Go Ask Sawyer
Go Ask Sawyer
Part 1-Emotional Honesty: What It Costs to Always Be Strong
We continue our emotional honesty series, focusing on what it costs us to always be "the strong one" in our relationships and how this role can lead to feelings of resentment and invisibility.
• Exploring the pride and shadow side of being the reliable, strong person in relationships
• Understanding how always being "the strong one" can create distance and breed resentment
• Reflecting on how controlling situations by helping others feel heard can prevent us from expressing our own needs
• Considering whether our strength position is a conscious choice or an automatic habit
• Learning that vulnerability isn't weakness but a path to deeper intimacy
• Journaling exercise to identify moments where we feel compelled to be strong and imagining what asking for help might feel like
Journaling prompts:
- When are moments you feel like you HAVE to be strong?
- Do you know how to pause?
- What would if feel like to allow someone else to be strong for you?
- Who do you feel safest with and why?
- What would if feel like to be still in loud moments?
Keep dancing, even when everyone is watching. Peace.
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Welcome, happy Sunday. Welcome to Go Ask Sawyer. This is Jamie, your host of Go Ask Sawyer, and welcome to a new journaling series I started back in April to help guide anyone out there that might need some guidance in journaling or just another reason to journal, or prompts in journaling or just another reason to journal or prompts to help you think. So today we are getting into a second part series of emotional honesty. So the first two episodes on this were kind of how do we lie to ourselves, the masks we wear? We took a short break and just celebrated ourselves, learned how to cut cords, learned how to let go. And this week and next week we are going to look at emotional honesty in relationships, and that can be any kind of ship a friendship, romantic relationship, even family ships and work relationships. So the cost of being the strong one that is our focus today. The cost of being the strong one If you've ever been called the rock, the reliable one, the person who has it all together, this is definitely one for you and I very much resonated with when I was writing this today, this person. So I am looking to learn how to let go more and not always be the strong one. Today, I want to talk to you about what it costs us to constantly carry that strength and what it might look like to lay it down for a moment and also think about. Are you ready to lay it down, that strength? Do you know how to lay it down, that strength? Do you know how to lay that strength down, and in true transparency? I do not. So our verse that's going to guide us today is Exodus 14, 14. It says the Lord will fight for you. You only need to be still which we could, I guess, then connect to Psalm 46, be still and know that I am God. The question, then, is how many of us can really be still? All right, let's get into our journal time.
Speaker 0:So, for this series, I'm going to ask that you have your notes app open or I've done this before have a napkin. Maybe you have a napkin, piece of paper, maybe your journal, something to write with, and I'm going to ask you to take three minutes. You could do five. We've been doing this for a little while now, so now maybe you could do five of uninterrupted journaling time. So you're going to press pause on the podcast and you are just going to write for three minutes. The goal is to not pick up your pen or pencil whatever you're writing with and to just brain dump.
Speaker 0:When I do these kind of things, sometimes I just start out with a letter to myself. Sometimes I write letters to my future wife. Sometimes I just start writing. I don't know what I want to say. Today I'm feeling really tired. I don't know why I'm feeling tired, and then it just kind of goes from there. So if anyone out there struggles with journaling, just start writing, maybe about how you're feeling, what's the weather like, or again, the letters are always nice too when you're journaling.
Speaker 0:Last thing I'll say maybe think about when is the last time you were able to feel still or you were able to be still. What did that feel like? Did it feel peaceful or did it feel scary? And maybe that's kind of where you can start thinking about. Where in my life am I able to be still and where in my life do I feel like I have to fill it with strength and control, because you can fill that in. I don't trust, I am scared of, I don't feel safe. You can fill that in. Okay, all right. So I'm going to ask you to press pause here, set that timer and go. All right, welcome back. I hope that felt good. Maybe you uncovered a little here or there with that.
Speaker 0:If we're being honest and speaking for me, there is a certain pride in being the strong one we feel needed, useful in control, and maybe I even would say powerful. But with any kind of power comes a shadow right Like what's that other side? Am I being the strong one because I want to be, or am I creating distance in my ships? Am I breeding resentment in myself for that other person or those other people? And maybe I don't even realize I'm doing it. But how often are we the strong one for X, y and Z? And then we're like, oh, why won't they ever do that for me? Well, have we given them a chance? Or have we said it out loud? It can make us feel invisible if we're always the strong one in the ship. It can make us feel like we're forgotten. It can make us almost feel like a crutch, like then we start to think are these people, person, only keeping me around because I am the strong one? And then more resentment breeds. We work so hard to be in control, we don't know how to ask for help. We don't know how to allow someone else to take care of us. And remember this episode is the cost of being the strong one. So if we are always that person, what is the consequence? What is the cost of it?
Speaker 0:I recently had a conversation with an old friend and we discussed past arguments we had had, and she is more of when we would have arguments. She is fiery, she wants to get it all out, she wants to solve it, she wants to feel heard and if she wasn't feeling heard, she would get louder. And as someone who does not like being yelled at, I would get quiet, go into myself. I need time to process and think. I also shut down, and I mean getting yelled at feels scary, no matter what. To me it does, and that's from past things. Some people can get yelled at and they do not care and you guys are awesome, but I do not like getting yelled at because I feel like I did something wrong and then I lose what I want to say and I don't know how to say what I need to say.
Speaker 0:Also, in arguments I've found that and this was an aha moment I had when I was talking to her that again I will take control of the situation, I will put my feelings aside and maybe that's that freeze moment. I'm going to put my feelings aside and I'm going to freeze moment. I'm going to put my feelings aside and I'm going to try to de-escalate the situation and help that other person feel heard. So again, I am putting someone else's needs maybe before my own.
Speaker 0:I realized as we're talking that I want to be, if I have to be in an argument like, why do I always have to be the one to deescalate, to be quiet, to take a pause, take a step back to try to see, help the other person feel seen, so that I can get my point across? When will I be with someone who will help me be seen, someone who will help me be seen, who would help me feel seen? And that really kind of brought to light in me that, like, yes, my strengths are that I am able to help validate people. I am able to help people feel seen, people feel heard. I am definitely a safe place for people to talk, but I don't know if I feel safe with those same people, with my emotions, with my feelings, with my understanding. And now I'm almost wondering if that's my what I call it deflection. Like, okay, now I'm going to take control of the situation. It's getting loud, I am feeling scared, I am feeling safe. If I deescalate and help that person feel seen and then all of a sudden it goes away, then I don't really have to say what I need to say, or what if I say what I have to say and they get more angry. So again, the cost of being strong or the cost of trying to be the strong one in the relationship is not feeling heard.
Speaker 0:I very much want to be able to lose my shit once in a while. I want to be able to have others just show up for me, hold me, let me cry, let me scream, let me be stupid and not feel like I'm being taken advantage of. But I don't know how to do that. So that is clearly another suitcase we are going to have to unpack in a different episode. So now let me ask you when was the last time you said I'm not okay? When was the last time you said, oh, this is making me emotional, I'm tired? When was the last time you said I just want you to hear me and not cast judgment? When was the last time you said I don't got this, I'm falling apart.
Speaker 0:Sometimes honesty means not being the one with the answers. Oh, I hate that, but it's real. Sometimes it looks like crying instead of coping. Letting you guys I got a lot of stuff to unpack. Letting someone hold space for you I got a lot of stuff to unpack. Letting someone hold space for you instead of always doing the holding and I'm sure this can feel so scary, because do you think you can trust the person holding space for you?
Speaker 0:So this week, now that I realize how much more I need to unpack around this this week, I want you to journal about moments where you feel like you have to be strong and, notice, have to be. You feel like you have to be no one's asking you to. You feel like you have to be and ask yourself is this a choice or is this a habit? Do you automatically jump into the strength position because that is just where you feel good, confident, strong, all that, or is it a habit or is it a choice? I don't really know. What. Is there a difference? Choice, habit? Is someone asking you to be strong? Do you have to even be strong in that moment? What would it feel like to ask for help instead? What might that feel like to you, to ask for help, because vulnerability is not weakness, it's intimacy, and we deserve that too.
Speaker 0:I want you to know. I see you. I see how hard you're working to create new space and habits. I see when you break down at night and then get frustrated that old pain still hurt. I see how you keep picking yourself up, even when you don't know where the road is going to go. I see you. Next week we are going to dive into what it means to speak the truth, even when our mouths stay shut. So y'all, let's stay cute, let's stay loud and hey, cry if you need. Keep dancing, even when everyone is watching Peace.
