The Conversation You Keep Having in Your Head

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You know that moment where you “win” the conversation in the shower, deliver the perfect line in your head at 2am, then smile politely in real life and say nothing? That loop isn’t harmless. It’s conversation debt, and it quietly drains your focus, your sleep, your relationships, and your sense of self.

We talk through why these avoided conversations stack up with your boss, your partner, your team, your friends, and your family and why the weight is never just one chat, it’s the whole pile. We also unpack the shift that changes everything: by the time you finally speak, you’re often not starting an open conversation, you’re prosecuting a case. Your brain’s pattern recognition finds “evidence” on command, your words come out loaded with judgement, and the other person feels ambushed and gets defensive.

Then we go to the real core. Under the accusations is usually something tender, vulnerable, and deeply human: I’m exhausted. I want to be seen. I want to matter. I don’t know how to say this without falling apart. When you’re running on fumes, it’s easier to wear armour through overfunctioning, people-pleasing, and mind-reading, but your body keeps the score through tension, 2am ceiling stares, and that low-level simmer that leaks into everything.

If you’re ready to break the rumination loop, I also invite you to join me at the Overdrive Reset, a free eight-day reset starting 28 May (link in the show notes). Subscribe, share this with a woman who needs it, and leave a review so it reaches the people it’s meant for.

The Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance Institute

For women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.

We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.

If something landed today, there's more where that came from.

And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.

🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast
🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com
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📷 @therealjostone

Transcript

Welcome And The Space Between

Jo Stone (Host) 0:27

Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for women who've outgrown the old model of success. The ones who look fine on the outside but know the way they've been living no longer fits. If you're standing in the space between who you were and who you're becoming, this is for you. I honor the space you've created today. Let's dive in. You're in the shower at 6.15, finishing the conversation you've not yet had with your boss. But you have had it in the shower, in bed last night, in yesterday's meeting when time ran out and you couldn't find the words. You've not just had the conversation, you've tested options A, B, and C, and then planned for responses X, Y, and Z. The one person you haven't had that conversation with is the person who actually needs to hear it. This isn't one conversation. It's a pattern, and it is running constantly. There is an emerging trend I'm seeing coming up with clients lately, and so likely you're suffering from it too. And this is that there is this crazy debt of conversations that are stacking up but never actually being had. This is that conversation with your boss about being overloaded, or the one with your partner about the mental load, the feedback that maybe you've owed to your direct report since March. The thing that you keep meaning to say to your mother for maybe a year, maybe a decade. That friend that you've been dodging, because you can't shake this weird feeling in your stomach, but don't know why. You haven't returned to a text from two weeks ago. Pretty sure right now, you could probably name at least three. Probably more if you sat with it of these conversations that you are not having. Everyone feels small in isolation. It's just one, but it's the stack that's actually really, really heavy. So this is what your brain is running through in the background while you're trying to be present at dinner, you're trying to sleep, you're trying to pay attention in your 10 a.m. Now let's just be really clear here. It is not that you can't have hard conversations. You have them, especially at work, all the time. You negotiate contracts, you manage teams, you deliver feedback to clients. Maybe, depending on how much you've got backed up here, that really feels impossible. Now, by the time you actually get to it, you're not, believe it or not, actually having a conversation. You are prosecuting a case and you have become an expert lawyer. You have been building your case for weeks. Every small thing that that person has done or that's stacked up has been added to that file. Our brains have really, really great pattern recognition systems. And your brain will look for what you tell it to. So if you tell it, find me evidence about why my partner doesn't help out enough at home. Guess what? You're gonna find it everywhere. Give me all the evidence as to why uh my boss is not ready to have this conversation, or my boss isn't receptive to it. Well, there'll be that look that they gave you in the meeting, or maybe they took too long to respond to your slack messages. So by the time you actually open your mouth, you're not having an open dialogue, or you're not telling the truth. You're almost reading them the charges. This is why those difficult conversations always go sideways. You plan for how they'll go, you'll say the thing, you're like, you're you're doing a Superman post thing and you've got your hands on your waist, and you're like, yes, I can ask for the pay rise, or I'm gonna say no to the person, and I'm not gonna help them, and I'm gonna hold my boundary. And then when you go to actually speak, you open your mouth, you're not sharing from this place of clarity. You are fully loaded with all the imagined responses that they gave you in the shower or the last time you tried this thing. So everything comes out fully loaded. And whether you realize it or not, the other person can feel that. They feel the judgment. They feel the little bite or the passive aggressive or the compliment buried with an insult. And of course, when they feel like they're being attacked, they're gonna get immediately defensive. This conversation that you're having, that you've been prosecuting for weeks, sometimes longer, this has come out of the blue for them. This is the first time they're hearing it. And so they feel like they're being ambushed by someone who actually has days, weeks, and sometimes decades, worth of evidence. It's not a fair playing field. And energetically they feel that. So what happens is we have these conversations and we sit there and almost cross our arms and go, so, so, what do you got to say to that? Almost getting ready for, okay, well, if you say this, I've got my comeback. And if you say this, I've got that comeback. Reality is this is the first time they're hearing it, and it's laced with judgment. So, of course, they're gonna fire back. Of course, that conversation that you have the best intentions of having. And let's just be clear, these are not, should we have eggs for breakfast kind of conversations. These are, these can be tricky ones. But they always go wrong, they always go sideways. You get accused of being too much of a martyr or of being not fair or this isn't the time, or whatever it is. You then tuck your tail between your legs, usually get right pissed off, and then end up beating yourself up for not having enough discipline or not pushing hard enough, and then saying, Well, what's wrong with me? Especially when there are some probably less gnarly conversations that you can absolutely nail by 9 a.m. Now, sitting underneath all of these charges that you are raining down on somebody else in your life, the really hard part is the reason there is so much judgment and they come out with so much fire, and you spend so long in the shower or in bed persecuting them is because there's actually something tender, almost fragile under there. But you don't have the language to let it surface because you never give it time and space. When you're running on fumes, judgments come so much faster. They're really loud. It's very, very obvious that they're lazy or they're not helping out or they don't appreciate me or I don't get enough recognition, they just come rushing out. We have this tendency to focus all our attention on the other person and the things that they're not doing or they're not saying. And yet, in reality, if we were to actually give ourselves the time to process the space, the clarity, the time to actually ruminate and go, hmm, behind all of that, I'm spewing judgment here. Could there be something that actually is not sitting right with me? And a heads up, that kind of conversation with yourself doesn't happen in the two minutes you're trying to rush between meetings and fit in a bio break at the same time. Because while they're so easy to fling around these judgments, and whether we sit there lying in bed stewing on how dare they, how dare they take that credit or how dare they, whatever, is actually this really tender, vulnerable thought that can be really, really, I'd say scary. What if you're he's lazy, he doesn't help enough, is actually I'm exhausted and I want someone to see me and see everything I do around here. Can you see how tender and almost scary that is to feel? And why he's a lazy ass, he's always on his phone, no, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag. Just comes so much more naturally. We don't want to take that look inward. Just like maybe you turn around and think about your boss, she doesn't appreciate me. I don't matter to her anymore. That feels really hard to think because where then does that thought go? Oh my gosh, I'm not relevant, or oh my gosh, I want someone to see me. Oh my god, do they have the capacity to see me? Oh my god, but I let myself be seen. There's so much to unpack under that. And when there is no space in our lives for anything, of course, we're just never gonna go there. Just like it can be really easy for us to throw out the whole, they're selfish, they never think about anybody but themselves. Well, very often, under our accusations of somebody else being selfish is our own martyrdom, where we feel invisible and we don't know how to say it without bursting into tears. We want someone to see the sacrifices that we're making for everyone. We want someone to recognize how much love we pour into things or how much effort we put into things. That tender thing is the truth. It's our truth. The case we've built with all the evidence and all the accusations is actually the armor that sits all around it. I don't know about you, but I've made it a fine art of looking like I've got it all together. I make it look really easy, and then I get pissed as all hell when people don't read my mind. When they don't understand, and I make it look easy, but actually it feels like chaos on the inside. I make it look like I don't mind, but really I do. And then in that gap, I'm there going, oh my god, how can they not see? Even though I said yes, I didn't really mean it, they weren't meant to accept. We go to so many great lengths. We go to such great lengths to hide all of this behind armor, behind overfunctioning. I'm fine, busy but fine. It's all good, I can handle it. When if you actually stopped for long enough just to listen to what is really going on, is actually a completely different problem that you would start solving. Now, this loop is incredibly common, and I'm seeing it increase in intensity at the moment, which is really interesting timing. But it's not just the mental real estate or the time that we spend ruminating and looping and practicing and re-interrogating that takes its toll on every level. Your body is keeping the score. Hello, locked jaw, elevated shoulders, stared at the ceiling at 2 a.m. and practiced saying something that feels so easy at the time. Maybe you end up yelling at the kids because your 4 p.m. didn't go very well. These unspoken things, these things that are actually rooted in tenderness, usually things around invisibility or feeling valued or feeling worthy. Maybe not things, maybe dozens of things. They don't just sit there quietly. It's like, oh, I'm not saying it right now. I'm just gonna put it down over here. I'm gonna put I'm I'm fine. Uh no. They fester, they leak, they ooze out of everything. Whether it's a little tone here, there, or a side remark, or a passive-aggressive comment. That internal monologue where this thing just swirls just is so, so, so damaging. And I know about you, but when I used to get stuck in these loops, I'd get pissed at myself. Like, oh my god, why am I thinking about this again? And I'd tell myself, I don't care. Let it go, Joe, just let it go, put it down. But I couldn't because it was so attached to this tender thing underneath. And until I dealt with the tender thing and I tried fixing it with behavior, it was never going to go away. And so if any of this is familiar, if you've got at least one conversation you're preempting, holding, swirling, compiling all kinds of evidence for, it won't just be happening in one place. Because if you're interrogating the conversation that you haven't yet had with your boss, then there's probably one that you almost keep having with a colleague or a peer or someone from your team or that sister that you've been wanting to say that thing to. Wherever it's showing up for you, it's the same pattern, but different rooms. And this becomes a crazy key feature of this life that we live in overdrive. We think we can outrun this, this loop. I'll just, I'll get ahead of it. You know what? I'll think about it again tonight, is what your subconscious mind says. And let me just get more ready. Let me let me prosecute all the available options. We plan better. We're gonna try to manage the room more, but it eventually catches up with us. This is exactly why you need to join me at the Overdrive Reset. Eight days starting the 28th of May, where we break this pattern for good. Not in theory, in practice. Your link is in the show notes. It's totally free. Make sure you get yourself in that room now. Now, one last thing before you go. That conversation that you've been having in your head this week, the one that when you started this episode, maybe you went, ooh, joke, that was me close. You don't need to rehearse it one more time. You've built the case. You have enough evidence, but the work is putting down that really big, hefty vial. Put it down long enough to actually find the tender thing underneath it. First for yourself, and then for whoever needs to hear it. Because once you can identify what's that thing, actually the conversation you need to have is probably a completely different one. That's a different gear. And it's the one we're gonna start finding together very soon. Thanks for joining me today. If this episode resonated, share it with a woman who needs to hear it. And if you want to be part of the Ripple Effect, leaving a review helps it reach the women it's meant for. I'll see you next time.