Where I made? In fact, I have a similar anecdote where my, we were renovating part of our house in California, before we moved here to North Carolina. And we, my husband had a bunch of the stuff that was out on the patio. He had moved it into the living room, which is where I did my workouts. And so he said to me, he said, Hey, are you still doing your workouts? And I was like, oh no, but that was the only phrase he said.,
So my mind went, oh my gosh, he's not attracted to me to work out. He wants to meet blah, blah, blah. And so I said in those moments, really similar to what you said is I said, can I just tell you where my head went? If they don't know inner critic or they don't know, you can say things like, can I tell you what I just made up in my mind?
Or can I tell you how that landed? Or can I tell you my interpretation of that or where I just went in my head. I got to just get this out. And so I did. And he was like, oh no, not at all. I was just concerned that I had all my shit in the living room and you weren't going to have any room. So not only was it not malicious, it was actually really thoughtful.
I had made up was so fantastic because then what happens is when we don't take that step of here's where I just went in my head or here's what my Monger just said when we don't do that, we start looking for more evidence to support that story. So if he, if we would have been watching TV, let's say, and he saw somebody who was like, oh wow, she's really attractive.
My, I would have gotten this totally innocuous. Normally I would've gone. Oh, he thinks I'm gross. And you know that I need to exercise more and I'm lazy and he's attracted to everybody else. And I would just start stockpiling. And then, and none of it actually being true right now, there are some times when.
You say, here's where I went and they go, yeah, I do feel that way. And then you've got a totally different thing to with, but at least you're not swimming around with a bunch of fictitious stories. You're getting to the root of it and you're figuring out what you're dealing with instead of not being able to sleep because you're not sure.
Nancy: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's amazing. Some of the things where my brain can go, oh, not just me, I'm saying everyone. And my partner's like, how did you get there? Like that? And so easily…
Wow, it wasn’t pretty. And then, because I had one recently, I was down, I cooked dinner and then I went down where I said, dinner is ready.
Then I ran downstairs to swap the laundry and I'm downstairs, switching from the dryer. And I'm like, you've got to get up there and he's going to be really mad at you. If you don't get up there because you said dinner was ready and now you're downstairs doing the laundry and you're supposed to be eating dinner with him and he comes down and I'd say that, I'm like, this is the crazy thing going on in my head.
And he said, how awful do you think I am? That I'm upstairs going come on, bitch, get your dress up here. We're supposed to be eating dinner and what you're doing, my laundry downstairs. You're so ridiculous. Yeah. And I didn't realize that was helpful for me to say oh yeah, this is hurtful to him.
Like that I'm that I go there instead of, and not be like, wait, this is your husband who loves you. He's not thinking you're an irresponsible bitch, because you're doing the laundry.
Amy: And I find that so much of the time people will tell me. And, my students or clients will say, I'm so worried that he'll think this or that she'll think that, and I'm like, then stay that, you know what?
It is my deepest fear that I come across like this or that you think that I don't value you or that I don't care about you, but here. So I was really apprehensive even bringing this to you, but I want our relationship to be one of honesty and I want the same in return. So here's my. Fill in the blank, but so much can be rectified by just telling a person you have something to say, and you're scared to say it.
Yes. You love them so much because you value them so much because you don't want to because any pain or hurt. Just say that.
Nancy: Exactly. Okay. I won't keep you anymore, Amy. I could talk to you for hours. So thank you so much for taking your time to come and talk about people pleasing. This was so helpful and incredible.
Amy: It was my pleasure. I could talk to you forever, too.
Nancy: I love the way Amy Smith teaches these concepts. I love thinking in metaphors and the house metaphor she shared has been so helpful. I sometimes struggle with hooking myself worth to the things that happen to me, both the successes and the struggles.
So recognizing that I can feel good about a win in my life and that doesn't change the value of my house. This also has been playing out lately with all the 2020 has brought, I've been feeling some sadness and hopelessness and recognizing that those feelings, they also don't change the value of my house and they aren't something I need to push away because they too are part of my house.
And then when my mother gets too loud and she starts slamming me with something completely irrational, I can use this metaphor to say, is this something I want to bring into my head? Is this serving me and nine times out of 10, it isn't. And then when I look a little deeper, it's probably rooted in a feeling that I don't want to do within that moment.
The house metaphor has allowed me to be a really good caretaker of my self loyalty, and I hope it does the same for you.