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33 | The Urge to Explain Yourself (Even When You Don't Need To) · The Messy Middle Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Messy Middle, the podcast for women navigating the raw, confusing, lonely aftermath of narcissistic abuse and emotional control.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Erica Leon, trauma-informed abuse recovery coach, mom of five, and creator of the six keys to unfuckwithable.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you're picking up the pieces, questioning everything, and trying to remember who the fuck you were before you were so carefully erased, you're in the right place.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone and welcome back to the messy middle.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: So this episode is about the urge to explain yourself.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Brackets, even when you don't need to.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have to talk about this one because I see it so often and I have felt it so often.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So have you ever noticed how somebody asks you one perfectly ordinary question?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't you come?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or why can't you be there?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow, two minutes later, you're still talking.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: You started with a simple, I can't make it Saturday.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, but then you found yourself saying, It's just this is my personal experience.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's just I've got the boys, and then I realized I've got to pop to the store and I've got to pick up so-and-so, and I was gonna do it Friday, but then one of the boys got sick, and honestly, I feel really bad because I know I said I probably could, and oh my goodness, suddenly you can hear yourself actually doing it, and halfway through, yeah, there's a little part of your brain that's thinking, Why the fuck am I still explaining this?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I still talking?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody asked for this shit.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to know your life story.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody cross-examined you either.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody demanded evidence, and yet there you are building a legal defense for the crime of not being able to attend something on Saturday.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've done it a million times.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably done it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've watched people do it thousands of times, women mainly.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And what is fascinating is that most of us think we're just giving more information.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't really think that's what's going on here on Close Ricks inspection.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're trying to make our no feel acceptable.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Trying not to hurt feelings, trying to tread carefully, trying to keep everybody happy, and they are really different things.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: They are.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Giving information is not the same as trying to keep everybody happy.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really not about the explanation either.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's about what you're hoping that explanation will do.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this bit really does interest me because I love to think of what's underneath the underneath and then keep going and keep going.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I stopped you halfway through that explanation and asked, what are you hoping happens here?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Most people would not say, I want them to understand my diary.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: As what we cover it up and think that we're doing.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: But what they're really hoping is something a lot deeper.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I have extensively quizzed people on this.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: We have delved into it, both in cognitive state and under like a semi-hypnotic state.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it the answers for me are always just so fascinating.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: They range from I hope they don't think I'm selfish, I hope they're not upset with me, I hope they don't think I don't care.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this doesn't damage our relationship.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you can hear the difference in that.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're not managing information, you're trying to manage someone else's emotional response, and it's so fucking exhausting.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because now every boundary or every decision, every preference, every time you don't want to or every no that you have comes with this extra job of making sure everybody else feels okay about it.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ugh.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, it has been the heaviest thing in my life.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a full-time job.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's one you didn't even apply for, by the way.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's one you didn't even really want.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's probably one that you don't even understand the origins of.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I have spent decades unraveling this stuff.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Really late to the party, though, I might add.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not that I'm some genius here.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't figure a lot of this out until my late 30s, early 40s.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Geez.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm hoping if anyone younger than that is listening, I want to hack you.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: To where I wish I had known this earlier.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere along the line, what has happened is your no has stopped feeling like enough.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think children are born explaining themselves.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've got five of them.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: From the time they were tiny, you just watch any three-year-old.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: You ask them, Do you want broccoli?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: The no is flat.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's just no.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's no meeting or freaking PowerPoint presentation, or they don't need any supporting evidence.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just no.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So somewhere along the way, many of us learn something different.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking to a lot of women here because we are conditioned more than men to feel like no is not enough and no will hurt somebody's feelings.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'll go into this in great depth.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you might get irritated or bored with me, but you can skip ahead.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because it really is worth deconstructing.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I personally, and millions of people out there, learned that your answer isn't enough.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: That if somebody looked disappointed, we should explain further.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody looked hurt, we should explain.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Try and make them feel better.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: If someone questioned us, we should explain.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: If someone got angry, we should explain harder.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: We should tiptoe around.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that is survival because as a woman in the world, it is often very dangerous to challenge a man.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: The statistics on male violence against women, speak for themselves, go and look them up.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And after years of doing that, it becomes automatic.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even realize you're doing it.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're conditioned.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system's already started building this defense before you've consciously even answered the question.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And those of you who really are getting what I'm telling you here, you can feel it in your body.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: If I think about it as a visual, it's almost like it's fused to every bone in my body, fused to every organ and under your skin.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when they say that oppression of any kind isn't the shark, it's the water, that is so true.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not this big thing you see coming.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that you've been breathing through your girls your whole life and you don't have a fucking clue that it's there.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just like very subtle abuse, because it's the same hydra.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Three heads, same hydra.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, explaining can become a way of asking for permission.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when you really dig into that, it will sit in your soul.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it becomes.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: That explanation often isn't really an explanation, it's a request.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Please tell me my boundary is reasonable.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Please reassure me I'm not being selfish.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or please tell me you'd make the same decision.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Please tell me I'm still a good person.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Please tell me you don't hate me.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: That is a lot to quietly tuck inside one conversation.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the really difficult part is that most of us aren't even aware we're asking those things.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: We think we're just being considerate and that it's what nice people do or good people do.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: But that good girl conditioning has fucked with all of us.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't deconstructed it yet, at some point I'm sure you will.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: But underneath it, there is often a little girl who learned that saying no, without a really good reason, wasn't safe.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe people withdrew, maybe they criticized, maybe they called you selfish, maybe they sulked, maybe they outright punished you or punished you with silence.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: They probably made you feel guilty until you changed your mind.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So of course your nervous system learned.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Give them enough information and maybe they'll let you keep your boundary.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: It made perfect sense then.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, does it still serve you now?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where it's really handy to do your work of the imprints of the younger you and how they're still often influencing your decisions today.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a big difference between kindness and negotiation.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be careful here, as careful as I can be, when you're old and don't give a fuck.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: But because I'm not saying we should all become abrupt or cold or rude, I do think we should be a little bit more rude, and I do think we should tell people to get fucked more.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's something you learn when you're older.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or I'm not telling you you should stop caring about other people, and that's not what this is at all.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with saying, I'm so sorry I can't make it this weekend.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: If that's genuinely how you feel, there is nothing wrong with being warm or thoughtful or considerate, or if your nervous system actually knows you are in danger and you need to do fawn response, fuck yes.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do whatever you need to survive.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the question isn't are you kind?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: The question is at what point does kindness quietly become negotiation?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: At what point are you no longer sharing information and instead trying to convince someone that your needs deserve to exist?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And those are also very different conversations.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is one of those adaptations that hides in plain sight.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I love to talk about adaptations because that's really what they are.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I work with people now more than 10,000 hours with clients in this specific niche, the adaptations are what is really important here.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's what did you do so that you can survive?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And do they suit you and serve you?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And do you need them anymore?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because this adaptation, it looks so polite, so reasonable, so thoughtful.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: People often compliment women for it, right?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: She's so considerate, she's so self-aware, she's such a good communicator.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, she's so kind and sweet.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard a lot of she's so kind and sweet from some real fucking assholes.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some people who really benefit from people they like to wrap it up as kindness, but they completely take advantage and use and drain the invisible labor from women.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe, maybe she is a good communicator sometimes.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I've also watched women explain themselves until they're blue in the fucking face to people who had absolutely no intention of respecting the boundary anyway.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it was not because her explanation wasn't good enough, it was because the explanation was never really the issue.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's where we really need to dive in.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is where the episode actually starts.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to start with explaining doesn't always create understanding.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that I've noticed over the years.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: The women who explain themselves the most are often explaining themselves to the people who are least interested in understanding them.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And think about it for a minute.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody genuinely cares about you, and I mean really care about you, they usually don't require a dissertation when you say no or that you can't do a thing.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Can you think of somebody who absolutely just accepts that you have the same rights as them?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you say to someone like that, I can't make it, and they reply, no problem, maybe another time.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Love you, conversation's over.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're dealing with somebody who feels entitled to your time or your energy or your body or your attention, your explanation almost never reaches the finish line because they ain't looking for your understanding.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're not looking for understanding.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're looking for an opening.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't you just?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what about next week?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you said you would.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make sense.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Surely you could.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand why.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed how some people can turn your perfectly reasonable boundary into a negotiation?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it is nothing to do with your boundary not being clear.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Often it's because they simply don't like the answers.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And here's, I think, where so many women get trapped in it.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I did my most of my adult life, by the way, I'm not saying I'm some kind of frickin' expert genius here.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't explained it well enough.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they think.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So they explain again, maybe longer this time, more carefully, more compassionately, more evidence, more reassurance, basically more words.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if someone has already decided that your no is unacceptable to them, another paragraph is gonna do absolutely nothing to change that.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I guarantee it.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And a new study published recently was very interesting about how many men had used coercion tactics of some kind to get women to have sex with them, and it was 90%.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's everything from isolating, getting drunk, pressuring, telling a friend to pressure her, reducing her will after many hours of breaking her down.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the same energy as that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: A woman will tell me about a conversation she had, except when we really slow it down, which is a really good technique to do here, is I realized there were actually two conversations happening.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: The first one sounded like this, I can't come this weekend.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Simple, it was clear, it was done.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the second conversation, the one inside her own head, sounds like this.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now she probably thinks I'm selfish.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: She's gonna be annoyed.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've let them down.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I should probably text her afterwards.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should explain a bit more, or maybe I should try and get there just for a little bit.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And isn't that interesting?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Half the distress wasn't created by the conversation, it was created by the imagined conversation that happens afterwards.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of sting of guilt.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know that feeling?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a horrible drop in your stomach that just keeps growing and growing, like a feeling of panic and heaviness.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And how many hours have we all spent responding to conversations that only really existed in our own minds?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Us thinking that's what the other party must have thought.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because I chose myself or I chose to say no, and I have done it a million times.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: You replay it, you rewrite it, you add to it, you prepare for a response that hasn't even happened ten steps ahead by bedtime.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: You've had an entire freaking argument with someone who's been happily watching Netflix all night.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is the brain of a lot of women who were conditioned this way.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And explaining in this way is often an attempt to prevent rejection.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess this is more like the tender part because underneath all the words there's usually fear.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely don't think the fear of explaining is present, but it's the fear of that losing that connection.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: If I disappoint them, will they still love me?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: If I say no, will they invite me next time?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: If I choose myself or they decide I'm difficult or a bitch, and that is a huge burden to carry.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And carry it we do, because now every decision becomes an emotional risk assess assessment.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like not what do I actually want, but what's the safest way to say this so nobody withdraws from me?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've grown up in an environment where love felt conditional, it makes perfect sense.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: You learned that connection sometimes depended on keeping other people comfortable.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: So of course your nervous system became brilliant at reading faces, at reading tone, at reading pauses, at reading disappointment.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You spent years trying to prevent emotional weather.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: No wonder you're fucking exhausted.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you think this is individual, it isn't.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: It is overwhelmingly taught to women from the time they are born or taught to people.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: When I think about my male clients too, who have this, they came from similar environments as created the conditioning taught to women.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is, being punished for having a will that differed from the will imposed upon you by a controlling person or system.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like guilt, manipulation, to ensure that they stay in line, quote unquote.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Ironically, this is what the patriarchal system also does to men, in addition to its horrible treatment of women.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want you to go thinking that you're weak or submissive.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: You learned it.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was survival, and sometimes it probably still is.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And on a side note, I'm a Gen X old white lady, and I was so late to this party in deconstructing this bullshit system that we live in, and how it honestly relates back to most of the travesties and injuries and outright evils in this world.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I would have told you in my youth that I was a feminist, uh women's empowerment, being all the youngest female senior manager in my corporate career when I was in my mid-20s, and it was like me and 40 blokes.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But this is a conversation for another day because I was wrong.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I do intend on recording a series just for young women, actually, to warn them about what us older and experienced older women crones, as I think we're called.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is imperative that we pass this wisdom along.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I digress, so back to the uncomfortable fucking over-explaining.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the silence, oh my gosh, you know the silence, it feels super loud.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that silence after you've stopped explaining can feel unbearable at first.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: It makes you want to rip your skin off.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Same when you're first setting any kind of boundary, your skin wants to like fold in on itself.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine this.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, someone asks, why can't you come?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you simply say, It doesn't work for me, and then you stop talking.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: You shut up.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: You don't say anything else, no second paragraph, no reassurance, no sorry, just silence.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And have you ever noticed what your body wants to do?
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: It wants to fill the silence so bad, quickly and almost frantically, and you might get deep red and your face goes really hot, as though the silence itself is dangerous and it's burning you.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: But what if that silence isn't dangerous?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I learned this in negotiation that saying nothing and letting there be an uncomfortable silence is actually amazing.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes almost like a game of chicken, which you win if you keep quiet.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what if it's just simply unfamiliar to you?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it feels like shit.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the most healing, badass thing you can do is just let another adult have their own reaction without rushing in to manage it.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is a radical shift.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it sounds simple, but it's not easy.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not because you're becoming uncaring, although some of us maybe should have a little bit more of that, but because you're finally recognizing that someone else's disappointment doesn't automatically become your responsibility.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is not your responsibility to emotionally manage the adults in your life.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Please stick that on the fridge because it's not.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we have largely been taught that it is.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your boundary doesn't need a closing argument.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're not in frickin' episode of Law and Order.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that always makes me smile when I think about that, because I speak to a lot of people who do sound like they're standing in court, presenting exhibit A or B and calling witnesses and providing timestamps and building the perfect case, all in the hope that someone will finally say boundary granted and stamp it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: But your boundary isn't a freaking court case.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't something that becomes valid because the jury agrees.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's valid before you open your mouth, it's valid because you fucking want it.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the hardest things to truly like believe in your soul, because we have spent so long trying to earn permission that we forget that we already have it.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So much of my work is just really having people reconnect to the fact that they are this human being who is worth and has already earned, doesn't need to earn permission to say no to stuff.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just reconnecting them with the fact that they can do that, that the world doesn't explode like they think it will.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: The lightning bolt doesn't come down and frizzle your hair like you think it will.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's uncomfortable and it's bullshit, and honestly, it sometimes it sucks.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: But you're not going to get struck by lightning for it.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I wonder if you'd be willing to try something this week for me.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not anything huge, it's just an observation.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: The next time somebody asks you a question, notice the exact moment you answer it.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then notice the moment you start adding information that nobody actually asked for.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Don't stop yourself, just notice it.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you notice a lot of men communicating, you'll notice that they do this.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just become curious.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: What are you hoping those extra sentences will achieve?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Are you trying to avoid guilt?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Are you trying to avoid conflict?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Are you trying to avoid disappointing someone or being misunderstood?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's no right or wrong answer, by the way.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's just information.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you notice the adaptation, you can't really unsee it.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And awareness has a funny way of quietly changing behavior all by itself over time.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it's the first step of everything, is like shine the light on it, just notice.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe they were never asking for an explanation in the first place.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've often wondered about this.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have we mistaken somebody's disappointment for a demand that we justify ourselves?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oof, I know I have probably for most of my adult life.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: If someone asks, Oh, you're not coming?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And before they've even said another word, we're halfway through explaining.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Almost as though we've assumed they're gonna object.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: We've assumed they won't understand.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: We've assumed they'll be hurt.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: We've assumed they'll need convincing.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that's true, but sometimes it isn't.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they're simply processing the information, and they have a right to do that.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to let them do that.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And while they're processing, we filled every second of silence trying to rescue them from a feeling they hadn't even had yet.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how fucking exhausting is that?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because now you're not only responsible for your own emotions around it, you're trying to get ahead of everybody else's as well.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And when did other people's disappointment become your emergency?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think this question has changed the way I look at so many interactions.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: When did somebody else feeling disappointment become something you believed you had to fix?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because disappointment isn't an emergency, it is just part of being human.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: I look back on raising my kids when they were young, the the oldest ones.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oof, I can see how I jumped through hoops with them, trying to save them from ever feeling disappointment or sadness, and it is just not, it ain't the way.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And some people will be disappointed.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of being human.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: You will be, everyone will be.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Probably a lot, to be honest.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: When you think about the bullshit we've all been taught about everything from romantic relationships to the structure of work hard and get rewarded for it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's all bullshit, as we can see.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: There are trillionaires on the planet, for fuck's sake.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what did they do?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're telling me they're smarter and harder working than everyone else?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Get fucked.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they'll wish you made a different choice, and sometimes they'll be frustrated, and sometimes they'll need a minute.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: That does not automatically mean you've done something wrong.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think so many women have spent years confusing these two things.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're upset, therefore, I must have caused harm.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you've simply said no, and those two things aren't the same.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: They aren't.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Often people who are controlling assholes, like narcissists, people who are abusive, just you saying no to whatever sick fucking thing they want you to do to them feels like an attack.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got the Darvo coming out, and then you've got the punishment.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is all part of this same oppressive system.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the more I do my job and coach women, the more I notice how often they're trying to rescue other adults from completely normal human emotions.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because it has been taught to them and because it has been dangerous for them not to.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost as though they're emotionally on call 24 hours a day, and no wonder we're all exhausted.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: The invisible labor evaporating into everyone else.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: No wonder we feel responsible for everyone.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've quietly taken on a job that was never supposed to be ours.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you can be kind without handing over the steering wheel.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Please, this is an important distinction because whenever we talk about boundaries, people often imagine becoming cold or detached or robotic.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that is never what I've wanted for women.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's never what I want for anyone.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Kindness, love and warmth, generosity, those things you should never lose.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think you should turn them up more.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've been saying this for more than a decade.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: I do not think healing or being empowered or whatever buzzword you want to call it should make you less compassionate.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it should make you less available for emotional manipulation, and if anything, more compassionate to your fucking self.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: But those are really different things.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: You can absolutely say, I'm really sorry I can't make it, and mean every word.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: What you don't have to do is spend the next 10 minutes trying to convince someone that your life is difficult enough to deserve your own decision.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Your kindness doesn't become more genuine because your explanation becomes longer.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes kindness is simple clarity, and don't forget kindness to you.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Please, and thank you.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Notice also, do do something for me.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: I would love you to become curious about this because I am always.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Who are the people in your life who regularly require an explanation?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Really think about it.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Notice who keeps asking why.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because I suspect, if they're not a little kid, by the way, because that's literally their job, but I suspect you'll notice something interesting.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: These are the people who hear your answer and don't trust it.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: You've got people, I'm sure, who just hear your answer and trust you and then they shut up and carry on.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the people who hear it and immediately start pulling at it, the people that say why, but surely, what if?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Couldn't you just I don't really understand it.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a really important part about this, it's not everybody who asks why is manipulative.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people are just simply curious.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if someone consistently treats your decisions as though they're open for negotiation always, that is worth noticing.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like that old adage that I hear all the time, is the people who fight hardest against your boundaries are the people you need them with the most.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a universal truth.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, you stop making decisions with these people.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: You start preparing legal arguments, and that is a really different way to live.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's really very tiring.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it will suck a bit of your soul, and it will suck a bit of all those versions of you, all the inner children versions of you that just wanted someone to stand up for them.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your job, I believe, in this healing journey is to be the wise adult version of you that would have stopped and protected other people from messing with you or hurting you or abusing you.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the biggest shifts in this whole thing is the day that you realize your experience is just enough.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: You stop feeling you have to prove that your experience is valid.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And don't get me wrong, it's really fucking hard in this world because I see nothing all day except all day, every day, victim blaming, victim shaming, people trying to be devil's advocate.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what the fuck is that anyway?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: But doing the, oh, there's always two sides to every story.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, no, the fuck there isn't when it's to do with abuse of people.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: There actually isn't.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's hard to go against the grain.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: I am not suggesting you go out there and stand outside the city hall naked or anything, but just quiet changes where you understand that you don't have to prove that your experience is valid.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: You stop just searching for people to agree with you before you believe yourself.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: You stop needing everyone else to understand before you allow yourself to act, or asking 15 different people in your group about it and getting so confused that you kind of lose touch with your internal compass.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that you started, this is something we always have with clients is the huge group, the peanut gallery that gets access to help people make all these decisions, it sometimes really muddies the waters and disconnects you from your internal guidance.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you just simply think this doesn't work for me.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow that becomes enough.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: It feels lovely.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not exciting or dramatic, maybe, but it is peaceful because you might have spent years in front of an imaginary jury trying to convince them that your feelings made sense.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: I felt that way since childhood, and I totally know why.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people raised in my generation do.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then trying to convince them that your feelings made sense is such bullshit, such hard work.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day you just quietly realize this isn't actually a fucking courtroom.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there never was.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: There really is just you waiting for permission from people who would never qualify to give it anyway.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I would love you to notice something over the next week.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: Just don't I don't want you to change it or fix it or anything.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I just want you to notice it.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how many times somebody asks you a simple question and your nervous system immediately starts preparing a defense.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how quickly you say sorry or you soften your own truth, or notice how often you add another sentence and another probably.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because that silence feels very risky.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to judge yourself for it.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Every one of these extra sentences probably protected you once upon a time, and they probably helped you survive environments where your needs were questioned and where your reality was challenged, and where saying no did come with a consequence.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And of course you learned how to explain.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about you being weak, it's not about you being dumb.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: The question is really just does your nervous system know that life has changed?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe it doesn't, and maybe the safest thing you can do now isn't to build a better explanation, it's just to work on trusting your experience is enough.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your knows enough.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Your preferences or boundaries are enough.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else has to agree with it because it just belongs to you.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Stop proving you're a good person before you're allowed to take up space.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: You just become someone who understands something she should have been taught a really long time ago, that your life is in a courtroom and you were never supposed to spend it standing in the fucking witness box.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And before you go, this is something, a little homework.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: So for a week, just notice the moment you've answered the question.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: So just notice.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Then notice the sentence that comes immediately afterwards.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's usually the first unnecessary explanation, but don't stop it, just notice.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you have a few days of that under your belt, see if you can ratchet it up a bit and stay silent after you've said that you can't make it or you don't want to do a thing.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Try the more advanced practice.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Say your first sentence and then silence.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, if it's a picky.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to know how you get on with that.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you're going to try it, please write anything you would like.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it's the email provided in the show notes.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're sitting there thinking, oh shit, this is me, and you feel like you don't want to navigate all of this changing work alone, go to the info I have in the show notes and explore what you and I could do together or things I've made that I wished I'd had back when all of this was happening to me.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: I would have freaking given anything for someone to walk me through this stuff.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I will wrap up the yapping now.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sending you all so much love, and I will see you next time.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: As always.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you have questions for me, use the address provided and I'll ask them in a future episode.