And What Else?
Welcome to 'And What Else?', your source for thoughtful and meaningful conversations about personal and professional growth. Host Wendy O'Beirne is an internationally recognised coach and consultant with a passion for exploring the layers of topics surrounding self-development. Together, we'll dig beneath the surface of subjects, stories, and possible solutions to uncover new perspectives we may not have seen before. With curiosity and open minds, let's embark on an adventure of self-discovery and uncover the possibilities of 'and what else'. Stay Curious!
And What Else?
Why Words Matter & How We See Value
Can the words you choose truly transform your journey of self-discovery? Join me, as we unravel the impact of language on personal development. In this episode, Wendy shares how substituting specific terms can unlock different dimensions of self-awareness. For instance, why "younger self" might be a more approachable term than "inner child," and how "self-value" can provide a deeper connection than "self-worth." Wendy also delves into the hidden patterns of high achievers, who may conceal people-pleasing tendencies behind their facade of high performance and independence.
Tune in to also explore the fluid nature of attachment styles and self-awareness.
Reflect on your own language, values, and behaviours, and learn how to act on new insights differently. This episode is a call to not just listen but to take a minute and understand it for yourself.
If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and subscribe! And if you want to learn more from me, come and say hello on Instagram @thecompletioncoach or via email at wendy@thecompletioncoach.co.uk or find out more about working with me on my website, thecompletioncoach.co.uk.
Welcome to and what Else, the podcast with me, wendy O'Byrne, also known as the Completion Coach, and today we're back for a solo episode. And what I really want to tap into today and look at is a couple of really deep self-inquiry questions and I want to look at them slightly differently. Questions and I want to look at them slightly differently. So in one way I want us to really consider which words allow us to do deeper self-inquiry by choosing words that really let us get in. So I've said on a previous podcast back quite a while ago about using the term younger self with clients and with myself to get them and me to dig into inner child work, because the term inner child immediately kicked them out of their system, immediately took them out, and quite frequently that's because as a child they felt old before their time. So younger self feels more likely because childish or child self feels like it was abandoned for responsibility at a young age. So younger self allows a lot more of that work to be done and accessed and is juicier and can be felt differently than in a child work which many of my clients and certainly myself were just really not interested in and moving away from. So it's just a really interesting way to see how we can access it by our language. Now, other things for people to self-inquire is about self-worth and again, I find so many clients really struggle with the word self-worth and can go off on many tangents that pull them out and about a bit. And when I talk to them about their value, their self-value, we can access and do different work, and that again just articulates the way that they have filed it internally, the way that they can access these parts. It's much like you might be looking at trying to guess the password to something. We need to get the language right to access the parts we're trying to reach, and that's a little bit like just playing with passwords to make sure that we can just see what's going to work to give us access, what's going to let us get into the part that we're locked out of at the moment, that we're not getting the access that we want to. How do we access where this is stored and how do we get in and how do we get in? One of the main things that coaching allows us to do in sessions is to really listen to the words that you use and don't use, to really listen for when words are being really, really slightly misused.
Speaker 1:Some of my favourite work is looking at our values and really understanding where people are misaligned with the meaning of the value to them, or certainly the value internally versus externally is really different. There's conflict. A lot of people have this association with the words, but they're the wrong meaning that they have allocated to it at some point. I want you to think about your language when you're trying to access self-inquiry and just bring your awareness to the idea of your reaction to the word value. What do you think of when you think about your value in this world? When I then bring that to your worth, what changes? What changes when you think about how you are valued or how other people value you? What have you logged as that?
Speaker 1:Because a lot of people think their value is being busy, being considerate, being the person that fixes all of the problems. Their value is in how productive they are, in what they can get done, in proof that they can do it quickly, in the idea that they could do it all by themselves, in the idea that they don't need anybody or anything, which makes them valuable, because they're not a drain on people. They're not a burden on anyone. Some people see their value in their finances, in what they bring to things financially. So many people will place a value on something they are doing which is not supportive to who they want to be, what their true self-value is desired to be. But they have placed so much value on this thing on this thing being the value of them that they're finding it really hard to break the patterns, to come away from it.
Speaker 1:So you might have a picture of a people pleaser in your head. You might see a people pleaser as weak. You might see a people pleaser as somebody that's super agreeable. You might see a people pleaser as somebody that has no opinions. You might see a people pleaser as an underdog to some degree. Many of the people pleasers I have worked with are highly successful, might be described as very ambitious, might be described as hard, might be described as avoidant some things that you wouldn't particularly have an instant image of. A lot of people pleasers that I've come into contact with are leaders in some way, and so their desire to please others has been through their output, through their contribution, through their stress levels, through their ability to get shit done, through their ability to not ask for help, through their drive to climb every ladder and get things done in a certain way, without being a burden or problematic or emotional at any point. So that's also highly crafted, toned people-pleasing behavior in a different way. Toned people-pleasing behavior in a different way. When you think of somebody that's slightly avoidant, hyper-independent traits, really successful, able to do most things, would you automatically assume or even think about them having people pleasing tendencies or people pleasing tendencies being the driving factor of some of that.
Speaker 1:Outward performance and performance is two things. She's going off on their usual tangents, but we see high performance as people that can get things done, that are you know. We might see high performance as an athlete, high performance as somebody that's doing really well at some point in a career. And also, when we think about performance, somebody that can put on an act, somebody that can switch it on and give the performance of a lifetime. And so when they aren't performing in some way, either wearing the mask or performing really well at something, what value is remaining? What value is there in the rest, in the unseen, in the unacknowledged stuff? Because what you might see within this behavior as well is the idea of being a martyr. I'll take it all on, I'll get it done. I'll sacrifice myself in some ways. I'll sacrifice myself in some ways. I'll sacrifice my health. I'll sacrifice my plans to have time off. I will sacrifice my desire to go and do x, y and z to enable you to go and do that. I will sacrifice myself emotionally in some way to not be a burden or share these emotions openly.
Speaker 1:You might find that somebody operates through stress and constant high performance, either by their to-do list, their busyness, their ability to have a full calendar, their ability to be pushing, striving, multitasking, doing. In that stress they can receive some form of help. They will receive sympathy for the amount they are doing, or they will receive acceptance of help in some way for the amount they are doing, rather than receiving sympathy or acts of help for being perceived as weak. So being somebody that's stressed and performing enables them to receive love, appreciation, maybe assistance, love, appreciation, maybe assistance, maybe somebody caring for them in some ways that they could not receive or ask for if they weren't stressed, if they weren't performing. And so being in that mode enables them to receive something that they can't receive when they're not. That, because they can only receive the help for being stressed, strong, the perception, than for anything that they may perceive as a weakness or undeserving.
Speaker 1:So if you are really really, really used to waking up feeling stressed about how much you've got to do, if you find it difficult to put boundaries on yourself, if you find that you can only receive help as a last resort to your busyness and stress levels, if you find yourself deeply uncomfortable being able to rest and be cared for, looked after or valued when you are not stressed and over-performing and giving, then can you really sit with that and try to figure it out? Could you even marry up the idea of your value and your ability to be seen? Can you think about where you may have felt invisible or worth less? Can you see what other people value in you the most? Do they value what you give, provide support with, or is there some other idea around? What people value in you the most? Do people see your value is a lot of your drive and ambition to prove your value and actually in this drive to seek some form of sympathy for this strength, for this overdoing, for this capability in you, for this push and drive in you and the support that you can receive in those moments.
Speaker 1:Thinking about that now, how does it feel to seek that when there isn't all of that going on, how much of your push comes from the desire not to be seen as weak but also to prove again something about your value, this idea of self-worth and so just really checking in with our words is so important. Younger self, inner child, which one makes you lean back, which one makes you tune in a little bit more self-worth, value of me. And you write around worth or can you write around value? Which one, which one pulls you in right now and which one will allow you to access more? When you think about a people pleaser, what's the instant image, what's the bias, what's the idea of that person? And how does it feel to think about people pleasing tendencies, being the other kind of person I described, you know, the very driven, the very ambitious, maybe the, the person that you know the least about, who rarely shares, who is never a burden. When we think about these words, how attached have we become? I know I talk about it everywhere. I know I'm talking about it slightly differently than the rest of the internet, but your attachment style is not fixed. Your attachment style is not fixed.
Speaker 1:You are not just avoidant or just anxious or just secure. In different areas of your life at different times, you will experience different things. In those things you might be really secure with one idea of yourself I'm trying to think of how to phrase it so that you can see it but you might be really secure in your work as a writer and really anxious still about the way that it's received. You might be anxiously attached to friends and really, really avoidant in opening your heart and truly letting people see you, and so you never truly let people in, never truly open up to love, but you're identifying as anxiously attached and you're not seeing that your sway between the two is creating this cycle of being that's removing the idea of secure. You might be really secure in something about you some relationships and really insecure, anxious, in others and insecure, avoidant in other parts. They will change and evolve as you do more, as you notice more, as your awareness shifts, as your work shifts. You will never be just one thing. They will shift and create in cycles and in ways that we're just being in the terms of awareness.
Speaker 1:You're never going to become secure in everything at all times, and so aiming for that will be aiming for disappointment. You'll be so annoyed and deflated, that you've done all of this work and yet here you are displaying this avoidant, anxious, whatever, insecure, basically attachment at some point to something. That does not mean you have failed at your work or your healing. It means you're human. It means you're human, you are aware, means you have done the work. So please stop aiming for this full label badge of I'm now secure, I'm now confident. It's unshakable.
Speaker 1:All of these things are ways of setting yourself a bar that is impossible to achieve and so feeling like you're constantly failing and back to square one and back to starting again, and it's not true to starting again, and it's not true. Setting these really high bars is another way of perfectionism, is another way of aiming for something that is actually just beyond it's too high a bar. So keeping yourself failing slightly will keep you really stressed and aiming for more and trying a bit harder, going a bit harder. So again, we've got to be careful of our language and careful of the idea of our value in this language and what we think we've ticked off. There is no once and done in anything. We are understanding that we are in cycles, but cycles with awareness means everything is happening differently. It's only when we're completely blind to ourselves and unaware of our drivers, our responses and our patterns and our behaviors, that we are quote unquote unhealed.
Speaker 1:Healing isn't sorting all that shit out and never experiencing it. Healing is in our knowing that this is just showing me something and, with awareness and having dealt with my biggest shadows, my biggest function drivers, my biggest function drivers, my biggest escape routes, by acknowledging what they are and knowing how I'm doing it and what these patterns are preventing, then I'm able to help myself move forwards differently. But I stand hand on heart that none of this will never not pop back up or show us that we're tired. Show us that we're dehydrated. Show us that we're hormonal. Show us that there's an awful lot going on in life that we need to give ourselves a break for. Show us that actually we haven't stopped and celebrated the last thing yet, so don't push me to the next. Showing us that, although we're doing really well, we're doing it on our own and maybe we would prefer to change our communication, our delegation, our way of operating in community, our way of opening up to people and sharing more of ourselves and sharing more of ourselves. Maybe the way that has worked in the past isn't going to work so well going forwards, because it's also creating in equal measure what we don't want, and so we need to just look at how it's working and how it's not working and just twiddle and tweak that slightly so that it's enabling progression.
Speaker 1:There's an awful lot to be said on the subject, and I don't like to take these too long on the solo episodes, but I really would urge you to sit down and think about the words that you use for self-inquiry, what you may reject and what may feel like a better route in for you, and then to really start to play with this idea of value. How are you valued? Where do you feel like your value is underappreciated? Is that by others, by you both? What is your value and what have you placed a little bit too much value on you giving or you achieving or you doing. That is preventing you from seeing your full value.
Speaker 1:Outside of that, I am going to leave this here. I'm going to give it a very quick sound edit and pop it up straight away. So if you have found something here that has given you pause for thought or struck you as something you hadn't considered, then please send me a message or sit and figure out what that is, forward it to somebody that might need to hear it decide if this is something that needs to come into your workplace as an entire talk for your team or for your leaders, and let me know. Thank you, as always, for listening, and I'll speak to you soon.