Hi guys! Welcome to episode 316 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Welcome to my new listeners and hi again to everyone else, thanks for hangin out with me, it’s always nice to be with you. I think it’s so helpful when I hear real life experiences where someone overcame something or had a realization because a lot of times, I recognize the same thing in me and it helps me grow and it makes me feel like Im not the only one with crazy thoughts or the only one creating stories in my head. That’s why I love to share stories about how I coached my way through something. I have to do it a lot but it has made life so much better and I hope by you hearing them it helps you too so that you can notice oh Im doing that same thing and I can change it.
So this last week My sister in law reached out to say my niece is having a cheer showcase and would love it if we were there and so we looked at our schedule and we said we would love to be there it will be so fun to see our nieces hard work on display. In the meantime I was talking to my older sister and told her I wasn’t going to be able to come Tuesday to her house but why didn’t she come to my house and go to the cheer event with us. So she was excited but we had to get mom and dad to meet us half way and I realized that they hadn’t been invited to the cheer event and I started feeling really bad like I had done something wrong because no one had thought to tell them to come as well. I recognized something very familiar about those feelings because it’s something I’ve been working on for a while. Not taking on the role of always trying to manage everyone else’s feelings.
There was no menacing thing happening here. My brother and sister in law probably didn’t consider asking them because it’s a long way for them to drive at night and they are getting older. And mom and dad were probably happy to not have to make that decision. And there could be other ways to look at it too but like I talked about before, when you’re creating things in your head, create things that bring you peace not chaos. Your primitive brain likes drama and will look for it. The intelligent, thinking brain knows that creates unnecessary pain. So why am I sitting here creating a scenario in my head where I have something to apologize for when I do not? Because I recognize that since I was a little girl, I assigned myself the role of making sure everyone is happy and no one has hurt feelings and if they do I go overboard on trying to fix it because that was my role. I do not know how I took that on and it doesn’t even matter. What matters is that I realize it now. I remember I was in first grade and my teacher was Mrs Brooks and she was this tall grandmotherly lady and I loved her. I can still remember what her perfume smelled like. But she told my parents that I was the most intuitive child she had because I was very in tune with what was going on with other kids, at one point she thought I was gifted intellectually but they tested me and that wasn’t the case. I was just really in tune with people’s feelings and I wanted everyone to feel loved and happy.
But as I’ve grown and worked on myself I realize I’m not and cannot be responsible for anyone else’s feelings but my own. This trait though has made me very considerate of other people almost to the point where it doesn’t make sense. Like I’ll be laying down in the sauna and someone will come in, and it’s a big sauna but someone will come in and I will sit up to give them more room or even consider leaving early if it starts filling up so that someone else can have my spot. But here’s the thing. I’m just as worthy of that spot in the sauna as anyone else. And if I say I’m going to sit in there for twenty minutes, then I’m going to sit in there for 20 minutes regardless of how many people want to come in and that is perfectly ok.
Doctors have an oath they take that is to “do no harm”. And that’s my oath too. Do no harm. I have worked really hard to do no harm to anyone my whole life. Dating was awful because I never wanted to hurt anyone. But that’s unavoidable if you are being honest and authentic. If I had stayed with someone because I didn’t want to hurt them but I didn’t love them that’s kind of lying. I may not hurt them short term but their life will be miserable eventually and so would mine. That’s why included in that oath of “do no harm” Ive had to make sure to include myself. I have just as much right to the sauna as anyone else and I am not responsible for anyone’s feelings but my own.
I used to think of myself as a people pleaser but I realized I’m not that. People pleasers according to Websters dictionary have an emotional need to please others often at the expense of his or her own desires. That is not me, if I was a people pleaser I’d probably still be married to my first husband, I would never have left the religion of my parents, my life would look very different and it would be very inauthentic because I’d be living a life on someone else’s terms. Brooke Castillo likes to say people pleasers are liars. Which is kind of harsh but true because you have something you want to do, but you don’t do it because someone else wants you to do what they want. So you aren’t being honest when you disregard your own wishes. You matter in this world and you’re worthy of living the life you want even if it’s not what someone else wants. Just food for thought.
None of us wake up and say I want to hurt someone’s feelings today. I just don’t believe that we do. Not anyone listening to this podcast anyway. But I think we hurt our own feelings all the time. We lie to ourselves a lot. We don’t do the things we tell ourself we are gonna do. We beat ourselves up for things we had nothing to do with. We take on too much because we are afraid to say no.
What would happen if you said no and meant it? The world isn’t going to end I assure you. What would happen if you prioritized yourself? How would life change if you stopped feeling responsible for other people’s feelings? I can tell you from my experience it’s super freeing. Living your best life of course involves you doing no harm to others but that has to include you too. setting boundaries, prioritizing yourself and not tolerating anything less than you deserve, that’s your job. That’s the role you’re supposed to play.
My challenge to you today is to carry that phrase “do no harm” a lot of us do that innately for other people, but this week I want you to include yourself. Check yourself when you start to take responsibility for someone else’s behavior. You can love them without taking responsibility for their drama. And Keep your own promises. If you say you’re going to sit in the sauna for 20 minutes, do it. It doesn’t matter how many people there are. You’re just as worthy as anyone else. And don’t make promises to yourself that you know you aren’t gonna keep, you don’t think it is, but that IS doing you harm because it eats away at any trust you have in yourself, so yeah, do no harm to other people but don’t forget to include yourself in that. I love you guys. Ill talk to you in a few days.
